5 Reasons Bristol's Pregnancy Matters

So, with the news that Sarah Palin's 17 year old unwed daughter, Bristol, is pregnant, there has been a lot of chatter about how this is a private family matter and we should all just leave poor Bristol Palin alone. I agree that we should leave Bristol alone, but her pregnancy should force some light on the conservative policies and stances that her mother and McCain support. Here are 5 reasons Bristol Palin's pregnancy matters:

#1 Conservatives claim the moral high ground.
It is often complained by liberals that conservative republicans have hijacked the issue of values. And for the most part, this is true. Conservatives tout themselves as the religious who want to preserve traditional marriage (aka deny gay rights), love "the unborn" (aka force pregnancy) and prevent sex from destroying our culture (aka push their backward view of morality on everyone else). Yet Bristol's pregnancy seems to undermine that claim. Not because her pregnancy is wrong. I'm not one to say that premarital sex is immoral. Nor would I expect most liberals to say that there is something morally suspect about coitus before marriage. To most of us liberals, it's none of our business. But religious republicans, republicans like Palin, would say that it is immoral. This is a scandal by their standards, not ours, and yet they are reacting as though their core beliefs do not hold this situation to be a sin in the eyes of their god. I smell hypocrisy.

#2 Conservatives, including Palin, oppose comprehensive sex-ed and fight for abstinence-only education.
Many conservatives oppose anything but abstinence-only education for our teens, claiming that comprehensive sex-ed will lead to more sex. Palin herself opposes comprehensive sex-education and supports abstinence-only. McCain has also claimed that he supports abstinence-only. Now, as we should all be well aware at this point, studies have shown that abstinence-only education does not work, and in many cases, these programs disseminate false information to teens about sex and pregnancy. Furthermore, studies have also shown that comprehensive sex eduation programs are effective in helping teens to dely sexual intercourse or protect themselves from STDs and pregnancy.

Now, what should we take away from this? Comprehensive sex education helps prevent teen pregnancy and transmission of STDs. Abstinence-only education does not. And yet conservatives like Palin and McCain want to prevent teens from getting the information that might help them to avoid the situation that Bristol Palin is now in. Don't you think a mother who is dealing with helping her daughter with a teen pregnancy and has the political clout would work to keep other girls from being put in the same unfortunate position that her daughter is in? Apparently not Sarah Palin.

#3 Many conservatives oppose hormonal birth control or are unconcerned with women's access to it.
Even if sexually active teens and women know that they can protect themselves from pregnancy through various means, that doesn't help if they don't have access to contraception. But many religious republicans flat out oppose hormonal contraception, tossing out science to call the pill and its variants "abortifacents", and hence immoral. That means that the use of contraception is also immoral to this people and if they think abortion should be illegal, then surely "abortifacents" - things that cause abortions, should also be illegal. Furthermore, many conservatives have pushed to allow doctors and pharmacists to refuse to write prescriptions for birth control or fill those prescriptions if they have moral objections, thus limiting women's access, especially in rural areas (like, say, Alaska?).

Now, it's not clear what either McCain's or Palin's positions are on this. Republicans have a way of avoiding discussing their views on birth control (since the vast majority of the American populace is okay with it). But if Palin's "right to life" credentials are good enough to garner the support of the religious wingnuts like Dobson and Robertson, then it's likely that she opposes birth control as well. That would certainly explain why a busy woman in her 40s who already had four children would manage to get pregnant, despite the risks of birth defects (like Down Syndrome) for babies of older women. But denying access to birth control just means more teen pregnancy. More girls like Bristol Palin.

#4 As Governor, Palin slashed funding that would have gone to teen mothers.
Palin used her line item veto to cut funding for a program that helps teen mothers. The program gives young single moms a place to stay while they acquire some skills that will allow them to get by in the world. So, Palin doesn't want kids to be educated on how to avoid pregnancy, (probably) doesn't want them to have access to the means to prevent pregnancy, and yet won't give them money to help them once they (surprise!) get pregnant. Of course, this won't affect girls like Bristol, who, thankfully, have supportive (and rich) families to take care of them. But for lots of other young women who get pregnant, that support isn't there. And apparently Palin doesn't care.

