Zika, Like Rubella, a Game-Changer?

I’ve been collecting links on the Zika virus for weeks now.

If you haven’t been keeping up, here are some points to know:
• there isn’t a concrete link yet between reported cases of microcephaly and the Zika virus in Central and South America;
• some researchers in Latin America suggest that it is not Zika but a Monsanto-linked larvicide causing microcephaly;
• microcephaly is a variable diagnosis depending on the size of the head, unlike anencephaly, which literally means “no in-head”;
• microcephaly is also a variable condition affecting some infants not much, others catastrophically;
• microcephaly cannot be reliably diagnosed in utero until quite late in pregnancy and then, see above for variable diagnosis and prognosis.

So, while this is a fascinating epidemiology narrative, it has devastating consequences for the region.

And may well serve as a game-changer in reproductive rights.

Several writers have drawn parallels between the Zika and Rubella viruses.

The Guardian:

It’s early spring in London. Some of Britain’s leading medical researchers have convened to discuss alarming new evidence linking a virus long presumed to be harmless with a spate of defects in newborn babies. It’s not 2016, it’s 1946, and the disease is not Zika, but German Measles, or Rubella.

The writer goes on:

Such women [infected with Rubella and seeking an abortion], historian Leslie Reagan has eloquently argued, were ‘moral pioneers’. The accidental combination of pregnancy and disease put women in the complicated position of having to assess scientific information about the probability of foetal malformation, and confront the anxieties and uncertainties associated with either terminating a pregnancy or carrying it to term. Not all medical practitioners agreed that infection with Rubella in early pregnancy justified abortion. But many did, to the extent that termination had become the ‘recognised treatment’ for maternal Rubella in British hospitals at least a decade before abortion was made legal.

But beyond individuals’ ethical and medical quandaries, there is now in Latin America a helluva public health mess.

Ilana Löwy, historian of science and medicine, writes:

Brazil is facing an epidemic of a severe birth defect: microcephaly (abnormally small head size), a condition linked with important neurological impairments and developmental delays.

Brazil, don’t forget, is also hosting the Olympics this summer.

Brazil and other countries are focussed on trying to control the spread of Zika infection, as Löwy says, “undoubtedly an important goal, but difficult to achieve rapidly.”

But the point here, as with Rubella, is that even if the cause of microcephaly can be nailed to Zika and even if a rapid diagnosis for Zika-infected fetuses is devised, what bloody good will it do?

Abortion — and in many countries in the region, contraception as well — is pretty much totally illegal.

So, there will be not only thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of panicky women demanding some recourse, but there will be entire states gazing with despair at a generation of brain-damaged children.

Löwy again:

Microcephaly is scary. As reported in an article published by BBC Brazil on December 15, 2015, pregnant women in rural zones of Pernambuco say they are terrified by what they know about the zika epidemic and its consequences. Brazilian doctors have no answer to their fears. Public health experts are predicting 15,000 cases of microcephaly—and possibly up to 50,000 zika-induced birth defects—before the end of 2016. When asked about the possibility that women will be allowed to abort fetuses at risk of birth defects induced by zika, the answer is: “Abortion is a crime.”

In response to the Rubella epidemic, many doctors in Western countries acted in the best interests of their patients and risked their careers to offer terminations.

Löwy concludes: “One must wonder whether Brazilian doctors’ unwillingness to consider interventions beyond the strict limits of the law reflects such strong convictions, or is influenced also by the fact that the majority of women at high risk of giving birth to children with microcephaly live in poor, often neglected areas.”

And Brazil is just one of the affected countries (animated map of Zika’s spread).

Will Zika start to change the discussion of women’s own moral agency as Rubella did? Will a massive public health emergency force priest-ridden states to reconsider privileging medieval views over ordinary citizens’ well being?

We live in hope.

Dead women don't, and can't give life.

What a morbid thought, correct?

