#ableism and classism and
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it takes a really long time to unlearn but there's no such thing as "cheating" or "half-assing" being a person. if you need to leave the cabinet doors open, leave them open. microwave your tea. sit down in the shower. buy the eggmaker. use your phone to calculate tip.
it's mostly fake posterity rules. who cares if you microwave your dinners. who cares if you use instant coffee. who cares if you stop watching the show that got boring. we all have a different set of skills and a different life and taking care of yourself is fucking hard.
at the end of your life there will be no final scoreboard. nobody is going to judge you because you brushed your teeth in the shower. there will be no final count of the number of times you had the same meal five nights in a row. there will be no fanfare or party because you won at being a person - and no one will be disappointed that you never understood the point of using paper towels to dry your hands off after washing them.
yeah, in this world, people will put up a fuss. i've noticed some of the biggest fusses are over what you'll put in/on your body. the fact that i will regularly eat deli meat straight out of the bag makes a lot of people genuinely concerned for me. but here's the thing: sometimes that's the only way i'm getting any protein. my doctor says i am doing fine. i'm sticking to my weird snacks and calling it deconstructed charcuterie.
they'll say they're horrified because you take a shortcut. that's fine. it's just that it looks like a shortcut to them because they're on a different life path. these kinds of things stand out to them as important. that's fine too. but for you? you've got other things that already make you pretty hard working. and these tiny things - well, they're just clutter on your journey.
#before any motherfucker is like <3#''i know more about this and it IS WRONG to do this THING''#shhhhh#unless ur a doctor and a patient has specifically asked... shut the FUCK up dude#one of the ways my life has changed in the last few years is like#taking coffee for granted#isn't something i can do#can you stand up for the entirety of making a meal? i can't always#and having some pompousass person be like#MICROWAVE THE WATER? FOR TEA? like . yeah actually i've been in prison for it ever since#''it tastes different!!!'' cool. it's not going into yOUR body.#i personally don't ever make hot chocolate with water. only ever oat/soy milk#but i wouldn't be like ... SIR. I WILL NOW JUDGE THEE#it's just like ableism all the way down innit#ableism and classism and#the expectation of the mental load as a form of being ''good''#also. besides the like. pots and [redacted medical information]#im doing GREAT actually#>:) i have visible abs even when not flexing#it's bc god prefers me as a lesbian n has rewarded me lately for presenting more openly
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if your class solidarity doesn’t include people who are on SSI, food stamps, or are unable to work it’s not solidarity
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As I keep shouting into the void, pathologizers love shifting discussion about material conditions into discussion about emotional states.
I rant approximately once a week about how the brain maturity myth transmuted “Young adults are too poor to move out of their parents’ homes or have children of their own” into “Young adults are too emotionally and neurologically immature to move out of their parents’ homes or have children of their own.”
I’ve also talked about the misuse of “enabling” and “trauma” and “dopamine” .
And this is a pattern – people coin terms and concepts to describe material problems, and pathologization culture shifts them to be about problems in the brain or psyche of the person experiencing them. Now we’re talking about neurochemicals, frontal lobes, and self-esteem instead of talking about wages, wealth distribution, and civil rights. Now we can say that poor, oppressed, and exploited people are suffering from a neurological/emotional defect that makes them not know what’s best for themselves, so they don’t need or deserve rights or money.
Here are some terms that have been so horribly misused by mental health culture that we’ve almost entirely forgotten that they were originally materialist critiques.
Codependency
What it originally referred to: A non-addicted person being overly “helpful” to an addicted partner or relative, often out of financial desperation. For example: Making sure your alcoholic husband gets to work in the morning (even though he’s an adult who should be responsible for himself) because if he loses his job, you’ll lose your home. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/08/opinion/codependency-addiction-recovery.html
What it’s been distorted into: Being “clingy,” being “too emotionally needy,” wanting things like affection and quality time from a partner. A way of pathologizing people, especially young women, for wanting things like love and commitment in a romantic relationship.
