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Another Reason to Love Mass

Jill

The state legislature overrode Gov. Mitch Romney’s veto of an emergency contraception bill — once the law goes into effect, Massachusetts will be the eigth state to allow EC to be dispensed without a prescription. The new law also requires the common-sense and compassionate measure of requiring hospitals to offer EC to rape survivors.

What’s upsetting about the article, though, is how uninformed journalists (and, apparently, governors) can be:

But Romney, who describes himself as ”pro-life,” said he had to veto the bill to fulfill a campaign promise not to change the state’s abortion laws. Because the Massachusetts bill does not have an age restriction and Plan B sometimes causes an abortion, Romney argued, the measure undermines the state’s parental consent laws.

I’m getting sick of saying it (and the informed readers of this blog are no doubt sick of hearing it): EC is contraception, not abortion. It doesn’t change abortion law any more than the pill does. And it doesn’t cause abortion any more than the pill does (which is, not at all).

16 thoughts on Another Reason to Love Mass

  1. The fact is that the Christian Right isn’t for the pill. They just can’t frame the issue that way. The preaching of abstinence is a perfect example. Someone should ask them when it is the right time to have sex. Some people don’t get married until their fourties (or never). Do they advocate unmarried people never having sex? I think we know the answer, but they should be forced to avoid the question.

  2. Those eeeeevil religious people.

    Well, I’ve seen the light, especially now that I have been properly informed. I’d probably have to do some more research into reproductive processes to be certain of where I stand, but I’d vote “Yea” to such a pill if the issue were forced on me now. Do I like the championing of the pill by people who like the sex a bit more than I think they should, or whose definition of “morality” is not judging other people’s morality in any way, shape, or form? Not particularly. But pill contraceptives for the ladies, especially safe ones (“Sometimes causes abortions” is a non issue. All pills sometimes do things.), I cannot at this time, with my current knowledge, disapprove.

    But, just do me a favor. If you cannot have no sex, just have less sex, okay? And do it with condoms, alright? Let the dudes complain about “comfortably numb” all they want, safe sex or no sex is what I say! 😛 😉

  3. Although the Catholic Church does not advocate outlawing contraception, it is not afraid of saying that it is not “for the pill” or that unmarried people should not have sex. The Church does not avoid these questions at all. It constantly raises them and asks the world to consider what the Church is teaching about them. The world however refuses to listen. Even most Catholics are unfamiliar with Karol Wojtyla’s book “Love and Responsibility” or the weekly Papal audiences that together are known as the Theology of the Body. In short, the Church seems to be losing the culture war. But it is not because it is avoiding the questions, although it without question could, and should, do a better job of explaining itself. (I encourage all readers of this blog who are interested in sexuality issues to investigate what the Church actually teaches about those issues, and not just rely on the media’s superficial characterizations of it. Women who feel they are treated as sex objects, and who feel they are not being loved for who they are as persons, may be particularly interested in what the Church has to say.)

    The above comment by Michael Hussey seems to find scandalous the idea that sex outside marriage is immoral. This reflects the extreme degree to which sex has lost its meaning in our society.

    Jill, contraception, even contraception that is not abortifacent, does lead to abortion. It does so by creating an attitude that there is a right to have sex without consequence (i.e., to have sex without the responsibility for creating a child), and people who have this attitude are predisposed to abortion when the contraception fails, as all contraception sometimes does. Another possible reason is that it creates competition among women to offer sex without responsibility to men. The latter explanation was given by a left leaning University of Chicago professor. He claims to have verified it with data.)

    The tie between contraception and abortion is also reflected in what has happened over the last 40 years or so. When the pill was first being sold, everyone thought it would decrease demand for abortion. Instead, the opposite has occurred — as contraception became more widespread, so did abortion.

    At the more technical level, it is my understanding that EC at times may act as an abortifacent or, at least, that possibility cannot be ruled out.

  4. Dan, there are other factors besides contraception that have contributed to this. The fact that sex is used to sell everything from cell phones and cars to insurance and stocks should also be examined. America has become hyper-sexualized in this way such that one can’t avoid contact with it if they even try.

