#either i just post the poll with whatever choice its going with in text and screenshot form

[ajdrawshq]

so. for the hypothetical 999 poll playthrough. for both ppl who already know the plot n all that AND ppl who just know things secondhand/have never seen this game in your Life but like clicking poll buttons

screenshots will be included regardless just because <3

[rotationalsymmetry]

This election season I’m not waiting for the “a vote for a third party candidate is a vote for a Republican/if you don’t vote because you don’t like either major party candidate then you’re the problem and also clearly swimming in privilege (because there’s totally a correlation between being privileged and not voting)” thing to start up, I’m just going to preemptively unfollow anyone who posts anything GOTV-ish that rubs me even slightly the wrong way.

Ahem. Voting is a choice, and for the system to even halfway sort of kind of function it has to be. If Democrats cannot possibly lose votes on the left no matter what they do, but can lose votes in the center, they will inevitably drift right. The only way we can mitigate this is if there’s some penalty in the voting box if a Democrat is too fucking centrist for words. Moreover, there are tons of people who intend to vote Democrat but might not if not given a little bit of a push/reminder to register/ride to the polls/etc, so please focus on those. Like the people who are actually paid to get out the vote (or who even just volunteer a few hours of their time with the Democratic Party, rather than independently posting whatever makes them feel superior on social media) do, you know? I understand text banking is a big thing these days, and for people who like a bit of creativity there’s postcards.

There is, also, especially for national elections, a sense in which voting is…how do I phrase this? You know when you give a young child a choice of doing their math homework with the pencil with unicorns on it or the pencil with the spaceships on it in hopes that they won’t notice you’re not giving them a choice about the homework itself? Voting can be like that, a way to get people to feel like the state represents them, and if there’s an asshat in power it’s other people’s fault, so that they will follow the rules and not, idk, unscrew the middle bar on park benches with an Allen key so that homeless people can sleep there or whatever. Or lie on their resume. Or refuse to rely on the cops when something goes wrong. Or hire people for odd jobs without asking for their social security number and paying them under the table so they don’t have to pay taxes/report their earnings and possible lose their disability money/whatever. Or look the other way when they see someone shoplifting baby formula. Or pirate movies, whatever.

The state functions largely by getting people to believe that it is good and that following the rules is good, and elections (where we all get to pretend that a politician’s constituents are the people who voted for them, and not the institutions that funded the campaign) are part of that smokescreen.

You will notice the unicorn pencil/smokescreen interpretation is not actually incompatible with the results of the election having a great deal of importance on people’s lives. Indeed, it would be quite difficult to get people to buy into the concept if the election results didn’t matter.

There is power in deciding the system is not just and you are not morally obligated to play by its rules. There is power in saying “the decisions made by my government are not made with my consent and are enforced against my will.” There is power in saying “not my president” about every president.

[heathershomilies]

Before we go any further, I should note that I am unapologetically pro-choice. I’ve been pro-choice for as long as I can remember. I recall thinking women should be able to have an abortion, if they want one, when I was just eight year old (1972-73).

(New Zealand’s Contraception, Sterilisation, and Abortion Bill was making its way through parliament at the time. It was naturally controversial, and was in the news a lot. Thus, I was aware of the issue.)

As far as I’m concerned, if you oppose abortion, don’t have one. That’s your choice. But you don’t, or at least you shouldn’t, have the right to tell someone else what to do with their body. Even worse, you shouldn’t have the right to force your beliefs onto another person. I think it’s appalling that there are actually laws that make abortion illegal in so many countries.

(One of those countries is my own: New Zealand. However, there’s a criteria allowing abortion in our law that almost all doctors interpret extremely liberally. As a result, abortion is freely available in our public hospitals. Further, a separate privacy law introduced in the 1980s specifically states parents do not have to give permission, or receive notification, in relation to contraception or abortion for minors.)

When I was a child, it just seemed fair to me. As I got older, and got to know more about the subject, my position became stronger and stronger. My opinion is now supported by multiple data, much of which I hope to cover in this post.

Now, on with the show.

  Abortion and US Law

In 1973, in a Supreme Court ruling known as Roe v. Wade, US women had their right to an abortion established by law. However, ever since there have been attempts to get that right taken away again. Republicans have adopted this cause as their own. Thus where they control the state government (red states), women’s right to an abortion is more at risk.

Four years after Roe v. Wade, a law known as the Hyde Amendment came into being. It meant that federal money could not be spent on abortions except in the cases of rape, incest, or if the life of the mother was in danger.

This is obviously an absolute disgrace for multiple reasons, but there are two that I think are the more important than the others.

1. The Most Vulnerable Will Be Affected the Most

Firstly, it means that if you’re vulnerable in any way, it’s much harder to get an abortion. So this law disproportionately affects women of colour, young women, those with a disability, etc. In short, those women who, in general, will have the most difficulty caring for a child. (Women who can afford to do so will simply go to another state to have their abortion.) It means many women will either be forced to continue with a pregnancy which may be physically or mentally dangerous or, in their desperation, they will feel forced to resort to dangerous abortion methods.

Some lawmakers, in their complete lack of compassion or understanding, have even introduced laws to make having an abortion first degree murder. For example, Vox reports that Texan Republican state legislator Tony Tinderholt has introduced a Bill there that would introduce the death penalty for women having abortions. Vox reports he, ” says it would make people “consider the repercussions” of having sex.

2. The Effect on Women’s Health Service Providers e.g. Planned Parenthood

Secondly, the Hyde Amendment makes providers of women’s health services, like Planned Parenthood, vulnerable to attacks from anti-choice activists.

Planned Parenthood receives half a billion dollars a year from the federal government to help fund the multiple health services they provide, mostly to women. However, anti-choice activists represent them as doing nothing but abortions and are constantly calling for their funding to be taken away. They’ve even had success in some red states in relation to that.

