Category Archives: reproductive rights

Rubio redux: Guest Post by Steven Jonas.

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Longtime Loyal Reader™ Steven Jonas, MD, MPH sent the Palace effusive praise on Don Ardell’s latest post, Marco Rubio’s Highest Value: Nonsensical, Disturbing and Dangerous. The good Dr. Jonas pointed us to his own column for BUZZFLASH at TRUTHOUT from September on the subject of the very same doucheweasel. He invited us to repost it here as a companion piece to Don’s, noting:

I think that mine on the same subject (Rubio) and yours complement each other very well, mine more political-historical, yours more humanistological (yes, a neologism, I think, intended as the opposite of “theological”).

We are delighted to take him up on his kind invitation. (The bad news, I’m afraid, is that Loyal Readers™ will now have to wait a day or two for my masterful and comprehensive treatise on the finger sandwiches I made for Mothers Day.)

Please give a warm Palace welcome to Dr. Steven Jonas.

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Marco Rubio, “Faith,” and the Coming Religious Wars

Sen. Marco Rubio (FL) gave a speech on the last night of the Republican National Convention. The GOP loves him because he is one of those relatively rare Latino politicians who call the GOP home. He of course rigorously supports GOP policies, except when it comes to illegal immigration. On that one, if you listen carefully, he takes no position, except that whatever President Obama has done (and he has presided the deportation of more undocumented aliens [mainly Latinos] than any other President) is wrong. Another little problem for Rubio has been that for years we were told that his parents were “defectors” (otherwise known as “emigrants”) from “Castro’s Cuba,” until it was discovered that they actually left the US-supported dictator Batista’s Cuba four years before the Cuban Revolution.

At any rate, there was one particular paragraph in Rubio’s speech that caught many ears. It came when he was talking about the US people, and what is “special” about us:

“We are special because we’ve been united not by a common race or ethnicity. We’re bound together by common values. That family is the most important institution in society. That almighty God is the source of all we have. . . . Our national motto is ‘In God we Trust,’ reminding us that faith in our Creator is the most important American value of all.”

Fascinating stuff, especially for someone who was born Catholic, as a teenager, when his family was living in Las Vegas, converted to Mormonism, and then converted back to Catholicism upon their return to Florida (1). Presumably, he made some changes-in-values on that trip. Nevertheless, let’s see just what might be the “common values” he referred to in his speech.

It’s certainly true that we are not united by “race or ethnicity.” The European settlers virtually eliminated the original inhabitants of what became the United States, enslaved members of another ethnic group brought here against their will, some of the descendants of those European settlers still practice discrimination against both, and some of the same have added Latinos, both those whose ancestors were here long before the Euros arrived and more recent arrivals, to that list. So in that he is quite correct.

Now what about “common values” by which we might be “bound together?” Well, I for one, for example, don’t share any of, for example, the most basic values held by Mitt Romany (2). As for family, while mine is central in my life, there are plenty of people who either A) don’t have one with which they relate much at all or B) can’t stand theirs if they do.

But then we come to the “God” thing. First of all, there are plenty of us who don’t believe that there is a deity or even a group of them. (An increasing number of us secular humanists are “coming out of the closet” on this one; as for me, coming from a secular household I’ve been out of it for as long as I can remember.) Second of all, as for the “In God we Trust” thing, that slogan, hardly a “national motto” adhered to by all of us, was adopted by Congress in 1952, at the height of McCarthyism and the domestic/international campaign against “godless Communism.”

Just for Sen. Rubio’s information (and he should know this; having been to law school he presumably has read the Constitution, and maybe even studied it in a Constitutional Law course), the word “God” does not appear anywhere in that one document that could be considered to establish the common values for our nation and our people. In its only references to religion, in Article VI and Amendment I, the Constitution prohibits the establishment of any religious qualifications for elected office, and ensconces the principle of the separation of church and state in our national polity.

Finally, Senator, “faith in our Creator” is hardly the most important value of all, for many U.S. citizens. Among other things, it is a pretty undefined term, even for those of the theistic persuasion. Let’s see what that kind of policies taking that position can lead to. Why in your party it leads to the religion-based homophobia, misogyny, and religious authoritarianism on abortion rights that now dominate your platform and political agenda. “God” itself is a pretty undefined concept. A personal God, who is in one’s life at all times? A general guider of things? A force that established the world and then left it to its own devices, the concept at the center of the Deism adhered to by many of the founders? Or perhaps there is more than one, as the Hindus hold. A being with whom one can have conversations, as the Presidential nominee of your party apparently thinks that he does (2)?

And then we can get to a banner seen outside the RNC (selected elements): “Why do you love the devil? Homos, Feminists, Mormons, Buddhists, Catholics, Atheists, Democrats, Environmentalists, Racists, Scientologists, Muslims, Loud Mouth Women, Liberals, Sophisticated Swine, and Sports Nuts (Hey, I’m one of those; how did we get included?): Repent and Believe in Jesus.” This is not, of course, (current) GOP policy. But European Christians slaughtered each in the hundreds of thousands in the 16th and 17th centuries over disputes about who “really believed in Jesus” and who was, or was not “repentant,” (disagreeing too over what that word meant). “Jesus?” Just who’s Jesus is this person talking about? The Catholics’? The Mormons’? The Presbyterians? (To say nothing of the Jews’ or the Muslims’.) Very dangerous territory is being approached here.

Rubio talked about “God” and “faith.” But his concept of “God” is, for example, one that would sanction the criminalization of any religious belief about when life begins other than his. Yes indeed, if this kind of thinking is allowed to spread, indeed if it allowed taking over our country, look out, everyone. Indeed, a modern version of religious war, much more lethal even than its historical predecessors, could well be just around the corner.

One observer recently put it very well: “The Founding Fathers knew the only way to insure religious freedom and to maintain democracy is to keep religion and government separate. We cannot allow our government to endorse religion even slightly for it’s a thin line from endorse to enforce” (3). Mark Marco and his party well on this one, my friends. Mark them well.

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References:

1.       Avlon, J., “Who is Marco Rubio?’ http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/06/18/who-is-marco-rubio-life-story-revealed-in-manuel-roig-franzia-s-biography.html

2.       Jonas, S., “Mitt Romney’s Core Values,” BuzzFlash@Truthout on Thu, 07/19/2012, URL: http://www.buzzflash.org/node/13613

3.       Cottle, B., “Myths and Truths About Atheism,” http://www.coloradoan.com/article/20120902/OPINION04/309030008/Myths-truths-about-atheism?nclick_check=1

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Steven Jonas, MD, MPH is a Professor of Preventive Medicine at Stony Brook University (NY) and author/co-author/editor/co-editor of over 30 books. In addition to being a columnist for BuzzFlash/Truthout (http://www.buzzflash.com, http://www.truth-out.org/), he is the Managing Editor of and a Contributing Author to TPJmagazine.net. His most recent book, The 15% Solution, is available at online retailers Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.  (See Palace review here.)

