What kind of week was it? Well, “Shithole” is trending. Of course that’s our president’s pet name for countries full of pesky brown people, but it’s also a term that came to mind more than once while watching this week’s headlines.

INDIANA refused to license a Whole Woman’s Health clinic, ILLINOIS is trying to pass a Down syndrome abortion ban, and OHIO is working on a bill to require burial or cremation of fetal tissue. WTF? Does the Rust Belt need a tetanus shot? And then even CALIFORNIA decided to allow nurses to be taught the voodoo medicine of so-called “abortion reversal.”

But before you invoke “shithole,” realize that these are all situations that are still in flux—bills that are being fought over, rulings that are under appeal. Hell, California’s abortion reversal ruling has been reversed itself three times now. Or like in Florida this week, where their 24-hour waiting period was thrown out by a judge. The point is this: Shitholes can be cleaned! OK, it’s not the best t-shirt slogan in the world, but it’s a cause for hope.

And that’s the week that was.

BONUS RAGE MACHINE:

Look We Don’t Have to Consider ***ALL*** Things

Let’s talk about Abby Johnson, this ridiculous NPR puff piece about her “The Anti-Abortion Group That's Urging Clinic Workers to Quit Their Jobs,”  and why the media can’t continue to humor hateful people who do the absolute LEAST. Johnson quit her job at a Planned Parenthood after a divine moment of realization (or whatever) so perfectly out of the “abortion-haters propaganda handbook” you know it’s already been debunked. Nevertheless, she persisted (to annoy us and get these frickin’ fluff pieces published about her on m-effing NPR which should know better but, you know, has 24 hours to fill and they’re still trying to find a hole in Garrison Keillor’s contract so they can get outta paying him future royalties or something).


So the piece explains how Abby “counsels” workers who have left their jobs at clinics and have now decided to devote themselves to the exact opposite cause. Her org also gives resume help to the ex-clinic workers which LOL FOREVER. Good luck going to a job interview and saying,  “I left my job for the exact opposite thing. I became the people who were harassing me daily. I have no moral backbone or ground that I stand on but please please hire me.”

Oh, also her org offers ex-clinic workers a few months worth of their salary. Hey, we would ALSO like a place to give us money if we lost our job due to poor performance!

NPR does point out the money thing,  and it mentions that groups like Abby’s harassing workers outside of clinics is another stressor for people who already face a lot of pressure from anti-abortion extremists. But still, NPR lets her get away with far too many bold-faced lies. When you’re dealing with someone who’s this hyperbolic, you gotta check them at every point, not state their point in full and then be like “well, also some people disagree with this.” Like, Abby claims she’s worked with 300 people who have left abortion-related jobs. WHERE THE EFF DID THAT NUMBER COME FROM? Does NPR make ANY effort to prove it’s real? Just saying that it’s disputed isn’t enough, if something’s so obviously a lie, call it a frickin’ lie. THIS ISN’T AN ALL SIDES THING!

Clinic workers are heroes and they face unimaginable stress every day. That these workers who follow Abby would experience that daily, and then decide they are going to become the very thing that made their job so stressful in the first place IS INTRIGUING. Maybe explore that a little NPR and don’t just let Abby talk about “shame” that other people should feel while she gets all this effing attention for, again, having no backbone or fortitude or problem being completely morally bankrupt because she didn’t want to do her job anymore. DO BETTER!