Wednesday 25 February 2009

Exposing Fake Pregnancy Crisis Centres in BC

Joyce Arthur in Straight Goods: 'Exposing Fake Pregnancy Crisis Centres in BC'
Most agencies that counsel pregnant women are actually anti-abortion Christian ministries. Their main goal is to stop women from having abortions. These centres are generally not medical facilities, and most of their "counsellors" are volunteers who are not medical professionals and have no recognized training in counselling. Some of these centres are called Crisis Pregnancy Centres or "CPCs", although many of them have different names.
. . .
Previous studies have shown that most CPCs misinform and try to intimidate women out of having abortions. Women describe being harassed, bullied, and given blatantly false information. Counseling techniques used by CPCs frequently induce anxiety and emotional trauma in women considering abortion. Many women say their confidentiality has been violated, and that mistreatment by CPCs has threatened their health.

We wanted to find out what these centres were doing and saying to women in BC, and whether they were engaging in the same type of deceptive or harmful practices. Indeed, we found that they tend to hide their true agenda from women, and dispense inaccurate information about abortion, some of it dangerous.


Download a PDF of the report here.

Here are her recommendations for action:
* Stop deceptive advertising and false representations of CPCs in the media.

* Remove CPCs from referral lists used by the medical profession or social services.

* Ensure that the medical profession and social services have accurate information so they can refer women for abortion appropriately.

* Create more pro-choice counselling in communities, both options and post-abortion.

* Lobby governments and public foundations to stop funding CPCs.

* Ask Canada Revenue Agency to revoke the charity status of CPCs that have it.

Ah, that second-last one reminds me. The Trillium Foundation hasn't got back to me about funding fetus fetishists. I'll get on it.

Great work, Joyce and the Pro-Choice Action Network!

UPDATE: May 15, 2011. Updated to fix link for PDF of the report.

Tuesday 24 February 2009

Bang for the buck

Wow. Did you hear? Money spent on family planning prevents unintended pregnancies!

From the Guttmacher Institute:
By providing millions of young and low-income women access to voluntary contraceptive services, the national family planning program prevents 1.94 million unintended pregnancies, including almost 400,000 teen pregnancies, each year. These pregnancies would result in 860,000 unintended births, 810,000 abortions and 270,000 miscarriages, according to a new Guttmacher Institute report.

Absent publicly funded family planning services, the U.S. abortion rate would be nearly two-thirds higher than it currently is, and nearly twice as high among poor women.

Publicly funded family planning services are highly cost-effective. More than nine in 10 women receiving them would be eligible for Medicaid-funded prenatal, delivery and postpartum care services if they became pregnant. Avoiding the significant costs associated with these unintended births saves taxpayers $4 for every $1 spent on family planning.
. . .

More than nine million women received publicly funded contraceptive services in 2006. Most (7.2 million) received their care from the national network of family planning centers. Another two million women received Medicaid-funded family planning care from private doctors. Six in 10 women who get care at a family planning center, including three out of four who are poor, consider the center to be their usual source of health care, according to the report.

“Many low-income women get their basic health care for the year during an annual visit to a family planning center,” says Gold. “The package of services they receive not only includes contraceptive counseling and the provision of a contraceptive method. It also includes pelvic and breast exams, tests for HIV and other STIs, screenings for reproductive cancers, high blood pressure and diabetes, and referrals to other health providers when necessary. This is essential, preventive health care for disadvantaged women.”


Sound like pretty good bang for the buck, doesn't it?

But natch, the forced-pregnancy gang at LifeShite isn't buying this sciency stuff. Here's the headline: 'Pro-Abortion Group Falsely Claims Family Planning Programs Reduce Abortions'.

In looking for more reaction, I was amused to find this at a site that includes Five Feet of Racism as its 'Conservative Politics Watchdog'.

This is as excited as their reporter got:
The Guttmacher Institute is generally respected by experts and activists who do not share its advocacy of abortion rights. However this report favoring more funding for family planning may not be met with applause.

Ooh, take that you nasty generally respected institute!

Monday 23 February 2009

Going for the record

Guinness World Records needs a new category: Most panty-sniffing abortion-related bills proposed by a state legislature. The current leader would be West Virginia with 35.
There are 35 abortion-related bills pending in the West Virginia Legislature, according to the Legislature's Web site, the Charleston Daily Mail reports. Lawmakers said that the number of bills is not atypical compared with other years and that many of the measures have been introduced before. One bill (H.B. 2302) would prohibit abortions performed solely on the basis of the fetus' gender although neither the co-sponsor of the bill in the House nor the sponsor of the bill's counterpart in the Senate(S.B. 138)could identify any case of a gender-based abortion performed in West Virginia or the U.S. Barnes said, "I can't really say that it happens, but what we're saying is it's not supposed to happen."

Other bills that include restrictions and requirements regarding abortion include: S.B. 76, which would prohibit state funding of abortions, except in cases of rape, incest or a threat to a woman's life; S.B. 135, which would require some medical facilities to administer anesthesia to fetuses beginning at seven weeks' gestation; H.B. 2035, which would require medical facilities to give a pregnancy test and confirm results of the test before performing an abortion; S.B. 33 and H.B. 2073, which would require parental notification for an abortion performed on a minor; H.B. 2094, which would prohibit a higher education employee from assisting or counseling a student to obtain an abortion; and S.B. 38 and H.B. 2303, which would allow pharmacists to refuse to fill prescriptions used to induce abortions.

Not atypical, eh? At least they're not going for the 'personhood' insanity.

Don't they have other stuff on their plate? Like a major recession? Infuckingcredible.

Friday 20 February 2009

Protecting the Innocent in North Dakota, Part 2

Well. Who knew Protecting the Innocent in North Dakota would turn into a series?

Today, we find out that the legislative body that voted to confer constitutional rights on fertilized human eggs is also fighting for the rights of smokers and bar owners.
Bars should remain as one of North Dakota's last outposts of public smoking, the state House has decided, although one lawmaker believes a citizen initiative will reach the smoke-free goal lawmakers avoided.

Representatives voted 59-33 on Thursday to defeat legislation, sponsored by Rep. Joyce Kingsbury, R-Grafton, that would have prohibited lighting up in bars and motels.

Dern tootin'! Smokers have rights! Business owners have rights! North Dakota ain't no dad-blamed nanny state!

Oh. Wait.
"Why should we become even more of a nanny government and tell business owners that are providing a legal product, in a legal establishment, with their own investment, how they should run their business?" said Rep. Craig Headland, R-Montpelier. "I believe it's time to draw the line."

Let's try that again:
"But it's totally fine to become a nanny government and tell women who are living their lives, in their own bodies, with their own livelihoods, how they should run their lives." said Rep. Craig Headcase, R-Montpelier. "Just who the hell do these broads think they are -- bar owners?"

Fetus FetishistLand Who's Who.