Compulsory Heterosexuality
What it originally referred to: In the 1980 in essay "Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence," https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/493756 Adrienne Rich described compulsory heterosexuality as a set of social conditions that coerce women into heterosexual relationships and prioritize those relationships over relationships between women (both romantic and platonic). She also defines “lesbian” much more broadly than current discourse does, encompassing a wide variety of romantic and platonic relationships between women. While she does suggest that women who identify as heterosexual might be doing so out of unquestioned social norms, this is not the primary point she’s making.
What it’s been distorted into: The patronizing, biphobic idea that lesbians somehow falsely believe themselves to be attracted to men. Part of the overall “Women don’t really know what they want or what’s good for them” theme of contemporary discourse.
Emotional Labor
What it originally referred to: The implicit or explicit requirement that workers (especially women workers, especially workers in female-dominated “pink collar” jobs, especially tipped workers) perform emotional intimacy with customers, coworkers, and bosses above and beyond the actual job being done. Having to smile, be “friendly,” flirt, give the impression of genuine caring, politely accept harassment, etc.
https://weld.la.psu.edu/what-is-emotional-labor/
What it’s been distorted into: Everything under the sun. Everything from housework (which we already had a term for), to tolerating the existence of disabled people, to just caring about friends the way friends do. The original intent of the concept was “It’s unreasonable to expect your waitress to care about your problems, because she’s not really your friend,” not “It’s unreasonable to expect your actual friends to care about your problems unless you pay them, because that’s emotional labor,” and certainly not “Disabled people shouldn’t be allowed to be visibly disabled in public, because witnessing a disabled person is emotional labor.” Anything that causes a person emotional distress, even if that emotional distress is rooted in the distress-haver’s bigotry (Many nominally progressive people who would rightfully reject the bigoted logic of “Seeing gay or interracial couples upsets me, which is emotional labor, so they shouldn’t be allowed to exist in public” fully accept the bigoted logic of “Seeing disabled or poor people upsets me, which is emotional labor, so they shouldn’t be allowed to exist in public”).
Battered Wife Syndrome
What it originally referred to: The all-encompassing trauma and fear of escalating violence experienced by people suffering ongoing domestic abuse, sometimes resulting in the abuse victim using necessary violence in self-defense. Because domestic abuse often escalates, often to murder, this fear is entirely rational and justified. This is the reasonable, justified belief that someone who beats you, stalks you, and threatens to kill you may actually kill you.
What it’s been distorted into: Like so many of these other items, the idea that women (in this case, women who are victims of domestic violence) don’t know what’s best for themselves. I debated including this one, because “syndrome” was a wrongful framing from the beginning – a justified and rational fear of escalating violence in a situation in which escalating violence is occurring is not a “syndrome.” But the original meaning at least partially acknowledged the material conditions of escalating violence.
I’m not saying the original meanings of these terms are ones I necessarily agree with – as a cognitive liberty absolutist, I’m unsurprisingly not that enamored of either second-wave feminism or 1970s addiction discourse. And as much as I dislike what “emotional labor” has become, I accept that “Women are unfairly expected to care about other people’s feelings more than men are” is a true statement.
What I am saying is that all of these terms originally, at least partly, took material conditions into account in their usage. Subsequent usage has entirely stripped the materialist critique and fully replaced it with emotional pathologization, specifically of women. Acknowledgement that women have their choices constrained by poverty, violence, and oppression has been replaced with the idea that women don’t know what’s best for themselves and need to be coercively “helped” for their own good. Acknowledgement that working-class women experience a gender-and-class-specific form of economic exploitation has been rebranded as yet another variation of “Disabled people are burdensome for wanting to exist.”
Over and over, materialist critiques are reframed as emotional or cognitive defects of marginalized people. The next time you hear a superficially sympathetic (but actually pathologizing) argument for “Marginalized people make bad choices because…” consider stopping and asking: “Wait, who are we to assume that this person’s choices are ‘bad’? And if they are, is there something about their material conditions that constrains their options or makes the ‘bad’ choice the best available option?”
