In the early 1980s I was trying to work as a freelance typist and go to school for a masters degree at the same time.  Money was scarce and I didn’t have health insurance. (Even then buying an individual policy was expensive.)  I went to a Planned Parenthood clinic for Ob-Gyn services because they had sliding scale fees.  They were a godsend for this working class 20-odd years old woman.  Planned Parenthood serves many people in many ways.  You can disagree with their upper management for whatever you want but in the clinics, at the service level… their staffs are tough workers and very needed.

Anti-choicers want to create a class of people who are basically poor, desperate peasants.  Limiting access to both family planning and adequate health cares plays right into their goal.  They want minority women to have more children than they would choose, and they want all of them to be desperately poor and lack basic necessities so that they’ll be more willing to take on crappy jobs for crappier wages, so that the rich class can get really cheap labor.  They don’t really care if adult women are dying of cancer, as long as there are enough babies born to replace them easily.  It’s the very same reasoning that some people use when they want to deny health care and public services to “illegal aliens”, but they’re perfectly willing to look the other way when those very same people are building their houses and growing their food.  They know that minority women might be empowered by controlling their family size, and then they might be empowered to demand other basic rights too.

I just spent the morning scrambling because my husband got laid off and I had to switch health insurance over to my company.

We do have insurance and it is good ... the problem is WHY THE HELL does it have ANYTHING to do with working in the first place.

If I need car insurance ... do I have to go through my dentist for that?  Oh, and homeowner’s insurance must be conditional on marital status?  IT MAKES NO SENSE!

their staffs are tough workers and very needed

some, like my former neighbor Shannon Lowney, die for their work.

I wonder if PP should start setting up the equivalent of crisis pregnancy centers under another name. “Ooh, don’t go to that nasty Planned Parenthood clinic, come to us for your gyn care. Oh, and if you’re one of those women who thinking she’s an exception to the rule that abortions are icky, we’ll arrange that for you too.”

Anti-choicers want to create a class of people who are basically poor, desperate peasants.

I’d expand that to the entire political right, actually—the seeds of neo-feudalism are sown in pretty much every faction.  I’ve never yet met a Republican who actually believed in equality of opportunity beyond ‘hey, it’s America, so they’re equal by definition,’ and virtually all of them also see their [relative] privilege as merit instead.

We do have insurance and it is good ... the problem is WHY THE HELL does it have ANYTHING to do with working in the first place.

But think of all the people who’d leave crappy jobs and companies they hate for better opportunities if they weren’t fearful that they’d lose their health benefits in the process. Can’t have that—the only way out should be on the corporation’s terms. Won’t someone think of the shareholders and C-level execs?

Large corporations and right-wing business owners have a very good, almost existential, reason for opposing universal healthcare, public option or not: they hate mobility in the labour market, and this is a very handy impediment to it. All the ideological talk about laissez faire is just a cover—anyone who truly cared about encouraging entrepreneurs would bloody leap at the chance to shift that wasteful bureaucratic expense away from a startup’s books. But as catgirl notes, the American right is more interested in rolling back the entire country to 1896.

(Sorry to hear about your husband’s layoff—that really sucks)

Do you really think they are smart enough to think of the detrimental effects to the communities where a PP was taken away? I am not trying to be glib, but am genuinely curious. I can see where blatant disregard for what happens to minorities leads to them being used as a liberal-bashing pawn with a total disregard for said minorities’ lives, rights, etc. But to say that it is a “dark, sadistic plan” or as in comment #2 that the intent is to keep minorities poor seems like super-villain levels of pure evil intelligence.

Which i suppose is totally possible, if a grim view of humanity. Do you think that the average clinic screamer thinks this far ahead, or is it something that only organizational leaders promote?

Interestingly, anti-choicers do everything in their power to avoid talking about main reason for the vast majority of abortions—-unwanted pregnancy—-so it’s important when dealing with them to remind them every few minutes or so that abortions don’t happen because evil feminists (working with perverted men) force them, or because women who get abortions are painfully stupid and don’t know what they’re doing.  It’s because of unwanted pregnancies, and the stopping of them. Duh.

Well, that’s kinda the whole song and dance played out by the anti-choice movement.  Unwanted pregnancies don’t exist.  Since the purpose of women is to make babies, there’s no such thing as an “accidentally” pregnant woman.  Mix a little concern trolling for unborn children with a little Jesus baiting using nativity allusions and classic fifties era assumption that everyone lives in a quaint two story home with a white picket fence, a car, a dog, and 2.3 kids, and you’ve got a recipe for ignorant outrage.

