Blastocyst Liberation

Refusing to Cede the Moral High Ground on Abortion

mikethemadbiologist — Tue, 24 May 2011 08:05:51 +0000

Refusing to Cede the Moral High Ground on Abortion

When I return from the ASM2011 meeting, I hope to discuss this excellent post by Michael BÃ©rubÃ© 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 with life, that it will not live and that she requires an abortion -- often a late-term abortion -- to protect her life, her health, or her fertility, it is the shattering of her hopes and dreams for that pregnancy that is the tragedy; the abortion is a blessing.

When a woman wants a child but can't afford one because she hasn't the education necessary for a sustainable job, or access to health care, or day care, or adequate food, it is the abysmal priorities of our nation, the lack of social supports, the absence of justice that are the tragedies; the abortion is a blessing.

And when a woman becomes pregnant within a loving, supportive, respectful relationship; has every option open to her; decides she does not wish to bear a child; and has access to a safe, affordable abortion -- there is not a tragedy in sight -- only blessing. The ability to enjoy God's good gift of sexuality without compromising one's education, life's work, or ability to put to use God's gifts and call is simply blessing.

These are the two things I want you, please, to remember -- abortion is a blessing and our work is not done. Let me hear you say it: abortion is a blessing and our work is not done. Abortion is a blessing and our work is not done. Abortion is a blessing and our work is not done.

What really impresses me about Ragsdale is this bit:

The idea that abortion kills a child, she contends, reflects parental hopes and dreams for the child-to-be, not the reality of what the zygote or fetus actually is. (It is, in her words, "proleptic," a theological term for anticipated realities that come to be treated as extant in the here and now.)

When pro-choice forces signal their partial acceptance of the abortion-as-child-murder idea, says Ragsdale -- which they do when they speak of the "tragedy" of abortion -- they may be motivated by political concerns, or by a desire to be respectful and conciliatory. But in the process, they're ceding precious intellectual ground to abortion opponents, and backing themselves into a tactical corner: how, after all, can you effectively defend something for which you're simultaneously apologizing?

What's more, they're also increasing the likelihood that women who do choose to have abortions will spend their lives tormented by needless guilt. "I suppose it's possible for an intelligent, faithful person to still believe that there's no moral difference between a zygote and a baby," Ragsdale allows. "But there's no reason for most of us to believe that. And I don't."

..."If you want a baby," says Ragsdale, "and you've decorated the nursery, and bought the toys, and named the baby -- and then they discover the baby's organs are growing outside the body, and not only will the baby not survive, but the woman will be torn up trying to deliver it -- there's a tragedy. But the tragedy isn't the abortion -- the tragedy is that you needed one.

I know this won't convince the hardcore anti-abortionists, but it refreshing to see someone refusing to cede the moral high ground.

mikethemadbiologist Tue, 05/24/2011 - 04:05

Tags

Blastocyst Liberation

religion

I like this article so, so much.

(heads up, though: One of your links goes to the third page in the article. Not sure if that was intentional, but now you know.)

So true.

An extended exercise in begging the question.

'Deserving' Public Spending, Fiscal Conservativism, and the New Welfare Queen

mikethemadbiologist — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 07:58:12 +0000

'Deserving' Public Spending, Fiscal Conservativism, and the New Welfare Queen

A 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 pejorative.

Amanda Marcotte, writing in The Guardian, makes the following observation about why conservatives view Planned Parenthood as a fiscal and not 'social' issue (italics mine):

The reason the conventional wisdom is wrong on this comes down to a fundamental misunderstanding of the term "fiscal conservatism". The belief is that fiscal conservatives are merely debt-averse and want to cut spending, while the fact that these so-called fiscal conservatives routinely elect Republicans who drive up the deficit is ignored. But I would argue that fiscal conservatism has nothing to do with the deficit, and is, instead, about who conservatives believe is and isn't deserving of government largesse.

It is and always has been about excluding from the social contract poorer people, unmarried women, gays, liberals, pointy-headed intellectuals and, especially, people of colour, and keeping all government spending aimed at white, conservative Christians - the richer, the better.
Planned Parenthood has become a symbol of the kind of government spending that fiscal conservatives reject. The clientele of Planned Parenthood is the intersection of many groups that are considered unworthy by fiscal conservatives: lower-income, female, assumed to be unmarried and/or queer....

In the 1980s, Reagan was able to catalyse the resentments of fiscal conservatives into the image of the "welfare queen". The stereotype was of a black woman who takes taxpayers' money and uses it to buy herself Cadillacs and other such luxuries. Reagan claimed to have evidence that such a woman existed, but it was never presented or found.

Essentially, what has happened on the right is that this image has been updated to what I'd call the "welfare slut": a low-income woman who is screwing on your dime, while you're out there working and your own sex life leaves much to be desired. (They can probably count on this resentment because most people would get laid more if they could.)

Amanda concludes:

So, for those wondering how it can be that something as minor as the funding of Planned Parenthood could be the dealbreaker that threatens a government shutdown, I would say that it's not minor on the right. It's a symbol of everything they believe about who and who isn't deserving of government spending. This is about sending a strong message to the base that Republicans take seriously the mandate to cut off everyone not considered, to borrow Sarah Palin's phrase, a "Real American".

Exactly.

mikethemadbiologist Thu, 04/14/2011 - 03:58

Tags

Blastocyst Liberation

Conservatives

Funding

Excellent article. It reminds me of an excellent book titled something along the lines of Why Americans Hate Welfare. The gist(forgive me if you've already read it) is that while Americans respond positively to the idea of social safety nets and similar programs, they turn hostile any time they perceive that the program might benefit "undeserving" people. Typically this means minorities.

The Ongoing Insanity of the Theopolitical Right: The Marilyn Musgrave Edition

mikethemadbiologist — Sat, 02 Apr 2011 09:53:49 +0000

The Ongoing Insanity of the Theopolitical Right: The Marilyn Musgrave Edition

You 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 Taylor discussing allegations he had sex with an underage prostitute.

"You know what I thought about? Underage prostitutes, runaway girls, girls in crisis. Guess what folks? Planned Parenthood will readily give them birth control. Planned Parenthood will cover up statutory rape, incest, whatever," Musgrave said.

Because the only thing better than a teenage prostitute is a pregnant teenage prostitute with a sexually transmitted disease.

If there's one thing that the supposed Lila Rose sting did not prove, it's that Planned Parenthood is in cahoots with pimps. All it did is establish that Planned Parenthood follows the law and does not physically confront potentially violent pimps in order to protect their staff and patients.

As Thers put it:

This is something we've been over in regards to the other recent O'Keefe "sting," of Planned Parenthood. That "sting" depended upon the right-wing fantasy that there exist extensive well-organized juvenile "sex-trafficking" rings, something that upon even cursory examination turns out to be utter crap.

