In defense of the sanctimonious women's studies set || First feminist blog on the internet

De-coding anti-choice propaganda

dudes
Thumbs up for womb control! Hell yeah!

Via Feministing I came across this gem of an article, wonderfully titled, “Democrats Plans for Dividing and Demonizing Pro-Lifers: Plan to promote more contraception and thereby make pro-lifers look like hypocritical extremists.”

Ha.

The rest of the article is just as good, except not as honest about the whole “anti-choicers are hypocritical extremists” thing. Actually, not honest at all. And by “not honest at all,” I mean “packed full of more lies that your average statement by Dick Cheney.” Below the fold, the article itself, and my translations bolded in brackets.

FRONT ROYAL, Virginia, January 26, 2007 (pop.org/LifeSiteNews.com) – Democratic leaders in Congress have quietly begun the next phase of their new strategy to divide and demonize pro-life Americans [Democrats are promoting education, contraception, and other tried-and-true methods of lowering the abortion rate. Pro-life groups oppose these measures, demonstrating that they don’t actually want to lower the abortion rate. Therefore, it is the Democrats’ fault that they look bad]. This strategy includes targeting crisis pregnancy centers because of their tremendous success [and by “tremendous success” we mean “accepting federal and state money to lie, coerce and mislead women, all with blatant religious interests”], a strategy led by Rep. Henry Waxman (D.-Calif.), the new chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee thanks to last fall’s election results.

Waxman and others are miffed because CPCs tell women about the incontrovertible connection between abortion and breast cancer [and by “incontrovertable connection,” I actually mean “no connection at all, as proven by numerous scientific studies and a detailed review conducted by the National Cancer Institute with participation from more than 100 of the world’s leading experts on pregnancy and breast cancer risk, wherein only one person filed a dissent, and that person is a born-again pro-life Christian”]. He is also the Democrats’ point man against teaching children to abstain from sexual relations [He is also the Democrat who released the Waxman Report, which shone a bright light on all the anti-choice lies that right-wingers are teaching kids in sex ed class, like the ideas that AIDS can be spread through tears, women are simpering idiots and sexual objects, and being gay, having sex or terminating a pregnancy will probably make you kill yourself, if those behaviors don’t do the job for you. Waxman supports promoting abstinence and giving students accurate information about sexual help, which I will tell you is tantamount to driving them to a brothel and handing them a wad of bills]. Yet going after CPCs is unlikely to divide pro-lifers or go far in demonizing us outside of the Dems’ base voters.

More insidious is the issue of contraception [because we’re quacks who oppose it, and in our opposition to it, substantially increase the number of abortions]. Having learned the hard way that the unabashed celebration of abortion was losing them votes [take this election cycle, for example, where pro-lifers in South Dakota saw a major victory and… oh wait…], Democrats in the last election cycle sought to portray themselves as moderate on the issue and even recruited a fair number of pro-life candidates to run for Congress, with considerable success. Now that they have taken control of our national legislature, they must appear to care about reducing abortion while not doing anything that would actually reduce abortion and alienate their fanatically pro-death base [except to use those methods which actually do reduce abortion — see outcomes in Belgium, Germany and Norway — instead of tried-and-true conservative methods, which have left conservative religious nations on continents like Latin America plagued with illegal abortion and, as a corollary, high maternal and infant mortality rates], and at the same time isolate truly pro-life Americans in the minds of the so-called “abortion grays [the Democratic plan to actually decrease the abortion rate through educating people about making contraception more widely available is horribly threatening to the “truly” pro-life Americans — i.e., me and a handful of my powerful, extremist friends — because the vast majority of people who self-identify as pro-life do actually want to see the abortion rate decrease, and this would reveal us for the extremist hypocrites we actually are].”