The reality is that only three percent of Planned Parenthood’s services relate to abortion. Further, the money they get from the federal government, while significant, only accounts for around 40% of their funding. All anti-choice activists do when they deny Planned Parenthood funding is ensure women, especially those who are poor or otherwise vulnerable, have less or no access to healthcare.

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(Planned Parenthood graphic. Sourced via NPR)

Anti-choice activists know this, of course, but they don’t appear to care. Some even freely admit that they’ll do whatever it takes to get a win for their cause. Anti-choice activists call themselves pro-life (and I’ll get to why that’s a myth later), but some won’t even condemn the extremists within their movement who go so far as the murder of abortion providers. In fact, a small number not only endorse violence and murder, they raise money to support those who carry out such acts. Their opinion is they’re committing justifiable homicide. In the US at least, they’re almost exclusively conservative Christians, whose interpretation of the Bible is that God opposes abortion.

  The USA Wants Roe v. Wade to Remain the Law

In the past, the US Supreme Court (SCOTUS) has been a reflection of US society. When the issue of same-sex marriage came before them, for example, they were in large part reflecting the changing views of US society in making it legal.

Therefore, if any cases relating to abortion make it to the Supreme Court, abortion should remain legal too. According to Pew (their emphasis):

About six-in-ten U.S. adults (58%) said in a 2018 survey that abortion should be legal in all or most cases, compared with 37% who said it should be illegal all or most of the time. Public opinion on this question has been relatively stable over more than two decades of Pew Research Center polling, and there is little difference between the views of men and women.

Further:

When it comes to the Supreme Court’s landmark 1973 ruling, about seven-in-ten Americans (69%) said Roe v. Wade should not be completely overturned, according to a survey conducted in late 2016.

Into the Weeds

There are demographic differences, all of which readers can probably predict:

1. Democrats are more likely to think abortion should be legal than Republicans.

2. The more educated you are, the more likely you are to think Roe v. Wade should not be overturned.

62% of those with a high school diploma or less; 70% of those with some college education; 74% of those with a college degree; 88% of those with a post-graduate qualification.

think Roe v. Wade should not be overturned,

3. The only area of the country where a majority think abortion should be illegal is the Bible Belt.

  Abortion and the Republican Party (GOP)

The US Republican Party (GOP) has always been anti-abortion. Its official platform on abortion doesn’t even make exceptions for rape, incest, or the life of the mother.

In the past, their attempts to completely take away a woman’s right to choose have been unsuccessful. There has been a lot of success in states that Republicans control though, making it more difficult for women to exercise that legal right. However, the election in 2016 of a misogynist who cares more about the anti-abortion Evangelical Christians that cheer him on than the wishes of the majority of his citizens is a worry for all of us who care about women’s rights.

Donald Trump and Abortion

Before he was a Republican politician, most of Trump’s views were more progressive. There was a time when he was pro-choice. But now that he needs to appeal to far-right Christian conservatives, that’s what he’s doing. During the 2016 election campaign, he was even heard to call for the punishment of women who have an abortion, just like the Christian abortion extremists he’s trying to appeal to.

Those in the Republican party who are anti-choice are taking advantage of having a sympathetic ear in the White House. As a result, they’re having some success in their moves towards making abortion illegal again.

A safe, legal abortion is a choice that should be available to all woman when faced with an unplanned pregnancy, or one that she doesn’t want to go ahead with because of the risk to her’s or the future child’s health or life. But, following the election of Donald Trump, that choice is increasingly at risk.

Why is Trump Supporting a Position a Majority Don’t?

President Donald Trump is a populist, and normally he attempts to appeal to the majority. However, abortion is different, for reasons I will get to.

Trump’s approval rating hasn’t made it to 50% the entire time he’s been in office. It’s never even been above his disapproval rating. He personally feeds off rallies where as many as tens of thousands act as if he’s a rock star, but those crowds are not a true reflection of the US population.

Trump Job Approval (Source: Gallup. Click graphic to go to source.)

  Trump knows deep down that his win wasn’t down just to those Evangelical Christians, or even to a majority of USians. Help from the Russians in three key states was what got him into the White House. (The Weekly Standard article: ‘The Election Came Down to 77,744 Votes in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan’ lays the details out clearly.) Within the White House, staff know not to mention things like Russian interference in the 2016 election in front of Trump. He appears to view mere mention of the topic the height of disloyalty. Staff even warn others not to bring the subject up in front of him.

Therefore the few policy positions Trump and his enablers stick to fall into two areas. They’re either favourable towards Russia (e.g. GOP Senate leader Mitch McConnell has gone so far as to block bipartisan legislation to stop Russian interference in the 2020 elections), or are those Evangelical Christians support. Opposition to abortion, of course, falls into the second of those two categories.

  State’s Rights

Living in a country that doesn’t have separate states, I’ve always had difficulty understanding the issue of state’s rights. I’ve never seen the point of it. In the past I’ve thought of that as simply a lack of cultural understanding on my part. More and more though, I’m starting to see it as a dangerous way to run a country. (It’s not only the US where I see problems. Catalan independence in Spain, and the use of Sharia in Aceh province in Indonesia, are two other examples.)

(Source: Wikipedia. Click graphic to go to source.)

There are several areas where I see having separate states with separate laws causing problems in the US. This is not the place to go down that rabbit hole, but for me one of them is the effect on women’s rights. It is already appalling that women have less rights than men in what is supposedly the world’s leading democracy. What’s even worse is that women in some states have even less rights than their compatriots in other states.

I believe that attempts to deny women the right to control over their own bodies is as much about controlling women as it is about a belief they’re saving lives for many anti-choice activists. There are many reasons I have for that opinion, but one relates to the issue of state’s rights.

