Burning the Wrong Witches

Too exhausted from trip to Florida to move mother to assisted living to blog, but just had to report this.

Sure is tough to be a rightwing “pro-life” full-of-bull propaganda machine these days. On Monday, we learned the sleazy jizz rags behind the “gotcha” videos of Planned Parenthood doing “crimes” to “baby parts” have been indicted in Houston, Texas, for being the real crimers, ACTUALLY. And we laughed and chortled and guffawed and feminist fist-bumped and happy-danced naked in our living room and said, “That’s what you get, motherfuckers!” And it was good.

Too tired to happy dance, but I did chortle.

This is simply delicious.

And it happened in TEXAS.

Anti-Choice's Desperation to Avoid Responsibility

Nah, fetus freaks aren't desperate to avoid the stink of pro-life terrorism atall atall.

In the Fetal Gore Porn Guy's second kick at the no-connection-between-violent-anti-choice-imagery-and-language-and-Colorado-Planned-Parenthood-murders can, there is this jaw-dropper.

The pro-abortion worldview is one based on the very simple premise that violence—the physical destruction of a human being developing in the womb—is the answer to virtually every imaginable situation.

Ah, yeah. It's pro-choice who thinks violence* is the answer to everything. After all, it's us pro-choicers who murder, assault, fire-bomb, send death threats, post "wanted" posters, harass people outside medical clinics. . .

Wait. No. That would be the anti-abortion gang.

After the Colorado rampage, Bryn Greenwood, who goes by @clinicescort on Twitter, devoted her timeline to the various acts of terrorism she experienced as a clinic worker. Here it is in Storified form.

If you have the stomach for it, read the whole thing, but here's the nub.

The goal was to make us afraid to come to work, to make us quit, to make us close the clinic. That's terrorism. That's how terrorism works.

— Bryn Greenwood (@bryngreenwood) November 30, 2015

In addition to being absolutely incapable of detecting irony, Fetus Freaks also have an extraordinary ability to avoid introspection. Witness this from Fetal Gore Guy's first kick at the no-connection-between etc can.

It’s interesting, isn’t it, how the Left functions. If an Islamic terrorist shoots up a theatre, he is “not a real Muslim” and “not following the peaceful tenets of True Islam.” However, if some strange nutcase opens fire outside a Planned Parenthood and proceeds to murder a pro-life pastor police officer, immediately we are all to assume that this person is definitely a Real Christian, and represents All Christians.

And then he goes on to twist himself into knots trying to show there's no-connection-between etc. All a terrible coincidence.

Well, golly. Today we learned that the Colorado shooter asked for directions to the clinic.

Yep. Pro-life terrorism. This is on them.

And they know it.


* Here's an example of pro-choice violence: assault by chocolate milk. And, gee, it was perpetrated against the Fetal Gore Gang. Have a read of what drove the passer-by over the edge from the Fetal Gore Gang itself.

White Male Pro-Life Terrorism

Anybody who has watched a single episode of "Criminal Minds," or read a news story about serial killers knows the profile. White male between the ages of 18 and 55. Childhood bed-wetter. Criminal escalation through animal torture, arson, increasing violence against women. Then, murder.

Now a profile of the Prolife Terrorist is emerging.

White male between 18 and 55? Check.

Bed wetter? Jury's out.

Animal abuser? Check.

Violence against women? Check.

New wrinkle: Vandalism against abortion clinics? Check. Both Dr George Tiller's murderer, Scott Roeder, and the recent Colorado Planned Parenthood murderer, Robert Dear, glued locks shut on women's clinics.

Here's a thought-provoking article about "white male terrorism", which, while long on white entitlement and rage, is rather short on the "male" part.

Another based on court documents submitted by an ex-partner of Dear's is rather more forthcoming about the "male rage," misogyny, and religion parts.

By January 1993, she had had enough. In a sworn affidavit as part of her divorce case, Ms. Micheau [the ex] described Mr. Dear as a serial philanderer and a problem gambler, a man who kicked her, beat her head against the floor and fathered two children with other women while they were together. He found excuses for his transgressions, she said, in his idiosyncratic views on Christian eschatology and the nature of salvation.

“He claims to be a Christian and is extremely evangelistic, but does not follow the Bible in his actions,” Ms. Micheau said in the court document. “He says that as long as he believes he will be saved, he can do whatever he pleases. He is obsessed with the world coming to an end.”

In short, these are men motivated by rage and religion.

And oddly, or not, both the rage and the religion are focussed on women.

So, not surprisingly, but critically, they are finally mobilized by the relentless, violent, misogynist rhetoric from right-wing nutbars, who in the United States are terrifyingly mainstream, represented by Fox News and every Republican presidential candidate, perhaps most notably Carly Fiorina, who not only clings to her lies about the discredited Planned Parenthood videos, but who is now attacking the "left" for suggesting she played a role in the Colorado massacre.

Also among the terrorism enablers and mobilizers are every anti-choice individual and organization that repeats the hateful lies that demonize abortion providers and the people who need them.

And now this kind of terrorism has a name: stochastic terrorism*. (This piece is from 2011, but the term is cropping up again now in light of the most recent example in Colorado.)

Stochastic terrorism is the use of mass communications to incite random actors to carry out violent or terrorist acts that are statistically predictable but individually unpredictable. In short, remote-control murder by lone wolf.

Here is Valerie Tarico on the Colorado murders.

The formula is perversely brilliant:
1. A public figure with access to the airwaves or pulpit demonizes a person or group of persons.
2. With repetition, the targeted person or group is gradually dehumanized, depicted as loathsome and dangerous— arousing a combustible combination of fear and moral disgust.
3. Violent images and metaphors, jokes about violence, analogies to past “purges” against reviled groups, use of righteous religious language — all of these typically stop just short of an explicit call to arms.
4. When violence erupts, the public figures who have incited the violence condemn it — claiming no one could possibly have foreseen the “tragedy.”

