Finally Friday Reads: Fuck Nebraska and Red States in General

Posted: September 22, 2023 | Author: | Filed under: just because | Tags: , , , , | 11 Comments

Juanita McNeely, “Is it Real? Yes It Is!” from 1969, a series of nine panels about the painter’s illegal abortion and medical emergency,  It is displayed at the Whitney  Museum of American Art

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

When my parents were trying to sell me in 4th grade on moving across the Missouri River, I clearly remember sitting in the back seat and telling them I didn’t like it here.  I couldn’t really articulate how awful the boxy brick grade school looked compared to mine, which was built of granite by the WPA.  Across the main road was a set of equally bricky and boxy stores in a shopping center.

All I could remember were the beautiful stores in the downtown area of Council Bluffs. There was the Hotel Ogden that looked straight out of a Western Movie, plus my Dad’s original dealership location, which was a typical auto dealership storefront straight out of the 1920s. I loved the old Victorian Houses nestled into the Bluffs and longed to own one when I grew up. I had dreams like that until we moved to Omaha.  Then, my dreams were mostly of getting out of there as soon as possible.  I could’ve graduated early and begged my parents to let me attend university and get out of here.  My mother kept telling me these were the best days of my life. Then, I realized my mother was speaking for herself because I mostly remember her being as bored as I was. And we both hated football in a state where that’s about it for entertainment.

I can tell you that with certainty the best decades of my life came when I finally packed a car and headed out for good.

Barbara Kruger’s “Untitled (Your Body is a Battleground,” (1989).Credit…via Barbara Kruger, The Broad Art Foundation and Sprüth Magers

My daughter is 20 weeks pregnant, and her water broke last week at 19.  The first question I get now is what state she is in.  I don’t want to go into that, but you can google how exactly bad that is for a pregnancy.  She was a high-risk pregnancy for me. I was placenta previa. I can tell you that my oldest daughter is an OB/GYN because of that pregnancy and the inoperable and incurable cancer that followed.  I found out that the Insurance Company covering us and employing him wanted to send me to a Catholic Hospital. I said I’d pay to go to Methodist with my last dime if I had to. I badgered him to talk to the clerk, calling the shots on me and getting them to send me to Methodist.  Luckily, Methodist Hospital had the only neontologist in my backward city.  My husband worked for what I was told by my fifth-grade teacher was basically the employer of last resort. If we didn’t get grades, we would get stuck working in the land of endless file cabinets, evil bosses, and taxidermy animal decorations.   I was due mid-December and drove myself to the hospital, bleeding profusely on Halloween.

The only good thing about that damned insurance company was it covered everything from the pre-birth trauma to the cancer treatment and surgery. It took my husband, a Vice President, to pressure them to let me go to Methodist Hospital with a good Jewish neonatologist(who later supervised Dr. Daughter’s Residency) that’s situated right across the street from Children’s Hospital’s Neonatology Unit.  I gave my daughter a purple stethoscope when she entered Med school. I gave her an autographed copy of “This Common Secret ” when she graduated. My Journey as an Abortion Doctor.”  She said, “But Mom, this won’t be my central practice.”  She hadn’t read it when I last asked at the fall for Roe. I told her to just learn the procedure and ensure she could do it. One day, you may have to teach it secretly to save lives.

Yet in setting down her story, Wicklund has done something brave, not only by refusing to cower in the shadows but also by recounting experiences that don’t always fit the conventional pro-choice script. Before receiving her medical training, Wicklund had an abortion herself. She was asked no questions, offered no advice and left the clinic feeling violated. Years later, she terminated the pregnancy of a woman who’d been raped and wanted an abortion. Afterward, Wicklund examined the product of conception and discovered the pregnancy had occurred two weeks earlier, meaning it was not a consequence of the rape. Both she and the patient were horrified.

Opponents of abortion might view such episodes as proof that abortion is evil. For Wicklund, they are what drove and inspired her to help each woman she encountered make an informed, truly independent choice. At a clinic she ran in Montana, this meant placing the emphasis on counseling, which sometimes strengthened a patient’s resolve to terminate her pregnancy and other times led her to reconsider and bear the child instead. Wicklund may never convince the protesters who demonized her that women should be free to make such decisions on their own. But in sharing her secrets, she has shown why there is much honor in having spent a lifetime attempting to ensure they do.

Until now, very few can spend a lifetime ensuring they do.  Count the states, remember the map, and be prepared to help someone you know. Be prepared for fines, jail, and neighbors reporting you.

