HaloScan.com - Comments

I'MMA LET YOU FINISH

No, they don't care. I don't see an ounce of compassion in them.
Pentimenti | Homepage | 12.31.04 - 11:36 am | #

Remember on the 700 club when Pat said "People are dying from ru486"
jr | 12.31.04 - 11:38 am | #

I don't see an aounce of anything that isn't vulgar.
PeskyFly | 12.31.04 - 11:39 am | #

every sperm really is sacred, eh?
heather | 12.31.04 - 11:39 am | #

ru486 isn't the morning after pill.
Atrios | Homepage | 12.31.04 - 11:40 am | #

Ow... that made my head hurt.

I may have to start finding a way to ship emergency contraceptives from Canada to the U.S.
Charlotte Smith (nee Beavers) | 12.31.04 - 11:43 am | #

I work at a Catholic hospital and we've been giving the morning after pill to rape victims for years.
esther | 12.31.04 - 11:45 am | #

Dem leadership - knock, knock - anyone home? Hello?
Marcus Wellby | 12.31.04 - 11:46 am | #

So what if it's a "hot potato?"

They're withholding medical information from patients. Can we say "violation of medical ethics," here?
Christopher | 12.31.04 - 11:47 am | #

NARAL and Planned Parenthood (I'm on both email lists) have been after this for eons...

For fuck's sake, we can't even have a real conversation about what's best for the people anymore. mergency contraception was included in an early draft, and she does not know of anyone who opposed it...but it still got taken out anyway. WTF??
Lynne | 12.31.04 - 11:47 am | #

So what if it's a "hot potato?"

They're withholding medical information from patients. Can we say "violation of medical ethics," here?
Christopher | 12.31.04 - 11:47 am | #

The first casualty in war is truth and in the war Bushboy & the rightwing are waging for complete control of America and the world, the truth is being trampled mercilessly.

The only thing that matters to Bushboy & the right is their agenda of religious mythology, economic exploitation and death to any and all who disagree.

The 51% of the American electorate that voted for the depraved fool, Bushboy, are a disgrace to humanity and democracy.
Rudy | 12.31.04 - 11:48 am | #

I am guessing that their thought process is that if you allow for the morning-after pill on account of rape, women will simply cry "rape" to get a fix, then drop the charges on their boyfriend, allowing for a 'loophole' for people who want to use the morning-after pill.

That's the only thing I can think of that makes any sense as to why they would force women to keep the child created from a rape.
joshowitz | Homepage | 12.31.04 - 11:48 am | #

Of course, if the victim was the daughter of some wealthy republican, the 'morning after' pill would be instantly available whatever part of the country the assault happened in.
4WD | 12.31.04 - 11:49 am | #

the february '05 issue of Consumer Reports tests condom effeciency and makes recommendations, with a sidebar that details the CDC's erasing of any recommendations for condoms' use in preventing sexually transmitted diseases. wonder how many fundies subscribe.
paperpusher | 12.31.04 - 11:49 am | #

the morning after pill is just a heavy dose of birth control. One doesn't need to be raped to get access to it.
Atrios | Homepage | 12.31.04 - 11:49 am | #

thaaaaaaanks for the memories
ann venneman's gone
don evans was a pawn
thompson warned of poisoned food
we sure hope he was wrong!
-lizz winstead, UNFILTERED
n69n | Homepage | 12.31.04 - 11:51 am | #

AAAHHHHHH! Prevents conception the vast majority of the time!. Jeebuz, they don't care about this issue at all. It's nothing but a tool to divide liberals and conservitives.

Abortion would come to a near halt if every woman had the morning after pill in her medicine cabinet. Period.
bigvic | 12.31.04 - 11:51 am | #

The "morning after" pill if taken soon enough will prevent conception from even occurring, or failing that it will prevent implantation.

It's, perhaps, worth noting that, in the absence of evidence that conception has occurred, even the Catholic Church -- in its moral guidelines for Catholic healthcare systems -- in the United States requires that emergency contraception be made available to victims of sexual abuse to prevent pregnancy.

And the Catholic Church is hardly a pro-contraception organization.

It's rather remarkable that the US DoJ would be more anti-contraception than the Catholic Church.

And its perhaps especially remarkable that a Republican Justice Department would take this stand to the detriment of victims of crime, given how much they like to evoke reflection on the plight of crime victims in their crusades for harsher sentencing and erosion of the rights of criminal defendants.
cmdicely | 12.31.04 - 11:51 am | #

This was the BEST part of the article:

"I think it's very smart not to put that in the guidelines," said Dr. George Isajiw of Lansdowne, a board member of Physicians for Life, a Philadelphia antiabortion group.

By giving emergency contraception, he said, "you're giving a dangerous drug that's not doing any good, or else you're causing an abortion. As a moral principle, a woman has the right to defend herself against an aggressor. But she doesn't have the right to kill the baby."

A dangerous baby-killing drug!

Why isn't this good doctor calling for the immediate trial and imprisonment for any woman who takes this drug after being raped? Well, actually, it appears he is. Presumably they should also be subject to capital punishment as well.

This is what is known today as Moral Clarity.
Thersites | Homepage | 12.31.04 - 11:51 am | #

I didn't mean to say that their thought process was valid. It is completely off-kilter.

And it's true that the wealthy and connected need not worry. There will always be exceptions for them.

Once more proof that the Christian Taliban is infiltrating the US.
joshowitz | Homepage | 12.31.04 - 11:52 am | #

I suppose the fundie logic goes something like this:

It's a sin to have sex unless it's for the purpose of reproduction, so if a woman is raped and becomes pregnant it's a blessing by god because otherwise she would have been a sinner for having sex without reproducing. To then use a morning-after pill after being so blessed is doubly sinful.
Onymous | 12.31.04 - 11:54 am | #

Whenever you spend a dollar in Jesusland, you help kill and enslave your fellow progressives. Never forgive and never forget.
Mike | 12.31.04 - 11:54 am | #

According to Bush, abortion is OK in cases of rape or incest.

Which kind of begs the question, if fundies believe emergency contraception is a form of abortion, why do they want to deny it to rape victims when their lord and savior Bush sez abortion is acceptable in cases of rape?
Stinky | 12.31.04 - 11:55 am | #

There are people in power who will not allow the morning-after pill because it interferes with implantation of a fertilized egg.

It never has occurred to these people that "God" is the greatest destroyer of fertilized eggs, since it's estimated that 25-33% of fertilizations end up in miscarriages, most so early that they are indistinguishable from a menstrual cycle.

It's not about health, it's about control.
Deana Holmes | 12.31.04 - 11:55 am | #

Their thought process is "abortion means anything that occurs after the fact to prevent the unwanted birth of the child."

Remember, they're not outlawing anything--merely not being forthcoming. Sort of like talking about family planning without mentioning the Pill.
Christopher | 12.31.04 - 11:56 am | #

the morning after pill is just a heavy dose of birth control. One doesn't need to be raped to get access to it.
Atrios

In Washington state, women can purchase it at any pharmacy and there is no need for a doctor's prescription.
Stinky | 12.31.04 - 11:58 am | #

So what's the best spin Democrats can put on this thing?

Maybe they could say the Republicans are protecting the interests of rapists?

Somehow the Dems have to say the Republicans think rape is okay or really not something a woman needs to take seriously.

Any suggestions?
blu | 12.31.04 - 11:59 am | #

They want women to suffer as much as possible. Period. Pay attention to the actual results of their actions, not their rhetoric. They don't want to prevent abortions, they merely want to criminalize them. They don't want to save lives, merely to make women suffer and be unable to compete with men for jobs and education. They belong a a death cult and live in a culture of death. And they like it that way.
Hecate | 12.31.04 - 12:00 pm | #

Abortion would come to a near halt if every woman had the morning after pill in her medicine cabinet. Period.

Appropriate ending to that spot on analysis, bigvic.

Deanna Holmes, my doctor told me that it was upwards of 50% of pregnancies which end in miscarriage. I can only speak from experience ~ I had two miscarriages and one live birth. I guess I'm at 66.3%...
Vicki | 12.31.04 - 12:00 pm | #

What did you guys expect? This is all the dems fault. Next time Dems are fighting with repubs then perhaps they will fight like real men instead of wussies. If every dem would have been like Sen. Byrd-dems would be in the majority. Instead dema are scared of offending anybody
Live Free or Die | 12.31.04 - 12:02 pm | #

What Hecate said. Once again, it all boils down to the fact that these nutjobs are scared shitless of independent, liberal women and the only way they know how to react to that fear is domination and humiliation.
BlakNo1 | Homepage | 12.31.04 - 12:02 pm | #

Never mind my pegging outrage meter -- my disgust meter just exploded. I really despise these people. And my wife and I adopted two children so I'm not exactly an abortion "fan" (of course, there's really no one who is a "fan" of abortion), but I'm not going to force a woman to carry an unwanted foetus just so there'll be another body in the adoption pool.
Toonscribe | 12.31.04 - 12:03 pm | #

Why would God use rape to start a new life? What kind of a God would do that?

Don't answer that one.
Echidne of the snakes | Homepage | 12.31.04 - 12:03 pm | #

Why isn't this good doctor calling for the immediate trial and imprisonment for any woman who takes this drug after being raped? Well, actually, it appears he is. Presumably they should also be subject to capital punishment as well.

The sick bastard probably thinks a woman who gets raped must have done something to deserve it - she was probably wearing lipstick and possibly even a skirt that showed her bare ankles, or she was out after dark.

Good, god-fearing ladies who stay home and submit to their husbands aren't out attracting rapists, yanno.
Stinky | 12.31.04 - 12:03 pm | #

So I guess women must go back to Pennyroal tea, eh?

http://athena.english.vt.edu/~ap.../ pennyroyal.htm

It doesn't sound like a healthy option.

Thank you, Theo-Fascist Nuts! You RULE!

Tony B.
monkeyfister | 12.31.04 - 12:04 pm | #

Why would God use rape to start a new life? What kind of a God would do that?

Zeus?

And that's what we're dealing with here.
pseudonymous in nc | 12.31.04 - 12:04 pm | #

Listen and Learn. From the WP:

" MIDDLETOWN, R.I. -- Except for the glorious victories of the Red Sox and the Patriots, 2004 was a disappointing year. But bad years offer useful lessons. Here are a few:

• Relentlessness pays off. President Bush won reelection by ignoring the conventional wisdom that vicious attacks on your opponent don't work and turn off voters. As soon as John Kerry won the Democratic nomination, Bush's campaign went on the attack and never stopped. It worked.

Kerry was painted as arrogant and privileged, compared with an arrogant president who was far more privileged.

Kerry was made out to be a flip-flopping liberal, and never mind asking how someone can be a flip-flopper and an ideologue. Kerry, who shot people in battle and was wounded himself, was painted as weaker than Bush, the guy who said he supported the Vietnam War but was not willing to fight in it.

The sheer negative genius of the Bush campaign is worthy of close study. Face it: Liberals and Democrats are way too sensitive to elite editorial page opinion that asks more responsibility from the side it supposedly supports than from the side it supposedly opposes. Liberals worry themselves sick that if they fight Bush's cockamamie idea of borrowing billions for a shaky Social Security privatization scheme, those editorial writers will savage them. A lead opinion is likely to demand that they enter into negotiations with the president, even if the very act of doing so is certain to give Bush the upper hand.
Live Free or Die | 12.31.04 - 12:04 pm | #

Deana, I apologize for misspelling your first name.
Vicki | 12.31.04 - 12:04 pm | #

This is indicative of the fact that the right opposes abortion because they are against any form of birth control. They will not stop at criminalizing abortion, they want the act of creating life to be determined only by God.
Lincoln | 12.31.04 - 12:04 pm | #

Cont:

" Memo to Democrats: Forget the editorial writers and ask yourselves: What Would Bush Do? If you are not as tough as he is, he will crush you -- again. Memo to liberal commentators: Why bend over backward to demand of your own side what you don't demand of the right, or of Bush?

