GWB hates women

[Sean]

Originally Posted by cacophony

that's not correct. i again refer back to the original post and the original link. the new regulation does not just affect funding for abortion, funding for abortifacient procedures, or even the gray area of IUDs where a device inhibits implantation before the fertilized egg has divided or satisfied the medical definition of viability (there are two definitions, one is the viability of the pregnancy which can happen back within the first 5-6 weeks and the other is the viability of the fetus, which is usually around 25 weeks). the new regulation even seeks to erect roadblocks for birth control methods that offer protection before fertilization. oral contraceptives operate by preventing ovulation, meaning no egg is present when sperm is present. there is no abortion issue because egg and sperm never meet.

unfortunately many pro-life advocates misunderstand the function of oral contraceptives and believe the egg is still released and the contraceptive inhibits fertilization or implantation. so opposition to the birth control pill is actually quite strong in many parts of the pro-life community. it's a belief founded on willful ignorance because it's simply physiologically untrue and the information illustrating the mechanism of hormonal birth control is readily available. those who adhere to the belief that oral contraception is tantamount to abortion in this day and age do so because they are motivated by something beyond a simple desire to protect embryos. because if it were simply about embryos, the debate would never take place. there is no embryo. but the debate continues because it changes shape, no longer emphasizing the reality of fertilization and implantation.

it is my OPINION (emphasis apparently necessary in this thread) that those who fail to educate themselves about the mechanism of hormonal contraceptives and instead leap to eliminate access to them are acting out of something other than concern for embryonic rights. i've never once said that those who seek to prevent abortion or abortifacient contraceptive methods hate women for that sole reason. i never brought the overarching pro-life agenda into this discussion.

and in fact, it may surprise everyone to know that i personally oppose the use of IUDs because even as a pro-choice advocate i believe first and foremost in personal responsibility as well as the sacredness of human life. in my OPINION part of the responsibility of having the choice means taking every step to ensure that fertilization is prevented. yeah, i'm a pro-choicer who actually does believe that something happens at the moment of fertilization that changes the ball game. i know it would be a hell of a lot easier for argument's sake to decide that i'm a feminazi who enjoys "crying wolf" just to stick it to the man, but there you go.

so if bush's restrictions spoke specifically to abortion procedures and abortifacient contraceptive methods alone, i would not make the claim that his policy is fundamentally misogynistic. however, that's not what he is proposing.

his proposal includes an attempt to restrict the above mentioned hormonal contraceptive methods that prevent ovulation. these are methods that affect women alone. he isn't taking condoms off the table, which prevent sperm from entering the vaginal canal, he's speaking to a method that only affects womens' health. the pill is essentially the same as any other barrier method, whether it be condom, female condom, diaphragm or cervical cap. for some reason if it's a barrier that affects the penis, we don't even debate it. if it's a barrier that affects anything north of the cervix suddenly we have an ethical dilemma.

it's a debate that never affects the health of men. not because i'm a hateful wolf-crying feminazi, but because we never take it there. women may host a pregnancy but fertilization is never possible without men. yet we never discuss whether or not we should consider measures, mechanical or hormonal, to prevent women from being hosed down with millions and millions of very goal-oriented and tenacious spermatazoa.

no, unfortunately the sin always falls on the women. as i said, i'm a pro-choicer who believes first and foremost in personal responsibility. in a way i am fundamentally ethically pro-life in that i personally believe that no one with any control over the matter should risk an unwanted pregnancy. ever. i find it unfortunate that abortion for non-medical reasons are necessary in this world. i find it unfortunate that people choose not to protect themselves and i find it unfortunate that sometimes women get raped. it's a crying shame of a world we live in but there you go, so where do we go from here? a pro-ilfer would say, "sucks for you but the baby's in charge now." as a pro-choicer i have to insist that forcing a woman to carry an unwanted pregnancy is essentially holding her hostage. (i do think, personally, in a way that i feel completely non-obligated to "prove" to anyone, that this sudden reversal in the belief in liberty is inherently misogynistic. whoops, i guess i am a "crying wolf" feminazi after all! sorry, fellas!)

