The Threat Is Real

I'm thinking there are plenty of people who believe the pinch-faced god-knobbers would celebrate overturning Roe v Wade and have done with it - mission accomplished. Guess again, kids. The anti-woman, pro-forced-birth dickheads are still campaigning to get the power to kill reproductive rights everywhere.

When they said it was something they just wanted to leave up to the states, they were lying. The asinine clowns with the equally asinine label "pro-life" are desperate to make it impossible for the states to decide these things for themselves. They want nothing short of a national ban, and they've said as much.

Colorado is trying to install language in their constitution that guarantees a woman's right to choose abortion at her discretion.

Colorado Right to Abortion and Health Insurance Coverage Initiative (2024)

The Colorado Right to Abortion and Health Insurance Coverage Initiative is on the ballot in Colorado as an initiated constitutional amendment on November 5, 2024.

A "yes" vote supports creating a right to abortion in the state constitution and allowing the use of public funds for abortion.

A "no" vote opposes creating a right to abortion in the state constitution and opposes repealing a constitutional provision that bans the use of public funds for abortion.

Supermajority requirement: A 55% supermajority vote is required for the approval of the initiative.

Additional information on abortion-related ballot measures

As of June 14, 2024, four statewide ballot measures related to abortion were certified for the ballot in 2024.

This initiative would provide a right to abortion in the state constitution. The initiative would prohibit the state or local governments from denying or impeding the right to an abortion and allow abortion to be a covered service under health insurance plans. The initiative would repeal Section 50 of Article V of the Colorado Constitution, adopted in 1984, which prohibited the use of public funds for abortion.[1][2]

What is the current status of abortion in Colorado?

Colorado is one of 10 states that does not restrict abortion after a specific point in a pregnancy.

In 1984, Coloradans voted 50.4% to 49.6% to ban public funding of abortion except for cases where the mother's life is in danger. The provision prevented state health insurance from covering abortions for government employees and others on state health insurance plans such as Medicaid. The measure was challenged in 1988 and was upheld by voters. In 1998, Coloradans voted 55% to 45% to require parents to be notified if their minor children seek an abortion and voted 51% to 49% to reject a ban on partial-birth abortion. In 2000, Colorado voters rejected a measure that would have required women to be given certain information from a physician at least 24 hours in advance of an abortion. Coloradans defeated three measures (in 2008, 2010, and 2014) that would have defined person to include fetuses or unborn human beings. In 2020, voters rejected an initiative that would have banned abortions after 22 weeks.

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That Pesky 1st Amendment

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Happy National Religious Freedom Day, Everybody

From a proclamation by The Prez in 2014:

In 1786, the Virginia General Assembly affirmed an ideal that has long been central to the American journey. The Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, penned by Thomas Jefferson, declared religious liberty a natural right and any attempt to subvert it "a departure from the plan of the Holy Author of our religion, who being Lord both of body and mind, yet chose not to propagate it by coercions on either." The Statute inspired religious liberty protections in the First Amendment, which has stood for almost two and a quarter centuries.

Today, America embraces people of all faiths and of no faith. We are Christians and Jews, Muslims and Hindus, Buddhists and Sikhs, atheists and agnostics. Our religious diversity enriches our cultural fabric and reminds us that what binds us as one is not the tenets of our faiths, the colors of our skin, or the origins of our names. What makes us American is our adherence to shared ideals -- freedom, equality, justice, and our right as a people to set our own course.

Thomas Jefferson was asked what he tho't were his greatest achievements, and he listed his big 3:

Conspicuously absent are things like Minister to France, Sec'y of State, President of the United States. You know - the small stuff.

But it's that 2nd one that makes it all really shine.  We have a legitimate claim to being exceptional because we broke free from the cynical manipulations of politicians that grow from the arbitrary bullshit of religion and religious authoritarianism.

An Act for establishing religious Freedom.