I’ve always been a fighter, and fighting the patriarchy has been my thing ever since I found out I couldn’t play Little League baseball and was forced to wear a dress to school.  One story that typifies the entire state came from one of the two Physicians performing abortions in Omaha.  The biggest, most nasty of the protestors in front of his clinic was this woman and her daughter.  One Sunday, he opened his clinic just for her so her daughter could have an abortion. The next day they both were out screaming crap that obviously they believed was for everyone else but them. Our bodies are in the hands of religious freaks, politicians, and insurance bureaucrats. This is not the world I planned for the girls and women coming after me.

I never thought we’d lose Roe completely.  But we have. I live on an island at the edge of the rest of the state, which is primarily insane from too much religion and neo-Confederate rage. Almost all of us would love to be a city-state.  But, since cancer took the one thing these nuts want to regulate the most, I don’t have to worry about the things I used to.  It’s only for my daughters and now granddaughters. Location. Location. Location is everything if you have a functioning uterus. One is in Washington State.  The other is in Colorado. Right now, they’re safe, but hopefully not in the way Anne Franck thought she would be in a hidey hole in the attic.

ILLUSTRATION BY VICTOR JUHASZ   Rolling Stone, 2014

Here in Lousyana and up there in Nebraska, the state owns women’s bodies.  We are chattel.  The doctors, the parents, and confidants guiding such decisions in a free society no longer matter.  This old, stale religion used to burn women and Jewish people at the stake and African-Americans on a cross wants its Dark Ages back. They’re in Africa trying out the death penalty for not loving and fucking their idea of the proper sex. Will we never be rid of these patriarchal missionaries who consider us chattel? I’ll shut up now. Just know that my child is safe and has her bills covered right now because she is not poor and is in Colorado.  None of this makes it easier for me as I look at the faces of young women who walk my neighborhood streets, wondering if they’ll be able to make it to the Promised Land if need be.

So here’s the beef. This travesty of justice happened in Nebraska and is in The Guardian. “US mother sentenced to two years in prison for giving daughter abortion pills. Jessica Burgess pleaded guilty in July to providing an abortion after 20 weeks and tampering with human remains.”   Remember, the earliest viability is not 20 weeks. It’s somewhere around 22-24 weeks and still at a point where life or health is not certain.

Jessica Burgess, a Nebraska mother accused of helping her teenage daughter use pills to end her pregnancy, was sentenced on Friday to two years in prison.

Burgess and her daughter, Celeste Burgess, stand accused of working together to end Celeste Burgess’s pregnancy in April 2022.

According to prosecutors, after the pair bought pills to end the pregnancy, Celeste Burgess gave birth to a stillborn fetus. At the time, Nebraska law banned abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy. Celeste Burgess’s pregnancy was well past that point, according to court records.

Police say that the Burgesses buried the fetal remains. An examination of the remains suggested they may have also been burned, according to court documents.

Jessica Burgess pleaded guilty in July to charges of false reporting, providing an abortion after 20 weeks of gestation, and concealing, removing or abandoning a dead human body. She was sentenced to one year in prison each charge, but the sentences for false reporting and tampering with human remains will run concurrently, with the sentence for the illegal abortion to served consecutively with the sentences for the other charges, a spokesperson for the Madison county courthouse said.

Celeste Burgess also took a plea deal and was sentenced to 90 days for concealing or abandoning a dead body earlier this year.

Although the case occurred before the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade, it has been seen as a harbinger of how law enforcement may prosecute people for ending their own pregnancies in a post-Roe era – and how giant tech companies could go along with it.

One of the worst states of the Union is Texas.  You can tell precisely how Pro-life Governor Abbott is from this headline from ABC News yesterday. “3-year-old dies while crossing the Rio Grande near Eagle Pass, Texas. The family was attempting to cross the river near a floating marine barrier.

The fetish fetishists omit this once-breathing, speaking, and walking child in the same class as a fertilized egg. This child already had dreams.

The Texas Tribune examined the reality of Abbot’s reign of terror. One year before, Grand Inquisitor Alito followed a judge who liked Witch Burning to decide that women’s reproductive health should be criminal.  “A year after the Dobbs decision, Texas has settled into a post-abortion reality.  The impact of Texas’ near-total ban on abortion is coming into focus as patients and providers leave the state, legal challenges languish, and the state’s social safety net braces for a baby boom.: This is reported by Eleanor Klibanoff.

