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Bill O’Reilly: dumbest man alive

I don't say that lightly; there are many dumbasses in the world.  But this clip really puts O'Reilly over the top.  He makes, in quick order, three mind-boggling claims:

1) That the Institute of Medicine recommended that the HHS use tax dollars to pay for every woman's birth control. 

2) That free birth control won't reduce unwanted pregnancy rates, because the reason women get pregnant is they're "blasted" and don't use birth control.

3) The third claim is implicit, and it's that the birth control that's under discussion---he specifically mentions the pill---requires you to remember to use it while you're having the kind of wild, drunken sex O'Reilly has failed to invite into his life with loofah references.  If he can't get any, ladies, neither can you!

Anyway, all of these claims are manifestly stupid.  Let's take them one at a time.

1) Actually, the IOM recommended that the HHS classify contraception as preventive medicine.  This would not affect taxpayer dollars at all, because what it would do is require insurance companies to cover contraception without a co-pay.  I  have no idea where this stupid $4 billion figure he's bandying around comes from, but it's irrelevant.  The move is universally understood by serious people to be one that will save money in the short and long term, with the hopes that it will lower costs overall to the consumer.  The reason is pills, IUDs, etc. are cheap, but childbirth and babies are expensive.  Even though it would benefit consumers and insurance companies over the long run to cover prevention completely, the reason it's not done is insurance companies gamble that some other company will have you when you get diabetes/have an unwanted pregnancy/have a stroke.  So the government will just regulate it, and that takes that problem away.  But the takeaway is this: he's lying about the government paying for it, and that it will cost money. It will actually save money.

2) This is basically a moral claim.  O'Reilly is framing unwanted pregnancy as a woman's just punishment for being a dirty, drunken slut.  He doesn't, however, explain why he thinks it's such a great idea to have women he considers irresponsible, slutty drunks put in charge of raising the next generation.  This is typical anti-choice thinking---putting punishing "dirty girls" above all other concerns, including the well-being of children.

Anyway, there's no reason to believe that his claim has any basis in reality.  O'Reilly may only get laid on New Year's Eve after some heavy drinking, but most Americans have sex on average of a little over twice a week.  His implication that we're a nation of mostly celibate people who get trashed and then give into temptation doesn't fit the realities.  

3) But even if this were true, it wouldn't matter.  O'Reilly clearly doesn't understand how the birth control pill works.  His statement only makes sense if you assume that the pill works by a woman taking it right before or during  sex to prevent conception, which is why being drunk might make you forget it.  But in reality, that's not how the pill works at all, as roughly everyone in the world over 10 years old that isn't Bill O'Reilly understands.  You just take it during the day and it covers you for having sex roughly whenever, as long as you're up on your pills. If you haven't been taking your pills and you take one right before sex, it doesn't offer any protection.

O'Reilly's lies about the IOM recommendations and about how only drunk sluts get pregnant are toxic.  But beyond all that, I want to emphasize this: Bill  O'Reilly is 61 years old.  He has been on this planet for 61 years, and he knows so little about female biology and sexuality he literally thinks you have to use the birth control pill during sex for it to work.  O'Reilly has both a wife and a daughter, and yet he's so ignorant about female biology, I bet you could tell him that women get their periods out of their urethras and he'd probably believe you.  But despite knowing less about female biology than your average 6th grader, O'Reilly feels entitled to rail on and on about abortion, birth control, reproductive rights, women's sexuality, and health care.  This is in part due to our toxic culture that treats white men like authorities, even when they're so stupid you have a strong feeling they need their wives to tie their shoes for them in the morning. 

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Posted by Amanda Marcotte on 01:09 PM • (97) Comments

There’s a word for fucking someone who’s “blasted out of their mind.” It starts with “r” and rhymes with “tape”.

Comment #1: DataSnake  on  07/22  at  01:57 PM

He doesn’t, however, explain why he thinks it’s such a great idea to have women he considers irresponsible, slutty drunks put in charge of raising the next generation.

We both know this isn’t the case.  They aren’t supposed to raise the kids, just give birth to them and then adopt them out to good, White, Christian, straight couples.  ‘Cause you know that they deserve kids, and sluts don’t deserve to control what happens to their own bodies.

Comment #2: Jayn Newell  on  07/22  at  02:02 PM

Damn, what an asshole. And yeah, not just an asshole, but a mind-blowingly stupid one at that. And yet always so so sure that he is the smartest dude in the room. Arrogance is pretty amusing when it’s so clearly unwarranted.

And this whole situation is such crystal-clear proof that, as you’ve noted many times Amanda, these arguments always boil down to punishing bad bad girls. I’d bet the vast majority of people who don’t approve of the pill and other birth control methods, and don’t want it covered by insurance, are also anti-abortion. Yet they refuse to admit that the number one way to reduce the number of abortions is to make birth control easily accessible, which includes making it affordable. No, the only way they want to reduce abortions is to just shame the fuck out of women into not ever having sex unless they want babies.

Plus, it always annoys me that they never want to talk about all the women who take the pill for reasons other than preventing pregnancy. Due to health complications, I’m currently infertile, but I still take the pill for other reasons. Plenty of women who are not sexually active, or who are in sexual relationships with a partner with whom pregnancy cannot occur, or who are infertile for whatever reasons, take the pill to ease PMS, to regulate their periods, or for other reasons. But even though our reasons for using the pill have nothing to do with preventing pregnancy, these fucking toolbags don’t give a shit and will throw us out with the proverbial bathwater.

Rawr.

Comment #3: Alison  on  07/22  at  02:04 PM

And the Ring and the Shot and the IUD would just blow his mind. (Granted the Pill is most effective taken at the same time every day, but I doubt for most women that it’s Right Before They Have Sex.)

Comment #4: PixelFish  on  07/22  at  02:06 PM

Anyway, all of these claims are manifestly stupid.  Let’s take them one at a time.

Do we really even need to?  I mean, maybe if you’re 16 and you’ve been drinking the abstinence-only kool-aid, you might swallow this horseshit.  And maybe I’ve totally missed who your regular blogging audience is - but the idea that any of these statements would be true is so god damn absurd.  *sigh*

Comment #5: Zifnab  on  07/22  at  02:16 PM

And the Ring and the Shot and the IUD would just blow his mind.

On a totally separate note, can I just say I’m a really big fan of the Ring?  It’s like some sexy carnival game.  I always feel like I’ve won something when I find that thing.

Comment #6: Zifnab  on  07/22  at  02:18 PM

I wouldn’t put it past a private insurer to try and stick the government with the tab for covering bc, however. There’s undoubtedly a lobbyist working on that right this minute. Surely there’s a tax break, credit or loophole to be exploited!

Comment #7: benvolio  on  07/22  at  02:27 PM

he probably thinks pregnancy is caused by the tides.

Comment #8: cj  on  07/22  at  02:30 PM

he probably thinks pregnancy is caused by the tides.

Penis goes in, baby comes out.  You can’t explain that!

Comment #9: schism  on  07/22  at  02:34 PM

CJ, thanks for the spittake.

Comment #10: Secret Agent Norman  on  07/22  at  03:16 PM

“Penis goes in, baby comes out.  You can’t explain that!”

Ha!

Comment #11: Mark  on  07/22  at  03:16 PM

And it’s not like, statistically, even his own audience is so stupid. At least not the women who watch his show.

