Society

Subterms

    More stories

    • 213 Shares159 Views

      in US Politics

      ‘The more women accuse him, the better he does’: the meaning and misogyny of the Trump-Carroll case

      by

      Donald Trump has boasted about grabbing women by the pussy without their consent. He has made innumerable misogynistic comments. He has been accused of sexual misconduct by at least 26 women. He has suggested that some of the women who have accused him of misconduct were too unattractive to assault. And, until this week, he has managed to get away with all of it. Trump has faced no meaningful consequences for his actions; he has given every impression of being above the law.Until this week. It may have taken decades, but the law has finally caught up with Trump. On Tuesday, a jury in New York found that the former president sexually abused the advice columnist E Jean Carroll in the changing room of a department store 27 years ago. It was a civil case, so Trump hasn’t been taken away in handcuffs, but his reputation and his wallet have suffered a blow. While the jury did not find that Trump raped Carroll, its verdict brands him a sexual predator. Carroll was awarded $5m (£4m) in total: $2.02m in compensation and damages for her battery claim and $2.98m in compensation and damages for defamation, as a result of Trump calling her a liar.“I filed this lawsuit against Donald Trump to clear my name and to get my life back,” Carroll said on Tuesday. “Today, the world finally knows the truth. This victory is not just for me but for every woman who has suffered because she was not believed.”It is hard to overstate just how profound it is to see one of the world’s most prominent men finally held accountable for his actions – and at a time when women’s rights in the US seem to be going backwards. “The verdict in this case is important to survivors of sexual abuse,” says the trailblazing equal rights lawyer Gloria Allred. “It will cause many of them to believe that if they are sexually abused and defamed by a rich, powerful and famous man that they may be able to fight back and win in a civil lawsuit, even if it is too late for a criminal case to be filed or even if no police report is ever made.”The activist Shannon Coulter says that the verdict feels deeply personal. “Ever since the release of the Access Hollywood tape [in which Trump made his “Grab ’em by the pussy” remark], I’ve been on this journey of understanding my own rage around the words Donald Trump said on it,” Coulter says. “This journey included confronting the sexual assault I experienced as a younger woman at the hands of a powerful man. With E Jean Carroll’s victory today, something has come full circle for me. I feel more peaceful. Less angry. I feel that some small amount of justice has, at last, been served, not just to Donald Trump, but to any man who believes that power eclipses consent.”Carroll’s victory came at a high price. First, there was the assault itself: the panicked minutes spent trapped alone with Trump, struggling as she tried to push him off. When she spoke publicly about the assault for the first time, in an article in New York magazine in 2019, Carroll wrote: “I have never had sex with anybody ever again.” Then there was the aftermath: being forced to relive the assault again and again, having every detail poked, prodded and scrutinised.Why did she take so long to come forward? Because, Carroll wrote in her essay, she knew exactly what the response would be; every woman does. “Receiving death threats, being driven from my home, being dismissed, being dragged through the mud, and joining the 15 women who’ve come forward with credible stories about how the man grabbed, badgered, belittled, mauled, molested, and assaulted them, only to see the man turn it around, deny, threaten, and attack them, never sounded like much fun,” she wrote.Of course, everything that Carroll expected to happen when she came forward happened immediately. Trump’s defence was steeped in sexism and victim-blaming; it was a masterclass in misogyny. In video testimony in October, Trump claimed that Carroll was a “nut job” who had “said it was very sexy to be raped”. In fact, what she had said was that some other people “think rape is sexy”. Meanwhile, Trump’s lawyer Joseph Tacopina called Carroll’s case “a scam” and accused the writer of “minimising real rape” and trying to profit from her accusations.What constitutes “real rape”, according to Tacopina? Well, it’s not rape if there is no screaming, he appeared to insinuate. At one particularly gruesome point in the trial, Tacopina repeatedly asked Carroll why she didn’t scream during the assault. “I was in too much of a panic to scream,” Carroll replied. Tacopina kept pushing the issue. Why hadn’t she screamed? Why hadn’t she behaved in the manner that he, Trump’s lawyer and an apparent expert on assault, expected a rape victim to behave? “I’m telling you he raped me whether I screamed or not,” an exasperated Carroll replied. “One of the reasons women don’t come forward is because they’re always asked: ‘Why didn’t you scream?’ Some women scream. Some women don’t. It keeps women silent.”