The active assumption is that everyone “worthy” is happy, everyone has equal opportunity to live as the anti-choicers live, and if you say you can’t support yourself or your children, then you’re just lazy or selfish.  And, on top of that, if you just have that kid (or that extra kid), you’ll be motivated to become a better person, produce more, live better, and perhaps finally come to Jesus.  :-p

It’s short-sighted and dumb, and if you ask any of the saner anti-choicers on the street, they’ll happily make a bunch of caviettes for a host of hypothetical situations.  They just don’t believe those hypotheticals really happen.

People simply can’t comprehend why abortion would be necessary.

Do you think that the average clinic screamer thinks this far ahead, or is it something that only organizational leaders promote?

The average clinic screamer? Doubtful. They are mostly there indulging their own personal psychological demons, which may or may not include virulent racism. Certainly the screamers at my clinic are mostly there to snark on/feel superior to the girls who live in the neighborhood, what with their autonomy and their short skirts and their rock music.

No, the dystopian vision of neo-feudal, overly-fecund bliss is more at the organizational level.

Do you really think they are smart enough to think of the detrimental effects to the communities where a PP was taken away?

No. I think they have a vision of America that’s a mix of the mythical 1950s that never were and the Gilded Age. Their main concern is to see a white male patriarchy led by rapacious capitalists re-asserted, and taking away PP (i.e. the reproductive rights of women who aren’t the aristocrats in their neoFeudal dreamworld) is one part of making that happen.

That’s not to say that they’re not totally deluded about their status in this wonderland (hint: same status they have in reality), but magical thinking drives people to extraordinary efforts—especially when encouraged by confidence artists who promise them a vehicle for the hatred and fear Well, what describes.

alysia,

I didn’t intend to sound like a conspiracy theorist.  Well, what? summarized my position nicely, so I won’t go into a long explanation.  A lot of anti-choicers don’t even know what their position is, but they’ve been taught that those minority groups do not deserve basic living standards, so they’re just as happy to see “undeserving poor” get their health care taken away along with their reproductive rights.  They’re sort of pawns in a game for the upper-class wingnuts who benefit by paying their workers terrible wages.  It’s not a conscious conspiracy, just the ultimate goal of conservative thinking.

alysia, I’m not a big fan of false consciousness as the immediate argument for why someone does something.  Most anti-choicers are conservative Republicans who also want to slash welfare and scream about illegal immigrants.  Moreover, even the average clinic screamer, when you poke them with facts, starts revealing the larger plan, which is this:

1) Make sex incredibly dangerous, especially for certain classes of people whose sexuality is considered especially suspect (racial minorities, gays, single women)
2) Encourage abstinence—-the abandonment of sexual pleasure—-as the only legitimate way to be safe.  You’re in the wrong class, you don’t deserve it anyway.
3) For those who break the no-sex rules, you deserve everything that you have coming to you.

So yes, I think most of them are sadistic.  And all of the leaders are.  When you present them with facts about how many necessary services Planned Parenthood provides, their reaction can be summed up as, “So what?  Stop fucking, then we’ll talk.”

I also fail to see why that’s a dark view of “human” nature.  Many human beings support services like Planned Parenthood.  A lot of people are assholes in this world, and the day you figure that out, history and current times make a lot more sense.

Yeah, the sadism is pretty pure, and it’s unsullied by concern regarding consequences.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uk6t_tdOkwo

Ms. Kate, sorry about what happened to your friend. I believe federal marshall’s should be placed permanently at abortion clinics to stop the violence. Our country once utilized the military to walk kids to school (where they had a legal right to be) because they were under the constant threat of terrorist violence. Clinic workers are under the same threat. Yet they aren’t receiving the protection they deserve for doing something that is LEGAL!

Alysia, I agree, the average clinic screamer isn’t smart enough to think up a plan that will permanently marginalize an entire group of people. That kind of thinking comes from much higher up—Imagine if Karl Rove or Dick Cheney were vocally, rabidly anti-choice. That’s the kind of power broker she’s describing.

“Do you really think they are smart enough to think of the detrimental effects to the communities where a PP was taken away?”

It doesn’t take a particularly enhanced degree of intelligence to grasp a lived reality.  Pretty much anyone who’s not independently wealthy is aware that children are expensive, too many children lead to familial poverty, poverty leads to economic desperation, and economic dependence leads to disempowerment.  All those things are day-to-day life for families living hand-to-mouth, women trying to raise children with insufficient or barely-sufficient means, etc.

I’ve never understood why “they’re a bunch of sadists” is dismissed as an impossible argument in a world that has historical memories of fascism.

It doesn’t take a particularly enhanced degree of intelligence to grasp a lived reality.

Preying Mantis—perhaps I’m playing devil’s advocate here, but remember the overwhelming whiteness and wealthiness of the anti-choice movement. Even the majority of clinic-screamers I see are at least middle to upper-middle class. Lots of them are college students still living on Daddy’s dime, too.