On the whole, the states that are trying to make abortion illegal again are the same ones that didn’t endorse the Equal Rights amendment to the US Constitution.  Take note on the graphic on the right of which states don’t think women should have equal rights to men, and you will see they largely correspond with those that are doing the most to try and prevent women from having control over their own bodies.

The Affect of States’ Rights on Abortion Rights

There are now six states that have only one clinic remaining that provides abortions thanks to anti-choice activism. They are: Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota, South Dakota and West Virginia. The last clinic left in Missouri may soon have to close. The only thing currently keeping it open is a court order against the latest state law putting impossible conditions on abortion providers.

These states (and others) make laws with unreasonable conditions that are so difficult to comply with, the clinics have no other choice but to shut down. In that way the states aren’t actually breaking the law that gives women the right to an abortion, it just means there’s nowhere for them to go to get one that’s safe and legal.

According to the Guttmacher Institute, there were 452 clinics in the US that included abortions as part of their services to women in 1996. By 2005 that was 381, and by 2014 it was 272. (There are no data available post-2014.)

  Abortion in Republican-Controlled States

Red states have brought in literally hundreds of laws since 1973 making it more difficult for the women living in them to obtain a safe, legal abortion. Many other laws that sought to do the same have been overturned by the courts due to the advocacy of groups on behalf of women. However, the fact remains that women living in red states have less rights than those living in blue states (i..e. states where the government is in Democratic Party control).

Once again, this is obviously an appalling situation, and one that should not be acceptable to anyone. What should be happening is that women have the same rights across the country. Medical science, social science, and economics all tell us the best thing is for women to have the right to choose whether or not to continue with a pregnancy.

It’s also the best thing if you really want to reduce the number of abortions. There will be those reading this who object to the way I’ve been framing opponents to abortion as anti-choice. They will say this is about saving the lives of unborn babies. However, that is simply not true. All the evidence, from both the US and the rest of the world, shows that making abortion illegal actually increases the number of abortions. If you really want to reduce the number of abortions, the best way to do that is by making it legal. The leaders of the anti-choice movement know this. This is why they focus on the number of abortions taking place, rather than any other data. (More on this below)

Basically, where the Republican Party is in control of government, women are losing the right to control of their own bodies. Donald Trump, a man who changes his position on issues more often than he washes his hands (and he’s a germophobe), has actually kept one of his election promises, and is on track to keeping another. Unfortunately, both relate to making abortion illegal again in the US.

  Trump’s First Promise in Relation to Abortion

Trump made a promise that he would only appoint justices to the US Supreme Court (SCOTUS), as well as judges to other courts, that come with the recommendation of both the Federalist Society and Heritage Foundation. That means (among other things) justices who oppose abortion.

Unfortunately, Trump has had the privilege of appointing two justices to the Supreme Court.

The first, Neil Gorsuch, was a replacement for justice Antonin Scalia who died during the presidency of Barack Obama. However, Republican senate leader Mitch McConnell’s (a Trump enabler) absolute refusal to allow a vote on Obama’s choice (Merrick Garland) to replace him meant it was Trump’s pick that took the vacancy.

The second, Brett Kavanaugh was, if possible, even more controversial. It was clear he had a history of, at the very least, not treating women as equals. However, all Republicans, and even one (male) Democrat, still voted for him.

As a result, a majority Supreme Court justices are all personally anti-choice. This has led to a hive of activity amongst anti-choice activists in red states. Each wants to be the first to get a Bill from their own state attracting enough opposition from those who are pro-choice that it makes it through the courts to the Supreme Court level. At that point, they hope the Court will take the opportunity to make abortion illegal again.

This, they think will make them heroes in the anti-choice movement, which it probably will. Perhaps more importantly to many, they will feel they have done God’s will. That’s because for most of them, it’s their faith that informs them when it comes to this issue, not the facts.

  Abortion, God, and the Election of  Donald Trump

Abortion is one of the main reasons more than 80% of Evangelicals, and a sizable chunk of other conservative Christians, gave Trump their vote in 2016. A majority of Evangelicals even go so far as to believe it was God who made Trump president, and stopping abortion was the reason He did it.

To believe that God made Donald Trump President of the USA sounds, well, unbelievable. However, you only have to do a Google search on the topic to find multiple links to articles and videos of people who believe this. And don’t be tempted to dismiss the belief as a coming from a small fringe element either.

Sarah Sanders

Former White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said in an interview in January with the Christian Broadcasting Network:

I think God calls all of us to fill different roles at different times, and I think that He wanted Donald Trump to become president, and that’s why he’s there, and I think he has done a tremendous job in supporting a lot of the things people of faith really care about.

That interview continued with an exchange attacking Democrats for anti-Semitism.

(Here, I must compliment all those Trump-supporting a$$ho£€$ marching and chanting, “Jews will not replace us,” and “Blood and soil,” in Charlottesville in 2017 for how well they hid their affiliation to the Democratic party. /sarcasm)

Next the interview turned to the issues on the southern border. That led to mention of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California) calling the wall “immoral”. This somehow enabled Sanders to segue to abortion:

I mean honestly, it’s very hard at this point to even take a lecture from Democrats on what is moral and what isn’t. People who are willing to allow legislation to pass supporting late-term abortion, the idea that they would take out, “so help me God in the platform,” the House Democrats have raised this week …

Sarah Sanders views on abortion an God when she was in the White House were by no means unique.

  The Future of Sarah Sanders

The evidence is that Sarah Sanders is returning to her Bible Belt state of Arkansas in order to start campaigning to become its governor. Her father is former Arkansas governor and twice candidate to be Republican presidential nominee, Mike Huckabee. So her chances aren’t as remote as you might imagine. However, whether or not she gets the job, her particular set of principles are ones that are typical of a Bible Belt politician.

