Erin Durkin, - The Guardian (U.K.)
Stephan: In all the abortion media coverage I am seeing very little of it adddresses what is really going to happen in those red value states where white christofascist men are making themselves feel better about keeping women in a subordinate status by passing draconian anti-choice laws. And note that these same White men who feel so strongly about limiting a woman's right of choice about her own body, also routinely cut all programs that foster wellbeing in children. Even more shameful there is a whole cohort of White women who are accomplices in these anti-life policies.
I also chose this report because it gives us some data on the appalling state of healthcare in rural America, and the consequences that are going to flow from these stupid ill-conceived misogynist policies. To be specific: "79 of Georgia’s 159 counties do not have a single obstetrician-gynecologist practicing" in the county.
Think about that for a moment. You are a woman. You develop a vaginal infection. Or you suddenly have something go awry with your periods. Or you become pregnant, only it is an ectopic pregnancy. Or you are in your seventh month, when your water breaks, and you go into labor prematurely. Where do you go, whom do you see? You might have to drive 100 miles or more to see an OB/GYN physician. There are countries in Africa with better healthcare facilities.
And with Trump's immigration policies there are fewer and fewer doctors and nurses immigrating, and immigrant medical staff are essential to have any healthcare in America's rural areas; native-born physicians and nurses don't like to practice there. The pay is lower, the social activities are meager, and the educational opportunities for their children are far smaller.
To further complicate things, as this report describes, many physicians are leaving these already underserved areas, and these states. Personally, if I were a young women thinking of starting a family I wouldn't live in a Red value state, and I predict many women are going to reach that conclusion. This anti-choice drive by the christofascists is going to have a whole range of unintended consequences but one meta-consequence: Red states are increasingly going to become inferior places to live compared with Blue value states.
An activist, Tamara Stevens, leaves the Georgia capitol after an event opposing new abortion restrictions.
Credit: John Amis/AFP/Getty
On the floor of the Alabama state senate this week, a robotic voice read nine pages of legalese that would define a new reality for women in the state: abortion would be a crime, starting from the moment a woman knows she is pregnant. Doctors who perform the procedure could face up to 99 years in prison.
Then senators’ names were called one by one, and they cast their votes. There were 25 yes votes, enough for the bill to pass easily. Every single one was cast by a white man.
Those most hurt by the ban, by contrast, will be women of color and poor women, advocates say.
“For those with the means, it doesn’t matter that Alabama bans it. They’re going to find another state, find another country,” said the state senator Linda Coleman-Madison, one of four black Democrats who spent hours denouncing the bill before it passed overwhelmingly. Pictures of Coleman-Madison, her head in […]
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Timothy Williams and Alan Blinder, - Thew New York TIimes
Stephan:
This, I think, is but a first article of many about the challenge women in Red value states are going to face, particularly if Roe v. Wade is overturned, and the issue is left to each state to determine. I think young women of all races are going to choose to move to states where there are more opportunities and where they are treated with fairness and dignity. I see the abortion issue as a large factor in the growing Great Schism Trend.
MONTGOMERY, ALABAMA — Even before Alabama passed one of the nation’s most restrictive bans on abortions in decades, the procedure had been in decline in the state after years of limits.
The remaining doctors who perform abortions — they have dwindled to a handful — work at only three clinics in a state where there once were more than a dozen. Dr. Yashica Robinson, who provides abortions in Huntsville, said she had been the target of a letter-writing campaign to have her hospital privileges revoked. Even some fellow medical workers, she said, have showed signs of hostility toward her.
“If I wasn’t here, this would not be at the top of my list for places to go,” Dr. Robinson said of the climate in Alabama.
Then this week came the new law, which, if permitted to take effect by the courts, would end most legal abortions in the state and make it a felony for Dr. Robinson to perform one.
“This is absolutely going to scare people away,” she said.
