From shipwrecks to an underground salt mine, 24 things to know about the Great Lakes

Gene Ware
Erie Times News

Thu, June 2, 2022,

Twenty-four facts you might not know about the Great Lakes:

1. Lake Huron was the first of the Great Lakes and was the first to be discovered by the early French explorers.

2. Lake Erie was the last of the French-discovered lakes.

3. All the other four Great Lakes, plus three more the size of Lake Erie, would fit inside Lake Superior.

4. Lake Erie is the fourth largest of the Great Lakes in surface area and the shallowest in water depth. It is the 11th-largest lake on the planet.

More: What makes the Great Lakes great? Take your pick of facts

5. Long before Europeans set eyes on the Great Lakes, indigenous tribes had found and learned about its abundant fisheries. Old archaeological finds indicate proof of robust fishing and the building of canoes.


6. Tribes fishing at the time usually used nets made with basswood and nettle. They would hang this net between two side-by-side canoes, trail it and catch whole nets full of fish.

More: Great Lakes heat waves are already causing chaos for fish — with worst to come

7. Due to their ocean-like characteristics, such as rolling waves, sustained winds, strong currents and great depths, the Great Lakes all could be considered inland seas.

8. The Great Lakes hold 21% of the world's freshwater.

9. Lake Michigan is the largest lake in the world located entirely within one country.

10. Glaciers melting at the end of the last ice age, 10,000 years ago, were responsible for creating the Great Lakes.

11. The shores of Lake Michigan are home to the most extensive freshwater dune system in the world. The lake has 300,000 acres of dunes along its shoreline.

12. Waves of more than 40 feet in height have been recorded on Lake Superior.

This is a July 15, 2021 contributed photo of Lake Michigan at Indiana Dunes National Park.

From the GoErie.com vault: The wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald

13. Michigan's state stone is named the Petoskey stone. It is composed of fossilized coral and is the only place in the world such stones can be found.

14. Babe Ruth hit his first major league home run in Toronto at Hanlan's Point Stadium. The ball landed in Lake Ontario and was never found.

15. A lake on Saturn's moon Titan is named after Lake Ontario. It is called Ontario Lacus.

16. Not only is Lake Erie the smallest Great Lake when it comes to volume of water, but it also has the most industry surrounding it. Twenty metropolitan areas, each with a population of more than 75,000, are along the lake's shoreline.

More: Erie's port on the Great Lakes is entry point for hundreds of thousands of tons of cargo

17. The largest salt mine in the world is the Goderich Mine. Part of it runs underneath Lake Huron, more than 540 yards underground.

18. Lake Erie has experienced more shipwrecks and sinkings than any other Great Lake. It has recorded more sinkings than the Bermuda Triangle.

More: Lake Erie isn't deep, but has depth of character among the Great Lakes

19. Singapore, Michigan, is a ghost town on the shores of Lake Michigan that was buried under sand in 1871. Because of extremely severe weather conditions and a lack of resources at the time due to the need to rebuild Chicago after that city's huge fires, the town was lost completely.

20. Lake Michigan was the location of the first recorded big Great Lakes disaster, in which a large lake's steamer with more than 600 people aboard collided with a schooner delivering timber to Chicago. The result was that 450 people died.

21. The Keystone State was one of the largest and most luxurious wooden steamships running during the Civil War. In 1861, it disappeared. In 2013, it was found in 175 feet of water just 30 miles from Harrisville, Michigan.

22. Scientists believe that Lake Erie has 2% of the water in the Great Lakes, yet is home to about half of all the fish.

23. Lake Huron has the most shoreline of any of the Great Lakes. This shoreline is 3,817 miles when you include its 30,000 islands.

The Blue Water Bridge stands over the mouth of Lake Huron, where it flows into the St. Clair River in Port Huron.

24. Some people in Cleveland claim to have seen strange things on Lake Erie. There have been quite a few reports indicating they have seen, at times, the Canadian shoreline as if it were just offshore. However, it is more than 50 miles distant. It has been surmised that this is a weather-rated phenomenon, just like the desert mirage.

Gene Ware is the author of 10 books. He serves on the board of the Presque Isle Light Station and is past chairman of the boards of the Tom Ridge Center Foundation and the Presque Isle Partnership. Email him at ware906@gmail.com.

This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: Shipwrecks, shorelines and other facts about the Great Lakes

Democrats must defeat Republicans who serve at the will of the gun lobby.

Robert Emmett Curran
Fri, June 3, 2022

In the wake of the latest slaughter of innocents in Uvalde, Texas, Republicans have rolled out their absurd talking points about the impossibility of passing any legislation which would regulate the access to guns, including the banning of military-style weapons which are, by far, the preference of those bent on maximizing casualties in their murderous rampages.

Central to their rationale for doing nothing is the so-called constitutional foundation for unfettered gun rights. As Senator Kevin Kramer of North Dakota declaimed immediately after the carnage in Uvalde: “It is a fundamental right for law-abiding citizens to protect themselves with firearms.” All these gun rights, of course, Republican apologists find enshrined in the Second Amendment. But by any literal reading of that amendment, with its vital conditioning phrase “A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state,” one is hard pressed to establish any individual rights to possess arms. And, indeed, until the current century, the Supreme Court had not attempted to do so. Then came Heller v. the District of Columbia in which a libertarian-oriented court, following the gun lobby, discovered an individual right which all its predecessors had failed to find. Former Chief Justice Warren Berger declared such an interpretation to be “one of the greatest pieces of fraud” ever perpetrated upon the American people.

Heller opened the floodgates for Republican-controlled legislatures to declare open season on gun restrictions. Now, with a new case challenging New York State’s banning the unconcealed wearing of weapons in public spaces, it seems inevitable that the conservative majority on the Supreme Court will decide that individuals have the inherent right to openly display weapons wherever they so choose.

The Court has taken us to this terrible place before. In March of 1857, Chief Justice Roger Taney, in the notorious Dred Scott v. Sandford decision, spoke for the Court’s majority in ruling that Congress had no power to ban slaveowners from taking their human property into any territory of the United States. Slave owners and their advocates hailed Taney’s ruling as a constitutional guarantee of the unrestricted right to take their bonded labor wherever opportunity or necessity bade them.