anyway, all of this is to say that i am at no point saying the foundation of the pro-life agenda has anything to do anyone's opinion about whether or not women are to be hated, disliked or distrusted.

where i am saying this is the case is when the same pro-lifers who care about not aborting potential humans suddenly want to prevent a widely available contraceptive method that is in no way abortifacient and which directly affects the health of all women. when the pro-life agenda reaches this irrational point, when restrictions are proposed for contraceptive methods that in no way touch the abortion issue, and in fact only suit to meet the pro-life agenda by preventing ovulation while at the same time protecting women from a range of health issues, that's when it becomes all about women and not about babies.

the issue of hormonal contraception isn't about babies. period. never can be because egg and sperm will never meet. this is basic physiological information. it is not up for debate. those in the pro-life community who choose to bar access to these methods have moved far beyond the call for embryonic rights. they have moved into an arena of control over women's actions. they have moved into the arena of preventing sexual intercourse as a means of abortion prevention. george w bush has passed this kind of policy before. i wonder if anyone remembers back to his early days in office when he changed the AIDS prevention policy in africa so that no organization receiving federal funding would be allowed to discuss contraception AT ALL. in order to qualify for that funding, organizations were instructed to discuss ONLY abstinence. they don't believe in your right to protect yourself, they believe, as monty python said, that every sperm is sacred.

except in their case they're never really all that interested in doing anything about the sperm. they instead prefer to put the onus back on the woman and make their arguments about oral contraceptives.

this section of the pro-life community that seeks to prohibit sex, of which GWB is a member by practice, is not motivated by its love for babies. the motivation is about control. and in the vast majority of cases this motivation is acted out in a way that affects women only. such as eliminating access to the birth control pill.

where it becomes outright misogynistic is that this barrier actually sets women up for worse health later in life. countless studies have shown that the pill reduces incidences of breast cancer, ovarian cancer, uterine and endometrial cancer, even colorectal cancer due to the lowering effect estrogen has on levels of bile acid in the colon. for a number of factors i could go into but won't unless anyone is interested, the hormonal contraception has been one of the biggest medical benefits to women in the history of medical science. remove the pill and expect women's life expectancies to roll back.

this is basic physiology and basic science. if in the face of basic science pro-lifers still insist on preventing women from accessing this method of health care, and i reiterate that this method affects fertilization and implantation in NO WAY, then it is not about babies. it's not about embryos or fetuses or future generations. it's about women. controlling what women do with their bodies.

it is an inherently anti-woman policy because it in no way achieves the stated goal of preventing abortion and only impacts women's health in a negative way. it is detrimental to women. it is a policy borne of mistrust or hatred of women. all the stuff about loving babies is just smoke and mirrors at this particular junction in the abortion debate.

What's interesting is that if you had said something along these lines in the first place (minus the smarmy interjections of course ), my reply would've been that I see your point. All I probably would've added is that Bush has also supported legislation that aims to remove condoms from the reach of teenage boys and that blocks stem cell research, so he seems to be a dumb-ass across the board on this to me, with the people being negatively affected ranging from horny teenagers, to women, to people suffering from Alzheimers or paralyzation, etc. But the point you make here is much clearer than what you gave me to read previously. I appreciate it....although I deeply regret that things had to build to the point they did before you finally posted this.

[dubman]

aaaaaand lock thread

[BeautifulBurnout]

I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
— Voltaire

ergo, thread unlocked.

People get heated about things in the World forum. That is the nature of the beast. It is a political forum. Sometimes people agree, sometimes they don't. Sometimes people who agree with each other about 90% of the stuff in here find a point where they don't agree. Spats abound.

But we all respect each other, even if we don't share the same views. And locking a thread just because one has the powah to do so is more than a tad disrespectful not only to those with whom one disagrees, but to anyone who has expressed a point of view in the thread in question.

