State Rep. Laurie Pohutsky’s account was cheered by the left-leaning protestors and condemned by right-wing social media accounts.
The 36-year-old Democrat said the surgery was a personal decision she had been considering for a few years and was finalized by Trump’s election. She wanted to validate the fears other women might have about access to contraception by sharing it.
She told The Associated Press that she has received threats since speaking this week, referring at least one of them to Michigan authorities. The Associated Press reached out to Michigan State police for comment.
“I don’t fully grasp the level of animosity that people have about this,” Pohutsky said.
Imagine thinking you have a justified right to tell someone what they can and cannot do with their own reproductive system- to the point that you feel righteous enough to protest publicly about it?
All while at the same time, cheering on the new regime’s dismantling of governmental protections while vomiting some nonsense about how governmental involvement is unconstitutional.
The outrage machine is in full gear, fueled by manufactured morality. A lawmaker makes a personal health decision, and the reactionaries lose their collective minds. Threats over surgery? Unhinged. These are the same people who scream about “freedom” while weaponizing it against anyone who doesn’t conform to their theocratic fever dreams.
Pohutsky’s honesty is a mirror. It reflects the fear women face in a country where access to contraception and autonomy is under siege. That she tied her decision to Trump’s election? Poetic. It’s not just about her body—it’s about everybody under the shadow of regressive policies.
Keep speaking, Laurie. Their threats are the last refuge of those losing control over a future they can’t stop.
Man, the “freedom” crowd really hates it when people exercise their freedoms…
Freedom for me not for thee
What’s America’s obsession with womans reproductive system?
Big party of white supremacy is changing the demographics of the country to remain white, it’s actually the only reason the US is still a white majority country, if they didn’t genocide natives, ethnically clense Chinese Immigrants, and repeatedly try and ethnically clense the west for Hispanic peoples.
They know white birth rates are not at replacement levels, that’s why they are doing everything they can to force white women into a position of being baby factories with no rights to oppose or pervent pregnancy, is no wonder they are also floating making interracial marriage illegal again, this is all happening to one goal, get white birthrates to replacement levels at all costs.
Divide et impera
I like how “‘libs of tiktok’ posted a thing” is just immediately made into a story now.
I’ve had a vasectomy. Come at me, fascists.
they don’t actually care about making babies. what triggers them the most is women making decisions for themselves
Some of the craziest do care about making babies. They think the white race is being outbred into extinction. They are fucking nuts.
Ask them if being a minority a bad thing? Their mental gymnastics almost causes them aneurysms.
They fully believe that being a minority is a bad thing and that whites are superior, they just don’t want to get in trouble for saying it out loud.
Yet they fail to realize the solution is to make it more affordable to have babies
Helping others sounds like communism.
If you make it more affordable then the poors (brown people) will have more babies and that’s the opposite of what they want.
It sure ain’t, but if we ever manage to interbreed away the very concept of race, then good riddance. Us white people were never special.
The concept of race was forged by white supremacists. Good luck breeding that shit away.
Do you really think race and racism wasn’t a thing outside Europe? In India? Japan? Etc?
People are very tribal.
Prejudice, yes.
Well, we’re good at vitamin D during gloomy winter months. That’s about it.
We got pills for that now
What’s funny is I’m pale as shit and on said pills!
If they hate non-whites so much they should actually encourage “race mixing”. I am a brown Asian and I have many cousins who are white. Basically pale white skin and blond hair. Just after two generations of mixing with white people most Asian features are gone only people who grew up with hapas can see that they are mixed.
In a white majority society “race mixing” will lead to more white people not less.
The problem is, they see white blood as “pure” and non-white blood as “tainted”. It doesn’t matter if your cousins are white-passing; in their eyes, they’re still lesser beings because they share heritage with you.
It’s a really fucking gross ideology.
It also leads to healthier offspring too, but that’s another story.
I have a buddy who has a baby with a very dark black woman and the baby popped out as white as a snow flake, blue eyes, blonde hair. Its wild, whitest looking kid I have ever seen.
My ex went through a horrible racist phase and decided I was “muddying his bloodline” because I did not “breed true” like a fucking purebred dog or something - our kids all came out looking different from each other (I am very fair and blue eyed, but more mixed background)
And I don’t think he even knew his own background and has a half native half sister, so I don’t understand how he could 1. Decide that I was not white and he was, and 2. Be racist at all like that without being mad at his mom.
It’s all so illogical, just a pretext for hate and blame.
Phase? Did he stop being racist?
I will happily do my part to help along white genocide
Equal-opportunity genocide, just as the founding fathers intended.
