Girl, 13, gives birth after she was raped and denied abortion in Mississippi

MicroWave@lemmy.world to News@lemmy.world – 763 points – Girl, 13, gives birth after she was raped and denied abortion in Mississippi
theguardian.com

The nearest abortion clinic – in Chicago – was too far away and too expensive for her mother to provide her with the procedure

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This is what Republicans want for all of us.

If Republicans win the next election, they will institute a national abortion ban without exceptions for rape or incest.

If you want to stop this, the only way to do so is to vote for Biden. I really hope people understand this.

What it's going to take is to vote in Biden, then whoever the Democrats run in 2028, 2032, 2036. Until enough of the Republican justices die in office that actual jurists can replace them.

That's not the only way of stopping them.

It's not even a way to stop them.
Biden has literally been president during this whole Roe v Wade overturning.
It's so exhausting to see libs walk this line so close to being actual progressives, but not, all for their precious capitalism.
You're never going to beat the system by playing within the rules it's set you, the house always wins.

Okay. Outline a reasonable action Biden could have taken to prevent the ruling.

He could have pushed to have it codified.

He could have also pushed student loan forgiveness for all borrowers instead of the bullshit means testing that got it shut down.

Without 60 votes in the Senate, shit, without 50, it codification of abortion rights wasn't happening. And he did push loan forgiveness, the Supreme Court shut that down.

It got shut down because of the means testing he included. If he hadn't excluded some borrowers it would have gone through.

Nope, it got shut down because the court ruled that it amounted to the executive appropriating money. Means testing is constitutional.

It wasn't the means testing that shut it down, if anything it wouldn't have made it as far as it did without the means testing. As it is, people were already complaining that it was a giveaway to wealthy folks who don't need it. Take away the income limit and it would have less than zero chance of succeeding.

The president has very little power over legislative decisions. Yes, he could have used the bully pulpit to advocate for abortion legislation, but it would have accomplished nothing.

Voting is good, yes.

So is protesting. We must use all the tools at our disposal, provided they are used to protect and support the most marginalized of our communities.

Of course, now that the baby is out the pro-lifers say that they can both go die in a ditch

Is this what they want? Ruined lives? Fucking idiots.

Yes, actually. Conservatism flourishes most when people are suffering, unhealthy and impoverished.

It is a plague in desperate need of a cure.

Yes. The cruelty is the point.

The poor are supposed to be punished via all sorts or laws that keep them poor, for the "crime" of being poor.

Kinda reminds me how in my country - Portugal - during the Fascist Dictatorship abortion was illegal but the daughters of the wealthy (and you could only be wealthy if part of the regime, so these were the very same people who made the laws) could just go next door to Spain to get an abortion whilst the rest (almost all of them, as there was crushing poverty in the country back then) couldn't afford to.

Whilst the outright Evil of the people passing this kind of law is bad, it's the hypocrisy that really makes it trully disgusting.

It’s literally what they want. You think that girl’s going to stand up for herself at work when she’s got a kid at home?

well shit. you nailed it, i was that kid at home and my mother beat the shit out of me to vent her frustrations from the apathy work gave her. what's worse than being abused. seeing those around you foster that abuse because, lol single mother = prey.

In theory, they want the girl to give up the baby for adoption.

In practice, they instead often end up being shamed to keep it, and so on, and so on...

And the nurse's comment on finding a 13 yr old pregnant? "What have you been doing?" For fucks sake, I hate the world.

Ah yes let's slut shame the 13 year olds instead of doing our due diligence as mandated reporters. Smh.

and it's her rapist's child. a stranger nonetheless. These folks just lack humanity.

An abortion is not something you should need to be able to afford. It's not a luxury, it's a (often necessary) medical procedure. So fucked up, all of this. I hope the family can achieve some semblance of happiness some day

Sounds like a Republican's dream

Wouldn't they like to marry the girl to her rapist, because sex outside of marriage is a sin or something?

Not in a monogamous society. Rapists don't want to get tied down to only a single child wife. Also, there's no dowry in our society for the rapist to take the burden of raising the girl off the parents' hands.

If Republicans didn't have children with an abused woman, would they have any at all?

The baby's father is so proud he gave expensive cigars to all his fellow GOP congressmen.

This is just completely disgusting. When everyone failed her the law wasn't even on her side. Say what you want about abortions in general, but the audacity that people have to make getting abortions under rape or complications political is just disgusting. My heart truly goes out to this little girl, and her family, but especially the little girl. I can't imagine the amount of life altering trauma she has gone through, and how this is going to affect her for the rest of her life. This shouldn't happen to anyone. What the fuck is wrong with people.

