Good to know that religious belief as a reason to murder someone isn’t condoned in Kansas.

Although I’m a bit put off by CNN’s headline:

Activist Roeder convicted of abortion provider’s murder.

Here’s to you, Dr. Tiller.  I never needed your services, but you touched the lives of many women who did.  And here’s to the dismantling of the bigotry and hatred that resulted in your death.

Your memory lives on.

I have been glued to my computer every time the Prop 8 Trial Tracker has updated since last Monday.  I’ve devoured each on-the-fly transcript (Thank you Rick Jacobs for sitting through the trial, and for Julia Rosen for the daily summaries)  and just as eagerly devoured the commentary that follows from places like Pam’s House Blend, Zack Ford Blogs, the various news sites that are covering the trial.  I am obsessed, because so much seems to hang in the balance and I fear that the burden of proof on us is made unbearably heavy by the religious affiliations with the concept of marriage.  I wish for video of the trial; I wish for audio records; I wish for something more than words on a page, and journalists and pundits and other prognosticators with their conjecture on what it all means. 

It seems the only thing that can capture my attention for long is Dr. Tiller’s assassin’s pretrial hearings and the various sundry things that have happened, eroding away people’s right to bodily autonomy and agency.  The judge ruled in favour of allowing a voluntary manslaughter defense; the state of Florida had decided that it was merely maintaining the “status quo” when it hospitalised a woman and confined her to bed rest because it was in the best interest of the medical care of the fetus; Kentucky has a bill in the works that would allow them to join the ranks of states requiring doctors to give inaccurate/irrelevant/politically-charged information to women seeking abortions.

I wish I could generate the words for a fruitful discussion with those close to me that when I say religion is dangerous, this is what I mean.  That when I take an absolutist stance against religion and shift the burden of proof onto my conversation partner to show me something redeeming within religion, this is what is in my head.

I wish I had the words necessary to reason the someones responsible out of a position they did not reason themselves into. 

I wish that religions did not get a pass in promoting hate and bigotry as religious values. 

I do not expect my words to change the fate of humanity with this drop in the bucket, but I am obligated to say something, if only for my sanity.

New Law Requires Women To Name Baby, Paint Nursery Before Getting Abortion

I saw this on the Onion today.  I giggled, made my husband watch it, and we had a good chuckle over how ridiculous such measures are.

Then @NatAbortionFed tweeted this piece of news:

FRANKFORT, Ky. — A measure that would require doctors to show ultrasound images of fetuses to women preparing to have abortions cleared a Senate panel Thursday.

Senate Bill 38, sponsored by Sen. Elizabeth Tori, R-Radcliff, passed 10-0 and now goes to the full Senate for a vote.

The measure would require women to meet face-to-face with a physician or a physician’s representatives at least 24 hours before the procedure is performed.

“Abortion is a life-changing and life-ending procedure,” said Robert Castagna, executive director of the Catholic Conference of Kentucky. “Good public policy demands that before a woman gives truly informed consent and allows an irreversible procedure to be performed on herself and her unborn child, she should be fully informed by the most complete and current information.”

Similar bills have passed the Senate in recent legislative sessions but have died in the House.

Tori said this year’s bill goes farther than the one she sponsored last year in that it requires the physicians to explain what the ultrasound shows, including the “number of unborn children depicted” and the presence of organs and “external members,” such as arms and legs.

Derek Selznick, director of the American Civil Liberty Union of Kentucky’s Reproductive Freedom Project, said abortion providers are already required to counsel women before abortions and show them a video describing the procedure.

“It will only create more barriers to access for procedures for which a woman is legally entitled,” he said.

I wonder if Courier-Journal.com is an affiliate of the Onion.  No?  Damn, I really do like it better when the Onion stays fictional.

Holy Innocents Wholly Insipient Catholic Church, Long Beach is one of my favourite Christian blogs to troll.  On occasion, the retarded monkeys who call themselves the blogs “editors” crap out something hilarious:

The Road to Hitler Was Paved With Abortions

 

The Weimar Republic was a society committing suicide in slow motion. It could neither stop the killing of its unborn children nor control the degrading hedonism that accompanied this practice. In retrospect, one might call Weimar a very weak form of the culture of death, a preview of what now prevails in much of the Western world. It was so weak it easily caved in when confronted with a fiercer form of that same culture. For even under the Nazis the slaughter of the unborn continued. Hitler was gung-ho for eugenic abortion, and while he made abortion virtually inaccessible for German women of supposedly superior "stock," he legalized it and sometimes made it (along with sterilization) compulsory for women of what he called "inferior races." Thus did an enervated society cave in to a mad tyrant. Thus did Weimar’s "cultures of abortion" usher in the Holocaust. Perhaps we should take warning.

