Sauce for the Gander

Since the TeaBaggers took over so many state houses in the US, the Fetus Lobby has been revelling in an orgy of abortion restrictions.

Lately, though, female politicians have been pushing back. The birth control idiocy going on now seems to have revved things considerably.

We've reported on a few of them. Mostly, they are amendments to draconian legislation aimed at women's reproductive health. The push-back is aimed at men's health and sexuality.

One from Virginia would mandate a physical including rectal exam for men wanting prescriptions for limp-dick syndrome. File that one under 'unnecessary medical procedures intended to punish and humiliate'.

Another from Georgia asserts a state interest in men's reproduction and bans vasectomies.

House Minority Leader Stacey Abrams added, “The Republican attack on women’s reproductive rights is unconscionable. What is more deplorable is the hypocrisy of HB 954’s author. If we follow his logic, we believe it is the obligation of this General Assembly to assert an equally invasive state interest in the reproductive habits of men and substitute the will of the government over the will of adult men.”

Similarly, a female state senator in Oklahoma proposed an Every Sperm Is Sacred amendment.

any action in which a man ejaculates or otherwise deposits semen anywhere but in a woman's vagina shall be interpreted and construed as an action against an unborn child.

And there's more. In Florida, state senator Eleanor Sobel introduced EIGHT amendments to what opponents are calling an 'omnibus anti-choice bill'.

In that bill are requirements for abortion providers to undergo regular ethics training and for clinics to be wholly owned and operated by licensed doctors.

Sobel's amendments are rather pointed.

In response to the ethics training provision of the bill, Sobel introduced an amendment requiring that a “legislator who offers to vote or who votes on legislation relating to human reproduction must annually complete a minimum of 3 hours of continuing education related to ethics.”

Much like a measure recently introduced in Georgia in response to anti-abortion legislation, Sobel also offered an amendment that regulates vasectomies and treatment for erectile dysfunction.

According to her amendment:

A vasectomy or treatment for erectile dysfunction may not be performed except with the voluntary and informed consent of the patient, or in the case of a mental incompetent, the voluntary and informed written consent of his court-appointed guardian. Except in the case of a medical emergency, consent to a vasectomy or treatment for erectile dysfunction is voluntary and informed only if the physician orally, in person, informs the patient of the nature and risks of undergoing or not undergoing the proposed procedure or treatment which a reasonable patient would consider material to making a knowing and willful decision at least 24 hours before the vasectomy is performed or the treatment is provided.

Sobel also introduced an amendment that would require that CPCs [crisis pregnancy centres, aka Fake Clinics] be “wholly owned and operated by one or more physicians who received residency training in performing dilation-and-curettage and dilation-and evacuation procedures or by a professional corporation or limited liability company composed solely of one or more such physicians.”

She didn't even get to present all her amendments, which were characterized as 'designed to waste time' by a ReThug.

Um. No. They are designed to mock and ridicule.

Weirdly, Sobel thought she was entitled to speak not only because she is a duly elected state senator, but because:

Sobel pointed out to the committee that she had the right to say something as “the only woman in the committee.”

Wow. One woman. An improvement over this though.



ADDED: Great minds and ganders.

Beauty Pageants: Ptui!

In accordance with the three-day ultimatum from the director of Miss Right to Life Georgia beauty pageant, we have amended the blogpost that pissed her off.

Our reasons are put forth here.

As feminists, we at DJ! find all beauty pageants misogynist, exploitive, and reprehensible.

And there is that other small matter of using children, a practice that verges on pedophilia.

To tie a further misogynist anti-feminist cause -- forced birth -- to pageants is simply despicable.

However, to be fair, there are two points to be made.

1. The director of MRLG asserts in an email that her organization has nothing to do with 'Toddlers and Tiaras'. We have no reason to doubt her.

2. Georgia Right to Life has declined the proposed donation of funds raised by the auction of the 'Pretty Woman' hooker costume.

We at DJ! trust this is the end of this issue. Unless, of course, Miss Right to Life Georgia comes to our attention again.

Pissed-Off Beauty Pageant

Oh dear. We've pissed off the Director of Miss Right to Life of Georgia with this post.

In the comments and in an email, she says:

Pageant Director of MRTL said...

This is to advise you that you are using copyrighted and protected material on your website/blog. Your illegal use of photographs and text is originally from my website/blog called "Miss Right to Life of Georgia" at www.missrighttolife.com. This is original content and I am the author and copyright holder. Use of copyright protected material without permission is illegal under copyright laws.