Over the next weeks, DAMMIT JANET! will be looking at the different types of individuals who adhere to the zygote zealots' and abortion criminalizers' agenda, in an effort to understand why they have chosen to polarize the debate, and at times, to implicitly support the violence and terrorism of some of the fringe members of the enforced-pregnancy and no-choice movement.

Today we feature Homo Fetus Fetishist Meddleinterferensis.

Description:

These meddling and interfering zygote zealots are found individually or in pairs. Middle-aged to elderly, their prime focus is to dictate what the procreative imperative of their children or other people's children should be.

In their youth, they may have been parents who justified their workaholic habits by satisfying every of their own materialistic whims or their children's by providing them with the most expensive toys, the most lavish of amusements and entertainment.

Now that their nests are empty, they have Regrets,

Not content with confessing their perceived 'sins' to their spiritual community leader, priest, rabbi or imam, they insist that their adult children must provide them with the means to gain redemption before it is too late.

They blame Planned Parenthood if their children have not produced the grandchildren they want to alleviate their sense of loneliness and inadequacy.

Females of the species can be particularly adept at pushing daughters' guilt buttons when pressuring them to procreate. Males tend towards harassing the staff of women's health clinics. Some, though not all, can become physically intimidating or threatening towards those who do not share their views. Either gender can become verbally abusive towards pro-choice activists.

Regardless of their income level, they are vulnerable targets and popular prey for the fetus fetishists sub-species Fundraisingensis.

Thursday 19 February 2009

Protecting the Innocent

More news from North Dakota.

Protection -- indeed, constitutional rights -- for two-celled 'persons'. No protection for fully grown human whistleblowers.
A proposal to beef up North Dakota's whistleblower protection law for state workers has failed in the North Dakota Senate.

The bill was in response to problems at North Dakota's workers compensation agency that resulted in the firing of four employees.

It sought to give North Dakota's labor commissioner power to order the reinstatement of state employees who were fired for reporting possible wrongdoing in their agencies.

It kept employee complaints confidential and gave North Dakota's state auditor authority to check out allegations of wrongdoing.

Senators voted 25-21 on Thursday to defeat the bill. Republicans opposed the measure and Democrats supported it.

It looks like North Dakota wants to vie with Kansas for the 'Most Benighted State' title.

Well, what do you expect from people who believe in sky faeries?

From TIME: 'The Catholic Crusade against a Mythical Abortion Bill'.

The Catlicks got their tighty-whiteys all twisty-wisty. They're preaching and screeching. They're mounting postcard and letter writing campaigns. They're in a Facebooking frenzy.

Over what, you ask?

Over the Freedom of Choice Act that the 'most radically pro-abortion president evah' promised to sign.

Small problem however.
In the midst of all this activity, the fact that there was no Freedom of Choice Act before the 111th Congress went largely unnoticed and unmentioned.

A Freedom of Choice Act was first introduced in the 108th and 110th Congresses (from '03 to '05 and '07 to '09, respectively), by Rep. Jerold Nadler, a New York Democrat. It was developed at a time when the future of Roe was in doubt because it was unclear if George W. Bush would have the opportunity to appoint another justice to the Supreme Court. But FOCA had a hard time gaining traction — even under Democratic control of Congress, the bill was not only never voted on but never made it out of committee. And now abortion rights advocates are breathing easier with Obama in the White House — so much so that when a coalition of 63 organizations sent the Administration its top 15 priorities for reproductive rights and health, FOCA did not even make the list. (emphasis mine)

Ah, but a little truthiness can't stop a well-oiled propaganda machine.
James Salt, director of organizing for the progressive organization Catholics United, thinks the USCCB has been prodded into focusing on FOCA by misinformation from right-wing groups. "These right-wing organizations are deliberatively misleading people in order to stoke the culture war," says Salt. "They're using this as a fundraising tool, as a way to gin up their relevancy. And unfortunately some of these groups have the ear of certain bishops."

I like that: 'gin up their relevancy'. Relevancy is just what they're down a couple of quarts of at the moment, what with these nutters on their side.

But I digress.

The e-rumours are swirling: Catholic hospitals will be shut down or forced to perform abortions.
Some versions of the e-mail even claimed that FOCA could "result in a future amendment that would force women by law to have abortions in certain situations — and even regulate how many children women are allowed to have."

Ooh, does that remind you of anything? Oh yeah. The recently rebranded gang at Signal Hill/Pro-Life BC, who, in their own efforts to fundraise gin up their relevancy, asked people to agree or disagree with this statement, 'The government should dictate how many children a woman can have'.

SHRIEEEEEK! 93% disagreed!

So there! That proves, um, something.

Wednesday 18 February 2009

Personhood for All, Courtesy ALL


It's the latest thing in the anti-choice movement: Personhood for All!!!!

Five USian states have introduced bills to give a fertilized human egg constitutional rights. Two more states are working on such bills. And in North Dakota today, the bill passed in the House.

The fetus fetishists are revved, despite the fact that such an initiative in Colorado last fall got trounced.

Here is Kay Steiger of RH RealityCheck reporting on The Personhood Conference held in January just after the zygote zealots' annual March for Life bunfest.
On Friday, dozens of pro-life activists gathered at the Personhood Conference in Washington, D.C. On Thursday, the 36th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision, they had marched with the tens of thousands of anti-choice activists, but today these activists were talking about personhood, a new plan of attack for the anti-choice movement. These activists are frustrated and tired of incrementalist approaches to abortion. "It's not working," announced Shaun Kenney of the American Life League. "It's failing."

The Personhood Conference, organized by the American Life League (ALL), enlisted speakers from a variety of segments of the pro-life movement, including a rising star, Kristi Burton. Burton is a 21-year-old woman who spearheaded the campaign for a state constitutional amendment in Colorado that sought to define life as beginning at fertilization. Burton says the Colorado personhood movement projects a "positive message," unites pro-lifers, and doesn't personally attack pro-choice activists.

(The American Life League is, of course, the gang of nutters that brought us 'The Pill Kills' campaign, so that makes sense.)

Feeeel the momentum. Personhood has its own website, run by Christian ministers 'who are missionaries to preborn children'. I am not making this up. Read their About Us page.

Personhood USA is committed to:
-Protecting every child by love and by law.

-Moving churches and the culture to make the dehumanization and murdering of pre-born children unthinkable.

-Build coalitions and organizations or local, State, National and International pro-life individuals and organizations that will work together on personhood legislation/ amendments.

-Honor the Lord Jesus Christ with our lives and actions

They really think this boat will float? Really?

I'm calling it: The forced-pregnancy movement has now jumped the shark.

This is going to be fun.

UPPITY-DATE: JJ, in the comments to another post, offers Pandagon's take.

Tuesday 17 February 2009

Dead Fetus Monument



From a blogger named Greg Hambrick in South Carolina, more dead fetus fun.
Thirty-three state House members, including four local legislators, have put their support behind a proposed statehouse monument that would memorialize “South Carolina children whose lives ended before their birth.”

