Still legal in South Dakota, much to anti-choice chagrin.
In this week’s podcast, I cover the way that the legislators in South Dakota have been avoiding the discussion of a birth control protection act that would protect the right of the citizens of South Dakota to access and use contraception. Pushing this act is a brilliant move on the part of reproductive rights activists, because it puts anti-choice legislators (the same ones who tried to ban abortion in that state) in a bad situation. You see, they want to ban contraception eventually, which is something you can figure out by reading enough anti-choice literature or Cristina Page’s book How The Pro-choice Movement Saved America, but since that’s not exactly a popular stance, they try to hide those cards until such time as they can shove through contraception bans a bit more easily. (No telling when they expect not to meet massive resistance on that.)
If I may digress for a moment, I’d like to share what might be my all-time favorite anti-choicer whine. It pops up in comments here and at RH Reality Check all the time. It’s always a variation of: “Why do you use the term ‘anti-choice’? They want to be called ‘pro-life’! It’s only civil to act like you think they’re just in this because they want to save lives! Whine, whine, concern troll, whine.” It’s a variation on the standard right wing concern troll routine, which is to essentially claim that it’s uncivil to tell the truth, and that to maintain civility, we have to play along with their favorite lies that they use to hoodwink the public. It’s uncivil to point out that Bible-thumpers care more about control than about any actual teachings of Christ and that their leaders don’t even believe their own bullshit. It’s uncivil to point out that right wingers who supported the war are a bunch of bloodthirsty racists who didn’t actually mind being lied to about WMDs if that’s what it took to get us into the war. And it’s uncivil to point out that the anti-choicers’ behavior and beliefs don’t tailor at all to the “we just love babies!” P.R. strategy, and in fact indicate that they’re a bunch of misogynist nuts who have made it their lives’ work to make women’s lives as unmanageable as possible. Reality has a liberal bias, and it’s also very uncivil.
Which is all to set you up for a very uncivil statement: The misogynist choads of the South Dakota legislature sucked it up and tacitly admitted that they’re out to ban contraception. When faced with a bill with such alarming language as this, they were forced to vote it down:
It is the public policy of this state that the interest in freedom from unreasonable government intrusions into the private lives of citizens, and specifically the right of consenting individuals to obtain and use safe and effective methods of contraception without interference by governmental entities …
All the bill says is that the government can’t pass laws telling you not to take the pill or use a condom. It’s really only something you could oppose if you wanted to reserve the right to start banning contraception. Which is, of course, exactly why the legislators refused to do it. What I don’t get is how they think they’re ever going to be able to get to the point where they can muster the political will to ban contraception.
Well, actually, I know how they think it’s going to work. First of all, there’s the frog in hot water incremental strategy to get to the point where contraception is banned. From what I can tell, the plan is to start with an abortion ban, which has to be approved in the Supreme Court as a “protecting women for their own good” sort of thing. Unfortunately, the groundwork has been laid for that. Justice Kennedy’s decision in Carhart v Gonzalez argued precisely that late term abortion, at least, could be banned to protect women from our own inability to think for ourselves and make our own decisions. If abortion is successfully banned, then the plan is to ban hormonal birth control, using some pseudo-scientific garbage about how it works by sloughing off fertilized eggs. It actually works by preventing ovulation, but regardless of the surface story, the underlying link between hormonal contraception and abortion is that it’s a female-controlled method that can effectively cut men out of the decision-making process altogether. But don’t worry—men get their share of abuse in the anti-choice pantheon, because while it’s assumed women are stupid, it’s assumed that men are wicked and have to be controlled by the patriarchy to keep them on the straight and narrow.
Which is where I think the strategy to ban non-hormonal contraception will have to go. On the highly unlikely chance that the plan I’ve mapped out above works, the next step is to attack condoms and other methods that require more male cooperation. At what point, the protect-women argument kicks into high gear, because they have no more “save babies” bullshit to hide behind. Anti-choicers tend to agree amongst themselves that birth control hurts women because it allows men to use us for sex—of course, if you like sex yourself, you’re perverted from your true womanly calling and need to be set straight. The argument for banning condoms will have to be that it’s the only way to protect soft-headed women from men’s lechery.
The way they convince themselves that this loony plan could work is by telling themselves over and over that people who view women as capable beings and sex as a potentially positive thing in and of itself are some kind of crazy group of radicals that can easily be defeated as soon as we lose our grip on the courts. (Didn’t you know that the justices of the Supreme Court are all free love orgy enthusiasts?) For example, check out this quote from an anti-choice activist who is applauding the legislature for keeping the pathway to a ban on contraception open:
“We want to thank the senators who voted no on SB 164, in spite of being bullied to disregard South Dakota values and accept an extreme worldview,” Martinez said.
