Finally Friday Reads: Fuck Nebraska and Red States in General

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.

Carmen Winant installs “The last safe abortion” at the Minneapolis Institute of Art. Courtesy of MIA.

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.

Paula Rego Untitled No. 4 1998-9

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.)