Your Modern Pro-Life Movement

Okay, lovers of life, liberty, fetuses, etc. You’ve got some ‘splainin’ to do:

A law under consideration in South Dakota would expand the definition of "justifiable homicide" to include killings that are intended to prevent harm to a fetus—a move that could make it legal to kill doctors who perform abortions. The Republican-backed legislation, House Bill 1171, has passed out of committee on a nine-to-three party-line vote, and is expected to face a floor vote in the state's GOP-dominated House of Representatives soon.

The bill, sponsored by state Rep. Phil Jensen, a committed foe of abortion rights, alters the state's legal definition of justifiable homicide by adding language stating that a homicide is permissible if committed by a person "while resisting an attempt to harm" that person's unborn child or the unborn child of that person's spouse, partner, parent, or child. If the bill passes, it could in theory allow a woman's father, mother, son, daughter, or husband to kill anyone who tried to provide that woman an abortion—even if she wanted one.

I almost hate to write about this because I’m sure our local Tennessee legislators will immediately want one of these bills, too.

This just sums up everything we’ve ever said is wrong with the so-called “pro-life” crowd in one amazing ball of astonishing suckitude: How is murdering abortion providers pro-life? Why do you hate women so much that you’d treat them this way? Why don’t you trust us? Why do you care more about the unborn than the people who are already living? How is this “Christian”?

I bring up the religious point because of the people behind the bill:

The original version of the bill did not include the language regarding the "unborn child"; it was pitched as a simple clarification of South Dakota's justifiable homicide law. Last week, however, the bill was "hoghoused"—a term used in South Dakota for heavily amending legislation in committee—in a little-noticed hearing. A parade of right-wing groups—the Family Heritage Alliance, Concerned Women for America, the South Dakota branch of Phyllis Schlafly's Eagle Forum, and a political action committee called Family Matters in South Dakota—all testified in favor of the amended version of the law.

These are all right-wing "Christian" organizations. Shame on you. I wish you people would get Raptured already and leave the rest of us the fuck alone.

Time For Us Women To Cut You Boys Off

I am so ready to nip shit like this in the bud:

Dr. Hal C. Lawrence III, vice president of the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, said contraceptives fit any reasonable definition of preventive health care because they averted unintended pregnancies and allowed women to control the timing, number and spacing of births. This, in turn, improves maternal and child health by reducing infant mortality, complications of pregnancy and even birth defects, said Dr. Lawrence, who is in charge of the group’s practice guidelines.

But the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and some conservative groups, including the Family Research Council, say birth control is not a preventive service in the usual sense of the term.

“Pregnancy is not a disease to be prevented, nor is fertility a pathological condition,” said Deirdre A. McQuade, a spokeswoman for the bishops’ Pro-Life Secretariat. “So birth control is not preventive care, and it should not be mandated.”

About one-half of pregnancies in the United States are unintended.

Wow, and right on the heels of the whole “forcible rape” outrage, too. Assholes.

I will never understand why the people screaming the loudest about how awful abortion is are the same people putting up roadblocks to women trying to access birth control. What the hell is wrong with you people?

And don’t even get me started on the whole tortured “pregnancy is not a disease to be prevented” bullshit. Who says “preventive care” applies only to disease?

Last week I got into an argument with someone over abortion coverage in insurance policies. He said he didn’t understand why he should pay more because women are “irresponsible.” Because an unwanted pregnancy is always the woman’s fault! Isn’t that neat how that works? Heads you win, tails we lose.

Look fellas, I’m sorry you lack the plumbing that would enable you to get pregnant, gestate and give birth and all that. I’ve long suspected your inability to create life in the same way we ladies do has been a source of equal amounts fascination and disgust on your parts for thousands of years. Grow the fuck up already.

You know, I can’t imagine what it’s like to have my reproductive organs flying around loose in the breeze where any predator, fungus or hunting accident could come along and snip it all off, making me evolutionarily irrelevant. That’s a hard burden to bear, a not-so-subtle reminder of how biologically dispensable you guys really are. There are always more males out there willing to spread their seed; it’s the female of the species who carries the burden of the species’ survival. We’re the ones who not only bear the young but care for them as well.

This isn’t me talking feminist claptrap, this is basic evolutionary biology: the bird that’s going to get snapped up at the feeder is the bright red highly visible male cardinal, not the drab brown female blessed with a natural protective camouflage. She’s more important in the grand scheme, which is why she’s been given this protection. God I know that chaps y’all’s ass big time.

It’s the battle of the sexes, played out over thousands of years. Men are bigger and stronger and take down a mammoth but for all your bravado it’s we women who keep the species going. And you’re just dying to control that, too.

Well guess what: you can’t. And you won’t. The earliest cave women knew which plants and herbs and tinctures and infusions prevented pregnancy and induced miscarriage. It’s in the archeological record. Women have been doing this for thousands of years. Do you seriously think you can stop what women have been doing forever? You won’t outlaw abortion, you’ll just drive women to desperate, unsafe, archaic means of doing what they’ve always done. And keeping women from accessing birth control is only making more unwanted pregnancies, not fewer of them.

I repeat: We’re the ones who not only bear the young but care for them as well. We know what’s best for us. And we will act accordingly.

I’m thinking this battle needs another ancient solution. A little nationwide Lysistrata action, perhaps. I’m tired of being dicked around by you assholes. Really, I am. And while plenty of men out there are believers in women’s reproductive choice and women’s access to birth control, I’m thinking maybe some of you guys just aren’t fighting hard enough on our behalf.

I think it’s time to cut you off until you guys recognize that we women will not be pushed around, that “small government” does not mean government small enough to fit inside my womb, that women can be trusted to make the right decisions for the human race because dammit that’s what we’ve been doing for thousands of years anyway.