“Rape myths – myths that allegations of sexual assault are uniquely untrustworthy, that women have to perform victimhood in a certain way to be credible, or that women should not be believed if they are imperfect human beings – are still powerful in our culture,” says Emily Martin, a spokesperson for the National Women’s Law Center Action Fund. “They often show up in courtrooms. We saw some of them in this trial. E Jean Carroll’s courage reaffirmed the power of survivors’ voices to create change. But no one should have to be this courageous or face the misogynistic vitriol she has faced in order to get some measure of justice. Our legal systems – and our media narratives – often fail survivors.”This trial is over, but the misogynistic vitriol directed at Carroll isn’t. Trump doesn’t take losing well and responded to the verdict in his usual restrained and eloquent manner, smearing Carroll as a liar. “I HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA WHO THIS WOMAN IS. THIS VERDICT IS A DISGRACE – A CONTINUATION OF THE GREATEST WITCH HUNT OF ALL TIME!” he wrote on his social media platform.Trump has repeated the assertion that he doesn’t know who Carroll is multiple times, despite the fact that a photograph taken in 1987 shows them together with their then spouses. He has also said that she isn’t his “type”, despite once mistaking a picture of her for his second wife, Marla Maples.What does Trump plan to do now? Hours before the verdict was announced, Trump said he would appeal. He repeated this intention to Fox News Digital after the verdict. “We’ll appeal. We got treated very badly by the Clinton-appointed judge,” Trump complained. “And [Carroll] is a Clinton person, too.” He then added: “I have no idea who this woman is.”If Trump does appeal, his argument will probably be that the case was an attempt to stop him from winning the presidency in 2024. A statement sent to reporters by the Trump campaign, for example, alleged that the trial was a “political endeavour targeting President Trump because he is now an overwhelming front-runner to be once again elected President of the United States”. That last bit isn’t bombast: Trump is the frontrunner for the Republican nomination and a Washington Post/ABC News poll released this month showed Biden trailing Trump by six percentage points in a theoretical rematch. Some analysts have questioned the methodology of that poll, but the fact remains: Trump should be taken seriously as a 2024 contender.Could the Carroll verdict hurt Trump’s political future? In a sane world, this wouldn’t even be up for debate. In a sane world, having a jury of nine people deliberate for just three hours before finding unanimously that you sexually assaulted a woman and defamed her should end your career. But, as has been demonstrated time and time again, the rules work differently when it comes to Trump. During the trial, Carroll’s attorney Michael Ferrara asked the writer why she didn’t go public with her allegations when Trump first ran for president. “I noticed that the more women who came forward to accuse him, the better he did in the polls,” she said.“Trump has always made the ability to have anyone he wants and do anything he wants with impunity part of his brand,” says Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a historian who writes about authoritarianism, democracy protection and propaganda. “When the Access Hollywood tapes came out right before the 2016 election, most people thought that would be the end of him – but it was the opposite.”This verdict won’t necessarily hurt Trump, Ben-Ghiat believes; he will just spin it so that it fits the tried-and-tested narrative that he is a victim of the liberal elite. “Trump is a superb propagandist and for years he’s pushed the narrative of himself as the victim of a witch-hunt and pushed the idea that the deep state is after him,” she says. It’s important to remember, Ben-Ghiat says, that “Trump is not a normal politician – he’s a cult leader. We’ve already seen how he managed to indoctrinate tens of millions of people into discarding the facts in front of them and believing that he didn’t lose the 2020 election.”If you need any more evidence that Trump isn’t a normal politician, look at the extraordinary advice that the US district judge Lewis Kaplan gave jurors in the Trump-Carroll case. They have had their identities kept secret, due to Kaplan’s concerns that they might face “harassment … and retaliation” from Trump supporters. After the verdict, Kaplan told the jurors that they were now allowed to identify themselves if they wished, but strongly suggested that they didn’t. “My advice to you is not to identify yourselves. Not now and not for a long time,” Kaplan said.To repeat: a judge warned a jury that they might face violence from Trump supporters. It’s the sort of warning you expect in the trial of a mob boss, not a former president. “These jury instructions show again that he’s not a normal politician – he’s a violent cult leader,” Ben-Ghiat says.Of course, while Trump may have a cult-like following, he is not omnipotent. The manner in which he is able to spin the Carroll verdict to his followers depends on what media platforms he is given and how journalists challenge his narrative about the trial. The first big test of this will be Wednesday’s live town hall forum on CNN, the first major television event of the 2024 presidential campaign. In a social media post on Tuesday, Trump seemed ambivalent about his big return to primetime. “Could be the beginning of a New & Vibrant CNN, with no more Fake News,” Trump wrote. “Or it could turn into a disaster for all, including me. Let’s see what happens?” More

