Bush Proposal Dresses Restricted Access to Reproductive Health Care in Anti-Discrimination Clothes

The New York Times has obtained a draft of a White House proposal to deny Federal funding to any hospital or health organization that refuses to hire a health care professional based on their personal moral objections to contraception or abortion.

NARAL sent out an alert via text message earlier this afternoon asking members to call the White House hotline and register their non-support for the proposed regulatory changes.

The Bush administration claims that the change is intended to keep people from being forced to perform abortions. But the real aim is much more subtle. It seeks to define abortion and the use of contraceptives as fundamentally different from other kinds of medical care.

Notice that they’re not advancing the idea that Christian Scientists — who believe that modern medicine interferes with God’s will — should not be discriminated against in hiring. Nor are they pressing the issue of non-discrimination against Jehovah’s Witness health care professionals who object to blood transfusions.

This proposal is not about protecting religious freedom. If it were, it would be much more audacious in its scope. The targeting of birth control and abortion alone reveals the real aim: to reduce women’s reproductive health care choices.

Denial of Contraception is Immoral

Many thanks to Mark Melief for sharing the link to this great Seattle Times editorial.

Huckabee Surges in South Carolina, I Begin the Application Process For Canadian Citizenship

After hanging around near the bottom of the pack, polling around fifth nationally, and polling well behind Romney in Iowa and South Carolina, Mike Huckabee has suddenly taken off.

Huckabee had managed to convince socially conservative voters that he is the only true “conservative” candidate. However, he still polled very lowly because no one thought he had a chance. As soon as his numbers started moving up in Iowa polls, evangelical social conservatives started rallying strongly around him.

Huckabee is now the front-runner in Iowa and South Carolina, the first two states to vote in the primary election. Branding himself as a “true” Christian, Huckabee is using his religion to get votes. As a a result, Mormon Mitt Romney is being forced to defend his faith.

I find Huckabee’s surge deplorable. He promotes a “pro-Christian” America, believes gays are sinners and abortion is murder. He looks very huggable, and his name is very cute, but do not be mistaken. He is another George W. Bush who will shred the secular safety net in favor of faith-baised initiatives. He believes God has “chosen him” to be President, appears to have a narrow, black-and-white world-view, and he does not appear to be tolerant of other faiths.

Most importantly, Huckabee is trying to elected by capitalizing on the other candidates perceived lack of faith rather than discussing the domestic and foreign policy issues pressing us today. He is the last thing America needs at home or abroad.

Common, Compassionate Ground on Abortion?

Nathan Ketsdever is one of my favorite bloggers because his perspective embodies the compassionate conservatism that some politicians only mimic. He’s always trying to find common ground, even on incredibly contentious issues like abortion.

What I love about this perspective is that it acknowledges the complexity of the issue. I can appreciate a nuanced conservative perspective on this issue — even if I disagree with it. What I object to is the black-and-white perspective of political convenience that has driven a wedge so deeply between those on the left and right of this issue.

Nathan has seven points around which he thinks we can coalesce some reconciliation on this issue:

1. Promoting both male and female sexual responsibility
2. Fostering equality and respect for women
3. Strengthening parent-child communication
4. Reducing the number of teen pregnancies
5. Improving prenatal and maternal care
6. Supporting and funding the choice of adoption
7. Working together to remove the conditions that lead to abortion

It’s that last point that — as I wrote to Nathan in a recent message — I have some questions about. It seems to me that people who take the traditionally liberal perspective on the issue and people who take the traditionally conservative perspective have a hard time seeing eye to eye on the “conditions that lead to abortion.”

I see those conditions as:

1. Deplorable lack of accurate information about and access to birth control for poor and underage women.
2. General cultural attitudes that keep us from fully discussing sex and pregnancy with our partners.

I think that a lot of people on the other side of the issue see the conditions as:

1. A lack of moral fiber and family values which leads to…
2. Promiscuity
3. An inability to take responsibility for the consequences (pregnancy) of one’s actions (sex)

What do you guys think? Is there any common ground here? I’d definitely like to get Nathan’s thoughts in on this as well. He asked me if he could publish the stuff from my message and I said that it was cool for him to do that. I wanted to repost them here too to get your thoughts.

How Can Republicans Court the Female Vote? By Embracing Reproductive Rights

Kimberly Strassel has an innovative column in the WSJ today about how the Republican party can and should be courting the female vote.

She argues that a flat tax would be attractive to women because:

Most married women are second-earners. That means their income is added to that of their husband’s, and thus taxed at his highest marginal rate. So the married woman working as a secretary keeps less of her paycheck than the single woman who does the exact same job. This is the ultimate in “inequality,” yet Democrats constantly promote the very tax code that punishes married working women. In some cases, the tax burdens and child-care expenses for second-earners are so burdensome they can’t afford a career. But when was the last time a Republican pointed out that Ms. Clinton was helping to keep ladies in the kitchen?

