This week, a Georgia woman was arrested for her miscarriage. Iâll let that sit with you a moment.
The 24-year-oldâfound bleeding and unconscious outside her apartment complexâwas charged with âconcealing a deathâ and âabandoning a dead bodyâ after placing fetal remains in the trash.
Georgia has no law dictating how to dispose of miscarriage remains, but police arrested her anyway. Her mugshot is already splashed across the local crime pages. Did you know that one million American women miscarry every year? I hope the cops are ready to run out of film.
While this young woman sat behind bars, Georgia lawmakers considered a bill that would lock up even more women: The Prenatal Equal Protection Act (HB 441) would charge abortion patients as murderersâa crime punishable by life in prison or the death penalty.
You wouldnât know it from looking at the headlines. From the Associated Press to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, HB 441 is being covered as a âtotal abortion banâ rather than a radical step toward punishing women.
Fertility doctors could also be jailed for life; under HB 441, discarding frozen embryos would be a criminal offense. Fertility specialist Dr. Karenne Fru asked lawmakers at a Thursday hearing, âAm I guilty of murder? That makes me a serial killer.â
This isnât an issue of a single extremist state. The legislation in Georgia is one of eleven âequal protectionâ bills that have been introduced across the country since the start of the year. All of them seek to punish women who have abortions. The rest of us, of course, remain suspect: An Idaho legislator explained to a reporter last month that his âequal protectionâ bill would allow for the investigation of miscarriages.
Weâre barely three years out from the end of Roe. Still think feminists are âhystericalâ?
Women's rights
They're Arresting Us for Miscarriages Now
The Top Goal of Project 2025 Is Still to Come
in The AtlanticI don't usually even read, much less recommend, anything paywalled, but this makes some important points:
âFreedom is a fragile thing, and itâs never more than one generation away from extinction,â Ronald Reagan said in 1967, in his inaugural address as governor of California. Kevin D. Roberts, the president of the Heritage Foundation, approvingly quotes the speech in his foreword to Project 2025, the conservative think tankâs blueprint for the Trump administration. Roberts writes that the plan has four goals for protecting its vision of freedom: restoring the family âas the centerpiece of American lifeâ; dismantling the federal bureaucracy; defending U.S. âsovereignty, borders, and bountyâ; and securing âour God-given individual rights to live freely.â
Project 2025 has proved to be a good road map for understanding the first months of Donald Trumpâs second term, but most of the focus has been on efforts to dismantle the federal government as we know it. The effort to restore traditional families has been less prominent so far, but it could reshape the everyday lives of all Americans in fundamental ways.
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In this vision, men are breadwinners and women are mothers. âWithout women, there are no children, and society cannot continue,â Max Primorac writes in his chapter on USAID, where he served in the first Trump administration. (Primorac calls for ridding the agency of âwokeâ politics and using it as an instrument of U.S. policy, but not the complete shutdown Trump has attempted.) Jonathan Berry writes that the Department of Labor, where he previously worked, would âcommit to honest study of the challenges for women in the world of professional workâ and seek to âunderstand the true causes of earnings gaps between men and women.â (This sounds a lot like research predetermined to reach an outcome backing the traditional family.) The Labor Department would produce monthly data on âthe state of the American family and its economic welfare,â and the Education Department would provide student data sorted by family structure. Severino suggests that the government either pay parents (most likely mothers) to offset the cost of caring for children, or pay for in-Âhome care from family members; he opposes universal day care, which many on the right see as encouraging women to work rather than stay home with kids.
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Right-wing leaders have made attacks on trans people and nontraditional expressions of gender a cornerstone of right-wing politics over the past few years. They have spread disinformation about trans people and panicked over the prospect of children adopting different gender identities or names at school. What is the reason for so much fear? Transgender people make up less than 2 percent of the population, and their presence in society doesnât evidently harm other people. Project 2025âs pro-Âfamily orientation helps explain why the right considers them such a threat. A worldview that sees gender roles as strictly delineated and immutable cannot acknowledge the existence of trans people or anything else that contemplates an alternative to a total separation between what it means to be male and what it means to be female.
Trump has not yet made stricter abortion policies a focus in his new term. Though he has boasted about appointing Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade, he seems wary of pushing further, for fear of political backlash. Project 2025 has no such qualms. Severino recommends withdrawing FDA approval for abortion drugs, banning their prescription via telehealth, and using 1873âs Comstock Act to prohibit their mailing. He also recommends a strong federal surveillance program over abortion at the state level. Project 2025 also calls for the return of abstinence-only education and the criminalization of pornography.
With a little imagination, we can glimpse the America that Project 2025 proposes. It is an avowedly Christian nation, but following a very specific, narrow strain of Christianity. In many ways, it resembles the 1950s. While fathers work, mothers stay at home with larger families. At school, students learn old-Âfashioned values and lessons. Abortion is illegal, vaccines are voluntary, and the state is minimally involved in health care. The government is slow to police racial discrimination in all but its most blatant expressions. Trans and LGBTQ people existâÂthey always haveâÂbut are encouraged to remain closeted. It is a vision that suggests Reagan was right: Freedom Âreally is a fragile thing.
