Let us *not* be doing this dumb shit.

[featherynscale]

The Bush administration, not content to deny family-planning assistance to women in other countries, appear to be taking a swing at access to contraception here in the US. For double bonus points, they're doing it in a sneaky, underhanded way, equating contraception with abortion in the Department of Health and Human Services rulebook, rather than trying to ban the pill outright.

Now, I don't have to tell you how fucked up this is, do I? How restricting access to contraception increases the number of abortions, and, quite aside from that, rolls back women's rights as human beings by decades? No, I didn't think so. Normally we don't talk politics here, but kids, I get a little upset when people with lower IQs and less general competence than my humble self tell me I'm just a walking incubator, not a real person, or that only the people built on the penis-having chassis are allowed to have sex without being punished for it. So there we are.

What can we do? Probably not much. I signed a petition addressed to the Secretary of Health and Human Services, but that office is not famous for responding to public pressure. I'll be writing a personal letter later on today to same Secretary, and also to anybody I have the vaguest feeling might represent me in the legislature. I'm telling you lot. I'll also be going back to making a small, but regular donation to Planned Parenthood. I encourage you to take similar steps.

And furthermore, I'm gonna reiterate my #1 rule in this matter: Just Say No to Sex With Pro-Lifers. "Aw, honey, you're against contraception? Well, I guess I won't be screwing you until I feel like having a baby, then. Sorry about that."

Comments

[pwned-kisa.livejournal.com]

Aren't you glad we live in a theocracy?

Disturbing snippet from article

[lilia-blackbear.livejournal.com]

In fact, the draft rule could void laws in 27 states that require insurance companies to provide birth control coverage for women requesting it. The rule also could counter laws in 14 states requiring that rape victims receive counseling and access to emergency, day-after contraceptives.

So, 23 states say it's okay for insurance companies to refuse birth control for women requesting it??? And 36 states do not require counseling and access to the day-after pill for rape victims???

Bluh.

Re: Disturbing snippet from article

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

Fuck, in South Dakota, they would prefer if you would just do the right thing and marry your rapist if you get pregnant from rape.

[teross50.livejournal.com]

You might add MOCSA to your donation list.
I would write the CLU to your letter writing list
NOW also still exist and fights this issue all over the country

[kaymyth.livejournal.com]

I support Planned Parenthood by *going* to them for all my girlparts needs. They are always very awesome to me.

I heard about this nonsense a while back, and had a bit of a rant about it myself. NO TAKE AWAY HAPPY PMS-HORMONE-CONTROLLING PILLS. kthanksbai.

[cynthiaweb.livejournal.com]

More evidence that we have somehow stumbled into the bad alternate reality...

[dramaticaddict.livejournal.com]

you forgot to mention the fact that this will massively increase our already double(compared to other countries) teen pregnancy rates. go usa...

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

I would, except that I'm pretty sure that's an *intended* effect of the rule change. We gotta breed us some Christian Soliders! Get to it!

[triadruid.livejournal.com]

Um, honey?

Matt's gay.

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

He can be cured of that through prayer! Prayer, and regular exposure to a vagina, preferably one attached to a uterus already full with a growing child! We gotta be bringing about a victory in the culture wars and the eventual second coming of the Lord, we can't be stopping to consider people's individual namby-pamby preferences!

[lexpendragon.livejournal.com]

And furthermore, I'm gonna reiterate my #1 rule in this matter: Just Say No to Sex With Pro-Lifers. "Aw, honey, you're against contraception? Well, I guess I won't be screwing you until I feel like having a baby, then. Sorry about that."

I understand a lot of what you've said, but I think you are over reaching. First of all, I consider myself pro-life, in so much as I consider that a child, once conceived, has it's own distinct life and soul, and that to end that's development is tantamount to ending the development of a child who happens to already be out of the womb.