Governor Huckabee has clearly been a big influence in his daughter’s life. It’s obviously a good thing for a father and daughter to have a good relationship. However, when that father does things like blame the Sandy Hook massacre on the Bible no longer being in schools, you have to wonder whether some kind of intervention was in order.

He’s also always made his own opposition to abortion clear. This graphic is from one of his successful gubernatorial races.

And this is an example of a Huckabee tweet (iirc, I made the screen capture of this tweet in 2015):

To me, these views seem extreme, but they’re typical of the majority in the Bible Belt of the USA. I originally made a copy of the tweet above, and some others by the governor, because I felt an enormous amount of hate emanating from them. I thought about Christians, including the governor, telling people that Christianity is all about love, but I think they express a quite different mindset.

  What Does the Bible Say About Abortion?

As with so many things, it’s pretty hard to get a clear direction from the Bible on abortion. Besides that, Christians are pretty good at only following which parts of it suit them at the best of times. Eating pork, getting tattoos, and even decorating a tree to celebrate Christmas are all things that are forbidden in the Bible. However, you will also have no trouble finding web pages that provide arguments why it’s okay to do those things, no matter how literal your reading of the Bible.

If they want to do something forbidden in the Bible, they will find a way to make it okay. If they want to make a group of people the subject of their derision of hatred, they will.

  The Bible does appear to consider abortion wrong. However, unlike many anti-choice activists, it does not appear to consider it murder. The punishment in the Bible for murder is death. “A life for a life.” Women who abort a child do not face this punishment in the Bible. Therefore, I think it’s safe to assume that abortion is not considered murder.

That’s not the interpretation of many conservative Christians though. The conservative Catholic website, Crisis Magazine has a ‘Reproductive Rights Glossary for the UnWoke‘. I didn’t know whether to laugh or be angry when I first read it. However, every article I’ve read in the magazine in the past has made me angry, so that is probably what they’re going for in people like me. (I’m the liberal, pro-choice, pro-marriage equality, atheist, outspoken feminist you were warned about.) The magazine’s combination of ignorance, intelligence, and influence over a large number of people worries me greatly.

When it comes to information about abortion, Crisis Magazine‘s readers would be far better off reading Valerie Tarico’s ‘Right-Wing Christians’ Hostility to Science Destroys Lives‘. It’s one of the best things I’ve ever read on the subject, and I can’t recommend it highly enough.

  The Attempts of Republican States to Ban Abortion Nationwide

There are now eight states in the US competing for the title of “Most Draconian Abortion Laws”. They are: Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Ohio, and Utah. By no coincidence, those states have several other things in common. They’re all not only reliably Republican, they are all strong supporters of President Trump. All also have a larger than average conservative Christian population. (Alabama is the most religious state; Mississippi is third; Arkansas is fifth; Georgia is sixth.) Most are also among the most poorly educated states.

It’s not good for a state’s economy either. Most of these states are also very poor financially, and their stance doesn’t help that. Companies these days are putting their money where their mouth is when it comes to doing the right thing. Several states saw what happened when they tried to enact anti-transgender legislation. The same is now happening with anti-choice legislation. For example, AMC’s flagship TV show, The Walking Dead, is considering leaving Georgia after nine seasons. The reason? Georgia’s foetal heartbeat bill.

Republicans, Abortion, and Morality

Most countries believe the fallacy that being religious equals being moral. In most Western democracies a majority hold the belief that Christianity equals morality, though this belief is steadily declining.  The belief is stronger in the US than most, and conservative Christians in particular believe they have cornered the market when it comes to morality. Since Ronald Reagan’s call to the Moral Majority, Republicans have embraced their role as their country’s moral police. (This wasn’t a new role for them, but it became a greater part of their core identity with Reagan.)

Of course, the reality is that on most measures that society considers represent morality, it’s atheists that are, on average, the most moral US citizens, and a majority of them vote or lean Democrat. (I wrote about this, with the evidence, almost five years ago.)  We’re also constantly getting evidence that the so-called Moral Majority are, in reality, a bunch of hypocrites. It seems hardly a week goes by without another breaking story that exposes a leader of the Moral Majority. A recent one was Jerry Falwell Jr., president of the evangelical Liberty University. (You can see Rachel Maddow’s (MSNBC) excellent take on the events here.)

  The Anti-Choice or Forced-Birth Movement

Those who are anti-abortion call themselves “pro-life”. This moniker could not be further from the truth. As mentioned above, making abortion illegal actually increases the number of abortions.

I am not refusing to refer to them as “pro-life” to get at them in any way, but because the term is simply not accurate. The terms “anti-choice” and “forced birth” are both more accurate, and that’s why I use them.

I also find it really, really annoying that many in the anti-choice movement represent women who have abortions as simply using abortion as a form of contraception.

Another person, whatever their gender, cannot imagine what any individual goes through when they discover they have an unplanned pregnancy. Some forced-birth activists present abortion as if women use it as a form of contraception. They produce anecdotes of women casually having multiple abortions as if this is common.

The truth is very different. The fact that a woman has chosen to terminate the pregnancy does not mean the choice was easy. For most it’s one of the most difficult decisions she will ever make. On top of that, one of the things that makes it far more difficult is the stigma around that choice. And, it is anti-choice activists who create that stigma. They make what is already a difficult choice far harder. They speak of the emotional harm a women suffers for the rest of her life, but most or all of that harm is because of the rhetoric of anti-choice activists.

The Lack of Compassion of Anti-Choice Activists

What especially concerns me about many of those in the US who are part of the forced-birth movement is that their care for the foetus that can’t, in their words, “speak for itself”, does not extend to:

1. The cost of any care of the foetus’ (e.g. healthcare) before it’s born.

2. The cost of any care of the baby/child after it’s born (e.g. healthcare, education, housing, food). This is especially the case if the child they are forcing to be born has some form of special/high needs.