The fight for trans rights is beyond the âvisibility eraâ: âThis moment calls for radical defianceâ
in PinkNewsFor activist Raquel Willis, co-founder of the Gender Liberation Movement alongside Eliel Cruz, the fight for trans rights and universal bodily autonomy has to move past the visibility era to be truly impactful.
âThis idea of simply using visibility as a means to bring about the kind of culture and society thatâs going to receive trans folks with the respects that we deserve is over,â she told PinkNews, âand so we have to be thinking in new ways about how to protect ourselves, our voices, our histories and our brilliance without relying on a lot of the institutions that have really pushed the visibility vehicle.â
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For many, access to abortion and gender affirming care might be thought of as different social issues impacting distinctly different groups of people; things to campaign for separately but not together. This line of thinking is similar to how trans rights and womenâs rights more widely are often framed by the right-wing press as in direct contrast with one another when instead they are not opposites sides of a coin but rather intricately intertwined.
New York Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez noted this in response to Maceâs bathroom ban, telling reporters in November that such restrictions endanger âall women and girlsâ because âpeople are going to want to check their private parts in suspecting who is trans and who is cisâ.
âThe idea that Nancy Mace wants little girls and women to drop trou in front of, who, an investigator, because she wants to suspect and point fingers at who she thinks is trans is disgusting. It is disgusting. And frankly, all it does is allow these Republicans to go around and bully any woman who isnât wearing a skirt because they think she might not look woman enough,â AOC added.
The intersectionality between the two issues hence sits at the very core of the GLMâs mission because âmany of the same forces and entities that are targeting access to abortion are also targeting access to gender affirming careâ, Willis said.
Cruz explained: âIn the United States, legal precedents are being used to try to pass one another. So these connections are already there in terms [âŠ] of those who are making these attacks and for us it was important to marry the different groups of people that people may not necessarily talk about in the same ways.
âReally bringing those connections together in a very intentional way.â
Opinion | The Supreme Court Case Over Trans Youth Could Also Decimate Womenâs Equality
in PoliticoOne idea that Tennessee has floated â that sex-based laws related to biological sex difference are shielded from scrutiny â is particularly pernicious. As I have shown in research, this has never been the courtâs approach. And for good reason. Throughout the history of sex discrimination, hiding bias behind biology has been a common tactic. Many sex-based lines that have been challenged in the court â from a male-only university admissions policy to rules distinguishing mothers and fathers when it comes to the citizenship of their children â have been couched in terms of physical sex differences. Upon examination, the court has acknowledged that sex stereotypes and not biological differences drive these laws. Without requiring that courts take a close look at all sex-based laws, we make it far too easy to legislate on sexual prejudice.
Just as important as addressing womenâs subordination, equal protection has been a key tool in striking down laws that confine not just women, but men, to traditional roles and expectations. Equal protection has been used to invalidate laws that exclude men from caregiving or that require anyone to conform their behavior or appearance to sex-based conventions. In doing so, the doctrine helps to free all of us from limiting sex stereotypes.
Seen this way, it is not hard to appreciate that the law at issue here strikes at the heart of sex equality. The Tennessee law â and trans discrimination more generally â is not only about discrimination against trans people, but about ensuring that we all keep in our gender lanes. As Prelogar explained, the law here is âone that prohibits inconsistency with sex,â requiring that children born as boys and girls âlook and live like boys and girls.â Tennesseeâs argument would call into question the longstanding freedom we all enjoy to live our lives as we wish, regardless of sex.
The GOP Is Rewriting What It Means to Be a Person
in The New RepublicâThe selectivity about whom the Fourteenth Amendment ought to apply to is stunning,â said Khiara M. Bridges, professor at University of California at Berkeley School of Law. âItâs not demanded by the text of the Constitution at all. Instead, these are political choices that are being made, and theyâre elevating certain individualsâ rights.â
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The recent Supreme Court arguments about Tennesseeâs ban on gender-affirming care for adolescents underscored the selectivity in who gets to exercise Fourteenth Amendment rights. The conservative position in U.S. v. Skrmetti is that while parents typically get to argue a due process right to direct their childrenâs upbringing, that right does not extend to parenting that affirms their transgender childâs identity. Trans adolescents canât access medical care that is legal for their cisgender peers, and Republicans claim this is a regulation, not discrimination based on sex. Under this interpretation, even trans and nonbinary adults could continue to see their rights diminished.
âThis [incoming] administration would be interested in denying them health care and, if not criminalizing them, certainly banishing them from public spaces,â Bridges said. One conservative group says it will pursue a ban on federal insurance covering affirming treatments, akin to the Hyde Amendment for abortion.