[UPDATE]:

Oh for God's sake. This was totally the wrong day for me to learn we have a state breastfeeding law. Words fail me.

Jesus get over your squeamishness, people. What is the deal?

Teach Those Sluts A Lesson

We don’t need no stinkin’ Stupak Amendment when doctors are inexplicably refusing to treat women who have had previous abortions all on their own:

I want to focus, however, on one particularly disturbing obstacle that was mentioned in city after city: doctors refusing to care for women who have had abortions. Mind you, these are not doctors refusing to perform abortions. What we heard, in three separate communities, was that there are doctors who refuse to perform routine post-abortion check-ups or even to provide care for completely unrelated ailments to women who previously had abortions. What’s worse, in two instances we heard that these doctors were some of the few who were accepting Medicaid patients at all – meaning that poor women would have to face greater obstacles to receive needed medical care. In one instance, we heard of a doctor throwing a patient’s medical records on the ground and storming out after he learned she had had an abortion.

Hey, what could be more “pro life” than refusing to give medical treatment to someone because you disapprove of something they did in the past? I wonder what would happen if a woman showed up and proved she was sufficiently sorry? Would you treat her then?

Look, most of us women know that the whole anti-choice movement is really about making women feel bad for being sluts. That’s it in a nutshell. Any doctor who turns a female patient away because she had an abortion is pretty much trying to make her pay. It’s a punitive thing. And to those people I say: Fuck You.

Concerned Women Concerned About Stupid Things

Today’s New York Times has a story about a new emergency contraceptive called ella, which has the morality scolds at the Concerned Women of America very, well, concerned.

Why? Since doctors are still debating exactly how the pill works (it appears to prevent ovulation by blocking progesterone, thus preventing conception. And there goes the pro-lifers’ “this pill is exactly the same as murdering babies!” argument), they’ve come up with a unique new reason to be concerned:

Ms. Wright warned that men might slip ella to unsuspecting women, and she said testing so far was not adequate to establish whether it was safe.

Hmm. Thinking back to when I was single and looking for love in all the wrong places, I have to say the fear that men might slip an emergency contraceptive into my cocktail was the least of my worries. As for the safety issue, that is not an issue on which the Concerned Women have any credibility, seeing as how they have a history of touting phony studies falsely linking abortion to breast cancer, teen sex to depression, gays to all manner of social ills, etc. etc. Not to mention the whole "evolution is a liberal plot to kill Jesus" thing.

Thanks for your Concern. Duly noted.

Canaries & Coal Mines

I don’t know if anyone noticed this but yesterday ACORN dissolved, starved of the federal funds it used for things like helping low income people access loans to buy homes and start businesses, register them to vote, get the poor access to housing, and other stuff that we simply cannot have. We live in a country where the free hand of the market always seems to bypass the poor, save to slap their hands when they get uppity and think they deserve a place at the table too. How dare they.

But here's the lesson for liberals: don’t for a minute think the anti-ACORN campaign launched by the right won’t be repeated with other perceived “lefty” organizations. Indeed, it already has.

Two years ago a movement began to defund Planned Parenthood, even though no public funds go toward abortion services. They go toward prenatal care, pap smears, STD testing, birth control and even fertility treatment. You know, gynecological and obstetric care, like what you’d get at any OB/GYN.

If you are “pro life” you should be lining up on the streets to get a Planned Parenthood clinic in your neighborhoods because they are the only access to healthcare a lot of women have, and that healthcare enables women to have healthy babies. But you can’t see the forest for the trees, can you? You’ve drunk so much Kool-Aid that you hear “Planned Parenthood” and instead of thinking, “oh, pre-natal care,” or “oh, a pap smear,” you immediately think “abortion.”

You are very silly, horrid people.

And liberals are silly too, for sitting on their hands while the anti-choice crowd organizes their plan, recruits candidates, circulates petitions (I won’t link to it but it makes the outrageous claim that “one in every two black children is aborted”), and gets on top of the message war with bogus “gotcha” videos.

Are we asleep? Look past the obvious misogyny in this news story which garnered most of the outrage today; instead, see if you can spot the money quote:

RICHMOND – Western Prince William Del. Bob Marshall, R-13th, says disabled children are God’s punishment to women who have aborted their first pregnancy.

He made that statement last Thursday at a press conference to oppose state funding for Planned Parenthood.

Yes, that’s right, Virginia wants a law just like the one Tennessee passed, which blocks state funding for Planned Parenthood.

Why? No public funds go toward abortion services.

Look people, this isn’t a culture war issue. It’s a healthcare issue. While the right is vigorously fighting any change to a crappy healthcare system which leaves 40 million people uninsured, they are also vigorously working to cut off public funds to the one organization that provides affordable healthcare to some of those people. Those vaginal-Americans who need a variety of services, including birth control, and including a lot of other stuff that any wealthy, upper class woman in a Virginia suburb can get at her local doctor’s office. This makes no sense.

Perhaps they think this is a swell idea:

A bill passed by the Utah House and Senate this week and waiting for the governor's signature, will make it a crime for a woman to have a miscarriage, and make induced abortion a crime in some instances.

[...]

The basis for the law was a recent case in which a 17-year-old girl, who was seven months pregnant, paid a man $150 to beat her in an attempt to cause a miscarriage. Although the girl gave birth to a baby later given up for adoption, she was initially charged with attempted murder. However the charges were dropped because, at the time, under Utah state law a woman could not be prosecuted for attempting to arrange an abortion, lawful or unlawful.