#5 "Choice"
In the press release from the campaign on the pregnancy, the family claimed, "We're proud of Bristol's decision to have her baby". The talking heads have been claiming that the fact that Palin practices what she preaches (i.e., that her daughter "chose life") will actually help with the conservative base. With regard to Palin's own recent pregnancy, in fact, many have been pushing the notion that she chose to have the baby despite his condition.

Well, guess what, Sarah Palin is pro-life. She believes that abortion should be illegal, even in
cases of rape or incest. She does not believe that women have the right to choose whether or not to continue a pregnancy. And if she were really, truly pro-life, then neither she nor her daughter would have a choice in the matter. If you are pro-life, then there is no option other than carrying the pregnancy to term. And if there is only one option, then there is no choice. If Palin really practiced what she preached, then she didn't choose anything, and neither did her daughter. Yet the media does not bring this up. Instead, they laud her choice. Wrong. Pro-choicers can laud her choice. To pro-lifers, neither Palin nor her daughter actually had one to begin with, and true pro-lifers should be offended by the idea that either Palin or her daughter actually chose to carry their pregnancies to term. After all, "it's a baby, not a choice" right?

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McCain the Maverick? Not on Reproductive Rights.

There are a good number of people in this country that view John McCain as a bit of a maverick, a man who is willing to stand up to the Republican party has a whole, cross the isle in search of effective compromise, and stand behind his own beliefs even when they conflict with the dominant views of the party. This may very well be true with regard to some issues, but despite some public misconceptions to the contrary, reproductive rights certainly isn't one of them. There are some who have, due to McCain's image as a maverick, taken him to be pro-choice, or at least less anti-choice then the likes of far-righties like G.W. Bush, Mike Huckabee, etc. NARAL has started up a website where you can, according to them, meet the real McCain. And if you follow the links in search of info on McCain's record, you'll be led to a compilation of McCain's anti-choice votes and statements.

If you read through that list, you might be surprised to discover that:

*McCain is staunchly anti-choice, openly in favor of overturning Roe, and determined to nominate judges who will ignore the rights of women.

*McCain has voted to support abstinence-only education programs, which have been shown to be ineffective and often involve disseminating falsehoods to kids. He's also voted for substantial funding for such programs to be allocated from the fund for HIV/AIDS. That means that rather then putting our money toward effective means of reducing HIV/AIDS in areas of the world that are experiencing a devestating epidemic, the money is being wasted on ineffective, and dogmatically motivated, programs.

*McCain has voted to support the global gag rule, which precludes any openly pro-choice international organization from obtaining federal funds, even if they use non-federal money to provide abortion services or do not offer such services at all. This prevents these organizations from giving much needed family planning and women's health services to some of the poorest women in the world, and places a burden on other organizations which they may not be able to meet, thus leaving women out in the cold.

*McCain has voted against measures that would make birth control more accessible to women, and has actually voted for parental notification laws that would make it more difficult for teens to access birth control.

*McCain voted to end Title X, which provides women in need with all sorts of medical services, from birth control to vaccinations to cancer screenings.

Now, even if you're opposed to legal abortion, you've got to admit that McCain's record is not just anti-choice, but clearly unconcerned with the reproductive rights and reproductive health of women here in America and around the world. Unless your place on the ideological spectrum has you nestled between Dubya and Pat Robertson, some of McCain's record is going to leave a bad taste in your mouth. After all, if you're interested in reducing abortions, increasing access to and knowledge about contraceptives should be at the top of your list. It's not at the top of McCain's. If you're worried about the AIDS crisis in Africa, then making sure that we are funding programs that have the greatest effectiveness in reducing the transmission of HIV/AIDS should be one of your concerns. It's not one of McCain's. If securing the rights and improving the health of women in the US and around the world is something that is important to you, McCain may not be your candidate, because his record clearly demonstrates that it's not important to him.

McCain may have the image of an ideological maverick, but when it comes to reproductive rights and women's health he's right in line with the far right. We should all be aware of that fact when we enter the voting booth this November.

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Horton Hears A.... What?!

This is just too rich. Anti-abortion protestors decided the perfect venue would be the premiere of Horton Hears A Who - a children's flick. I don't know whether to laugh out loud or let out a big long sigh.