Major Award: Federal Judge of the Week, Possibly the Decade.

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Loyal Readers™ may recall our most recent Coathanger Lobby update, in which we reported that federal Judge Edward Korman called the Obama administration’s decision to override its own agency’s recommendation to make Plan B One-Step emergency contraception available over-the-counter without restriction, “politically motivated, scientifically unjustified, and contrary to agency precedent.” Judge Korman ordered the administration to make it as available as, say, toothpaste. Or condoms.

The Obama administration appealed that decision. But on the eve of the appeal deadline, it approved over-the-counter sales of Plan B One-Step for those age 15 and above provided they produce proof of age with photo ID. I wrote then:

In a noxious bit of lawyering befitting the sleaziest of the profession (and that is saying something, my friends), the administration relied on its brand new 15+ approval rule to argue in its appeal that the case is moot because the plaintiffs — who happened to be 15 or older —”now have access without a prescription and without significant point-of-sale restrictions to at least one form of emergency contraceptive…”

This was, of course, in direct defiance of the Judge Korman’s order.

I also noted of the new 15+ with ID policy:

It’s bad enough that this leaves girls 14 and under to their coathangers and friendly neighborhood Gosnells, but it isn’t even true. 15 year olds — particularly urban and/or poor 15 year olds — typically have no drivers licenses or access to other forms of state ID, and thus will not be able to purchase Plan B. FDA spokeswoman Stephanie Yao said in an interview, “If a 15-year-old is unable to verify their age, they will not be able to purchase Plan B One-Step.”

Well. In an appeal hearing this Tuesday morning, Judge Korman did not exactly take to kindly to the administration’s disingenuous poo-flinging and rained down righteous scorn upon it — along with some primo mockery. It is truly a thing of beauty to behold.

Via Irin Carmon at Salon in a piece titled Judge rips Obama’s right-wing Plan B stance:

Korman repeatedly slammed his hand down on the table for emphasis, interrupting the government counsel’s every other sentence with assertions like, “You’re just playing games here,” “You’re making an intellectually dishonest argument,” “You’re basically lying,” “This whole thing is a charade,” “I’m entitled to say this is a lot of nonsense, am I not?” and “Contrary to the baloney you were giving me …”

As an aside, and as a public service to my Many Tens of Loyal Readers™, I would like to take this opportunity to point out that it is rarely, if ever, a good idea to lie to a federal judge.

Anyway, there was more:

He also accused the administration of hypocrisy for opposing voter ID laws but being engaged in the “suppression of the rights of women” with the ID requirement for the drug.

…

Korman made clear why he found that to be an inadequate compromise: “You’re using these 11- and 12-year-olds to place an undue burden on women’s ability to access emergency contraception. If it’s an impediment to voting, it’s an impediment to get the drug.”

This last point unequivocally reveals that the administration is acting here on something other than any sound principle: if ID is a barrier to voting — and of course it is — then ID is a barrier to purchasing Plan B One-Step. Judge Korman pointed out that in a speech to the NAACP regarding various villainous voter ID laws, Attorney General Eric Holder himself cited statistics “showing that 25 percent of African-Americans of voting age don’t have a photo ID.”

Voting age, as you may recall, is 18.

Korman did not say, “You lying hypocrites cannot have it both ways,” although he might as well have. Judge Korman also dismissed out-of-hand the suggestion that 15-year-olds could simply use a birth certificate to purchase Plan B One-Step, and on such painfully obvious grounds that I cannot even believe the government made such a stupid argument: a birth certificate is not a photo ID. Irin Carmon also points out that although the Judge did not note it, immigrant women would also be adversely affected by the ID requirement. Korman said:

”You’re disadvantaging young people, African-Americans, the poor — that’s the policy of the Obama administration?”

Why, yes. Yes it is. Unless, like other right-wing misogynists, the Obama administration next plans to make the case that young, African-American, and/or poor women are not really people. You know, with actual human rights, and stuff.

Oh, but there was still more:

The government has said it put the age cutoff at 15, because [Plan B One-Step manufacturer] Teva had asked them to in their petition. But Korman said that in previously unreleased correspondence between the FDA and Teva, the government had specifically instructed the company to reapply in that fashion after rejecting its first attempt to lift all age restrictions. When he tried to read aloud from one of those documents, a tense standoff resulted, in which Teva’s representative cut in and insisted that the correspondence was confidential. But Korman did get as far as, “We are amending our application to address the Secretary’s stated concern …” In other words, the new restrictions were apparently initiated by the Obama administration as a compromise move.

And he wasn’t done yet:

[Lawyer for the government Frank] Amanat argued that making a hormonal drug like Plan B over-the-counter was unprecedented, and that the public interest was served “when the government acts deliberately and incrementally.” Korman cut in sarcastically, “Tell me about the public interest. Is there a public interest in unplanned pregnancies? Some of which end in abortions?”

Korman also took a shot at Teva over the pricing of Plan B One-Step, which runs about $50, pointing towards Teva’s representative and referring to “Those price gougers over there.” Hahaha. Awesome.

Perhaps Judge Korman’s most astute — and most damning — observation is this one:

“It turns out that the same policies that President Bush followed were followed by President Obama.”

Would that the members of the federal judiciary were so inclined to take on Obama’s DOJ in matters of torture, war crimes, state secrets, drone assassinations, illegal wars and indefinite detention, instead of getting the vapors at the mere utterance of the words “national security” or “terrorism.”

Regardless, for all of the reasons noted above, Perry Street Palace is pleased to bestow its highly coveted Major Award for Federal Judge of the Day, Possibly the Decade, to

Hon. Edward R. Korman*
United States District Court Judge for the Eastern District of New York.

awardjudgekorman

Congratulations, Your Honor. We know of no one more deserving today of this form of address: you truly do honor to justice.

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* Judge Edward R. Korman was appointed to the federal bench by President Ronald Reagan, which would ordinarily disqualify candidates for the prestigious Perry Street Palace Major Award for Federal Judge of the Day, Possibly the Decade. But in light of the above, the Palace cannot hold that against him.

Coathanger lobby update: the Obama administration, redux.

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obamalogocoathanger

Hahaha. I crack myself up.