• Cultural hypocrisy should be exposed. I cannot understand why liberals who regularly criticize the excesses of the economic market let conservatives get away with being the advocates of "traditional values."

When television networks and Hollywood exploit sex to make money, why aren't liberals asking why the free market so revered by the right wing promotes values the very same right wing claims to despise? The coarsening of the culture that traditionalist conservatives denounce is abetted by the very media concentration that economic conservatives defend. Why are liberals so tongue-tied in exposing this contradiction?

• Class matters. Bush and the Republicans condemn "class warfare" -- and then play the class card with a vengeance. Bush has pushed through policies that, by any impartial reckoning, have transferred massive amounts of money to the wealthiest people in our country. Yet it is conservatives, Bush supporters, who trash the "elites," especially when it comes to culture. Class warfare is evil -- unless a conservative is playing the class card.

Somebody has to call this bluff. Why is it taboo to talk about a Wall Street "elite" that has benefited from Bush's tax cuts and would win big-time from Social Security privatization? Why is it just terrible to point out that pharmaceutical industry and HMO "elites" were paid off handsomely in the Medicare drug bill? Why is it so dreadfully radical to denounce corporate "elites" when conservatives can denounce "the Hollywood elite" with impunity? Why does the right wing get away, year after year, with this double standard on elitism and class warfare?

• Stand for something. Bush won this year because of those attacks on Kerry. But he also won because swing voters who didn't like him very much were nonetheless quite certain that he knew what he wanted to do and would try to get it done.

One line of attack against Bush is to say that his certainties are mistaken and that he never, ever questions them. That's true. It's also inadequate. Those who oppose the direction in which Bush is leading us need to propose an alternative.

They need to demonstrate that we could be much safer -- and fight a more effective war on terrorism -- if so much of the world did not mistrust us. They must create a realistic narrative about a more just and prosperous society. Policies on jobs, health insurance, child care, education and taxes should be more than a list. They ought to form a coherent picture of how things could be better, for everyone.

The long-term need for alternatives should not stop the loyal opposition from being tough. But the short-term need to be tough should not stop the
Live Free or Die | 12.31.04 - 12:04 pm | #

The morning after pill does not prevent implantation. If it did, that would represent a form of early "abortion". The rumor that it prevents implantation is a lie made up by the anti-contraception crowd. Reproductive endocrinologists give women who are undergoing IVF higher doses of progesterone in order to aid implantation. The only thing that a high dose of hormone in the form of the MAP can do is interupt the surge of luteinzing hormone that triggers ovulation.

Planned Parenthood can tell you more.
J Bean | 12.31.04 - 12:05 pm | #

Katha Pollitt did a column on the morning-after pill some time ago. You can probably find the instructions in the Nation's archives.
They tell you how many contraceptive pills to take in one go to get the desired effect.

I'm going to find the article and save it.
Echidne of the snakes | Homepage | 12.31.04 - 12:05 pm | #

The long-term need for alternatives should not stop the loyal opposition from being tough. But the short-term need to be tough should not stop the opposition's search for alternatives. For Bush's adversaries, 2005 will be a difficult year. It also could be exhilarating."
Live Free or Die | 12.31.04 - 12:05 pm | #

Immediately after the sperm impregnates the egg, God gets a call on his cell phone. He flies up the woman's vagina, and blows a soul into the blastomere.

Recently God told me that he is very tired of doing this, especially after rapes, and is thinking of asking Santa to help out.
bebimbob | Homepage | 12.31.04 - 12:06 pm | #

It will only get worse unless you stand up to the repubs. You can start with AB for AG. Fillibuster his ass, and say we dont confirm tortures. That will set the tone.
Live Free or Die | 12.31.04 - 12:08 pm | #

Don't spill your seed outside of the groove.
When you come, never ever remove.
Rubber goods are unwise,
If you want a surprise.
Each little swimmer has things to prove.
Lime Rickey | 12.31.04 - 12:09 pm | #

There are people in power who will not allow the morning-after pill because it interferes with implantation of a fertilized egg.

It can do; it can also prevent the egg from being fertilized at all.

It never has occurred to these people that "God" is the greatest destroyer of fertilized eggs, since it's estimated that 25-33% of fertilizations end up in miscarriages, most so early that they are indistinguishable from a menstrual cycle.

It seems very odd to argue that culpability attaches to spontaneous abortion and not death by natural causes of born people. I mean, the fact that 100% of born people die of natural causes isn't considered an argument against having laws against murder, so -- whatever other arguments might be applicable -- I can't see how spontaneous abortion and/or failure to implant make an argument in support of legal abortion or the morning after pill, whether within or without a religious framework.
cmdicely | 12.31.04 - 12:09 pm | #

I believe the phrase you're looking for is "Objectively Pro-Abortion."
thequipper | Homepage | 12.31.04 - 12:09 pm | #

All part of a Pro-Rape agenda, with a special emphasis on Rapists Rights.

Ask young Iraqi girls...

and boys.
UBH | 12.31.04 - 12:09 pm | #

Speaking of matters contraceptional (and Atrios, I adore you for covering these outrages), interesting article from Yahoo: Excess weight can compromise birth control pills.

Excerpt: In the group of women studied, 5 percent of overweight women taking the Pill got pregnant each year vs. 3 percent of normal weight women, said study author Victoria Holt.

The study, which the researchers believe is the first of its kind, was funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. It appears in the January issue of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

Bold emphasis mine. Even if you're of normal weight, this study found a 3% failure rate, and 5% for overweight women??? Remember this the next time some self-righteous troll stops by to declare that getting accidentally pregnant is mere irresponsibility.
Silleigh | 12.31.04 - 12:09 pm | #

Would that every Democratic politician were as honest as Atrios. "You don't really care about abortions, so just shut up."
Christopher | 12.31.04 - 12:10 pm | #

LimeRickey, you should send that to the US DoJ.
Vicki | 12.31.04 - 12:10 pm | #

Listen and Learn. From the WP:

Please just post a link. Stop spamming.
Thersites | Homepage | 12.31.04 - 12:11 pm | #

self-righteous troll stops by to declare that getting accidentally pregnant is mere irresponsibility

Yes, and it's always the woman's irresponsibility, to boot. Makes me want to scream!
Hecate | 12.31.04 - 12:12 pm | #

'Bush and the Republicans condemn "class warfare" -- and then play the class card with a vengeance.'

Live Free or Die -- Haven't you heard? It's only class warfare when the lower classes fight back. Otherwise, it's just business as usual for the rich.
Toonscribe | 12.31.04 - 12:12 pm | #

OT: Lew Rockwell is great today:

http://www.lewrockwell.com/rockw...te- fascism.html
Mike | 12.31.04 - 12:13 pm | #

bebimbob,

Heh. Tell your brother bebe "hi" for us.
bigvic | 12.31.04 - 12:13 pm | #

Why would God use rape to start a new life? What kind of a God would do that?

A vengeful, angry fundamentalist Christian god who rewards rapists by forcing their victims to have their babies, of course.
Stinky | 12.31.04 - 12:13 pm | #

Silleigh, I wonder if that study measures "ideal use" or just normal use of the contraceptive pill. The latter would include forgetting to take the pill. I suspect that the percentages getting pregnant are from normal use, and don't imply that the pill, if taken regularly, would fail that often. But I may be wrong.
Echidne of the snakes | Homepage | 12.31.04 - 12:13 pm | #

Speaking of matters contraceptional (and Atrios, I adore you for covering these outrages), interesting article from Yahoo: Excess weight can compromise birth control pills.

Which is sort of odd, since excess weight also reduces fertility.
cmdicely | 12.31.04 - 12:14 pm | #

Religious wingnuts believe that sex without the possibility of pregnancy is "cheating." I.e. you get to have a lot of fun without much risk, and that is a slap in the face of God's plan for the world.

I know; it doesn't make much sense, but there you go. Trying to argue "Public Policy v. God's Plan for the World" is a lost cause.
Christopher | 12.31.04 - 12:14 pm | #

There are Jews in the world, There are buddhists,

There are Hindus and Mormons and then,

There are those that follow Mohammud,

But I've never been one of them...

Yes, I'm a Roman Catholic,

And have been since the day I was born,

And the one thing they say about Catholics,

They'll take you as soon as you're warm...

You don't have to be a six-footer,

You don't have to have a great brain.

You don't have to have any clothes on,
You're a Catholic the moment... Dad came...

Because...

Every sperm is sacred, Every sperm is great,

If a sperm is wasted,
God gets quite irate.

Let the heathen spill theirs,
On the dusty ground.

God shall make them pay for Each sperm that can't be found

Every sperm is wanted, Every sperm is good.

Every sperm is needed,
In your neighborhood.

Hindu, Taoist, Mormon,
Spill theirs just anywhere.

But God loves those who treat their Semen with more care.

Every sperm is sacred, Every sperm is great,

If a sperm is wasted, God gets quite irate.

Every sperm is wanted, Every sperm is good.

Every sperm is needed, In your neighborhood.

Every sperm is useful, Every sperm is fine.

God needs everybody's

Mine... and Mine.. and Mine..

David Ehrenstein | Homepage | 12.31.04 - 12:15 pm | #

Thanks, Atrios. With so many Democrats and so-called leftly bloggers willing to throw up a "big tent" over the anti-choice crowd just to pander for votes, I personally appreciate your willingness to consistantly stick up for women expose the hypocricy inherent in the "pro-life" position.

Pretty heroic if you ask me.
firedoglake | Homepage | 12.31.04 - 12:15 pm | #

In New Jersey we passed a law about a month ago requiring that all hospitals (even the Catholic hospitals) inform sexual assault victims of the availabilty of emergency contraceptives and administer it upon request. We were even able to get the Church on board with the bill after we put in provisions to require a pregnancy test and say that the hospital is not required to perform an abortion (which is fine, because the morning after pill would have no effect on a pregnant woman anwyay). The Church realized that this was not just the compassionate and humane choice, but also a way to keep down abortions.
Jim Griffin | Homepage | 12.31.04 - 12:17 pm | #

bebe,

Thanks for the humor. My head was this close to exploding in rage.
bigvic | 12.31.04 - 12:17 pm | #

Which is sort of odd, since excess weight also reduces fertility.

A greater percentage of body fat (or just regular weight) generally reduces the effect of medication.
Christopher | 12.31.04 - 12:17 pm | #

It seems very odd to argue that culpability attaches to spontaneous abortion and not death by natural causes of born people.

I fail to see how the miscarriages that I had were brought on by "natural causes" of my being born.

In my opinion, it's more random than that. Some make it, some don't.
Vicki | 12.31.04 - 12:18 pm | #

(of course, there's really no one who is a "fan" of abortion),

Actually, I am. I am a fan of abortion. Abortion allows women to be in control of their own lives and their own health. Abortion allows women to control the timing and size of their families, which is much better for the children that they do have. Abortion helps to keep an already-overpopulated planet less overpopulated. Abortion prevents unwanted children from being raised by people who didn't want them and are often ill-prepared and unwilling to make the sacrifices necessary to raise them. So I'm a fan of abotion and I believe that we make a tactical mistake when we apologize up front for abortion. Safe, legal, abortion is a good thing and has improved -- and saved -- the lives of millions of women.
Hecate | 12.31.04 - 12:20 pm | #

OT: This is really good over at Kos.

Good to print out a bunch and leave them on any Repug's desk you work with or know.
chris/tx | 12.31.04 - 12:20 pm | #

Thanks, Hecate. Well said. And courageous.
Vicki | 12.31.04 - 12:25 pm | #

Re: miscarriages

If you actually follow their so-called logic, wouldn't you be forced to hold an investigation of every miscarriage to make sure there were no complicating or negligent factors on the part of the woman which contributed to the miscarriage -- thereby requiring at least a manslaughter charge? Welcome to the world of the Morality Gestapo -- "Ve haf vays of keeping you prrregnant."
Toonscribe | 12.31.04 - 12:25 pm | #

David Ehrenstein, do you have a source for that song? It's a good one.
Echidne of the snakes | Homepage | 12.31.04 - 12:25 pm | #

As the token "anti-choice" Democrat, I admit that this issue is the premier way that anyone can come at my position. As a Democrat I have to stand for every person to have a choice in their reproductive lives. Because I define this duty narrowly - that consenting adults make their choice when choosing to have intercourse in a world repleate with contraceptives - my position excludes victims of sexual assault, who have no choice.