Four years later, with civil war imminent, Abraham Lincoln, in his inaugural address, pointed out that, in our form of government, the Supreme Court need not have the last word. “If the policy of the Government is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court,” Lincoln noted, “the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having to that extent practically resigned their Government into the hands of that . . . tribunal.” The president was reminding that Congress, the branch most beholden to the people, had the power to negate Dred Scott by their own legislation.

Once the war began, little by little, Congress began to whittle away at slave holders’ rights. In June of 1862, Congress took the decisive step of nullifying the Dred Scott v. Sanford decision itself by emancipating all slaves in the country’s ten territories.

We are now in our own civil war, divided by propaganda and disinformation. Every mass killing that gains national attention drives a paranoid minority to stockpile ever more guns, especially military-style ones. In a society ruled by politicians and judges to whom power, money, and individualism are the only things that matter, it should surprise no one that the gun culture prevails.

It need not be that way. The only way to break the gridlock that prevents Congress from taking the actions it desperately needs to take is for Democrats to defeat enough Republicans who serve at the pleasure of the gun industry. Given our current corrupt campaign financing awash with dark money, that will not be easy. But the Democrats’ great advantage is that voters overwhelmingly favor major gun reform such as universal background checks, as well as bans on assault weapons and ghost guns. For the upcoming mid-terms, Democrats need to laser focus on the Republicans’ anti-democratic and gun-crazy proclivities that have become such existential threats to our republic. More than ever, failure is not an option.

Robert Emmett Curran, Professor of History Emeritus at Georgetown University, is the author of the forthcoming American Catholics and the Quest for Equality in the Civil War Era.

ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY

Myanmar says it will carry out first executions in decades

GRANT PECK
Fri, June 3, 2022

BANGKOK (AP) — Myanmar’s military-installed government announced Friday that it will execute a former lawmaker from ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s party and a veteran pro-democracy activist convicted of violating the country’s Counter-Terrorism Law, local media reported Friday.

Two online news outlets, Voice of Myanmar and NP News, said two other men convicted of killing a woman they believed was an informer for the military will also be executed, in addition to former lawmaker Phyo Zeya Thaw and activist Kyaw Min Yu, also known as Ko Jimmy.

Government spokesperson Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun was cited as saying the decision to carry out the hangings was confirmed after legal appeals by the four were rejected.

He was cited as saying the executions will go ahead in accordance with prison procedures. According to the law, executions must be approved by the head of the government. He did not say when the executions would be carried out.

The United Nations, which has advocated against the death penalty, called the Myanmar military’s decision to execute the two pro-democracy activists “a blatant violation” of the right to life, liberty and security guaranteed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said Secretary-General Antonio Guterres reiterates his calls for all charges to be dropped against those arrested for exercising their fundamental freedoms and rights and for all political prisoners in Myanmar to be released immediately.

The U.N. chief also calls for people’s rights to freedom of opinion and expression to be respected, and stresses that “the Universal Declaration of Human Rights enshrines the principles of equality before the law, the presumption of innocence, the right to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, and all of the guarantees necessary for a person’s defense,” Dujarric said.

The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, which tracks arrests and state-conducted killings, says Myanmar courts have handed down death sentences to 114 political offenders, including two children, since the army seized power from Suu Kyi's elected government in February last year.

Last year’s army takeover triggered nationwide popular protests, which turned into a low-level insurgency after nonviolent demonstrations were met with deadly force by the security forces. The Assistance Association estimates that 1,887 civilians have died at the hands of police and the military in crackdowns against opponents of military rule.

Some resistance groups have engaged in assassinations, drive-by shootings and bombings in urban areas. The mainstream opposition organizations generally disavow such activities, while supporting armed resistance in rural areas, which are more often subject to brutal military attacks.

The last judicial execution to be carried out in Myanmar is generally believed to have been of another political offender, student leader Salai Tin Maung Oo, in 1976 under a previous military government led by dictator Ne Win.

In 2014, the sentences of prisoners on death row were commuted to life imprisonment, but several dozen convicts received death sentences between then and last year’s takeover.

Phyo Zeya Thaw, the former lawmaker, also known as Maung Kyaw, and Kyaw Min Yu were given death sentences under the country’s Counterterrorism Law in January this year by a closed military court. They were found guilty of offenses involving explosives, bombings and financing terrorism.

Phyo Zeya Thaw had been a hip-hop musician before becoming as a member of Generation Wave, a political movement formed in 2007.

He was arrested last November on a charge of possessing weapons and ammunition, according to a report in a state-run newspaper at the time. It said he was arrested on the basis of information from people detained a day earlier for shooting security personnel.

Other statements from the military accused him of being a key figure in a network of dozens of people who allegedly carried out what the military described as “terrorist” attacks in Yangon, the country’s biggest city.

He previously was jailed in 2008 under another military government after being accused of illegal association and possession of foreign currency.

Kyaw Min Yu is one of the leaders of the 88 Generation Students Group, veterans of a failed 1988 popular uprising against military rule.

He has been active politically since then, and spent more than a dozen years behind bars. He was arrested in Yangon last October.

The state-run media said Kyaw Min Yu has been accused of “conducting terrorism acts including mine attacks to undermine the state stability” and of heading a group called “Moon Light Operation” to carry out urban guerrilla attacks.

He had been put on a wanted list for social media postings that allegedly incited unrest.

The other two men sentenced to die, Hla Myo Aung and Aung Thura Zaw, were convicted in April last year of allegedly torturing and killing a woman in Yangon. They targeted her as an alleged military informer and killed her in March 2021, according to an April 2021 statement from the Office of the Commander-in-Chief of Defense Services.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis reaches disgraceful new low in bullying Special Olympics | Opinion

Mike Freeman, USA TODAY

Sat, June 4, 2022, 

One of the hallmarks of a bully, of a cruel human being, is attacking people who don't always have the political power or resources to defend themselves. We saw a good example of this in 2019, when the Trump administration, in a remarkably cold move, attempted to kill federal funding for the Special Olympics.

If you've never seen the Special Olympics, which gives athletes with certain intellectual disabilities the opportunity to compete in several different events, it is a remarkable thing to watch. These Olympics don't just represent the best of sports. They represent the best of humanity.

The motto of the Special Olympics is: “Let me win, but if I cannot win, let me be brave in the attempt.”

So, with cruelty, coldness and exuberant indifference being the genome of the Trump Era, it wasn't a surprise when billionaire Betsy DeVos, former U.S. Secretary of Education, proposed cutting the $17.6 million budget of the Special Olympics.