#mad pride#neurodiversity#ableism#ageism#youth rights#liberation#disability rights#classism#capitalism#mental health culture#pop psychology#feminism#emotional labor
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i hate reality TV that is just about exploiting poor and mentally ill ppl (and very often poc and/or fat people too). maury/jerry springer/jeremy kyle, dr. phil, hoarders, my strange addiction, my 600lb life, and to a similar extent judge judy etc. It's just trash TV that says look at these people and how pathetic and ridiculous they are. It plays on the audience's worst impulses and prejudices and has no regard for the actual health and wellbeing of their subjects. There are no redeeming qualities of those programs, they don't actually help the people on the show and especially not more than they harm them.
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If your view of the future is that people who are disabled, addicts, or poor should be punished or eradicated for being such, you're not allowed to call yourself "punk" or "anarchist". You're pretty much a centrist borrowing both left and right talking points when it benefits you.
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Reminder:
#ableism#classism#it’s ugly people laws all over again#someone’s medical choices or ability to take care of themselves doesn’t tell you anything about their morality or character#cpunk#disability#mental illness#mental health#physical disability
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People shouldn't have to have "marketable skills" in order to live. What the fuck is wrong with you?
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not to harp back to a few days ago but the whole "taking phone calls in public/loud music in public/playing music and videos outloud in public is rude etc. (the list could go on)" argument is not only absurd,
(not all public spaces are going to be silent its is unrealistic, outside cannot cater to every single person as everybody has different needs, but this is not me dismissing there are concerns for people who may have sensory 'issues' or may be bothered by loud sounds)
but has ties to racism and classism, especially considering that many nonblack and white people call the police about "noise complaints" on black and brown people and poor people because the music being played at a party is 'too loud' or music from a car is being played 'too loud', which leads to them getting arrested or killed.
It also has links to gentrification, it is known that people who do complain about a community being too loud are clearly not familiar with the cultures in that area and that loud noise being a nuisance is a clear sign you are coming into a culture that isn't yours
anyway i think some of you need to read the article linked because the influx of these types of arguments is concerning.
#articles#white supermacy#gentrification#racism#ableism#classism#ref#antiblackness#like as a black person i know drums and 'loud instuments' are important to the diaspora - black people ARE 'loud' and that is#ok it is our culture and its beautiful idgaf and I will not sit here and pretend that the whole 'outside needs to be silent' thing#is not aimed at black ppl. this also goes back to the whole weird hatred ppl have children#with ppl saying they hate it when babies cry in public and kids shouldn't go outside because they are noisy#its so very strange to me
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you have to go to work so you can pay for your doctor, who is not taking your insurance right now, and if you say i can't afford the doctor's you are told - get a better job. it is very sad that you are unwell, yes, but maybe you should have thought about that before not having a better job.
(where is the better job? who is giving out these better jobs? you are sick, you are hurting - how the hell are you supposed to be well enough for this better job?)
but you go to the doctor because you had the nerve to be hurt or sick or whatever else. and they tell you that it is because you have anxiety. you try your best. you are a self-advocate. you've done the reading (which sometimes pisses them off worse, honestly). you say it is actually adding to my anxiety, it is effecting my quality of life. so they say that you are fat. they say that all young people have this happen to them, isn't it a medical marvel! they say that you should eat more vegetables. they say that you probably just need to lose a little more weight, and that you are faking it for attention.
(what attention could this doctor possibly give? what validation? that's their fucking job, isn't it?)
there is always a hypochondriac, right. someone always tells you about a hypochondriac. or someone who is unnecessarily aggressive during the worst days of their life. or someone looking "for a quick fix". or some idiot who wasn't educated about how to properly care for themselves who just abandons their treatment. and again, the hypochondriac, the overly-cautious hysteric. these people don't deserve to be treated like humans (right), and since you might be one of these people, you also don't get treated like a human. because those people can really fuck with the system, you now have to pay for it. and besides. you're actually probably faking it.