The reason the anti-choice crowd has latched on to this flick? It's theme is "A person's a person no matter how small". Well, duh! But guess what? That doesn't translate to "A person's a person even when it's just a collection of pluripotent cells". And once again - it doesn't matter if a blastocyst/embryo/fetus is a person! No person has the right to use another's body without their consent. Sheesh. How long are we going to talk past each other?

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Proposed Bill Makes CPCs Inform Patients That They Can Lie

This is good news. It’s about time that someone did something about these stupid Crisis Pregnancy Centers. What would be better if the bill actually made it the case that they have to tell the truth. But this is a start.

Joseph Bartlett, a Republican who opposes the bill, had this to say in defense of allowing to continue the centers to operate the way they have been:

The premise that we're going to require these organizations to disclaim that they don't have to tell the truth is just about the silliest thing I ever heard," he said. "We certainly don't do that in the case of politicians, do we?

Well, no, Joe, we don’t have a law that tells politicians that they have to admit that they don’t have to tell the truth. But as much as CPCs are more like politicians than they are like actual clinics, these places are falsely giving the impression that they are medical centers, which can be sued for lying to their patients. They aren’t medical centers, and as a result they are free to disseminate all the false information they want without penalty. And they do. Well, if we’re going to allow them to continue parading about like actual medical centers, we can at least make sure that women who go to them are aware of the stakes. What’s really silly here is the fact that you seem to think it’s okay for people to pretend to be offering medical services and then lie to the women who come to them for help.

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Let's Go Be Lazy in Wisconsin

So, anti-choice pharmacists in Wisconsin don't want to do their jobs. I've given my take on this before. If you can't perform the tasks of your profession, get another job. Don't ask the state to give you an exception. But the anti-choice, anti-birth control pharmacists of Wisconsin are in an uproar about more than just the prospect of dispensing what the doctor prescribes. They're ticked off about the Birth Control Protection Act, which not only protects the rights of patients by forcing pharmacists to do their job, but also defines 'abortion' so as to exclude the effects of contraceptives.

According to ChristianNewsWire, this is beyond the pale, since

It is a medical fact that the morning-after pill (a high dosage of the birth control pill) and most, if not all, birth control drugs and devices including the intrauterine device (IUD), Depo Provera, Norplant, the Patch, and the Pill can act to terminate a pregnancy by chemically altering the lining of the uterus (endometrium) so that a newly conceived child is unable to implant in the womb, thus starving and dying.

Well, no, actually, it's not a medical fact. If you define pregnancy as beginning at fertilization, then yes, IUDs do result in the termination of a pregnancy. And hormonal methods may have the same result, albeit very rarely, since their primary function is to prevent ovulation and thicken the mucus lining the cervix to prevent sperm from penetrating. And usually, if they don't succeed in that, the result is not an embryo being flushed from the woman's system, but implantation. But not only is it not a "medical fact" that pregnancy begins at fertilization, it's silly to even think of defining it as such. If that's the case, then many sexually active women have been pregnant numerous times and had miscarriages. Of course, they can't inform their doctors of this, since they don't know. Additionally, imagine attempting to expand this definition out, given the advances in reproductive technologies. When a doctor fertilizes a woman's egg with her partner's sperm in a pitre dish, is she pregnant? If a store of her fertilized eggs is preserved in deep freeze, does she remain pregnant until her blastocysts die? If she dies while those blastocysts are still being preserved, does that mean that a dead woman can be pregnant? If a couple enlists the aid of a surrogate mother, who is pregnant? It's obviously not the biological mother. But then the woman who has preserved blastocysts can't be pregnant either. If pregnancy begins at fertilization, then someone has got to be pregnant, though. The egg is fertilized, after all. Is the tank pregnant?

ChristianNewsWire's nutty statements of "medical fact" aside, what really caught my attention was this:

The First Amendment of the United States Constitution guarantees the right to freely exercise one's religious convictions. The Wisconsin Constitution expressly protects the rights of conscience. Under Article 1, Section 18, of our state constitution, "any control of, or interference with, the rights of conscience" shall not be permitted.