Use of terms like "Nazi," "genocide," "holocaust," and "slavery" abounds, in addition to the usual "killing," "murder," and "dismemberment."

Here's the Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform's (yep, that's the name, though I call them the Fetal Gore Porn Gang) "Genocide Awareness Project", a gory duplicitous display trucked around to university and college campuses, as "a powerful way to compel thought and dialogue."

Its spokesthingy, Jonathan van Maren, wrote a beaut of a piece at LieShite, denying any responsibility on the "pro-life movement's" part, while simultaneously demonstrating how stochastic terrorism works.

Joyce Arthur, of Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada, gives his brain-fart a thorough fisking here.

Sample:

“We will not allow Planned Parenthood and the abortion movement to climb atop a ‘moral high ground’ created from the chopped-up body parts of human beings they have dismembered…”

You’re inciting violence, right there. Also, please stop erasing women and the fact that they need abortion care, which is why abortion providers are there, to protect women’s lives.

I share this blogger's question: Why aren't the inciters of crime -- the radicalizing mobilizers -- prosecuted?

Or as is said in another context: Let's shut down their churches, dismantle their funding networks, block their websites, arrest the ringleaders, and discredit their parrots and followers.

White male prolife terrorism. It's real and way more likely -- seven times more likely -- to kill us than any other religious fundamentalist terrorism.

[Reality note: I said much of this about Bill O'Reilly after he successfully incited the assassination of Dr Tiller. So.]




* Of course, in Canada, we had another recent and vivid display of stochastic terrorism. The mindless, relentless repetition of "jihadi terrorists" hiding behind niqabs at citizenship ceremonies backfired spectacularly on the loathesome Conservatives, but resulted in some real violence and terror for Muslim Canadians.

No 2 Trudeau: Sick Puppies

The No 2 Trudeau campaign has been annoying and disgusting a lot of people lately.

These good folks, who absurdly expect to look through their junk mail without encountering fetal gore porn, have complained to cops, politicians, and Advertising Standards Canada (ASC). ASC, which has no power to actually do anything but tut-tut, has looked at this sort of thing before and shrugged it off as beyond its purview, being deemed "political." (So I guess the CPC gets a pass for using ISIS snuff-film footage too.)

Well, the FetalGoreGang has so annoyed people that ASC decided to have another look.

Several Canadian residents have complained to Advertising Standards Canada.

Under their code, "Advertising that is directed to children must not exploit their credulity, lack of experience or their sense of loyalty, and must not present information or illustrations that might result in their physical, emotional or moral harm."

However, last month, residents were told that because it's a political campaign, it's exempt from the voluntary Advertising Standards code.

However, due in part to the number of complaints, ad standards took another look at their definition of political advertising and came back with the following response which has been posted to Facebook.

"ASC has concluded that, notwithstanding that aspects of the No2Trudeau advertising are political in nature, the political elements may be separated from the images of aborted fetuses featured in this advertising. Based on a 2014 decision by ASC's Standards Council, which upheld consumer complaints about the use of the very same graphic images in advertising by a different advertiser, ASC has now asked the Canadian Centre for Bio-ethical Reform to withdraw and no longer distribute this advertising in its current form in which the aborted fetuses have been highlighted."

Jonathon Van Maren, communications director with the Canadian Centre for Bio-ethical Reform, said ASC has made these types of requests before and the response remains the same.

"We have polling that shows this is the most effective way to show people that abortion violently victimizes a pre-born human being, and we're going to continue doing it," he said. "They have no legal authority to ask us to cease and desist. The Charter of Rights and Freedoms trumps their request."

Isn't that adorable? This gang, and fetus freaks in general, usually excoriate the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, born of evil Justin Trudeau's eviler dad, Pierre, of course. This same Charter has been used by rabid activist judges to support a woman's right to autonomy and privacy that the fetus freaks stomp their little feet over deny. Here for example is the Fetal Gore Gang's take on it.

But now they're hiding behind it.

And find zip zero nada irony in their position.

So, there's that.

As the campaign goes on, other questions are being raised again. From the beginning, there were speculations about what possible political party might be behind a gory, misleading smear campaign against Justin Trudeau.

In the face of mounting disgust in their communities, various politicians are now peddling furiously away.

Oakville MP Terence Young said he was disgusted by the flyers and emphasized they have nothing to do with the Conservative Party or himself.

Young also sent the architects of the No2Trudeau Campaign a cease-and-desist letter.

“I am writing to ask you to cease and desist your campaign of placing graphic and appalling flyers entitled No2Trudeau in the mailboxes and doorways of my constituents in Oakville and elsewhere,” wrote Young in his correspondence, a copy of which was forwarded to the Oakville Beaver.

“They are quite understandably causing distress and anger, particularly as they are exposed to children who react with confusion and fear. This is unconscionable. Rather than changing the hearts and minds of people on abortion, these flyers will ensure most people will never listen to anything you have to say.”

Even other clergy are getting into the act.

Rev. Mike Marsden, Lead Minister of Knox Presbyterian Church, also takes issue with the flyers, which he condemned as exploitative.

“I am disgusted and disturbed, not just by the images, but that any organization purporting to uphold the rights and dignity of an unborn child would actually devalue the worth of such a child by striving for shock value,” said Marsden in an email to Campaign Life Coalition, which was also sent to the Oakville Beaver.

“The use your organization has made of such images is, in my opinion, the ultimate degradation…The children represented did not choose to be conceived, nor did they choose to be aborted, but neither did they choose to be exploited by your organization in death.”

Funny, but that's sorta what the Catholic Herald had to say in 2012.
It called use of such images "profoundly counterproductive."

So, if not just ordinary people but politicians and clergy are unhappy with the campaign, who's getting anything out of it?

Canadian Cynic has a notion.

Given how quickly CPC shut down "HarperPAC", if the CPC didn't condone Trudeau-linked abortion flyers, they wouldn't be happening. Period.

— CC (@canadiancynic) July 16, 2015

And I've been thinking about it too.