Reps. Wendell Gilliard (D-Charleston), Jim Merrill (R-Daniel Island), Tim Scott (R-North Charleston), and Mike Sottile (R-Isle of Palms) are co-sponsors of the bill. The monument would be paid for through private donations (the bill stresses that donors would not have to be revealed in public financial disclosures), and the state would be expected to pay for the maintenance of the monument.

You know, you'd think legislators would have better things to do.

I snaffled the photo from the site. Mr. Hambrick explains:
The picture at the top is a monument in a Penn. cemetery. The Kansas Supreme Court ruled against a monument to the unborn dead, again at a cemetery, over a law against using gravesites as an ad board for political reasons.

My goodness, sense from Kansas, of all places. Will sense prevail in South Carolina? Stay tuned.

Bristol Speaks!

And she's smarter than her mother.

The Alaska governor's 18-year-old daughter expressed some startlingly unconservative views to her mom's good friend at Fox News, Greta Van Susteren, on her show Monday night.

She told Van Susteren that teaching sexual abstinence to teenagers is "not realistic at all."

Bristol Palin said, "I hope people learn from my story. It's so much easier if you're married, have a house and career. It's not a situation you want to strive for."


She speaks in complete, intelligible sentences, too!

Maybe that Palin12 campaign should be amended to Palin44.

Monday 16 February 2009

Na-na-na-na, na-na-na-na, Gooood-bye!

Yo! Mr. Kicking Abortion's Ass: Magical Wishful thinking much?

Like SUZANNE, another fetus fetishist demonstrates amazing mind-reading ability. *rolly eyes*

Pro-choice Post-abortion Counselling

Nothing makes me crazier than the preposterous claim from anti-feminists that feminists don't care about women. Forbye the facts that feminists pioneered voting rights, pay equity, quality childcare, abused women's shelters, rape crisis centres, etc., etc., you know, actual rights and services for women, these misogynist maroons not only make this claim but try to have it both ways. According to them, feminists are heartless, power-mad bitches who don't care about women, and/or we are whining, helpless victims.

The current fundy meme 'abortion hurts women' got a (demented) twist recently by Naomi Lakritz writing in the Calgary Herald. Not only do feminists not care about women who have had abortions, according to the title of this piece of dreck 'Women's real oppressors are those who say abortion doesn't hurt them'.

Natch, SHE parrots this idiocy.
There countless women who've been negatively affected by abortion. Feminists toss these women aside as nutjobs, and tell everyone to ignore them.

This is among the reasons why I say feminism is not about women. Feminism is about an ideology.

I've read numerous accounts of women who've had abortions-- even on pro-abortion websites.

And even on these websites, the women express regret and pain.

But the feminists brush this under the carpet.

Because it's an inconvenient truth. They never address the pain of abortion.

Well, you see, SHE is lying again.

It is true that the pro-choice movement was late to this party. Last summer, The American Prospect ran a piece on The Abortion Counselling Conundrum.
"I had a previous abortion at age 21, and it wasn't this hard. It didn't seem like a 'baby' to me at that age. But after raising two children I know now that I really did lose a living being inside me." – An anonymous participant in Emerge, a pro-choice support group for women who've had abortions

Those sentiments would raise the eyebrows of many a pro-choice activist. After all, the feminist movement is built upon the cornerstone of women controlling their reproductive destinies -- on the imperative of valuing women’s lives over the potential for life represented by a pregnancy. In the past, that often meant not talking at all about post-abortive women’s feelings about the fetus.

Well, that and the small matter of the stigma of abortion loudly and persistently upheld by the Religious Reich shouting 'baby killers' at workers and clients of abortion clinics.
But that is changing. The anti-abortion rights movement has become more sophisticated in recent years, co-opting themes of female empowerment to argue that women are abortion's central victims -- a line of reasoning that reached the Supreme Court in last year's Gonzales v. Carhart decision. In response, some reproductive health advocates have decided to deal head-on with the psychological aftermath of abortion. And though they're winning over skeptical elements of the pro-choice movement, these younger activists are having trouble convincing donors to fund their cause.

While most doctors agree so-called "Post Abortion Syndrome" is a myth, there is no doubt that dealing with an unplanned pregnancy can lead to anxiety and depression for some women. "It's about the relationship they were in when they got pregnant, or the fact they're currently financially dependent, or the relationship they had with their mother or father," says Nikki Madsen, associate director of Pro-Choice Resources, a Minneapolis-based non-profit that works to increase access to abortion and other reproductive health services. "An unplanned pregnancy elevates those things in our lives."

So in 2006, Pro-Choice Resources began hosting Emerge, a six-week secular support group for women who'd had abortions -- the first pro-choice after-abortion support group in the nation. And in San Francisco eight years ago, five women in their twenties and thirties who'd had abortions launched Exhale*, a national telephone hotline offering non-ideological counseling to post-abortive women. Both groups are treading uncharted ground; nationwide, almost every support group and talk line for post-abortive women is sponsored by religious groups that oppose abortion rights.

The article discusses aspects of the 'conundrum'. An interesting problem is terminology. Exhale calls itself 'pro-voice', not 'pro-choice'.
Exhale's reasoning, Baker explains, is that women from across the political spectrum choose abortion, and that carrying a highly politicized label such as "pro-choice" would turn off potential clients. Forty percent of women who have abortions identify as Christian or Catholic, for example, and may also consider themselves pro-life. Few women want to talk about politics when they call Exhale, Baker says; many just want to tell someone they've had an abortion, and talk through feelings ranging from relief to grief.

Then there's the funding problem. Foundations are concerned with the controversy and traditional pro-choice supporters are wary.

The piece winds up with two quotes that sum up the conundrum nicely:
"It has a lot to do with how younger women think and feel about abortion these days," says Arons of the Center for American Progress. "That it's important to have legal access, but it's not the same fight that it was for the Second Wave generation of feminists. Abortion doesn't symbolize women's liberation to the same extent as it did."

The Moriah Fund's Saperstein is even blunter. "If you've been in the women's rights arena for decades fighting the same battle over and over and over again, it's easy to feel defensive," she says. "But everyone knows abortion is a complicated experience."

Yes. Everyone does know that. And nobody knows better than those of us who have had abortions.

Here is a link to pro-choice post-abortion counselling programs and one to Project Voice, an oral history project.

Anybody know of Canadian initiatives in this area?

*I blogged about Exhale back at Birth Pangs in March 2007.

Sunday 15 February 2009

Sexism rocks at OC Transpo, atheism not so much.


We were going to blog about this advertising campaign in the nation's capital but we didn't get A Round 2 It until Miss Vicky scooped us.

Virgin Radio? Pregnant adolescents? The Gods of Rock? Lock up your daughters? Now appearing at most of the local bus shelters.

