You want to know the pain these inhuman anti-abortion laws that grind a woman’s face into the her medical condition are? Read this.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
You want to know the pain these inhuman anti-abortion laws that grind a woman’s face into the her medical condition are? Read this.
Don’t worry–anyone IMPORTANT will be able to circumvent the regulations or go elsewhere.
Because their situation is different.
http://mypage.direct.ca/w/writer/anti-tales.html
Shit, why don’t we just make it mandatory for every male over the age of 13 to have prostrate exams. And the doctor has to describe a sonogram of your balls every time you go for a vasectomy.
Because of the… fornications and whatnot.
I hope the people at the clinics at least have the decency to point out that these “risks” are all either false or exaggerated.
Pure evil is right. With apologies to all Pharyngulites who hail from Texas, I can’t help but despise your State a little bit right now. Or, more accurately, I despise the pious, self-righteous, inhumane, misogynist cretins who have somehow acquired law making powers over there.
Come on Texas; surely you can do better than this?
Gregory, say hello to Guv’nor Goodhair. And before him, Texas had dubya.
Also, just because a bunch of socially backwards people voted in a bunch of socially backwards representatives does not mean that this woman or any woman deserves this.
I am now waiting for the US to dissolve fighting over these social issues.
Yes, it is pure evil. Religion is nothing but pure evil. It messed up and made a horror of much of my life.
The sooner we dumb humans get some sense, the better the human race will be. My greatest fear is that we will exterminate ourselves before that can happen — all because of stupid religion!ss
Politics is bad enough. When you couple it with the nonsense of religion, somebody bar the door! Disaster is imminent!
I don’t have the words to express the disgust I feel. That is abhorrent.
@janine
Janine @ 5;
Texas really has had a bad time of it in recent years. What is needed now is a massive outbreak of a highly virulent strain of logic and reason that sweeps the State, but that is probably too much to ask.
Agreed. Liberal democracy may be the best (or perhaps I should say the least broken) system we have, but stuff like this is clear evidence that it doesn’t always work very well. The trouble with giving peoiple the vote is that all too many of those people will vote for really nasty pieces of work, the kind of people who make a career out of whipping up fear and hatred and trading on popular ignorance and bigotry. You know, the entire Republican field…
For there to be any struggle, let alone fight, we would first need to defeat an even more pervasive foe than fundie hatred-mongering – apathy. I find it incomprehensible, but the fact is most people simply don’t care enough to raise their heads from their microwaved dinners and reality television to actually engage with this stuff, and that includes most women.
Sadly, freedom rarely goes out with a bang. It is almost always a whimper.
Unless enough of us shrill, awkward, progressive, godless, feminsist, and oh so rude rabble-rousers manage to add sufficient discursive high explosive to the mix, that is. If we can do that, then just maybe we have a shot at making things better…
Keep up the good fight, fellow Pharynguloids!
*clenched tentacle salute*
All of which are lies.
1. There is a slight risk with any medical procedure. Aspirin kills 6,000 people a year, IIRC. The health risks of completing a pregnancy and having a baby are a lot higher than abortions. High enough that we track a statistic called “maternal mortality”.
2. There is no increased risk for infertility.
3. Abortion does not increase the risk of breast cancer. This is just one of countless lies of fundie xians.
4. They left out the usual lie that abortion makes women develop mental illnesses. The rate of mental illness is higher among women who are pregnant and don’t have an abortion. Babies can be a source of stress for a long time, minimum 18 years and sometimes until you die.
In general, abortion doesn’t cause an increase in infertility.
Not too sure about that “aspirin kills 6,000 people a year” statistic. There are all sorts of aspirin related death numbers on the web, most run 500-1000/year.
“Pure evil” really seems to sum it up perfectly.
Deeply ashamed and enraged to be a Texan right now. :(
Accidentally posted this on the linked thread, meant to do it here but it works in both.
First they came for the communists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Jew.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came%E2%80%A6
Of course the doctors have a choice.
They choose whether or not they follow the law.
They choose to go against their training and oath to inflict this pain on their patients.
They can choose not to.
They should, on mass, refuse to follow this unspeakable piece of legislation.
Hold up two fingers to the government and say fire all of us, I dare you.
Humans are not robots, they are not computers, there is no laws we must follow other than those of physics.
The ‘laws’ of the land are followed and obeyed because they make living in a community of other people better and fairer.
The government rules by the consent of the people (in a democracy).
The government is meant to fear the people, not the other way around.
It might just be time for the US government to be reminded of that.
When the laws implemented by the government no longer are for the purposes of enabling a better and fairer society.
When the laws implemented by the government are intolerable…
Then it is time for the government to fall, and for all citizens of conscience to disobey those laws.
Doctors have a choice.
Those that choose to follow these laws are as guilty of consequences and the harm as the people who passed those laws.
America likes to call itself the land of the free and the home of the brave…
It is time for doctors to be brave.
You always have a choice.
It might be a crappy choice, but you always have a choice.
One of the common lies of the female slavers/forced birthers is that abortion causes breast cancer.
It doesn’t. The info above is from the US NIH NCI website, National Cancer Institute, the main funder of cancer research in the USA.
They should also hold up the health dangers of having a pregnancy.
IIRC, fatality rate of pregnancy is around twice that of abortion, if not higher. Plus there’s all the fun prolapse and diabetes.
I’m not.
I/we are drawing up an emergency survival plan right as I type. No it doesn’t involve stockpiling guns and tons of dried food. Yet anyway.
IMO, the main danger is that the Tea Party christofascists will crash the economy again. Like Bush did. They always do. I’m sick and tired of getting quarterly statements about my 401(K) plan. It’s dead Jim, move on. Like tens of millions of others murdered by the Bush Catastrophe.
The fact that Santorum is even doing rather well as a presidential wannabe means that something is drastically wrong in the USA these days. In times past, they would have just thrown a net over him and carted him off to the loony bin.
Even in 2006 in Pennsyltucky, Santorum lost his reelection senate campaign by a huge margin.
Gregory:
Oh, it’s not just Texas. It’s most states these days.
IIRC, fatality rate of pregnancy is around twice that of abortion,
You don’t remember correctly. The case fatality rate of completed pregnancy is more than 10X that of abortion (less than 1 per 100,000 for abortion versus about 14 per 100,000 for completed pregnancy).
Sham-o-grams: Just a symptom of a bigger disease — namely, the anti-woman platform adopted by the Republicans. (I’m no fan of Obama, by the way, but he definitely earns the title of Lesser Evilist this year.)
The RNC needs to stop using Viagra. Four-hour boners have sucked all the blood out of their brains!
If they had just stuck to beating up on gays and Muslims they might’ve had a winning strategy (albeit repellent), but now they insist on alienating ONE-HALF OF THE ELECTORATE.
Now to be clear, I DO NOT support the Republicans and have no plans to do so in the future (barring a severe brain injury, and assuming I end up with fewer functioning neurons than an eggplant — that would be about par with a typical Creationist*). Apparently they seem to think that an election-winning strategy is to make the uterus a worse threat to national security than suicide bombers.
And here I was under the impression that only Democrats thought with their dicks!**
*No offense to eggplants.
**Not really, but it makes for a good closing line.
There were six deaths from legal abortion in 2006 (the most recent year reported) in the US. In the entire country.
Gijoel:
How many vasectomies do you have to “go for”? I was under the impression it was one and done, even if it takes a few visits to accomplish.
Beergoggles, I’m not sure how much any of us can do to keep the union from exploding. There has not been this degree of acrimony since the 1960s and early ’70s — and, back then, we were still much more united as a country because we hadn’t yet been subjected to 30 years of Randian propaganda.
Anyway, for all the “Let ’em secede” rhetoric on the internet, the people making the most serious noises about secession are the wingnuts. I don’t see the federal government actually letting them, if only because, you know, land and resources and strategic ports and such. Still, we don’t need the strife on top of everything else going on.
Wikipedia gives a maternal mortality rate of 24 per 100,00 in 2008, and the recorded the fatality rate for legal abortions at 0.6 per 100,000 in 1997. Old data, but still…
Pure evil covers it pretty eloquently, I think.