    • 150 Shares159 Views

      in US Politics

      ‘We will not cave’: governors stockpile abortion drugs as access is threatened

      by

      Several Democratic governors have moved swiftly to protect access to medication abortion in their states after a ruling by a Texas judge late last week threatened access to the widely used abortion drug mifepristone.In an announcement on Monday, Governor Maura Healey of Massachusetts said her state had ordered about 15,000 doses of mifepristone, the first of two drugs in a medication abortion regimen that has been approved for use up to the 10th week of pregnancy.Healey also issued an executive order that she said would help protect access to medication abortions and shield providers who perform them.In California, Governor Gavin Newsom, also a Democrat, said his state had secured an emergency stockpile of up to 2m pills of misoprostol, the second drug in the regimen that can be used safely on its own, though is slightly less effective as a single medication. That drug, which is used to treat other medical conditions, is also being targeted by anti-abortion groups seeking to remove it from the market.“In response to this extremist ban on a medication abortion drug, our state has secured a stockpile of an alternative medication abortion drug to ensure that Californians continue to have access to safe reproductive health treatments,” Newsom said in a statement. “We will not cave to extremists who are trying to outlaw these critical abortion services. Medication abortion remains legal in California.”Their actions come after US district judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, an appointee of Donald Trump known for his anti-abortion views, issued a ruling late on Friday that invalidated the 23-year-old approval of mifepristone by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). On the same night, a federal judge in Washington state issued a contradictory ruling that ordered the FDA to maintain the drug’s approval in at least 17 states where Democrats had sued.On Monday, the US justice department appealed the Texas ruling, asking a federal appeals court to place a hold on the “extraordinary and unprecedented order”. Underscoring the legal uncertainty surrounding the dueling orders, the administration separately asked the federal court in Washington state for clarity.With access to the drug imperiled, and Democrats stymied in Washington by the Republican majority in the House of Representatives, a handful of liberal state governors said they were taking matters into their own hands.“A judge has made a politically motivated decision to override doctors, patients and medical experts and block access to critical medications,” Healey said on Monday, unveiling the plan at a press conference outside the Massachusetts statehouse in Boston. “Today, we collectively are saying loud and clear: not on our watch.”In anticipation of the Texas ruling, the Democratic governor of Washington, Jay Inslee, announced last week that his state would stockpile a three-year supply of mifepristone in the event the drug became more difficult to access. Days later, Kacsmaryk issued his ruling.Several other Democratic governors and state attorneys general have condemned the ruling while seeking to make clear that, at least for now, the drug remains available. Some went further, promising to keep medication abortion legal and accessible in their states, although without providing further details.More than half of abortions in the US rely on medication abortion, and most of those involve the two-drug protocol. If the appeals court doesn’t intervene, the Texas ruling would take effect on Friday with far-reaching implications for access.The FDA approved mifepristone to terminate pregnancy in 2000, when used with misoprostol. Despite claims made in the Texas lawsuit, there is decades’ worth of scientific research concluding that mifepristone is safe.States have become the epicenter of the fight over abortion rights since the supreme court’s landmark decision last June to overturn Roe v Wade. Since then, more than a dozen Republican-led states have enacted abortion bans or severely restricted access to the procedure.​Anti-abortion groups have long targeted medication abortion, the most common method for terminating a pregnancy in the US. But it became the focus of efforts after the supreme court’s landmark decision last June to overturn Roe v Wade, allowing states to regulate abortion.Although more than a dozen Republican-led states moved quickly to ban or severely restrict abortions​, with scores of new limits pending before state legislatures this session, Democratic-led states have pushed in the opposite direction. Yet if the Texas ruling stands, experts say it would upend access nationwide, limiting the drug even in states where abortion is legal.Abortion opponents in blue states denounced the efforts by Democratic governors to preserve access to medication abortion.“It is appalling that Gavin Newsom is so obsessed with ending the lives of children in the womb that he is attempting to stockpile dangerous and potentially illegal drugs,” California Family Council president Jonathan Keller wrote on Twitter. “California again proves the only ‘choice’ they care about is abortion.”Newsom said the judge’s ruling “ignores facts, science and the law” in a way that puts “the health of millions of women and girls at risk”.“Abortion is still legal and accessible here in California and we won’t stand by as fundamental freedoms are stripped away,” he said.Other supporters of abortion rights similarly denounced the conservative judge’s decision on abortion as “unprincipled” and out of step with the American public. In states where the issue has been put on the ballot, from right-leaning Kansas to battleground Michigan and liberal Vermont, voters have opted to preserve or expand access.“I’ve fought like hell to protect abortion access and I’m not backing down,” Michigan’s governor, Gretchen Whitmer, said on Friday. “I will keep taking steps to expand access to reproductive healthcare and fight against anyone threatening our rights.”Whitmer recently signed legislation repealing the state’s nearly century-old abortion ban, after Michigan voters overwhelmingly approved a ballot initiative in November to enshrine abortion protections into the state constitution.Democrats and reproductive rights advocates believe the issue will continue to motivate voters in the coming election cycles after lifting them to victories across the country in the 2022 midterms. Last week’s election of a liberal judge to serve on the Wisconsin supreme court brought fresh evidence of the enduring potency of abortion politics.“This decision will only enrage Americans further and move them to more action,” Mini Timmaraju, president of the Naral Pro-Choice America advocacy group, said on a call with reporters on Monday. “Our eyes are on 2023 and 2024 – 2022 was just the beginning.” More

