Blastocyst Liberation
mikethemadbiologist | May 24, 2011When I return from the ASM2011 meeting, I hope to discuss this excellent post by Michael Bérubé about the political centrality of the culture wars. Until then, I'll leave you with the post from the archives, "Abortion Is a Blessing":
Abortion isn't the lesser of two evils--it is a just and good thing. So says Reverend Katherine Ragsdale:
Let's be very clear about this: when a woman finds herself pregnant due to violence and chooses an abortion, it is the violence that is the tragedy; the abortion is a blessing.
When a woman finds that the fetus she is carrying has anomalies incompatible…
mikethemadbiologist | April 14, 2011A while ago, I made the following observation in "A Nation of Deluded Dependents" about how many who receive government assistance don't even realize (or perhaps admit) that it's government assistance:
This seems a case of willful ignorance by definition. Government aid is for lazy slackers, for 'welfare queens', and, in some people's minds, for those people. Decent, hard-working people don't receive government aid, even when they do. In other words, any program that helps middle-class people, people like themselves, is, by definition, not aid, because government aid is inherently…
mikethemadbiologist | April 2, 2011You might remember the recent assault on Planned Parenthood by the rightwing. Well, I forgot that former congresswoman Marilyn Musgrave also got in on the act:
Former Congresswoman and anti-abortion rights advocate Marilyn Musgrave (R-Colo.) suggested Planned Parenthood covers up sexual assaults against underage girls during the Conservative Principles Conference in Des Moines on Saturday.
When asked by another advocate in the audience how to best pressure the Senate into defunding Planned Parenthood, Musgrave recalled watching a recent interview with former star NFL linebacker Lawrence…
mikethemadbiologist | March 19, 2011Even movie villians aren't this twisted. And, no, I'm not making this up (italics mine):
Under a GOP-backed bill expected to sail through the House of Representatives, the Internal Revenue Service would be forced to police how Americans have paid for their abortions. To ensure that taxpayers complied with the law, IRS agents would have to investigate whether certain terminated pregnancies were the result of rape or incest. And one tax expert says that the measure could even lead to questions on tax forms: Have you had an abortion? Did you keep your receipt?
In testimony to a House taxation…
mikethemadbiologist | March 13, 2011Last week, I described how the Texas Republican party proposed legislation that would require a woman who wants to have an abortion to receive a vaginal exam (two actually). Well, the Texas Democrats at least fought back (which is more than the national Dems ever do):
Houston state representative Harold Dutton got the most coverage for repeatedly making the point that "pro-lifers" drop all pretense of caring about life the second it can't be used to punish sexually active women. In rapid order, he introduced three amendments that were tabled by the majority, who really didn't want to…
mikethemadbiologist | March 7, 2011Movement conservative Grover Norquist is famous (or infamous) for his slogan, "Our goal is to shrink government to the size where we can drown it in a bathtub." (There are different versions of this saying). In response, some on the left will quip, when discussing the theopolitical right, that the theopolitical right wants to shrink government to the size where it will fit in the bedroom--or a woman's vagina. Sadly, by way of Digby, we find that this does appear to be the guiding principle for the Texas Republican Party (italics mine):
Women seeking an abortion would have to first get an…
mikethemadbiologist | March 5, 2011Kirsten Powers attempts to debunk the claim that increased access to contraception prevents unwanted abortions:
In the U.S., the story isn't much different. A January 2011 fact sheet by the pro-abortion rights Guttmacher Institute listed all the reasons that women who have had an abortion give for their unexpected pregnancy, and not one of them is lack of access to contraception. In fact, 54 percent of women who had abortions had used a contraceptive method, if incorrectly, in the month they got pregnant. For the 46 percent who had not used contraception, 33 percent had perceived themselves…
mikethemadbiologist | February 25, 2011Before I get to two videos of Democratic congresswomen talking about abortion and birth control, something that Adam Serwer wrote is very germane:
These videos are striking because they're a reminder of how little of media coverage of political battles over abortion reflects the views of real human beings, as opposed to the reductive, paternalist caricatures that seem to dominate the conversation.
Anyway, here's Democratic congresswoman Jackie Speier:
And Democratic congresswoman ties together the importance of birth control and poverty:
As regular readers know well, one of the things I…
mikethemadbiologist | February 18, 2011One reason why Republicans have piled scorn and hatred on House Minority Leader, and former House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi is that she is not part of the house-broken wing of the Democratic Party. She's definitely no saint--and taking impeachment hearings off the table and joining Obama in his 'moving forward, not looking backward' bullshit was a bad, bad political move*. But, unlike most professional Democrats, she seems to understand the fundamental nature (not to mention, fundamentalist) of the Republican opposition (italics mine):
"They are at a different philosophical place," she said,…
mikethemadbiologist | January 31, 2011The most awful thing about the proposed bill, "No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act" (H.R. 3), is, well, the bill itself:
With this legislation, which was introduced last week by Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), Republicans propose that the rape exemption be limited to "forcible rape." This would rule out federal assistance for abortions in many rape cases, including instances of statutory rape, many of which are non-forcible. For example: If a 13-year-old girl is impregnated by a 24-year-old adult, she would no longer qualify to have Medicaid pay for an abortion....