Whereas, Almighty God hath created the mind free;

That all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burthens, or by civil incapacitations tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and therefore are a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, who being Lord, both of body and mind yet chose not to propagate it by coercions on either, as was in his Almighty power to do,

That the impious presumption of legislators and rulers, civil as well as ecclesiastical, who, being themselves but fallible and uninspired men have assumed dominion over the faith of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible, and as such endeavouring to impose them on others, hath established and maintained false religions over the greatest part of the world and through all time;

That to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions, which he disbelieves is sinful and tyrannical;

That even the forcing him to support this or that teacher of his own religious persuasion is depriving him of the comfortable liberty of giving his contributions to the particular pastor, whose morals he would make his pattern, and whose powers he feels most persuasive to righteousness, and is withdrawing from the Ministry those temporary rewards, which, proceeding from an approbation of their personal conduct are an additional incitement to earnest and unremitting labours for the instruction of mankind;

That our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions any more than our opinions in physics or geometry,

That therefore the proscribing any citizen as unworthy the public confidence, by laying upon him an incapacity of being called to offices of trust and emolument, unless he profess or renounce this or that religious opinion, is depriving him injuriously of those privileges and advantages, to which, in common with his fellow citizens, he has a natural right,

That it tends only to corrupt the principles of that very Religion it is meant to encourage, by bribing with a monopoly of worldly honours and emoluments those who will externally profess and conform to it;

That though indeed, these are criminal who do not withstand such temptation, yet neither are those innocent who lay the bait in their way;

That to suffer the civil magistrate to intrude his powers into the field of opinion and to restrain the profession or propagation of principles on supposition of their ill tendency is a dangerous fallacy which at once destroys all religious liberty because he being of course judge of that tendency will make his opinions the rule of judgment and approve or condemn the sentiments of others only as they shall square with or differ from his own;

That it is time enough for the rightful purposes of civil government, for its officers to interfere when principles break out into overt acts against peace and good order;

And finally, that Truth is great, and will prevail if left to herself, that she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict, unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons free argument and debate, errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them:

Be it enacted by General Assembly that no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief, but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of Religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge or affect their civil capacities. And though we well know that this Assembly elected by the people for the ordinary purposes of Legislation only, have no power to restrain the acts of succeeding Assemblies constituted with powers equal to our own, and that therefore to declare this act irrevocable would be of no effect in law; yet we are free to declare, and do declare that the rights hereby asserted, are of the natural rights of mankind, and that if any act shall be hereafter passed to repeal the present or to narrow its operation, such act will be an infringement of natural right.

It's all about the freedom to think.  Like the man said, "for I have sworn upon the altar of god eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."

Told Ya

From Addicting Info:

Being honest was her downfall
Alicia Beltran, 28, had done what she thought she needed to do in order to have a healthy first pregnancy. Her only mistake was telling her doctor’s office about her efforts to protect her fetus. Beltran had a bout with addiction to the painkiller Percocet in the previous year. She took steps to get herself off of it, including getting some of an anti-addiction drug, Suboxone, from a friend. With that, she weaned herself off of the Percocet. She finished the process a few days before going to a clinic for a prenatal checkup. In providing her medical history to a physician’s assistant (PA), she helpfully included this information. Drug-testing done on that day confirmed that she had no opiates in her system.

The PA wanted Beltran to go on Suboxone again, but she refused. She hadn’t been able to afford her own prescription in the first place and now felt confident that she was done with drugs. Two weeks after the checkup, a social worker came knocking on her door. She insisted that Beltran take Suboxone or else a court order would force her to. An angry Beltran again refused. Two days later, her house was surrounded by officers from the sheriff’s department. She was arrested and taken in shackles to a court hearing.

I've posted some stuff in the past about how this is what we might be talking about if the TheoCon Lifers get their way.  But I was just kinda speculating about it, and projecting it out to the logical extreme - or I tho't I was anyway.  Now it turns out I was right!?!  What the fuck, Jesus?

Now, c'mon, think about this a little and take this one instance a few steps farther.  What if Ms Beltran had resisted arrest?  What if she had barricaded herself in her house and there was a standoff with the cops?  Eventually, aren't we talking about justifying the use of deadly force against the mother when the whole point of the exercise in the first place was to protect the fetus?

And what was all that bullshit about not wanting da gubmint in your doctor's exam room?

How about "small, limited government"?

Seriously - what the fuck?