What I'm getting at is that I don't think it is at all recognized the degree to which right-wing "ideas" are merely the emanations of a carefully constructed, internally coherent, yet deeply nonsensical folklore. It's a hothouse cargo cult that scavenges in plain sight, battening off frequent, generous Fox News airdrop cultivation.

What the O'Keefe "stings" should reveal, objectively, is that Matt Taibbi was far too kind to them, but basically correct: they have no capacity or desire to cope with empirical reality.

mikethemadbiologist Sat, 04/02/2011 - 05:53

Tags

Blastocyst Liberation

Civil Liberties

Conservatives

Saying that Planned Parenthood "covers up" for crimes against women by giving them basic healthcare is like saying that the ER "covers up" for crimes like vehicular manslaughter and attempted murder by saving the victims.

Why, the ER is clearly just a liberal ploy to help criminals get lower sentences by preventing 'attempted murder' from becoming 'murder'! We should defund it right away!

Mokele -- don't give them any ideas! Seriously, these people couldn't decipher snark if it bit them on the ass. They read "1984" and "The Handmaid's Tale" as instruction manuals.

Reportedly US prospective presidential candidate Mike Fuckabee - er, Huckabee - would like to indoctrinate everyone with fundamentalism at gunpoint.

Can we strap him down in a university lecture hall and force him to listen to lectures on, well, things that actually exist?

Oh, but the bit about making people watch a video at gunpoint was a joke.
Why exactly conservatives think guns are funny escapes me, however. By the time I was 22 there had been, in my lifetime, six attempts on the lives of presidents or presidential candidates, resulting in two dead Kennedys, George Wallace in a wheelchair, and Ronald Reagan with a bullet in his lung. Throw in Martin Luther King, John Lennon and the Pope, and I lost the ability to laugh at gun threats 30 years ago.
I guess the humor of the situation depends on who is holding the gun.

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Now the Republican Party Wants the IRS to Audit Rape Survivors If They've Had an Abortion

mikethemadbiologist — Sat, 19 Mar 2011 08:58:23 +0000

Now the Republican Party Wants the IRS to Audit Rape Survivors If They've Had an Abortion

Even 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 subcommittee on Wednesday, Thomas Barthold, the chief of staff of the nonpartisan Joint Tax Committee, confirmed that one consequence of the Republicans' "No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act" would be to turn IRS agents into abortion cops--that is, during an audit, they'd have to detemine, from evidence provided by the taxpayer, whether any tax benefit had been inappropriately used to pay for an abortion.

And let's see what that really means:

Under standard audit procedure, a woman would have to provide evidence to corroborate facts about abortions, rapes, and cases of incest, says Marcus Owens, an accountant and former longtime IRS official. If a taxpayer received a deduction or tax credit for abortion costs related to a case of rape or incest, or because her life was endangered, then "on audit [she] would have to demonstrate or prove, ideally by contemporaneous written documentation, that it was incest, or rape, or [her] life was in danger," Owens says. "It would be fairly intrusive for the woman."

Combine this with the Texas Republicans' 'Vaginal Intrusion Act' (it's not really called that, but it should be), and this is a full-frontal assault on the civil liberties of women. As I've noted before about H.R. 3 (which contains this stupid IRS auditing), this is a complete waste of time:

So what's the second most awful thing about the Republican 'Have Your Rapist's Baby If You're Poor' Act?

We shouldn't have to be fucking dealing with this. At all.

We are a nation beset with problems, and fixing those problems is going to require a lot of work. Now, the Republicans dump one more problem--once again, of their own making--onto the pandimensional clusterfuck that is our body politic.

The left, such as it is, will have to oppose this odious legislation because it's awful. We shouldn't be surprised by this either: after legitimizing torture, it's pretty clear we fell off the moral arc of history a while ago. Meanwhile, our attention and energy will be diverted from economic issues.

I'm not arguing this is an unimportant 'social' issue: far from it. But we'll have to work hard, and, when it's all said and done, the best we can hope for is that we're right back where we started.

It's all the more stupid since it won't pass the Senate or a presidential veto--in fact, Obama would relish the opportunity to score some points by vetoing such a horrendous bill. This is nothing more than political theater. Meanwhile, unemployment is still at nine percent, there isn't any real movement to help underwater homeowners, and our national infrastructure is still decaying. Oh yeah, global warming too.

This is not winning the future.

mikethemadbiologist Sat, 03/19/2011 - 04:58

Tags

Blastocyst Liberation

But it is "WTF?"

Here's a simple solution to this problem that our beloved (snicker) elected officials would never do; let it pass. Go ahead and let the damn thing pass. Have a single voice from the party give a long-winded response on why this is such a horrible idea and then everyone abstain to let it pass. Then, TELL OBAMA TO VETO IT. It takes the two parties hours, days, or weeks to argue back and forth. It takes the President five minutes to veto it and he gets 10 days to do it. All the while we get the opportunity to get some damn work done. Sometimes things need to be fought over, and other times they just need to be shown for how idiotic they are.

This is more of the republican idea of "small government".

But remember, making health care affordable for most Americans is an "assault on liberty".

It's not so much affordable health care that's an assault on liberty, it's the mandatory part.

"I'm not arguing this is an unimportant 'social' issue: far from it."

it's an important issue to the misogynist soc. cons, and for THEM it's a social issue. But so is being anti darwin/science, etc.

for the rest (of us), it's their (our) own business.

Graey, you're absolutely right. It's outrageous that it's mandatory for taxpayers to subsidize the cost of health care for people who refuse to buy coverage, but expect to be able to walk into any emergency room and get treatment regardless of whether they are willing to pay for it. Everyone who wants to be able to get health care in this country should be expected to pay into the system that they want to keep them alive even if they decided to gamble with their lives.

And remember, this method of using IRS to enforce? Republican AGs from more than 20 states argue such mechanisms are unconstitutional if done to increase health care. Difference here? I don't see any difference.

Hypocritical much?

James F | March 19, 2011 5:34 PM:

Then, TELL OBAMA TO VETO IT. It takes the two parties hours, days, or weeks to argue back and forth. It takes the President five minutes to veto it and he gets 10 days to do it. All the while we get the opportunity to get some damn work done.

But that would also give the Republicans an opportunity to do some more damage. It's better to fight the bill every step of the way, making the Republicans pay as much as possible for their effort to pass it - thus preventing them from getting other aspects of their agenda through congress.

Tell me thats not the craziest thing you ever heard.

www.real-privacy.it.tc

I think the entirety of the issue is summed up in the phrase, "pandimensional clusterfuck that is our body politic."

Clearly this bill is consistent with the Republican idea that corporations(run by bean-counter men) do not need any regulation. Meanwhile, women (weak, foolish vessels that they are) require stringent regulation.

Let's get government out of the market place and into the wombs!

