Clarence Thomas tells us he will not be bullied.

Following protests sparked by the leak of a draft U.S. Supreme Court decision indicating the justices are poised to overturn the constitutional right to abortion, Justice Clarence Thomas said on Friday that the court cannot be “bullied.”

We know. That’s the nature of the Court: once they’re there, we’re stuck with them (barring impeachment, which is vanishingly rare).

Thomas, one of the most conservative justices on the nine-member court, made only a few passing references to the protests over the leaked draft opinion as he spoke at a judicial conference in Atlanta.

As a society, “we are becoming addicted to wanting particular outcomes, not living with the outcomes we don’t

Kathryn Joyce wrote about Amy Coney Barrett and abortion and the “supply” of babies the day after the leaked ruling:

If you want to understand what using adoption as the solution to unplanned pregnancies looks like, you don’t need to look far. But you do need to look. There’s a long and ugly history in the U.S. of coercive and even forced adoption. From roughly 1945 to 1972 — the year before the Supreme Court’s original Roe v. Wade decision — somewhere between 1.5 million and 6 million women relinquished infants for adoption, often after being “sent away” to homes for unwed mothers, where many women faced brutal coercion, were prohibited from contact with outsiders, went through labor and gave

Guy with an ugly habit of calling women names in public.

You are judged by the company you keep. If want to know why JK Rowling is detested by most right-minded members of the LGBTQ community, and disowned by the Emma Watsons and Daniel Radcliffes of this world, then this thread will do it. She is utterly loathsome. https://t.co/SUYmy999dl

— Darren Styles OBE (@bydarrenstyles) April 11, 2022

Please don’t donate. Allison is a terrible person, @stonewalluk saves lives. Thanks x https://t.co/UFas8wsm8K

— Darren Styles OBE (@bydarrenstyles) April 27, 2022

… Read the rest

This has taken my breath away. (You know how that goes, right? That one that’s so stunning you stare at it for long seconds, forgetting to breathe?)

The shops are running low on tomato sauce, so let’s offer farmers incentives for growing more tomatoes.

The adoption system is running low on babies, so we will now force women to produce them.

If Amy Coney Barrett really said that, it’s absolutely stunning.… Read the rest

Wearing a bag over the head is now mandatory in Afghanistan.

For women that is. Not for men, of course. Men get to see and breathe and talk like normal human beings. Women have to wear bags over their heads because they are whores.

Afghan women will have to wear the Islamic face veil for the first time in decades under a decree passed by the country’s ruling Taliban militants.

The country’s woman-hating theocrats who seized power by force. And the thing is not a face veil, it’s a literal bag over the head, with a thick mesh to peer through in hopes of seeing the car in time to avoid being run over.

The decree was passed by the

Not our crimes.

A transgender woman was sentenced Friday to 25 years in prison for forcing the 7-year-old daughter she fathered to participate in child pornography.

The 7-year-old daughter HE fathered. It’s a man’s crime.

Marina Volz, 32, of Franklin, was sentenced, along with three others, by Superior Court Judge Peter Tober for their roles in running a child pornography production company in their Coburn Lane home in Franklin Township.

…

Assistant Somerset County Prosecutor Brian Stack told the judge that the quartet was a “vortex of darkness” that “snuffed out” the girl who was taken from her mother in Oregon to New Jersey to be in the child pornography.

Imagine that poor child’s life there.

While not

I’ll be darned, the ACLU has a women’s rights project. I suppose it’s fully “inclusive.”

Its director is Ria Tabacco Mar, who writes in the Washington Post today about Alito’s cheery view of pregnancy:

Among the many shocking elements of the leaked draft Supreme Court opinion overturning Roe v. Wade, this one jumped out at me: the rosy picture of pregnancy painted by Justice Samuel Alito, who has never been pregnant.

Some wags on Twitter are asking how she can know that. Never mind; she corrects her error soon enough.

But anyone who has been pregnant — or cares to understand — knows that the reality in the United States is not rosy at all. At best, pregnant

How sad it is that we can’t do without women entirely, because of that one silly arrangement…

Brian Dowling has set his sights on becoming a first-time dad in 2022.

The Big Brother icon, 43, is hoping that this year will finally be the right time for him and husband Arthur Gourounlian to welcome their first child together.

The lovebirds, who tied the knot in 2015, have both shared their dreams of becoming parents over the years, but the process has been much harder than they first anticipated – partly due to the strict surrogacy laws in Ireland.

The process, you see – it turns out to be much harder than they expected because there has to be a … Read the rest

Department of Ridiculous Headlines:

Can the women’s movement be as effective without the word ‘women’?

Of course not. Any other questions?

If you were raised on 1970s feminism, as I was, the linguistic shift toward phrases such as “birthing people” and “uterus havers” has been a bit jarring.

No it hasn’t. It’s been utterly enraging.

The incongruity between old language and new became particularly noticeable this week, after Politico published a leaked draft of a Supreme Court decision that would overturn Roe v. Wade.

Particularly noticeable and enraging. You’re god damn right it did.

In 1987, the National Women’s Law Center called the nomination of Robert H. Bork to the Supreme Court “a particular threat to women”

Kathleen Stock has a dazzling piece on queeritude. It’s a must-read; I’ll just dangle a few amuse-bouches to tempt you.

In recent years, queerness has also become a fascinatingly multifunctional symbolic object in the psyche of the nation, simultaneously representing both sexily avant-garde transgression and fully paid-up membership of the British establishment.