Also, it’s Democrats, not Republicans that are preventing women from getting more flexible hours at work:

Ask almost any working woman what the toughest part of her life is, and she’ll say the complications of scheduling both work and family life. What makes that task so tough is a dusty piece of legislation called the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act, which requires that hourly workers who put in more than 40 hours a week get overtime. Some women like overtime. But in a 1995 poll, an extraordinary 81% said they’d prefer compensatory time off. Put another way, many women would like to pack 45 hours into the first four days of work, then knock off early on Friday to catch Jimmy’s soccer match.

The mod term for this is “flex time” and Democrats pay it lip service. But what the left won’t mention–and Republicans have failed to mention–is that Democrats are the obstacle to changing the overtime law. Organized labor likes the 40-hour-week law, and union leaders prefer to be the ones to arrange any flex-time agreements on behalf of their members. So in 1997, when Republican Sen. John Ashcroft put forward legislation to allow flexible scheduling in the private workforce, it was Democrats, at the beck of unions, who killed it.

Sure, these issues are important to me, at least the second one is. Women who marry up economically should have to pay taxes at the higher rate. The same goes for men who marry up economically. And as women make up more and more of college populations and make more of a drive into the workforce, we’re going to see those inequalities even out.

Unless, of course Republicans remain in power with the same anti-reproductive rights stand that they’ve been taking for the last 34 years. Unintended pregnancies and unwanted babies severely curtain women’s ability to get ahead in the workforce, flex-time or no.

Washington Takes a Big Step Toward Protecting Women

New rules governing the behavior of pharmacists went into effect statewide today. The regulations stipulate that no pharmacist may deny a patient access to their medication on moral grounds. In the past, that argument has been used to deny women access to birth control and emergency contraception.

Planned Parenthood has some interesting resources on the topic for women who have been denied their prescriptions.

Now, I don’t think that any professional should be forced to do something against his or her beliefs. But at the same time, if you accept a job, you accept the job description. You don’t get to refuse to do some part of the job simply because your morals forbid it and still expect to be paid. You do have the right to resign in protest, and that’s what I think pharmacists who disagree with today’s rules should do.

An anti-birth control person working in a pharmacy is like a Muslim working as a pig farmer. Incongruous.

A Discussion Topic: Splitting Birth Control, For or Against?

I’m curious what you guys think.

Should a couple in a long-term relationship that is sexually active and shares an interest in not having babies split the cost of whatever birth control method they decide on?

How to Get Embryonic Stem Cells Without Destroying Embryos

Pro-life activists have long opposed research with embryonic stem cells because they require the creation and destruction of human embryos. But now scientists have now found a way to actually turn back the clock on adult mouse cells, forcing them to revert to their most plastic, embryonic state.

The implications for this are profound. If the research conclusions bear out in humans, we could see the growth of genetically identical replacement tissue without ever having to clone, create or destroy an embryo.

This could eliminate some arguments against the practice. But I wouldn’t be surprised if some pro-lifers continue to argue that the stem cells created in this process have the right to become living beings. After all, some of the current research has resulted in the creation of living, squeaking baby mice from these cells.

Obviously, the research is also very preliminary. We’ll have to wait a good long time before we can really apply the practice to human disease processes. The crucial issue at this point is funding, something that the Bush White House has all but shut down at the Federal level due to its relationship with right-wing Evangelicals. Perhaps with this new procedure that requires no work with actual embryos, the president will change his tune.

Watch a Sexy Video for a Good Cause

Come on, you know you watch this stuff online anyway. You can watch this video for a good cause:

An anonymous donor has pledged $5,000 to the first Planned Parenthood affiliate that gets 5,000 views on YouTube. This video will help raise money for Planned Parenthood, which is so critically important given the recent Supreme Court decision against abortion rights.

Abstinence Only = More Abortion

Deborah has a great post about a recent U.S. Department of Health and Human Services report saying what we all knew already: abstinence-only education doesn’t work!

“Can we stop wasting our money already?” she asks.

My sentiments exactly.

Public Citizen is Overreaching in Call for FDA Ban on Third-Gen Birth Control Pills

This morning, I recieved an e-mail from Public Citizen, a non-profit public interest group. They were asking for signatures to their petition to the FDA to ban all “third generation” birth control pills. Their main issue is that the synthetic progestin known as desogestrel — which is used in most of the newest birth control pills — doubles the risk of blood clots and strokes in women using the pill. There’s been a lot of hype around the whole thing:

Being a consumer of a third-generation birth control pill — I take Yasmin — I wanted to get more information. I called my gynecologist’s office and recieved a call back from a very nice nurse.

She told me that the risk of blood clot and stroke from the use of “second generation” birth control pills is only 10-30 per 100,000 women. Double that, and you have 20-60 per 100,000 women. “If you double the likelihood of a very rare occurence,” she explained, “it’s still a very rare occurence.”

I was also very relieved to hear that Yasmin doesn’t even have desogestrel, it has drospirenone, which is also a synthetic progestin.