Given that the bill also would…
mikethemadbiologist | January 10, 2011We're now seeing all of the civility trolls coming out of the woodwork. If by civility, one means "not engaging in violent eliminationist rhetoric", well, then I'm all for it. But what I'm concerned about is that honest criticism will be silenced. While I'm not as sanguine about political rhetoric as, let's say, Jack Shafer, the fact is a lot of people in political life are habitually...counterfactual. That is, they're liars. Others are ideologically blinkered, while yet others, sadly, are either just kinda dim or else stone-cold ignorant.
We do ourselves a disservice when we treat these…
mikethemadbiologist | December 26, 2010Because that's how Republican Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen was able to kill a provision that would have helped the State Department prevent child rape. No, really:
Non-governmental organizations, women's rights advocates, and lawmakers from both parties spent years developing and lobbying for the "International Protecting Girls by Preventing Child Marriage Act of 2010," which the House failed to pass in a vote Thursday....
Even still, supporters in both parties fully expected the bill to garner the 290 votes needed -- right up until the bill failed. After all, it passed the Senate…
mikethemadbiologist | February 9, 2010...the money. Over at Pandagon, Jesse Taylor, on the subject of the Focus on the Family anti-legal and safe abortion ad, asks (italics mine):
The question is instead this: if the anti-choice position is so true, so mainstream and so critical to the future of our nation, why did Focus on the Family spend $2.5 million to avoid saying anything whatsoever about it? Pam Tebow's lines were all oblique references to her choice not to have an abortion, but if FotF felt the need to couch her story in such coded and oblique terms that it could have been an ad for Wii Family, doesn't that say…
mikethemadbiologist | February 2, 2010As someone who is Jewish, and thus at an elevated risk for Tay-Sachs disease, a degenerative disease that inevitably kills small children, and does so miserably, I appreciate the need for genetic screening. So, while it's not perfect, I think companies like Counsyl that are selling screening for harmful genetic diseases are providing a useful service (although many conditions will still be missed). Nonetheless, their stated marketing pitch is missing something. Can you figure out what it is?
From The NY Times:
The company, Counsyl, is selling a test that it says can tell couples whether…
mikethemadbiologist | November 16, 2009I have no doubt that the Catholic ecclesiarchy supports the Stupak-Mills amendment out of a genuine desire to regulate vaginaspreserve the fetus, which they believe is a person. But the financial incentives for Catholic Church-owned hospital systems are enormous:
...consider that there are 60 some Catholic-affiliated hospital systems in all 50 states -- representing 13 percent of the nation's entire in-patient health care system. That's easily tens of billions of dollars flowing through the business arm of the Catholic church that continues to grow through mergers with private and other…
mikethemadbiologist | November 11, 2009So to speak. One of the many loathsome things about the Stupak-Mills amendment is that insurance would not be able to cover abortions for the following reasons (italics mine):
Cases that are excluded: where the health but not the life of the woman is threatened by the pregnancy, severe fetal abnormalities, mental illness or anguish that will lead to suicide or self-harm.
In Jewish religious law, all authorities agree that if the health of the mother--including her ability to have children in the future--is jeopardized, then abortion is the appropriate option. And many authorities (not just…
mikethemadbiologist | November 10, 2009
(from here)
ScienceBlogling Ed Brayton finds this little tidbit from the coverage of the Stupak amendment (italics mine):
I'm bothered by something said in an earlier article on the CNN website about this:
Several Democrats, including Rep. Jason Altmire, D-Pennsylvania, said they are in touch with their Catholic bishops back home. Altmire said he must have the approval of his bishop in Pittsburgh before he can vote yes.
Since when do religious leaders have veto power over legislation in this country?
I realize Ed's asking a rhetorical question, but, to answer it anyway, pastors, preachers,…
mikethemadbiologist | November 8, 2009
(from here)
Needless to say, I'm disgusted by the amendment introduced by Democratic Congressvermin Bart Stupak which would effectively make most abortions not covered by health insurance, even though many are now. Given the tremendous numbers of women who have had an abortion, it's not like he's going to put a dent in the 'problem'--women will still become pregnant, still want to become unpregnant, and still have abortions. It's just some will have to go into debt. So I suggest, if you can afford it, hopping on over to Planet Parenthood, and making a donation in honor of Bart Stupak (…
mikethemadbiologist | October 30, 2009Congressman Bart Stupak has helped tank the Medicare +5% reimbursement plan and single payer (italics mine):
The problem with an amendment strategy [for Medicare +5% and single-payer] is that the House leadership will likely not allow many, if any, amendments to be offered on the House floor. The reason is because of Bart Stupak, who is trying to defeat the entire bill by rounding up 40 House Democrats to demand that none of the insurance plans receiving subsidies in the exchange are allowed to cover abortions. If such an amendment passes--and the leadership believes that it would if offered…
How Is the Proposed Oklahoma Law to Publicly Post Details of Abortions Online Not a HIPAA Violation?
mikethemadbiologist | October 14, 2009Because nothing says freedom like government shaming regarding a private healthcare decision:
Move over, Hester Prynne:
On Nov. 1, a law in Oklahoma will go into effect that will collect personal details about every single abortion performed in the state and post them on a public website. Implementing the measure will "cost $281,285 the first year and $256,285 each subsequent year." Here are the first eight questions that women will have to reveal:
Date of abortion
County in which abortion performed
Age of mother
Marital status of mother
Race of mother
Years of education of…