If you want to see the consequences of the recent wave of attempts to endorse “provider conscience rules”, in which health care providers are permitted to freely exercise their whims and biases in providing clients and patients their services, read this story. As usual, it’s all about controlling the reproductive choices of women: we’ve had politicians blocking access to Plan B contraception; laws that would allow doctors to deny care if it was against their religious beliefs; and pharmacists who refuse to fill birth control prescriptions. Beyond simply passive denial of giving a patient what they need, though, we now have gone to the next step: wingnuts actively removing birth control devices against the patient’s will. Nurse practitioner Sylvia Olona of the Presbyterian Medical Services Rio Rancho Family Health Center in New Mexico has been taking it upon herself to yank out the IUDs of patients in her care.
Having the IUD come out was a good thing [because] I personally do not like IUDs. I feel they are a type of abortion. I don’t know how you feel about abortion, but I am against them. …What the IUD does is take the fertilized egg and pushes it out of the uterus.
What Olona is doing is a violation of ethics, a consequence of shameful ignorance, and ought to be criminal. At the very least, she ought to be fired.
That is not what an IUD does. An IUD is a small, typically T-shaped piece of metal or plastic that is inserted into the uterus, where it interferes with conception. In essence, what it does is induce a low-grade, local inflammation in the reproductive tract that causes changes in cervical mucus, hindering the passage of sperm. The device itself also seems to block sperm activity, and some IUDs also slowly release progestin, a hormone that suppresses ovulation. It is not an abortifactant. It is basically a kind of barrier method. Most of the uninformed complaints about the IUD are built on the fact that it also induces changes to the uterine lining which would inhibit implantation if sperm somehow managed to fertilize an egg.
How about firing this bozo because she is ignorant about the facts of her job?
Olona is a serial offender. She is currently being sued by a woman who went in for a trivial adjustment of the IUD, and instead had it completely removed by Olona…by ‘accident’, the nurse claims, but she apparently has a reputation for doing this.
Everyone in the office always laughs and tells me I pull these out on purpose because I am against them, but it’s not true, they accidentally come out when I tug.
Ladies, welcome to your future. A future in which others will decide whether you may have children or not. Don’t worry, though: they will never say “not”. And don’t feel like your choices will be taken out of your hands, you still have a choice. If you don’t want to get pregnant, just never have sex, you slut.
Unethical, indeed! She should be fired and then stripped of her license to practice.
“They accidentally come out when I tug.” – my ass.
Demented fuckwit.
Utterly appalling.
Everyone in the office always laughs and tells me I pull these out on purpose
I think that’s the most telling detail–“It’s jes’ fun n’ games, what are you libruls all upset about?” Healthcare officials laughing about the shitty, possibly criminal care they dispense? What a bunch of prime grade-A scumbags.
That is awful. I’d be suing that lady’s ass too, and I can’t believe she still has a job. Maybe this explains it though (if it is indeed true):
The apathy and passive enabling of others is just as disgusting.
I’m not sure I agree that “they will never say ‘not’.” Just off the top of my head, history records cases of compulsory abortion when the woman was mentally ill, black, and carrying the child of an important man. I’m sure there are others.
The most important reason to keep government out of the abortion business is that, if government has the power to ban abortions, it also has the power to compel them.
This is outrageous. I can’t think of any decision more personal than to become pregnant. IUD’s are legal. She has no right to impose her misinformed views on patients in her care.
This is outrageous. Why do people have such strong urges to make the world even worse than it already is? We’re supposed to move forward, not backward.
When I was younger and therefore shorter and more naïve, I was convinced that as a species and a civilisation we would strive to move forward all the time, that we would improve and better ourselves. This made sense, since it seemed obvious that everyone would want something better than what we currently have. How wrong I was.
This nurse is doing things inside women’s vaginas that is against their consent. She should be charged with rape.
She has no right to impose her misinformed views on patients in her care.
That’s true, but in their upside-down and ass-backwards manner of thinking, it’s more like, “What right do *you* have to tell me I *can’t* impose my views on you?”
Just wait for the influx of child support cases aimed square at these “providers of conscience.”
“I jus’ replaced her birth control pills with sugar tablets, by accudent. hyuk hyuk.”
“Pay $300 a month for the next 25 years.”
“Hyuk hyuk…huh?”
Well, in a world with any justice, not America.
I can’t believe something like this goes on. I am so glad I had my tubes tied when I was twenty six.
Sounds like assault to me.
Ok, so she’s against something that keeps sperm away from eggs… hmmm… I guess she’s against stuff like abstinence education, marital fidelity and priestly chastity then.
I think a charge of assault is called for against this woman.
That may be the most appalling thing I have ever read here – what an absolute shitgeek!
Let’s hope that three hours from now the tide will start to turn against American stupidity.
Between incidents like this and the new HHS rule, apparently one can no longer trust a Christian health care provider to meet the standard of care. Solution: boycott Christian gynos. Ask them straight up what their religious beliefs are and if they profess to them (especially anti-abortion views), walk out. This law makes the provider’s personal religious beliefs part of the health care equation, and in such a case, you have a right to know their beliefs and make your choices accordingly.
I’m dreaming of a world of poetic justice where that “nurse” is registered as a sex offender.
Put her in jail. Preferably in Texas.
@#10, if only that were true. It is completely legal for any healthcare provider to essentially do anything they want as long as they say it’s because of their conscience. What I’d like to see is someone to take this “protection” to the extreme and do something crazy (hopefully without hurting patients) just to show this idiotic country how ridiculous this law is.
Ask them straight up what their religious beliefs are and if they profess to them (especially anti-abortion views), walk out.
But that would be–gasp!–persecuting and victimizing and oppressing Christians for their beliefs! The horror, the horror…
Nothing like adding to the paranoia about medical staffs imposing their will on a patient. I have to wonder what else Sylvia Olona does not like and will remove. Also have to wonder, what if one of the women that were “treated” by this vile person got pregnant. Could not Sylvia Olona and the Presbyterian Health Services Rio Rancho Family Health Center be held liable.
I really do not want to ride that slippery slope but one has to wonder what else this person did to her patients.
@#15, yes! As someone who is in contact with many, many people who shouldn’t be healthcare providers, I agree with you 100%. Don’t wait until it’s too late, ask them the first time you see them.
It seems to me what she was doing is practicing medicine without a license. She should lose her nursing license and be prosecuted.
That may be the most appalling thing I have ever read here – what an absolute shitgeek!