In Canada, 26 years ago today the Supreme Court decision R. v. Morgentaler  removed legal obstacles preventing women from accessing abortion - a medical procedure under the purview of professionals who administer the public health care system.

But in Texas where the rights of corporations, guns and fetus are promoted by Bible-thumpers who claim they represent the will of God the Father, the laws of the state can desecrate and violate the rights of ordinary living breathing people.

If there are profits to be made, weapons to be cherished and a zygote, embryo or fetus to be deployed as a weapon in the War On Women, you can bet that rightwing religious fundamentalist Republican legislators will be there to shrieeekingly defend those rights.

This happened.

Marlise, a 33-year old paramedic, got up the night of Nov. 26 to fix a bottle for her toddler son.

Her husband Erick, also a paramedic and a firefighter, woke up and realized she had not returned to bed.

He found Marlise collapsed on the floor, not breathing and with no pulse. It’s believed she suffered a blood clot to the lung that deprived her of oxygen for more than an hour.

Erick frantically performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation and called an ambulance. Marlise was taken to John Peter Smith Hospital in Fort Worth and connected to a ventilator to artificially simulate breathing.

It was too late. Marlise was gone. According to court filings, doctors knew this within two days, after tests registered a complete absence of brain function. This was not a “coma” or “vegetative state.” It is the legal and medical definition of dead.

Marlise Muñoz was an emergency medical technician, a paramedic familiar with end-of-life issues who had told her husband that she would not want to be kept "alive" by machines.

Her family hired a lawyer; a rational, sane judge heard their arguments and ordered the hospital to stop preserving the decaying body of their beloved in a technologically-assisted embalmed state.  Marlise had been declared medically and legally dead; in trying to protect the rights of the fetus as it believed Texas law instructed it to do, the hospital (or fetushists on staff) turned her into a "cadaverous incubator". More medical information here, from Dr Jen Gunter.

THIS is the nightmare that CPC MPs Vellacott and Woodworth would inflict upon Canadian women and their families.

Knight of Columbus Stephen Woodworth claims how "savage and inhumane it is to have a law on the Canadian books which falsely condemns as non-human people who are human" - quite a whopper of a word-salad obfuscation. Women have tried to instruct this obdurate Vatican Taliban foot-soldier on how women experience pregnancy — wanted or not — but he won't listen.  In his mind, he is a grandiloquent medieval cavalier, "saving" fetus everywhere and forcing women to carry unwanted pregnancies to term.

"Savage and inhumane" is exactly the treatment that women would suffer if *fetus rights* forced hospitals to use women like meat incubators to placate anti-choice zealots' ideologically-dictated demands.  Would gestating women who smoke, who drink alcohol, who eat the "wrong" food, who are addicted to legal or illegal drugs and who have sex while pregnant, get strapped down and supervised to prevent actions that could imperil their fetus?

Not in my Canada.  

I applaud the recent commentary in the Canadian Medical Association Journal as well as those who are urging Health Canada to approve mifepristone as a physician-facilitated medical abortion. Also known as RU486, it is administered very early in the pregnancy instead of surgery. It induces a miscarriage, similar to spontaneous abortions that occur frequently during the first trimester.

In support of Canadian women's ongoing push-back against the reactionary individuals and groups who would deprive them of basic reproductive rights, I will continue writing and tweeting on these issues.

Poland Gets Slapped Again by European Court of Human Rights

I first blogged about this horrible story from poor benighted Poland in 2008. (I've been at this too long.)

A 14-year-old girl was raped and got pregnant. Her mother braved Poland's insanely restrictive abortion laws and got permission for a termination.

But the local Catlick priest got wind of it and tried to bully the girl out of it -- in the FUCKING hospital.

All kinds of further hoo-haw ensued but the girl did get the abortion.

Apparently, they took the Polish government to the European Court of Human Rights and won with compensation of 61,000 euros.

In their ruling, which is subject to appeal, a panel of judges at the European Court of Human Rights found that there had been numerous breaches of the girl's rights.

