Joey_ Suicide

A recent poll showed 56% of Floridians say abortion should be legal, so this legislation flies in the face of the majority of residents’ beliefs. There’s also an economic imperative for allowing abortions. During the pandemic, a staggering 4.2 million women across the country had to leave the workforce — a full million more women than men — setting women’s labor-force levels back more than 30 years, due, in part, to our caretaking responsibilities while schools, daycares and senior centers were closed. Research suggests women’s employment won’t recover to pre-pandemic levels until 2024. And even “recovering” to that level means Florida women being paid just 85% of what men are paid, with an even bigger gap for minority women.

Forcing pregnancy and childbirth sentences women and their families to generations of poverty. While the majority of people who have an abortion already have one or more children, the most common reason for choosing an abortion is not being able to afford a child. The federal government estimates the average cost of raising a child is over $233,000.

Research shows that when a woman wants to end a pregnancy but is denied that choice, she is more likely to end up living in poverty than someone who was able to get an abortion. The relationship is clear between abortion bans and more families in poverty. Even if a woman who is denied an abortion places the baby for adoption, she still has a massive labor and delivery hospital bill, which in Florida averages $22,015.

We know abortion bans, which force women to give birth or have an unsafe abortion, can be financially ruinous, emotionally traumatic — and life-threatening. The United States has the highest maternal death rate of the world’s developed nations, an alarming number that has increased over the past 20 years. Pregnancy complications kill more than 700 women each year.

Women in the United States with financial means — usually white women — have always been able to access safe abortions, regardless of the law. Roe v. Wade just leveled the playing field so that women of color and lower-income women could have safe abortions, too. Our laws must serve our community with fair systems that promote equity for all of us, not just for the privileged few.

Never before have abortion protections in Florida been so endangered — and never before have they been this necessary and urgent.

Gov. Ron DeSantis made his frustration with face masks known when he visited Tampa for a press conference Wednesday morning.

DeSantis was at the University of South Florida to announce funding for cybersecurity education. Before taking the podium to address the audience, the governor scolded a group of students behind him who were wearing face masks.

“You do not have to wear those masks,” Gov. DeSantis said. “I mean, please take them off. Honestly, it’s not doing anything and we’ve gotta stop with this COVID theater. So if you want to wear it, fine, but this is ridiculous.”

Parents of trans kids: *support their children's self-identification and help them obtain gender-affirming care*

Republicanism as death cult: Republican voters say American COVID-19 death rate is 'acceptable'

https://www.dailykos.com/story/2020/8/23/1971671/-Republicanism-as-death-cult-Republican-voters-say-American-COVID-19-death-rate-is-acceptable

This is happening. It is terrifying and it's happening right now. I'm across the border so I can only rely on information relayed by people from Ukraine as well as journalists who are there, but this is it.

I hope all of y'all who are far away from the area can keep the amount of decorum necessary in this situation. Just because you're in no way affected by this doesn't make it any less real and terrifying for people who are right here.