A year after the Dobbs v. Jackson decision, an uneasy acceptance has settled over Texas, as even the most ardent abortion advocates acknowledge these new laws aren’t changing anytime soon.

“I don’t see the legal landscape of our state shifting in a major way, certainly not in the short-term future,” said Neesha Davé, executive director for the Lilith Fund for Reproductive Equity, an Austin-based abortion fund. “And so, unfortunately, we have had to figure out how to navigate the current legal landscape, if for no other reason than there are people who need abortion care today, yesterday, tomorrow.”

There are ongoing court challenges to Texas’ laws, but they are narrow and could drag through the courts for years. There is still momentum around meaningful political change, but that is the work of decades and much of the focus has shifted to shoring up the social safety net as a stop-gap measure.

Meanwhile, despite exceptions to the law, the number of monthly abortions in Texas has dropped into the low single digits. Women are nearly dying from pregnancy complications, or actually dying after having to travel out-of-state for abortions, or facing million-dollar lawsuits for helping friends acquire abortion medication. An unknown number are having babies they never planned for.

A year after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Dobbs v. Jackson that there is no constitutional right to abortion, some long-time advocates see hope in the hopelessness. They’ve been sounding the alarm about the overturn of Roe and its consequences for years, and finally, people are forced to pay attention.

“There are so many more conversations happening about abortion today than there were two years ago,” Davé said. “I do think a tide is turning. It just takes time.”

Two states are trying to come out of the Reproductive Health Care Dessert. The next battlefield is Pennsylvania. This is one of the reasons you really have to watch your state legislature. Forced Birthers are learning the numbers are against them if voters get their way.  They’re not for states making their own decision. Now, they’re going straight for a Federal law banning all abortions. Every vote counts for this. Lousyana will invariably get worse after our election.  A lot of us will vote with our feet. Women and children are not safe in Red State America.  Neither are members of the LGBTQ+ community, immigrants, or people of color.

This is from The Hill.   “Abortion battle to play out on multiple fronts in November.”

A battle over abortion rights is set to play out on multiple fronts this coming November with votes that could affect access to the procedure in several states.

Voters will go to the polls for key elections in half a dozen states this year, but abortion rights advocates in particular are looking at votes in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia.

A battle over abortion rights is set to play out on multiple fronts this coming November with votes that could affect access to the procedure in several states.

Voters will go to the polls for key elections in half a dozen states this year, but abortion rights advocates in particular are looking at votes in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia.

But the contests in Virginia and Pennsylvania will also be seen as proxy elections for the broader battle over abortion rights.

Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) has devoted much of his time and energy to working to help elect Republicans in this November’s state legislative races. He received a political boost in June after the slate of candidates he endorsed for these seats won their primaries.

But Youngkin has been unable to achieve the 15-week abortion ban he has called for with Democrats controlling the state Senate and Republicans controlling the state House.

The art piece by Chicago-based artist Michelle Hartney is a recreation of a historical letter written to Margaret Sanger in the 1920s by a woman seeking birth control. The artist used the letter’s original text and added the trim of Yarrow flowers, a plant historically used to induce miscarriages. The letter was removed by Lewis-Clark State College from an exhibit at its Center for Arts and History.

The state of Idaho has a law that will not even allow an Art Exhibit of Abortion Art in its Universities and Colleges. This is dated from yesterday from the Democrat & Chronicle.  Rochester gives haven to censored art, letting people see an abortion health exhibit. The exhibition entitled “Unconditional Care: Listening to People’s Health Needs” is on display through Sept. 21.

An art exhibit censored at an Idaho college because of references to abortion can be seen at the Rochester Contemporary Art Center, known as RoCo.

The exhibition — “Unconditional Care: Listening to People’s Health Needs” — was originally meant to be shown at Lewis-Clark State College Center for Arts and History.

But that school removed six pieces from it. The college cited a 2021 state law that bars public dollars from funding speech that would promote abortion rights, according to the Idaho Capital Sun.

RoCo stepped in to share the exhibition without censorship, and “Unconditional Care” is on display at the Rochester art center through Friday, Sept. 22.

“It’s one of the first examples of art censorship in the post-Rowe era,” said Bleu Cease, RoCo’s executive director. “The artworks are touching on abortion and abortion care, not advocating for it. We’re really proud to support the artist and the overall exhibition and the educational component.”

The show features 11 artists who address various health and medical issues through their lived experiences using diverse art and visual media.

