(Source: inothernews, via thereisnogod)

“Every time I read an article about conservatives being “pro- life” I am reminded of my brother who died of ALS at the age of 47. He spent the last 6 years of his life in nursing homes where the care, supervision and meals were abysmal. One of his former roommates was smoking a cigarette, fell asleep and burned to death because his diaper caught fire. Another roommate went home for the weekend to visit his mother and committed suicide in the garage of her home so that he wouldn’t have to return to the nursing home. I have to say that in all the years my brother was there I never once saw a group of conservatives out in front of the building shouting slogans about the sanctity of life and how all lives - no matter what age - are meaningful. I never once saw a group of evangelicals visiting with patients, pushing wheelchairs, or feeding the elderly residents. There were no Rick Santorums advocating on behalf of my brother who several years before had been a pro golfer and was still the father of two adorable young boys. When conservatives and evangelicals understand that ALL life really is sacred, including that of the elderly, the permanently disabled, the terminally ill, and the women and children who accidentally get bombed in the course of a war, then maybe I’ll listen to their opinions on contraceptives and/or abortion. For now, however, this is really just a politically heated argument about women’s reproductive rights and who gets to control those rights.” by The ‘Safe, Legal, Rare’ Illusion - NYTimes.com

(via stfuconservatives)

10 Reasons the Rest of the World Thinks the U.S. Is Nuts

I can vouch for this!

“Let me tell you some things. I used to investigate child abuse and...

feminisminapapercup:

““Let me tell you some things. I used to investigate child abuse and neglect. I can tell you how to stop the vast majority of abortion in the world. First, make knowledge and access to contraception widely available. Start teaching kids before they hit puberty. Teach them about domestic violence and coercion, and teach them not to coerce and rape. Create a strong, loving community where women and girls feel safe and supported in times of need. Because guess what? They aren’t. You know what happens to babies born under such circumstances? They get hurt, unnecessarily. They get sick, unnecessarily. They get removed from parents who love them but who are unprepared for the burden of a child. Resources? Honey, we try. There aren’t enough resources anywhere. There are waiting lists, and promises, and maybes. If the government itself can’t hook people up, what makes you think an impoverished single mom can handle it? Abolish poverty. Do you have any idea how much childcare costs? Daycare can cost as much or more than monthly rent. They may be inadequately staffed. Getting a private nanny is a nice idea, but they don’t come cheap either. Relatives? Do they own a car? Does the bus run at the right times? Do they have jobs of their own they need to work just to keep the lights on? Are they going to stick around until you get off you convenience store shift at 4 AM? Do they have criminal histories that will make them unsuitable as caregivers when CPS pokes around? You gonna pay for that? Who’s going to pay for that? End rape. I know your type errs on the side of blaming the woman, but I’ve seen little girls who’ve barely gotten their periods pregnant because somebody thought raping preteens was an awesome idea. You want to put a child through that? Or someone with a mental or physical inability for whom pregnancy would be frightening, painful or even life-threatening? I’ve seen nonverbal kids who had their feet sliced up by caregivers for no fucking reason at all, you think sexual abuse doesn’t happen either? You say there’s lots of couples who want to adopt. Kiddo, what they want to adopt are healthy white babies, preferably untainted by the wombs and genetics of women with alcohol or drug dependencies. I’ve seen the kids they don’t want, who almost no one wants. You people focus only on the happy pink babies, the gigglers, the ones who grow and grow with no trouble. Those are not the kids who linger in foster care. Those are certainly not the older kids and teenagers who age out of foster care and then are thrown out in the streets, usually with an array of medical and mental health issues. Are they too old to count? And yeah, I’ve seen the babies, little hand-sized things barely clinging to life. There’s no glory, no wonder there. There is no wonder in a pregnant woman with five dollars to her name, so deep in depression you wonder if she’ll be alive in a week. Therapy costs money. Medicine costs money. Food, clothes, electricity cost money. Government assistance is a pittance; poverty drives women and girls into situations where they are forced to rely on people who abuse them to survive. (I’ve been up in more hospitals than I can count.) In each and every dark pit of desperation, I have never seen a pro-lifer. I ain’t never seen them babysitting, scrubbing floors, bringing over goods, handing mom $50 bucks a month or driving her to the pediatrician. I ain’t never seen them sitting up for hours with an autistic child who screams and rages so his mother can get some sleep while she rests up from working 14-hour days. I don’t see them fixing leaks in rundown houses or playing with a kid while the police prepare to interview her about her sexual abuse. They’re not paying for the funerals of babies and children who died after birth, when they truly do become independent organisms. And the crazy thing is they think they’ve already done their job, because the child was born! Aphids give birth, girl. It’s no miracle. You want to speak for the weak? Get off your high horse and get your hands dirty helping the poor, the isolated, the ill and mentally ill women and mothers and their children who already breathe the dirty air. You are doing nothing, absolutely nothing, for children. You don’t have a flea’s comprehension of injustice. You are not doing shit for life until you get in there and fight that darkness. Until you understand that abortion is salvation in a world like ours. Does that sound too hard? Do you really think suffering post-birth is more permissible, less worthy of outrage? “Pro-life” is simply a philosophy in which the only life worth saving is the one that can be saved by punishing a woman.”