Whoa, whoa, peter. As a certified, grade-A geek, I am appalled that the word could be modified, even by as strong a modifier as “shit”, to describe this woman — nothing about her expresses any level of overabundance of knowledge in any field (least of all shit). In fact, I’d say she’s lacking even in the basic knowledge of the shit she’s SUPPOSED to know.
But but but… The point is that an IUD is not an abortion! She should be happy for it to exist! Unless she believes that sperm have souls and that preventing them to reach an ovum is akin to murder.
And I thought we had reached the bottom with the Choice of Doughnut story!
This has got to be a criminal act, even in the US.
. . .”they accidentally come out when I tug.”
If she did not tug there would be no accident. Yet still, she tugs.
Perhaps she is expecting a miracle. Perhaps she is doing something criminal. Perhaps she will go to jail someday. Perhaps I’m not holding my breath.
I’ve been reading this site since about the time it moved to scienceblogs and I’ve never read anything on this site that pisses me off more than this.
My wife has an IUD. I love my daughter to no end, but we cannot afford another child right now since we are both full-time students as well. If this lady took out my wife’s IUD without her permission, I don’t know if I could restrain myself to just suing her.
As an aside, what if your doctor was morally opposed to artificially sustaining life. Could they remove your pace maker when you come in for advice on a cold.
Ladies, welcome to your future. A future in which others will decide whether you may have children or not. Don’t worry, though: they will never say “not”.
Except in China, of course.
Jesus didn’t have an IUD, so women don’t need one either.
Don’t worry, though: they will never say “not”.
So long as you’re white and wealthy, that’s true.
Otherwise, they’d really prefer if you just removed your sex organs altogether, I think. According to a governmental report issued by Mathematica, summarising Title V, Section 510 (b)(2)(A-H) of the Social Security Act (P.L. 104-193), one of the goals of abstinence-only education is to “[t]each the importance of attaining self-sufficiency before engaging in sexual activity.”
In other words, the Bush Administration’s official stance is more or less “no fucking until you can afford the kid, bitch.”
Evidently performing a medical procedure without the patients consent is battery (comments from the linked blag):
The plaintiff demands damages for battery, constitutional violations and negligence.
In completely unrelated news, some dude is trying to get the Toronto District School Board to ban Margaret Atwood’s novel, The Handmaid’s Tale.
In any civilised system (i.e, one not run by and for the benefit of religious barbarians), surely this woman would be struck off the professional register, charged as a criminal and held personally responsible in any lawsuit by her employers. I cannot imagine that the UK health trust I work for would accept vicarious liability in a case like this.
Utterly unacceptable.
Joe @5,
The most important reason to keep government out of the abortion business is that, if government has the power to ban abortions, it also has the power to compel them
No, you’re wrong. State power to ban abortion is an independent evil and, as a reason for keeping reproductive decisions out of the state’s hands, is at least as important as the possibility of state-compelled abortion.
Given the ah, litigious nature of many American citizens I’m surprised that this so-called health care practitioner hasn’t had her backside sued off. I applaud any woman who takes responsibility for birth control – especially since I’ve always felt that it should be a man’s responsibility. It’s only logical that the gentleman with the loaded gun, so to speak, should be the one to engage the safety. I know that condoms aren’t 100% but I suspect that they break more often in movies and soap operas than in real life (are there any studies to contradict this?).
Of course, for foolproof birth control you can’t do much better than having a couple of kids already and almost zero time alone together.
“Everyone in the office always laughs ”
Chilling. Absolutely chilling. It’s so funny when women suffer needlessly.
Psycho needs to be put out of a job. Asap. And I’d suggest women avoid this clinic altogether, since they find assault so “funny”.
Rynaldo @ #35:
According to the FDA, male latex condoms have a failure rate of approximately 14% over a year’s time with typical use, with 3% failure with ideal use. (Note that unprotected sex has an 85% “failure rate”: 85% of women having unprotected sex for one year will become pregnant.)
male latex condoms have a failure rate of approximately 14% over a year’s time with typical use
According to the FDA, how long are you supposed to actually USE a condom? Of course it would wear down if you used it for a year.
Do they realize you’re supposed to use a condom only once?
I’ve been a long time reader of this blog and have never felt the need to comment here as someone usually says what I’m thinking. There have been many topics that PZ has brought up that have made me angry, but this one tops the list and has prompted me to voice my opinion.
I’m appalled and outraged that this moron has been removing IUD’s without the patients consent, and then thinks it’s something to joke about – I hope she loses her job and is criminally charged for abuse.
This makes me so angry, I haven’t even got words for it. This woman should certainly not be a nurse. She is violating her patients’ rights, and has a pretty sad understanding of birth control, to boot.
If you cannot do your job because of your religious beliefs, you should not have gone into that line of work.
This is exactly the type of thing that I was worried about (and that Bush was probably hoping for) with the enactment of that 11th hour “objector” b.s. rule. I hope Obama makes the reversal of that a priority.
Evidently performing a medical procedure without the patients consent is battery
makes sense; assault is psychological: the threat of attack. battery is the actual physical contact.
What’s next, Jehovah’s Witnesses who believe blood transfusion is cannibalism, working in emergency rooms and refusing to save the lives of trauma patients?
I, as a nurse-midwife, am completely appalled at this woman. IUDs don’t come out with just a gentle tug. It takes a steady pull on the short strings to pull it through a woman’s cervix. Accidental my **s. If she did this to me, or one of my patients, I would have a complaint in to the state board of nursing so fast her head would swim.
I hope the woman with the assault complaint wins, and this NP loses her job, her license to practice as an NP, and is unable to obtain a new one!
“wingnuts actively removing birth control devices against the patient’s will” re PZ’s post: all links to http://www.rhrealitycheck.org seem to be broken…
I wish I knew about “provider conscience rules” when I was a teller.
“You want to withdraw how much? And what are you going to be buying? TruckNutz? Billy The Singing Bass? Sorry, pal. But I can’t give you the three hundred you asked for, my conscience won’t allow it. Here’s twenty. That should cover your needs for today.”
They have a conscientious need to control your ovaries
Which of the listed treatments target the ovaries?
Unless you’re talking about preventing the normal breakdown of the corpus luteum when the egg has failed to be fertilised…
Can’t they sue for malpractice or insist a new IUD is put it at no charge? That is truly offensive of her. If my doctor tried something like that, she’d be slapped with a lawsuit in seconds.
I guess the important question is whether this nurse informed the patient that the IUD was removed, so that the patient could use alternate forms of birth control. If so, she should only be liable (IMNSHO, IANAL) for the cost of reinserting it. If not, she should be liable (again, IMNSHO) for any pregnancies resulting from its absence.