These are American voters who have qualms about abortion but do not wish it outlawed, and are thus susceptible to appeals from either side of the abortion divide [some crazy Americans think women are people]. Most abortion grays view as unpleasantly extremist both the NARAL, Barbara Boxer types who embrace even partial-birth abortion [who can’t embrace something that pro-life groups made up, but who oppose ideologues interfering with public health and medical treatment] and principled anti-abortion activists who believe every single unborn child should be saved however inconvenient he may be [extremists who believe fetuses to be equipped with super-human rights which should allow them to use another’s body for their own survival, a right not given to any born people, but which we’re willing to impose because it only impacts women and they’re not really deserving of full human rights anyway. Plus, pregnancy is an excellent punishment for those women who step out of line and have teh sex without our permission].

Because of Roe v. Wade and political realities, banning most abortions is not on congressional pro-lifers’ agenda for the time being, so pro-abortion forces have found another way to do harm, in more ways than one. Their approach could not only divide and demonize pro-lifers [their approach will demonize us, because let’s be honest, we’re pretty big assholes], but would spread disease among youth, increase their psychic distress, and inflate the number of abortions [their approach has been proven to decrease the rates of STIs, encourage a healthier view of sex, and decrease the abortion rate. Ours, on the other hand, kills and maims hundreds of thousands of women a year, jacks up the abortion rate, and makes even marriage physically unsafe for women].

The Dems’ plan is to promote contraception as a means of reducing abortion [because it works] and watch pro-lifers, who know contraception increases abortion [I have no actual evidence for this, given that, internationally, the countries with the lowest abortion rates have affordable and accessible contraception, and the societies with higher abortion rates don’t encourage contraception use], squirm as the media portrays any opposition to more federal funding for contraceptive programs as hypocritical extremism on the part of pro-lifers [because, well, it is, and it sure does suck to be outed as the hypocritical extremists we are]. Of course, a plan to reduce abortion by increasing contraceptive prevalence has highly persuasive surface plausibility [because it works]. More
contraception means fewer unwanted pregnancies, right [right]? And fewer unwanted pregnancies means fewer abortions, right? It seems so obvious, common-sensical, and practical.

Yet experience has proven it false [except that it hasn’t]. You don’t need statistics to know this, and this time I will refrain from offering a passel of them [because I don’t have any]. When contraceptive use exploded in the United States during the 1970s, so did the abortion rate [interestingly, since abortion wasn’t legal before the 1970s, the abortion rate wasn’t recorded all that accurately, and the CDC only started recording abortion rates in 1969]. Continued promotion of contraception, including the distribution of free condoms en masse to high-schoolers, in the ‘80s and ‘90s did nothing to reduce the abortion rate [except that while the abortion rate did increase in Reagan’s America, it declined from 1990 until 2001 when, coincidence of all coincidences, it increased; now it’s decreasing again], which has dipped slightly in the past few years—coinciding with a rise in abstinence and anti-abortion attitudes among young people [the abortion rate has been dipping for more than a few years and the most significant declines came in the Clinton era, but feel free to give me the credit]. Foreign countries have experienced the same pattern: Wherever contraceptive use has become widespread, so has abortion [except that the opposite has actually happened]. Far more often than not, they go in tandem, not in opposition [which is why the lowest abortion rates in the world are enjoyed by the contraceptive-happy Germany, Belgium, Norway, Italy, France, Denmark, Sweden, Canada, etc, and ultra-religious nations and nations where women have the least access to contraception and to legal abortion have higher abortion rates than the United States — for example, Nigeria, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Romania, Vietnam and Peru].

Why is this? For one thing, contraception isn’t very effective [99.8% just isn’t good enough]. Some methods work well in the laboratory, but few people conduct their sex lives in laboratories [which is why I oppose actually teaching people how to use contraception properly]. In the real world, contraception fails all the time. In fact, 53% of unplanned pregnancies happen to women who are using contraception [which means that 47% of them happen to women who aren’t using contraception. So if we made contraception more accessible, actually taught people how to use it correctly, and didn’t guilt or demonize women who plan on having sex and protect themselves accordingly, we could really lower the abortion rate].