Reported The Washington Post at the time: “Do you know how many kids are going to be affected by that cut?" Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) asked DeVos at a House hearing.

DeVos replied that she didn't. “I’ll answer for you,” he said. “It's 272,000 kids.”

The cruelty was the point then. Fast forward to just a few years later and another bully. The cruelty is also the point now when it comes to the actions of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis

It is true that DeSantis' cruelty and white nationalist-adjacency go beyond attacking the vulnerable. He attacks corporations and Major League Baseball teams. His actions, however, involving the Special Olympics are particularly awful.

The state of Florida threatened to fine the Special Olympics $27.5 million for requiring 5,500 participants at the USA Games in Orlando this weekend to be vaccinated against COVID. That threat caused the organization to drop the mandate, a mandate that potentially saves lives.

“We don’t want to fight,” the Special Olympics said in a statement. “We want to play.”

Like the Trump administration before him, DeSantis displayed a level of cruelty toward Special Olympians that is almost impossible to believe. But it's real.

DeSantis and his cultists will say the Special Olympics weren't following the law. But authoritarians like him don't really care about the law. He's in a culture war, building up his extremist CV to appeal to extremists and brutality fetishists.

In the past, DeSantis has appealed to racists and other Cro-Magnon types. With his actions in the case of the Special Olympics, he's appealing to anti-vaxxers. This group lacks critical thinking skills, but some of them do figure out how to work a voting machine, and DeSantis wants every voter he can get. Even the ones who diD tHEir OwNN rESSeArcH.

MORE: Special Olympics drops COVID-19 vaccine requirement after Florida threatens $27.5M in fines

NANCY ARMOUR: The cheap, the greedy, the inept and unlikeable: These are sports' worst owners

There are numerous pieces of proof that show DeSantis doesn't really care about rules, just revenge, or using whatever person or entity he can to score points. Just this week, DeSantis blocked money for the training facility of the Tampa Bay Rays after the team tweeted against gun violence.

Two days after a gunman killed 19 children and two adults at a Texas elementary school, the team said it would donate $50,000 to Everytown for Gun Safety. The group pushes for programs aimed at reducing gun violence.

"This cannot be normal," the Rays' tweet read. "We cannot become numb. We cannot look the other way. We all know, if nothing changes, nothing changes."

CNN reported that DeSantis didn't decide to veto the money for the training facility until after the tweet. That sensible, responsible tweet.

DeSantis' bullying ranges from kids to Disney to the LGBTQ community. But what he did to Special Olympians goes beyond bullying. It's possibly extremely dangerous.

The Special Olympics reported that the 2019 World Games included over 1,000 athletes with Down Syndrome.

Two years ago, a large study out of the UK showed that people with Down Syndrome who get COVID are four times more likely to be hospitalized, and 10 times more likely to die, than the general population. Studies since then have buttressed that research. Down Syndrome, or trisomy 21, is a genetic disorder caused by abnormal cell division that produces an extra chromosome.

The CDC last year updated its guidelines to include people with Down Syndrome at increased risk for severe COVID disease. By requiring that Special Olympians get vaccinated, you lower the risk of them catching COVID. This is highly elementary stuff.

But not in DeSantis' world. In DeSantis' world, you use whatever you can to make a political point. Even if it's disgusting. Even if it's horrible. Even if it's potentially deadly.

Even if it risks Special Olympians' lives.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Gov. Ron DeSantis bullies Special Olympics, hits disgraceful new low

Power to the People: A path forward out of the climate crisis

Neil Ever Osborne

Fri, June 3, 2022, 

Power to the People: A path forward out of the climate crisis

A post-carbon future is possible through self-determination.

That’s the central message emanating from the documentary series entitled Power to the People that follows activist Melina Laboucan-Massimo across Canada as she visits Indigenous communities revolutionizing the clean energy transition in response to the climate crisis.

That rationale for optimism is because these solutions already exist, according to Laboucan-Massimo, who hosts the 13-part episodic series that depicts how Indigenous communities are using renewable energy initiatives involving wind, solar, tidal, biomass, and geothermal to generate their own independent power.

From her traditional homelands in Little Buffalo, AB, Laboucan-Massimo knows too well the consequences of fossil fuel extraction, as Episode 1 examines through a first-hand account of an oil spill.

“The community wasn’t even told of the immensity of this spill until five days after … so I set out to find a helicopter to at least fly over so we could take pictures from the air. We wrote up a press release and every major media outlet in Canada came because it was one of the biggest oil spills in Canada’s history.”

Power to the People oil spill

28,000 barrels of crude oil — 4.5 million litres – stained the land and rivers close to Laboucan-Massimo’s community near Little Buffalo, AB. (Image provided by Power to the People)

But, Laboucan-Massimo and the series don’t linger on the past for long. There’s too many success stories to focus on instead. Net-zero housing, run-of-river hydroelectric projects, and green transportation initiatives are uncovered in Power to the People, among other solution stories that set the course towards energy autonomy — all being shaped by Indigenous values, cultures, and communities.

“We need to be the leaders in our own projects” Laboucan-Massimo says in Episode 2. What she means is that at the crux of the climate crisis is the need to paint a picture of the path forward.

Power to the People does just that.

Power to the People

New Episodes Weekly from June 17-July 22

Read a summary of the upcoming episodes below and check back weekly to see updated links for new chapters of the Power to the People documentary series.

June 17 Episode 1: Little Buffalo Growing up in the Lubicon Lake Band in Little Buffalo, AB, Melina Laboucan-Massimo has experienced the detrimental effects of oil sands extraction. Today, it has made her one of Canada’s leading climate change campaigners and the host of Power to the People.

June 24 Episode 2: Gull Bay For some remote Indigenous communities north of Thunder Bay, connecting to the Ontario hydro grid will never be a reality. Gull Bay First Nation found the means to create their own ‘micro grid’ using solar energy to offset their use of diesel power.

July 1 Episode 3: Atlin There are roughly 300 off grid Indigenous communities across Canada, who continue to rely on diesel-generated power. The Taku River Tlingit Nation in northern BC is one of the few First Nations who have successfully replaced diesel power through their implementation of clean, renewable energy.

July 8 Episode 4: Six Nations Home to the largest First Nations population in Canada, Six Nations of the Grand River established a corporation to manage economic opportunities on behalf of their people. That effort now sees Six Nations invested in some of the largest wind and solar power plants in the nation.

