Abortion on Demand and Without Apology

A planned anti-abortion mass march flopped. No march occurred. Anti-abortion failed to draw more people today. Police now at the scene and are keeping the two groups separated. No arrests or incidents reported at this time.

Crowds from both sides of the abortion rights debate met and exchanged words (and an elbow or two) outside the Family Planning Clinic on N. Westmoreland in Los Angeles on Saturday. Pro-Choicers made a line around the entrance, creating what organizer, Katie, called a “safe zone” for would-be patients at the clinic. Pro-life activists stood and sang or knelt and prayed across the sidewalk and down the street, sometimes outnumbering the Pro-Choice contingent by 2 to 1. “The goal is to protect the clinic,” one Pro-Choice volunteer said, “we’re trying to keep it open, and the other side is trying to shut it down.” They’re trying to shut it down, she explained, by physically blocking the entrance to the building or meeting women at their cars and trying to deter them from going into the building. The conflict comes from a new push by a group called 40 Days For Life Los Angeles (FDFL), who are a religious group that has called for a presence at family planning clinics around the country. They have been met in Los Angeles by Pro-Choice activists, and both sides of the conflict admit it hasn’t been easy. One Pro-Choice activist told me a story that although they’ve been able to help escort many young women into the clinic without much trouble, there has been at least one young woman who went away in tears after being confronted by Pro-Life protesters. “We’re out here to pray,” FDFL organizer Jonathan Anthony said. “We’re here to pray for these people; for those people who work at abortion clinics; to pray for everybody.” Several Pro-Choice activists claim to have witnessed the FDFL group “accosting” young women going into the clinic, but Anthony counters that the group is there to offer counseling, not hate. When asked if one of the FDFL goals was to intimidate people in order to keep them from going into the clinic, he first said “a little bit, yes.” After a moment, he revised himself: “no, I don’t want to say it that way…Everybody wants to do good. We are trying to be the light in their lives; their hope in their lives.” He continued: “sometimes it looks like we are there to make them hurt or something, but they have to give thought to this decision.” Things turned physical at one point during the day when both a Pro-Choice and a Pro-Life activist were talking to the same young potential patient. The Pro-Choice activist accused the Pro-Life activist of assaulting her by using his elbow to violently push her out of the way. The altercation was brought to the attention of the police on the scene, and assault charges were filed against the man. This coming Saturday, the 40 Days For Life group will be marching from a church near MacArthur Park to the clinic at 601 N. Westmoreland to protest the clinic again. Organizers of the Pro-Choice movement are asking that people who wish to help bring signs and water, and show up as early as 8:00am to confront the march at around 10:00am. The vigil will likely last into the afternoon. LOCATION: 601 N. Westmoreland Ave, Los Angeles, 90004 DATE: Saturday, October 10th, starting at 8:00am until end

From the New York Times (December 7, 2011). Boldface mine, for the parts that feel like getting kicked right in the stomach.

WASHINGTON — For the first time ever, the Health and Human Services secretary publicly overruled the Food and Drug Administration, refusing Wednesday to allow emergency contraceptives to be sold over the counter, including to young teenagers. The decision avoided what could have been a bruising political battle over parental control and contraception during a presidential election season.

The contraceptive pill, called Plan B One-Step, has been available without a prescription to women 17 and older, but those 16 and younger have needed a prescription — and they still will because of the decision by the health secretary, Kathleen Sebelius. If taken soon after unprotected sex, the pill halves the chances of a pregnancy.

Although Ms. Sebelius had the legal authority to overrule the F.D.A., no health secretary had ever publicly done so, an F.D.A. spokeswoman said… .

— Gardiner Harris, Plan to Widen Availability of Morning-After Pill is Rejected, New York Times (Dec. 7, 2011)

Until now.

Ms. Sebelius’s decision on an emotional issue that touches on parental involvement in birth control for teenage children is likely to have powerful political reverberations. Scientists and politicians have been at odds for years over whether to make Plan B available over the counter. The Bush administration at first rejected over-the-counter availability for women of any age, but ultimately allowed it for women 18 and older. After a federal court order, the Obama administration lowered the age to 17 in 2009.

With Ms. Sebelius’s decision on Wednesday, the Obama administration is taking a more socially conservative stance on Plan B, one closer to that of the Bush administration than to many of its own liberal supporters … .

