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The Pill Kills 9-day-old children

Jill

…and being anti-choice apparently kills braincells.

tampon
Tampon guns don’t kill people. Uppity bitches kill blastocyst-people.

Just when you thought you’d heard it all…

Neanderthals like me think women should know the pill can kill their 5- to 9-day-old children. Informed consent and all that.

So the American Life League is launching Protest the Pill Day ’08: The Pill Kills Babies this Saturday, June 7, on the 43rd anniversary of the Griswold vs. Connecticut Supreme Court decision.

ALL is calling on pro-lifers nationwide to peacefully protest in front of Planned Parenthoods and other facilities that distribute birth control pills.

Yes, you read that right: Women should be “informed” that the Pill kills nine-day-old babies. Which is a little confusing, until you realize that anti-choicers apparently track your age from what time your daddy’s sperm fertilized your mama’s egg. (The fact that the Pill is totally incapable of killing such a fertilized egg is apparently even further beside the point).

All of which leaves me very confused. Did I already turn 25? I thought my birthday was in August, but if my clock started to tick upon insemination, I need to recalibrate. I couldn’t have been six days old twice, right? How am I supposed to start my quarter-life crisis when I didn’t know that I had already hit quarter life? Should I start celebrating inseminationdays instead of birthdays? Given the importance of knowing our own ages and not letting babies die, is it worth forcing women to undergo a daily insemination exam, just to make sure we don’t miss the presence of a teeny tiny one-celled baby (the cutest kind)? Did I just drown a baby when I flushed my last tampon? Am I a murderer? Do my serial tampon-baby-murder-flushings mean I’m barred from getting a license to practice law? Should I tell my future kids that they have potentially dozens of “siblings” that sloughed right out of my uterus, unbeknownst to me? Do you think I should get a little cemetery plot for my feminine hygiene products and used panties? How old am I? Who am I? Where am I? Where’s my mom?

Lesson learned: Even reading anti-choice columns will turn you into a moron.

47 thoughts on The Pill Kills 9-day-old children

  1. My favorite part is that on her website during her rant about it’s evils, the words “birth control pills” are highlighted. When you mouse over the words a little add pops up advertising deals on birth control pills.

  4. Unable to compute; stupidity input too high.

    Urge to rage and smash increasing.

    Good god, gods, goddesses, or whatever higher deity you pray to, how… moronic can that be? I mean.. GAH!

    Informed consent my arse. This is just more control.

  5. Assuming the pill is actually lethal to 9 day old children….then how is it safe for all other people?? And how is it that massive deaths from its toxicity have remained hidden from public notice….to the point that it is widely used not only by women….but even certain middle aged men on sitcoms who feel they make tasty snacks???

    Did I already turn 25? I thought my birthday was in August, but if my clock started to tick upon insemination, I need to recalibrate. I couldn’t have been six days old twice, right? How am I supposed to start my quarter-life crisis when I didn’t know that I had already hit quarter life? Should I start celebrating inseminationdays instead of birthdays?

    Incidentally, many cultures…including the familial one I grew up with do standardize ages at 1 from the moment you’re born. By their standards, you would actually be 25 or whatever age determined from moment of birth + 1 year.

  6. “Assuming the pill is actually lethal to 9 day old children….then how is it safe for all other people??”

    It probably has something to do with adults being a lot bigger than neonates. Though I can’t for the life of me figure out how they know this. Has abstinence-only sex-ed gotten so out of hand that people really think 9-day-old babies can get pregnant? And is it just girl babies, a la Gardasil, or did some truly enterprising soul feed them to boy babies too?

  8. My first thought was, If there’s been a spate of crib deaths of nine-day-old babies because of poisoning from the Pill, why haven’t we heard about it? Is this a new form of SIDS?

    And then I realized this was another one of those fucktards who squints at a cluster of cells under a microscope and thinks that it has the same moral standing as an infant.

  10. Nice post, and one I agree with, but you claim that:

    The fact that the Pill is totally incapable of killing such a fertilized egg

    Do you have a citation on that? I want to be able to prove this when I use it in arguments in the future.

  11. Man, the mask’s really coming off, huh? Not that it was ever much of a mask, mind, but still and all…

    I think this is a good thing, I want more of the same. Once is becomes clear that after abortion it’s birth control and no-fault divorce and who knows what else, the cultural right can kiss pretty much the entire female vote goodbye.

