I'm hoping this truly is the fire under the rocket to blow these maga-tards out of office. (shamelessly stolen from their favorite lib-tard label for those of us who actually believe in self-determination) And I'm also grateful for our strong Governor, Attorney General, local Mayor and Senator Kelly (and you Fitz) who reminded everyone that Arizona is not completely stuck in 1864.
Note: I am absolutely pro choice. The logic of the other position is flawed. If one believes that the life of a fetus is of more value than the container of the fetus (read woman), then abortion is wrong regardless the cause of conception. Rape, incest, genetic abnormality, etc. should have no bearing on it. The inclusion of “saving life of the mother” renders the anti-choice argument illogical. I have a problem with abortion after 16 weeks, but that is only FOR ME. If you doesn’t approve of abortion, then don’t have one. If the person happens to be male, then get a vasectomy and, snip-snip, it is moot. This has nothing to do with the sanctity of life. It has everything to do with control of them uppity women.
I’m going to beat FOX News to the punch… I’m calling Arizona for Biden. And for anyone else running for political office who doesn’t speak in tongues. Vote Blue, no matter who. BTW, loved your cartoons!
Right on, brother. All of it. Thank you. Men supporting us is what could really transform protests into a victory on the ballet and in more and more hearts--the ones that are still beating...
It is interesting to hear how Republicans want “government” out of their lives. Yet, what are the Republicans doing but making a governmental decision about a very personal medical decision for women. I do want the “government” out of my personal choice. I also want Republicans out of office (at least the MAGA ones)!
Those partisan geniuses in the AZ Supreme Court may have a legal point. In 160 years, no Arizona legislature has ever attempted to write that miserable law out of existence. So unfortunately it stands today as a law to be manipulated by the bizarre group of elected officials that do not represent anyone but themselves & their, dare I say it, deplorable donors. We need to be much more educated about existing state laws.
Some interesting context from Heather Cox Richardson’s Substack, “Letter from an American”:
In 1864, Arizona was not a state, women and minorities could not vote, and doctors were still sewing up wounds with horsehair and storing their unwashed medical instruments in velvet-lined cases.
And, of course, the United States was in the midst of the Civil War.
. . . . The 1864 Arizona criminal code talks about “miscarriage” in the context of other male misbehavior. It focuses at great length on dueling, for example—making illegal not only the act of dueling (punishable by three years in jail) but also having anything to do with a duel. And then, in the section that became the law now resurrected in Arizona, the law takes on the issue of poisoning.
In that context, the context of punishing those who secretly administer poison to kill someone, it says that anyone who uses poison or instruments “with the intention to procure the miscarriage of any woman then being with child” would face two to five years in jail, “Provided, that no physician shall be affected by the last clause of this section, who in the discharge of his professional duties deems it necessary to produce the miscarriage of any woman in order to save her life.”
The next section warns against cutting out tongues or eyes, slitting noses or lips, or “rendering…useless” someone’s arm or leg.
The law that Arizona will use to outlaw abortion care seemed designed to keep men in the chaos of the Civil War from inflicting damage on others—including pregnant women—rather than to police women’s reproductive care, which women largely handled on their own or through the help of doctors who used drugs and instruments to remove what they called dangerous blockages of women’s natural cycles in the four to five months before fetal movement became obvious.
Written to police the behavior of men, the code tells a larger story about power and control.
The Arizona Territorial Legislature in 1864 had 18 men in the lower House of Representatives and 9 men in the upper house, the Council, for a total of 27 men. They met on September 26, 1864, in Prescott. The session ended about six weeks later, on November 10.
The very first thing the legislators did was to authorize the governor to appoint a commissioner to prepare a code of laws for the territory. But William T. Howell, a judge who had arrived in the territory the previous December[1], had already written one, which the legislature promptly accepted as a blueprint.