My conclusion: these people are simply sick. They have the same fascination with gore and torture and blood that snuff-film aficionados like Luka Magnotta have.

When the Gosnell case was in the news, these sick puppies were creaming themselves over descriptions of body parts kept in specimen bottles, blood on the floor, and other fun stuff.

And now, the bogus story of Planned Parenthood selling fetal body parts has them again gloating over itty-bitty gory guts.

There are not too many careers in which one can indulge in one's psychopathic obsession, get lauded as a martyr, and get paid, are there?

So. I'm done with them. At least for this sad campaign. (I reserve the right to snark at them on Twitter if the mood strikes.)

May they find some capable psychological help.

Donor Beware: Ottawa Senators' Fake Clinic Charity Re-Visited

'Tis the (ever earlier) season when you'll be hit up by various good causes. In light of the revelation that unbeknownst to Ontario gamblers they were helping to fund a religious anti-choice fake clinic, let's revisit the grandmother of anti-abortion trickery stories in Canada.

I was reminded of it by commenter Sub-Boreal, who reports a similar situation.

And it's not just lottery funds that end up funding the fake crisis centres. Example: I was horrified to discover a couple of years ago that my credit union gave a few thousand to a local centre after polling members on how to divvy up a fund among some charities. I hadn't been a very attentive member, so I'm not sure how the shortlist of charities had been compiled, but I'll be much more vigilant the next time any similar process gets announced.

For the holidays of 2007, the wives and girlfriends -- known as the Better Halves (awww) -- of the Ottawa Senators sponsored a charity dealie with three worthy charities the intended recipients of funds extorted exhorted from loyal Sens fans.

Planned Parenthood raised the alarm that one of the charities, First Place Pregnancy Centre, now rebranded (as they are wont to do) First Place Options, was a lying-liar outfit of the first order.

Before DJ!, deBeauxOs and I blogged at Birth Pangs. We were all over the story as were other bloggers, notably JJ at Unrepentant Old Hippie.

CBC got on it in the person of Heather Mallick. (Her original story has vaporized, as has the re-issue at rabble.)

I found a link to the meaty bit of the story -- her phone conversation with the Senators Foundation prez as they went through the links on First Place's website.

I had an initially cheerful phone interview with Sens Foundation president Dave Ready, who said the Better Halves, when asked to choose three charities, chose: First Place, Kids Help Phone [and] Harmony House (a women's shelter).

First Place was “in line with our mandate,” he said. “We did due diligence and checked that it's a charity.”

“You went to the website?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Did you check on the links?”

“No.”

We went through the First Place site links together. There's a standard disclaimer but First Place hopes we'll find them “helpful.” I told Ready that some of the news headlines appeared to be libellous, particularly the ones linking corporations that make birth control drugs to the Jewish Holocaust and one drug itself to Nazi death camps. Others were grotesque: “One baby in 30 left alive after medical abortion” turns out to be an absurd, unsubstantiated anonymous “news story” in a British entertainment magazine.

You're also guided to a donation page for the American Life League, a hardline group based outside Washington. There's a shop, admittedly very funny, that sells “Abortion is mean” T-shirts for two-year-olds.

They offer booklets explaining that abortion is wrong even in the case of incest. They tell members to scare away raped children outside abortion clinics. They call RU-486 “the anti-human pesticide.” They offer sample letters to the editor to send to outlets that employ, I imagine, columnists like me. One begins: “Planned Parenthood is not 'a good guy.'”

Ready gets more and more quiet as we track this. Soon he is desperate to get off the phone. He will not let me talk to a Better Half, who might well explain that she hadn't known that First Place is financed by the Bethel Pentecostal Church (external - login to view) in Ottawa and its mission — declared on the Bethel website but nowhere on the First Place site — is not just anti-abortion but anti-birth control.

In short, the Sens' Better Halves had stepped in some deep doo-doo.

Sens fans were wondering WTF? Pro-choicers (especially of the Leaf Nation variety) were pointing and laughing.

And bloggers were having a ball.

But before things could get any poopier, the lying liars pulled out. (This was characterized as a "gracious" move by the Fetus Freak Media. Ha. Right.)

We never learned how the Better Halves chose that charity. Was it an inside job? Were they duped?

There was one more move. First Place sued Planned Parenthood for "defamation over comments that the Centre is 'anti-choice'." As that blogger points out, it was pretty odd for one charity to sue another, and likely to be very expensive for both.

We don't know what happened there either since some kind of settlement was reached.

For us, it was lots of fun, especially as we were dubbed by LifeShite Vicious Abortion Crusaders, a title we wear with pride to this day.

But there's another more important takeaway: When someone asks you for dough, ask for details.

(It also explains why fake clinic websites don't link to their more lunatic, racist fellow travellers anymore. In public at least. We know from undercover investigations that they still spew the most outrageous nonsense once they have a live vulnerable woman in their fake clinics.)

Happy giving season!

Harry Potter and the cauldron of STIs...

That headline doesn't quite capture all the cheekiness, humour, irreverence and tongue-twisting (at times!) facts overload (but in a GOOD way) of an Insight Theatre *show*.  

You must attend one to get their infectious (ouch!) jokes and insightful moments.  I won't give away any punchlines; suffice to say JK Rowling's penchant for quirky names is amply explored in the naughty bits... err, skits about Sexually Transmitted Infections.  Hilarious, inspired and clever! 

The lively and talented writers/performers are adolescents who work with Planned Parenthood Ottawa staff to produce this amusing and informative show.

Last evening I spoke with Catherine Macnab and Lauren Dobson-Hughes who are respectively director and board president.  Insight Theatre is a gem in a crown of multi-faceted education and community outreach programs. We spoke about advocacy, the challenges of reproductive justice issues, pro-choice and The March for Lies, since the event is one that DJ! mines shamelessly for its unintended humour.  