Yet if conception does occur, then the pro-life kicks in and I feel compelled to defend the rights of the newly-minted person, all the way from adequate health care on both sides of the womb, a free education, etc. But the sexual assault victim has all sort of rights that are trampled by this conception, and indeed my idealism for how well the government should ensure the weal of every child would place an even greater burden on this mother than the Pottery-Barn-rule applying right.

The morning after pill is an enhanced version of the daily pill, which is prohibiting egg release and/or conception, and as a last resort prohibits implantation. While some of my fellow Christians are shocked, shocked to find that there is a finite chance that the dividing cell might stick on the uterine wall - many more Evangelicals take the pill daily and trust that the Lord will let them know when to stop the pill, and have a child.

While RU-486 is a guaranteed abortion, the morning after pill is a craps shoot - it might work by stopping conception and it might work as an abortifacent. So if you care about this sort of thing, it is literally like craps - RU-486, roll anything you lose an implanted cell, daily pill roll snake eyes and maybe the prevention method this time was anti-implantation. Morning-after is rolling a 7 or above for losing the cell.

Therefore for me there is only one way out: pump up the anti-crime and stop assaults from happening in the first place. Make date rape on par with narcotics distibution.
Bryan | Homepage | 12.31.04 - 12:26 pm | #

Echidne, I'd assume the study was "normal use," since they'd have had to follow these women for probably at least a year to assess results. Even so, "normal use" is what affects most of us. Anybody who's ever tried to remember to take the damn thing every day, let alone at the same TIME every day, knows what a pain in the ass it is. I continue to be 99% sure that those who screech about women practicing "responsible contraception" have zero practical experience with it.

cmdicely, you're right that very overweight women can have impaired fertility. One thing they were talking about is that, like pretty much every other drug, dose is probably weight-dependent. They've steadily reduced the dosage of these pills over the years, and we may have gotten to a point where the lower-dose pills are simply not as effective for women with even averagely high BMIs (since most women these days are probably not at their "ideal" BMI) (and I hate using BMI, but that's what they used).

Didn't mean to hijack the thread away from EC because what Atrios posted is important, but I thought the study results were damned interesting.
Silleigh | 12.31.04 - 12:26 pm | #

Echidne--watch "Monty Python's Meaning of Life" Very very funny.
Christopher | 12.31.04 - 12:27 pm | #

Echidne- It's from Monty Pyhton's The Meaning Of Life
BlakNo1 | Homepage | 12.31.04 - 12:28 pm | #

I fail to see how the miscarriages that I had were brought on by "natural causes" of my being born.

I didn't say they did.

I was saying it was odd that the natural failure of fertilized eggs to survive would taken as a basis for accepting deliberately preventing them from doing so, when the 100% long-term natural failure rate of born humans is not taken as a basis for accepting deliberately preventing them from surviving. That's all.
cmdicely | 12.31.04 - 12:29 pm | #

They don't give a shit. There is no sense in which an egg that has been fertilized is a baby, goddamn it. All it is is a fucking egg and it will be expelled naturally through menstruation if it isn't fertilized and attached to the uterus. Not all fertilized eggs make it. Obviously. Are they going to start jailing women who have miscarriages? Because that's the logical extension of this morning after refusal bullshit.

God fucking damn it!!!!!!!
Tena | Homepage | 12.31.04 - 12:29 pm | #

These people are monsters.

That said, check out these nude photos of Ann Coulter!
Philalethes | Homepage | 12.31.04 - 12:29 pm | #

The rumor that it prevents implantation is a lie made up by the anti-contraception crowd.
J Bean, I did not read your post before publishing - I will consider this, and every thing else posted here. Tough, tough issue for some, clear cut for others.
Chessie | Homepage | 12.31.04 - 12:31 pm | #

Are they going to start jailing women who have miscarriages? Because that's the logical extension of this morning after refusal bullshit.

Except that both are bad policy ideas, its really not a logical extension of it at all; there is a rather enormous gulf between a choice and a spontaneous event.
cmdicely | 12.31.04 - 12:35 pm | #

Hecate

Actually, I agree with everything you said. I guess I used the term "fan" sloppily, in the sense that Fundie right-to-lifers use it to mean that liberals just love killing "children" and just want everybody to go out and fuck irresponsibly and consequences be damned 'cause you can "always kill the kid -- no big deal." I have known a few women who have chosen to have an abortion and it was never an "easy" choice for them.
Toonscribe | 12.31.04 - 12:35 pm | #

Chessie - how the fuck can the issue of an egg be tough? We are not talking about abortion, we are talking about preventing an unwanted pregnancy. We are talking about preventing aborting the unwanted pregnancy. There is no issue with the morning after pill, unless menstruation is going to become illegal.

The people who argue against this are fucking nuts. They have no knowledge of biology for starters. Barking mad the lot of of them.
Tena | Homepage | 12.31.04 - 12:36 pm | #

Are we going to have to turn in our used tampons so that the morality police can check and make sure there wasn't any fertilization that month?

Jesus on crackers - this is just fucking loony.
Tena | Homepage | 12.31.04 - 12:37 pm | #

Every time a woman has sex, is she going to have to immediately get a pelvic exam so that if an egg was fertilized it can be protected right from the moment it travels down the fallopian tube?

Think!
Tena | Homepage | 12.31.04 - 12:38 pm | #

There was a time in our history (less than a century ago) when it was illegal for doctors to give advise to patients on birth control. Do we really want to get back to those times? I don't.
DawnG | 12.31.04 - 12:38 pm | #

Don't want an abortion, don't have one. But by god, don't tell me that I don't have the choice.
Vicki | 12.31.04 - 12:39 pm | #

The people who argue against this are fucking nuts. They have no knowledge of biology for starters. Barking mad the lot of of them.
Tena

I agree. Plus, they don't have any true morality - because that requires compassion and insight - so they stick to this ugly, rigid imitation of it. That way, they get to feel like moral beings while actually being moral imbeciles.
Philalethes | Homepage | 12.31.04 - 12:40 pm | #

There is no issue with the morning after pill, unless menstruation is going to become illegal.

That's kind of like saying "there is no issue with killing, unless tsunamis are going to become illegal". Whether or not you agree it is a choice people ought to be allowed to make, you should recognize that there is a substantial difference between the products of a choice and the products of an event not resulting from a deliberate choice.

Unless we are going to endorse any deliberate choice as legal that results in an end result similar to one that could have been produced by some other non-deliberate event.
cmdicely | 12.31.04 - 12:40 pm | #

DawnG - There was a time in our history (less than a century ago) when it was illegal for doctors to give advise to patients on birth control. Do we really want to get back to those times? I don't.

In fact, DawnG, very damned few people want to go back there.
Tena | Homepage | 12.31.04 - 12:40 pm | #

Of course they don't care...
Steve Morgan | 12.31.04 - 12:41 pm | #

Tena, this is exactly what happened in Romania. This paper is in Czech, but the extract is enough to give you a feel for what was going on:

Catastrophic results of the restrictive population policy in Romania.
Deana Holmes | 12.31.04 - 12:43 pm | #

People who have IVF have 6 to 12 fertilized eggs implanted in their uteruses knowing that only one will result in a baby. And there's only a 30 percent chance one baby get produced. Why is the pro-life movement not calling for a ban on IVF? Has anyone ever asked them this question?
M | 12.31.04 - 12:43 pm | #

While RU-486 is a guaranteed abortion, the morning after pill is a craps shoot - it might work by stopping conception and it might work as an abortifacent. So if you care about this sort of thing, it is literally like craps - RU-486, roll anything you lose an implanted cell, daily pill roll snake eyes and maybe the prevention method this time was anti-implantation.

Overlooking your apparent confusion between "daily pill" and EC -- So if there's a contraceptive failure, do women have some sort of duty to ensure that their endometriums are in prime condition to allow implantation? Most people in medicine define "conception" as "implantation." A woman will not have a single symptom of pregnancy until implantation. Her hCG levels will not rise until then. Her system is simply not plugged into that of a free-floating fertilized egg until the egg implants.

And here I go ranting again, but "consenting adults make their choice when choosing to have intercourse in a world repleate with contraceptives" is frankly a know-nothing, judgmental view widely held by people with little practical experience with contraception. And it is ridiculous to suggest that every time you consent to have sex, you have to be prepared to carry a pregnancy to term. Sex DOES have other functions, such as keeping a relationship healthy among many others, and you'd think THAT would be valued by the so-called pro-family types.
Silleigh | 12.31.04 - 12:45 pm | #

Bryan - this isn't your fucking problem. You don't have a fucking clue. You don't have the equipment to have a fucking clue.

I don't give a shit about your conscience. It isn't your conscience that is the issue. It is not your goddamned penis that is being discussed. It is not your fucking body that is being talked about. It is mine.

Don't talk patience to me. Fuck that. We've been through 30 years of this unmitigated shit. I'm tired of it. This is my body, my uterus, my tubes, my ovaries, my cervix that is under discussion. It is my freedom to do with my body what I will that is being tossed around - not yours.

Mind your own testicles. I'll mind my own ovaries, thank you very much.
Tena | Homepage | 12.31.04 - 12:45 pm | #

OT,

Congress just shamed the still vacationing Shrub into upping the Tsunami aid to 350 million.

Finally, Powell is going the meet with the UN to coordinate the aid. % fucking days too late, asswipes.
bigvic | 12.31.04 - 12:48 pm | #

Why is the pro-life movement not calling for a ban on IVF?

Virtually every pro-life organization I know of has always opposed IVF as practiced, though this is the secondary reason, the primary reason is the many embryos that are created that aren't even attempted to be implanted.

Has anyone ever asked them this question?

People ask this question all the time in left-leaning fora, I doubt anyone whose paid enough attention to any pro-life group to actually find them and ask them is ill-informed enough to think that the pro-life movement doesn't generally oppose IVF.
cmdicely | 12.31.04 - 12:48 pm | #

whoops, 5 days.
bigvic | 12.31.04 - 12:49 pm | #

Unless we are going to endorse any deliberate choice as legal that results in an end result similar to one that could have been produced by some other non-deliberate event.

That's hair-splitting bullshit.

What is at issue isn't your straw man argument, cm. The central element is choice. If it is the stated position of the creatures ruling this empire to remove a woman's right to choose in any form -- and it is so -- then protecting that choice becomes key.

It isn't a matter of parsing an argument. It's a matter of resistance.
Tom S | 12.31.04 - 12:50 pm | #

Most people in medicine define "conception" as "implantation."

The AMA changed the definition -- it previously was equivalent to "fertilization" -- specifically for the purpose of redefining "abortifacient" birth control techniques as "contraceptive" in the late 1960s, IIRC.
cmdicely | 12.31.04 - 12:50 pm | #

Given the time frame I agree that emergency contraception should be mentioned in any such guidelines. But what the fuck is the Department of Justice doing issuing medical guidelines anyway? Lawyers are not doctors.

"The protocol is not intended to supersede the many state, local, and tribal protocols that are currently in practice."

Seems like the question they are trying to address is what do we do when people don't know what to do. Isn't it is better to have a minimal standard rather then none at all? Better to get it into place as easy as possible then work to "modernize" or "update" or "save" the standard. Works for the Repubs. After all, places that already have a policy can ignore the guidelines altogether.
John Gillnitz | Homepage | 12.31.04 - 12:54 pm | #

Go Tena!!!
BlakNo1 | Homepage | 12.31.04 - 12:55 pm | #

What is at issue isn't your straw man argument, cm.

There was no straw man, there.

The central element is choice.

I agree that that is the central element; and if the choice is to be defended, it can only be defended by acknowledging that it is a choice and defending the either the moral right to make the choice, or the practical good to society of allowing the choice, not by claiming it is justified because random chance or natural events could happen to produce similar results.
cmdicely | 12.31.04 - 12:56 pm | #

Why is the pro-life movement not calling for a ban on IVF? Has anyone ever asked them this question?