NOR

Step 1. Kill babies
Step 2. ?????
Step 3. Thus, Nazis.

My favourite part of this article:  “For even under the Nazis the slaughter of the unborn continued…” as if Nazis slaughtering things was surprising.

Since they use that Hitler picture so often in relation to Hitler=Abortions, I made them a lovely little graphic of Hitler using a foetus as a yo-yo.  I sincerely hope they start using it to illustrate their points.

My generation hasn’t experienced a time where abortion hasn’t been legal.  Depending on the type of health care we were on, who we were employed by (if we were employed), where we lived and what our families were like, we may not have had easy access to abortion.  But, abortion has been a legal procedure since 1973, and we’ve known it no other way.

Do we take it for granted – yes.  We presume that abortion will be legal.  So we may also have a bit of a complex relationship with abortion.  Some of us may support the ability to choose while feeling fundamentally uncomfortable about it.  Some of us may never avail ourselves of an abortion procedure (although 1 in 3 probably will).  Some of us view abortion as a black-and-white issue where you’re either for women’s agency or against it.

But honestly, that nuance and ambiguity found within my generation’s opinions on abortion is NOT what is causing legislation like the Stupak-Pitts amendment to be up for a vote.  The New York Times article that suggests that my generation’s complacency leads to the climate that allows anti-abortion legislation is way off base. 

Legislation like the Stupak-Pitts amendment exist because the Democratic Party has made a calculated decision to court the dissatisfied/undecided religious middle.  This crisis that is apparent within women’s reproductive health and rights is one that ALL progressive movements that had hitched their ponies to the DNC cart are experiencing.  The DNC has rightfully assumed that those of us whose interests are being shoved to the backburner (or taken off the party platform altogether) will continue to

Gay marriage rights, abortion, insurance coverage for women having children (soon to be – woman as a preexisting condition), reproductive rights and choice, ending DOMA, DADT, promoting the ERA and ENDA.  These are all things that are not going to happen.  We have been told “We will come back for you, just wait your turn until the next election cycle, presidential election, whatever bullshit they’ve cooked up”, and it’s NOT GOING TO HAPPEN.

So, if we’re going to lose the right to abortion, lose the fight for gay marriage and equality, lose the ability to have a secular nation, it’s not because of apathy regarding abortion on the part of my generation.  It’s because we as a people didn’t decide to stop voting and funding politicians who have betrayed us.

This is a brief post by my friend PithAndWit.  I asked her to contribute to the discussion about the anti-abortion Stupak-Pitts bill that was added to the Healthcare Reform Act before passing in the House.  PithAndWit formerly worked for a woman’s healthcare provider that performed abortions.  As you will soon see, she is my best and most charming frienemy for some very good reasons.  – Reed

I was briefly given admin rights on this blog due to the recent healthcare bill. I was going to write something well-conceived and thought-provoking, but having had a few beers, I’m settling for plain old provoking, and talk about conception.

I spent half of the past year working at an abortion clinic. I started off in the front office, but by the time I was finished there I was giving birth control and MicRhogam shots, counseling, performing ultrasounds, drawing blood, assisting the physician during the procedure and even working in the POC room– the Products Of Conception Room. I’m the lady who sorted through the detritus to make sure we got everything out.

After all that experience, and talking to women from all backgrounds who’ve had abortions, strangers and friends, you know what I think?

If I got pregnant, I’d collect donations to get that shit sucked out. I take some steps to keep my womb vacant, but I know that plans get fucked and shit happens. I’ve already offered to name my hypothetical abortion after Mr. Braden if he contributes to the fund. I almost want to get pregnant, just so I can experience what all these other women have gone through.