Outside the state, Alabama’s abortion ban has been perceived as a sudden and stunning push by a State Legislature overwhelmingly dominated by men. […]
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, - U.S. News & World Report
Stephan: Everyone who reads SR knows, I think, that I care nothing for partisanship and political polemics. What I care about is social outcome data, actual facts. And I have been saying for years that Red value states consistently have poorer social outcomes because Republicans can't govern, at least can't govern in the sense of fostering individual and social wellbeing, because the party has become a christofascist cult with other priorities than social wellbeing.
But even I, who track this data on a daily basis, was unprepared for how bad the differential in quality of life between Red value states and Blue value states has become. Consider this report which ranks states by 70 different social metrics. Facts are facts. It's a shame so many of us won't look at them.
Some states shine in health care. Some soar in education. Some excel in both – or in much more. The Best States ranking of U.S. states draws on thousands of data points to measure how well states are performing for their citizens. In addition to health care and education, the metrics take into account a state’s economy, its roads, bridges, internet and other infrastructure, its public safety, the fiscal stability of state government, and the opportunity it affords its residents.
More weight was accorded to some state measures than others, based on a survey of what matters most to people. Health care and education were weighted most heavily. Then came state economies, infrastructure, and the opportunity states offer their citizens. Fiscal stability followed closely in weighting, followed by measures of crime & corrections and a state’s natural environment.
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Stephan: If you are a female in the United States, particularly if you live in a state run by the Republican Party, your status as an equal to men, as well as your ability to control your own body is under aggressive attack. That doesn't surprise me, the christofascists have been clear about their Abrahamic position for decades; women are an inferior subordinate gender. What does surprise me is how docile American women are about this. Millions of women, in fact, voted in support of these attacks, and seem quite comfortable about voting for its continuance again in 2020. Most don't even seem to be aware of what is happening about female genital mutilation in the U.S.. Or to care if they do know. Here is a report on Trump, Barr, and the latest developments.
Attorney General William Barr
Credit: Getty/AP/Salon
One of the many frustrating side effects of the Trump crisis is the way the firehose of news too often obscures our ability to digest or even notice stories that, in normal times, would’ve generated all-caps banner headlines and breaking news alerts. This isn’t to say the stories that do get such headlines aren’t important — they usually are. But even with the ability for 24-hour news networks and the internet to cover dozens of stories at once, there are still myriad events that get lost in the chaos.
One such story is so horrifying it’s kind of remarkable it hasn’t sparked more outrage. It should.
By now you’re probably aware of a barbaric ritual known as female genital mutilation, or FGM for short. Trigger warning: This is about to get graphic.
Generally speaking, FGM is the medieval practice of restraining young girls and removing their external female genitals, without anesthesia or antiseptics. Most often the clitoris of young girls is carved out, the […]
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Stephan: I have been following the trend of declining birth rates in the developed world for almost two decades now because I believe it is telling us something very fundamental about the health of those societies. In Japan particularly it has now become a major political issue. In the U.S. I think it is on the verge of becoming an issue. The facts are that none of the developed nations have a sustainable birthrate, and this is growing ever clearer in the U.S. Here is the latest data.
The U.S. birthrate fell again in 2018, to 3,788,235 births — representing a 2% drop from 2017. It’s the lowest number of births in 32 years, according to a new federal report. The numbers also sank the U.S. fertility rate to a record low.
Not since 1986 has the U.S. seen so few babies born. And it’s an ongoing slump: 2018 was the fourth consecutive year of birth declines, according to the provisional birthrate report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Birthrates fell for nearly all racial and age groups, with only slight gains for women in their late 30s and early 40s, the CDC says.
The news has come as something of a surprise to demographers who say that with the U.S. economy and job market continuing a years-long growth streak, they had expected the birthrate to show signs of stabilizing, or even rising. But instead, the drop could force changes to forecasts about how the country will look — with an older population and fewer young workers to sustain key social systems.
“It’s a national problem,” says […]
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