The phenomenon of becoming bankrupt(the best health insurance package in the world included)via the IRS or medical intervention is very recent.Some contend as if these aspects of American life are forgone conclusions.How trite and utterly divisive we are as a nation to ever consider our neighbor's plight to not be ours.Extreme poverty is a choice,mental disability not allowing higher education and capitalistic endeavor,a choice.Even being a good provider and parent that loses their job and milks the demonic welfare system out of need is a choice.No empathy,logic or motivation but for that next dollar is all some can see anymore,pathetic indeed.Leave the sick and dying on the curb,like in that Monty Python movie,because as long as I have money,I am GOD.

So, the party of less government wants to use more government to get in your pants. It's just a typical day in the neighborhood of the grand-old-perverts. Another step in the dumbing of America.

I am pretty sure if it were men who beared the children we would have abortion as a viable insurance covered medical option for treatment.

Men who don't believe a woman being raped is one of the top violent and emotionally debilitating of crimes don't deserve to have sex with any women.

Women who lie about being raped are the lowest people I know.

I guess this is important to demonstrate your tutor your writing ability. It's not very easy, however you would figure it out, if buy an essay.

Texas Dems Fight Against Texas GOP Vaginal Intrusion Act*

mikethemadbiologist — Sun, 13 Mar 2011 10:44:14 +0000

Texas Dems Fight Against Texas GOP Vaginal Intrusion Act*

Last 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 address the issue of the wellbeing of actual children when potential children matter so much more to them. All three amendments addressed what should happen if a woman looks at a sonogram and decides not to have abortion. The first amendment would have required the state to pay for the child's college tuition, the second required the state to pay for the child's health care until age 18, and the third required the state to pay for the child's health care until age six.

No one was surprised that the anti-choice coalition was able to successfully block these amendments, but Dutton's point was amply made: anti-choice sentimentality about children is just a ruse to force childbirth to punish sexually active women, and they don't care one whit about the care and feeding of actual children once they're born and have served the woman-punishing purpose.

But this was really good:

Marquez chose to use her amendment to highlight the double standard of anti-choicers, who focus most to all of their attention on controlling the reproductive systems of women, and leave men---at least straight men---completely alone.
Her amendment deserves to be quoted directly:

Sec.A171.057.AAMANDATORY VASECTOMY. On an application under Section 171.056, a court shall order a man to undergo a vasectomy if it is shown that:

(1) the man is the father of the pregnant woman's child outside of marriage; and

(2) previous to the date of application, the man was a father to two or more other children by two or more other women outside of marriage.

In other words, the law would allow women that are forced by the state to undergo paternalistic, condescending, invasive procedures would allow women so violated to deliver a similar violation to the men that impregnated them. Unsurprisingly, anti-choicers did not feel what was good for the goose was good for the gander, and the amendment was tabled.

The more I think about it, the more hideous this is. Imagine if you're one of those awful people who believes in the 24 fantasy of effective torture. If you had a female prisoner, why wouldn't you use this device? After all, it doesn't leave long-term lasting damage--the Rumsfeld criterion. If it did, it wouldn't be used in medicine. But, as one woman who has undergone the procedure notes, it is not pleasant:

I was being examined because there were indications that I might have cancer.

The technician was thoroughly respectful and did everything to make the process as free as stress and discomfort as possible.

Even under those circumstances it was uncomfortable.

It was, however, not demeaning or threatening because it was my choice. And I was told at every stage of the process that I had the right to cancel it.

I cannot imagine the horror of being forced to go through that procedure without a choice. Imagine, for example, a rape victim being forced to lie on her back and have someone put that probe into her.

This is nightmare fuel.

Though I suppose it's better than an old fashioned belt buckle whipping.

We have one of the two major parties in complete thrall to fanatics who believe that intimidating women through government-mandaged vaginal penetration, discomfort and pain is an acceptable means of convincing women to not have abortions. How this is markedly different than a torture regime is unclear, except that it only targets women.

Anger is the appropriate emotion.

*It's not really called that, though it should be.

mikethemadbiologist Sun, 03/13/2011 - 06:44

Tags

Blastocyst Liberation

This is the perfect response to have to these gross violations of personal liberty that the pro-lifers force on women. Show everyone that they don't care about life.

As an aside, I wonder what the Texas board of medicine thinks about this. If the doctors have any inkling of medical ethics in them, they would refuse to participate (but, unfortunately, I'm sure lots of them would have no problem with the law).

As an aside, these procedures are reasonably safe, but not without any risk at all, to the *fetus* in question. Either 1) they are betting the saving of a few fetuses is more valuable than putting all of them at a slight risk or 2) they are just looking for a legal way to make sure those sluts have to consider the consequences of their actions. I'll give you two guesses as to which it is.

This is nothing less than Government sactioned and sponsored mandatory rape.

Well! No great surprise that you a-holes like to twist things around.
No- we do not want to pay for some libtardâs bastard child's education, or for anyone else's little "mistake" either. And, no I am not cursing or using foul language. Look up the definition of "bastard child". It is an accurate description of the situation. Tell your less than careful friends to keep their knees together and the pill taken daily and I'll do the same for mine.
They have the kids; let them take care of the kids. If they cannot, or are not capable, then letâs take the support for same from whatever earnings they have.
No earnings you say? Sterilization would be a nice way to make sure it doesnât happen again.
I'll bet anything and give 10-2-0 odds that the problem would be greatly reduced and virtually gone in one (1) generation.

H.E. Vincent, o ye of little brain, sometimes women get raped and in that case they sure can't exactly keep their knees together, can they.

And sometimes contraception fails. Abortion should always be present as a last resort.

And sometimes, the doctor tells you that the baby you desperately wanted to have has developed a massive birth defect, and if carried to term, is 100% certain to die slowly and painfully, with a great likelihood of life-threatening complications for the mother.

Slut-shamers can go fuck themselves.

Don't you know, contraception only fails if you're a naughty, ungodly slut.

As for the children, well, if they wanted an education or healthcare or, you know, food, they should have thought of that before they went and got born to someone who can't afford any of that stuff. PERSONAL RESPONSIBLITY, people.

Wow- I read this and I got so pissed off. I followed this from the "IRS Audits of Rape Survivors"... I worked for years as a Sexual Assault Survivor Advocate at a Rape Crisis Center. These two articles and the fact that they were actually said outloud, to other people, fucking sickens me. Have the Republicans, or males in general, ever had to sit helplessly while they held the hand of a rape victim on the exam table? Listen to her retell her story, in detail for some stranger with a badge? Have to submit all her clothes for evidence, even her shoes, so that she is left with nothing? Told she cannot shower until she has a Rape Kit exam, the longest one I was present for lasted 6 hours because of all the trauma. Listened to a 14 year old homeless girl talk about how her father and uncle raped her and she doesnt know who the father is?
This is just disgusting and makes absolutely no sense. None. When it comes down to it, we are being punished for having a vagina?? Maybe we should just start withholding them. Switch teams.. oh wait- they hate gays too... so what are we as women going to be 'ALLOWED" to do, besides be puppets? Damn I am so mad, I probably wasnt articulate here at all, but I HAD to say something :(

HE Vincent, the point is that if conservatives insist that abortions should be illegal because each life is so absolutely sacred, then why don't they care enough *at all* about those precious babies once they are actually born to make sure that they have access to health care, food, and education? And how is it fair that women are the ones who are shamed and punished for getting pregnant -- sure, having lots of kids without being able to take care of them isn't good, but instead of making comments about how women should "keep their knees together" and "take the pill every day", let's remember that they didn't get themselves pregnant; men are just as much to blame here. It is just as much a man's responsibility to be wearing a condom every single time he has sex as it is for a woman to be taking the pill if he wants to prevent pregnancy.