Loyal Readers™ may recall that in 2011, Kathleen Sebelius, President Obama’s Secretary of Health and Human Services, overrode the FDA’s recommendation that Plan B One-Step — the so-called “morning after pill” that prevents pregnancy if taken within 72 hours of intercourse —be made available over-the-counter without a prescription for women and girls of all ages. The move was completely unprecedented in the history of the agency. FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg, M.D., said at the time:

The Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) completed its review of the Plan B One-Step application and laid out its scientific determination. CDER carefully considered whether younger females were able to understand how to use Plan B One-Step.  Based on the information submitted to the agency, CDER 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 diseases. Additionally, the data supported a finding that adolescent females could use Plan B One-Step properly without the intervention of a healthcare provider.

It is our responsibility at FDA to approve drugs that are safe and effective for their intended use based on the scientific evidence…Our decision-making reflects a body of scientific findings, input from external scientific advisory committees, and data contained in the application that included studies designed specifically to address the regulatory standards for nonprescription drugs.  CDER experts, including obstetrician/gynecologists and pediatricians, reviewed the totality of the data and agreed that it met the regulatory standard for a nonprescription drug and that Plan B One-Step should be approved for all females of child-bearing potential.

Despite FDA’s recommendations based entirely on sound scientific evidence, Secretary Sebelius hung her hat on the fact that ten percent of girls in the U.S. reach puberty by the age of 11.1 years, and noted that “the product would be available, without a prescription or other point-of-sale restrictions, even to the youngest girls of reproductive age.” (pdf.) For some reason she said that like it’s a bad thing, when it is, of course, the very point of eliminating age restrictions and other barriers to access in the first place. The Washington Post summarized her position this way:

Sebelius said she reversed the FDA’s decision because she had concluded that data submitted by the drug’s maker did not “conclusively establish” that Plan B could be used safely by the youngest girls.

I wrote at the time:

To which I can only retort:  hey Secretary Sebelius, do you know what cannot be used safely by the youngest girls?  The birthing process.  However, young girls need neither a prescription nor parental consent for that.

Flash forward to April of this year: in ruling on a lawsuit brought by the Center for Reproductive Rights, federal Judge Edward Korman called Sebelius’s decision “politically motivated, scientifically unjustified, and contrary to agency precedent,” and ordered the agency to make Plan B One-Step available over-the-counter without restriction.

Late yesterday, the administration appealed that decision. In the meantime, on Tuesday the Obama administration approved over-the-counter sales of Plan B One-Step for those age 15 and above — in defiance of Judge Korman’s order. In a noxious bit of lawyering befitting the sleaziest of the profession (and that is saying something, my friends), the administration relied on its brand new 15+ approval rule to argue in its appeal that the case is moot because the plaintiffs — who happened to be 15 or older —”now have access without a prescription and without significant point-of-sale restrictions to at least one form of emergency contraceptive…”

It’s bad enough that this leaves girls 14 and under to their coathangers and friendly neighborhood Gosnells, but it isn’t even true. 15 year olds — particularly urban and/or poor 15 year olds — typically have no drivers licenses or access to other forms of state ID, and thus will not be able to purchase Plan B. FDA spokeswoman Stephanie Yao said in an interview, “If a 15-year-old is unable to verify their age, they will not be able to purchase Plan B One-Step.”

Let us briefly consider some facts:

Adolescent pregnancy is associated with higher rates of illness and death for both the mother and infant.

Death from violence is the second leading cause of death during pregnancy for teens, and is higher in teens than in any other group.

Pregnant teens are at much higher risk of having serious medical complications such as:

It is also worth noting that here in the Greatest Ever Country Ever in the World Ever, 10-year olds give birth. (pdf.)

The Palace stands by and hereby reiterates its previous pronouncement on this matter:

IF A YOUNG GIRL HAS THE GOOD SENSE TO SEEK OUT
EMERGENCY CONTRACEPTION WHEN SHE NEEDS IT,
WE SHOULD FUCKING GIVE IT TO HER.
(FOR FREE.)

The Palace also stands by and hereby reiterates its theory on the Obama administration’s otherwise inexplicable actions in this matter:

obamarepublican

Barack Obama: “NOW can I be a Republican? PLEASE?? Aww, come on guys!”

Abortion is a blessing.

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[CONTENT WARNING: extremely graphic discussion and imagery, NSFW.]

Today marks the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the U.S. Supreme Court decision that found unconstitutional certain restrictions by states on a woman’s right to an abortion.  Today, as in 1973, there is an all-out assault on that right, from exactly the same kinds of deluded individuals and Conservative Personality Disorder-inflicted factions that plague us all in so many other respects.  The Forced Birth Brigades have had 40 years to lie and whitewash history in their tireless efforts to assure that all female persons are relegated to the status of subhuman breeding sows, not fully independent human beings with all of the rights accorded thereto.  Think that’s a little harsh?  Think again:

In no other situation does anyone ever argue that it is right to make use of another living human’s body against their will.  None.  Hell, we do not even make use of dead human bodies against their previously expressed wishes: we don’t harvest the organs the dead no longer need in order to save other peoples’ lives.  We don’t strap people down and strip their bone marrow to save cancer patients.  We don’t forcibly take a kidney from anybody—not even prisoners on death row—and kidneys are desperately needed.  We don’t extract life-saving blood from anyone who does not volunteer to donate it.  To do any of these things would be abhorrent, even though people are dying every day because we don’t.  This human right to be free from such personal violence and coercion is so basic that everyone understands it, intuitively and viscerally.

Except in the case of pregnancy.  Only in this instance—pregnancy—is it somehow perfectly all right for some other entity to make use of another living human being’s body against her will.

In an honest, fact-based debate, this would foreclose any argument to the contrary — or, alternatively, reveal that “a woman is a subhuman breeding sow” is precisely the repulsive, religion-based proposition being defended.  But even an argument like this one, as instructive and compelling as it may be, does not pack the emotional punch of, say, the image of a fetus.

Pictures of embyos (gruesome or otherwise) feature prominently in anti-choice propaganda because they are emotionally powerful.  They work.  Even when the images are subsequently debunked as fraudulent or at best highly unrepresentative, anti-choicers are virtually guaranteed to keep using them anyway.  Yet abortion advocates do not fire back with gruesome pictures of women like Geraldine Santoro, who died as a result of a botched abortion attempt.  Her case generally and her picture specifically helped to galvanize the social forces that led to Roe and the moral progress that case recognized and codified.  Instead, on the pro-choice side, we hear lofty arguments about abstract ideas like “choice” and “rights.”  Yes, the Forced Birth Brigade’s arguments are ridiculous and fall apart under even the most cursory scrutiny, but ultimately their arguments do not matter in the slightest.  They are not in the business of making valid and compelling arguments.  They’re making converts to their cause — one fetal picture at a time.

