So, lemme see if I have this right...so called "pro life" legislators in South Dakota voted against and defeated a bill that would have protected access to contraceptives.
Some pharmacists believe that hormonal forms of birth control and the morning after pill (Plan B) cause abortions, and therefore refuse to dispense them. Currently, they legally allowed to do this by South Dakota state law. The bill would have drawn a clear line between contraceptives and abortifacients, which would have made it illegal for a South Dakota pharmacist to refuse to fill a birth control prescription.
That can't be right. Wait - they are against abortion, so doesn't it make sense that they would support laws that would help to decrease the abortion rate by making it easier for women to prevent unwanted pregnancies?
Apparently not. According to them, a 16 year old girl needs parental permission to obtain birth control. Seriously. How realistic is that? And how many teenage girls have the type of relationship with their parents where they can realistically ask for a permission slip so she can get a prescription for birth control?
The article states:
Kimberly Martinez, executive director of the Alpha Center in Sioux Falls, which provides services to women and men involved in unplanned pregnancies, opposed the bill and applauded the Senate for its majority decision Wednesday..."The key to reducing the number of unwed pregnancies and abortions in South Dakota is sexual integrity relationship education, which includes healthy decision making, healthy relationships and refusal skills," Martinez said.
Oh, so she just thinks that girls need to be taught to say no to sex unless they intend on making a baby. So if a 16 or 17 year old girl wants to have sex with her boyfriend, any pharmacist in the state of South Dakota can refuse to dispense her birth control prescription. And if a grown woman doesn't want to have children, weather or not she is married, then she is in the same situation - have sex at risk of pregnancy, because getting birth control will be a gamble.
A gynecologist who lives and practices in South Dakota disagreed. Maria Bell, who specializes in gynecologic oncology at Sanford Clinic Women's Health, said 95 percent of all women in South Dakota will use a method of birth control at some point in their lives. She added doctors prescribe birth control for reasons other than contraception, such as regulating menstrual cycles or treating ovarian cysts.
"I'm confused as to why more doctors, citizens ... aren't up in arms over this," Bell said of the bill's defeat. "To be denied birth control by the personal beliefs of pharmacists is really appalling."
Because issues like that are never covered on the evening news or on cnn.com or major newspapers. That's why looking at independent news sources is so important. Otherwise the important things like this slip by unnoticed, and you don't realize that you missed your chance to do something about it until you go to your local pharmacy and your pharmacist refuses to fill your prescription, like Karen Romano, the first woman featured in this video:
How the FUCK did I miss Bush openly admitting that he doesn't read the news himself, but relies on "other people who have probably read the news themselves"?????
The only thing I can think is...can he read? Seriously?
Well, for male politicians it is. It's fine for them to have their families campaigning with and for them. But because Chelsea Clinton was campaigning for her mother and making phone calls to celebrities and delegates, MSNBC commentator Bill Shuster said that Hillary had "pimped out" her 27 year old daughter. Never mind that Chelsea grew up in a political family, has politics in her blood, loves her mother and believes in her campaign and naturally wants to do what she can to help.
Never mind that Mitt Romney had his sons driving around and campaigning for him, that was fine. Or that all of the other candidates have had their wives and children make appearances at speeches and help with their campaigns as well. That's fine, but God forbid Chelsea actually make some phone calls on behalf of her mother's campaign. That's clearly prostitution by Hillary.
Bill Schuster has apologized on the air for his remarks and has been suspended by NBC. NBC also offered an apology, but coming after Chris Matthew's chauvanistic comments about Hillary and his apology only a few weeks ago, Clinton may not participate in the February 26th debate scheduled to air on NBC.
I can't blame her. What is she supposed to do now? If she talks about these remarks publicly, then she's playing the "poor me" game, playing for sympathy because she's a poor, picked on woman. If she doesn't address the comments and participates in the debate, then she acts as if it didn't happen and there is really no consequence for commentators who behave this way. She's in a hard spot and I feel for her. That won't change my vote, because I vote on the issues, but I still feel for her. She is getting a different brand of mudslinging and persecution than the other candidates, and it's disgusting.
I love the site RH Reality Check. They provide such great factual information, and have such cool sections, including Policy Watch, Issue Briefs, Election 2008 (which posts surveys that candidates filled out), Fact. v. Fiction and Reckless Rhetoric.
Today their blog has a fantastic article by Dr. Poppema, who was an abortion provider for many years. She completely takes down four common myths about abortion, including my favorite, the "Abortion should not be used as a method of birth control" cry. I have never, ever heard of, let alone met, someone who used abortion as their only method of birth control. But anti-choice people always assure people that there are Evil Women out there who have tons of unprotected sex, then skip off to get an abortion. Yeah, because it's so cheap and easy on a woman's body. Dr. Poppema says:
I hear this one so frequently and yet in decades of providing abortion services to more than 30,000 women, I met only two women who used abortion as a birth control method...These two women experienced blood clots while on birth control pills, ectopic pregnancies with the IUD, and they were allergic to latex condoms and spermicide. Using the rhythm method with abortion as backup was the best method for them. I've never met a woman who cavalierly chose abortion as her method of birth control.
I've always wanted to see statistics to back that claim up as well. So far none of the anti choicers using that as a reason to ban abortion have been able to provide any factual support for that assertion.
My second favorite is the assumption that only stupid or irresponsible sluts need abortions. The good doctor tackles that one as well:
Until we have a foolproof, easy-to-use form of birth control-in my opinion, that would be a pill, paid for by insurance, taken only once a year, with absolutely no side effects or adverse reactions, and absolutely no failures -- then we cannot condemn women for having unintended pregnancies.
