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The feminist blogosphere has been up in arms lately (rightfully so) about an Oklahoma bill that requires a woman to get an ultrasound, and look at the images, one hour before she gets an abortion. The bill says that the woman will be required to get either an vaginal or abdominal ultrasound, whichever shows the best picture. Aside from this being a completely pointless and unwarranted medical procedure, most women in early pregnancy will have to get a vaginal ultrasound, since that provides the best picture:

The bill combines many new abortion regulations. The most invasive and unprecedented provisions of the bill relate to mandates for an ultrasound before a pregnancy termination can be done. The bill states that either a transabdominal or transvaginal transducer, whichever gives the clearer picture of the embryo, must be used. For early terminations that will mandate an ultrasound done with a probe placed in the vagina. There is no provision for the woman to opt out of this procedure. My main concerns about the bill are the following:

1) The bill dictates how doctors obtain informed consent in a way that does not conform to medically-accepted practice. Current state law already requires the doctor to refer patients to information about development of an embryo or fetus twenty-four hours before a pregnancy termination. The website is one required resource. She must also be notified about facilities that will offer her a free ultrasound.

2) This compels a physician to perform an invasive, vaginal procedure — not for the benefit of the patient, and possibly against her wishes — before the requested medical procedure can be done.

3) The fines for failure to follow the requirements begin at $10,000 go up to $100,000 or more for subsequent violations. The highest fines for negligent homicide or driving under the influence in Oklahoma are $1,000.

4) The bill defines “unprofessional conduct” if a physician does not perform this unnecessary procedure and suggests that the medical board may remove the physician’s license. This violates the standard medical practice that any patient has the right to refuse medical procedures or treatment.

This bill dictates how a doctor obtains informed consent, violates the patient’s right to refuse unwanted medical interventions, and places disproportionate punishments on physicians who do not comply.

Now, just wondering, but has anybody else noticed that a forced vaginal ultrasound is more than a little akin to rape? Last I checked, rape was defined as unwanted oral, anal, or vaginal penetration, regardless of what object was doing the penetration. Almost makes me want to go to Oklahoma, get pregnant, have an abortion with a vaginal ultrasound against my will, and then file charges against the state for rape. But let’s be real, that would never happened in a state that is even considering passing this legislation, especially after they brought it back to life after the governor’s veto.

Most amusing to me, however, is #4: if a doctor doesn’t perform the ultrasound but does perform the abortion, the doctor is at risk for losing his/her license to practice medicine, simply for following a patient’s wishes to not perform a medical procedure. Last time I checked, it wasn’t a crime for a physician not to perform a procedure at the patient’s request, but apparently, Oklahoma has decided to make it so.

Our lovely lawmakers have finally gotten up the nerve to tackle Bush’s abstinence-only sex education funding. It’s no surprise that it took a Democrat controlled House and Senate to allow this challenge to happen, but the question is, why didn’t it happen sooner? Despite years of outcry and criticism, it took our lawmakers seven years into Bush’s term as President to put any concentrated energy towards the removal of abstinence-only sex education in schools.

In a letter signed by 76 House and Senate members, they urged Rep. David Obey (D-Wis.), chair of the House Appropriations Committee, to redistribute abstinence-only education funds towards more effective programs, such as the comprehensive sex education that was used several Presidents ago. While I am all for a letter urging someone to action, I highly doubt that will be the solution to ending abstinence-only education. I’d think the many studies from prominent and well-respected institutions that have shown that abstinence-only education does not work would have pushed our legislators to action sooner, but apparently not.

From the National Partnership on Women and Families:

The letter did not suggest specific alternative programs that could be funded, CQ HealthBeat reports. Emily Kryder — press secretary for Rep. Lois Capps (D-Calif.), who signed the letter — said that Capps would prefer to fund the type of comprehensive sex education programs authorized by HR 1653 and HR 819, which contain a variety of measures intended to increase access to contraception and comprehensive sex education. Reps. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) and Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.) — sponsors of HR 1653 and HR 819, respectively — also signed the letter.