  12. In China, traditionally babies considered to be one at birth, so you’d already be 25. But, some people count their new age at the beginning of the lunar new year, not on the actual birthday–it gets quite confusing (at least to me), because you can be anywhere from 1-2 years older than your “actual” age, depending on when you’re born. Eg., I’m born in December, so I’d be one then, but I’d turn two in February (or whenever the new year is), even though I’d only be 2 months old. So Jill, you may actually already be 26 🙂

    But anyways, it sounds like prolifers have just taken the “emergency contraception is abortion” argument and applied it backwards to the pill. Hopefully, they’ve finally overreached and there’ll be a backlash. I heard somewhere that something like over 89% of Americans believe birth control should be readily available to everyone (correct me if that’s totally wrong), so I’m guessing this won’t go anywhere.

  13. The first time i read a link to the Pill Kills website I thought “Oh maybe this is about how some women can’t handle hormonal contraceptives and theres been a recent increase in deaths” but nope. Nope, can never care about dem womynz. Let em die as long as 9 day old things get to live.

    This event is tomorrow so hopefully we will get to see a lot of support from the pro-contraception crowd. Maybe even awesome vids on youtube. *crosses fingers* Sometimes im glad i don’t live in the United States (of crazy asshats). [I don’t mean everyone just these kinds of people.]

  14. brain explodes

    Sorry, that’s the only reaction I have right now to such insanity.

  15. Well, I turned 29 for the third time last january, so maybe if we keep on with their fuzzy math I’ll never see my 30’s…LOL

    I think this campaign deserves far more press than it is getting. Let the sun shine in on THIS ONE… I hear it is a miraculous disenfectant…

    The more people who KNOW what these people are after the better – abortion today, your birth control tomorrow.

  16. Well, you know what the bar examiners would say. When in doubt disclose (with dates, times and references ;-)).

  17. If you are feeling lousy after reading about these folks, check out the book “Department of Homeland Decency: Decency Rules and Regulations Manual.” It’s a hilarious satire of these folks and what they want to do with the rest of us. It’s available at Amazon and bookstores everywhere.

  18. this just makes me want a day to protest idiots…

    Earlier this week I discovered that I live next door to an abortion clinic (I just moved to a new place and don’t know the neighboorhood very well). Literally, next door. If there are protestors tomorrow, I plan to counter-protest.

  19. Did I just drown a baby when I flushed my last tampon? Am I a murderer?

    Yes. In fact, any time not spent pregnant or nursing is murder because you’re denying life. See, women were put on earth to nurture life, life, life which means they don’t get to actually have a life.

  20. I’d love to protest holding pics of actual 9 day old babies (according to commonly held calculations in the U.S.) I’d ask them to provide proof that the pill has killed babies like them.

  21. The Pill Kills 9-day-old children

    Okay, clearly I haven’t had my coffee, because my thought when I read this was:

    Who gives the Pill to a 9-day-old infant?

    Clearly a justification for consumerism – I’m off to Starbucks.

  22. Andy: try here for a rundown on why there’s no evidence to support the idea that the pill or Plan B cause implantation failure (and plenty to suggest otherwise), or here from a group of pro-life OB/GYNs, with lots of cites of studies done on it.

    Thanks, Jill, for pointing that out. I get so tired of watching pro-choice people have this argument from the (false) terms of the anti-choicers – arguing whether or not fertilized eggs ‘count’ as a pregnancy and so on – without ever addressing the fact that, you know, it doesn’t matter, because it doesn’t happen.

  23. @ Exholt: Pregnancy and birth kill many more women than the birth control pill. Especially in women who have babies over and over and over again, and do not control their fertility.

    If you really want to help save women’s lives, the renowned journal The Lancet came out with an entire issue dedicated to women’s health and picked the most important life or death issues for women around the world. Safe access to legal abortion and ACCURATE information and access to birth control were highlighted and repeated over and over again.

    You can say it’s against your religious or personal views for women to choose to try to influence their fertility. Please don’t pretend to be saving women’s lives.

  24. And, to the general issue of the pill and the nine day old BAAAY BEEEES:

    Taking a hormonal method of birth control actually PREVENTS fertilized eggs from being passed. Hormonal methods of birth control prevent ovulation. So, since women only have successful implantation of fertilized eggs about 10% of the time, and 80% of women who are not on birth control become pregnant each year, that means they each passed, on average, nine other fertilized eggs to do so.

