Anti-abortion zealots want to legalize murder

Is it legal to kill someone who is about to have an abortion? I know that sounds like a ridiculous question, but some people on the far right would like it to be. Social media was recently awash with outrage over a bill introduced by North Carolina state legislators that would legalize violence against anyone undergoing or performing an abortion. North Carolina House Bill (HB) 158, sponsored by a Republican state representative, Larry Pittman, proposed that abortion be considered first-degree murder and would allowed civilians to use deadly force to prevent someone from ending a pregnancy.

While this is clearly terrifying, it should be noted that a lot of discussion circulating about the bill online wasn’t accurate: the outrage was sparked by a somewhat misleading post that made it look like the bill was actively being considered. In fact, however, HB 158 was introduced in February 2021 and didn’t advance out of committee. An AFP fact check also notes that it received little support from legislators.

Still, even though the bill was largely performative, that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be taken seriously. The far right constantly introduce extreme bills like this into state legislatures with the full knowledge that there is zero chance they will pass. It’s part of a broader strategy to further their agenda that can be summed up as exhaust and inure. Exhaust: the more they overwhelm legislatures with extreme legislation, the harder it becomes for liberals to fight them. It becomes a game of “Whac-a-Mole”. Inure: proposing extreme ideas like this via legislation helps gradually desensitize people and shifts the Overton window to the right; step by step the unthinkable becomes mainstream.

All this isn’t just my personal opinion, by the way: it’s extracted from a playbook written by Christian nationalists. A few years ago a researcher called Frederick Clarkson uncovered an initiative from a coalition of far-right Christian groups called Project Blitz that gave their supporters detailed instructions on how to codify their views into law and gradually destroy the division between church and state. I highly recommend reading Clarkson’s writings on Project Blitz: they are essential for understanding the current moment. As Clarkson said when he first found the playbook: “It’s very rare that you come across a major primary source document that changes the way you view everything, and this is one of those times. This is a 116-page strategy manual hidden away on a website explaining at least what a section of the religious right are doing in the United States.”

Bills like the one in North Carolina, it can’t be stressed enough, are not just frivolous one-offs by extremists. They’re part of a coordinated – and highly effective – strategy to consolidate power by the right. Democrats should really be paying more attention to these tactics and learning from them. So many centrists are afraid that suggesting things like free healthcare will make them look like radicals hellbent on bringing communism to America. You think the right care about looking “radical”? Of course not. They care about power. And they’re very good at doing whatever it takes to get it.

South Carolina bill outlaws websites explaining how to get an abortion

Want another example of that “Whac-a-Mole” strategy in action? South Carolina state senators recently introduced legislation that would make it illegal to host a website or “[provide] an internet service” with information that is “reasonably likely to be used for an abortion”. This is incredibly far-reaching language that means even news stories related to reproductive rights could be censored. This bill is unconstitutional and it’s not clear that it will be law anytime soon. But, again, that doesn’t make it any less worrying. As one expert told the Washington Post: “These are not going to be one-offs. These are going to be laws that spread like wildfire through states that have shown hostility to abortion.”

A 99-year-old’s dying wish was for a giant penis statue over her grave

I would describe this as a snippet of much-needed light news, but there is nothing light about the penis and testicles that now sit on top of Catarina Orduña Pérez’s grave: they weigh nearly 600 pounds. The statue is also five-a-half-foot tall. “She told me that [the statue] was her desire so that no one would forget her and that everything we loved about her would be remembered more easily,” Pérez’s grandson told Vice. A legend.

Shireen Abu Akleh’s family demand US action

It has been over two months now since the Palestinian American journalist was killed while covering a military raid in the occupied West Bank. A UN rights body investigation found that the shot that killed Abu Akleh came from Israeli security forces, echoing eyewitness accounts of the shooting and analysis by other rights groups. Still, the US seems to have no desire to ensure there is accountability for her death; the journalist’s family travelled to Washington to beg the secretary of state, Antony Blinken, to do something this week and he fobbed them off. If Abu Akleh had been murdered in Ukraine by Russian forces, I think the US response would be rather different. When journalists are killed by US allies (Jamal Khashoggi comes to mind), the US seems to rather relax its concerns about things like human rights and accountability.

‘I will never regret the time I spent with my children, but society is punishing me for it in my 60s’

“Precarity can happen so easily to anyone,” writes Louise Ihlein in a powerful piece in the Guardian. “[B]ut it happens a lot to women who have spent their lives caring for others.”

Being a woman in Afghanistan has become ‘death in slow motion’

A chilling new report released by Amnesty International documents how the rights of women and girls in Afghanistan have been “decimated by the Taliban” in less than a year. Child marriage has surged and safeguards protecting women have collapsed.

Lebanese politician says used condoms were left in her office by male colleagues

Amnesty International has condemned the sexist harassment of a newly elected female MP in Lebanon, Cynthia Zarazir. The legislator spoke out on Twitter about being catcalled and bullied, saying her colleagues gave her a filthy office full of pornographic magazines and condoms. “If this is how they treat an elected fellow MP, how will they deal with those who are voiceless?” she tweeted.

The week in pawtriarchy

A group of roaming macaque monkeys have been terrorizing a southern Japanese city in recent weeks, attacking more than 50 individuals. Most of the victims have been children and women (who knew macaques could be so misogynistic?!) but it seems attacks on men are on the rise. “I have never seen anything like this my entire life,” one city official said. Like many other things unfolding right now, the wild monkey attacks are unprecedented. What I would give to live in precedented times.

Arwa Mahdawi’s new book, Strong Female Lead, is available for order