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Showing posts with label Roe Versus Wade. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Roe Versus Wade. Show all posts
Anthony McIntyre ✒ In the first serious challenge to the SCOTUS decision to reverse Roe-Wade the State of Kansas has voted to protect women and frustrate attempts to ban or limit access to abortion facilities.

Your Excellency

It is a most welcome development given that Kansas is a republican state from which the outcome can only augur well for the future.

The earlier Supreme Court decision had been made possible by the influx of conservative Catholics into the Court. The five serving Catholics, enough to form a dangerous majority, voted in favour of dismissing a constitutional right to abortion.

It would be delusional to think that behaving ethically figured high in the priorities of such people. Justice Kavanaugh hardly acquired a sterling moral reputation when it came to regulating certain sexual proclivities. Do as I say not as I do. It is more about controlling how others live via judicial imposition of religious tenets they do not subscribe to and may even vigorously abhor.  

The Catholic obsession with controlling both women's bodies and their fertility is inextricably linked to the post Vatican 2 ultra-conservative blowback "obsessed, above all, with issues related to sexuality and the place of women."

For these conservatives, the womb belongs to the Church, not the woman whose body it is in. This helps explain why the Irish Times columnist Breda O’Brien, an enthusiast for the Supreme Court assault on women’s reproductive rights previously wailed against the cold choice women were being left to make. 

The choice should be left to the Catholic, O'Brien, and others who share her antiquated religious views - the reptilian bishops. The Vatican magazine Men Only might rummage around the writings of the deranged they have manufactured as saints in a bid to explain that the womb is such an important element of Church property that it cannot ever be allowed to fall into the hands of women - vicious nuns excepted. It must also be protected from dicks, particularly those dicks not blessed with the sacrament of matrimony. 

If it is to be wondered why bishops are so fixated with dicks, I don't wonder in the slightest about it. Their fascination with dicks is for them, not me, to explain. Their endless pontificating over what consenting adults do with their dicks, what they wear on their dicks, where they put their dicks, reminds me so much of the line from Reservoir Dogs.

Mr Brown: dick, dick, dick, dick, dick, dick, dick, dick, dick.

Mr. Blue: How many dicks is that?

Mr. White: A lot.

This dick obsession has been the source of much warped teaching, best described as religious wank, not to mention untold misery. The perennial concern about dicks has one exception - dicks being inserted into children by the clerics seem not to bother the bishops so much for some reason, the response frequently enough - new parish, new child. 

Not much point in complaining that the theology underpinning any of this is dubious. All theology is dubious. Using Occam's razor we can slice through to the essence: Domination Theology that seeks to subjugate women and suppress their sexuality. 

Having possibly misread the bible - is there any other way of approaching the bible than to misread it? - and having listened to the dickology and the dickologions who preach it, it is tempting to conclude that the Book of Genesis is in fact a typo, that it was really the Book of Genitals.

Bishop Dick and Reverends Against Rubbers - burn the rubber if you will, but with your own dick inside it: no one else's. 

⏩ Follow on Twitter @AnthonyMcIntyre.

A Theology Of Dick

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Lynx By Ten To The Power Of Two Hundred And Eighty Three

Mona Eltahawy ✒ A few weeks before the pandemic began, I was in a crowded art gallery in New York City, where I live, for an exhibition called Abortion Is Normal. 

Hanging from the walls and ceilings of the gallery space were paintings, photographs, sculptures and installations that depicted abortion, from the abstract to the individual experience.

The gallery was buzzing with an energy that New York City is famous for but there was something else that mesmerised me that night. I felt as if I were eavesdropping on a sharing circle of people who had had abortions and who were secure in the knowledge that their stories would be received with love and support, and no judgement. If the walls in that gallery could talk, they would have been singing in unison: we hear you, we love you, abortion is normal.

Meanwhile, I felt like a coward.

A few months later, I was asked to write an endorsement in support of Dr Meera Shah’s powerful You’re The Only One I’ve Told: The Stories Behind Abortion, in which she shares the personal narratives of people who have had an abortion but who have rarely – if ever – told anyone.

Continue reading @ Feminist Giant.