(more often than not, you find a 2:1 ratio of these stories. for every "hypochondriac", there are 2 people who knew something was wrong, and yet nobody could fucking find it. the story often ends with pointless suffering. the story often ends with and now it's too late, and it's going to kill me.)
you are actually just making excuses. someone else got that procedure or that diagnosis and he's fine, you should be fine too. someone else said they watched a documentary about other inspirational people with your exact same condition, maybe you should be inspirational, too. you're just too morbid. your pain and your experience is probably just not statistically concerning. it is all self-reported anyway, and you're just being a baby.
(once, while sitting down in the middle of making coffee, you had the sudden, horrible thought - i could kill myself to make the pain stop. you had to call your best friend after that. had to pet your dog. had to cry about it in the shower. you won't, but that moment - god, fuck. the pain just goes on and on.)
you know someone who went in for routine surgery and said i still feel everything. they told her to just relax. it took her kicking and screaming before they figured out she wasn't lying - the anesthetic drip hadn't been working. you know someone who went in for severe migraines who was told drink water and lose weight. you know someone who was actively bleeding out and throwing up in the ER and was told you're just having a bad period.
in the ER there are always these little posters saying things like "don't wait! get checked today!" and you think about how often you do wait. how often the days spool out. you once waited a full week before seeing the doctor for what you thought was a sprained wrist. it had actually been broken - they had to rebreak it to set it.
but you go into the doctor. the problem you're having is immediate. the person behind the counter frowns and says we're not taking your insurance. you will be paying for this out-of-pocket.
they send you home with tylenol and a little health packet about weight loss or anxiety or attention deficit. on the front it has your birthday and diagnosis. you think about crying, and the words swim. it might as well say go fuck yourself. it might as well say you're a fucking idiot. it might as well say light your money on fire and lie down in it. and the entire fucking time - the problem persists.
it's okay. it's okay, it's just another thing, you think. it's just another thing i have to learn to live with.
#spilled ink#warm up#can you tell what i'm mad about today specifically#i will say that there are a LOT of things that go into this. like a lot. this is ungendered and unspecific for a reason#it isn't just sexism. it's also racism. and ableism. and honestly classism.#and before a healthcare professional reads this as a personal attack: i understand ur burnt out#we are ALSO burnt out. your situation is also dire. this is not an attack on you.#this is a commentary on the incredible amounts of bigotry that lie at the heart of capitalism#where people have to pay money out of pocket to be told to fuck off.#your job is important. so is our humanity. and if you cannot accept that people are fucking mad as hell#at the industry - you are probably not listening .#anyway at some point im gonna write a piece about sexism specifically in medical shit#but i don't want terfs clowning in it bc they can't understand nuance#> it is true that ppl w/a uterus are more likely to experience medical malpractice & dismissal globally#> it is also true that trans people experience an equally fucked up and bad time in the medical field#> great news! the medical industrial complex is an equal opportunity life ruiner :)#(if you find it necessary to go into a debate about biology while discussing medical malpractice#i want to warn you that you're misunderstanding the issue. because guess what.#cis MEN might experience this. particularly black men. particularly disabled men.#so YES having a uterus can lead to more trouble for you. but this happens a LOT.#instead of fighting those ALSO experiencing your pain.... try working WITH them.#which btw. is like. actual feminism.)
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“How can you afford plants if you’re poor and disabled” is the funniest thing ever. do you know how easy it is to find free dirt, sunlight, and plants? literally just go outside . also water falls from the fucking sky
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I was wondering how accurate this was so I did some fun googling and yall.
So starting with the fact that police in the USA were formed when Dems had Congress and Senate and the same was true when the first organized police department was founded (in Boston, btw)....
1963. Dems had Senate and Congress.
While this allowed for huge strides in civil rights police brutality still continued to be largely unaddressed.
1966. Dems had Senate and Congress.
To point out further racial oppression James Meredith starts a 270 mile walk from Memphis, TN to Jackson, MI. He's shot by a sniper the second day which causes an influx in support from allies & prominent civil rights members (such as MLK) who fly out and walk in his stead.
