And now we return you to our regularly scheduled programming of Republican misogyny

After two days of listening to Republicans insist that George W. Bush alone deserves the credit for the successful Bin Laden mission and wingnuts everywhere dissing Navy Seals because God forbid Obama should get credit for ANYTHING, it's almost a relief to get back to life in normal America, where the most important priority is not the economy, or even national defense, but rather punishing all those slutty American women.

First, let's go back to redefining rape. Because while the tender feelings of people like me, who have spent 40 years having MY tax dollars pay for wars and tax cuts for the wealthy and other things I don't agree with, don't matter one whit, the tender feelings of those who love the fetus but hate the baby once it's here, are paramount:

In a 251 to 175 vote this evening, 16 anti-choice Democrats joined every House Republican present in passing H.R. 3, the No Taxpayer Funding For Abortion Act. A chief weapon in the House GOP’s “comprehensive assault” on women this bill proposes some of the most radical and draconian restrictions on women’s rights. They include:

– Redefinition Of Rape: The bill sponsor Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) faced serious backlash after he tried to narrow the definition rape to “forcible rape.” By narrowing the rape and incest exception in the Hyde Amendment, Smith sought to prevent the following situations from consideration: Women who say no but do not physically fight off the perpetrator, women who are drugged or verbally threatened and raped, and minors impregnated by adults.

Smith promised to remove the language and while it is not technically in the bill, Mother Jones reports that House Republicans used “a sly legislative maneuver” to insert a “backdoor reintroduction” of redefinition language. Essentially, if the bill is challenged in court, judges will look at the congressional committee report to determine intent. The committee report for H.R. 3 says the bill will “not allow the Federal Government to subsidize abortions in cases of statutory rape” — thus excluding statutory rape-related abortions from Medicaid coverage.

In America now, it's Republican Congressmen, not your physician, who gets to decide what constitutes health care. And so under this bill, you would no longer be able to deduct the cost of abortion as a medical expense, nor would you be able to use pre-tax dollars to pay for your insurance if that insurance even offers to cover abortions:

The bill would prevent people from deducting the cost of an abortion from their taxable income, except when the procedure is performed in cases of rape, incest or when a physician certifies that a woman's life would be in danger if she continues the pregnancy.

Current law, known as the Hyde Amendment, bars federal money for abortions, with the same exceptions as those in the bill. But the bill would make the Hyde Amendment federal law, rather than a provision added to other bills that must be voted every year.

Abortion opponents have charged that the health care overhaul contains a loophole for insurance policies. Obama's health care overhaul, passed last year, creates state marketplaces for insurance known as "exchanges." It allows participating plans to cover abortions, provided they collect a separate premium from policyholders and that money is kept apart from federal subsidies.

The bill, written by Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., disallows the tax credit for the expenses of a small employer health insurance plan that includes coverage for an abortion. Democrats said that amounts to a tax increase.

"I thought my Republican friends hated taxes, but apparently they hate reproductive freedom and women's rights even more," said Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Calif.

Supporters of the bill passed Wednesday say the health overhaul doesn't go far enough to make sure that no tax money is used to subsidize abortions. Congressional estimates say the bill would raise only a negligible amount of tax revenue.

Opponents say the bill would make it difficult if not impossible for many women to obtain medical insurance that covers abortions — even if they pay for it themselves. They say the legislation could put the Internal Revenue Service in the position of determining whether women who get abortions were sexually assaulted, so the agency can decide whether the procedure is tax deductible.

Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y., said the bill is really an effort to prevent insurance companies from covering abortions.

Because in these troubled days, the most important thing to Republicans is to codify into law that women who are raped are really just sluts who are asking for it and should be forced to bear the children of their rapists. After all, they'll need cannon fodder for the wars THEIR future leaders are going to start.

Thoughtcrime

And people said I was being overly dramatic when I started saying that women would soon have to send their used tampons to the government for inspection to determine if they had allowed fertilized eggs to not implant. Soon, abortion will be a crime. CONSIDERING abortion will also be a crime. In Iowa, it already is:

Life can't get much worse for Christine Taylor. Last month, after an upsetting phone conversation with her estranged husband, Ms. Taylor became light-headed and fell down a flight of stairs in her home. Paramedics rushed to the scene and ultimately declared her healthy. However, since she was pregnant with her third child at the time, Taylor thought it would be best to be seen at the local ER to make sure her fetus was unharmed.

That's when things got really bad and really crazy. Alone, distraught, and frightened, Taylor confided in the nurse treating her that she hadn't always been sure she'd wanted this baby, now that she was single and unemployed. She'd considered both adoption and abortion before ultimately deciding to keep the child. The nurse then summoned a doctor, who questioned her further about her thoughts on ending the pregnancy. Next thing Taylor knew, she was being arrested for attempted feticide. Apparently the nurse and doctor thought that Taylor threw herself down the stairs on purpose.

According to Iowa state law, attempted feticide is an trying "to intentionally terminate a human pregnancy, with the knowledge and voluntary consent of the pregnant person, after the end of the second trimester of the pregnancy." At least 37 states have similar laws. Taylor spent two days in jail before being released. That's right, a pregnant woman was jailed for admitting to thinking about an abortion at some point early in her pregnancy and then having the audacity to fall down some stairs a couple of months later. Please tell me you find this as horrifying as I do.

(via)

So what did I miss?

Wow. I go to work and am offline for blogging for 24 hours, and the governor of Wisconson makes an even bigger ass out of himself on a prank call. Not even the twisted minds behind Crank Yankers could have done something this beautiful:

For the most part, Walker sounds like the dweeby kid from chem class who's just been invited out to the after-game malt shop get-together by the football quarterback. But when he talks about getting the Democrats back under false pretenses of negotiation just to get them into the state so Republicans can vote, all bets are off.

Meanwhile, over in Indiana, another union-buster state, an assistant attorney general has been fired after a Twitter-fight with another Tweeter in which he advocated the use of live ammunition to mow down protesters in Wisconsin. That other Tweeter just happened to be a writer for what is now becoming even more indispensable reading, Mother Jones:

On Saturday night, when Mother Jones staffers tweeted a report that riot police might soon sweep demonstrators out of the Wisconsin capitol building—something that didn't end up happening—one Twitter user sent out a chilling public response: "Use live ammunition."

From my own Twitter account, I confronted the user, JCCentCom. He tweeted back that the demonstrators were "political enemies" and "thugs" who were "physically threatening legally elected officials." In response to such behavior, he said, "You're damned right I advocate deadly force." He later called me a "typical leftist," adding, "liberals hate police."

Only later did we realize that JCCentCom was a deputy attorney general for the state of Indiana.