3. The cost of any of the needs of the mother either before or after the birth (e.g. healthcare, child care, interruption in education/career, mental health care).

4. The cost of the needs of the future child’s siblings. The parent/s may no longer be able to afford to help with the cost of tertiary education, for example.

5. The cost of any of the needs of the father (e.g. mental health due to the expectations around caring for a child or a larger family). The Guttmacher report notes that a large proportion of abortions are for women who already have several children. The abortion is because they feel they simply cannot afford another child mentally, physically, emotionally, or financially.

  The Myth of “Pro-Life”

Those who oppose abortion say they are doing so to save the lives of all the babies who would have been born if there was no abortion. This is absolute codswallop. The stupidity of it perhaps makes me even angrier than the attack on women’s rights because of what the truth really is.

Making abortion illegal does NOT mean no more abortions. What it means is:

1.Women being forced by desperation into breaking the law.

2. Women DYING from what is a simple medical procedure when carried out by a properly trained medical professional.

3. More women, especially poor women, suffering long-term medical complications.

4. More women being trapped in poverty.

5. More children suffering because their parent/parents have more children than they can look after financially, physically, emotionally, or mentally.

6. People, especially women, being trapped in unfulfilling (or even abusive) relationships because couples stay together, “for the sake of the child/ren.”

7. Places like Planned Parenthood forced to close. That means a lack of information about, and access to, contraception as well as other healthcare needs. It also means women who don’t have an abortion, which is most of their clients, lose access to healthcare.

Making Abortion Illegal Increases the Number of Abortions

But most of all, the evidence is that making abortion illegal does NOT reduce the number of abortions. The US’s Guttmacher Institute produced a comprehensive study: Abortion Worldwide 2017 (pdf here). It states:

Abortions occur as frequently in the two most-restrictive categories of countries (banned outright or allowed only to save the woman’s life) as in the least-restrictive category (allowed without restriction as to reason)—37 and 34 per 1,000 women, respectively.

Yes, you read that correctly. There are more abortions where it is illegal or heavily restricted than where it’s freely available.

    More Sex Education and More Contraception are the Best Ways to Stop Abortion

It bears repeating. Note those figures in the quote above from the Guttmacher Institute report. There are actually, on average, more abortions in countries where it’s illegal or heavily restricted. The report concludes that’s because legal abortion usually goes hand-in-hand with better access to, and knowledge of, contraception.

What makes that second sentence important is that Christians from the far right usually not only oppose abortion, they oppose contraception too. Most especially, they oppose education about sex and contraception for teenagers. Their advice is to stay a virgin until you marry and spend your fertile years either pregnant, or trying to get that way.

A Lesson from Colorado

Valerie Tarico’s article (same one referred to above) was written in response to an initiative in Colorado in 2015. It begins:

When a pilot program in Colorado offered teens state-of-the-art long acting contraceptives—IUD’s and implants—teen births plummeted by 40% [3], along with a drop in abortions [4]. The program saved the state 42.5 million dollars [5] in a single year, over five times what it cost. But rather than extending or expanding the program, some Colorado Republicans are trying to kill it—even if this stacks the odds against Colorado families. Why? Because they insist, wrongly, that IUD’s work by killing embryos, which they believe are sacred. This claim, which is based in bad faith and scientific ignorance, undermines fiscal prudence and flourishing families.

Gloria Steinman was on CNN’s Amanpour recently. They spoke about Alabama’s new abortion law. She pointed out that before Roe v Wade, one in three women in the US had an abortion. Following it, that dropped to one in four. The US followed the same world trend: the more freely available abortion is, the less it occurs. Therefore, it’s likely that if the anti-choice activists succeed in making abortion illegal again, this will actually increase the number of abortions.

  The Example of Nazi Germany

Like me, Steinman sees the current attacks on women’s independence as part of the international increase in white nationalism and authoritarianism. She noted that the first impulse of every authoritarian government she has ever studied is to control reproduction because it’s the single thing they can’t imitate.

Steinman further pointed out one of the very first acts of that most famous of authoritarians and white nationalists – Adolf Hitler.  When he first took control his bully boys were immediately physically padlocking all the Family Planning clinics. At the same time,  he made abortion an act against the state. Abortion doctors were given death sentences, and women wanting abortions were put in prison in order to force them to give birth. Those women he didn’t want giving birth (and the men he didn’t want fathering children) were either sterilized or murdered.

I’m not, of course, suggesting that’s this a path that Trump and the Republicans are going to go down. However, Trump makes no secret of the fact he believes he’s in possession of superior genes. And, the white nationalist movement thinks we’re already in a race war and embrace the theories of eugenicists.

  Alabama’s New Abortion Law

When I see the photo (below) of Alabama Governor, Kay Ivey, proudly signing her state’s Bill making abortion illegal, wearing her Republican-red suit, I see the colour of blood. The blood of all the women who will die because of that Bill is on her hands. It’s also on the hands of the men in the Alabama senate who voted for the Bill. And I say, “men” for a reason; not a single woman in that senate gave it her support.

Today, I signed into law the Alabama Human Life Protection Act. To the bill’s many supporters, this legislation stands as a powerful testament to Alabamians’ deeply held belief that every life is precious & that every life is a sacred gift from God. https://t.co/DwKJyAjSs8 pic.twitter.com/PIUQip6nmw

— Governor Kay Ivey (@GovernorKayIvey) May 15, 2019

Governor Ivey notes in the tweet above that her faith is the reason for her opposition to abortion. As with most anti-abortion rhetoric, that’s misguided. Due to a life of being told that by her church, she probably believes that God opposes abortion. But, as so often with the deeply religious, there’s a failure of independent thought. Like so many of the deeply religious, it’s unlikely she’s read the Bible from cover to cover. She probably relies on religious leaders for her view on the subject. That’s understandable, but a bad example in a leader.