A witty and powerful counter campaign has been started by accidental altruist. Thanks to Miss Vicky, we find out that OC Transpo is fine with taking money for an advertising campaign that is long on misogyny and short on humour but refused ads from the Freethought Association of Canada, a registered charity based in Toronto that promotes education on secular world views.

The ad, which says “There’s Probably No God. Now Stop Worrying and Enjoy Your Life,” was rejected based on a clause in OC Transpo’s advertising policy that states, “Religious advertising which promotes a specific ethic, point of view or action that might be offensive to users of the transit system is not permitted,” said John Donaldson, the city’s program manager of transit, marketing and customer service. "We had a look at the policy and our response was we should not be running that ad,” he said.
So how about those Gods of Rock, presumably on a rampage to impregnate female adolescents? Isn't Virgin Radio promoting PANTHEISM?

Saturday 14 February 2009

Shrieeekkk! Breeding lesbians are to blame!

From this moment on, I must stop imagining who else the scathingly idiotic "Religious (don't call us that) Right" are going to blame. A thought crossed my mind the other day, wondering how the fetus fetishists were going to spin their way out of the support they initially provided to Octuplets' Mom Nadya Suleman.

Bruce of Canuck Attitude kindly provided the answer:
As you all know from our secret meetings where we plan out our world domination, the gays are responsible for all the world's ills– or at least that's what Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council believes. Our latest victory, according to the virulently homophobic jerk is to force America's women to turn out litters of children. Nadya Suleman's eight children are not the result of a sloppy fertility treatment, but rather, the result of procreating lesbians.
Shrieeekkk! The Family Research Council's
Tony Perkins is quite the little drama queen.

Paternal Love

There was a link to my blogpost Fetus fetishists are *secret* judeophobes. that led to "Leonard", a frequent commenter at Blob Blogging Wingnut's site. His response was a litany of syllogistic fallacies one expects from the follower of a religious institution that simultaneously accepts Holocausts deniers in its clergy yet usurps the Shoah when it suits its political and ideological imperatives. The text about fatherhood was thought-provoking though, and I left the comment below - which is unlikely to be posted.
There is no >>more. That link goes to Socon.

I found the selection a fairly faithful description of
my father. He loved, supported and respected my mother, me, my sisters, in the way described in the text.

As he became more aware of the loathsome suppression of information the Catholic Church exerted, its insistence that priests who had abused girls and boys entrusted to them did not have to apologize and its hypocrisy and desperate maneuvers to hold on to its wealth, he stopped attending Mass.

Clean up your own religious institution before you start preaching about good to those who do good, who believe in a just God and live by the words of Jesus' Gospel.

I imagine that you will not allow this comment on your blog.

Afterwards, I wondered if the part that was left off M-r Leonard's blogpost was the bit that reassured men that the reward for their "self-less" sacrifice is the total authority the Vatican gives them over women, such as the clergy have over their "bride", the Catholic Church.

Get Over It Already

The annual Fetus Fetish Festival is going to be especially um, spirited, this year, according to Mr. Kicking Abortion's Ass. They've got a round number to commemorate.
This year on May 14, 2009, Canada will mark 40 years to the day Canadian Parliament passed the infamous Omnibus Bill, C-150, the legislation decriminalizing contraception, abortion, and homosexuality.

SHRIEEEK!

Before he goes on to detail the ensuing decades of moral decay, he adds this:
(Votes: 149-55).

Wow. I did not know that 40 years ago just about three-quarters of our MPs stood up for human rights. Not to mention common sense.

Maybe the fetus fetishists should try real hard and wrap their tiny minds around the fact that THEY LOST THIS FIGHT FORTY FUCKING YEARS AGO.

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone.

Friday 13 February 2009

Boy, Oh Boy

Another weird birth story. Only this time it's the boy father getting most of the scrutiny. Well, and the parents as well of course.
The parents of a schoolgirl mother allowed her to share a bedroom with the baby's father who was aged just 12, it emerged today.

Chantelle Stedman was 14 when she became pregnant by Alfie Patten, who although now 13 is barely 4ft and looks about eight.

As fresh details emerged this afternoon of the schoolboy who fathered a baby at 13, news of the birth triggered a political debate over 'broken Britain'.

Alfie, who is one of nine children, said: 'I didn't know what it would be like to be a dad. I will be good though, and care for it.'

And, of course, the fetus fetishists are on it, because reportedly the kids considered and rejected abortion. Yesterday Michaela Aston, from the anti-abortion Christian charity LIFE, made this statement:
“We commend these teenagers for their courage in bringing their child into the world. At the same time this is symptomatic of the over-sexualisation of our youngsters and shows the policy of value-free sex education just isn’t working."
And then there's the YouTube interview with all the babies. I'd like to say that I'm too mature to look, but I'm not. In case you're not either, here.

The Un-Debate Rages

More on that abortion so-called debate that we're supposedly NOT having, that we need to open, re-open, that feminists are suppressing, yadayada.

Here are some Canadian examples of the non-debate, un-debate from today:

Clayton Ruby in the Globe

Naomi Lakritz in the Calgary Herald (caution: your head will hurt)

Antonia Zerbisias in the Toronto Star

Happy Almost-Valentine's Day.

Thursday 12 February 2009

Sarah Palin Gets Something Right

Sarah Palin gets something right.

Gov. Sarah Palin on Wednesday called an e-mail pitch in her name for Planned Parenthood that ran wild on the Internet during the presidential campaign "great theater."


Remember that? Pro-choice people were inspired to send donations to Planned Parenthood in Ms Palin's name. A thank-you note would then be sent to her.

A lot of people did.

"I have boxes of thank-you notes from people associated with Planned Parenthood thanking me for the donations. Same with some anti-hunting groups, they're doing the same thing right now. It's political theater – it's great theater I guess for some," Palin said.


Planned Parenthood gained more than a million bucks. And it was great theatre.

But then Ms Palin whiffed on the next bit.

But she said it wouldn't change her view that "every life is precious."


Um, Sarah, the point of the campaign was not to change your tiny mind, but to mock you.

But, apparently, by saying the word 'great' right near the Great Satan Stand-in, Planned Parenthood, and/or by not turning around three times and spitting on her left hand, she has alarmed some of her wingier supporters, like this gang GOP12, which styles itself thus: 'Breaking news on rising GOP stars and the 2012 Republican Presidential nomination'.

We all know Sarah Palin's pro-life, but her words are considerably more measured than in the past. She acknowledges differences with Planned Parenthood but only after noting both have a shared goal: to reduce the number of abortions. And even her differences are shaded slightly more neutral: "perhaps a different approach". Alan Keyes, that is not.

Later, Palin issued this press release:

“The abortion issue has been with us for decades and has pitted well-meaning people of differing ideologies against each other. Where we can find common ground is in the belief that no one wants a single abortion.