In a recent conversation with Palace co-blogger (and Loyal Subject™) SJ, I proffered that one reason the forced birthers are so successful is the same reason conservatism is so successful:  because the left does not, as a rule, fight fire with fire.  They will not deign to use the right’s most successful tactics, and this means they are necessarily doomed to merely defending their ground for the most part, not extending it.  SJ recently sent me a link to a piece by Valerie Tarico entitled Abortion as a Blessing, Grace, or Gift – Changing the Conversation about Reproductive Rights and Moral Values, in which Tarico notes:

The other side talks about murdering teeny, weeny babies and then mind-melds images of ultrasounds and Gerber babies with faded photos of late term abortions. And we come back by talking about privacy?? Is that like the right to commit murder in the privacy of your own home or doctor’s office? Even apart from the dubious moral equivalence, let’s be real: In the age of Facebook and Twitter, is there a female under twenty-five in who gives a rat’s patooey about privacy, let alone thinks of it as a core value?

Tarico advocates a two-pronged strategy for rolling back the right’s gains in the abortion debate: (1) confront their arguments so that Americans will come to understand the moral emptiness at their core, and (2) express the pro-choice position in positive terms.  “In other words,” she says, “in combination, we must show why ours is the more moral, more spiritual position.” Tarico is a thoughtful and compassionate writer, and her post is a very good read.  But unfortunately it suffers from the usual defects to which liberals are haplessly prone.

Anti-abortion arguments have been repeatedly confronted and shown to be empty for decades, beginning long before Roe v. Wade.  More problematically, her suggestions for “changing the conversation” ignore the reality that these enemies of women are just that:  enemies of women.  Saving precious baybeez is nothing but a pretext for enforcing subhuman breeding sow status on female persons.  This is not an opinion, it is a demonstrable fact:

The NIH reports, “It is estimated that up to half of all fertilized eggs die and are lost (aborted) spontaneously, usually before the woman knows she is pregnant. Among those women who know they are pregnant, the miscarriage rate is about 15–20%.” [citations at the link.]

So: untold billions of pregnancies end without any deliberate actions on the part of women.  Why, then, are anti-choicers not putting even the slightest amount of time and effort into saving and re-implanting even a single one of these billions upon billions of spontaneously aborted embryos?  Aren’t they precious special snowflakes, too?  Not according to the Forced Birth Brigades, apparently.  Further, nature’s answer to the special snowflake question — or, if you prefer, God’s answer — is also a loud and clear no:  dead human embryos are a dime a dozen, and that’s being generous.  Yet nobody, on the right or anywhere else, gives them a second thought.  This is de facto proof that all of this “personhood from conception” stuff is complete and utter bullshit.

All of their arguments have been likewise soundly refuted, shown to be utterly disingenuous if not laughably ridiculous.  And yet they persist in making them, because this is about something else entirely: only when a woman doesn’t want to be pregnant is there suddenly grave and profound concern for a blastocyst.  Uh-huh.

Confronting and soundly defeating the right’s arguments has gotten us exactly nowhere.  If we really want to “change the conversation” enough to have any impact, we will have to stop pretending that we are talking about baybeez and abortions.  We are talking about controlling, enslaving and subjugating women.  Period.  We will have to stop pretending that we are having a rational debate.  As if such things can be rationally defended, or should ever be subject to debate, at all.

Talrico’s second prong — expressing the pro-choice position in positive moral terms — holds more promise.  I agree that this can and should be done with more frequency (and that platitudes like the Clintonian “safe, legal and rare” do much to undermine the moral case for abortion on demand).  Ironically, the very reason the positive case is not made more often is that pro-abortion activists and writers are endlessly bogged down with Talrico’s first prong: confronting and refuting the right’s long-dead, shallow, bankrupt arguments, and all to no avail.  We are so busy defending our ground — and losing, by the way — that we have lost both the imperative and the ability to make the case for abortion, not just for “choice.”

Today in these United States, anyone exploring the matter of abortion is inundated with images of precious little fetuses, and (fortunately) not so much with tragic stories of dead, maimed, desperate and debased women and unwanted children.  We USians are far removed, however precariously, from the blood-soaked tableau of yesteryear (although thanks to the Catholic Church many places on the globe are not).  But in this fragile interim, we have also lost something:  a sense of urgent moral outrage at the inherent injustice of forced pregnancy.  There are now generations of women and men who have no knowledge of the nightmarish world that existed in the U.S. before Roe, and certainly no living memory of it.

And therein lies the problem.

Below is a fairly ubiquitous image found in anti-choice literature, originally published in 1971 by Dr. J.C. Willke, president and founder of International Right to Life, in his book Handbook on Abortion.  It depicts a ruptured tubal pregnancy, one which hopefully had not already killed the woman who hosted it.  Regardless, in no event could any such pregnancy result in a viable fetus.  Dr. Willke describes this picture in his book as a normal fetus at six weeks gestation.  Of course a fetus at six weeks is actually the size of a BB pellet, not the larger (and extremely deadly) potential little humanoid pictured here:

tubalpregnancyruptured

Aww! I totally want a pocket-sized dead fetus in a sac to carry around with me! Don’t you want one?

When I urge employing the right’s effective tactics in the abortion debate, I do not mean lying and exaggerating as they do.  There is no need to, because all of the salient facts are on the pro-choice side.  What I mean is this:  show me a picture of a fetus?  Okay.  I’ll show you a picture of Geraldine Santoro:

geraldinesantoro

Geraldine “Gerri” Santoro, June 8, 1964 (aged 28)

That is what the Forced Birth Brigades are advocating.  We ought to be reminded of this fact at every opportunity.

Require, as the state of Texas does, that women seeking abortions be told lies about a link to breast cancer?  Fine.  Providers can also tell them the truth: abortions actually exert a strong protective effect against endometrial cancer, as well as a protective effect against colon cancer — oh and FYI against breast cancer.

Require that a woman view a fetal ultrasound before aborting?  Fine.  Offer to show her a video of a difficult labor and delivery, and/or give her the actual statistics on the safety of abortion vs. childbirth: a woman carrying a baby to term is 14 times more likely to die than a woman who has a legal abortion.

As well meaning as Tarico undoubtedly is, her approach represents several steps backward from the kind of advocacy that made Roe v. Wade possible in the first place.  It was not polite, pleasant and respectful conversation that swayed the cultural zeitgeist in favor of legalized abortion.  It was growing horror at the undeniable consequences of illegal abortion.  It was devastated lives, dead and maimed women, unwanted children.