“Unconditional Care” is curated by artist Katrina Majkut, who said she avoided including protest art in the exhibition to help people move past politics and into spaces of empathy and reflection.

“I wanted to make sure that whatever was shown was either rooted in medical accuracy or personal storytelling,” Majkut said during an online discussion hosted by RoCo.

Some of the themes explored in “Unconditional Care” include:

  • Maternal mortality rates
  • Racial disparity
  • Chronic illness
  • Body autonomy and safety

Cease said that once news of the censorship went national, he reached out to Majkut, eventually providing her the opportunity to curate an exhibit in Rochester that would give the pulled pieces a platform.

Among the works:

  • Majkut’s piece titled “Medical Abortion” is a cross-stitch showing bottles of mifepristone and misoprostol, medicines that will yield a miscarriage.
  • Lydia Nobles made three documentary videos from a series titled “As I Sit Waiting,” featuring women describing their abortion experiences.
  • Michelle Hartney’s work showcases handwritten letters written in the 1920s by a woman seeking information about birth control from Planet Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger.

“The show is really not about abortion, but abortion gets all the attention because the issue is so divisive,” Cease said. “The common thread with all the artworks in the exhibition is that they relate to the human right to health wellness and body autonomy, especially in the U.S.”

We’re not well, America.

What’s on your reading and blogging post today?

(p.s. I’m sorry this took so long. It took a lot out of me today to write this. I’ve spent the week feeling unable to do any good for any life circumstances. Please keep my personal stories here, especially the current one.)

Mostly Monday Reads: My Body, My Choice

Posted: October 10, 2022 | Author: | Filed under: just because | Tags: , , , , | 31 Comments

Good Day Sky Dancers!

Happy Indigenous Peoples Day! 

Many of you know that my oldest daughter is an Ob/Gyn.  She’s practicing in a Seattle suburb with the kind of hospitals available to most folks in rich suburbs.  She delivers a lot of babies. She’s also in Washington State, which means the state has a Constitution that respects a woman’s right to decide about her health. However, before she landed there, she practiced in a small hospital closer to the Canadian border in Mt Vernon, WA. The hospital was sold. Her partners there had moved from Georgia to Washington because they were appalled by the idea that they had to have a “room” in the hospital where “God can’t see.”  It was where medically necessary abortions happened because it was a Catholic hospital.  She was glad to escape the coming of that reality.

I had a high-risk pregnancy with her little sister.  She was placenta previa.  I had a friend who lost a baby and nearly died over complications as they rushed her on a helicopter from North Platte to Omaha. You can bleed to death. I delivered my youngest about a month early.  Eleven days before she was born, I started bleeding and drove myself to my nice Methodist hospital with my Jewish Neonatologist and Children’s hospital across the street.  We came out of that successfully, but the stress of that pregnancy later had me dealing with inoperable 4th stage leiomyosarcoma of the cervix. I still believe I’m the only one known to be cured of this. My nice Episcopalian doctor in the Med school that my daughter later attended found the right chemo to almost kill me but definitely get rid of cancer.

liberaljane.com ·Artist creating art about bodily autonomy and reproductive justice. Follow me online at @LiberalJane!

My insurance company was determined to send me to the local Catholic hospital to deliver.  At that point, my husband was a VIP of that very Catholic-heavy insurance company and went to the claims person with my instructions.  I told him we’d pay to go to Methodist if he didn’t get the situation changed.  He was a VP, so he carried more weight than most.  They decided that my condition required special attention since the only neonatologist in Omaha at the time was at Methodist.  As you read this, realize the privilege I had getting through all of this.  My oldest daughter would later do her residency under that same neonatologist. I delivered both my kids at Methodist Hospital In Omaha.

Why I was so fussy is a story of me while I was still in grad school and a friend was doing his rotation in Ob/Gyn at the Catholic Med School. He attended a woman whose developing fetus had fetal encephalopathy. Let me explain that condition.

Neonatal encephalopathy (NE) is a complex disease of the newborn characterized by an altered level of consciousness, seizures, poor tone, an inability to initiate or maintain respiration (1) and is associated with multi organ dysfunction (2). The incidence of NE is estimated at 3 per 1,000 live births

The baby had no higher brain functions. It only had a brain stem and therefore had no sentience, nor would it ever have sentience. It would either die in the womb or after birth within a few horrid days or weeks of suffering.  A priest came to guilt trip the woman into carrying to term, delivering, etc., so they could baptize what didn’t even have brain activity.  He added that then the baby could be harvested.  This horrified me.  It was a pure view of a woman as a container with no feelings or moral agency.  You can see why I wanted to avoid a Catholic Hospital at all costs.