More fundamentally, the contraceptive mentality causes abortion [except that it’s actually the anti-contraception mentality which causes abortion when you look at the facts, but who needs those?]. When women and girls choose to sleep with men whose children they don’t want [because sex consists of a man imparting his child onto you], they will take steps to ensure those children aren’t born [or they’ll take steps to ensure that those children don’t exist in the first place]. If
contraception fails, they will abort. And because abortion is easily available, these women can be lax about using contraception, knowing there is a cheap and legal fall-back option [For a dude like me who is bankrolled by the pro-life movement, $500-2000 is “cheap”].

Some anti-abortion Democrats, though, are pursuing the pro-contraception strategy. New Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D.-Nev.), who says he opposes abortion, introduced a bill on Congress’ first day this year that would increase funding for contraception and the morning-after pill. Senators Hillary Clinton and Ted Kennedy have signed on—which should tell you something [girls like it, so it sucks]. Rep. Tim Ryan (D.-Ohio), another abortion opponent, has a bill that would fund more contraception but also provide help to women who decide to carry unplanned pregnancies to term [you know, the things that would help lower the abortion rate]. These sort of bills could split pro-life members of Congress and make those who oppose them seem extreme and heartless [because it would expose them as extreme, heartless people who don’t actually want to decrease the abortion rate and who also don’t really care about women, pregnant or not].

They should remember that contraception increases abortion [except that it doesn’t}. They should also remember that contraceptives give young people a false sense of security, leading them to engage in riskier behavior than they otherwise would even though contraception is of limited effectiveness in preventing pregnancy and disease (and many forms of contraception actually increase disease risks, at least for women) [I’m just throwing as many lies out there as I possibly can right now and hoping some will stick]. Moreover, all forms of artificial contraception cause illness [I keep this vague on purpose, because it is a lie, and if I go much further with it, it’ll be horribly obvious]. For example, there is no doubt that the contraceptive pill increases cancer risks [except for the cancers that contraception decreases the risk of, and the fact that your chances of dying because of pregnancy or childbirth are higher than your chances of dying to contraception, but we’ll ignore that]. Putting more pills into the hands of young women means federal funding for killing American girls [Of course, when comparing the number of contraceptive-related deaths to, say, the maternal mortality rates in countries where abortion is illegal, or the international death rate from illegal abortion, or the maternal mortality rate HERE, contraception-related deaths are pretty low, but let’s gloss over that].

Pro-lifers should be ready for these controversies when the Democratic establishment and their media allies choose to move them to the front burner of American politics.

Truly mind-boggling. And brain-frying. I can’t see straight now.


39 thoughts on De-coding anti-choice propaganda

  1. Why can’t they just come out and say that they’re against contraception because 1) sex should only be for making babeez and 2) if some slut has sex for fun, she shouldn’t be able to avoid the punishment of an unwanted pregnancy?

    That’s actually why they’re against abortion, too, except they dress it up with that “sanctity of life” bullshit because they know it would never fly otherwise.

  2. I share your sentiment right now Jill. The anti choice movement has a monopoly on playing the victim, oppressed by us big bad abortion loving femmynists. I volunteered at Planned Parenthood for about a year and believe you me, I have seen how they act soooooo “oppressed” because of the big bad buffer zone law in place in Massachussetts. Currently, there is a new law pending in the legislature that will expand the buffer zone and of course the anti choicers are crying foul that this law is just trying to silence them and they are peaceful “sidewalk counselors” just trying to give women another option…….I can tell you right now that yelling at women that they’re going to get breast cancer and regret “killing” their babies is not peaceful at all, Neither is videotaping them as they park and throwing propaganda into their cars. Check out http://www.orboston.org……you will be pleasantly disturbed

  3. ” Now that they have taken control of our national legislature, they must appear to care about reducing abortion while not doing anything that would actually reduce abortion and alienate their fanatically pro-death base ”

    The author, he is the crazy.

    so-called “abortion grays”

    Why do they gotta bring aliens into it?