Wow, you’ve got to be some kind of callous bastard completely lacking in empathy to hear that story and think the biggest problem that needs to be addressed is that arranging your own miscarriage isn’t illegal.

Clearly men need to be able to get pregnant and be faced with the consequences of that pregnancy. Men need to know what it feels like to be faced with raising a child when you are poor, single, or a teenager; men should suffer the tremendous emotional pain of surrendering your child to adoption (the dirty little secret we’re not supposed to talk about). Men need to walk a mile (or a month) in this girl’s shoes.

Or else they need to quit crafting policy that treats desperate women in desperate situations like criminals.

But neither of these things are going to happen. Men aren't going to start having babies and they aren't going to get out of politics. So women, and the liberal men who love us, need to wake up. We need to stop ignoring these attacks from the right as some kind of crackpot fringe wacked-out group that won't ever amount to anything.

In case you haven't noticed, the conservative fringe is now the Republican mainstream. So wake up, people. It's time to get active. Time to pay attention and get organized and act like this shit matters. Because it does.

Stupak Stupidity

You know, I thought conservatives--Blue Dog Democrat and Republican alike--were against government interference in private enterprise.

Or a government bureaucrat coming between doctor and patient.

Yet it seems that is exactly what they are doing by jumping on board the Stupak bandwagon:

Sixty-four Democrats voted for Stupak’s amendment, without which the House healthcare bill would not have won final passage in a 220-215 vote.

Stupak’s language not only prohibits abortion coverage in the public insurance option included in the House bill. It would also prevent private plans from offering coverage for abortion services if they accept people who are receiving government subsidies.

Gosh, where’s the free hand of the market when you need it? I wonder if the Tea Partiers are concerned about this gross government intrusion into private enterprise? Aw, who am I kidding!

You know, I love it when my lady parts are turned into a political football. It makes me feel so very special. So much like ... gosh, what is the word I’m looking for? Oh yeah: chattel. Frankly, I’m a little creeped out Congressman Stupak is even thinking about my lady parts in a bill that does so much more to overhaul health insurance. It’s a little pervy.

Yes, this royally pisses me off. But you know, a reality check, people. Being a woman has been a pre-existing condition since, you know, forever. As I pointed out when I wrote about this last month, gender rating is widespread in health insurance markets (that’s where women pay more than men for identical plans). So, you know, what’s a little inequality among friends? We’ve only been allowed to vote for, what, 90-something years? Surely you didn’t think you’d have equal access to health services by now, too?

Here’s the thing. Abortion is still legal. Try as they might, the anti’s have yet to outlaw it, and they probably never will. We won that battle.

All they’ve got left are rather empty gestures like the Stupak Amendment, which applies to insurance coverage of abortion--something which, according to the Guttmacher Institute, only paid for 13% of abortions (or thereabouts) in 2001. And Stupak also only applies to insurance plans on the exchange, which itself affects a small percentage of people.

So, this all looks like a lot of hoo-hah over an amendment that would affect a relatively small number of women. Unfortunately, those women are the poor, the ones who need reproductive choice the most. Yes, it sucks. But since when does Congress care about the poor, anyway? Is anyone really surprised?

Take heart. If Stupak becomes law, you can still buy an insurance plan that covers abortion services. You just can’t be poor, or receive government assistance. And those more well-off can always pay for their abortions themselves, without a health insurance plan.

I’m trying to see how much has changed. Abortion services available for the well off, but not the poor. How is this different from what we have now? From what we’ve ever had?

Make no mistake: they’ve done a really shitty thing to women, treating us like second class citizens who aren’t entitled to the same health insurance options as penis-Americans. Am I pissed off? Yes.

But abortion is still legal. We can still get low-income women the reproductive health services they need in other ways. Start by donating to NARAL or Planned Parenthood, if you are able.

Is the Stupak Amendment worth scuttling healthcare reform over? I don’t think so. But it has been a tremendous reality check. It has shown us who within the Democratic Party thinks it’s their business to decide what insurance plans should be available to women.

Got that? Good. Now use that information.

When Conservatives Come Between Me & My Doctor

I guess we women should be used to crap like this by now:

Approximately 40 House Democrats are prepared to block healthcare reform legislation from coming to the floor should the bill include federal subsidies for abortions, said Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) Friday.

Abortion has been the elephant in the room on the healthcare debate: the Right has been desperate to trot out its most favorite wedge issue; knowing this, the Left won’t touch the topic with a 10-foot pole. But it was inevitable that abortion would come up as part of the debate over the public option, so here ya go, folks.

Let the games begin!

Nothing demonstrates women’s inequality better than the use of abortion as a wedge issue to derail healthcare reform. The reality is, abortion is legal; most private insurance policies cover the procedure to some degree, just as they would cover any medical procedure involving lady parts. And it’s ludicrous to think a public health insurance option shouldn’t cover the same medical procedures as any private health insurance policy. We’re talking about insurance here, people; insurance is not healthcare, as I’ve said ad nauseum.

And trying to equate a public health insurance plan that covers abortion as anything close to “government funded abortions” is wildly off the mark and incredibly dishonest, preying on people’s ignorance and their fear. Insurance is not healthcare! Oh wait, I already said that.

I don’t get why this is so hard for people to understand or even controversial. Even more ironic is that it’s usually the same people harping about how “Obamacare will put a government bureaucrat between you and your doctor” who are trying to insert themselves between me and my doctor.

You don’t see me sticking my nose into their healthcare decisions, do you?

But this just highlights the vast inequality between men’s and women’s healthcare. I love it when pharmacists with a “conscience” think it’s okay to deny women birth control pills but have no qualms about filling Cialis and Viagra prescriptions for men.