Dammit, HTML fail! It’s Friday here and evidently my brain has already clocked off for the day.
Cross-post from OOP: This is why I’m going into primary research even if I do tack an MD onto my planned PhD. I could never inflict this level of state-sanctioned emotional pain on a human being. This is the end result of these laws: Broken humans. Notice that the prospective father did not have to be a part of this torture session?
This is why all of the fucking Republican assholes need to be replaced with people with hearts and brains.
I hope it’s not bad form to repost what I wrote over Ophelia Benson’s blog:
Grrrrrrrrrrrr.
Fuck you, Reublicans, with an Alien ovopositor, so the procedure to remove the little Alien from your belly ahead of time would kill you as surely as the bloody scene where it leaves when it’s ripe. And may you be kept safely ensconced in a cocoon so you can’t harm yourself or the baby Alien before its time. No cell phone, but an iPod with reruns of Mister Rogers, Barney, Teletubbies and Little Ponies to love and tolerate the shit out of you until you die.
And part of the problem is those people who don’t vote, on the grounds that the democrats are not much better. Quite frankly, if you don’t vote, you have contributed to the problem. If both sets of candidates are bigots, choose the least worst and if they get in, write to them demanding a more liberal stance. Politicians of both parties will tetnd to lean in the direction that they believe the voters will go. That gives disproportionate power to the fanatical. The only antidote is to mobilise the liberal left to counter them.
In general I’d say that as tough as it is on the doctors, they should ignore the law, and practice medicine properly. Perhaps what it will take is someone suing a doctor for mental anguish as a result of them following the law. Or perhaps the politicians who drafted the law {/cloud cuckoo land dream}
Not sure I can stomach calling them “pro-lifers.” More appropriate moniker would be “Christian death cult”.
But aren’t the Christians a death cult already?
I would recommend that Texas physicians in such clinics offer ear plugs to their clients. Also, articles like this make me stabby.
I could never inflict this level of state-sanctioned emotional pain on a human being.
Being forced to do this sort of thing is soul destroying. I left a convenient job because of institutional problems much less severe than this. I admire those who can stay and fight, but I’m not one of them. I’m very glad I’m not an OB.
Still, I wonder…I’m a hematologist, not an OB. I sometimes advise patients to consider an abortion for various medical reasons. I wonder if it would be legal for me to tell women that I advise to consider abortion that the state script is a complete lie: abortion is safer than giving birth, there is no risk of breast cancer or infertility, and a 10 week old fetus can not feel pain. If PA gets a law like this-and they do seem to be getting popular-I think I’ll just do it until I get into trouble and then use that as an excuse to leave the state. Or the country.
I can’t believe I’m saying this, but it was easier for doctors to defy the law and help women pre-Roe. Back then, you had all manner of people working to help women obtain safe abortions, including a lot of religious people, ministers and such like. (How things have changed.)
Secrecy was all, the amount of people involved needed to be kept to a minimum, and those who were risking the most needed to be able to trust everyone else.
Now, it’s damn near impossible for a doctor to perform an abortion on the quiet with the help of one trusted nurse, with every person who helped set things up all being trustworthy as well. Lifers are *everywhere* now, and not all of them are vocal. In a climate where doctors performing legal terminations are murdered, it’s not so easy to tell doctors, “hey, fuck that noise, be a rebel, do what’s right!” A doctor who is defying the law, if turned in, is stripped of their license to practice medicine and may face a prison term. They can’t help anyone then.
Dianne:
I’d make it a point to remain ignorant of the legality and go ahead and advise women accordingly. If it does turn out to be illegal, you can claim ignorance on that score.
@Caine: I strongly suspect that there has been a certain amount of low level subversion. The very fact that doctors are required to read a specific script suggests that legislators don’t trust doctors to spin things the way they want them spun.
If it does turn out to be illegal, you can claim ignorance on that score.
Does that help? I thought ignorance of the law was specifically not an excuse for breaking it…though it might make a jury go easier on you, I suppose.
Dianne:
True, and it shows just how difficult it’s being made for doctors to be subversive on any level.
I wonder how many of those legislators were screaming lies about how the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act would allow government bureaucrats to micromanage people’s medical decisions a couple years ago.
and the most fucked up part of this is that if you showed this story to an anti-choicer, they’d just shrug it off and say the woman was trying to do eugenics by aborting instead of letting the fetus die naturally/live out its miserable life to a “natural”* end
– – – – – –
*natural here meaning, of course, using fuckloads of money and modern medicine to keep it alive and in pain.
stories like that, contrasted with the sanctimonious language of anti-choicers*, makes me actually actually, honestly hate people. not just dislike, or feel no respect for, or be repelled by, but actively, violently hate.
– – – – – – – –
* “I respect and love ALL life. Obvious from my posts I will continue to supportr the innocent unborn. I have alot of passion for my beliefs” — some sanctimonious (male, of course)ass on facebook
Dianne:
To use you as an example, I think if someone came to you and told you that the advice you were dispensing to those patients regarding abortion was illegal, pleading ignorance would be likely to get you a slap on the wrist. At least, it would the first time. If you were caught doing it again afterward, well, that would be different.
Jadehawk:
I absolutely loathe the use of innocent in this context.
And you know what could have prevented the whole thing? Preimplantation genetic diagnosis. Yet another thing the fundies hate.
Naked Bunny,
Come on, those clownshoes are still having an aneurism over OMfuckingG DEATH PANELS!
Micromanaging people’s (read: men’s) medical care = Communism! Taking away our freedoms! Etc.
Micromanaging women’s (read: not people) medical care = necessary to protect us from ourselves.
Oh, and you love and respect the life that may be short, painful, and emotionally devastating? What about the lives of the Afghans murdered? The people Rick Perry puts on death row? The lives of the soldiers your party’s policies sent to Iraq for no reason? Fuck you Facebook douchecanoe.
Audley:
Reads more true to me this way.
pleading ignorance would be likely to get you a slap on the wrist. At least, it would the first time.
Thus affording me enough time to get out of town before they catch me again.
Fortunately, the law seems to support me, at least at the moment. This is particularly important in that I’ve got a large number of patients with a condition that puts them at a 1-4% risk (per pregnancy) of dying from pregnancy related complications. That’s with proper medical care. Without, the risk goes up to around 10-30%. Proper medical care which, I might add, Corbett’s government is making it harder and harder to provide.
I also discuss birth control with my patients, even though I’m not particularly “supposed” to. But of course, no birth control is perfect…
The original newspaper article.
You know, I’m starting to dislike it when people call Republicans anti-woman. That’s far to kind. These things (I refuse to call them people) are anti-human.
Jadehawk:
Fuck you, facebook dude. If you loved and respected “all life”, you’d mind your own fucking business when it came to abortion.
Fucking dumbass hypocrite. I am SO FUCKING SICK of not even registering as sentient life to these clownfuckers.
(Respect all life, huh? Is this guy a vegan? Pacifist? I’m gonna go out on a limb here and guess “no”.)
A.R:
To them, that would mean they aren’t anti-woman at all, because they don’t view women as full human beings.
Caine:
Of course. I’m still thinking like the Republicans of a year ago, who would put up a pretense that shit like this was actually beneficial to women. Instead, now we’ve got a full on assault against over half the population and they’re not shy about calling us all sluts.
Hm. I don’t think there’s a lesser evil there.
Almost certainly, this would be covered under freedom of speech.
The Texas law prescribes a positive action to a specific type of health care provider, reading a script of lies. It doesn’t prohibit other MD’s from telling the truth. That probably wouldn’t even be legal under the First Amendment.
One could argue that telling lies to at risk patients is malpractice. In fact, it is.
If you really want to cover yourself, just get the most current studies and give them to your patients with an explanation of what it all means.
Audley:
What always makes me want to pound a head into a wall (not necessarily my own head) is that the statement “I love and respect all life” never includes the woman who happens to be pregnant. Her life is the one that is always a throwaway.
(Also, if anyone’s been trying to get to The Texas Observer but hasn’t been able to, it appears that the site is back up now.)