    • 138 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Biden proposal forbids US schools from outright bans on transgender athletes

      by

      The Biden administration has released a proposal that would forbid schools and colleges across the US from enacting outright bans on transgender athletes. But teams could create some limits in certain cases – for example, to ensure fairness.If finalized, the proposal would become enshrined as a provision of Title IX. It must undergo a lengthy approval process, however, and it’s almost certain to face challenges from opponents.“Every student should be able to have the full experience of attending school in America, including participating in athletics, free from discrimination,” said Miguel Cardona, Biden’s education secretary, in a statement.The Biden administration used “fairness of competition” as criteria, which has been part of the debate in the US and globally.The move is an effort to counteract a wave of Republican-backed measures targeting LGBTQ+ rights, particularly the participation of trans athletes in school sports. The proposal must undergo a lengthy approval process, however, and it’s almost certain to face challenges. While opponents sharply criticized the proposal, some advocates for transgender athletes were concerned that it did not go far enough.The proposal came on the same day that the US supreme court refused to let West Virginia enforce a state law banning trans athletes from female sports teams at public schools, one of many similar measures across the country.The justices denied West Virginia’s request to lift an injunction against the law that a lower court had imposed while litigation continues over its legality in a challenge brought by a 12-year-old transgender girl, Becky Pepper-Jackson.Two conservative justices, Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, publicly dissented from the decision.The law, passed in 2021, designates sports teams at public schools including universities according to “biological sex” and bars male students from female athletic teams “based solely on the individual’s reproductive biology and genetics at birth”.In the lawsuit, Pepper-Jackson and her mother Heather argued that the law discriminates based on sex and transgender status in violation of the US constitution’s 14th amendment guarantee of equal protection under the law, as well as the Title IX civil rights law that bars sex-based discrimination in education.West Virginia said in a court filing that it can lawfully assign athletic teams by sex rather than gender identity “where biological differences between males and females are the very reason those separate teams exist”.Pepper-Jackson, who attends a middle school in the West Virginia city of Bridgeport, sued after being prohibited from trying out for the girls’ cross-country and track teams.Critics argue trans athletes have an advantage over cisgender women in competition. Last year, Lia Thomas became the first transgender woman to win an NCAA swimming title. College sports’ governing body, however, adopted a sport-by-sport approach to transgender athletes in January 2022, which was to bring the organization in line with the US and International Olympic committees, though recently the NCAA’s board decided it won’t be fully implemented until 2023-24.At the same time, international sports-governing bodies are instituting policies that ban all trans athletes from competing in track and field and effectively ban trans women from swimming events. More

    • 138 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Low-income Americans face a ‘hunger cliff’ as Snap benefits are cut

      by

      Gina Melton is facing a dilemma. Like millions of other Americans, Melton and her family relied on food assistance benefits boosted by Congress to help them through the pandemic. Now that extra cash is gone.The reduction has hit them hard. Three of her family members are disabled and one of her daughters works to take care of them through an agency. They had already relied on credit cards to pay for medical equipment that wasn’t covered by the federal health insurance schemes Medicare or Medicaid but have had to stop paying a couple of them in order to afford food.“When you have to choose between feeding your family and paying a credit card bill, you have to choose food,” said Melton, 62.Around 42 million Americans are currently enrolled in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap) benefits. Congress increased Snap benefits in response to the Covid-19 pandemic in March 2020. The last extra payments went out at the end of February in the remaining 32 states that were still issuing them, in addition to the District of Columbia, Guam and the US Virgin Islands.The emergency allotments were authorized in tandem with the Covid-19 emergency declaration in March 2022, but in December 2022, Congress passed a law to end the allotments.The lapse in the additional benefits will reduce Snap allotments for the average recipient by $90 a month, with some households losing $250 a month or more. Older adults at the minimum benefit level will see their monthly Snap benefits drop from $281 a month to $23.Though Melton’s husband, a diabetic, is still recovering from a recent surgery, he has been considering going back to work part time at the age of 65 as the family struggles to afford basic necessities, including healthy food. They’ve cut back on food purchases and buy what’s on sale or in reduced-price bins.“The extra food allotment was helping us a lot,” said Melton. “We’ve started shopping at lower-priced stores that don’t bag your groceries, but for a disabled person like myself, that requires me to go with a helper. We’ve also cut back on some more expensive necessities and are relying on the local food pantry more.”The end of the expanded benefits comes at a time when US consumer debt has been on the rise, with 20.5 million Americans currently behind on their utility payments and nearly 25 million behind on credit card, auto loan or personal loan payments, the highest number since 2009. Low-wage workers in the US, who make less than $20 an hour, have experienced drops in wage growth compared with other workers in recent months.Food prices have and are expected to continue to significantly rise in 2023 as well. The US Department of Agriculture estimated that all food prices will increase by 7.9% in 2023 – and they were already 9.5% higher in February 2023 compared with February 2022.With so many Americans receiving Snap benefits because of low wages, unemployment and underemployment, the sudden end of the emergency allotment has been characterized as a “hunger cliff”.Ellen Vollinger, Snap director for the nonprofit Food Research and Action Center, said: “The cliff is aptly named because this a very abrupt change in what people are going to have in their food budget and it’s affecting tens of millions of people.“When the federal government doesn’t provide as much support for food, it doesn’t mean that hungry people all of a sudden are better off, or no longer need assistance, or they go away. The hunger is still there, people are still there, the need is there, but the federal government is too abrupt in shifting the burden and costs of dealing with that downstream, to states [and] localities, and puts a greater burden on charities.”Vollinger noted that the end of emergency allotments leaves low-income families facing difficult choices around food, from forgoing meals and purchasing less to buying cheaper food.“There’s a lot of stress, that’s why we call it a hunger cliff. It’s very precipitous,” she added.Food banks have been bracing for a surge in demand as the expanded Snap benefits expire, with state agencies directing recipients to food pantries to help cope with the reduction in benefits.Studies have shown that the extra payments worked. The Urban Institute found that the increased Snap benefits during the Covid-19 pandemic kept 4.2 million Americans out of poverty in the fourth quarter of 2021, reducing poverty by 9.6% and child poverty by 14% in states with emergency allotments. They also have a wider economic benefit. Every $1 invested in Snap benefits yields between $1.50 and $1.80 in economic activity during economic downturns.A 2022 survey conducted by Propel found that among Snap recipients, there was a significant level of higher food insecurity in states where emergency allotments were cut off. In a January 2023 survey, there was an increase in the number of Snap recipients who reported skipping meals, eating less, visiting food pantries or relying on family or friends for meals compared with December 2022.The end of the emergency Snap allotments also coincides with a push from Republicans in Congress to cut regular Snap benefits this year, despite the majority of Americans having favorable views of the benefits. A January 2023 survey conducted by Purdue University found that seven out of 10 respondents supported permanent expansions of the Snap program.But an expansion looks very unlikely in the current Congress. In the meantime, recipients are facing tough choices.“I just received the last one last week,” said Patricia Ameral, 67, of Massachusetts, referring to the Covid emergency benefits. “I am certain it will mean the difference between consuming less fresh produce and less meat, fresh or frozen.” More