Does anyone remember when the feminist blogger Biting Beaver feared she was pregnant when her boyfriend’s condom broke, and the pharmacy would not give her emergency contraception? It happened about three years ago. She was stalled in getting what should have been over the counter or prescription medication, and was told to go to the emergency room to get it. The ER wouldn’t give her EC because she was neither raped nor married. The staff at the pharmacy also grilled her on her sexual history and marital status – slut-shamed her.
Basically, she was given the run-around by a bunch of moralistic fuckwits who delayed her medical care for 72 hours (the window under which EC works) until she learned that she was, indeed, pregnant. Her story was all over the web – including making FARK – and she even received death threats. She was trying to do the responsible thing to prevent a pregnancy, and ended up getting an abortion – which I suppose would have been considered worse by the moralistic fuckwits. She was slut-shamed like so many women who have sex for pleasure, and are condemned by “pharmacists of conscience”. So I wasn’t surprised to read about this fuckwit nurse who “tugs” IUDs while the medical staff laughs about it.
That nurse should be fired and sued for battery. She should also pay for any abortion and other medical care the woman/women may need because she “tugged” on the IUD until it “accidentally” fell out.
@C.Barr #42: The analogy is even worse here. She is not (speaking in the analogy) only refusing a blood transfusion, but actively yanking out the needles from patients getting a blood transfusion.
This dumbass, ignorant, self-righteous piece of garbage should be jailed for life.
i was hoping someone would say this, considering this is pharyngula…
why do people care whether the IUD interferes with fertilization or implantation? does it make any difference? other than make even clearer the stupidity of the nurse-practitioner who doesn’t know what an IUD’s supposed to do, that is.
I don’t think you’re using it correctly.
I think that worst part is her lack of basic understanding of how IUDs work. How did she ever get a nursing a degree without having that basic knowledge? How did she get hired and keep her job even though she misunderstands basic medical devices? What if there are other things she doesn’t understand? She could easily mess up something else independently of her beliefs.
I did have another point in my comment that I really didn’t make well. PZ, you wrote, “Ladies, welcome to your future. A future in which others will decide whether you may have children or not.” Actually, that future is already here, and it has been here for a very long time. Biting Beaver’s story is one example, and it’s three years old. This fuckwit nurse is only the latest incarnation of it. Walgreens is well known for employing “pharmacists of conscience”. To my knowledge, the RiteAid I go to does not condone that misogynistic crap, and I have a very good doctor. Hopefully, those recent efforts to strengthen “conscience clauses” will not see the light of day.
Our “future”? I’ve been fighting for control over my own body for my whole fucking life.
“I cannot imagine that the UK health trust I work for would accept vicarious liability in a case like this.”
Given what was said about how her coworkers not only knew she was doing it but laughed about it, I don’t see how her employer could avoid vicarious liability.
Countess: Hear, Hear. As a Texan, this sort of behavior is sadly common in my area. I had a friend in Houston who, because of such behavior from pharmacists and “Health-care professionals” had to drive over 100 miles in 24 hours to get a day after pill.
The infuriating thing is that these people are not only forcing pregnancies onto people who do not want them, they are also helping abusive boyfriends to lock women into destructive relationships through pregnancy. Somehow, I doubt that bothers them though.
And what is the end result of curtailing a women’s ability to get contraception? Well it means that there will be more children running around. But children out of wedlock are still horrible, sinful little things. So what can we, as right wing politicians, do to make sure the little bastards grow up in a proper Christian family?
Why, we have the state force the parents to get married! In the 21st century, the shotgun wedding has been replaced with the lawsuit wedding. Who says that fundamentalists aren’t modern.
I would wager a guess she went into her line of work with a religious agenda in mind.
All I can say is sue the bitch and fire her ass and strip her of her license and if one wants to throw in some tar and feathers, thats fine to
Fire her arse! If the persecuting busybody doesn’t like doing her job properly, she should get out of the profession (or at least she could have pulled a “Ron Heather” and just gone home).
Oh, and here’s a nice poll to crash.
Wow. Just wow.
My first thought was that since she has injected herself into this wonan’s family planning choices, she should be forced to raise the results of these ‘accidents’ – doorbell rings at midnight, “Oh, no, not another one!” (Yes I understand this wouln’t ever happen, and would be child abuse.) Maybe once she was trying to raise 5 or 6 of them, she might understand why people want to give Jesus a hand with rheir family planning. At the very least, she might stop laughing about it.
This woman was actually recognized in the NM House of Representatives as part of 2008 Women’s History Month.
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/R?r110:FLD001:E50437
You have to scroll down quite a way to see her name. She’s cited for “providing a much needed service in rural New Mexico”
Unless there’s Sylvia Olona?
#58 Daniel wrote:
That’s already going on, too. States have been heavily promoting unwed poor parents to marry since the mid ’90s when the Clinton administration introduced welfare deform. “Responsible” fatherhood projects and marriage initiatives get scads of federal funding to promote religious social experimentation that has never worked. They also have bipartisan support. What’s worse is that Obama is keen on these programs. Evan Bayh is lobbying Obama to set up Tony Dungy as “Fatherhood Czar” because the guy is a fricking popular football coach!!! Bayh hasn’t even thought out exactly what a “Fatherhood Czar” is supposed to do. He just likes the idea, he’s a sports fan, and he likes Dungy’s work on various social issues. While I’m glad Bush and all his cronies are gone, not all of the idiocy has left the White House.
I hear you, Julian. The lies those people promote just don’t go away. This nurse doesn’t even know how an IUD works. Although it’s long been discredited that abortions lead to an increase in breast cancer, pro-life people and organizations like Project Rachel continue to promote the lie. I want to see these conscience clauses go away before they do more damage than they’ve already done.
Christie @ #47:
If my doctor tried something like that, she’d be slapped
with a lawsuitin seconds.Fixed.
Makes me want to find an old vinyl copy of “No more wire hangers,” that fine, feminist punk anthem, and play it REALLY LOUD.
Apparently this nurse has also failed to consider the possibility of rape and health risks of being pregnant.
What a piece of self-righteous BS: “They come out when I tug on them.”
Well, that’s how you take them out! (I’m in the field; I’ve put in a lot of them, and taken out a fair few, including, years ago, Dalkon Shields.) And it takes a fair amount of tug to get one out; it’s not just a little tiny pull.
“Checking to see if it’s in the right place,” my blooming arse.
Oh, and to the person who said that the nurse shouldn’t be liable except for replacement costs unless she didn’t inform the patient? There are a lot of guys who won’t use condoms (“I’m too big…heh, heh, heh”), can’t get talked into them…and rubbers have an in-use failure rate of AT LEAST 10-15% anyway.
