Completely Unnecessary

Just finished watching the latest in the series of Palin/Couric interviews. You’d think at this point that Palin would just coldcock Couric anytime she saw her coming. But no.

Anyway, there was nonsense about gays (it’s a choice!), vague nonsense about feminism (everything’s equal!) and a fairly good explanation of her position on evolution in schools (she believes in creationism, but science is for science class - literally the best answer I’ve ever heard her give).

Things broke down a little bit during Couric’s question about Palin’s stance on emergency contraception (transcript from CBS):

Couric: Some people have credited the morning-after pill for decreasing the number of abortions. How do you feel about the morning-after pill?

Palin: Well, I am all for contraception. And I am all for preventative measures that are legal and save [sic - safe], and should be taken, but Katie, again, I am one to believe that life starts at the moment of conception. And I would like to see …

Couric: And so you don’t believe in the morning-after pill?

Palin: … I would like to see fewer and fewer abortions in this world. And again, I haven’t spoken with anyone who disagrees with my position on that.

Couric: I’m sorry, I just want to ask you again. Do you not support or do you condone or condemn the morning-after pill.

Palin: Personally, and this isn’t McCain-Palin policy …

Couric: No, that’s OK, I’m just asking you.

Palin: But personally, I would not choose to participate in that kind of contraception.

Okay, so what we have here is Palin not understanding how the morning-after pill (and contraception, more generally) works.

Like many forms of birth control, EC can either block ovulation or prevent fertilization - but it can also prevent implantation. If you believe life begins at conception, odds are that most forms of birth control - including EC - aren’t for you.

Not to mention that she’s ‘all for [contraception]‘, but ‘would not choose to participate’ in EC.

For the last time - EC is just a megahit of birth control.

If you’re pro-contraception, it makes no sense to be anti-EC. If you’re anti-EC, it doesn’t really cotton that you’re pro-contraception.

And finally, contraception is, of course, just about the easiest way to lower abortion rates.

Jezebel has the video embedded and more quotes from the interview.

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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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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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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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I don’t know if I’ve made this point before, but abstinence-only sex ed is stupid as hell. Apparently, it’s also making Americans infectious as hell:

• 1 million new cases of chlamydia
• Gonorrhea rates are jumping, especially the ’superbug’ variety
• Syphilis is also on the rise, including, for the first time in 15 years, congenital syphilis

Awesome. Maybe it all just got through the tiny holes God puts in the condoms so you get the AIDS.

US sets record in sexual disease cases [Yahoo News]

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The Bush Administration would like you to know that having premarital sex renders you unable to succeed.

And here I thought it just sent you to Hell.

So, I’m back on the virginity bandwagon, people - three cheers for my third virginity!

Something tells me this one will be a success.

h/t SLOG

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The Post reports that after years of downward trending, the rate of sexual activity amongst young people has reached a plateau. Since 2001, the number of teens having sex hasn’t changed much. What also happened that year?

The halt in the downward trend coincided with an increase in federal spending on programs focused exclusively on encouraging sexual abstinence until marriage, several experts noted.

So… it seems that abstinence-only ’sex ed’ not only ineffective at preventing more kids from having sex, but may have had a hand in arresting the already downward trend (there are some other factors like declining fear of AIDS that may also have played a role). Still, at best, abstinence-only ‘ed’ is doing little to stem the rush of teens to the bedroom. Clearly, this will send a message to abstinence-only ‘educators’ that their methods are not exactly working.

But abstinence proponents argue that, if anything, the data underscore the need for greater emphasis on encouraging youngsters to abstain from sex until marriage.

“We need to increase abstinence education and give more dollars to abstinence education. It is the healthiest program we have for young people,” said Leslee Unruh of the National Abstinence Clearinghouse.

Oh, there it is - ‘give more dollars’ - because millions upon millions aren’t enough (for instance, the $28 million additional funds approved by the House just last week (on top of the $176 million spent per year)).

