Don’t those laws already exist? But based upon who is the non custodial parent.
Though some use the standard of the child being born within the marriage; regardless of physical paternity.
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Based on the number of deadbeat dads we deal with here, if they are, they are extremely poorly enforced. Not exactly a surprise, of course.
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Yet they’ve been fodder for complaints and used in comedy for decades by male writers and performers. No surprise there, either, equating being held accountable with being a victim.
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What is really at stake here. Not news here, but needs to be said.
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I like1) the wire hanger in the background; he added that 10 days ago. Subtle.
1) Not really the right word here, but you know what I mean.
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I’ve become ambivalent about the coat hanger imagery. It is a powerful symbol. However, while abortions will still happen, coat hangers and such won’t necessarily be the preferred method, given advances in other methods. Maybe that imagery downplays such methods, decreasing awareness of them.
There’s some good discussion of that symbol in this interview:
Alejandra Pablos is a reproductive justice community organizer and storyteller. She’s been targeted by ICE — that’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement — for her activism, has been in deportation proceedings for over a decade. And Dr. DeShawn Taylor is with us, an OB-GYN physician, abortion provider, owner of Desert Star Family Planning. Dr. Taylor is the only Black independent abortion provider in Arizona, where Republican Governor Doug Ducey in late March signed into law a measure banning abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. . . .
ALEJANDRA PABLOS:. . . I think right now we’re ready. We’re ready to take care of one another. Right now we are not going back to hangers. I don’t know why people keep — this white feminism wave keeps putting people in fear and throwing this hanger, when we are particularly — we are practically taking care of one another. We’re experts. We now have pills, that are telehealth, right? Abortion pills exist. Regardless if you make them illegal, those abortion pills exist, and we will never stop having abortions, people. . . .
DR. DESHAWN TAYLOR: I want to thank Alejandra for referencing this old coat hanger imagery. It is outdated, and we really want good-intentioned advocates to stop, because we have abortion pills, and it has definitely made self-managed abortion safer. Self-managed abortion is someone who takes some type of substance to induce their own abortion. And we have seen that increasing currently while Roe v. Wade is still the law of the land. Because of all of these restrictions that have been passed across the country, people are already taking their abortion care into their own hands. There have already been community networks formed to ensure that people have access to abortion pills and that they have community support as they go through this process.
I will say that my clinic was a site for a study with some researchers out of UT Austin in Texas, where we wanted to see what people knew about self-managed abortion, and had they tried it themselves, and what types of things people were trying to use. And so, what’s been really helpful over these last couple of years of the pandemic is the increased access to misoprostol, and now the ability to mail mifepristone. Together, the protocol is to take the first medication, mifepristone, and then the second medication, misoprostol, a certain amount of time later to induce the expulsion of the pregnancy. We now have the FDA removing their restrictions so that, permanently, in states that don’t have restrictions for this, people can receive the mifepristone by mail.
So, the idea that we’re going back to back-alley abortions, like that person at the Supreme Court rally mentioned, we’re definitely not there.
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This is a case of both: we need to make abortion medication better known, understood, and available, but the wire coat hanger is one of the most politically evocative symbols ever.
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Yes, but it’s also outdated, and maybe even dangerous. I find arguments against its continued use compelling.
Currently, the World Health Organization recommends that abortions occurring within the first trimester (under 12 weeks pregnant) be conducted independently, without direct supervision of a health-care provider, using mifepristone and misoprostol medication. These medications are administered in the form of five pills, taken one to two days apart at home, and they have a better safety record than Tylenol, Viagra and penicillin. Most importantly, these medications are currently available in all 50 states and can be delivered via mail, without an in-person doctor’s visit. . . .
If our goal in protecting abortion rights is, in large part, to protect the safety and bodily autonomy of women, using the coat hanger as the sole image of the movement is a threat to that goal. It’s a gruesome image, one that further adds fear and stigma to abortions themselves, and it suggests the coat hanger is an option, which it needn’t be. We can still honor the history of abortions past and the dangers women experienced, but the coat hanger doesn’t need to be at the forefront of the current discourse when a better path is available.