Oh they want more babies alright. They especially want more unwanted, orphaned, and abused children. People raised without support or guidance have limited options and make for ideal blue-collar workers who are less likely to band together in revolt.
true, capitalism shits its pants over a declining birthrate, but still, babies will happen regardless. what they can’t tolerate is women going around giving other women ideas about any kind of self-autonomy or control.
in other words, they can’t force people to get pregnant YET, but they’ve always been able to force women to do as they’re told-- hence the threats over women choosing to sterilize
Also, readily available cannon fodder in the likely war to come.
I won’t disagree with you, but I think there’s something else going on also.
They’re really into symbols of allegiance and obedience. Once something becomes “officially” a bad thing, they have to show their loyalty by attacking it. Using language in a certain way, not wearing face masks, being officially Christian, being officially anti-trans/anti-woman, not watching the wrong news sources, watching the right news sources… they want to feel comfortable that they are part of the tribe, and you are too. If you make even a single decision that isn’t the official tribal decision, they’ll get wild and suspicious and angry towards you.
I think that’s what’s going on here. What she’s doing isn’t contraception (strictly speaking) or abortion or transgender surgery… but it’s close enough to those things that she’s showing she’s not part of the tribe. And she’s a Democrat. So what do you do with people like that? You fuck them up because they are the enemy.
If you’ve been close to a culture like this you will have seen it in action, how they attack in order to keep everyone in line.
It starts young, too. These exact same mechanisms are used and reinforced in schools, both by administration and by students.
Bullies thrive on ganging up to attack those who are “different.” Ever wonder why school admin does jack shit about bullying? Part of it is because when a group of kids bullies another for not being like everyone else, they’re reinforcing the administration’s desire for kids to fall in line. A kid who blends in and stays quiet is favored by both groups for the same reasons - the quiet kid doesn’t challenge anyone’s authority.
Yeah.
I don’t really know, but what it looks like to me is that humans have some ugly wiring to figure out who’s “supposed” to be a boss, and who’s supposed to be a peon. And they’ll get upset if someone is behaving outside of their assigned role.
It’s why the Trump people think it’s normal for them to bully or harass or silence someone, but it’s all of a sudden a crisis when someone does it to them. It’s why no one really minds if someone is getting bullied in school, but then if they start fighting back, it’s a crisis.
I won’t say that the wiring did not originally have a good purpose, but it feels like in the modern environment (with less urgent threats to our safety which demand tight-knit cohesion and organization to the tribe, and more loose interactions with a wider world of millions where there’s no opportunity for checks and balances to come into who’s “supposed” to be treated like the boss), it needs to go.
Check out this video from Innuendo Studios about conservative thinking: https://youtu.be/agzNANfNlTs
Yeah. I generally like Innuendo Studios a lot. I think the video is a pretty solid breakdown of some things that are important to understand (definitely superior to “conservatives = terrible people” which was generally the left’s view, I think, even before it started taking on some strong reality as of about 10 years ago). My only gripe is that it gives way too much credit for intellectual consistency. I actually agree with 100% of the how it breaks down the intellectual foundations of conservatism, and for that reason I actually think classical conservatism in the pre-Reagan sense is fine. Just like the balancing acts of liberalism and conservatism he talks about near the end, I think a good society builds on a balancing act of hierarchical conservatism vs. egalitarian democracy. I don’t think that’s why modern conservatives are conservatives, though. Around Reagan-time, it started to stem more from propaganda from rich people, engineering very deliberate propaganda with which people get inundated, which tells them that rich people deserve their wealth and need more handouts. And, in the modern generation of MAGA-style conservatives, they don’t even care about that stuff. It’s pure emotion. Conservatism can be a mass movement to overthrow the government (made of white men), conservatism can be social security for me because I earned it, conservatism can be subsidies for farmers because that’s what our country needs in order to be strong. It literally just doesn’t matter anymore. Their systems of critical thought have been so atrophied and their understanding of the world is so badly askew that you can present literally almost anything to them, from the right authority and with the right emotional content, and they’ll get behind it.
In my view, the intellectual hierarchical conservatism it talks about is fine, as long as it’s moderated with a strong democracy that can keep it in check. Going too far in either direction is bad. But, unfortunately, that has very little to do with any political question in our current reality (in the US at least, definitely), because the “conservatives” have so little to do with intellectually-consistent conservatism (whether you agree with that version or not) that it doesn’t really matter what that version is about. Modern “conservatism” just means a tribe that’ll kill you if you get in their way. For example I don’t think the conservative from the beginning example, in the modern day, would be arriving at what he’s saying in his argument based on what he believes. He’s just going to be echoing stuff he heard from his authorities, which may have some passing resemblance to the foundations, or it may just be emotionally-laden nonsense which he’s been programmed to emit at you under the right circumstances.
