One of the worst problems in American politics is that once a wingnut myth takes off, it never dies, no matter how much evidence you can marshal against it. There are people who will go to their graves believing that there was a good reason to think that Saddam Hussein was hiding WMDs as part of his plot to re-blow-up the World Trade Center after he personally crashed a plane into it the first time. Or, as a less hyperbolic but still baffling example, my dentist told me a couple of weeks ago that she still, in the year 2008, has to talk down patients who are in a full blown panic about fluoridated drinking water.
Which is why the second I heard the words “pregnancy pact” on the TV, I realized two things at once: a) there was no fucking way and b) no matter how much evidence you marshaled to prove that there was no fucking way, wingnuts would believe that gangs of teenage girls are roaming the countryside, sucking up sperm from hapless men with their succubi cunts of doom in order to get their hands on that diamond-jewelry-buying welfare cash. The fact that the movie “Juno” was blamed was just an added bonus, and evidence that teaching women such as screenwriter Diablo Cody to read and write was the first step on the road to teenage sluttitude hell.
Well, here’s the no fucking way part: Turns out the principal, in his desperation to prove the nay-sayers that suggest that making contraception available to teenagers might help them contracept, made up the pregnancy pact. His main source was, contrary to his initial claims, not the school nurses’ office, but the gossip in the school hallways, which as we all recall has an accuracy rate nearing utter perfection.
Moloney starts off by breathlessly recounting stories of succubi teenagers, before hastily admitting and then dismissing the fact that the entire premise of his outraged article (the pregnancy pact) is bullshit.
Why do we need GOP elected fundnuts when we have the likes of Dave Obey (D-WI), who is promoting bogus, dangerous abstinence-only ed programs in schools by upping funding to the garbage?! What is wrong with Nancy Pelosi—why is she enabling Obey, who is House Appropriations Committee. Firedoglake‘s Blue Texan:
Progressives and health care advocates had hoped that when the Democrats took control of the House, one of the first things to get scrapped would be the disastrous abstinence-only education [sic] programs, which blossomed under the Bush administration and the Republican-controlled Congress. Their hopes were misplaced. Obey actually increased the funding to the programs, and Nancy Pelosi did nothing to stop him.
The bible-beating moralists of Bushworld have had their heads in the sand, choosing to believe that virginity pledges, Jesus-head chastity rings and scare seminars on the evils of sex will stop teens from knocking boots. Now we have Obey and Pelosi ready to fund it yet again. Abstinence-only education deprives young people of facts they need to know about contraception and sexual health. The ACLU is all over this BS.
“There is no question that all programs offering young people education or guidance about human sexuality should urge them to delay sexual activity. However, federally-funded programs focusing exclusively on abstinence are at odds with good public health policy and raise serious civil liberties concerns. Congress should not support programs that censor medically accurate information, reinforce gender stereotypes, provide inaccurate or misleading information, promote religion, serve a narrow ideological agenda, and jeopardize the well-being of young people. But despite the overwhelming evidence that abstinence-only programs don’t work, Congress remains in the grip of proponents of this failed policy and seems unable or unwilling to disengage itself.
“Young people deserve the truth. At some point, everyone is faced with important decisions about their sexuality. We do young people no favors by censoring information and failing to give them all the tools they need to make well-informed decisions. More than anything, we want them to have all the facts, and we want them to be safe.”
Seriously—why do we bother putting Dems in when they cannot even shut down one of the most outlandish domestic giveaways by the Bush Admin to the religious right? This was a no-brainer to deep six. Perhaps someone should send Obey and Pelosi a copy of the documentary The Education of Shelby Knox. It reveals the ignorance perpetuated by these programs in the Texas schools (it’s set in Lubbock), and how that “education” has resulted in higher STD rates and teen pregnancies. Perhaps Obey is in favor of those infamous virginity rings as well.
One thing that continues to frustrate me about the pharmacy refusal debates is that all the attention is paid to the rights of pharmacists to religious freedom, and none is paid to the rights of their customers that are being violated. I think in part this is because almost all those refusing service are men and almost all those being refused are women (or gay men, in some cases). And we as a society tend to think first of the rights of men over women. But we’re letting the wingnuts frame this argument—-by making it about the religious rights of the refusers, we are letting them subtly imply that women are not citizens with full rights worth equal protection by the government. In my latest column at RH Reality Check, I argue that when a pharmacist refuses to serve a female customer because he believes she is sexually active in a way that goes against his religion, he is discriminating her on two counts that are arguably illegal:
1) Discrimination against customers based on gender and
2) Discrimination against customers based on religious affiliation. The pharmacist is not the only person with a religious belief. As I argue in my piece, what happens in a refusal interaction is the pharmacist gains information that the customer has a religious belief he disapproves of (one that allows for the use of contraception) and he refuses service based on that religious belief.