    • 150 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Republicans push wave of bills that would bring homicide charges for abortion

      by

      Republicans push wave of bills that would bring homicide charges for abortionProliferation of bills in Texas, Kentucky and elsewhere ‘exposes fundamental lie of anti-abortion movement’, experts sayFor decades, the mainstream anti-abortion movement promised that it did not believe women who have abortions should be criminally charged. But now, Republican lawmakers in several US states have introduced legislation proposing homicide and other criminal charges for those seeking abortion care.‘Sanctuary cities for the unborn’: how a US pastor is pushing for a national abortion banRead moreThe bills have been introduced in states such as Texas, Kentucky, South Carolina, Oklahoma and Arkansas. Some explicitly target medication abortion and self-managed abortion; some look to remove provisions in the law which previously protected pregnant people from criminalization; and others look to establish the fetus as a person from the point of conception.It is highly unlikely that all of these bills will pass. But their proliferation marks a distinct departure from the language of existing bans and abortion restrictions, which typically exempt people seeking abortion care from criminalization.“This exposes a fundamental lie of the anti-abortion movement, that they oppose the criminalization of the pregnant person,” said Dana Sussman, the acting executive director of Pregnancy Justice. “They are no longer hiding behind that rhetoric.”Some members of the anti-abortion movement have made it clear the bills do not align with their views, continuing to insist that abortion providers, rather than pregnant people themselves, should be targeted by criminal abortion laws.“[We] oppose penalties for mothers, who are a second victim of a predatory abortion industry,” said Kristi Hamrick, the chief media and policy strategist for Students for Life of America. “We want to see a billion-dollar industry set up to profit by preying on women and the preborn held accountable. The pro-life movement as a whole has been very clear on this.”A spokesperson for Susan B Anthony Pro-Life America echoed the same sentiment: that the organization unequivocally rejects prosecution of the pregnant person.The bills are likely to be controversial as they proceed, even within conservative circles: Republicans have frequently hit walls when trying to pass anti-abortion legislation, with lawmakers at odds over exactly how far bans should go.The reproductive justice organization If/When/How points out these bills are an indication of the different wings and splinter groups in the anti-abortion movement, increasingly evident since the Dobbs decision last year that overturned Roe v Wade.“What we’re seeing, post-Dobbs, is a splintering in tactics that abortion opponents are using, and emboldening on the part of more hardline” factions within the movement, said Farah Diaz-Tello, senior counsel and legal director at If/When/How.“That has always been an undercurrent” in the movement, Diaz-Tello added. “As we see other abortion opponents declaring their opposition to criminalization of people who end their pregnancies, this is the opportunity for them to really step up and put those principles into action.”The bills being introduced in Arkansas, Texas, Kentucky and South Carolina look to establish that life begins at conception. Each of these bills explicitly references homicide charges for abortion. Homicide is punishable by the death penalty in all of those states.Bills in Oklahoma, South Carolina and Texas also explicitly target medication abortion, which so far has fallen into a legal grey zone in much of the country.A bill in Alabama has also been announced, although not yet been introduced, by Republican representative Ernest Yarbrough, that would establish fetal personhood from conception and repeal a section of Alabama’s abortion ban that expressly prevents homicide charges for abortion. The state’s current law makes abortion a class A felony, on the same level as homicide, but exempts women seeking abortions from being held criminally or civilly liable.Laws that establish fetal personhood also bring the risk of opening pregnant people up to battery and assault charges for endangering a fetus. Such charges have already been documented in hundreds of cases, using criminal laws championed in recent decades by the anti-abortion movement that recognize fetuses as potential victims.“It never starts or stops with abortion,” said Sussman of the far-reaching effects of fetal personhood laws.“That means that not getting prenatal care, not taking pre-natal vitamins, working a job that is physically demanding – all of those things could impose some risk to the fetus – and that could be a child neglect or child abuse case.”Such laws have been used to target pregnant people who have taken prescribed medication, taken illegal drugs or drunk alcohol while pregnant, even when there has been no adverse outcome on the fetus.Some of the bills, such as the one in Arkansas, allow a partner to file an unlawful death lawsuit against a pregnant person who has had an abortion.“The ways in which pregnant people could become a mere vessel for an entity that has separate and unique rights is becoming closer and closer to reality. And there are ways in which this could be used that we haven’t even contemplated yet,” said Sussman.TopicsUS newsAbortionLaw (US)Reproductive rightsRoe v WadeUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