I've pondered this myself. I've watched my sister, who is now 42, go through IVF several times ~ and tens of thousands of dollars later ~ no baby.

It's very painful when a couple who can't have children encounter IVF failure. Cruel, really, dangling hope on a 30% option.

And the fact that IVF is an artificial and forced means to an end (in that the pregnancy did not occur naturally, without assistance) ~ I'm surprised RtL isn't all over that. In my parish in the Catholic Church, we were taught that the rhythm method, coitis interruptus, and then later the ovulation/mucus method, were the only permissable "forms" of birth control. No pills, no condoms, no IUDs. In other words, anything unnatural is a sin. That's what we were taught.
Vicki | 12.31.04 - 12:56 pm | #

cmdicely:

being "generally opposed to IVF" is not the same thing as calling for a legal ban on the practice as they do for abortion. Where's the constitutional amendment? Where are the people picketing at fertility clinics?
M | 12.31.04 - 12:57 pm | #

Vicki wrote: In my parish in the Catholic Church, we were taught that the rhythm method, coitis interruptus, and then later the ovulation/mucus method, were the only permissable "forms" of birth control. No pills, no condoms, no IUDs. In other words, anything unnatural is a sin. That's what we were taught.

And this is NATURAL??????? Only celibate men could come up with stuff like this and call it natural.
Deana Holmes | 12.31.04 - 12:58 pm | #

Tena - I took biology in a high school in Mississippi. Please have patience. I just meant to explain that my life experiences and beliefs have me painted into a corner, sitting on a third rail.
Bryan

Fortunately, there's an easy escape-hatch: you can realize that your "life experiences" have not taught you anything about being pregnant, and that this issue is none of your fucking business.

If you don't like abortions, don't get women pregnant.
Philalethes | Homepage | 12.31.04 - 1:00 pm | #

Because I define this duty narrowly - that consenting adults make their choice when choosing to have intercourse in a world repleate with contraceptives - my position excludes victims of sexual assault, who have no choice.

While I applaud your courage in going up against Tena and Hecate, it doesn't really make a whole lot of sense to inflict other people's unwanted children on society merely for the sake of some kind of artificial and temporary notion of "responsibility." Not only does outlawing of abortion not result in people taking responsibility for their actions, it keeps them from being able to do so.

What's more responsible: sparing society from your terrible mistake or birthing a child nobody wants to take care of?
Christopher | 12.31.04 - 1:01 pm | #

Seems like the question they are trying to address is what do we do when people don't know what to do. Isn't it is better to have a minimal standard rather then none at all?

Often, none at all; and a bad set of federal standards often exerts pressure (whatever the stated intent is) on local and state standards to conform, and becomes a model for agencies that have no existing standards and instead rely on ad hoc decisions or outside bodies (say, hospitals) for standards.
cmdicely | 12.31.04 - 1:01 pm | #

Why is the pro-life movement not calling for a ban on IVF?

Virtually every pro-life organization I know of has always opposed IVF as practiced, though this is the secondary reason, the primary reason is the many embryos that are created that aren't even attempted to be implanted.

Has anyone ever asked them this question?

People ask this question all the time in left-leaning fora, I doubt anyone whose paid enough attention to any pro-life group to actually find them and ask them is ill-informed enough to think that the pro-life movement doesn't generally oppose IVF.
cmdicely | Email | Homepage | 12.31.04 - 12:48 pm | #

Actually, I think pro-life groups want the public to be ill-informed about this, just as they want the public to believe that stem cells for embryonic stem cell research come from abortions. These organizations depend on an ill-informed public to get support for their extremist views. Politicians never say they oppose IVF and yet they identify themselves pro-life and anti-stem cell research. The SCLM allows this level of intellectual dishonesty without a peep.
mcinma | 12.31.04 - 1:03 pm | #

No more abortions for you libRuls! of course, we really don't much care what happens to babies after we've spared them.
Red-state Repug | 12.31.04 - 1:03 pm | #

Deanna beat me to it - what the fuck do a bunch of goddamned celibate Catholic priests, bishops, cardinals, etc., know about what's natural for a woman?

God fucking damn it - I want men to quit trying to dictate to me what is and what isn't natural about my body. I don't dictate one goddamned thing to men about their penises and testicles. Where do they think they get the right to dictate to me about my insides?
Tena | Homepage | 12.31.04 - 1:04 pm | #

I'm convinced that religious fundamentalists, especially Christian fundamentalists, just don't think that rape is that bad. Think about it: there is no commandment against rape. And if God thought rape was bad, He would have made it impossible to conceive after a rape.

And in court, these paternalistic types can always find a way to spin the circumstances such that the rape victim is blamed (i.e. it's not rape).

The "pro-life" "movement" wants nothing less than government control over the wombs of every woman of child-bearing age. If they deny this, they are simply lying.
Archibald | 12.31.04 - 1:06 pm | #

being "generally opposed to IVF" is not the same thing as calling for a legal ban on the practice as they do for abortion.

They do, in fact, call for legal prohibitions on some of the current practices; there is some division over the idea of IVF itself, though.

Where's the constitutional amendment?

The push by the pro-life community to grant full protection of the law from fertilization already includes that.

Where are the people picketing at fertility clinics?

Usually, they are outside of fertility clinics -- particularly protesting the destruction of surplus embryos.
cmdicely | 12.31.04 - 1:07 pm | #

While I applaud your courage in going up against Tena and Hecate

Oh please. Exclaim to the heavens at the burden of your featherweight cross a bit louder, bwana, the cherubs are having trouble hearing you whine.
Thersites | Homepage | 12.31.04 - 1:08 pm | #

Stop calling the anti-choice brigade 'pro-life' just because that's what they call themselves. We must not continue helping them with that.

They are:
Anti-Choice.
We are:
Pro-Choice.
4WD | 12.31.04 - 1:08 pm | #

I'm surprized that no one has questioned the "right" of the Justice Department to make medical policy or establish treatment guidelines. Standards for evidence collection and prosecution thresholds yes, but medical policy and treatment guidelines? I wonder if the Justice Department issues other medical guidelines beyond this one and the accepted treatment for pain.

LM Wanderer

LM Wanderer
LM Wanderer | 12.31.04 - 1:09 pm | #

I don't dictate one goddamned thing to men about their penises and testicles.

Except, of course, what they can do with them when it injures someone else.

One of the fundamental problems with the abortion issue is that there is disagreement about whether there is a second party involved. Another problem is that both sides like to pretend that that disagreement doesn't exist.
cmdicely | 12.31.04 - 1:10 pm | #

You know, these pro-lifers REALLY need to read about Romania under Ceaucescu. That abstract I referenced earlier documented the slide in birthrates when the power of the state was brought to bear on women's fertility. Despite the fact that there were great penalties for aborting, there's no doubt that women were resorting to it.

We're beginning to see the same thing here in the ole US of A. Less access to contraception leads to a higher abortion rate. Of course, the pro-lifers are bound to deny that this is happening.

You don't want abortion? Don't sit there and tell us women we're idiots who have to have our bodies monitored by fruitcake legislators. Give us access to accurate birth control information, not this crapola about abstinence. In the whole history of the world, abstinence has never worked as a policy.
Deana Holmes | 12.31.04 - 1:10 pm | #

I agree that that is the central element; and if the choice is to be defended, it can only be defended by acknowledging that it is a choice and defending the either the moral right to make the choice, or the practical good to society of allowing the choice, not by claiming it is justified because random chance or natural events could happen to produce similar results.

cm, you miss the point.

It isn't a matter of morals. It isn't a matter of 'practical good'. It has nothing to do with random or periodic events.

Leave issues of the basis for choice with the individual. But maintain the individual's ability to choose.

If, because of a set of narrow christian or other political views, you deny an individual an awareness of the scope of their choice -- their options -- then you limit that individual's rights.

Your criteria have nothing to do with the basis for being able to make a choice at all -- and that is, in my view, what's ultimately at stake. Any attempt to encroach on that ability in the current climate should be resisted. Period.
Tom S | 12.31.04 - 1:12 pm | #

They don't care because Baby Jesus wants women to get raped.

Or something...
Roddy McCorley | Homepage | 12.31.04 - 1:12 pm | #

The AMA changed the definition -- it previously was equivalent to "fertilization" -- specifically for the purpose of redefining "abortifacient" birth control techniques as "contraceptive" in the late 1960s, IIRC.

This anti-abortion guy is up in arms about the definition of conception having been "quietly changed" in 2001 to equal "implantation." (He compares MEDICAL dictionary definitions to regular dictionaries, which have become notoriously descriptivist in recent years.) Try as I might, I can't seem to google up the AMA's actual current definition of conception.

I guess people who equate conception with sperm-meets-egg have a problem with medicine distinguishing between contraceptive methods that (a) prevent fertilization and (b) prevent implantation. Even those of us who do not accept the notion that fertilization = conception should be kept in the dark about what's really happening up there, apparently, because only right-thinkers should be able to decide for everyone what's a pregnancy and what's not.

I doubt anyone whose paid enough attention to any pro-life group to actually find them and ask them is ill-informed enough to think that the pro-life movement doesn't generally oppose IVF.

Notably, in his whole rant, in which he complains that the "distinct line between conception and implantation" being "already crossed by hormonal contraception, the morning after pill, Norplant, Depo-Provera, IUD's, cloning, stem cell research, and many other emerging technologies," any mention of IVF is absent. If there's a lot of anti-choice objection to IVF, I guess it's still not important enough to mention except by, maybe, lumping it in with "many other emerging technologies."
Silleigh | 12.31.04 - 1:13 pm | #

". . .particularly protesting the destruction of surplus embryos."

I'm not talking about surplus embryos. Every person who attemps IVF knowingly and premeditatively engages in the destruction of embryos. They always implant multiple embryos with each IVF treatment knowing most of them will not become babies. Using the pro-live argument against abortion, this is murder, is it not?
M | 12.31.04 - 1:14 pm | #

Just another shot in the maladministration's war on science. Remember, this maladministration also withheld information about hazardous air quality at Ground Zero. The maladministration has insisted on contesting the scientific data on global warming. It has administered political litmus tests to scientists being appointed to gov't. positions. Rove and the rest know most Americans don't closely follow scientific issues, so they've taken the opportunity to politicize science more than any administration in history.
Fed up | 12.31.04 - 1:15 pm | #

While I applaud your courage in going up against Tena and Hecate

Oh please. Exclaim to the heavens at the burden of your featherweight cross a bit louder, bwana, the cherubs are having trouble hearing you whine.

Applauding the courage, not the sentiment. Not a Christian, I (at least not a religious one).
Christopher | 12.31.04 - 1:15 pm | #

cmdikcely - Unless we are going to endorse any deliberate choice as legal that results in an end result similar to one that could have been produced by some other non-deliberate event.

No, this is where you are going wrong, babe. There is no way to tell whether menstruation is brought on by RU436 or by the body itself. Ok? Plenty of fertilized eggs are lost through menstruation. They don't attach to the uterus, for whatever reason. Happens to millions of women every freaking 28 days.
Tena | Homepage | 12.31.04 - 1:16 pm | #

Don't talk patience to me. Fuck that. We've been through 30 years of this unmitigated shit. I'm tired of it. This is my body, my uterus, my tubes, my ovaries, my cervix that is under discussion. It is my freedom to do with my body what I will that is being tossed around - not yours.

What Tena said.
Hecate | 12.31.04 - 1:17 pm | #

O/T -- Why isn't the media telling us about all the beaches where bodies AREN'T washing ashore by the hundreds?