Comment #12: Livi  on  07/22  at  03:18 PM

schism—awesome smile

I don’t think they assume automatic adoption, that’s for teenage sluts, not for adult sluts. Babies are so magical that when a woman is forced to bear one, she will automatically shape up her life and become the model mother. If she’s under 18, she’s not yet entitled to those magical baby life-fulfilling powers.

Comment #13: Mighty Ponygirl  on  07/22  at  03:18 PM

Anything that blows out of Bill O’Reilly’s mouth is reason alone to consider it suspect.  He’s a well-paid liar who gets paid more money to lie than the rest of us are paid trying to make an honest living, he’s speaking to an audience that’s perfectly willing - even eager - to believe the most outrageous lies about anything/anyone they don’t like, all done through a broadcast network whose sole purpose of existence is to inject lies into the public discourse in the same manner farmers plant mustard seed - with a firehose & by the the metric petatonne.

Comment #14: Smartpatrol  on  07/22  at  03:35 PM

Damn, what an asshole. And yeah, not just an asshole, but a mind-blowingly stupid one at that. And yet always so so sure that he is the smartest dude in the room. Arrogance is pretty amusing when it’s so clearly unwarranted.

The man’s a Ganser Syndrome case study.

Comment #15: Smartpatrol  on  07/22  at  03:44 PM

I’m also loving the unspoken assumption that married women never want to not get pregnant.

The government SHOULD cover birth control. The health, education, and safety of the people should be the primary concern of any government, and the fact that the USA appears to have forgotten that (and Americans have forgotten that paying taxes means you stop having to pay out-of-pocket for services, basically rendering a tax increase a zero-sum issue for lower and middle class taxpayers) does not in fact resolve them of the responsibility to do so.

Quebec is a perfect example of this. On top of the Canadian federal income tax, they pay another 25% of their income in provincial taxes, scaled according to income. The result? An incredible quality of life, reduced crime, political freedom, excellent education, reduced crime, free child care, reduced crime, blossoming cultural and leisure facilities that everyone can access, reduced crime, and a healthy, prosperous citizenry. The idea of putting this kind of responsibility on a for-profit insurance industry is nothing short of laughable.

There is no free lunch, but a lot of people seem to think that life should be an endless buffet of advantages and turn on each other like dogs when there’s no money to fill the plates.

Comment #16: Socratic Method Man  on  07/22  at  03:46 PM

It would be nice if we could just stop dancing around all of the ancillary problems that happen in this world from unwanted pregnancies/childbirth and just declare that safe, reliable birth control is a human right. The UN is currently debating whether water, or food, etc is a basic human right, and it seems to me that we could do an end-run around all of these issues if people only had children that they affirmatively tried for, and didn’t have as an accidental side-effect of having sex.

It’s clear from thousands of years of birth control (some more effective than others—the romans made a common weed go extinct when they found out it meant they could screw without worrying about pregnancy) that human beings value orgasms over children. And there’s nothing wrong with that! We are not animals—we don’t have heat cycles, our offspring are not “off on their own” within a year, and we are generally happier and healthier with fewer children.

Comment #17: Mighty Ponygirl  on  07/22  at  03:59 PM

O’Reilly’s desire to abrade a woman’s vulva with a loofah reminds me of the guy I knew (wasn’t sleeping with him, knock wood) who asserted, authoritatively, that the clitoris is “just skin.” It explained a lot of the shitty sex I’ve had and also the current movement to equate male circumcision with FGM. It also makes me want to jack O’Reilly off with a sand blaster. oo la la!

Comment #18: snobographer  on  07/22  at  04:32 PM

The UN is currently debating whether water, or food, etc is a basic human right, and it seems to me that we could do an end-run around all of these issues if people only had children that they affirmatively tried for…
Comment #17: Mighty Ponygirl on 07/22 at 03:59 PM

That’s a long-ass road. We can’t even get mutually affirmative sexual consent straight here in the so-called developed world.

Comment #19: snobographer  on  07/22  at  04:41 PM

If I’m going to tilt after windmills, I’m gonna tilt after the biggest fucking windmill I can find.

Comment #20: Mighty Ponygirl  on  07/22  at  04:59 PM

Woman takes pill in the morning, yet has sex at night and doesn’t get pregnant.  You can’t explain that.  (Sorry!)

O’Reilly is one of those case where it’s impossible to determine if he’s being dishonest or if he really is that fucking stupid.  I guess it doesn’t really matter, but it’s hard to believe that anyone can truly be this fucking stupid.

Comment #21: bananacat  on  07/22  at  05:03 PM

Wow…I never thought he’d top that ridiculous nonsense a few years back when he claimed that Bush was better on poverty than Clinton because the poverty rate was lower at the midpoint of Bush’s presidency than it was at the midpoint of Clinton’s (completely ignoring, of course, the massive difference in the trendlines at those respective points.) And when called out on it, he doubled down, as though just shouting nonsense loud enough will convince enough people that you must be correct is a substitute for making any sort of rational sense.

Though, given his audience, that may not have been an incorrect calculation on his part.

I suppose next he’ll be telling us that condoms don’t work because guys don’t put them on until after the deed is done. Oh, wait, he’d never do that, because only women could be so mindblowingly stupid in his feverish imagination. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised that if he gets called out on this, he’ll say something along the lines of “Of course I know how birth control pills work, but these slutty bitches are stupid! They don’t know how to use them because anyone so morally bankrupt as to have sex for fun are obviously mentally deficient.” The guy is just that intellectually dishonest and hateful, and the sad part is that he’s generally considered one of the more sane among the right-wing commentariat.

Comment #22: Epsilon82  on  07/22  at  05:30 PM

@15:  Oh, let’s not let him off that easily.  His disease has a different name.  It’s called Male Privilege.

This effort on the part of right-wingers to lump birth control in with abortion is going to blow up in their smug, ignorant faces.

From the Guttmacher Institute (http://www.guttmacher.org/datacenter/profiles/US.jsp);
Forty-three million women of reproductive age, or seven in 10, are sexually active and do not want to become pregnant, but could become pregnant if they or their partners fail to use a contraceptive method.
Virtually all women (98%) aged 15-44 who have ever had intercourse have used at least one contraceptive method.
Overall, 62% of women of reproductive age are currently using a contraceptive method.

Comment #23: mischiefmanager  on  07/22  at  05:34 PM

@Socratic Method Man: Someone ought to tell that to our prime minister, who’s been busy for years now trying to destroy that quality of life and replace everything we have with PPPs (Private/Public Partnerships).

We also have our own paid shills who complain endlessly about the fact that our social security is going to collapse (hint: it won’t), that we need to reduce taxes to attract industry (actually, cost of operations for corporations are lower here than elsewhere in N.A. because the taxes end up covering a lot of costs for cheaper than these companies would have to pay if they had to provide, say, health insurance to their employees from a private firm) and so on. Not surprisingly most of their funds come from the Koch brothers and other American ideologues.

Comment #24: BlackBloc  on  07/22  at  05:39 PM

This is still more charitable than my interpretation- that he’s normalizing date rape. But I suppose if we’re just incubators in the first place, our sober consent isn’t a huge deal.

Comment #25: Liz212  on  07/22  at  06:19 PM

Quebec is a perfect example of this. On top of the Canadian federal income tax, they pay another 25% of their income in provincial taxes, scaled according to income. The result? An incredible quality of life, reduced crime, political freedom, excellent education, reduced crime, free child care, reduced crime, blossoming cultural and leisure facilities that everyone can access, reduced crime, and a healthy, prosperous citizenry. The idea of putting this kind of responsibility on a for-profit insurance industry is nothing short of laughable.