Now more than ever it is worthwhile to take a page from Anne Nicole Gaylor’s 1975 book Abortion is a Blessing (from which this post’s title was shamelessly stolen).  Gaylor eloquently recounts in unsparing detail why she became involved in abortion access; it offers raw, first-person testimony that makes Tarico’s piece seem painfully naive regarding exactly what is at stake here and how to confront it effectively.  You can read the whole thing online here.

Anti-choicers know perfectly well that outlawing abortions doesn’t stop them, it only makes the procedure far more damaging and deadly for women who are determined to terminate anyway.  It’s just a simple fact that women with unwanted pregnancies die and suffer horrific injuries where abortion is illegal.  Interestingly, although this fact seems quite jarring today, Christian clergy and religious congregations were in the vanguard of the movement to legalize abortion.  (What would Jeezus do?  Alleviate the needless suffering and death of thousands of women, apparently.  But only in the early 1970s.  Not so much now.)

Watch this video if you still have any doubts about whether women, their families and their societies are better off without access to safe, legal abortion on demand.  Scroll up and take a good look at that photograph of Geraldine Santoro.  Picture piles of her, stacked up, Holocaust-style.  And on this day, and every day, please consider what actions you can take to ensure that picture represents the past, and not the future, for all women.

abortionisablessing

Coathanger lobby update: Michigan.

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Michigan’s H.B. 5711 (and it’s companion H.B. 5713) has been called an abortion “super bill,” as it incorporates nearly every single trick in the anti-choice book that we have generally seen pass piecemeal in other states.  It requires screening interrogating women for signs of “coercion” prior to an abortion (Dear Lard, the irony…); TRAP laws including new liability insurance requirements; onerous regulations on clinics as surgical facilities; bizarre restrictions on the disposal of fetal remains that will require a woman to sign a form indicating her preference as to whether the extracted fetal tissue be “cremated, buried or interred”; the mandatory physical presence of a physician for a medication abortion — an extremely problematic restriction especially in rural areas of Michigan, a state where 82 percent of counties have no abortion provider; providing a tax credit for fetuses (but not actual children); and allowing medical providers to deny any health care service they deem personally objectionable.

The bill’s evil twin, H.B. 5713, provides sentencing guidelines for violations of the new laws, and also bans all abortions after 20 weeks, except when it is necessary to “save a life.”  Of course, many horrific fetal defects cannot be determined until after 20 weeks gestation, so the purpose of this particular law is to ensure the maximum amount of human suffering is inflicted on women, their families, and their doomed fetuses.

The super bill passed overwhelmingly in both houses of the Michigan legislature, and Republican governor Rick Snyder has less than two weeks to decide whether to sign it into law.  I wonder what he will do?  OMFG the suspense is killing me!

In the course of our world-renowned studies in the field of Conservative Personality Disorder, we have often noted that anti-choice zealots are ignorant, unprincipled liars.  One Michigan legislator has been kind enough to demonstrate this for us quite nicely.  Activist Emily Kellogg Magner visited with Michigan Senator Howard Walker, who had already voted for the bill but had not yet bothered to read it.  During their 20 minute meeting, he was “dismissive, misinformed, and rude.”  At the end, he cut her off by interjecting, “This isn’t about protecting women, it’s about protecting fetuses!”

Now this statement is offensive enough with respect to the Senator’s view of whether women are deemed worthy of protection (except possibly insofar as they dutifully perform their government-designated roles as non-consenting incubators).  But as U.S. legislative culture is presently an unrelenting shitstorm of violent misogyny, this all-too-common sentiment barely even merits a yawn.  On the other hand, we do feel it is necessary to reiterate at every opportunity that contrary to Howie’s little outburst, bills like H.B. 5711 are manifestly not about protecting fetuses.  If they were, all of these @$$holes would be clamoring to do something about the inconceivably massive number of spontaneous abortions that occur every day:

The NIH reports, “It is estimated that up to half of all fertilized eggs die and are lost (aborted) spontaneously, usually before the woman knows she is pregnant. Among those women who know they are pregnant, the miscarriage rate is about 15–20%.” [citations at the link.]

OH DEAR DAWG, WHO IS PROTECTING ALL OF THESE MILLIONS OF POOR LITTLE FETUSES?

Answer:  No one.  Not one person.  And that includes the ignorant, unprincipled liar, Senator Howard Walker.

michigansenatorwalker

Michigan State Senator Howard Wagner, ignorant, unprincipled liar. (Photo: World News Inc.)

Which assault rifle would Jesus own?

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The title of this post has been shamelessly stolen from a Jeremy Scahill tweet (although I very much doubt that this sentiment originated with him).  Nevertheless, it poses an interesting question — what would the infamous fictional character of Jeezus think of the recent shooting deaths?  I know exactly what you’re thinking:  maybe we should inquire with a Baptist seminary student dropout in order to find out?

As we noted yesterday, former Arkansas governor, Fox News host and Baptist seminary student dropout Mike Huckabee opined that the Connecticut shootings took place because “we’ve systematically removed God from our schools,” adding, “Maybe we ought to let [God] in on the front end, and we wouldn’t have to call him to show up when it’s all said and done.”  What a flaming doucheweasel, amirite?  No, not Mike Huckabee (yeah, okay, him too), but this god character.  In response to Huckabee’s weird assertions I mused:

Now so far, I remain unconvinced by this god theory of theirs.  For one thing, it doesn’t account for the 2007 mass shooting at New Life Church in Colorado Springs.  Or the 2008 killings at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church in Knoxville.  And that’s to say nothing of the military bases, restaurants and workplaces, where as far as I am aware gods are generally permitted unfettered access.  But more importantly, if some god demands American schoolchildren recite mandatory prayers to it in exchange for protecting them from violent massacres, then clearly that god is a sadistic, narcissistic @$$hole — and we should do everything in our power keep it as far away from kids as possible.

Obviously the governor has now taken my critique to heart, because he no longer believes the shootings were caused by a lack of mandatory prayers in public schools.*  Nope.  He has retooled his hypothesis and determined that the Newtown massacre was the result of “tax-funded abortion pills.”

Christian-owned businesses are told to surrender their values under the edict of government orders to provide tax-funded abortion pills. We carefully and intentionally stop saying things are sinful and we call them disorders. Sometimes, we even say they’re normal. And to get to where we have to abandon bed rock moral truths, then we ask “well, where was God?” And I respond that, as I see it, we’ve escorted him out of our culture and marched him off the public square and then we express our surprise that a culture without him reflects what it’s become.