    • 188 Shares189 Views

      in US Politics

      Dining across the divide US special: ‘We were on the brink of an uncomfortable conversation’

      by

      Dining across the divide US special: ‘We were on the brink of an uncomfortable conversation’They are both Democrats, but what subjects – from Ukraine to defunding the police – would leave them at odds?Jordan, 30, Providence, Rhode IslandOccupation Works at the progressive Jewish Liberation Fund, which aims to make Jewish philanthropy more effective. Captain of the US cross-country running championship teamVoting Record Progressive Democratic – about “as far left as you can go, but stopping short of radical or revolution”Amuse bouche Regularly meets up with a couple of Japanese housewives to practise his JapaneseJudith, 65, Branford, ConnecticutOccupation Retired professor of contemporary literature at Yale. PoetVoting record DemocratAmuse bouche Designs pocket parks in her home townFor starters Jordan I had duck confit, lobster pasta, chocolate cake, chamomile tea. We found a lot of common ground on teaching more about slavery in schools. Judith thinks we should focus on how humans have been cruel to each other over time, but for me it’s more important to focus on the history in America and how that helps us understand the world we live in now. In a lot of places slavery wasn’t so racially codified as it was here.Judith I had nougat de foie gras, bass, Grand Marnier souffle for dessert. It was delicious. He was more focused on contemporary discussions of the American experience that I was. The longer, worldwide historical context was more important to me.Jordan It’s important to teach about chattel slavery. I’m not saying it was worse for us than, say, the Japanese enslaving Koreans, but the racial codification of slavery in America still affects what our world looks like and the narratives that equate people of a certain race to negative habits and stereotypes.The big beef Judith Jordan believes we should take money from the police and give it to other types of social workers to help deal with crime. I don’t. If you want a society based in law that has arisen out of constitutional democracy, you need some way of enforcing the law. The combination of underfunding and lack of respect for the law has exacerbated tendencies we don’t like in the police.Jordan It doesn’t feel like lack of resources is the issue. I’m from St Louis. Look at Ferguson. Look at Milwaukee. The police that killed Tyre Nichols in Memphis were part of one of these highly trained units. The police should be in a public safety department so they aren’t self-supervised.Judith We should increase police funding, but it should be based on more stringent training and education, to make it a profession with salaries to match. I would have national regulation of local police. The police who killed Tyre Nichols were Black, so there’s something else going on. Those officers were totally unqualified for a job that puts the power of life and death in their hands. That’s not a racial issue.Jordan We were on the brink of an uncomfortable conversation. Judith was saying we live in a violent society and there are cultural differences between groups. Judith grew up in a more working-class background; mine is more bourgeois. But I don’t think she experienced a reckoning of concentrated poverty and trauma, and how that affects and drives people.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionSharing plateJudith My grandparents fled Ukraine during the pogroms. We need to look at Ukraine as fighting for the ideals we have now and give them support.Jordan It’s complicated. I don’t think we should be diverting funds, and Russia is clearly a bad actor. But I find the lack of dissent a little surprising. The left-wing progressive space is generally anti-war, so we should be thinking about this.For aftersJudith We got into some interesting things, like do you want a national police force so you don’t have these little islands of police where the culture is leaning toward violence? That makes me uncomfortable because wherever there is a national police force, there is a potential for danger.Jordan Whatever our public safety force looks like, it shouldn’t be the free-for-all it is now. As Jewish people, we agreed a national public force could be a scary thing. It doesn’t feel like police forces have a lack of resources. I don’t qualify as a police abolitionist but I have serious questions about police departments and what they look like right now.TakeawaysJordan Judith reminded me of my grandma, which I loved. But I disagreed with this idea of cultural differences being one of the causes of crime.Judith Jordan is a very delightful person. These questions are complex, and we need more context and nuance. We’re always focused on the minute-to-minute catastrophe. Additional reporting: Kitty Drake Jordan and Judith ate at Union League Cafe, New Haven, Connecticut. Want to meet someone from across the divide? Find out how to take partTopicsLife and styleDining across the divide US specialSocial trendsUS politicsUS policingDemocratsSlaveryfeaturesReuse this content More