Here’s a news flash: private health insurance is a discriminatory system! Insurance companies routinely treat women differently from men; “gender rating” (charging same-aged women and men different premiums for the same coverage), is widespread.

The National Women’s Law Center first looked at the issue in 2008; one year later, they’ve found little has changed:

• Gender rating remains rampant in the individual health insurance market and among bestselling health plans. NWLC examined the best-selling plans (generally the top 10) in each state capital and found that 95% practice gender rating, compared to 93% of such plans in 2008.

• Using the same random sampling methods as in 2008, NWLC found even more egregious examples of gender rating among 25-year-olds in 2009. At this age, women are charged up to 84% more than men for individual health plans that exclude maternity coverage.

• Despite the bleak landscape, two states made improvements since the Center issued its Nowhere to Turn report in 2008. In April 2009, Arkansas passed a law expressly prohibiting health insurance companies from using a woman’s status as a domestic violence survivor to deny coverage, and in October 2009, California became the eleventh state to ban gender rating in the individual health insurance market.

• New research revealed that, in most states, it is common for a female non-smoker to be charged more than a male smoker in the individual insurance market simply because she is a woman. [...]

• Maternity coverage remains largely unavailable in the individual market, with virtually no improvement in access. In 2009, 13% of the health plans available to a 30-year-old woman across the country provide maternity coverage, compared to 12% in 2008.

It seems some people are so accustomed to this kind of inequality that they think it's okay (and it takes folks like Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow to point out the obvious to troglodytes like Republican Sen. John Kyl.)

So now we have an interesting case where we have an unfair private insurance system that penalizes women because of their gender, charging them more for no reason and not covering certain services. And a group of conservatives want to build that same inequality into the public insurance system by having just some procedures covered for women, whereas all procedures will be covered for men.

Umm, no. The main point of the public option is to rein in the unfair and abusive practices of the private insurance industry (NOTE: On reflection that was a huge brain fart. The main point of the public option is to lower costs. But reigning in abusive insurance industry practices would be a nice ancillary effect.) You just can’t do that if your corrective element is going to be just as unfair and abusive and discriminatory.

The reality is, no one involved in this debate gives a crap about abortion or gender discrimination. They’re trying to kill healthcare reform. They’re using their favorite wedge issue to do it, and conservative Democrats are playing along.

Suffer The Children Redux

You know your movement has reached rock bottom when you have to protest elementary school kids:

Protesters gather outside Burlington Co. school that sang Obama praises

BURLINGTON TOWNSHIP -- About 60 people converged Monday morning on a Burlington Township elementary school that drew controversy--and nationwide attention--for a video posted on YouTube of its students singing songs praising President Barack Obama.

The protesters stood across from Bernice B. Young Elementary School, holding placards and chanting "Shame on you." The Obama song was first staged "in recognition of Black History Month" during an eight-skit program on Feb. 27 at the school, said Christopher Manno, Burlington Township's superintendent of schools.

You yelled “shame on you” at elementary school kids who sang a song for America’s first black president during Black History Month?

Are you people nuts?

Don’t answer that. You know, this shit is not going to end well. You start protesting someone’s kids, and someone’s mom or dad takes offense and then it’s just all downhill. And I honestly don’t understand someone who would attack children this way. If you have a problem with it, go protest the school board or something.

To paraphrase that old entertainment biz crack, the Tea Partiers would protest the opening of envelope if it had Obama’s name on it. Seriously, you folks need some therapy or something.

But it’s only going to get worse. I read in the New York Times this weekend that anti-choicers are going to pay “tribute” to their fallen hero James Pouillon by greeting school kids with pictures of abortions:

Anti-abortion groups are calling on protesters to stand outside schools with signs that depict abortion on Nov. 24 in 40 to 50 cities nationwide.

They love children and life so, so very much! that they are willing to traumatize your kids to save them.

Or something.

Any time I see one of these crackpots with their abortion pictures, most of which are completely fabricated, I think: how about if we all stand around with pictures of open heart surgery? Dental surgery? Nose jobs? You know, that stuff looks really icky in Technicolor, too.

Anyway, I’m not sure when it became okay on the right for kids’ schools to be the new battleground for their fringe ideas. I’m still waiting for someone with sense in the Republican Party to step up and tell these folks they’ve gone too far.

Hasn’t happened yet.

More Dishonesty From “Pro-Life” Republicans

Hey, Tennessee Republicans! You folks who claim to be “pro life,” who want to take away a woman’s right to an abortion because it’s immoral and that’s in the Bible and all that! Yoo hoo!

Let Southern Beale give you some advice, okay?

This shit really isn’t that hard. The most effective way to stop abortion is not to make it illegal since--news flash!--women have been having abortions for thousands of years! Here’s how you cut the number of abortions: You help women choose to deliver their babies, and deliver healthy babies, by supporting them. Not browbeating them, shaming them, criminalizing them and all the other things you seem to have a jones to do.

Support them. With services they need, like healthcare, education, and mentorship.

In other words, you don’t kill funding for programs like MIHOW.

I know it’s a lot more fun for you to browbeat, shame and criminalize women for getting knocked up to begin with. You know what? That’s self-indulgent crap. Take out your Freudian psychodrama on the therapist’s couch. If you want to stop abortion, and lord knows you keep telling us that you do, then maybe you should stick to what actually works.

Unless, of course, you don’t actually want to stop abortion. Which I’m starting to suspect, since you’re doing everything you can to make sure women are stuck between a rock and a hard place. Birth control kills! No healthcare! Let’s send all of our jobs to China and Mexico and Vietnam! Become a slave to banks by racking up huge amounts of debt! And if you get pregnant, tough!