    So, read a book on health, anti choicers. It really sucks when, again and again, your supposed reasons for being against women’s sexual and reproductive autonomy actually seem to support reproductive rights! Save the nine day old blastocysts! TAKE THE PILL!

  26. “Do my serial tampon-baby-murder-flushings mean I’m barred from getting a license to practice law?”

    … and suddenly the whole plan becomes clear…

  27. Now wait a minute, Sniper. If a woman spends all of her available reproductive years being pregnant, say fertilizing 20-30 eggs and getting them all to the air-breathing stage, hasn’t she just prevented a whole bunch of other eggs from ever getting fertilized? I mean, every time you fertilize one, all the rest have to wait another 9 months or more for a chance in the limelight. Therefore pregnancy is, itself, birth control and thus, immoral. What we should be doing is fertilizing every single damned egg and implanting them in women who aren’t already pregnant, so none get wasted. Oh wait, then their *own* eggs would back up in the queu….damn….

  29. For the facts on the Pill, and a rebuttal of the American Life League’s entirely misleading publicity campaign in the run up to their “Pill Kills” protest this Saturday, read Dr. Dana Stone’s piece from this past Monday’s Feministing. Stone’s a board-certified MD and OB/GYN who practices in Oklahoma City.

  31. Don’t you know you shouldn’t be flushing tampons? IT CLOGS THE SEWAGE SYSTEM DAMNIT! ….now if only someone would clog the sewage system that is the collective mouth of ALL.

  32. Thanks for a rueful laugh, Jill. Look, I think we all should have multiple days to celebrate: the anniversary of our birth, the anniversary of our conception (ask Mom, or make something up), the anniversary of our little blastocyst self implanting in the lining of the uterus… Hallmark could really make bank.

  34. Well… If what they really want is some sort of written warning on pill packages that says something to the effect that the pill might keep a blastocyst from implanting, and therefore keep you from becoming pregnant, wouldn’t that actually be saying the pill does it’s job? I mean, I know that’s not how it actually works, but why do they think this would be a big issue for women who are taking the pills specifically so they don’t become pregnant?

    And doesn’t that then fly in the face of all of the stuff they proclaim with equal vehemence about how birth control doesn’t work, and abstinence is the only answer? I think the best protest of this kind of crankery is just to put them out with their own convoluted non-logic. But then, who cares about logic when baybeeeeees are in danger!!!!

  35. Pregnancy and birth kill many more women than the birth control pill. Especially in women who have babies over and over and over again, and do not control their fertility.

    Hilary,

    I probably should have put the sarcasm/snark tag in that comment as i was trying to poke fun at the stupidity of their statement about the pill killing 9 day old children considering that if something is dangerous for actual 9 day old children….it is probably dangerous for all people.

    Also, i see that no one has picked up on or had much interest in the sitcom reference I was making.

  36. The first time I read the original post, I thought they were talking about Plan B. I suppose I could see how the pro-life crowd say Plan B kills two week-old blastocysts but then I re-read it and saw it was for regular hormonal birth control and really got confused! ‘Roving Thunderbird’ has the thought process down pat!

    Informed consent is a good thing when it comes to medication of any kind. Knowing the effects and possible side effects is informed consent. Not all kinds of birth control work for all women. Making up lies about what the pill could possibly, maybe do because I said so (not me saying, the pro-lifers) can muddy the good information that is being given out.

  38. “And doesn’t that then fly in the face of all of the stuff they proclaim with equal vehemence about how birth control doesn’t work, and abstinence is the only answer?”

    Making sense is the hobgoblin of small minds.

  39. How’s this for a deal? Doctors can inform women that birth control pills kill 9-day-old babies when anti-choicers realize that birth control pills prevent ovulation in the first place.

  40. And if the Pill really does kill all fertilized, unimplanted eggs, how’d I get here? My mom was on the Pill when she got pregnant with me. Per the “logic” above, my mangled little microscopic corpse should have been flushed down the toilet on a tampon.

    When in the world will the anti-choice crowd ever figure out that potential isn’t the same as actual? Barring that, when will they at least own up to the fact that roughly 50% of all “9-day-old children” are flushed from a woman’s body naturally?

    Bah. It’s too late at night to be contemplating the world view of those who actually think my Nuvaring is a murder weapon.

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