I can only remember one thread that has ever been locked in the 5 years I have been posting here, and a near-riot ensued. And rightly so, imo. We are adults. We are intelligent. We don't need to stomp on people just because arguments get heated. We all love each other really, no matter what.

Peace.

[IsiliRunite]

Two points:
-Bush MAY support abstaining from sex because he believes marriage is necessary to create families and to have children, because he believes morals and such are learnt from the family. Studies have shown that peer groups and neighbourhoods are more important to learning those life values
-The issue of birth control pills MAY not just be about "control" and ensuring only males have choices; condoms are going to remain legal because they prevent the spread of disease, while birth control does not. This is speculation... sorry if this has been said before, only had time to read cacophony's last past which seemed like a response to everything that was said before.

[Sean]

Originally Posted by BeautifulBurnout

I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
— Voltaire

ergo, thread unlocked.

People get heated about things in the World forum. That is the nature of the beast. It is a political forum. Sometimes people agree, sometimes they don't. Sometimes people who agree with each other about 90% of the stuff in here find a point where they don't agree. Spats abound.

But we all respect each other, even if we don't share the same views. And locking a thread just because one has the powah to do so is more than a tad disrespectful not only to those with whom one disagrees, but to anyone who has expressed a point of view in the thread in question.

I can only remember one thread that has ever been locked in the 5 years I have been posting here, and a near-riot ensued. And rightly so, imo. We are adults. We are intelligent. We don't need to stomp on people just because arguments get heated. We all love each other really, no matter what.

Peace.

Thanks Janie. Frankly I've said all I can say in the debate above, so I don't plan on posting about that particular aspect of the story any more, but it's surprisingly comforting knowing the thread's open again anyway.

Originally Posted by IsiliRunite

-The issue of birth control pills MAY not just be about "control" and ensuring only males have choices; condoms are going to remain legal because they prevent the spread of disease, while birth control does not. This is speculation... sorry if this has been said before, only had time to read cacophony's last past which seemed like a response to everything that was said before.

Here's more from the article about the specific birth control it goes after, which explains why it doesn't include things like condoms.

A copy of a memo that appears to be an HHS draft provided to Reuters, carries a broad definition of abortion.

"The Department proposes to define abortion as 'any of the various procedures -- including the prescription and administration of any drug or the performance of any procedure or any other action -- that results in the termination of the life of a human being in utero between conception and natural birth, whether before or after implantation,'" it said.

Conception occurs when egg and sperm unite in the fallopian tubes. It takes three to four days before the fertilized egg implants in the uterus. Several birth control methods interfere with this, including the birth control pill and IUDs. (my highlights)

So it's apparently only birth control methods that take affect after the sperm has contacted the egg. Presumably because the second they make contact, for the religious right, the individual life has begun. So methods like condoms, or diaphragms, or the good old-fashioned rhythm method () are fine because they (sometimes) block the sperm and egg from ever meeting, thus no life.

It's a pretty extreme stretch that, frighteningly, sounds to me like a move designed to set up the boundaries for laws conservatives would put in place if they ever succeed in overturning Roe vs Wade. I mean, think about it. Would it be easier to redefine abortion to include these contraceptive methods now, while abortion's legal, or later, when it's illegal? While it's legal, less people may worry about how this redefinition would impact their rights. But if it were illegal already, then the impact on rights would be perceived by far more people as a clear and immediate threat. So that's my guess.

Luckily, this issue is receiving direct opposition already from congressional Democrats.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Vote2...5397146&page=1

[Strangelet]

blah blah blah huffington post blah blah blah hillary clinton blah blah I respect her for it

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/hillar..._b_114064.html

[stimpee]

ah self moderation. wonderful.

[Sean]

Originally Posted by Strangelet

blah blah blah huffington post blah blah blah hillary clinton blah blah I respect her for it

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/hillar..._b_114064.html

And by the way, there's a link at the end of the piece that takes you to a petition you can sign opposing the re-categorizing of some birth control methods as abortion.

Cilck here to sign...