Although they did discuss his laws, the members later thanked Judge Howell for “preparing his excellent and able Code of Laws” and, as a mark of their appreciation, provided that the laws would officially be called “The Howell Code.” (They also paid him a handsome $2,500, which was equivalent to at least three years’ salary for a workingman in that era.) Judge Howell wrote the territory’s criminal code essentially single-handedly.
. . . .
In a total of 40 laws, the legislature incorporated a number of road companies, railway companies, ferry companies, and mining companies. They appropriated money for schools and incorporated the Arizona Historical Society.
These 27 men constructed a body of laws to bring order to the territory and to jump-start development. But their vision for the territory was a very particular one.
The legislature provided that “[n]o black or mulatto, or Indian, Mongolian, or Asiatic, shall be permitted to [testify in court] against any white person,” thus making it impossible for them to protect their property, their families, or themselves from their white neighbors. It declared that “all marriages between a white person and a [Black person], shall…be absolutely void.”
And it defined the age of consent for sexual intercourse to be just ten years old (even if a younger child had “consented”).
So, in 1864, a legislature of 27 white men created a body of laws that discriminated against Black people and people of color and considered girls as young as ten able to consent to sex, and they adopted a body of criminal laws written by one single man.
And in 2024, one of those laws is back in force in Arizona.
—————
[1] According to Howell’s Wikipedia bio, he arrived in Arizona on Dec. 29, 1863 and departed on June 11, 1864, never to return. Five months and 13 days — less than two trimesters.
Unbelievable that a scene like the first one is even possible in a legislative body in this country. They probably don't realize, though, that they are "praying" in the exact same way as Muslims do - on a prayer rug, rocking back & forth. And these are the people who are making laws for Arizona? Makes me want to send Gov. Hobbs a lifetime supply of pens so she can keep signing vetoes.
By the way, These two idiots who voted to turn AZ back to buggy whip days are up for retention in November. VOTE NO and get them off the bench:
Associate Justice Clint Bolick
Associate Justice Kathryn H. King
This is one of your BEST and I’m absolutely sharing it!
I'm hoping this truly is the fire under the rocket to blow these maga-tards out of office. (shamelessly stolen from their favorite lib-tard label for those of us who actually believe in self-determination) And I'm also grateful for our strong Governor, Attorney General, local Mayor and Senator Kelly (and you Fitz) who reminded everyone that Arizona is not completely stuck in 1864.
Note: I am absolutely pro choice. The logic of the other position is flawed. If one believes that the life of a fetus is of more value than the container of the fetus (read woman), then abortion is wrong regardless the cause of conception. Rape, incest, genetic abnormality, etc. should have no bearing on it. The inclusion of “saving life of the mother” renders the anti-choice argument illogical. I have a problem with abortion after 16 weeks, but that is only FOR ME. If you doesn’t approve of abortion, then don’t have one. If the person happens to be male, then get a vasectomy and, snip-snip, it is moot. This has nothing to do with the sanctity of life. It has everything to do with control of them uppity women.
Population
Less than 9000 persons lived in Arizona
I’m going to beat FOX News to the punch… I’m calling Arizona for Biden. And for anyone else running for political office who doesn’t speak in tongues. Vote Blue, no matter who. BTW, loved your cartoons!
“…And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men…”
-Matthew chapter 6; verse 5.
Right on, brother. All of it. Thank you. Men supporting us is what could really transform protests into a victory on the ballet and in more and more hearts--the ones that are still beating...
It is interesting to hear how Republicans want “government” out of their lives. Yet, what are the Republicans doing but making a governmental decision about a very personal medical decision for women. I do want the “government” out of my personal choice. I also want Republicans out of office (at least the MAGA ones)!
Those partisan geniuses in the AZ Supreme Court may have a legal point. In 160 years, no Arizona legislature has ever attempted to write that miserable law out of existence. So unfortunately it stands today as a law to be manipulated by the bizarre group of elected officials that do not represent anyone but themselves & their, dare I say it, deplorable donors. We need to be much more educated about existing state laws.