This Act also exemplifies why I think such legislation is more about controlling women. While it prevents women from having abortions, it does not apply to frozen embryos.

  Exceptions for Rape, Incest, and the Life of the Mother

Most abortion bills have exceptions if the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest, or if it would endanger the life of the mother. Notably, at least two of these latest bills, Alabama and Missouri, do not have rape and incest exceptions. This is apparently deliberate as the writers of the bills believe this is more likely to get them to the Supreme Court.

However, even most of those who are anti-choice and want to force women to give birth, also want to see an exception for rape and incest. They acknowledge that in these cases a woman should have a choice whether she carries the foetus to term. They can see that the choice of the woman, who is already a person, should take precedence over something that only has the potential to be a person. In such cases, they are able to empathize with the woman.

So, why do they feel differently when a woman becomes pregnant against her will but whose sexual activity was willing? This is often where conservative religion takes control of their thought processes. Sex was a choice, so suffer the consequences. The high failure rate of many contraceptives doesn’t move them. If they’re not married, they shouldn’t be having sex anyway.

The Role of Right-Wing Media

Further, thanks to right-wing media like Fox News, many who are anti-choice make the assumption that all women wanting an abortion are single. They think women are using abortion as a form of contraception and it’s something they do easily and casually.

This all gives them a picture of women who have abortions as young, sexually promiscuous, irresponsible, and, most importantly, not behaving in a manner that meets with God’s approval. In their eyes, such women should suffer in some way. An unwanted pregnancy meets that criteria; everyone will know they’ve been sinning.

(Here, we also see the danger of the Christian belief in free will. I won’t discuss determinism in this post, but in the unlikely event you don’t know what it is, look it up. Neither the women or the men, of course, had no choice whether they had sex.)

The interesting thing is, the abortion rate in many religiously conservative states are among the highest in the country. Women from religiously conservative families are able to justify their own abortions while still condemning all other women.

Abortion Rate per 1000 women aged 15-44 (Click graphic to go to source.)

  Why Are Women Wanting An Abortion Different?

Republicans think government should stay out of their lives and there should be as few laws as possible. This rule of no rules, however, doesn’t seem to apply when it comes to women. They, it seems, should have to put up with anything, especially if they’re pregnant. The Federalist Society doesn’t believe women should have the freedom to choose what to do with their own bodies. If a woman is pregnant, she should, in their opinion, have to continue with the pregnancy no matter what the circumstances.

While the Republican party says it’s all about removing government from people’s lives, again, that doesn’t seem to apply to women. They insist they support equality for women, but the evidence does not support that.

Over and over again, when there is legislation in relation to women’s rights and equality for women, the Republican Party fails to support it.

The GOP is constantly making itself harder to vote for. It has become the party of Trump, and his antics are chasing voter away. Women and people of colour in particular no longer feel they have a place in the party.

However, many voters say they don’t care about the things he says as long as the things he changes are ones they like. Conservative and Evangelical Christians are over the moon about a conservative Supreme Court for decades to come. Further, if they vote for him in 2020, there’s a good chance he’ll be able to make another appointment given the state of Ruth Bader-Ginsburg’s health. There is plenty of evidence of religious hypocrisy in the world for any of us to think Trump’s disgusting racism, misogyny, ignorance, narcissism, and all the rest, will stop them voting for him again.

The Democratic Party has to give voters something to vote for. Voting against Trump won’t cut it. Only with a Democratic administration can a woman’s right to choose start to become safe again.

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    Abortion and the GOP Before we go any further, I should note that I am unapologetically pro-choice. I've been pro-choice for as long as I can remember.

[englishmansdcc]

Okay, that headline might be over selling it just a little bit – then again, with the tale I have to tell, maybe not. To set the stage properly, though: first things first.

As you wander around this site and check out the coverage we put up of San Diego Comic-Con, you may hear mention of a collective of Brits that make their pilgrimage to America’s Finest City every ear to inject a little sense of European class and civility to proceedings (and then dismantle that civility as they get royally hammered on the Sunday evening!), the SDCC UK ATTENDEES GROUP (THE BRITISH INVASION, SPIRIT OF ’86)!

This is a Group that I’m particularly proud of, as it happens to be something of my own creation – two weeks after returning from San Diego Comic-Con 2011, and still on quite the buzz from that years proceedings, I decided to jump on Facebook to see if there were any other likeminded Brits who also made the trip. At half past two on a Wednesday night / Thursday morning, I hit Create Group on the admittedly clunky-titled page and was stunned to find, over the subsequent weeks, a whole raft of equally excitable boys and girls, all ramped up from that years activities and more than up for doing it all over again with like-minded tea drinkers the following July. We were off and running!

(Quickly, an explanation of the Group Name. As those of you that know me are aware, I have a particular interest in that period of comics on the late ’70s and early ’80s when American publishers came to the UK to meet and greet with the rising stars in UK comics – Neil Gaiman, Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons, Peter Milligan, Grant Morrison, Chris Claremont, David Lloyd… these artists and writers met with the likes of Karen Berger and Paul Levitz from DC Comics, and were tempted across t’pond to inject a new life into the American comics market with their unique sensibilities and an auteur style. While the British Invasion took place way before, 1986 was a landmark year in its history, with the release of many pioneering books. Hence, the Group name.)

Now, to the point of this post. When I set the Group up, it needed graphics, some logos to pin the thing in place. I could’ve just gone for a generic snap from my Holiday Photos album but I decided to be a little more creative – and not just a little cheeky, too.

