If there was only a way to make men suffer morning sickness, varicose veins, placenta previa, pre-eclampsia, ectopic pregnancy, dying in childbirth...maybe they’d think twice about forcing a woman to bear a child against her will.

Hear, hear!

I think the emphasis on $$$ is fine but not the real point. Pregnancy and childbirth are medically dangerous and potentially life-threatening, and the government should not be given the power to force a woman to endure this against her will.

And I know whereof I speak,having gone through three pregnancies.

Medical abortion is much, much, safer than childbirth, as well. But the life of a woman means nothing to these pro-birth zealots.

They both went all the way toward life-threatening. My water-retention and edema were severe. And scary as hell! Couldn't believe what was starting to happen to me, physically.

It’s like all these strange things are happening to your body and it is indeed scary! And, not to over-dramatize, but after you give birth, your body just isn’t the same again. It makes my blood boil that these old white men think they have the right to force that on us! Or consider it “not such a big deal.”

If they believe it's a person, it deserves healthcare.

Because THEY couldn’t get pregnant.

If men could get pregnant


.

when there was a discussion in a law class about sperm and conception. They argued that every man's sperm that is released constitutes an abandoned child and is responsible for it legally. She made a good point.

https://ru-clip.net/video/xs3_hNYAVRw/legally-blonde-7-11-movie-clip-impressing-professor-callahan-2001-hd.html

Never seen the movie, but I have argued that men who think birth control should be outlawed need to prosecuted for EACH of the millions of sperm that they "spill" onto the ground, or more likely, onto their female partner's half of the sheets. After all, that's a potential person lying in that wet spot--millions of them. Their "fathers" should have to pay for each funeral.

If women are going to be held accountable then the men who get them pregnant should be as well.

.... rather than the time of birth. See if the Feds would agree to the extra nine months of deductions.

That follows from the OP.

Men have always been able to evade responsibility for a fetus that they helped conceive, but now with modern science and DNA testing, it is easier to have men be responsible for the pregnancy. Women have never had that luxury, being physically connected to the fetus. It is a big power imbalance that should be corrected by law. Men need to be responsible for fetuses that they conceive with a woman.

My tubes are tied, I'm sterile!

In the moment, the small words matter.

Equality!

all the ones that don't want to fund day care or health care for babies and children, all those who think a woman on "welfare" needs to be also working full time, they somehow think that all those babies are the result of some sort of immaculate conception. No father involved. No father held responsible.

I wish women had the nerve to drop their babies and toddlers off in the offices of such Representatives and Senators, at both the state and federal level, and just leave them there all day.

The thing is, no half-way decent mother would do so, and the people proposing and supporting such anti-women legislation simply haven't a clue what it's really like.

Read the book Maid by Stephanie Land. She got pregnant out of wedlock, as the quaint saying goes, decided to have the baby. So far so good as it's a "pro-life" choice. But the father (and she really should have spotted this long before) was genuinely terrible dad material and kicked her and their daughter out within a year. So Stephanie did what she could to survive. The only work she could find was as a house cleaner, rarely getting more than 25 hours a week of paid work.

I will say that she made a bunch of bad choices, but eventually she was able to get it together to move to Missoula and enroll in the creative writing program there, resulting in this book. As well as a much better life for her and her daughter. But the essential point is that she did NOT have any kind of a free ride as a single mom, and that's the essential point.

Another good book is Give People Money by Annie Lowrey which makes a very strong case for a universal basic income.

Every time I drive past one of them I say out loud that the Reich sure as fuck doesn’t care about human life once it’s born.

dispels the myth that “welfare moms” are lazy and just keep on “breeding” in order to get more “free stuff”. Her life as a single working low income parent was far from luxurious, and the few benefits she managed to receive were pretty damn skimpy and inadequate. Plus the judgement she got at places like the grocery store and hospitals and doctors office personnel.

In 1967 New York City after three c-sections in three years I wanted my tubes tied. Because I was under 30 my husband had to sign a notarized statement that he understood that I would then be unable to have more children. The hospital held a special conference with the panel agreeing to the procedure. Nobody asked me how I felt. It was all decided by a group of white males. And, by the way the Catholic Church then excommunicated me.

Although being excommunicated by the Catholic Church probably was a blessing! (and I say this as a lapsed Catholic)

All those men huddling together to make a very personal decision for you. As if any woman was a ninny with no brains and was incapable of deciding for herself when she had had enough children.

My mother told me that our Catholic neighbor lady landed in the hospital with cancer and had to have a hysterectomy....this was in the mid 60s. Our parish priest paid her a visit in the hospital .... not to wish her well, mind you, but to make absolutely sure that she wasn’t “faking” her illness in order to stop having more children! She already had four!

You men reading this here (and maybe you younger women) have no idea how women were treated back then!

For the life of me, I don’t understand why there isn’t a tsunami of protest against these bills by the younger women in this country, the ones who have the most to lose.

I tell stories to my daughters and granddaughters about homes for unwed mothers, the choices that my generation simply did not have and hope they pay attention. Maybe more of us should tell the many restrictions girls were under -- and boys as well. And, to take it one step further -- we were either one or the other, male or female and nothing in between.

Don't forget insurance coverage for the fetus as an independent human, too. If you gonna claim they're people before they're born, all the stuff that applies to "people" should apply to them, too.

ETA: not sure about insurance