Thrice Screwed

Bingeing Bridgerton and SCOTUS Decisions

I wrote most of this issue before Monday’s Supreme Court decision declaring the President above the law. I suppose that was for the best. It would have been harder to write about the fictionalized life of a mad king knowing that we could soon have our own mad king. (If only this would-be mad king were subjected to the horrors of 1760s psychiatry described below.)

I admit I was caught off guard by the decision. As an amateur court watcher, I had some misguided faith that Roberts didn’t want his court to go down in history as corrupt, that Gorsuch was a rule follower who wouldn’t want to abolish standard procedure, and that Coney Barrett might continue to surprise us by pulling away from her conservative friends for well-thought-out reasons. Clearly, Alito and Thomas are too corrupt to have been helpful, and I can still only see Kavanaugh as an aging frat boy/ date rapist. Still, I had hope for a good decision because this wasn’t about Trump or party lines (I mean Dems hold the White House right now), it was about the future of our democracy.

Now, I’m just demoralized (and a little terrified). I feel like they played a long game, broke all the rules in the process, and won. They blocked Obama’s judicial nominees (including a Supreme Court justice vacancy that was his to fill), stacked the courts with crazy conservatives, and then ruled to give themselves all the power. Yes, it’s the president who now has immunity from prosecution if he’s acting in his official capacity, but it’s the courts who will decide what counts as official capacity.

I was already pissed at SCOTUS before all of this for punting on abortion. The mifepristone decision was one thing (it was clear from the beginning that it should have been thrown out on standing), but the non-decision in the Idaho case I talk about below seems like a deliberate attempt not to impact the election in the Democrats favor. In case we’ve all beaten down enough to have forgotten, the court is supposed to be non-partisan.

Perhaps it’s time for King Biden to take his absolute immunity out for a spin.

* If anyone is feeling more optimistic than me today, please, please tell me why in the comments. I’d love a rosier perspective on the upcoming election or the nation’s future.

Ignorance is Not Bliss Even in Fancy Dresses

My daughter and I binged the third season of Bridgerton and its spin-off/prequel Queen Charlotte last weekend. There was a lot less sex in Penelope’s and Colin’s love story than there was in the show’s much-talked-about first season. (I was fine with that—I love the pairing and Nicola Coughlan was radiant, but Luke Newton is no Regé-Jean Page.) Queen Charlotte also had fewer sex scenes than I might have expected; the King was too busy being tortured out of madness by a ruthless psychiatrist to schtup his wife. (Note to Shonda: more time in the bedroom and less time in the “treatment room” with its electric chair, dunk tank, and branding irons would have been nice.)

What both shows shared instead was the suggestion that women of that era knew very little about sex going into marriage. Penelope’s two older sisters were married off in the previous season but have yet to get pregnant. Their mother is anxious for them to produce a male heir so the family can take back the Lord Featherington title from a nefarious distant relative. (More on women needing to be under the management of men later.) When asked how they’re not knocked up yet, both daughters promise they’re dutifully doing it.  

It turns out they’re both doing it wrong. Prudence did it once almost a year ago and didn’t like it but is still convinced that every bodily twinge is a sign of pregnancy. Phillipa brags that her husband gets on top of her every night. They kiss, he makes a strange noise, and then he gets up and changes his britches. When her mother asks a more probing question (pun intended), she gasps, horrified: “Inserts himself? Inserts himself where?”

Queen Charlotte, who is all of ten years plus seven when she’s shipped overseas to marry the King of England, waits weeks post-wedding to have sex with her husband because he’s scared of having a manic fit. That gives her time to brood and to learn about sex from her lady in waiting, Agatha Danbury, who draws her a series of pictures.