Taking my cue from the official Comic-Con International logo, I fired up Photoshop and decided to swap out the ‘comic eye’ from the logo and replace it with one with a British flair, choosing the most recognisable UK comics creation of all time: Judge Dredd, from the pages of 2000AD. I searched for a rendition of Mega City One’s most prominent judge, jury and executioner where Dredd was in a similar pose to the CCI ‘comic eye’. This, our first – and, to this day, default – Group Logo was born.

2012: JUDGE DREDD (The SDCC UK Attendees Group Logo)

(I have tried to find out who the artist is of this particular Dredd piece is, if anything to properly credit them with the work – if you do know that might be, please drop me a line or leave their name in the comments below. Thanks.)

This was at now three in the morning and I was feeling boisterous. I rustled up some more logo options, just in case I fancied a change down the line. (I’ve added to the pile of these over the years, usually my own choices, sometimes suggested by Group Members) All had the same brief: they had to be black and white, they had to be focused on the eye of the character to follow the original CCI logo, and they all had to be Brit-related, either by creation, characterisation or by publication. Harder than you think.

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Once we had a logo in place, I was thrilled to discover that Group Members were up for having it plastered over t-shirts at San Diego Comic-Con 2012 to proudly proclaim their membership to the Group. I’m not going to lie when I say I got a little choked up to walk out on to the Firepit of the Hilton Gaslamp Hotel and find a bunch of people wearing shirts with something I’d knocked up on a whim in the wee hours. Emotional moment.

For 2013, I thought we could even take it up a notch. What if we contacted a artist, someone from the world of UK comics, to come up with a commissioned piece for us to use in the logo, something not just plucked from Google Image Search? Summat proper, like. Same brief as before but done by a pro. I put a poll out on the Group as to which character we should ask for – that year, John Constantine topped the chart – and then I hit my email.

I threw out some feelers on social media and was stunned to find that one of the very first names I contacted, 2000AD‘s Leigh Gallagher, was more than up for the task – and he was up for doing it for free, too! I was gobsmacked… but not as gobsmacked as I was when his piece came through my letterbox.

Leigh did something wonderful in terms of his lighting of John’s face, keeping him in his trademark trench coat, skinny tie and shock hair, fag in mouth and throwing the audience that sly ‘Pudlian grin, but Leigh really emphasised the meddling magician’s darker side with sharp black shadows over the front of his face. It’s a gorgeous piece – and one I’m very proud to have framed in my house. What a way to start.

2013: JOHN CONSTANTINE (Leigh Gallagher)

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Fantastic stuff. It works well in the context of the logo but the full piece is just incredible to me – which kind of put me in a bit of a jam. How the hell were we going to top this the following year??

As well as my response from Leigh, I had several replies from my initial emails, with artists mentioning that they were interested and intrigued by the proposal but, for whatever reason, they were busy with workload or commitments. But one email I kept a hold of: Sean Phillips was a noted artist on Vertigo’s HELLBLAZER, which is why I had reached out to him to initially draw our John Constantine. He said he was too busy, at that time coming up with the Eisner Award-winning THE FADE OUT for Image Comics with Ed Brubaker, but to drop him a line after SDCC 2013 and see if he was free.

Miraculously, he was – or, as I later learned, maybe he was thinking of using us as guineas pigs. Either way, for SDCC 2014, the master artist rendered our choice of character that year: the X-Men’s Professor Xavier.

2014: PROFESSOR X (Sean Phillips)

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This was a bitch of a commission – chosen, if I recall, off the back of the success of the 20th Century Fox films and a character made famous by the portrayal by Sir Patrick Stewart (a Yorkshireman, a way the Group Members got round the rules of the poll), at the end of the day, it’s a bald bloke. How the hell was Sean going to create something which focused on his eye and ended up still being recognisable as the leader of the X-Men?

Safe to say, Sean knocked it out of the park (again, somehow without charging us!!). Even when the image was cropped to suit, Charles Xavier just extruded out of the logo, his mutant mental abilities almost blasting out of the frame, his gaze locked on to the viewer. I gave the image a little kick to match the CCI eye framing but anyone who sees it knows exactly who it is.

An explanation of my previous comments: using us a ‘guinea pigs’? It was at the Lakes International Comic Arts Festival in Kendal that year that I approached Sean – a Special Guest of the event – to say thanks for the piece. He said it was his pleasure and that it was something that he wouldn’t forget for a while, anyway: it happened to be his first ever digitally produced art piece. I was blown away! I don’t care if the piece was his way of giving the new tech a try without the consequences of it being ever widely published or seen by the wider world – safe to say, those that did see it in San Diego that year were struck by the gaze of Professor X!

As I’ve said, we’ve been incredibly lucky over the years to have managed to convince these master artists to come up with these incredible pieces, totally non grata – with one exception. Following SDCC 2014, I headed to London Super Comic Con at the ExCel Exhibition Centre in the capital and managed to speak to Ian Churchill, an artist of which I had been a fan for some time, thanks to his work in the awesome MARINEMAN, his own creator-owned Eisner-nominated comic, and also REVENGE, a book that he drew for Image Comics, written by Jonathan Ross. Yes, Wossy himself.

Ian was up to the task of drawing our choice for that year – the votes had gone to Gandalf, from THE LORD OF THE RINGS (yup, the film portrayal of Sir Ian McKellen in THE HOBBIT series was very much in Group Members minds and, hailing from Burnley in Lancashire, meant he was eligible within the brief). However, Ian wasn’t just going to hand over the finished piece without some recompense and he asked if we could raffle the work off to the Group, raising money for his chosen charity, the Comics Literacy Awareness (CLAw) group, promoting reading of comics and graphic novels among children and young people. How could we possibly refuse?

