As the United States comes to terms with the Supreme Court’s decision to remove the constitutional right to an abortion, over half of the elite women’s field at the US national crit championships took the knee in protest during the pre-race national anthem.
Coryn Labecki, Kaia Schmid, Heidi Franz and Alexis Ryan were among the riders who took the knee as part of “a moment of solidarity” before the race, which was won by Ryan’s sister, Kendall Ryan.
Around half of the country’s states are expected to ban or severely curtail access to abortion services after the Supreme Court overturned the landmark 1973 Roe v Wade ruling, which granted federal protection for women choosing to terminate a pregnancy.
Tennessee, where the US Pro National Championships are currently being held in Knoxville, is one of several states which has a so-called “trigger law” in place, enabling an abortion ban to take effect within 30 days of the Supreme Court’s ruling.
The decision to take the knee – a form of protest at sporting events popularised by NFL player Colin Kaepernick’s campaign against police racism – before the criterium championships was made by a number of riders in the hours leading up the race.
“I felt in my gut that I wanted to do something, so I reached out to other people to see what their feelings were as well,” InstaFund Racing’s Heidi Franz told VeloNews.
“My teammate Maddy [Ward] had told me that one of the pro men’s racers had reached out to her and asked if we were organizing anything, so then it was like, we should really do something.
“I care a lot about these things, and I care a lot about standing up for ourselves, and standing up for other people,” she said.
“The national championship is a symbol of patriotism,” Alexis Ryan, who announced on Instagram that the protest would take place, said before the race.
“And it’s obviously a really tragic moment for women in this country, what happened today.
“I think as athletes, we are role models to younger women, but we are also role models to the entire world, and I think it’s important for us to speak our minds and make a statement with what we’re doing here.”
Lead image credit: Clara Beard
68 thoughts on “Women take knee at US national crit championships after Supreme Court overturns Roe v Wade”
This is truly amazing. I am
This is truly amazing. I am sure a few kneecaps touching the ground will make federal and state lawmakers stand up, pay attention and change their ways. Just like ‘taking the knee’ in other sports has had such a positive effect on racism, school shootings, etc etc.
If they really gave a shit, the tabs would boycott this Tennessee-based event altogether.
ShutTheFrontDawes wrote:
6 years on from Colin Kaepernick starting this, people are still talking about it. Such a protest may seem insincere or worse, but without really inconveniencing people too much, it has kept issues in the public eye.
Waste of time. Abortion hasn
Waste of time. Abortion hasn’t been banned; the right to determine abortion law no longer resides with the Feds’ but with elected officials at the state-level. Make your voice heard at the ballot box; residents of each state can have the laws they want. The world has tired of virtue-signalling in sport.
alexuk wrote:
Yeah, pack it in women, just because in large parts of your country control of what a woman can do with her body has just been handed to legislatures dominated by male religious zealots who won’t let you have an abortion even if you’re raped, or a victim of incest, or if the baby will die in agony a few days after it’s born, stop your virtue signalling!
It’s no good saying “residents of each state can have the laws they want” as if that’s fine, the reason why federal law is so important in the US is because it keeps a check on what individual states can do, so for example no state could reinstate Jim Crow laws because that would be illegal under federal law. Abortion is very much one of the issues that should be controlled by federal law rather than allowing a woman’s fundamental rights to bodily autonomy depend on her state of residence.
Your choice to fuck off and
Your choice to fuck off and not watch it?
Weird has the only people I
Weird has the only people I have seen get “tired of virtue signalling” in Sport are the people who decide to boo an anti-racism gesture. Of course certain people and organisations will state it is not that aspect of it and make up other excuses on why they don’t support it.
Funny how the same people
Funny how the same people that are saying “hands off my body” were not long ago saying “make vaccines mandatory”.
I don’t agree with taking away a birthing persons rights to abortion but in 2019 nearly 640,000 abortions were performed in the US. No way all those pregnancies were from incest or rape or birth defects. 95% or more were elective (I can’t remember exactly but it may even be 97%). Meaning they just wanted an abortion because they’d not taken the relevant precautions. Using abortion as a contraceptive is not right. Especially when some states allowed abortion to be done up to 24 weeks. A foetus has a heartbeat at 6 weeks. A genetic code that will never be repeated.
