Next year, anti-abortion legislators may look to take broad steps. In addition to legislation that might arise from South Dakota’s move, lawmakers say they’ll look to establish the human rights for fetuses from the moment of fertilization.

"lawmakers say they’ll look to establish the human rights for fetuses from the moment of fertilization."

I was not aware that humans had the right to other humans' bodies without their consent. (Get it through your heads, misogynist fucktards, a fetus is entitled to its own body, and THAT'S IT.)

"What’s noticeably absent from this political argument is women" ... I've often spouted off over family get togethers about the risks that women are facing because of the changes in our country, but the women in my family don't seem to be interested in hearing about any of the facts -- pharmacists denying women their medication, EC being stalled by the FDA, the benefits of having choices, etc. I don't know how to communicate my frustration with the religious blockade on the rights of our citizens. Why does it seem like no one wants to discuss these matters? Are the people in my family so willing to give up their freedoms? Will they miss them when it's once again illegal to use birth control? What can be done to engage the women now while there's still a chance to fight?

Gerr, Your observations reflect a general myopia that has infected society. I am left just as beffuddled by the general rejection of confronting issues that deal with women's issues, and issues of our society that will come to bear in a most harmful manner in our immediate future. Perhaps it has been the advancement of personal rights in the past that leave people complacent. Perhaps they have convinced themselves that the past cannot be repeated. I fear that the most extreme measures will eventually awaken people that their rights, and victories of the past have been undermined.
Any student of history will recognise that advancement of progressive thought undergoes fits,and starts. Two steps forward, one step back. The one extra step forward always gains a little, but it is a painfull process,at times.
The sad part is that there are always victims of the one step back. Good luck in your quest with your family members.
Kyra, as long as it is an embryo, or fetus in a women's body, it is part of that woman, not a seperate human entity. It is for the particular woman to have the choice in deciding the future of that personal part of her body. THAT'S IT! as you put it.
It would be interresting to see the views of all if we were self-replicating{ the scientific term escapes me for the moment} How many men would be so vorificus in their condemnation of womens's concerns if they bore the same condition? How many states would become "blue"?
I just finished a book on the history of witch hunts and persecutions, in Christian history. Abomitable persecutians, based on illiterate beliefs. I see that women continue to be stigmatised, to a lesser degree, but no more abomitable than the degree that existed in the past.
Religion has not advanced to any degree, they just no longer have the power to burn you women at the stake for your beliefs. As I said, two steps forward, one step back. Those two steps add up after enough time.

Let them have the red states, they say. Abortion will still be legal in blue states and we can fight the battle state by state. What’s noticeably absent from this political argument is women--you know, the people most affected by these bans.

I wonder what "they" will say when their mothers, wives, girlfriends, sisters and daughters start going to jail.

Because along with obstructing access to birth control, criminalization of women who have abortions is very much on the anti-choice agenda.

I alluded to women being burnt at the stake last night for being condemned as witches, and I said that can no longer happen in modern society. I was correct to a point. Women cannot suffer that fate as hundreds of thousands did through out history, but there still exists a faction of society that would welcome "the good old days" in regards to punishing women who posses a thought process counter to "correct" teachings of a religion that is no more a cult than all other cults propagated by men who have claimed to have had the word of god passed on to them?{ Why is it never a woman who has witnessed a burning bush, or had a revelation in the desert of the Middle East?}
I suppose their answer would be that women are unworthy of receiving the message of god. Does that make god a misogynist? A hater of women? Is god gay? The points are silly, but I am trying to keep up with the gist of the far right messages regarding these issues.
Seriously, we must get up to par and militant about these issues. I will not stand for a regression of rights concerning women, as well as all others in this retroactive atmosphere pervading our political and societal condition today. Congress, the Senate, the Supreme Court be damned. {Forget about the idiot in the White House} It is up to us,the general public ,to dictate proper policies by the government that insures our proper due as citizens, as human beings, deserving of all rights that should be accorded, and guarenteed by our representatives

What has to be done is to reframe the entire debate. Most people who really research into the religious right and the anti-choice movements know that they have a larger agenda of forcing society back into a patriarchial system but with harsher punishment for anyone deviating from their views. They clearly think women belong back in the kitchen, barefoot, pregnant, submissive and ignorant. These people are not well meaning religious true believers. They are fascists intent on forcing everyone to change or be punished. These people need to be treated as the real problem they are. These people need to be forced out of office and their behavior clearly made outside of societies norm in the public mind.
Call them on their whole agenda. Just debating the specifics of abortion is giving them a pass and not holding them accountable for how unamerican they really are.

Kudos for you SDstuck. I spent an hour in my reply but got cut out for questianable content, so the hell with it! NO more replies from me here. Good luck to all of you!

More people in SD are forcing the larger conversation to include the whole agenda of the religious right in regards to women. What makes it even more ironic is using the words of those groups and prominent people in the "pro life" movement to show the hatred and oppression they want to impose on women. The fair weather pro life supporters run screaming when you start calling them on all the things the pro life groups are after like banning contraception, removing sex ed, anti gay legislation and their desire to shove women back into the kitchen. Suddenly some of the pro life supporters that were pulled into these groups by the abortion issue are questioning their alliances. They don't like being shown to be religious women hating bigots.