Now, obviously ChristianNewsWire and the anti-birth control pharmacists who are pushing this line against the Birth Control Protection Act are thinking that they are going to stop this legislation by claiming it violates their religious freedom through their rights of conscience. Here's the problem. Not every one who is anti-choice is religious, or is anti-choice because of their religious convictions. Are these Wisconsin pharmacists suggesting that it's okay to force someone who is anti-choice, but has no religious affiliation, to dispense birth control? I doubt it. But if this really is about conscience, and not about religion, then the Wisconsin constitution would seem to protect the rights of conscience of vegetarians who work at McDonalds and don't want to serve meat, or vegans who work at Mervyns but refuse to sell wool or leather, or school nurses, or doctors, who believe that vaccines are evil and refuse to distribute them to kids. Or heck, some renegade pastafarians who refuse to serve spaghetti, but insist on working at Italian restaurants. It's their right of conscience, after all. I guess anyone who has scruples against doing something required by a profession can work in that profession and yet not do their job in Wisconsin. My new set of principles - never prostituting my labor out for pay. I think I'll go get a job in Wisconsin.

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Surprise! The More Religious the Society, The Higher the Abortion Rate.

Given that many religious ideologies involve the condemnation of comprehensive sex-ed, or something like it, and various birth control methods, this actually isn't surprising at all. If you're really interested in reducing the number of abortions, taking a more liberal attitude toward human sexuality is definitely the way to go. Oh, and if that's the case, then John McCain is not your man.

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Colorado Has Lost It Too

On the heels of Georgia's proposed bill to define personhood as beginning at conception, Colorado now has a proposed amendment to the state constitution that would do the same. And Mike Huckabee has endorsed it.

I don't think it necessary to rehash the idiocy, from a practical standpoint, of legally defining a fertilized egg as a person. What really confuses me is that it seems as though the people of Colorado and Georgia haven't really thought about this - which is certainly something one ought to do before making something the law of the land.

Speaking of the people of Colorado and Georgia making something the law of the land, since when are facts determined by a popular vote? There is a fact of the matter as to whether or not a fertilized embryo is a person. This is something that certainly hasn't been determined. And without significant justification for the claim, which anti-choicers haven't provided (and I suspect can't provide), voting to recognize this "fact" seems both premature and arrogant.

I'm not saying that we can't possibily recognize a fact even when it's not completely settled. What I am saying is that before you can legally recognize a fact, you should have and provide evidence that it is a fact. Anti-choicers have not done this.

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Abstinence Only Driver's Ed

This is just awesome.

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Pharmacists and Plan B

Another idiotic ruling with regard to pharmacists and Plan-B has been handed down. At the core of this dispute is, to my mind, the special treatment given to religion in our society. If a vegetarian got a job at McDonalds and then refused to serve meat products because he believed their consumption to be grossly immoral, do you really think a judge would claim that he has a right to keep his job but not fulfill all the obligations that come along with it? Of course not. I have a personal hatred of guns. It's part of the core of my belief system, but I'm pretty sure that if I started working for Walmart and refused to sell the guns they keep in stock, no judge would say that I should have an exception. But because these pharmacists are objecting on religious grounds, they can get away with not doing their job and denying women much needed services. What a load of BS.

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Georgia Anti-Choicers Have Lost It

A bill is being pushed in the Georgia state legislature by anti-choicers in that state. The bill criminalizes abortion, enshrines in law false statements about the effects of abortion, but also, most shockingly, defines a fetus as a person from the moment of conception.

Now, attempting to criminalize abortion is the full out goal of the anti-choice movement, and it is not shocking that they would attempt to legitimize some of the false claims they make about abortion by having them included in legislation. What's really crazy about this bill is the fact that it makes the bald assertion that personhood begins at conception. I'm seriously wondering how the anti-choice movement in Georgia could have failed to consider the implications of making this actual law.

First off, contrary to the reasoning in Roe, a woman's right to an abortion has nothing to do with personhood status, or lack thereof, of a fetus. The right to an abortion derives from the human right to bodily autonomy. No person can use the body of another without their consent. This is what grounds our right not to be raped, our right not to have our organs forcibly removed from us, and our right not to be used in crazy experiments without our consent. Whether a fetus is a person or not may very well impact the moral status of abortion, but it has no relevance to whether or not a woman has a legal right to an abortion.