On Abortion ✑ It’s Time To End The Silence, Secrecy And Shame

National Secular Society ✒ The rolling back of reproductive rights in America shows necessity of secularism, says Stephen Evans.


History is not a linear narrative of progress. Rights may be won and taken away; gains are never complete or uncontested.

These words from American historian Eric Foner will surely resonate with millions of women across the United States right now who have lost their constitutional right to abortion after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade.

The decision means individual states will now be able to legalise or prohibit abortion. Thirteen states have 'trigger laws' on the books, which means abortion will swiftly be outlawed in most cases. The signs are that new abortion bans in many states will be more restrictive than those from the pre-Roe era.

In America and elsewhere around the world, opposition to women's reproductive autonomy is largely driven by Christian theology – the religious idea that all human life is made in the image of God and begins at conception. Prohibitions and severe restrictions on women's access to abortion are the enshrinement of that theological viewpoint into law.

Continue reading @ National Secular Society.

Freedoms That Flow From Secular Democracy Need To Be Defended

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Valerico Tarico ✒ In Conversation with Chris Charbonneau.


I usually hate listening to my interviews, but even I enjoyed this one. Chris Charbonneau is a forty-year reproductive rights leader. Her handprints are on virtually every important innovation in the Planned Parenthood sphere for decades.

That includes them spinning off their own drug company to control pricing, opening a lab when Catholic-controlled labs started refusing to process their STI, pregnancy and cancer screenings, making modern top-tier contraceptives (IUD’s and implants both affordable and available via 1 same-day appointment), creating a telemedicine service; facilitating school-based clinics . . . 

She’s a rock star and her podcasts are great. In this one we talk about the Religious Right, why they sneak their own daughters through the door for abortions while fighting against that option for the rest of us.

Podcast | Fall Of Roe
Valerie Tarico
Valerie Tarico is a psychologist and writer in Seattle, Washington. 
She writes about religion, reproductive health, and the role of women in society.


Fall of Roe Podcast ✑ Abortion Hypocrisy and Christianity

Right Wing Watch ✒ Nick Fuentes Says SCOTUS Ruling Overturning Roe Shows Why People 'That Don't Serve Jesus' Cannot Hold Public Office.

Kyle Mantyla
27-June-2022

When the Supreme Court overruled Roe v. Wade last Friday, reversing 50 years of precedent by eliminating the constitutional right to abortion, far-right activists celebrated the fact that the court had powerfully boosted their efforts to impose their radical Christian nationalist agenda on the nation.

On Friday night, white nationalist Nick Fuentes dedicated his livestream to explicitly making that case, declaring that the United States must be governed by “Christian law” and that Jewish people should not be allowed to serve in government.

Fuentes, who in addition to be racist and misogynistic, is also deeply antisemitic, took aim at the concept of the United States being a “Judeo-Christian” nation, insisting that America is strictly a “Christian nation” and that people “that don’t serve Jesus Christ” should not be allowed to hold public office.

“Catholics were put on the Court to overturn Roe v. Wade and Jews stood in the way,” Fuentes said. “Let me ask you this: Who was the last justice that died to make this happen? 

Continue reading @ Right Wing Watch,

Why People ‘That Don’t Serve Jesus’ Cannot Hold Public Office

Anthony McIntyre ✒ The Catholic Right were on the march in Dublin yesterday celebrating the ruling by right wing US judges in the country’s Supreme Court that overturned Roe V Wade. 


In case anyone might be left in doubt, the theme of the march was “Bye Bye Roe Hello pro-life future.”

The event wasn’t an exact descriptive fit with Mencken’s A Religious Orgy In Tennessee but similarities abound. Images of red smoke - the thought of supposed witches burning in hell for the assumed sin of abortion is Viagra to the adherents of Hate Theology. It's what gets them up . . . not just in the morning. 

These days, religious arguments against a person not behaving in accordance with the religious opinion of somebody else, are so easily ridiculed that the holders of such gunk mask their religiosity in the discourse of human rights or child protection. Citing a religious reason as to why another should or should not be doing something is a sure way to obtain a beaten docket. A tell tale sign that the theotard is at large is to be found in the assertion that life is sacred from conception, followed by the false equivalence being drawn between zygote and infant-teen-adult. This has resulted in calls to ban the morning after pill on the grounds that it is an abortifacient, something which only a religious zealot could object to. The engine room of opposition to abortion is tightly manned by the religious lobby, and the captain wears a mitre.

