Thank you for writing about this very important issue. It is just infuriating how Republicans are trying to eliminate any and all opposition in their quest to make women legal dependent children. We have to defeat them before they take away our right to vote.
This article reminds me of back in 1990s when I was teaching in an inner city Chicago school, and we were doing a unit called "Adult Life." It was a simulation that we did where my fifth grade students were pretend adults. They had chosen careers, and worked with the baseline salary from that profession to fill out a budget form for children. They were single or in "marriage" partnerships. Then, when it came time to add children to the mix, I asked the students whether they wanted to randomly be assigned a number of children from 0-4, by drawing numbers out of a bag, or if they wanted to choose how many. The class had 4 more boys than girls, so all of the girls voted to choose, and all of the boys voted to be randomly assigned a number of children. Also, the boys who chose to be professional athletes had to find one and look up his salary, which none of them did, so they were operating with no income until they did that. (I know it sounds harsh.) This made their spouses furious with them. So, there were couples with only one income and 4 children, and there was one couple who had 0 children and 2 jobs. He cooked and she worked in a beauty parlor. So, they had the most money when they were filling out their budget forms. Everyone was envious of them, and would say they wished they had their budget, or that children were so expensive, something these 5th graders had never thought about before. By the time I was teaching sex ed, they all had reasons to be aware of birth control, although it would be wrong of me to imply that they made the connections, other than that they did. In fifth grade one does not typically teach about birth control, but I taught about reproduction, and the changes their bodies would go through later, and about condoms as a way to prevent STDs. It was a long time ago, and my sex ed curriculum would be different in some ways today than it was back then, but in other ways not. I will never get over the fact that every boy in my class voted to randomly be assigned children and every girl voted to choose the number of children herself. So, this is what I think of these evil men in Missouri, one needs to put them into the right simulation to have them understand the consequences of the decisions they are making. Unfortunately there is probably no simulation that would have that effect.
Well, Missouri....Ohio tried to make it harder to amend our constitution to prevent abortion rights and that failed. People don't take too kindly being asked to take our power away. Good luck with that.
MO is another example of a state where a large part of the population live in St Louis, St Louis County, Kansas City, and Columbia (college town), all of which have been Blue for a long time, while the rest of the state is rural and Red. The Republican legislature has too many extreme members who, as stated in the essay, "don’t believe they have to follow the law, nor do they have to respect the will of the people. All they really believe in is forcing their very narrow, very conservative worldview on the rest of us." Because of the inability of Republicans to govern, they've been trying to change the threshold for ballot initiatives since the last session but keep losing. Initiatives were used to expand Medicaid, allow medicinal and recreational marijuana and to defeat right-to-work. Unfortunately, many state and local Republicans are voted into office because they have no Democratic challenger. There is a movement to change that and to raise funds for Democratic challengers. Republicans have been in charge for about 20 years so it'll take time to vote them out, but we keep trying.
Am honestly pleasantly surprised that the Missouri Supreme Court is not aiding and abetting the anti abortion bs. I mean, look at other states. Lolsob.
And these republican dominated states are so fervently pro life that they fight Medicaid expansion tooth and nail. At least Missouri finally had their expansion imposed upon them, when they lost trying to block it after a successful referendum. And that was WITH the huge one time bonus money that the still un expanded Medicaid states would get as a part of the American Rescue Plan Act!
Missouri is also the state with a bill that makes it a FELONY for teachers to provide support to transgender students, which includes anyone who doesn't DRESS or wear their hair in a manner matching their birth sex. Support is material, information or other resources. So a teacher can get 4 years in prison for saying "I feel your pain. Have tried using google to find support?" Because what is providing information more than mentioning google? And the pain can be about feeling bullied because a girl likes to wear men's shoes.
You'd think with a constitutional amendment in the works, the GOP would tone DOWN its attacks a bit, because the anti-Dobbs cohort is out there kicking ass elsewhere.
Thank you for exposing our pain.
- St. Louis Missouri Resident
Thank you for writing about this very important issue. It is just infuriating how Republicans are trying to eliminate any and all opposition in their quest to make women legal dependent children. We have to defeat them before they take away our right to vote.