Of course our culture is so god-soaked we’re all drowning in it, but no matter:  nothing can ever be Jeezus-y enough for the Mike Huckabees of the world.  Even if American schoolchildren were forced to grovel daily in unison to a malevolent Sky Daddy like good little fascists, there would be Mike Huckabee shrieking about the need for corporal punishment, sex segregation, and a thousand other biblical rules and regulations with no proven benefits (and in fact proven harms) in reality.  And speaking of reality, that magical land where Mike Huckabee dares not tread:

In reality, there are no “government-funded abortion pills.” The Obamacare contraception mandate, which is what Huckabee is likely referring to, does not provide coverage for any abortifacients — and will actually help reduce abortion rates.

Clearly there is not enough mockery in the world for the likes of Mike Huckabee.  But the Palace will continue to contribute whatever small amount of ridicule we can to this worthwhile endeavor.

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* Incidentally, there is a whole lot of praying in public schools: ask any kid unprepared for a test.

Major Award: Dumbass Doucheweasel of the Day.

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Unsurprisingly, the Rapeapologist Party in the House of Representatives continues to block passage of The Violence Against Women Act, which until the current congress had been renewed consistently with bipartisan support since its enactment in 1994.  Rep. Eric Cantor, domestic violence proponent and champion of rapist babies, actually offered this explanation for why the House refuses to compromise and pass the legislation:

“We blocked the Violence Against Women Act because the Senate forced it on us without our consent. I’m sure women understand.”

Heh-heh.  *snort*

Hahaha!  *snigger*

Hahahahahaha!!!!  OMFG!  HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!   Ow!  Oh!  OH!  I am laughing so hard it hurts!  IT HURTS!

It’s still early, but I am quite confident that you, Eric Cantor, are the most epic dumbass doucheweasel I am likely to encounter today, by far.  Thus it gives me great pleasure to bestow upon you the highly coveted Perry Street Palace Major Award™ for Dumbass Doucheweasel of the Day.  Congratulations, sir, on your truly remarkable accomplishment.

(Hahaha!)

Happy Birthday Anne Nicol Gaylor.

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Anne Nicol Gaylor, a personal hero of mine, is celebrating her 86th birthday today (we referenced her brilliant essay “What’s Wrong With the Ten Commandments?” from her 1983 book Lead Us Not Into Penn Station in our post yesterday).  She co-founded the Freedom From Religion Foundation in 1976 with her daughter Annie Laurie Gaylor, which is of course impressive enough.  I met her years ago at an FFRF convention in Orlando, and it was truly an honor for me to shake her hand and say “Thanks for this.”  But what I did not know until only a few years ago was that in 1976 she also founded Women’s Medical Fund, a Wisconsin non-profit that helps pay for abortions for women who cannot afford them.  For over 35 years she has been the sole volunteer, answering every desperate call personally to the tune of some 800 women and girls every year, and writing every single check — almost 20,000 to date.

Because the U.S. citizenry generally and our state governments in particular are overrun with misogynous doucheweasels of the odious Christianist persuasion, even where women have a legal right to abortion for all intents and purposes access is severely restricted if not outright eliminated.  Wisconsin is one of the worst states in this regard: 93 percent of Wisconsin counties presently have no abortion provider.  The state has enacted pretty much the complete suite of embarrassingly stupid and hateful laws, including biased counseling required by physicians and a mandatory 24 hour delay, mandated parental consent, prohibition of private insurance coverage for abortion, insidious TRAP laws, and of course draconian prohibitions on public funding.

In a fundraising appeal in 2009 Gaylor wrote, “Of the 632 women the fund has helped so far this year, 147 were teenagers.  Of these, nine were only 13 years old, and one, not yet a teen, was just 12!”  Some quotes:

Abortion is a blessing. [source]

How presumptuous of someone to think the world is interested in a half-dozen or eight or 10 of their kids. [source]

There were many groups working for women’s rights, but none of them dealt with the root cause of women’s oppression–religion. [source]

There are no gods, no devils, no angels, no heaven or hell. There is only our natural world. Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds.  [source]

Nothing fails like prayer. [source]

The words ‘In God WE trust’ are not only unconstitutional, they aren’t even accurate. [source]

And here is a merry seasonal one:

For a fact, the Christians stole Christmas. We don’t mind sharing it with them, but we don’t like this pretense of theirs that it is the birthday of Jesus. It is the Birthday of the Unconquered Sun–Dies Natalis Invicti Solis. Christmas is a relic of sun worship. [source]

As you might imagine, over the decades she has gotten some pushback from some of the aforementioned doucheweasels.  She was discussing her 1975 book, Abortion is a Blessing, on a Philadelphia talk show when an audience member rushed her from behind and put her in a chokehold.  (I am sure Jeezus himself would have done the same!)  More recently, after this article about her work appeared in The Wisconsin State Journal, a couple of CPD cases wrote bizarre essays condemning her.  Here is an except from a piece by a doucheweasel of the Catholic Deacon species, which I have taken the liberty to edit for accuracy:

What Anne Nicol Gaylor the Catholic Church is doing is Evil.  It should not be given the legally favored status of a “Charity” under the law. It is more akin to a War crime. After all, there is an undeclared War on the Womb Women and she it is helping to fund it by writing checks. So far, 18,986 checks billions of dollars and counting! The Bizarro World of Charities that Kill and Tax Deductions to those who fund Evil must be exposed. In John Paul’s the words of someone we never heard of “Given such a grave situation, we need now more than ever to have the courage to look the truth in the eye and to call things by their proper name.”  All righty, then:  The Catholic Church is a woman-hating scourge, one that cannot possibly be eradicated from the planet soon enough. 

Then there was this hateful @$$columnist from a paper in Milwaukee who describes himself as “generally a right-wing guy” (I know, right?! whodathunkit?) and describes Gaylor as “Sweet little old Granny Blood-Money.”  He is inexplicably “astonished” and “horrified” at Gaylor’s heroic work, whereas I am astonished and horrified that people who think like this are taken seriously enough to be given columns in newspapers:

One donor last year, a California woman who’d in the past given to the anti-religion group Gaylor used to lead, forked over $20,000, based presumably on Gaylor’s fund-raising pitch, which tells of helping girls pregnant at 12 or a girl raped by her father.

Both, of course, are horrible situations, almost as horrible as being not merely pregnant but chopped into little pieces and not at 12 but at a much, much more vulnerable age. After all, being killed by a choice-armed mother is much less tragic than being raped by monstrous father, yes?

No, actually. It’s not.