Where's the balance?
Fox News viewer | 12.31.04 - 1:18 pm | #

While I applaud your courage in going up against Tena and Hecate
In physics there is an old story about how a brilliant theorist once critiqued another's work as "not even wrong" - so far afield from the correct answer as to merit no other response. I figured Hectate would dismiss me as such, and I accept that. I am upset that I envoked such a response from Tena and that I deserved it. I'm throwing around terms and missing. While she may also think I am "not even wrong" she is right that I don't have the equipment to take the discussion personally. I forgot that. I did not mean to "going up against" anyone personally, but I did by forgetting the first rule on this issue: it's personal to half the population.

it doesn't really make a whole lot of sense to inflict other people's unwanted children on society merely for the sake of some kind of artificial and temporary notion of "responsibility."
No, I'm still a Democrat. Every child well-educated by teachers in unions, well-fed and healthy, with one or two parents working at living wages. Raise my taxes to do it, too.

With this, I must be off.
Bryan | Homepage | 12.31.04 - 1:19 pm | #

Hecate - sorry for the misspelling above. But I was correct, "not even wrong."
Bryan | Homepage | 12.31.04 - 1:20 pm | #

32 years ago, I was a rape victim. It was an especially violent attack that left me a physical wreck for months and a walking emotional disaster for years.

There were, in those days, few procedures of any kind to deal with victims. What I remember of the exam, conducted by an emergency room doctor called to the private home where I'd been taken at my rescue, was an absolute horror. The ER doctor told me not to worry that rapes rarely resulted in pregnancy. He told me if I was really worried about it that I should schedule a pregnancy test with my own doctor "in three or four months". I also remember him saying something about adoption services.

I spontaneously miscarried eleven weeks later. I still can not really think about what have happened without that horrible stroke of good luck. I do know for certain that I would have done whatever I had to do, legal or not, safe or not, to end that pregnancy. I would have ended my own life, if required, to not carry a child of that nightmare.

That experience is why I would never answer the question "would you have an abortion?" during any of the many abortion rights debates I became involved in during my most politically active years. It was too intensely personal to share in a public forum and the very nature of my reluctance made the question itself invasive and irrelevant. Invasive and irrelevant questions are precisely why the abortion decision belongs only with the woman.

My personal experience is also why I do not believe 99% of the women who tell me that they, personally, would never abort a pregnancy. I absolutely hate abortion arguments that include absolute personal assertions about the unknowns of living and the unknowns of the spirit.

But, really, abortion is not the issue in this case. These drugs prevent conception. They prevent abortions. That this issue is being used by the anti-abortion lobby is unforgivable.

When RU486 and other "day after" drugs became available, I knew that above all else it was of incredible value to rape victims. I can't express the grief and pain that pill would have spared me all those years ago. Out of activist circles now, I just assumed that these drugs would be automatically offered to rape victims. Given the stupid controversy about the drugs fueled by the right to lifers I should have known better.

That emergency contraception is now available and is not SOP for rape victims is a travesty and a tragedy.

This is the most I've ever said about my own experience publicly.

But, if it will help, I will stand anywhere, anytime and testify to why emergency contraception absolutely must be part of the compassionate care of rape victims.
Kay | 12.31.04 - 1:20 pm | #

I don't want to offend anyone, but I'd like to point out that one of the stories we hear this time of year is how Mary, the mother of Jesus, was made pregnant by the Holy Spirit, i.e., God. She wasn't really given a choice either (despite what theologians say, it was not an equal power situation, she could hardly say no to God). After all, none dare call it divine rape.

Because Mary said yes, the rest of us women are supposed to say yes. It's really pretty simple (and simply appalling) when you get right down to it. But the same people who divinize one pregnancy use pregnancy and childbirth as a punishment for the rest of us women who have the temerity to take control of our sexuality.
Deana Holmes | 12.31.04 - 1:21 pm | #

M...precisely, and precisely why I think Miserable Failure's position on embryonic stem cell research is farcical and due more to giving his base a sop than out of any concern for destroying embryos. IMHO, if Dumbya is opposed to embryonic stem cell research, he should also be opposed to IVF, which he is not.
Fed up | 12.31.04 - 1:21 pm | #

It isn't a matter of morals.
cmdicely | 12.31.04 - 1:22 pm | #

[Hecate, I think:]Are they going to start jailing women who have miscarriages? Because that's the logical extension of this morning after refusal bullshit.

[cmdicely:]Except that both are bad policy ideas, its really not a logical extension of it at all; there is a rather enormous gulf between a choice and a spontaneous event.

cmdicely, I disagree. My fear is that it's so easy to blur or move the line between a "choice" and a "spontaneous event." I would describe most if not all miscarriages as "spontaneous events," but what happens when someone with an agenda decides to push the line?

Say that a woman who just had a miscarriage also happened to have glass of wine that week. Or say that she went skiing and took a fall. Either of those things, and hundreds of others that are far less obvious, increase the risk of miscarriage, however slightly. But it's too easy to paint the decision to go skiing, or to have the glass of wine, or whatever, as "choices" that led to the miscarriage. If we say we can penalize the "choice" to have an abortion, what's to say that those other "choices" won't be close behind? This may all sound quite paranoid, but given what I think is the real agenda of the hardcore anti-choice crowd, I wouldn't want to stake too much on their forbearance.
ThreeMartiniBreakfast | 12.31.04 - 1:22 pm | #

Wow. I'm not sure what happened to that response.
cmdicely | 12.31.04 - 1:23 pm | #

Bryan - Sorry I went nuclear on you, Bryan. You made a very reasonable response and I appreciate it.

It is personal. I'm dead tired of having my insides, my most intimate physical functions tossed around for people to play power trips with.

Just fucking sick of it and ready to go for the throat of anyone who thinks he can tell me what to do based on his or her personal feelings about what is right and wrong.
Tena | Homepage | 12.31.04 - 1:23 pm | #

If you don't like abortions, don't get women pregnant.
Philalethes

Yep. Exact-a-fucking-actly.

No one will change my mind on abortion on moral grounds, no matter how much they attempt to convince me that "life" begins at conception. It gets to the question of "when does life begin and what does it mean?" On a spiritual level, it's subjective.

Follow your own morals, but don't heap them on me, because I don't care to listen to the morality police when it comes to this issue. It's no one's business what I do with my body.

Have a few miscarriages. Give birth. Watch the the cherry tree as she loses half of her buds each Spring. It's the cycle of life. Things happen for a reason. Spontaneous, as well as planned. If you have too many drinks, there may be consequences. If you have too many abortions, there may be consequences. We reap what we sow, we pay the prices for our actions. Regardless, it's no one's business about how or why we come to our opinions regarding abortion, and I don't appreciate being told that I'm wrong about this topic simply because I don't share the same belief system as someone else.

More than life, to me, this topic is about a woman's right to privacy. And in that case, the government has no business being involved.
Vicki | 12.31.04 - 1:23 pm | #

Someone, and I apologize for forgetting who it was, posted this on a previous thread about abortion. The picture is distrubing, but worth viewing in order to remind ourselves what this is all about.

Criminalizing abortion won't stop abortion, anymore than prohibition stopped drinking. What it will do is force women to get their abortions in hotel rooms from untrained people. What criminalizing abortion will do is kill women. Alive, adult, human beings. We don't have to have a debate over whether or not they're alive yet, or human yet. They are, and criminalizing abortion will kill them. Oh, and their fetuses.

Now, ask yourself what those who want to criminalize abortion are really trying to achieve, since it clearly isn't "pro-life" or "pro-woman" or "pro-child."
Hecate | 12.31.04 - 1:24 pm | #

Kay-

Your courage is inspirational.
Snugglebunny | 12.31.04 - 1:25 pm | #

ThreeMartiniBreakfast - You are so right, and we've already seen this happen. Remember the poor developmentally disable woman in Salt Lake City who was jailed because she refused to have a C-section and lost her pregnancy?

This is the kind of shit we can expect from this attitude. It is fucking wrong! I AM NOT A BABY FACTORY FOR THE FUCKING STATE.
Tena | Homepage | 12.31.04 - 1:26 pm | #

I agree with the comment that the anti-abortionists aren't interested in preventing abortions, just in making women suffer. This is the angle that the dems need to take. Making abortions, proper reproductive care, reproductive education and birth control legal and availble reduces the suffering of women. Republicans for suffering of women, dems against suffering of women. Having these measures in place also reduces the numbers of abortions.

To their credit, one or two consistently anti-abortion lefties around here have made the argument that this should be handled NOT by further restricting abortion rights, but by Dems demanding that programs be put in place that will reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies. Those people sound sincerely "pro-life" to me and not into the punishing-women thing, and I have to salute them. I actually think this is a great tactic to show up the Repugs for what they are.

While I "celebrate" (not the right word) that abortion IS presently somewhat available, I'd still like to see the number reduced, not because I think abortion is "baby-killing" but because abortion is not exactly a fun experience for the woman involved. We've had PLENTY of time to come up with ways to impair fertility effectively, and ALL we have is a hodgepodge of methods that are truly a crapshoot for individual women at different times in their lives. Few people give a damn about preventing unwanted pregnancy, or we'd have had more progress by now.
Silleigh | 12.31.04 - 1:26 pm | #

Say that a woman who just had a miscarriage also happened to have glass of wine that week. Or say that she went skiing and took a fall. Either of those things, and hundreds of others that are far less obvious, increase the risk of miscarriage, however slightly.

Slightly enough as to be comparable to the risk posed to others who aren't in your womb by all kinds of legal actions, in most cases; better by far to defend the right to choose on its own merits than on very weak slippery slope arguments and analogies to involuntary events.
cmdicely | 12.31.04 - 1:26 pm | #

Just fucking sick of it and ready to go for the throat of anyone who thinks he can tell me what to do based on his or her personal feelings about what is right and wrong.

All legislation is, ultimately, exactly that.
cmdicely | 12.31.04 - 1:27 pm | #

I suppose a logical extension of the maladministration's position would be to investigate every miscarriage to ascertain whether it was spontaneous or artificially induced. I convinced the people in this maladministration and their wingnut supporters really don't give a rat's ass about anyone but themselves and those in their socioeconomic stratum. The rest of humanity exists merely for their convenience. If they are Christians, and most of them claim to be, they are the most callous, soulless bunch of Christians I've ever seen, far more pharasaical than Christ-like.
Fed up | 12.31.04 - 1:27 pm | #

After scanning this thread, er, think I'll wait for the next one.

Atrios needs to change the frame on this thread from grey to hot red.
chris/tx | 12.31.04 - 1:29 pm | #

every sperm really is sacred, eh?
heather

NO, but they're scared shitless. that's why they scurry womb-ward so fast...
WoodyGuthrie'sGuitar (aka kono | 12.31.04 - 1:30 pm | #

Kay, thanks for sharing. You're a strong woman, and wise. Thanks for being you.
Vicki | 12.31.04 - 1:30 pm | #

I figured Hectate would dismiss me as s

You know, I believe I was at lunch and didn't respond to this person at all. But, hey, whatever makes you feel big and brave.
Hecate | 12.31.04 - 1:30 pm | #

"More than life, to me, this topic is about a woman's right to privacy. And in that case, the government has no business being involved."

Quite right. And since the government has no business being involved, then abortion info should be left out of the government health care guidelines.

As Atrios noted way above, the pills are legal and can be obtained at the pharmacy. So, if you're raped and you don't want to take the chance of having been impregnated, go and get the pills.

Nothing to do with the government.
Robert | Homepage | 12.31.04 - 1:30 pm | #

maladministration...FedUp

I suggest the phrases 'junta' and 'regime' when endeavoring to render a personal slant on expression of the horror that is Bushism...
WoodyGuthrie'sGuitar (aka kono | 12.31.04 - 1:32 pm | #

Hecate: thanks for reposting that. We used that horrible photograph in marches back in the early 80s; I hadn't really wanted to think about it much since then.
Silleigh | 12.31.04 - 1:34 pm | #

Kay,

I think you expressed that better than anyone else could have done. Thanks.
Hecate | 12.31.04 - 1:34 pm | #

cmdicely - All legislation is, ultimately, exactly that

it is true, fundamentally, that all legislation is that, up to a point. There is a huge difference here, however. This is the kind of legislation that is invasive to the point of making my body and my life irrelevant. It is tantamount, as Hecate, I believe, has pointed out here before, to requiring family members with compatible organs to donate those organs to the relative that needs them, and who will potentially die without them.