For Dr. [Margaret] Hamburg [head of the Food and Drug Administration], the studies and experts all agreed that young women would benefit from having easy access to the pill and did not need the intervention of a health care provider. The agency’s scientists, she wrote, determined that the product was safe and effective in adolescent females, that adolescent females understood the product was not for routine use, and that the product would not protect them against sexually transmitted disease.

… Dr. Susan Wood, a former F.D.A. assistant commissioner who resigned in 2005 to protest the Bush administration’s handling of Plan B, said that there were many drugs available over the counter that had not been studied in pre-adolescents and that were far more dangerous to them.

Acetaminophen can be fatal, but it’s available to everyone, Dr. Wood noted. So why are contraceptives singled out every single time when they’re actually far safer than what’s already out there?

… The American Medical Association, the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and the American Academy of Pediatrics have endorsed over-the-counter access to emergency contraception. Plan B was approved in 1999 as a prescription-only product, and it initially had few sales. In 2003, advocates filed an application for over-the-counter sales.

An expert advisory committee recommended approval, and scientists within the Food and Drug Administration unanimously supported that recommendation. Their rationale was simple: women can decide on their own when they need to take it, the drug is effective and its risks are minimal — particularly compared with pregnancy. But in a highly unusual move, top agency officials rejected the application because, some said later, they feared being fired if they approved it.

The agency delayed reconsideration for years despite promises by top Bush administration officials to do so. Then in 2006, the Bush administration allowed over-the-counter sales to women 18 and older but required a prescription for those 17 and younger. In 2009, the F.D.A. lowered the easy-access age limit by a year after a federal judge ruled that its decision had been driven by politics and not science.

— Gardiner Harris, Plan to Widen Availability of Morning-After Pill is Rejected, New York Times (Dec. 7, 2011)

Progressive Pro-Choice Peace President Barack Hussein Obama would like the Washington Post to know that he didn’t do it. He didn’t do it, but he dug it.

President Obama said Thursday that he supports his administration’s decision to block unrestricted sale of the morning-after pill to people younger than 17, a move that dismayed women’s advocates when it was announced by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.

Sebelius said Wednesday that she had overruled the Food and Drug Administration, which had decided to make the contraceptive available to people of all ages directly off drugstore and supermarket shelves, without a prescription.

Obama said he did not get involved in the decision to require a prescription for girls 16 and under before it was announced, leaving it up to Sebelius.

But, he said: I will say this. As the father of two daughters, I think it is important for us to make sure that we apply some common sense to various rules when it comes to over-the-counter medicine.

And as I understand it, the reason Kathleen made this decision was she could not be confident that a 10-year-old or an 11-year-old, going to a drug store, should be able to, alongside bubble gum or batteries, purchase a powerful drug to stop a pregnancy, Obama said. I think most parents would probably feel the same way.

— Rob Stein and Anne E. Kornblut, Obama defends administration’s refusal to relax Plan B restrictions, The Washington Post (Dec. 8, 2011).

Especially parents who are trying to win a political election. I wonder if they bothered to ask an 11-year-old girl, who is afraid of becoming pregnant, how she feels about it?

About 10 percent of girls are physically capable of bearing children by 11.1 years of age. It is common knowledge that there are significant cognitive and behavioral differences between older adolescent girls and the youngest girls of reproductive age, Sebelius said.

— Rob Stein and Anne E. Kornblut, Obama defends administration’s refusal to relax Plan B restrictions, The Washington Post (Dec. 8, 2011).

Therefore, the state should ensure that the youngest girls of reproductive age are forced to get pregnant.

Back in the New York Times:

Norman Ornstein, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, said the Obama administration may be trying to assuage Catholic bishops and others angered in recent weeks by a decision requiring that health insurance programs created under the new health reform law offer contraceptives for free.

I think they’re trying to create some political balance, Mr. Ornstein said.

— Gardiner Harris, Plan to Widen Availability of Morning-After Pill is Rejected, New York Times (Dec. 7, 2011)

Yes, a balance. Marvel as President Obama, liberal voters and the Catholic Bishops defy gravity in a spectacular balancing act! Right on top of a terrified 12 year old girl’s body.

