Good morning! As I’m sure you’ve heard by now, the “forcible rape” language has been removed from HR3, thanks to you and your tireless work. We got over 1000 signatures on our petition, OVERNIGHT. You are amazing. Take a second to engage in some sort of self-applause.
HOWEVER. As I’m sure you also know, everything else about this bill is TERRIBLE. And we can’t stop here. We’ve shown that, when we mobilize, we are a force that can back down Congress. So we need to keep mobilized, because this is a big one, and we can’t afford to lose.
I’m heading out to the GritTV studios right now to discuss HR3 and the possibilities for activism. When I’m back, I’ll be writing more about what’s still wrong with the bill, and what we can do to stop it.
Because, yeah. We won this part of the fight. And that’s another reason we need to keep fighting: Because we won this one. And we can keep winning. There are too many of us to ignore, and we’re too powerful when we all move at once: There’s no way they can keep treating us like collateral damage, when we keep going the way we have been. And, also? Bonus? Winning is really, really, really fun.
11 Comments
Awesome! How ’bout we go after the lack of a health exception next?
Thanks for the suggestion, Other Becky; I’m not sure what in the bill to go after next. Does anyone else have a bullet point? Would it be any good to reiterate that poor women are the only ones being targeted by this horror show of government intrusion into women’s health?
Congratulations!
@Lu, as I understand it, it’s not just the poorest women who are affected by this. Because of the tax-exemption deterrents it will effectively stop insurance companies from covering abortion, if they did in the first place, and will stop you using your own pre-tax deductions (Flex Spending Account) on abortion services. Basically, it forces people to fund the whole thing out of pocket, which I think you’ll agree you don’t have to be below the poverty line to find a financial burden.
I can’t imagine corporate lobbies aren’t going to howl about the forfeiture of tax credits in HR3. And heaven knows, what lobbyists want, lobbyists get. How odd to be on the same side on this!
Does anybody know when the House is voting on this the bill? Like when would it be too late to snail mail a letter to one’s congressperson?
um,amItheonlyonethatsseeingtisblogaslalmostentirelyhorizontal?Literallythisarticleisonewordperline,andthiscommentboxsacentimeterwide,andIcan’tevenseealetterI’mwriting,whichwillexplaintheinevitabletypo.IstheresomespecialsettingI’mmissing.orawhat?Thisistheonlyblogthishappenstomewith.
OMG I SAW SADY ON THE SCREEN!
You were fabulous! At the end when Laura Flanders cut you off to end the program and you sort of awk-mumbled it was SO ADORBZ!
You’re doing Maude’s work, Sady. I’ll always cheer for you!
(PS sorry if that was construed as patronizing I didn’t mean to be!)
@Lily, it takes about 3 weeks for paper mail to get to their DC office, due to really stringent security ever since the anthrax thing. Less time if you mail it to a district office.
@Buffy, are you using Chrome? It does that to me too.
At the mature age of 65 I was around, and young in the days before Abortion was legal. For a couple of years abortion was legal in just a few states, but illegal in the rest of the country. (This is before Roe vs.Wade.) Living in Ohio I worked as a Travel Agent, and attended college part time.
Abortion became legal in New York State but stayed illegal in Ohio and every surrounding state. In our community the District Attorney made it a point to enforce the anti abortion laws strongly due to the conservative nature of our part of the state, and the fact he was elected every 4 years.
As a college student, travel agent I sold airline tiekets and tour packages to students at college. It was a nice part time income. When abortion became legal in New York you would read advertisements from Abortion providers in New York in Ohio that gave phone numbers to call if you wanted/needed an abortion. All of a sudden I had customers needing to fly from Ohio to New York City for a 3 or 4 day period. For shopping, or to visit family, or just see the sights I was told. Mom often went with the customer, but dad never seemed to want to go along??? And it was never guys wanting to go, always young ladies. And they paid cash, when almost all my other tiekets were paid with a credit card. This was before discount airlines like Southwest and air fares were much higher than today. The daughters of the rich went, the airfare was beyond middle class folks in most cases.
So the abortion laws were for the poor and middle classs, if you had money, the law did not apply to you. Once abortion was legalized the shopping flites to New York stopped immediately – funny how that happened. Looks like Republicans might just be bringing them back – and that’s wrong.
As a man who has supported the right of a woman to control her own body for the past 40 years I find that it is indeed most interesting to see that just about every anti choice group is headed by a man, or a mixed group where man make up the majority.
I would think women would be the most involved because it is their body that is in dispute.
Do women go and make laws that if a man rapes a woman he is to be sentenced to death? I have never heard of such a law. But some men seem to want to make a law that if a woman gets raped, she has to risk her life and possible die to deliver the child. It seems like the old joke about the Communists they used to tell. That all of them were created equal, just some more so than others. I think men should pay attention to their affairs, and women should be left alone to monitor their own needs.
I mean, who elected you a God and made you responsible for my afairs.