Capps in an e-mail said, “Abstinence-only education, such as that funded through CBAE, doesn’t work and is a waste of our limited financial resources.” She added, “We need to give our young people access to accurate information that will enable them to make healthy decisions.” Shays said, “The extraordinary number of teen pregnancies and growing rate of sexually transmitted disease transmission among teens underscores the necessity of comprehensive sexual education.” He added that children “need a responsible education that includes both abstinence and contraception approaches to pregnancy prevention and sexual health.”

Reps. Mike McIntyre (D-N.C.) and Lee Terry (R-Neb.) also recently sent a letter to Obey that asks for CBAE funding and policy guidelines to be maintained. “Millions of youth will continue to receive education that provides a risk-eliminating advantage gained by abstaining from sexual activity if abstinence education funding is continued,” McIntyre and Terry wrote, adding, “This is not a partisan issue” (Grimaldi, CQ HealthBeat, 3/31).

Call you local legislators and urge them to join sign onto this letter. It may not be the driving force to end oppressive abstinence-only sex education, but it could be the catalyst for something bigger.

Image from Getty.

I guess today is the day for humor! As I’m sure everyone knows, the Vatican has just recently released new sins. Yes, much like a summer blockbuster or a new fashion line, the Vatican decided to get hip with the times and tell everyone that there are more things they need to not do in order to get into heaven.

Of course, the hilarious part is the sins are totally and completely political. Some, quite ironically, are liberal… but the majority, in true Catholic fashion, are conservative and completely irrelevant to your level of innocence and sin free-ness.

The new sins also are seven in number, and as far as I can tell, have not been advertised with quite the “deadly” fervor of the original sins, even though they are (apparently) also considered deadly. The Catholic Church divides sins into venial, or less serious, sins and mortal sins, which threaten the soul with eternal damnation unless absolved before death through confession and penitence. Guess what kind the new sins are? Yup! Mortal! Mmm death by hellfire!

Side note: this is going to be confusing, now there are original sins and new sins - as opposed to original sin, which is one particular type of act. Damn Catholicism and their sins.

For the record, the original seven deadly sins are:

1. Pride
2. Envy
3. Gluttony
4. Lust
5. Anger
6. Greed
7. Sloth

While I can understand the root in the original seven deadly sins, I don’t really understand how some of the new sins are, well, deadly. Unless, of course, you’re a Democrat, in which case there is also a nice cozy chair made of nails and thumb tacks for you right next to Satan and Bill Clinton. The new sins are decidedly political in nature, and somewhat amusing, especially since they don’t contain pedophilia, which is kind of a huge hello, DUH.

1. Bioethical violations: birth control seems to be the big example everyone is using. So, apparently, it is now a sin punishable by death and eternal hellfire to wrap it up or pop a pill that prevents pregnancy. Courteous of Mark Morford: “Speaking of babies, here’s a terrific new statistic: 25-40 percent of American teenage girls have a sexually transmitted disease. Isn’t that wonderful? Abstinence education has been a blessing and a joy.” I’m thinking adding “bioethical violations” to the list of deadly sins isn’t going to help that problem.
   
2. “Morally dubious” experiments such as stem cell research. You know the Catholic church had to squeeze something in there related to abortion, they just had to. And, of course, the only way the Catholic church sees stem cell research is as a close cousin, or hell, maybe sibling, to abortion.
3. Drug abuse: duh, but somehow I think their definition of drug abuse is vastly different from mine or the legal and psychological definitions.
4. Polluting the environment: a shockingly liberal point of view, if they mean saving the trees and oceans and fluffy baby penguins. However, they could also mean polluting the environment by talking about sex, drugs, and alcohol, so maybe not.
5. Contributing to widening divide between rich and poor: so, basically, you can’t be a Republican. How sad!
6. Excessive wealth: this one just makes me giggle. I mean, the Catholic church saying excessive wealth is a sin? Are you serious? Again, thank you Mark Morford for writing what I was thinking: “I also enjoyed the new sin of excessive wealth, given how the Vatican is one of the most — if not the most — gluttonously wealthy organizations on the planet, oozing with real estate and massive stock portfolios, dripping with cash, billions of dollars in hoarded treasure and unknown gems, icons, art, the solid gold vaginas of 1,000 pagan goddesses locked up in its vaults. The hypocrisy is positively comical. Epic.”
7. Creating poverty: …

I AM SO GOING TO HELL.