This decision is inexcusable. And what makes it even worse is having to watch to the newsmedia calmly discussing the political calculations that went into it, as if what really mattered here had nothing to do with the lives affected by this decision, with the girls who have to live in fear of an unwanted pregnancy because their access to basic medical treatments has been regimented and sacrificed for the sake of a Democratic politician’s political prospects — as if what was really worth discussing was whether that palavering creep and the rest of his administration will be able to effectively exploit this regulatory backstab to increase their chances at holding onto political power for another four years. There are no English words for just how contemptible this shameful display is.

See also:

• GT 2011-10-22: Change You Can Believe In (Vol. III, No. 10)
• GT 2011-04-30: Change You Can Believe In (Vol. III, No. 4, April 2011)
• GT 2011-03-30: Change You Can Believe In (Vol. III, No. 3, March 2011)
• GT 2011-02-06: Change You Can Believe In (Cont’d)
• GT 2011-01-27: Change You Can Believe In

From GT 2009-08-20: Tonight, in News of the Obvious:

And in breaking news from NARAL Pro-Choice America, it turns out that government provision of healthcare means that women’s healthcare will be allocated through a political process, and when women’s reproductive healthcare is allocated through a political process, women’s reproductive healthcare ends up being subjected to the vicissitudes of political debate over abortion.

NARAL may not draw the conclusion from its report, but the editorial board here at News of the Obvious will: setting aside outright political prohibitions, which aren’t likely to pass in the near future, a broad expansion of political control over women’s healthcare is the single worst thing that could possibly happen towards undermining women’s access to abortion and reproductive medicine.

— GT 2009-08-20: Tonight, in News of the Obvious

The House of Representatives just recently passed an omnibus health insurance bill which includes extensive new government involvement in health insurance and a strong public option of broad-based government-provided health insurance. The explicit purpose of this bill is to expand political control and political funding in the health insurance industry — to expand government’s role and responsibility in directly paying for healthcare and medical procedures, and to shift more of the money coming in to for-profit health insurance companies away from private sources, and towards government funding sources.

So-called Progressive While so-called Progressive organizations on the male Left — groups like MoveOn and SEIU and the AFL-CIO — have been celebrating the passage of the House bill as a great big win. MoveOn.org calls it historic health care reform and headlines their front page Victory!; now they are staging Countdown to Change rallies to thank those representatives who stood with the American people (by this, they mean those that voted for expanding the scope of the American government). In an e-mail circulated to their mailing list, the AFL-CIO called it a truly historic movement and called on supporters to pressure their Senators to pass a similar bill in order to ensure final victory.

Well, wait.

Just one little problem about this Huge Step Forward: turns out that, if it passes the Senate too, it will strip millions of women of access to abortion, by using strings attached to the new government funding to stop both the public option health insurance plans and plans offered by existing insurance companies from covering abortion procedures.

Oops.

From the National Organization for Women:

The House of Representatives has dealt the worst blow to women’s fundamental right to self-determination in order to buy a few votes for reform of the profit-driven health insurance industry. We must protect the rights we fought for in Roe v. Wade. We cannot and will not support a health care bill that strips millions of women of their existing access to abortion.

Birth control and abortion are integral aspects of women’s health care needs. Health care reform should not be a vehicle to obliterate a woman’s fundamental right to choose.

The Stupak Amendment goes far beyond the abusive Hyde Amendment, which has denied federal funding of abortion since 1976. The Stupak Amendment, if incorporated into the final version of health insurance reform legislation, will:

• Prevent women receiving tax subsidies from using their own money to purchase private insurance that covers abortion;
• Prevent women participating in the public health insurance exchange, administered by private insurance companies, from using 100 percent of their own money to purchase private insurance that covers abortion;
• Prevent low-income women from accessing abortion entirely, in many cases.

NOW calls on the Senate to pass a health care bill that respects women’s constitutionally protected right to abortion and calls on President Obama to refuse to sign any health care bill that restricts women’s access to affordable, quality reproductive health care.

—Terry O’Neill, National Organization for Women (2009-11-08): NOW Opposes Health Care Bill That Strips Millions of Women of Abortion Access Says Bill Obliterates Women’s Fundamental Right to Choose

Once again, this should come as no surprise. Government health insurance means political allocation for women’s healthcare — for any and every one of the women who is moved over to public options and public-private partnerships on the public health insurance exchanges.