Socratic Method Man, not to nitpick, but actually child care in Quebec isn’t completely free—it’s $7 a day per child if you can get a spot in a subsidized daycare (for which the waiting lists are VERY long).  That said, abortion IS free, and available to all female residents up till about 24 weeks gestation.  Approximately 1/3 of all confirmed pregnancies end in abortion in Quebec (wonder how that compares to rates in other provinces and states). Admittedly, the tax rate is very high, but so is the quality of life.

Comment #26: Freknur  on  07/22  at  06:21 PM

Quebec is a perfect example of this. On top of the Canadian federal income tax, they pay another 25% of their income in provincial taxes, scaled according to income. The result? An incredible quality of life, reduced crime, political freedom, excellent education, reduced crime, free child care, reduced crime, blossoming cultural and leisure facilities that everyone can access, reduced crime, and a healthy, prosperous citizenry. The idea of putting this kind of responsibility on a for-profit insurance industry is nothing short of laughable.

Socratic Method Man, not to nitpick, but strictly speaking child care in Quebec isn’t free—it’s $7 a day per child if you can get a spot in a subsidized daycare (for which the waiting lists are VERY long).  That said, birth control is covered, plus abortion is free, and available to all female residents up till about 24 weeks gestation.  Approximately 1/3 of all confirmed pregnancies end in abortion in Quebec (wonder how that compares to rates in other provinces and states). Admittedly, the tax rate is very high, but so is the quality of life.

Comment #27: Freknur  on  07/22  at  06:24 PM

@PixelFish—Yeah, it’s rather disingenuous how he only talks about pills, which are one of the birth control methods most susceptible to human error.  (Even so, they work very well for many people—and even if you do forget a pill, you’re still probably protected as long as you remember within 24 hours and take the next one at the right time.)  But if you’re the sort of person who thinks remembering a pill every day will be difficult—well, what about the Patch, which only needs to be remembered every week?  Or NuvaRing every month?  Depo every three months?  Implanon every three years?  Mirena every five years?  Paragard every 12 years?  Guess what Bill, they all exist!  Now, the latter three are prohibitively expensive for many people, but they are extremely effective and pretty much negate the possibility of one night of drunkenness screwing things up.  But the point is, women can figure out what will work for them and what won’t, and a woman interested in preventing pregnancy has probably read much more about these methods (or discussed them with her doctor) than Bill O’Reilly ever would.

Comment #28: AlysonCoromandas  on  07/22  at  06:26 PM

Never underestimate the ability of a guy to not understand ladythings. 

Or of O’Reilly to be a douche.  (And yet he probably thinks a “douche” is something cool you stick on the hood of your car.)

Comment #29: BonAppetit  on  07/22  at  06:34 PM

It’s funny that he thinks taking a pill every day is so hard to remember, when people do it all the time for many other medications.  Does he really think pills are useless for hypothyroidism because I have to remember to take that every day?  It’s amazing how my ladybrane is just smart enough to take all my other medications daily, but just stupid enough to forget the BC pill.

Comment #30: bananacat  on  07/22  at  06:39 PM

Comment #30: bananacat on 07/22 at 06:39 PM

It’s funny that he thinks taking a pill every day is so hard to remember, when people do it all the time for many other medications.  Does he really think pills are useless for hypothyroidism because I have to remember to take that every day?  It’s amazing how my ladybrane is just smart enough to take all my other medications daily, but just stupid enough to forget the BC pill.

Well, to be fair, I have two daily medications that I take, one in the morning and one in the evening, and I forget one about 2-3 times a month (usually the morning one, on a weekend day; not a morning person…).  The real question, however, is how effective are daily medications at the typical forgetfulness rates of the population, and I’ll wager the answer is “nearly 100%.”

Comment #31: sacundim  on  07/22  at  07:05 PM

Remember, this is the man who gave us “Tide comes in, tide goes out.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BCipg71LbI

Comment #32: Theresa  on  07/22  at  07:44 PM

He’s not stupid, he’s just not reality-based. Why should he care about facts? They’re inconvenient and get in the way of a good polemic, and no one in his audience or management is going to do anything to him for making Ari Fleischer look like an honest man.

The only thing calling him stupid might do is ruffle his enormous ego so that he shouts “shut up!” a little louder.

Comment #33: paul  on  07/22  at  07:55 PM

#8: That must be some very hard water.

Comment #34: ginmar  on  07/22  at  11:05 PM

The guy is just that intellectually dishonest and hateful, and the sad part is that he’s generally considered one of the more sane among the right-wing commentariat.

On Fox News he is Edward R Murrow compared to the rest of the people there.  Sad but true.

Comment #35: Brian7  on  07/22  at  11:20 PM

” (And yet he probably thinks a “douche” is something cool you stick on the hood of your car.)”

You mean it’s not?

Comment #36: vim876  on  07/22  at  11:32 PM

This is in part due to our toxic culture that treats white men like authorities, even when they’re so stupid you have a strong feeling they need their wives to tie their shoes for them in the morning.

O’Reilly is the patron saint of cranky white suburban dads who think they know everything and don’t need to learn any new information or hear any liberal elitist ‘facts,’ thank you very much.

Comment #37: Sour Kraut  on  07/23  at  01:22 AM

Over at Washington Monthly the commenters agree that the reason Billo thinks women have to be blasted drunk to have sex, is that that’s the only way any woman has ever managed to have sex with him.
And this whole thing about responsible women don’t need birth control puzzles me.  Even married middle-class people with kids don’t want more kids at some point.  I had unprotected sex three times in my life, and have four kids (twins).  When my husband and I still went to the Catholic Church, we wondered why the priests didn’t undertand what was going on when the pews were full of families with 2 or 3 kids.  When we were growing up, the average family had 5 or more,  families with 6 to 8 kids were very common and 12 or 13 not unheard of.  You don’t have to be an out-of-control drunken hedonist to want to have sex with your partner more often than you want another baby.

Comment #38: gretchen  on  07/23  at  02:38 AM

And yet, I’m hard pressed to understand how Obama differentiates himself from this moron.

Comment #39: Mireille  on  07/23  at  06:03 AM

You don’t have to be an out-of-control drunken hedonist to want to have sex with your partner more often than you want another baby.

I think that’s just it, though. I think these people are honestly against people having sex for any reason other than procreation, especially women. It’s the only way their point of view makes any sense at all.

Comment #40: luxaeturna  on  07/23  at  06:26 AM

When my husband and I still went to the Catholic Church, we wondered why the priests didn’t undertand what was going on when the pews were full of families with 2 or 3 kids.

It’s possible they did.  I flat out told the priest giving us marriage prep that we were going to use a BC method other than NFP—his response was, “Well, you know what the official teaching is.”

Comment #41: Jayn Newell  on  07/23  at  08:42 AM

Jayn, our priest simply wanted to be sure we were “open” to children.  At some point.  Eventually. Our pre-Cana instructors flat out said NFP doesn’t work, but if you want to learn about it we can find some brochures.  “if you don’t play the game, you don’t get to make the rules” was the precise statement.

They know.  They either ignore it because they know better or use BC use as a way to make themselves feel even holier than the laity.

Comment #42: Caren-Sun-blocking Creator of Animorphic Pancakes  on  07/23  at  10:00 AM

luxaeterna @40:

I think these people are honestly against people having sex for any reason other than procreation, especially women. It’s the only way their point of view makes any sense at all.