As one of 144 attorneys in that office, Jeff Cox has represented the people of his state for 10 years. And for much of that time, it turns out, he's vented similar feelings on Twitter and on his blog, Pro Cynic. In his nonpolitical tweets and blog posts, Cox displays a keen litigator's mind, writing sharply and often wittily on military history and professional basketball. But he evinces contempt for political opponents—from labeling President Obama an "incompetent and treasonous" enemy of the nation to comparing "enviro-Nazis" to Osama bin Laden, likening ex-Labor Secretary Robert Reich and Service Employees International Union members to Nazi "brownshirts" on multiple occasions, and referring to an Indianapolis teen as "a black teenage thug who was (deservedly) beaten up" by local police. A "sensible policy for handling Afghanistan," he offered, could be summed up as: "KILL! KILL! ANNIHILATE!"

Early Sunday, Mother Jones sent an email to Cox's work address at the Indiana attorney general's office, asking if the Twitter and blog comments were his, and if he could provide context for some of them. He responded shortly after from a personal email address: "For 'context?' Or to silence me? All my comments on twitter & my blog are my own and no one else's. And I can defend them all.

"[Y]ou will probably try to demonize me," he wrote, "but that comes with the territory."

To be sure, in the current political climate, partisan rhetoric has run hot online—and the Constitution guarantees everyone's right to such rhetoric. Nonetheless, a spokesman for the Indiana attorney general's office, Bryan Corbin, told Mother Jones that Cox's statements were "inflammatory," and he promised "an immediate review" of the matter. "We do not condone any comments that would threaten or imply violence or intimidation toward anyone," Corbin added.

As Blue Girl points out, you have to wonder what those who have had dealings with Cox over the last decade are thinking, particularly in cases regarding things like women's rights, collective bargaining, working conditions, or even free speech that doesn't agree with his.

You want Teabaggers in positions of authorty? Jeffrey Cox is what you get.

And the ever-burgeoning "EEEWWWW!!! Lady Parts!!!" caucus is On The Job -- in Georgia, where Bobby Franklin wants you to be put to death if he determines you had anything whatsoever to do with causing your miscarriage; in South Dakota, where women seeking abortions will be forced to be lectured by the Christofascist Zombie Brigade before obtaining one; and in Nebraska, where the legislature is playing "Mine's Bigger" with South Dakota in terms of Killing for Life, with even crazier "justified homicide" legislation. In Nebraska, you won't even have to know the woman seeking the abortion in order to barge in and kill the doctor. ANY third party, like, say, Scott Roeder, will be allowed to do so.

This is Teabag America, folks. And it's only the beginning.

And where ARE the jobs, anyway?

UPDATE: Legalized murder is spreading to Iowa now, too.

Another of the dirty sluts that Mike Pence and Chris Smith believe should be punished for their unchastity

Here's another woman for whom Mike Pence and Chris Smith think THEY should have the power to make decisions:

Thanks to Mike Stark, whom if he didn't exist we would have to invent him. Go. Read.

UPDATE: Here's Jamie, another woman that Mike Pence and Chris Smith would rather see die than have an abortion of a much-wanted fetus that had no chance of survival anyway:

Go ahead, Republicans...keep showing your misogyny.

There's actually something refreshing about how emboldened right-wing Republican Christofascist zombies have become in their quest to turn American women into nothing but breeding machines. For decades, the fetophiles have succeeded in framing themselves as "pro-life" and "pro-women", feigning concern for the emotional problems they claim all women have after abortion (as if anyone is somehow entitled to make decisions based on what is right for them at the time); convincing far too many people that THEY are the righteous ones, even as they slash programs that might help women they would force to bear children against their will take care of the actual babies that result from forced childbearing. They used to even go so far as to say that those of us with the radical view that women are actual human beings are protectors of child molesters because legal abortion allows those who prey on young girls to hide the result of their crimes, as if forcing twelve-year-olds to walk around with pregnant bellies is somehow a badge of shame for the impregnator, rather than the impregnatee.

But as Congressional Republicans abandon all thought of job creation and resume their long-standing jihad against American women, particularly their sexuality, out in the hinterlands Teh Crazy is in full flower, and shows just what these people are:

A law under consideration in South Dakota would expand the definition of "justifiable homicide" to include killings that are intended to prevent harm to a fetus—a move that could make it legal to kill doctors who perform abortions. The Republican-backed legislation, House Bill 1171, has passed out of committee on a nine-to-three party-line vote, and is expected to face a floor vote in the state's GOP-dominated House of Representatives soon.

The bill, sponsored by state Rep. Phil Jensen, a committed foe of abortion rights, alters the state's legal definition of justifiable homicide by adding language stating that a homicide is permissible if committed by a person "while resisting an attempt to harm" that person's unborn child or the unborn child of that person's spouse, partner, parent, or child. If the bill passes, it could in theory allow a woman's father, mother, son, daughter, or husband to kill anyone who tried to provide that woman an abortion—even if she wanted one.

Yes, folks, the so-called "pro-life" movement finally admits that its reverence for human life is highly selective. Yesterday I linked to an article about a small survey which showed that men who are domestic abusers of women will often sabotage their partner's birth control in an attempt to have them become pregnant and therefore dependent (or otherwise linked to them in a permanent way). And now in South Dakota, Republican legislators would give these domestic abusers the right to go into a clinic with guns blazing in the name of killing the doctor who would dare usurp their right to keep their wives, partners, or daughters from exercising their own free will.

We hear over and over again that using the term "American Taliban" is unfairly inflammatory. Markos Moulitsas took a great deal of crap from even Bill Maher about the title of his recent book with that title. But when you have a movement in our very own country that would justify homicide against those who believe they have a right to help women make their own decisions, what else can you call these people?

More misogyny from Republican males

I'm not sure if I should be glad that I'm still shocked, because it means that I haven't completely sunk into a morass of utter cynicism and hopelessness. But even back before abortion was legal, men who would force women into childbearing weren't so open about their fear and loathing of women -- to the point of articulating that women are simply expendable vessels to be disposed of at will if it means "saving" even an unviable fetus:

The controversy over "forcible rape" may be over, but now there's a new Republican-sponsored abortion bill in the House that pro-choice folks say may be worse: this time around, the new language would allow hospitals to let a pregnant woman die rather than perform the abortion that would save her life.

The bill, known currently as H.R. 358 or the "Protect Life Act," would amend the 2010 health care reform law that would modify the way Obamacare deals with abortion coverage. Much of its language is modeled on the so-called Stupak Amendment, an anti-abortion provision pro-life Democrats attempted to insert into the reform law during the health care debate last year. But critics say a new language inserted into the bill just this week would go far beyond Stupak, allowing hospitals that receive federal funds but are opposed to abortions to turn away women in need of emergency pregnancy termination to save their lives.