Holy shit, this blew my mind. To say it so simply. Bluntly. It’s powerful.  And this is why I am pro-choice. 

(via stfuconservatives)

“A racist woman is not a feminist; she doesn’t care about helping women, just the women who look like her and can buy the same things she can. A transphobic woman is not a feminist; she is overly concerned with policing the bodies and expressions of others. A woman against reproductive rights — to use bell hook’s own example, and an issue close to your heart — is not a feminist; she prioritizes her dogma or her disgust over the bodies of others. An ableist woman is not a feminist; she holds some Platonic ideal of what a physically or mentally “whole” person should be and tries to force the world to fit inside it.” by An Open Letter to Caitlin Moran by Nyux (via sister-bell)

(Source: redefiningbodyimage, via sister-bell)

“I think even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something God intended to happen.” by

Republican Senate candidate Richard Mourdock.

Well there’s a great reason to be an atheist, if ever I heard one.

STFU, Conservatives: So, GOP logic on reproductive rights goes like this:

stfuconservatives:

rabbleprochoice:

If you’re raped, and it was “legitimate”, then you should see your pregnancy (LOL, you can’t get pregnant from being legitimately raped but we’ll humor you) as a gift from God and give birth to a fetus you don’t want.

But we also don’t want you to be able to lessen your chances of getting pregnant from a “legitimate rape” (even though we know that can’t happen because the Fallopian tubes are spastic LOL) by using birth control which is why we don’t want it covered by any insurance companies anywhere under any circumstances. Oh, and if you ever wanted to have a kid without being raped but needed some help (perhaps because of how violent your illegitimate rape was), we’re gonna outlaw IVF, too.

And should you actually consent to a pregnancy we’re going to impose restrictions on you that will force you to give birth to it even if it’s stillborn because cows do it and we believe women and cows are similar. In addition, you won’t be able to get an abortion if your life is in danger because we know that’s never really warranted because SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY.

Should you bring a child into this world without complications (like you’ll have a choice in carrying to term or not, cause we’ll take away that shit, too, LOL), we don’t want to have to pay for it, so we will remove all social program funding to make sure you won’t have health insurance, WIC, protection from your abuser, or affordable reproductive or prenatal care through Planned Parenthood. Sucks if your rapist requests parental rights, visitation, or custody, too.

And we won’t do anything to make sure you’ll be paid a livable wage or even the same as your male peers so you might actually be able to provide for that gift from God that was conceived in rape because you need to make your rape lemons into lemonade, goddammit.

YOU’RE WELCOME.

Love,

Rabble

But no, it’s the *Democrats* who reduce uterus owners to their baby-making capacity. SIGHHH. We can just sum up this whole post as “reasons I am a liberal.”