3 more...

Wow that is some serious bullshit right there. For the rest of this girls life she is going to have to share custody with the man that raped her.

They don’t know who it was. It was a complete stranger who raped her when she was playing in her yard. The police haven’t even investigated. He’d have to come forward first.

Sounds like a middle eastern thing. Wonder what the link is.

It's not a middle eastern thing, It stems from people in power who don't see women as having any value, except as house slaves/property. Those people try to justify their ideas by pointing to old texts, where other similar minded people have snuck in the notions of women as property or of less value than men.

Religious fanaticism.

That's what it has become, but I don't think any of the old religions was founded on the oppression of women, but people in power have conveniently added that sort of thing, when religion became a tool of power

Religion was invented as a tool of power, whether used for good or bad. Don't eat "unclean" animals because they make people sick or kill you. That message apparently didn't work as well as "God says no".

So you see a story about sexual violence in Mississippi and your first thought is "I bet a Muslim did this."

Makes total sense; the good ol' Christian boys in Missisip are beyond suspicion.

I guess sarcasm doesn't translate well over text, even in a case that I thought was clear.

The anti-abortion laws in much of the US are a pretty extreme measure to control women. The area of the world that practices the most extreme control of women is the middle east. The link between the two besides that is religious extremism, regardless of religion.

The people most afraid of "sharia law" are the ones passing sharia laws.

At no point did I intend to blame Muslims for Christians doing the exact same shit. My point was the hypocrisy of those American Christians and the direction they seem intent on pursuing.

In Saudi Arabia she would been allowed an abortion. Saudi Arabia is literally more progressive in this area than Mississippi.

Look at that. Using Islamophobia as an excuse to be racist against several large people groups/ cultures. Such enlightenment.

No, my thought is that it sounds like religious extremism. And the principles of y'all Qaeda aren't much different from the terrorists they claim to hate.

is it worth it Republicans?

This is literally what they wanted, of course it's worth it.

They think they haven't gone far enough yet, not that the price to pay is too high. Not like they're paying the price themselves, and they're incapable of feeling empathy for people like this girl who are affected by their psychopathic legislation. If they themselves or anyone in their immediate family needs an abortion, they'll go get one somewhere else because they're good people and they have a good reason for it, unlike all those woke socialist Nazi sluts

As if she was their problem.

They only want control over her. The rest ain't their problem.

To understand why this is happening, you have to go back in history to the end of the slave trade. When the ability to kidnap people from Africa and bring them back to enslave them was legally ended, the white enslavers realized that the only way they could keep slavery going was to force people to breed more slaves. Google that history. It is utterly abhorrent but necessary to understand where the Republican Party is coming from today.

Since the end of slavery, a certain contingent in the U.S. has never gotten over the fact that they couldn't legally have a sub-class of citizens that they could use for free or nearly-free labor. So they kept trying to find other ways to keep people oppressed, and they expanded that oppression beyond just black people and to any of the "less desirable" groups. Think not just Black people, but also Irish, immigrants, Appalachia. They pit these groups against one another because divided people are easier to control. But the goal is the same - have large groups of people poor for generations who have no other option but to work for slave wages and keep the people at the top very, very rich.

Slavery in the U.S. was a huge economic force, one that a certain contingent (the very wealthy) never got over losing. The next best thing was to create whole groups of people who are desperate enough to work for almost nothing. That's what we have in this country now. And it works best if those people are constantly putting out more children. That keeps them even more stuck and more desperate, and it keeps a steady supply of cheap labor coming.

It's no coincidence that they want abortion ended but also want to ensure those same people are continually subjected to sub-standard education, that those same people are "allowed" to send their kids to work (defeating years of progress through child labor laws), that those people are also unable to access higher education, government benefits, or virtually anything that could potentially make their lives better.

Slavery in the U.S. was a huge economic force, one that a certain contingent (the very wealthy) never got over losing. The next best thing was to create whole groups of people who are desperate enough to work for almost nothing. That’s what we have in this country now. And it works best if those people are constantly putting out more children. That keeps them even more stuck and more desperate, and it keeps a steady supply of cheap labor coming.

In my experience the only difference between a certain kind of right-wing "libertarian" person and a slavery apologist is just the amount of time you've spent arguing with them. Their arguments (pro-child marriage, anti-abortion, anti-minimum wage) end up converging at "well, in some cases it's /more/ expensive to provide people room and board than it would be to pay them in cash".

News from Texas USA start to sound a lot like news from catholic Poland lately. I just can´t imagine this kind of fucked up shit is what Jesus wanted though /s

Religion: wrecking lives since....well, since it was invented.