I guess anything ‘works’ so long as the cow keeps giving up the milk. And isn’t that one of the core lessons of abstinence only ‘education’ - why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?

I guess you could say, abstinence-only ‘educators’ are fucking America. And, given their views, they’re probably doing it without a condom.

Condoms have tiny holes that let the AIDS through, you know.

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For Mexicans…

A congressman is pushing a not-so-quick fix in the debate over illegal immigrants from Mexico: free contraceptives.

“A slower rate of growth of Mexico’s population would improve the economy of Mexico. It would also reduce the environmental pressure on Mexico’s ecosystem. But a slower rate of growth would also reduce the long-term illegal immigration pressure on America’s borders,” reasoned Rep. Mark Kirk, who also supports stronger border security in the short-term.

That’d be Mark Kirk (R-IL), by the way. So glad to see he’s on board. I expect he’ll be coming out against Project Reality soon.

Thanks Mark!

[via HuffPost and Reuters]

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I saved a bunch of links from earlier today so that I could comment on the Tommy Thompson hates gays couldn’t hear the question had to go to the bathroom was sick kerfuffle.

Backstory: Amongst the abortion-bashing and creationism polls at the Republican debate, Tommy Thompson, former Health and Human Services Secretary and governor of Wisconsin, was asked if employers should be allowed to fire people because they’re gay. Thompson answered:

I think that is left up to the individual business. I really sincerely believe that that is an issue that business people have got to make their own determination as to whether or not they should be.

He ended the answer with, “Yes.”

Unsurprisingly, people across the country not so happy with this. It also happens to be illegal in a bunch of states. In Thompson’s defense, I would have loved to have seen a hand-raiser on this question (Sam Brownback probably would have gone “Oooh! Ooooh!” and knocked his lectern over). Anyway, Thompson quickly disavowed the answer saying that his hearing aid was acting up and he couldn’t understand the question. Now, a couple days later, it’s also because he really had to go to the bathroom and because he’d been sick with both bronchitis and the flu.

“I didn’t hear the question. All I was thinking about was getting off the stage,” Thompson said. “I said it, I’m sorry, and it won’t happen again but it’s not my record. … There’s nothing discriminatory about me at all.” *

Now, as I said, I was planning on leaving this because I have lots of feminist film theory to read tonight, but Alex Pareene (presumably) over at Wonkette put it nicely enough to make me want to post again:

Thompson now says he really meant exactly the opposite of what he clearly said, because his hearing aid suddenly broke during that question, so even though he didn’t hear the question at all, he specifically answered it — but not the way he meant to answer it, of course.

And all the rest of the questions in the hour and half session.

If you have an impairment (hearing, digestive, Tourette’s, whatever) that sometimes makes you say the complete opposite of what you meant to say, you probably shouldn’t be president. You need to be at least as whole as Reagan, which is not exactly a high standard. I don’t want to accidentally go to war with China because Thompson had to go potty. Because being deaf or sick doesn’t make you an idiot - what makes you an idiot is not saying, “I’m sorry, could you repeat that, please?”

So, let’s say this isn’t all a big lie to save his butt (which, of course, I think it is). It’s not the hearing aid malfunction (or the willingness to describe his need to use the toilet as “hanging on”) that disturbs me. It’s that he’s now presenting himself to the American people as a man who would blindly proceed with an answer despite not knowing the question. This portrait is not less alarming than a man who thinks employers should be allowed to fire gays. We have laws to protect gay people, we don’t have laws to protect us from the colossally foolish (see: Iraq War). America can’t handle another president who refuses to ask questions. That Thompson would choose such a course to resolve his gaffe does not speak highly of him or his campaign team.

Luckily, he doesn’t have a snowball’s chance of being president, so I’ve just wasted your time.

Again!