Yeah, actually. It is.  This hypocrite — who it goes without saying would never support society taking his blood or using his organs against his will — also said this:

Gaylor, the paper goes on to detail in inexorably unfolding horror, founded the fund whose sole purpose is to pay for abortions. Last year alone, it paid out $162,000 or so, three-fourths of it from individual donors and a quarter from foundations that apparently do not see some humans as, well, debris incubators.

FIFY, cupcake.

Per Palace custom, we will be celebrating the birthday of Anne Nicol Gaylor today in the Grand Entry Hall near the Palace’s Shrine to PZ Myers.  Baby-back ribs, Bloody Marys and gourmet, gluten-free, consecrated communion wafers will be served.

The Slut Vote.

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[Cross-posted at The Political Junkies for Progressive Democracy.]

Much hay has been made, both before and after the recent election, about the right’s “War on Women.”  If conservative policies with respect to abortion and birth control were not so deadly the whole thing could have been scripted as a comic farce set in the 12th century, the era to which conservatives apparently long for civilization to return.

There was Rush Limbaugh calling college student Sandra Fluke a slut for advancing the outrageous idea that oral contraception is basic health care.  In a tour de force of delusionary ranting entirely untethered from reality, Limbaugh said:

What does it say about the college co-ed Susan Fluke [sic] who goes before a congressional committee and essentially says that she must be paid to have sex. What does that make her? It makes her a slut, right? It makes her a prostitute. She wants to be paid to have sex. She’s having so much sex she can’t afford the contraception. She wants you and me and the taxpayers to pay her to have sex.

How is it possible for a man who has been married four times and has no children to hold the incomprehensibly ignorant notion that birth control pills are taken each time one engages in heterosexual intercourse?  Sandra Fluke’s congressional testimony, of course, only concerned her friend who requires oral contraception strictly for medical reasons, but was denied coverage by those compassionate Christians who run the Catholic university of Georgetown.  But never mind those pesky facts.  The next day Limbaugh doubled down:

So Miss Fluke, and the rest of you Feminazis, here’s the deal. If we are going to pay for your contraceptives, and thus pay for you to have sex. We want something for it. We want you post the videos online so we can all watch.

As it turned out, Rush Limbaugh had nothing against sluts after all — provided they were willing to service his infantile sexual pathology.

99% of American women of reproductive age who have had sex have used birth control.  The figure is 98% for Catholic women.  Gosh, that sure seems like a whole lot of sluts.

Then there were the mandatory rape laws enacted in several states, requiring that medically unnecessary trans-vaginal ultrasounds be performed upon women before abortions.  (Virginia State Senator Janet Howell proposed an amendment to such a law that would have required men seeking erectile dysfunction medication to first have a medically unnecessary rectal exam.  Strangely, her amendment failed.)  The state of Arizona enacted a law whereby a doctor can now lie to a pregnant woman about serious fetal abnormalities in order to prevent her from terminating, and not be sued for the unconscionable devastation that results.

There was the hideous parade of Republican rape apologists running for office: Rick “accept what God has given to you” Santorum; Todd “legitimate rape” Akin; John “uh, the rape thing…how does it make it better by killing a child?” Koster; Joe “there is no such exception as life of the mother” Walsh; and Richard “even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen” Mourdock.

But the uproar over the no-copay birth control mandate in the Affordable Care Act really put the right’s derangement on vivid display for all to see.  One poor fellow from The Christian Men’s Defense Network (?!) had this to say in the wake of Romney’s loss:

Democrats tried to make this election about a single issue:

The right to slut.

Or more precisely, the right to slut without the responsibility of consequences.  The famous “gender gap” isn’t really a gap based on gender.  The right overwhelmingly wins older and married women.  The “gender gap” should more accurately be called the slut vote.

Okay, then.  The slut vote it is.  If by “slut” we mean “sexually active woman responsibly preventing pregnancy,” I and at least 98% of American women will be quite happy to embrace the label.  All those “older and married women” on the right?  Sluts, the lot of ‘em.  As a matter of fact, it’s a pretty safe bet that all of these guys’ wives are sluts, too.  Well, all of them except for Karen Santorum.  She has given birth to eight children.

Anyway, this whole War on Women thing?  Even if you are not a Vagina-American — i.e., a slut — you still might want to pay attention.  This has not been happening in a vacuum:  it is part of the larger conservative war on Social Security.  Unions.  The environment.  Education.  Food and water.  Immigrants.  Cancer patients.  Muslims.  The poor.  Gay and trans people.  The oceans.  Palestinians.  The middle class.  Black people.  Brown people.  The young.  The elderly.  The disabled.  Science.  The Earth.  The godless.  History.

For it seems that to whatever extent conservative policy is unleashed in one arena, it invariably inflicts its many miseries in other areas, too.  As go women’s reproductive rights, so go civil rights, and ultimately human rights.  And let us not overstate the enlightened liberalism of the Democratic Party on these issues, either.  Both parties have drifted rightward over the years and there are plenty of Democrats who are conservative, not just on reproductive rights but on a whole host of social and fiscal issues.  Those who would posit that Democrats in general or Barack Obama in particular have been unrelenting champions of reproductive rights will need to explain the administration’s overruling of FDA scientists on over-the-counter access to Plan B contraceptives, and the party’s cynical strategy of raising funds on the pretext of “holding Republicans accountable” for viciously misogynist legislation when those funds would be put to use reelecting Democrats who voted for exactly the same bills.

In fact, I think it’s probably fair to say that it was the right asserting their long-held, backward views with such unapologetic brio that benefited the Democrats in the election more than anything that they actively did on these issues themselves.  It came in the form of the slut voter backlash against the right’s medieval views of women.  In light of this, the Democrats would be wise to do some serious housecleaning.  They can stop promoting and supporting anti-choice candidates like Senators Harry Reid and Bob Casey, and start actively pushing forward on reproductive rights instead of compromising with the enemies of women — who are, not coincidentally, the enemies of humanity.

We sluts are paying attention.  There are a whole lot of us.  And we vote.

Uh-oh. SIWOMB.

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Someone Is Wrong On My Blog!

PLEASE don’t say there isn’t much difference between the two candidates. That’s just nonsense.

There isn’t much difference between the two candidates.

I believe I have made my case, so that is exactly what I will say (even if you tell me very nicely not to).  Note that I have never asserted that there is no difference between Obama and Romney.  I have said — and this is thrice now — that our current president is “a Wall Street-serving corporatist, a radical and lawless executive, and an unrepentant, murderous warmonger very much like his predecessor.”