The court found that she should gave had unhindered access to lawful abortion and that the details of her case should not have been made public by hospital authorities.

The BBC's Adam Easton in Warsaw says that Poland's abortion law is unlikely to become more liberal soon.

Poland's Catholic church is fiercely opposed to any attempts to ease the restrictions and a majority of mainstream politicians support the status quo.

This is not the first time Poland's Christian Sharia law has come to the attention of this court.

And as for having such draconian abortion laws, how about this?

An estimated 150,000 clandestine abortions take place annually in Poland, generating around $95 million of undeclared and tax-free revenue.

When abortion is restricted or illegal, it goes underground. Women and girls are put at risk and society loses.


h/t's for rape victim follow-up link Stephen Lautens and for clandestine Polish abortions link to Claudine Jacques

Kicking Butt with An Arthritic Knee

Seriously, I’m too old for this shit. I feel like I’ve been giving the same lessons on the fundamentals of women’s rights since the 1970s. A court decision ushered in a short period of relative calm and rationality concerning our reproductive rights. It was a done deal, Canadian women had full autonomy of their bodies, and we breathed freely and focused on other work to improve the lives of women and girls.

Harper knew this was the status quo and perfectly acceptable to most, except for a small, loud and annoying minority. That’s why Harper disingenuously claimed that he would not re-open the abortion debate. He was walking that tightline between moderating his image for the general public and appeasing his hard right supporters. But Harper is a liar and pushed his agenda incrementally. It’s been a carousel of slight of hand initiatives (e.g., the Status of Women cuts and mandate changes, the CIDA maternal health program and defunding of Planned Parenthood, the appointment of a rookie, anti-abortion backbencher as Minister for the Status of Women) and disingenuous motions from individual backbench MPs (e.g., Epps, Vellacott, Bruinooge).

The bottom line is that Woodsworth is a dishonest, evangelical, woman-hating creep who is more concerned with getting a toe in on criminalizing abortion than about updating a 400 year old law where the toe in a birth canal is some defining benchmark for legal personhood. And it’s galling to see self-described progressives claim that such a debate is timely and reasonable.

There are no nuances that need debating when it comes to my right to decide what I do with my body FULL STOP. My ‘lady bits’ (h/t Alison) are wizened and of little interest to these patriarchal hacks, but I will continue to kick and scream in order to protect the rights of younger women and future generations, so they too can consult with their GPs about health decisions in privacy and without intimidation.

Meanwhile, let’s hope we manage to save universal healthcare so that clinical termination of pregnancies and knee replacement surgery remain accessible for all.

Us . . . Winning A Little

I'm not getting used to it, but it seems the sane people are something of a roll lately.

Today, two more wins on the reproduction front.

In the US, contraception is now as important to healthcare coverage as Viagra.

Today, in a huge victory for women’s health, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced that most employers will be required to cover contraception in their health plans, along with other preventive services, with no cost-sharing such as co-pays or deductibles. This means that after years of trying to get birth control covered to the same extent that health plans cover Viagra, our country will finally have nearly universal coverage of contraception.

I'm still pissed at Obama over the idiotic Plan B decision, but this is good.

Next, from the UK, fetus fetishist and fraud-artist, Nadine Dorries has withdrawn her private member's bill mandating 'abstinence education' for UK teens. Like, it worked so well in the Excited States.

Back to work. . .

Yes, Dan, Abortion Is Always an Issue

Yesterday on Twitter, Dan Gardner sniped about the 'non-issue' of abortion in the upcoming provincial election.

Warren Kinsella sniped back that women might not agree on that designation.

As we've said here many many times, women's reproductive rights are ALWAYS negotiable.

And as I keep saying, just look south to the insane War on Women being waged as the USian economy teeters towards the edge.

So. Yeah, Dan. Abortion is always an issue because our rights were so hard won and so susceptible to idle musings by weaselly wannabee pols.

