Completely Unnecessary

See, here’s what I like about Australia.

Despite the fact that the Labor and Liberal parties usually sit on opposite sides of the fence, both know that it’s time for abortion actually become legal in Victoria.

Abortion procedures have been de facto legal for years - your doctor is likely to accept any reason for a procedure - but having an actual law that guarantees the right of Victorian women is an important step.

No woman should have to justify her decisions to a doctor, the State or anyone.

That’s what’s missing from the that cavalcade of legislation that is currently making it more and more difficult for American women to exercise their right to medical procedures deemed legal by their government.

It’s comforting to see both Premier John Brumby and Opposition Leader Ted Baillieu behind this legislation. It demonstrates the depth of support behind Victorian women and the confidence in their ability to make rational choices.

More importantly, it exemplifies the ability of Victorian officials to get behind commonsense legislation, despite partisan politics.

This legislation has been brewing for years, and full support behind those who will vote for it next week.

Link:
New Law to Give Abortion Right [The Age]

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Either leave office or leave us alone, Mr President.

A Bush Administration memo would expand the definition of abortion to include birth control pills and interuterine devices - which would bring them under the auspices of ‘conscience clauses’, allowing medical professionals to deny such items to women requesting them. Via Reuters:

“The Department proposes to define abortion as ‘any of the various procedures — including the prescription and administration of any drug or the performance of any procedure or any other action — that results in the termination of the life of a human being in utero between conception and natural birth, whether before or after implantation,’” it said.

Since some pills and the IUDs prevent fertalized eggs from implanting, they would fall under this category.

I mean, I know I’m never going to get over the Bush Admin’s great idea of appointing a veterinarian as the head of the FDA’s Office of Women’s Health. But seriously - can you just leave us alone? Less than 200 days. Just go to Crawford. No one cares anymore; we’re not going to complain that you’re not doing your job.

Just go.

Via Jezebel and Reuters

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Dust off your virginity, and prepare to be creeped out all. over. again.

Besides the ostentatious religious displays and reliance on abstinence-only dogma, I could never really pinpoint what it was about purity balls that gave me such a massive wiggins.

Luckily, the NYT provided a picture gallery this year: aaand, it’s number 8 that provides the wig factor.

Let’s just run through the litany of terrifying quotes, shall we?

But after dessert, the 63 men stood and read aloud a covenant “before God to cover my daughter as her authority and protection in the area of purity.”
…
“It inspires me to be spiritual and moral in turn. If I’m holding them to such high standards, you can be sure I won’t be cheating on their mother.”
…
“Something I need from dad is affirmation, being told I’m beautiful,” said Jordyn Wilson, 19, another daughter of Randy and Lisa. “If we don’t get it from home, we will go out to the culture and get it from them.”

Not content with making millions off taxpayers, abstinence groups are branching out:

The Abstinence Clearinghouse, an advocacy group, says it sells hundreds of purity ball kits annually to interested groups all over the country and abroad.

Luckily, study after study shows that these fine young ladies will almost assuredly be having sex within a couple of years (except hopefully for the two 9-year-olds one father saw fit to bring).

Granted, they probably won’t use condoms - since they’ve been told they don’t work - but at least they’ll have good relationships with their dads. Might help with the shotgun wedding part!

Links:
Dancing the Night Away, With a Higher Purpose [NYT]
Picture Gallery [NYT]

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• Colorado Initiative Would Grant Personhood to Embryos

There’s no better way to say this than has already been said:

On Tuesday the group Colorado for Equal Rights submitted 131,245 signatures to place an initiative on the November ballot that would define a fertilized embryo as a person. Voters will decide on the measure that would amend the state Constitution to extend a fertilized embryo equal rights and protections. It would define “any human being from the moment of fertilization” as a “person” for purposes of the state’s constitutional provisions “relating to inalienable rights, equality of justice and due process of law.”

Mother Jones notes that such an amendment might ‘trigger governmental investigations into miscarriages, restrict in-vitro fertilization by couples trying to conceive, and could limit birth-control methods.’

Aside from its glaring, rage-inducing absurdity and almost certain unconstitutionality, this initiative raises some amazing questions.

One of Andrew Sullivan’s readers, for instance, asks if she can move to CO and receive Social Security benefits sooner.

Could a woman be charged with manslaughter or reckless homicide for a miscarriage? Or, better yet, what if the family carries Accidental Death insurance? Given how many zygotes self-terminate, you could make a pretty penny just claiming based on statistics.

And what do we do if the fetus kills the mother, in childbirth or otherwise? Is it incumbent upon the state to try the infant for manslaughter? Can the father sue his newborn or fetus for loss of consortium, wages, etc?

And perhaps the most obvious question - how on Earth can anyone know when the moment of fertilization is? Outside of a science lab, it’s pretty darn unprovable. And even if a test was developed, I’m pretty sure it would involve the government asking a woman to put her feet in the stirrups. So let’s hope Colorado for Equal Rights has something to nix the Fourteenth, as well.