In fact, when it comes to issues as physical and personal as this, there is very little legislation. Most laws anticipate an individual's ownership of his body. You cannot be compelled to go to a doctor when you are sick. However, the logical extension of the kind of legislation we are talking about is what we've already seen: Women locked up for refusing to do something on medical advice. Truly this entire viewpoint could potentially cause laws to be written that any woman caught smoking while pregnant will be jailed. This negates the rights of fully formed human beings with sentience to make decisions about their very humanness.
Tena | Homepage | 12.31.04 - 1:36 pm | #

And let's not forget these same people are trying to link abortion to an increased incidence of breast cancer, something not supported by any data. I don't like abortion, but I don't like political weasels distoring or outright lying about scientific data, either. Sound policy in any arena starts with facts. If your data is faulty, it's likely your conclusions will be faulty, too. The fundamental problem is that these right wing chuckleheads want to proceed as if the Enlightenment never happened and the scientific method never existed.
Fed up | 12.31.04 - 1:37 pm | #

Tena | Email | Homepage | 12.31.04 - 1:36 pm | #

-------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------

Beautiful post. Just beautiful.
Vicki | 12.31.04 - 1:38 pm | #

weak slippery slope? pregnant women are already being arrested for fetus-threatening behavior.
Atrios | Homepage | 12.31.04 - 1:39 pm | #

[cmdicely:]Slightly enough as to be comparable to the risk posed to others who aren't in your womb by all kinds of legal actions, in most cases

I agree with that as a rational statement, but don't assume that we're dealing with rational opponents. These people care a lot more about what we do or don't do to our wombs than what we do or don't do to actual living people. Tena referenced the Salt Lake City case above; I found that one sufficiently horrifying to make me believe we are either on or not all that far from what you call the "slippery slope."
ThreeMartiniBreakfast | 12.31.04 - 1:39 pm | #

What Philathes said earlier:
Guys: You don't approve of abortion? Great! Act on this belief: Make sure you don't get anyone pregnant...
If you are REALLY opposed, do all you can to prevent pregnancy: cut off your dicks, if necessary...
WoodyGuthrie'sGuitar (aka kono | 12.31.04 - 1:44 pm | #

Just fucking sick of it and ready to go for the throat of anyone who thinks he can tell me what to do based on his or her personal feelings about what is right and wrong.

****

All legislation is, ultimately, exactly that.
cmdicely

No, cm, it isn't. I'm actually surprised anyone would be, uh, ill-informed enough to say something like that.

The Civil Rights Act of 1963 wasn't, unless you're a rascist or white supremacist.

The Social Security Act of 1935 wasn't; the Medicare Act wasn't; unless you believe they were just entitlement schemes by left-wing Democrats to steal your money.

The Constitution wasn't. the Bill of Rights wasn't. The legislation which created NASA and everything that flowed from that wasn't. The same could be said for legislation which created and funded the National Institute of Health; the Centers for Disease Control; the National Endowment for the Arts and the Humanities.

Missed the point again.
Tom S | 12.31.04 - 1:45 pm | #

Let's talk about enforced fertility, shall we? Here's that abstract I was talking about earlier (the translation leaves a bit to be desired, but I'm sure people can figure it out):

1: Cesk Gynekol. 1991 Feb;56(1):57-9. Related Articles, Links

[Catastrophic results of the restrictive population policy in Romania]

[Article in Czech]

Presl J.

PIP: The dictator Ceaucescu came to power in Romania in 1965, by which time the birth rate had decreased from 25 children/1000 fertile women in 1955 to 15.6/1000. Under a 1966 law, induced abortion was allowed only for women 45, for those with 4 or more children, or in life-threatening situations. IUDs, condoms, and spermicides were regulated to the black market. Pregnancies were registered, and women up to age 5 were subjected to a compulsory monthly gynecological examination at their workplace. The doctors' pay depended on the fulfillment of the prescribed monthly birth plan. Women aged 20-30 were given quarterly pregnancy tests whose outcome was checked by a regional demographic committee. Illegal induced abortion was punished with up to 12 years of imprisonment, and self-induced abortion was punished by 6 months to 2 years of prison. In 1984, the goal was set to increase the birth rate to 20/1000 to attain a population of 30 million by the year 2000. Instead the 1967 rate of 27.4/1000 dropped to 14.3/1000 by 1983. Maternal mortality increased from 86/100,000 live births in 1966 to 140 in 1981 and 150 in 1984, mostly abortion-related. In 1988, 519 maternal deaths occurred for 380,000 births (505 had to do with abortion). In 1985, infant mortality was 25.6/1000 live births. The premature birth rate was 16% in Bucharest in 1974 vs. 5-8% in the rest of Europe. 13,000 children (1500 in Bucharest) living in shelters maintained by the state were available for adoption for hard currency in Belgium, France, Israel, and Italy; the number of adoptions increased. Down's syndrome and mental retardation were prevalence among them.

PMID: 2044167 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
Deana Holmes | 12.31.04 - 1:46 pm | #

Woody Guthrie's Guitar...The English language cannot sufficiently express my absolute contempt for these lying bastards. Bushco has consistently and persistently lied about everything from budget numbers to WMDs, far beyond the usual fudging of facts common in politics. Clinton lied about sex. Nixon lied about Watergate and Cambodia. Reagan lied about Iran-Contra. But all knew that lying about budget numbers and science was ultimately futile. This is the first administration in my memory that has instituted lying about anything and everything as a standard operating procedure.
Fed up | 12.31.04 - 1:47 pm | #

And since the government has no business being involved, then abortion info should be left out of the government health care guidelines.

As Atrios noted way above, the pills are legal and can be obtained at the pharmacy. So, if you're raped and you don't want to take the chance of having been impregnated, go and get the pills.

Bullshit on several levels. You make it sound as though it's as easy as truckin' out to the nearest drugstore and picking up EC along with a gallon of milk. It's not. Many pharmacies don't even carry it because it's not a big seller (it's not a high-volume product for a logical reason -- you don't want to have to use EC very often). I had to grab some Plan B several months back. #1, you need to obtain an Rx, which can eat up precious time. #2, my doc was the only one who could tell me where I could GET it because so few pharmacies have it on hand.

People are notoriously misinformed (purposely) about the existence and the function of EC. Many rape victims may be completely unaware of the option. I knew all about it and still encountered difficulties. At least I didn't end up at a pharmacy with some militant pharmacist who refuses to dispense EC on "moral" grounds.

There is a huge difference between government issuing healthcare guidelines, and government pushing a political agenda. What Atrios cites is an example of the latter.
Silleigh | 12.31.04 - 1:47 pm | #

What's the problem with all of this?

All the pussy dems have to do is put out a politcal ad or some other press-release saying that the Bush administration supports rape.

But of course the pussy dems will be just that and not do much of anything.

MYOB'
.
MYOB | 12.31.04 - 1:49 pm | #

The world clocks and calendars should all start going backwards. This can't be happening. At what point will Bushco give some thought to all the unwanted babies? How do you handle babies born into families that can't afford them? How do you handle women pregnant with no health insurance? How do you handle couples who find a baby on the way, and they have no jobs or ins.? What do we do with women, like Andrea Yates who are giving birth to one baby after another? I think it is a wonderful thing to be concerned with the unborn child, but I believe it is a thousand more times important to care for all of us who have already been "born".
Mad as Hell | 12.31.04 - 1:50 pm | #

And what will become of the children conceived through rape? The wingnuts have already demonstrated they couldn't care less once the child is born. Out of the womb, out of mind.
Fed up | 12.31.04 - 1:51 pm | #

Why does Donna Brazile find this so difficult to state?
Ad Absurdum | 12.31.04 - 1:52 pm | #

Deana, that is a complete nightmare. Jesus. I had no idea of the actual details.
Silleigh | 12.31.04 - 1:52 pm | #

of course, there's really no one who is a "fan" of abortion),

Actually, I am. I am a fan of abortion. Abortion allows women to be in control of their own lives and their own health. Abortion allows women to control the timing and size of their families, which is much better for the children that they do have. Abortion helps to keep an already-overpopulated planet less overpopulated. Abortion prevents unwanted children from being raised by people who didn't want them and are often ill-prepared and unwilling to make the sacrifices necessary to raise them. So I'm a fan of abotion and I believe that we make a tactical mistake when we apologize up front for abortion. Safe, legal, abortion is a good thing and has improved -- and saved -- the lives of millions of women.
Hecate
Absolutely! I can't agree with you more. I can't stand those men who say abortion is wrong, yet don't pay child support for the kids they helped create... and the rich bozos that don't want their kids(and x) from their first marriages to live the same rich lifestyle the bozos and their new wives enjoy. I hate the spite that exs shoot to each other, catching the children in the crossfire. To have the alternative of abortion is a good thing.
oldwhitelady | Homepage | 12.31.04 - 1:52 pm | #

Good post. It's not about health, or even about abortions. It's about limiting options so that women can't have sex for any reason other than to have kids.
thehim | Homepage | 12.31.04 - 1:54 pm | #

Kay- Thanks for sharing, that took courage.
BlakNo1 | Homepage | 12.31.04 - 1:54 pm | #

Re: all legislation being telling people what they can do based on the legislators idea of what is right and wrong.

The Civil Rights Act of 1963 wasn't, unless you're a rascist or white supremacist.

Well, the limitation you add rather clearly undermines your claiming that it isn't. A hyopethical anti-abortion law isn't, either, unless you are a person who wants to have an abortion, by that standard. But in either case, its not really true. The law still tells you what you can or can't do based on someone's idea of right and wrong; the fact that you happen to already not be inclined to do what is forbidden just means that law is unlikely to bother you, personally, much. But that's just your idea of right and wrong being aligned with the legislating authorities.

The Social Security Act of 1935 wasn't; the Medicare Act wasn't; unless you believe they were just entitlement schemes by left-wing Democrats to steal your money.

Sure, they are, and it has nothign to with whether you believe that or not; they restrict what people can and cannot do based on the idea that (among other things) providing for the elderly and disabled (even the rich elderly) -- at an expense to the young and working (even the poor among the workers) -- is "right", and neglecting to do so is "wrong".

The Constitution wasn't. the Bill of Rights wasn't.

They certainly were, even if the people to whom their limitations apply are, mostly, officials of the government.

The legislation which created NASA and everything that flowed from that wasn't.

It most certainly did direct people to do things and not do other things, and the basis of that surely was someone's conception that it was right to do the things prescribed, and wrong to do the things proscribed.

The same could be said for legislation which created and funded the National Institute of Health; the Centers for Disease Control; the National Endowment for the Arts and the Humanities.

It could be said, sure, but it would be wrong there, just as it was wrong in all of your other purported counterexamples.
cmdicely | 12.31.04 - 1:56 pm | #

This is the first administration in my memory that has instituted lying about anything and everything as a standard operating procedure.
Fed up

word, brother...i'm with ya...
WoodyGuthrie'sGuitar (aka kono | 12.31.04 - 1:56 pm | #

"I think it's very smart not to put that in the guidelines," said Dr. George Isajiw of Lansdowne, a board member of Physicians for Life, a Philadelphia antiabortion group. "By giving emergency contraception, he said, "you're giving a dangerous drug that's not doing any good, or else you're causing an abortion. As a moral principle, a woman has the right to defend herself against an aggressor. But she doesn't have the right to kill the baby."

Why does god love rapists enough to reward them with children in the first place? I would think that if the non-existent entity truly were involving herself in human affairs, and claims to 'love us' then it wouldn't reward rapists with the pregnancy of their innocent victims.

As far as I am concerned this is just one more piece of logical evidence against the existence of 'their god'.

MYOB'
.
MYOB | 12.31.04 - 1:58 pm | #

It could be said, sure, but it would be wrong there, just as it was wrong in all of your other purported counterexamples.
cmdicely

You can be a boring snobbish twit. Lighten up and look at others viewpoints.
Watchfull Eye | 12.31.04 - 1:59 pm | #

cm,

Here's an idea you might like to try for New Year's: When you're wrong, and people show you that you're wrong, quit arguing and say, "Thanks. You're right. I hadn't realized that."