Does this seem like a workable plan to you? Of course not. But you don’t care. You like the grandstanding that the abortion issue provides, the news headlines, the emotional impact of all those cute little babies ripped from their mothers wombs. Sure makes the donations flood in, doesn’t it?


C’mon, we’re onto you. You’re a fraud. And the way you want to kill the one program you should have embraced just proves it.

My Abortion Is A Mean Drunk

Apparently my abortion went to a bar, got drunk, started a fight, and just started shooting up the place.

My abortion has also been known to get just go off by accident, killing innocent bystanders. I hate it when my abortion acts that way.

My abortion has also been known to get in the hands of criminals, convicted felons, in fact. It’s not supposed to do that, and yet ...!

Look, asshats. You have your fucking Second Amendment. No one is trying to take it away. I just want to be able to eat my dinner without worrying some drunk yahoo is going to go all vigilante on someone at the next table. Alcohol and guns don’t mix, or haven’t you read your NRA Gun Safety Guide?

My abortion affects me, my family and my fetus. My abortion is none of your fucking business. And yet, people on the right keep trying to outlaw my abortion. You can own all the guns you want.

Not really the same thing, now, is it?

Adding ....

On top of which, it's one thing to say restaurant owners can opt-out of the new guns legislation, but with the TN Firearms Assn. planning their usual bully tactics, wouldn't that be a little like pro-choice people forcing women to have abortions? And I just don't see that happening anywhere.

Bottom line, the analogy is bogus, yet conservatives are all for putting all sorts of restrictions on what women can do with their bodies but whine like babies if they can't keep an assault weapon by their side at all times.

Just in time for The Pill Kills Day, too.

A Few Words On Abortion

[UPDATE]:

As if to prove my point, anti-choicers have declared Saturday "The Pill Kills Day." Really, you guys have no argument whatsoever. None.

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

My post on Dr. Tiller’s murder brought the usual wackjobs out of the woodwork. One commenter made the ridiculous claim that Tiller gave a woman a late-term abortion because she wanted to attend a rock concert. I mean, come on, that defies common sense. Why not just come out and say it: you think women seeking abortions are irresponsible sluts.

Similarly, my suggestion that anti-choice and pro-choice voices should find common ground on the issue of birth control and support for unwed mothers was met with scorn. One commenter claimed that birth control is available, free, at every corner drugstore in America.

The things one learns when they listen to wingnuts. The Guttmacher Institute’s fact sheet on publicly funded contraception services has more information on that.

I think both left and right can agree that fewer abortions are a good thing; I think the left wants to see that happen without demonizing the procedure or the women who get it, while the right has done a really good job of attaching all sorts of stigmas to abortion. It’s why we’re “pro-choice” because “choice” is the issue here; no one is “pro-abortion,” it’s not like it’s a party, no one looks forward to having an abortion just as no one looks forward to any medical procedure but by God if you need one you sure want to have access to it, and you want to make sure it's safe and legal and all that.

Toward that end, I direct people to Glen Stassen’s article in Sojourners, What Actually Works? It’s ironic that Sojourners, a progressive Christian magazine, focused on abortion for its June magazine , since Dr. Tiller’s murder has put the issue front and center this month. I guess there really are no accidents.

Stassen is a professor of Christian ethics at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, CA. He talks about the Teenage Parent Program in Louisville, KY, which offered pregnant teens and teen mothers ob/gyn care and counseling, child care while the girls attended classes, instruction on baby care, and other support.

A University of Louisville School of Medicine study reported that, surprisingly, unlike typical teenage mothers, TAPP’s teenagers produced healthy babies averaging normal birth weight. Premature babies are highly expensive when they require intensive care and are more likely to have learning problems and medical problems later in life. TAPP prevented that. It was enormously cost-effective.

And 99 percent of these girls chose not to have an abortion.

The problem, as always was funding:

Medicaid and the State Maternal Health Division, supported by federal funding, paid for most of the ob/gyn clinic. Ominously, in 2002 federal funding for the ob/gyn services was canceled, and the state could not afford it alone. The ob/gyn program is no longer available to students without insurance or Medicaid, and no nurses are teaching any more.

I don’t see anti-choicers calling for increased funding for programs like TAPP, or distributing condoms in schools; in fact, so-called “pro-life” legislators seem to be the ones throwing up road blocks to helping teens access birth control with all of their parental notification laws. "Pro-family" groups like James Dobson's are always the ones screetching the loudest about how they don't want their taxes paying for that.

The Stassens also have a very compelling personal story, as well. Stassen’s wife contracted German measels while 8 weeks pregnant. The Stassens chose to carry the fetus to term, knowing that German measels is devastating in the first trimester:

But we did not have an abortion because we had hope we could cope.

Our son David was born with a heart that failed in his first month; odds were against his survival. He has had a dozen operations, two on his heart. He did not speak, mumble, or chew until he was 4 and a half years old. He has brain damage. He is legally blind. But we had enormous support from church members, medical personnel, the Kentucky School for the Blind, and caring teachers, and we had medical insurance and a job. Now David translates theological books from German to English for leading publishers and for researchers.

That is why I worried enormously when the Bush administration cut back crucial supports for mothers and babies. I suspected it would increase abortions among those who did not have the kind of resources our family had.

Stassen was right.

The Stassens had "hope they could cope," but not everyone does. Our healthcare system is in a shambles, and conservatives are throwing up roadblocks to reform. This doesn't just affect the poor, even if you are employed, even if you have insurance, you're paying more and more for your family's coverage.

Meanwhile, there are cries of "Socialism!" and "Fascism!" when President Obama suggests returning the marginal tax rate to where it was under Ronald Reagan. States like California are going broke, Tennessee's budget is strapped. The only solution we hear from conservatives is to cut taxes and cut government spending.