Bunny!
*pounce*hug*
oh, sorry, carry on.
Caine:
Well, she shouldn’t have acted all slutty and gotten herself knocked up then, right? Bitchez get what they deserve.
*barf!*
Could a doctor read the script in a language the patient doesn’t understand and still be fulfilling the letter of the law?
I don’t disagree that it is not an easy course, and it is very easy for me to mouth such sentiments from the comfort of my arm chair in one of the few almost civilised parts of the world (where such things are rightly considered abhorrant).
However, the only way to fight this sort of evil is for people of principle to stand front and centre & say “enough!” And that includes doctors.
“I was just obeying the law” is not sufficient defence. When a law is this bad, it must be opposed by people of principle.
I quoted in another thread recently “the price of freedom is eternal vigilance.” Well, the vigilance was allowed to slip into complacency whilst the neo cons quietly beavered away, slowly eroding the rights and freedoms of Americans, until now you find yourselves having to deal with this sort of pure evil.
I also made the point on another thread recently in response to a comment about Hollywood portrayal of Nazis, that I didn’t always know what I would have done. Would I have been one of the weak ones to betray my humanity & push people into the gas chambers? I certainly hope not, but now, lots of Doctors, all over Texas have the {irony}opportunity{/irony} to see what they would actually do. I hope that many of them are up to the challenge.
Caine: I suppose that is all too true. Perhaps it would be better to describe them as pro-suffering. I’m about to break down into tears (something I never do).
I always wonder who in the hell votes for these War on Women types. It’s a rhetorical question, over half of those who voted.
It does look like women are waking up to the War though. I saw some recent polls that show marked gender differences in candidate approval patterns. Women don’t care for the GOP all of the sudden. And they voted more for Romney than males in Ohio, in some subgroups by 11-14% more.
Women elected Bill Clinton twice and Obama once. Let’s hope it happens again.
A.R:
I’d say that’s a good descriptor. A lot of these people are what I call inquisition-minded.
Of course, Jeeebus (The sadistic, nonexistent fuckweasel) likes suffering.
A lot of women do. There’s a whole lot of female lifers out there.
raven,
I’ll have to dig up the link, but the latest polling shows that that there’s no contest between Obama and any of the Republican contenders with women voters. Of course, that could all change once the Republicans get their shit together and pick a goddamned candidate*.
Anyway, some (slightly OT) good polling news:
Bloomberg
*Really, Newt? Why the fuck are you still wasting your time and your Super PAC’s money by not dropping out of the race?
It seems to me like these laws come from the same smugly patronizing place that the idea that if only people heard the words of the Bible they’d give up atheism and those heathen religions and throw themselves into Christ’s arms.
I can just see the sponsors of this sort of legislation telling themselves “Those silly women, if only they could see the fetus, they’d change their minds! This law is genius! It will stop all abortion because those poor benighted womenz will realize the error of their ways!” It is stupid, cruel, and discounts women as human beings. But that seems to be the thought process.
Or in a funny accent? Lets see how good it works when the Swedish Chef is the one describing the fetus
Audely: Thanks for posting something positive!
From March 10:
NY Times
(I know I’ve linked to that fairly recently, but whatevs.)
A. R:
You’re welcome! If I weren’t in such a foul mood, I would have been positively giddy about this.
Meh. Maybe tomorrow.
Ing:
That, perhaps?
This. We need us some Klingon linguists, stat.
I’m an athiest, but I still like to quote my absolute favourite Woody Allen line from “Hannah and her Sisters”.
“If Jesus Christ ever came back and saw what they were doing in his name, he’d never stop throwing up!”
CNN has a rebuttal from Melinda Fredricks, the vice chair of the Texas Republican party.
It made me very angry. Also, some parts of it didn’t make sense. “Indeed, prior to this law, doctors often performed abortions without ever meeting the patient or even speaking with her.” I highly doubt a doctor would ever perform a procedure without speaking to the patient, ignoring cases where the patient is unconscious. And if the doctor never met the patient, does that mean they’re performing the operation remotely?
@Dr Audley #63
According to Zingularity it’s because all this touring is how he makes his money, and why should he quit when someone else is paying for him to do so. Also possibly his main backer wants Romney to win if Newt can’t and wants to divert votes away from Santorum.
Larry, with the aid of medication it is actually possible to perform an abortion without being in the same room as them. Though I think it is limited depending on the stage of pregnancy.
I’m ranting, so you’ve been warned.
—
Yes, I’m in Texas. I’m probably too furious to be attempting to comment right now, but y’all who are writing about how doctors should act and how we ought to vote down here, y’know, it’s too fucking late for that.
Texas is refusing federal funding for the Women’s Health Program just to spite Planned Parenthood. PP has already lost $47 million in funding. There’s currently a run on health care providers so women can get one last batch of pills or one last annual exam before they have nothing: as many as 400,000 women will have no reproductive health care at all when the WHP phases out in April. I drove past a PP with a line out the door.
http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/article/2012/03/13/goodbye-texas-womens-health-program
We’re flooded with Crisis Pregnancy Centers pretending to be health care providers, siphoning state funds so they can shame and lie to pregnant women. In Texas, they designed the forced-ultrasound bill to divert patients and their money to CPCs and away from Planned Parenthood.
https://hayladies.wordpress.com/2011/07/26/surprise-crisis-pregnancy-centers-dont-separate-education-religion/
and
http://www.americanindependent.com/211926/sonogram-law-widens-the-door-to-anti-abortion-crisis-pregnancy-centers
And I know that several of the kids I’ve volunteered with get pregnant every year and mysteriously “vanish” from the schools while teachers tut-tut about God’s will and push abstinence-only even harder.
This is the land of Fox news in every restaurant and waiting room, Hate Speech Radio, Hell Houses on Halloween, full-blooded Christian ignorance and misogyny as natural law. They don’t watch Jon Stewart or browse RHRealityCheck out here; the Internet’s full of liberal lies (protect the chillens!) but you can trust all your smiling, polite, cross-wearing neighbors.
But it’s just Texas, right? It’s their own damn fault for voting while ignorant, or for not moving out of here. (I’ll have y’all know that in my county, I was one of I think 4 people who voted against Perry.)
If I forgot myself and got so uppity as to tell folks what to do, I’d suggest that we need donation drives for the regional Planned Parenthoods in Texas, more linking to American Independent’s research on CPCs, and massive public pressure in the form of petitions, boycotts, twitter campaigns and all that stuff that happens when Texas isn’t involved. Shame the hell out of us. We deserve it if that’s what it takes to daylight this crap.
Personally I’m trying to think of ways to spread accurate health care information as a private citizen with no medical license to lose; something like a flyer or poster campaign, or by standing on street corners, if I can do it without getting shot and/or arrested.
Larry:
Oh, that’s code for “not her regular doctor, and really, she should have been seeing this doctor long enough to have had many conversations, most of which would discourage any thought of termination.”
Back in the 70s, when I had an abortion, I didn’t meet the doctor who would be doing the termination until it was time to do it and there was no lengthy discussion, which I appreciated. The fundies have a very difficult time with this idea, as it simply doesn’t toss any spanners into the process.
Catnip: <blockquote cite="“I was just obeying the law” is not sufficient defence. When a law is this bad, it must be opposed by people of principle."
To you and others saying that doctors should refuse to obey the law because of how terrible it is, I'm sympathetic, but think in the end you're mistaken.
The reason is that, in many places, especially in states with laws like this, there are very few places and very few doctors who perform abortions. A doctor who refuses to follow the letter of the law isn't just risking his or her livelihood, but is putting the access to abortion for women who live in his or her area at risk as well. The anti-choicers are looking for any excuse to shut down abortion clinics in order to deny women control of their bodies. Taking a stand against vile laws like this is important, but not if doing so has a substantial risk of making abortions even harder to obtain than they already are. Doctors should publicly oppose these laws, give women accurate information to go along with the lies they are required to tell, and find every way they can to make the process less painful for women getting an abortion, but they need to obey the law regardless. Not because there is any moral requirement to obey an unjust law (there isn't) but because the risk is too great to do otherwise.
davidporter, FYI
<blockquote>stuff you want blockquoted</blockquote>
Will produce
The cite is if you want to include the URL of the source. Though I’m not sure that that actually produces on this to make the URL seeable. Preview isn’t telling me.