Please remove the plagiarized material immediately.

I expect a response within 3 days to this issue. Thank you for your immediate action on this matter.

First, I don't think plagiarism means what she thinks it does.

Twentieth-century dictionaries define plagiarism as "wrongful appropriation," "close imitation," or "purloining and publication," of another author's "language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions," and the representation of them as one's own original work, but the notion remains problematic with nebulous boundaries. There is no rigorous and precise distinction between imitation, stylistic plagiarism, copy, replica and forgery.

I plagiarized nothing. I used direct quotation with proper attribution.

Then there's that little matter of what you in the US call 'fair use'.

Fair use, a limitation and exception to the exclusive right granted by copyright law to the author of a creative work, is a doctrine in United States copyright law that allows limited use of copyrighted material without acquiring permission from the rights holders. Examples of fair use include commentary, criticism, news reporting, research, teaching, library archiving and scholarship. It provides for the legal, non-licensed citation or incorporation of copyrighted material in another author's work under a four-factor balancing test. The term fair use originated in the United States. A similar principle, fair dealing, exists in some other common law jurisdictions. Civil law jurisdictions have other limitations and exceptions to copyright.

Or what we in Canada call 'fair dealing'.

Now, IANAL, but it seems to me that DJ!'s use of the quoted material falls squarely under both 'fair use' and 'fair dealing'.

But perhaps Miss Right to Life of Georgia would like to consult their own lawyers on the matter.

The photo, charming though it may be, might be a horse of a different colour. DJ! is consulting our lawyer about that.

And yes, we fully realize that things are done differently in the Excited States, especially in ultra-'prolife' Georgia, where they are set to execute a black man named Troy Davis, against whom the case is shockingly weak, on September 21.

By those lights, what punishment does a little blogger in Canada poking fun at a beauty pageant deserve?

Suggestions welcome.

Image source

ADDED: I wonder if this gang got prior written permission.

Those Stage Mothers - UPDATED

UPDATE (Sept. 19/11): Three days have passed since DJ! was given an ultimatum by the director of Miss Right to Life Georgia about this post -- her time limit to stop 'plagiarizing' and violating copyright (see comments). As we explained here, we believe that the director has her head up her ass is mistaken. We did not plagiarize and the use of the quoted material falls -- without question -- under the US legal concept of 'fair use' and its Commonwealth version 'fair dealing'. Therefore, the text of this blogpost has not been altered.

However, on reflection and consultation, we have decided to replace the photo. After all, line-ups of white gals in ball gowns are a dime a dozen. We think this new photo captures the spirit and purpose of the Miss Right to Life Georgia beauty pageant much better.





Earlier today DJ! had the head-exploding story of Paisley Dickey, the three-year-old 'beauty pageant' contestant whose mother dressed her up in the hooker costume from 'Pretty Woman'.

When shit hit fan over than, Mumsie tried to make amends by declaring that the outfit would be auctioned with all proceeds going to Georgia Right to Life, a fetus fetishist organization.

We wondered why.

Well, seems Mumsie was thinking ahead to the Miss Right to Life of Georgia pageant.

(Go ahead. Click the link. We are ^NOT making this shit up.)

We are not your average beauty pageant! Miss Right to Life of Georgia is a scholarship and benefit pageant that is the very first of its kind in the country! All the profits from Miss Right to Life of Georgia will go directly to Georgia Right to Life.

Not only are we here to raise funds for such a prestigious organization, but we strive to raise awareness of the importance of the "Pro-Life Movement". All contestants are provided with a workshop to improve interview skills, ability to speak, and confidence level. Miss Right to Life also provides an optional Talent Competition for contestants to showcase their talents beyond the audience of their school theatre program or church. Most importantly, we strive to instill the value of mentorship, leadership, and service in the lives of the young women who join this program. All pageant participants will be given the opportunity to make an impact, leave a mark, persuade a heart, or even save a life.

The board of directors hope to begin a legacy of young women who are not just beautiful on the outside, but beautiful on the inside, and who truly have a heart for service and a fighting dedication to the Pro-Life cause.

Seems they have several queens at once in different age groups.

Will they make a special category for 'Former Hooker Turned Good Girl'?

Stay tuned.