The sponsor of H.R. 358, Rep. Joe Pitts (R-PA) is a vocal member of the House's anti-abortion wing. A member of the bipartisan Pro-Life Caucus and a co-sponsor of H.R 3 -- the bill that added "forcible rape" to the lexicon this week -- Pitts is no stranger to the abortion debate. But pro-choice advocates say his new law goes farther than any other bill has in encroaching on the rights of women to obtain an abortion when their health is at stake. They say the bill is giant leap away from accepted law, and one they haven't heard many in the pro-life community openly discuss before.

Pitts' response to the complaints from pro-choice groups? Nothing to see here.

"Since the 1970s, existing law affirmed the right to refuse involvement in abortion in all circumstances," a spokesperson for Pitts told TPM.

"The Protect Life Act simply extends these provisions to the new law by inserting a provision that mirrors Hyde-Weldon," the spokesperson added, referring to current federal law banning spending on abortion and allowing anti-abortion doctors to refrain from performing them while still receiving federal funds. "In other words, this bill is only preserving the same rights that medical professionals have had for decades."

A bit of backstory: currently, all hospitals in America that receive Medicare or Medicaid funding are bound by a 1986 law known as EMTALA to provide emergency care to all comers, regardless of their ability to pay or other factors. Hospitals do not have to provide free care to everyone that arrives at their doorstep under EMTALA -- but they do have to stabilize them and provide them with emergency care without factoring in their ability to pay for it or not. If a hospital can't provide the care a patient needs, it is required to transfer that patient to a hospital that can, and the receiving hospital is required to accept that patient.

In the case of an anti-abortion hospital with a patient requiring an emergency abortion, ETMALA would require that hospital to perform it or transfer the patient to someone who can. (The nature of how that procedure works exactly is up in the air, with the ACLU calling on the federal government to state clearly that unwillingness to perform an abortion doesn't qualify as inability under EMTALA. That argument is ongoing, and the government has yet to weigh in.)

Pitts' new bill would free hospitals from any abortion requirement under EMTALA, meaning that medical providers who aren't willing to terminate pregnancies wouldn't have to -- nor would they have to facilitate a transfer.

The hospital could literally do nothing at all, pro-choice critics of Pitts' bill say.

"This is really out there," Donna Crane, policy director at NARAL Pro-Choice America told TPM. "I haven't seen this before."

Last month job creation was at an anemic 36,000. There is snow in Texas, there are floods and category 5 cyclones in Australia. Arctic ice is thinner than ever before. The Middle East is exploding. One in eight Americans needs food stamps to put food on the table. But all that Republican men care about is that the Evil Daughters of Eve be "punished" by forced continuation of pregnancies that will end up killing them -- so that they can deliver hopelessly deformed babies with no chance of survival. It's not about the babies. It's not about human life and it never was. Because these men do not see women as human. I've asked in the past at what point in the minds of these people when women cease to be human and become mere vessels. We now have our answer: It's always.

UPDATE: Best quote on this comes from, of all people, Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs:

According to the “pro-life” GOP, an unborn fetus is a person — but a woman is not.

And there's more, from LGF and elsewhere:

Arkansas Anti-Choicers Reject Abortion Restriction Bill Because it Includes Exceptions for Rape and Incest

South Dakota Seeks to Force Women into Crisis Pregnancy Centers

Kansas House panel considers new abortion limits

And New Jerseyans who didn't think Chris Christie was going to shove his own religious beliefs into your homes, guess again: Abortion rights, in peril in New Jersey

Heh. If the Democrats had the slightest idea how to frame things, they'd call this bill the Human Sacrifice Encouragement Act of 2011.

Around the blogroll and elsewhere: Sex-Obsessed Republicans Longing for the Dark Ages edition

Because when politicians and writers on the right starts talking about sex, they're telling you an awful lot about themselves.

Amanda on Maggie Gallagher's strange world in which legal abortion leads to anal sex and how the world was much better when women would grit their teeth, lie back, and think of England. And extra bonus points for this rant about Rush Limbaugh's view that advising people to eat fruits and vegetables is a Kenyan Socialist Communist Fascist plot by four-eyed aliens named Gallaxhar.

Melissa, whom I've knocked on more than one occasion for an ever-expanding definition of rape that turns every woman into someone who was victimized at some point, makes a very valid point about how Chris Smith and the Republican House of Representatives want to give men a roadmap as to how to avoid a rape rap and as a bonus, force women to carry their children.

Scott over at World-o-Crap channels his inner Driftglass and demolishes this lunatic article bemoaning The Descent of Women. Because we all know that women had it so much better when they could have their heads cut off for not delivering sons on cue.

Evan McMorris-Santoro at TPM shows that with Democrats like this, who needs Republicans? Perhaps Daniel Lipinski ought to actually read the bills he co-sponsors.

Sady at Tiger Beatdown: "Instead of maintaining that rape is always rape, that there’s no such thing as a “minor” or “excusable” rape, the GOP is putting forth a bill that says some rapes are so very minor and excusable as not to warrant consideration."

Taking a stroll down memory lane over to I Blame the Patriarchy, back to Bill Napoli's musings about the kind of virtuous, untouched, pure virgin he might allow to have an abortion if raped. Think about it. Chris Smith is even more nutty than Bill Napoli. And so is the current Speaker of the House.

AK Muckraker with examples of what kinds of sexual assault would now be redefined as essentially consensual. One wonders what the impact would be on prosecutions of people who use date rape drugs and then assault unconscious women. If rape is redefined for the purpose of funding of abortions, why not redefine it for the legal system as well?

RMuse at Politics USA wonders: just who are the ones imposing tyranny and stealing liberty here, when the House is starting to resemble the Westboro Baptist Church?

Was this a real enough rape to satisfy Chris Smith, Daniel Lipinksi, and John Boehner?

Dennis G. at Balloon Juice makes special note of how this bill protects child predators, which makes me wonder just what kind of secrets Rep. Chris Smith and others who support this travesty are hiding. After all, when Republicans start ranting about the morality and sexual practices of others, they're telling you a great deal about themselves.

And where ARE those jobs, anyway, Mr. Boehner?

Ross Douthat wants a "Handmaid's Tale" world

For those who haven't read A Handmaid's Tale (or seen the movie), it takes place in the United States after the government is overthrown and replaced with theocrats. Not so far-fetched, eh? In this world, fertile women are captured and become the property of infertile couples, particularly of the men in such couples, for the sole purpose of conceiving children for them. The story is told from the viewpoint of one such woman, Offred (because such women are only recognized by to whom they belong, in this case "of Fred"). A fuller symopsis is offered at the novel's Wikipedia entry.