Meg Kobza of Newcastle University says that this depiction of women as knowing nothing about sex isn’t entirely accurate. Most women of that class and era, she argues, would have gone into puberty knowing how a baby was made—they would have heard it from a friend, been told by their maids, seen it done by horses, or read it in a book. Kobza writes: 

There were many books at hand. Aristotle’s Master-Piece (1684), a sex manual that doubled as a practical engagement gift, and Nicolas Venette’s Mysteries of Conjugal Love (1712) were as instructive as they were explicit. Jane Sharp’s reprinted edition of The Midwives Book (1671) was equally informative, and though outdated, was still very much in print and circulation.

I suppose this is heartening, but even if they had some education going into marriage, the women of the Bridgerton world had no sexual agency. When Agatha tells Queen Charlotte about sex, she describes it as a necessary chore. Agatha was promised to a much older man when she was just three years old. He now calls for her anytime of the day and night, and she has no choice but to let him bang her. (I say bang because their sex scenes are limited to him thrusting and grunting as her head repeatedly hits the headboard.)

At one point as she’s complaining to her chambermaid about his constant desire for sex, she notes, “I hope he doesn’t put one of his huge babies in me again.” No pleasure and no birth control. 

Also, no ability to own property or have an independent title. When the much-older husband dies—during sex of course—she is left scrambling to secure the title of Lord Danbury for her four-year-old son because grown women can’t hold titles or own property on their own, but preschool boys can.

Thus far all of the Bridgerton marriages have been “love matches.” This is made to seem romantic, but really it isn’t. The women can’t choose who they marry—their fathers or brothers or uncles do that for them—and once they marry, they are under the thumb of the husbands. Hoping for one who is loving and kind in a reality like that is not about romance, it’s about survival.

Watching this fictional drama from 200 years in the future and not being able to say that we’re so much better off is disconcerting. Of course, we’ve made progress, but that progress feels like it’s in peril—sex education is being challenged, books are being banned, women are losing the fundamental right to control their bodies, and birth control seems to be next on the chopping block.

Bingeing Bridgerton is not like watching The Handmaid’s Tale because the romance is too sweet, the dresses are too fabulous, and the sex is too good. And yet, bingeing it during an election is not not like watching The Handmaid’s Tale.

Birth Control Prescriptions Down in States with Abortion Bans

With the stakes higher than ever, you would think that people living in states with abortion bans would be relying on prescription contraceptive methods like never before. Now is not the time to f**k around when f**king around. But a new study found a very different picture: the number of birth control prescriptions filled, including prescriptions for emergency contraception, actually fell in the most restrictive states.

Researchers analyzed birth control prescriptions for a period of pre-Dobbs months (March to November 2021) and compared them to a post-Dobbs period (July 2022 to October 2023). In addition to comparing national rates over time, they compared rates in the 12 states that had enacted the most restrictive anti-abortion policies to those in 14 states where abortion policy did not change. 

Fewer people have been using birth control pills in recent years overall as many moved to long-acting methods like the IUD, which last up to 10 years and require no monthly prescription. So, this study can’t provide a full picture of the contraceptive landscape. Still, Dobbs clearly had an effect: the prescription fill rate fell 4% more in states with restrictive abortion laws than in other states.

The researchers believe that this was part of a ripple effect that left women without the resources they needed to access contraception. Abortion and birth control were often offered at the same clinic. After Dobbs, many of these clinics were forced to close. Women in restrictive states lost their access to contraception just when they needed it the most.

The statistics for emergency contraception (EC) are even more alarming. Before Dobbs the two groups of states had similar prescription fill rates for EC. Right after Dobbs—as everyone with a uterus panicked—the prescription fill rate surged in all states. One year later, however, states with restrictions saw a 65% reduction in EC prescription fills. (Certain types of EC are available over the counter and this study did not look at OTC sales. It is possible that more people in these states got EC in pharmacies, especially in light of a loss of providers.)

The closing of clinics explains part of this decline, but the authors suggest that it is also the result of confusion around EC. We know that some lawmakers like to mix up mifepristone—the much-debated drug that can be used in medication abortion—with emergency contraception. Others just like to pretend that emergency contraception can cause an abortion. (We’ve been over this many times. That’s not how it f**king works.)  Still, the confusion alone may be preventing some people in these states from accessing this very important method. (I say very important because it works after sex which means it can be taken by anyone who forgot to use contraception or had a contraception misfire in the moment.)