Yup. You see the same damn thing happening in churches, workplaces and institutions. The powers-that-be, whether capitalistic or morality-based, just want replaceable cogs for their machines.
I once heard a preacher tell his congregation that freaks were not welcome in his faith. I guess he forgot all about Ezekiel, who cooked his food over cow dung and had some of the wildest visions recorded, or Isaiah, who preached publically for three years while barefoot and naked.
They would have had a huge problem with those old prophets, too. The religious establishment of the day was coming after them to try to stop them pretty much constantly.
Religion in the mold of Ezekiel and Isaiah I’m actually fine with, which probably puts me in the minority on Lemmy. But if you read the New Testament, a lot of it is Jesus and friends versus the preachers and religious people, because the two groups were more or less at war with each other.
classic “us vs them” cult mentality, see also JW, scientology, LDS, etc etc
They do. They need the cheap labour!
Cool. But why advertise it?
Probably has something to do with the thread he’s posting in.
I will, but on/by your side. Snipsnip gang represent!
FYI they dont give a fuck about men contraception, its even a bonus for them that you removed yourself from the gene pool.
It is all about women and their control over their body. Stop making it looks like its not all about women, you are not helping them, you are making yourself look like a creep.
This woman had to undergo the surgery because she wouldnt be able to control her body through abortion otherwise, this is sad…
Stop making it looks like its not all about women, you are not helping them, you are making yourself look like a creep.
Not sure what you’re on about with that. My statement on its face is in solidarity with her. The subtext is that they don’t care about men’s contraceptive surgeries.
Telling people who support your causes that they’re not welcome to do so is counterproductive.
I honestly didn’t read that as an attack on you.
The comment literally said that Nougat looked like a creep. It was a direct attack on them.
Check again.
You’re right. I misread what they wrote.
My apologies.
No apology necessary, you gave me appropriate pause to reread and make sure I was clear on what was being said.
The thing is that your vasectomy has nothing to do with the cause. And this is counterproductive, if you want to show support, just say it, dont make it somthg about your vasectomy… Its creepy and cringy…
For example, its like some anorexic person from a first world country saying that he support the aid to children starving to death in a third world country because he shares their struggles… Its cringy as fuck. You are this kind of person…
Dude literally said “I’ve had a vasectomy. Come at me, fascists.”, basically a statement that nobody bats an eye about a man getting sterilized while that’s basically what the woman here had done, but instead people are attacking her for it.
At least that’s how it reads to me.
You clearly don’t know me.
I’m sure there’s some kind of culture difference going on here. You don’t appear to be a native English speaker (no shade, you speak at least one more language than I do). Since this whole thing right here is about a Michigan lawmaker’s statement, and how Americans are responding, you might not have the same kind of understanding of the situation as someone who is “in the shit,” so to speak.
Of course people who are capable of becoming pregnant have more at stake here than those who don’t. That’s so obvious I didn’t think it needed saying. She had a surgery to remove the fallopian tubes - the ones which carry the egg from the ovaries to the uterus. I had a surgery to remove the vas deferens - the tubes which carry sperm from the testicles. These surgeries do remarkably similar things: preventing the gonads from delivering the reproductive material to where it can be made into a zygote.
My intention was to point out that similarity, fully expecting that none of the fascists would have a problem with my surgery, even though it’s functionally similar to hers.
At no time did I ever suggest that my stake was the same as hers. Your analogy with eating disorders is off the mark.
Even more cringe if that was sarcasm… And pretty useless cause gender inequality is the core problem… But i guess its not creepy anymore at least…
And yet again, the issue is not about contraception/sterilisation, its about abortion, nothing to do with vasectomy. She did her surgery because of lack of abortion, not because she wanted to be sterile, not like you. So yeah, your sarcasm is out of point…
She did her surgery because of lack of abortion, not because she wanted to be sterile, not like you.
Please, tell me exactly why I had a vasectomy, since you think you know.
To become sterile, that the definition of the procedure… Obviously not because you wont be able to have an abortion yourself.
The point of republican (as stupid it is) is about women. This doesnt change the fact that your wife/girlfriend wont be able to get an abortion in these states, and that is their goal… The irony in your sarcasm is that it is exactly what they want, in your couple you are the one in control, your wife/girlfriend doesnt have the choice for herself to get an abortion.
I’ve also had a vasectomy. I have had zero government officials question my decision. It’s fair to point that out in solidarity with women to highlight their struggles.