In the movie, Offred is portrayed heartbreakingly (doubly so now) by the late Natasha Richardson, and the couple by a creepy Robert Duvall and equally creepy Faye Dunaway, who keeps a lovely upper-class home and spends her days clipping lovely flowers in her garden. The movie provides a somewhat more upbeat conclusion than the book, but the story still resonates with women like me who are old enough to remember when girls in junior high and high school would "go to visit grandma for a while" after putting on some weight and then come back slimmer and usually quieter and sadder. These girls didn't have abortions. These girls were sent away to have their babies out of sight of their parents' friends and of their classmates, and to hand those babies off to strangers. Because before Roe v. Wade, that's what young girls did who became pregnant and whose parents didn't know any doctors who would perform a then-illegal abortion.

Access to abortion has become more limited in the last decade, as American terrorists continue to kill doctors who perform them and state legislatures continue to enact laws to restrict access. A meme persists on the so-called "pro-life" right (which cares little or nothing about babies who are born, unless they are white and handed off to affluent white families) that teenaged girls AND adult women decide to have an abortion as easily as they decide to get their nails done or get a latte at Starbucks.

This segment from an MTV program which aired December 28 would give lie to that notion in a sane world:

No Easy Decision - MTV Shows

But we do not live in a sane world. The Handmaid's Tale is a work of fiction. But in the insane world in which we live, Ross Douchebag at the New York Times feels free to articulate the notion right out of that novel that young women with unwanted pregnancies have a moral obligation to carry their babies to term so that affluent, infertile women can have children to raise:

In every era, there’s been a tragic contrast between the burden of unwanted pregnancies and the burden of infertility. But this gap used to be bridged by adoption far more frequently than it is today. Prior to 1973, 20 percent of births to white, unmarried women (and 9 percent of unwed births over all) led to an adoption. Today, just 1 percent of babies born to unwed mothers are adopted, and would-be adoptive parents face a waiting list that has lengthened beyond reason.

Or as TBogg so succinctly says:

Shorter Ross Douthat:

Poor uneducated pregnant women should waste not so that upper middle-class women will want not.

I wonder if I'm the only one who finds it creepy that so many adult conservative males are so utterly obsessed with the reproductive functioning and the sex lives of teenagers.

UPDATE: Because Douchebag's utopian vision of a Nation of Breeders is so mindbogglingly fucked-up, here's more from:

• Amanda
  
• Melissa (despite her irritating habit of insisting that everything come with a "trigger warning", as if all feminists were fragile flowers who might be pushed off the deep end at the slightest provocation)
  
• Jill (no, the other one)
  

(more as I find them)

Why now?

In Florida, state Senate Democrats are just barely blocking (for now) an abortion restriction advocated by Republicans that would force women to have, pay for, and view, an ultrasound image before having an abortion.

In Oklahoma, it is already law that women are forced to undergo and view such an ultrasound, along with listening to a detailed description of the embryo or fetus. In a completely inconsistent addendum, a doctor is permitted to withhold information about any defects that are revealed in such an ultrasound.

In Virginia, new budgetary measures cut Medicaid funding for abortions, even if the woman's life is in danger.

In Nebraska, a medically unsupported "pain provision" bars all abortions after 20 weeks and requires women seeking abortions before then to undergo a mental health evaluation.

In Kansas, only a gubernatorial veto stands between women's right to self-determination and being reported to the state for having abortions.

Wny now? Foes of women's sovereignty over their own bodies have been working on abortion restrictions for decades. But after standing pat during the Bush years, perhaps thinking that sooner or later George W. Bush would give them the magic prize they've coveted for so long, all of a sudden state after state is passing abortion restrictions that make very clear the misogynistic leanings of these states' legislatures. Forcing women to have invasive vaginal ultrasounds? Forcing them to view images? Mental health evaluations?

But is it just about misogyny? Or does it have something to do with the pee-in-the-pants terror of the teabag movement at the inevitable end of white majority that's coming in this country?

Let's look at the populations of the above-mentioned states and the percentages of abortion by race in them, shall we?

The following 2007-2008 figures are fromStatehealthfacts.org:

FLORIDA: 62% white, 15% black, 20% Hispanic, and 3% other.

OKLAHOMA: 66% white, 8% black, 8% Hispanic, and 16% other.

VIRGINIA: 67% white, 19% black, 7% Hispanic, and 7% other.

NEBRASKA: 84% white, 4% black, 8% Hispanic, and 3% other.

KANSAS: 80% white, 6% black, 9% Hispanic, and 5% other.

All states that are overwhelmingly white.

Now let's look at some states WITHOUT this kind of abortion restrictions, from the Godless Heathen Liberal Northeast, plus California:

NEW YORK: 60% white, 15% black, 17% Hispanic, and 8% other.

NEW JERSEY: 59% white, 13% black, 17% Hispanic, and 10% other.

MASSACHUSETTS: 80% white, 6% black, 7% Hispanic, and 6% other.

CALIFORNIA: 43% white, 6% black, 37% Hispanic, and 14% other.

With the exception of Massachusetts, these states all have larger minority populations -- and no move to restrict abortions.

Now let's look at the racial distribution of abortions in the states cited above that have recently instituted, or are about to institute, restrictions. These figures are from 2006 and are from CDC statistics:

FLORIDA: Not reported

OKLAHOMA: Not reported

VIRGINIA: 57.3% White, 36.5% Black, 5.3% Hispanic

NEBRASKA: Not reported

KANSAS: 77.3% White, 17.2% Black, 4.4% Hispanic

It's clear that the states with overwhelmingly white populations are the states instituting abortion restrictions. And while the percentages of abortions in the two states that reported to the CDC are not proportional to the racial groups' representation, it's clear that in these states, a larger percentage of White women are having abortions than their Black and Hispanic counterparts.

Just for fun, let's take a look at Arizona, where the population is 58% White, 4% Black, 31% Hispanic, and 8% Other. White women in Arizona have 76.8% of the abortions in that state. So where does Arizona law stand on abortion? You guessed it:

Arizona has not repealed its pre-Roe abortion ban, which is unconstitutional and unenforceable.

The ban provides that any person who supplies to a woman any substance or employs other means with the intent to induce an abortion, unless necessary to preserve the woman's life, will be imprisoned for two to five years. A woman who submits to the use of any means with the intent to cause an abortion, unless necessary to preserve her life, will be imprisoned for one to five years. Any person who advertises abortion services is guilty of a misdemeanor. Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. §§ 13-3603 (Enacted 1901; Last Renumbered 1977), 13-3604 (Enacted 1901; Last Renumbered 1977), 13-3605 (Enacted 1901; Last Renumbered 1977).