Speaking of which, Tim Hudork has recovered his memory.

In Ottawa to announce a new anti-crime initiative, Hudak clarified comments he made Monday on an abortion pledge he "may have" signed. He told reporters he did sign the pledge, but stressed the issue would not become part of the government agenda if he wins the Oct. 6 election.

"It was a petition that came from my church in my riding back in 1998 that I brought forward as an individual member," Hudak said.

My new best pals, Ken Gray and Warren Kinsella, aren't buying the 'private citizen' spin the Con-Men are trying.

To quote WK: 'Well, he isn’t a private citizen. He’s someone who has a shot at becoming the most powerful lawmaker in the province. So, when he says he’ll stop funding abortion, it now means something.'

Something that should scare the hell out of Ontario women and their friends and allies.

One more WK link. You gotta go here to see the photo a reader sent him.

War on Women Goes Global

Weird, dark days for women's rights and not just in the Excited States, though they do take the (fruit) cake.

In the UK, they have an adoption czar, who wants women to, guess what? Give up unwanted children for adoption.

Women who are pregnant with unwanted babies should be advised to have the child and give it away for adoption, the Government’s new adoption czar said today.

They should be offered adoption as a routine ‘third option’ alongside abortion or struggling to raise the baby themselves, he said.

What are the qualifications for adoption czar, you ask?

Mr Narey, a former Prison Service chief who became an advocate of adoption while running the children’s charity, said social workers should no longer press pregnant women with personal difficulties that they should bring up their child.

This, a day after scandalous abortion stats were released showing that some women aborted fetuses that would have become 'special needs' children. So, I guess those women should have carried to term and loving couples would be lined up around the block to adopt.

Yeah. Right.

Now, Poland, poor benighted Poland, where fetus fetishists are also on a roll and want to outlaw abortion altogether.

The draft had been submitted to parliament by anti-abortion activists, drawing support from about 450,000 petitioners from the conservative opposition as well as a rightist, liberal party in the ruling coalition.

Abortion is outlawed in Poland except in cases when pregnancy results from rape or incest, poses a health risk to the mother or if the foetus is severely deformed.

But even under such conditions, hospitals are known to refuse abortions.

Illegal abortions can be punished by up to two years in prison for those who perform them, while the women themselves are not liable.

Polish women's rights group say there are up to 180,000 illegal abortions in Poland each year, while official data indicates just hundreds of legal terminations annually.

We've followed stories from Poland before: like this one of a raped 14-year-old girl caught between the forced birth gang and more humane forces. She was separated from her mother and bullied by a priest into refusing an abortion. Sense prevailed.

This story didn't have a good outcome. A severely myopic woman feared for her eyesight if she continued her third pregnancy. She consulted a bunch of doctors who agreed that her sight was endangered but who wouldn't sign the permission for an abortion. Right to (fetal) life trumps right to see.

And now for some good news.

Last year, Spain liberalized its abortion and contraception laws. The Poop was pissed and Spain was declared to be on a direct route to hell.

Well, looky here. A year later, abortions have declined.

Funny, innit? Treat people like grownups and they act like grownups.

Making women gay ...err, happy.

"Post coitum anima tristes est" ... ? Not according to recent research.

You may have heard about the controversy surrounding Dr Lazar Greenfield. His one-liner about semen supposedly cost him the loss of his president-elect position at the American College of Surgeons.

In the February issue [of Surgery News], he penned some thoughts on Valentine's Day [...] ("But Valentine's Day is about love, and if you remember a romantic gut feeling when you met your significant other, it might have a physiological basis.") Greenfield proceeded to then discuss the mating habits of fruit flies ("It has long been known that Drosophila raised on starch media are more likely to mate with other starch-raised flies"), the mating habits of the rotifer ("Biologists say that it's more advantageous for a rotifer to remain asexual and pass 100 percent of its genetic information to the next generation."). In each case, Dr. Greenfield made sure to reference to the scientific literature. Then he turned his attention to humans.