Is it just me, or are sins #5-7 all related to wealth? Couldn’t they have just combined that all into one happy sin? Apparently not. I guess the whole point was to not have excessive wealth by donating to the Catholic church so they could use some of that to stop poverty.And because I always find a way to tie everything back to women, feminism, and reproductive health:

Note to the Vatican: You want true sin? Here you go: Lying to women is a sin. Pathological hypocrisy is a sin. Half a billion dollars in pedophilia lawsuit payouts is a sin. Homophobia is a sin. Hiding those golden vaginas is a sin. And creating new sins in a strange attempt to stay relevant as your church withers and struggles and falters in the new and spiritually hungry but religiously mistrustful world, that’s surely a sin.

No, wait. Check that. That’s not a sin at all. It’s actually just a sad, inexcusable joke.

See! I don’t hate the Catholic church. I just find them absolutely hilarious and moderately (to severely, depending on the day) annoying.

[Image via Getty]

When I was younger I was quite the reader. I liked to read because I wanted to be just like my mom (and I still do want to be just like my mom, hence the knitting and the reading) and she loved reading, too. After my brother was born, we spent a lot of time trying to prepare him for school by teaching him how to write and read (he has Asperger’s). When we started working with my brother, I started reading more because my mom began purchasing books that were shorter, quicker, and easier to read. I like books that go by quickly, even if they are 700 page bricks. But the one author I never liked was Dr. Seuss.

I was scared to death of Dr. Seuss. The rhymes, the scary pictures, the political undertones, it was all too much for little four year-old me. The only Dr. Seuss book I read was I’ll Teach My Dog 100 Words - which I probably still have memorized. And then, one day, even though she knew better, my mom brought home Horton Hears A Who!. I begrudgingly read the book, and it ended up being one of my favorite books as a child. As an adult, I even have a Horton Hears A Who! tshirt with his catch phrase “a person’s a person, no matter how small.”

So this weekend I went to see the movie. I was excited for many different reasons, but the two most prominent being 1.) Horton!! and 2.) amazing new animation technologies. And I can just say, I really really do not like it when my childhood memories get hijacked by wing nuts.

From AlterNet:

Anti-choicers demonstrate at a children’s movie to claim that “a person’s a person no matter how small” — unless that person has a uterus.

The book was written in 1954, long before Roe v. Wade and the modern framework of the abortion debate. If Seuss’ simple rhymes do contain social commentary, they appear to be a condemnation of Cold War era paranoia. But context doesn’t matter to the anti-choice crowd — in fact a quick internet search reveals that there are many out there who believe that God spoke through the decidedly liberal Seuss’ pen, willing him to write this line that can now be used to justify a movement he didn’t support. They are undeterred by Seuss’ widow’s support for Planned Parenthood and an interview with Seuss Scholar Philip Nel, who said that the author threatened lawsuits against anti-choice groups: “It’s one of the ways in which Seuss has been misappropriated. He would not agree with that.” Death of the author, indeed.

This past Saturday a group of anti-abortion protestors filtered in to the Hollywood premiere of the “Horton” film, voiced by Jim Carrey, Steve Carrell and Carol Burnettt, and others. They interrupted the screening with a coordinated protest, shouting during the film and then walking around with tape over their mouths. It was a bizarre stunt, considering the fact that most of the audience was made up of children who doubtless missed their political message, and Hollywood journalists who made fun of them.