This bill -- and attitudes towards reproductive rights and women in general -- deeply upset me.

While I agree that the vaginal probing is pretty horrifying, the four bills mentioned seem patently stupid. Unless I'm misunderstanding, all I would need to do to get free healthcare/education for my child would be to say I want an abortion and then back out of it? How does that make any sense? And why is this particular child more deserving of free anything than any other child? Women who want abortions aren't the only poor mothers in the world, and although it would be nice to help them, I don't see what makes them so much more special.

And apparently because the republicans want to abuse women, that totally justifies, nay, requires some human rights abuses in the other direction? Forced sterilization is Not Cool, no matter who it happens to.

The Texas GOP Wants to Shrink Government to the Size Where It Can Fit in a Woman's Vagina

mikethemadbiologist — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 10:52:34 +0000

The Texas GOP Wants to Shrink Government to the Size Where It Can Fit in a Woman's Vagina

Movement 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 ultrasound under a measure approved on Thursday by the Texas House of Representatives.

The proposal, the first significant bill considered by the House this year, was designated by Republican Governor Rick Perry as an emergency priority. A similar measure has already been approved by the state Senate.

Women would have to get an ultrasound between 24 and 72 hours before an abortion, the bill says. They would view the sonogram, hear an explanation of the image and listen to the heartbeat, if it is audible.

"We want to make sure that they're fully informed, that they understand the medical consequences, the psychological consequences and everything involved in the procedure," said the bill's author, Republican state Rep. Sid Miller.

Opponents said that the requirement would traumatize women already in a difficult situation. During debate on the House floor, bill opponent Rep. Carol Alvarado held up a trans-vaginal probe used for sonograms early in pregnancy to illustrate what she called a "very intrusive process."

"This is not the jelly on the belly that most of you think," said Alvarado, a Houston Democrat. "This is government intrusion at its best."

Actually, I think it's government intrusion at its worst. Keep in mind that there is no medical reason for this government-mandated vaginal intrusion. Here's the device in question:

(from here)

Here's where it goes:

(from here)

I think the Republicans aren't being creative enough. Imagine how many women wouldn't get abortions if they didn't put the probe in the front side, but, instead, in the back side.

Although that would be kind of rape-ish. Whereas government-mandated vaginal penetration for no medical reason whatsoever is ok.

FREEDOM!!!

mikethemadbiologist Mon, 03/07/2011 - 05:52

Tags

Blastocyst Liberation

Civil Liberties

rape

This is fucking apalling! Freedom and self-determination fly out the window when it's Other People's sex lives and their self-determination. So you can shoot an "intruder" who rings your doorbell but God forbid you might have control over the intruder within your own body.

That's because righties can't tell the difference from the goverment and their religion.

They want the government to stay out of their lives but they want their religion to take over everyone's life.

Even if there were a "medical reason" for the ultrasound (which there is not), I think that, even in Texas, people have a legal right to refuse the procedure.

As an aside, I wish people on both sides of the "debate" over reproductive freedom would realize that appeals "medical reasons" in this context are a distraction.

So, in this case they're mandating an increase in health costs?

I used to think that every anti-choice protester who sneaked into an abortion clinic when they or their daughter or their mistress got pregnant should sign an agreement to be videotaped asking for the abortion and agreeing that if they ever picket a clinic again or call for legislation against abortion the tape may be broadcast and released into the public domain. But now I'm starting to think that maybe they should also be tattooed with the information.

The head of the federal justice department in Canada was asking for legislation re-criminalizing abortion at the same time as he was forging his mistress's husband's signature on her request for an abortion. The hypocrites won't even follow their own rules.

Monado - Really. You think we should tattoo women who have abortions? With friends like you, the pro-choice movement needs no enemies...

Also - without a link on the Canadian story, I do not find it credible. Keep it real eh.

@#2

They want the government to stay out of their lives but they want their religion to take over everyone's life.

There's that, but a more complete description is that they want the government to stay out of people's lives as long as those people are white, Christian men, otherwise, they prefer the exact opposite.

Joffan, you might need to read more carefully.
As for the 'non-credible' Canadian story, try Wikipedia:

Francis Fox was appointed to the Cabinet of Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau in 1976 when he became Solicitor General of Canada. Bilingual, Fox was seen as an up-and-comer in the Liberal cabinet, and even a potential party leader. However, he was forced to resign on January 27, 1978, when it became known that he had forged the signature of his then girlfriend's husband on a form granting permission for her to have an abortion.

Any questions?

stewart, what might I need to read more carefully? I was not the one to suggest tattooing women. I regard that as an obscene suggestion whether applied to allies or opponents.

And as for the Canadian story, I accept the reality of Fox's forgery but look in vain for the simultaneous re-criminalization concept. I also question the relevance of the whole anecdote. 1978 was a long time ago, and Monado gave no indication that the reference was that old.

Take my comment as it is meant - a challenge to keep humane and honest. There are battles worth fighting, but this combination of callousness and dissimulation is not the way to win them.

So, here's a question. If it is going to be a mandated procedure, is Texas going to pony up for it. Or is it just another thing to push onto the women to make themselves feel better. Then I'd be a two for one special. They'd get to be dicks to women and about money.

"a more complete description is that they want the government to stay out of people's lives as long as those people are white, Christian men"

An even more complete and accurate description is they want government out of THEIR lives. Getting into other people's lives is fine.

NOTE: when it's a foreign corporation, they want government to give them a kick, unless they're invested in it.

"As an aside, I wish people on both sides of the "debate" over reproductive freedom would realize that appeals "medical reasons" in this context are a distraction."

Posted by: bob koepp

Oh, BS

Is this all the GOP stands for now? Government mandated molestation? Can we enact a law that requires the sponsor of any bill requiring an unnecessary medical procedure to be forcibly subjected to that procedure first? How many GOP members would step back and think if they had to get anally probed first? Never mind, Iâm sure most of them would enjoy it now that I think about it.

Here via Feministe

The pictures really are worth 1,000 words, thanks for sharing. Maybe the implement can be labeled somehow with the words "Courtesy of the Texas GOP" so you can really think about it while it's penetrating you.

I think Doonesbury's treatment of this issue completelt sums up this latest GOP travesty...