There are of course some who find abortion abhorrent for authentic secular reasons, but they seem few and far between. Their arguments are of interest and should be considered in a way that a religious one should never be. What the pastord or the practitioner of priestcraft might believe the unicorn thinks about abortion should not be factored into the considerations of society. That is not to exclude religious people from expressing an opinion on whatever they like. Just that in an evidence-guided quest for clarity, superstition can have no place. The bishop has as much right - but no more - to a view as the captain of a cricket club. The cricketer might genuinely believe that the wicket fairy at the bottom of his crease opposes abortion. There is evidence aplenty that wicked nuns hate both abortion and children but none to show the same of wicket fairies.

Prior to yesterday's march, Catholic Primate of All Ireland and Archbishop of Armagh, Archbishop Eamon Martin referred to the ruling by the right wing Scotus judges as “hopeful and encouraging”. He would, wouldn't he. Still, his right not to have an abortion when he gets pregnant is something that must be vigorously defended even though we could bet our last cent on the certainty that if altar boys could get pregnant the bishops would declare abortion a sacrament.

Bernadette Smyth, a long term opponent of reproductive rights for women, told the crowd that it was the “pro-life generation”. It is anything but. That generation had its day and was eclipsed by the Repeal the 8th movement.  Aontú’s Peader Tobin, still a polished performer who at least believed in something when so many of his colleagues in Sinn Fein believed in nothing, and who was hounded out of the party for his anti-choice stance, seems to have lost his marbles on this one. He compared anti-abortion groups to the “abolitionists who brought the slave trade to an end” in America. The abolitionists stood for a freedom hardly consonant with enslaving women. But sure if it sounds good - even if it overlooks the US pro-life movement having more in common with the Ku Klux Klan than with abolitionists - say it. 

The Catholic right had the streets of Dublin to themselves yesterday. Few felt sufficiently threatened by the rightwing lurch in a far off courtroom to come out on the streets to counter the anti-choice marchers. Let them party on five loaves and two fish, washed down by the wine from Cana, there being more than enough to go around. The young activists of the Connolly Youth Movement had considered mobilising against them but in the end expressed concerns about rushing in and bringing people onto the streets without sufficient safety measures in place. On the balance of probability, a prudent decision on their part. 

Still, Kate Murphy on her Tod faced down the marchers, who to their credit did not physically attack her: a solitary figure holding aloft her placard proclaiming “The Christian Far Right Can Go And Shite”. Crude but effective. 

Photograph: Tom Honan @ Irish Times

It is what they do, Kate, every time they open their mouths. There is no sewer big enough to carry their effluent theobabble away so that it might part the Red Sea in two. Holy shit.

⏩ Follow on Twitter @AnthonyMcIntyre.

Kate Against The Catholics

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Right Wing Watch ✒ The Supreme Court overruled Roe v. Wade on Friday, eliminating the constitutional right to abortion.

Kristen Doerer
24-June-2022

The decision, authored by Justice Samuel Alito, reversed 50 years of precedent to return the question of abortion rights back to the states.

The ruling has immediate impacts: 26 states are likely to move quickly or immediately to ban abortion; half of those states already have “trigger” laws set in place to ban it as soon as today. Experts worry that without the option of safe, legal abortions, women will die as a result of unsafe terminations or pregnancy complications.

The ruling also throws other fundamental rights into question. In a concurring opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas explicitly called on the court to reconsider rulings on contraception, marriage equality, and the criminalization of same-sex relationships.

Far-right activists were ecstatic with the ruling. They immediately began to look forward to enacting the rest of their agenda, eager to implement a nationwide abortion ban, further Christian nationalism, and roll back LGBTQ rights and women’s rights.

Andrew Torba, the far-right Christian nationalist founder of Gab, posted a meme that read:

“Say Goodbye To Your Abortions Whores.”

Continue reading @ Right Wing Watch.

What Follows Roe’s Reversal? The Far Right Calls For Christian Nationalism

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Zanna Ouise ✒ I suppose I can now say I grew up in the golden age of reproductive rights. That's all gone now.