“But when there is a clash of values, I always will come down on the side of life. Making donations to Planned Parenthood in my name might be interesting theater in these politically charged times, but it is not going to change my views or the views of many other Alaskans who believe every life is precious.

“Anti-hunting groups are employing the same tactic of using my name to promote their cause right now. Again, interesting theater.”

Again, it's clear where she stands, but she's less strident in tone; more eager to find ways to work with the opposing side. Has the three-year pivot begun?


(emphasis mine)

SHRIEEEEEK!!!!! Sarah is pivotting!

Fetus fetishists are *secret* judeophobes.

There is one element in the CCBR's MASSIVE propaganda a.k.a. Genocide Awareness Project that has puzzled me.

Why do fundamentalist christian and catholic abortion criminalizers insist that they have the right to exploit the Holocaust?


How can these fetus fetishists usurp the Shoah to justify their murderous accusations against women?

Then I remembered that Dr Henry Morgentaler is Jewish and he survived Auschwitz.

Of course. Fetus fetishists have one goal that they proclaim over and over - to criminalize abortion. They are poaching the Shoah because a Jew who had the temerity to survive became a pro-choice physician, health care practitioner and advocate for women's reproductive options. Implicitely and by logical extension, the use of violence to stop abortion is authorized, just as military force was required to close down the extermination camps.

And in the news, the Vatican's Head Zygote Zealot is furiously back-pedaling.
The latest trouble began when Pope Benedict XVI lifted the excommunications of British-born Bishop Richard Williamson and three others belonging to the Society of Saint Pius X, an openly anti-Semitic Catholic sect.
Any day now, the Magisterium will announce their plans for The New™ Inquisition.

Tuesday 10 February 2009

One man in Australia welcomes the fire

and brimstone too, no doubt. When facts, reason and compassion reside in the pro-choice camp, religious fundamentalists will resort to threats, opportunism, and literal interpretation of selected scripture from the bible.

Pastor's abortion dream inflames bushfire tragedy - The Catch the Fire Ministries has tried to blame the bushfires disaster on laws decriminalising abortion in Victoria. The Pentecostal church's leader, Pastor Danny Nalliah, claimed he had a dream about raging fires on October 21 last year and that he woke with "a flash from the Spirit of God: that His conditional protection has been removed from the nation of Australia ... Asked if he believed in a God who would take vengeance by killing so many people indiscriminately - even those who opposed abortion, Mr Nalliah referred to 2 Chronicles 7:14 to vouch for his assertion that God could withdraw his protection from a nation.

"The Bible is very clear," he said. "If you walk out of God's protection and turn your back on Him, you are an open target for the devil to destroy."


In news reports, officials have declared that some of the fires may have been deliberately set by arsonists. One has to wonder if any of them were disciples of Mr Nalliah?

One former supporter of Mr Nalliah's fundamentalist sect is recoiling from his words.

A furious Peter Costello has rounded on a Christian cult for suggesting the Victorian bushfires were divine retribution for the state's abortion laws, describing it as "beyond the bounds of decency". Just three weeks ago, the former federal treasurer sent a video message to a special Australia Day prayer meeting organised by Catch the Fire Ministries leader Danny Nalliah.

But he reacted angrily to a statement by Mr Nalliah yesterday recalling a dream concerning the consequences of Victorian abortion legislation that became law last year. ... "To link the death and the suffering of bushfire victims to other political events is appalling, heartless and wrong," he said. "Those who have suffered deserve every support and sympathy. It is beyond the bounds of decency to try to make moral or political points out of such a tragedy."

Last month we wrote about the decriminalization of abortion in Australia and a recent study that was done regarding women who faced unintended pregnancies.
Grand merci à lagatta!

Monday 9 February 2009

Obama for Pope

Let's see if this blog-mind-meld deBeauxOs and I seem to have going continues. Trespassing on her turf (a bit) I found this:

To get right to the point, Kung in his article on February 3, wished Barack Obama were Pope. “The mood in the church is oppressive, reforms are paralyzed, and the church in crisis,” he says. “Benedict is unteachable in matters of birth control and abortion, arrogant and without transparency and restrictive of freedom and human rights.”


There's a link to the article in German there.

Who's making popcorn? :)

More about the Vatican's support for human incubators

Canadian Cynic must have heard the same news item I did this morning, about Eluana Englaro.
The heart-wrenching case of a woman in a coma for 17 years and the father who wants to end her life has been transformed by Italy's Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, with quiet but forceful backing from the Vatican, into an attempt to short-circuit the Italian constitution, enhancing his own powers. Eluana Englaro, 38, suffered massive brain damage in a car crash when she was 21, leaving her in a persistent vegetative state. After struggling for years through the courts to stop the force-feeding, her father, Beppino, finally won the backing of the Court of Cassation, Italy's highest court, last year. But Catholic politicians supported by the Church establishment fought on despite the court's verdict and the case has turned into a battle royal for the "pro-life" lbby.
One of the arguments that the fetus fetishists are shrieeeking over and over, as a justification for maintaining the mechanically-assisted "life support" system that keeps her reflexive biological functions still operative, is that Eluana is still capable of conceiving and gestating.

...in an extraordinary turn of events, the country's prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, after consultation with the Vatican, has issued an emergency decree stating that food and water cannot be suspended for any patient depending upon them, reversing the earlier court ruling. On issuing the emergency decree, Berlusconi declared: "This is murder. I would be failing to rescue her. I'm not a Pontius Pilate." Justifying his campaign to save Englaro's life, the prime minister added that, physically at least, she was "in the condition to have babies", ...


With her informed consent? MASSIVE silence.

And rightwing lunatics like Blob Blogging Wingnut deny that fundamentalist Catholics don't view women as potential human incubators.

Italy's Terri Schiavo

Unbelievable. From Pharyngula a link to a story about Italy's Terri Schiavo (emphasis mine):

The Italian government has been plunged into a constitutional crisis over the fate of a 38-year-old woman who has been in a coma for the past 17 years. Eluana Englaro was left in a vegetative state after a car crash in 1992. After a decade-long court battle, doctors reduced her nutrition on Friday in preparation for removing her feeding tubes, which her father claims would be in accordance with her wishes.

But in an extraordinary turn of events, the country's prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, after consultation with the Vatican, has issued an emergency decree stating that food and water cannot be suspended for any patient depending upon them, reversing the earlier court ruling. On issuing the emergency decree, Berlusconi declared: "This is murder. I would be failing to rescue her. I'm not a Pontius Pilate."

Justifying his campaign to save Englaro's life, the prime minister added that, physically at least, she was "in the condition to have babies", a remark described by La Stampa newspaper as "shocking".

...
The case has deeply divided Italian society and raised concerns over the influence of the Vatican. Yesterday Pope Benedict indirectly referred to Englaro in a message delivered to mark the World Day of the Sick, stating that society had a duty to defend "the absolute and supreme dignity of every human being" even when "weak and shrouded in the mystery of suffering".