You’re right, although I don’t think they’re quite as clear about it in their own minds.  They know there’s something icky about sex, although they know they themselves really, really like it.  I feel like a lot of straight, conservative, Christian males are as “in the closet” about their sexual desires as their gay counterparts are.  Their understanding of sex ends up horribly polluted because of it: it’s bad; but I like it (I’m “tempted” by it); it must be those women who are making me crazy with their sexiness; sometimes it’s OK within marriage (the Catholic Church admits not all sex has to be intended for procreation); but even then there’s probably something wrong with it…  It’s a mess.

Comment #43: ScottInOH  on  07/23  at  10:28 AM

Caren: I always thought the NFP line would have been more convincing if we hadn’t gotten it from two women with fertility problems (one used it to conceive, the other adopted), one with four kids, and the nurse had nine.  My grandmother had 9 kids—and she only started at 30!  Great example of how to limit you family size there lady.

Comment #44: Jayn Newell  on  07/23  at  11:03 AM

It’s possible they did.  I flat out told the priest giving us marriage prep that we were going to use a BC method other than NFP—his response was, “Well, you know what the official teaching is.”

Most of the western Catholic clergy knows damn well everyone is using birth control and largely avoid the issue. As far back as the late 60s the Canadian bishops quietly suggested the church might want to look at revising the opposition to it. The suggestion was stomped on, of course.

Comment #45: KeithM  on  07/23  at  11:25 AM

The suggestion was stomped on, of course.

Along with any investigation re: exactly what was going on at Mount Cashel, Residential Schools, etc.

 

Comment #46: Smartpatrol  on  07/23  at  12:46 PM

My grandma was Catholic during the 50s and had only 3 kids.  When she was questioned about it, she just joked that her husband wasn’t Catholic.  I guess if it comes down to wifely submission vs not using BC, none of the people in here church really wanted to touch that dilemma.

But the Catholic church looks the other way about BC simply because they need money from rich Westerners.  They know that if they make a big deal about it too many people will leave, so they go after gay people which are the easier target.  But even though U.S. Catholics can mostly get away with using BC, the influence of the Catholic church makes it harder for people in poorer, less powerful countries, especially when Catholicism is the official state religion.

Comment #47: bananacat  on  07/23  at  01:57 PM

Why was the so-called liberal in that segment so passive in not blasting O’Reillys BS? Drunken sex, OMG! Isnt that among the demographic that isnt drinking as much?

Comment #48: Bean Slap  on  07/23  at  02:33 PM

Exactly #1. Apparently in his delusional scenarios the guys are always 100% sober and having it off with a blasted out of her mind woman isnt rape? Perhaps this is the case that its not rape only with luffa lovin’ O’Reilly?

Comment #49: Bean Slap  on  07/23  at  02:35 PM

To address something AlysonC said, I’d like to point out that in many states, Title X funding (available at places like Planned Parenthood) already covers all BC methods, including the more expensive IUDs and Implanon, without any out of pocket cost to patients who have incomes below the poverty level.  Details vary from state to state and you may have to wait a few weeks for an appointment, but if you think one of those methods might work for you, don’t just assume that you can’t afford it (and spread the word!).

And, Mirelle, I know you are just trolling, but I’d like to point out to everyone that Obama’s attitudes to women’s health and choice issues are actually a perfect example of an area where Obama is the exact opposite of a Republican.  Remember when Obama accidentally forgot to pretend that anti-choice people really only care about “life”, and said something about how he doesn’t think that a woman who makes a mistake should be “punished with a baby”? There was a whole kerfuffle in the news and Amanda covered it here.  That statement tells me that he understands exactly what anti’s are really about and knows that it’s bullshit.

Also, remember when Bush talked about the Dread Scott case and we all recognized it as an anti-choice dog-whistle intended for only his base to understand?  Obama gave a dog-whistle of his own that was beautiful music to my pro-choice ears in this interview: http://content.usatoday.com/communities/theoval/post/2010/04/obama-no-abortion-litmus-test-on-supreme-court-nominee/1 when he framed his choice to go with pro-choice appointees as a matter of honoring a woman’s right to “bodily integrity”.  That is exactly the right answer, as far as I’m concerned: none of that “safe, legal and rare” weak sauce, but an actual declaration that women are people and that our bodies belong to us.

If you’re gonna make some crazy argument that Bill O’Reilly and President Obama are politically the same, you might have better luck doing it on a thread that ISN’T about reproductive rights.

Comment #50: GumbyAnne  on  07/23  at  03:03 PM

My great-grandmother had 21 kids! Also had a great uncle who went to South America and had 17 kids with a woman there.

Comment #51: Bean Slap  on  07/23  at  03:12 PM

It’s clear from thousands of years of birth control (some more effective than others—the romans made a common weed go extinct when they found out it meant they could screw without worrying about pregnancy) that human beings value orgasms over children.

I’m curious about this magic weed. Traditional herbal methods of birth control tended to be “poison the mother’s body enough to kill the fetus but let her survive, because she’s bigger.” Sorry, but this reeks of Mother Nature Pwns Male Smartypants Western Medicine woo-woo.

It’s not that human beings value orgasms over children, otherwise we’d just abandon them at birth so we could keep fucking without having to deal with those 2 a.m. feedings. It’s that we have a reward mechanism (fun sex!) which has emotional as well as reproductive functions, and works reasonably well to keep us breeding, but isn’t limited to those times when we can or should have offspring a la heat cycles.

Access to safe, effective family planning is indeed a human right. But it is a little tiresome to keep hearing the assumption that if only they could, women everywhere would either be childfree or have two (2) children like good little middle-class Westerners, because surely nobody would use family planning for any other reason - like delaying a family until they’re older, or spacing children more, or having as many children as they want and then stopping rather than childbearing their entire fertile years.

Comment #52: mythago  on  07/23  at  03:58 PM

Now that *another* straight, white “Christian” man has committed *another* act of terrorism, can we please please please start demonizing straight, white “Christian” men for once?

Oh, and get this blowhard off the air ...

Comment #53: cmf406  on  07/23  at  04:12 PM

Myth—I believe this was the plant in question. If it were a Mother Nature Pwns Western Medicine Woo, it would be a plant still in existence, not one that’s no longer available. Obviously, testing how it worked and the effects on the woman’s body is a little sketchy—all we have are facts to go on: The plant was so incredibly popular that it was harvested to extinction, and one of its celebrated uses was as an abortifacient. How you choose to color in those lines is up to you, but the point is simply that human beings have sought reliable methods of birth control to decouple orgasms from babymaking for a long time.

otherwise we’d just abandon them at birth so we could keep fucking without having to deal with those 2 a.m. feedings.

Which we do—plenty of children are/were abandoned because the parents couldn’t afford/bother to raise them. It’s an archetypal trope: Atalanta was a babe abandoned in the woods (a ton of Greek heroes were), as were Romulus and Remus, hell, even Hansel and Gretel are cribbing off the idea of “Kids: Fuck ‘em. Leave them in the woods to die.” I mean, no, it’s not like we celebrate killing infant children, but it’s not like it’s outside the human understanding to do so. This sticker is actually serious and was part of a campaign to get the word out about safe harbor laws. Its on the side of dumpsters on both the east and west coasts.