Arizona outlaws a safe second-trimester abortion procedure with no exception to protect a woman's health. H.B. 2400, 49th Leg., 2009 1st Sess. (Ariz. 2009) (Enacted 2009) (to be codified at Ariz. Rev. Stat. §13-3603.01).

The Arizona law makes the provision of certain previability, second-trimester abortion procedures a felony and imposes a criminal penalty of imprisonment for up to two years and/or fines including statutory damages of three times the cost of the abortion unless the procedure is necessary to save the life of the woman whose life is endangered by a physical disorder, physical illness or physical injury, including a life-endangering physical condition caused by or arising from the pregnancy itself. H.B. 2400, 49th Leg., 2009 1st Sess. (Ariz. 2009) (Enacted 2009) (to be codified at Ariz. Rev. Stat. §13-3603.01).

In 1997, a court held that an earlier version of Arizona's ban was unconstitutional because it was void for vagueness, was an "undue burden" on a woman's right to choose, and had no exception to preserve the woman's health. Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. §13-3603.01 (Enacted 1997). The court issued a permanent injunction prohibiting its enforcement. Planned Parenthood of S. Ariz., Inc. v. Woods, 982 F. Supp. 1369 (D. Ariz. 1997). In 2009, the Arizona legislature enacted an amended, enforceable version of the ban. H.B. 2400, 49th Leg., 2009 1st Sess. (Ariz. 2009) (Enacted 2009) (to be codified at Ariz. Rev. Stat. §13-3603.01).

And there's more:

Arizona has a partially unconstitutional and unenforceable law requiring that a woman may not obtain an abortion until at least 24 hours after the attending physician or the referring physician tells her, orally and in person: (1) the name of the physician who will provide the abortion; (2) the nature of the proposed procedure; (3) the immediate and long-term medical risks of the procedure; (4) the alternatives to the procedure; (5) the probable gestational age of the fetus; (6) the probable anatomical and physiological characteristics of the fetus; and (7) the medical risks of carrying the pregnancy to term.

In addition, at least 24 hours prior to the abortion, the attending physician, a referring physician, another qualified physician, a physician's assistant, a nurse, a psychologist, or a licensed behavioral health professional must deliver to the woman, orally and in person, a state-mandated lecture that includes: (1) that medical assistance benefits may be available for prenatal care, childbirth, and neonatal care; (2) that the "father" is liable for child support even if he has offered to pay for the abortion; (3) that public and private agencies and services are available to assist the woman during her pregnancy and after the birth of her child if she chooses not to have an abortion; and (4) that she can withhold or withdraw her consent to the abortion at any time without affecting her right to future care or treatment and without the loss of any public benefits. H.B. 2564, 49th Leg., 2009 1st Sess. (Ariz. 2009) (Enacted 2009) (to be codified at Ariz. Rev. Stat. A 36-2153).

It's no accident that Arizona, a state with one of the largest proportions of Hispanic residents but one where White women have over three-quarters of the abortions, has one of the most restrictive abortion laws in the country. It's no accident either that these restrictions on abortions are being implemented in majority-White states at the same time as the conservatives of those states are having apoplexy about immigration.

It's not about Teh Baybeeeeezzzzzz, and it's not about human life. It's about forced childbearing for White women, instituted by men who are terrified of losing their White male sovereignty into this country, by turning women into unthinking, unfeeling, nonhuman vessels for their fears and their loathing.

Bart Stupak: Still an idiot. Still has to go.

And so in the end, Bart Stupak came around. Did your head explode listening to him all of a sudden paint health care for pregnant women and children who are actually here as "pro-life", when until the day before he was perfectly willing to jettison the whole thing if it meant that dirty sluts who can't keep their legs closed wouldn't be punished by being forced to bear children they don't want. Because let's face it, THAT'S what it was all about, otherwise the internal inconsistency of his [wide] stance would never have held up in any school of logic.

And after a decade of people like me being forced to pay in the form of my tax dollars for a war based on lies, tax cuts for the already preposterously wealthy, and Blackwater rapists -- and told to sit down and shut up -- in the end, Barack Obama was only able to get this thing through by promising Bart Stupak that dirty sluts who couldn't afford to pay for their own abortions would be suitably punished.

Amanda nailed it even before the vote came in:

Did they come up with this brilliant plan after Stupak has made it clear that his contempt for women’s opinions applies even to nuns?  Is it possible that Nancy Pelosi called up Obama and said, “Look, I’ve been telling him and Sebelius has been telling him there’s no federal funding for abortion in this bill.  He apparently needs to hear it from a man, so can you give us a hand?”

And in the end, Stupak's year-long concern with the zygote and the fetus above all else didn't save him from the wrath of lunatics.

Stupak gets no brownie points for this. You know what to do.

If you are a pregnant woman in Utah, you are no longer a human being

Nope. If you become pregnant in the state of Utah, you are no longer a human being; you are simply a vessel for a fetus. If you have a miscarriage, the onus will be on you to prove that you didn't act in a "reckless" way:

The Utah Senate has joined the House in allowing homicide charges against expectant mothers who arrange illegal abortions.

The bill responds to a case in which a Vernal woman allegedly paid a man $150 to beat her and cause miscarriage but could not be charged. The Senate on Thursday approved HB12 on a vote of 24-4, criminalizing a woman's "intentional, knowing, or reckless act" leading to a pregnancy's illegal termination. It specifies that a woman cannot be prosecuted for arranging a legal abortion.

The measure now goes to Gov. Gary Herbert for final action.

Some Senate Democrats attempted a last-minute amendment to remove the word "reckless" from the list of criminal acts leading to miscarriage. They argued that criminalizing reckless acts leaves open the possibility of prosecutions against domestic violence victims who return to their abusers only to be beaten and lose the child.

"It's part of the cycle of domestic violence," said Sen. Luz Robles, D-Salt Lake City.

"I hope none of you ever have to face that situation," she said after realizing the majority would pass the bill as is, "or have a daughter facing that situation, or a granddaughter."

But the bill's sponsor, Sen. Margaret Dayton, R-Orem, said the bill doesn't target victims at all -- only those who arrange to terminate their pregnancies illegally.

"I know it's well-intentioned," Dayton said of the attempt to lift "reckless acts" from the bill, "but I don't think we want to go down the road of carefully defining the behavior of a woman."

Except that's exactly what this bill does. It gives the state the power to decide, on a case-by-case basis, what constitutes "reckless behavior". It completely removes a pregnant woman's autonomy over her own body, deletes her humanity and turns her into an incubator. I wonder what this law would have done with someone who gets on an airplane after her water breaks, flies 4 hours, gets on another plane and flies more hours, then drives more hours and hours to get to a hospital. Would that then be reckless behavior then, Father?

