Thank you, women of Missouri, for participating in the filibuster!

[theHandpuppet]

Fighting back!!

Link: http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/72-hour-missouri-abortion-filibuster
LIVE NOW: 72-hour Missouri abortion filibuster
05/12/14 02:39 PM
By Irin Carmon

Missouri progressive activists are staging a nonstop, 72-hour “women’s filibuster” on the steps of the Missouri State Capitol building today to protest an abortion bill that would force a woman to wait three days between two clinic visits before having an abortion.

The activists’ hope is to prevent Republicans in the state Senate from breaking a Democratic filibuster on the bill, which already passed the House. The legislative session ends Friday.

The first speaker scheduled is Elizabeth Read Katz, who testified about her experience with an abortion following the discovery of a lethal fetal anomaly. “For me personally, after my husband and I had made this heartbreaking decision, I can’t imagine what it would have meant to be forced to wait three more agonizing days for the procedure,” she said in her testimony.

The bill, one of a slew of abortion restrictions proposed in the Missouri legislature this term, triples Missouri’s existing 24-hour waiting period. The state has only one abortion clinic, in St. Louis.... MORE, with video link.

[PeaceNikki]

1. Well done, ladies!!

Thanks for posting this!

[theHandpuppet]

2. Another article

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/14/missouri-abortion-laws-protest-fight
theguardian.com, Wednesday 14 May 2014

Male politicians and their paternalistic abortion laws deserve a fight like this
Missouri legislators want to mandate a 72-hour waiting period designed to shame women who seek abortions. But Missouri women have a 72-hour protest of their own

At a podium on the capitol steps in Jefferson City, Liz Read-Katz kicked off what activists are calling a "women's filibuster" – a 72-hour protest in opposition to a bill that would triple the waiting period for abortions to three days and make Missouri one of only three states in the US with a 72-hour mandate. In a "story that could happen to anyone," the college-educated, stay-at-home mom told the crowd about "the most difficult choice I've ever had to make." ...

... "But everything changed at 16 weeks [into the pregnancy]."

Read-Katz and her husband found out that their baby, a girl, had severe abnormalities – including Trisomy 18, a diagnosis that would have condemned their daughter to a short, painful life in a hospital, if she had lived at all. "I made a choice best for myself, my family and my baby. I chose to have an abortion," Read-Katz said.

Other activists – telling stories of their abortion experiences, reading letters of appreciation to Planned Parenthood and blasting anti-choice politicians – plan to speak until Thursday at 2pm. The protest arrives after a legislative session during with conservative legislators introduced more than 30 anti-choice bills.... MORE at above link

[theHandpuppet]

3. Article with link to photos of the filibuster

See: http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014/05/14/3438048/photos-womens-filibuster-missouri/
Think Progress
PHOTOS: Missouri’s ‘Women’s Filibuster’ Against Anti-Choice Bills Is Still Going Strong
By Tara Culp-Ressler May 14, 2014

Missouri activists are currently engaged in a 72-hour “women’s filibuster” to stand up against the dozens of proposed abortion restrictions that have been considered in the state legislature this session. One of the bills that’s moving toward final passage is a measure that would lengthen Missouri’s current abortion waiting period to 72 hours, the longest in the country — and that’s why protesters are continuing for a full three days.

Despite some wind and rain, and even after the Senate approved the 72-hour waiting period bill on Monday night, the reproductive rights activists have continued their citizen’s filibuster. They’re determined to make it until 2 pm CT on Thursday, when the three-day period officially ends. Many women are standing on the capitol steps sharing their own abortion stories...

... Another citizen-led filibuster, involving the hundreds of Texas activists who packed into the state capitol building to support state Sen. Wendy Davis’ 13-hour effort to stall a package of extreme abortion restrictions, captured the nation’s attention last summer. Although the attacks on reproductive rights in Missouri haven’t gotten the same level of national press as Texas’ new law — which has had a catastrophic impact on the abortion providers in the state as it’s begun to take effect — the threats are still dire for Missouri women.

Missouri only has one abortion clinic left in the entire state. So far this session, more than 30 pieces of anti-choice legislation have been introduced to regulate that lone clinic — more abortion restrictions than any other state in the country has pushed this year. If the 72-hour waiting period becomes law, it could effectively end abortion in Missouri, because women may opt to travel across the border to Illinois to access services in a shorter time frame. That would hand the anti-choice community, which is eager to claim its first “abortion free state,” a significant victory.

[theHandpuppet]

4. Live Feed

http://thewomensfilibuster.com/

[marble falls]

5. K to the R

[kag]

6. From the rest of the article: perhaps the dumbest thing I've ever read in this debate...

Speaker of the House Tim Jones defended the bill in the same radio segment: “If we were to choose the opposite extreme, and the state were not to choose to protect life well, eventually the state would run out of citizens, it would run out of taxpayers and the state would cease to exist.”

What???? Because if the idiot R's stop trying to control women, well OBVIOUSLY no woman would ever want to bear a child, ever. Because women hate children, especially babies. So, you see, in order for our species to continue, and for Missouri to continue to have a population, the moronic Rethugs in the legislature simply MUST control women's bodies right down to the last egg.

[theHandpuppet]

7. No argument is too insane for the anti-choice fanatics

God knows the whole human race would go extinct if women weren't forced to give birth!!!

[Le Taz Hot]

8. Yeah, California has "run out of citizens."

Do these people ever listen to themselves? So, ALL women are eager to end ALL pregnancies. I mean, just,

[xmas74]

9. Tim Jones is worried about white, middle to upper middle class Christians.

He doesn't care about anything else.

I live in Missouri and it's pretty darn obvious what he really cares about.

[redqueen]

11. Exactly. He's only worried about a particular type of citizen. nt

[xmas74]

12. As a working class single mother in Missouri

he doesn't give a damn about me.

[theHandpuppet]

10. Kicking