Since hundreds and hundreds of Catholic Schools students who are bussed to Ottawa for the March wander about downtown Ottawa afterwards, volunteers wearing PPO shirts show up to give out information packets with its own PPO branded condoms in the ByWard Market, on Elgin Street and around Parliament Hill. 

The range of programs offered by PPO can be found here.

Unfortunately there are no videos posted yet from this year's repertoire, but here's a golden oldie from 2013:

To book a performance: all the information.

And remember, Mike likes 'em nubile!

[...] Michael Coren managed to, within three-and-a-half minutes, feign passion for women’s rights and follow it up with vicious and slanderous lies against women’s health providers. See for yourself in the September 7 “The Real War on Women.” Coren called Planned Parenthood “a group—remember this—dedicated to making sure that as many babies are aborted as possible.”

For a group so committed to this goal, they sure allocate their funds strangely. Abortions account for only three percent of Planned Parenthood’s total services. Cancer and HIV screenings, contraception, counseling and other services account for the remaining 97 percent.

So according to Sun News, Planned Parenthood, the largest reproductive health services provider in the US, is actually just a bunch of baby abortion fanatics; just look how much of their activity is abortion!

It doesn’t take more than a little research to find out the truth. Doesn’t Sun News have fact checkers? Or is Sun News just lying to its audience, believing they are too stupid to look up the facts for themselves?

Even though Coren apparently has no qualms about malevolently lying about an organization devoted to women’s health, he makes sure to assure us he’s on the side of women’s rights. “I also find it repulsive that after decades of struggle for female equality, there are still many people on the left who speak of women in the plural, and in the collective, as though they have no individual identities or ideas… it’s almost like a slave-master mentality from the 19th century isn’t it?”

From here.

This isn't the first time that religious fundamentalist and christian-Sharia zealot Michael Coren has attacked US Planned Parenthood as well as the international organization. He also parrots the talking points that supporters of M312 have been regurgitating for months.

That particular line of attack on Planned Parenthood in the US is not original to Coren, though it's been debunked.

Instead of posting a clip from StunTV showing Coren's glib prevarications, here's one that deconstructs the willful harm that deliberate lies carried by schlock media inflicts upon its audience.

As for the title of this post, it's a reference to the StunTV Limbaugh wannabe's alleged interest in p0rn0graphy that features *adult* women disguised to resemble pubescent girls.

... and the horse you rode into town, Texas antichoichers!

A federal judge on Monday temporarily blocked a new Texas rule that would have excluded Planned Parenthood clinics from offering women's health services for the poor in the state because the organization provides abortions.

The ruling by U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel in favor of Planned Parenthood means thousands of women enrolled in the Texas Women's Health Program who go to its clinics will not be required to find new healthcare providers, at least for now.

"The court is particularly influenced by the potential for immediate loss of access to necessary medical services by several thousand Texas women," Yeakel said in a 24-page ruling.

The preliminary injunction is a big win for Planned Parenthood, which has been under siege in several states by abortion opponents. In the past year alone, states including Wisconsin, North Carolina, Tennessee and Indiana, in addition to Texas, have all moved to block Planned Parenthood from receiving taxpayer money.

From here.

The War on Women's Reproductive Rights continues in the US; this is one small victory.

Martinuk: A Liar and a Cheat

Shame on the Calgary Herald for giving a platform to BIG LIES promulgated by the Fetus Lobby, namely *sigh* the 'abortion causes breast cancer' one again.

A writer named Susan Martinuk says:

This means Komen is raising money to fight breast cancer at the same time as it is handing that money to causes that appear to be a contributing cause to that very disease.

Hm. Martinuk, Martinuk, why does that sound familiar?

Oh yeah. A few weeks ago, I was spanking the scientists for hire that fetus fetishists like Maurice Vellacott rely on to spread their bullshit.

Dr Dawg left a link in the comments to some similar spanking he'd done back in July of 2008. Dr Morgentaler had just received the Order of Canada and the forced birthers were going bonkers.

Dr D. was taking this apart for its bogus science. And oh look, it's by Susan Martinuk.

On the breast cancer lie, Dr D said:

I'm amazed that this old canard still has legs, but once again our reliable JPANDS [Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons] is cited--twice! The US National Cancer Institute isn't buying it; neither is the American Cancer Society. As the ACS puts it, " the public is not well-served by false alarms and at the present time, the scientific evidence does not support a causal association between induced abortion and breast cancer."

I went to the old link to see what Martinuk had to say.

In 1996, a paper in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health provided the first real evidence of a connection between abortion and breast cancer. Pooled data from 28 different studies demonstrated that women who had abortions had increased their risk of developing breast cancer by 30 per cent.

Subsequent studies supposedly disproved this association, but a 2005 Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons paper showed these studies had methodologies that were sufficiently flawed "to invalidate their findings." And, in 2007, the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons reported that induced abortion was the risk factor that best predicted the incidence of breast cancer in European women.

I blinked at that a couple of times, then went to the new link again.

But there is an even bigger problem in Komen’s funding of Planned Parenthood. For the past 15 years, there’s been a growing controversy over the link between induced abortion and an increased risk of breast cancer. In 1996, a paper in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health provided the first evidence of a connection between abortion and breast cancer. Pooled data from 28 studies demonstrated that women who had abortions had increased their risk of developing breast cancer by 30 per cent. Subsequent studies supposedly disproved this association, but a 2005 Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons paper showed these studies had methodologies that were sufficiently flawed “to invalidate their findings.” And, in 2007, the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons reported that induced abortion was the risk factor that best predicted the incidence of breast cancer in European women.

Throw in a couple of new sentences, and presto! A timely article with all the same old discredited crap in it.

So, double shame on the Calgary Herald. Once for printing the crap. Twice for printing -- and presumably paying for -- the same crap three and a half years later.

But really, how surprised should we be that a lying liar like Martinuk is also a cheat?

That Blew up REAL Good!

Sheesh. What a day for my Intertoobz connection to go wonky. It was actually worse than having none. I could read the bloody headlines on Google News but the linkies wouldn't work. I could get into Twitter intermittently, but again the links didn't work.