July 15 Episode 5: Haida Gwaii Surrounded by the Pacific Ocean and off the BC hydro grid, the Haida Nation relies on diesel generators to power their communities. Now, a homegrown group is looking to the wind, sun, and sea to offset their reliance on fossil fuels.

July 22 Episode 6: Tofino Geothermal energy is generated by heat stored below the earth’s surface. The Tla-o-qui-aht Nation is harnessing this renewable energy through a geoexchange system to cost effectively heat and cool their homes and buildings.

To learn more about the Power to the People documentary visit powertothepeople.tv

"fake meat that grows in a peach tree dish"

Marjorie Taylor Greene pulls lab-grown 

meat into the culture wars

U.S. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) holds a news conference about her suspended Twitter account and the impending sale of Twitter at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, U.S. April 28, 2022.

 REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst 

Tim Carman

Fri, June 3, 2022,

When Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., used part of her Memorial Day weekend to insinuate that the government is monitoring your movements to make sure you're eating "fake meat that grows in a peach tree dish," and not a real cheeseburger, the internet reacted as you'd expect. Jokes. Memes. Mockery of the congresswoman's pronunciation of "Petri dish."

But those in and around the world of "fake meat" - whether meats grown from stem cells in bioreactors or processed from plants to mimic meat - reacted much differently. Some suggested Greene was off in her own universe, disconnected from the bipartisan efforts to diversify the country's meat supply for the potential benefit of the environment, animals, food security and human health.

Others, however, suggested Greene was expanding the culture wars into the esoteric world of alternative meats as a way to stoke fears about what the future might bring to conservative communities: a kind of "great replacement theory" but for beef, pork and chicken. Some say her baseless claims around the subject of alternative meats, like those around vaccines and the presidential election, will become talking points among mainstream conservatives, especially those from agricultural states.

"I think that her position on alternative proteins . . . is actually quickly becoming very standard, especially within the GOP," said Jan Dutkiewicz, a policy fellow at the Animal Law and Policy Program at Harvard Law School.

"There's already this discourse around the fact that meat is all-American," Dutkiewicz added. "It's a sign of freedom. ... It's related to supporting American farmers, American ranchers, American traditions. Where alternative protein seeks to disrupt that, it becomes a really easy target."

Dutkiewicz, who studies conventional meat production and the alt-meat industry, noted that politicians have already railed against efforts to cut back on meat consumption or reduce the impacts of animal agriculture. Such as when then-Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, held up a hamburger during a 2019 news conference, saying that if the Green New Deal went through, "this will be outlawed." Or when Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, introduced a bill in 2016 that would ban "Meatless Mondays" at military mess halls. Or when Nebraska Republican Gov. Pete Ricketts proposed a "meat on the menu" day last year.

"While meat is one of the most nutrient-dense foods you can eat, there are radical anti-agriculture activists that are working to end meat production and our way of life here in Nebraska," the governor said in a release.

Greene's comments, part of a Facebook Live segment, were not far removed from Ricketts's statement, at least in terms of bottom-line messaging: that someone wants to take away your traditional meats.

The U.S. government, the congresswoman said, wants "to know if you're eating a cheeseburger, which is very bad because Bill Gates wants you to eat his fake meat that grows in a peach tree dish. So you'll probably get a little zap inside your body, and that says, 'No, no, don't eat a real cheeseburger,' " Greene said.

By invoking Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft and an investor in alternative meat companies, Greene was relying on a well-worn political playbook, Dutkiewicz said.

She is "basically riding this wave of critique, which I think ultimately aims to appeal to a specific constituency that is conservative in the sense of being afraid of change," he said. "Here you've got Silicon Valley or Bill Gates investing in these novel products which are somehow nefarious or worse for you or seek to undermine the American way of life or American agriculture."

Greene's office did not respond to a call seeking comment. But what she might not know is that America's largest food and meat producers - companies such as Cargill, Tyson Foods and ADM - have invested heavily in alternative meats, said Bruce Friedrich, founder and chief executive of the Good Food Institute, a nonprofit that works to create a "world where alternative proteins are no longer alternative."

"All of these companies are involved in both plant-based meat and cultivated meat, and it has everything to do with the bottom line," Friedrich said. "So I think that the worst thing that can happen for alternative proteins is to have it conflated with anyone telling anyone else what to eat. It's literally the opposite of that."

Cultivated and plant-based meats, Friedrich said, are about giving consumers more choices, not less.

Andrew Noyes, head of global communications and public affairs for Eat Just, the company behind the plant-based Just Egg, suggested that politicians on both sides of the aisle see the potential of alternative proteins.

"When we talk to lawmakers and staffers about cultivated meat, issues like job creation, innovation and American competitiveness are top of mind, regardless of how red or blue the district is that they represent," Noyes said in a statement.

Greene's antipathy toward lab-grown meats can't be attributed to campaign cash: Her coffers aren't lined by Big Meat, although top donors to her 2022 campaign included Paul Hofer, an owner of Hofer Ranch in California, who gave $7,900, according to data from OpenSecrets.org. Tassos Paphites, chief executive of BurgerBusters - which owns 80 Taco Bell franchises around the country - was another big giver, with donations totaling $6,000.

Greene's attempt to drag alternative meats into America's culture wars comes at a sensitive time for the industry. Nine years after a lab-grown hamburger made its debut in London to lukewarm reviews, the cultured meat industry has made a lot of progress - including a taste test in which experts couldn't tell lab-grown chicken from a conventional bird - but it's still far from large-scale commercial viability.

In 2020, Singapore became the first government to grant regulatory approval to a lab-grown product, a chicken nugget that Good Meat, a division of Eat Just, grew from stem cells. The nugget was first served in December 2020 at a Singaporean restaurant.

Since then, China, the Netherlands, Qatar and other countries have started to lay the groundwork for a future of lab-grown meats. The United States, meanwhile, gives mixed signals about alternative proteins. State and federal lawmakers have proposed or passed laws to limit how companies can label and market their mock meats, potentially hurting the commercial viability of the products. At the same time, the U.S. Agriculture Department and the Food and Drug Administration continue to work out rules on how to regulate the forthcoming multibillion-dollar industry.

There's a concern among insiders and advocates that without more government support, the U.S. alternative-protein industry, currently considered the world leader, could cede ground to companies in other countries where officials are pumping money into innovation. Pointed commentary from politicians such as Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and Greene might not help, as they steer the debate away from alternative protein's potential merits and into a stultifying culture war.