Failure rate on IUDs? About 0.1%. No cooperation required.
Given that this is New Mexico, this serial malpractice practitioner could be the only GYN provider for a hundred miles. This nurse or NP should be sued. And her license revoked.
But… ovaries are dangerous! says so right here:
http://iheartguts.com/recall/index.htm
croor singh wrote:
Yes it does. It is not true that being atheist means one is totally unconcerned about the nature of life and the morality of abortion. Your question is too damn close to all those godbot theists who come here claiming that without god there isn’t any reason not to go around murdering on a whim. The question of whether a contraceptive device prevents conception or aborts conception could be important to the woman, regardless of whether she is atheist or not. Morality is not the exclusive province of the theists.
If she is doing this intentionally, she is committing a crime. Emergency situations aside, an unconsented-to medical procedure is an assault, full stop. She should be prosecuted.
So the only question should be: should she be fired for unethical behavior or for incompetence?
So, I guess it’d be all honkydory with her if her gyno accidentally inserted an iud in her vagina?
Have we heard anything about $cientologist pharmacists refusing to stock antidepressants yet?
Yes.
Another note:
Here are the data:
One out of four clinically detectable pregnancies miscarries. In actual clinical data, it’s about one out of five, but a small percentage of pregnancies happen so early that they look like a period just a couple of days late, and if no pregnancy test is done, there’s no way to tell.
The in-vitro fertilization programs expect to have no less than half, probably closer to TWO-THIRDS, of all their fertilized eggs fail. Granted, a petri dish is not the fallopian tube, but still.
Even taking the purely normal office practice data, this means that, according to the logic used by the anti-abortion types that fertilized egg equals human being…
that God (if you believe in Him/Her/It) is the busiest abortionist on the planet.
I want to punch her and I don’t even know her.
Note to Sili:
Putting in an IUD is not something that can be done “accidentally” without the patient knowing that something has been done unless she’s under anesthesia. It hurts. It’s quick and over with, but not painless, and it requires a certain amount of set-up.
And an MD who’s doing anesthesia in the office, or even sedation, had damned well better have other people around, AND be getting consent for it, these days.
“How did she ever get a nursing a degree without having that basic knowledge?”
From backwards, useless institutions.
My friend’s sister is in a nursing program here in Utah and works with another female nurse who got her basic education from BYU, where, apparently, basic anatomy class is either woefully under adequate or not required for nursing students given the following story that Ive been told.
This BYU (Brigham Young “University”, basically owned by the LDS church) educated nurse had some difficulty putting a catheter on a female patient during their program. The trouble she had was in finding the correct hole to feed the tube in, missed the urethra by several inches, and inserted the tube in the lady’s anus.
What this creepy woman is doing is already illegal: it’s called battery (any unwanted physical contact knowingly committed) and she should be prosecuted for it.
A proper jury award would involve seizure of all the defendant’s property,possessions and assets, along with the seizure of the clinc’s assets as well (for failure to discipline this turd), to be turned over to the plaintiff for disposal as she sees fit. That would put an end to the nonsense once and for all.
Harsh, but this incident annoys me on so many levels.
Was that religious retard nurse looking for jeebus in there, and perhaps trying to rescue it?
Hey – you can send them a note:
http://www.pms-inc.org/portal/index.php?option=com_contact&Itemid=3
I am not has smart as all of you guys and I would not have known what to say if that happened to me, but I do know that if it did I would have through a fit right then and there. I would not have left until they put it back in. They would have to call the cops on me to get me outta there if they wouldn’t put it back for me. I would be freaking out and everyone in earshot of me would know what was going on.
I guess that’s why god dose not put me in those situations because He knows I couldn’t handle it. JUST KIDDING, I am a nonbeliever.
This seems a bit odd to me. How can she be removing the things and only have one complaint?
As the person about said, it hurts to have an IUD inserted, but it also hurts to have one removed. You can’t just yank the thing out and say “Oopsy!”.
There should be more women suing her, and the clinic.
MMOToole: “Given that this is New Mexico, this serial malpractice practitioner could be the only GYN provider for a hundred miles.”
Rio Rancho is part of the Albuquerque metropolitan area, which has about 800,000 people. Presbyterian is one of the biggest health care providers in the area, with 2 hospitals in Albuquerque (8 in the state) and a number of urgent care facilities.
I find the laughing complicity of the other workers even more horrifying than this single nut’s vicious actions.
Bullshit. IUD’s don’t come out when you “tug” them. Ripping them out has the potential of infection or worse, uterine perforation. Any other health care provider would be fired due to patient endangerment and lack of consent.
Rynaldo: “I’ve always felt that it should be a man’s responsibility. It’s only logical that the gentleman with the loaded gun, so to speak, should be the one to engage the safety.”
Couldn’t be further from the reality. In my experience men are least likely to step up and “do the right thing” by covering their little man unless asked or coerced by the withholding of sex.
It takes two to do the deed, it should take two to take the right precautions. Unfortunately, in the best case, it takes one to remind the other what those precautions are.
SteveM (#71):
Nobody said it did. Whether they’re for or against legal abortion, plenty of atheists are concerned about the nature of life and the morality of abortion. They just don’t always come to the same conclusion. But why do I get the impression that “totally unconcerned about the nature of life and the morality of abortion” is meant to be some kind of sneaky, well-poisoning code for “pro-abortion”?
Apologies if I’m misjudging you, but I seem to recall a couple of anti-abortion atheists popping up on previous threads, and their arguments were generally as inept and repellent as those of theistic anti-abortionists.
Why? What is the difference, morally speaking? You seem to have neglected to specify.
Your response is exactly like those godbot theists who would rather spread the HIV epidemic in Africa than allow funding for condoms, and lie that condoms are dangerous or immoral.
There can not be anything immoral about an IUD, even if it could prevent implantation. There is no brain in a fertilized egg, no mind, no spirit, no soul, no self, no person. No one there who can deserve any kind of treatment, and therefore no opportunity for a moral question.
Women get to control their own bodies, SteveM. Sorry to hear that that bothers you.
This is a criminal assault; if a doctor (or a nurse practitioner) performs a medical procedure against the will of the patient or guardian, they can be charged with felony assault.
I’d waste no time going to the police.
… what Olona is doing is a violation of ethics… At the very least, she ought to be fired.
… Everyone in the office always laughs…
“Everyone” in that office ought to be fired, and required to take and pass classes in medical ethics before being allowed to apply for clinical jobs anywhere.