    • 225 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      Dining across the divide US special: ‘She said there are no leaders in the Republican party, just idiots’

      by

      Dining across the divide US special: ‘She said there are no leaders in the Republican party, just idiots’Neither of them likes Donald Trump, but would they agree on the economy, healthcare or immigration?Lali, 62, Chicago, IllinoisOccupation Now retired, Lali worked in international accounting and mergers and acquisitionsVoting record Always DemocratAmuse bouche Lali lives in Chicago, but has an organic farm and an off-grid house in Wisconsin. She’s also lived on four different continentsJozsef, 68, Waterloo, IowaOccupation Business consultant, now semi-retiredVoting record Jozsef is registered as an independent, but considers himself conservative and mainly votes Republican. He “held his nose” and voted for Trump in 2016, but now hates him “with a passion”. In 2020 he voted for BidenAmuse bouche Jozsef moved to the US from Hungary as a toddler and is a foodie. He makes a mean goulash – the secret is homegrown Hungarian paprikaFor startersJozsef I had grilled grouper – of all the things to eat in Iowa! They had a nice Reuben sandwich on the menu, but I’m diabetic and have a heart stent. The rule from my doctors is that if your food has flavour, you’re not allowed it.Lali I had sweet-potato soup, a Reuben sandwich with a salad, a craft beer and tiramisu. He ate the fish that goes in the fish tacos. I had a huge dish of food and he had a teeny thing on a teeny plate.Jozsef Lali was outgoing and friendly. We started off talking about the weather – that’s the typical greeting in the midwest. Then we started denigrating Trump for about 10 minutes. And it went on from there.The big beefJozsef We didn’t have a large disagreement about a major issue. We were loud, but polite. Especially as she was a woman. If it was a guy, it might have been different. That’s being sexist, but that’s because I’m old. Men are afraid to argue with women, let’s face it.Lali We agreed on a lot of the symptoms and many of the causes, but had very different solutions. He thinks capitalism is the answer to everything, but it has been messed up in this country. We agreed there should be more education funding. I think it has been deemphasized by Republicans because there have been so many studies that show the better educated you are, the more likely you are to vote Democrat.Jozsef She’s very black and white about Republicans. I would describe her as a typical Democrat – she spouts a lot of talking points from that side of the aisle: “All Republicans do this. All Republicans are jerks.” She claimed they are out to dumb down America, because that’s their voting block: dumb people. I totally disagree. I said: “It would take really smart people to come up with that complex a plan.” I don’t think the Republicans are smart enough to come up with something like that.Lali He kept trying to say Democrats and Republicans are both messed up. I said: “No, there’s a degree of difference in how messed up they are.” Republicans have a lot more whack-jobs than we do.Jozsef She said there are no leaders in the Republican party. Just idiots. And I said: “Show me a good leader in your party. For the last eight years you have not been able to produce one.” Biden’s a nice guy, but he’s a doddering old man.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionSharing plateJozsef We agreed that something has to happen with healthcare in America. It’s a disgrace that the richest country in the world can’t keep people healthy. She said the government should control healthcare. I said I’d be afraid for our government, as it stands, to run it.Lali In my view, healthcare should not be a for-profit enterprise. His view was that it shouldn’t be for profit, but it could be in the private sector. I didn’t fully understand what that meant.For aftersJozsef We talked about immigration as we’re both immigrants. She wants an open policy: “Let’s get ’em all in here.” I said: “I want to build a 1,000-mile wall on the southern border with a five-mile gate and put Transport Security Administration machines in the gate.” Whoever wants to come over and work can come in, but let’s make them go through the security turnstile like at the airport. Let’s have stronger security.Lali We overlapped on the need for immigrants. Where we disagreed was on his views about immigrants being forced to work. He said his father had been forced to work in a coalmine in Belgium. I pointed out that all immigrants need sponsors to make sure they’re not a public charge. And he was like: “You’re probably right about that. But they should be made to work.”TakeawaysJozsef When we were leaving, she accused me of being a closet liberal. And honestly, I am getting to be a pinko as I want a woman to be president next. It’s time somebody used their brain instead of their testosterone.Lali I really enjoyed the lunch, but was a little frustrated that he didn’t have more fact-based rejoinders to what I was saying. I was working with a set of facts; he was working with a set of views.Additional reporting: Kitty Drake Lali and Jozsef ate at La Rana Bistro in Decorah, Iowa.Want to meet someone from across the divide? Find out how to take partTopicsLife and styleDining across the divide US specialUS politicsSocial trendsUS healthcareUS immigrationfeaturesReuse this content More