If you still think the fetophiles are just about Teh BAYBEEEZZZZZZZZZZZZZ, think about how this legislation turns pregnant women into automatons and presumes that they are criminals. Then see if you still believe this is about anything other than hatred of women.

And stay the hell out of Utah if you want to be regarded as human.

(via)

Another Thought for the Day

If I were a space traveler from another galaxy, and my communications device picked up the health care debate to debate on CSPAN-2, I would think that the totality of health care in the U.S. was abortions -- and nothing else.

Maybe I should just stop talking about abortion; after all, I'M postmenopausal and it's not MY problem anymore

Being disheartened is such a usual state of mind for me these days it's surprising that this one gets to me so much. But I decided to do a quick spin around some of the alpha dogs of the so-called feminist blogosphere to see what is being said about the USPSTF's new mammography guidelines. You know what I saw?

Almost nothing.

I guess that when you're young (instead of old like me and leaving the house between 6-7 AM and getting home at 6:30 PM, then doing 2-3 hours of work every night and all weekend), you just don't have TIME to handle TWO issues about women's health care. After all, there's advertising to talk about, and the Sarah Palin Newsweek cover, and when combined with the Stupak amendment, well, the poor dears just have to pick and choose.

Kudos to Nordette at Whose shoes are these anyway? and jluther over at Feministing for actually realizing that they too will be over 40 someday and that this will become their problem.

Other than that? Crickets.

I'm not going to shame the so-called feminist bloggers who have chosen instead to write about divas with no pants or webcomics or the Sarah Palin Newsweek cover or why there are no women in Pirate Radio by naming them publicly. They know who they are. And to those bloggers, I have just one question: Why do you think this is not your issue?

Pregnancy hasn't been a concern for me since 2005, but I still write about the importance of access to abortion and contraception. Reproduction is an issue in my PAST, that I will never have to worry about again, at least not in this particular incarnation. But for the feminist bloggers in their twenties and thirties, this latest assault on women's health care is in YOUR FUTURE -- and that future is coming faster than you can even imagine.

So why the silence? Is it because this plan to ration health care services to older women is coming directly from Barack Obama's Department of Health and Human Services and you're afraid to criticize it? Is this what we've come to, selling our own sisters down the river rather than criticize a Democratic president?

I want to know: Am I wrong? I realize that with 20 minutes to blog this morning after I head in for a 7 AM meeting I don't have time to look at ALL the feminist blogs. But where is the feminist blogosphere on this? If you're a feminist blogger and you're writing about this, or if you're just a blog reader and you find a post about the new mammography guidelines, post the links in the comments. I'll bump them up into their own post tomorrow along with my crow eating (but the consumption of the bird only happens if the posts are timestamped BEFORE this one). And if I don't hear from anyone, I'm done writing about abortion. After all, it isn't MY concern, right?

Barack Obama, unlike Nancy Pelosi, doesn't want to sacrifice women's health care on the altar of "reform"

I know that whatever emerges from Congress is going to be one big fat wet kiss on the behind of the insurance companies, but I am encouraged, even if only for a moment before he caves (which he will, because it's more important to keep Republicans happy than the people who actually voted for him), that Barack Obama doesn't think that women's healthcare needs to be sacrificed in order to pass a bill:

President Obama suggested Monday that he was not comfortable with abortion restrictions inserted into the House version of major health care legislation, and he prodded Congress to revise them.

“There needs to be some more work before we get to the point where we’re not changing the status quo” on abortion, Mr. Obama said in an interview with ABC News. “And that’s the goal.”

On the one hand, Mr. Obama said, “we’re not looking to change what is the principle that has been in place for a very long time, which is federal dollars are not used to subsidize abortions.”

On the other hand, he said, he wanted to make sure “we’re not restricting women’s insurance choices,” because he had promised that “if you’re happy and satisfied with the insurance that you have, it’s not going to change.”

Before passing its health bill on Saturday, the House adopted an amendment that would block the use of federal money for “any health plan that includes coverage of abortion,” except in the case of rape or incest or if the life of a pregnant woman is in danger.

Some private insurance now covers abortion. Under the bill, most private insurers would receive federal subsidies on behalf of low- and middle-income people.

Which means that under the Stupak Amendment, private insurers would not be allowed to cover abortion.

I don't get to pick and choose what my tax dollars pay for. I don't like my tax dollars paying for wars entered into because the President who gets us into them has issues with his daddy. I don't like my tax dollars paying for bombs and fighter jets we don't need. There are many things the government does for which I don't want my tax dollars paying. But we don't get to pick and choose. The only people who have been allowed to pick and choose are the fetophiles, many of whom are the same people who are gung-ho to go to war and kill lots of brown Muslim people. Why do THEY get to pick and choose?

We've already seen that the next battleground for the fetophiles is contraception. How long do you think it's going to take before the Pill and the IUD and depo-provera shots are not covered because a few vocal Bible-thumpers think that evil temptresses who won't keep their legs closed deserve the punishment of pregnancy, and don't think the government should subsidize sex that doesn't include punishment?

And another county heard from: Caribou Barbie, who seemingly attempted her own version of late-term abortion by insisting on traveling from Texas to Alaska after her water broke, has another garbled missive from Idiotstan.

More here, here, and here.

When the terrorists win and the law doesn't care

Rachel Maddow, on the permanent closing of Dr. George Tiller's clinic:

Scott Roeder is a terrorist, and yet no conservatives are talking about waterboarding him to find out when the next attack, the one he insists is coming, is going to take place. Scott Roeder is a terrorist, and not one Republican has expressed concern about having a terrorist housed within our borders. Scott Roeder is a terrorist, with ties to Operation Rescue, and not one Republican is advocating that people even peripherally associated with Operation Rescue be sent to Guantanamo Bay. Scott Roeder is a terrorist, whose targets are women and the doctors who provide medical services to them. And no one in government seems to care. Because after all, it's only women. And what is women's health care when compared to the right of men with issues about their masculinity and women who made choices they may regret and therefore want to make sure no other woman has the choice they had to intimidate medical providers out of business, to the point of murdering them.

What do you do when law enforcement doesn't enforce the law

As if I weren't angry enough over the murder of Dr. George Tiller, this segment from last night's Countdown made me want to just run down the street screaming:

If law enforcement is going to be selective when dealing with the threat of violence at funerals and medical clinics, when local police refuse to protect physicians and women from violence from terrorists, when protection is only for the insane who call themselves "Christians" and "patriots" and other false monikers of the extreme right, then there is no law. If the right to self-determination can be taken away at the barrel of a gun, then there is no right. And then all the talk about preserving Roe is preposterous. Because where women are concerned, we are now allowing individual white men with a grievance and a gun to decide our destinies. For women seeking to control their reproductive destiny, there is no equal protection under the law in many states. The rights of men to channel their rage over watching their world change into violence against women and their doctors trump all.