Abortion should still be accessible but a lot of people need to put personal responsibility before pleasure.
Birthing person?
Birthing person?
dubwise wrote:
Read: “woman”.
Mark_1973_ wrote:
I know, it is just the sheer stupidity of using that phrase that made me highlight it.
I’m telling you. You say only
I’m telling you. You say only women can get pregnant and Renny and his buddies will come along and demand you define woman. Go on, try it. I dare you.
sparrowlegs wrote:
Again, I don’t know why you’re accusing me of being one of the people with whom you’ve been having such long and tortuous rows about transgender issues, because I haven’t been involved apart from asking for more details about Emily Bridge’s arguments for being allowed to compete, for which I was, as I recall, accused of being a TERF.
That’s a dirty word on here.
That’s a dirty word on here. See the “trans woman” thread.
Be careful, Nosferatu will be
Be careful, Nosferatu will be on to you. He/She/They will be calling you names again.
Not me mate. I’ve used all
Not me mate. I’ve used all the proper names and everything. It’s all the others I worry for ?
You’re not allowed to say
You’re not allowed to say ‘woman’. Everyone seems ashamed or scared to say it. What are we coming to?
Oh yes. Men can have babies
Oh yes. Men can have babies too apparently. Haven’t you heard?
A foetus doesn’t have a
A foetus doesn’t have a heartbeat at six weeks, because a foetus doesn’t have a heart at six weeks (just a cluster of cells that are beginning to develop toward becoming a heart…).
And just to be clear, you think it’s better to force someone to go through a whole pregnancy (and, in the USA, incur thousands of dollars of healthcare fees, if the they’re lucky) rather than allowing elective abortions?
Pregnancy and giving birth are some of the riskiest activities any woman goes through (even if all goes well), but you’re happy to actually force someone to go through nine months of pregnancy and then childbirth *against their will*??
“Land of the free”, eh?
You could make very similar
You could make very similar arguments in the case of a struggling single mother looking after a disabled infant. So the question comes down to where you draw the line, rather than just rubbishing the whole idea that human life should not be taken cheaply.
Rather than use or condom or
Rather than use or condom or other birth control?
sparrowlegs wrote:
Are you seriously going to continue this line that abortions are only required by people who are too irresponsible to use birth control?
How many were due to people
How many were due to people not using birth control and just winging it? I BET it’s the majority of those 640,000 abortions.
sparrowlegs wrote:
What you BET does not actually represent data, oddly. The data shows that around 50% of women in the UK having abortions were using contraception of some sort. “Out of 60,000 women who had an abortion at BPAS clinics last year, more than half were using at least one form of contraception.”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-40520235
So say, if we take that 50%
So say, if we take that 50% number and apply it to the 640,000 (in 2019, it may have gone up or down since) we come to 320,000 people that weren’t on birth control and just went for it? Responsibilities be damned? 320,000 lives created and destroyed for what?
sparrowlegs wrote:
So you’re now happy for people for whom birth control has failed to have abortions, right? But you want people who’ve maybe had a moment of stupid irresponsibility to be forced to commit to bringing up an unwanted child for life, however poorly equipped emotionally or financially they may be and however miserable that child’s life might be as a result?
Happy? I’m not happy about
Happy? I’m not happy about any life being created and destroyed needlessly. Are you happy about any of those abortions? Is that what makes you “happy”?
sparrowlegs wrote:
OK, you just gave away any remaining reason to be taken seriously, I’m done with you.
Well it certainly seems you
Well it certainly seems you’re actually enjoying the fact that you can come up with more and more reasons that lives be taken. So yes, maybe you need to take a step back, take a break from gate keeping so many posts. It must be exhausting.
Read my post properly. I said
Read my post properly. I said abortion should still be available for the right reason. Those reasons could be varied and many, including rape, incest, defects and danger to the mother. But abortion should not be used as a form of contraception.
sparrowlegs wrote:
I have read your post properly, and it is clear that you think that everyone who requires an elective abortion other than for the reasons you state has been careless and irresponsible, which entirely disregards the fact that contraception is only 98% effective.
And again, show me the stats
And again, show me the stats in that 640,000 abortions that represents birth control not working.