Our country is bleeding out in so many ways I don't know how we can stop it. Women are seen as simply vessels for other human beings. Those unborn matter more than the woman who has to carry them. I think what is hitting me today is this very fact. That the shame I have felt since the day I walked into a clinic at 16 and did what I knew I had to do to become a healthy, happy, emotionally stable human being is all because of a patriarchal society that did not value my life.

Those doctors and nurses did. I know my family did, but again, the shame of growing up in a culture who also shames sex especially for young women had them caught in their own traps of shame . . . it goes on & on since the beginning of religion.

I thought about sharing my abortion story a few months back when this Roe v Wade story began to unfold. But the truth is, it's not special, I'm not special for it. Most of the women I know have experienced an unwanted pregnancy and abortion. I have rewritten my story 10 times trying to tell it the way I want to but I kept coming back to this thought that there are so many other women who’ve had worse stories. I had a small support system, a safe & legal abortion, access to counseling. If men knew the pressure we are under to make birth control work and then have it fail and then have to go through with a horrible procedure . . .

I mean if they had to take that on, this wouldn't even be happening. That's the ugly truth. You and I both know it. And the crazy thing is that this will effect so many men. And perhaps this had to happen for them to wake up and see that reproductive rights effect Everyone. I know some men were out there marching & calling for change, but it would have to take a lot more to make it happen, the same way it has to take white people fighting and standing up for the rights of black people to make the powers that be listen. 

This is such a dark day for America. I want any young woman who might read this who finds themselves in the scariest predicament as I did that day long ago to feel free to reach out to me. I will move mountains to try to get you the access you need to the freedom you seek, the bodily right you should be born with. This is the most personal decision one could make, it redirects everything in your life, therefore it should absolutely and always remain just that - a Personal Decision. 

I don't think I'm wrong in thinking that this will divide our country into two pieces much like the North & South days. I am raising two young girls & am thinking every day about how I can protect their future lives. So if Texas remains as is I will be moving to a state that actually values the health of myself & my daughters. And I know that is my privilege, I think of all the women who have so little resources and will simply have to be stuck with the choice that their government dictated for them. If you think abortion is wrong, that’s your personal belief. It should not be my healthcare.

⏯ Zanna Ouise is a Texas musician.

Your Personal Belief ✑ Not My Healthcare

Lesley Stock ✒ Much has been written and debated over the decades globally, about the sensitive issue of abortion. 

It would seem everyone, male, female and those in between have an opinion. Of course, I’m no different!

Did Norma Nelson/McCorvey ever change her mind about the (not one baby but three!) she gave up for adoption? Norma aka Jane Roe, until recently was not a name I was familiar with. Norma was the drug addict, poverty stricken pregnant woman who took the United States government to court for breaching her ‘constitutional right’ to have an abortion. The fact that only now decades later, the Supreme Court has reversed the decision which effectively legalised abortion in America for decades, has now discovered that the American Constitution hadn’t actually even mentioned what should be done when a woman for whatever reason didn’t want to carry on with her pregnancy!

The more I searched for information about this woman, the more confused I became. It would ultimately seem that she was a bit of an ‘actress’, a word she brazenly is quoted as describing herself as. I was left wondering was this woman the female version of Walter Mitty or was she ever really a product of her environment, maybe both? She was allegedly in an abusive marriage when she became pregnant for the third time, after already giving two previous babies up for adoption. Her first child Melissa was the only child she ever had any real contact with, however, she accuses her mother of misleading her and having her sign adoption papers without her knowledge. Her mother disputes this account and says Norma was well aware she signed over Melissa for adoption. She then became pregnant again, with a second daughter and signed this child over straight away for adoption. In 1969, the 21 year old became pregnant again and reported that she had been raped, (later admitting that she had lied!) This instigated the famous case Roe-Wade case, and although eventually she won her right to an abortion, the case had taken so long that her third daughter Shelly had been born and placed into care, being adopted and never knowing who her mother was until around 1989.

It would seem that Norma was indeed a very mixed up woman, initially being active in the pro-abortion campaign, later to say she was being used, only to turn her back on pro-life campaign by stating in an interview she backed the anti-abortion campaigners as she was being paid. She was Catholic, she was ‘born again’ Christian, she was straight, she was lesbian.