UPDATE, Sept. 16/11: We've pissed off Miss Right to Life Georgia. Check the comments.

UPPERDATE: DJ! responds.

NEW IMAGE: Source (and thanks to dBO for her ace photo research)

"Blame the mother" brigade strikes again.

In April 2010, [Raquel] Nelson, her son A.J., and her two other children, got off a bus in metro Atlanta and—with several other passengers—attempted to cross a 5-lane highway to get to her apartment across the way. The nearest crosswalk was nearly a half a mile in either direction. Most anyone would take the shortcut. Standing at the median in the middle, little A.J. reportedly saw someone else jaywalk and ran out into the street to follow. Raquel ran out after him to stop him. But it was too late. Both Raquel and A.J. were hit by a vehicle, and A.J. died in the hospital a few hours later.

The accident was tragic, and Nelson put her life at risk to try to save him, as any mother would. So how is it possible she may serve more time in jail than the driver who hit and killed her son—a man who admitted to having a few beers and some medication that afternoon?

The driver was released in October after serving a six-month sentence, but Raquel Nelson now faces up to 36 months in prison for vehicular homicide [...].

From here.

I've been in US cities where multi-lane highways bisect residential neighbourhoods, without regard or concern for the lives of people who live in those communities. Urban planning favours the all-mighty imperatives of automobiles, their traffic and their operators.

Of course Raquel Nelson is African American. The racist double standard of the US legal system strikes again.

Grand merci to VK on twitter.

Race Card Trumped by NAACP

What happens when a fetus fetishist outfit plays the race card to make the preposterous claim that abortion amounts to the genocide of black people?
It comes back to bite your duplicitous honky ass.

The Georgia chapter of the NAACP has formally rescinded its endorsement of SB 529, a bill that would bar physicians from performing abortions in cases where the fetus has been targeted because of race or gender.

Here's the statement from Edward DuBose, chapter president (emphasis mine):

Earlier this month, the Georgia NAACP submitted a letter to support Senate Bill 529. We now fully understand the intention of this legislation and wish to retract our support for it.

At the time, we were of the understanding that this bill would work to benefit the women in our community. However, after many conversations with membership and constituents, we now realize that this is nothing more than using women’s health as a political tool.

Women of color in Georgia need more than divisive messages and deserve better access to health care.

We look to the Georgia General Assembly to support initiatives that benefit the community including education and prevention services and working to reduce health care disparities. SB 529 does nothing to address these goals.

Rich, innit, when an anti-racist organization refuses to participate in your supposedly anti-racist ruse?

Here is LieShite's spin, complete with obligatory reference to the Black Queen of Merkin fetus fetishists:

The Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act, which also helps stop abortions in cases when women are forced or coerced into having one, has already received backing from Dr. Alveda King, the niece of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

So, like, if the niece of St Martin is all for it, what the hell is the problem with the NAACP?

I got curious about that equally obligatory 'Dr' in front of Ms King's name and found that doctorate is honorary. I also found that while her entry styles her as Senior Fellow for the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution, it seems it needs updating or -- no, it wouldn't be misleading, would it?

[The Institution] had 14 staff researchers at its peak. It largely ceased operations in 2006. It issued its last press release in 2007 announcing that its former Chairman was running for President of the United States. Its website was last updated in 2008.

Further googling reveals that southern fetus freaks are planning to desecrate another iconic episode of the civil rights movement by appropriating it to their mission cause -- Freedom will Ride again this summer, this time for fetuses.

Again, these people manage to sink even further into the crassest manipulation, distortion, and total disrespect for real human suffering and achievement.

More abortion laws! Lots more!

I can't keep up. The Merkin healthcare debate and its obsession with abortion has whipped up state legislatures all over the Excited States into frenzies of fetus fetishizing. Abortion! We need more laws on abortion!

And they're getting them. Lots more laws on abortion! Some of them quite nutty. (The people at RH Reality Check do a good job of keeping up with the fetus fetishizing lawmakers in the US.)

Where to start?

How about Georgia? You may remember that a billboard campaign there linked abortion to genocide. Yeah, yeah, you've heard that one before, but wait, the Georgia campaign specifically links abortion to black genocide.

Well, now they have a brand spanky new law enshrining that idiocy.

Last week, the Georgia Senate gave sanction to a bizarre, destructive and racially condescending conspiracy theory. By a 33-14 vote, it approved a bill that purports to outlaw the attempted genocide of black Americans through abortion.