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As far as immigrants are concerned, President-elect Trump has also said he wants to end birthright citizenship and start a mass deportation program, which would necessarily rope in U.S. citizens. While citizenship for people born on U.S. soil is written verbatim into the Fourteenth Amendment, conservatives have previewed an argument to gut it.
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Bridges said this countryâs history of mass deportations is rife with evidence that legal residents will be caught up in the dragnet. Hundreds of thousands of U.S. citizens with Mexican ancestry were deported during the Great Depression under President Herbert Hoover. (His slogan was âAmerican jobs for real Americans.â) President Dwight Eisenhowerâs 1950s deportation regime also wrongly removed American citizens of Mexican descent.
âThis wasnât about undocumentedness, and this wasnât about immigrants. This was about non-whiteness,â Bridges said. Under Trump 2.0, she said, the U.S. would once again be removing people from the U.S. because they are not white. âWeâre talking about building camps, right? Thatâs where we are.â
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The groups of people whose Fourteenth Amendment rights to be recognized as full humans are under attack from Republicans are deeply connected to one another. âItâs an error to read these things separate from one another,â Bridges said, adding that the obsession with mass deportations is connected to the desire to end birthright citizenship, which are both tied to wanting to revert to traditional gender and family norms, and thatâs linked to the interest in giving rights to fertilized eggs. âAll of these things are part of the same project,â she said. âThis is about whiteness and patriarchy. Itâs about creating the U.S. as a nation for white men.â
Facebook bans ads for award-winning Votes for Women board gameâs new Kickstarter, claims it is a âsensitive social issueâ
in BoardGameWireTory Brownâs debut game, published by Fort Circle Games, catapulted both designer and publisher into the board gaming limelight following its release in 2022, picking up widespread praise from reviewers including Polygonâs Charlie Hall, who named it one of the yearâs best board games, and game design luminaries including Undaunted series co-designer David Thompson.
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But Fort Circle founder Kevin Bertram told BoardGameWire the Facebook ads for the campaign he has been submitting since the start of the New Year are all being rejected after a very short amount of time on the site.
The automated response Bertram is receiving from Facebook says the ads are being rejected because they either mention a politician or are about âsensitive social issuesâ, which âcould influence how people vote and may impact the outcome of an election or pending legislationâ.
His requests for review have also all been rejected.
Society âdisappearsâ ageing women. So I harnessed that cloak of invisibility to do all sorts of âinappropriateâ things
in The GuardianInstead of simmering in a stew of rage and resentment I began to wonder if that conferred invisibility could be harnessed. If I reframed it as a cloak of invisibility I could do all sorts of things âinappropriateâ for my age.
I refrained from robbing a bank (though fairly sure I could have got away with the loot), instead turning my attention to street art.
My first guerrilla paste-up a decade or so ago was in a lane in Ballarat, Victoria. I was quite nervous and slightly fearful of being at least fined so I donned a hi-vis vest and put out semi-official public work signs and had a friend spotting for me. I neednât have bothered â people went past me and simply did not see me.
British police testing women for abortion drugs
in Tortoise MediaOther reports include requests for âdata related to menstruation tracking applicationsâ as part of the policeâs investigations.
Itâs understood these requests have been taking place for at least the past three years. Dr Jonathan Lord, co-chair of the British Society of Abortion Care Providers and an NHS consultant gynaecologist, called searching womenâs phones for menstrual data âchilling and deeply intrusiveâ.
âWe already know that police routinely remove phones and computers from women suspected of having an [illegal] abortion and itâs even happening following miscarriage and pregnancy loss,â Lord said. âThis is damaging enough as it leaves women frightened and isolated immediately after suffering a substantial trauma.â
Lord told Tortoise he was aware of cases of blood tests being taken with the womanâs consent by NHS staff at the request of police, including, he said, âwhen women knew they were innocent after suffering an unexpected premature deliveryâ.
Even when the test finds no trace of abortion medication women can continue to remain under suspicion âas a negative test does not exclude earlier use of drugsâ, he said. In that event, he argued, âthe only motivation for testing is entrapmentâ.
A Woman Was Denied Medication for Being of âChildbearing Age.â She Just Sued the Hospital
in JezebelLast September, New York resident Tara Rule posted a raw, emotional video on Tiktok saying she had been denied a medication to treat a debilitating condition called cluster headaches, because her neurologist told her she was of âchildbearing ageâ and the medication could cause birth defects to a hypothetical fetus.
Rule said that as she sat in her neurologistâs office at Glens Falls Hospital, she told him she never planned to have kids and would have an abortion if she became pregnant; referencing the overturning of Roe v. Wade, he responded that getting the care she was seeking is âtrickier now with the way things are going.â He also said she should bring her partner âin on the conversationâ on her medical care. Rule asked if the issue preventing her from getting the âhighly effectiveâ medication was solely that she could become pregnant and, âIf I was, like, through menopause, would [the medication] be very effective for cluster headaches?â The doctor affirmed it would. He also asked about her sex life and whether sheâs âwith a steady person.â Rule shared audio recordings of the appointment on TikTok at the time.