Honestly, at least once in your life you should give it a try.
Hecate | 12.31.04 - 2:00 pm | #

Hecate - They want women to suffer as much as possible. Period.
Tena | Homepage | 12.31.04 - 2:00 pm | #

Again, what Hecate said at 2:00 PM. Thanks, Hecate.
Vicki | 12.31.04 - 2:03 pm | #

Haloscan, I will find you and you will pay!

Hecate - the rest of the comment read, approximately:

The reason for all of this is very very basic. In Judeo-Christian thought, women are morally inferior because we are the source of all that is sexual, dirty and sinful. It was Eve who caused Adam to fall.

Why do you suppose they will not let us be priests? It's because we are inferior, morally. This is the same attitude that gets women stoned to death in the middle east. It is the same exact philosophy that keeps women covered up from head to toe so that we can't tempt the poor, sacred men around us.
Tena | Homepage | 12.31.04 - 2:03 pm | #

Attention: all sexually active males who do not plan to have children must report for a mandatory vasectomy. If you fail to do so and impregnate a woman who then decides to abort, YOU will be charged with manslaughter. That is all.
joycamp | 12.31.04 - 2:05 pm | #

Perhaps the solution is simple, we should be a good Christian nation and look to the bible. According to Deuteronomy the rapist should be forced to marry his victim- this will provide emotional and monetary support for the victim and any unwanted child. Oh, of course if she failed to call out, he is off the hook.

Maybe Dumbya should provide this as a constitutional amendment to protect life and marriage (I think this was one of the amendments suggested at Whitehouse.org last year!)
mcinma | 12.31.04 - 2:06 pm | #

Kay - you are a brave woman and a credit to your gender.

Thank you for your story and the courage to tell it. I hate to harp on this, really, because in a certain sense it isn't fair. But in all honesty, men just don't understand this issue very well. There is so much anxiety, emotion and suffering of a kind men will never know mixed together in this issue that it just isn't a good issue for public consumption. That's one compelling reason to make this issue one between a woman and her doctor and her conscience. Let women decide for themselves what their consciences will allow them to do about his issue.

If a woman is morally opposed to stopping or ending a pregnancy, then I have no business trying to persuade her to stop it or end it. The opposite is equally true.

The government has no business being involved in these decisions. None at all.
Tena | Homepage | 12.31.04 - 2:13 pm | #

Ahhhh...yet another opportunity for an important reminder:

Cain slew Abel Seth knew not why
For if the children of Israel were to multiply
Why must any of the children die?
So he asked the Lord
And the Lord said:

"Man means nothing he means less to me
than the lowiliest cactus flower
or the humblest yucca tree
he chases round this desert
cause he thinks that's where i'll be
that's why i love mankind

I recoil in horror from the foulness of thee
from the squalor and the filth and the misery
How we laugh up here in heaven at the prayers you offer me
That's why i love mankind"

The Christians and the Jews were having a jamboree
The Buddhists and the Hindus joined on satellite TV
They picked their four greatest priests
And they began to speak
They said "Lord the plague is on the world
Lord no man is free
The temples that we built to you
Have tumbled into the sea
Lord, if you won't take care of us
Won't you please please let us be?"

And the Lord said
And the Lord said

"I burn down your cities--how blind you must be
I take from you your children and you say how blessed are we
You must all be crazy to put your faith in me
That's why i love mankind
You really need me
That's why i love mankind"

I just LOVE this song...
WoodyGuthrie'sGuitar (aka kono | 12.31.04 - 2:15 pm | #

-
Nothing to do with the government.
Robert | Email | Homepage | 12.31.04 - 1:30 pm | #

Except when the government prohibits or otherwise diminishes the ability to acquire such substances upon need.
Or permits pharmacists to decline to provide them at will.

In which cases, it has a great deal to do with the government.
kenga | 12.31.04 - 2:17 pm | #

"The reason for all of this is very very basic. In Judeo-Christian thought, women are morally inferior because we are the source of all that is sexual, dirty and sinful. It was Eve who caused Adam to fall."!

There was a science fiction story, I forget the author's name, involving time travel where a guy goes back to Eden at the time of Adam and Eve, and warns Eve not to take fruit from the tree of life. He then confronts the snake(devil) and tells him he is going to fail in his actions, and tells him how the future is going to turn out.
The guy gets back in his time machine and decides that on his way back to the future he will stop back in every few years(decades) to see how Adam and Eve are doing. At each time stop he sees that Adam and Eve are alive and happy in the garden of Eden, but something is wrong. At each stop the only thing he sees is Adam and Eve, nobody else. After about a thousand years he stops and asks Adam and Even why haven't they had children? He finds out from god that without original sin there was no need for sex, and the eden project was going fine the way it is, no need to mess it up with children. The man knows he's screwed things up, but when he finally returns to his own time line he finds that although the Adam and Eve are still alive in the garden of eden, the snake has since gone onto populate the rest of the world and it is they who are now living the image of the human race just as the man told the snake would happen back in the garden of eden.

Stupid story, but it plays nicely that everything that happens to us is because god(false-god) wants it to happen.

MYOB'
.
MYOB | 12.31.04 - 2:20 pm | #

Here's an idea you might like to try for New Year's: When you're wrong, and people show you that you're wrong, quit arguing and say, "Thanks. You're right. I hadn't realized that."

Where, exactly, did someone show I was wrong?
cmdicely | 12.31.04 - 2:22 pm | #

its MY life

you just havent lived untill youve had to have an abortion because your fucking father incested you and now youre finally old enough to get pregnant. that was my life. dont fuck with me and others like me. weve been fucked with enough.
i know my name alright | 12.31.04 - 2:24 pm | #

My heart breaks a little in each of these threads when people begin to tell their own stories. Apparently it is necessary that we bare our souls and our histories to make some people understand WHY this is so very personal, and why some of us react with absolute shit-kicking rage at continued and escalating attacks on our right to control our own fertility. Seems like a contradiction, but that's the only way some people will be educated (if they can be). Thanks to all of you who have been brave enough to relate your hard-earned truths, here and in other threads. I'd like to think you've moved a few people closer to understanding.
Silleigh | 12.31.04 - 2:34 pm | #

on the other hand i coulda had a great banjo player...
i know my name alright | 12.31.04 - 2:34 pm | #

Thanks to all of you who have been brave enough to relate your hard-earned truths, here and in other threads. I'd like to think you've moved a few people closer to understanding.
Silleigh

As always, you are very kind. And profound.
Vicki | 12.31.04 - 2:36 pm | #

This thread is probably dead but I'll add a postscript anyway.

Tena The government has no business being involved in these decisions. None at all.

I've always thought that this was the beginning, the middle and the end of the abortion rights discussion.

And, thank you, Tena, Hecate, Snugglebunny, Vicki, BlakNo1, and anyone I missed for your kind words.

I am, thankfully, way beyond actually needing any positive feedback for sharing this but it is still heartening to read.
Kay | 12.31.04 - 2:41 pm | #

Where, exactly, did someone show I was wrong?

Bwhwhahhhahah! Gasp! Whew!

Bhahahhahahhahhaahahah!
Hecate | 12.31.04 - 2:43 pm | #

Vicki -- Folks here just hand ya reasons to be kind, on silver platters. Jesus, I'd probably have been curled up in a fetal position ever since the night of Nov. 2 without you guys to keep me sane.
Silleigh | 12.31.04 - 2:55 pm | #

Vicki wrote:

I've pondered this myself. I've watched my sister, who is now 42, go through IVF several times ~ and tens of thousands of dollars later ~ no baby.
------------
I have two friends who have used IVF, and a sister who has adopted 3 children from China. I'd be thrilled to see people who have trouble conceiving spend the IVF money on overseas adoptions - by doing so they would help avoid an increase in the world population and save a child from growing up in China with its pollution, poverty and poor medical care.
Texn Embsd by Bush | 12.31.04 - 2:55 pm | #

Texn Embsd by Bush ~

I agree with you. 100%. The thing is, in my sister's case, for example, her husband is unwilling to adopt. He only wants "his" own.

None of my business...
Vicki | 12.31.04 - 3:10 pm | #

In Judeo-Christian thought, women are morally inferior because we are the source of all that is sexual, dirty and sinful.
Tena - 2:03 pm

In Little Brøther thought, women are mightily desirable because they are the source of all that is sexual, dirty and sinful.

Rowwwf!
Little Brøther | 12.31.04 - 3:27 pm | #

Because Mary said yes, the rest of us women are supposed to say yes. It's really pretty simple (and simply appalling) when you get right down to it. - Deana Holmes - 1:21 pm |

Hmmm, some men I know perceive the message to be that women are only "supposed to say yes" when God Himself expresses a desire (intention?) to fuck them. A lesser candidate is subject to terms and conditions, negotiation and the Jumping of Hoops.

Disclaimer: I'm not in any way addressing rape or the weighty topic here, of course.
Little Brøther | 12.31.04 - 3:34 pm | #

Little Brother - In Little Brøther thought, women are mightily desirable because they are the source of all that is sexual, dirty and sinful.

Rowwwf!

LOL! Well, I do my best, Little Bro...
Tena | Homepage | 12.31.04 - 3:45 pm | #

I would also like to point out that Dr. George Isajwe is also lying (hmm, I guess that must mean he's a Republican) when he says that Plan B is a "dangerous drug", because, well, it isn't.
J Bean | 12.31.04 - 4:36 pm | #

If you are REALLY opposed, do all you can to prevent pregnancy: cut off your dicks, if necessary...

Don't think that's quite necessary. Vasectomies are still an outpatient procedure under local anasthesia.
deja pseu | 12.31.04 - 5:20 pm | #

Don't think that's quite necessary. Vasectomies are still an outpatient procedure under local anasthesia.
deja pseu

Yeah, i know...i been to the vet, 20 years ago...I was simply engaging in a sort of rhetorical exaggeration and wishful thinking...I think these theo-fascist reproductive cops all need their dicks cut off and stuffed down their throats while the roast slowly over a pile of used tires...
WoodyGuthrie'sGuitar (aka kono | 12.31.04 - 5:38 pm | #

Kay,
Sharing such a deeply personal tragedy in order to help others is indeed altruistic. We can all learn so much from you. The circumstances of the situation, the horrible response from the "community", and your ever-developing response are instructive to anyone with a heart. Thank you. You have had more impact than you might realize.
Wishful | 12.31.04 - 5:39 pm | #

And I thought I'd be the only one with the unbearable urge to swing a baseball bat at that doctor's head. I feel much better knowing I'm not alone.

I think the DoJ is overdue for a blanket email bombing campaign, yes?
Gidget Commando | 12.31.04 - 5:51 pm | #

Every Sperm is Sacred

There are Jews in the world.
There are Buddhists.
There are Hindus and Mormons, and then there are those that follow Mohammed,
But, I've never been one of them.

I'm a Roman Catholic,
And have been since before I was born,
And the one thing they say about Catholics is
They'll take you as soon as you're warm.

You don't have to be a six-footer.
You don't have to have a great brain.
You don't have to have any clothes on.
You're a Catholic the moment Dad came,
Because...

Every sperm is sacred.
Every sperm is great.
If a sperm is wasted,
God gets quite irate.

Children: Every sperm is sacred,
Every sperm is great,
If a sperm is wasted,
God gets quite irate.

Little Girl: Let the heathens spill theirs,
On the dusty ground.
God shall make them pay for
Each sperm that can't be found.

Children: Every sperm is wanted.
Every sperm is good.
Every sperm is needed
In your neighbourhood.

Mother: Hindu, Taoist, Mormon,
Spill theirs just anywhere,
But God loves those who treat their
Semen with more care.

Men on toilets: Every sperm is sacred.
Every sperm is great.
Women: If a sperm is wasted,
Children: God gets quite irate.

Priest: Every sperm is sacred.
Bride and Groom: Every sperm is good.
Nannies: Every sperm is needed
Babies: In your neighbourhood!

