“Fuck the Middle Ground”
Jessica Valenti on why there’s no room for compromise or middle ground on abortion rights.
Anyone still holding out hope for a ‘compromise’ on abortion rights needs to give it up. Right now.
Over the past few days, a Louisiana mother was arrested for getting abortion pills for her teenager, abortion reports became public records in Indiana, and Arkansas advanced a bill mandating an anti-abortion propaganda video be shown in public school classrooms.
Also in the last week, the new Trump administration erased information on reproductive health and privacy rights from government websites, Missouri Republicans moved to overturn a pro-choice amendment that voters approved in November, Idaho legislators proposed a bill that could punish abortion patients with the death penalty, and South Carolina lawmakers pushed legislation that wouldn’t just ban pro-choice websites—it would make it a felony to even talk about abortion with a pregnant person.
In the short amount of time Donald Trump has been in office, anti-abortion extremists have been told they can attack clinics without fear of arrest, and the Republican party who once claimed they’d never punish women for abortion now say bills to prosecute patients as murderers “inspire healthy dialogue.”
Do these sound like people interested in ‘compromise’? We’re watching conservatives dismantle democracy and force women back into the home — killing quite a few of us along the way. In what universe is the appropriate response finding common ground?
You don’t ask the guy with the boot on your neck to wear a softer shoe. You rip his fucking foot off.
This is a paywalled article but it includes the entire text — “It’s past time to act like it.” is the last line of the piece.
See also Rebecca Solnit: On Not Meeting Nazis Halfway and A.R. Moxon’s essay that reminds us the center between fascism and democracy is fascism. (thx, meg)
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