Under the bill’s language, a health care provider could be convicted of a felony and sentenced to up to 10 years in prison for performing an abortion “with the intent to prevent an unborn child from being born based upon the race, color, or gender of the unborn child or the race or color of either parent of that unborn child.”

(snip)

Until approval of SB 529, the dumbest legislation to pass the House or Senate this year had been a bill to outlaw forced implantation of microchips in human beings, which also passed the Senate. However, while it may rival the genocide-by-abortion bill in terms of weirdness, the microchip bill was at least largely harmless.

The abortion bill, on the other hand, puts the state Senate on record as endorsing the claim that black Americans are being targeted for elimination by health care providers. That’s absurd and flat-out wrong.

In Nebraska, where you might recall they are trying to outlaw abortion because of the unfounded claim of fetal pain, they've come up with another doozy.

Before an abortion, women are to be screened for 'potential post-abortion problems'. Well, what's wrong with that, you wonder?

Because the 'problems' they are concerned with are claims that abortion drives women insane.

Greg Schleppenbach of the Nebraska Catholic Conference said the bill doesn't call for drastic changes and would simply put pre-abortion medical consultation in line with normal medical practices in which patients are advised of risks.

"We're just saying that that if the abortion industry acknowledges risk factors exist, isn't it reasonable to screen people for them?" Schleppenbach said.

An official with the New York-based Center for Reproductive Rights said there was no connection between psychological problems and abortions.

The measure is in fact a drastic shift in abortion policy, added Jordan Goldberg, state advocacy counsel for the center, and the real intent is to establish a "vague and unconstitutional barrier" to abortions by scaring doctors who might perform them. Goldberg, who tracks abortion laws across the country, said she'd never seen anything like the Nebraska bill.

"I think there's a serious chance it will make doctors wary of performing abortions because they just don't know if they're complying with the law," Goldberg said.

You wanna make women insane, say to them: 'Sorry, honey, I think having an abortion would drive you crazy, so, no, you won't be able to have one.'

Now, more mandatory ultrasound bullshit from Louisiana. What makes this one a little different is that it is being pushed by a Democratic woman.

Senate President Pro Tem Sharon Weston Broome, D-Baton Rouge, said the bill is designed to make a woman "think twice about having an abortion. This is such a serious decision that a woman makes, the process should be exhausted with all the medical information on the procedure" available, she said.

In the privacy-invadingest state in the union, Oklahoma, they're busy taking apart a previous anti-abortion bill that was deemed unconstitutional on the technicality that it dealt with more than one issue and turning it into four anti-abortion laws, including the privacy-invading part.

The information includes race, education level, miscarriages, induced abortions, method of abortion, reason for the abortion and method of payment.

While the woman's name would not be included, the info would be published. As critics point out, some counties in Oklahoma are so underpopulated, it would be a doddle for busy-bodies to figure out who the local slut is.

On to Missouri for another omnibus fetus fetishist bill, dealing with coerced abortion and another stunning bit of privacy invasion.

The bill would also require prosecutors to be informed when an individual under age 18 inquired about an abortion, whether or not the woman completes the procedure.

Ask a question about abortion and get reported??!!! (The specious 'reason' for this is that they want to identify cases of possible child sexual abuse.)

Barriers, lies, shame, intimidation -- all the usual weapons. It's been a grand few weeks in the Excited States for fetus fetishizers.

And a very bad time -- and future -- for American women.

But wait! There are some grown-ups down there. In Michigan, no less, Bart Stupak's state.

Legislation moving to the state Senate would require Michigan emergency rooms to provide emergency contraception to individuals who are sexual assaulted.

Four bills, originally part of a 15-bill initiative promoted by Planned Parenthood, passed the Michigan House last week and would extend access to contraception, said state Rep. Mark Meadows, D-East Lansing.

“These are reasonable and applicable methods and laws, which would help prevent unwanted pregnancies,” said Meadows, who sponsored a bill in the package that would require crisis pregnancy centers to tell patients they do not provide information about birth control or abortion.

The bills need to gain the support of the Republican-led Senate to become law.

Other bills that passed include a bill requiring the Michigan Department of Community Health to educate the public about emergency contraception and a bill requiring all school districts to teach “medically accurate sexual education.”

We shall see whether the state-level Stupaks get their knickers in knots and stop this too.