I stand firmly by the idea that children should only be made when they are affirmatively tried for: And that includes a currently nonexistent structure of female empowerment to prevent coercion. If a woman wants to try for 2.3 children, fine. If she wants to go full Duggar and have as many as her body can bear (and her husband isn’t bullying her into it), fine. But each one of those children should be a matter of a woman and her partner actually wanting a child, and not ending up pregnant accidentally and “trying to make the best of it.” I mean, when it works out, great. But I think we over-celebrate those situations and choose to ignore the overwhelming instances where the couple/woman would have been better off not having the kid.

Comment #54: Mighty Ponygirl  on  07/23  at  04:18 PM

#53 cmf,
Seriously, how does that make sense? Isnt that hypocritical? Also you do know that the majority of Arabs are caucasian, right? They arent any different than southern Europeans in skin tone. Also how does one big terrorist attack make up for hundreds more in Europe by “non-whites?” Also I dont think the onus was on skin tone but on religion. You have had Muslim religious people who were white blow up buildings. Its also not like anyones shy around here of putting the onus of All Humans Fallability on white people, aka, those with little melanin content who may even be Jewish or Iranian since people like you who use broad brush strokes dont analyze further. If you saw a blond Iranian woman walking down the street you’d think, “white,” if you saw one of my dark skinned Italian cousins walking down the street you’d think “brown.” Its very superficial. I’m for dismantling privilege and the white construct but not for being an extension of pettiness, hypocrisy and being over-sheltered.

Comment #55: Bean Slap  on  07/23  at  05:00 PM

#54 mighty ponytail,

My mom has a friend who when she learned she was pregnant started crying. She really didnt want to be pregnant and couldnt afford another kid. No pregnancy should have to be like that. I think she was also Catholic so she didnt think she could get an abortion. I wonder why these women dont go, “fuck the Pope-bunch of celibate men telling women who have sex what to do with their own bodies.” I mean, if everyone did what the priests/nuns did there would be no more Catholics-hasnt that made sense to them?

Comment #56: Bean Slap  on  07/23  at  05:04 PM

I’m curious about this magic weed. Traditional herbal methods of birth control tended to be “poison the mother’s body enough to kill the fetus but let her survive, because she’s bigger.” Sorry, but this reeks of Mother Nature Pwns Male Smartypants Western Medicine woo-woo.

Except that it was more than that, mythago:

Silphium (also known as silphion or laser) was a plant that was used in classical antiquity as a rich seasoning and as a medicine.[1] It was the essential item of trade from the ancient North African city of Cyrene, and was so critical to the Cyrenian economy that most of their coins bore a picture of the plant (illustration, right). The valuable product was the plant’s resin (laser, laserpicium, or lasarpicium).

Aside from its uses in Greco-Roman cooking (as in recipes by Apicius), many medical uses were ascribed to the plant.[2] It was said that it could be used to treat cough, sore throat, fever, indigestion, aches and pains, warts, and all kinds of maladies. It has been speculated that the plant may also have functioned as a contraceptive, based partly on Pliny’s statement that it could be used “to promote the menstrual discharge”.[3] Given that many species in the parsley family have estrogenic properties, and some (such as wild carrot) have been found to work as an abortifacient, it is quite possible that the plant was pharmacologically active in the prevention or termination of pregnancy.

Silphium was an important species in prehistory, as evidenced by the Egyptians and Knossos Minoans developing a specific glyph to represent the silphium plant.[4] It was used widely by most ancient Mediterranean cultures; the Romans considered it “worth its weight in denarii” (silver coins). Legend said that it was a gift from the god Apollo.

The exact identity of silphium is unclear. It is commonly believed to be a now-extinct plant of the genus Ferula,[1] perhaps a variety of “giant fennel”. The still-extant plant Ferula tingitana has been suggested as another possibility.[3] Another plant, asafoetida, was used as a cheaper substitute for silphium, and had similar enough qualities that Romans, including the geographer Strabo, used the same word to describe both.[5]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silphium

 

Comment #57: Dark Avenger Guardian Chow Mein  on  07/23  at  05:12 PM

MP:  “The plant was so incredibly popular that it was harvested to extinction, and one of its celebrated uses was as an abortifacient.”

Of course you could say almost the same about rhino horn as an aphrodisiac.

I got a book recently on the history of many garden herbs.  One of the amusing things the author points out is the list of purported uses each herb has attributed to it.  Long lists for each one.  Of course a lot of herbs do have actual real effects among the many spurious ones also attributed to them.

The major point stands:  effective or no, the desire to control fertility (and other things about our bodies and lives) is strong enough to make an herb (or an animal) extinct.  The appropriate response to that is to discover what actually does work and use it, make science and nature work for us, rather than letting biology be destiny.

Comment #58: oldfeminist  on  07/23  at  07:15 PM

Silphium comes from a rather odd family of plants (Apiales) that all look sort of the same—vegetables like fennel, carrots, celery, and parsnips; herbs like dill and ginseng; and some nasty-ass poisons like hemlock. There’s no shortage of pharmacoactive chemicals kicking around that family—coniine (hemlock), myristicin (the hallucinogen in nutmeg; also exists in parsley and dill), psoralen (an indirect carcinogen found in celery and parsnips), and coumarin (precursor of warfarin and some uglier anticoagulants) are a few examples.

Long story short, if silphium really was an abortifacient, that wouldn’t be the least bit shocking. Don’t forget, pharmacology is just herbalism without the immaturity and dogma.

Comment #59: BrianX  on  07/23  at  07:18 PM

Also, the part about “all look sort of the same” is pretty important—it’s easier than you’d think to confuse parsley and cilantro (gag), or Queen Anne’s Lace (theoretically edible wild carrot) with hemlock (yikes). On the whole, Mythago, you’re dealing with a rather odd group of plants there.

Comment #60: BrianX  on  07/23  at  07:23 PM

(ObThatHorseAintDeadYet: flat-leaf parsley and immature celery look almost identical…)

Comment #61: BrianX  on  07/23  at  07:24 PM

Mighty Ponygirl, that sticker (and your caveat that it’s a real campaign) reminds me of this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NRNQmtUAUg

My partner said it came on during every commercial break when he and his ‘bros were watching the Super Bowl a few years ago.  They would all go completely and uncomfortably silent while it was on.  Nothing like being reminded that unintended pregnancy can result in dead babies to liven up a party.

Comment #62: stubbles  on  07/23  at  09:34 PM

stubbles - especially when every other commercial was selling sex. smile

Comment #63: Mighty Ponygirl  on  07/23  at  10:07 PM

Bill O’Reilly: dumbest man alive

I must have missed Bush Jr being assassinated…

Comment #64: Phoenician in a time of Romans  on  07/23  at  11:06 PM

#56 Beanslap:  my mother had friends like that too.  I remember one neighbor, after her 7th or 8th kid, asking my mom if she knew any way to stop having more.  My mom said she’d heard maybe foam?  My mom herself never used anything but rhythm.  She only had 3 kids because they married later, and she had very regular periods.  It worked for her, but she described lying in bed next to the man she loved and not being able to do anything very difficult.  She used to say “if the Pope were a woman, things would be different.”  But those women with irregular periods weren’t helped by rhythm, so they just had 7 or 8 kids.

Comment #65: gretchen  on  07/24  at  12:07 AM

And my mom marvelled that her friend was a nurse and didn’t know more than that.