It would seem that even prior to gaining fame and notoriety, there’s no doubt she had a troubled mind and distorted view of the world. McCorvey died of natural causes in 2017 at the age of 69, having reportedly said to Shelly (the baby involved in the famous case) that she ‘should thank her for not having an abortion,’ to which Shelly snapped "What! I'm supposed to thank you for getting knocked up . . .   and then giving me away?" Taking aside the three unwanted pregnancies, my opinion of this woman is not a pleasant one.

So, am I against abortion? No, absolutely not! But, as a mother I would have found it close to impossible to have terminated any of the lives of my children once I saw the flickering beating miniscule heart. I, also, as a mother, cannot predict what I would do if I had have been told that my baby was severely mentally or physically impaired. I thank God I didn’t have to make that painful decision.

And now that I’ve brought God into the equation . . .  Many religious debates have taken place over this very issue. The sanctity of human life, the (in their words, certainly not mine) murder of an unborn child. What gives these people, many of them men, the right to dictate what is right and wrong? What gives them the right to abuse, accuse and castigate the decision of a woman which oftentimes is the most painful decision she will ever have to deal with? It would seem that especially in the U.S.A. those who so vehemently abhor the often necessary termination of a pregnancy, are only too willing to excuse the brutal murder of doctors. In 2009, Dr George Tiller was murdered whilst at church by Scott Roeder. In 1993, Dr Tiller had survived a gun attack by Rachelle Shannon, who shot the Obgyn in both arms.

I learned of this murder whilst reading a tweet by a lady Suzanne @SJohnsdottire. Her thread on Sunday 26th June, immediately captivated me. Her story was of her agonising journey of pregnancy, leading to the heart-breaking decision she was forced to make to have a termination of her second child who had died and was poisoning her. Her matter of fact though eloquent description of her and her husband's journey was just crushing to read. How can anyone say that a woman should be forced to carry on with a non-viable pregnancy when it will end her life as well?

How would those pro-life advocates feel if they had a daughter, who, falls pregnant after being raped? Would they force that victim to be faced with the daily trauma of having to watch that child and be reminded of the attack? I do know a woman who was able to carry on with the pregnancy after rape, she is one of the strongest women I have had the pleasure of knowing, she loves her daughter as much as any mother loves their child and she never said that she had considered an abortion. But, every woman is not the same, every situation is not the same. Should we judge and castigate a woman who decides that having a baby who would have severe mental and physical problems and have a limited life is just too much to bear? In all honesty, I cannot decide what I would have done.

I understand the idea that a woman should decide and it is her body, her right. I get that, I really do, but on the other hand, I have a serious problem with the likes of Norma McCorvey, who seems to have never heard of birth control! In these times, there is just no excuse to have one unwanted pregnancy after another. This is whereby I completely contradict myself in that any woman who cannot organise themselves with some form of birth control, time and time again, should certainly not be allowed to avail of ‘on demand’ abortion services. To use an abortion as a form of retrospective birth control is beyond ridiculous, not to mention what damage is being caused internally to that woman. Gone are the excuses that one's religious beliefs do not allow for birth control, yet we’ll pop into the clinic several times to end an unwanted pregnancy. Thankfully, it would seem that the Church has less power or psychological hold over people nowadays. I have always said, religion, faith can be a good thing, calming, healing. Where I take exception with clerics of whatever denomination or faith is when they ‘dictate,’ when they attempt to bully, embarrass, guilt trip one of their ‘flock’ into submission, or encourage something which will harm, either physically or mentally.

My views and opinions are just that, mine. My body is absolutely mine, to do with as I please. We all have choices, we all hate anyone ‘preaching’ what we should do. As a believer in democracy I also believe that women should have the ability to have a termination if the criteria is based on facts for that individual woman. I do think that abortion should be strictly regulated, medical advice and mental health support structures given to the woman and her partner if there is one before and after the decision – whatever that decision is. My daughter is 23, studying law at Liverpool university, we’ve had the discussion, ‘if she got pregnant.’ Personally, I have told her we could work things out, I would help her and her baby in any way l could, emotionally, financially and practically. But – the end decision would have to be hers, and I as her mum, would accept and live with that decision.

