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.

    • solsangraal@lemmy.zip
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      17 hours ago

      they don’t actually care about making babies. what triggers them the most is women making decisions for themselves

      • ChonkyOwlbear@lemmy.world
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        15 hours ago

        Some of the craziest do care about making babies. They think the white race is being outbred into extinction. They are fucking nuts.

          • CileTheSane@lemmy.ca
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            7 hours ago

            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.

        • Olhonestjim@lemmy.world
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          14 hours ago

          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.

          • PunnyName@lemmy.world
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            7 hours ago

            The concept of race was forged by white supremacists. Good luck breeding that shit away.

          • SkunkWorkz@lemmy.world
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            14 hours ago

            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.

            • ImADifferentBird@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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              10 hours ago

              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.

            • Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works
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              14 hours ago

              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.

              • RBWells@lemmy.world
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                7 hours ago

                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.

                  • RBWells@lemmy.world
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                    4 hours ago

                    Not entirely, he’s from Michigan and grew up in a much more segregated environment, but he hit bottom a few years after we split, quit drinking and straightened out a lot.

      • disguy_ovahea@lemmy.world
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        16 hours ago

        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.

        • solsangraal@lemmy.zip
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          16 hours ago

          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

      • PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat
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        16 hours ago

        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.

        • Whats_your_reasoning@lemmy.world
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          14 hours ago

          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.

          • PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat
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            14 hours ago

            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.

              • PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat
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                6 hours ago

                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.

        • HellsBelle@sh.itjust.worksOP
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          15 hours ago

          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.

          • PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat
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            15 hours ago

            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.

    • Hlodwig@lemmy.world
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      17 hours ago

      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…

      • Nougat@fedia.io
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        17 hours ago

        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.

        • Hlodwig@lemmy.world
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          16 hours ago

          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…

          • u/lukmly013 💾 (lemmy.sdf.org)@lemmy.sdf.org
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            15 hours ago

            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.

          • Nougat@fedia.io
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            15 hours ago

            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.

            • Hlodwig@lemmy.world
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              7 hours ago

              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…

              • Nougat@fedia.io
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                7 hours ago

                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.

                • Hlodwig@lemmy.world
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                  6 hours ago

                  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.

          • BassTurd@lemmy.world
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            14 hours ago

            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.