    That has also contributed to the notion that sex is losing or has lost it’s meaning. Well, if everything is sexual, it will eventually become something that is not seen as special. Contraception is not the only thing to blame for this problem.

    I agree that there are too many abortions, but I also wholeheartedly believe in a woman’s right to choose without fear of oppression. And, I would rather feel that there are too many abortions than know that there are millions of kids roaming around with absent, unengaged parents who never wanted them.

  5. Women who feel they are treated as sex objects, and who feel they are not being loved for who they are as persons, may be particularly interested in what the [Catholic] Church has to say.

    Praps I wasn’t the only one who read the subject line as a pean Catholic worship services then.

  6. jo-fo, I agree that we are bombarded from all sides with messages and images that degrade women and sex. However, I strongly disagree with your views on abortion. As for the millions of aborted children that are not with us, they might have a different view then you of whether death was preferable to being born. While some in society might find their presence annoying or inconvenient (so black! so poor!), everyone one of us is called to strive to love all children regardless of race and socio-economic status. Incidentally, many women abort not because they don’t want the child but because the father won’t commit to raising the child with her. In this regard, abortion is genuinely a feminist issue. It is the ultimate degredation of a woman when a man has sex with her, impregnates her, and then says: “get an abortion.” Contraception and abortion are the great enablers of this mentality. For the life of me, I do not understand why liberal women fight for this.

  7. Dan, I don’t see the possibly-aborted children as unwanted. Far from it. I love children, and I do see it as a HUMAN duty to love them and make sure they are raised with love and care, regardless of socioeconomic, race, or religious factors. All children are to be loved, period. However, the love of other humans is no substitute for a parent’s love. It may be “adequate”, but it’s not the same.

    And, I agree on the point that sometimes women choose abortion because of an absent father. That goes back to my point about responsible sex – for both parties. It would be the woman’s responsibility to make sure the man she is enjoying sex with is ready to take on that responsibility (i.e., be selective). It is also the man’s responsibility not to think with his pecker and do honor to the responsibility that comes with sex (i.e. use the upper head). If he doesn’t want the possibility of having kids, then he shouldn’t be having sex.

    Contraception is not enough. Education is important too. It is also important to note that sex is a choice, not an obligation. Great as it may be, there is still choice no matter how many hormones are involved. People who are unwilling or unable to accept that commitment, or are frankly unaware that it exists, should not be having sex.

    Contraception is not the problem. The attitude is the problem, and contraception is only a small portion of that attitude.

  8. It is the ultimate degredation of a woman when a man has sex with her, impregnates her, and then says: “get an abortion.” Contraception and abortion are the great enablers of this mentality.

    The men aren’t generally the ones making the decision, for one thing. For another, this is equally true of ordering a woman to give a child up for adoption. For a third, abandonment of living children wasn’t unheard-of before abortion was legal. And finally, has it occurred to you that women might not want to raise a child with the man who impregnates them, or that they might not want to gestate and raise a child even with support? Or that the man and woman might already have a child or several children? It isn’t the man’s obligation these liberal women are complaining about–if you’ll notice, it’s liberal women and feminists who have fought to make the man’s obligations real and legally enforceable whenever the woman does demand support. They’re worried about the unconscionable burden this places on the woman involved, since she’s the one who will have to deal with the pregnancy and who usually assumes more responsibility for parenting whether or not the father remains in her life.

  9. Piny, I didn’t say that women abort only because of lack of support from the father — but it is a very common reason. The other reasons you cite — a woman might not want to raise a child with the father, etc. — are not adequate justifications to kill the child. Lethal violence against the innocent child is never an acceptable response to an “unplanned” pregnancy. Like men, women bear responsibility for lives they help create. Men and women should not have sex if they are not willing to accept the responsibility for the life that might result.

  10. Jill – Here’s a timeline of his … er … evolution when it comes to abortion:
    http://www.ovaloffice2008.com/2005/07/mitt-romney-why-i-vetoed-contraception.html#comments
    Or, to paraphrase Jon Stewart “life begins when you decide to run for president.”
    OHNOES – is it possible for you not to ridicule people’s opinions and imply they are tin-foil hatters who think everything is “eeeevil?” I don’t always agree with you, I don’t always agree with feministe, but I respect other people’s convictions (unless they’re hypocritical or trying to hurt me. Then it’s open season.)