Fetus Fetishists Sink to New Low

Well, it seems the lying liars in the Forced Pregnancy Brigade have reached a new low. And that's saying something.

Here at DJ! we've reported on their various scams and schemes ranging from fake abortion clinic escorts and fake pregnancy clinics to claims of murderously unsafe abortion clinics, or, more commonly, 'abortuaries'.

We've reported on their persecution/martyr mania and their ludicrous hyperbole equating abortion to the Holocaust. And, of course, they're always ready to drag out those hoary old standbys, the inevitable -- and totally false -- links between abortion and breast cancer and/or instant insanity.

Now they've sunk to race-baiting. (It's Black History Month, you see.)

Here's how Tana Ganeva at AlterNet sees it:

Creepy Billboards Accuse African-American Women of “Endangering” Black Kids

A new anti-choice campaign seeks to lower the rates of abortion in Georgia’s African-American community by lobbying for affordable health care and access to contraception accusing black women of being inadequate vessels for the propagation of the race.

The billboard campaign, created by the Radiance Foundation and Georgia’s Operation Outrage, features a really cute, unaborted child staring accusingly at female passersby thinking about contributing to the destruction of the African-American community. ”Black Children Are an Endangered Species,” it reads.

My first take was 'whaaaaaa? Black kids are a "species"???!?!!'

By the way, as a commenter there points out, the claim is utter bullshit:

Endangered? The total number of African Americans in the U.S. has risen steadily since the 1930s when the total was 11,891,143 making up 9.8% of the total U.S. population. That number has increased every single decade not only as a total (over 41 million in 2008), but also as a percentage of the population to 13.5%.

To make a claim that African Americans are “endangered” seems ridiculous on the surface, but when you look at the actual numbers it reveals itself to be a flat-out lie.

Today, a website billing itself as Black America's Daily News Source weighs in:

A controversial new anti-abortion campaign is targeting black women, but not all black women are happy about it. The ad campaign, which got started in Georgia billboards recently, depicts a picture of a black baby with the words "Black Children Are An Endangered Species."

. . .

An accompanying video on YouTube (shown below) argues that black women are more likely to have an abortion than other women. "Abortion isn't a me issue. It's not a you issue. It's not just a woman's issue," according to the text attached to the video. It adds: "It's a human issue."

The video contends that black women abort their children at more than three times the rate of white women and twice the rate of all other races combined. "And all, the while," the video creators argue, "Planned Parenthood profits from the destruction."

Although blacks make up a third of the Georgia state population, black women accounted for the majority of abortions performed in Georgia in 2006, the Washington Post reported from data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Some black women are outraged by the ad campaign. Spelman College professor Beverly Guy-Sheftall told the Washington Post that the strategy was a gimmick. "To use racist arguments to try to bait black people to get them to be anti-abortion is just disgusting," she said.

Mary Mitchell, a columnist in Chicago, says:

Honestly, black women can't catch a break.

Black children are gunned down disproportionately in the streets, and now anti-abortion advocates are suggesting that black women are committing genocide.

And she goes on to wonder:

How often are men urged, from the pulpit, to practice safe and responsible sex?"

Where are the billboards that urge black men to marry their baby's mamas so these women see their children as blessings and not mistakes?

I went to the website so you don't have to. One of its pages is called (no shit) The Negro Project for which they get in the Waaay Back Machine to dredge up the shocking -- SHOCKING I TELL YOU -- news that Margaret Sanger, founder of the outfit that morphed into the baby-murdering Planned Parenthood, held eugenicist ideas. In the 1930s!! (Pssst, so did The Greatest Canadian, Tommy Douglas.)

Oddly, the site fails to mention that the über-evil Sanger was actually opposed to abortion.

Sanger wrote, "While there are cases where even the law recognizes an abortion as justifiable if recommended by a physician, I assert that the hundreds of thousands of abortions performed in America each year are a disgrace to civilization."

...

She wrote further, "No one can doubt that there are times when an abortion is justifiable but they will become unnecessary when care is taken to prevent conception. This is the only cure for abortions."

(Yes. I realize. Logic has no attractions for the lying liars.)

Ooh, I'm running out of fingers and toes. How many lies, misrepresentations, twisty-logic-pretzels, guilt-trips, and insults are we up to now?

And, of course, the sly and creepy racism of the whole thing.

Congratulations, Fetus Fetishists. I really didn't think you could disgust me further.

This takes the cake.