Even worse: According to the text of the lawsuit (at the link at the end of this text: http://www.courthousenews.com/2009/01/14/Woman_Says_Anti-Abortion_Nurse_Removed_IUD_Without_Permission_Then_Lectured_Her.htm), the woman was using Mirena. If this is the same Mirena as the European one, it is a _hormonal_ contraceptive, i.e. it’s not a “traditional” iud working as described by PZ, but a device releasing hormones locally!!
It is also one of the most effective birth control methods available (and quite expensive, too).
As one who has inserted and removed countless IUDs let me add my voice to those who’ve already mentioned that Olona’s IUDs accidentally come out when I tug is a contemptible lie.
Performing an unconsented procedure on a patient AND then lying to the patient about what you did = battery + malpractice. This is nothing to joke about.
oh great. THAT doesn’t exactly inspire me to EVER go to a doctor around here. North Dakota may not be the deep, red south, but our there’s always at least one anti-abortion billboard in town, and our hospital sucks royal ass as it is
if I ever need to have my IUD looked at, I’m taking the train to Minneapolis and going to a Planned Parenthood. And hopefully the new laws won’t result in too many nurses like that infesting PP clinics
If i ran the world, she would be instantly imprisoned.. and if I was having a good day, it wouldn’t be for life.
For those who can afford lawyers, there is no other alternative. For those who cannot, there is nothing they can do at all. Therefor – those who can afford lawyers should sue.
Lots of people aren’t going to like this, but I strongly disagree here. Logically the slightly greater balance of responsibility for birth control rests with the woman, even if that may seem unfair.
Why?
Because in the history of human-kind, no man has ever become pregnant (transgender issues recently notwithstanding) and given birth to an unwanted child.
One can argue that ethically or morally the responsibility should be shared, and I would agree with that. Certainly no responsible man would want to be fathering children he is not prepared to raise and that fact alone puts some responsibility on the man. One might even claim that the man has the “loaded gun”. Legally, the man is going to be held responsible for his “work”.
When the game plays out, it’s the woman who gets stuck with the child. If a woman doesn’t want to be stuck with a child (and by “stuck” I mean “supporting it herself”) then the woman must take the steps. Yes, in some places there are legal remedies, but even with those, there’s no guarantee that the man involved will pay, or even be found. The greater onus for the child is functionally on the woman, and therefore the greater onus of responsibility for preventing children falls to the woman.
Only YOU can prevent YOU from getting pregnant, and even then there are events possibly beyond your control (accidents, assaults).
This will be the case until men are giving birth as a matter of course.
The nurse should be fired, lose her license, and the facility should be sued. This is malpractice and it is just flat out a xian fundie thing. That is to say…evil.
This is just an unilateral attempt to ruin someone elses life because you are a crazed religious fanatic. BTW, New Mexico is in the top three states for teen age pregnancy.
There was a case of a nurse who was telling people who went in for HIV tests they were all positive. When they were actually negative. This was supposed to make the patients nonsexually active and drive them into the arms of jesus. Some patients went on anti-retroviral drugs and waited to die, this being early in the AIDS treatment programs where only AZT was widely available. When it all came out, she got what she deserved, lawsuit time.
Everyone in the office always laughs …
Let me add a feather to the tar: Why the hell does everyone in the office know this stuff? What the hell ever happened to HIPAA??
Speaking as a used nurse, I am incensed and embarrassed at this hypocritical walking shitpile. Speaking as a woman, I’d like to lock her in a small room with every sanctimonious troll that’s ever infested threads on this topic and let them yammer at each other for the rest of their useless lives, while the rest of us get on with the business of living and taking care of each other.
Mouth open, head desk. This is the worst most disgusting thing I’ve ever heard from a health care practitioner. The woman is endangering the lives of women who shouldn’t become pregnant and possibly bringing great economic problems to others.
She needs to be stripped of her license and sent to jail and never allowed to practice “medicine” again.
The woman’s employer has been linked. Bombard them with emails until they fire her – and her fellow employees who knew about it and did nothing. We should do the same for everyone found to citing a ‘religious’ reason for denying people any method of contraception or birth control.
I just want to add my outrage and disgust I feel towards this woman and her laughing coworkers. I am absolutely horrified at their behavior. Less than one year ago my second pregnancy ended at seven months due to an eclamptic seizure. The baby and I are fine now, but my husband and I decided that under no circumstances should I get pregnant again. Although I opted for the pill (until my husband gets his vasectomy), I seriously considered an IUD. I find it incomprehensible that had I gone the IUD route that down the road some bimbo could remove it without my consent. I know it’s been said before, but I think it bears repeating: if your religion is going to prevent you from doing your job, maybe you’re in the wrong line of work.
Wow. I wonder if the plaintiff’s attorney has been reading her blog.
Several states are worried about delivery of services and have taken steps to overturn Bush’s new rule. To read more, click on my name or visit www. findingdulcinea .com.
Daniel @ #58, your link is broken. Please repost.
I transcribed the lyrics to Eugene Chadbourne’s “Let’s Go Back in Time”. Dr. Chad is my a-one all time favorite crackpot protest singer songwriter guitarists. He’s all about the low-fi, but man is he a wit!
Let’s go back in time
Coat hangers in dark alleys
Bloody fingers caked with grime
It’s not yours, it’s mine
Let’s go back in time
A long bus ride, feeling nauseous
A white bucket stained with Clorox
Let’s make love, let’s make love a crime
Let’s go back in time
Now we’ve heard from the Supreme court
A decision made by five sixths of a wart
Or was it three fourths?
Could they jumpstart one of their hearts?
We’ll say “we’re just like Gandhi”!
Guns and bombs? That’s just dandy!
We’ll see who can get the most press coverage
It’s a great diversion for others
Who cares about the mothers?
So you say you miscarried?
We need to examine the blood you lost
The state suggests you get married right now
Or there will be a heavy fine
Come income tax time
And when they grow up we don’t care what they can’t do
Once the cord is cut, our responsibility is through
But that don’t mean that it belongs to you
Let’s go back in time
Coat hangers in dark alleys
Bloody fingers caked with grime
It’s not yours, it’s mine
Let’s go back in time
“Medical conscience” or not, this person performed a non-emergency medical procedure and failed to obtain prior consent. Her license must be lifted ASAP.
And they say surgeons have a god complex! (Sorry, Orac) Frankly I imagine that the only reason that this personage has not be physically assaulted by her patients is because they are in too much pain to punch her properly. Jail time is too good for this freak.
@The Countess
“Biting Beaver”
Ugh. Never thought I’d read that name again, I usually try to avoid thinking about it. :[
That loon is seriously unhinged.