What is it with men's weird fascination with raping sleeping women?

Go read the comments at Pharyngula.


h/t CC at Canadian Cynic

UPDATE: Ms Englaro has died.

Sunday 8 February 2009

Sunday Fetus Fetishist Watch

To continue our ongoing series in the Fetus Fetishist Watch, here is a round-up from the Houston Chronicle on the current state of play in various USian statehouses on mandatory ultrasounds for women seeking to terminate a pregnancy.

Abortion foes have a new tactic: The hope that women can't look away.

Lawmakers in 11 states are considering bills that would offer or require ultrasounds before a woman gets an abortion. The most stringent are proposed laws in Nebraska, Indiana and Texas, which would require a doctor show the ultrasound image of the fetus to the woman, despite legal challenges to a similar measure in Oklahoma.


Sixteen states already have such laws.

This FF gambit falls under the 'informed consent' meme. This is how it works: everybody about to undergo any sort of medical procedure should be given enough information about what it entails, the risks, and so on, so that her or his consent is informed by facts.

No-one can argue with that, right?

So it should also apply to women seeking abortions. And it does.

End of story, right?

Nope. Because, according to the fetus fetishists staunch defenders of frail womanhood, women seeking abortions don't really understand what they are about to do.

So the state will force her to undergo and look at an ultrasound of the insides of her own uterus. And because even that's not enough, some states require the images be described to her. Indiana's law forces her to listen to 'fetal heartbeat'.

Oh, hell, I'll just let the idiocy of this be demonstrated by JJ in the recent and apparently ongoing 'debate' at StageLeft.

JJ quotes SUZY ALL-CAPS and then replies:

“Which refutes your point: people who support legal abortion are not upfront about what abortion does.”

Yes, none of us knows “what abortion does”. When I had one I thought I was just getting a brazillian wax job. Who knew???

Duffy channels Agnew?

Very strange things happen to people's brains when they get religion or political appointments. Fully exploiting the fact that as a senator speaking within the Red Chamber he cannot be sued for slander or libel, Mike Duffy made a rude speech, later retracting a metaphor under pressure from Harper.

Duffy's speech referred to the "nattering nabobs of negativism on the East Coast" who loudly protested equalization adjustments in the Harper government's recent budget that could cost Newfoundland and Labrador and P.E.I. equalization money.
Right at the moment, Mike Duffy's former colleagues think that it's funny, given that his current target happens to be Atlantic politicians.

Will they still find it amusing when he goes full Spiro Agnew and starts calling them "an effete corps of impudent snobs", the "hopeless, hysterical hypochondriacs of history" and the "commie-pinko-liberal press"?


Update: Both pogge and Dave at TGB reflect upon Duffy, albeit from different perspectives. Yet both conclusions seem unanimous in observing that Duffy's appointment is the equivalent of Harper lobbing a MASSIVE stink bomb into the Senate.

Friday 6 February 2009

Bring out your human incubators.

A confession: whenever I encounter the fundamentalist glurge of Blob Blogging Wingnut, I say a little secular prayer for HER girls, as I do for my own daughter.

Because SHE is all about the fetus, 24 hour a day, 7 days a week, all the time. SHE ripped through Joyce Arthur's thoughtful opinion piece in the Winnipeg Free Press and pulled out sentences like a CSIS operative looking for evidence of terrorism in illicitely recorded phone conversations.

Here's a good one. Blob Blogging Wingnut quoted Arthur: "Medical procedures, however, are governed by policy, not criminal law." but SHE deliberately left out the rest of the paragraph: "Doctors already adhere to a Canadian Medical Association policy that permits abortion after 20 weeks only "under exceptional circumstances." Less than 0.4 per cent of abortions occur after this point, all for compelling reasons such as serious fetal anomalies or life-threatening maternal health problems. This means that current abortion practice already matches the preferences of the vast majority of Canadians."

But never fear, SUZY ALL-CAPS added HER own embellishments: "If you practice medicine without a license, you will be charged with a crime. There can be criminal penalties for medical malpractice."

The reader is left wondering if there is any logical or a rational connection between HER comments and Arthur's observation. Is SHE suggesting that abortions in Canada are not being done under physicians' care? Clearly, SHE wants abortion criminalized and doctors prosecuted.

Blob Blogging Wingnut's never-ending intellectual dishonesty is unrelenting and is only matched by HER views that pregnant women are powerless incubators who must be forced to gestate their embryos and fetus. Nothing else matters. Does SHE envision rows upon row of pregnant women, artificially maintained in a state of coma, kept on life support so that every one of the fetus they carry is brought to term?

When I pray for BBW's daughters and my own, I have a thought for my mother who died in 2006. She did not want to be a mother; she miscarried once before she became pregnant with me. Had abortion been available from a doctor in a health clinic, instead of being a life-threatening and illegal procedure, she might have aborted.

And you know what? When I consider the grand scheme of life on Earth and in the Universe, it does not destroy me to envisage that my mother might have chosen to terminate the fetus I once was. That thought will not move me to join the mobs of shrieeekkking religious zealots who cannot imagine that a woman once had that power over them.

Here's my belief regarding my mother' pregnancy: it was her choice to make. As it was my decision to give birth to my daughter and it will be her choice whether she becomes a parent or not. Women's bodies are neither prisons nor incubators. They are powerful and that power belongs to each woman.

I will continue to oppose Blob Blogging Wingnut’s ill-conceived and grotesque rhetoric with arguments that are fact-based, reasoned and compassionate. And I will also hold HER up to ridicule whenever SHE claims that HER crusade is the same thing as the civil rights movement.

Thursday 5 February 2009

'The fetus fetishist is the 21st century's nigger lover.'

Canadian Cynic owes me a new keyboard. In a comment on a post by LuLu on the train wreck going on at Stage Left:

CC said...

SUZANNE wrote:

"The fetus fetishist is the 21st century’s nigger lover.”

Quite so. In the same way that the pro-choicer is the 21st century's anti-lock braking system.

What? That makes at least as much sense.

Coffee everywhere.

Seriously. They say stuff like that and then expect us to debate with them.

Hot spin?

Yesterday Hot Shit Minister for Natural Resources Lisa "I bathe in Evian" Raitt told the opposition in the House of Commons that the CNSC had assured her that the radiation was linked to medical isotopes and had nothing to do with a Dec. 5 leak at the Chalk River nuclear plant 185 kilometres northwest of Ottawa. That nuclear facility is located upstream of the Ottawa River.

From the CBC:

The sludge that was recently quarantined near the Canadian border tested positive for radiation because of the presence of a medical isotope, according to the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. ...

Since then, the sludge has been stored at Third High Farms, a waste storage facility in Iroquois, Ont., and consultants have been called in to investigate. The culprit appears to be the isotope iodine 131. The CNSC has said the isotope, which is used for medical procedures, is most likely the source of the radiation detected in the sludge.