And if you think I'm being overly dramatic, Blue Girl has unearthed the information that Scott Roeder, the terrorist who murdered Dr. George Tiller, vandalized a women's health care clinic the day before he murdered Dr. Tiller:

Scott Roeder was no stranger to law enforcement, and in fact, he should have been under surveillance since he was caught with bomb making supplies in the mid 90s when he was involved with the "sovereign citizen" movement and militant anti-abortion groups.

On May 23, he vandalized a clinic in Kansas City, Kansas then returned on Saturday morning, May 30 to vandalize the clinic again. The clinic manager filed police reports in both instances, and on Saturday, about 24 hours before Dr. Tiller was gunned down in the foyer of his church, the clinic manager gave the FBI Roeder's license plate and a description of his car.

He had a radical, militant history that ought to have drawn flags all over the field.

I don't know about you, but I would rather police resources be spent tailing and infiltrating the circle of guys like Roeder, who had already threatened a physician in the KC area, where he walked into a clinic, asked to see the doctor and waited patiently for him to come out to talk to him. When the doctor came out, Roeder stared at him for about 45 seconds before saying "Okay, I've seen you now," and turning and walking out. He had also posted on the Operation Rescue website that he wanted to confront Dr. Tiller in his church.

All the warning signs were there, and he had escalated his direct actions recently. His previous bomb-making conviction and ties to domestic terrorist groups should have popped up the minute his plate was run, and agents should have made a visit to his house and brought him in for questioning and held him in the clinic vandalism and this whole tragedy could have been avoided.

But in Kansas, it's clear that the law enforcement apparatus didn't WANT this tragedy to be avoided. And it's quite clear that in the state of Kansas, terrorists are allowed to run freely, vandalizing clinics and threatening doctors, because in Kansas, the police only enforce the laws they want to.

That's a notion that should scare us no matter where we live.

This is what they want American women to endure

Funny how none of the fetophile zealots will ever say that they think a woman should be prosecuted for having an abortion. They know that none but the most rabid zealots will want to see women put in jail, or executed, for wanting to terminate an unwanted pregnancy. And that is where their logic cracks. Because if abortion is murder, then it is the woman who first decides to have one long before the doctor who performs the procedure is ever contacted, who premeditates the crime. So why the squishiness about prosecution?

That should be enough to expose these people for the misogynist hypocrites they are. But perhaps they don't need to endorse prosecution. Perhaps the wages of sin being mutilation or death will suffice for them.

Denise Grady writes in today's New York Times about the very real results of botched abortions where the procedure is not available -- in Tanzania:

Abortion is illegal in Tanzania (except to save the mother’s life or health), so women and girls turn to amateurs, who may dose them with herbs or other concoctions, pummel their bellies or insert objects vaginally. Infections, bleeding and punctures of the uterus or bowel can result, and can be fatal. Doctors treating women after these bungled attempts sometimes have no choice but to remove the uterus.

Worldwide, there are 19 million unsafe abortions a year, and they kill 70,000 women (accounting for 13 percent of maternal deaths), mostly in poor countries like Tanzania where abortion is illegal, according to the World Health Organization. More than two million women a year suffer serious complications. According to Unicef, unsafe abortions cause 4 percent of deaths among pregnant women in Africa, 6 percent in Asia and 12 percent in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Reliable figures on abortion in Tanzania are hard to come by, but the World Health Organization reports that its region, Eastern Africa, has the world’s second-highest rate of unsafe abortions (only South America is higher). And Africa as a whole has the highest proportion of teenagers — 25 percent — among women having unsafe abortions.

The 120-bed hospital in Berega depends on solar panels and a generator, which is run for only a few hours a day. Short on staff members, supplies and even water, the hospital puts a lot of its scarce resources into cleaning up after failed abortions.

The medical director, Dr. Paschal Mdoe, 30, said many patients who had had the unsafe abortions were 16 to 20 years old, and four months pregnant. He said there was a steady stream of cases, much as he had seen in hospitals in other parts of the country.

“It’s the same everywhere,” he said.

On a Friday in January, 6 of 20 patients in the women’s ward were recovering from attempted abortions. One, a 25-year-old schoolteacher, lay in bed moaning and writhing. She had been treated at the hospital a week earlier for an incomplete abortion and now was back, bleeding and in severe pain. She was taken to the operating room once again and anesthetized, and Emmanuel Makanza, who had treated her the first time, discovered that he had failed to remove all the membranes formed during the pregnancy. Once again, he scraped the inside of her womb with a curet, a metal instrument. It was a vigorous, bloody procedure. This time, he said, it was complete.

This is what the anti-sex zealots of the right want for American women. This is their agenda for women here in the U.S. Do they think that making abortion illegal will stop the practice? It never has before, anywhere in the world. Why do they think the U.S. will be different?

We can therefore only assume that the real agenda, once you get past their phony rhetoric about human life, is punishing women who are unchaste. And it's high time we called them on it. Because there is no common ground with such people.

Will Bill O'Reilly be held to account for his holy war against Dr. George Tiller?

Given how Skeezix has teh vapors every time a liberal says something he doesn't like, it will be interesting to see him deny any culpability in whipping Scott Roeder and people like him into a frenzy.

A Great Orange Satan video presentation of Bill O'Reilly's jihad against Dr. Tiller:

Monday Big Blue Smurf Blogging: What They Said

Today's honoree: Melissa, who writes a letter to President Obama.

Money quote:

This was a terrorist act, one in an ongoing campaign against Dr. Tiller, who was one target among many in a bigger campaign against women and the people who provide abortion services and safe havens for them—but no one in our government will call it terrorism. There are, in fact, a lot of things that don't get called terrorism in this country, but few of them approach the breadth of the long-term, flagrant campaign of intimidation, harassment, exhorted violence, attempted violence, actual violence, and murder of abortion providers and abortion-seeking women.

Still, our government is unwilling to call this orchestrated, overt, unapologetic campaign against women and their healthcare providers terrorism, even as increasing numbers of doctors say offering the legal service to their patients is not worth the risk—the very definition of effective terrorism. Even as physician champions of women's right to choose are murdered in cold blood. Even as "pro-life" groups openly celebrate his death and take the position that he deserved it.