But these kinds of shenanigans, while frustrating, weren’t exactly shocking. Despite lawsuits and voiced disapproval from Dr. Seuss and his widow, the “a person’s a person no matter how small” line has snowballed and is now a de facto motto for the anti-abortion movement. Just google the line: some pro-life sites show up above Dr. Seuss.

[…] The anti-choice protesters, incidentally, were happy to ruin the afternoon of hundreds of those kids, too busy advocating on behalf of blastocysts to pay attention to real people — real “small people,” in fact. This kind of behavior sums up the hypocrisy of a movement that would give personhood to a fertilized egg while denying health care to children and physical autonomy to women.

The problem is that those who are particularly proud of saying “a person’s a person” don’t care about actual persons.

And from Seuss’s side of things:

None of this sat well with Audrey Geisel, widow of Dr. Seuss (Theodor Geisel), who attended the screening. So did Karl ZoBell, the lawyer who represents her and who has represented the interests of Dr. Seuss for some 40 years. In an interview with NPR, he said he couldn’t make out the yelling and thought maybe “some nut” was in the theater. Later, he asked the protesters what group they represented, and none would answer. Their silence didn’t seem like an accident to him, which makes sense, because ZoBell has not been bashful about sending cease-and-desist letters to those who appropriate Dr. Seuss’ material for their own purposes. And many do. (According to ZoBell, politicians love to sling the term Grinch at their rivals.)

ZoBell says it would be nice if these people came up with their own material. But if they don’t go too far—by copping the illustrations, for example—they can use a line like “A person’s a person, no matter how small,” even if it wouldn’t have pleased Dr. Seuss. And it wouldn’t have. The Geisels were opposed to using the Dr. Seuss books for any political agenda.

STOP RUINING MY CHILDHOOD, ANTI-CHOICERS! And more importantly, stop ruining the childhoods of the millions of children going to see this movie.

I understand that they are trying to make their point in as public a venue as possible, but it is a children’s movie: the primary audience is children (and families)… not exactly the kind of people that need to be converted to their cause.

If a person’s a person (no matter how small), then why is the person in my uterus more important than me?

Ridiculous! I am not that shocked that a Catholic school would cancel Dolores Huerta’s speaking engagement, but at the same time, I thought they would have enough intelligence to understand that the talk was about “her founding role in the United Farm Workers and the importance of public service” and not abortion.

Apparently, to the Catholic church, it doesn’t matter what kind of a person you are, or what type of good you have done for humanity: if you’re pro-choice, you’re out.

From the LA Times:

Huerta said that the school’s principal, Sister Eva Lujano, left a voice mail at her Bakersfield office over the weekend, informing her that she had been disinvited. Lujano was out sick Thursday and unavailable for comment, school officials said.

But the editor of California Catholic Daily, a website that published an article about Huerta’s planned appearance, took credit for scrubbing the talk. Editor Bob McPhail said that after the website’s reporter called the school and a diocese superintendent to ask about the talk, Lujano agreed to cancel the planned assembly for sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders.

“Her appearance would have created the impression that the school was overlooking her prominent role in promoting abortion,” he said.

Huerta, who lives in Bakersfield and runs a foundation there, said she was puzzled by the school’s action. She has been unable to reach Lujano, she said.

“I was not going to talk about reproductive rights at all,” Huerta said. “I think the parents could have asked if their child could be excused.”

Huerta said it was the second time in a month that a talk she had scheduled had been canceled due to protests. Last month, administrators at St. Thomas University in Texas called off an appearance citing her views on abortion.

Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, aka Reagan 2.0, has just recently endorsed an amendment to the Colorado constitution that would consider a fetus a person.

Aside from the whole ridiculousness surrounding when a fetus becomes a person, this is a dangerous line to cross. When you consider a fetus a person with individual rights, you have to decide whose rights are more important - the mother’s or the child’s? Of course, without the mother, the child wouldn’t exist, but the anti-choice movement doesn’t care about that. They care so much about preventing abortions that they’d do anything to make them completely inaccessible to women in need.

