The United States has no business passing abortion restrictions

When the men who dominate American government enact abortion restrictions, they are saying they know better than the people who actually have to deal with the consequences of those restrictions.

Black-and-white photos of women and men holding signs reading "Keep abortion legal," "Baby had NO choice," and other things.
Pro-choice and anti-abortion protesters outside the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., on April 26, 1989, the day of opening arguments in Webster v. Reproductive Health Services. Photo by Lorie Shaull.

The word tyrant, as most of us know, comes from tyrannosaurus. The political philosophers of ancient Greece mockingly compared the dictators of their day to the fearsome carnivorous dinosaur. "His roar incites terror," Plato wrote in the Iliad, "but though he grabs at everything, his stubby arms can reach only so far." Images of regional strongmen depicted as T-rexes were particularly popular in the editorial cartoons appearing on opinion pages in all the major Athenian newspapers of the time. But it wasn't all fun and games, of course. "Whatever either tyrannosaurus or tyrant grabs," Plato warned, "will inevitably be torn to shreds by his jaws of steel." (This is why his famous allegory of the cave was such a big deal: To build a republic, you needed a place deep underground, where you could meet without being attacked by a literal or metaphorical tyrannosaurus.)

Neither dinosaurs nor the Greeks are still with us, but tyrants and tyranny endure—even here in these United States of America, and even when Donald Trump isn't president. Even, in more than a few cases, when laws are passed by a supposedly democratic process and no corruption is involved.

Listen: This country has never had a president with a uterus. It's only had one vice president with a uterus. Out of just over a total 2,000 U.S. senators in history, 60 have been women—or 3 percent. (Of course, women only became allowed to hold that office a century ago.) The House of Representatives has had 377 women serve, out of over 11,000 members total (or 3.4 percent). Only six women have served as Supreme Court justices, out of 115 total, which is a little over 5 percent. The numbers get a little better at the state level, in some states, but not markedly so.

A pro-choice and an anti-abortion demonstrator confront each other outside the Supreme Court in 1989, Washington DC.
Photo by Lorie Shaull.

Given the above, how does the U.S. government have any business making laws about abortion?

It is tyrannical, as far as I'm concerned, to make rules about something without the involvement of people who are direct stakeholders in it. Men—cisgender men, I should say, because the trans men do get annoyed when they're not acknowledged—don't get pregnant. We don't give birth. On average, we do much less child care than women, and are much more likely to skip out on our kids.

When the men who dominate American government enact abortion restrictions, they are saying they know better than the people who actually have to deal with the consequences of those restrictions. This is a heap of horseshit. If women controlled the levers of government, would it be okay for them to pass laws about when and where and how we could ejaculate? As a man, let me tell you: I'm pretty sure we would be furious. A few guys would probably be into it—but so into it, they would make the women regret it.

There is no shortage of good arguments for the right to have an abortion. But one of the simplest is that nobody should be passing laws that affect other people without, at minimum, those people's meaningful input and participation. (Especially when women were doing just fine managing abortion before men made a conscious decision to insert themselves into it.)

Good to Know

In related news, this is from January but came over my feed the other day: "A study in the Journal of the American Medical Association calculates there have been more than 64,000 rape-related pregnancies in areas with [abortion bans that make no exception for rape or incest]." The people who spent years working on overturning Roe v. Wade did not spend any of that time worrying about mitigating consequences like that.

And from those same people: a Republican presidential nominee who is ramping up his threats against immigrants, saying "he would use the Alien Enemies Act, which allows a president to authorize rounding up or removing people who are from enemy countries in times of war, to pursue migrant gangs and criminal networks." Historically, authoritarian dictators have always said they're just going to go after the criminals—and historically, somehow they always end up going after law-abiding legal immigrants and even citizens of the same backgrounds, too. "Don't vote for any politician who talks about wanting to round anybody up" is a pretty good rule of thumb.

Sad news on that front: The guy arrested for having guns outside the former president's rally on Sunday was not trying to assassinate Donald Trump. The county sheriff who said he was seems to have [puts on sunglasses] jumped the gun.

If you're worried about presidential election polls, one Democratic strategist says Republican groups are creating fake polls showing big gains by Trump—which isn't new, but they're doing a lot more of it this time. Part of the reason is to discourage Democrats, but more importantly, it's about setting themselves up to claim the election was stolen if Harris wins. As in: "How could she win when the polls had him seven points ahead?!?"

The general read this election, from observers I trust, seems to be that polling is broken, whether it's because even fewer people have landlines and answer their phones now than they did in 2020 or for some other reason. All the careful people I follow keep coming to the same conclusion: It's a tight race that could go either way, and it has been the whole time. New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie—one of the few people in that job who seems to sincerely care about getting his shit right—posted Sunday: "really can’t emphasize enough that there is no actual evidence that the shape of the presidential race has changed."

compare one week after the debate to now —post by @jamellebouie.net on Bluesky, 13 October 2024
@jamellebouie.net

The company wasn't really hiding it, but at Tesla's event last Thursday, October 10, the bartending robots were controlled by humans.

And you can read more about Kamala Harris's proposal to expand Medicare to cover the cost of long-term care. It really can't be emphasized enough that a program like this is not optional, because America is only making more old people.

The Fun Part

SCAM ALERT – IMPORTANT  The cat has already been fed. —post by @levparikian.bsky.social on 13 October 2024
@levparikian.bsky.social
Does any of this life mean anything? No worries if not. —post by @tomorrowx3.bsky.social on 10 October 2024
@tomorrowx3.bsky.social

And my friend Bob posted this in a response to a call for tweets you think about all the time. I think about it all the time too:

[mysterious old lady flips tarot card revealing a dude who looks exactly like me flying a hot air balloon into power lines Me: is that good

Having a Normal One comes out Monday through Friday. Subscribe today for just $3/month or $33/year. Posts are available for free after one day at normalnewsletter.net.

Hit me up at joshwimmer@gmail.com with questions, suggestions, thoughts and feelings, tips, and politely worded corrections and criticism. If you think someone would be interested in this newsletter, forward it to them. It will only take a few seconds. You could easily forward it to seven or eight people in the space of a minute. Who are the seven or eight richest people you know? (Rich in money, I mean—not in, like, friends or love.) Just forward it to them with a note at the top: "This is my friend Josh. His children are very sick. All of them. Can you help him out?" Make sure to delete this part where I'm explaining what to do before you send it.