So defining a fetus as a person from the moment of conception doesn't impact the reasoning behind the conclusion that a woman has the right to choose. But it seems to me that the Georgia legislators who introduced this bill, and the anti-choicers that are pushing it, haven't thought about the implications separate from the abortion issue that result from defining an embryo as a person. Would every embryo be given a social security number? How would that work? Would parents of this embryo get a child tax credit? Would the presumptive father have to start paying child support right then and there? How are they defining conception? If they mean fertilization, this would seriously impact the question of birth control. A number of methods allow fertilization but prevent implantation. Would use of those methods be murder? It seems like they must be, if these anti-choicers are right. And many of them stand behind this conclusion, holding that birth control is an abortifacent - and hence murder.

Invitro fertilization would also seem to lead to murder, since many fertilized embryos created in the process are never implanted, and are eventually destroyed. Guess that means that barren couples will just have to suffer despite the fact that the science exists that would allow them to have their very own child.

Additionally, a goodly number of fertilized zygotes fail to implant and are flushed out of the body. Are those to be counted as deaths? How will we know when such a death has occurred? Will we have to start mandating monthly pregnancy tests for women? Will we be reduced to checking tampons and maxi-pads for the remains of the dead? If they are really serious about this, then, on pain of inconsistency, it seems as though we would have to go through serious privacy violating measures in order to keep track of all these zygote-persons.

If a woman miscarries, or if a fertilized embryo that failed to implant is flushed out of her system, will we be holding her accountable for the death of this "person" if she, say, exercised too much? Or smoked? Or had a glass of wine or two? Or didn't eat enough? How much jail time should a woman who exercises vigorously be given if we happen to find a zygote on her tampon?

The Georgia anti-choicers apparently haven't thought about all this. But then again, that's not surprising. If anti-choicers thought a bit more about the implications of their views, they probably wouldn't be anti-choice.

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PAS for Men

The Reproductive Rights blogsphere has been buzzing about the new trend in the anti-choice movement - men's PAS. It all started with this article in the LA Times. And now, there is an excellent article over at AlterNet about this nonsense and how it might pose a danger for reproductive rights.

PAS, or "post abortion syndrome" has been something that the anti-choice crowd has been harping on for some time. It's modeled on PTSD, but, unlike PTSD, there is no real scientific evidence that PAS exists even in women who have had abortions. This hasn't dissuaded anti-choicers from now claiming that men experience it too. Oh, pobrecitos!

Now, don't get me wrong, I understand that there are going to be a wide range of emotional reactions to an unplanned, unwanted pregnancy, and to an abortion. Different people are going to react differently both to the situation and to the choice that they make. But a syndrome? If there were some actual evidence, then maybe I'd sit up and take notice, but there isn't. And what the anti-choice crowd doesn't seem to notice (or perhaps, doesn't care about) is that even if PAS existed, this would still not be an argument for making abortion illegal. The fact that the exercise of my rights has an emotional impact on you doesn't mean that I shouldn't have those rights. Unless there are some premises added there, all you've got is a wild non-sequitur.

On a side note, I find this part of the oh-so-woeful story told in the NY Time article particularly telling:

Chris Aubert, a Houston lawyer, felt only indifference in 1985 when a girlfriend told him she was pregnant and planned on an abortion. When she asked if he wanted to come to the clinic, he said he couldn't; he played softball on Saturdays. He stuck a check for $200 in her door and never talked to her again.

Aubert goes on to say that while he feels as though the abortions cleared a path to success for him, his moral compunctions compel him to say that, if he could, he would go back and "save the babies". But when asked whether the women who he impregnated might feel differently, his shocked response is "I never really thought about it for the women".

He never really thought about it for the women. Given his decision to slide a check in the door of one woman and walk away like a jackass, I can't say that I'm surprised. Maybe if he had thought about it for the woman he would have a better understanding of both the reason why women need to have a choice and the choice that this particular woman made. Maybe if he had actually given any thought to it at all, he wouldn't now be so pained by something that, at the time, mattered less to him than a softball game.

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Stigmatizing Abortion - Saving teh babiez or harming women?

Anti-choice zealots standing outside abortion clinics shouting hateful things at the women who enter couldn't possibly have negative impacts, could it? The stigma that the anti-choicers are working hard to attach to abortion and the women who have them couldn't possibly result in death and maiming, could it? According to Eddie Mhlanga, the head of the UZKN Medical School's Obstetrics and Gynecology unit, yes it can.