Everyone: Every sperm is useful.
Every sperm is fine.
Undertakers: God needs everybody's.
Male mourner: Mine!
Female mourner: And mine!
Corpse: And mine!

Nuns: Let the Pagans spill theirs
O'er mountain, hill, and plain.
Statues: God shall strike them down for
Each sperm that's spilt in vain.

Everyone: Every sperm is sacred.
Every sperm is good.
Every sperm is needed
In your neighbourhood.

Every sperm is sacred.
Every sperm is great.
If a sperm is wasted,
God gets quite iraaaaate!
Terry C | 12.31.04 - 5:51 pm | #

In Judeo-Christian thought, women are morally inferior because we are the source of all that is sexual, dirty and sinful.
Tena -

Tena:

That's the problem with those morons - they DON'T think!

Excuse me, but if men are SO "superior" to us, HOW then can they SO easily be led astray....and especially by creatures who are allegedly "inferior"?

I've never bought into that BS that lacking male genitalia is synonymous with lacking a brain. Even 12 years of Catholic school couldn't make me accept that nonsense.

As far as I'm concerned, Eve got a bum rap. Besides, I've always liked Lilith better.!
Terry C | 12.31.04 - 6:02 pm | #

Remember on the 700 club when Pat said "People are dying from ru486"

Is there anything that son of a bitch DOESN'T lie about?
Terry C | 12.31.04 - 6:04 pm | #

I was just reading something the other day about the rebellion in the then-Belgian Congo in the early 60s.

Nuns were being raped by insurgents, so to prevent little half-black babies from resulting, the Vatican graciously allowed the Sisters there to take the Pill.

Isn't it amazing how fast they change their cold and hard stance on things when it benefits THEM?

(But William Donohue, of course, would call THAT story "Catholic bashing." Can't have facts interfere with our delusions, can we?)
Terry C | 12.31.04 - 6:08 pm | #

these people are sociopathic barbarians. we should rape them with metal implements tipped with some disease, and then withhold the cure on the basis that it was derived from satanic stem cells.
kei & yuri | Homepage | 12.31.04 - 6:31 pm | #

cmdicely says the "pro-life" movement opposes IVF. Wrong-o. Only Catholic leaders of the "pro-life" movement actually actively oppose IVF. Most Protestants don't address the issue at all, probably because a significant number of their flock actually use IVF. If cornered, a Protestant leader might say IVF was wrong, but generally they avoid being cornered.
NancyP | 12.31.04 - 6:47 pm | #

NancyP,

What? cm wrong? How can this be? cm knows all, tells all, corrects all. cm has never, by his own infallible account, been wrong. Surely it is you who must be mistaken.
Hecate | 12.31.04 - 7:29 pm | #

Terry C,

I'd forgotten that bit on the Congo although I read the reports at the time.

Wasn't this also approved in Bosnia?

In both cases the use of OC was "left up to the individual conscience."

I am cynical enough to think that it was done this way so the individual nun could be blamed for either the use of contraception or, if raped and impregnated, her lack of obedience.
clio | 12.31.04 - 7:43 pm | #

When the lawyers at DoJ show me their MD or DO degrees I'll read their "medical guidelines."

Not until.
caduceus | 12.31.04 - 7:47 pm | #

There are also many babies of color in the US that need adoption. Also, ru486 and EC are not the same Thanks.
Shannon | Homepage | 12.31.04 - 8:02 pm | #

I am cynical enough to think that it was done this way so the individual nun could be blamed for either the use of contraception or, if raped and impregnated, her lack of obedience.
clio

This is the classic scenario of the 'double bind' as disciplinary strategy. It's no accident that Mussolini's fascism so much resembled the medieval Church, as much of Fascismo was copied from that very source. There were no shortage of Princes of the Church who took instruction from Sgr. Machiavelli.
WoodyGuthrie'sGuitar (aka kono | 12.31.04 - 8:11 pm | #

All of you women who are of child-bearing age -- keep it up. Scream to the top of your lungs. I'm serious.

We women who are past menopause haven't let up on this subject even though we aren't personally and specifically threatened by inability to prevent unwanted pregnancy in any way possible. But I was afraid for the past few years that younger women weren't as passionate about the threat to all women that any infringement of their rights could be.

Heartening to see so many of you who won't take this crap. And I'd like to add that it is especially appreciated that there are a number of rational men in this forum who "get it" and are not threatened by strong, healthy, happy women. Of course, Atrios is fabulous for bringing it up often.

Don't let the bastards get you down. We have to keep up this fight. And for those men who "have a problem" with this, why don't you pick something you know about to champion?
Emily | 12.31.04 - 9:14 pm | #

"But in the climate in which we are currently operating, politically it's a hot potato," said Burns-Smith,

Is everyone in America cowed by the right? What happened to medical ethics? Or-what if it were your relative, what advice would you want her to receive?
ronin | 12.31.04 - 11:23 pm | #

The USDOJ left out the part AG-designate Gonzales likes the most, where the rape 'victim' is stressed to the point of spontaneous abortion, then left alone to 'recover' for a few hours, then put through the stress cycle again. Kinda like the rinse-spin-rinse cycle of your clothes washer.

This is the part he likes the most, and it's all perfectly 'legal'.
Jon R. Koppenhoefer | 01.01.05 - 12:59 am | #

A few educational [not medical advice] points, if I may:

1) Mifepristone, or RU-486 (Mifeprex)is *not* an abortion pill; it's an antiprogesterone.

An abx pill, like misoprostol (Cytotec), by definition, can only cause an abx (it's mechanism of action is such that it can only terminate a pregnancy).

Mifepristone can either prevent the release of an egg from the ovary, and thus prevent a pregnancy (a contraceptive), or it can cause the uterine lining, together with the implanted egg to shed, causing a termination (an abortifacient). [Different doses and regimens, of course.]

2) Emergency contraception (EC) is a group of birth control methods, with many methods and even more regimens: combination pill, progestin-only pill, mifepristone, intrauterine device (IUD), etc.

3) The progestin-only pill group includes the regular progestin-only bc pill taken in an EC dosage (Ovrette 40 pills), and dedicated brands (Plan B [two pills], Levonelle [one pill]). The regimen is a dose of 1.5 mg of levonorgestrel (the name of the progestin) taken as soon as possible after the act of unprotected intercourse, up to 120 hrs (5 days).

[If you want to know the EC equivalent for your current brand of combination bc pill, go here.]

4)"I think it's very smart not to put that in the guidelines," said Dr. George Isajiw of Lansdowne, a board member of Physicians for Life, a Philadelphia antiabortion group.

By giving emergency contraception, he said, "you're giving a dangerous drug that's not doing any good, or else you're causing an abortion.

EC pill regimens are not dangerous. There are no contraindications* to taking the EC dose. [In other words, even women who are unable to use the Pill on a regular basis can use EC.] The only side effects are nausea and vomiting. [There are ways to reduce these; ask your doctor.] EC is doing what it's supposed to do (prevent a pregnancy) quite well; risk reduction--75%, 89%, 99% [depends on regimen].

[As an aside: even the mifepristone regimen used for terminations is not dangerous, despite the recent *cough* politically motivated *cough* labeling changes.]

*The only contraindications are an allergy to any of the pill's components, and being pregnant. The reason pregnancy is a contraindication is because EC has no effect on an already established pregnancy.

5) Carrying a pregnancy to term significantly increases a woman's risk of mortality and morbidity. [The risk of death from a pregnancy is 1:10,000 vs. 1:
ema | Homepage | 01.01.05 - 2:54 am | #

Sorry about the length. Here's the rest:

5) Carrying a pregnancy to term significantly increases a woman's risk of mortality and morbidity. [The risk of death from a pregnancy is 1:10,000 vs. 1: 263,000 for a legal first trim abx**; the risk of a serious blood clot complication is x5.7 higher vs. a non-pregnant woman (it's x1-3 higher for a woman using the combination bc pill)]. Being anti-abortion means you are pro-death.

**Williams, 21 ed p 1518 (sorry, not online)
ema | Homepage | 01.01.05 - 2:55 am | #

Believe me, there's a good reason for us postmenopausal women to keep at this...some of us have daughters.

To Kay for sharing a very disturbing and painful story, thank you.

To Tena, Vicky, Terry, Hecate et al--bravissima!

Yes, I have a college age daughter and my concern is personal, but even if I did not have a daughter, I'd have to fight this. I remember being infuriated when Reagan implied that the unemployment statistics looked bad because women were working.

Had I only known what sort of malevolence was in store...
Sally | 01.01.05 - 3:10 am | #

And a joyous New Year to all.
Sally | 01.01.05 - 3:10 am | #

"I think it's very smart not to put that in the guidelines," said Dr. George Isajiw of Lansdowne, a board member of Physicians for Life, a Philadelphia antiabortion group.

By giving emergency contraception, he said, "you're giving a dangerous drug that's not doing any good, or else you're causing an abortion. As a moral principle, a woman has the right to defend herself against an aggressor. But she doesn't have the right to kill the baby.""

This doctor is a total weirdo.

Think Randall Terry with a medical license.

Why is it that most of the anti-choice folks look as if they were the result of brother-sister matings?
Terry C | 01.01.05 - 11:53 am | #

Sally:

My 23 year old daughter uses the pill to regulate her periods.

She used to go months without them and then have one come along that lasted weeks. The heavy bleeding made her weak and lethargic.

The pill was prescribed and now she has none of those problems.

I think those assholes in Washington had best stay out of women's business...and our bodies!
Terry C | 01.01.05 - 11:57 am | #

: "But in the climate in which we are currently operating, politically it's a hot potato," said Burns-Smith,

Is everyone in America cowed by the right? What happened to medical ethics? Or-what if it were your relative, what advice would you want her to receive?
ronin

I've never been one to be a good little girl and keep my mouth shut.

At 52, I am not about to start!
Terry C | 01.01.05 - 11:58 am | #

"I remember being infuriated when Reagan implied that the unemployment statistics looked bad because women were working. "

You can't win with these assholes - if you're on welfare, they want to boot you off.

If yoy work, they label you a terrible mother and you become the target of asinine remarks like those made by St. Ronald of the Monster Deficit.

Some of these guys are the same way: If a woman supports herself and is independent, she's a bitch, a castrator, not a real woman and all those other ridiculous labels. If she doesn't, she's a leech and only wants a man to support her, ad nauseam.

You can't please everyone, so you've got to please yourself. That's my motto!
Terry C | 01.01.05 - 12:02 pm | #

"Only Catholic leaders of the "pro-life" movement actually actively oppose IVF."

You'd think the RC Church would embrace that wholeheartedly.

I mean, getting pregnant and not having any fun while doing so?

That's made to order for those bunch of dress-wearing, child-molesting, women-hatin control freaks who like to suck all the joy out of life.
Terry C | 01.01.05 - 12:07 pm | #

"In my parish in the Catholic Church, we were taught that the rhythm method, coitis interruptus, and then later the ovulation/mucus method, were the only permissable "forms" of birth control. No pills, no condoms, no IUDs. In other words, anything unnatural is a sin. That's what we were taught."

And most people ignored it. It was laughable and it's laughable now/

I called "rhythm" Vatican roulette.

I love it: a bunch of celibate males telling consenting adults "if you're not going to make babies, you have to do without."

They try to tell you what sexual positions you can use, oral sex is bad, etc. -- please!

These people are such control freaks, it's ridiculous.
Terry C | 01.01.05 - 12:21 pm | #

Probably a little late, but I wanted to thank Tena, Hecate, Terry, Kay, i know my name alright and others both for the sharing and for the smacking down that occured in this thread.

As someone who never ever wants to have children and is either alergic to or has bad reactions to most forms of birth control out there and who has been denied a tubal ligation because at 23 years old "I'm not old enough to make that kind of decision for myself" (they told me they'd consider it if a theoretical fiance or spouse came with and agreed, the bastards) this subject matters deeply to me.
WookieMonster | 01.03.05 - 2:47 pm | #

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