  4. Apparently if you go to a pro-life rally, making the “thumbs-up” sign has the same effect as a frontal labotomy. Or could they always look imbecilic?

  5. Bitter Scribe – I’m with you, but honestly there are a lot of conservative groups (maybe not mainstream) that ARE out and loud about their no-contraception stance. It scares the crap outta me. Too lazy right now to dig up some links though.

    It boggles my mind because my super conservative Christian mother, who believes abortion is sinful, is still very pro-contraception (thinks it should be free to all who want it and has called the bcp “the greatest invention ever”) and pro comprehensive sex ed in schools. Which is actually consistent thinking! and gives us common goals.

    So it was really quite the rude awakening when I realized that the majority of the religious right are not like that and how much it is really about punishing women. Guess my mom isn’t as conservative as I thought!

  6. Oh and I just have to add that I have an overwhelming urge to kick those stupid stupid boys with the “thumbs up to controlling your body!” in the face!

  7. These people make their mileage with the general public through shame. By pulling out the old shame-book on them, (sex, god and righteousness), they get most regular people to shy away from confronting those who espouse their lies. I for one have gone head to head with self righteous religious nuts like this and let me tell you, people will back off and women often will silently waiver on the guilt fence, afraid to speak out what they know to be the truth as if a lean to logic will plunge them into the depths of whoredom where they’ll suffer eternal shame. This is especially true of women, for whom the pro-life movement has barrels of hatred and shame just waiting to be poured on any woman who dares cross them. Of course, our society produces such shame for female consumption, available for use by any happy godbag.

    It is shame and more shame that keeps so many from speaking out against their onslaught of bullshit. Most women in this country rely on some form of birth control to guarantee some form of control over their lives, but those same women will stand mute before such lies and say nothing, for fear of the taint of the slut-shame.

    When fundies start speaking about how they hate Islam, I can’t help but think they speak out of jealousy that some other group has garnered success at state mandated mysoginy before they have had a chance to take a stab at it. And now the demmicrats have gone and are gonna run the country all to hell and ruin their chances again. Like the bad witch on the Yellow Brick Road, when the house of truth falls on them, they simply whimper, whine and hopefully will wither away.

  8. Well, here’s example of an anti-contraception, anti-abortion, generally insane conservative blog with which I have developed a really unhealthy obsession. Oh, and for the very brave, my screen name at that place is “Kitty,” which I sometimes use here as well. (Old nickname.) Anyway, I suppose I’m including this because she’s just so weird, and vaguely related to this

  9. Oh, nothing like hitting “submit” before finishing. Anyway, I suppose I’m including this as one example of an anti-choice, anti-contraception activist. Read today’s post, in which she says cheerleaders who are forced to cheer for girls teams are like pharmacists forced to fill bcp or ec prescriptions.

  10. My screen name at that place is “Kitty,” which I sometimes use here as well. (Old nickname.)

    She’s changing her name from Kitty to Karen
    She’s trading her MG for a white Chrysler LeBaron

  11. Oh Karen, why did you have to go and do this to me? I already have my fill of crazy conservative blogs, but I can’t look away…

  12. you have a great point and a brilliant idea but if i may offer you what i hope is constructive criticism, you might win more hearts and minds if you used less angry words. fine while preaching to the choir on feministe, but with the logic of your point, this argument would appeal to the broad, mom and pop voter in the middle who actually make up the majority, or at least sway elections. also, all the parentheses are hard to follow. but as i said, excellent point and excellent political strategy.

  13. She’s changing her name from Kitty to Karen
    She’s trading her MG for a white Chrysler LeBaron

    Is it Kitty? I’ve always heard it as Katie, but I could be having a “‘s’cuse me, while I kiss this guy” moment.

  14. Why can’t they just come out and say that they’re against contraception because 1) sex should only be for making babeez and 2) if some slut has sex for fun, she shouldn’t be able to avoid the punishment of an unwanted pregnancy?