Stigma creates fertile ground for illegal abortion providers to manipulate and possibly kill vulnerable women who acquire their services...

In KwaZulu-Natal in particular, health workers are still very judgmental, sometimes deliberately, to poor women who are in most need of the government facility... Mhlanga added that many KZN hospitals made it difficult even for health workers who wanted to provide the service, as they were called "murderers" and "terminators".

Anti-choicers often push this idea that they are working to reduce the number of abortions, that by standing outside abortion clinics shouting hateful things or condescendingly praying for the fetuses they are convincing women not to have abortions. The experience in South Africa seems to show, however, that rather than convincing women not to have an abortion, they are convincing them instead to have it in the shadows, where it is unsafe but secret.

Also in the article - another anti-choice claim shot down by data taken after South Africa's Choice on Termination of Pregnancy Act is the idea that back alley abortions don't result in problems. That women don't die from them. Hmmmm... according to the article deaths from septic abortions have dropped by 90%, the number of women coming in from botched abortions dropping from 12 or 14 to 1 or 2 at one hospital. I thought women didn't die from illegal abortion? Or are the anti-choicers now going to fall back on the disgusting idea that these women deserved it?

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What Happened to "Know Thy Enemy"?

So, a group of parents in Maine is upset about the fact that birth control is a topic in a high school biology class. To be completely honest, I often have a really hard time understanding this idiocy. Why, I ask myself, would parents want their children to be uneducated about anything? It seems to me that a good parent would wish for their children to know as much about this world as possible, since not only is knowledge key to coping with the world, but it is also valuable in and of itself. So why fight to prevent your children from learning? But then I remember that the most likely reason that these parents wish to keep their children ignorant is... you guessed it... religion! Ignorance is a driving force behind any religious commitment.

But then I wonder what happened to that insightful old adage "know thy enemy". The religious right in the United States has been fighting for a while now against anything having to do with sex in the public sphere. In particular, thay have fought to restrict access to birth control and abortions. I assume that the parents who are trying to fight this battle today are hoping that their children will continue to fight it in the future. But wouldn't they be better prepared to get rid of birth control if they knew what it was? Isn't understanding what you're against crucial to defeating it? One would think so. And the fact that these parents, and many like them, do whatever they can to prevent their children from learning about "the enemy" is, I think, extremely revealing. Their attempt to guard their children from learning about contraception, evolution, etc indicates that on at least some level, they recognize that "the enemy" is right. If it really didn't make sense to allow women access to contraception, or to believe that life evolved, then there wouldn't be anything for these parents to worry about... especially when it comes to their high school age children. Their terror at the idea that their children might learn about these things reveals an understanding of the tenuousness and unfoundedness of their position. It reveals that deep down they know they're wrong.

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Blog For Choice Day!

January 22nd, the anniversay of Roe, is Blog for Choice Day. This year's topic is why you think it is important to vote pro-choice. If you've got a blog, sign up here and help ignite the blogosphere with rational arguments for choice (and perhaps a little pro-choice ferver).

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Abortion Rights and Bodily Autonomy

Apart from being unable to keep herself from childish name calling, Jill Stanek seems to have misunderstood a point that Jill at Feministe was trying to make. Because misunderstandings like this seem to be at the root of many of the arguments between those who support abortion rights and those who wish to destroy them, it's important to clear them up when we see them. So here goes. Feministe Jill claims the following:

I am pro-choice because I believe that if we outlaw a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy, there is no legal argument against forcing a woman to terminate a pregnancy, or disallowing certain people from reproducing.

This is what Stanek had to say in response:

I don't know any other way to say this. Jill, frankly my dear shared name, you're crazy. You must have ventured too close at the Pro-Choice Carnival to the guy in the sideshow who sticks pins all over his body and yourself become a pinhead.

Outlawing slavery, the closest analogy, did not contradictorily give the government or anyone the right to own slaves, for heaven's sakes. Outlawing anything for that matter does not translate into forcing what was outlawed onto the public. Get real.