The problem with defining life at conception is most women don’t know they’re pregnant for the first 6 to 8 weeks of their pregnancy. If you are going to a hold a woman responsible for a fetus (aka a person, according to Huckabee) from conception, you need to understand the science behind why you CAN’T.

Huckabee had a few choice words to say in support of the amendment:

“This proposed constitutional amendment will define a person as a human being from the moment life begins at conception,” Huckabee said in a statement.

“With this amendment, Colorado has an opportunity to send a clear message that every human life has value,” Huckabee said. “Passing this amendment will mean the people of Colorado will protect the sanctity of life from conception until natural death occurs.”

Does this mean I can claim the fetus on my taxes before I abort it? Fab!

Even better - does this mean I can get pregnant and drive in the carpool lane legally before I abort it? Amazing!

Here I was thinking I had the right to decide what is in my body… but apparently Reagan 2.0 doesn’t think so. What’s next? If you get raped when you’re unconscious, it wasn’t really illegal?

When verbally assaulted at a rally by anti-choicers, Bill responded, and I have to say, I am impressed by his response… and not just because he’s Bill, but because it’s an awesome response. Yes, he got angry, and yes, he may have yelled more than a little… but he did get his point across and (I hope) filled the anti-choicers present at this rally with a more than a little embarrassment.

Anti-choicers have done NOTHING to reduce the number of abortions being provided in the United States, but pro-choicers have. Pro-choice activists have lobbied for more available birth control and other family planning methods to be made available on a wide spread range at extremely low cost. These efforts have only been discouraged by anti-choicers, who refuse to make the connection that more contraception means fewer abortions because they aren’t just anti-abortion, they are anti-contraception. The anti-choicers know that the anti-contraception stance is an extremely unpopular one in America, which is why very few of them publicize it. But if you look at their motives and their rhetoric, it’s very clear: they are against contraception, abortion, and sex for any purpose other than reproductive.

As Bill put it:

“We disagree with you. You want to criminalize women and their doctors and we disagree. I reduced abortion. Tell the truth! Tell the truth! If you were really pro-life, if you were really pro-life, you would want to put every doctor and every mother, as an accessory to murder, in prison, and you won’t say you wanna do that, because you know that you wouldn’t have a lick of political support. Now, the issue is, you can’t name me anybody presently in politics that did more to introduce policies that reduce the number of real abortions, instead of the hot air putting out to tear people up and make votes by dividing America. This is not your rally.”

My favorite part, of course, has been bolded for your reading pleasure. For those dying to see the video, click here.

[Via every feminist blog I’ve read today.]

When talking about doctors giving women abortions and holding the doctors - but not the women - accountable when (not if) he makes abortion illegal and shoves women back into their barefoot and pregnant lifestyles, my least favorite person said the following of the woman seeking an abortion:

I consider her a victim, not a criminal.

A WOMAN IS NOT A VICTIM OF HER OWN CHOICES. A woman is not a victim when she gets up in the morning, puts on jeans and a sweatshirt, and walks past a man who has an urge to kidnap and murder a woman wearing jeans and a sweatshirt. A 12 year-old girl is not a victim when she decides to walk home from school instead of taking the bus and gets raped by a scary old man who likes to eat girls and bury their bones in his basement.

However, Huckabee’s stance is the only “easy” way to get around the question without hurting your poor, teeny, tiny Republican brain to to blame the doctor, not the woman. Who went to the doctor’s office. Specifically to get an abortion. And got one. Because that makes sense…

If you criminalize abortion, you have to punish the woman who gets it, or not make it illegal in the first place. Apparently, the Republicans don’t understand this concept.

Let’s try an analogy for those who cannot wrap their brains around it: let’s pretend buying cars is illegal. A lovely Mormon wife (gag) with her 8 full clothed and perfectly behaved children goes to purchase a minivan to haul around said children. She pays a fair price for the minivan, is satisfied, and drives away happily, knowing her quality of life is now much better, even though she has risked great harm to herself, her family, and her children by engaging in this grave illegal act of purchasing a car. The police discover her terrible crime, they pat her on the head “You silly woman!” they say, “You know buying cars is illegal!” and they run off and arrest the person she purchased the car from.