OK, so a friend told me that Maryland does have a primary, and it will be on Feb. 12th. Thank goodness she happened to mention it. The only source I could find online that wasn't an advertisement? Wikipedia. But that entry wasn't there a few days ago when I looked. At that point, there was NOTHING.
Now, to find my polling place. That was a bigger challenge. I was sure I had never changed my registered voter address from my parents' house. Why would I? Since then I have moved several times, living in apartments with roommates. So it made sense that I would leave it as my parents' address. So I did a search for finding your polling place in Maryland, and found the University of Maryland, Baltimore County Verify Voter Registration page. I searched by my name and my parents' address. Nope, that's not it. Hmmm. I know I had never filled out the form to change my registered address. So how could that be wrong? I finally just started entering all of the zip codes I had lived in and found it that way. Somehow it was changed to an apartment I lived in for one year 7 years ago. I have no idea how, since I know I never sent any forms to the election board.
At least I found my polling place and it's in an area I'm familiar with, and is nearby. But why does it have to be so difficult? Why can't you look up your polling place using your social security number? That would make sense, since each SS# is unique.
For that matter, why do we have to go to one specific place? If you are registered to vote in a particular state, why can't you just go vote at any polling place in that state? And while we're at it, why not have voting days on weekends? Or have the polls open for an entire week? Not everyone has the kind of job where you can take a long lunch to drive to your polling place and wait in line to vote. I pointed this out to a coworker today, who is black. He paused, then said "And most people who don't have the kind of job where they can take time off to vote are poor people and minorities." BINGO! I know I joke about conspiracy theories, but seriously, think about it.
Chances are you've been bombarded with news about "Super Tuesday". I wanted to really get an understanding of it, since this is really the first year that I've become interested in the political process and the presidential election. Well, I can't find any information that clearly explains what Super Tuesday is or how it works. The best explanation I found was on Wikipedia.
In the United States, Super Tuesday commonly refers to the Tuesday in early February or March of a presidential election year when the greatest number of states hold primary elections to select delegates to national conventions at which each party's presidential candidates are officially nominated. More delegates can be won on Super Tuesday than on any other single day of the primary calendar, and accordingly, candidates seeking the presidency traditionally must do well on this day to secure their party's nomination.
I had to read that a couple of times to really absorb all of it. And then I think, again, that so many things about the way our country elections politicians is messed up. The whole thing about caucases, how much money is needed to run for ANY type of political office, the fact that delegates are the ones doing the nominating, and the fact that we even have an electoral college. Why on earth we don't just have regular, Joe Schmoe citizens voting for people, and have the popular vote determine who is elected, is something I don't understand.
Why the policital process has to be so uncessarily complicated is just mind boggling. I guess it would be asking to much to have it make sense. For example, on Super Tuesday, Wikipedia says that a primary will be held to elect delegates. OK, so who is voting for these delegates? Everyone, or some government body? I can't find an answer anywhere. And if the delegates are the ones who will be making nominations for each party's presidential candidate, then why are the candidates bothering to spend all of this time and money on television commercials, and campaigning to regulary people, when they really just need to win the support of delegates?
It shouldn't be this confusing. If anyone can point me to a good web site that clearly explains how this works, I'd appreciate it. Update at 2 pm on Monday: at least now I don't feel so bad about finding this confusing.
And, I've decided...if it comes down to Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama, I'll vote for Obama. This article on The Nation does a great job of summarizing my own feelings.
I was touched to receive a comment from Feminist Gal today asking "Where are you? You haven't posted in a while." Wow, people actually read my blog, how cool! Well, I'm here. Last week I got a horrific virus that had me puking my guts up for about 10 hours and landed me in the ER due to dehydration. Fun fun. My poor boyfriend had to take me to the ER at 4:45 am, where even though there were only 2 other people in the waiting room we had to wait over an hour, and I had to keep walking to the bathroom to puke.
Speaking of which, whenever a woman of child bearing age who isn't sterilized goes to the doctor or hospital, for any kind of illness, they HAVE to see if you are pregnant. Fine, I understand that they have to take that precaution because many medications can't be given to pregnant women. They asked me if I was pregnant and when my last period was. I answerd that no, I was not pregnant and that my period had just ended. The nurse asks "Is there a chance you could be pregnant?" Well, yeah, I guess, but it has to be pretty damn small since I just told you I just finished my period and I use birth control. I mean, I'm not a statistician, but what kind of answer are they looking for? Since I haven't had a form of permanent sterilization, I can't give them an absolute no.
Then, since my boyfriend is, of course, sitting and waiting with me, one nurse keeps calling me "Mrs." even though I correct her. What, she's never heard of anyone living with their significant other? That wasn't that bad though. Once I was at Georgetown University Hospital, which is Catholic, and even though I was there without my boyfriend at the time, EVERYONE there called me "Mrs." For some reason they seemed to assume that any female over 25 must be married. Weird.
In other news, I made an appointment with a different doctor to talk to her about getting a tubal. My boyfriend and I actually discussed this while at the hospital last week. I was telling him that all of the forms of hormonal birth control had side effects that ruled them out for me, or made me not want to try them. I said "I wish I could just have my tubes tied, that way I could just take the pill to keep my periods under control." He agreed and said it would make the most sense. Then I thought "Wouldn't it be great to NEVER have to worry about getting pregnant again? Yes, yes it would!"
So I have an appointment for next Wednesday. We'll see how it goes. I am going to tell her that I've known for four years that I don't want to have children and that hasn't changed. I'm 32, so hopefully she will take me seriously. If she shows hesitation (as other doctors have) I'll ask at what magic age she will be comfortable giving me a tubal. Or Essure, I'll ask her about that too. That would make my life easier!
I am in my early 30's, in a serious relationship, and neither of us want kids. I love animals, people not so much, and love to critique the media, politics, and pop culture. Oh, and I'm "one of those" feminists.