Planned Parenthood Is Fleecing Taxpayers? Kirsten Powers Mangles the Guttmacher Institute's Data

mikethemadbiologist — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 09:09:37 +0000

Planned Parenthood Is Fleecing Taxpayers? Kirsten Powers Mangles the Guttmacher Institute's Data

Kirsten 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 to be at low risk for pregnancy; 32 percent had had concerns about contraceptive methods; 26 percent had had unexpected sex, and 1 percent had been forced to have sex. Not one fraction of 1 percent said they got pregnant because they lacked access to contraception. Some described having unexpected sex, but all that can be said about them is that they are irresponsible, not that they felt they lacked access to contraception.

Lack of knowledge of contraception also isn't a reason that American women get abortions. Guttmacher reported that only 8 percent of women who undergo abortions have never used a method of birth control

But what is truly astonishing about the Guttmacher statistics is that they are completely unchanged from a decade ago.

In the year 2000, Guttmacher experts reported: "Forty-six percent of women [seeking abortions] had not used a contraceptive method in the month they conceived, mainly because of perceived low risk of pregnancy and concerns about contraception. More than half of women obtaining abortions in 2000 (54 percent) had been using a contraceptive method during the month they became pregnant."

These are exactly the same as the 2011 numbers.

SHAZAM! Sounds kinda devasting, doesn't it? Powers then snarks, "By the way, [the] Guttmacher [Institute] was founded by Planned Parenthood; these are the numbers the group views as the most reliable."

Zoiks! Well, let's see what Guttmacher actually says (pdf; p. 16; italics mine):

By providing millions of women with access to the contraceptive services they want and need, public funding for family planning helps women avoid 1.94 million unintended pregnancies each year (Figure 2.4, page 15). An estimated 450,000 of these unintended pregnancies are prevented as a result of services provided by private doctors under Medicaid. Yet, publicly supported family planning centers are the dominant source of services--helping women avoid 1.48 million unintended pregnancies. Fully 300,000 of these pregnancies averted with the help of family planning centers would have occurred among teens, and just over one million would have occurred among poor and lowincome women. Centers that receive some Title X funds provide services that enable women to avoid nearly one million unintended pregnancies each year.
Enabling these women to avoid an unintended pregnancy reduces the number of women and couples confronting the choice between turning to abortion and having a birth they did not intend to have. Without publicly supported family planning services, the number of unintended pregnancies and abortions occurring in the United States each year would be nearly two-thirds higher among women overall and among teens (Figure 2.5); the number of unintended pregnancies among poor women would nearly double. Without the services provided just in centers receiving Title X funds, unintended pregnancy in the United States would be 31% higher. And absent publicly supported services, the U.S. abortion rate today would be higher than it ever has been.

Hunh. You don't say.

Powers screws up by not asking the right question: how often do women who correctly use contraception become pregnant? Obviously, such women are going to show up very infrequently in a survey of women who have abortions. Powers also neglects to qualify contraception use--most women did not have good compliance (pdf):

Forty-six percent of women had not used a contraceptive method in the month they conceived, mainly because of perceived low risk of pregnancy and concerns about contraception (cited by 33% and 32% of nonusers, respectively). The male condom was the most commonly reported method among all women (28%), followed by the pill (14%). Inconsistent method use was the main cause of pregnancy for 49% of condom users and 76% of pill users; 42% of condom users cited condom breakage or slippage as a reason for pregnancy. Substantial proportions of pill and condom users indicated perfect method use (13-14%).

Instead, Powers accuses Planned Parenthood of "ignoring basic statistics about their area of expertise."*

Pots calling kettles black, and all of that.

*Powers also ignores this part of the mission statement:

...in making effective means of voluntary fertility regulation, including contraception, abortion, sterilization, and infertility services, available and fully accessible to all as a central element to reproductive healthcare

Gotta love quote-mining.

mikethemadbiologist Sat, 03/05/2011 - 04:09

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public health

Oh, noes! Actual facts!

I always appreciate it when someone sets the record straight like this [thank you!], but what we really need is for it to be safe, legal, affordable [I prefer "fully taxpayer-funded"] for women to have abortions any time they want to, for any reason they want to, including as their primary method of birth control if that's their preference.

And without any outside interference. It's not like deranged radicals are going around killing the doctors who prescribe Viagra, or anything.

Several years ago, wearing my reporter hat, I called the Centers for Disease Control press office about a discrepancy between some CDC stats and others from the Guttmacher Institute.

Their spokesperson immediately told me that whenever such an anomaly was found, I should take the Guttmacher numbers as more reliable.

I have yet to imagine a greater vote of confidence.

Let look. Don't get an abortion, but, buy a gun, keep the death penalty and then send them to war.

How does one count pregnancies which never happened? Also how does one distinguish between pregnancies which never happened and very early miscarriages??

Where do these figures of prevented unintended pregnancies come from?

Are there people with indwelling cameras showing views of the secondary oocyte sailing by, and out of the uterus?

Here's an example of research showing disappointing results from the ready availability of contraception - which does not reduce abortion rates in this Scottish study.

http://www.redfarmaciaresponsable.com/documentos/Advanced_provision_of_…

...or you could simply not have sex and never have to worry about any of this. I suppose, perhaps, it's too much discipline to keep your pants on.

What you could do is have the snip and then never have to worry again.

Or is that not an option?

RE the Scotland study provided by pharmer: That study deals not with contraception in general but only Plan B / emergency contraception.

As the study says, "normal" contraception is relatively common in Scotland, and abortion rates are already low. Giving women Plan B to keep at home does not seem to further lower the abortion rate, according to the study.

The authors theorize that perception (i.e., education) is necessary too: "Having a supply of EC to keep at home will not help women who do not recognize the risk of pregnancy, and therefore do not recognize the need to use EC."

@Bobobobobo: Now we know that, for you, sex is about a lack of discipline. How is that working out for your partner?

abortion was legalized not long after the Pill came out. When abortion was illegal there were no hospitals keeping statistics on how many they did and no doctors admitting that they did any. Deaths, especially where parents or victims were "respectable," were often listed as having some other cause. So numbers may seem to have gone up.

Before abortion was legal, and even now in places where it's not, infections, blood loss, and incomplete abortion caused by attempted abortion were common. The anti-choice like to show statistics showing that fewer women are dying of abortion in the U.S. now than before 1973. They want you to conclude that their efforts to stop abortion are the cause, when in fact it's the legalization of abortion.

To estimate non-pregnancies, you count the number of people who come to your service for contraception and multiply it by the average rate of pregnancy for their age group.

To estimate abortions averted, you take the number of pregnancies calculated above and multiply it by the percentage of pregnancies that end in abortion for that group. In teens, about 2/3. In other groups, abnout 1/2.

Very early miscarriages are not counted by anyone, using contraception or not, since they do not cause a pregnancy that requires medical intervention. The 80% of pregnancies that fail before causing anyone to take note do not appear in these statistics. They are just late periods or false alarms.