As recent years have shown, however, this initiative is perhaps just crazy enough to pass.

I mean, a veterinarian was selected by the Bush Administration to head up the Office of Women’s Health in 2005. (Alderson was quickly removed after a number of groups justifiably lost their minds.) Minnesota’s Right to Know laws required doctors to provide state-scripted information on abortion that defied medical science. Missouri lawmakers are trying to get Plan B regulated as an abortifacient.

Anyway ladies, I suggest looking into Accidental Death insurance, just in case. If we move to Colorado, natural self-termination might be the new sugardaddie.

H/T: Andrew Sullivan via Mother Jones

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Well, one of the most tangible differences between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama appears to be flying out the Rotunda window:

Congressional Democrats are backing away from healthcare reform promises made by their two presidential candidates, saying that even if their party controls the White House and Congress, sweeping change will be difficult.

It is still seven months before Election Day, but already senior Democrats are maneuvering to lower public expectations on the key policy issue.

Well, I guess it’s back to deciding whether you’d like the white lady or the black man again. Good luck with that.

I think Wonkette put it best yesterday when they said:

A formerly “energized and optimistic” Democratic Party finds itself bored and frustrated with two candidates who can’t seem to win and can’t seem to lose.

Link:
Dems hedge on healthcare [The Hill via Wonkette]

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Hope it’s been worth it, right-wingers. I actually can’t state this better than the Orlando tv station that reported it, so I’m just going to quote it in full:

A recent survey that found some Florida teens believe drinking a cap of bleach will prevent HIV and a shot of Mountain Dew will stop pregnancy has prompted lawmakers to push for an overhaul of sex education in the state.

The survey showed that Florida teens also believe that smoking marijuana will prevent a person from getting pregnant.

State lawmakers said the myths are spreading because of Florida’s abstinence-only sex education, Local 6 reported.They are proposing a bill that would require a more comprehensive approach, the report said.It would still require teaching abstinence but students would also learn about condoms and other methods of birth control and disease prevention.The bill just passed its first vote in a committee, Local 6 reported.

I have nothing to add.

Link:
Survey: Fla. Teens Believe Drinking Bleach Will Prevent HIV [Local 6 - Orlando]

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• Abstinence-only education, the choice of those with STIs

As if you needed one more reason not to sleep with teenagers. (For my part, I’m contractually obligated not to sleep with nearly 40 of them.)

Remember that stat that your doctor keeps telling you about how 80% of women get HPV by the time they’re 50?

You can add to that the fact that 25% of teenage girls now have an STI.

These numbers include unfortunately high rates of infection for African-American girls, at around 50%. Rates were obviously lower (because of basic math, not race) for whites and Latinas, but still hovering at an alarming 20%.

Unsurprisingly, HPV was the most common STI at 18%, followed by chlamydia at 4%. At least herpes wasn’t up there, as it sucks way worse than HPV or chlamydia.

Anyway, let this serve as a glowing testimonial to the joys of abstinence education, which is working amazingly to eradicate STIs, as these infection rates clearly display.

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Missouri isn’t the best state in which to find yourself unhappily pregnant. But if some lawmakers get their way, many more women will find themselves in such dire straits.

The Kansas City Star reports:

Legislation presented to a House panel last week would classify emergency contraception as an abortion-inducing medication, contrary to the definition used by the Food and Drug Administration.

Leftie sites are sputtering with justified rage since, as many of them have pointed out for the millionth time, emergency contraception is not an abortifacient. It essentially works as a mega dose of birth control - either preventing ovulation, fertilization or a fertilized egg from implanting on the uterine wall.

The bill, should it pass, would also allow pharmacists to abstain (ha) from dispensing Plan B without fear of lawsuits or government regulation.

It seems like this bill won’t pass. Danger averted? Not really.

Here’s the problem: this is the more subtle ‘whittling away’ tactic that anti-choicers have been working on for some years. Knowing that they can’t get abortion outlawed, they’ll settle for 24-hour waiting periods and parental notification. For now. Once people are used to those ideas, they’ll push for more. [It's like what we're doing with civil unions, but terrible.]

But that’s abortion, right? Surely they wouldn’t come after your Ortho-Tri. Well, I wouldn’t be so sure. Getting rid of contraceptives is definitely on the agenda for some of these groups, and they’ll use the same tactics.

All they have to do is get Plan B classified as an abortion-inducing drug in one state. Once that happens, things will start to fall pretty quickly. Plan B is essentially what I said: a mega dose of the pill, minus the estrogen. If Plan B becomes classified as abortion-inducing, any pill containing levonorgestrel (the synthetic progesterone found in many pills, both monophasal and triphasal) will be easy prey.

It’s not a far step from allowing a pharmacist to deny you Plan B because it causes abortion to denying you the pill for the exact same reason.

And they know it.

This is a “First they came…” situation, and if it fails in Missouri, it will be tried elsewhere.

Feministing has info on how you can contact the Missouri Health Care Policy committee chair. He’s a doctor, so hopefully he won’t need a marvelous amount of convincing, but a few emails never hurt.