I'm trying to decide what a family is supposed to do in this situation. The costs of caring for a disabled child are astronomical. Who is supposed to help? If the government can't because of budget cuts, and the cost of healthcare keeps going up, what are you supposed to do when you find out you're pregnant, you've contracted Rubella, and you're going to give birth to a child with brain damage, heart damage, and neurological damage?

What are you supposed to do? How could you dare judge someone who chooses to terminate a pregnancy like this at eight weeks? Do you think shouting "murderer" is what Jesus would do?

Stassen concludes:

The Obama administration is expanding health care insurance for children and is developing plans to provide access to health insurance for all of us, is working to get the economy revived, and is supporting programs to curb unintended pregnancy. If abortions reduced significantly during the Clinton years, stayed flat during the Bush years, and reduce significantly during the Obama years, what is a consistent pro-life person like me to conclude about which approach actually works to reduce abortion rates?

What, indeed.

It seems to me that "what actually works" is not the issue for most of the anti-choice crowd. Because we know what actually works, and yet they lobby against it anyway.

They've lost sight of their mission. They don't want to reduce the number of abortions, they want to overturn Roe v Wade. These are two very different issues. One is a social issue and one is a political one. They strike me as interested in the politics of abortion, and not the least bit interested in the human side of it. They have mobilized for the wrong cause, and it is this which makes their movement so dishonest.

Why Dr. Tiller Was Killed

Randall Terry, founder of Operation Rescue, makes a statement about the murder of Dr. Tiller:

Tiller's death comes at a time when all recent polling data shows that the peaceful proLife message has the support of a majority of American voters. We hope this terrible news does not hurt the steady progress that the proLife movement has made by peaceful legal means over the years.

Really? Let’s take a look at your “peaceful proLife message,” shall we? Terry has given us a wealth of examples, most recently at his protest of President Obama’s Notre Dame commencement with Alan Keyes:

Shortly before noon, on the last day of final exams for Notre Dame students, Keyes and a few dozen others gathered at the entrance of Notre Dame to pray. The protesters were holding signs and most were pushing strollers containing baby dolls covered in fake blood.

Lovely. And then there’s this:

Another group, the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform, has been sending a plane to fly over Notre Dame for hours at a time with banners featuring pictures of fetuses and sometimes unfortunate grammatical errors ("This is what your honoring," said one banner two days ago.)

This is the “peaceful proLife message”? Gee, can’t imagine how that kind of rabble-rousing wouldn’t set someone off. Someone a little unhinged to begin with.

Meanwhile, my friends on the left are doing their best to piss me off with remarks like “put down the bible & grow brain cells” and “I'm pretty sure I saw a Jesus fish on the back of the captured suspect's car.”

Enough.

Let’s just quit the Bible-bashing here, okay? Dr. Tiller was murdered while handing out programs at his church before Sunday worship. So before we start bashing Christians it would be helpful to remember that Dr. Tiller was one. Don’t bring the family any more pain than they already must be experiencing by trashing their religion in the name of supporting a fallen man.

The problem is not religion. The problem is inflammatory rhetoric that incites people to violence.

You know, we’re just about at the one-year anniversary of the day James Adkisson shot up a Knoxville Unitarian church in an anti-gay, anti-liberal rage. Since that time we have seen the inflammatory rhetoric from the right escalate even further. President Obama has been hung in effigy, been called a murderer and a socialist. We have had innocent baby animals killed and we have had a newspaper apologize for running an advertisement calling for President Obama’s assassination. We have seen Glenn Beck pretend to set fire to a person in "demonstration" of Obama Administration policies with which he disagrees.

On the left we have seen Wanda Sykes wish for Rush Limbaugh to have kidney failure.

People need to calm the fuck down or none of us is going to get out of this decade alive. When is it going to stop? How much longer are we going to tolerate the vitriol? Who's going to be the first to say "enough, already!"

Tweeting The Tiller Killer

Suzanne Tobias, reporter for the Wichita Eagle:

Interesting: Fox News producer called me prior to interview to request that I *not* mention tonight's candlelight vigil on the air. Wha??

Indeed.

Domestic Terrorism

Proving the lie to their “pro-life” moniker, abortion foes gun down an abortion provider--at church:

Abortion Doctor Shot to Death in Wichita, Kan.

George Tiller, who performed late-term abortions, was shot to death outside of church.

By LAUREN SHER
May 31, 2009

America's most controversial abortion doctor, George Tiller, was shot and killed this morning outside the Reformation Lutheran Church in Wichita, Kan., on his way to Sunday services, according to ABC News affiliate KAKE and other sources.

Authorities were called to the shooting at the Reformation Lutheran Church shortly after 10 a.m., where Tiller is a congregant, according to KAKE. Tiller was pronounced dead at the scene shortly after emergency crews arrived.

Tiller, who ran the Women's Health Care Services clinic, a high-profile abortion clinic in Wichita, was one of the few doctors in the country that still performed late-term abortions. Just this month, Tiller's clinic was vandalized, according to KAKE.

Tiller has been a target of anti-abortion violence in the past. In 1985, his clinic was bombed, and in 1993, he was shot in both arms outside the clinic by Shelly Shannon.

Nice “pro-life” movement you’ve got there, Kansas.

The suspect is still at large now in custody and is “a white male in his late 50s or 60s.”

There really are no words to adequately describe how heinous these sanctimonious phonies are. In a sane country these folks would be called what they are: domestic terrorists.

Meanwhile, showing there is no depth to the anti-choice crowd's stupidity, Priests for Life issued this ridiculous statement in which they suggest the shooter might have been

"an angry post-abortive man or woman ..."