    They have to keep up the charade that they only oppose abortion because of “moral values” instead of using it as a way to control women. That way, they don’t lose any PR.

  15. you might win more hearts and minds if you used less angry words

    Because god forbid anyone know that we’re *angry.*

    Leeann, there’s a difference between civility and decency. Whenever a woman (or a liberal) is angry about indecency, such as, oh, rape or torture or the control of our bodies by grinning fools such as the boys in those pictures, there’s always someone who comes along and chides that woman (or liberal) for being so uncivil as to actually express anger in calling out the indecency.

    It may not appeal to mom and pop, but at least it’s honest.

  16. you have a great point and a brilliant idea but if i may offer you what i hope is constructive criticism, you might win more hearts and minds if you used less angry words. fine while preaching to the choir on feministe, but with the logic of your point, this argument would appeal to the broad, mom and pop voter in the middle who actually make up the majority, or at least sway elections.

    Different communication styles appeal to different people. Some people put more time and energy if they find angry words to help them express their anger and get fired up. Some people find anger off-putting, and others find it something they connect to strongly. Anger isn’t always bad, negative, or unhealthy; like any emotion, it can be perfectly healthy or take over your life.

    If feminists (particularly in such a pluralistic medium as blogging) all decided to adopt one approach because they thought it was the best way to win hearts and minds, the sheer sameness would cost a lot of support. All-anger, all the time, from every feminist blog would weaken feminism, as would every blog being well-mannered and calm. So angry and happy and calm and emotional and rational and funny and serious all have their place, and can all win heats and minds. There are people out there making these arguments in more polite language, though.

  17. Well, here’s example of an anti-contraception, anti-abortion, generally insane conservative blog . . .

    Interestingly, both ‘gsk’ there and Dawn Eden are blogging about some idiotic-sounding “relationship window” piece, and they have, in somewhat different ways, what’s almost a feminist analysis. Well, actually, only Dawn’s response. And that’s quite possibly because it is personally relevant to her, and . . . why do I waste my time reading those kind of things?

  18. Thanks, Jill! I saw the post on Feministing, but I couldn’t read past the line about there being a link between abortion and breast cancer. I try not to expose myself to such blatant lies.

  19. I’m so thankful that there’s people out there who will read this insane crap so I don’t have to. I feel bad, but I usually wind up skimming the craziness to get to the “good stuff” — I personally can’t keep reading the same craziness over and over. Thanks to everyone who risks brain cells to bring us thoughtful analysis!

    Slightly off-topic, but did anyone see last night’s House? I’m still not sure how I feel about it. It was really odd….

  20. Yes, gsk, let’s look at those eight medical organizations, shall we? Because I’m sure none of them have an agenda or anything.

    National Physicians Center for Family Resources
    P.O. Box 59692
    Birmingham, AL 35259
    205/870-0234
    http://www.physicianscenter.org

    Catholic Medical Association
    2020 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, #864
    Washington, DC 20006
    Tel: 1-877-CATHDOC (877-228-4362)
    http://www.cathmed.org

    American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists
    844 South Washington, Suite 1600
    Holland, MI 49423
    616-546-2639
    http://www.aaplog.org

    Breast Cancer Prevention Institute
    9 Vassar St.
    Poughkeepsie, NY 12601
    845/452-0797
    http://www.bcpinstitute.org

    The Polycarp Research Institute
    2232 Second Avenue
    Altoona, PA 16602
    http://www.polycarp.org

    Ehtics and Medics
    6399 Drexel Road
    Philadelphia, PA 19151
    http://www.ethicsandmedics.com

    MaterCare International
    8 Riverview Avenue
    St. John’s, Newfoundland
    Canada A1C 2S5
    Phone: 709-579-6472
    Fax: 709- 579-6501
    E-Mail: info@matercare.org

    Breast Care Center-EAMC
    G/F OPD Bldg East Avenue Medical Center, East Avenue,
    Quezon City, Philippines
    Phone: (632)-928-0611 loc 578
    E-mail: pfbci_bcc@yahoo.com
    http://www.abortionbreastcancer.com/news/Santos/index.htm

    To be continued

  21. National Physicians Center for Family Resources: includes links to the Heritage Foundation and the IWF. Their statement about HPV is a bit outdated, and doesn’t mention the vaccine at all. Their advice? Abstinence until marriage, which will magically protect young women from the virus regardless of what their husbands have gotten up to.