SNL did a good sketch based
SNL did a good sketch with the bi-partisan ‘My body, my choice’ hypocrisy. Was actually quite thought provoking.
https://youtu.be/8h_N80qKYOM
sparrowlegs wrote:
Men talking shit about something they know nothing about should also stop. As is men controlling woman’s bodies like we’re in the Middle Ages or the handmaids tale
Men can get pregnant you
Men can get pregnant you dinosaur!!!
No they can’t so stop being a
No they can’t so stop being a stupid cunt.
“No they can’t” what? Try to
“No they can’t” what? Try to use the “quote” function please.
EddyBerckx wrote:
in so far as abortion is undertaken for reasons related only to women’s bodies, you’d have a point.
Didn’t the Tory Johnson
Didn’t the Tory Johnson government more than call for mandatory vaccination, they actually instituted the policy for healthcare workers, first with care workers at old people’s homes, causing many to leave the profession? They somewhat encountered more difficulties when pushing it through the NHS, leading to a rollback.
Bloddy left wingers…
Sorry, I had no idea that the
Sorry, I had no idea that the tories ran America. You learn something new every day.
sparrowlegs wrote:
That last sentence isn’t true, as the “elective” figure includes all abortions where the woman’s decision to end the pregnancy was not on medical grounds, so it includes rape and incest cases. It’s also not true that all of them “just wanted an abortion because they’d not taken the relevant precautions”, everyone knows that contraception is not 100% effective no matter how careful one is. You’re peddling the “any woman wanting an abortion must be to blame” narrative one might expect from the person who gave us the “the greatest achievement for any woman is giving birth” line a few months back.
No, the 5-3% included rape,
No, the 5-3% included rape, incest and I think defects. The 95-97% were elective and didn’t include rape or incest.
You’re playing in the nuance and minuscule numbers to prove the majority like you always do. Throwing up links to non-binary Vikings to prove no one has a biological sex.
sparrowlegs wrote:
You’re mixing me up with someone else there, I haven’t engaged with you in your transgender debates.
Apologies. It’s hard to tell
Apologies. It’s hard to tell you lot apart.
Wow.
Wow.
sparrowlegs wrote:
There were over 300,000 rapes and sexual assaults reported America in 2020 and the DoJ estimates that only a third of rapes are reported.
There were 3.6 million babies born last year in America, about 3% that is over a hundred thousand of these have major structural or genetic birth defects. And those are the ones that weren’t aborted.
There are more than 72 million women of reproductive age in the United States. 64% of women are in a relationship and 36% are single Roughly 95% of women in a relationship are sexually active and 70% of single women. Which gives us 62 million sexually active women of reproductive age. A condom, even if properly used, has a 2% failure rate, taken over a year and the contraceptive pill has a 1% failure rate. So even if all those women were on the pill and taking it faultlessly there could still be 620,000 pregnancies a year. If they were relying on a condom it would be twice that.
And of course there are good reasons why a woman might not be able to use contraceptives in America. After all, the same people who oppose abortions have managed to get exemptions on the basis of employer’s religious beliefs to the federal law that requires medical insurance to pay for contraceptives. Or they could be one of the 31 million people in America who don’t have medical insurance for whom the prescription costs are unaffordable.
But yeah, just blame women for being irresponsible. That’s probably the reason.
quote=sparrowlegs]
A foetus has a heartbeat at 6 weeks. A genetic code that will never be repeated.
.[/quote]
No it doesn’t – it doesn’t even have a heart at that stage. A few cells fluttering is not a heartbeat.
Am I advocating the total
Am I advocating the total removal of abortion? No. There are cases where it’s necessary. It sounds like there could be many cases. I’m willing to and already am changing my view as I read more and more about it. Yes, birth control could fail but in 2019 8% of abortions were carried out on women that had already had 3 or more previous abortions. 11% had already had 2 abortions and 24% had already had one.
What I am saying is some people need to take personal responsibilities seriously before committing an act that could lead to pregnancy.