More information here.

Still, nowhere does it say if truckloads of biosolids have been refused entry to the US previously, because of radioactive levels. Presumably, iodine 131 has been flushed consistently into the sewage system for decades now. What caused the recent spike?

Wednesday 4 February 2009

Where are the feminists?

I started off pissed off, but now I'm sitting here giggling.

JJ the Unrepentant has a blogpost about an evil Iraqi woman. In it, she links to these chuckleheads, with the quote 'Where are the feminists?' I thought she was kidding until I clicked the link.

Indeed, we feminists are somehow to blame for Islam's treatment of women. Or for not speaking up about Islam's treatment of women. Or something.

Curious about other issues on which we feminists were AWOL, I googled 'Where are the feminists?' and got my answer.

Everything.

I'm not going to put in all the links -- I clicked only on a couple -- but here's a partial list of things we're either to blame for or we're to be taken to task for not doing something about.

Linda Tripp

New England Patriots

Terri Schiavo

Martha Stewart

sex-selective abortion

prostitution

Michelle Obama

Sarah Palin

Aboriginal women

polygamy

Islam

And I only browsed up to page 5 of search results.

Everybody into the pool! Fill in the blank: Where are the feminists on _________?

OMFG! Shoot me now

I agree with Babs Kay on the Genocide Awareness Project, the subject of the current kerfuffle at the University of Calgary.

The piece is a speech Babs gave to an anti-choice group. Before trying to ingratiate herself with the fetus fetishists, she critiques anti-choice propaganda campaigns.

Beginning with the worst, I cannot think of anything more damaging amongst educated observers to the pro-life cause than the Genocide Awareness Project (GAP) campaign, which draws a moral equivalence between abortion and the Holocaust.

You cannot build an argument on an analogy alone. In any debate, emotional arousal must be subordinated to rational persuasion.

You have, or should have, the political right to turn people off through shocking images (for that is largely the effect of this campaign). But you don't have the ethical right to exploit for mere rhetorical advantage a human tragedy with no logical, moral or historical relevance to abortion.

The GAP campaign is intellectually flawed because it extrapolates one detail from the Holocaust -- numbers killed -- and on that basis alone proclaims a moral equivalence.

But the point of the Holocaust is not the number of lives extinguished. Genocides aren't about numbers. They are about ideology-based hatred -- unchecked hatred for an identifiable minority group that serves to unite the persecuting majority group, and paves the way for its horrible consequences.

Unborn children are not a minority identity group, nor are abortions performed by political fiat for the purpose of furthering solidarity amongst some dominant group. Every abortion is an individual choice made by an individual woman. None of these women "hates" the potential child she aborts; they hate their situation. Most women who have abortions in fact go on to have children that they love. Nazis did not kill some Jews, and cultivate friendships with others; they hated and considered subhuman all Jews.

Moreover, you are not only describing the action of abortion as evil in this comparison, you are implying that women who abort, like Nazis, are evil people. There is neither truth nor dignity in accusing women of such moral turpitude.

Choose any factual perspective, you won't find a single moral parallel between the situations. And that is why it is not in your interest to pursue the campaign. Or in our mutual interest, because it stands in the way of an alliance between us.

I wonder if those who think the GAP campaign is defensible have really assessed the damaging image it creates in intelligent observers' minds. It brands you as people who feel passionately, but who do not think clearly. High emotion and the absence of reason are the marks of extremists and conspiracy theorists.

Your cause deserves better than the GAP campaign. Because the result -- and I think this is a very grave consequence for any movement -- is that thoughtful, educated people do not take you seriously. They do not respect your strategies for persuasion. You must consider whether the emotional impact of your message is so important to you that it is worth burning the narrow but sturdy bridge you could be using to reach people like me.

Let's recap, shall we? 'Damaging amongst educated observers', 'intellectually flawed', '[not] a single moral parallel', 'neither truth nor dignity', 'not think[ing] clearly'. Yup, and yet that is what the fetus fetishists set up on a university campus. Then, when the university, consisting as it does of 'educated observers', objected, the FFs shrieeked 'free speech'.

Gimme a break.

BONUS: Here's JJ and Antonia on the topic.

Behold the Stephen Harper Excrematorium.

Isolated biosolids discarded by the city of Ottawa’s water treatment facility have been refused entry into the US for disposal because they were found to be radioactive.
More here. I'm betting that Lisa Raitt has been drinking and bathing in bottled water since December.
How to go about suggesting that the nation’s capital raw sewage treatment plant be re-named the Stephen Harper Excrematorium …?
Update: Make that the Stephen J Harper Excrematorium. That J. adds gravitas, don't you think? The Ottawa Citizen has more today.
eh. The city is hiring a "nuclear sleuth", a Toronto expert on radiation.
I'm still betting on Hot Shit Minister (thanks pseudz!) for Natural Resources Lisa "I bathe in Evian" Raitt to stage a diversion away from the Chalk River facility.
"Over there!!! Look!!! A shiny, radiating, terrist object!!!"
Further update: Hot Shit Minister for Natural Resources Lisa "I bathe in Evian" Raitt scolded the opposition for creating public panic when she was asked whether there was a connection between the radioactive biosolids produced by the Stephen J Harper Excrematorium and leaks reported at the nuclear reactor. She said "there is almost certainly no connection between radioactive sludge in Ottawa and a reactor leak at Chalk River some 200 kilometres upriver." Almost certainly no connection ... And she hammered the point home by adding: How do I know? The Bible Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission tells me so.
Wow, I feel so much better already.
Grand merci to J.A.Baker for the idea.

Tuesday 3 February 2009

And now for something completely different: a feel-good story from Silicone Valley North.

An Ottawa couple who works together helps others play nicely together. Very, very, very nicely together in fact.

Standard Innovation Corp.'s first product, the We-Vibe vibrator, has sold 55,000 units worldwide since it was released last spring.

Bruce and Melody Murison, both former Nortel employees, launched their "research and design" company after Murison was laid off from the now-struggling telecommunications technology giant five years ago.

Bruce Murison, who worked as a Nortel engineer for more than a decade, said the We-Vibe was designed from an engineer's perspective. The 60-gram silicone device is U-shaped and is the product of six years and $500,000 worth of research and development.

"This is, to me, not a sex toy. It's an electromechanical device," he said. "We truly look at it from a scientific point of view; in terms of plotting the x-y charts of power versus performance, versus the third dimension of the human dynamic: What frequencies do women like?"

Indeed. The buzz about the We-Vibe from local erotic emporium Venus Envy is glowing. Last December Diva Magazine pronounced the We-Vibe one of the essential items for today's well-equipped, technologically-savvy woman. Even a New York Times story about sex toys leads with a glowing endorsement of the We-Vibe.
Let me emphasize, for the benefit of the reading and/or comprehension-impaired gals at ProWomanProLife that unlike the meaning they twisted from Joyce Arthur's words, sex for pleasure includes (though not limited to) married couples (same sex or hetero).