Maybe none of that bothers you very much.  Or maybe you are under the mistaken impression that my statement isn’t true.  You are of course under no obligation to agree with me.  But if your argument boils down to “Nuh-uh!” and you provide neither evidence nor argument that Barack Obama is not, in fact, “a Wall Street-serving corporatist, a radical and lawless executive, and an unrepentant, murderous warmonger very much like his predecessor” (that’s four!) then naturally I will remain unpersuaded.  I’m not being glib here;  this is important to me, because I would very much like to be wrong about him.  But I fear that I am not.

I’m sure you’re resting easy knowing Obama has already appointed two women to the SCOTUS and will appoint between 1 and 3 more SCOTUS justices who WON’T overturn Roe V. Wade.

I’m not resting easy for one second.  Roe v. Wade is and always will be under constant assault, especially at the state level.  However, if (when?) Roe falls, abortion law would immediately revert back to the domain of the states: they would be free to restrict it, or, at least theoretically, to enact expanded access.  This scenario is pretty much what we have right now.  For all practical purposes, TRAP laws, waiting periods and the defunding of women’s health care in Red states have made access to legal abortion impossible for many thousands of women.  This is happening with Roe still in place, rendering it all but symbolic at best.

I have acknowledged that Supreme Court appointments is an issue on which Obama is better than Romney.  And I am of course pleased to see three women on the high court.  But women are not magically immune from CPD.  Sotomayor in particular was an excellent choice:  an actual liberal with no apparent symptoms of Conservative Personality Disorder.  Kagan replacing Stevens has actually moved the court to the right, albeit only slightly.  Personally, I would rather see a liberal male appointed than a slightly conservative female.  YMMV.  Here’s my point:  if Romney had appointed a wingnut or three the appointment(s) would still have to get by the Senate, which in case you haven’t noticed is home to a lot of conservative Democrats including anti-choicer-in-chief Harry Reid.  The problem isn’t the wingnuts, who will always be clambering for power.  It’s the Democrats who enable them, especially the conservative Democrats who agree with them.  They are the targets of my scorn, and justifiably so.  If you can think of any way to stop them other than voting them out of office — even at the cost of a Republican winning the seat — I’m all ears.  If you cannot, and remain unwilling to support this course of action, you can expect to see both parties drift rightward.

Women’s reproductive rights just got a huge boost from the SCOTUS side with Obama’s re-election.

Reproductive rights is another issue on which Barack Obama is better than Mitt Romney.  However, let’s not overstate the case:  if Obama is such an unrelenting champion for reproductive rights, please explain this.

I am not only a life-long activist on this issue, I am also someone who would be at grave risk personally were I to get pregnant and find myself unable to terminate immediately.  However, I am convinced that misogyny and militarism march in lockstep, hand in hand:  where you find one, you will always find the other.  This is why rape is and has always been a weapon of war (endorsed by the god character in the bible, by the way); it is also why sexual assault is endemic in our own military.

Perhaps you misunderstood the point of my series:  I am looking at the bigger picture, and thinking about a term longer than the next four years.  Our culture and even our police forces have become more and more militarized under Barack Obama — and he wants to make the War on Terror permanent, with all of the tyrannical power and civil liberties erosion that entails.  The sanctions on Iran are pure evil, and as Iraq should have proven once and for all, they do not work and are in fact counterproductive.  It will take even more effort to limit U.S. militarism than it will to keep abortion safe and legal, but I remain convinced that these are two sides of the same coin.  This is why Democrats who are warmongers, who double down on Bush’s idiotic foreign policy, are flat-out unacceptable to me for reasons above and beyond innocent dead Muslims (including children).

Also, you can visit http://whatthefuckhasobamadonesofar.com to be reminded of some of the non-existent accomplishments of the last four years.

Don’t be an @$$hole.  Please point to where I said that the Nobel Peace Prize Winner has accomplished exactly nothing of value, or retract this statement.  And two can play at that game: you can visit this very blog to be reminded that in addition to being “a Wall Street-serving corporatist, a radical and lawless executive, and an unrepentant, murderous warmonger very much like his predecessor” (five!), Barack Obama is in favor of expanding offshore oil drilling, pro-death penalty, pro-SuperPACs, against raising the federal minimum wage, against legalizing marijuana, has no intention of exiting Afghanistan, wants no cuts to our insane defense budget, supports military tribunals and indefinite detention, unleashed an unprecedented war on whistleblowers, supports targeted killings of American citizens on his word alone, secretly cut a deal with Big Pharma and health insurers to enact his conservative health care “reform” law…

I can do this all day.

Speaking of Obamacare, I personally believe in the one sentence healthcare solution “Medicare For All”.

So do I.  For-profit healthcare is evil.  Please enjoy this custom Palace graphic, which I append to posts wherein “Medicare for All” is mentioned:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That doesn’t mean Obamacare isn’t a huge step in the right direction.

It means exactly that.  Obamacare entrenches the for-profit system; if it’s a “huge step” in any direction — and I don’t agree that it is — it is in exactly the wrong direction.  Ferchrissakes, the blueprint came right out of a wingnut welfare operation, the odious Heritage Foundation.  It’s a private-market “solution” to what should by all rights be the government’s problem to solve.

Being a pragmatist, Obama’s ACA is an intermediary step toward single payer not the final solution.

This is just flat out false.  Please explain how the ACA is in any way a step toward single payer when it entrenches the existing for-profit system.  An option to buy into Medicare (“public option”) would have been an intermediary step toward single payer health care.  Unfortunately the conservative Barack Obama had already sold out exactly that (while pretending to support it) in his secret deal with pharma and insurance.  If that is “pragmatic” in your view, then the word clearly has a different definition for you than it does for me.  More to my point, the health care law that came out of Pelosi’s House had a robust public option.  It was DOA in the Senate, though.  Why?  Conservative Democrats.  You know:  like Barack Obama.

Single payer wasn’t going to happen in one fell swoop.

That is why the public option was so critical.

There are PLENTY of people who have already benefited greatly from Obamacare so at least it’s doing something positive, which is saying something for today’s Washingtonian legislative products.

Agreed.  However, there are still PLENTY of our fellow citizens suffering every day and dying unnecessarily, while we hand out billions in foreign aid to countries like Israel whose citizens enjoy universal health care.  And there are also PLENTY of people losing their homes and life’s savings, becoming impoverished literally overnight for seeking necessary medical care for themselves and their loved ones.  How exactly do you see the ACA putting an end to that?

Have I mentioned that for-profit healthcare is evil?  For-profit health care is evil.

See where I said in my post that if you want single payer healthcare you are necessarily going to have to stop voting for (conservative) Democrats who don’t?  Yeah, that.

Thanks for your comment.  It’s always a pleasure to hear from you — even when we disagree.