That said, I don't think using contraceptives to prevent that child from beginning is wrong, and am a big fan of the pill, the concept of condoms, and conception preventatives in the first place. I do not think the primary purpose of sex should be conception, and I think that conception should be a distinctive choice, one that requires the person who wants to conceive to go well out of their way to be able to. (No, I don't have any good ideas on how to make it work that way.)

Also, I don't think that getting Pregnant is a punishment for having/enjoying sex. I know I feel blessed that I will have a little girl in a few months, and I'm jealous of the fact that women are able to do this without more than a moments assistance from a male, while if us men decide we want a child of our own, we have to perform that momentary assistance, and then find a way to stay close to the women for at least nine months. I got lucky and managed to find a woman who wants to spend that amount of time, and more, with me, but without her, odds are good I'd never have gotten to have my own kid.

I firmly believe it is your right to go and get and use as much birth control as you want, and to have as much would-be-procreative sex as possible. I just don't think the fact that I believe that ending a life, pre-or-post partum means I'm some misogynistic woman-hater, any more than thinking that a Scotsman is more genetically predisposed to poor processing of gluten makes me a slave-trader.

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

I am delighted that there are people out there who want to have children. Gods know, if everyone were like me, the human race would have died out in the first generation. I am not, in any way, against reproduction for other people simply because I don't want to do it.

And I'm perhaps mis-stating my case here. Would you, given the power to do so, make either abortion or contraception unavailable? If you answer 'yes' to that question, I have to consider you a potential threat to my life. Doesn't mean I can't respect you or like you, but you do go into the category of 'dangerous', and there are things I know better than to do with you.

And whether you consider pregnancy a punishment or not, (and obviously, it's not for all people in all cases) the rhetoric of the pro-life movement often indicates that *they* do. You get people saying things in front of Congress like (paraphrasing, because I don't recall the exact quote) "You seem to have this utopian vision that women should be able to have sex whenever they want without suffering the consequences" and praying in front of clinics for their god to 'break this monstrous independence of women and subject them to the order of things ordained by heaven'. That would be the source of that particular complaint.

[lexpendragon.livejournal.com]

"You seem to have this utopian vision that women should be able to have sex whenever they want without suffering the consequences" and praying in front of clinics for their god to 'break this monstrous independence of women and subject them to the order of things ordained by heaven'. That would be the source of that particular complaint.

I sincerely hope that it goes without saying that I believe these people are crazy loons, and are best served by getting onto a rocket named Mayflower, and flying off to start a colony elsewhere and leaving us along. I also think that there are plenty of loons on the other side of the spectrum who think all women should be fitted with a device to kill off any child they might have gotten close to having, and only the approved elite should allowed procreative rights.

Would you, given the power to do so, make either abortion or contraception unavailable?

Unavailable? No. But if I were the king of all Londinium, I would treat contraceptions as liberally as I would treat tattoos and ear piercings, and I would treat abortion as cautiously as I would treat lethal injection.

[mullein.livejournal.com]

I understand a lot of what you've said, but I think you are over reaching. First of all, I consider myself pro-life, in so much as I consider that a child, once conceived, has it's own distinct life and soul, and that to end that's development is tantamount to ending the development of a child who happens to already be out of the womb.

I don't think it's reaching at all. Most pro-lifers aren't about intelligent sexual practices. They believe that the life of the pin dot in your uterus out ranks your life the moment it comes into existence. I don't believe that life begins at conception. If you take that cluster of cells and remove it from my body it will cease to exist. That fails the qualifier of life. I don't think it's fair to randomly choose the point of life based on what suits your purpose.

The pro-lifers in this endeavor are merely pushing back the point of life to pre conception. Not for the sake of life, but for the sake of control. They aren't holding life sacred because if they were they would focusing their control on those that are already alive and kicking and needing help and not trying to protect the right of a future human's theoretical existence. These people are trying to control people by controlling one of their basic needs. Intimacy. If you take away someone's right to produce on their own terms and the right to engage in sexual activity, you break down their need to fight against you.

We should be actively fighting against them right down to refusing to mate with them when they take their convictions to the point of refusing to putting on a condom.