Dr. Greenfield noted the therapeutic effects of semen, citing research from the Archives of Sexual Behavior which found that female college students practicing unprotected sex were less likely to suffer from depression than those whose partners used condoms (as well as those who remained abstinent).

Presumably it was the closing line that caused the controversy: "So there's a deeper bond between men and women than St. Valentine would have suspected, and now we know there's a better gift for that day than chocolates."

Better than chocolate? No f***ing way!

There is growing evidence that human semen has the potential to produce profound effects on women. We have replicated the effects showing female college students having sex without condoms are less depressed as measured by objective scores on the Beck Depression Inventory. We've also examined the data as a function of whether the students were using hormonal contraceptives, whether they were in committed relationships, and how long these relationships have lasted. The anti-depressant properties of semen exposure do not vary as function of any of these conditions. It is not a question of whether females are sexually active, since students having sex with condoms show the same level of depression as those who are not having sex at all. We have also received numerous semen testimonials from other women who attest to the anti-depressant effects of semen exposure [...]

Only 5 percent of the ejaculate is sperm. What's left is seminal plasma, which is a rich concoction of chemicals, including many that have the potential to produce mood-altering effects derived from hormones, neurotransmitters, and endorphins. There are even female sex hormones in male semen. Within a hour or two after insemination, you can detect heightened levels of many of these seminal chemicals in a woman's bloodstream.

Yadda yadda yadda. Notice something inherently heterosexist about this research? If that seminal plasma is such a tasty dish of yummy mood-lifters, what about the effect it might have on a male partner? Is this why queer men are so gay?

Oh. Wait. It's only about reproductive biology and, as Adrienne Rich called it, compulsory heterosexuality, isn't it?

But it is also important to acknowledge that there is a dark side to semen chemistry. The vagina is a very hostile environment for sperm. During human evolutionary history women couldn't afford to conceive as a consequence of being inseminated by just any man, and the presence of semen in the female reproductive tract often triggers an immune reaction that treats the sperm as a pathogen.

Gotcha! What we need is serious, all-encompassing and unbiased research regarding the effect of the plasma aka 'manly essence', as well as that of cyprine upon the happiness quotient of all human beings and ^NOT only upon their ability to breed.

We can safely surmise the Contempt Party and its homophobes wouldn't fund that, though.

Why I Am a Feminist: Part 4,503,071

Dr Pale informs us:

Here in Canada, The PM says Women are a left wing fringe group.

According to Texas Republican Pete Sessions, Women should pay more for health insurance, because also according to him, being a woman is a bad decision. Like smoking.

Not only is being a woman a bad decision, it is a toxic pre-existing condition.

I called it here.

So, they'll shriieeeek and stamp their tiny feet and squeal about 'our tax dollars funding the murder of baybeez' and all you medically bankrupt Americans and all you future ones can thank your local zygote zealot for crapping all over any chance for a sane healthcare system in your country.

Or, maybe in the time-honoured manner of all pols, the women and children will get thrown under the bus when the going gets politically tough and reproductive health services will be left out of any expanded coverage.

What actually happened is even worse.

To appease 39 fetus-fetishizing so-called Blue Dog Democrats, a truly evil amendment was included. Here's pro-choice Illinois Democrat Jan Schakowsky, the co-chair of the Congressional Women's Caucus, describing its effects (caps in the original):

This amendment goes far beyond current law which already bans the use of federal funding for abortions. It goes far beyond the language already in this bill that guarantees no federal dollars are used for abortion. This amendment says that a woman CANNOT purchase coverage that includes abortion services using her own dollars; middle class women, using exclusively their own money will be prohibited from purchasing a plan including abortion coverage in every single public OR PRIVATE INSURANCE PLAN in the new health care exchange. Her only option is to buy a separate insurance policy that covers only abortion – a ridiculous and unworkable approach since no woman anticipates needing an abortion. This amendment is a radical departure from current law and will result in millions of women losing coverage they already have.

