Fighting the Power Is A Lot of Work

But we keep on keeping on

Last week, Malissa Burnette and her team filed a petition to the South Carolina Supreme Court, asking for them to please clarify when doctors can provide abortion care. Under the current garbage law, written by people that don’t know how bodies work, abortion is banned after the detection of “fetal cardiac activity.” Of course there is no heart at that point in the pregnancy (and not to split hairs, but it’s also not a fetus at six weeks, it’s an embryo, but who am I to point out that words actually matter?). So at six weeks there is embryonic electrical activity, but there is no heart, and also no fetus, until, at minimum, nine weeks into the pregnancy.

The justices themselves were like, this law is COMPLETELY unclear, but we’ll just leave that to another day (Justice Few) because who really cares about women anyway? Malissa and state abortion providers are like, can that day be RIGHT NOW because people need medical care and we’d like to treat our patients? It feels like fighting for crumbs at this point, but as counsel for Planned Parenthood South Atlantic explained to the AP, “It means the difference between turning away 50% of people and turning away 90% of people” so maybe they’ll deign to grant us this one favor, and at least ease access for a portion of patients needing care.

Photo from the AP.

If you’d like to join a protest this weekend in Greenville, Upstate Pro-Choice Advocates are organizing one downtown on Sunday, the 24^th at 3:30 at One City Plaza. Hopefully this time around the Greenville Police Department doesn’t show up and violently arrest people for stepping off the sidewalk, like they did last year at the Bans Off Our Bodies protest, but if you go, please be careful.

In other fun news, the manager of the Traveler’s Rest library has been replaced with a Baptist minister (no lie). Don’t get me wrong, there are some rad Baptists out there (American Baptists ordain women!), but I have a hunch this is more about continuing the anti-LGBTQ chilling effect on staff in the Greenville County Library system. Last year an armed police officer went to the same branch to review reports of inappropriate (read: queer) material. Some dude on Twitter was like, so what, it’s a conservative town, they have the right! Clearly he skipped civics and any understanding of the First Amendment. Does he want me taking over library systems and systematically removing everything that’s misogynist and replacing it with only women’s writing and queer theory? No? That’s right, because libraries are supposed to be democratic spaces for free and open discourse and debate. Librarians are literally holding the line from all of us ideologues taking over and ruining collections. If you know any, buy them a drink.

The New York Times also reported this week that book challenges and bans continue to increase, with even more last year than the year before. It’s a coordinated campaign y’all, and we need all hands on deck at school board meetings, voting for local officials that appoint library boards, and fighting state-level laws that make it easier to ban books. Thankfully an Arkansas judge just blocked (temporarily) a law that would make librarians and booksellers (watch out, Barnes and Noble employees!) subject to CRIMINAL charges for providing access to material deemed to be “harmful” to minors. Like, the law would subject librarians to class D felony charges which could mean SIX years in prison. Arkansas really knows how to coordinate the visuals for a fascist state: librarians behind bars.

Itinerate Literate bookshop in Charleston is hosting a panel discussion to discuss book banning with ACLU-SC’s communications director Paul Bowers and librarian Katherine Feligh on Wednesday October 11^th. Look out for more events in your areas and be sure to join organizations like Freedom to Read SC.

My heart goes out to all the librarians, public school teachers and professors, medical providers and Planned Parenthood staff in the state who are already overworked and underpaid. These laws and attacks only makes it harder for them to serve others, and I’m so grateful for the folks that are staying and fighting. I’m worried we’re going to have a tough time convincing people to take these kinds of jobs here in the future unless we get these laws repealed.

I’m also grateful that I work at an institution that thinks these rights matter, and celebrate things like my Barbie class this semester. This weekend we’re headed up to North Carolina to pick apples so I plan to drown my sorrows in cider and donuts. Hope you all have a good one, and thanks as always for supporting Hot Feminism.