It would, of course, just make more sense for abortion to stay SAFE, LEGAL, and ACCESSIBLE to women of all ages, races, socio-economic status, and location.

(Also, please, laugh with me as you realize Huckabee believes the “her” in victim is always a woman, but that the abortion provider is always, without a doubt, a man. Probably an atheist Democrat trying to steal the aborted fetus for stem cell research.)

Time magazine recently wrote about a research study that linked abortions to future occurrences of premature births and low birth weight babies, by 2 and 3, respectively. I understand that Time was trying to explain to the general population that

the study is hardly perfect; the data is more than 40 years old and doesn’t distinguish between medical abortions and ’spontaneous abortions,’ better known as miscarriages.

Even with this statement in the first paragraph of their article, the shocking headline doesn’t quite convey the same message.

They claim that the large sample size helps to increase significance, but when they sample used for the study is over 50 years old and doesn’t distinguish between medical abortions and miscarriages, I would think that sample size doesn’t matter when something this big was ignored by the researchers. While the journal it was published in is not that credible, but the general American public doesn’t know these things.

Do your part to help spread the word about bogus studies that impact a woman’s right to choose!

Find out more at Choice USA.

Maybe if Jamie Lynn Spears had received an education other than one that was focused on abstinence, she wouldn’t be three months pregnant right now. She would have learned how to use a condom properly or she would have been on birth control. Technically, legally, she shouldn’t have been having sex anyways: the age of consent in Louisiana is 17. I didn’t initially plan on vocalizing my opinion about the Spears pregnancy disaster, but I just couldn’t hold my tongue any longer.

Yes, it was her choice to have the baby and not get an abortion or give it up for adoption, but the way this story is being publicized is a bit ridiculous. Nickelodeon, the network which boosted Baby Spears to stardom with Zoey 101, released a statement in which they praised her for “taking responsibility”. With her family’s track record, I don’t think giving birth to a child at the age of 16 (or at all, really, let’s be honest) is even close to taking responsibility. Yes, Jamie Lynn is (was?) a teen role model (she might not be for long…), there’s nothing I can do about that. But there is something parents can do about it: they can stop sitting their kids in front of the television every night and bond with them and encouraging them to have healthy and safe lifestyles. Yes, Jamie Lynn is a celebrity and she’s 16, but the sad part is her life right now so sadly mirrors the life of many girls stuck in the same situation.

If Jamie Lynn was an adult who had an high school education, financial resources, and a solid home, I don’t think it would matter so much that she’s pregnant. I could care less that Lily Allen and Jessica Alba are pregnant: they are adults with solid finances and (supposedly) healthy homes. Regardless of the fact that she isn’t married, Jamie Lynn is only 16 years old. She’s barely experienced life and now she’s giving birth to a new one. You’d think she would have learned from her sister and that double disaster.

This sudden stream of celebrity pregnancies that appear to be completely unplanned and blockbuster flicks about the same can only negatively impact young women. If you see someone doing something easily (or perceive that they are doing it easily), it makes that alternative all the more desirable. Would it really be so bad if one celebrity said “you know, I was pregnant, but it’s not the right time in my career and I’m not ready for a family, so I had an abortion”?

And, by the by, has anybody bothered to mention that Jamie Lynn technically had no legal rights to consent to sex in the first place? I know in California there is a provision for age difference (as long as it is less than 2 or 3 years - don’t know which - it is allowed), but is there one in Louisiana? Now, I am not a fan of statutory rape laws (I don’t think they are necessary, especially since there are provisions solely related to child molestation on the books in every single state) but statutory rape is something that must be prosecuted if law enforcement knows about it (just like mandated reporting for child abuse). How much do you want to bet that her ex-boyfriend won’t be taken to court on statutory rape charges, even though it is mandatory to prosecute?

HELLO, DUH! Of course sex education works!