Sexual and reproductive health care is a web that includes contraception, mammograms, pap tests, STI testing and treatment, and abortion, among many other things. It shouldn’t be surprising that all of it is affected when laws interfere with medical care, nor should it be surprising that people across the country are confused about what is and what isn’t legal. This is how the anti-abortion folks wanted it, and why so many of us say contraception is next.

We need to keep reminding people that EC is available and legal in all 50 states and help those without access to clinics find it and other contraceptive methods. Though not ideal, mail order options can fill in some of the gaps as can the arrival of OPill which is available without a prescription and also legal in all 50 states.

Supreme Court Punts on Abortion Again

June was a brutal reminder of how conservative the SCOTUS majority really is, and how much impact this court can have on our lives. This month they refused to restrict bump stocks, neutered the SEC, and significantly limited the ability of government agencies to enact regulations designed to protect the environment, civil rights, and health (a move that gave the judiciary more power to decide which regulations are okay and which are not). And that was all before they decided that Putin was a good presidential role model.

When it came to abortion, however, the court merely punted. The decision on mifepristone a few weeks ago avoided the topic of abortion almost entirely. Instead, they took the easy way out and said the plaintiffs didn’t have standing to sue which leaves the door open for some other plaintiff to try again.

This week, they made a similar procedural decision in looking at Idaho’s abortion law. The Biden administration sued Idaho saying that its super strict abortion law prevented doctors from providing necessary emergency medical care for pregnant women and that preventing doctors from providing necessary emergency medical care for pregnant women violated the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor ACT (EMTALA).

The EMTALA was passed in 1986 to prevent “patient dumping,” after numerous stories surfaced of private hospitals turning patients away from emergency rooms because they couldn’t pay. EMTALA says that hospitals are required to conduct a medical screening exam on every patient seeking emergency care, and that if the exam reveals an emergency condition, the hospital must provide all necessary stabilizing treatment. Active labor is specifically named in the act as an emergency condition. (I’m guessing some of those stories that made the news were of women in labor who were told to squeeze their legs together and hold the sucker in until they got to the public hospital across town.)

The Biden Administration’s lawsuit argued that the stabilizing treatment promised under EMTALA includes emergency abortions when necessary, and that Idaho’s law prevents doctors from doing that by threatening them with criminal charges and jail time. A lower court agreed and placed a preliminary injunction on the criminalization part of the state’s abortion law.

SCOTUS took the case and then wimped out. The court dismissed the case as "improvidently granted," meaning it decided it shouldn’t have heard it at this stage. This decision sends it back to the lower court to slowly wend its way back up through the system, possibly landing at the highest court again.  For now that means the injunction stays in place, and doctors in Idaho can provide emergency abortions. But it does nothing to settle the issue in the long-term or in other states like Texas (where the Fifth Circuit handed down a very different decision).

What it really means, though, is that the Supreme Court didn’t give the Democrats more abortion talking points during a contentious election year. The outrage from a decision to let women die because fetuses are more important—which is the decision we will undoubtedly get if Alito has anything to say about it—would have driven many to the polls, and they wouldn’t have voted for Republicans.

When the court issued its unanimous and politically safe decision on mifepristone a few weeks ago, I imagined Chief Justice Roberts begging Alito and Thomas to look less like partisan hacks for once. This time I think it was Alito and Thomas—two corrupt partisan hacks—who realized the political damage they would do if they gave us their real opinion this close to an election.

F**k that. I’m glad women in Idaho are safer for now, but people need to know how bad it’s getting and how much worse it could be. (A Trump Administration would ever even bother with this type of case, they’d all be content to let Idaho women die.) I wish the Supreme Court had let its ultra-conservative freak flag fly. Upside down of course.