Via telemedicine, women could fulfill their mandatory pre-waiting-period consultation with an abortion provider remotely, so they’d only have to travel to the actual, often-distant clinic one time. Most of the laws now specifically ban this practice by requiring the woman to be in the same room with the provider for consultation, thus forcing two long trips, more time off work, interfering with traveling providers and so on. In the case of medication abortion, after an in-person visit and mandatory wait, the physician could fax the prescription to the patient’s local clinic or pharmacy.
I think Fredricks is intentionally misrepresenting the telemedicine option.
That would work.
I’m not going to dig into that law – and I’m not a lawyer anyways – but I’m pretty sure they didn’t set any barriers to a different doctor (a non-abortion doctor) telling the truth about abortion, preemptively. Tell your patient in advance that she’s going to be lied to because the Legislature said they must, but that she can just shut her ears to the official propaganda and have the abortion she needs without fear.
If every doctor who is not an active abortion doctor started handing out truthful abortion information to female patients, we could nullify at least some of the horror of these laws.
Yeah, sorry about that. I meant to preview to check things, and then was writing more and forgot, but sadly there’s no edit function.
Fuck you, Texas bible wankers, fuck you. This should be held up as a prime example of why there are anti-theists and gnu atheism. The apologists let this kind of bullshit slide with their apathy or rote relativism.
The doctor performing the procedure could have also done a quick survey scan to verify the woman’s story and made a stand against crass ignorance by giving a miss on the bible-blathering. I seriously doubt he would think this poor woman would report him.
These religious assholes responsible for this travesty only see everything in absolute terms of black and white. Oblivious to the myriad medical possibilities that may arise, they are beyond dangerously stupid. They ARE the evil they pretend to be fearing and fighting.
If I actually typed what I’m thinking and feeling right now, I would more than likely be visited by the authorities quite soon. Instead I’ll just go with:
Fuck you, Republicans. Fuck you to your non-existant fucking hell, you fucks.
There was a CSI episode where Person A was walking by with a an ear-to-ear smile while carrying a bucket of blood and phlegm.
Person B: Why TF are you grinning?
Person A: Smiling suppresses the gag reflex.
I am telling you now, it doesn’t work.
——
I do like the loud radio, the earplugs, the foreign language and the outrageous accent suggestions.
——-
I also think of those who walk away from Omelas.
(regression to fiction is my coping mechanism)
From the CNN rebuttal:
Translation:
The Texas Sonogram Law simply ensures that physicians
offer women undergoing abortion a similar level of informed consent already being provided for other medical procedures in Texas.are forced to shame women into a guilt trip that could make sure they receive their punishment for being slutsI’m proud that Texas believeswomenmen and deluded women are strong and smart enough to know the full truth I hope Texas women too poor to go out of state are guilt-prone enough for this to work toknow the full truthbe lied to before making such a critical decision. The only thing disappointing about the law is that itwas even necessary at all.didn’t outlaw contraception and abortion and force women back into the kitchen barefoot.”It needs work, but I think it’s a close approximation of what they actually think.
argggg noticed a bunch of mistakes in my translation!!! Too tired and angry.
I hereby submit to the horde these linkies:
A comprehensive study on Ultrasound Requirements
A similar law in Virginia
It’s bad.
Pteryxx, I just looked at the Planned Parenthood national website – I don’t see an email contact but I see phone numbers for the national offices in NY and DC.
I’ll give them a call and ask them to set up a national fund drive specifically to keep Texas PP clinics open in the face of the Lege cutting off their state funds.
PP made what? a million dollars in that Komen flap ? Well, 47 million may not be possible, but a national campaign should at least be able to raise enough in a month to keep some of the Texas clinics from closing in April.
Maybe if a few more of the Horde give them a call also, they’ll think it’s a worthwhile challenge.
@davidporter – no problem, I did find out what the cite is for though, it doesn’t normally show up on browsers but is used by search engines.
On topic, it really scares me that legislators think that their whims can dictate what science says.
I was a bridesmaid at a wedding where they had to read out the mandatory ‘marriage is between a man and a woman’ thing (Fuck Howard). So the celebrant did comply. But had their own annotations and comments on it. So yes, I think the doctors who are between a rock and a hard place should make it abundantly clear that they are going to quote what they are forced to say. And then give the patient the actual facts.
That CNN response is so many layers of bullshit my vision’s blurring.
Other medical procedures don’t have mandatory waits, mandatory detailed descriptions, or force the patient to look inside their own bodies. Women made the decision BEFORE the mandatory ultrasound, and they don’t change their minds afterwards. And the law isn’t bloody necessary.
This is what the shits think of informed consent:
http://skepchick.org/2012/03/women-deserve-full-accurate-info-except-when-they-dont/
And don’t forget that other gem from Arizona, that “You can be fired for using birth control to prevent pregnancy, you dirty slut” law.
Fuck me.
One silver lining: I have been motivated to get out the vote in 2012.
Dianne and others –
A bit of good news:
The Pennsylvania assembly has delayed debate on their version of the “Forced Ultrasound” act. Apparently they’re getting some pushback and the ReThugs don’t think it can pass right now, or if they pass it, it won’t be good for their reelection plans in Nov.
Now would be a good time to put pressure on the House Majority Leader Mike Turzai and the bill’s original sponsor Kathy Rapp to outright cancel it, not just delay it.
If you’re a voter in PA and/or a doctor, contact them and make sure they know the tide of opinion is rising against them.
PA Med Society
Yes, because your surgeon is required by law to give you a detailed description of your tumor before he removes it. And you also have to wait 24 hours before you can have a knife take out of you.
Facebook dude and many other chrislamofascists over history:
… except not. Yet again they forget their own mythology – ‘original sin’. So even ‘the innocent unborn’ are already guilty of the only sin really serious enough to worry about. But did we really need another example of how they have the game all fixed? Nah, probably not, but I feel a little better for being able to spit out that nasty taste for the moment.
And 401(k)? Oh, you mean the 404k – fund not found. I worked in the US from ’91 to ’01 and paid in the max allowable to my 401. Ten years later it is just hovering around the amount I paid in. Let’s pretend inflation hasn’t happened or I’ll cry.
And the Gingrich? Oh, he’s carrying on because he’s pulling in enough money after minimal expenditures to build a nice retirement fund. Remember, if he retires from politicking he (apparently) gets to keep the money tax free. Assuming I correctly remember the relevant stuff from the similar Palin revelations a while back.
frickin’ preview my foot. ‘the Gingrinch’
hotshoe: Thanks.
There’s no single Texas Planned Parenthood, because the state’s too damn big I guess, or maybe so the bombings and lawsuits get spread out. There’s a form to direct donations to a specific affiliate.
PP North Texas
PP Austin Region
PP Southeast
PP Gulf Coast
I’m trying to think of a way to rally around the date of the WHP expiration. PP Gulf Coast just had a Houston rally on Monday; I’ll ask North Texas (the closest to my area) about setting something up. Maybe tomorrow I’ll have better ideas and less blind rage…
And maybe this infographic would be useful:
https://proxy.freethought.online/biodork/2012/02/29/why-we-need-sex-ed-now/
Check it out. Texas has the highest teen birthrate in the nation at 62 per 1000, and 96% of school districts teach abstinence-only.
Don’t the voters realize they’re doing it wrong? Anyway, night everyone.
for some reason, FTB is saying that i posted, but won’t actually show my last post
ok, wtf? why won’t FTB let me link to the National Abortion Access Bowl-a-Thon?
http://bowlathon.nnaf.org/nnafbowl/findevent.asp
Cool, there’s a Bowlathon in Fargo ND
5 in different cities in TX, one in Virginia – bet those’ll be a hoot, what with the recent sonogram-rape bills …
Not one within driving distance for me, but they also have “Virtual” bowlathons just for fundraising. It looks like most of the money raised goes to provide financial support to the women for transportation, overnight stays, etc, besides just the fee for an abortion. That sounds good to me.
I was so ticked off at S Komen that I found the nearest PP affiliate and donated to them. It isn’t even all that near where I live but so what? Komen isn’t ever getting any more of my money.
I can see that this is going to be a continuing yearly contribution.
The way PP is set up they have national offices that you can donate to. Or you can donate to the local PP offices. I prefer to keep such things as local as possible.
I’ll get to as many bowl-a-thons as I can… and I hate bowling. Thanks. (Really, thank you.)
I’m trying to think of ways to bring pressure against the forced-ultrasound bills themselves. There’s a legal challenge, but an anti-abortion judge ruled that the law has to be enforced while the case is proceeding, thus we have Texas women being violated as in the OP article. There’s got to be a way to get the horror of this into everyone’s faces… I have visions of protesters waving 10-inch ultrasound wands emblazoned with Texas flag stars.
I also found this disgustingly accommodationist article. “Some patients unhappy” indeed.
Source
Those darned lying women with their icky emotions and spiteful blocking of their own ears. Pojman needs the OP article spammed to him, except I suspect he’d just wank to it.
If there’s anything that can be called a silver lining in a story as stomach-churningly horrifying as this one, it has to be the eventual result. Given the cavalcade of conditions that will absolutely demand an abortion, and the thousands, then tens of thousands of women that will require them, eventually an organization like the ACLU will have such overwhelming avalanche of evidence against this abominable practice that legal pushback with quite a decent bit of potent anger and legal heft behind it will result.
During that pushback the main argument should focus on what these hate-filled bills are: God bothering getting in between women and their doctor during a PRIVATE consultation and procedure. The government is supposedly supposed to be evil to these people, but somehow if the Jeebus is enforced, it’s suddenly okay. And that’s where the damning evidence is.
There is absolutely NO medical or scientific reason to have such a rigamarole go on during an important medical visit for a woman. The only reason such a practice would be implemented is under the belief that somehow Jesus magically appears in a woman’s private bits at the same time the sperm finds an egg. This is god-bothering in VERY private territory.
Science and medicine say there’s no brain activity for weeks in an embryo, and early on you couldn’t tell a brainless human embryo from that of a brainless cat without a trained eye and DNA equipment. Nothing is going on here but brain-buggering bible bullshit and women with mental stress already extant are forced to undergo what is nothing more than proselytizing. The practice is a severe violation of women’s dignity AND their constitutional religious freedom rights.
When the anger of enough women that had to experience this perversion of justice get courageous people to defend their constitutional rights it will hit the federal courts, and the federal courts cannot force a religious sermon to occur during private medical care.
Well, no, actually, abortion could get banned outright and then more women could just die. That happened before Roe vs Wade and it’s happening now in other countries.
for instance, this is from Nicaragua in 2007. It should sound familiar:
Source
It’s time you used that “wall of separation” thing like it’s meant to be used. Pass a blanket law prohibiting workers from claiming religious exemption from duties. This is in no way interfering with anyone’s freedom. Muslims who don’t want to handle alcohol are still free to choose a different line of work besides bartending, and Roman Catholics who don’t want to have anything to do with abortion provision are as free as they have ever been to work in something other than medicine.
The Church needs dragging kicking and screaming into the 21st century — and if it doesn’t survive the journey, well, frankly, it’s no great loss.
This is horrendous.
So you would respectfully force women to bear children they don’t want, or if you can’t manage that, respectfully shame them and force them to listen to lies and manipulations. With all your love. *spits*
Great! (As long as the doctor is tactful enough to realize when it’s appropriate and when not – doesn’t sound like the woman from the article would have enjoyed it much.)
I love them too! Also, I’d suggest talking really, really quietly from the other side of the room.
Ok, I tried to read the whole thread before mentioning this, but I might have missed something.
Doctors are being forced to lie to their patients about the possible effects of abortion. Does any part of the law prohibit them from stating that it’s all a lie? They could take a couple of minutes to explain point by point why the statement they are forced to read is false.
Is it possible that this is actually part of The Evil Plan TM? Force doctors in such an impossible position that they start breaking the law and give anti-choicers an excuse to slowly completely eliminate abortion providers.
Basically, this is a “It can’t get any worse, so it must get better” argument.
It can always get worse. There is no bottom with religious fanatics.
Yes, please.
Ugh, that was hard to read. And the stupid thing is it was a sham, the doctors and nurses didn’t want to do it.
How are we at this point in 2012? It’s all just so fucked up.
Oh, that’s code for “not her regular doctor, and really, she should have been seeing this doctor long enough to have had many conversations, most of which would discourage any thought of termination.”
I’m sure you’re right, but my first thought was, “These guys in the TX lege must not understand ANYTHING about medicine. Her regular doctor is the one who gave her the referral to the OB that allowed her to have the procedure paid for by her HMO.” Don’t they know how insurance works? How do they get their medical care?
The degree of frank misogyny now shown by the American right is astonishing as well as disgusting and frightening. If the Republicans win the Presidential election, as remains likely based on a statistical model of contests since 1952 (via Mano Singham), then The Handmaid’s Tale will start to resemble a documentary. I wonder whether Obama will make proper use of the pushback against this extreme misogyny which polls are showing.
@hotshoe: Done. Thanks.
I have to question how any doctor who actually meant the things coming out of his/her face when reciting the Hippocratic Oath could even consider lying to their patient purely for state-sanctioned religious ideology. Something tells me that any group of sensible medical care people should be meeting in private places at this very moment and organizing strikes and/or legal challenges against redneck states for putting a noble profession into a position of having to demean itself because of political rank ignorance.
I’m wondering if the doubling-down on the prehistoric cretinism that is going on in this country can be attributed to the right/left chasm created by the Rovian politics of the last decade and a half. If these sequences of degradations don’t move people into genuine action, the country will surely be as F-U-C-K-E-D as Pteryxx alluded to in his comment about Nicaragua. The Ortegas, Perons, Videlas and Pinochets of this country have laid all their cards down in plain sight during the last few months (The Orwellian doublespeak translator calls them ‘The GOP Debates’). When a country doesn’t identify and fight religious fascism when it is actually happening, one has to be extremely concerned because: the populace is generally too ill-informed or just fucking stupid to recognize it, or already in the pull of influence from the rhetoric, or too cowed by authority/community backlash, or some combination of the aforementioned.
I hope these individual stories of women suffering indignities start gaining viral-grade traction and get those who are content to play the ‘apathy and amusement’ game off of their purely observational perches and back into the trenches of activism where aware and concerned people should be.
—
I just found an article by Chris Hedges that puts together all the events going on now to argue how the whole fucking thing has gone pear-shaped:
http://www.alternet.org/story/47679/
Y’know, if these fuckwits really wanted to pass some legislation to support all life, how about mandating blood donation for every eligible adult? And the “organ donor” option on your driver’s license should not be an option.
If this is about preserving life, let’s preserve some fucking life.
I presume they would give a preamble explaining how stupid the bill is and that they’ll try to make it as unshaming and seriousness as possible. Then he puts on a rubber red nose to signify that the serious important professional doctor has left the room and now you’re talking to Doctor Squiggles the Clown.
Beatrice @107:
Yeah, I got that from Pteryxx’s comment. Things can get worse. The question is how genuinely clueless are people and will they be blind to history repeating itself, or can we hope that the education system isn’t the shambles it sometimes appears to be and anger will start being directed in the directions it should be. I expect this kind of horseshit from the secessionist states. Will it start echoing in the more supposedly rational places?
Whoever said ‘May you live in interesting times,’ I hate you.
Y’know, if these fuckwits really wanted to pass some legislation to support all life, how about mandating blood donation for every eligible adult?
But that might inconvenience MEN, you see, and that would be just awful.
My apologies to all decent men who don’t deserve my snark.
Gregory Greenwood is correct: the shit happens due to voter apathy and ignorance, primed by years of a well-funded anti-abortion campaign.
Many people who realize that pregnancy is risky and may often require a choice between the woman’s health or life, have been brain-washed into wishy-washy thinking. “Well, I think there should be some limits on abortion, but of course, not if it is a case of the mother’s health. or life, or rape or incest….”.
So they put the pious fuckers in power, and get bills that restrict or ban it in ALL cases. Then they cannot understand “how that happened…” It happened because you weren’t paying attention and you got conned by the fuckers. Fascists will lie to you to get your vote, then give you the finger after they are elected.
Why, for example, is everyone focused on the presidential candidate? The president can only sign or veto federal bills and nominate supreme court judges. The later is the greatest power right now. A few more fundie judges and Roe vs Wade will be nullified. Hey if a Catholic judge (Scalia) can declare a cross isn’t a religious icon, they will think of some creative legal loophole to gut R v W!
Meanwhile, fundies are packing candidates in local and state governments, because so few people pay attention to local politics. Getting creationists on school boards and anti-choicers in state senates (where the abortion laws are passed) is a piece of cake when so few voters pay attention to them. If the churches “remind” their parishioners to “Go Vote!” this week (and you know who for. Wink! Wink! Nudge! Nudge!), they easily overwhelm the saner voters. Meanwhile, the apathetic majority are sitting at home on election day, watching “American Idol” and picking their noses.
Solution: not sure, but getting local liberal and Democratic groups to focus on and publicize the real goals of the local fundie candidates might be a start. Fundies are like cockroaches that do their business in the dark because nobody can see them. Shining some light on them might not eliminate them but you can start picking them off, one by one.
#90 Pteryxx
Including ectopic pregnancies in abortion restrictions/bans is so staggeringly ignorant, stupid and obscene that I honestly didn’t believe it when someone posted it on “Butterflies & Wheels”.
An ectopic pregnancy is the implantation of a zygote in the fallopian tube, where it will, within a few days, get big enough to rupture the tube, kill the zygote and threaten the woman’s life due to internal bleeding and infection. Surviving that without surgery and antibiotics would be the definition of a “miracle”.
Essentially, they are saying: “We know there is no possible way to save the life of the zygote, but it is morally wrong to permit doctors to remove it and kill it a few days before it will die anyway. It is morally better to let a woman go through days of agony, until her tube ruptures, THEN see if we can (hopefully) save her life and reproductive health.”
This is the equivalent of a doctor seeing a dangerous aneurism or infected appendix and saying to the patient “We aren’t going to treat this until it ruptures.”
It is medical malpractice, codified into law for religious reasons.
These laws are essentially saying that women no longer have a right to any reproductive medical care that is newer than the Bronze Age.
@dianne
#116
YOU HURT MY FEELING! I’M GONNA CALL THE WHAMBULANCE!
WHAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!
Well, yeah, it is. That’s also why some states (including Texas) have passed extremely restrictive “health regulations” for abortion clinics, including such things as size of closets and width of hallways. Then the clinics can be cited and fined until they shut down.
These are called TRAP laws, and they’ve been driving clinics out of business for a decade or longer.
http://www.prochoice.org/policy/states/trap_laws.html
Anti-abortion groups also harass providers with frivolous lawsuits and send fake employees and patients undercover to fish for violations, or outright invent them. Dr. Tiller had to defend himself against multiple lawsuits (and he did, successfully).
Examples:
http://washingtonindependent.com/106028/after-groups-allegations-texas-health-department-defends-regulation-of-abortion-clinics
and
http://articles.latimes.com/2012/mar/05/nation/la-na-kansas-abortion-20120305
—
I have to say, I’m surprised y’all didn’t know all this already. Maybe I shouldn’t be, given how little coverage there’s been off of specifically feminist and pro-choice sites such as Shakes and RHRealityCheck. But don’t y’all remember Operation Rescue from the 90’s? Did you think they’d gone away?
hypatiasdaughter: *nod* That may have been me. I’m sorry to be the red-pill-bearer here.
That info again:
http://www.nwlc.org/resource/below-radar-fact-sheet-religious-refusals-treat-pregnancy-complications-put-women-danger
That is really what a lot of this is, misogyny. But call it what it is, hatred of women.
1. It’s really obvious in the Patriarch movement, who are out as female slavers. IMO, it is because the slave owners are insecure. Despite their claims, it isn’t natural. There is always the risk that the slaves will rebell or just leave. Ask Sparticus how that works. In a democracy, there isn’t much they can do, the law is against them.
2.
Reason two is the stunning success of women in the USA.
In the younger cohorts, women have 32.7% with college degrees to males with 27%. This is a big difference.
60% of college students are female.
Half of all med and law students are female, It is 70% for vet school.
To some extent men are being marginalized. For someone with a superiority complex who spends their time drinking beer and playing video games while their sister is the District Attorney, this has got to be unsettling.
3. Reason three, is who knows? It’s not like men don’t have mothers, sisters, girl children, wives, girlfriends, girl friends and so on. At least one of the above.
Well, one of the reasons men are marginalized is the influence of the Patriarchy, specifically, prescribed gender roles. I think I read somewhere that women on average have higher IQs, but men are overrepresented at the extremes of intelligence.
What would happen if a test could show that a child would be born homosexual? Would it be OK then? Thinking about the twitters PZ showed earlier on…
oursally: Oh, that’s easy. Force the woman to have the child, then kill it as soon as it shows signs of homosexuality.
[Shudder]
Believe it. Things can get a lot worse and it happens a lot.
1. Even in old civilized Europe, in the 1990’s, you had ethnic cleansing and genocide. In Yugoslavia. Civilians rounded up, the men and boys separated from the females and killed, dumped in mass graves, while the women were raped in camps for the hell of it.
2. The Soviet Union collapsed and quickly. Life expectancy went down a lot and even the birth rate declined.
3. Somalia fell apart. No one knows what the average life expectancy is because no one can collect statistics but it is around 47 years and falling.
4. We “rescued” Iraq and all we got was ethnic cleansing, sectarian wars, and $4/gallon gasoline.
See the pattern here? You should, it is obvious to anyone who looks at history, recent or otherwise.
Here is another statistic. All societies and civilizations collapse sooner or later. Not a single one has ever lasted. It’s inevitable that our American civilization (used in a loose sense) will collapse someday*.
Don’t mistake wishful thinking about how things should be with how things are.
* I was hoping things would hold together for my expected lifespan of a few more decades. It is looking less and less likely.
These people don’t believe in clean kills when they can torture. See: the confluence of Quiverfull/Christian patriarchy and “pray away the gay” teen re-education camps, such as Michelle Bachmann profits from.
http://www.queerty.com/marcus-bachmanns-ex-gay-clinic-the-gift-that-keeps-on-giving-abuse-to-gay-teens-20110712/
Actually, IQ tests are calibrated so that the mean scores of women and men are equal: women tend to do better on some items, men on others (this says nothing about whether the differences are innate of course). Saying “women on average have higher IQs” is thus a reification: people don’t “have” an “IQ” at all, because an IQ is nothing but a result on a test, and apart from the above, results on successive tests on an individual can vary considerably.
Perhaps IQ wasn’t the best term to use. Anyway, I’m a virologist, not a cognitive psychologist! :)
I wonder how risky it would be for doctors to do what some biology teachers did in Dover County with the evolution disclaimer – refuse to read a document because it was factually incorrect.
They tried something similar here in Minnesota, except it was information on a web site. Some doctor pointed out that the “information” about a link between abortion and breast cancer was incorrect, and the health department took it down.
Ophelia just posted about Catholic rules explicitly allowing women to die rather than perform abortions:
https://proxy.freethought.online/butterfliesandwheels/2012/03/catholic-thanatophilia-december-2010/
Jadehawk @37:
I can’t think of the number of times I’ve seen forcing a woman in such circumstances to carry to term — and to give birth to an infant doomed to an agonizing life of a few minutes to a few days — called “at least giving the baby a *chance*”. Usually with some unsourced anecdote about a couple whose doctor “told them to have an abortion”, ending with something like “And the baby their doctor told them to kill is ten years old and in the sixth grade right now!”
hypatiasdaughter #118:
See above. I’ve actually heard tales — they don’t even merit the word “anecdote” — about how the prayshus eight-cell unborn bloblet implanted on the inner side of the abdominal wall, and how it had to be delivered by C-section but was just fiiiiiine!
Beatrice #107:
I’m right now imagining the doctor, without comment, putting an Ipod and headphones down in front of the patient — THEN sitting down and saying, “State law requires that I read this to you … “
Civilized Europe? Europe in the Twentieth Century, especially the first half, was a hellhole.
8th Amendment to the US Constitution
“Now the state law requires that I read this…I hope you don’t mind if my nephew practices his sousaphone in the room with us while we take care of these formalities”
cactuswren,
Yeah, I hope doctors will do as much as they can, without actually breaking the law, to make the whole thing easier for their patients. Even if it sounds ridiculous, these little subversions can mean a lot to the woman in question. It’s not just about not hearing the description she isn’t interested in (or that actively causes her emotional pain), but also about showing her that the doctor is on her side, even if government is doing all it can to tie her/his hands.
Although, with everything Pteryxx has mentioned, it’s difficult to hope for an improvement. Only things getting worse and doctors being forced to make even more of an mockery of their profession.
quoderatdemonstrandum:
The thing is, this only applies if you believe this is a punishment. If you can somehow convince yourself that this is a service to the poor, deluded, animal-stupid women being tricked horribly into murdering one of God’s Own Special Snowflakes that He went through the trouble of granting to her…
…well, if it stings a little, that’s just Jesus kissing you, ya see.
“Now the state law requires that I read this…I hope you don’t mind if my nephew practices his sousaphone in the room with us while we take care of these formalities”
My nephew plays bass guitar. Perhaps he should get an amplification system and some hints of where to practice for his next birthday.
As far as protesting this specific policy, I’ve got some vague idea of reading the mandatory text with corrections, over and over a few thousand times, on the Austin capital steps or some such. Maybe if it’s said often enough, it’ll become just noise, like the Pledge of Allegiance or the Miranda rights to most folks.
Is there a way to read aloud in Comic Sans?
Also, I linked this in TET (I think) but it’s appropriate here: TMI-spamming the uterus-hater Ryan McDougle on Facebook.
https://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/03/13/1074013/-Hilarious-VA-Right-Wingnut-Sen-Ryan-McDougle-Gets-a-Taste-of-His-Own-Transvaginal-Medicine-
These people really turn their brains off and go LA-LA-LA-LA at any mention of icky female reproductive parts. That’s not hyperbole. Check this out:
(via Shakes: http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/2012/03/lie-back-and-think-of-erie.html )
So maybe some sort of TMI-Walk is in order here?
Janine, #134,
Yeah but we’re still better than Americans. What do you mean how and why? BECAUSE. THAT’s why. Bloody upstart civilisations on other continents…mumble…drone…rhubarb…waffle…
;-)
Louis
Hmmm… T-shirts with a diagram of the female reproductive parts on them? Reading detailed medical descriptions of pregnancy and ovulation and contraception on the Congressional floor perhaps? Spamming their inboxes with middle school level sex ed? After all, these woman-hating legislators need to be Fully Informed of the medical procedures they’re regulating, right?
I’d buy/wear one.
I don’t understand how it can be legal to pass a law compelling, or even allowing, physicians to lie to patients under any circumstances. Doctors shouldn’t even have to organize independently – the AMA and other professional bodies should be up in arms over this. It’s completely contrary to the medical mission.
@dianne
#139
Might be better if he use saxophone or just sing.
Or Pop music.
Just get some noise in the 100~1k frequency (human voice range).
…I have to go but I’ll give the T-shirt concept some thought.
Thanks, y’all.
I also don’t see how they could legally compel doctors to perform unnecessary and unwanted procedures on patients, which is also contrary to the medical mission and to basic professional ethical (and I assume licensing) standards. Why aren’t the medical organizations standing up to this and bringing legal challenges?
Yes. Pure evil.
Further ranting has been deleted. Fucking gun-totin’, cold-dead-hands lying hypocrites. Sadistic mealy-mouthed meddling self-righteous lying hypocrites.
I ran across this John Wayne quote the other day: “I won’t be wronged. I won’t be insulted. I won’t be laid a-hand on. I don’t do these things to other people, and I require the same from them.” In Texas, the opposite of this seems to be law.
What Louis said but add – seriously Janine? That’s an awfully wide brush you’re slapping around there. Almost a Mr Bean dynamite-in-a-paintcan brush.
Yurp is a pretty large place and a whole century is a quite long time. I grew up in more or less the same place as Louis (Airstrip One) and in the days of my youth it was reasonably tolerable. We had healthcare and education, indoor plumbing and electricity and all. Though we *did* have mid-century English Food, which quite possibly counts as a crime against humanity. I left 20-some years ago but I understand that despite the best efforts of the fascist, er nulabourtories there is still a reasonably functional health system that doesn’t treat sick people as a only source of money for large corporations. My young nephews and nieces go to schools that still try to provide a decent education (mostly; one is at a school with a Gradgrindian headmaster). Even the cooking has improved, praise be to Saint Jamie of Essex.
So 8/10 for a good polemic phrase, minus several million for accuracy. You’re smarter than that.
Doctors shouldn’t even have to organize independently – the AMA and other professional bodies should be up in arms over this.
I agree. This is one of the reasons that the AMA is drifting into irrelevancy. ACOG isn’t doing anything either and their members are the most directly involved. Not sure about state societies.
@Tim
So you’re just not going to recognize that much of early 20th century Europe was during two of the worst wars ever fought or rebuilding from them?
Tim, #149,
I wouldn’t take Janine’s comment about Europe too seriously, and I certainly wouldn’t take my reply seriously at all!
Janine is more than smart and informed enough to know that any civilisation through any period is going to be more complex and varied than a throw away one liner can encompass.
That said, the Americans here do get more than the odd condescending European comment thrown at them, just as we Europeans get the odd AMERICA FUCK YEAH thrown our way. The vast majority of it is unintentional (in the sense they’re usually barbs rather than brilliant debating points) and not thought out.
These “my country is better than your country” exchanges are painful enough.
Anyway, everyone knows that England is the best country on earth. It goes without saying. After all we have decent beer. None of that foreign rubbish. The world is divided into five main groups:
1) Englishmen. The right and proper owners and caretakers of God’s Good Earth (God, by the way was English).
2) Colonials. These can be further subdivided into Criminals, Bloody Yanks, Fucking Celts and Ungrateful Bastards.
3) Foreigners Who Have The Decency To Be White. Pretty self explanatory, although the French have given us some bother over the years.
4) Foreigners Who Are Rude Enough To Be A Bit Dusky. Equally self explanatory. Includes some of the dodgier French, most Spanish, Unfortunates (people from Africa, the Caribbean and India who must be patronised at all times).
5) Germans. Frankly unforgivable. Must be reminded at all times of Two World Wars and one World Cup. (Aside: Henning Wehn’s great take on this at 25:00).
Glod Shave The Dean. Hurrah and gadzooks. And cetera.
Louis
SHHHH! Don’t talk about the war to the Germans!
Right. On the serious, non-derailery, actual topic of this thread, what is there to say?
What can any of us actually say or do here other than offer our support and solidarity to women in these states, and indeed the world over. Echoing a point I made on another thread, use the anger rightly engendered to do something in meatspace. Consider a £5 donation to Planned Parenthood if you can, consider anything you can do or donate. DO IT!!!! Please! The only thing we have against these woman hating fuckers is the unity of opposing them materially.
Louis
Ing, #153,
I mentioned it once and I think I got away with it.
Louis
A pair of pro-liars show up at Ophelia’s.
Ariaflame:
“Mandatory”? Why? Because of the church they were in? Also I don’t get the reference to “Howard.”
*facepalm*
I know I am derailing here but Tim, when have I ever been an apologist for the US. But I also get tired of the trope that Europeans are smarter, wiser and more civilized.
Does the US seem to have the mindset they are out to save the world. Yes. The was put in place long before the US was formed, look at the history of the New England colonies. Look at the military recruiting commercials; A Global Force For Good!
But this was the end result of a bunch of brutal European empires tearing themselves apart during the span of two global wars.
Please keep in mind that I was objecting to raven calling Europe civilized, treating what happened in the Balkans as an anomaly when the truth is this, it fits the pattern of their history.
Tim Rowledge, you are smarter than this.
Well, hardly. I grew up with bomb-sites as playgrounds, so I do actually have some direct memories of the effects. Relatives died. I believe I did mention that yurp is big and a century is long and clearly I only grew up in one part and one time-period. Friends have had differing experiences depending (duh) on where and when; for example some slightly younger colleagues that grew up in East Germany have very different ideas about it all.
So you surely need to also recognise that much of later 20th C europe was far from a hell hole for a lot of the population – whilst at the same time I’ll certainly agree that some parts were fucking awful. Bosnia was not fun, not even slightly. Being bombed by the IRA was not much fun either.
Louis –
Well exactly, and thus my startled surprise. And what was intended as a somewhat tongue in cheek reply. Apologies if it didn’t transmit too well. I’ve no idea if Janine & I would ever count as friends but I certainly enjoy and respect her commentary.
But Louis, you are seriously remiss in only claiming beer as a crowning achievement of Britishness; what about Roast Beef, Roast Potatoes and Yorkshire Pudding followed by Spotted Dick? Your racist put-down of Celts is also, frankly, disappointing. As a Cardiff born Brit I may have to look down my nose at you for that. Possibly even raise an eyebrow. And you forgot cricket, the only true earthly representation of what eternity in purgatory is like.
I will not be lectured on cricket by a Welshman. I have my limits.
Good day, sir. I SAID GOOD DAY!
Louis
P.S. I hope it is abundantly obvious I am not even remotely serious about this. Not even a little bit. No really. I quite like the Welsh. Some of them. Except during the rugby of course. Goes without saying, really.
Fair point – I didn’t pick-up on whatever raven was saying. – too much thread to catch everything. I do actually try to be smarter.
But to aim back at the original topic, this stuff leaves me shaking my head in distressed wonder. How is this happening when the party being oppressed – which seems like the mildest term that applies – is ~50% of the voting population? A quote from an old friend’s neighbour seems apposite “I always voted republican before but these days a woman voting for them is like a chicken voting for Col. Sanders”
Louis: I’m ambivalent on the Welsh. You see, my family came to America in the 1600’s, and has managed to stay 100%ish English since (we even act like English-English people for some reason). This may also be why I distrust the Irish. :)
Look up the concept of “Spartan Women” sometime. A large minority of women do believe that this is the proper role and treatment of women.
I am now going to pull a Godwin here. Try reading Mothers In The Fatherland. The author, Claudia Koonz, was wondering why some German women actively agitated for one of the most blatantly anti-women movements ever, the Nazi Party. In her research, she shows that the woman who ran woman’s Nazi groups, while supportive of Nazi gender stereotypes, did not exactly conform to them. When the Nazis took power, these leaders were pushed out of their positions and much compliant women were put in charge.
Think of the likes of Phylis Schaefly and *nn C**lt*r. If the society that they have been agitating for came to be, they would be among the first to be made to retire and quieter women would be put in their place.
Janine, #162,
THE ASTERISKS DO NOTHING TO DISGUISE THE NAME OF THE BEAST! MY EYES. MY EYES. THE PAIN IS SEARING INTO MY MIND.
Louis
*big fake smile*
Louis, you should check out the link I left in the porn thread.
Janinine,
Mmmmm pasty, slug-white, flabby goodness. {Drool}
Louis
what is this I don’t even
I’m sure you read that somewhere, because it’s a widespread hypothesis.
It’s also wrong.
Depending on where exactly in the abdominal wall, that just might be borderline imaginable.
…But don’t try it at home.
Louis, that make you drool? I do not think I want to know any more about your kinks.
Both statements may well be wrong, but the link supplied is not particularly relevant, being about performance on mathematics tests and not general intelligence. (Also it does show pretty clearly that boys do show higher variance than girls for such performance tests.)
Janine,
That’s not what you said on Thursday, sweetie.
Happily, I think we all know that I was verging on the unserious.
Louis
What? I’m shock! I’m shocked I tell ya!
I know. Because, well, The Internet: SRS BSNS.
Louis
*blinks*
I’m shock!
*blinks*
*sigh*
OH NO! MY SHITTY JOKES. THEY DO NOTHING! NOTHINGGGGGG!!!!!!
Louis
The sigh was for my typo.
Maybe we need more trolls to keep us on message in any given thread. Even concentrated evil doesn’t keep us on topic anymore.
I have not read past #152
Louis
I cannot identify Canadians in this list.
Unless you included us with the Australians.
If you put us with the Blucking Yanks, we shall have Words, you and
ImeImyself!Thread relevant:
I think the entire thread wins one internetz. The question was asked ‘what can be done?’ and various answers arose. I’m a tiny bit more optimistic that the empire isn’t necessarily prone to imminent collapse during my lifetime so I look for these positive cues.
The local and personal response is for doctors to do these legal workarounds. Put the iPod on the woman’s ears if she’s in a traumatic and hurtful situation. Wear the clown nose. These small acts of defiance mean a lot. It’s the little battles that can swing the tide of a war.
As for the major battles, it really is up to the AMA to start firing some shit back at the ignorant assholes who come up with these legislative atrocities. I am going to discuss this with my sister-in-law, a doctor here in California, and see if she has heard through the grapevine if there is any activism going on that we just haven’t heard about yet. If not, it’s time for us, and any in the medical profession you can convince of the basic human principles at stake here, to fire off some very angry letters to local and national medical boards indicating your anger at the current apparent inaction.
So many doctors I have had interaction with through the years have impressed me with their fervent focus on scientific method as it pertains to their profession. These bills are anti-science at its worst. As I noted earlier, I wouldn’t be surprised that there is a movement within the profession to combat this situation, but methodical and well thought out back room strategies are necessary, thus we haven’t yet been allowed to see it happening. This is the USA, however, so I am sure that there is a very vocal religious presence within the organization that has to be nuanced into agreement. There would be the public that has to be appeased, so wording would have to navigate the verbal minefield in that aspect. And they certainly wouldn’t want to become a centerpiece of anyone’s moronic election-year rants and influence the election results even more in favor of idiocy. I will be discussing this with doctors I visit in the near future to gauge response and find out how much vitriol I personally have to work into the maelstrom to end this nonsense.
Louis @152:
This is very reminiscent of Spitting Image’s ‘Tory Map Of The World’ that appeared in one of their brief run of comedy magazines in the ’80s. If you do a search for it, it’s still out there in webbzy space.
chigau:
I assumed that Canadians were the “Ungrateful Bastards”*, although I’m not sure where that leaves India.
*Asking all politely to govern themselves. Who do those Canadians think they are?!
Yes, it’s some damn evil shit. I’d be amused at the shamefaced way some of these politicos act, if it weren’t’ for the fact that what they’re doing is so far into wrong they can’t even see right from where they are.
Louis @ various: I was with you on the Anglophile thing until you got to the beer.
Ms. Daisy Cutter, Gynofascist in a Spiffy Hugo Boss Uniform
16 March 2012 at 2:45 pm:
Mayhap it’s a reference to the Lard’s Preyer:[spellings intended] “Our Father who art in Heaven Howard be thy name.”
Ms. Daisy Cutter, in Australia the Prime Minister of the time, John Howard (*spit*) caused the marriage laws to be amended to have it mandatory for those conducting a marriage in Australia to include that line. I think that was in 2004. We are still working on getting it changed.
Australian federal law. A recent previous long-term Liberal (ie right wing) government, led by Prime Minister John Howard (may he fuck himself sideways with a rusty chainsaw) brought in anti-gay marriage legislation that overruled several states’ attempts to legalise gay marriage and make this “one man one woman” spiel a compulsory part of all legally binding marriage ceremonies.
We are still trying to get rid of this.