Ok guys, I’ll try and pull together my poor collection of english swearwords. No laughting at the amateurs, please.
*clearing my throat*
What a loony, clueless, batshit shitheaded crazy fucktarded gawdbotmoron crackpot bitch gone berserk of epic proportions!
Who the fuck does she think she is?? Accidentally, of course. She doesn’t even have the nuts to admit her shittish (can I say that, anyway?) behaviour upfront. Stupid, lying, delusional scumbag!
Yay for tar and feathers!!
I feel better now.
The idea of somebody I trust my most intimate parts on being such a (insert rant above) is beyond disgusting.
@ ckerst:
“It seems to me what she was doing is practicing medicine without a license. She should lose her nursing license and be prosecuted.”
The woman in question is a nurse practitioner, which means that she is a primary medical provider who is licensed to perform some medical procedures, such as IUD insertion and removal. So what she did to her patients was vile and unethical and probably illegal, and she definitely ought to lose her license in my opinion. But no, she was not “practicing medicine without a license.”
I’m also an NP, and I’m sickened and appalled by this story. No provider has the right to perform any unwanted procedure on any patient, and to laugh about it with her coworkers is just disgusting. She is a disgrace to our profession.
@Der: Yeah, she is… certainly loony.
What the pharmacists did to her is certainly contemptible, though.
To add more injury to injury, inserting and removing IUDs can be incredibly painful. As in, crying, vomiting painful. The pain combined with the cost is actually why I decided against the IUD. If this poor patient is anything like every woman I know who has an IUD, she suffered physically as well as emotionally/mentally.
Where in the world did you get this idea? It’s utterly untrue. The government has the power to ban people from selling their organs; if it allowed people to sell their organs it could not then compel anyone to do so. It also has the power to ban marijuana use; if marijuana were legalized (completely), the government could not compel anyone to use it.
Although forced sterilizations and abortions occurred in the past, those practices have since been deemed illegal.
This sounds like assault and battery to me if the IUD was removed against the patient’s wishes.
Hoepfully, this vile, god-soaked wretch of a nurse will be ruined and left to rot in prison where she truly belongs rather than continue to harm the public.
1. It isn’t even a gray area – what she did is well within the legal definition of assault and battery in all 50 states. Performing a medical treatment that is not consented to is an unprivileged, unconsented to touching.
2. Here’s a way to stop these loons in their tracks: Require medical professionals who invoke conscience clauses to make full disclosure to their patients of any limitations to the care they provide as part of “informed consent”. If patients are told up front that doctor A does not provide a full range of medical treatment options, they can choose other doctors, and I believe enough patients will choose other providers that the loons will only be treating the small minority of like-minded crazies, or, better, go out of business. Doctors who fail to disclose the limitations they put on treatment options could be sued for malpractice even while providing other services if they did not disclose to their patients that they were not providing the full range of treatment options.
How can religious doctors oppose this? Surely, they can’t say that they have a right to deceive their patients by failing to disclose their self-chosen limits?
#26:If she did not tug there would be no accident. Yet still, she tugs.
The string tugging came in where she was asked to trim them, which requires a certain degree of tension. How thousands of other health care providers manage to do that without pulling the IUD out is a mystery, apparently… Oh, wait, no it isn’t , the damned things are designed to _not_ pull out easily. She had to have done it deliberately.
#27:If this lady took out my wife’s IUD without her permission, I don’t know if I could restrain myself to just suing her.
Why would you _want_ to refrain? Bullshit like this is what lawsuits are FOR.
#37:“Everyone in the office always laughs ”
Chilling. Absolutely chilling. It’s so funny when women suffer needlessly.
Psycho needs to be put out of a job. Asap. And I’d suggest women avoid this clinic altogether, since they find assault so “funny”.
We only have the psycho’s word for this, she could well be lying.
#53:I think that worst part is her lack of basic understanding of how IUDs work. How did she ever get a nursing a degree without having that basic knowledge?
She probably has the knowledge, she just doesn’t believe it. Part of the fundy world view is that the Liberal Educational Establishment is lying to all the Godly Believers. She read it in the book, and probably gave the “correct” answer on her tests, all while KNOWING in her ignorant little heart what the “real” truth was.
#85: This seems a bit odd to me. How can she be removing the things and only have one complaint?
It could also be that she’s lying about having done it before, and this was her first “accident”.
I think we might have Pharyngulated pms-inc.org.
“Everyone in the office always laughs…”
If what she says is true, can we fire her coworkers as well?
” Lots of people aren’t going to like this, but I strongly disagree here. Logically the slightly greater balance of responsibility for birth control rests with the woman, even if that may seem unfair.”
Actually, I agree. Women, given the climate in America wherein everyone believes they have the right to interfere with her repro decisions, should never trust a man to be responsible and reliable. (that’s not a slam, it’s just the truth about the position we’re in).
Of course, I’ve seen MRA’s whine about how men have no recourse if a pregnancy happens and the women makes a decision contrary to their wishes. They whine about how “unfair” it is that it’s her decision.
So, assuming this “hey, not my problem” thing is the way men feel about birth control (hypothetically speaking), men have no grounds to interfere in women’s decisions. They don’t have the option of opinions. Whatever she wants, she can do. And, if that means having a kid he doesn’t want and suing him for child support, he’s got no defense. He took no steps to protect himself, he left everything up to her.
Doesn’t sound like a great idea for men to give someone else such control over them. So, you’re right – maybe behaving like an adult and taking personal responsibility for himself might be a better idea.
Smn shld sht ths nrs prctcnr n th bck. (Nt t FBI: I’m nt gnn d t myslf, bt I’m sr gnn clbrt f smn ls ds.)
[advocating violence of this sort will not be permitted here. –pzm]
Everyone in the office always laughs . . .
I’d take that with a grain of salt. We’ve only got Olona’s word for this, and she sounds like the sort who figures that the test of whether something is true or false is whether she wants to believe it or not. Chances are those co-workers who laughed this off all work in the medical office in her head.
IANAL, but this seems to go well beyond what the “conscience clause” allows. From what I have seen, the exceptions that the clauses allow is a refusal to treat or nonfeasance. Removing the IUD without permission should be considered malfeasance – an actual treatment that goes against the patient’s wishes and therefore is contrary to any reasonable standard of care. Sue their asses off.
there’s two things here. for one, you’re right and actively forcing your religion on a patient goes beyond the conscience clause.
two, the conscience clause will now allow all kind of passive forcing of religion: you don’t have to perform, or counsel about, or even train for and learn about procedures you disapprove of, while at the same time you cannot be fired or even refused for a job because of those convictions, even at organizations such as PP.