But Dutkiewicz, the Harvard researcher, doesn't think Greene and Massie are trying to influence legislation as much as they're planting tribal flags.

"There's sort of a conservative zeitgeist they're tapping into," he said. "They're signaling a sort of an allegiance to American traditionalism and opposition to coastal elites and opposition to technological disruption of ways of life. It's more signaling a worldview."

MILKWEED

The Washington Post's Emily Heil contributed to this report.

Opinion: I'm an ob-gyn. 

We're not ready for what will happen if Roe is overturned.

Lisa Harris
Fri, June 3, 2022

Anti-abortion activists and abortion rights activists are separated by META Peace Team members during a Bans Off Our Bodies protest at U-M's Diag in Ann Arbor on Saturday, May 14, 2022.

Maternity portrait

Abortion rights activists rally during a Bans Off Our Bodies protest at U-M's Diag in Ann Arbor on Saturday, May 14, 2022.

Abortion rights activists rally during a Bans Off Our Bodies protest at U-M's Diag in Ann Arbor on Saturday, May 14, 2022.

A couple of the many signs that marchers who attended the Reproductive Rights March: Fight for Abortion Justice rally in Detroit on October 2, 2021, used as they head towards Greektown. The rally and march through downtown started at 36th District Court where speakers talked about abortion-rights and what is happening in parts of the country with a woman's right to choose.More

I’ve been an obstetrician-gynecologist for 24 years, caring for women giving birth, experiencing miscarriage, and deciding to have abortions. Most patients I see have experienced some or all of these events, at different times in their life.

Since abortion is so politicized and stigmatized, it’s often hard to see that it usually coexists alongside birth and miscarriage in many women’s lives, and in the medical practices of their doctors.

I became an ob-gyn to offer compassion and expertise across all these reproductive experiences; I hope my patients have felt that. I didn’t go into medicine to be part of political debates. But I am acutely aware that such debates impact the women and families I care for.

Indeed, as we wait for the outcome of the Supreme Court’s upcoming abortion decision, my colleagues and I are trying to plan ahead for all of the ways the healthcare landscape in Michigan may dramatically shift — not only for women who might seek abortion care, but also for those whose pregnancies end in miscarriage, or for anyone who continues a pregnancy, as well.

Many Michiganders don’t realize we have a 1931 abortion ban on the books. It is among the strictest in the country, permitting abortion only to “preserve the life” of a pregnant woman. The U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v Wade decision made it unenforceable, determining abortion is a Constitutional right.

More: Opinion: Michigan's economy headed for disaster if abortion is criminalized

More: Michigan woman: Hear my story, feel my pain before outlawing abortion

But if Roe is reversed in June, as a draft opinion suggests is likely, our ban will become enforceable, and abortion will be a crime again in Michigan, impacting thousands of women from every walk of life.

Lawsuits brought by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Planned Parenthood of Michigan aim to stop the 1931 ban from being enforced, should Roe fall. Last week a Michigan judge temporarily blocked the ban from coming into effect, pending the final outcome of the Planned Parenthood case. Those following abortion headlines may see the legal back-and-forth as partisan or political wins or losses.

But as a doctor in Michigan, I see it as a healthcare issue.
Bracing for tumult

Alongside my physician, nurse and midwife colleagues at Michigan Medicine, we are getting ready for the possibility that abortion will become illegal in Michigan.

Myriad preparations are needed. We are not yet ready, nor are our healthcare colleagues statewide.

First, we need to determine what, precisely, “life-preserving” abortion means.

What must the risk of death be, and how imminently? I have performed abortions on critically ill patients in intensive care units, where it is clear abortion is life-saving.

More: Whitmer to Michigan Supreme Court: 'Time is of the essence' on abortion lawsuit

More: University of Michigan forms task force to 'mitigate the impact' of possible abortion ban

Pregnancy demands so much from all body organ systems, especially heart and lungs; sometimes ending a pregnancy is the only way to help a patient survive. But outside of these situations, it gets unclear.

Maternal-fetal medicine specialists care for patients with a range of “high-risk” conditions. For patients with pulmonary hypertension, they may cite a 30% to 50% chance of dying with ongoing pregnancy.

Is that high enough to permit abortion? Or must it be 100%?

When oncologists diagnose cancer during pregnancy, some patients end the pregnancy to start treatment immediately; some cancers advance faster due to pregnancy’s extra hormones, and chemotherapy and radiation can cause significant fetal injury.

Will abortion be permissible in this situation, or must patients delay cancer treatment and give birth first? When patients have advanced cancer that was preventable with earlier treatment, increased risk of death may be a few years away.

We’ve identified many similar questions.

Just three options

Most pregnant patients seeking abortion care are not facing life-threatening conditions, and will have only three options: travel outside Michigan for abortion care, self-manage an abortion, or give birth. At Michigan Medicine we are preparing for all of this.

People with enough money and support will seek care out-of-state. For most Michiganders, this means driving to Illinois, making the average travel distance for abortion care more than 260 miles if our ban is re-enacted. This will be impossible for many, since lack of financial resources is why many women seek abortion care.

Nationally, half of patients seeking abortions live on incomes under the federal poverty level; another 25% live on just one-to-two times that.

Many cannot afford gas, tolls, hotels. They cannot afford to lose hourly wages or will be fired for missing work.

Most patients I see are already parents. Travel is much harder when you need childcare arrangements, too, especially overnight.

I’m thinking of a patient I saw not long ago, who worked the night shift, drove several hours to her abortion appointment, three children in tow, and then afterwards headed home for another night shift. Efforts like this are already the norm in abortion care, and it will only get harder.

Nevertheless, if legally permissible, our Michigan health system will need to assist those who can travel.

If allowed, we can offer referrals out-of-state and pre-travel “teeing-up.” This may include ordering an ultrasound or bloodwork and, for patients with underlying illnesses, speedy specialist consultation to ensure they can safely receive care on arrival. We must figure out if Illinois medical centers have capacity to see our patients requiring hospital-level care, knowing these hospitals will also be seeing patients from Ohio, Missouri, Indiana and other states.

Insurers will need to decide if out-of-state abortion care and associated travel expenses are covered, and patients will likely find themselves battling with insurers for such coverage, which may require costly out-of-network fees.
Will legal hazards magnify distrust?

The second option is self-managed abortion.