    • 288 Shares159 Views

      in US Politics

      Dining across the divide US special: ‘I got the impression he felt all Democrats were horrible. He made us sound like Bond villains’

      by

      Dining across the divide US special: ‘I got the impression he felt all Democrats were horrible. He made us sound like Bond villains’One votes Democrat and the other wants Donald Trump to win in 2024. Where does that leave them on immigration, abortion or Ukraine?Jason, 51, Crestview, FloridaOccupation Middle-school principalVoting record Normally votes Democrat and considers himself a centristAmuse bouche As a “military brat”, Jason lived in lots of exciting places around the world growing up, including Ipswich. He also lived in Idaho for a time, which was a culture shock after Europe. “You should absolutely never go there”Paul, 70, Destin, FloridaOccupation Pathologist, partially retiredVoting record Has always voted Republican. Wants Trump to win in 2024Amuse bouche Paul was drafted into the South African army in his early 20s. One of his hobbies is wineFor startersJason I had a tuna salad. Normally I’d have gone crazy with the food, but I had open-heart surgery in September and I’m trying not to die. I had a glass of wine, and he had a pinot. He was classy and knew exactly what wine he wanted. I said: “Gimme the house wine.”Paul I had a tuna salad as an appetizer. Then a “wine bar salad”, which was excellent. Jason was a lot more like me than I had expected. In his general outlook, there’s a lot of similarities.Jason Paul was really nice. Very educated. Very opinionated. He said that at Thanksgiving last year there were people who had different views from him and they got up from the table and left. He has very strong opinions, but that doesn’t mean his opinions don’t have value.The big beefJason I feel very strongly that we should be involved in Ukraine; he does not. I think America can’t be isolationist. We have to look after our allies because they look after us. He said the money being spent on Ukraine should be spent in America. I said that’s a different pot. Just because we’re spending money on Ukraine doesn’t mean we can’t spend on other things.Paul The only agreement we came to on Ukraine was that there’s currently no endgame. Without a solution, I believe we are drifting towards world war three.Jason We also disagreed on the southern border. I don’t have answers, but I don’t think walls and more security will fix it.Paul He said it is impossible to secure a border; I believe it’s totally possible. There should be a wall. Throughout history, going back to the Great Wall of China, walls have proved effective. We also talked about why immigrants don’t stay in their own country and fix it. We never got any agreement on that.Jason He said that illegal immigrants get better healthcare benefits than poor Americans. And I said: “I’m not sure that’s true.” That upset him. He said: “Well, you gotta trust that I know what I’m talking about.” That was when he said that Obama has a social security number from a state he never lived in. I said: “Is that true? I’ve never read that.” He said it’s public knowledge.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionSharing plateJason We found some common ground on abortion. My argument was that it shouldn’t be legislated; it’s a woman’s right, and I can’t tell a woman what she can or can’t do with her body. His response was that it’s not just her body; there’s another being in there. But he did believe in early term abortion.Paul We agreed there has to be a cut-off time. You can’t kill the baby at birth. The question that wasn’t resolved was what that cut-off should be. I’d draw a very firm line in the sand at 12 weeks. Jason wasn’t sure where he’d draw that line.For aftersPaul We talked about Trump. I went to the same church as him before he was president. Some people implied he only went to church after he was running for president, which was not true. I think Trump created a world of stability. I don’t think we got an agreement there.Jason His view was that Trump kept us safer and that foreign powers didn’t act out when Trump was president because of his effectiveness. I don’t think we were better off with Trump.TakeawaysJason We talked about critical race theory, and he thinks children are being taught to be ashamed about being American. That’s not the case. We have flags in every classroom. We start each day with the pledge of allegiance.Paul We realised we had a lot more in common when we really talked than we first thought. The only thing he changed my mind about was that some people on his side of the fence are probably open to discussion. The country is so polarised that I’m pessimistic about the ability of the union to stay together. But if more people talk to each other as human beings there may be more common ground.Jason I don’t think either of us changed the other person’s opinion. Except maybe when it comes to the fact that not all Democrats and Republicans are horrible. I don’t think all Republicans are horrible, but I got the impression he felt that all Democrats were. He made us sound like Bond villains. Additional reporting: Kitty Drake Jason and Paul ate at The Wine Bar in Destin, Florida.Want to meet someone from across the divide? Find out how to take partTopicsLife and styleDining across the divide US specialUS politicsSocial trendsUS immigrationDonald TrumpfeaturesReuse this content More