I recall being told that IUDs prevented implantation, rather than conception. (Thank-you for correcting my misapprehension on that). But then I was never trained as a health worker of any kind. If I was given incorrect information, then I’m willing to forgive my educators- after all, science is far more complicated than we’re led to believe when we’re 15.
If a qualified health worker is under this misapprehension, then frankly I’m very, very scared.
This is just unbelieveable. That NP and all her colleages who knew of her unlawful actions and never reported them should be prosecuted.
What’s next, accidentally removing clitorises because enjoying your body is against your religion?
I suggest every one contact,
Debbie Bonifer
she is Secretary to the director of Presbyterian Medical Services. In my conversation, she sounded concerned and indicated that they are unaware of this.
her email is [email protected]
I remember finding a study that concluded that up to 50% of conceptions never made it to full term, with only a small % of those being due to active intervention to abort the pregnancy. All the others were due to ‘natural’ causes including failure to implant or spontaneous abortion or miscarriage. In a large percentage, the woman never even knew that she had conceived. Wonder what nursey thinks about that?
Wonder what nursey thinks about that?
She probably thinks it’s up to God whether a woman gets pregnant or not, and she’s just clearing the way for God’s will to be done. In the cases where the woman doesn’t know she was pregnant, she probably breathes a sigh of relief that her shenanigans weren’t discovered.
err #97 and #117: I read #27s comment about what he would do if this was his wife’s IUD too and I’m seeing it as a comment that he would have a tough time *just* limiting himself to suing… although I would hope that he would restrain himself to just suing because smacking the sanctimonious evil bitch, slashing her tires, picketing her house, etc. would probably land him in jail and undermine the lawsuit. Maybe he could post again and clarify?
I wonder if I or any other female would be able to get away with punching out the nurse if we did it fast enough after the battery – would it count as self-defense?
Honesty, I don’t think people should rest until this odious turd of a woman is fired, publicly reprimanded, forced to apologise and stripped of whatever registration it is that allows a person to work in any aspect of medical care – and, if the victim can manage it, sued for everything she’s got.
It’s not enough to just get rid of her; she needs to be made an example of so that anyone who even contemplates doing something as abhorrent as what she did knows what the consequences are.
I am imagining this nauseating, lying fucktard screaming in Hell, and IMO that’s a very good reason to retain religion.
I am yet again appalled at how phucking sick and vicious some people can be.
My hat is off to the victim, because I think I would have caused bodily injury to this Olona-creature.
I also find it very hard to believe that other women in the office were aware of her (apparently serial) actions and simply laughed them off. I think that was Olona’s ‘oh-shit-I -got-caught’ knee jerk response. (aka, everyone else agrees with me so YOU must be wrong)
I hope she is fired, fined and has her license revoked. I also hope her victim(s) are awarded both legal and financial victories. Presbyterian would be wise to cut her loose and distance themselves from her and her actions, as they really can’t afford to lose anymore of their budget.
not sure if anyone posted it yet, but here is the PDF of the actual complaint
http://www.courthousenews.com/2009/01/14/IUD.pdf
And just because I saw that Prof. Myers disemvoweled a comment higher up that advocated violence let me clarify my bodily injury comment from above –
It is PAINFUL to have an IUD inserted or removed. If I was in the stirrups expecting a slight discomfort and suddenly felt a pain like that, my first and immediate response would be to kick hard. I am not advocating beating the woman, just stating that I wouldn’t have handled the pain or situation as well as Mz Van Patten did.
My argument isn’t from that point of view, although I have no doubt that there are plenty of men who take a “hey not my problem” approach. A man feeling responsiblity for BC still does not mitigate the burden of responsiblity for birth control from the woman.
It’s a simple matter of risk management. The man always has 9ish months to plan an escape, if he is so inclined.
If a woman gets pregnant and the man sticks around, etc. All is relatively well, and there’s no problem… although if the woman didn’t want to get pregnant and took the chance that the man was responsible then she failed a pretty important gamble.
If a woman gets pregnant, the man can still hit the road and the woman gets stuck with the child. That’s a risk for the woman – not the man – that is, as wholly as it can be, mitigated by the woman taking responsibility for birth control. You don’t see a lot of single dads stuck with a kid.
A lot of women want control over their bodies… but then expect the man to be responsible for birth control. You can’t have it both ways.
A woman who doesn’t want to get pregnant should not presume to impose responsiblity for that on the men in her life. If she does, she’s taking a huge risk. That’s not to say she should not expect the men in her life to use birth control, but merely that the woman must be a little more vigilant or suffer consequences (raising an unwanted child, having an abortion, etc.) that may not be transferrable to the man.
Fired, nothing!
Methinks this is a criminal case, not just of assault, but given the premeditation, repetition, etc, a case of aggravated assault. (Sorry to trump you, BruceJ.)
I’d love to see one of the victims prefer charges.
And they think that some kind of superior being designed that mind? That’s not even the result of random evolution, you can’t be that messed up by accident. To deliberately damage a perfectly good brain in that manner is a shameful waste.
Just make up those strawmen as you go along.
A woman most certainly can neglect or forget to bring condoms and then get an abortion later. She can have it both ways. You don’t get to control access to abortion and limit it to only those women who you think deserve access.
“My argument isn’t from that point of view, although I have no doubt that there are plenty of men who take a “hey not my problem” approach.”
Just for the record, I wasn’t suggesting (or, rather, didn’t mean to suggest) this was your position. I was just using your post for my own train of thought.
“A man feeling responsiblity for BC still does not mitigate the burden of responsiblity for birth control from the woman.”
Agreed, as I said. Neither party, imo, assuming we’re talking about a couple who isn’t in a long-term, healthy relationship, should leave it up to the other. That’s insanity.
“If a woman gets pregnant, the man can still hit the road and the woman gets stuck with the child.”
I wouldn’t call such a worthless pile of crap a “man”.
“You don’t see a lot of single dads stuck with a kid.”
We can all thank sexism for that.
“A lot of women want control over their bodies… but then expect the man to be responsible for birth control. You can’t have it both ways.”
Well, that’s a bit of a strawman, but men can’t have it both ways either. Either you take responsibility for yourself, or you deal with what someone else decides. And, while the deadbeat dad option is always there for the true shitheads, one would hope that isn’t the first and favorite option of men. I certainly don’t think it is.
“A woman who doesn’t want to get pregnant should not presume to impose responsiblity for that on the men in her life. If she does, she’s taking a huge risk.”
