by Helena Lovick | May 5, 2022 | Abortions Rights, Elections
After the leaked draft Supreme Court decision overthrowing Roe v. Wade, you might be thinking, “What the hell can I do? My country hates people with uteruses and doesn’t want us to have control over our own bodies!” And…you’re not wrong. We give corpses more bodily autonomy than a post-Roe America.
As we continue to protest and put pressure on our elected officials, local politics are our greatest hope to keep abortion legal in Montana. But only if we vote for an entirely NEW slate of representatives.
What the Funk have current Great Falls Elected Representatives been doing to strip away our fundamental human rights?
Surprised Pikachu face, every single Republican legislator from Great Falls voted for a variety of anti-choice bills in 2021!
Let’s start with the poster child for forced-birth, Representative Lola Sheldon-Galloway. You might recognize Lola from her bench ads and posters with the acronym for Lola of “Leave Our Liberties Alone.” Bitterly ironic when Lola is coming to trample all over your right to make private medical decisions. Rep. Sheldon-Galloway has supported many anti-choice bills during her multiple stints in the legislature. In 2021, she giddily sponsored HB 136 to prohibits abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy. Your pregnancy is nonviable? Too bad, mama. You still have to remain pregnant, Mx. Incubator! Goody for us, HB 136 was signed into law by Governor Gianforte.
We’d be remiss to not mention one bill that didn’t get passed but is a telling roadmap of things to come. Representative Gillette (R-Bozeman) ultimately withdrew HB 209, which sought to give parental rights to rapists. Public outrage caused Gillette to backpedal, but the ideology remains the same – people with uteruses are incubators, not worthy of bodily autonomy.
What other anti-choice bills were passed in the 2021 session of the Montana Legislature thanks to our Republican governor?
HB 171 – A bill that adds substantial bureaucracy for people seeking a medication-induced abortion. These barriers make it harder for a woman to terminate in the first trimester. This is BY DESIGN. Make it hard to get a medication abortion, and then poof! You’re at 20 weeks and now your abortion is illegal.
And to round it off, HB 140. A bill with no provisions for victims of rape or incest, that requires medical providers to offer patients an active ultrasound with image and sound. The bill also requires the patient to sign a form saying they were offered said ultrasound and answer whether they chose to view it.
Every Republican legislator from Great Falls voted for the three anti-choice bills that were signed into law. Every. Single. One.
- Fred Anderson (HD-20)
- Ed Buttrey (HD-21)
- Brian Hoven (SD-13)
- Steve Fitzpatrick (SD-10)
- Steve Galloway (HD-24)
- Steve Gist (HD-25)
- Scot Kerns (HD-23)
- Wendy McKamey (HD-19)
- Lola Sheldon-Galloway (HD-22)
- Jeremy Trebas (HD-26)
These legislators are extremists who vote to take away people’s fundamental human rights. We have to combat the fall of Roe and it starts here at the State Legislature level. Our lives depend on it.
by Jasmine Taylor | May 5, 2022 | Elections, Schools, Uncategorized
In today’s “Questions I Shouldn’t Have To Ponder” I’m faced with a truly strange situation. After E-city Beat’s bizarre, ill-researched, and oddly sexualized attack on school board candidate Russ Herring, I’m sitting here considering when (if ever) it is appropriate to discuss a political candidate’s penis. Before last week, I’d have easily said “Never. This couldn’t possibly be relevant to a local election.” Yet, after E-city Beat clearly spent significant time staring a Herring’s, well, package, it seems the conversation is at hand.
Let’s start with a relevant example. If E-City Beat downloaded a picture of me in a bikini I had shared on my personal Facebook page, we would all regard this as creepy. If they went further and then PUBLISHED that picture, claiming it made me an unfit candidate, we would all recognize that behavior for what it is- sexual harassment. The writer, Phil Fascenda, claims this picture is ill-befitting a candidate for school board. It seems Fascenda’s tune has changed since E-city Beat contributor and city commissioner, Rick Tryon’s inappropriate Facebook posts were discussed in a city commission meeting.
Flash back to the City Commission meetings during the Non-Discrimination Ordinance conversations. Members of the commission were presented with a print-out of Rick’s transphobic “joke” he had shared on his page. Rick quickly retorted that this was on his personal facebook page, was merely a joke, and shouldn’t even be brought up. So, if its Rick’s personal page, Fascenda seems to think it is of no consequence, even when it is directly relevant to the question at hand.
And now E-City Beat is scouring the personal pages of candidates they don’t like and attempting to find problematic posts. Here’s the thing though- a guy in his shorts (be they boxer or swimwear) is NOT problematic. Its not even inherently sexual. In fact, its only weird because Fascenda and E-City Beat tried to make it weird, claiming that Herring had an erection. Now, 99.9% of the time, it really isn’t okay to make fun of anyone’s penis size. But let’s be clear. Herring in no way has an erection in the photo and its pretty hilarious to try and claim that he does. The fact that the author tries to claim this, well, he’s basically telling on himself here. My takeaway from this desperate attempt at a smear campaign is that the folks at E -City Beat have, well, itty bitty…arguments.
As we know, E-City Beat writer and everyone’s least favorite commissioner, Rick Tryon loves to talk about himself in the third person and use various nicknames which surely have never been uttered by anyone but himself. Of course, Tryon is silent about the hypocrisy of this attack by his pal at E-city Beat. I can’t help but assume that if we published anything from his personal face book page Tryon would be outraged. And it makes me wonder if Rick thinks a candidate’s penis size should be a topic of conversation in a political campaign.
Although E City Beat likely can’t be held liable for what is clearly a libelous attack, I wonder what responsibility they hold for the slew of utterly false remarks made by readers in the comment section of E-City Beat about Herring as a result of their post?