If you think talking about a medical procedure like a vasectomy is creepy or cringe, then you have some growing up to do.
Your anorexia example is also bad. It assumes that someone who’s anorexic is just doing it because when in reality it’s a mental disorder that someone is suffering through. Not that that’s the same as Gaza, but it’s definitely not the how you’re portraying it.
Wait until they go after women who have medically necessary hysterectomies.
They already go after women, literally with legal persecution, for getting medically necessary abortions. Women dying for their control is absolutely acceptable in their eyes. I’m also convinced the reaction to this would be the same if her hysterectomy had been medically necessary.
Do you remember when trolls like this lurked in reddit DMs and on 4chan? You can outright openly say the most heinous things now and it has literally no consequences for you.
Medically necessary?
You mean those who we should just let die, lest they undergo something that would prevent them from becoming a baby machine? /s
These assholes have already made comments like a woman is defined as a person who can get pregnant. Which eliminates millions of cis women from the equation.
About 10% of women (or one in ten) experience a horrorshow called endometriosis that causes them non-stop abdominal pain.
Often the only way to really “solve” it is a hysterectomy.
They’re literally just going to abuse a large number of women for something they never asked for.
Small correction as one of those women: hysterectomy is rarely a cure for endometriosis. What’s necessary is a skilled surgeon fully excising every endometrial lesion, which are frequently places other than the uterus. If there are endo lesions on the uterus, it can help.
However, adenomyosis is commonly comorbid with endometriosis and can be just as painful, and the only cure for that is a hysterectomy. And the only way to actually diagnose adenomyosis is to do a biopsy on a uterus after a hysterectomy.
(I say as someone in the process of planning my second surgery for endo, with a hysterectomy this time because I don’t want babies and might also have adenomyosis.)
That’s why I put “solve” in quotes. Even after a full hysterectomy, lesions can easily have spread to other organs. My ex still had endo lesions growing on her bowels after her hysterectomy.
But thank you for the more detailed explanation from someone who is actually suffering it.
The cruelty is the point, as always.
Menopause is a liberal hoax by the Democrats.
/s
I’ve actually heard some transphobes say that hysterectomies should be banned because the uterus is a vital organ that women need to survive
Terrifying.
condemned by right-wing social media accounts
Ugh.
I wish a meteor would hit Twitter’s HQ and main data center, right now, and I don’t understand why people are so addicted to such a gruesome site.
I found it spammy and annoying enough to never post, years ago, even with some of my niche communities largely there.
Surely you’d also like the meteor to fragment and take out the white house and the shower of bastards inside it.
I think that was implied
It will never not be fucking hilarious to me that one of the most holier-than-thou textbook american white moderate liberal people I know works at xitter.
Pohutsky told large crowd gathered in Lansing at the state Capitol Wednesday that she chose last month to have a bilateral salpingectomy to remove her fallopian tubes. While abortion is constitutionally protected in Michigan and state lawmakers have bolstered contraceptive access, she said the decision was prompted by doubts that the Trump administration will not target access.
I do find this to be a little odd, kind of drastic. But, it’s her body. What people choose to do, under the guidance and care of an ethical, reputable medical professional, is their business. I certainly don’t understand getting so upset about it, especially not to the point where you would harass her for it. Even if you strongly disagree with her decision, just shake your head, shrug your shoulders and move on.
According to the book Blind Spots, fallopian tube removal reduces the risk of some typically incurable cancers lacking effective screening tests. It’s a highly effective oncological intervention. For someone who’s decided not to bear children, their physicians may reasonably recommend fallopian tube removal.
I do find this to be a little odd, kind of drastic.
I might do the same if i could be forced to carry a rapist’s baby, especially with contraceptives on the p2025 chopping block.
I think they meant removing the pieces rather than the much simpler and more common “tubes tied” procedure.
having read handmaid’s tale i think its the right thing to do, also cant get cancer or ectopic pregnancies if the tubes are just gone afaik
as a fellow human i encourage you to learn about the bodies of all of us
It’s not drastic! Look outside. Having kids in this world is outright cruel. Even within the wealthiest countries on earth, only a small sub section of the population can actually have children without bringing them into pure hell. Im an educator working in a poor to “middle class” area and even the more well off families are skipping meals, choosing to stop having children, choosing to forgo medical care, and making decisions that only you hear citizens in 3rd world countries make. If you have a kid today it’s fucked.
People should be allowed to have diverse beliefs, and should be allowed to act on them … as long as it does NOT adversely affect another person’s life or safety.
Right-wing fucknuts forget that last part.
“Your body, my choice” is attempted murder and should be treated as such.
Are you a woman?