So. First. WOO-HOO!

For a good parsing of Komen's apparent cave and apology, go read Dr Dawg, who concludes, as we do, that Komen still bears close watching.

That said, let's celebrate while we can. (This is so rare an event, I betcha many of us are wondering which end of those roll-out party noisemaker thingies to blow on.)

Like many commenters, I don't think this reversal was so much a demonstration of the MASSIVE power of social media -- while it was a big factor -- as it was a perfect text-book case for how to blow up a brand 30 years in the making over a period of three days.

To the intense irritation of the Fetus Lobby, the Komen Foundation has always been careful not to link breast cancer and abortion (scroll down here to 'Factors that do not increase breast cancer risk, listed alphabetically', not as in the column beside it, which list factors that do affect risk, listed 'according to level of evidence and strength of association').

In fact, because it wouldn't lie about the science no matter how hard fetus fetishists stamped their widdle feet, there was a Komen boycott spear-headed by the American Life League.

So, while some Komen board members might have thought they were just cutting off a grant, what they actually did, as Raven Brooks at RH Reality Check argues:

But the biggest issue is they completely changed their mission without even realizing it.

There has been plenty of controversy from Komen to date ranging from accusations they are denying links to cancer because of donations they receive to suing smaller organizations for using "for the cure" in their marketing. But they've weathered it because they've remained focused on what is and should be a completely non-partisan cause -- preventing, treating and curing breast cancer. They've attracted women and men of all political stripes and backgrounds to their cause. It was a safe place for corporations to support the cause. Komen's board thought they were simply cutting off a grant, for what many believe to be ideological reasons driven by Karen Handel, but what they were really doing is changing their entire mission. By taking a side in the abortion debate they essentially decided: we only want to work with men and women on the anti-abortion side of the debate, cutting off at least 50% if not more of their support.

Brooks also says Komen had no fucking clue how the Intertoobz work, a point taken up in an excellent analysis of the whole schmozzle by a non-profit marketing and PR expert.

For me, the most fun is in watching the Fetus Lobby squirm, twitch, and SHRIEEK!!!!!!

Here's a round-up of reactions from their own point of view, which doesn't yet seem to geddit that they lost. Big Time.

Here's another round-up from Right Wing Watch, who notes the deliciousness of their wailing about 'gangsterism', 'mafia shakedown', and 'bullying'.

Mona Charen of the National Review Online lamented that “it’s extremely disappointing that Komen has caved” but “it’s hardly surprising given the onslaught they’ve endured over the course of the last few days,” and NRO’s Daniel Foster charged Planned Parenthood with “gangsterism.” Of course, just days prior Kathryn Jean Lopez on NRO hailed Komen’s initial decision as a major victory, noting “this Komen-Planned Parenthood relationship has long been a target of pro-life activists.”

Catholic Family and Human Rights Initiative (C-Fam) president Austin Ruse told LifeSiteNews called potentially successful effort to have the Komen foundation reverse their decision defunding Planned Parenthood a “mafia shakedown”.

It gets even better. In an update RWW adds:

UPDATE: Liberty Counsel Action is now urging its members to cancel any donations they made to Komen, with Matt Barber arguing that the group should change their name to “Susan G. Komen for the Cause,” pushing the discredited charge that abortion is linked to breast cancer.

Upshot: Komen has MASSIVELY pissed off BOTH sides.

The question flying around is: Can Komen recover? I don't think so. I think they're pooched. (But still bear watching.)

Now that we've got the taste of winning, how about we sane people keep up the pressure on Komen for nixing $12 million for stem-cell research?

Also, with the taste of winning still strong, let's consider what we won: the politicization of millions of formerly disengaged Americans who just had their eyes jerked open to the depravity of the Fetus Lobby.

As JJ said here:

It has never been more obvious to me that they hate us so much, they want us to die.
Want. Us. To. Die.

Signed,
a breast cancer survivor who at this moment feels two emotions: disgust and fear.

Yes. It should be clear to everyone now. Conservatives hate us and want us to die.

When Pharmaceutical Companies Fuck Up

Ooo, with all the bad publicity swirling around the Komen Kaper and its sneaky withdrawal of funding for Planned Parenthood, the timing of this is kinda ironic.

Pfizer is recalling one million birth control packs because the pills may have ineffective levels of hormones in them or be in the wrong order.

What to do?

If you’ve been taking one of the recalled pills, check the lot number on the package to see if it’s one that’s been recalled. Both Pfizer and the Food and Drug Administration have posted the lot numbers.

If you discover you have been taking pills from an affected lot, “assume that you do not have any birth control protection,” advises Dr. Kristen Eckler, an obstetrician and gynecologist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and instructor at Harvard Medical School.

If you’ve had sexual intercourse in the last few days, Eckler says, she would “strongly encourage” you use emergency contraception as soon as possible if you want to avoid an unintended pregnancy. Plan B, available without a prescription to those 17 and older, is effective up to three days after unprotected sex, while prescription ella works up to five days afterward.

When you return your recalled pills to your pharmacy, you could obtain a new pack and start taking pills right away, Eckler says. You might have some minor breakthrough bleeding, breast tenderness or digestive tract upset, she says, but those should pass in a few days.

Because you can’t be sure where you are hormonally, Eckler says, you “absolutely have to use a barrier method (a male or female condom) during that first new pill pack.”

Gee, I wonder where all those panicking responsible women are going to get Plan B?

Because, you know, to the Fetus Lobby only sluts have unintended pregnancies.

Surprise! The Komen Kaper Was Planned

From Jeffrey Goldberg at The Atlantic we get some behind-the-scenes dirt on Komen's defunding of Planned Parenthood's breast exams program for poor people.

Surprise! It was a set-up. Komen recently instituted a rule that it would not fund organizations under any kind of 'investigation'. Well, some congressfundy was happy to oblige with a bogus demand for more documents from PP.