That whole poverty/desperation/disempowerment cycle really is utterly foreign, to the point of mythical, for them. It is NOT a lived reality, as far as they’re concerned.

No, it would not surprise me one bit to learn that they have no idea what a health center means to a community. They don’t USE “health centers,” they have regular private doctors and assume everyone else does. They don’t LIVE in “communities,” they consider themselves autonomous actors in all respects.

Someone more eloquent than I will give a long form answer to Amanda’s question. But I too think “they’re a bunch of sadists” is a valid argument. Domestic terrorists once sent post cards of their latest lynchings through the U.S. mail. Current terrorists keep lists of abortion providers and cross their names off after they are murdered. The fact that these folks are so gleeful about the misery of others is the basic textbook definition of a sadist.

Punditus Maximus,  That clip was just amazing because you have a bunch of women protesting abortion who don’t seem to have given any thought at all to the women having abortions. How is it possible to be a woman and completely ignore the fact that women are human beings? Just more evidence that some of these folks brains are just tied up in knots.

I’ve never understood why “they’re a bunch of sadists” is dismissed as an impossible argument in a world that has historical memories of fascism.

Ah, humanity. So hopeful and generous, but so stupid.

For many years I was a member of the Clergy Advisory Committee of Planned Parenthood.  (Bet you didn’t know they had one).  I was also a member of the board of a Planned Parenthood Women’s Health Clinic in our largely Latino town.  Every year I had to go to the county legislature at funding time to counteract the screamers.  They would scream that Planned Parenthood “made a fortune off of abortions.”  I would calmly explain that no abortions were performed in our county.  Women had to go to the next county.  Then I would explain what health services were offered.  The county would keep the clinic in the budget.  The screamers would meet me outside to tell me what a shame it was that a reverend would be going to hell, and that they would pray for me.  I politely thanked them for their concern, but told them I didn’t think their efforts would be necessary.

The real irony is that, after contraception, the largest business of most Planned Parenthood clinics is pre-natal care.  So in their zeal to “protect” babies, the forced birthers are actually ensuring that more babies will die.  I guess the difference there is that they’ll be able to convince themselves that it was Gawd who made those babies die and not the human intervention that closed down the clinics that could have prevented that miscarriage or stillbirth.  It’s different because shut up, that’s why.

I get more “but you’re supposed to be tolerant!” whining on Twitter ...

Ahh, yes.  I’ve been told more times than I can count that I’m supposed to be tolerant of their intolerance and if I’m not, if I complain about their racism, homophobia and attempts to control my fertility, I’m the intolerant bigot.  Because we should all tolerate hate and violence as long as the right people are doing it.

but, but, if you give women (and men)  easy access to contraceptives, they might go have sex and not get pregnant! then how will they be punished?

The real irony is that, after contraception, the largest business of most Planned Parenthood clinics is pre-natal care.  So in their zeal to “protect” babies, the forced birthers are actually ensuring that more babies will die.

Yes, they stop caring about babies as soon as they’re born.  By that time, they’ve already served their purpose of punishing sexual women, so why bother worrying about them anymore?  This is why I get so irritated when they claim to be pro-life.  Most of them would willingly let millions of people die each year rather than let someone they deem undeserving get help from society.

I wonder if PP should start setting up the equivalent of crisis pregnancy centers under another name. “Ooh, don’t go to that nasty Planned Parenthood clinic, come to us for your gyn care. Oh, and if you’re one of those women who thinking she’s an exception to the rule that abortions are icky, we’ll arrange that for you too.”

Why should they have to?

Someone more eloquent than I will give a long form answer to Amanda’s question. But I too think “they’re a bunch of sadists” is a valid argument. Domestic terrorists once sent post cards of their latest lynchings through the U.S. mail. Current terrorists keep lists of abortion providers and cross their names off after they are murdered. The fact that these folks are so gleeful about the misery of others is the basic textbook definition of a sadist.

Not quite.  The things you describe are not sadism per se, but a community normalising evil acts.  The postcards were a means of confirming that the lynchings were right, and the lists are ways of confirming to themselves and others that the murders are right.

People like to scare themselves with stories of serial killers.  They pale in comparison to what happens when a community self-righteously determine that evil is necessary.

Yes, they stop caring about babies as soon as they’re born.

Actually, I think they stop caring about babies the instant the pregnant woman does what they want and decides to continue the pregnancy.  Once she makes that decision, they don’t give a fuck about what happens during the rest of the pregnancy or after the birth.  Which really puts the lie to their claim to be all about the baybeez.

Actually, I think they stop caring about babies the instant the pregnant woman does what they want and decides to continue the pregnancy.