This health reform bill is about improving access to care, not further restricting a woman's right to choose. Our bill is about lowering health care costs for millions of women and their families, not further marginalizing women by forcing them to pay more for their care. This amendment is a back door way of overturning Roe v. Wade; it is a disservice and insult to millions of women throughout our country. I urge my colleagues to vote against this amendment.

Unfuckingbelievable. And it is exactly what the Catlick wing of USian Christofascists wanted.

I actually agree with Rethuglican Sessions -- being female is the worst decision I ever made.

One more thing -- FUCK YOU, first female Speaker of the US House.

The Pro-Liars Are Eating Their Own

I just lurve this shit.

From today's LifeShite:

Ohio congressman Tim Ryan is digging himself deeper and deeper into a hole when it comes to his relationship with the pro-life movement. The former darling of the pro-life community has come full circle and is not refusing to take a firm pro-life stance and is supporting abortion in health care.

Ryan was initially elected as an Ohio congressman who was one of the rare pro-life Democrats in the Democratic Party. His willingness to stick his neck out earned him accolades, endorsements, and a seat at the leadership table of pro-life groups.

As LifeNews.com previously profiled, Ryan got himself kicked off the advisory board of Democrats for Life of America.

Between his pro-abortion voting record and his insistence on funding the Planned Parenthood abortion business in a warped version of a pro-woman, pro-life bill he had worked on for the pro-life Democrats group, Ryan increasingly alienated himself from pro-life advocates.

Now, Ryan is earning the scorn of pro-life advocates for claiming that a new amendment in the House version of the government-run health care bill that funds abortions is a "common ground" abortion effort.

For a saner more balanced view, check out Cristina Page at RH Reality Check (emphasis mine):

Congressman Tim Ryan (D-OH) is, in many ways, a typical pro-life American. He opposes abortion and, because of that, supports every effort to prevent the need for it. Just like most pro-life Americans, Ryan supports contraception -- primarily because it is the most effective way to prevent unintended pregnancy, and thereby abortion. And yet because of this, Ryan no longer qualifies as "pro-life." He was recently banished from the board of a national pro-life group he served on for four years. Ryan, in return, has turned vocal. He's leading the call for common ground and pragmatism, and is rallying the no longer silent majority of pro-lifers who support contraception. And he is provocatively trying to fight what he views as an unrepresentative slice of pro-lifers, those who can't bring themselves to support contraception. "The new fault line," says Ryan, "is not between pro-life and pro-choice people. It's within the pro-life community. The question now is: "are you pro-life and pro-contraception, therefore trying to reduce the need for abortions, or are you pro-life and against contraception and you hope that people's lives improve just by hoping it, wishing it so."

Ryan is committed to preventing abortion so much so that he, unlike every other pro-life legislator in Congress, spent the last few years working to identify the policies proven to reduce the need for abortion. This work, which he undertook with The Third Way, a center-left think tank, resulted in the "Preventing Unintended Pregnancies, Reducing the Need for Abortion and Supporting Parents Act." It's also called the Ryan-DeLauro bill, named for him and his co-sponsor Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT.) As thanks for his outspoken leadership in trying to make abortion less prevalent, Congressman Ryan was removed from the board of Democrats for Life of America, and with it, disowned by the pro-life movement at large. Pro-life publications have taken to qualifying his pro-life status as "allegedly" pro-life or referring to him as someone "who claims to be" pro-life. Because of his support of prevention in 2007-2008 congressional session, Ryan received a "0" rating from National Right to Life Committee. According to the pro-life establishment's new standards, his support for prevention means he no longer qualifies as "pro-life." And that means very few pro-life Americans will either.

