I may be wrong about this, but I don’t think so. It seems to me that the motto of the GOP controlled Arizona legislature is, When the heat is on, pull a d*ck move. Let’s just go through it sequentially so it makes sense.
Arizona has a 15 week abortion law, with I believe, exceptions after. Personally, I’m ambivalent about 15 week limits, since something like 94% of abortions take place in the first 100 days of pregnancy. Then the Arizona state Supreme Court ruled that an 1864 law banning all abortions except for the health of the mother was constitutional, and would take effect. And it seems that when the lower courts fiinish didling with it, what they’ll have in Arizona is that abortions will be allowed in Arizona only to save the life of the mother.
The backlash over this ruling has been cataclysmic in Arizona. There was already a petition drive for signatures to put abortion on the ballot in November to enshrine it in the state constitution. Volunteers and activists are now going balls-to-the-wall to have more than 1 million signatures by the July 3rd closing date. people are furious on all political sides of the spectrum, and it’s the Arizona legislature that’s caught iin the crosshairs.
Ergo the d*ck move. The simplest solution to this morass would be to pass a law overturning the 1864 law, and restoring the 15 week law. In fact there was a motion on the floor to do just that, bring the bill to the floor for debate and a vote. And then came the d*ck move.
A GOP representative rose to his feet and put forward a motion to adjourn the session. Not just the day or the week, the rest of the session. The GOP House Speaker grabbed this lifeline like a drowning man. He intoned, There is a motion on the floor to adjourn the session. All those saying Ayr? AYE! And all those saying Nay? And before the NAYS! even had a chance to stand up, the Speaker banged the gavel on the desk and shouted, The Ayes have it! The session is adjourned. There was bedlam on the floor of the chamber. The GOP legislators walked off the floor serenaded by shouts of Shame! Shame! Shame! from the Democratic legislators and the gallery. One woman in the gallery repeatedly screamed, Bring them back! Bring them back!
The Arizona GOP legislature has their nuts caught in a meat grinder. There literally is no way out for them. The quickest and simplest answer is to repeal the 1864 law, and restore the 15 week ban. But if they do that, then they permanently kiss goodbye the far right insaniadc refried Jesus wheezers. But if they don’t, then they risk moderate backlash in November, when the ballot initiative will almost certainly be on the ballot, but also with possible moderate GOP challengers in the primaries. So they desperately tried to punt the issue to the fall session. Which won’t work.
Here’s why Arizona is a perfect microcosm of the critical problems that the GOP is going to face going into November with abortion being front and center on the ballot, even if the state doesn’t have an abortion initiative on the ballot. And they have two particular entities to blame for their suddenly precipitous situation. Donald Trump and his gerrymandered Supreme Court.
For 50 years abortion was a purely national issue. The landmark Roe v Wade decision enshrined abortion into national law. Sure GOP controlled redneck states could pass state abortion restriction laws, but as long as Roe v Wade was in place , the state legislatures were just licking their nuts, pandering to their Evangelical base, and everybody knew it, and nobody cared. Roe was settled case law.
And then along came Traitor Tot and the three SCOTUS traitor tots. The far right nihilists on the court knew that they were f*cking with fire, and that they needed a way to cover their pasty asses. And Roberts and his uber hypocrites pulled a d*ck move of their own. They didn’t have the balls to overturn Roe and make abortion illegal, they knew they’d never get out of the building alive. Instead they vacated Roe v Wade, and sent it back to the states.
There was the Supreme Court’s cop out. Don’t ask us, that’s up to y’all to decide at the state level. Not our problem. And in that moment, they changed 50 years of national control of the abortion issue, and forever crystalized the issue in the minds of voters. For the first time in 50 years, the solution to the abortion issue wasn’t contained in the US congress, instead it was contained in their local state legislatures.
And in states with GOP controlled legislatures, they were stomping around like a garage band trashing their suite at the Holiday Inn Paramus. But something had fundamentally changed. For the last 50 years, nobody cared, because abortion was a national issue. But now their own legislatures were hanging them out to dry, and there was nowhere else to go but local.
And while they may have been late to the party, once they got there, they dug in and partied hard. As we speak, there have been nine constitutional amendment ballot initiatives put on the ballot by constituents, and they’re 9-0. They found that the secret sauce to reproductive rights was to take it out of the legislators hands. and they’ve done it.
But now, with Arizona, they’ve come to a whole nother Come to Jesus moment. GOP controlled legislatures have already shown over and over again that they’ll revert to any trick, no matter how lowe to retain their power. They’ve tried challenging the initiatives in court, and in Ohio the legislature went so far as to try to pass an initiative that would change the threshold for passage from 50.1% to 60%. And they failed.
But it was still the come to Jesus moment for the constituents. The real problem isn’t the laws, it’s the legislators, who are willing to pull any dirty trick they can think of to deprive their own constituents of their rights, just so long as it progresses the legislators own ideologies. The answer isn’t so much to change the laws, as it is to change the legislators.
And that’s the Hellraiser box the Arizona legislators find themselves in. They can’t win without the refried Jesus wheezers, but everybody in the state now knows that they are a part of the problem, and not part of the solution.
And it’s not just Arizona. There are abortion ballot initiatives in the critical swing states of Nevada, Ohio, and Florida. And pretty much every constituent in every one of those states now knows that the problem isn’t so much the laws, it’s their legislators.