The opinion suggests that the
The opinion suggests that the next matters to be reviewed should be male gay sex, all same sex marriages, and the right to contraception. Someone needs to tell the six conservatives on the Supreme Court that The Handmaid’s Tale wasn’t intended as an instruction manual…
I have to say I am a little
I have to say I am a little confused by all this. For example, this from the BBC’s coverage:
[I]Planned Parenthood Association of Utah and the American Civil Liberties Union of Utah have filed a lawsuit against a state law banning all abortions.
Utah is one of the states that moved to immediately ban abortion after Friday’s Supreme Court decision.
The lawsuit, filed on Saturday, argues that Utah’s abortion ban violates the state’s constitution and asks for a restraining order to block it from being enforced.
Utah’s so-called “trigger law” bans abortion in the state, expect in rare cases, including verifiable rape or incest and where the mother’s life is at risk or if the pregnancy poses a threat of “substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function”.
[/i]
So the messages are mixed. “…a state law banning all abortions” … “Utah moved to immediately ban abortion”, seems pretty unequivocal. But by the end paragraph it seems Utah will in fact allow abortion, for all/most of the cases people cite in favour of allowing abortion.
sparrowlegs wrote:
In reality though, it’s women who end up having to suffer the consequences and make the difficult choices.
Maybe all men who walk away from a pregnant partner and refuse to support them ought to be forced to have a vasectomy so it can’t happen again, whether the woman has an abortion or not.
It shouldn’t just be a woman’s responsiblity to take precautions.
Perhaps all men who’ve already completed their families ought to have a vasectomy anyway for the sake of the planet, as well as preventing unplanned pregnancies. It’s a much simpler operation than a female sterilisation. After all men remain fertile and can go on re-populating the planet all their lives if they can get a young partner: eg Mick Jagger, Bernie Ecclestone.
How many male Republican
How many male Republican Politicians and Public representatives who voted against abortion have paid off someone for an abortion?
But it seems certain people seem to be blaming the woman for not taking responsibilities.
Define woman!!!
Define woman!!!
Some good points there. But I
Some good points there. But I will add, and it’s not related to this that if a man gets a woman pregnant and doesn’t want to be a parent, he doesn’t have a choice. Same as if he does want to the the baby, he doesn’t have a choice
As soon as our 2nd popped out I had the snip. So have most of my friends. Personally I wouldn’t have had any children if I knew then what I know now.
Unfortunately the ones that seem to be breeding the most are the ones that don’t really add anything to society.
Hmm… this has zero to do
Hmm… this has zero to do with bikes and is mostly to do with the US (with which this site seems increasingly focussed).
Your last post is notable for the “stop the wasters reproducing” but that’s not my beef here. It is exactly those facts of nature which means that… er, men always have the choice. (Possibly the only “facts” which aren’t generally disputed in all this – although I’m sure we have a few here who’re happy with immaculate conception!) Those doing the impregnating are literally never left holding the baby. And normally have might (and often right) on their side. In almost all societies there are rules, penalties or elaborate cultural systems to balance this. Clearly some folks in the US (or indeed lots of places) hanker for a return to “the good old days” – too much “uncertainty”? Doubt they’d be happy to add other people’s kids to their brood though?
To return to bikes – you’re happy saying to women “You should wear a helmet, in case the (male) drivers don’t drive safely (we accept they don’t)”?
Sorry Chris, you might have
Sorry Chris, you might have to explain that word salad further.
If you can’t manage a salad I
If you can’t manage a salad I’ll not cater to you further – you might burn yourself!
As Capercaillie said, having now read that.
sparrowlegs wrote:
Ah yes, the wrong sort of people are breeding. Mmm. Some chaps in Germany had much the same belief a while back. Didn’t end well, as far as I recall.
Just for interest, are you into cycling at all or are you just here for the crack about abortion, trans women and now, seemingly, eugenics?
Fascinating to discover you’re a chap. After that astonishing shittake you gave us a couple of months back to the effect that “bearing a child is the greatest thing any woman can achieve” I assumed you must be a woman with a misplaced pride in her reproductive capacities, I thought surely the most whackadoodle alt right evangelical man wouldn’t really say something that stupid, reductionist and downright offensive to women, but by golly you stepped up for it. Amazing.
At least I don’t revel in the
At least I don’t revel in the taking of lives Rendel. You compare me to “that german” when you were loving coming up with more reasons to kill unborn children.