It may come as a shock to most pro-life Americans, but there's not one pro-life group in the United States that supports contraception. Rather, many lead campaigns against contraception. As Congressman Ryan explained, "I think the pro-life groups are finding themselves further and further removed from the mainstream; they're on the fringe of this debate." Considering that the average woman spends 23 years of her life trying not to get pregnant, the anti-contraception approach depends on a scourge of sexless marriages or a lot of wishful thinking.

As if anyone needed any further evidence that the anti-choicers are not ALL ABOUT THE BAYBEEZ, but really ALL ABOUT SLUTTY WOMEN, I'll say it again: Not one pro-life group supports contraception.

As I've said before, pro-choicers already occupy the common ground.

Whereas the pro-liars are increasingly to found on the fringe, wanking to medieval delusions.

On Common Ground

William F. Harrison, gynecologist, abortion provider, and diarist at Daily Kos writes: There Is No Santa Claus, No Easter Bunny, and No Common Ground!.

On the subject of Reproductive Freedom, there can be no common ground between the militant anti-abortion religious right, including the Roman Catholic Church (RCC) and those of us who believe that people have the right to use any method of birth control they choice, up to and including safe, legal abortion.

I agree and I'm getting damned sick of all the triangulation and Third-Way hand-wringing bullshit over reducing abortion.

Or, looked at another way, we pro-choicers already occupy that middle ground. Most of us support all the measures that have been bruited about to reduce abortion.

Wide access to affordable, safe birth control, check.

Age-appropriate, fact-based, comprehensive sex ed, check.

Financial and other support for pregnant women, check.

Financial and other support for individuals and families with children, check.

Quality, affordable daycare for parents who want to or have to work or go to school, check.

Making adoption easier, sure, why not?

If the militant anti-abortion religious right won't budge on so-called artificial contraception and fact-based sex ed -- and I highly doubt they will -- there is NO middle ground.

In related news, there's a search for common ground elsewhere. SUZY ALL-CAPS takes issue with those uber kool kids at The Signal Hill, a.k.a. Pro-Life BC. SHE asks: What about common ground on fetal rights?

See, in the attempted rebranding of Pro-Life BC into something normal people would pay any attention to, the Signalers claim to be moving away from trying to legislate restrictions or prohibitions on abortion and moving towards changing the 'culture'. You know, that Culture of Death we sensible people supposedly inhabit.

Well, they might be claiming that -- and in the process getting up the noses of militant anti-abortion fundies, wot fun! -- their website contains links to all the usual bullshit, like 'abortion causes breast cancer' and a newish site set up to whine about 40 years of sexual liberation in Canada. There, the splash page has a photo of a very pregnant woman with ghostly fetus showing through her abdomen and clothes with the timeless shrieeeeek 'Have we gone too far?'

Nope. We haven't gone far enough. When every woman in Canada -- I'm looking at you, New Brunswick -- has access to safe, legal abortions, then we'll have gone far enough on the abortion issue.

Sotomayor's Record on Reproductive Rights

So far, it seems little is known of Obama's Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor's stand on reproductive rights. Steven Waldman of Beliefnet has a quick summary of her abortion-related rulings, which weren't really abortion-related. Worryingly, she has twice ruled in favour anti-choicers, but not on abortion itself.

In better news, Americans United for Life are against her, not for her abortion stance, but for her evul activism.

Ah well, in the shrieeeek-fest that is looming, we'll surely learn more.

MORE: A link to Christian news site on her opinion on the 'Mexico City rule', you know, the rule about not sending US gov family planning dough to any outfit outside the US that supports or refers for, let alone does, abortions. The one that Obama struck down pretty early. Sotomayor's view: it's OK for gov to base actions on a 'pro-life' point of view. REVISION: From JJ in the comments:

Just a little nuance on her Mexico City ruling -- her opinion wasn't that it was "okay" for the government to make policy favouring anti-abortion views, but rather that it was not a violation of the pro choice group's 1st amendment rights to do so, and that, according to the law of the day, the government had the right to exercise such bias. It was a straight legal interpretation; meaning the 1st amendment was the wrong way to take down the Mexico City Policy.