Dear Congress,

Name one outpatient surgery, aside from abortion, that one-third of American women will undergo. Then suck my left tit when you decide that it’s not necessary for the public to pay for that shit. You’ll let Medicare pay to get herpes treated, and that shit sticks around. At least pregnancy is a sexually-transmitted disease that isn’t contagious. So fuck you, Congresspeople. You daft twats. The youngest Congresswoman was born in ‘70, which means it’s pretty much safe to say that statistically, at least 30 of the 92 Congresswomen have had abortions already. And of the 440+ men– yeah, Republicans and Democrats alike– at least one-hundred of you are the fathers of abortions.  Suck it. Both literally and metaphorically.

Thank you.

P.S. Shit fuck piss cunt ass whore motherfucker.

Michelle just posted a drunken rant on the Stupak-Pitts Bill that overwhelmingly (and needlessly) passed a ban on any insurance plan involved in the government’s up-and-coming insurance exchange programme or the public option healthcare system from providing women with abortion care.

Here’s my drunken rant.  It’s not as good, but it’s equally drunken.

With the Stupid-Gits Bill in effect, sexually active women with insurance provided or partially-provided by federal subsidies will have to purchase a separate private insurance plan on the off-chance that they get pregnant if they can’t afford to pay for an expensive abortion out of pocket.

This bill further complicates a woman’s right to a safe abortion and takes us that much closer to the days of back-alley abortions and perforated uteri.  There are already several idiotic and misogynistic laws on the books preventing federal money from going toward abortion services, but this bill just makes it worse, forcing women who might need an abortion in the future to take out multiple insurance policies and slowly drown in debt if they want to avoid having to pay for an abortion out of pocket and drown in a sudden flash-flood of debt.

It doesn’t ban all abortions, it just effectively bans poor people from having abortions.

I have a Dodge Ram pick-up from the 1980s.  It’s delightfully sketchy and makes terrible noises when you drive it.  I’m going to fill the truck bed with hundreds of wire hangers and hang a sign on it that says, “Women’s Mobile Health Care Unit, Brought to you by Rep. Stupak and Rep. Pitts,” and drive it around Washington D.C. next time I get a few days off work.  If anyone has a pile of wire hangers lying around, I would be glad to take them off your hands as a donation.  Email me for shipping directions.

I’ve invited my friend Pith And Wit to contribute a guest post in the near future.  She previously worked for a women’s healthcare service that provided abortions to the Roanoke Valley in Virginia.

Originally this was a post about religious privilege and the health care debate.  I had a relatively thoughtful discussion about how we were in danger (and still are) of having religious faith healing and non-evidence based medicine having mandated reimbursement from insurance companies with the current healthcare reform.  I also explored, perhaps a bit prematurely, how religion has played a role in the healthcare debate regarding abortion, access to abortion, and restrictions on abortion.  That article is no longer relevant, and will probably not see the light of day, although portions of it have been adapted below.

Why, you might ask?  Well, because of a particular amendment to the healthcare bill that will prevent insurance customers that receive subsidies from the federal government or participate in the mandated exchange from receiving abortion coverage, even when paid for with private funds.  Supplemental insurance or out of pocket costs will be required for elective abortion coverage.

I suppose you could argue that this is a little outside the purview of this blog, but as  Quixote from Shakersville reminds us, “Rights are for all. When only some people have them, they’re just privileges. And privileges can be taken away.”  The same sense of privilege that allows religious people to feel as if it is acceptable to vote away marriage rights to a minority allows them to feel okay about deciding what a person may or may not do with their body.

Honestly, the DNC wasn’t going to be getting any of my money because of the wholesale debacle they’ve made in supporting gay and minority rights, but this fucking seals the deal for me.  Here’s a list of the Democrats that voted for the amendment, and attached at the bottom are the Democrats that voted FOR the amendment and AGAINST the healthcare bill.  Anyone in those districts that want to run against your rep?  If you’re in Michigan/Ohio, I’ll come campaign for you.

For those looking for non-drunken babble about health-care reform, you should probably check out Spare Candy, who has helpfully compiled a list of people much more rationally and sober than I, speaking about what the hell this means for women.  I’m done with the fucking news for the night.

Edit:  RHRealityCheck has a concise and pretty good breakdown of WHY the Stupak Amendment is a huge setback for abortion access. I presume theirs is also a non-drunken post.

I’m going to post this video without comment and let you fume angrily in the comments.

If this video made you angry, you can donate to Planned Parenthood here.