Political allocation of women’s healthcare means that women’s healthcare will be subjected to political debate and sacrificed in the name of political compromises — which, in this country, means being subjected and sacrificed to the Gentleman’s Agreement between anti-choice partisans, on the one hand, and, on the other, the doughface politicos, who just don’t give much of a damn about women’s lives or health or freedom, and are happy to treat them as optional as long as they’ve got a bill to pass or a Democrat to elect.

This healthcare bill, authored by Democrats, pushed by Democrats, and supposedly a key aspect of the male liberal’s agenda for Progressive social change, will almost certainly mean a massive government-sponsored assault on women’s access to abortion. Women’s bodies are not public property; women’s health should not be subject to public controversy or dependent on the approval of the public (which means, in fact, the loudest and most belligerent voices in politics). But as long as government is calling the shots on women’s healthcare, women’s healthcare is always going to be compromised and sacrificed in the name of political agendas. The only way to make sure that women’s healthcare will no longer be treated as public-optional is real radical healthcare reform — not by preserving the government-regimented corporatist status quo, but rather by getting government out of healthcare entirely — by cutting the government strings that always come attached to government money — by getting rid of government subsidy and government regimentation and replacing them with grassroots mutual aid, abortion funds, community-supported free clinics, and other forms of low-cost healthcare free of political control because they are supported by free association and community organizing, rather than taxation and political allocation. That is to say, by taking the funding for women’s healthcare out of the hands of politicians, and putting in the hands of women themselves.

Expanding government control of healthcare funding is anti-choice, anti-woman, and would represent the single biggest assault on women’s access to abortion in the last 30 years.

See also:

• GT 2009-08-20: Tonight, in News of the Obvious
• GT 2007-10-25: Radical healthcare reform
• GT 2005-11-03: Goodbye to all that. Again.

• one correlate of the idea that time is progressive and that we. Captain Capitulation, eye of the storm (2009-10-04). one correlate of the idea that time is progressive and that we are it which should give progressives pause is the way the idea has articulated cultures. so, for example, hegel held that africa had no history, was outside of history. in anthropology into the midlate twentieth century, you got... (Linked Saturday 2009-10-17.)
• it's amazing that when people discuss genocide, as in daniel. Captain Capitulation, eye of the storm (2009-10-17). it's amazing that when people discuss genocide, as in daniel goldhagen's new book (at least as it's represented in the review; i intend to read it), or in the alternative views mentioned in the review ('“Mobilizing the Will to Intervene,” a study by leading Canadian and American figures, identifies “poverty... (Linked Saturday 2009-10-17.)
• Economies of Scale in Compliance, by David Henderson. EconLog (2009-10-11). This morning, after a highly-productive Liberty Fund seminar in Santa Fe, I went over to Pasquale's for breakfast. I sat with a woman who runs a Mexican restaurant in a small town in Colorado. We talked about various things, including her criticism of "factory farms" that, in her view and... (Linked Saturday 2009-10-17.)
• The Pill makes you attracted to pansies. Jill, Feministe (2009-10-13). Or so says perpetually off-kilter Jill Stanek — except she uses the term “quiche-eaters.” Basically, a study says that women who use birth control tend to be attracted to men with more boyish features with caring personalities, versus “rugged” men with controlling personalities. The study itself is questionable, and the... (Linked Saturday 2009-10-17.)
• RRND/FND Bleg. Kn@ppster, KN@PPSTER (2009-09-16). I don't usually talk much about my day job here at KN@PPSTER, and when we run a fundraiser over there I usually give it at most a mention here. This one's a bit different and I figure it's a "hit hard, everywhere" situation. So:Dear readers,Over the years, we've tried various... (Linked Saturday 2009-10-17.)
• Berlusconi Hides Nipple of Truth. Kerry Howley, Kerry Howley: Reason Magazine articles and blog posts. (2008-08-06). Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi likes the painting to the right, a Giambattista Tiepolo work called "La Verità Svelata dal Tempo." (The Truth Unveiled by Time.) He likes it so much that he gives news conferences with a reproduction of the painting as backdrop. Truth, the young woman, is front... (Linked Monday 2009-10-19.)
• A bad attitude -- the new felony. wendy@nospam.com (Wendy McElroy), WendyMcElroy.com : News (2009-10-16). A bad attitude -- the new felony (Linked Monday 2009-10-19.)
• the best version of this story i read ended with the moral "some infinities are bigger than others". HOW TRUE. Dinosaur Comics (2009-10-19). archive - contact - sexy exciting merchandise - search - about– ← previousOctober 19th, 2009nextOctober 19th, 2009: The talk went well! Or at least, I hope it did. A CONFESSION: I queued up all these comics and posts way back when it was last Wednesday, because I was worried I'd... (Linked Monday 2009-10-19.)