Finally, she mentioned to me that the risk of blood clot and stroke during pregnancy was much higher. One study found it to be as high as 210 in 100,000 women during pregnancy and post-partum.

That’s a much greater risk than the one associated with desogestrel. I understand that its still an elevated risk, but it’s being blown way out of proportion by Public Citizen. Banning all third-generation birth control pills because some statistics demonstrated a slightly increased risk of a negative outcome would be a huge overreach on the part of the FDA. Instead, let’s just require doctors to explain the difference between desogestrel and other progestin options. I think that makes the most sense.

BTW, here is a list of the commercial birth control products that contain desogestrel:

• Desogestrel and Ethinyl Estradiol — ethinyl estradiol is the standard estrogen ingredient in all modern birth control pills
• Apri-28
• Cyclessa
• Desogen
• Kariva
• Mircette
• Ortho-Cept
• Reclipsen
• Velivet

If you’re taking any of those pills, and the slightly increased risk bothers you, you might want to think about switching.

In the State of Washington, Marriage is ALL About Children

I love this most recent challenge to the “marriage is for procreation” crowd. In much the same way that the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster took on the anti-evolution crowd, the Washington Defense of Marriage Alliance has put forth a bill that would require married couples to have children or face an annulment. Under the initiative, anyone who could not have children would not be issued a marriage license.

The most common arguments against gay marriage, abortion, and evolution in the public school are all cleverly formed bluffs to hide the real truth about fundamentalist Christianity’s agenda for America: turning their narrow moral views into laws that bind us all. Initiatives like 957 expose the truth by calling those groups’ bluff. Hilarious!

But What if She’s Raped?

I think the objections to the HPV vaccine by Christian groups are wacky in the extreme. But I do understand the idealism. It’s comforting to believe for certain that your little girl is going to be chaste until she marries. And maybe if she adheres to the values you raised her with, she will.

But what if she’s raped? It happens all the time, and it doesn’t matter whether your little girl is chaste or not. She could even be targeted because she is chaste. Rapists don’t use condoms. They’re not going to care whether your chaste little girl gets an STD. What then?

Or what if her husband has a checkered past? What if he didn’t walk the straight and narrow road your daughter did? What if he has HPV and doesn’t even know it? That’s not so terribly uncommon either.

You don’t have to tell her what the vaccination is for if you’re worried that it will give her ideas about sex. Or you can tell her that it will prevent some kinds of cancer, which is the truth. But for pity’s sake, look after her health and physical well-being. Even if she does stray from the path you would like to see her walk, would you really punish your own daughter with cancer?

The Conservative Soul, Sarah Buxton and the Bond Movie

Did I mention that Daniel Craig is lickable? I think so.

Technorati Tags: Sarah Buxton, The Conservative Soul, James Bond Casino Royale

Bill Clinton Supports Sex Workers, Awesome!

Former President Clinton said at the International AIDS Conference that we should legalize prostitution worldwide in order to stop the spread of HIV and AIDS:

I wish they would just amend the law and say, `We disapprove of prostitution but here’s the money — go save lives.

I second that motion, Mr. President. But why the heck didn’t you work towards these goals when you were in office?

Via Sacred Whore blog.

The True Meaning of Choice: Morning After Pill OTC, Finally!

The New York Times reported today that the FDA’s recent approval to sell Plan B over the counter won’t have much of an impact on unintended pregnancies because:

Couples in the United States have so much unprotected sex — half of all pregnancies are unplanned — that even if the pills were passed out like lollipops, they would be unlikely to cause a major change in abortion and disease rates.

“Emergency contraceptives don’t work if, like condoms, they’re left in the drawer,” said Dr. James Trussell, director of the office of population research at Princeton University. “And studies show that even if women have the pills on hand, the drawer is where they remain.”

But making the pills available raises the fundamental issue of choice once again. A woman who has unprotected sex may get pregnant if she doesn’t have the pills on hand, and the outcome may be the same if she does have the pills on hand. But at least she has the choice to take them. At least they are available to her should she decide that she doesn’t want to get pregnant.

Last night, Andy and I watched the episode of 30 days (iTunes) where a pro-choice activist moves into a pro-life maternity home. The people at the maternity home were really good, decent human beings, although I disagreed with their refusal to provide pregnant women with even a phone number they could call to get more information about safe abortions.

Still, the bulk of what they do is truly good. They provide pregnant women who want to have their babies but have nowhere else to turn with support and a loving home while they get their lives in order. If only they weren’t so set on promoting their agenda, their home would be one of the most compassionate examples of choice that I’ve ever seen.

Because Some Embryo Somewhere is More Important than my Friend Alex

My buddy Alex needs a heart that works. Stem cell research might be able to give him that heart. But President Bush cares more about a ball of cells somewhere than he does about a nice Jewish filmmaker from Seattle and all the other millions of people who might live longer, happier lives because of important research like this.

I hope the Senate gets a two-thirds majority and slams this veto back down Bush’s arrogant, prudish, priggish throat.

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