First, just as a matter of argumentative etiquette, being unable to understand the justification for a claim does not give you carte blanche to start hurling ad homonym attacks at the individual who made the claim. Second, as someone who has been as active in the abortion debate for as long as she has, one would think that Stanek would see right away what stood behind Feministe Jill's claim. The right to choose whether or not to have an abortion is based on the fundamental right to bodily autonomy - on the right to choose what happens or does not happen to one's body. Denial of the right to choose is denial of the right to bodily autonomy, and once you deny that right, there is no longer a legal argument to be made to prevent forced abortions, prohibitions on procreation, or even forced blood donation.

Because denial of abortion rights is a denial of the right to bodily autonomy, Stanek's "closest analogy" is not analogous at all. The abolition of slavery involved a recognition of fundamental rights, not a denial of them. And a recognition of fundamental rights will, of course, have drastically different consequences than a denial of them.

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One Soul, One Vote

This is insane:

"Voting could endanger your soul, if you are Catholic and your political candidate supports or doesn't actively oppose abortion rights, some Catholics say.

A group planning a vigil Friday wants that sentence to read "your soul will be in danger" with an improper vote, and they want Archbishop of Santa Fe Michael J. Sheehan to make the "will" clear to the Catholics in his archdiocese."

And while the vigil under discussion will occur in Albuquerque, NM, other parts of the nation are not safe either:

"Catholics in other cities around the nation are having vigils, too, to persuade their local archbishops to take a stronger stance against politicians who support abortion rights, organizers say.

The vigils are sponsored by the Society for Truth and Justice, which is led by Randall Terry, the founder of Operation Rescue."

Okay. A few points here. Since there is no god, and there are no such things as souls, I'm pretty sure you can rest easy that you'll be okay if you vote for a pro-choice candidate. In fact, you should vote for a pro-choice candidate, since preventing a woman from obtaining an abortion is a denial of her right over her body - a right that keeps the government from taking your kidney and giving it to other people, or mandating that you donate blood, or insisting that you have a barcode implanted in your head for identification purposes. Any anti-choice candidate is intent on denying women a basic right. So even if there were a god, why wouldn't he be cool with women having the same rights as everyone else?

Of course, you may believe that your god does think that women have fewer rights then men, and that they should have to donate their bodies over to another being even if they don't want to (which, by the way, would seem to make rape an okay thing...hmm...). But what evidence do you have for this belief? The Bible? Well, the Bible really isn't evidence to begin with, but even if we were to consider it as such, the passages just aren't there to support the anti-choice position. In fact, Biblical law indicates that if a man caused a miscarriage in a woman, but causes no other harm to the woman herself, must pay a fine. If he had killed the woman, however, he would have to be executed (Exodus 21:22-23). So, termination of a pregnancy doesn't seem to be murder according to Biblical law; if it was, a man causing a miscarriage would face the same punishment for killing an unborn child and for killing a woman. So what other evidence might one put forward for this claim? The Pope's edict? Well, Popes have hardly agreed on this through the years. Because your pastor told you so? I've no reason to believe your pastor without knowing what evidence he has for his claim. Even if there was evidence that there was a god who thought abortion was evil, why on earth would he damn your soul for voting for someone who is pro-choice? What if (as is, in fact, the case) the anti-choice guys are all kooks? What kind of god is that? What about that whole "judge not lest ye be judged" bit? Doesn't that mean that you should just avoid having abortions and leave others to be judged by god for their "evil" deeds?

For those who don't believe, however, the big point to take away from this is that belief in god and religion aren't just problems when they manage to hop the wall between church and state. They're problems as long as they impact the decisions and attitudes that people take in other aspects of their lives. Faith in god is a belief that is without evidential support (that's why it's "faith"). But it seems that believers have a hard time stopping themselves there. They add to this belief in the deity beliefs about what the deity wants. And they have no evidence for those beliefs either. Fine. But then they base actions on those beliefs, actions that impact the lives of others. And that's a problem, even if the government isn't paying for it. I was asked recently why atheists spend so much of their time and energy talking about something they don't believe in. Vigils like this, and their consequences, are the reason why. Because even if separation of church and state is upheld, other people's irrational beliefs can and do have a serious impact on everyone else.