[snip]

Your statement, upon hearing of Dr. Tiller's death, was that you are "shocked" and "outraged," that you believe: "However profound our differences as Americans over difficult issues such as abortion, they cannot be resolved by heinous acts of violence." Mr. President, if you had been paying the slightest bit of attention to the realities of the front line of the fight to protect women's bodily autonomy, you would not be shocked. This wasn't even the first attempt on Dr. Tiller's life; it was the merely the first successful one.

I'm angry because you have been admonishing pro-choice advocates to respect the views of anti-choice activists, despite the fact there is very good reason not to afford a modicum of respect for a viewpoint that would force women to relinquish control over their own bodies to the state. I'm angry because you don't seem to get that both sides of this "debate" aren't equal, and it's not just because one side contains mainstream organizations who tacitly encourage the murder of doctors.

It is time to go to the mat to preserve women's right to reproductive self-determination

Gloria Feldt has a passionate plea at Salon to stop assuaging our outrage at the murder of Dr. George Tiller with candlelight vigils:

I am done with candlelight vigils.

It is good and necessary that people gather together at a candlelight vigil to honor the memory of Dr. George Tiller, murdered in cold blood today at his Lutheran church by an assailant believed to be Montana “Freeman” Scott Roeder. Tiller was a compassionate and courageous doctor who provided abortion services to women in some of the most distressing circumstances imaginable, when their pregnancies had gone horribly, tragically wrong. He provided services when no one else would, and he was stubborn enough to fight against everyone who tried to stop him. So it is right that people express their grief in public ceremonies.

But I myself am done with candlelight vigils. I have participated in too many of them, from 1993 with the murder of Dr. David Gunn in Pensacola through the seven doctors, patient escorts and staff murdered over the horrifying five-year period thereafter. I can never forget the day before New Year's Eve in 1994. I was, at the time, CEO of Planned Parenthood in Arizona, talking on the phone to Pensacola patient escort June Barrett -- who had been wounded when her husband and the clinic’s Dr. John Britton were murdered by anti-abortion zealot Rev. Paul Hill -- when I received another urgent call from a friend whose granddaughter worked in Planned Parenthood’s Brookline clinic. The young woman had just witnessed the murder of two co-workers by John Salvi.

Each time, we held vigils all over the country. We wept and we pledged to continue our work. Which we did, increasingly, in isolation. We were the ones who had been wronged, and yet we were labeled controversial, to be shunned rather than supported. The murders were only the tip of the iceberg, among over 6000 cases of violence, vandalism, stalking, bombings, arson, invasions and other serious harassment. 

[snip]

When it comes to decrying Tiller’s unspeakable murder, I want to hear it from Congress. I want to hear it from clergy, the medical profession, the media and civic leaders: "This kind of violation will not be tolerated. Period." I want to see leaders and people at the grassroots joining hands together in support of those who provide women with reproductive health services, including abortion. I want them to put the yellow armband on, to assume Tiller’s name as so many took on the Obama’s middle name, Hussein, when he was disparaged during the election. Doctors have a special responsibility. David Toub M.D, MBA, who provided abortions when he was a practicing physician in Philadelphia, told me, "This could have been any of us who provide or provided abortion services. I'm just as annoyed by some of my own colleagues and the American Medical Association who marginalized us and even looked down at anyone involved in providing abortion."

The silence overall from leaders so far has been deafening, as attorney and longtime Arizona volunteer for reproductive rights causes Leon Silver pointed out. And if our leaders remain silent, I can tell you with perfect assurance what will happen next. There will be more violence.

For the last twenty years, we've watched as those in a position to make policy began to get "squishy" on abortion rights. We've watched our party become increasingly willing to throw women's rights to control our own bodies under the bus in an effort to include those whose stated concern for "THE BAYBEEEEZZZZZ" is belied by their own behavior. Yes, there are people of good conscience who oppose abortion but support efforts to support women making the decision not to abort -- including financial ones.

But for the most part (including the troll who commented on an earlier post here yesterday), scratch the surface of a fetophile and you'll find a misogynist -- someone who feels that the dirty sluts who can't keep their legs closed deserve to be punished. When you look at who it is who kills these doctors, it's the very same teabaggers who have been praised by right-wing television and radio hosts as American patriots. It is not considered patriotic on the right to murder those providing health care services to women.

There have always been abortions. There will always be abortions. Most of us who believe that there should be NO point in a woman's life in which she ceases to be a human being and becomes nothing but a vessel for a fetus have never had an abortion. I have never had an abortion. I wanted to make sure that this choice I support wholeheartedly is one I never had to make. I was both responsible and lucky -- responsible because I was dogged about contraceptive use, and lucky because in my case, the method I chose, which statistically has a higher failure rate than others, never failed.

"I don't like the idea of abortion used as birth control," we hear people say. Yes, there are women who have repeated abortions. But anyone who thinks that abortion is something that women choose blithely is clearly a) not a woman; or b) has never had a cold speculum shoved into him/her. I had a punch biopsy once, and that was quite enough pulling stuff out of my nether quarters, thank you very much. The very notion that there are millions of women in this country who decide to have a late-term abortino to fit into a prom dress, or who decide that it's such a nice day, let's go get our nails done, have a nice lunch, and then get an abortion, is preposterous on the face of it.

So why do we give these people any credence at all?

It's time to start digging beneath the surface of these people and reveal them for the frightened little weasels that they are. Women have sex. Women enjoy sex. This is a GOOD thing. Once we accept that, then we can open the door to teaching girls about the conscientious use of contraception without the added baggage of having to be "swept away" so that having sex doesn'tmake her a slut. If we want to reduce the incidence of abortion, we need to be teaching women not the madonna/whore dichotomy, but how to make affirmative decisions as to what is right for them at the appropriate times of life. An empowered, confident woman is one who makes smart choices. An empowered, confident woman won't feel unable to insist on condom use. An empowered, confident woman also has better ability to protect herself from disease.

We also need to make contraception more available, especially to low-income women, and not just send them home with pills or devices, but also teach them how to say yes -- or no -- and listen to their own hearts and minds instead of messages from men or churches or even traditions that are no longer relevant to life today. Over the last few decades, contraceptive choices have become fewer rather than more. Try getting a diaphragm these days without having to wait a week for the local Rite-Aid to get the damn thing.

And it's time to stop being squishy about this. I'm not happy about President Obama's statement yesterday, though I realize that it's about as good as we're going to get from him. But the issue isn't simply one of deploring the violence directed against abortion providers. It's time to stop demonizing women who choose abortions and the doctors who perform them. If you want to stop abortions, then support efforts to make contraception universally available, effective, and affordable, and support efforts to help women make independent sexual decisions for themselves. But those who paint their anti-abortion rhetoric with undertones of fear and loathing of women and our sexuality can just shut the fuck up. We don't want to hear you anymore. Guys like Scott Roeder have taken away any credibility you ever had.