    Catholic Medical Association and American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists: Need we say more?

    The Breast Cancer Prevention Institute: Sounds neutral, doesn’t it? But they’re a relatively new organization (founded in 1999), and they are against birth control pills. Despite their conviction that the use of BCPs leads to breast cancer, they also believe that the single most avoidable risk for breast cancer is elective abortion. I’m sure those women who’ve never had an abortion or taken BCPs yet developed breast cancer would be thrilled to hear it.

    The Polycarp Research Institute is also against oral contraception and EC, and — surprise! — its mission statement states that it “will not promote methods or intentions that are inconsistent with the ethical and moral guidelines of the Catholic Church.”

    Seems the link to Ethic & Medics from the page gsk provided doesn’t work. However, I’ve found the right one here: it’s part of the National Catholic Bioethics Center.

    MaterCare International is a Catholic organization focusing on maternal health in the developing world (and, indeed, seems to be focusing on some really good stuff, like building fistula hospitals and reducing maternal mortality). Their links page, though, is filled with anti-choice organizations.

    Finally, the Breast Care Center-EAMC cite is a single letter on the abortion/breast cancer page that doesn’t even have a name signed to it.

  22. Finally, here are the medical organizations “in need of courage”

    Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists

    American Medical Association

    – A spokesman for the AMA told World Net Daily that its group “doesn’t have a policy at all” on whether its doctors should inform women about the abortion-breast cancer research. [John Dougherty, “Can doctors be sued over abortion? Those who don’t inform patients of breast cancer link could be targets,”
    World Net Daily March 27, 2002.
    Available at: http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=26970
    Visited October 8, 2003.

    American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists

    American Society of Breast Surgeons

    Miami Breast Cancer Conference

    Interestingly, unlike almost all the organizations that ABC cited as supporting the idea of a link between abortion and breast cancer, ABC provides no direct links to those organizations. I mean, the AMA gets a link to World Nut Daily. That’s some good science.

  23. I’m mostly a lurker here, but I do research at a major university with a renowned medical school/ teaching hospital. Anyway, I did a quick search on pubmed and found no peer-reviewed literature that supported a link between abortion and breast cancer.

    I did find a peer-reviewed published article that looked at and reanalyzed 53 studies done in 16 countries that looked at breast cancer and abortion, and their findings included some interesting points:

    1) There is absolutely no link between induced or spontaneous abortion and breast cancer.

    2) The studies that did report a link between breast cancer and abortion had dubious methodology.

    In other words, many studies that claimed a link between breast cancer and abortion had methods where they asked a whole bunch of women who had had breast cancer if they’d had abortions. The correct way to perform such an epidemiological study is to follow a bunch of women who’ve had or hadn’t had abortions, and then see who develops cancer.

    As a caveat, I don’t do research on cancer, and so don’t understand all the details of such studies. But I do know how to read an abstract of a scientific paper, and this one concludes:

    “Collectively, the studies of breast cancer with retrospective recording of induced abortion yielded misleading results…”

    There were several other papers that also conclude that there is no link between the two. The articles aren’t accessible to the public, but anyone can go to pubmed at NCBI (national center for biotechnology information that includes the national library of medicine and the national institutes of health- science, it’s patriotic!) and search for “abortion and breast cancer” and read the abstracts.

    I’ll go back to lurking now. I just really hate to see people pass off opinion as peer-reviewed and published scientific literature.

  24. I guess those two thumbs-up guys explore alternative sexual lifestyles (I’m not really suggesting they’re gay, maybe they have some very unfortunate livestock or something). Because I can’t for the life of me understand why they would be so enthusiastic about broadcasting their total sexual undesirability to women.