• one correlate of the idea that time is progressive and that we. Captain Capitulation, eye of the storm (2009-10-04). one correlate of the idea that time is progressive and that we are it which should give progressives pause is the way the idea has articulated cultures. so, for example, hegel held that africa had no history, was outside of history. in anthropology into the midlate twentieth century, you got... (Linked Saturday 2009-10-17.)
• it's amazing that when people discuss genocide, as in daniel. Captain Capitulation, eye of the storm (2009-10-17). it's amazing that when people discuss genocide, as in daniel goldhagen's new book (at least as it's represented in the review; i intend to read it), or in the alternative views mentioned in the review ('“Mobilizing the Will to Intervene,” a study by leading Canadian and American figures, identifies “poverty... (Linked Saturday 2009-10-17.)
• Economies of Scale in Compliance, by David Henderson. EconLog (2009-10-11). This morning, after a highly-productive Liberty Fund seminar in Santa Fe, I went over to Pasquale's for breakfast. I sat with a woman who runs a Mexican restaurant in a small town in Colorado. We talked about various things, including her criticism of "factory farms" that, in her view and... (Linked Saturday 2009-10-17.)
• The Pill makes you attracted to pansies. Jill, Feministe (2009-10-13). Or so says perpetually off-kilter Jill Stanek — except she uses the term “quiche-eaters.” Basically, a study says that women who use birth control tend to be attracted to men with more boyish features with caring personalities, versus “rugged” men with controlling personalities. The study itself is questionable, and the... (Linked Saturday 2009-10-17.)
• RRND/FND Bleg. Kn@ppster, KN@PPSTER (2009-09-16). I don't usually talk much about my day job here at KN@PPSTER, and when we run a fundraiser over there I usually give it at most a mention here. This one's a bit different and I figure it's a "hit hard, everywhere" situation. So:Dear readers,Over the years, we've tried various... (Linked Saturday 2009-10-17.)
• Berlusconi Hides Nipple of Truth. Kerry Howley, Kerry Howley: Reason Magazine articles and blog posts. (2008-08-06). Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi likes the painting to the right, a Giambattista Tiepolo work called "La Verità Svelata dal Tempo." (The Truth Unveiled by Time.) He likes it so much that he gives news conferences with a reproduction of the painting as backdrop. Truth, the young woman, is front... (Linked Monday 2009-10-19.)
• A bad attitude -- the new felony. wendy@nospam.com (Wendy McElroy), WendyMcElroy.com : News (2009-10-16). A bad attitude -- the new felony (Linked Monday 2009-10-19.)
• the best version of this story i read ended with the moral "some infinities are bigger than others". HOW TRUE. Dinosaur Comics (2009-10-19). archive - contact - sexy exciting merchandise - search - about– ← previousOctober 19th, 2009nextOctober 19th, 2009: The talk went well! Or at least, I hope it did. A CONFESSION: I queued up all these comics and posts way back when it was last Wednesday, because I was worried I'd... (Linked Monday 2009-10-19.)

Shared by heather
so right on. oh em gee.

…er, okay, actually the article is called “Lady Parts,” by William Saletan. He doesn’t really talk about any lady parts in it, though, so I thought the above title was a far more accurate descriptor of his latest offering of emergency toilet paper (just hit “Print!”).

You know, that observation is worth pursuing a little. William Saletan, in this article about abortion, in vitro fertilization, pregnancy and surrogate motherhood, manages to discuss them all without once referring to a mature human female uterus. He does manage to refer seven times to a developing human embryo, though. What a surprise!

Clearly I (and Amanda*, and others) are not the only ones who have been steadily repulsed by Saletan’s concern trolling about abortion for, well, years now. Apparently, he has gotten a flood of inquiries on the subject!