So, this brings me to this Washington Post article today, which is highly relevant to women in rural areas, poor women, and women of color.  My daughter lived close to a reservation up in Washington upstate.  She is dedicated to serving all women.  She and her doulas spent a lot of time with the indigenous women to ensure they had healthy pregnancies and delivery options.  She felt that her ability to practice with the new hospital ownership would severely limit her from fulfilling her duties and oath as a board-certified surgeon and OB/GYN.  “Spread of Catholic hospitals limits reproductive care across the U.S.. Religious doctrine restricts access to abortion and birth control and limits treatment options for miscarriages and ectopic pregnancies.”

The Supreme Court decision overturning the constitutional right to abortion is revealing the growing influence of Catholic health systems and their restrictions on reproductive services including birth control and abortion — even in the diminishing number of states where the procedure remains legal.

Catholic systems now control about 1 in 7 U.S. hospital beds, requiring religious doctrine to guide treatment, often to the surprise of patients. Their ascendancy has broad implications for the evolving national battle over reproductive rights beyond abortion, as bans against it take hold in more than a dozen Republican-led states.

The Catholic health-care facilities follow directives from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops that prohibit treatment it deems “immoral”: sterilization including vasectomies, postpartum tubal ligations and contraception, as well as abortion. Those policies can limit treatment options for obstetric care during miscarriages and ectopic pregnancies, particularly in the presence of a fetal heartbeat.

Liberal Jane Illustration

I should also mention that after my youngest was delivered via Caesarian, I had one of those “immoral” sterilizations.  I was okay with two daughters and never wanted to go through that again.  That surgery was unnecessary just 9 months later. I had a radical Werthein’s hysterectomy.  They took everything plus the surrounding lymph nodes.  My cancer, at one point, had spread to the lymph nodes.  It was, fortunately, not in my bones.  My reproductive organs showed dysplasia.  This experience sent my oldest daughter in fifth grade to ask what she needed to do to become a doctor. My two years of challenges brought her to the profession. She never backed off from that goal other than her first goal was to get rid of cancer.  I would never wish any of this or the surrounding decisions to be made by anyone but the woman with the support of her healthcare givers, and I mean NO ONE. It was my decision to make and no one else’s. I even asked my Doctor if I might require an abortion at some point but was reassured that it probably wouldn’t be necessary.

Anyone who has seen what the Catholic Bishops think about women and pregnancy should be horrified by this article.

“The directives are not just a collection of dos and don’ts,” said John F. Brehany, executive vice president of the National Catholic Bioethics Center and a longtime consultant to the conference of bishops. “They are a distillation of the moral teachings of the Catholic Church as they apply to modern health care.” As such, he said, any facility that identifies as Catholic must abide by them.

The role of Catholic doctrine in U.S. health care has expanded during a years-long push to acquire smaller institutions — a reflection of consolidation in the hospital industry, as financially challenged community hospitals and independent physicians join bigger systems to gain access to electronic health records and other economies of scale. Acquisition by a Catholic health system has, at times, kept a town’s only hospital from closing.

I would never want to live under this regime of “religion,” although I support our religious freedom laws that give everyone there right to practice their beliefs in their life and way. This headline also comes from the Washington Post. “Jewish women sue over Kentucky abortion laws, citing religious freedom.”

Three Jewish women in Kentucky have filed a lawsuit arguing that a set of state laws that ban most abortions violate their religious rights.

The lawsuit, filed in Jefferson Circuit Court in Louisville, is the third such suit brought by Jewish  organizations or individuals since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the right to an abortion in its ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. In all three suits — the first in Florida, the second in Indiana — the Jewish plaintiffs claim their state is infringing on their religious freedom by imposing a Christian understanding of when life begins.

Under current Kentucky laws, life begins at the moment of fertilization. Another law bans abortion after six weeks when cardiac activity is first detected.

Abortion will be on the ballot next month when Kentuckians decide the fate of a proposed constitutional amendment that would eliminate the right to abortion in the state.

Some Florida clerics also seek court relief from the state’s intrusive abortion laws.

The five separate lawsuits https://tmsnrt.rs/3BBEdIr, filed in Miami-Dade County, claim the state’s ban curtails the clergy members’ ability to counsel congregants about abortion in accordance with their faiths, since Florida law prohibits counseling or encouraging a crime.