Both a salad dressing and a drain cleaner!

A project on the history of the gerrymandered categories of “LGBTQ+” and “queer” is, of course, a fantastic idea; were it done properly, it would be genuinely exciting. Ideally such a museum would interrogate the sociological and historical conditions of its own movement. It might ask, for instance: what economic forces have shaped its transition from the gay rights

Well how about that. Strangio manages to retweet Democracy Now using The Word not once but twice.

Alito cited Matthew Hale in his draft. Who? Bess Levin at Vanity Fair has the deets:

As Slate’s Mark Joseph Stern notes, the draft—which could change before a the final ruling, as could the various justices’ votes—doesn’t just lay out the case for why Roe should be overturned, it goes full scorched earth. Alito, Stern writes, “does not seek out any middle path. He disparages Roe and its successors as dishonest, illegitimate, and destructive to the court, the country, and the Constitution. He quotes a wide range of anti-abortion activists, scholars, and judges who view abortion as immoral and barbaric; there’s even a footnote that approvingly cites Justice Clarence Thomas’s debunked theory that abortion is a tool of

Yet another one.

Reporter Chabeli Carrazana at 19th News:

In a leaked draft opinion that would overturn Roe v. Wade, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito argued that pregnant people don’t actually need access to abortion to ensure economic mobility — they already have it. 

Except he didn’t, as she immediately goes on to say.

According to the opinion, which was published by Politico Monday night, “unmarried pregnant women” — Alito does not include all pregnant people in his opinion — now have access to pregnancy discrimination protections, “guaranteed” medical leave “in many cases,” and medical costs that are “covered by insurance or government assistance.” 

Yes he does. All pregnant people are women. The normal wording is “pregnant women,” not “pregnant people.” … Read the rest

There seems to be a competition, declared or not, to caption Owen Jones’s selfie from today.

pic.twitter.com/TgNNbJ3mvP

— Owen Jones (@OwenJones84) May 5, 2022

Aw, why so sad, little buddy?

"Let me take a photo of you by the polling station for Grandma in that t-shirt she got you" pic.twitter.com/irm9tz7qBP

— Shambo – currently denying all rumours (@BradfemlyWalsh) May 5, 2022

pic.twitter.com/90JEMbWNTa

— mole at the counter (@moleatthedoor) May 5, 2022

… Read the rest

Survivors’ Network is righteously indignant:

Survivors’ Network is a charity supporting survivors of sexual violence and abuse. We support survivors of all ages and genders in Sussex and this includes Trans and Non-Binary people. We are committed to intersectionality, and trans-inclusive feminism is central to our ethos.  

But does that mean women don’t get to have support without men around? It appears it does mean that:

We are disappointed to share that we have recently had legal action taken against us due to our trans-inclusive ethos. The claimant alleges that we have broken equalities law as (they allege) it is not legitimate or proportionate to welcome trans women into our women-only spaces.  

In other words they refuse to provide … Read the rest

Meanwhile Louisiana goes all in:

Louisiana lawmakers advanced a bill out of committee Wednesday that could make having an abortion grounds to be charged with homicide, going far beyond other state-level punishments for abortion, and could take effect whether the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade or not.

…

The bill “fully recognize[s] the human personhood of an unborn child” starting at the “moment of fertilization” and grants embryos and fetuses the same rights under law as human beings out of the womb.

The fertilized egg is “a child.”

This means having, assisting or performing an abortion would be classified as homicide.

Soon they’ll be executing women for menstruating.

The legislation would take effect immediately even if federal abortion

Out of curiosity I looked for other reporting on Kamala Harris’s denunciation of the leaked abortion ruling and oh gee guess what NPR carefully left out all but one of her mentions of women.

Vice President Harris on Tuesday blasted a leaked draft that indicated that the Supreme Court had voted to overturn the landmark abortion rights decision Roe v. Wade, declaring that “women’s rights in America are under attack.”

“If the court overturns Roe v. Wade it will be a direct assault on freedom — on the fundamental right of self-determination to which all Americans are entitled,” she said.

NPR carefully did not quote:

Those Republican leaders who are trying to weaponize the use of the law against

Kamala Harris still says the W word.

Those Republican leaders who are trying to weaponize the use of the law against women — well, we say, “How dare they?” How dare they tell a woman what she can do and cannot do with her own body? How dare they? How dare they try to stop her from determining her own future? How dare they try to deny women their rights and their freedoms?

…

She then used a term too few Democrats employ: “freedom.” “We must link arms in this fight. I invite all people to join us,” she said. “If you stand for freedom, for self-determination, for the right to privacy — if you stand for these principles,

Planned Parenthood is strikingly consistent about avoiding the word “women.”

"It is Black people that suffer the worst consequences of abortion restrictions and bans."

A must-read from our president, @alexismcgill https://t.co/S8J9LwRZgI

— Planned Parenthood (@PPFA) May 5, 2022

Oklahoma: We’re here with you. We’re not giving up. We’re doing everything in our power to stop this ban.

If you need an abortion, call 1-800-230-PLAN or visit https://t.co/lR8fbY0GNF to make an appointment. https://t.co/evewSwslJY

— Planned Parenthood (@PPFA) May 3, 2022

“Oklahoman” is a weirdly awkward substitute for “women in Oklahoma” if you ask me.

Your body is your own. You and only you should control your personal medical decisions.

— Planned Parenthood (@PPFA) May 3, 2022

The Title X program is