…I’ve had a few curious exchanges with friends, readers, and bloggers who wonder why I keep writing about this stuff: abortions, pregnancies, IVF, surrogates—what some of my critics jokingly call “lady parts.” What’s my agenda? Do I have a problem with women controlling their bodies? Am I a frontman for the religious right, a useful idiot who pretends that compromise on these issues is possible when, in fact, it isn’t? Even Vorzimer, in a tweet posted on his blog, initially responded to my article by remarking, “The lengths (or depths) abortion foes will go to make a point.”

(Answers, in order: Saletan’s agenda is shaming anyone who disagrees with him about the evils of abortion on demand, clearly he has a real problem with women controlling the fate of anything lodged in their uteruses, and no, he’s not a frontman for the religious right, though I would venture to say that he is, indeed, quite useful to them.)

Saletan goes on to give one of the best descriptions I’ve ever read of the workings of the mind of a anti-choice concern troll. A masterpiece!

This may sound strange, but I don’t consider myself a real abortion foe. I have friends and sparring partners who think abortions should be illegal or at least heavily restricted. To me, that’s the chief dividing line in the debate. I don’t feel comfortable crossing that line. I don’t think a regime of abortion restrictions enacted in the name of life would make this world a better place. I think it would cause a mess—hypocrisy, deceit, interrogations, amateur home surgery, moral crudity backed by the force of law—as ugly as any war fought in the name of peace.

I don’t equate abortion with murder. I don’t even think it’s the worst option available to a woman facing unintended pregnancy. Every abortion dilemma is different, because every situation is different. The person best situated to make the right decision is the pregnant woman. A few years ago, I wrote a whole book on this point.

So why do I keep bringing up abortion as a moral problem? Because it is a moral problem. It’s the destruction of a developing human being. For that reason, the less we do it, the better. When I say abortion is bad, I’m not saying it’s necessarily worse than bringing a child into the world in lousy circumstances. I’m saying it’s worse than avoiding unintended pregnancy in the first place. That’s why I keep pushing contraception. If you cause an unintended pregnancy and an abortion because you didn’t want to wear a condom, you should be ashamed.

I mean, it’s beautiful in its perfection. I don’t get to see these too often in the world of choice debate; the place where I usually see them used over and over is in the gay/lesbian debate world, under the rallying cry of “Of course we don’t hate homosexuals themselves! What we hate is homosexuality. Hate the sin, love the sinner!”

Let’s recontext what Saletan has to say, and see if it starts to sound awfully damn familiar to you too:

This may sound strange, but I don’t consider myself a real abortion homosexuality foe. I have friends and sparring partners who think abortion same-sex marriage should be illegal or at least heavily restricted. To me, that’s the chief dividing line in the debate. I don’t feel comfortable crossing that line. I don’t think a regime of abortion restrictions enacted against homosexual relationships in the name of life morality would make this world a better place. I think it would cause a mess—hypocrisy, deceit, interrogations, amateur home surgery,** moral crudity backed by the force of law—as ugly as any war fought in the name of peace.

I don’t equate abortion homosexual intercourse with murder. I don’t even think it’s the worst option sin available to a woman person facing unintended pregnancy an attraction to a member of the same sex. Every abortion homosexuality dilemma is different, because every situation is different. The person best situated to make the right decision is the pregnant woman person having the homosexual feelings. A few years ago, I wrote a whole book on this point.***

So why do I keep bringing up abortion homosexuality as a moral problem? Because it is a moral problem. It’s the destruction of a developing human being the traditional family unit. For that reason, the less we do it, the better. When I say abortion having a homosexual relationship is bad, I’m not saying it’s necessarily worse than bringing a child into the world in lousy circumstances never marrying someone of the opposite sex. I’m saying it’s worse than avoiding unintended pregnancy in the first place having homosexual desires in the first place. That’s why I keep pushing contraception conversion therapy. If you cause an unintended pregnancy enter into a homosexual relationship and an abortion get married to that person because you didn’t want to wear a condom you didn’t want to undergo conversion therapy, you should be ashamed.