A man who doesn’t want children should not presume to impose the responsibility on the women in his life. If he does, he’s got absolutely no ground to complain when the result is what he wanted. Or when the law intercedes on the child’s behalf (i.e. MRAs)
A woman always holds “first responsibility” as I like to call it for birth control if she does not want to get pregnant, since it is SHE who would be carrying the baby to term and would have SOLE responsibility of the pregnancy (whether the father is around or not, a pregnant woman is the one carrying the baby.) A woman should always make sure that birth control is being used if she does not want to get pregnant.
That doesn’t mean a man has NO responsibility. He, too, should take responsibility – if he doesn’t want a baby, make sure to talk to whomever he’s banging to make sure birth control is on the up and up, or put on a condom. He, too, is responsible for his choices, just like anyone else
Still, since women are the ones who get pregnant, we can’t really just 100% trust that a man will always follow through on birth control. Since a man CANNOT get pregnant, they just may not be as diligent. I’m not saying men are all dogs, just that men are human. Even the greatest man ever may not realize how important it is to always use birth control when having sex, ESPECIALLY in the heat of the moment, because there is no risk that he will get pregnant.
It’s kind of unfair that we get stuck with ALL of the responsibility, but that’s just how it is.
Also, the fact is, of course, that women get the final say, ALWAYS, on whether to keep the child, abort, or give it up for adoption. Period. It’s her decision because SHE is the one that is carrying the child. It only makes sense that women should also be responsible for birth control, with of course the hope that the men they are sleeping with also take responsibility.
Did I suggest that at any point in any of my posts? You claim I am making up strawmen and respond with that? Did you even read my posts?
But since you brought it up… the original statement that spawned my post was that the man, as holder of the “loaded gun” should be responsible for birth control. If that premise is to be accepted as true, then the man, as person responsible should have control over such matters as abortion. If women are prepared to abrogate their responsiblity over birth control, that responsiblity goes from humping to squeezing the thing out. It’s unreasonable to pick and choose which parts to be responsible for because it is a package deal.
Simply put, to say that the man is wholly responsible for birth control is effectively anti-choice, and anti-woman.
I dont’ think it is either, but it certainly happens often enough that it should be considered a valid concern as opposed to a flight of fancy that comprises a strawman. You don’t need to look very far to find the deadbeat dads.
I agree right up to where the scumbag in question decides that he’s simply not going to pay. The law can hoot and howl all it wants, but the woman is still stuck with the kid and there are plenty of examples of this in Canada and the US right now.
It’s all well and good to say that if the man doesn’t want… but when the bumping and grinding is done, the man has more options and the woman is assuming the risk.
If the woman is assuming the risk, she assumes the mantel of responsibility.
marilove has hit the nail squarely on the head in the post above this one.
When I read “you can’t have it both ways” it was reasonable to assume that you meant “you can’t have it both ways.” Since that’s factually wrong, and in the real world a woman can have it both ways, what the fuck is your point? You want to push misogynistic bullshit:
No, you asshole. You don’t get to own a woman’s body just because you fucked her and she didn’t bring a condom. This obviously bothers you, but a woman actually retains her own bodily autonomy no matter your protests.
Unbased assertion. We can decide that a driver has a somewhat greater responsibility to prevent accidents than a pedestrian because he has the “loaded gun”, but that doesn’t mean that the driver gets to make medical decisions for a pedestrian he has run over. (this is not meant to be an analogy for sex btw)
I wouldn’t be at all surprised if a psych. eval. revealed said “nurse” hated women and had major sadistic/sociopathic tendencies. (I hope the plaintiff’s lawyer thinks to have this done.) You have to be a special kind of freak to laugh about consistently inflicting that kind of pain on others. And even worse kinds of freaks to laugh at someone like that.
:: Ladies, welcome to your future. A future in which others will decide whether you may have children or not. Don’t worry, though: they will never say “not”. ::
Unless you specifically meant to be talking to white women, your facts are off. As documented in Andrea Smith’s Conquest, the federal government is still suppressing the fertility of American Indian women.
So, yes, absolutely: others attempt to decide (and sometimes do decide) whether we may have children or not. But for some women, the decision is “not.”
What this nurse did was execute a surgical procedure without consent. And I agree that she’s a wingnut.
However, you are wrong about how the IUD works. It does nothing to prevent sperm from meeting egg. It works by preventing implantation of a fertilized egg.
It can work both ways, according to http://tinyurl.com/cj6qeb
If only the link worked as well! Here is the full one:
http://www.fpa.org.uk/information/leaflets/documents_and_pdfs/detail.cfm?contentid=151#3
Sonya:
First:
If I got it right, the woman in question used Mirena, a IUD which releases gestagens and prevents the sperm from getting into the uterus in the first place by thickening the cervical mucus (just like the progestin-only-pill).
Mirena also prevents implantation, but the cervical-mucus-thing is the main point (and progestin-only-pills might also prevent implantation to some extend).
Second:
A copper-IUD will also hinder spermatozoa in their motility and thus prevent them from crawling up into the tubes and fertilize the egg. This is the main point of adding copper in the first place.
See this (they have the references, too):
IUD Mechanism affects Sperm
Ok, I fucked up the Link. Here we go:
http://www.reproline.jhu.edu/english/6read/6issues/6network/v20-1/nt2013.html
(Please, could anyone tell me how to do this link-stuff properly?)
<a href=”http://www.reproline.jhu.edu/english/6read/6issues/6network/v20-1/nt2013.html”> Your link</a>
Your link
The Countess (#49) brought up the feminist blogger Biting Beaver’s experience of having to get an abortion because of “conscientious” healthcare workers denying her emergency contraception, and then Der (#109) posted specifically to denigrate BB as “unhinged” and a “loon,” without explanation or reference.
Biting Beaver is a woman who recently received multiple (credible) death/rape threats in response to her clear and forceful writings about her experiences with prostitution, pornography, and male violence. Because of the threats, she shut down her blog. Consequently, readers here at Pharyngula cannot go look at her actual work to decide for themselves whether or not she is a “loon.” Luckily, another blogger has archived some of her writings for the public to read, and you can find them here, if you’re interested:
http://archiveofthebitingbeaver.wordpress.com/
Biting Beaver has strong opinions about prostitution and pornography for a reason, and she articulates her position well. Some people, especially men who feel entitled to use pornography and/or prostitutes, are upset by this – so much so, that they will threaten her with death and/or sexual assault. Less extreme, but still hateful, are casual dismissals of BB as a “loon,” etc. I suggest that anyone reading this thread read what BB has to say and then decide for yourselves.