These fringe folks are throwing anything they can against the wall. Tim Russo of Blogger Interrupted has the story of an Ohio woman named Joy Atwood who managed to get on the Cleveland CBS affiliate and spew complete batsh*ttery— Barack Obama is an Arab, and wants to kill babies. Tim confronted Atwood on her “facts”—
Ms. Atwood still insists that Barack Obama will revert to his Muslim and “Arab tendencies.” She said her source for the information Obama wants to kill babies comes from Concerned Women for America.
I continue to be annoyed at the people who think this debate is about some well-meaning Christians who don’t want to hurt anyone but just don’t want to be party to what they supposedly think is baby-killing. To believe that, you have to ignore the possibility that a misogynist filled up on Jesus justifications would rather let someone die on his watch rather than let a sex-having woman get away without god’s holy punishments. The erratic nature of pharmacy refusals should tell us what’s going on—-a lot of pharmacists are picking and choosing who gets pills, based on cues that they think believe indicate someone is a slut, from her clothes to her age to her lack of a wedding ring.
The late term abortion debates stand alone in my mind as the perfect example of how the media and public pretend not to see blatant misogyny. These are the abortions that anti-choicers are most eager to ban, but these are also the abortions that are most necessary to keep women from suffering or dying needlessly. The need to have the law step in and tie doctors’ hands so that they can’t prevent crippling or killing women that committed the crime of being female screams to me nothing short of base misogyny. The Kos blogger linked a really good site to clarify who the preferred victims of anti-choice law-making are. Here’s an example of someone who is supposed to just suffer and die rather than get help:
To make a long and unbearable story short, they discovered that I was in complete renal failure and most of my organs were shutting down (kidney, pancreas, liver.)....
As we reached the 25-week mark for Thomas, he was measuring only 20 weeks. It seemed that he had stopped growing and developing and there was almost no more amniotic fluid left around him. They couldn’t even do another amniocentesis safely because there wasn’t enough fluid. They told us that he would probably not make it to full term and even if I could carry him that long he would not survive once born. Mind you, my health was not very good since I was still recovering from the renal failure, (and very slowly, I might add.) I was told after the fact that they didn’t think I would survive, never mind Thomas. We had to make a decision about what to do, end the pregnancy now or wait and take a chance of me relapsing before we made it to the nine - month mark. Either way, I was told my baby would not survive.
There’s not really a baby to “save” by killing the mother in these cases, but I suppose no matter. If she didn’t want to suffer like this, she shouldn’t have been born a woman.
In case there’s any doubt, this should put it to rest: Tom Coburn is a giant fucking asshole godbag who probably gets a sadistic glee thinking of people suffering. To put some perspective on this, the constant battle on earmarking HIV relief funds is between treatment and prevention. Experts generally like to see the larger chunk go to prevention, because statistically it just saves more lives. (I know; I’m wildly simplifying. This is a blog post, not a doctoral thesis.) You can buy a lot of condoms for what a day’s worth of HIV drugs costs, and prevent a whole lot of transmission. But there’s not even a need to twist into moral pretzels about these hard choices, since the bill in question is an expansion of funding that was already there.
So why has broad bipartisan legislation seeking to more than triple the program’s funding to $50 billion caused such a rancorous fight?
Coburn and six other Senators are blocking the bill until the prevention money is redirected, though. Their reason? In sum: Look over there!
The Oklahoma Republican, along with six other social conservatives, has put a hold on the bill in the Senate, unless a provision is added to direct most of the spending toward treatment for HIV/AIDS rather than toward prevention and other priorities. Otherwise, Coburn said, “the vast majority of the money is going to get consumed by those wanting to help people with HIV, rather than [by] people with HIV.”
Mighty Ponygirl has declared it National Screw While On Contraception Day. Yes, even if you’re “trying”. Or you’re in a committed and tested relationship that’s not running the risk of the big knock-up because you’re gay or sterilized or pregnant or post-menopausal or whatever. You don’t even need a partner. Wrap a condom around a butt plug and shove it up your ass. Or blow condoms up and decorate your house with them while running around naked singing filthy, blasphemous songs about how Jesus and Mary Magdalene got it on.
Better yet, show up at one of the Planned Parenthoods that have been marked for abuse for distributing contraception today with a big, fat sign that says, “Thanks for all the hard work, Planned Parenthood.” Why? Because the American Life League is protesting Planned Parenthood today because contraception was legalized after a lawsuit filed by Planned Parenthood after one director, Estelle Griswold, got arrested for selling contraception to married couples in the state of Connecticut. Today is the 45th anniversary of that lawsuit, Griswold v Connecticut, and the protest is, surprise surprise, based on a lie and some misdirection. ALL is calling it “Pill Kills” day, pretending that they’re out to get just the pill and that it’s because the pill is “chemical abortion”. Both of these points are lies, which are forbidden by god in the 10 commandments, unlike contraception.