    And as for all this sexual ethics stuff, I personally believe that abstinence until a committed monogamous relationship is an ideal, but I’m not so naive that I think everyone will follow that course. I don’t even know if religion/morality stops people. I read in a textbook (can’t remember the title, author was Alan Brinkley) that 17th century Massachussetts had a 20% rate of premarital pregnancy. This is the City on the Hill, for goodness’ sake; home of the Puritans and the Salem Witch Trials. In the Middle Ages, the “Age of Faith”, most teenage peasant couples married when the girl was already pregnant. In high school I knew a churchgoing Christian who called other girls skanks and talked about how people should “wait” to have sex, but when I asked if that meant she didn’t have sex with her boyfriend, she was like “well, I do …” Conservative, religious states in the bible belt have some of the highest rates of teen pregnancy and out-of-wedlock births (peskyfacts.com), largely because they don’t have contraception/abortion.
    Oh yeah, and I’m against most abortions, and in my view it is far preferable that people should use birth control than abort.
    Plus, abstinence-only education has lots of scientific nonsense in it (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A26623-2004Dec1.html) and I think it’s scary that kids are growing up with misinformation about their bodies and science when their worlds are plastered with smutty reality TV, Girls Gone Wild and Paris Hilton.

  11. Conservative, religious states in the bible belt have some of the highest rates of teen pregnancy…

    I did no similar research on abortions, but teen pregnancy rates are high for ALL high population concentration states, not just the Bible Belt states. Texas is right up there with California. A simple Google search yields that the trends follow pop density lines to the letter. Funny how stats get twisted.

  12. Kate, it is too easy to take for granted such the misconceptions I parody with “eeeevil.” I do not respect people who are predisposed to believe such dogmatic stereotypes simply because that sort of thinking acts as a constant opponent to reasonable analysis. Many people believe these things simply because they appear to go accepted as truths without being challenged. I was the same way several years back, and I take great issue with allowing such assumptions to go unridiculed.

    And some people just live in a different world (See Kos, DU). Arguing with them is futile. The ladies here, however, are much more reasonable.

  14. I got the stats from (http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/pdf/nvsr52_10tB.pdf). MS has nearly 65 pregnancies per 1000 teen girls. TX (64), AK (60), LA (58), OK (58), GA (56), AL (55), TN (54). According to this list “big population states” don’t have as high of numbers – CA (41), FL (45), PA (32) and NY (30). However states with low rates of teen pregnancy, NY, NJ (27), MA (23) and CT (26) also have high abortion rates, so I figure that in general the rates of teens getting pregnant are constant no matter if it’s liberal New England or the conservative South, it’s just that Bible Belt teens don’t get abortions. (Abortion rates courtesy of Kaiser Family Foundation.)
    And as for the “eeeevil” controversy, I’m not thrilled with people who scream that the Dems should filibuster every nominee who they disagree with or people who think that Bush has never made a mistake, but I don’t make fun of them either. Unless, as I said, they’re being hateful or hypocritical.
    As for assumptions going unchallenged, that’s why I obsessively list my sources. For example, I know some people were giggling over the high teen birth rates in the South, as if teens in religious conservative environments actually have sex earlier and more often than teens in liberal/secular environments. But I don’t think they do, because one has to factor in the abortion rate as well.

  15. You’re perfectly entitled to not making fun of them. I still will, though. I feel that nutters are deserving of ridicule.

    [Warning: PDF.] This report on teen pregnancies per state (Scroll down to table on page 8) puts pregnancy rates into much less of a “Bible Belt has lots of sex” range. Just more food for thought. This puts NY at a relatively high 91 pregnancies per 1000 teens 15-19. OK at 86, TX 101, NJ 90… etc.

  16. “Romney argued, the measure undermines the state’s parental consent laws.”

    So get rid of the parental consent laws. Problem solved.

    (Solution suggested aside from the obvious and already-mentioned non-abortivenes of EC, of course).

    And, jeez, “sometimes causes an abortion” ?! A) See above, and B) Let’s ban ALL medications that have side effects, why don’t we?

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