Very true. It’s all about compliance. If it were about the innocent babies, they would fully support all prenatal care. Women are only on their radar when we defy them.

Speaking of Crisis Pregnancy Centers, the Baltimore city ouncil passed a law that said that had to put a sign in front saying no abortions were performed there, so people know.
http://www.womensenews.org/story/abortion/091201/baltimore-puts-heat-crisis-pregnancy-centers

Every single news article had anti-choicers screaming about freedom of speech (its more of a truth in advertising thing, but whatever). You’d think they would be proud of not performing murders - but then they wouldn’t be able to lie to those slutty sluts, and we all know how much their God loves lying.

That was the first law of its kind, which was surprising. We should have more of that.

I think I want to move to Baltimore.  Good on them.

“perhaps I’m playing devil’s advocate here, but remember the overwhelming whiteness and wealthiness of the anti-choice movement. Even the majority of clinic-screamers I see are at least middle to upper-middle class.”

“Middle class” is usually no more than an extra two or three kids away from “poor,” and most “middle class” families are hardly lay-off-proof, unless you’re really and truly using the Fox News definition of “middle class,” which is anyone with less wealth than Gates.  Kids are ‘spensive, and two incomes are generally pretty necessary unless you’ve already managed to pay off the house/managed to snag really cheap rent.

“Middle class” is usually no more than an extra two or three kids away from “poor,” and most “middle class” families are hardly lay-off-proof,

Yes, but try telling THEM that. Especially those in the “upper middle-class” bracket—the Captains of Denial. (Granted, people could be getting wise after 2 years of solid economic shite, but the ones I’m dealing with don’t seem to be.)

And like I said, many of the clinic shouters I see are parent-funded college students, who don’t have to manage their own lives quite yet. Many others are super-duper-Christian stay-at-home moms (read: all financial power and knowledge rests with the Head of Household, not with them). They are not engaged with the economic world at all (though disco ball knows they should be, for their own sake…), so it’s not a stretch to say that they might be ignorant of lived-reality poverty.

And these are just the clinic screamers I’m talking about. Those in charge, well, they’re fucking stinking rich.

I think middle class is way less than en extra two or three kids away from poor. In the old single-earner days, you could just put all the responsibility for raising the extras on the mother and her extended family, but today having two or three kids in daycare at the same time is pretty much like having two or three kids in college, only without any infrastructure for loans or grants. And a couple of parents at the saturday-morning playgroup I take the boys to were talking about the excuses that landlords find for not renting to families with four kids…

“Fetal obsessive syndrome”—can we get the APA to officially make that a disease?  (I’m just guessing on “APA”......)

Sorry to take so long to respond, I had to go to class. I didn’t mean to dismiss the idea that anti-choicers could possibly just be sadists, it was just something that stood out to me because it didn’t jive with my experience/worldview, although I will freely admit that I am youngish and also naive. It really does seem to me that a lot pro-lifers just really don’t think out the implications of their world view—which is why there are youtube videos of people outside clinics being asked what the punishment should be for “killing a baby” and the protesters have no answer. I think that a lot of evil consequences can come from self-absorbed fools.

You are probably right that sadism is what motivates the protesters in the first place though.

On the motivations of clinic screamers: it’s social validation plus adrenaline for many, I wager.  Just getting out into the air, getting worked up, sends a pulse of hormones thru their bodies and reminds them “I’m ALIVE!!!”

Kinda like Beck-onians, minus the fresh air.

Haha, you make it sound sort of like biting into a York Peppermint Patty!

Alysia, most of them know it’s impolitic to say, “Throw them in jail.” But really, they tend to think of forced childbirth as redemptive punishment for fornication, and other punishments interest them less. But it’s still about punishment.

Amanda, it’s about punishment, but to some degree, I think they don’t know it.  A lot of bad people work very hard to pretend that they’re not.

Yes, but try telling THEM that. Especially those in the “upper middle-class” bracket—the Captains of Denial. (Granted, people could be getting wise after 2 years of solid economic shite, but the ones I’m dealing with don’t seem to be.)

But this is sort of the pathology of the anti-choice, though. They know that, at their core, their arguments always boil down to “you shouldn’t have sex if you can’t handle the consequences.” They equate babies with punishment. Most people would look at that and say “you know what, that’s fucked up. Babies shouldn’t be a punishment. They should be wanted and loved. This world would be a better place if every child was loved and not looked at as some 18-year prison sentence with life probation afterwards.”

So the anti-choice has to frost their arguments with rich, creamy bullshit. Babies, apart from being punishment, are divine miracles from God who are blessed with cherubic glory. And they’ll always love you. And they don’t cost a thing. And nothing ever goes wrong. And men will always stay. They throw around bullshit because it’s cheap, and they figure at least one of their logic-turds will stick.