WTF??

Can’t See The Forest For The Democrat In The White House

No sooner had President Obama announced his choice of Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court than the wackadoodle wing was giving us comedy gold:

As soon as Obama publicly named Sotomayor, two fundamentalist leaders and militant antiabortion crusaders--Rev. Patrick Mahoney of the Christian Defense Coalition and Rev. Rob Schenck of Faith and Action--held a prayer service in front of the Supreme Court to oppose the appointment.

God forbid either of these asshats should actually check her record on abortion.

Jim Wallis did, however:

For those who have been looking for more evidence of President Obama’s common-ground approach to the issue of abortion outlined last week at Notre Dame, here it is. As a judge, she has participated in more than 3,000 panel decisions and authored almost 400 opinions and only ruled once on the issue of abortion. In that case she wrote from a centrist position and ruled against a pro-choice organization. Many other possible nominations could have been a slap in the face to either side, but the president used this as an opportunity to further his common-ground approach.

Schenck and Mahoney and a huge block of the right wing are opposing Sotomayor simply because she was nominated by a Democratic president. But they shouldn’t.

Meanwhile, the media seems to assume that all liberals will support her nomination for the same reason. And they shouldn’t.

Sotomayor will be a fine SCOTUS justice but she’s by no means the wild-haired, pot-smoking, DFH jurist the right-wingers will have you believe, especially on civil liberties issues. Conservatives might want to think twice before trashing her candidacy; they could do much worse. Liberals should look at her record carefully; there's a good chance we could do better.

Your GOP, Keeping It Classy

Perpetual Republican presidential candidate and wackadoodle Alan Keyes was arrested at Notre Dame along with anti-choice wacko Randall Terry for protesting President Obama's pending commencement speech. And yes, props were involved:

Anti-abortion activist and frequent presidential candidate Alan Keyes was arrested for trespassing at Notre Dame Friday as part of a protest against President Obama speaking at the May 17 Commencement ceremony.

Shortly before noon, on the last day of final exams for Notre Dame students, Keyes and a few dozen others gathered at the entrance of Notre Dame to pray. The protesters were holding signs and most were pushing strollers containing baby dolls covered in fake blood. After approximately half an hour of prayer, Keyes delivered a speech, encouraging those present to "walk onto campus as missionaries for God's truth."

Just for some perspective, President George W. Bush gave the commencement address at Notre Dame in May 2001 -- before the illegal war, and the torture, but not before he came out as an advocate of the death penalty, which is also against Catholic teaching.

Funny, no one objected then.

But I digress. So, look at what the poor students of Notre Dame have been subjected to:

Another group, the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform, has been sending a plane to fly over Notre Dame for hours at a time with banners featuring pictures of fetuses and sometimes unfortunate grammatical errors ("This is what your honoring," said one banner two days ago.)

Geez, I’d sure hate to be studying for finals under that kind of commotion.

Leading the charge against Obama’s commencement address is anti-gay, anti-choice activist Randall Terry of Operation Rescue fame. And here’s the funny part. If you go to Randall Terry’s website, stopobamanotredame.com, it’s clear these assclowns were planning to be arrested. They advertised it all over their website. For example:

Dr. Alan Keyes going to Notre Dame to be arrested:

Calls on pro-lifers nationwide to join him.

“…until the South Bend jail is filled to overflowing..."

And:

11:30 am - Friday May 8
Protest with Arrests
Join Alan Keyes

Protest with Arrests? Is that like Burgers with Fries? Beer with Chips? What a bunch of media whores.

I wonder what Keyes & co. would have done had they not been arrested. Would they have forced the issue? Demanded to be arrested? Start destroying property or acted in some way to ensure their arrest?

It boggles the mind.

So, this is what’s left of the Republican Party. How absolutely pathetic.

Leave Judy Blume Alooooooone!

You have got to be kidding me. The anti-choice nutzos have attacked noted author Judy Blume.

Judy fucking Blume! You do NOT mess with Judy Blume! No. You. Do. Not.

If you were never a pre-teen girl then the name Judy Blume probably doesn’t resonate with you, but trust me: her books guided many a young girl through the awkwardness of adolescence. I can't tell you how much I loved reading "Deenie" and "Forever" and, of course, "Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret," so many years ago.

But according to the anti-choice crowd, Blume made the unforgivable mistake of sending this rather benign Mothers Day fundraising message for Planned Parenthood. She wrote:

There is no organization that I know of that supports motherhood and all that it means more than Planned Parenthood. That's why I'm honoring moms everywhere with my gift to Planned Parenthood today.

This promptly got the anti-choice activists in a tizzy falsely claiming Blume was "promoting abortion.” Blume’s office has since been flooded with hate mail and even death threats.

Let it be noted: the word abortion doesn’t appear anywhere in Blume’s Mother’s Day message. Let it also be noted: only a very tiny percent of the services Planned Parenthood offers are abortion-related. 97-percent of what Planned Parenthood does is regular gynecological care: pap smears, breast exams, STD testing and treatment, birth control, and the like.

But the anti-choice nutzos don’t give a damn about women’s healthcare. All they care about is intimidation and thuggery.

So, are you there Judy? It's me, Southern Beale. I want to say thanks for the books, and for supporting Planned Parenthood, and for taking the heat from the crazies. Don't let the bastards get you down.

Sarah Palin: Pro-Choice At An Anti-Choice Event

Thank you, Sarah Palin, for your stirring support of reproductive choice--at an anti-choice fundraiser in Indiana, no less:

"So we went through some things a year ago that now lets me understand a woman's, a girl's temptation to maybe try to make it all go away if she has been influenced by society to believe that she's not strong enough or smart enough or equipped enough or convenienced enough to make the choice to let the child live. I do understand what these women, what these girls go through in that thought process."