But three sources with direct knowledge of the Komen decision-making process told me that the rule was adopted in order to create an excuse to cut-off Planned Parenthood. (Komen gives out grants to roughly 2,000 organizations, and the new "no-investigations" rule applies to only one so far.) The decision to create a rule that would cut funding to Planned Parenthood, according to these sources, was driven by the organization's new senior vice-president for public policy, Karen Handel, a former gubernatorial candidate from Georgia who is staunchly anti-abortion and who has said that since she is "pro-life, I do not support the mission of Planned Parenthood." (The Komen grants to Planned Parenthood did not pay for abortion or contraception services, only cancer detection, according to all parties involved.) I've tried to reach Handel for comment, and will update this post if I speak with her.

The decision, made in December, caused an uproar inside Komen. Three sources told me that the organization's top public health official, Mollie Williams, resigned in protest immediately following the Komen board's decision to cut off Planned Parenthood. Williams, who served as the managing director of community health programs, was responsible for directing the distribution of $93 million in annual grants. Williams declined to comment when I reached her yesterday on whether she had resigned her position in protest, and she declined to speak about any other aspects of the controversy.

But John Hammarley, who until recently served as Komen's senior communications adviser and who was charged with managing the public relations aspects of Komen's Planned Parenthood grant, said that Williams believed she could not honorably serve in her position once Komen had caved to pressure from the anti-abortion right.

And another surprise! The Komen board went against its own staff's professional advice. In other words, the move was purely ideological, thinly -- and as it turns out totally unsuccessfully -- veiled as an 'administrative' process.

Everybody wants to talk to Fetus Lobbyist Karen Handel. She's not giving interviews but she can't STFU.

We’ve also got a frame grab of a Tweet that Handel passed along: “Just like a pro-abortion group to turn a cancer orgs decision into a political bomb to throw. Cry me a freaking river.”

The more I hear about Komen, the easier it is to detest it.

But this episode perfectly exemplifies the right-wing modus operandi: high-handed, ideological decisions, arrogantly imposed, and ineptly justified.

And Dave at The Galloping Beaver, directs us to TBogg who points out:

They had to know this movie was being released this week and yet they still issued their press release cutting ties to Planned Parenthood on Monday.

Hubris or stupidity?

You don’t have to choose just one, you know….

Komen: The Canadian Connection

Oh looky here.

January 12, 2010 — Leading breast cancer organizations Susan G. Komen for the Cure® and the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation in Canada today announce a new agreement to raise funds and explore possibilities to partner in research, education, advocacy and awareness programs across borders.

The website for the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation is screwy. Can't copy url, can't move around pages, can't search. Coincidence?

And the website for Run for the Cure doesn't have a search function. (At least the national sponsors, with the exception of Revlon don't look quite as evil as Komen's.)

So what is the connection between CBCF and Komen? Beyond that fuzzy 'possibilities to partner'?

The Globe is wondering too:

But it's also raising questions about what impact the Komen Foundation's decision could have in Canada. Last August, the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation, which organizes the Run for the Cure, announced it was teaming up with the Komen Foundation to raise money and possibly collaborate on research, education, advocacy and awareness programs on both sides of the border.

Will the new alliance lead to funding changes at Planned Parenthood in Canada as well?

The questions come only a few months after the Conservative government was in the spotlight over the decision to fund an international Planned Parenthood group, which provides abortions in developing countries around the world. Critics accused the government of succumbing to pressure from the pro-life movement.

While the government dragged its feet for months on making a decision, but it was revealed last year it will give $6 million to the International Planned Parenthood Federation, earmarked for countries where abortion is illegal.

I don't think there is any reason for this to impact the Canadian Federation for Sexual Health, formerly Planned Parenthood Federation of Canada. It seems to have no interest in breast cancer. Planned Parenthood Toronto doesn't offer breast screenings.

But I would like to hear from the CBCF, specifically on its relationship with anti-choice Komen Foundation.

Screw 'Run for the Cure'

I was struggling to express my disgust at the cowardice of the Komen Foundation in caving to the pressure of the Fetus Lobby, which is taking credit and celebrating.

“The continued, collective efforts of the pro-life movement have paid off,” said Bradley Mattes, Executive Director of the Life Issues Institute. “Our work to educate Komen donors to the reality that the organization has financially supported the nation’s largest chain of abortion mills has caused Komen to halt the financial hemorrhaging. Evidently, Komen had to choose between political ideology and financial viability. They made a good choice.”

I was going to write about how Planned Parenthood serves mostly poor people, how much a mammogram costs, how utterly despicable this is. . .

Then I found Amanda Marcotte's latest and she nails it. It's a witch hunt.

That's when I realized that anti-choicers do this so well because the war on reproductive health care is basically a witchhunt, and the religious fundamentalists behind it are the modern day version of medieval paranoids of old who believed that women who didn't conform to their exacting standards were consorting with Satan.

. . .

Anyone who thinks breast cancer can be neatly cordoned off from this growing circle of hate for all things women's health care is fooling themselves. That's not how witch hunts work. The fear here is not about fetuses or babies per se, but a deep-set fear of female sexuality. Already anti-choicers have scooped breast cancer under the umbrella "abortion", claiming that abortion causes breast cancer. (It doesn't.) Komen would rather side with people who see breast cancer as god's judgment on you for having an abortion rather than side with people support comprehensive health care for women. That tells you all you need to know about their organization. I'm all for picking up your sneakers and taking up running as a hobby, but recommend now you do it for you, and not for the ever-elusive cure for cancer.

Oh, and by the way, Komen doesn't play nice. It wastes a million dollars a year of donors' money chasing down little fundraisers who have the temerity to use the colour pink or use the phrase 'for the cure' in their names.

"I think it's a shame," [target Sue Prom] said. "It's not okay. People don't give their money to the Komen Foundation and they don't do their races and events so that Komen can squash any other fundraising efforts by individuals. That's not what it's about."

Image source.

Ditch that Pink Ribbon.