Some interesting context from Heather Cox Richardson’s Substack, “Letter from an American”:
In 1864, Arizona was not a state, women and minorities could not vote, and doctors were still sewing up wounds with horsehair and storing their unwashed medical instruments in velvet-lined cases.
And, of course, the United States was in the midst of the Civil War.
. . . . The 1864 Arizona criminal code talks about “miscarriage” in the context of other male misbehavior. It focuses at great length on dueling, for example—making illegal not only the act of dueling (punishable by three years in jail) but also having anything to do with a duel. And then, in the section that became the law now resurrected in Arizona, the law takes on the issue of poisoning.
In that context, the context of punishing those who secretly administer poison to kill someone, it says that anyone who uses poison or instruments “with the intention to procure the miscarriage of any woman then being with child” would face two to five years in jail, “Provided, that no physician shall be affected by the last clause of this section, who in the discharge of his professional duties deems it necessary to produce the miscarriage of any woman in order to save her life.”
The next section warns against cutting out tongues or eyes, slitting noses or lips, or “rendering…useless” someone’s arm or leg.
The law that Arizona will use to outlaw abortion care seemed designed to keep men in the chaos of the Civil War from inflicting damage on others—including pregnant women—rather than to police women’s reproductive care, which women largely handled on their own or through the help of doctors who used drugs and instruments to remove what they called dangerous blockages of women’s natural cycles in the four to five months before fetal movement became obvious.
Written to police the behavior of men, the code tells a larger story about power and control.
The Arizona Territorial Legislature in 1864 had 18 men in the lower House of Representatives and 9 men in the upper house, the Council, for a total of 27 men. They met on September 26, 1864, in Prescott. The session ended about six weeks later, on November 10.
The very first thing the legislators did was to authorize the governor to appoint a commissioner to prepare a code of laws for the territory. But William T. Howell, a judge who had arrived in the territory the previous December[1], had already written one, which the legislature promptly accepted as a blueprint.
Although they did discuss his laws, the members later thanked Judge Howell for “preparing his excellent and able Code of Laws” and, as a mark of their appreciation, provided that the laws would officially be called “The Howell Code.” (They also paid him a handsome $2,500, which was equivalent to at least three years’ salary for a workingman in that era.) Judge Howell wrote the territory’s criminal code essentially single-handedly.
. . . .
In a total of 40 laws, the legislature incorporated a number of road companies, railway companies, ferry companies, and mining companies. They appropriated money for schools and incorporated the Arizona Historical Society.
These 27 men constructed a body of laws to bring order to the territory and to jump-start development. But their vision for the territory was a very particular one.
The legislature provided that “[n]o black or mulatto, or Indian, Mongolian, or Asiatic, shall be permitted to [testify in court] against any white person,” thus making it impossible for them to protect their property, their families, or themselves from their white neighbors. It declared that “all marriages between a white person and a [Black person], shall…be absolutely void.”
And it defined the age of consent for sexual intercourse to be just ten years old (even if a younger child had “consented”).
So, in 1864, a legislature of 27 white men created a body of laws that discriminated against Black people and people of color and considered girls as young as ten able to consent to sex, and they adopted a body of criminal laws written by one single man.
And in 2024, one of those laws is back in force in Arizona.
—————
[1] According to Howell’s Wikipedia bio, he arrived in Arizona on Dec. 29, 1863 and departed on June 11, 1864, never to return. Five months and 13 days — less than two trimesters.
Let the shit-storm of righteous wrath begin!
Amen, Brother Dave!
Unbelievable that a scene like the first one is even possible in a legislative body in this country. They probably don't realize, though, that they are "praying" in the exact same way as Muslims do - on a prayer rug, rocking back & forth. And these are the people who are making laws for Arizona? Makes me want to send Gov. Hobbs a lifetime supply of pens so she can keep signing vetoes.
Wow - you're on fire! Thanks for caring and sharing.
Fitz
I hope you are right.
Thank you!!!!!!!