I’ve not once said revoking RvW is right. What I’ve said is the termination of life is something that should, if possible, be avoided and that abortion shouldn’t be used as contraception. You’d think that was the sane thing to say but no, not when Renny and his lot are about. Death to anything that hasn’t been spawned yet. But why stop at that eh? Using your logic as long as you gave birth to it you can get rid of it eh?
https://www.youtube.com/watch
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzVHjg3AqIQ
sparrowlegs wrote:
Golly. Seek help.
I don’t need to. I work out
I don’t need to. I work out my frustrations arguing with people on websites. Calms me down a treat ?
Chapeaue to the ladies who
Chapeaue to the ladies who took the knee. The country seems to be sliding into some awful medieval theocratic barbarism, good to see the surviving civilised people standing up (or taking a knee in this case) to be counted.
Although we seem to follow the US on a lot of their misguided paths, am trusting we don’t follow them on this one.
Stop looking for reasons to
Stop looking for reasons to be outraged, this is just more clickbait. An issue I’d guess no one here has any direct knowledge of, or anmy real connection to, so no reason to be pushing their ‘opinions’ one way or another.
This used to be a cyclng website, not just another cesspit of culture war and unwanted opinions.
Roulereo wrote:
To precis: other people have opinions different to my own and I don’t want to see them.
You appear to be pretty keen on putting forward your own opinions, it’s just other people doing the same that you don’t like, apparently.
If you don’t like it, leave it, many other cycling websites are available.
If I was feeling churlish, I
If I was feeling churlish, I might suggest that the person with only 45 posts might want to consider what could have been introduced recently that might have caused this change.
mdavidford wrote:
Indeed! It also makes one wonder, as s/he speaks with such knowledge of what the site used to be like, how long they have been hanging around under another guise or guises…
Weirdly I suspect not one of
Weirdly I suspect not one of your 46 posts is about cycling in any way but involve politics, conspiracies and some weird notion that a news station where their top “face” won a court case on the claim “the public shouldn’t believe him” and another who claims “is not a journalist” is really factual.
Wow! Just wow.
Wow! Just wow.
I get the sense that there are not many women* on here (if there was any doubt, this thread sums it up).
For those that struggle with the concept that ripping a woman’s hips apart to force the birth of what was a few cells, take the same logic to forcing men to have a vasectomy until they have proved themselves “worthy” of fathering a child. Nope, thought not even though that would reduce unwanted pregnancies to a minimum.
Not that much of this discussion centres on fathers. Whether the abortion is also right for them, whether the father is in coercive controls by withholding contraception or funds, whether the father stealthed the mother (a shockingly frequent event), whether the father bailed as soon as the pregnancy was announced… the list goes on. This discussion doesn’t take place because controlling abortion is about controlling and punishing women for the temerity of having sex whether they chose to or not.
Of course, it’s academic. No one ever banned abortion. As long as there have been pregnancies there has been abortion. What has been banned (by allowing a mechanism for states to ban it) is SAFE abortion. Because nothing a forced birth “pro-lifer” loves more than a women they deem a worthless slut bleeding to death in an alley
*just for those that struggle, I was identified as having female genitals at birth, identify as a woman and ‘birthed’ multiple kids (though not actually my greatest achievement for the absolute pricks amongst you). Funnily enough, until I had kids I was pro-choice but didn’t know if I could I have an abortion myself. Having had kids,I now know if I got pregnant now, I would have an abortion immediately because another child would be wrong for me, wrong for my family and wrong for the prospective life inside me. The forced birth contingent give no shits about the prospective life, because they would otherwise recognise that forcing an unwanted birth is generally an awful life for the child to be. Of course, these arse holes won’t stop at abortion… they’ll be after the coil as well… and then it will be the pill.
Anyway, short cycle ride today, it was nice in the sunshine. Toodle-pip
Best comment on here,
Best comment on here, although there are several others on here who have been supportive of a woman’s right to choose what happens to her own body, so all credit to them.
A few of the rest seem like crazed nutters, much like those now in charge of the supreme court in America.
Although it seems unlikely we could end up in the same situation in the UK, there are certain people in the government who share the same beliefs:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/jacob-rees-mogg-morning-after-pills-abortion-b2006978.html