Specifically, Christianity wrecks lives, I don't think the non-white religions need to get swept under this particular bus.

I will fight my ass off to place my children into a conservatorship or even frame them for a crime if they ever consider moving to a place like Mississippi

I assume the girl asked help from the republicans around here, but they couldn't hear her ask over the sound of themselves screaming about how much they want to "protect children".

I was reading a description of this popular novel the other day. It was set in America and was supposedly fiction...

The novel explores themes of subjugated women in a patriarchal society, loss of female agency and individuality, suppression of women's reproductive rights, and the various means by which women resist and try to gain individuality and independence.

I just woke up and this almost made me puke. This is sick.

I see clinics in Carbondale, about 5 hours South of Chicago. I wonder why that wasn't an option?

"was looking to get an abortion for her daughter but was told the closest abortion provider was in Chicago – a drive of more than nine hours from their home in Clarksdale, Mississippi."

They could have been lied to, these people are disgusting. When taken to be seen for her strange behavior before they knew she was pregnant, in response to getting back the positive pregnancy test the nurse asked the girl "What have you been doing?". There are plenty of people in healthcare that don't care about these victims either or see them as victims at all.

Those clinics you see might not give abortions anymore too.

Given the geography of the situation, it would be useful to ensure that (1) the southern IL clinics remain open and (2) this information is widely known in the the southern states.

The Guardian seems to be spreading misinformation by claiming that Chicago is the closest location without further research.

Edit: here's a map to clarify:

  1. You say it's widely known with no evidence. Widely known to some does not mean it is known to everyone.

  2. The guardian is reporting what they the family were told by the nurse. If you read the original Time article they say that precisely, the nurse told them that's where the nearest place was. Whether the nurse was correct or not is not what they claimed.

You say it’s widely known with no evidence

I said it would be useful to make the information widely known. Journalists should call up the clinics in southern Illinois, ask if they're open, and share this information in future articles. I assume they'll get plenty of opportunities.

Probably no driver's license or car, no money, no help, etc.

> you deserve to die because of bad things (a) parent(s) do(es)

First and foremost It's none of your fucking business why a woman seeks an abortion.

But if you're also suggesting that this girl did a quote unquote bad thing by being raped, you can absolutely get fucked.

a man came into their front yard while she was making TikToks outside while her uncle and sibling were inside and assaulted her. Ashley said she did not know who the man was and that no one witnessed the attack.

Really now? Getting r-ped in the front yard of your house, in broad daylight, while there's people inside? The girl must come up with something more convincing. I think the mom just came up with the story to be able to get an abortion legally, because in most states incest and r-pe are the only exceptions to the abortion ban. That's why some conservatives are against these exceptions, because women will lie about getting r-ped to get an abortion. Police should collect the child's DNA. The father will show up in a database sooner or later.

Edit: yea, just keep down voting like cowards without giving a counter argument, cuz you don't have one!

Fucking missleading as shit

Trying to get abortion at what state if the pregnancy?

Bro, you're talking about a 13 year old being forced to give birth. Why tf would you ask "What trimester is she in?!" Versus "Holy shit how have we failed her this badly?!"

Besides, where is the rapist? If she was rapped that mean the rapist is in jail right? Cut his balls, castrate him.

Lmao you think rapists are ever caught?

If they are rapist, yes. Need to prove it to call him rapist

I understand the "holy shit how have we failed her this badly". My question is, at that point are you saying its okay to kill a baby other than have a 13 have a child? What did the baby do to get killed?

Well thankfully, no babies are killed during abortion procedures, so you can stop worrying about that.

Oh wow..... Really?

Yes...? Words have meaning, and often times (especially when we're talking about the law) seemingly minor differences in word choice can make all the difference in the world. That's why any legal document you see has a section at the top defining terms so there can be no question what is meant.

Abortion doesn't directly concern "babies." It usually just involves a blastocyst or maybe a zygote or embryo. Literal clumps of cells that the human body often eliminates on it's own, spontaneously and for no clear reason.

At the very most, it involves a fetus, which is still not a baby.

Yea, I guess that is the main argument right? When is the baby "alive". Some say as soon as conception happens, some say as soon as he/she can breath. I think most would agree that is somewhere in between.

The "baby" exists. That's the crime. Flush it.

Oh wow..... Its the baby fault?

Fuck that pregnancy, fuck that fetus. I'll fuckin rip it out myself and flush it down the toilet no matter what state of pregnancy it is.

That is what I thought. Does not matter how well the baby is form, what matters ia that I get my life back. Fuck the baby, I want to have time for myself.