Read Blog for Arizona | Politics from a Liberal Viewpoint for more about anti-choice

Medical Journal The Lancet: Women Will Die. SCOTUS Will Have Women’s Blood On Its Hands.

May 14, 2022 by AZ BlueMeanie

A must read editorial opinion from the medical journal The Lancet, Why Roe v. Wade must be defended: “Abortion presents a profound moral issue on which Americans hold sharply conflicting views.” So begins a draft opinion by Associate Justice Samuel Alito, leaked from the US Supreme Court on May 2, 2022. If confirmed, this judgement … Read more

Where Is The Corporate Accountability For The Blatantly Unconstitutional And Discriminatory Laws Enacted By The Arizona Legislature?

April 5, 2022 by AZ BlueMeanie

Let’s return to those halcyon days of yesteryear – 2016 – when corporations around the country were threatening to pull up stakes from states that were passing anti-LGBTQ legislation. Corporate Boycotts Become Key Weapon in Gay Rights Fight: The battle for LGBTQ rights has demonstrated the power of boycotts — or the threat of them … Read more

No, anti-choicers, there aren’t thousands of clinics that could easily replace Planned Parenthood

September 8, 2015 by AZ BlueMeanie

Crossposted from DemocraticDiva.com

As anti-choice activists continue to push the now-thoroughly discredited “Planned Parenthood sells baby parts!” story as a ruse to defund the organization and deprive millions of women of contraception and health screenings (since federal funds can’t be used on abortion), you will often hear them speak of “thousands of community health clinics” that are readily available to low income patients who currently use Planned Parenthood. This, it turns out, is a bunch of garbage (as is approximately 99.9% everything claimed by anti-choicers but mainstream news people continue to treat them as a credible movement for dog knows what reason). The Congressional Budget Office commissioned an analysis of health provider availability for women who need contraception and found that Planned Parenthood is a crucial provider of birth control to a large number of regions and the women who live in them, as the graph above illustrates.

Anti-choicers are out to replace Planned Parenthood with “clinics” that don’t offer birth control

September 4, 2015 by AZ BlueMeanie

Crossposted from DemocraticDiva.com

A lot of very naive people hold a cherished illusion that the abortion debate can be solved through respectful dialog leading to a truce where the pro-choice side cedes ground on things like later term abortions and parental consent and the anti-abortion side agrees to stop opposing birth control and sex ed. This will lead to a glorious permanent state of first term abortion remaining legal while gradually fading away, as formerly irresponsible women (the trollops!) will have finally reined in their capricious behavior, upon realizing how serious a thing abortion is!

As I’ve exhaustively explained here too many times to count, the naive illusion ignores how those compromises on abortion are actually terrible and imperil real women* and how relentless the anti-choice movement is in its quest to return America to the legal climate of 1964, when it was still legal for states to ban birth control. Opponents to full reproductive rights of women are not interested in a compromise. They are interested in a solution. Theirs. And they are highly adept at exploiting how little average people know about how laws and public policies work, while expertly taking advantage every possible way to game the system in their favor. They have demonstrated this since 1976, when they convinced Congress to ban Medicaid funding of abortion (Hyde Amendment) on the absurd theory that taxpayers should not pay for abortions (as opposed to any other medical intervention). Subsequently, anti-choicers convinced sympathetic majorities in the Supreme Court to allow states to restrict abortion procedures on spurious medical grounds.

Planned Parenthood was rallied for and protested in Phoenix!

August 24, 2015 by AZ BlueMeanie

Crossposted from DemocraticDiva.com

Idiots

On Saturday morning I went to the rally for Planned Parenthood at its new location in midtown Phoenix, which was held in response to an anti-choice protest planned to be held outside. Abortion opponents were there as part of a nationwide protest of Planned Parenthood locations (several of which don’t actually perform abortions, as pro-choice advocates noted on social media). I showed up at the Phoenix event fully prepared with water and sunscreen for what was to be a brutally hot August morning. I was pleasantly surprised to find that our rally was to be held in the parking garage where we’d be warm but at least out of the sun. And those of us who showed up in support of Planned Parenthood were treated to donuts and rousing speeches and music, which was blasted on to the anti-choice crowd outside.

The anti-choicers weren’t so lucky but it was their decision to hold their protest outside the Planned Parenthood building so they could block Pierson Street, which was ridiculous because the building was still easily accessible from 15th Street and Pierson is not even remotely a major thoroughfare. I hear that a few protesters collapsed from the heat (not surprising). It was rage-inducing to see how several of the antis brought their youngsters with them to roast in that hot sun, including one Father of the Year strutting around showing off his toddler and baby, both of whom were uncovered and the baby wasn’t even wearing a hat. If grown idiots want to make themselves martyrs to the cause of anger over women having unpunished sex, that’s one thing, but endangering non-consenting children like that is simply criminal.