Governor Johnson (d) of Mississippi, who ran on a segregationist platform but changed platforms when he saw that Black people were gaining more supporters, promises to protect marchers as they pass through his state. Police then tear gas them as they were setting up tents for the night in Canton, MI (pictured). 15k show up to Jackson. It's the biggest march in MI history and more successful than Meredith had planned.
No bills were introduced that year.
1956-1979 Dems had senate & Congress.
In 1961-69 they even had a governmental trifecta with Congress, Senate, and the presidency and again in 1977-79. The director of the FBI at the time was Republican J. Edgar Hoover. Head of Intelligence was Democrat William Sullivan. Attorney General & democrat Robert F. Kennedy authorized several programs for them such as wire-tapping MLK.
1968. Dems had Senate, Congress, and presidency.
President Lyndon Johnson (Democrat president while Dems had Congress & Senate) signs the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, birthing the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration & granting federal funds to local governments in order to obtain military resources to quell potential riots. A direct response to the protests and riots throughout the 50's & 60's. Protecting police from protesters.
Democrats do this instead of protecting the public from police and their prejudice.
1992. Dems have both Senate and Congress.
After the verdict of the 4 police who beat Rodney King on camera is announced & they are Not indicted the public starts rioting. The national guard, fire department, and several police departments are called in by then democratic mayor Tom Brady. After the riots a separate federal trial is held and finds 2 of the 4 officers guilty. All were fired from LAPD.
The Police Brutality Accountability Act of 1991 is introduced. Only introduced.
1994. House & Senate under dem control.
They pass the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act instead. It's drafted by democrat Joe Biden and sponsored by Texas Rep Brooks (D). It's an infamously harmful bill that results in the prejudiced mass incarceration of minorities, especially Black people. This bill funded police departments instead of holding them accountable aiding their further militarization as well.
2020. Dems have both Congress & Senate.
Which brings us to recent times. Where Democrats have again pretended to support and listen to the public demands to decrease/eliminate police brutality only to turn around and insist protests are the reason they keep funding the police instead of giving us rights.
"See? You're too dangerous to Not have a militarized police force."
As if we aren't protesting because the police are already too dangerous. Like that's not what started all this.
At this point a pattern like this can only be seen as intentional. A planned out excuse for funding police again and again and again instead of Stopping police brutality. Instead of enforcing or creating ACTUAL effective reform or regulations. They just keep throwing money at police departments and saying "hey here are billions of dollars that we want you to use to be less violent racists. It's also to help you be more safe when facing the people who are protesting your racist violence. Also we aren't gonna make sure you actually become less violent or less racist but we definitely hope you don't use this all this money to get worse."
Which has backfired across decades at this point. They keep doing investigations and making committees and for what?
We've done that. We know police are racist. We know they're violent. We know they're only spending enough to say they provide 6 months (if that) of sensitivity training and spending the bulk of that money on militarization gear. So what. We know that.
Now what.
What, after 100+ years could their excuse possibly be for STILL doing the same thing. For STILL not addressing it. For STILL not passing reform despite the MANY opportunities they've had? What could police departments Possibly be doing for them?? What excuse could be good enough?
I'm glad you asked.
There isn't one. There are answers of course. Greed, power, privilege, etc. The list goes on.
But are they good enough for you? They're not for me.
I have to beg on Tumblr just for my rent to get paid or for my kid to have dinner sometimes. The success of Democrats or my "country" doesn't mean shit to me, it does nothing for me. It only does things to me. Success enables police, it increases funding, it makes them More afraid of having their ideas of success taken from them, makes them more protective of their status quo. Their success hurts me. Fuck their success.
What matters is that time and time again Democrats have insisted they'd be there for minorities and then empowered the people oppressing, killing, and suppressing us and our rights.
What matters is that time and time again they've said they're powerless and their supporters insist they just don't have a majority to do anything with or that republicans keep blocking them or-
But passing bills to harm us? That's easy. And they don't Have to keep doing that. They just keep saying they do... To protect police. And they only keep "needing" more protection for police because they refuse to give us any. We continue to express our right to protest and they continue to try intimidating us out of it.