Comment #66: gretchen  on  07/24  at  02:13 AM

It’s easier than you’d think to confuse parsley and cilantro (gag)...
Comment #60: BrianX on 07/23 at 07:23 PM

I have them planted next to each other and yeah, they look an awful lot alike.  Rubbing the leaves will very definitely tell you the difference, though!

Comment #67: oldfeminist  on  07/24  at  09:50 AM

I bet you could tell him that women get their periods out of their urethras and he’d probably believe you.

actually, i’d bet that he doesn’t even know that women have urethras.  i’m always astonished at how many people i encounter who think we pee out of our vaginas.  *eyeroll*

Comment #68: megz.TN  on  07/24  at  11:48 AM

@Mighty Ponygirl: But your link doesn’t say that the Romans made a plant go extinct because they discovered it was awesome birth control. “It has been speculated that the plant also have functioned as a contraceptive” and the exact cause of the extinction is unknown - that’s a hell of a long way from Magic Fucking Plant, particularly as the Straight Dope article your Wikipedia link goes to takes a much more skeptical view.

Yes, humans have always practiced infanticide. Generally, though, not because they couldn’t manage to put off the need to come long enough to change a diaper, or because, like cats, getting rid of the baby is the quickest way to get Mama back in heat.

I would like to think we all stand firmly for the proposition that women should only have children if and when they choose to do so. What I have a problem with is the idea that naturally means every woman is going to want to have a nice Western middle-class family arrangement, because isn’t that what any sensible person would do if she had a choice? Cultural imperialism isn’t going to win any hearts or minds.

@BrianX: Very true - but again, they work by poisoning the mother’s body enough to interfere with the pregnancy, by forcing her uterus to expel the fetus or by killing it, without also killing her.

Comment #69: mythago  on  07/24  at  02:26 PM

that’s a hell of a long way from Magic Fucking Plant

It’s been my experience that people don’t treasure plant products unless they get some sort of “bang” for their buck.

Why would the Romans consider it worth their weight in silver if it wasn’t doing ‘something’ for them, mythago?

Comment #70: Dark Avenger Guardian Chow Mein  on  07/24  at  02:42 PM

wonder why these women dont go, “fuck the Pope-bunch of celibate men telling women who have sex what to do with their own bodies.” I mean, if everyone did what the priests/nuns did there would be no more Catholics-hasnt that made sense to them?

This always comes up but remember that most (or at least many) religious people actually believe the central tenets of their religion.  If someone truly believes that Catholicism is the only way to get to Heaven, they can’t just choose to stop believing it because the priests are assholes.  Belief doesn’t work that way.  At the very minimum, they could choose to believe they were going to Hell and do it for the sake of changing the corrupt church.  But it’s not easy to just stop believing your beliefs.  It’s not like a lightswitch.

Comment #71: bananacat  on  07/24  at  03:25 PM

Why would the Romans consider it worth their weight in silver if it wasn’t doing ‘something’ for them, mythago?

People are really good at deluding themselves.  This is the same reasoning that people use to claim things like acupuncture really work.  Why would so many people use it for so long if it didn’t work?  It could easily be a placebo effect.  No matter how many people use homeopathy, it won’t suddenly start working when it reaches some threshold of people using it.

Comment #72: bananacat  on  07/24  at  03:27 PM

Why would the Romans consider it worth their weight in silver if it wasn’t doing ‘something’ for them, mythago?
Comment #70: Dark Avenger Guardian Chow Mein on 07/24 at 02:42 PM

We just can’t know if we can’t even see the fucking herb.  It might have worked.  It might not have.  Claiming it must have because otherwise why would they use it is kind of absurd.  Why would people pray about it, douche (with coke), jump up and down, adopt specific positions during or after intercourse if it didn’t work? 

We could ask the people who use powdered rhino horn for ED the same question.  Believed to <> does, and belief in something you really want to have true is pretty strong stuff.

Pregnancy is not a sure result of PIV intercourse.  So any time you have sex and don’t get pregnant is a time your post hoc ergo propter hoc brain says “what I did to avoid pregnancy really worked!”

And the fact is that people really, really, REALLY want to control their fertility.  And they don’t want to anger the Sky God or Mother Nature by using “unnatural” means.

Even today with science on our side millions of people fall for these stupid ideas.  Back when you didn’t know what caused you to not get pregnant or miscarry, it was even easier to be caught up by such a claim.

Again, this doesn’t prove it wasn’t an abortifacient.  There just isn’t enough evidence to say it was.  And given the number of herbs that supposedly “brought on menses, ” just a historical claim is not enough.

Comment #73: oldfeminist  on  07/24  at  03:36 PM

People are really good at deluding themselves.  This is the same reasoning that people use to claim things like acupuncture really work.

Just like milkmaids in Jenners’ time couldn’t be possibly correct about the protective effects of cowpox regarding a smallpox infection.

Or, if you like it really just ‘old wives’ tales regarding the use of foxglove tea in treating dropsy,  it was just the placebo effect at work.

Comment #74: Dark Avenger Guardian Chow Mein  on  07/24  at  03:40 PM

Dark Avenger @74: So your argument is, if people pay a lot for a remedy, and they think it works, then we know that it must really do what they think it does or they wouldn’t pay for it? I mean, srsly?

Poor Ovid. If only he’d known about the Magic Fucking Herb like all of the other Romans he wouldn’t have written those poems worrying about (and then harshing on) his mistress for having an abortion.

Comment #75: mythago  on  07/24  at  05:31 PM

Comment #71: bananacat on 07/24 at 03:25 PM

This always comes up but remember that most (or at least many) religious people actually believe the central tenets of their religion.  If someone truly believes that Catholicism is the only way to get to Heaven, they can’t just choose to stop believing it because the priests are assholes.  Belief doesn’t work that way.  At the very minimum, they could choose to believe they were going to Hell and do it for the sake of changing the corrupt church.  But it’s not easy to just stop believing your beliefs.  It’s not like a lightswitch.

I always bring up the Decameron’s tale of the Jew who went to Rome to decide whether to become a Christian in this context.  Catholics have spent centuries seeing the Church as a corrupt institution that nonetheless holds the path to salvation.

Comment #76: sacundim  on  07/24  at  06:14 PM

So your argument is, if people pay a lot for a remedy, and they think it works, then we know that it must really do what they think it does or they wouldn’t pay for it? I mean, srsly?

Oh, I can see how a herb or plant can be overpromoted and be thought to help with anything from acne to herpes zoster,  as happens with patent medicines these days.

But if it was considered worth it’s weight in silver, that could be explained by the placebo effect?

A lot of dealers could move their schwag if they had your help, mythago grin.

Since we don’t know much about how it operated, it could be that there were unmistakeable physical/psychological traits that meant a user was getting the real things, it was used in all sorts of things.

But its’ reputation was because the Romans, the Egyptians,  they all didn’t know shit.  Okay.

Poor Ovid. If only he’d known about the Magic Fucking Herb like all of the other Romans he wouldn’t have written those poems worrying about (and then harshing on) his mistress for having an abortion.

If she ever existed:

Historical Context

Speculations as to Corinna’s real identity are many, if indeed she lived at all. It has been argued that she is a poetic construct copying the “puella” archetype from other works in the love elegy genre. The name Corinna may have been a typically Ovidian pun based on the Greek word for “maiden”, “kore”

From the Wiki.

I’m sorry, but you can’t prove a negative.

Comment #77: Dark Avenger Guardian Chow Mein  on  07/24  at  06:24 PM

Just like milkmaids in Jenners’ time couldn’t be possibly correct about the protective effects of cowpox regarding a smallpox infection.