Source:
CAN WE STOP WITH THE COAT HANGER IMAGERY?
With the continued availability of medication-based abortion in all 50 states — and its excellent safety record — there’s absolutely no reason we need to use such a gruesome, inaccurate symbol to fight for reproductive rights
There is absolutely no maybe about it.
The point is that as long as abortions are legal they will be done by medical professionals using proper medical instruments and procedures. And when they are illegal we’ll see the return of the backstreet abortionists using very unsafe, very dangerous methods.
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Dangerous for whom? Are they seeing fewer patients or getting feedback that they think doctors are using one? Are there cases of women trying this? In a world where a bunch of men legislating on this issue have proven their ignorance about reproduction, I prefer the messaging that puts fear into them, even if it’s something no one will do. Enlightening them about pills will only lead them to start examining everyone’s prescriptions. Given what they’ve already screwed up with opioids and COVID, that’s a recipe for another disaster.
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Right? That’s long been my kneejerk explanation as well, but I’m not ready yet to say that the two women I quoted, who’ve been working hard on the front lines to keep abortion safe and available, are full of shit.
I don’t know if you read what I quoted, but a point they make is that many abortions are no longer done with “medical instruments and procedures.” Many are instead done with pills.
And yes, where abortion is and will be outlawed, many women will resort to proverbial backstreet abortionists, but might some do so because they don’t know about these safe, more readily available methods? And might the “backstreet abortionists with coat hangers” imagery be part of the problem?
I’m not seeing a problem, given the ever-increasing lack of access to safe, doctor-performed procedures, with foregrounding for women – instead of coathanger imagery – the message that a safe “self-induced” method with pills is already widely used, and will remain widely available. At least until that gets outlawed too, but even then, if pregnant women resort to illegal methods, the pill method will be far safer than the backalley abortionist method.
I gather that it’s dangerous for women who are encouraged by the coat hanger symbol to see it (or related “backalley” methods) as a viable option. And who are less likely to see or know about pills (and their safety) as an option because gruesome imagery overshadows it.
Yeah, I wonder that too. If so, it would certainly be a reason why that doula and that doctor are asking us to stop foregrounding coat hangers in pro-choice imagery. At any rate, women wouldn’t need to resort to literal coat hangers to support these two women’s point. As @FGD135’s comment demonstrates, the coat hanger is as much a symbol for “backalley” methods as it is for the use of a literal coathanger.
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I agree with @PsiPhiGrrrl that a one-for-one replacing of the coat hanger symbol with detailed information instead about the non-clinical abortion option would put potentially dangerous information in the minds of the forced birthers.
Like I said, we need BOTH: people who can get pregnant need to be educated on the easy, safe, relatively inexpensive, non-clinic solution, but when publicly fighting against the forced birthers, a potent symbol of the desperation and violence that kills so many pregnant people when they don’t have a legal abortion option has its place.
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What the actual fuck.
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Right?!? So, if I’m a guy married to a woman and I feel things are falling apart, I can just poke holes in her diaphragm or my condoms (this is the “civil” option, for sure) and then, blammo, I’ve got another year almost. 
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It’s a solid indicator of just how each state’s legal “system” regards pregnant people.
I can imagine tons of scenarios where abusers simply continues to leverage their advantage, having been given tools like this by state gummints.
Beyond gross. It can doubtless end up deadly.
I can certainly see this disincentivizing marriage.
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I didn’t believe in marriage before I knew all this garbage was happening; I’m sure as fuck not a believer now.
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Me, neither. I guess I’d better get my roster of “male chaperones” on board so I can do things like sign a lease and be out in public in ten years.
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This isn’t gonna go down how the fascists think it will.
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Temporary, you’re lucky — my incoherent rage almost feels permanent now.
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