All the rights we have? They didn't give to us. Look at those posts. We fought for them while Democrats were in charge. They didn't give us those, they didn't stand with us. They still don't. They stand with the police as they always have.
August 2022.
For hundreds of years we've dealt with this. How much longer is it gonna be. How many more generations are going to have to put up with this government trying to insist that mediocrity is the best they can do indefinitely?
And if you still refuse to hold Democrats responsible, if you still find yourself compulsively trying to point out all the ways that Republicans are worse please know this: I know.
I know you're going to say "well Democrats are our best shot"
And to that I say if this is our best fucking shot....and they're *gestures vaguely at the post* like that.... Can we agree that it points to a much wider issue. If Democrats are our best shot and they're Only this effective and they're only making the most Minimal effort possible year after year. If we Know that their hands are tied by Republicans at best and at worst theyre fascists benefitting from the exploitation of BIPOC and other marginalized communities....
Can we admit that our systems are broken. That it goes further than Republicans or Democrats being bad. That it's Everything? That even if Democrats were actually perfect that everything would still be wrong and fucked up because the system itself holds them from making any effectual change?
That the checks and balances that the founding fathers put in place to make sure that our politicians are fair and just and give a shit about the people they serve aren't working.
Because if they were why would it take HUNDREDS of years for a community to get one thing. Just stop police brutality. That's all we asked. That's it. Stop hurting everyone who isn't a white cis man. Stop killing us in broad daylight for demanding you give us rights and respect the ones we Already have.
So why are we still starting 2023 with brutality making headlines?
If a government is effective and cares and listens and it's representives Truly represent it's constituents and fight for them and it's not just about profit or greed or winning elections or keeping minorities in line then why are we still here?
Why are we still asking for the same rights as our great-great-great-great grandparents?
If that progress? Is that success?
What the fuck are we doing. Like actually. How do we throw a wrench in this system. What will it take for Democrats and liberals and You to realize that all we are doing is driving the future into the hands of fascism.
What do we do? When do we finally do something?
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#idk what i thought i was gonna find but it wasn't a pattern of behavior stretching all the way back to the founding of police in the USA#democrats#liberals#progressives#protests#human rights#yeah this is about police brutality but also ableism and classism and poverty and everything else
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any hospital that’s run like a business has already failed its patients
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I'm tired of explaining to people why BANNING CARS COMPLETELY
is not the way to solve the United States' dependency on fossil fuels
and is also ableist snd classist as fuck.
THERE WILL NEVER NOT BE A NEED FOR PRIVATE TRANSPORTATION. We can make cities more pedestrian-friendly without throwing disabled people onto the train tracks as sacrificial wheel lubricant.
killing a mosquito by torching every building on your street is massively excessive, actually.
#we as leftists have a serious ableism and classism problem and I'm sick of being swept under the rug#and so are my rural low-income friends
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No bc can we talk about the overlap between classism ableism and fatphobia?? How rich abled and thin people all believe that poor/disabled/fat people made bad or the wrong choices or that theyre weaker than them and that they just need to repeat the choices that rich/abled/thin people do to become rich/abled/thin when in reality they were just luckier than them???
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At the beginning of the month, this local news clip started making the rounds online. It shows a woman in a courtroom, charged with a grim crime: abuse of a corpse. The corpse here, it was her own fetus. Brittany Watts is the woman facing these potential charges. She had a miscarriage at home. Suddenly, that information was very, very public. Watts looks frail and overwhelmed in front of the judge. Her lawyer rubs her back to comfort her.
Mary Ziegler is a law professor who has been following the Watts case closely. She’s written books like Roe: The History of a National Obsession and Reproduction and the Constitution in the United States. She says cases like this one will tell you a lot about how the limits of reproductive rights are being tested right now. “We’ve been promised by a lot of legislators that the laws are not intended to target women. But the visual of someone like Brittany Watts being prosecuted for something like this was pretty striking.”
#abortion rights#women's health#women's rights#healthcare#abortion#racism#sexism#classism#ableism#article
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