Lie #1: That the decision in Griswold was just about hormonal contraception.
There’s a new magazine out that’s pretending to be a general interest teenage magazine, but is actually an abstinence-only propaganda rag. Guess what it’s called?
That’s right. Abstinence: It’s just for girls. I know the law makes them say otherwise when they’re peddling this shit in the classroom, but it’s good to know they don’t even try to hide their beliefs when it comes to non-government funded materials.
I love that one headline is “Top 8 Come Backs 4 Come Ons”. I’m pretty sure, “Daddy and Jesus have first dibs on my hymen,” is the only one you’ll ever need.
Update:Eh, they have one for guys. Interestingly, the cover of the guys’ magazine has them jumping around and doing stuff, whereas the girl in the cover of the girls’ one is just throwing you a “come hither” look. You know, like committed virgins will do.
It’s amazing to me that “no” happens to be one of the first words in a child’s vocabulary. Yet, when they get to be older, the word simply goes out of their head when it comes to their sexual integrity and, just as important, their sexual health.
I say no to abstinence. This must cause HotMama the sort of mind-blowing pain that causes you to just get up and change the music in hopes everyone forgets before you return to your beanbag chair, man.
One simple word can separate them years of physical pain and other effects of STD’s as well as unwanted pregnancy.
“Condom”? Usually it takes more than that, like, “They’re in the top drawer.”
I don’t think HotMama at the Abstinence Clearinghouse should waste her preciously few working brain cells coming up with these nuggets. There’s a whole website full of profundities she can cut and paste.
Dad always thought laughter was the best medicine, which I guess is why several of us died of tuberculosis.
Better not take a dog on the space shuttle, because if he sticks his head out when you’re coming home his face might burn up.
As I expected, the American Life League coming clean about their desires to ban the birth control pill with their “Pill Kills” campaign has had the intended effect of making it easier for those of us who’ve been busting our asses trying to get out the word that the anti-choice community is not all that worried about fetal life, and far more concerned about returning women to a life where the threat of unplanned pregnancy hangs over our heads day and night. Like Dr. Dana Stone wrote in her guest post at Feministing:
Call it nostalgia for the good old days, when men were men, sex was unspeakable, and women lived in fear of unintended pregnancies.
Well, sex was unspeakable to women, and I suspect that’s because it was largely viewed as something degrading you do to women, even as some people privately experienced it as a fun “couples’ activity”. As I mention in this week’s podcast, I was impressed by Rick Perlstein’s descriptions in Nixonlandof the sex panic that ensued when comprehensive sex education became a staple in many schools. One man bragged about how he had never spoken of sex to his wife in 17 years of marriage. I suppose the nightly wife degradations were something that they pretended didn’t happen? Related in the book: Laws against pornography in many states had an exception for stag parties, where men got together in woman-free environments like the Lion’s Club to watch pornographic films together. Hearings against pornography back then usually featured an opportunity for congressmen to get together to watch the films and hoot and have a good time. That speaks volumes, I think, about the world that anti-choicers want back.
One of the worst problems in American politics is that once a wingnut myth takes off, it never dies, no matter how much evidence you can marshal against it. There are people who will go to their graves believing that there was a good reason to think that Saddam Hussein was hiding WMDs as part of his plot to re-blow-up the World Trade Center after he personally crashed a plane into it the first time. Or, as a less hyperbolic but still baffling example, my dentist told me a couple of weeks ago that she still, in the year 2008, has to talk down patients who are in a full blown panic about fluoridated drinking water. 
One thing that continues to frustrate me about the pharmacy refusal debates is that all the attention is paid to the rights of pharmacists to religious freedom, and none is paid to the rights of their customers that are being violated. I think in part this is because almost all those refusing service are men and almost all those being refused are women (or gay men, in some cases). And we as a society tend to think first of the rights of men over women. But we’re letting the wingnuts frame this argument—-by making it about the religious rights of the refusers, we are letting them subtly imply that women are not citizens with full rights worth equal protection by the government. 
As I expected, the American Life League coming clean about their desires to ban the birth control pill with their “Pill Kills” campaign has had the intended effect of making it easier for those of us who’ve been busting our asses trying to get out the word that the anti-choice community is not all that worried about fetal life, and far more concerned about returning women to a life where the threat of unplanned pregnancy hangs over our heads day and night.