The plaintiffs are three rabbis, a United Church of Christ reverend, a Unitarian Universalist minister, an Episcopal Church priest and a Buddhist lama. They asked the court to declare that the state’s abortion law violates Florida and U.S. constitutional protections for freedom of speech and religion.

They also claim the abortion ban violates a Florida religious freedom law that prohibits the government from “substantially burdening” the exercise of religion, unless there is a compelling state interest that cannot be met with fewer restrictions.

We’re even having our own version of “abortion on the ballot” with an uptown State Senate seat in contention.

As New Orleans Democrats, state Reps. Mandie Landry and Royce Duplessis agree on plenty – including the firmly held view that women should have the right to an abortion.

And those views have jumped to the forefront of a closely contested race as the two vie to become the next senator representing Uptown and surrounding neighborhoods.

Landry and Duplessis – whose nearly identical voting records place them among the most progressive members of the conservative-dominated Legislature – are competing in a special election Nov. 8 to fill the seat Karen Carter Peterson vacated in April. Peterson resigned in advance of pleading guilty in federal court to defrauding campaign contributors.

Beginning with her announcement in May, Landry has centered her campaign on abortion rights, attempting to capitalize on anger at the U.S. Supreme Court for ending a woman’s constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy, and the state Legislature’s decision to ban the procedure in Louisiana without exceptions.

Speaking to a group of female students at Tulane Wednesday night, Landry emphasized that she is the only legislator who has defended abortion rights as an attorney and detailed her deep knowledge of abortion law.

“There’s five women in the state Senate, and they’re all anti-choice,” Landry said as the nine students nodded knowingly. “They file a lot of the terrible bills.”

On their Instagram, artist Madeline Horwath’s stickers are being sold to benefit Yellowhammer Fund, funding abortion in Alabama, Mississippi, and the Deep South. (image courtesy the artist)

Yes. Women in Louisiana in the State Senate work hard for the patriarchy in Louisiana.  But back to our main article. The expense of maintaining a hospital and providing healthcare to a community increasingly transfers the right to make decisions on reproductive health, making them unavailable.

In Schenectady, N.Y., Ellis Medicine is in talks with the multistate Catholic giant Trinity Health. Last month, in Quad Cities, Iowa, Genesis Health System signed a letter of intent to enter a partnership with MercyOne, also part of Trinity Health. And this semester, Oberlin College had to find a new provider to prescribe contraceptives after outsourcing student health services to a Catholic system that would not provide them.

In rural northeast Connecticut, residents are protesting the prospect of their 128-year-old hospital becoming part of a Catholic system and thepotential impact on reproductive services.

“It would be very troubling to see cutbacks in a state like Connecticut,” said Ian McDonald, a stonemason who opposes the proposed deal between Day Kimball Healthcare in Putnam and Massachusetts-based Covenant Health.

Kyle Kramer, chief executive of Day Kimball Healthcare, said the proposed affiliation with Covenant Health wouldrescue the financially challenged 104-bed hospital.

“Obviously it has connotations,” Kramer said of the proposed move to faith-based ownership. The Catholic directives would “provide guidance,” he said in an interview, while insisting that “theservices that we have provided in the past are the same services that we will continue to provide in the future.”

Kramer did not answer questions in a follow-up email about how contraception and elective sterilizations could continue to be provided under Catholic doctrine if their primary purpose is for birth control. Nor did he specify how emergency obstetric care that could result in terminating a pregnancy might be affected.

Covenant Health spokeswoman Karen Sullivan said in an email that as part of the regulatory process, the Catholic health system is drafting a public response to questions by the state’s Oct. 23 deadline. The system, she said, is committed to “ensuring that the Ethical and Religious Directives are applied thoughtfully and with empathy, compassion and respect for every person we serve.”

Please notice that a woman has been used to Dickwash the patriarchal bullshit.  This wonderful piece was written by   and

Oh, I have one more something to say before I wrap everything up today.

I haven’t done this for a few years because I’ve been able to cover the $100 annual fee to keep the blog up and running. Social Security thinks I make too much money side-teaching and has pulled my check for two months. So, if you can donate to keep the shop open, please donate to me at Venmo (@dakinikat) or CashAp ($Dakinikat6520, or Zelle (dakinikat). I’d appreciate it!

What’s on your reading or blogging list today?