Perhaps the reason for noncompliance to the contraception regimen for the "birth control pill" is due to all the negative side effects, e.g., weight gain, loss of libido, headaches, depression, increased irritability, and even abortions caused through break-through ovulation of low-dose pills. Could this explain the poor results from hormonal contraception methods?

There is now, IIRC, a male pill.

I've never really seen the problem with using a rubber, mind. Except there's nowhere to put the used one in a bedroom.

The author of the Daily Beast article, Kirsten Powers, posted the following retraction:

"Author's Note: I made a serious error in reporting this column that undermines the conclusion I drew. I compared statistics on contraceptive use from a January 2011 Guttmacher Institute fact sheet to a year 2000 study on the same issue. However, I did not realize that the 2011 fact sheet derived its statistics from the year 2000 numbers, so my argument was not supported by the data. I am deeply sorry for the error, which invalidates my piece."

An excerpt from and anti-choice site. "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." Of course it wasn't! How ignorant can you get! The women who had access to contraceptives and used them properly DIDN"T GET ABORTIONS! Take away Planned Parenthood and that will no longer be true.

When Republican Ideology Collides with Reality: The Abortion Edition

mikethemadbiologist — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 10:52:03 +0000

When Republican Ideology Collides with Reality: The Abortion Edition

Before 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 regularly cover is education policy. After watching Rep. Moore's speech, how can teachers unions be the primary stumbling block for poor children--which is where the educational crisis lies.

I'll also add it's good to hear an elected official talk about what it's like to be poor as opposed to talking about poverty in the abstract.

After hearing these two women, I tempted to think we should just boot all the men out of Congress: we're just too unrealistic.

mikethemadbiologist Fri, 02/25/2011 - 05:52

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Basic Human Decency

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hunger

Republican ideology never collides with reality - its parallel and thus they never meet.

I would say that Republican ideology isn't parallel with reality; it's SKEWED from reality. It will never collide, but it looks more and more distant from reality as time goes on.

My father did legal abortions. I helped my father do legal abortions. The pro-lifers used to picket and threaten him at his clinic in an effort to "protect life".

When women were not allowed to receive legal abortions, they found ways to do it themselves. The OB-Gyn wards used to have a separate unit for those women who came in with botched back street abortions that caused bleeding and sepsis. Many women died or lost their ability to have children at a later time. I remember the story of a young woman who died of sepsis from an illegal abortion; the doctors lied to her parents about how she died ("an unusual virus")because it would have been too shameful for the family at the time.

The Repugs are just pushing malignant cultural and religious memeplexes to their idiotic, non-reality based, base in an attempt to maintain power. Women and girls will be vulnerable and suffer if they are not effectively countered with reality and real stories.

A Democrat Who Understands the Political Climate

mikethemadbiologist — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 09:02:47 +0000

A Democrat Who Understands the Political Climate

One 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, characterizing their view as: "all engagement has to result in a child." Pelosi noted that contraception and family planning is "not consistent with their belief that it's all about procreation."

Pelosi added that the unreconcilable philosophical differences between Republicans and Dems on abortion left Dems no choice but to adopt a scorched-earth approach to the war ahead. "We don't have a set of shared values," she said. "We have to fight this out in the public domain, so when we move to the Senate it has no popular support."
Pelosi added that this fight was a good way to drive home the reality of GOP extremism to women who were not energized last November, a key swing demographic.

The GOP has sought to wrap its anti-abortion push in the language of fiscal responsibility, but Pelosi's no-holds-barred approach suggests this war could end up being fought out squarely on old culture-war turf.

Finally, a Democrat who publicly acknowledges that there is no room for compromise, that there are fundamental and "unreconcilable" differences between the two parties, and, most importantly, that these differences should be and must be part of the political landscape.

Hopefully, with the decline of the House Blue Dogs in the last election, the Democratic Party will begin to realize that and act as if the differences between the parties are in kind, not in extent.

Of course, there's a good chance that Obama will attempt to undercut Democrats with his conciliatory garbage. Now, if only Democrats would understand that he's a Rockefeller Republican....

*And Pelosi strikes me as enough of a hard ass to understand her mistake.

mikethemadbiologist Fri, 02/18/2011 - 04:02

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Blastocyst Liberation

Democrats

I like Pelosi for this reason - she's a pragmatist while keeping her ideals in sight. And you and she are right - there is such a divide between the parties right now that it's a case of making a stand or being swept aside.

But it worries me that politics has got to this state - that it has to be an out and out battle. It means that any ground gained is temporary, and the next election can bring us back where we started. It bothers me even more that I can't see an alternative.

Hey, but C-SPAN might get a lot more entertaining. Have you ever seen videos of the Parliamentary chambers in Malaysia? I'll bet Pelosi can fling an absolutely wicked pair of stilettos!

The Second Most Awful Thing About H.R. 3, the Republican 'Have Your Rapist's Baby If You're Poor' Act

mikethemadbiologist — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 09:16:38 +0000

The Second Most Awful Thing About H.R. 3, the Republican 'Have Your Rapist's Baby If You're Poor' Act

The 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 forbid the use of tax benefits to pay for abortions, that 13-year-old's parents wouldn't be allowed to use money from a tax-exempt health savings account (HSA) to pay for the procedure. They also wouldn't be able to deduct the cost of the abortion or the cost of any insurance that paid for it as a medical expense.

In addition, the legislation would also cause small businesses that offer health insurance which covers abortion to lose their tax credits. I guess they weren't really serious about that whole 'rape, incest, and the life of the mother' thing. Amanda Marcotte and Scott Lemieux offer more criticism of why this is awful policy. Marcotte, in particular, explains how this will effectively result in poor girls being forced to have their rapist's child.

So what's the second most awful thing about the Republican 'Have Your Rapist's Baby If You're Poor' Act?

We shouldn't have to be fucking dealing with this. At all.

We are a nation beset with problems, and fixing those problems is going to require a lot of work. Now, the Republicans dump one more problem--once again, of their own making--onto the pandimensional clusterfuck that is our body politic.

The left, such as it is, will have to oppose this odious legislation because it's awful. We shouldn't be surprised by this either: after legitimizing torture, it's pretty clear we fell off the moral arc of history a while ago. Meanwhile, our attention and energy will be diverted from economic issues.

I'm not arguing this is an unimportant 'social' issue: far from it. But we'll have to work hard, and, when it's all said and done, the best we can hope for is that we're right back where we started. But our current political system, which apparently considers withholding funding for a raped child to get an abortion to be a legitimate point of view, does nothing to discourage this, and, in fact, rewards it. At some point, the professional Democratic class and their courtesan pundits will have to learn that if you're not on the offensive, pushing ahead, then you're on the defensive and losing ground.

Finally, two questions for all the rank-and-file Democrats who, if polls are to be believed, still want to compromise with these guys: what will it take to realize that there's no middle ground here? What would be so awful, so odious that you would be unwilling to compromise?