In other words, frothing at the mouth on the subject doesn’t really impress anyone who doesn’t already agree with me, so why not try to subtly ooze into the debate by affixing a large-eyed, sorrowful look to my visage and offering up some gentle-voiced shaming? As long as you listen to me and bob your head and agree that yes, you have done a terrible, monstrous thing and you are a bad, wicked person and you are very, very lucky that Lord Saletan is such a noble person that he is willing to restrain himself from campaigning to have you put into prison for your actions!

Best line in the whole piece:

And I write about the value of unborn life because that’s the problem my fellow pro-choicers don’t like to talk about.

Pro-choicers talk about the value of unborn life all the time. They love to talk about the value of unborn life. They simply don’t assign it the same value that Saletan does. Given that, one might consider the entire sentence to be one flaming whopper, except that there are no such people as Saletan’s “fellow pro-choicers.” There are such people as his “fellows,” and there are “pro-choicers,” but William Saletan can’t have fellow pro-choicers, because he’s not really pro-choice. Tout finis!

*I mention Amanda because I was bragging on Facebook to her just yesterday that even though I did see Saletan’s two latest pieces on the soul-rending tragedy that is aborted fetuses, I didn’t give in and blog about them. Clearly I underestimated my own strength and Saletan’s ability to deliver the final straw up so quickly afterwards.

**Probably not amateur surgery–the only real FAIL in the comparison, though.

***He hasn’t written one about homosexuality. But I wouldn’t be at all surprised to discover that there was one in the works.

****If you don’t want to read the entire blog post, the short answer is, Because he’s both smarmy and pro-life.

A new Guttmacher Institute report makes a strong case for contraception — and legal abortion — as a way to reduce the 70,000 deaths from unsafe abortions that occur every year. Unfortunately, the Catholic Church still isn't listening.

As we mentioned yesterday, the report found no correlation between abortion rates and legality of abortion. That is, regions where abortion is banned don't actually have lower rates of abortion — they just have lots of women getting unsafe abortions. Unfortunately for women all over the world, the pro-choice argument that women will seek back-alley abortions if the procedure is forbidden turns out to be totally true. The Guttmacher Institute estimates that 70,000 women die every year from unsafe abortions, another 5 million need to be treated for complications, and 3 million suffer such complications but never get treated at all. The sample methods of unsafe abortion the Institute lists are chilling, and include drinking manure and jumping off a roof.

What does reduce the rate of abortions? Contraception. Worldwide, the rate of unintended pregnancy has dropped, just as the rate of contraceptive use among married women has risen. And Eastern Europe, where the greatest decline in abortion was reported, has seen a corresponding rise in contraceptive use. Unfortunately, only 28% of married African women use contraception, and one in four has an unmet need for contraceptives — meaning she is fertile and sexually active but does not currently want to have a child. Most commonly, the problem is lack of availability.

The Catholic Church, which has a lot of influence in many of the developing countries where the most unsafe abortion occurs, is pretty much holding its hands over its ears and singing through this news. Deirdre McQuade of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities says, "We need to be much more creative in assisting women with supportive services so they don't need to resort to the unnatural act of abortion." This stance is pretty unsurprising. A little more disturbing is McQuade's take on contraception. According to the AP, she says "that use of artificial contraception could increase a women's health risks and said they would fare better using natural family planning methods approved by the church." Given that "natural family planning" can require careful timing on the part of both partners, it may not be an effective method in places where women's status in a relationship is low. And of course, it doesn't protect against STDs. It would have made sense for McQuade to cite religious objections to contraception, but describing as a "women's health risk" the very thing that can protect women from both unsafe abortion and disease just seems ridiculous. Luckily, Guttmacher Institute president Sharon Camp says,

The Catholic Church has informally at least stopped fighting against contraception to the degree it once did and put more of its energies into fighting abortion. On the ground there are priests and nuns who refer people to family planning services.

It's important to remember that unsafe abortions don't happen only in developing countries. Yesterday a 17-year-old Utah girl was released after being charged with murder for paying a man to beat her in order to induce abortion. Why would an American teenager resort to this? Maybe because as of 2005, Utah had only six abortion providers, and 93% of counties had no provider? Or because Utah has a parental consent law that would have required the girl's parents to agree to the abortion? The Guttmacher Institute report makes three recommendations: improve postabortion care, expand access to contraceptives, and expand access to safe and legal abortion. These measures are just as necessary in the US as they are around the world.