And stop donating to the Susan Komen Foundation.

[The US'] most famous breast cancer charity pulled its grants for breast-cancer screenings from Planned Parenthood. Komen claims that their reason is that Planned Parenthood is under investigation from Congress, but as it's well-understood on both the left and the right that the investigation, headed by Rep. Cliff Stearns, is a nuisance investigation that will almost surely turn up nothing, this excuse sounds lame indeed. The likelier explanation is the one offered by Planned Parenthood, that Komen caved under relentless pressure from anti-choice activists who oppose Planned Parenthood for offering abortions as well as low-cost contraception and STD prevention and treatment. In addition, Komen has a history of not playing nice with other women's health organizations. Planned Parenthood has created an emergency fund to replace the Komen grants, to keep the breast-cancer screening service from being interrupted.

According to Jezebel, this is the reason this year's grant was cancelled.

[...]with the addition of a vocally anti-abortion ex-politician to the ranks of Susan G Komen For the Cure.

Karen Handel, who was endorsed by Sarah Palin during her unsuccessful bid for governor of Georgia in 2010, has been the Foundation's Senior Vice President for Public Policy since April 2011. During her gubernatorial candidacy, she ran on an anti-choice platform, vowing that if elected, she'd defund Planned Parenthood. Handel wrote on her campaign blog [...] "since I am pro-life, I do not support the mission of Planned Parenthood."

She even promised to eliminate funding for breast and cervical cancer screenings provided by the organization.

The NFB has produced a feature documentary called 'Pink Ribbons, Inc.' that reveals how the reality of women living, surviving or dying of breast cancer has been appropriated by large companies using the marketing appeal of a "dream cause". They profit the most from the "Pink Ribbon" branding.

Instead of demanding better research into the environmental factors that increase the risk of developing breast cancer, women's energies and attention are diverted towards feel-good events.

'Pink Ribbons Inc' will be released across Canada on February 3rd.

WTF will it take?

. . . to get USian women into the streets?

Every day there are stories like this.

The first to defund Planned Parenthood, Indiana passed a law that cuts state and Medicaid funding to the organization’s 28 clinics in the state (only four of which provide abortion services). In effect since May 10, the law not only eliminates the clinics’ $1.3 million a year in Medicaid funds but also strips them of “roughly $150,000 in funding for prevention of sexually transmitted diseases.” While a record number of donations allowed clinics to continue services, that help ran out yesterday. Now, Indiana’s Planned Parenthood clinics are shutting down operations and leaving thousands of Hoosiers without access to health care:

– According to Indiana Planned Parenthood president Betty Cockrum, the clinics will stop treating Medicaid patients today. “Our 9,300 Medicaid patients, including those who had appointments Tuesday, are going to see their care disrupted.”

– Without the STD prevention funding, Planned Parenthood has to lay off two of their three intervention specialists, or “health workers who track down the partners of someone who tests positive for an STD and ensure they are tested and treated.” Planned Parenthood is now left with a single specialist to address STD testing and treatment for the entire state.

– To reduce costs, all 28 clinics will close tomorrow and employees will be sent home without pay. Only one clinic in Indianapolis will stay open Wednesday but will close Thursday.

– Should the law remain in place, Planned Parenthood stated that “it must close eight” of its clinics: “two Indianapolis locations and clinics in Bedford, Hammond, Michigan City, New Albany, Terre Haute and Muncie.” The shuttered clinics would significantly restrict help for the 85,000 Hoosiers the states’ clinics currently serve.

Hoosiers are not the only Americans feeling the full weight of the GOP’s anti-choice attack. Planned Parenthood in Minnesota announced yesterday that it will close six clinics of its 24 clinics because of budget cuts to Title X funding for low-income women and families. None of the six clinics perform abortions, “but provided services ranging from contraception to cervical cancer screenings to testing for sexually-transmitted diseases.”

I am totally baffled.

Oh sure, there are lawsuits, lots of lawsuits, but where is the action? Where is the organizing?

Here's another woman who shares my bafflement.

The war against women conducted by Republicans in Congress gives rise to many questions but the most puzzling are: Where is the outrage? Where are the demonstrations and protests? Where is a March for Women’s Lives? If we could get half of the women to show up for a protest in front of Congress that show up to buy new iPods, iPads, or even tickets for Lady Gaga, we could make a difference. For that matter, why aren’t the famously rebellious Madonna and Lady Gaga out there demanding that abortion be kept legal and safe? Why aren’t the mailboxes of the Members of Congress clogged with letters from women and those who care about them? Why aren’t they emailing, texting, or Tweeting their displeasure? Are they asleep? Unless they act soon, they’re going to wake up one day and find that they have little more freedom than women in other parts of the world who must keep all but their eyes covered. The time for distraction is past. Women must act now to save their hard-won civil liberties.

It's not just civil liberties, important as those are. Women's lives are at stake.

Are USian women in denial or do they really think this can't happen? Again.

Abortionplex: Mega-Meta

The Onion satire on Planned Parenthood's new Abortionplex is developing serious Intertooz 'legs'.

First, bloggers like DJ! picked it up.

Then, things started going meta. A site called Literally Unbelievable was created to collect outraged, humour-impaired Facebook reactions to this and other Onion stories.

Now, it has spawned a Yelp page.

Not being much of a shopper, I hadn't heard of Yelp.

Yelp, Inc. is a company that operates yelp.com, a social networking, user review, and local search web site. Yelp.com has more than 39 million monthly unique visitors as of late 2010.

Talk about black humour.

Here are some samples:

I agree with Waldo W. Without a doubt, I was overwhelmed by the state of the art facility. It's quite awe-inspiring. And while I can appreciate the vision of Cecile Richards, I think she may have missed the mark. Yes, they removed the fetus quickly, yes I recovered by watching Bridesmaids in the cinema, yes I indulged in some post-abortion Dunkin Donuts' Munchkins, but I just felt like a cog in a machine. I miss the authenticity of the old abortion clinics. I know it sounds crazy, but I miss the smell of those sterile waiting rooms. It's sort of a mix of disinfectant, regret and guilt. Now it's too easy or something....I guess I just miss the element of shame and fear. Somehow it made it more exciting.
And those retro waiting room chairs from the 70s! Remember those? So funny to think what those chairs would be worth nowadays. Anyway, all in all it was a great experience, I just suppose I'm just nostalgic.