Thompson Offers Apology on Gay Comment [HuffPost/AP]

* Maybe some discriminatory stuff from Thompson after the jump… (more…)

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Yet another study has shown that there is no link between abortion and breast cancer. Anti-choicers love to scare women with the big-C, so don’t really expect much to change. In fact, here’s what the woman who runs the fantastically-named Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer had to say (seriously, go for something a little more subtle):

“Clearly [the cancer institute] must suspect a link, or else they know that a link really exists,” Malec said. “Why else would they continue to pay for these studies?

Um, okay. I think the answer might be - because scientists get pissed off when you continue to create/cite ’studies’ that use bad science to achieve bad ‘data’.

[Seriously, I can't believe they couldn't think of any better name for their org! Just something with a little more euphemism. Like Coalition for Women's Breast and Reproductive Health. You know, something that hides what you're about a little bit better. Take a cue from those supposed women's health clinics that show women fake ultrasounds and try to convince them not to have abortions. They're always named something like, 'Comforting Place for Abortion Women's Home'.]

Anyway, I naturally thought of Minnesota’s Women’s Right to Know law. The LA Times article mentions that Minnesota, Texas, and Mississippi all have laws on the books requiring doctors to ‘inform’ women of the risks of breast cancer, fetal pain, puppy drowning, nuclear war, and depression that are associated with abortion.

Lots of people in Minnesota were pretty shocked when the 24-hour waiting period and state-scripted info were put into place (and not just because they were hilariously attached to a law about circus regulation and linked Minnesota inextricably with Texas and Mississippi). As anyone who has ever spoken with me knows, the laws are an undue burden on women who work hourly-wage jobs (i.e., working-class and poor women) and those who live far from the 90% of MN abortion clinics located in the Twin Cities. The City Pages wrote a good article at the time about the stupidity of the pamphlet that doctors were forced to ’share’ with their patients.

In addition to pictures of developing fetuses and graphic descriptions of abortion procedures, the pamphlet includes a passage suggesting a link between abortion and breast cancer. “Findings from some studies suggest there is an increased risk of breast cancer among women who had an abortion,” it reads, “while findings from other studies suggest there is no increased risk. This issue may need further study.”

Today the pamphlet reads a little differently:

Cancer of the Breast: Findings from earlier studies suggested there was an increased risk of breast cancer among women who had an abortion.

In March 2003 the National Cancer Institute (NCI) released a consensus report finding no link between abortion and breast cancer. An additional report issued in March 2004 by a cancer research group at Oxford University also indicated there is no link between abortion and breast cancer. Read summaries of these reports

Women who have a strong family history of cancer or who have clinical findings of breast disease should seek medical advice from a physician regardless of their decision to become pregnant or have an abortion.

It’s a little bit better, but it’s still in there. Alerting women to something and then saying, “But I wouldn’t worry about it” is pretty much the same as telling them to worry about it. Plus it comes under the heading “Long Term Medical Risks.” You can look for it just after the bit telling you “But I wouldn’t worry about it” for your future childbearing. And it’s just before the section on fetal pain.

Presumably, Minnesota Commissioner of Health Dianne Mandernach will want to update her pamphlet to include these new findings. Also, maybe hire a professional writer. The 19 pictures of fetuses are important, but if the writing isn’t there you can’t effectively scare women out of an abortion:

Counseling or support before and after your abortion is very important. If family help and support is not available to the woman, the feelings that appear after an abortion may be harder to adjust to. Talking with a professional and objective counselor before having an abortion can help a woman better understand her decision and the feelings she may experience after the procedure. If counseling is available to the woman, these feelings may be easier to handle.

Remember, it is your right and the doctor’s responsibility to fully inform you prior to the procedures. Be encouraged to ask all of your questions.

Good god that’s awful. The method of describing the subject (Chris do we have an editorial phrase for that?) changes in every sentence. Seems like they were just copying and pasting from somewhere else (Texas? Mississippi?). And “Be encouraged”? Is that a command or an expression of a medical ideal?

Speaking of ideal, Minnesotans could also stop electing Tim Pawlenty.

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