Wednesday Reads: “Shut the hell up.”
Posted: May 3, 2023 Filed under: A thread for Ranting, abortion rights, birth control, children, democracy is threatened, morning reads, open thread, Political and Editorial Cartoons, Republican politics, the GOP, We are so F'd | Tags: Texas is fucked 15 Comments
I have to start with this:
From the link:
One Wednesday in mid-April, Harris removed her headphones and heard the younger women shouting through their cell doors. That in itself wasn’t unusual, but the conversation soon had Harris at her own door. They were giving advice about avoiding pregnancy—and all of their advice was wrong.
“You gotta let him in yo butthole before yo biscuit and be a toaster strudel, not a twinkie,” they shouted to a woman who was scheduled for release within a few months.
Translation: To avoid pregnancy, a woman should have anal sex before vaginal sex. She should also be sure that the man ejaculated on her, not inside her.
Harris had been a nurse before her incarceration. Alarmed at the egregiously wrong advice, she went to her door to make sure that the women were armed with facts rather than myths that would lead to unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections.
So…Harris began to talk to the women, and set them straight:
She started with sex education, and then she moved on to talk about consent, trying to explain what it was—and what it wasn’t. She wasn’t as successful at that, she told The Nation. Many of the young women had already been sexually exploited by adult men in their short lives, she said, but because they had accepted favors or items, or because the person had not forced them into sex, they believed they had consented.
Then, a woman asked about so-called “partial birth abortion,” a nonmedical phrase the anti-abortion movement created to stigmatize later abortion care.
“There’s no such thing,” Harris told them. She explained that most abortions are now medication abortions, meaning that a person need not undergo a procedural abortion to terminate their pregnancy.
That was what drew the ire of the guard on duty—a young man in his early 20s whom Harris had never noticed before. But that day, he made his presence—and his views about abortion—known.
From her cell, Harris could see in only one direction. She did not see the man during the first part of her impromptu sex education discussion. But once she began dispelling myths about abortion, he stormed into view, yelling at her to shut up and threatening not only a disciplinary ticket for violating prison rules but even a new criminal charge, which could lead to additional prison time.
In response, the younger women cursed him out, even telling the officer that he was a “partial birth abortion.”
The officer took Harris’s identification card to write a disciplinary ticket and he threatened to file a new criminal charge against her, Harris said. After he stormed off, Harris began making phone calls from her prison-issued tablet to find out if the state had passed any post-Dobbs laws that might allow new charges to be brought against her.
“The legislature has not passed a law that criminalizes speaking about abortion,” Sara Ainsworth, the senior legal and policy director of If/When/How. Even Texas’s SB 8, which prohibits abortion after six weeks and allows individuals to file civil lawsuits against anyone who “aids and abets” an abortion, does not criminalize abortion itself or talking about abortion.
But, Ainsworth continued, “it’s not surprising that someone is misstating the law and using it to threaten someone else when so many people are confused.”
Can you fucking believe this shit?
From this Yahoo! / Jezebel Link:
To be clear, what Harris did is not illegal in any state. While some states like Texas and South Carolina have floated bills to criminalize “aiding and abetting abortion” and prohibit internet providers from hosting websites with information about self-managed abortion, no laws currently criminalize talking about it. Nonetheless, there’s an overarching culture of confusion surrounding abortion rights post-Roe, which has been exploited by anti-abortion activists—and now, apparently, prisons—to punish people and violate their rights. Local police departments have long exploited confusion and misinformation that equates self-managed abortion with feticide to criminalize pregnant people and those who help them.
Access to sexual health resources like abortion, and even information about these resources, has always been mired in barriers in prisons, where some states even continue to permit prisons to shackle pregnant incarcerated people. Even before Roe fell, one study showed about 70% of incarcerated people didn’t realize they still had a right to abortion. Despite having this right, most prisons made it impossible to access: A study showed the two-thirds of prisons that allow abortions require the pregnant person to pay for all associated costs—an impossible feat considering some prisons pay incarcerated people just $0.08 per hour for their labor.
Harris told The Nation she believes the prison is using her to send a message to other incarcerated people to “shut the hell up.” That sounds about right, to me.
In another newsworthy story from Texass…
No, that ain’t no fucking joke…
Read more details at the Vanity Fair article above.
And if that isn’t enough to make you think Texas is out of hand:
Now the cartoons, via Cagle:
Should have some media wolves in there as well.
This is an open thread.
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Great post! I love the Alito looking for the leak cartoon.
That Texas story makes me so damned mad.
I’ve actually been sleeping in, and only heard about this latest mass shooting about 45 minutes ago…it is fucking enough.
No, kids are not getting trained in battlefield trauma care! The Left needs to quit exaggerating — that brings us down to using Republican tactics.
Simply read the bill’s text. The only thing about “battlefield trauma” is the specs the tourniquets have to meet, same specs as supplies used in any serious, comprehensive first aid kit. There’s no mention of training anyone to practice ‘battlefield trauma care’ itself. It does indicate learning to use supplies to control bleeding. I wouldn’t count on 3rd graders — or any kids or even many adults — to use them correctly though and it’s idiotic to expect them to.
Yes, the Republicans are idiots to expect kids to do a proper job with emergency medical care. They’re idiots for not doing something practical, such as (gun control of course) or funding metal detectors at school entrances. Since they removed metal detectors from entrances into congressional buildings I doubt they’ll turn sensible about schools nor gun control at all.
The Republicans do enough despicable things that we don’t need to make more up.
Idk, I heard Jake Tapper today mention that school children in Texas are being expected to perform medical treatment that is used in emergency situations…so I think there is more to this than you think.
My interpretation is from reading the bill, which I’d recommend everyone do prior to commenting. Yeah, the kids are to get instructed in using supplies to stop bleeding. That could be considered medical treatment used in emergency situation, sure. It’s also what anyone gets instruction on in a First Aid class.
Not the same as “battlefield trauma care” which includes care for broken or dislocated limbs, sucking chest wounds, pain control, defibrillation, and such. The only “battlefield trauma” phrase in the bill describes one of the supplies.
None of the above negates that the Republicans are dangerous idiots about gun control and so fail miserably at protecting kids and teachers in schools.
Good points.
I often wonder how different the internet would be (and the world in general) if people would read prior to commenting.
Oh Gods. He shot 5 women. Male violence again — I suspect at least one of the women told him “no” about something. I’m speculating in advance. At least there the staff are trained in trauma care and are adults. (endless screaming) His mother explained it was because he asked for Ativan and didn’t get it. Apparently his mother (although described as a nurse) doesn’t know that one of Ativan’s adverse effects is agitation and violence. Doesn’t happen that often, but it is something to watch for. But that’s speculation too. What we know for sure is that the US had too many guns and too many people who shouldn’t have guns.
How the fuck do you get into a hospital with a gun?
It is curious how the “don’t make them famous” doctrine doesn’t apply when the mass shooter is not a white male. It couldn’t possibly be that a black male or trans shooter has overriding muckraking value could it?
Oh no, of course not. Uh-uh. Couldn’t be.
Comic diversion: