A child is not a notch on the bedpost

Them folk are not like us folk. I really had to twist my brain to read this article from Touchstone on “contradeception”, because I’m finding it hard to imagine how screwed up in the head you have to be to think that way.

It’s an article against contraception. When these quiverful zealots argue that they love kids, I can sympathize; when they say they are trying to outbreed non-Christians, I can sort of understand the logic, even though I think they’re wrong; but this story…children are like an afterthought. The reason you shouldn’t use contraception is because getting pregnant is public evidence that you are fulfilling your marital duties.

It’s a kind of busybody’s idea of heaven and earth…or perhaps a very monkey-like one. Everyone is supposed to monitor everyone else’s sexual behavior, and the purpose of marriage is to make it easy for everyone to track who is screwing who.

Sexual relationships, while enacted privately, are public property. The lover declares, “I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine.” This protects the relationship from internal and external breach. Those within the relation-ship are bound to each other by their promise of troth, held in trust by the neutral third parties who witness the promise. Those outside the relationship know that this new unit of their community is being rightly founded, and also that any attempt to besiege the promise is illicit.

And shunning contraception means everyone will be able to tell who is sneaking around, and who is getting the job done in the bedroom. Well, at least it’ll make it easier to monitor the women, but then, that’s what this is all about…making sure that female fidelity is evident.

And in former times, when the married couple fulf lled their vows to God and each other and their witnesses, they produced, at God’s favor, babies to prove it. The lack of a baby indicated either a broken body or a broken vow. While both called for the community’s prayer, the latter also called for the community’s assistance in healing the marriage for the benefit of everyone, for a broken vow means broken people. When a baby gave evidence of a union where no vow had been made, it was similarly in the interest of the community to correct the situation in the way that would most benefit all the parties involved.

Again, it’s all about letting everyone know that the woman is having sex, by making sure she’s pregnant all the time. If you have sex outside of marriage, you are “damaged goods” and must be prominently labeled as such.

In marriage, a couple gives over supervision of their marital health to those who approved their avowal. A sexual relationship between people who made no vows would normally not remain a secret for long. But contraception blinds the community by concealing the sexual act outside of marriage, or its absence within marriage, and by leaving goods damaged in various ways unmarked as such.

It really is the public notch on the bedpost model of the purpose of pregnancy!

Why must we have physical, public evidence of the faithful fulfillment of even those marital vows most of us can’t imagine neglecting, at least at first? Who would lie about such things? Well, who would talk about them? Allowing nature to manifest our faithfulness is certainly more graceful than a verbal report.

Except…Mrs Murphy could be knocking boots with the mailman every morning, in which case her swelling belly is not a testimony to faithfulness, and Mr Murphy could be making regular visits to the bordello out on county road 6. Pregnancy is not a good evidence of fidelity, but only of the fact that a woman is getting inseminated.

The whole article is this bizarre. Not rushing to have children, practicing family planning, implies that maybe you aren’t having sex as often as you should.

This is also why the Church perceives discord in the decision of a newly married couple to take a few years to “enjoy being married” before ending marital enjoyment with children. Apparently, we are expected to take them at their word that they are fulfilling the vows made before us, although they refuse to tender the token. In those storied former times, we’d have worried that perhaps the sweet things weren’t quite sure how things worked. For now, charity ordains that we fill in the child-shaped marital deficiency with the sad assumption of trouble conceiving, except in the great majority of cases, where bride and groom make no secret of being confirmed window shoppers at the baby mall. If you’re going to be married, be smart, after all. Be ever copulating but never conceiving. Their debt to their witnesses (to say nothing of each other) goes quite unacknowledged.

I married at 23, and we waited 3 years to have our first child. I swear that we were not celibate for that period of time, nor would any sane person have assumed we were. I did not feel a need to get her pregnant instantly as a way of staking a claim on my ownership of her uterus.

And yeah, we were copulating all the time — I thought we were paying a debt to each other in building a bond. We owe no debt to witnesses outside of the marriage. I suppose if they’d insisted, we could have gone at it on the picnic table at a family reunion, but seriously — it was none of their business. Apparently, by abstaining from flaunting our fertility we were treating everyone else disrespectfully.

So also is the public treated disrespectfully by the couple who, 2.1 children later, give no sign of continued faithfulness to their vow. Is he so disgusted by the sight of his wife’s birth-changed body that he will no longer suffer its embrace? Is she using her maternal exhaustion as an excuse to withhold herself from him? Can this marriage survive? The only way we know a marriage to be sexless is when it comes out in therapy, on the golf course, at play dates, on the pages of The Atlantic.

This whole thing is very disturbing. We stopped with 3 children, by intent — we love kids, but we wanted to give each one the attention they deserved, and we had to plan ahead for that expensive business of making sure each one got a good education. The good of the children, however, is not part of the equation with these people.

So we stopped having babies almost 20 years ago…and apparently, this blue-nosed wowser would think from that that I’m now disgusted with my wife’s body, or that my wife is withholding sex now that the tiring business of making children is done. You know, it’s none of your business what any two people’s private sex life is like, but anyone can note that despite the fact that she’s had a flat belly empty of embryos for a score of years, my wife is still with me and we’re still happy together.

Who’d have thought that you don’t need to be in a state of constant pregnancy to have a good and productive relationship? It’s sad to think that there are women out there who feel the measure of their worth is determined by the diameter of their abdomens.

Oklahoma…you have left me speechless

They’re considering a new law to keep women ignorant and ashamed.

The governor of Oklahoma is considering tough new abortion bills that would allow doctors to withhold test results showing foetal defects and require women to answer intrusive questions.

The results of the questionnaires would be posted online.

Women would also be required to have a vaginal ultrasound and listen to a detailed description of the embryo or foetus in a third bill passed by the legislature on Monday.

So let me get this straight. If a woman in Oklahoma thinks she is pregnant, she can go in for “testing”…but she won’t get to know all the results. And she has to fill out a form so her sexual history can be posted on the web. And she’s going to get a pointless ultrasound and a lecture scripted by the likes of Prolife across America.

Why would anyone do that?

But you’d think they’d be proud!

Baltimore has a very sensible ordinance that requires pregnancy counseling centers to plainly state what services they provide.

The ordinance requires that a “limited-service pregnancy center” post an easily readable sign, written in English and Spanish, stating that the center does not provide or make referrals for abortion or birth-control services. A center failing to comply within 10 days of being cited could be fined up to $150 a day.

That’s perfectly reasonable, even if the center is directly opposed to abortion — they could cheerfully put up a sign bragging that they do not abort adorable little babies, and take some pride in their position. But no, that’s not what they want to do. We’ve got a ‘counseling center’ here in Morris, for instance, that provides no real help at all. They’ve got little signs around that say something like, “Pregnant? We can help!” with a phone number, and when some frightened teenaged girl calls, their sole purpose is to make sure she does not get an abortion. Stating their position up front and diminishing confusion is exactly what they don’t want — they want their clients confused and worried, susceptible to the lies they’ll tell them.

So perhaps you will be as unsurprised as I am to learn that the Catholic Diocese of Baltimore is suing the city, claiming oppression because they are asked to be clear in the range of services they will offer.

Thomas J. Schetelich, chairman of the board for the Center for Pregnancy Concerns, said that the ordinance singles out the Catholic Church for its anti-abortion stance. The nonprofit, anti-abortion organization receives donations from religious groups supporting women who plan to take their pregnancies to term and operates three of the four local centers.

“Frankly, we would expect our city government to be supporting our sacrificial efforts rather than trying to hinder,” Schetelich said. “We’re disappointed that our stand for life draws opposition.”

Please note: they are talking about four referral centers. They have hired a battery of lawyers to oppose the posting of four signs that state exactly what they regard as a positive, noble, tenet of their faith, that they do not condone abortions. What’s the gripe? If they think it’s an unfair burden to have to pay for four signs, I suspect that if they asked Planned Parenthood or other such organizations, or even asked the community at large, people would chip in to send them a few hundred dollars or a few thousand dollars, even, to make their own damned signs.

This is simply the Catholic Church suing for the right to keep people in the dark, as they have for so many centuries.

They have no grounds for complaint. As a NARAL director explains,

“This law empowers women by giving them full information up front about what to expect from a limited-service pregnancy center,” said Jennifer Blasdell, the organization’s executive director. “This provision does not ask a facility to provide or counsel for any services they find objectionable, but only asks them to tell the truth about the nature of their services.”

By the way, our local example of anti-abortion ignorance is called the Morris Life Care Pregnancy Center, and it is somehow affiliated with the Morris Evangelical Free Church, our local festering canker of wingnut inanity. They don’t seem to provide any material services at all, other than advice, AKA browbeating and misleading. I am amused to see that they are hosting a father-daughter chastity ball (although they don’t call them that anymore), which is rather creepy.

However, I do commend them on one thing. Right there at the bottom of their web page, they clearly and honestly state this:

“This center does not offer abortion services or abortion referrals. This information is intended for general educational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a substitute for professional medical advice.”

I can’t complain too much about them, then — I disagree vehemently with their opinions, but as long as they’re not pretending to be offering real medical advice and don’t pretend to offer services that they’re actually going to be telling their clients to avoid, they have every right to express their beliefs.

I hate to say this, but the Baltimore Diocese could learn something about honesty from a loony rural Protestant church that teaches that the world is only 6000 years old.

They’re crazy over there in Wisconsin

It’s true — here in Minnesota, we’re always talking about them dingbats next door in Wisconsin, and they are — we live in a place where all our children are above average, dontchaknow, and the only way that is statistically possible is if some place nearby is all below average. So we love to rag on them. Until they mention Michele Bachmann and then we have to hang our head in shame and slink away.

Anyway, the latest news from our neighbor to the east is that some cheesehead named Scott Southworth is trying to strongarm teachers into not following the sex education guidelines, threatening them with jail time if they say anything about condoms.

Forcing our schools to instruct children on how to utilize contraceptives encourages our children to engage in sexual behavior, whether as a victim or an offender. It is akin to teaching children about alcohol use, then instructing them on how to make mixed alcoholic drinks.

OK, but mixed alcoholic drinks are legal, and lots of people consume them…and so will many of those kids, hopefully once they’re of legal age but not before (although we know many of them will jump the gun — and think of all the awful pina coladas and over-strong rum & cokes they’ll slosh down if not properly trained. Think of the children!) There’s nothing wrong with urging responsible restraint in both alcohol consumption and sexual behavior, while also explaining what they actually, honestly are.

Unless, of course, you’re a conservative kook who thinks the solution to every peril is to keep everyone in a state of maximal ignorance. Case in point: when this bill to teach medically accurate information about contraceptives in sex ed classes was introduced, every single Republican voted in lockstep against it.

This is more like telling kids who are too young to drive about using seatbelts. It’s not telling them to get in an accident, it’s telling them to take precautions in case something happens. And in the case of sex, we know a collision is pretty much inevitable at some point, so we should be offering information and sensible safety in those years when they are at greatest risk.

A hero in the Philippines

The Philippines has a problem with a rising number of AIDS cases every year, and members of the government have been promoting a sensible response: Health Secretary Esperanza Cabral has sponsored a program that distributes free condoms, for instance. You can guess who opposes prophylactics, though.

“The condom business is a multimillion dollar industry that heavily targets the adolescent market at the expense of morality and family life,” said Bishop Nereo Odchimar, president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines. He called fidelity and premarital chastity “the only effective way to curb the spread of AIDS.”

The Catholics have informed Cabral that she has “one foot in hell.” How sweet. They are also actively campaigning against any politician who promotes birth control.

I’m so sorry that the Philippines is so deeply afflicted with forces for insanity and irrationality, but at least they’ve got brave people like Esperanza Cabral standing up for what is right.

They don’t really care about the children

About 20 clergy, representing the very best of Christian theology, of course, and various Republicans gathered in Virginia to protest the existence of Planned Parenthood—they want all state funding, about $35,000 a year, stopped. They claim that Planned Parenthood is an evil organization because it provides abortions (which I consider a necessary and brave service, given the violence of anti-choice lunatics) and contraceptives, ignoring the fact that they also provide reproductive health care for women. In a just and rational world, Planned Parenthood would be regarded as a heroic organization, helping to make this a better world.

Not in the minds of these pious zealots, though. Bob Marshall voluntarily exposed the intellectual and moral bankruptcy of the protest with a few choice words.

The number of children who are born subsequent to a first abortion with handicaps has increased dramatically. Why? Because when you abort the first born of any, nature takes its vengeance on the subsequent children.

In the Old Testament, the first born of every being, animal and man, was dedicated to the Lord. There’s a special punishment Christians would suggest.

He’s lying. There is no evidence that abortion imposes long term risk of any kind on women or their subsequent children. He’s confusing what he wishes were true with what is actually true.

I despise his imaginary, wrathful, poisonous, child-torturing god. This is what these kinds of Christians hold as just: that an omnipotent monster would wreak vengeance on children for a mother’s actions, and furthermore, that a handicapped child is a punishment for the parents. That’s simply twisted. A suffering child is loved no less by a sane parent, and our hearts are wrenched by the troubles of even our healthiest children. Think about what this dumb wretch has said to every child who is less than perfect in this world (which includes all of us, of course): we are his god’s instrument of torture for our parents. God is the psychopathic bastard who forces failings on us to make our mothers suffer a little more.

God must really hate Bob Marshall’s mother, then, to inflict such a demented fuckwit on her.

You can write to Bob and let him know what you think of his deity. And Virginians — I don’t care whether you’re a Republican or a Democrat, conservative or liberal, but could you please stop putting evil, narrow-minded little pissants like Bob Marshall in positions of power? Let him be an affliction to his own family, and leave the rest of us alone.

A few additions:

Angie the anti-theist is getting an abortion — good for her for being bold enough to put a human face to the issue.

And here’s a weird twist. For all their protestations about equality, somehow they think blacks are a different species?

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WTF? Dumbest poll ever

What kind of idiot decided to put this poll on CNN?

Should information about women who get abortions be posted online?

No 93%
Yes 7%

What kind of information are they thinking of? Home addresses, phone numbers, that sort of thing?

If you read the associated article, you discover that an even bigger idiot in the Oklahoma senate, Todd Lamb, wants women in his state to fill out a 10-page, 37-question questionnaire before allowing them to get an abortion, and that information would be published online.

It’s good to see the poll is going the right way, but jebus…this is another low in the long and sordid history of anti-choice intimidation.

Now I want to get a speculum

This is a side of women I haven’t had a chance to see in such detail before — it’s a series of photos of the cervix, taken every day over the course of a month. It changes, unsurprisingly. It’s a little organ with a different personality every time you look at it.

There are also photos of the cervix before and after sex, which is a physiological phenomenon that also changes the configuration of that whole muscley flexible bit of the anatomy. However, she talks about the upsuck hypothesis — the idea that the activity of the cervix is adapted to physically draw semen into the opening — which is an interesting idea, but actually hasn’t been supported by experiment or observation.

It’s a very cool project!