For over twenty years, people have safely used the FDA-approved mifepristone and misoprostol combination to end pregnancies at home, after receiving medications in a doctor’s office. Mifepristone and misoprostol obtained online from the many available, reliable sources are equally safe and effective.

However, patients without internet access, a credit card, or who don’t know about those medications may use ineffective or deadly methods: ingesting poisons, intentional trauma like falling down stairs, or putting objects into their uterus to disrupt pregnancy.

My colleagues and I will want to steer people toward safe methods, though it’s unclear Michigan’s law will permit such education.

Emergency department and primary care practitioners will need to quickly become familiar with treating abortion complications in this landscape, including complications not seen since before Roe, nearly 50 years ago.

Because mifepristone and misoprostol are so safe, legal risks may be the more serious ones for patients — meaning the people they turn to for medical care might report them, or loved ones who helped them, to police, even though that violates current privacy laws and Michigan doesn’t require reporting of suspected self-managed abortion.

Indeed, all patients who have bleeding in pregnancy or experience pregnancy loss may be vulnerable to criminal prosecution because miscarriage and self-managed abortion are virtually indistinguishable. National data show that healthcare providers disproportionately report Black pregnant patients and those living on low incomes to police.

More babies will strain pre-natal care

Third, more people will give birth. Based upon projections of who will travel or self-manage abortion, we anticipate a 5% to 17% birth increase in Michigan.

We already have significant maternal healthcare deserts — places without prenatal or birth care — where patients travel far distances to deliver.

It’s not clear how a greater need will be met.

Our own hospital’s labor and delivery unit is already at capacity from COVID birth surges.

When we work over capacity, all birthing patients are affected, not just those who might otherwise have ended their pregnancies.

Newborn and pediatric care needs will increase, too. Many families who get terrible news about their developing baby will be forced to give birth, and those babies and children will need complex, costly medical care, and often a lifetime of specialized support.

More than ever, families statewide will need robust medical and social safety nets that may not exist.

We can expect mental health care needs in pregnancy to intensify, as girls and women continue undesired pregnancies, including those resulting from rape and incest.

Michigan’s abortion ban makes no exceptions for either. Our already-overburdened mental healthcare system is unlikely to adequately meet this need.
Mothers will die

Finally, maternal mortality will increase — as much as 21% overall by one demographer’s estimate — because abortion is safer than childbirth. Centers for Disease Control data show that in the U.S., the risk of dying from childbirth is 50 to 130 times greater than dying from abortion.

This new burden of maternal death will not be felt equally in Michigan, or anywhere in the country, because Black women are more than twice as likely as white women to die from pregnancy and childbirth.

Maternal mortality for white women is projected to increase by 13%. For Black women, the projected increase is 33%, meaning that an abortion ban will disproportionately harm Black women and the families who lose them. It will become more pressing than it already is to remedy systemic inequities and racism that generate such disparities.

Unsafe abortion will add to this burden and loss.

Other reproductive healthcare will be impacted, too.

Fearing criminal prosecution, doctors may hesitate to treat ectopic pregnancy, hemorrhage or serious infection from miscarriage, when fetal cardiac activity remains.

Healthcare providers will need to decide whether they’ll continue prescribing the best evidence-based medications for miscarriage — mifepristone and misoprostol.

Since those medications are used in abortion care, doctors may fear their use carries legal jeopardy. Infertility doctors may stop providing in vitro fertilization given the potential for embryo loss in IVF.
We're not ready

Re-enactment of Michigan’s abortion ban will affect medical education. Abortion training is an accreditation requirement for ob-gyn residencies.

Michigan Medicine will need out-of-state training arrangements. Ultimately, our top-ranked program may cease to draw talented applicants. Roughly 40% of our ob-gyn graduates stay in Michigan to practice medicine, so the statewide reproductive health workforce may be impacted.

Patients will ultimately feel the impact of shifts in abortion training: If residents can’t learn "non-lifesaving" abortion care, soon no one will be trained to perform the "lifesaving" abortions Michigan’s 1931 ban permits.

Patients experiencing miscarriage will feel the loss of abortion training, too, because doctors who have such training are more likely to offer patients the full range of appropriate miscarriage treatments than doctors without it.

Finally, Michigan’s health system workforce, like those everywhere, is disproportionately female. When more of the workforce is pregnant, on parental leave, or traveling for abortion care, patients will likely feel the impact.

All of this is my way of saying that we are not yet ready to manage what is coming if abortion becomes illegal in Michigan.

Every morning I wake up with another new question. Those who view abortion exclusively as a political or partisan issue, maybe one they’d like to avoid, will soon see that abortion care, or lack thereof, is a healthcare and health equity issue that impacts everyone.

I trust my patients

Avoiding this issue isn’t possible.

Amid the flurry of logistical planning, I remain aware that abortion is complex and emotional topic for many.

That makes sense. Abortion asks us to hold two opposite things at the same time: Abortion means a baby won’t be born, and that is weighty. Banning abortion means that a girl or woman must continue a pregnancy and give birth when she can’t or doesn’t want to, shifting the course of her, and her family’s, lives. That is weighty, too.

In our polarized times we don’t really learn how to hold complexity like this. Instead we are asked to resolve our feelings one way or another, even when “pro-life” or “pro-choice” boxes may not precisely fit how we feel.

From the hundreds of times my patients have shared their lives, hopes, and hurts, I know they hold this complexity, too, as do I.

Ultimately, I trust my patients to know what they and their families most need.

My colleagues and I will continue to provide support as the legal landscape shifts, even if we don’t yet know exactly what the contours of that support will look like.

Lisa Harris

Lisa Harris, MD, PhD, is a professor of obstetrics and gynecology and professor of women's and gender studies at University of Michigan.

This guest column is adapted from an essay recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Opinion: Michigan hospitals aren't prepared for end of Roe v. Wade

The Great Resignation resulted in women leaving the workforce in droves. Denying them abortion care could dent the labor market


François Picard—AFP/Getty Images

Amiah Taylor
Fri, June 3, 2022,

Last month, on May 11, the Women’s Health Protection Act of 2022—which would have made abortion access a federal law—failed to pass due to opposition from Senate Republicans. The pro-life versus pro-choice debates that our nation is deeply embroiled in have reached a boiling point as the looming threat of a reversal of Roe v. Wade lingers on. While testifying before the Senate Banking Committee on May 10, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen argued that banning abortion would have “very damaging effects on the economy and set women back decades.”

Five decades to be exact, according to Yana van der Meulen Rodgers, the faculty director for the Center for Women and Work at Rutgers University.

“If we were to restrict women’s access to abortion, that means going back potentially decades to when we saw sharp declines in women’s labor force participation after giving birth to children,” van der Meulen Rodgers told Fortune. “So I think this could mean a step back by 50 years, and diminishing all the progress women have made since they’ve had access to safe abortion services on a national level, starting in 1973.”

Here’s how the elimination of safe and legal abortion access would turn back the clock and, as a result, affect the labor market.

Abortion denial could be the final straw for women already struggling in the workplace

In the first 12 months of the pandemic, women accounted for 53% of U.S. labor force departures, and about 2.3 million women exited the workforce in 2020, per a McKinsey study. One of the main reasons that women left the workforce in droves was childcare, referencing the Society for Human Resource Management. In fact, 23% of female workers with children under 10 years old considered leaving the workforce in 2020 as opposed to 10% of women without children, citing McKinsey.

“Cultural expectations of women to prioritize child-rearing, combined with women’s lower average pay, occupational status, and benefits than men (along with the high costs of childcare), mean that women in many heterosexual couples decide to leave work with the birth of a child,” Erin Hatton, associate professor of sociology at the State University of New York at Buffalo, told Fortune. “It just makes sense financially.”

It is clear that whether a woman is childless or not factors into her job tenure and career advancement. And growing data suggests that children reduce women’s labor force participation. Because of that, laws restricting or eliminating abortion would directly affect women workers in terms of their career advancement.

“For women, being able to choose when to start a family is really key to her career mobility, her earnings, and when and how she enters the labor market,” Nicole Mason, the CEO of the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, told Fortune. “And so taking away that choice will definitely have an adverse effect on women’s participation in the labor market, their career mobility, and being able to stay in the workforce. We already know that women are more likely than their male counterparts to leave the workforce as a result of having a child. So, restricting abortion access for women will definitely increase the likelihood that they will exit the workforce if they’re forced to carry unintended babies to term.”

Eliminating abortion would negatively impact workplace diversity

“I just want to make the connection here that, at this moment, companies and businesses are in fierce competition for top talent,” Mason told Fortune. “So the impending Supreme Court decision to limit abortion access or the range of reproductive health care options to women will definitely impact a business’s ability to attract and retain top talent: women.”

In terms of diversity, limiting abortion access would not solely impact gender diversity, but could also have a negative impact on racial diversity. Black women typically have the highest labor force participation rate of all women, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. In 2014, Black women over the age of 16 had the highest national workforce participation rate at 59.2%, as opposed to white and Latina women who had participation rates of 56.7% and 56% respectively, citing the Institute for Women’s Policy Research. As of November 2021, Black women’s labor force participation rates have risen to 60.3%, according to Brookings. Black women are attractive job candidates because they are among the most educated groups in the country, but they also have the most to lose from abortion bans.

The unintended pregnancy rate is almost 2.5 times higher for Black women than for white women, according to Duke University Press. Black women also have the highest abortion rates in the nation. In addition, they are the most likely to be unable to afford interstate travel to terminate pregnancies, in the case that abortion is outlawed in their home state, due to wage disparities.

Restricting access to abortion care could mean that women of color exit the labor force for good. Historically, women who dropped out of the workforce during a recession to care for children often struggled to return, being unable to find a job in their prior role or command their prior wages, as reported by CNBC. Nationally, labor force exits associated with the presence of children were more common among Latina women and Black women, and these exits accounted for approximately 25% of the labor force exits above pre-pandemic rates among Latina women and Black women relative to white women, citing the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. A key reason that Black and Latina women don’t return to work is that childcare centers in their neighborhoods are much more likely to close, according to a study by researchers at Columbia University’s Center on Poverty & Social Policy. Between mass childcare closures in minority neighborhoods during the pandemic, and the fact that as of 2020, 46.3% of Black children lived solely with their mothers, per the U.S. Census Bureau, the sole burden of childcare often falls onto Black women, which can detrimentally affect their careers. Latina and Black women are more likely to be their family’s sole breadwinners, according to a report from McKinsey. In addition, among those ages 25 to 54, 62% of Black women were unpartnered in 2019, according to the Pew Research Center. This means that forcing Black women to carry unwanted children to term could also be forcing them to give up their means of earning a living, without the cushion of leaning on a partner’s income, given that Black women often do not raise their children in two-partner households. Eliminating abortion access for women, but Black women in particular, increases their odds of falling into poverty and being overwhelmed with childcare, and as a result not adding valuable diversity to the office.

Women workers could suffer increased mental health issues

According to the Center for American Progress, women living in states with greater access to reproductive health care have higher earnings, higher rates of full-time employment, and greater job opportunities. But an additional byproduct of abortion access is a higher sense of well-being.

Women who receive “a wanted abortion are better able to aspire for the future than women who are denied a wanted abortion and must carry an unwanted pregnancy to term,” citing BMC (Boston Medical Center) Women’s Health, a peer reviewed health journal. And the majority of surveyed women—99%—said having an abortion was the right choice five years later, in a Social Science & Medicine study.

In contrast, denying women abortions would likely have negative effects on their mental health.

People who were denied abortions reported more symptoms of stress and anxiety one week after the event than those who received abortions, per the University of California, San Francisco’s Turnaway study.
Victims of sexual violence would face mental health and job consequences

Women could likely suffer mental health consequences from carrying an unwanted pregnancy to term, emotions that would likely be amplified further in incidences of rape.

“I think limiting women's access to the full range of reproductive health care, including abortion access, is violence against women,” Mason told Fortune. “And in the case of a woman who was sexually assaulted or experiencing intimate partner violence, not allowing her to be able to have abortion access does have a definitive impact on her mental health and well-being but also her labor force participation.”

The correlation between sexual violence and female labor participation has been documented in countries such as Zimbabwe, Germany, the United Kingdom, as well as the United States. Sexual violence is associated with a 6.6% decline in female labor force participation and a 5.1% decline in wages, according to the American Economic Review. When an assault is followed by an unwanted pregnancy that the mother is legally mandated to keep, the effects could be psychologically devastating in addition to the previous suffering and work penalties.

Statistics on the incidents of rape that end in pregnancy are scarce and have not been updated for at least the last 20 years. However, in 1996 the national rape-related pregnancy rate was 5% per rape among victims of reproductive age—ages 12 to 45, according to the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

Hatton believes that overturning access to safe abortions will amplify the ramifications of sexual violence against female workers.

“In addition to physical trauma, sexual violence has long-term mental and physical health consequences, including depression, PTSD, anxiety disorders, sleep disorders, and more,” Hatton told Fortune. “The negative consequences of such violence—which are already incredibly harmful and long-lasting—will only be prolonged and deepened if women are forced to keep pregnancies resulting from that violence. Not surprisingly, such consequences will negatively affect women as workers as well as women as human beings who have a right to autonomy, equality, and freedom from degradation.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

Amanda Shires Demands More Artists Stand Up for Abortion Rights: ‘I Can’t Live With the Idea of Not Speaking Up’


Brittney McKenna
Fri, June 3, 2022

Jason Isbell & The 400 Unit And Shemekia Copeland In Concert - Nashville, TN

 - Credit: Erika Goldring/Getty Images

Soon after a Supreme Court draft ruling that would overturn Roe v. Wade was leaked last month, Amanda Shires shared some personal news on social media. “Recently, I had an ectopic pregnancy,” she tweeted. “On August 9, 2021 my fallopian tube ruptured. On August 10, my life was saved…these are some dark days.”

Shires, an incisive songwriter and solo artist and occasional member of husband Jason Isbell’s 400 Unit band, has been vocal about protecting a woman’s right to choose in the past. In 2020, she penned an op-ed for Rolling Stone about why abortion rights matter. In a new interview, Shires — who returns with her latest album Take It Like a Man in July — goes deeper into her own experiences and calls on artists, especially those in Nashville, to start using the platforms they’ve been given.

When I wrote my first piece for Rolling Stone, I’d had an abortion before. Since writing that op-ed, I have had reproductive healthcare — that some might call an abortion — when I was hospitalized in Texas on August 9, 2021, with a ruptured fallopian tube caused by an ectopic pregnancy. For those who are unfamiliar, it is impossible for an ectopic pregnancy to go to term. I would have died; my daughter, Mercy, would have lost her mother; my husband, Jason, would be a widower.

I was lucky. This happened to me two and a half weeks before Texas’ abortion ban went into effect. And I was still dealing with all of it two and a half weeks later. I mean, only just now — nine months later, interestingly enough — have I returned to having normal periods. This fight is about more than just abortion. I think that’s what people keep forgetting.

The majority of people are in favor of women’s reproductive rights and health; it’s others we’re trying to get to. But I think folks forget that access to abortion and reproductive healthcare is not just about terminating unwanted pregnancy. People forget that, if you take away access to reproductive healthcare, you’re going to be killing moms like me. I would have died had this procedure not been available to me. Where would that leave my own daughter?

We’ve had legal abortions for 50 years and now, suddenly, a long-held right will be illegal. How are we going to police that? People will have to prove that they have been raped. And any policing will disproportionately affect people of color, low-income folks and other marginalized groups. It’s yet another thing that, when policing does happen, is going to happen haphazardly and ruin lives. Where does that get us with our Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights?

When Roe is overturned, some healthcare workers may feel afraid to help people. A person having a miscarriage may have to fly to another state, just so they or their doctor doesn’t get into legal trouble. People are still going to get abortions, and we’re going to have to keep people’s secrets, and house people, and try to do the best we can. When we overturn Roe, we risk going back to, “Oh, now same-sex marriages can’t happen. Interracial marriages can’t happen.” Privacy rights are going to be gone.

Demographer Diana Greene Foster conducted a 10-year study tracking both people who had abortions and people who were denied abortions. Her study essentially proves that when folks can’t have an abortion, it affects their mental health, their economic standing, their overall well-being. Ninety-five percent of study participants who did have an abortion still stood by their decision. It’s just like you would expect, but there’s real, scientific proof for it now. In the past, white men have said otherwise.

Since publishing my op-ed, I’ve heard from some folks who are in their eighties. And that, to me, was incredible, because they had abortions in what was a pre-Roe v. Wade environment and they’re only now sharing their stories for the first time. I’m glad to be a listener and also glad to see folks from those generations supporting the right to choose. It made me think, “You know, I bet our grandmothers are more pro-choice than everybody leads us to believe.”

As it turns out, it did start some conversations within our own families. We found out that, yes, our grandmothers are pro-choice. They might not have had a voice before or might have been cast out into the streets without any place to sleep had they mentioned it earlier in their lives. But finding a voice now and sharing their stories now is as good as any time. Hearing these stories, I think that it makes your backbone stronger. It makes it feel like you’re tough enough for the fight, all the way down to your bones.

I also received responses from trolls. I had people threatening me. But whatever. It’s not more threatening than the idea of taking away the services and the work that doctors and nurses do. I don’t care if somebody wants to put a target on me. I wouldn’t go back and change it. If we tell our stories, it helps other people feel empowered. It de-stigmatizes the conversation. If you share your story or share your beliefs, you’re going to get some haters and trolls. But if you don’t, you’re going to be wondering, “What didn’t I do? What didn’t I say that could have helped change one mind?” I can’t live with the idea of not speaking up.

We have to work hard now to mobilize and help people vote. The election is November 8. You don’t see a lot of men speaking up, and every voice is helpful. Which brings up the question, why were Jason and I, and Margo Price, the biggest celebrities — quasi-celebrities — at the march in Nashville? Why didn’t more people show up and speak up? I know everyone is scared of losing their rung on the ladder, but there are more important things, I think, than your fame. Not saying something is not helping. Not standing up for folks is not helping and it’s not right. I would like to think that fans can hold their role models and their favorite musicians accountable. Don’t support artists who don’t support your rights.

I would like to challenge other folks who have platforms to actually use them. Where the fuck are the rest of them? We have Olivia Rodrigo and Phoebe Bridgers speaking up, and Ariana Grande. Where are our Nashville folks? They aren’t helping. Are they just going to sit around and drink beer? I want Garth Brooks out there telling people that women’s health is a priority. That’s what I want. Why not? What does he have to lose?

My best hope is that people continue to get angrier and that the folks who have been fighting so hard for so long, and are already tired, find some strength to keep fighting and also to mobilize others, especially youth, along the way. I hope that if Roe v. Wade is overturned, it causes such a fucking uproar that we end up with more rights than we had before.

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