2015: GANDALF (Ian Churchill)

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It’s beautiful. Gloriously framed in that wonderful circle, looking beyond to the majestic rolling hills in the background, the piece could be seen as just a fine caricature of McKellen, with his bulbous nose, baggy eyes and bony, withered hands, but it’s so much more than that, with Ian capturing the wistfulness, elegance and charm that McKellen brought to the role. With his staff poking beyond the ‘window frame’, he really has a magnificent presence in this piece and, I have to say, it’s my absolute favourite of the logo commissions we’ve had.

(It’s my mum’s, too – when she learnt that the original of the piece had been auctioned off in the Group, she was horrified to find I hadn’t told her that was the intention. She said that she would have loved to have bid on the piece, she adored Ian’s work as a cracking piece of art. She still hasn’t forgiven me.)

Looking back, 2016 was a bloody weird and awkward year: not because of the fact that we continued our run of bagging a truly magnificent artist to draw our logo – voted that year to feature MARVEL’S AGENT CARTER, as played by London’s own Hayley Atwell – but that we were given the thumbs up by TWO artists! Both of which to whom I just didn’t have the heart (okay, or the courage) to say no!

First up, an artist who I had first met online, met in person as she won the British Comic Awards ‘Best Newcomer’ accolade and whose career I have followed since and beyond: the incredible Rachael Stott, a woman who I just don’t understand how she isn’t a household name and an absolute comics rockstar at this point. If you’ve seen here work for Titan Comics‘ DOCTOR WHO books, you know exactly how good she is – and she demonstrated as much on the outstanding piece she produced for us.

2016: AGENT CARTER (Rachael Stott)

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Look at it! If you hadn’t fallen in love with Hayley Atwell before, you would’ve after looking at this, with Peggy’s perfectly coiffed cascading hair, sparkling eyes, odd little dumpling of a nose and strong, defiant pose. I love how clean, Rachael’s lines are, how measured and considered but still bringing out the warmth and vitality of her subjects (check out her renditions of Peter Capaldi‘s Doctor, you’ll see exactly what I mean). With Rachael’s permission, I threw in some comic book flair, a drop shadow and a trim out of the frame to really make her lean forward to the audience. 007? Move over, pal!!

Which brought me to my conundrum. As Rachael was cracking on with her piece, I got an email from someone who I just never expected to hear back from – the master himself, David Lloyd, an artist who has defined the British Invasion from its very beginning. He agreed to do us a logo – but it was to be completely on his own terms. It had to be his own concept, we couldn’t reframe it, we couldn’t re-shade it one pixel. We couldn’t even say on the shirts who was behind it, David’s argument being, “…if you didn’t recognise who the eye belonged to, you didn’t know comics!” And he wasn’t wrong – sending us something which followed the brief EXACTLY: a framing of an eye specifically in the box, and that of a British comics icon. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you: V.

2016: V FOR VENDETTA (by …)

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At first, I wasn’t too sure. After the logos past which were full of the character that we’d voted for, this was minimal, bare, restrained. But the more I looked at it, the more the eye fixated on me, I grew to love the initial simplicity and as I continued to stare, I grasped just how intricate and precise David’s intention with the design was. And the rest of the Group agreed, too – we were proud as hell, to have two logos for that year, both unique, both striking and both amazing logos.

Which brings us to this year, and our most recent contribution to our Group Logos, something which entrances me, every time I look at it. It’s my intention to get this one printed up on some fine quality paper and framed – it’s that tasty.

Jon Davis-Hunt is a incredible artist whose work has been seen in such books as 2000AD, TRANSFORMERS (IDW) and CLEAN ROOM (Image Comics), the latter which was he was Eisner-nominated at the 2017 Awards. (Again with the Eisner-tipped talent! I repeat, can you explain how the hell we’ve managed to pull this off, year after year after year?!!) I’d first met Jon in person at Thought Bubble Leeds 2016, where I had bagged the full run of CLEAN ROOM signed and he managed to charm the pants of Caroline with an ink sketch for her, which she cherishes to this day. I put forward the proposal for the logo, we exchanged details, and – after a bit of protracted delay from myself – Jon cracked on with the chosen character for 2017: STAR WARS THE FORCE AWAKENS‘ Rey, as played by English rose, Daisy Ridley.

The lateness of the commission was entirely my fault, as I got more and more distracted by the workload on AEISD, so the Group got to see the finished piece a lot later that we would usually have it and I got a fair number of grumblings about when the piece would finally show. But, safe to say, when it arrived in my inbox, me and the entire Group were blown away.

2017: REY (Jon Davis-Hunt)

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In hindsight, maybe the piece would have benefitted from the instant brand recognition of Rey’s staff, just to bring home the whole outfit of the character. But, as I think you’ll agree, it’s not needed – you can recognise the scavenger of Jakku in an instant, with her determined stare bleeding from the page. The integration of the work into the logo frame was done with Jon’s permission and I’m glad that he too was happy with the way it sits in the ‘square’, with the horizon cutting a swathe boldly across the border. I’ve tried to reach out to Daisy on a couple of occasions as I think she’d love this piece as much as we do, to no avail. Never mind: I’m more than happy to wear the shirt this features on regardless. It’s a stunning, stunning piece.

And that brings us up to date. My task for the conventions I’m heading to here in the UK, over the next couple of months, is to somehow find an artist that can rise to the tall challenge set down by these master creative talents for our 2018. We haven’t chosen a character yet, but I’m betting nobody’s going to choose Pug from the BASH STREET KIDS, which I put forward as a suggestion every year! All of that is pointless if we don;t find someone to draw it for us and we’ve somehow, up till now, found ourselves being blessed by some of the best in the business. Ready for a familiar phrase? Because here it comes, one more time…

How the holy hell do we top these logos so far??

SDCC UK ATTENDEES: The Epic History & Enduring Legacy Of The Legendary SDCC UK Attendees Logo! Okay, that headline might be over selling it just a little bit - then again, with the tale I have to tell, maybe not.