This article reminds me of back in 1990s when I was teaching in an inner city Chicago school, and we were doing a unit called "Adult Life." It was a simulation that we did where my fifth grade students were pretend adults. They had chosen careers, and worked with the baseline salary from that profession to fill out a budget form for children. They were single or in "marriage" partnerships. Then, when it came time to add children to the mix, I asked the students whether they wanted to randomly be assigned a number of children from 0-4, by drawing numbers out of a bag, or if they wanted to choose how many. The class had 4 more boys than girls, so all of the girls voted to choose, and all of the boys voted to be randomly assigned a number of children. Also, the boys who chose to be professional athletes had to find one and look up his salary, which none of them did, so they were operating with no income until they did that. (I know it sounds harsh.) This made their spouses furious with them. So, there were couples with only one income and 4 children, and there was one couple who had 0 children and 2 jobs. He cooked and she worked in a beauty parlor. So, they had the most money when they were filling out their budget forms. Everyone was envious of them, and would say they wished they had their budget, or that children were so expensive, something these 5th graders had never thought about before. By the time I was teaching sex ed, they all had reasons to be aware of birth control, although it would be wrong of me to imply that they made the connections, other than that they did. In fifth grade one does not typically teach about birth control, but I taught about reproduction, and the changes their bodies would go through later, and about condoms as a way to prevent STDs. It was a long time ago, and my sex ed curriculum would be different in some ways today than it was back then, but in other ways not. I will never get over the fact that every boy in my class voted to randomly be assigned children and every girl voted to choose the number of children herself. So, this is what I think of these evil men in Missouri, one needs to put them into the right simulation to have them understand the consequences of the decisions they are making. Unfortunately there is probably no simulation that would have that effect.
Well, Missouri....Ohio tried to make it harder to amend our constitution to prevent abortion rights and that failed. People don't take too kindly being asked to take our power away. Good luck with that.
MO is another example of a state where a large part of the population live in St Louis, St Louis County, Kansas City, and Columbia (college town), all of which have been Blue for a long time, while the rest of the state is rural and Red. The Republican legislature has too many extreme members who, as stated in the essay, "don’t believe they have to follow the law, nor do they have to respect the will of the people. All they really believe in is forcing their very narrow, very conservative worldview on the rest of us." Because of the inability of Republicans to govern, they've been trying to change the threshold for ballot initiatives since the last session but keep losing. Initiatives were used to expand Medicaid, allow medicinal and recreational marijuana and to defeat right-to-work. Unfortunately, many state and local Republicans are voted into office because they have no Democratic challenger. There is a movement to change that and to raise funds for Democratic challengers. Republicans have been in charge for about 20 years so it'll take time to vote them out, but we keep trying.
Am honestly pleasantly surprised that the Missouri Supreme Court is not aiding and abetting the anti abortion bs. I mean, look at other states. Lolsob.
And these republican dominated states are so fervently pro life that they fight Medicaid expansion tooth and nail. At least Missouri finally had their expansion imposed upon them, when they lost trying to block it after a successful referendum. And that was WITH the huge one time bonus money that the still un expanded Medicaid states would get as a part of the American Rescue Plan Act!
Honestly ugh.
Excellent writing. Thank you.
Dobbs had SCOTUS saying this would go to the states and now a national ban.
We need to Vote in November!
It’s up to us!
All true. I am a resident. Beyond frustrating to say the least.
Sisters…..the ball is in your court…💙VOTE 💙
💙💙VOTE BLUE, END THE COUP💙💙
Missouri is also the state with a bill that makes it a FELONY for teachers to provide support to transgender students, which includes anyone who doesn't DRESS or wear their hair in a manner matching their birth sex. Support is material, information or other resources. So a teacher can get 4 years in prison for saying "I feel your pain. Have tried using google to find support?" Because what is providing information more than mentioning google? And the pain can be about feeling bullied because a girl likes to wear men's shoes.
You'd think with a constitutional amendment in the works, the GOP would tone DOWN its attacks a bit, because the anti-Dobbs cohort is out there kicking ass elsewhere.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/missouri-bill-teachers-support-minors-transitioning-felony-sex-offender-list/story?id=107803364