Because, apparently, the forced childbirth by a raped girl isn't enough.

mikethemadbiologist Mon, 01/31/2011 - 04:16

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Policy

Since many, if not most, 13-year-old victims of statutory rape were molested by a family member, maybe we should call the GOP the Pro-Incest party.

Let me guess: the claimant can't just write "forcible rape" on her petition for services, she has to have a court ruling that it was "forcible rape." Presumably after the rapist is convicted.

Which, as it happens, takes more than nine months even in the cases where the woman has the remarkable presence of mind to immediately (do not pass go, do not waste a precious second) go to a facility which is equipped for forensic rape examinations and pay for the rape kit, assuming that they have any (funding has been cut, you know.)

Best I can tell, this restricts abortion to those cases where the victim is found first by a police officer bound and bleeding from multiple injuries and the hospital actually does the forensic exam in ICU.

Since 15% of all abortions in the US are paid for by the government, either state, local or federal and only 1% of abortions performed are because of rape or incest, we seem to be paying for alot more abortions than we should be.

JayZ @ 3, Can you tell me where you got the number for the % of federally funded abortions? I couldn't find it with a quick Google.

@3 JayZ

Wrong. We should have Universal Health Care and they should ALL be paid for through insurance.

If we had universal abortion, eventually we wouldn't have any of these problems.

Since many, if not most, 13-year-old victims of statutory rape were molested by a family member, maybe we should call the GOP the Pro-Incest party.

I'm waiting for the impassionned speech about the "the outrageous and anti-christian views on family shared by those despicable secretly bolshevik liberals which causes so much pain to the suffering, discriminited against, poor poor poor minority of wealthy pedophile rapist with an incest festish who could have the freedom to produce their own sex toys by raping their domestics and who might, because of the law that allow said domestics to abort, end up molesting their precious legitimate heirs".

I agree, JayZ. If the government provided decent birth control information and materials free of charge to all females, especially minors, we could avoid the economic, medical, social, and psychological costs of many abortions. I'm glad to hear you're with me on this issue.

As a taxpayer and as a hater of infanticide, I refuse to pay for a woman to kill her unborn baby. It's just wrong fo me to have to pay for that. I don;t want her blood on my hands.

Besides, you people have the blood of over 53 million babies on your hands thanks to the selfish asshole judge (his daughter was pregnant at the time)in Roe v. Wade (now she is pro-life and only Fox News has covered that fact).

Think about it. 53 million babies dead becuase of leftwing man hating nutjobs. Maybe all 53 millions will grow up in the spirit world and come back to haunt you all.

I would hate to be in your shoes when you answer to God for your infaticide one day. China will be right behind you.

baby killers.

We only have one abortuary left in our state and luckily we are on the edge of getting rid of it too.

As far as incest and rape goes, the situation can be confusing to the woman carrying the "mass of cells" within her. In such a situation as this I would stay out of it and let the decision to execute the lump of cells with a pulse, or keep it. Same goes for a pregnancy with dangerous complications to the host (not mother since there is no child - only a lump of cells,).

However, if a young girl gets preganant becuase of her immorality, then absolutely no abortion. She has to live with the consequences of her actions. There is nothing wrong with saying "NO!" to sex before marriage. As a matter of fact, doing this would wipe out sexually transmitted diseases altogether. It should have been in the mandated healthcare law.

Even if you were to hand out rubbers to teenagers, you still have the morality side of the debate to deal with. It's called adultery. Teaching kids safe sex may be okay for pre-marriage couples but for teenagers this is just national suicide. Immorality cannot be tolerated. Adultery cannot and must not be tolerated. Infanticide cannot be tolerated.

@Fruitcake351, unfortunately you are oversimplifying matters.

First off, abortion is not as simple of an issue as you would portray it. There is, in fact, a legitimate ethical and legal debate as to when exactly the transition from "mass of cells" to "legal person" occurs. So when you decree all abortion to be infanticide and use words like "abortuary" and "immorality", you have already indicated that you aren't having a mature discussion about it.

Second, just because you pay taxes does not inherently give you a say in how each penny of that money is spent. Yes, of course, no taxation without representation. I would rather not have to admit that 51% of my federal taxes were spent on wars of choice in countries that hate us. It would be nice if that ever ended, but even then I am sure there would be plenty of areas of government spending for each of us to be upset about; I'm sure that plenty of people in Florida wish they didn't help subsidize interstate highways in Alaska and Maine.

Nonetheless, the real issue with this law is that it is overreaching. It might be acceptable or even a meaningful compromise for a law to be passed preventing Medicaid from covering elective abortions. But that is not what we are looking at. The wording of this law would end ALL benefits that touch any aspect of abortion. So that personally, I would experience an increase in my income taxes, because my employer-sponsored health care plan (which I actually opt out of) covers abortions. It would mean that any woman who wanted a morning-after-pill after being raped using Rohypnol or any 12 year old who was raped in a nonviolent way would have to pay out of pocket. It would mean that the removal of an anencephalic (braindead) fetus would require out-of-pocket payment, or miles of paperwork, on top of the ordinary emotional trauma. Does that really fit in with your concept of pro-life?

Even if we were to concede that your personal morals could somehow be imposed on at least the government, this bill still would go too far. We do not live in the moralistically Sharia-like state that you seem to envision, and I'm thankful of it.

Incidentally, to be clear, I am in agreement with you (although with far less pith) as to the moral aspect of abortion. But again, the government is not run on personal morality, nor should it be.

Jay

"fetus" is the medical or scientific term. BABY is what non medical and non scientific people usually call what is inside a pregnant woman. It is human if is has a pulse. End of story. Life begins at conception where the soul is given. You cannot change that.

Morality will win out in the end. This world is temporary and God will judge it one day wether you like it or not and your government will cease to exist as we know it now.

Sharia? hardly. Biblcial? yes.

A 12 year old being raped and having to deal with this issue is unfortunate. In that case, the decision lies with the 12 year old and her parents. However, if the 12 year willfully committed to a sexual act and got pregnant, I do not think it is justifiable to kill her baby becuase of her uncomfort in life. Sins have penalties. Mistakes have consequences. There is no escape. If she does decide to go to an abortuary and have brains of her child sucked out (and it feels pain) then not only does she have the sin of adultery on her, but now has murder as well. Is living with guilt over executing an unborn baby worth it all?

> It is human if is has a pulse. End of story.

Monkeys have a pulse.

Therefore you ARE descended from monkeys!

> Life begins at conception where the soul is given. You cannot change that.

So where's the receipt? I'm afraid you need to

a) show that a soul exists

b) that a soul is given at conception

c) that every fertilised egg is given a soul

What about normal conception not taken to term? Very common and completely natural. Does this mean god is killing babies and destroying souls?!?!?!!