If I’m one of those oh, so pious, fundamentalist Christian GOP state legislators, I might just want to check my almost untouched bibles. I’m pretty sure that somewhere in there it says, Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord. Y’all better get ready for Judgement Day.
I thank you for the privilege of your time.
Six fools on the s.c. overturn Roe. Now state after state have ballot measures to amend state constitutions and thus far, every one of them have passed handily. In states that have not yet put this kind of amendment to the voters you have voters saying “not only no but f*ck no” to ballot measures seeking to make all abortions illegal. Even if things stay as they are and someone does not off any of those damned fools on the s.c. who did this, legal abortion will be the law of the land across much of the country. Yes, there will be outliers, MS and LA come immediately to mind, but I predict most states will have women and others totally pissed off about this attempt to enslave women.
Should this play as it is in the November election, the house and senate will not only flip/stay in dem hands, but they will likely have sizable majorities. With that a national right to abortion bill is a shoo-in. So the fools on the s.c. made a decision based on nonsense from LONG AGO (even longer ago than that abomination from AZ) so that ‘pubes will pay, and pay big, at the polls. Way to hand the reins of power to progressives there dick-wads.
Dems, the ads just about write themselves. Get the airwaves, etc. saturated with the fact that ‘pubes not only want to make healthcare decisions for women, they also do not really care if women die because of these fool laws they are passing. If you all do not grab this opportunity, that has been so generously gifted to you, you might just be dumber than the ‘pubes who slit their own political throats.
What we are seeing is the equivalent of Caesar’s Ides, Napoleon’s Waterloo and Hitler’s Stalingrad all rolled into one for the Republican Party, and not just in Arizona.
Picket’s Charge comes to mind. Lee and his top generals had convinced themselves despite two days of fighting where Union troops had NOT give up but despite defending from favorable positions would do so would with a heavy push to break their center. It was a disaster for the rebel army, and Lee’s forces would never fully recover. It did at least teach him that it was a useless exercise to try and invade the north and take over a large Union state. Still, he fought on albeit more to defend the rebel states in the hopes the Union would tire of the war and leave the Confederacy be. We saw how that turned out. And when Grant turned Sherman loose Lee began to rue the day he told then head of the Union forces Winfield Scott he would NOT accept command of the forces around DC because he could not “raise his sword against Virginia.”
When it comes to abortion GOPers seem to have engaged in a modern Pickett’s Charge and while there is terrible fighting yet to ensue when this is all done the rebels, the anti-abortion zealots will be licking their wounds in defeat. Alas, like the die hard rebel confederates they won’t change. They will mount small counter attacks for generations to come and given half a chance major ones. SCOTUS has given them more than enough cover to do so.
My 4X Great Grandfather and his three brothers were with the 7th Virginia Infantry on the right flank of Pickett’s line during Pickett’s Charge at Gettysburg…..under Kemper…..their company commander, Colonel W.T. Patton killed during the battle…..General George Patton’s Grandfather.
Many Northerners refer to General Lee as a traitor…..it was a different country then and soldiers owed their loyalty to the State, not the Union, as Lee did.
Speaking of Virginia, please consider doing an article on Youngkin refusing to sign a bill enshrining contraception into law. He showed once again pubes’ hand of how far they really want to go and like Roe not enough people believe it. Those f,ers are two face liars that can NEVER be trusted with any power ever.
Here’s to hoping we’re correct.
And how much does anyone want to bet that the “exception” in the law “to save the mother’s life” will end up having as much weight as the Texas ban did? Remember the woman who went to court for “permission” and was denied, even though her health was at stake– just as the law had allowed?
With respect to AZ Supreme Court Justices, they serve indefinite terms, subject to a vote in General Elections that include Congressional elections to “approve” the performance of two, rotating through the bench. All the Justices were nominated by Republican Governors. There is already a call to vote “NO!” on the two who will be up this Fall.
I believe that the only time abortion is mentioned in the “Big Book of Jewish Fairy Tales” (aka The Bible), is in the book of Numbers.
And that mention is pro-abortion and states something to the effect of, if you believe that your woman has been unfaithful, the priest can give her a tonic that will cause her to abort.
Two other things in Torah allow abortions. The first is in Bereshit (Genesis): from the breath of life doth all life begin. Jewish law holds that the woman’s life IS the actual life and up to the time the fetus enters the birth canal, if it endangers the woman, it is aborted. Why? No breath of life and the woman’s life is, OBVIOUSLY, superior. The other deals with when recompense must be given when someone hurts a pregnant woman and she spontaneously aborts versus she herself dies. The spontaneous abortion (miscarriage) results in the offender paying a fine. The death of the woman is a homicide-intentional or accidental-and dealt with accordingly. A fetus being miscarried is dealt with the same as if someone kills your ox/cow/etc. A fine is levied. Harm resulting in the death of the actual human is dealt with much more harshly.
I am curious what is going to happen when other Jews (and other religions I’m sure) make this into a 1st Amendment issue like they did in Indiana? That won’t be the last time it happens. It will either tear down these types of bans OR label the s.c. of the u.s. (or of the individual states) as hypocrites. It will be interesting to see how it all plays out.