What I don’t think I can ever however accept is ‘on demand’ abortion, purely because a woman is lazy, is constantly having unwanted pregnancies. Our Health Service suffers enough.
 
 Lesley Stock is a former PSNI and RUC Officer
currently involved in community work. 

There Will Never Be A Right Answer To The Abortion Debate

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Anthony McIntyre ✒ “Just look at the faces of the great Christians! They are the faces of great haters" - Friedrich Nietzsche.

SCROTUS - shower of six ball bags

Religion in general and the the religious right in particular has long harboured a hatred of women’s rights, relentlessly seeking to push back all advances made in the field. Institutionally and instinctively adverse to recognising women as genuinely equal, it is religious hatred of women's rights that was the moving force behind the US Supreme Court’s decision to remove constitutional rights for women with its reversal of Roe-Wade. Consistent with the theme of there being no hate like Christian love, the decision by SCOTUS will not be acknowledged by Hate Theology as anti-women but shall instead be spun as pro-child. George Carlin long ago nailed that lie. 

They’re not pro-life. You know what they are? They’re anti-woman. Simple as it gets, anti-woman. They don’t like them. They don’t like women. They believe a woman’s primary role is to function as a broodmare for the state. You don’t see many of these anti-abortion women volunteering to have any black fetuses transplanted into their uteruses, do you? No, you don’t see them adopting a whole lot of crack babies, do you? No, that might be something Christ would do!

As for children, Carlin had this to say:

Pro-life conservatives are obsessed with the fetus from conception to nine months. After that, they don't wanna know about you. They don't wanna hear from you. No nothing! No neonatal care, no daycare, no head start, no school lunch, no food stamps, no welfare, no nothing. If you're pre-born, you're fine. If you're preschool, you're fucked.

This point was today amplified by Brid Smith speaking in Dublin at a protest outside the US Embassy: “It’s alright to control women’s bodies but don’t control access to guns." Sandy Hook & Uvalde, the religious right have their priorities sorted. But worry not, instead of protection from guns, real children can reap the value of thoughts and prayers. 

Roe-Wade was a defining moment in US jurisprudence. It saw the highest court in the land decide that the country's constitution protected a woman's right to access an abortion. The then Burger Supreme Court was by no means a bastion of liberalism. But the Nixon appointee, Justice Harry Blackmum wrote a lengthy opinion approving abortion in which he was supported by another Nixon appointee, Justice Lewis Powell. These two, added to the liberals already in the court, ensured the safe passage of Roe-Wade. The decision led to a substantial improvement in Women's rights and access to health care in a country where abortion had been prohibited from the 1800s when women were not allowed to vote or hold political office.

Now all that progress has been reversed as the status of women moves from citizen to chattel, just as it was in the bible. This week's decision is no surprise. Normally not the type of outcome to be expected on the watch of the Democrats, it was made possible because this SCOTUS is a Trump court. The Trump administration had stacked the Court with right wing conservative judges including the religious whack job Amy Coney Barret. Trump had been clear that he would appoint Justices who would reverse Roe-Wade. In this he was assisted by the oleaginous Mitch McConnell who moved on dubious grounds to successfully block an Obama nomination. Team Biden, playing with the hand Trump dealt, has been left impotent in the face of it.

The upshot is that Justice Brett Kavanaugh who voted to reverse Roe Wade can now decide to rape a woman and then insist that she carries the pregnancy to its full conclusion and deliver his child. The woman would have few if any rights against him in the matter. An "appalling vista" is how it might be best described.

The thing is, that despite the best efforts of Hate Theology and Domination Theology, and Mike Pence's call for an outright ban on abortion in every state, denying abortion is likely to be even less successful than alcohol prohibition was back in the 1920s and 30s. That too was driven by religious puritanism, defined by Henry Louis Mencken as "the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, might be happy."

Happy are the Hateful for theirs is the Kingdom of Another's Pain. 

⏩ Follow on Twitter @AnthonyMcIntyre.

Pre-Born, You're Fine ✑ Preschool, You're Fucked

Lynx By Ten To The Power Of Two Hundred And Forty Nine

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