Monday 2 February 2009

Shrieeeeek! Jihad by Fertility!!!

Or so says one of the posters at Freak Dominion. (That is the second thread there on the disturbing octuplets story. The first one derailed into accusations of, well, I'm not sure what.)

I thought that was pretty extreme, but then I googled around and found Joe.My.God's take on it.

I have to admit, I'm enjoying watching the right-wing blogs spins themselves into an ethical dither over the California octuplets story. Unmarried mother of 14! But she didn't kill the babies! The family is from Iraq! But it's a gift from God! The whole lot will end up on welfare! A lot of the commenters on Free Republic are somehow blaming Obama for this. Because, you know, he create this socialist state that will have to step in and care for the family.


There's a summary of what's known so far, then Joe concludes:

I don't think there ever been a single story until now that hits on every right-wing talking point: immigration, two-parent families, abortion, welfare, religion, Iraq, socialism, fiscal responsibility, etc etc etc. Now if we could just get the mother to be a lesbian too....

Dinosaurs Evolve!

A new survey of Republicans and Independents in the US reveals that a majority of them are in fact reality-based, at least on matters of reproductive health.

Sponsored by the National Women’s Law Center and the YWCA USA, the survey found:

that Republicans, and to an even greater degree Independents, support a range of legislative proposals to make contraception more affordable and accessible. Additionally, Republicans and Independents strongly support comprehensive sex education, particularly as compared to abstinence-only programs.

[snip]

A striking finding of the survey was that nearly three-quarters (73%) of Republican and Independent voters are concerned that government is too quick to involve itself in people’s personal lives and private decisions when it comes to sexual behavior and pregnancy.

Nearly three-quarters (72%) of Republicans and Independents favor legislation that would make it easier for people at all income levels to obtain contraception, and 70 percent favor legislation that would help make birth control more affordable. More than 60 percent of fundamentalist/evangelical Protestants favor these proposals.

[snip]


A strong majority of Independents (67%) and nearly half of Republicans (49%) have a favorable opinion of emergency contraception.


To me, the most surprising finding was on abortion:


Overall, the Republican/Independent sample opposes overturning Roe v. Wade by 51 percent to 43 percent. Even 44 percent of Republicans oppose overturning Roe v. Wade.


OK, it's a pretty small majority who would keep Roe v. Wade, but still, I find it hopeful.

And maybe it will give pause to the people pushing Arch Fetus Fetishist Sarah Palin for 2012. *shudder*

Blob Blogging Wingnut flies HER "propoganda" (sic)

The quiet .... err, no - make that the shrieeeking imperialism of Blob Blogging Whiner's opinions. Not content to crank out the propoganda (yes, that is how SHE spells it) at HER own website, SAINTE-NITOUCHE has invaded the combox of bloggers who have dared! - yes dared! - contradict HER drivel with reason and facts.

Oh noes!!!!!! Not facts?!?!?
JJ at unrepentant old hippie charts the movement of BBW's expansion into new territories.
Clearly SUZIE-ALL-CAPS has not read Andrew Coyne's pronouncement that the right is deader than a squashed cockroach.
SHE recently blogged this judgement regarding the Fraternity of St. Pius X:
"I find SSPX-types to be exasperatingly naive in their understanding of the Catholic faith. And that's beside the anti-semitic and other "cultural" stuff. When I ran a Catholic message board, among the people I was the least excited to talk to were Traditionalist Catholics. They were often half-knowledgeable. They cling to tradition without a really good understanding of it."
Her disparaging comments are surprising, given that BBW shares their opinion about abortion. In France, the SSPX supports the Front National political party because it is "the party least removed from the natural law".

Perhaps BBW is compelled to spread her fundamentalist dogma by casting HERself in the role of a neocon-Jeanne d'Arc, dedicated to marshalling the forces of religious fundamentalism and anti-feminism. JJ's droll observation of BBW's verbal terrorism: "As long as she doesn’t fly any blogs into a skyscraper ..." From Lying Nut to Flying Nut.

Update: PSA blogs at Canadian Cynic: The ALL-CAPS Travelling Road Show . Go read.

Sunday 1 February 2009

The Young Limbaugh, terrorized by his audience.

Thanks to Canadian Cynic, we link you to this archival recording of Rush Limbaugh from 1990. The misogynist, rightwing religious fundamentalist homophobe was confronted by pro-choice and gay rights activists. His response was to have the audience removed.

As CC notes, this experience likely shaped the once-and-future-reactionary gasbag's decision to forego live audiences and to broadcast from the hermetically-sealed safety of his media bunker.

All of these things are just like the others.

In 1934 in the tiny village of Corbeil Ontario were born Marie, Émilie, Cecile, Yvonne, and Annette Dionne. The freakish experience of being the stars of a government-sanctioned tourist attraction have been chronicled by the sisters themselves and others who described the appalling circumstances of their childhood.

Cue another "R-word" economic environment and looky over there: Octuplets!!!

It was a midwinter miracle; eight babies born to a single mother and every one of them delivered alive. For a nation enduring its deepest economic crisis since the Great Depression, the tale was a welcome relief from bail-outs and bankruptcies. But this weekend, as the journalistic pack chases an altogether darker dimension to the story of Nadya Suleman, the feel-good factor has suddenly vanished.

The birth of Suleman's eight babies - six boys and two girls - was clearly an extraordinary event. Only one previous case of eight surviving babies had ever been recorded in the US. Yet as the eccentricity of Suleman's background and biography emerges, America is suddenly recoiling in shock. Far from being a heart-warming tale of wonder, the more that becomes known about the Suleman family, the more it seems something very disturbing has occurred. Public reaction has quickly turned from joy to shock and anger.

By last night, it was clear that Suleman is not an infertile woman who sought medical help to have children. The 33-year-old Californian already has six children. She is single and has no visible means of support for her current family ...

Her family has revealed that she may have serious mental-health problems and be addicted to having children. Her own mother, Angela Suleman, told one Associated Press reporter: "[She] is not evil, but she is obsessed with children. She loves children, she is very good with children, but obviously she overdid herself."

From here.

Right from the very first press release, this event drew praise from the usual Vulture Culture suspects: zygote zealots and abortion-criminalizers like Canada's Blob Blogging Wingnut heaped praise on Nadya Suleman for resisting the option of aborting some of the embryos in order to gestate the others for a longer term inside her womb. The BAY-BEEEZ!!! The BAY-BEEEZ!!! was their collective howl.

Strange how things go ... it was only April last year that Yale University art student Aliza Shvarts caused major controversy for her proposed senior art project .

Who knew that fetus fetishists were performance art critics?

Exactamundo!

Balbulican abolutely nails the impact of the octuplets story:

No wonder our foetishists find this story disturbing. It’s a staging of their own mania, writ large and performed live.


And it's a freak show.