221 Comments

Tennessee is ten nessees too many.

Expand full comment

As with the “life-threatening” exemptions, the vagueness is intentional. It’s so everyone can live in fear, and aggressive DA’s can stretch the law as much as they dare.

Expand full comment

Wait, as a Tennessean, is it ok if I take my teenager across state lines if she needs an abortion? I just can’t take any of her friends? (OMG…I hate my home state more and more every day.)

Expand full comment

It's purty for purty, but ain't purty for nice.

Expand full comment

My condolences. Perhaps you guys will elect Gloria Johnson and she can make you proud for at least that.

Expand full comment

Ta, Robyn. Recruiting? Like for the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines?

Expand full comment

"What a great place, it's a great place to start" sung in exhausted and sad like in "Stripes."

Expand full comment

Less mendacity, I imagine.

Expand full comment

"securing parents rights to make decisions for their child." yeah that'll work well with only every teenager ever to live.

Expand full comment

I always, in my mind, switch in "responsibilities" in place of "rights" so that idea isn't stupid.

No one has "rights" to another person. Parents have responsibilities to their kids, not rights.

Expand full comment

Tennessee does NOT have an exception for the life of the mother. They did make it legal to treat ectopic pregnancy, but the "life of the mother" requires an affirmative defense. That means the doc is arrested, probably loses his/her license, then can defend the decision in court.

Expand full comment

Many years ago, pre-Roe, when I lived in Maryland, probably 1972 or so, a friend in NC got his girlfriend pregnant. Everyone, including her parents, decided an abortion was the best choice but she could not get one in NC. But she could in DC, and I lived only about 15 miles away. I had met her a few times so I was not a stranger, and I picked her up at the airport and took her to a hotel near a clinic in DC. I volunteered to take her to the clinic the next day but she declined and took a taxi but I did pick her up the next day and took her back for a flight home. I hope having someone she knew while there made her a little less uncomfortable. So I guess I was a recruiter too.

BTW, for several years after Roe, until the 1990s, after Congress passed a law saying Medicaid funds could not be used for abortions, the state of North Carolina had a state tax supported fund for low income women to pay for abortions. Then the religious right Republicans kept cutting the fund year after year until they cancelled the whole program.

Expand full comment

Fucking religious right.

Expand full comment

Every problem in this country can be laid at the feet of MAGA.

Expand full comment

Not really, but it seems to be concentrating a lot of it like a magnifying glass does the sun.

Expand full comment

If all of us on the left do nothing but abort our babies, where do all the new little leftists come from? Are we finding them under cabbage leaves? Does the stork bring them?

Expand full comment

Flawed premise. You assume there ARE "new leftists."

One word: "Idiocracy."

Expand full comment

Didn't you hear? We recruit. A lot.

Expand full comment

I found mine at Babyland General Hospital.

Expand full comment

STORK DUH.

Expand full comment

Apparently they have never realized that informed birth control is the best way to prevent abortion. No woman who wasn't pregnant has ever had an abortion. Any woman old enough to become pregnant should have free access to contraceptives and be taught how to use them.

Expand full comment

Knoxville is the biggest shithole in the state

Expand full comment

Do these people ever do anything for people who are actually living, or is it just the unborn and dead Confederate generals they care about?

Expand full comment

Living people cost money. So no.

Expand full comment

If they cared about the unborn, they'd make sure the "host body" was fed, clothed, housed, and had adequate medical care.

Expand full comment

like

Expand full comment

They only care about themselves, and the collection and exercising of power over others. They do not care about people who are not them.

Expand full comment

They do all sorts of stuff for themselves.

Expand full comment

So, they want to outlaw "recruiting" someone to have an abortion, whatever that means, but they are totes ok with those creepy "pregnancy crisis centers" that will lie their asses off to you and heavily pressure you into carrying your baby to term, whatever the consequences.

Expand full comment

I remember, years ago in my days as the sole writer/editor of a local weekly newspaper, one of the creepy Chrisotfascists in the area (homeschooled their kids, natch) started up a "pregnancy crisis center" in the bigger town just down the road, where most people worked, shopped, etc. He came into my office and suggested I should do a feature article on the center because it was "such an important service to the community." At that time, I had no idea what a "pregnancy crisis center" was—if you got pregnant, you either dutifully went to your prenatal appointments or made an appointment in Robbinsdale (down in the Twin Cities) to have an abortion. He gave me a sugar-coated overview about how they were there to help and advise women and girls who found themselves pregnant and didn't know what to do next, letting them know what their options were. After a few questions, it became clear that abortion was NOT one of the options but was instead one of the things they advised against. The more we talked, the more I felt like I needed to take a shower afterward. In the end, I told him that it would be more suitable for him to talk to someone in the advertising department; I didn't want to touch that shit with a ten-foot pole and he was free to part with his money to place an ad instead.

Expand full comment

Lordy these people. They probably think Uber for Abortions® is just around the corner...

Expand full comment

Ok but that's not such a bad idea...

Expand full comment

A fever dream of a caravan of Taco trucks and Abortion vans.

Expand full comment

If they can get it down to the time it takes to charge an EV, they could set up next to charging stations and really be onto something.

Expand full comment

That gives me an idea for how to repurpose ambulances. I mean food trucks...

Expand full comment

A quick D&C while U Wait!

Expand full comment

If blastocytes could be used for penis enlargement, abortion wouldn't be an issue.

Expand full comment

like

Expand full comment

Let’s start that rumor!

Expand full comment

Ugh! Parental rights again, but only for the parents who think the right way - the con way.

Expand full comment

I like how one suddenly becomes a “parent”, with all the gravitas of that word, by merely ejaculating. Nice job, Dad!

Expand full comment

That's the Christian nationalist way!

Expand full comment

I think what they mean by "recruitment" is merely telling someone their options. Ignorance is their best tool.

Expand full comment

Voter registration drives, for example, are a gateway to abortion, according to repubs.

Expand full comment