"Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast"
-Oscar Wilde		 Brilliant at Breakfast title banner "The liberal soul shall be made fat, and he that watereth, shall be watered also himself."
-- Proverbs 11:25
"...you have a choice: be a fighting liberal or sit quietly. I know what I am, what are you?" -- Steve Gilliard, 1964 - 2007

"For straight up monster-stomping goodness, nothing makes smoke shoot out my ears like Brilliant@Breakfast" -- Tata

"...the best bleacher bum since Pete Axthelm" -- Randy K.

"I came here to chew bubblegum and kick ass. And I'm all out of bubblegum." -- "Rowdy" Roddy Piper (1954-2015), They Live
Thursday, July 17, 2008

If you thought the Supreme Court composition wasn't important, take a look at this
Posted by Jill | 6:56 AM
I remember the days before abortion was legal. I remember the girls who disappeared to "visit grandma for a few months" and then re-appeared in school under code of silence, sworn to Never Mention It Again.

When I went to college, there was a clinic in town with a sliding fee scale where you could obtain contraceptives. Even though by that time abortion was legal, even in provincial, conservative Bethlehen, Pennsylvania -- college students had access at low cost to a physician who would prescribe birth control pills, insert an IUD, or offer up a diaphragm and jelly or condoms with spermicidal foam for those students who wanted to be responsible about their active sexuality.

Today, the right to terminate an unplanned and unwanted pregnancy is hanging by a thread, but the hand-wringing about at what point a woman ceases to be a human being and simply becomes a vessel for a parasitic developing being that has more rights than she does isn't stopping at the angels-on-the-head-of-a-pin question. Emboldened by the relentless march towards a legal definition of abortion as murder, those who don't believe women should be permitted to prevent unwanted pregnancy (that is, have sex without the "punishment" of the mark of her sin), have been able to take steps towards "conscience exceptions" in medical fields. Pharmacists are now permitted to refuse to fill prescriptions for contraceptives they believe (erroneously) to be "abortifacients". Doctors are permitted to refuse to prescribe them.

If your child has a raging fever and runaway systemic infection, should a Christian Scientist doctor be allowed to refuse to prescribe antibiotics? Then how is this any different?

If for no other reason than the kind of medieval thinking about women's right to control their own bodies BEFORE having to deal with unwanted pregnancy, John McCain must NOT be elected this November. Because if he is, he WILL perpetuate this:

The Bush administration wants to require all recipients of aid under federal health programs to certify that they will not refuse to hire nurses and other providers who object to abortion and even certain types of birth control.

Under the draft of a proposed rule, hospitals, clinics, researchers and medical schools would have to sign “written certifications” as a prerequisite to getting money under any program run by the Department of Health and Human Services.

Such certification would also be required of state and local governments, forbidden to discriminate, in areas like grant-making, against hospitals and other institutions that have policies against providing abortion.

The proposal, which circulated in the department on Monday, says the new requirement is needed to ensure that federal money does not “support morally coercive or discriminatory practices or policies in violation of federal law.” The administration said Congress had passed a number of laws to ensure that doctors, hospitals and health plans would not be forced to perform abortions.

In the proposal, obtained by The New York Times, the administration says it could cut off federal aid to individuals or entities that discriminate against people who object to abortion on the basis of “religious beliefs or moral convictions.”

The proposal defines abortion as follows: “any of the various procedures — including the prescription, dispensing and administration of any drug or the performance of any procedure or any other action — that results in the termination of the life of a human being in utero between conception and natural birth, whether before or after implantation.”

Mary Jane Gallagher, president of the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association, which represents providers, said, “The proposed definition of abortion is so broad that it would cover many types of birth control, including oral contraceptives and emergency contraception.”

“We worry that under the proposal, contraceptive services would become less available to low-income and uninsured women,” Ms. Gallagher said.


In other words, a family planning clinic receiving federal funds would not be allowed to require that a nurse or other employee distribute family planning supplies.

The article's headline specifies "abortion", but the proposal also includes "conscience clauses" for contraception as well.

Given that so-called conservatives want to gut programs that help low-income families, you'd think that they'd want to provide assistance for low-income women to be able to avoid having children they can't afford. Or are they saying that just as housing, health care, and all the other things the middle class has taken for granted for the last two generations are now the exclusive province of the wealthy, now family planning is too?

Labels: , ,

6 comments
Bookmark and Share
6 Comments:
Anonymous Anonymous said...
Jill,

It's really quite simple.
SEX IS ILLEGAL. Becoming pregnant is prima facie evidence of the crime.

Whether you are prosecuted for it is strictly a matter of your wealth and influence. And the attitude of the prosecutor de jour!
7/17/08, 8:15 AM  
Blogger TinaB said...
If contraception counts, so does jacking off. Stop those guys from squirting!!
7/17/08, 8:18 AM  
Blogger D. said...
I'm beginning to think that anyone to the right of, say, Walter Cronkite should be forbidden access to power. Any power. Including electricity. They should have a voice and be taken into account (once in a very great while conservatism is constructive), but as a group, they should live like the Amish (maybe near the Amish) and only inflict their tenets on themselves.

Rant courtesy of Not Having Liked the '50s the First Time.

N.B. I have nothing against the Amish.
7/17/08, 1:33 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...
I seriously worry for my soon to be daughter's future. You know, being pregnant, I guess I could come up with a million reasons to suddenly become anti-choice. I say this because I know a few women who became pregnant and went that way. But particularly knowing that I'm having a girl just makes me more adamant that birth control and abortion remain legal. I want my daughter to have a life, and I want her to be able to control her destiny to some degree. I will never like the idea of abortion, but I'd rather my daughter have that choice if she gets into trouble or God forbid, someone messes with her. I'd hope that with a mom like me, she'd be able to talk to me about it, but if abortion and/or birth control are illegal or very hard to get, that might not matter.
7/17/08, 9:54 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...
Next thing you know, expect the Religiopolitical Right to push for a ban on not just abortion, but also contraception, sex education and family planning based on "economic reasons"--as in maintaining an unskilled, labour-intensive, Luddite socioeconomic paradigm within the parameters of free-market capitalism.
7/18/08, 2:10 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...
In the 1960s, Paul Krassner's "The Realist" publication had an interview with an abortionist (prior to Roe). It is interesting reading now, especially when the abortion "debate" is reduced to soundbites. Despite the "pro-choice" rhetoric, most support for abortion is due to people's empathy about the circumstances leading women to seek abortions.

The pro-life/anti-sex league types try to portray abortion as the choice of teen sluts who don't want to be inconvenienced ! That isn't a true characterization, but it seems the be the prevalent depiction in the media.
7/18/08, 3:54 PM  
Post a Comment
<< Home