What about Chimeric births? Where there are two (or more) eggs fused into one body. Do they have two (or more) souls because the eggs each were fertilised and the results exist in the one body?

Given the soul isn't given out until conception, whats the big hate-on for throwing away your seed? It's not like Eve who has every child of the entire human race who ever or will ever live within her (which makes menstruation mass murder, since eggs are lost in this, another of God's sins). So why the prohibition to throwing one out there?

"Yes, of course, no taxation without representation."

Unless you are working under a Visa in the USA.

Didn't you all rail against that at one time being forced on you?

"As a taxpayer and as a hater of infanticide, I refuse to pay for a woman to kill her unborn baby. "

How about the women who are taxpayers and want abortions? They pay taxes too.

And given your righteous anger against killing, I guess you refuse to pay taxes for the armed forces who killed children in Iraq recently?

Fruitcake 351:

Because nothing shows one's moral superiority better than hidding one's indifference toward rape victims by faking sadness toward fictionnal babies.

I call Poe on Fruitcake.

If not, what an apt username.

Hmm, let's review our embryology.

At the time most aborted womb-boogers (collective term for feti and embryos - and it's a FETUS or an EMBRYO. It's not a baby until it's born, or if one wants to be generous, until it can survive outside the uterus) are aborted, they are at 8 weeks or before.

Before 8 weeks, these things happen (from Wikipedia):

Week 1â3
5â7 days after fertilization, the blastula attaches to the wall of the uterus (endometrium). When it comes into contact with the endometrium it performs implantation. Implantation connections between the mother and the embryo will begin to form, including the umbilical cord. The embryo's growth centers around an axis, which will become the spine and spinal cord. The brain, spinal cord, heart, and gastrointestinal tract begin to form.

Week 4â5
Chemicals produced by the embryo stop the woman's menstrual cycle. Neurogenesis is underway, showing brain activity at about the 6th week. "The heart will begin to beat around the same time. Limb buds appear where the arms and legs will grow later. Organogenesis begins. The head represents about one half of the embryo's axial length, and more than half of the embryo's mass. The brain develops into five areas. Tissue formation occurs that develops into the vertebra and some other bones. The heart starts to beat and blood starts to flow.

Week 6â8
Myogenesis and neurogenesis have progressed to where the embryo is capable of motion, and the eyes begin to form. Organogenesis and growth continue. Hair has started to form along with all essential organs. Facial features are beginning to develop. At the end of the 8th week, the embryonic stage is over, and the fetal stage begins.

Basically, until 7 days post-fertilization, the thing is biologically equivalent to a sponge. It is a blastula, which is a ball of undifferentiated stem cells. If you have problems with aborting this, you are an idiot.

The heartbeat does not appear until week 4.

Brain activity does not happen until week 6.

Now, granted, it gets a little more ethically complex after that, but if the damn thing can't survive outside a woman's body at that point I think it is a perfectly reasonable thing to do to kill it if you don't want it.

Also, Fruitcake, your imaginary friend doesn't exist.

Conservative Christians suck Ebola dick.

And Fruitcake thinks abortion is anti-man? That's really funny. Men aren't the ones who get saddled with pregnancies.

What the fuck is the deal with religious people and the worship of masculinity and putting half of the human race on a pedestal and pissing on the other half? We're all equals, for goodness's sake.

Oh, right. Fruitcake the fruitcake has a big angry imaginary friend who if they existed would be an idiot with the emotional maturity of a 3-year-old.

Seriously, why can't we deliver a half-burnt bible to each sponsor of this bill?

Thank you Katharine for beating back the fruitcakes. Even if they're Poes, the similarities are saddening.

I wonder how anyone with any sense can find any redeeming qualities in religion whatsoever. Reason, evidence, and love are just so much more comforting.

I hate to break it to you Fruitcake351, but legal or not, abortions happen. And if not abortions, than infanticide (they are not the same; saying they are is intentionally inflammatory and incorrect). So would it be better to stop a life at 6 months before birth or 6 days after?

As a taxpayer, I object to forcibly paying for others' children and doubly so if they didn't want them in the first place. I triply object if the result is substandard health care for a child born to a family (does a single mom count as a family?) not properly ready to have one. I will have to foot that bill too, in the form of higher premiums to cover said child's emergency care. Honestly, the government needs to start solving the trillion dollar questions (Social Security, Medicare, Fannie & Freddie) first; and come back to the million dollar questions (abortion) later.

I'd also like to dispute your moralist claims about abstinence, STDs, and sex. As it turns out, teens have sex regardless of how you educate them; but comprehensive sex education does reduce pregnancy rates. Abstinence will never solve an STD epidemic (except maybe in your head) and none of this has anything to do with the legal/moral issues surrounding rape--the original topic. Framing the discussion entirely around the potential baby is dishonest and short-sighted.

Each reference has several other high quality references with similar findings regarding abstinence/pregnancy/STDs:

Abstinence-only education fails to prevent sex & pregnancy:
http://www.planetwire.org/files.fcgi/7689_Ab_Only_Ed_Kohler_.pdf

Abstinence-only fails to stop STDs:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/jan/3/abstinent-teens-test-pos…
(referencing: http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/reprint/peds.2009-0892v1 )

@WOW (#14) Love your list, but you forgot about identical twins, 1 fertilized egg becoming two separate people, who may or may each not have a soul, half a soul, or no soul. Who knows?

@ katherine

I remember you and taht vile Janin from the poll fornication site pharyngula. You probably remember me as rumpleforeskin. The bearded marxist poll fornicator (there are many on "science" blogs), pz myers banned me. Oh well. I still unfornicate his fornication of polls. I still go to the pollsters and warn them that mindless turds are violating their polls. I have turned a few of them around. It took me months to turn the one evolution poll back to normal, but I did it and now warnings are in place on that sight that warns people that the far left hate site pharyngula is busting polls becuase they have fetish for right wingers' paperwork and opionions.

Remind me to send you a half burned copy of the origin of species. The other half I fornicated on.

Give my regards to she wolf janine.

Oh, men and women are created equal, but have different roles. Get over it.

Dear fruitcake,
I realize you don't want to pay for women to kill their babies. I would not like to pay for the likes of Hosni Mubarak, or to fight in Afghanistan. I think it's wrong to subsidize the murder of actual people with feelings and experiences and thoughts by supporting various military juntas around the world as we do.
I would not like to pay for Israel to arm itself. I think by now they can afford that, especially if they want to go around starting stuff. I wouldn't like to pay Scott Walker's salary. I would not like to pay most of Congress' salary given they seem to spend most of their time jerking off. I would not like to pay for big corn or big oil. I'd not like to pay to bail out the banks, and if I had a choice, I would not be invested by proxy in General Motors.
Guess what?
I don't get a choice, and I don't hear anyone taking my complaints terribly seriously.
So unless you are so for this freedom to choose that you'd like to support giving me a choice where *my* tax money goes, I'll have much sympathy for your position.