MORE TWO:Glenn Greenwald is very positive about her. Lots of links there and updates as various worthies weigh in.

What about Obama?

Sarah Posner has a cogent and profound perspective regarding the complicated relationship that the US president has developed with religious institutions and their role in public life. She highlights the challenge involved:

On reducing the need for abortions, Obama's own preference is a commonsense public policy to fund comprehensive sex education and contraception to reduce unintended pregnancies. This has been the position of mainstream reproductive-health advocates for decades. This has also been the position of religious organizations like Catholics for Choice, the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, and the Religious Institute for Sexual Morality, Justice, and Healing. But Obama hasn't reached out to those voices for a public, religious imprimatur for his own policy positions.

Instead, Obama has focused his outreach efforts on more conservative religious groups (you know, the ones who haven't been voting Democratic). He claims to honor their position on moral issues. But when the dust settles on the Notre Dame controversy, he'll have to figure out what to do with the policy advice he has sought from the council. How Obama reacts to that advice will demonstrate whether the council is mere window dressing to shore up support from swing constituencies or whether Obama will yield to conservative religious dogma on reproductive-health issues.

It's worth reading. Go have a look.

Spain slowly moves away from medieval age.

Although some countries remain resolute in maintaining laws that endanger women's reproductive health and deny their rights and choices, the Spanish government has advanced a plan to decriminalize abortion, facilitating pregnancy terminations in the first trimester.

The new proposal, which would allow women to seek a termination within the first 14 weeks of pregnancy without having to give a reason, has set the Socialist government on a collision course with Spain's Catholic Church. The bill, which needs ratifying by parliament, eases strict abortion laws that have been in place since 1985 and is the latest in a series of social reforms by the Spanish prime minister, Jose Luis Rodriquez Zapatero. The proposal tackles one of the traditionally Roman Catholic nation's final taboos and will bring the abortion law in line with most other European countries.

Under the current law abortions are only offered under restricted circumstances and rarely in a public hospital. Terminations are only allowed until the 12th week of pregnancy in cases of rape or until the 22nd week in cases of severe fetal
malformation.

Women who get an abortion outside the terms set by the legislation are committing a crime, at least on paper, although arrests are extremely rare. The new law would erase abortion from the penal code altogether.

The zygote zealots are already spinning the usual disinformation and prevarications.

The Catholic Church has launched a massive [there's that favourite qualifier again] campaign against the plan and the Bishops' Conference said unborn children already have their rights protected less than law pertaining to flowers and trees.

Mmm. Is that all they can use as examples? Our own religious fanatics are so much more imaginative, comparing the loss of an embryo to the theft of a parrot in a cage or a wide-screen TV.

Reproductive Rights and the Obama Transition

I was going to write something snarky about fetus fetishists being given their marching orders when I saw this headline, 'Pro-Abortion Groups Issue 55-Page Marching Orders for Barack Obama Admin', at Life Shite.

But the story is much more interesting, encompassing government transparency, agenda-setting, and public policy debate.

A pro-choice coalition submitted a reproductive rights wish-list to the Obama transition team. Apparently, they weren't expecting it to be made public, but it has been at Obama's transition website.

You can download the document and comment on it here.

The LifeShite piece had a link to it, obviously expecting the flying monkeys to get busy frothing and shrieeeking there in the comments. Thus, 'marching orders' in its own title was a tad, um, you know, the usual for the lying liars.

There are now over 125 comments, and mirabile dictu, not many of them are from frothers.

And there is an interesting piece about the release of the wish-list and the benefits (or not) of public consultation like this at RH Reality Check.

Government transparency. Public consultation. Wow. We need to get ourselves some of that up here.

UPDATE: That link to the Reproductive Rights page at change.gov now seems to be to an older version. And trying the link at RH Reality Check gives an error message. Hmmmm. I'll check back later.

UPDATE 2: I think the link is correct now.