Meanwhile, in Civilized Countries ...

David Dayen at Firedoglake:

• Britain allows TV ads for abortion clinics, or in other words, a clinic offering a legal medical procedure can advertise for that procedure. So, good.

Back home, via Digby:

"The most obvious thing was the 2010 election. While the headlines were all about the changing command in the House of Representatives, what we were seeing was a tidal wave of new pro-life legislators in state houses. When we saw this big wave come in, we were ready to grab the ball and run with it. Last year, 28 laws that we were involved with passed. It was breathtaking."

Another reminder that criminalizing or even restricting abortion doesn't stop abortion; it just kills women.

This fascinating story of pre-Roe abortion is important reading if you give a damn about this topic. People weren't less moral then. But they had abortions. Lot's of them. They always have.

And here's Digby introducing the video below:

You don't see the argument made this openly very often and it's too bad. The capitulation to the idea that it's a horrible thing that can be eliminated if we only put our minds to ending unwanted pregnancy was a mistake. It is what it is, what it always has been. A reality, regardless of its legality.

As that video says, women should be able to exercise this right safely and with dignity. Instead, in many places, they have to run through a gauntlet of screaming protesters and even endure an unwanted, medically unnecessary vaginal probe with the express purpose of shaming them into childbirth against their will.

As that video points out --- most women who have abortions are already mothers. It's not as if they don't know what's at stake.