Links:
Missouri Bill Would Reclassify Morning-After Pill, Protect Pharmacies [Kansas City Star] - Love that headline by the way, poor pharmacies…
Analysis of HB1625 [NARAL]

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I’ve been wanting to do one of those lemon juice, maple syrup, cayenne pepper cleanses for about a year now. Aside from the fact that maple syrup is your first born child per bottle in Australia, I just never seem to find 3-4 days that I can spend drinking juice every two hours. So I’ve decided to spend the lull between Christmas and New Years doing just that.

It’s been a little under 24 hours (I started at noon yesterday), but I’m already starting to see some amazing results. Allow me to share them with you:

12:12p: Drink glass of cleanse juice.

12:23: Want a piece of salami.

1:07: Want a piece of zucchini bread.

1:35: Longing for stuffing in refrigerator increases.

2:00: Drink a glass of cleanse juice.

2:40: Want ice cream.

2:42: Want ice cream.

2:44: Want ice cream.

2:45: Want pasta with salmon, capers and cream.

3:30: Drink small glass of stuff.

4:18: Realize yet again that Vanessa is the most underutilized actor/character on Six Feet Under.

4:40: Want.

5:02: Doze.

5:50: Squeeze more goddamned lemons on the small juicing thing my mother managed to procure. Bend finger the wrong way whilst distracted by Christmas cookies on counter.

6:14: Drink glass of stuff whilst trying to pretend that it tastes like flautas or enchiladas suizas.

7:22: Feel bad for my sweet potato pie languishing in the fridge.

7:34: Cleanse outside of body, which is covered in lemon juice.

8:00: Drink small glass of the crap.

8:30: Take travel mug full of crap over to Jeremy’s with me. Secretly hoping he will offer chips and salsa like last time.

8:51: Jeremy does not offer chips and salsa.

9:19: Desperately want piece of bread Dylan Moran crumbles in the episode of Black Books where Manny’s parents visit.

9:42: Jeremy still unable to intuit desire for chips and salsa. Also unaware he’s lost the Christmas gift he hasn’t yet been given.

10:11: Leave Jeremy’s den of unspeakable selfishness for Jessica’s. Finish off travel mug of crap.

10:34: Quietly contemplate raiding Jessica’s fridge for goat cheese, hoping she interprets my look of eagerness as ‘listening.’

11: 32: Leave Jessica’s before eating her face.

11:36: Nearly cause collision on Western when I realize that Los Napoles is still open.

11:47: Remember that gyros exist. Spirit lifts.

12:02a: Pour another glass of filth.

5:15a: Have dream about going to buffet table with Becca Lord and Jessica. Then creatures from I Am Legend attack.

10:00: Want sushi for breakfast. Drink glass of crap.

And that pretty much brings us up to speed. As you can see, it’s been a full day of learning about my body. In addition, I am also able to locate every food establishment between Jeremy and Jessica’s houses. And now I’m going to juice lemons.

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We’re going with a theme in the titles.

Just reading in the NYT about the differences between Clinton’s and Obama’s healthcare plans. Which one covers more?!?! Who’s right?!?! Who’ll be the nominee?!?! Are you ready to ruhhhhmbbbbbuuuuuuuuuul?!?!

Here’s a stat that struck me. Some 20% of people in Massachusetts, which has universal, mandatory health coverage, still don’t have it. The reason? It costs $12 000 per year for a family, and $5000 for individuals.

My health cover in Australia is $637 for two years. Now, I’m a student, and overseas health cover doesn’t cover everything (notably, I don’t get free Gardasil shots - boo). Everyone has to buy ambulance cover if they want free ambulance service. The system isn’t perfect…

But $5000 a year? Mandatory? There are government subsidies for those at or below 300% of the poverty line. Hilariously, for an individual that’s $30 630 and for a family of four $61 950.

If the government has to subsidize every family of four under $62 000 so as not to charge them over 19% of their gross yearly income, I’d say the cost of your health coverage is too high. How many people would they have to cover if such an plan were enacted nationwide? Well, since half of all Americans live within this 300 percent, um… lots.

Economics is a little bit above me (it involves a lot of that pesky adding), but wouldn’t it make more sense just to build it into the tax structure if you’re going to be subsidizing nearly half of all Americans anyway? (Ron Paul just died a little.)

Not to mention the simple fact that $62 grand is not a lot to house, feed and clothe four people - though a lot of people do it on a lot less. (But that’s a whole other issue of what’s considered ‘poverty’ in this country, which we’ll have to leave aside for today. Check back tomorrow; I’ll likely have it solved by then.)

So at $63 000 a year for my family of four or $31 000 as an individual, I’d take my chances, too.

Richest country in the world. Shouldn’t be this hard. Raise the cost of beer; I’m pretty sure that’s what Australia did.

Links:
Clinton Attack on Obama Overlooks Some Realities [NYT]
Massachusetts Sets Health Plan for Nearly All [NYT]
What Is 300 Percent of the Poverty Level? [The Tax Foundation]

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