I never said that people couldn’t possibly correct, only that popularity doesn’t imply effectiveness.  Sometimes they’re right, many times they’re wrong, and we developed the scientific method to distinguish between the two.  Things shouldn’t be dismissed simply because they are popular, just as they shouldn’t be automatically accepted simply because they are popular.  Surely you are smart enough to understand that basic concept, so I think you’re being disingenuous.

Comment #78: bananacat  on  07/24  at  07:38 PM

I never said that people couldn’t possibly correct, only that popularity doesn’t imply effectiveness.

It was used in many ways, unlike oldfeminists’ example of black rhino horn, and not one, but two peoples were both spot wrong about it, and they were wrong because why?

Sometimes they’re right, many times they’re wrong, and we developed the scientific method to distinguish between the two.

Which is why, when scientists go to study medicinal plants around the world, they pay no attention to what the people who live where the plants grow think about the plants, because they could be wrong.

Things shouldn’t be dismissed simply because they are popular, just as they shouldn’t be automatically accepted simply because they are popular.

If the ancient Libyans were able to get the Romans to think their product was worth its’ weight in silver, that’s one of the biggest con jobs in ancient history.

Surely you are smart enough to understand that basic concept, so I think you’re being disingenuous.

Nope, I’m just a dummy with BA degree in Biology, what is this ‘basic concept’ that you think so important?

BTW, do you do balloon animals and card tricks as well?

Comment #79: Dark Avenger Guardian Chow Mein  on  07/24  at  07:54 PM

If the ancient Libyans were able to get the Romans to think their product was worth its’ weight in silver, that’s one of the biggest con jobs in ancient history.

I think chiropractic and homeopathy are bigger scams, but that’s just my opinion.  Scientology is doing pretty well for itself too, although that goes after a few rich people rather than many average people.  And plenty of religions have been even bigger scams and still continue to be.  That doesn’t make them true.

Comment #80: bananacat  on  07/24  at  08:14 PM

Appeal to popularity and appeal to nature are both logical fallacies, no matter how much you wish otherwise.  They are two of the most common that I encounter.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_popularity

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_nature

It might do you some good to review the common logical fallacies.

Comment #81: bananacat  on  07/24  at  08:18 PM

I think chiropractic and homeopathy are bigger scams, but that’s just my opinion.

Well, it’s easier to propagate false memes with printing, that new-fangled radio and TeeVee and all that other stuff.

You’re comparing some recent cultural and promotional scams with ancient history.

And you’re comparing religions to a plant product.

So, by the laws of the Internets, you win and have proven tonight, that yes, ladies, gentlemen, transgenders, it is possible to prove a negative.

Johnny,  tell her what she won that’s behind door #1…....................

Comment #82: Dark Avenger Guardian Chow Mein  on  07/24  at  08:24 PM

Logically, if you were correct that people can be fooled about the nature of a plant material, then scientists going out in the field to find new plants with medicinal properties, they wouldn’t bother to ask the people who live where the plant grows what properties it has, because people ‘could’ve been wrong about siliphum’.

Bananacat, there’s a concept known as cutting your losses, I introduce the link to you on the off-chance that you may find it helpful one day.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=cutting your losses:

similiar to cashing in your chips, however, when one cuts their losses, it usually means that they are walking away with nothing to show for their efforts, and are getting out before they have to endure even more loss.

Comment #83: Dark Avenger Guardian Chow Mein  on  07/24  at  08:35 PM

Who the fuck cares?!

The plant’s extinct. Whether or not it worked as well as it was purported to is not only unknowable, it’s beside the point. The point is that it was so desirable as a method of birth control that it was harvested to extinction.

Comparing it to douching with Coke is more spot on than you might think: Teenagers douche with Coke and the like because they want to fuck but don’t want to get pregnant. The only difference (except for efficacy) is that teenagers douche with coke and jump up and down because they’re too embarrassed at the possibility of being seen buying condoms, and they want birth control that doesn’t involve admitting they’re having sex. Silphium, being an imported good, was harvested to extinction because the Romans wanted birth control. Whether or not it worked is so not the point of this thread. The point is they wanted to fuck but didn’t want to get pregnant. And there was such a demand for something that would supposedly allow you to fuck without getting pregnant, that they harvested a plant to extinction.

Birth control is nothing new or novel or rare. Humans want it. We want to control our fertility. I don’t understand why this is such a controversial thing that we’re making up bullshit arguments about homeopathy when the point is clearly that, even thousands of years ago, when people were told “hey, if you want to fuck and not get pregnant, try this” that people Jumped On That Shit.

Comment #84: Mighty Ponygirl  on  07/24  at  09:39 PM

Maybe someone needs to research contemporary fennels to see if the Roman herb might have worked. It might all have been ancient hype and misinformation, but we need to check into this. We could have a modern version of RU486 in our spices. We may need this. Abortion is under attack. Though I wouldn’t be too hopeful, most effective herbal abortion drugs are quite dangerous. Effective is easy, safe is hard.

As for the Duggars, they are not following the plan of their supposed god. They limit breastfeeding to six months. in order to make Michelle get pregnant faster. The LAM method cannot be described a s birth control, but it is not too bad at birth curtailment. Near exclusive BF for a year with a little tandem nursing mixed in could easily have cut the Duggars down to 6-11 kids.

The anti-reproductive freedom movement is about controlling women and punishing sluts. It is interesting to note that the main suspect in the recent Norway violence was specifically against birth control and abortion in his manifesto. His writings didn’t differ much from mainstream US forced birth advocates. Only difference is that here in the US forced birth advocates have enough clout to get their message out without becoming spree killers.

Oh, Pfizer is saving the rhino.. Horn powder is losing ground to evidence based Viagra.

 

 

 

Comment #85: Bacopa  on  07/24  at  09:53 PM

I’ll merely repeat what I once heard a well-known MJ advocate said in conversation:

“I don’t know if crystals work, but drugs definitely deliver.”

Comment #86: Dark Avenger Guardian Chow Mein  on  07/24  at  10:15 PM

The point is that it was so desirable as a method of birth control that it was harvested to extinction.

Did you even read your own link? It says no such thing. Nor does the link off Wikipedia say any such thing; in fact, it is rather more skeptical about the idea.

Dark Avenger, I’m pretty convinced at this point you’re just being contrary for the sake of being contrary.  We’ve got a plant that we don’t even know what it is, which had many alleged medicinal uses unrelated to abortion that could easily explain its value, which may have possibly included inducing abortion (not preventing pregnancy, as MP suggested), and it could possibly related to some plants we know about today that are abortifacients. Also, there are cases of people who have traditional uses for medicinal herbs being right about the uses of those herbs. Therefore, the Romans had a Magic Fucking Plant and if you disagree you’re being silly and probably don’t have a degree in SCIENCE. QED! Oh, and also, Ovid’s lover never existed, because I have a completely unsourced Wikipedia article saying that might be so.

I really find it hard to believe that even on an off day, you really believe such nonsense.

Bacopa @85: Exactly. There have been plenty of well-known abortifacient plants; problem is that, again, they work by poisoning the mother’s body at a level that kills the fetus, but not her, at least not if the dosage is correct.

As for Ovid,

Comment #87: mythago  on  07/24  at  10:30 PM

Appeal to popularity and appeal to nature are both logical fallacies, no matter how much you wish otherwise.

Uh-huh - but “people believe that the sun rises in the east” does not make believing the sun rises in the east wrong, strangely enough.