I thought the Yosemite Sam "You Must Be This Tall to Get an Abortion" sign was hi-larious. It really put my tween at ease.

So excellent! The only way it could be better would be if they offered drive-thru service, but I guess you just can't rush some things. And after we aborted, we adopted the cutest little puppy! We're naming him Fetus.

(The Abortionplex included an adoption centre -- pet adoption.)

And yet, the dunderheadedness continues.

When you’re satirized in The Onion, as Planned Parenthood was yesterday, you’re no longer a sacred cow. That’s very good news for the pro-life movement, since it means that an honest dialogue can begin about whether it is wise or necessary to continue heaping a third of a billion dollars in taxpayer funding on the nation’s biggest purveyor of abortion.

Several commenters try to set this ijit straight. Here's the most succinct one:

This is what we call "missing the point entirely."

What could possibly be next in the life of this story?

Pure Viciousness

In a burst of misplaced optimism, this piece at RH Reality Check is titled Sanity Prevails in Oklahoma.

In a sign that--perhaps, maybe--the extreme right's extremist attacks on the rights and health of women and children may have some limits, the Oklahoma legislature today allowed a bill to die in committee which, if passed, would have denied food vouchers and nutrition services to prenatal and pediatric clients served by Planned Parenthood of Tulsa County.

Huh? Food vouchers and nutrition services? How do they figure?

Read the story. It absolutely nauseating. In their orgy of defunding anything that has to do with abortion and/or Planned Parenthood, Tea Baggers fixed on a program called Women Infants and Children that provides dough for food for at-risk, i.e. poor families. The Baggers then discovered it would have defunded ALL organizations that participate in it.

They wrastled around with language to cut PP out while keeping the rest in.

An editorial in Tulsa World explains (bold mine).

Here's the crux of the matter: In kicking Planned Parenthood out of the WIC program, lawmakers won't be punishing Planned Parenthood. They'll be punishing poor women who chose to have their babies and are trying to take care of them. What kind of sense does that make?

If Planned Parenthood is banned from providing WIC services, then the 9,300 clients of that program currently served by Planned Parenthood will have to try to obtain the nutrition services elsewhere. For a mother of limited means, that could prove an extreme hardship and could mean some will have to drop out of the program.

In Tulsa, Planned Parenthood last year also provided about 5,600 pediatric care appointments and about 3,000 prenatal visits, among other primary health services it provides. Some of those contacts were with the same women and children currently receiving WIC through Planned Parenthood. Why not make their lives a little easier by letting them continue to receive all those services in one place?

Here's why: Because the foes of Planned Parenthood can win political points by saying, "We kicked Planned Parenthood out of WIC." The fact poor mothers and babies would be made to suffer as a result is an inconsequential by-product that doesn't matter to them.

I wouldn't call letting that bill die 'sanity'. I'd call it a step back from gratuitous cruelty.

SHRIEEEEK! Oh. Never mind.

The first tell was the source: the Onion. Next was the dateline: Topeka, Kansas (you remember, same rabidly fetus-fetishist state where Dr. Tiller was assassinated). Next the headline: Planned Parenthood Opens $8 Billion Abortionplex.

Sane and non-humour-impaired people would have twigged by now. Here's the third paragraph quoting PP's prez, Cecile Richards:

"Although we've traditionally dedicated 97 percent of our resources to other important services such as contraception distribution, cancer screening, and STD testing, this new complex allows us to devote our full attention to what has always been our true passion: abortion," said Richards, standing under a banner emblazoned with Planned Parenthood's new slogan, "No Life Is Sacred." "And since Congress voted to retain our federal funding, it's going to be that much easier for us to maximize the number of tiny, beating hearts we stop every day."

Totally typical Onion. Waaaaay over the top. Punching all the ff buttons. 900,000 square feet. 2,000 procedure rooms. Terminating one pregnancy every 3 seconds for a monthly total of 'almost a million'. Shuttle service from area schools.

There's even a floor plan, showing the location of various amenities, including an incinerator 'capable of cremating more than 40 tons of fetuses at a time'.

Given their proclivity to a bit of hyperbole themselves, it was inevitable that the fetus fetishists would fall for it.

Read some of their MASSIVELY OUTRAGED SHRIEEKS here.

^NOT Reopen, Just ^NOT Fund

Well, big mouth fetus fetishist Brad Trost has unleashed a shitstorm.

Lying POS Dimitri Soudas summoned journalists in the middle of the night to dismiss Trost as a mere backbencher without access to government policy.

But as cathie reminds us, he's a backbencher with a source on matters dear to the Canadian Christian Taliban.

The odious lying Oda hustled out a statement.

International Co-operation Minister Bev Oda issued a statement insisting Planned Parenthood would get funding if its application "falls within the government's parameters."

IPPF has been waiting for over a year to find out if its application falls within the parameters.

Let's help Oda out, shall we?

Here is the Muskoka Declaration on Maternal Health. Note point 8 mentions 'voluntary family planning'. But zip zero nada on abortion.

Now have a look at IPPF's website and note second batch of bullet copy, last point.

There. IPPF, you are shit out of luck.

Today, on the campaign trail in Conception, NL, (would/could I make that up?), SHithead is all 'no we will not bring any legislation on abortion, nonononono'.

He dodged a question on private members' bills.

To which kady responded:

If Stephen Harper intended to say that he will whip his caucus and/or cabinet in any future vote, he should say so, explicitly.

But really, all this is beside the point. He doesn't need to legislate. Just ^NOT fund it.

Visit Alison for a view of the current Canadian Fetus Lobby.