H/T Heretic54

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Outmoded Gender Norms and Teen Pregnancy

Check out this awesome post by Amanda Marcotte over at the RH blog. She really hits the nail on the head with her discussion of how dated attitudes toward sex lead to teen pregnancy. And how, as a result, abstinence-only education problems are doomed to lead to the same result.

"In lieu of teaching people how to use contraception safely and effectively, the programs spend most of the time on teaching "relationship skills," i.e. pushing old-fashioned ideas about gender roles. Which means teaching girls that good girls don't, and that means not just "don't have sex" but also "don't want sex," "don't take initiative," and "don't take control." Sure, maybe some of the girls in an abstinence only course will have sex at 17 or 18 instead of 15 or 16. But when they do, will they be more afraid that bringing birth control along will mean that they're not good girls? It's not more fun to be pregnant against your will at 17 than 15."

These attitudes, of course, are born out of an ideology that has lingered in the United States for quite some time, and continues to be pushed by fundamentalist Christians and their ilk. And this is an ideology that is inherently sexist. While we're all aware that sexism is a societal issue that needs to be dealt with, we often are incapable of recognizing all of its faces. But under the notion that good girls don't want, prepare for, or have sex is a very nasty, if well hidden, misogyny. Marcotte explains it beautifully:

"I have a pet theory as to why, out of all the various agencies and clinics dedicated to furthering sexual health and reproductive rights, Planned Parenthood gets the most abuse from the anti-choice set--it's all in the name. By putting the word and concept of planning in the very name of the organization, Planned Parenthood frames women's agency as a positive value, which social conservatives take as a direct assault on their belief that women are passive objects. The anti-choice steadfast refusal to accept female agency explains the stammering discomfort from anti-choicers when asked how much a woman should be punished for abortion. Legal punishment for abortion upholds the idea that women have agency like men. It's not that they're against punishing sluts, but the punishment is about returning the slutty, agency-possessing women to her rightful passive state, and the proper method of doing that is putting her body at the mercy of the pregnancy. Every other possibility is just upsetting."

She's exactly right. And it should not be surprising that this idea - the idea that good girls don't - comes from an era in which female agency was denied all the time. It stood right along the idea that there was something seriously wrong with a single mother, a married women in the workforce, or single woman in any position of authority and importance. All of these notions have, at their root, the idea that female agency is negative. And this idea, of course, was a necessary component of a belief-system that saw women as inherently weak and properly submissive.


It should be no surprise that those people who insist on pushing these outmoded ideas on the next generation are the same who are fighting to deprive women of any sort of control over their own bodies - be it the right to an abortion or the right to birth control. Once you view women as properly without agency, it is a short step to viewing them as without rights, without domain over themselves. If women can't do anything, then someone has to look out for them - the same way we look after children, who we do not consider to be full agents until they reach a certain level of maturity. Of course, it is a huge mistake to assume that women are without agency. And most people (at least 'round here) would not be willing to outright claim that female agency is negative. If that's really the case, though, we need to beware of the norms that we are teaching young girls and boys. If women really are to be treated equally, and our rights are to be preserved, there must be a change in the basic attitudes that people have toward women and sex. It's not that good girls don't have sex, it's that they don't have sex until they're ready. It's not that good girls don't want sex, or that they don't initiate it, it's that they don't do it unprotected.

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When Ideology Controls Funding

A sad bit of news, from the AP:

Unable to override a promised veto, Democrats have backed down on their insistence that the 2008 foreign aid budget reverse President Bush's ban on providing aid to family planning groups abroad that offer abortions.

A measure to ease restrictions on international aid was stripped this weekend from a $500 billion-plus government-wide spending bill, which includes some $3 billion for the State Department and foreign aid programs.

This has to stop. I was hoping that when the Democrats took control of congress, they would be able to reverse some of the damage that had been done by allowing backward ideology impact where our foreign aid dollars go. When are people going to realize that these organizations which - *gasp* - provide abortions are some of the most effective in making sure that women have access to much needed reproductive health care, to birth control, to aid for their children and to the means to prevent the transmission of STDs - including AIDS? But rather than giving these people the funds that they need to go out and do important work, our government would rather give the money to people who think condoms have gigantic holes in them and birth control pills are the work of the devil. And philosophers think that people are rational. Ha!

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