    I mean, seriously, even if I were one of those brainwashed teenage girls trotted out to the front of the line, I would be freaked out by their exhuberance to force a pregnancy on me and exert control over something that doesn’t even belong to them.

  25. I know this might not seem significant considering how many parts of that article are enraging, but did anyone notice this part?

    principled anti-abortion activists who believe every single unborn child should be saved however inconvenient he may be. (emphasis mine)

    I find it telling. Of course the “unborn child” is a he. A lot of the motivation is about “How dare a woman deprive me of my rightful heir and legacy.” The assumption of maleness also conveys a greater value to the fetus in the eyes of many. If they knew that a fetus was going to be female, would they care so much?

    Again, this could be overreaching here, but it struck me when reading.

  26. The Breast Cancer Prevention Institute: Sounds neutral, doesn’t it? But they’re a relatively new organization (founded in 1999), and they are against birth control pills. Despite their conviction that the use of BCPs leads to breast cancer, they also believe that the single most avoidable risk for breast cancer is elective abortion. I’m sure those women who’ve never had an abortion or taken BCPs yet developed breast cancer would be thrilled to hear it.

    There is some (relatively weak) evidence linking BCPs and breast cancer. However, there is also evidence that BCPs help prevent uterine and ovarian cancer.

    Given the relative difficulty of diagnosing these three kinds of cancer, personally, I feel that the slight increase of risk of breast cancer is a reasonable trade-off for the decrease in the much more dangerous and hard to detect uterine and ovarian cancers.

  27. About those boys pictured: A commenter on an earlier thread, don’t remember if it was here or at Pandagon, said that a lot of Catholic schools run busloads of kids down to D.C. for “field trips” that just happens to coincide with anti-choice marches. This is a cheap and easy way to inflate the numbers of those marches. The kids aren’t in a position to say no, because then they get grilled—“You mean you aren’t for saving innocent little babies? Why not?”—and besides, what teenager wouldn’t prefer a trip to Washington to another boring day at school?

    That said, the kid in the bottom photo makes me ashamed to be a Bears fan. Between him and the assholes who held up signs at Soldier Field at the conference chanpionship saying things like “We’ll finish what Katrina started,” I’m beginning to think Chicago fans are sinking to the level of…well, never mind. I don’t want to start any inter-city pissing matches.

  28. the assholes who held up signs at Soldier Field at the conference chanpionship saying things like “We’ll finish what Katrina started,”

    Goddamn. I hadn’t heard about that.

  29. DDday, you weren’t the only one who noticed the ‘he’ reference to fetuses, I saw it too and thought the same thing, but I said nothing. I guess its internalized filtering caused by living in a patriarchy, so much just isn’t allowed to get through anymore.

    And with the catholic schools and busloads of kids, not surprising. A bunch of Catholic parishes around here are having to consolidate and close old churches for lack of numbers, encouraging, but happening much too slow.

    And the Katrina signs, that people find it safe to make such public pronouncements says a lot.

  30. Oh Karen, why did you have to go and do this to me? I already have my fill of crazy conservative blogs, but I can’t look away…

    I’m sorry Jill. I suppose I needed company with my bizarre obsession. And thanks to Dan S. for braving the comments section there, too.

  31. A lot of the motivation is about “How dare a woman deprive me of my rightful heir and legacy.”

    Woah.
    Honestly, I hadn’t even considered that aspect. That makes a lot of sense, though. It especially makes sense for some of the “Men’s Rights” groups I’ve seen- that men should have a say in whether a woman can get an abortion.

    Wow.

    Consider my mind officially blown.

  32. Evil Fizz, I like a girl with a short skirt and a long jacket, too.

    I just love how the article ignores sexual relations even between married people where the woman is at serious medical risk if she has another pregnancy. The whole problem is solved if no one ever has sex except with the express and exclusive purpose of getting pregnant.

Comments are currently closed.