Abortion And Unintended Pregnancy Decline Worldwide As Contraceptive Use Increases [Guttmacher Institute]
Facts On Induced Abortion Worldwide [Guttmacher Institute]
Unsafe Abortions Kill 70,000 A Year [Guardian]
Unsafe Abortions Kill 70,000 Annually [AP]
Girl Who Tried Killing Her Fetus Released [UPI.com]

Matt Cockerill at the Young Americans for Liberty blog wants to know why there aren’t more libertarian women. By which he apparently means that he wants to know why more women don’t read his own personal libertarian blog and why more women don’t go to the libertarian political events that he personally goes to. (Which is actually a separate question, although men posting Where’s the women? posts never quite seem to recognize that.)

The first point in Matt’s discussion is to ask whether this might be the result of intractable forces predisposing women to be anti-libertarian. (Along with a link to an LRC article arguing, based purely on anecdote and appeal to conventional wisdom, that women are instinctually anti-libertarian because they are too emotional and mostly incapable of abstract thought.)

The second point in Matt’s discussion is to wish for more women to show up for his Sausage Party because libertarian men are currently being driven insane by the lack of young libertarian women to hit on.

But I do know that a proportional increase in libertarian women would do well to preserve the sanity of libertarian men. As it stands, the young female “itinerary” [sic! —R.G.] is mostly composed of Obama zombies, fully-blown Marxists, and “murder-all-Iranians” type chickenhawks. This undoubtedly needs to change.

The first commenter, Anonymous, adds: Most women/girls are more emotional than logical. The ones who think with their brain and not their heart are libertarians. But at the same time most libertarian women have a hard time being libertarian with ALL issues.

The third commenter, John M., adds: I think many of the libertarian women that read this site would take offense to being labeled as more emotional than logical. A more scientific distinction would be to argue that the ratio exists because men are naturally more skilled at mathematics and science whereas women are more skilled in the disciplines of reading and writing. This gives men an advantage at comprehending and anaylzing the ramifications of policies. But he does want more women in the movement, because he believes (based on the experience of Sarah Palin, who he insults as having little … brain-power or charisma) that having a few women on the ticket (a few women who he believes will need to be politically educated by libertarian men) they will be useful for getting out the vote.

Commenter Jack, in reply to John M.’s mention of a female professor who once chewed [him] up for saying that women are more emotional than logical, adds: LOL. More indoctrination. I hate to hear stories of culturally marxist academia. It would be one thing to politely disagree, but professors these days will eat you up if you try to say that any two people are different than each other in any way. Matt Cockerill comes back around to use this as an opportunity to tell us what he thinks is wrong with the modern women’s movement: The result of the egalitarian, denialist feminist indoctrination of the last few decades has been a generation of guys afraid to act like guys, and women who hate most of us for being fakers.

Matt Cockerill also comes back around to mention that he opposes a woman’s right to abortion, and that he considers this position compatible with the politics of individual liberty.

Sometimes, when women don’t show up for your parties, the best thing to do is not to ask whether there’s something wrong with women that makes them naturally predisposed not to dig the things you think they should dig. Because, dude, sometimes the reason that women don’t want to hang out with you is because there’s something wrong with you. And, specifically, because there’s something wrong with the way that you treat women.

And if you want a good example, why not start with the way you approached your original question?

Incidentally, be sure to read through the comments thread on the original post — not because the bulk of the comments are enlightening or even maginally original, but rather because radical feminist, left-libertarian Drunkenatheist’s commentary on the bulk of the comments is. Props.

(Link thanks to Drunkenatheist [2009-08-28].)

See also:

• GT 2008-08-08: Proof by ostention

Las Vegas correspondent Walter E. Gunther writes in to the Las Vegas Sun, Politicians mostly put their own needs first.

And in breaking news from NARAL Pro-Choice America, it turns out that government provision of healthcare means that women’s healthcare will be allocated through a political process, and when women’s reproductive healthcare is allocated through a political process, women’s reproductive healthcare ends up being subjected to the vicissitudes of political debate over abortion.

NARAL may not draw the conclusion from its report, but the editorial board here at News of the Obvious will: setting aside outright political prohibitions, which aren’t likely to pass in the near future, a broad expansion of political control over women’s healthcare is the single worst thing that could possibly happen towards undermining women’s access to abortion and reproductive medicine.