The 33-year-old Watts, who had not shared the news of her pregnancy even with her family, made her first prenatal visit to a doctor’s office behind Mercy Health-St. Joseph’s Hospital in Warren, a working-class city about 60 miles (100 kilometers) southeast of Cleveland.
The doctor said that, while a fetal heartbeat was still present, Watts’ water had broken prematurely and the fetus she was carrying would not survive. He advised heading to the hospital to have her labor induced, so she could have what amounted to an abortion to deliver the nonviable fetus. Otherwise, she would face “significant risk” of death, according to records of her case.
That was a Tuesday in September. What followed was a harrowing three days entailing: multiple trips to the hospital; Watts miscarrying into, and then flushing and plunging, a toilet at her home; a police investigation of those actions; and Watts, who is Black, being charged with abuse of a corpse. That’s a fifth-degree felony punishable by up to a year in prison and a $2,500 fine.
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People have been talking about the possibility of this exact situation for decades. Any moderates who have not heard it simply don’t want to hear it
The public has the memory of a goldfish. We’re less than 3 years out from the single worst administration in the history of this country, and we’re seriously considering putting him back in office.
I personally don’t think that’s cause they forgot, I think that’s cause Americans are way more fascist than most left leaning folks are willing to admit to themselves. The idea the left pushes is that most people are good, but just apathetic and don’t vote. I think many Americans are horrible fascist assholes. We can’t depend on the silent majority, because they suck too.
Evil never sleeps while good just wants to exist in peace.
Good people don’t try as hard to enforce their will because they’re not selfish assholes. Nor can they understand that bad people will literally do everything they can to get their way.
If they’re unwilling to act in the face of darkness then they are no better than that darkness. They are essentially part of that darkness themselves.
Evil grows in the dark … Where the sun, it never shines … Evil grows in cracks and holes … And lives in people’s minds.
I don’t think that most of us are outright fascist, but I do think most of us are not just apathetic, but also willfully ignorant. For one reason or another–lack of education, viewing politics as “boring,” no energy to pay attention beyond headlines, a lack of media literacy–most Americans simply cannot see the impact an administration has on society beyond their immediate experience. For these people, Trump was a guy who said stupid shit, lowered their taxes (ignoring the sleight of hand where the ‘tax cut’ was almost entirely due to changes in tax withholding so the extra money on their paycheck was counterbalanced by a lower tax return), and held a rally when he lost. They’re not explicitly fascist–if the tanks start rolling down their town’s Main Street, they’ll wail and moan about “I never wanted this, how could this have happened”–but to them, things like “economics” or “human rights” or “democracy” or “equality” are boring toys that nerds play with. They’re the type of person that complains about crumbling roads and potholes and bad traffic, then turns around and complains about construction projects to fix the very things they were complaining about.
So I don’t necessarily fully agree that America is more fascist than we like to admit, but I think it’s largely a distinction without a difference–most Americans are perfectly happy to stand by and let fascism take the reigns, to do nothing and complain about anybody who does try to fight against it, right up until it’s too late and THEY’RE the ones up against the wall.
Fair point, but I think it’s not quite as benign apathy as you imply. I think rather a lot of people are racist, or sexist, or believe that ‘sluts that got knocked up deserve to be punished with a baby’. I think the uncomfortable truth that the left hasn’t figured out, is that the nasty stuff trump said was at the very least not offensive to far too many Americans.
We are far, far closer to a society where those white folks in the background calmly watching a lynching of a black guy than we like to believe. They’re not the ones with the rope and they may not have ever done anything explicit themselves, but they’re all fine watching it and spending time with the people who did it too.
Most of American society seems to be that classic, fake white Christian charity group that seems so helpful putting out a meal for the homeless at the holidays while simultaneously hating everyone they can get away with, abusing their family at home, and generally being terrible people that have an outwardly normal appearance.
People who are willfully ignorant and still choose to vote are responsible for the fascists they vote for. I’m tired of pretending they’re innocent because they “don’t know” what they’re voting for.
So you are arguing to not vote and let the fascist win quicker because you are obsessed with political purity & can’t be bothered to talk to your neighbors?
No, I’m arguing for people who are so ignorant they would vote for the fascist to not vote.
That’s the trick of the right wing propoganda machine. These people don’t think k they’re ignorant, they honestly believe they’re enlightened and ordained as superior. They think they’re the chosen people.
Ironically, they love to bash Jews, too.
Best of luck finding people to vote for disfranchisement. I personally think its awful what we have already let alone to do so for political wrong think.
The GOP already packed the court by acting in bad faith with Obama. There’s no reason we shouldn’t just appoint more judges. 9 has not always been the size of the court, and the size is not restricted by the Constitution.
Or how about reducing the size back to 7 and removing the 2 newest members?
What’s wrong with Jackson?
Also, that would leave us with Alito, Roberts, Thomas, Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, Sotomayor, and Kagan.
We’d have the same problem, a court dominated by bad faith judges who are participating in a long term conservative ideological project.
I assume they forgot about Jackson because her appointment wasn’t a circus.
Indeed I did
Far worse than that, Republicans are vying for and have run practice sessions for a “Convention of the States”, where basically states (which are predominantly Republican controlled, in spite of population distributions) can come together and decide which Federal laws they want to adhere to.
Basically, the situation you’re fear mongering over is far closer than even you make out it to be.
A convention of the states is infinitely worse. It is basically a rewriting of the Constitution. Koch has been funding this. In this political climate imagine what happens when we let fascist billionaires create us a new govt. Holy fucking shit.
This is why state elections are so crucially important. We normal non-assholes need to not just vote but be involved in local and state elections. Donating time, money, even running for offices.
States can shield us from a lot of the bad shit happening at a national level if we elect halfway decent people.
A minimum consensus might go some way to fixing things.
A small part of me wants to see them try it. There is a legal means of doing this that has never been tested. There is something amusing about letting someone who has done nothing except being critical handed power that they have no ability to use.
Imagine all those DeSantos types actually given the task of sorting out the constitution. They don’t know how to write an amendment, they wouldn’t be able to agree on wording, they would have no clue how the courts would apply the wording, they aren’t even sure if it would stick because again no one has tried it. It would be who knows how many tens of millions of dollars in lawyer fees and conference hall rentals and travel expenses and committees all to pass something that would break on the first challenge.
But that’s not the way legislation works. The law is written, then it is voted in my representatives, then it is challenged by parties that fall foul of it. Waiting until the very last stage is the least likely method to be successful.
Just call it a confederacy already and get rid of the mixed signals. Half of them still act like they won the damn war anyway, with all their loser worship.
States don’t have to follow federal law. Just look at cannabis.
There’s a 0% chance Californians go along with any federal restrictions on abortion.