Palin has grabbed headlines and warmed right-to-lifers hearts on sharing her story about being “tempted” to “make it all go away” when she discovered she was pregnant at the age of 44, and then again on learning that the fetus had Down’s Syndrome. As Ruth Marcus writes in today’s WaPo,

For the crowd listening to her at last week's dinner, Palin's disclosure served the comfortable role of moral reinforcement: She wavered in her faith, was tempted to sin, regained her strength and emerged better for it.

As for those us less certain that we know, or are equipped to instruct others, when life begins and when it is permissible to terminate a pregnancy, Palin's speech offered a different lesson: Abortion is a personal issue and a personal choice. The government has no business taking that difficult decision away from those who must live with the consequences.

Palin and her followers do seem purposely stupid about the whole “choice” issue. Sarah Palin had a choice. Her daughter Bristol had a choice. They seem to spend a lot of time talking about the choices they made, even at events where they are trying to take that choice away from everyone else!

This is incredibly, shockingly incongruous. And it kind of illustrates how the anti-choice movement really doesn’t want to end choice--doing so would end the pro-life cash cow that keeps themselves and a lot of conservative groups and candidates in business.

Think about it: if Sarah Palin had her way and abortion were illegal, there would be no Vanderburgh County Right to Life banquet, which

started with approximately 100 people attending in the late 1980’s and has grown to become the largest pro-life banquet in the world with attendance of 2,000. 

(This year, an additional 2,500 got to watch a “live-feed” broadcast of the event at a nearby auditorium for $16 a pop, too.)

There would be no fundraiser. There would be no stirring testimony from a politician with presidential ambitions. No passionate speeches about how Sarah Palin understands the “temptation to make it all go away,” so she’s really like the rest of us, just another working mom, yada yada.

None of this would exist because there would have been no choice. There would be a law, and your only choice is to follow the law or break it. And since Sarah Palin is a politician, she would never give a stirring testimony about how she was tempted to break the law.

No, the decision would have been made for her and everyone else by the law, and Sarah Palin would have to find another issue to foist on the people of Evansville, Indiana, another hook from which to hang her political aspirations.

What’s interesting is that no one, save a few bloggers and a Washington Post columnist, even bothered to recognize the inherent contradiction of Palin’s entire speech.

It’s really quite simple: you don’t talk about the choice you made at a dinner where the point is to raise money to take that same choice away from everyone else.

Despicable

Anti-choice group's mailer says Obama wouldn't save a baby from an oncoming train.

See the mailer here.

This is absolutely outrageous. I wonder how many House representatives supported by the Susan B. Anthony fund voted against the expansions of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP)?

How about Jean Schmidt:

This plan makes no sense and does very little for those truly in need in Ohio and around the country.

How about Marsha Blackburn:

That legislation took the wrong approach to reauthorizing SCHIP, and the House of Representatives correctly upheld the President's veto on October 18th. Yet the House Democrat Leadership failed to learn from its mistakes.

How about Michelle Bachmann:

Michele Bachmann: Here's why we must resist SCHIP expansion

Shall I go on?

Face it. Babies are just stage props for these folks. You can say Obama wouldn't save a baby from an oncoming train all you want, but when it comes to the very real train wreck of America's healthcare system, these people not only did nothing, they threw the baby under the wheels.

Yank That Leash

I wonder how conservatives ever got elected before evangelical voters were manipulated to the polls by election-year ploys like this one:

Measure that could ban abortion on November ballot

DENVER — Whether the state constitution should define life as beginning at fertilization will be up to Colorado voters in November.

And unlike other ballot initiatives, it appears it will head to the ballot without having to go through the courts.

The Secretary of State's Office on Thursday certified that Peyton resident Kristi Burton collected more than enough signatures to put her Personhood Amendment to a statewide vote.

The newly renamed Amendment 48, which opponents fear could be used to ban abortions and is likely to make Colorado a national battleground, is the third citizens initiative to qualify for the ballot this year.

[...]


Protect Families Protect Choices Coalition spokeswoman Crystal Clinkenbeard said Thursday the organization doesn't plan to sue over Amendment 48, Instead, it will work to defeat it at the polls, she said.

Colorado is one of the Western states pundits say could swing to the Democrats in the presidential election, so it’s predictable that a piece of wingnut candy has found its way onto the November ballot. Conventional wisdom holds that pro-life evangelical voters who wouldn’t bother to show up at the polls for John McCain will make the effort for a pro-life amendment. The hope is that they’ll check the box for the Republican candidate while they’re there.

That could backfire, though, as BeliefNet’s interview with Mark DeMoss illustrates:

Barack Obama is trying hard to win evangelical voters. Does that effort stand a chance?

If one third of white evangelicals voted for Bill Clinton the second time, at the height of Monica Lewinsky mess—that’s a statistic I didn’t believe at first but I double and triple checked it—I would not be surprised if that many or more voted for Barack Obama in this election. You’re seeing some movement among evangelicals as the term [evangelical] has become more pejorative. There’s a reaction among some evangelicals to swing out to the left in an effort to prove that evangelicals are really not that right wing. There’s some concern that maybe Republicans haven’t done that well. And there’s this fascination with Barack Obama. So I will not be surprised if he gets one third of the evangelical vote. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was 40-percent.

In fact, a good bit has been written about young evangelicals swinging to Obama. The rules have changed with this election; the old GOP playbook no longer applies. The Bush-era political tactic of using Christian voters for political gain has backfired. You can’t give people hugs and kisses in person, then refer to them as “nuts” behind their back, and not expect to suffer the consequences.