Evidence has to be weighed.  The plant is extinct, so we can’t test it now ourselves.  We do know, however, that the contemporary people of the time believed it to be a contraceptive, an opinion shared by the closest thing the Romans had to actual doctors.  But we also know they’ve had it wrong before, especially with regards sex and childbirth (but they’ve come pretty close, in advocating acidic douches after sex and in suggesting sticking sticky stuff like honey far up into the Tunnel of Love)

It has to remain unproven.  It is certainly possible it did have an effect.  It’s also possible that it was all hype and hope.  The only rational thing is to remain agnostic.

And, DA, it was limited to a small area and they never could figure out how to spread it.  Harvesting it to the point of it going extinct isn’t that difficult under those circumstances.

Comment #88: Phoenician in a time of Romans  on  07/24  at  11:00 PM

We’ve got a plant that we don’t even know what it is, which had many alleged medicinal uses unrelated to abortion that could easily explain its value,

Which would also explain why there were glyphs devoted to the plant, and from this place we can tell what they valued that did work and didn’t work.

Dark Avenger, I’m pretty convinced at this point you’re just being contrary for the sake of being contrary.  We’ve got a plant that we don’t even know what it is, which had many alleged medicinal uses unrelated to abortion that could easily explain its value, which may have possibly included inducing abortion (not preventing pregnancy, as MP suggested), and it could possibly related to some plants we know about today that are abortifacients. Also, there are cases of people who have traditional uses for medicinal herbs being right about the uses of those herbs. Therefore, the Romans had a Magic Fucking Plant and if you disagree you’re being silly and probably don’t have a degree in SCIENCE. QED! Oh, and also, Ovid’s lover never existed, because I have a completely unsourced Wikipedia article saying that might be so.

First off…........

I NEVER SAID THAT IT WAS 100% SURE AND PROVEN THAT IT USED FOR BIRTH CONTROL.

THERE IS SOME EVIDENCE THAT IT COULD’VE BEEN USED THAT WAY, BUT ABSENT A TIME MACHINE AND/OR A LITTLE BIT SURVIVING SOMEWHERE FOR ANALYSIS, WE’LL NEVER KNOW FOR SURE.

“The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but that’s the way to bet.”

It has to remain unproven.  It is certainly possible it did have an effect.  It’s also possible that it was all hype and hope.  The only rational thing is to remain agnostic.

The Scottish verdict is one I’ll definitely accept in this case.

wink

Comment #89: Dark Avenger Guardian Chow Mein  on  07/24  at  11:59 PM

I don’t understand why this is such a controversial thing that we’re making up bullshit arguments about homeopathy when the point is clearly that, even thousands of years ago, when people were told “hey, if you want to fuck and not get pregnant, try this” that people Jumped On That Shit.
Comment #84: Mighty Ponygirl on 07/24 at 09:39 PM

You questioned Dark Avenger’s authority.  You should know what happens next.

Comment #90: oldfeminist  on  07/25  at  12:02 AM

No, my sin was inadvertently questioning yours, oldfeminist.

Comment #91: Dark Avenger Guardian Chow Mein  on  07/25  at  12:30 AM

I was immediately reminded of this:
http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/sexist/2010/03/04/rubber-barons-why-doesnt-your-boyfriend-know-jack-about-contraception/

From the now defunct The Sexist.

The problem is bigger then O’Reilly. Though I’m stunned that at 61, he hasn’t even discovered the basics.

Comment #92: Glauke  on  07/25  at  05:54 AM

We do know, however, that the contemporary people of the time believed it to be a contraceptive

Uh, PiaToR? You do know the difference between ‘contraceptive’ and ‘abortifacient’, right? MP seems to have been confused on this, too, but just for the record: A contraceptive is something that prevents pregnancy. An abortifacient is something that induces miscarriage. And we don’t even know that’s what the Romans used the plant for, given that it was praised for all kinds of other beneficial uses. It certainly wasn’t a contraceptive plant that the Romans used to extinction for that purpose.

“The only rational thing is to remain agnostic” - no, the rational thing is to look at what is actually known, instead of leaping to conclusions (Magic Fucking Plant!) and then deciding that the smart choice is to apply the Golden Mean fallacy.

I get the feeling I should be putting up some kind of virtual I WANT TO BELIEVE poster around here.

 

Comment #93: mythago  on  07/25  at  10:23 AM

“Which is why, when scientists go to study medicinal plants around the world, they pay no attention to what the people who live where the plants grow think about the plants, because they could be wrong.”

Sorry, DAGCM, but that’s really throwing the baby out with the bathwater.  And let’s just hope that some scientists at least have an anthro or a sociologist along on the trip, or they’ll miss a lot.  Of course they listen to what the local populace says (they likely wouldn’t be there testing in the first place without that knowledge about indigenous uses).

Then, they can/should pay attention to how it’s prepared.  Very often it’s not a plant in isolation, but even a practice that makes the plant effective at all. 

What you’re talking about is a form of scientism, versus a more holistic approach.  That sceintism is what gave us the “look at these major vitamins and minerals ONLY” and all food that have them in the same amount are equal” thinking. 

 

Comment #94: phylosopher  on  07/25  at  10:25 AM

Uh, PiaToR? You do know the difference between ‘contraceptive’ and ‘abortifacient’, right? MP seems to have been confused on this, too, but just for the record: A contraceptive is something that prevents pregnancy. An abortifacient is something that induces miscarriage. And we don’t even know that’s what the Romans used the plant for, given that it was praised for all kinds of other beneficial uses.

We do know that Pliny said about it, but ignore that as well, mythago.

Sorry, DAGCM, but that’s really throwing the baby out with the bathwater.  And let’s just hope that some scientists at least have an anthro or a sociologist along on the trip, or they’ll miss a lot.  Of course they listen to what the local populace says (they likely wouldn’t be there testing in the first place without that knowledge about indigenous uses).

I’m sorry, but you seem to have taken my extremely sarcastic statement seriously.

Of course, you’re going to want to find out what the local populations does with it, and of course you’ll need someone who speaks the language and knows the customs to mediate between the scientist and the local folks.

I suppose 200 or 2000 years from now if the opium poppy for some reason went extinct, someone could write:

“Just because the 19th Chinese prized opium to where it replaced silver in the economy, it doesn’t prove anything, they could’ve been fooled by the sleep-inducing effects to think that it also relieved pain.”

 

Comment #95: Dark Avenger Guardian Chow Mein  on  07/25  at  10:50 AM

You’re right, I did take it seriously - sorry, no time to read 95 comments.

Comment #96: phylosopher  on  07/25  at  11:17 AM

“Bill O’Reilly is 61 years old.  He has been on this planet for 61 years, and he knows so little about female biology and sexuality he literally thinks you have to use the birth control pill during sex for it to work.”

I think you’re mistaken about this, Amanda.  I think (and I admit I’m speculating) Bill O’Reilly said this because he is a consumate liar.  Like most of his ilk, he recognizes no witness too false to bear nor any lie too brazen to tell in pursuit of his right-wing agenda.  Whether it’s true or not is completely irrelevant.  The only criterion is whether it toes the right-wing party line, in this case about female sexuality.  Trying to make logical sense of these people’s utterances is like Rain Man trying to make sense of Who’s On First.  You cannot extract sense from this blather because it contains no sense to extract.

Comment #97: Gordon  on  07/25  at  12:04 PM
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