Doesn’t get clearer than that. She believes that hostility to sex and contraception is a majority value that’s under assault by a perverse feminist sex-crazed minority. As Jill notes, the fact that 98% of women use contraception at some point in their lives is basically ignored lest the cognitive dissonance cause major brain damage.
The unlikelihood of this crazy plan coming to full fruition shouldn’t make anyone too complacent, of course. The incremental strategy means that they will be able to find success chipping away at the rights of those who don’t have the power and privilege to fight back. Basically, they pick on the most vulnerable members of our society in this quest—young people, the poor, women of color all are the recipients of an assault on basic values so that they can get closer and closer to the Holy Grail of mandatory childbirth for all, including and especially the middle class white women whose enormous gains in the past few decades are the major source of anxiety for the anti-choice movement.
45 Responses to “Anti-choicers still want to ban your contraception”
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This
is brilliant. I’ve never seen it put so perfectly. I hope you don’t mind if I spam my right-wing relatives with this.The civility scolding only goes one way. I get reminded all the time that I need to acknowledge the good faith of the other side. The sainted leftist Cesar Chavez opposed abortion, dontcha know. Has anyone made the same noises to the anti-choicer folks? Nah, they can’t be expected to moderate their language, being so PASSIONATE and all about the baybeez. We have no passions; we’re just mouthing cold abstract slogans like Choice.
I prefer “forced-birthers” myself. Really brings the agenda front and center.
Me too, Mnenosyne. I call them “forced pregnancy police”. Makes me real popular here in kentucky.
True, but I like “anti-choice” because it also addresses the fact that the right is also wary of the choice to have children, too, if you’re not approved (read: poor or a woman of color).
Amanda - What? You think the rightwing Pharisees don’t want to rescue all the brown baybeez? Ah’m shocked…shocked!
Since all forms of hormonal birth control, as well as IUD’s, require a doctor’s prescription, that’s a natural choke point.
All they have to do is add the barrier methods to the prescription-required list, and they’re already under stricter control.
Pass laws requiring government be copied on all BC prescriptions, gradually add more and more restrictions, and the whole thing slowly closes up.
One small step for
coldly calculatingmenand women, one giant leap toward Gileadand a giant leap backward for civilization.And as usual, nobody misses it until it’s gone…
I refer to myself as being pro-abortion rights, and I refer to the opposition as being anti-abortion. I know this doesn’t pack quite as much punch as “anti-choice,” but that’s because I only want the term to accurately describe the respective positions, which the above do quite nicely. “Anti-choice” is nearly as ridiculous as “anti-life” in what it implies broadly–neither makes sense unless it’s applied to the specific issue of abortion. Why not just include the word “abortion” in the terms themselves? It’s much more descriptive and much less obscuring.
“She believes that hostility to sex and contraception is a majority value that’s under assault by a perverse feminist sex-crazed minority.”
Well, shee-it, people like this are the reason that abortion is still legal. Yeah, it’s a cheap joke. I couldn’t resist ; )
I wonder how they’d enforce a ban on the rhythm method (not that it’s all that effective)? Would they start keeping track of women’s cycles, and then have fuck police show up on the appointed day to make sure all married couples were doing their christian duty?
Another argument they’ve used for banning contraception, with some success, is the your-daughters-are-out-there-screwing tactic. That one is scarily effective across a much larger demographic than the radical fringe, as seen with Plan B.
“Would they start keeping track of women’s cycles, and then have fuck police show up on the appointed day to make sure all married couples were doing their christian duty?”
…and make sure the non-christians are not…
The power to name is the power to define. And we need to control the definitions in order to control the debate.
N, please read the post. “Anti-abortion” is inaccurate, because it wrongly implies that they’d support contraception. In sheer pragmatic terms, anti-choicers are pro-abortion, because they wish to ban contraception, and banning contraception would raise the abortion rate.
Isn’t it obvious how they plan to try this? Embryonic stem cell research. If they can convince the public that we shouldn’t be doing research on embryos because they’re human, why they’re much of the way to their goal.
You can tell that this is a big deal, because they are even trying a scientific argument. They’re not very good at it at it. I like this bit:
‘“To be a complete human organism,” they write, “an entity must possess a developmental program (including both its DNA and epigenetic factors) oriented toward developing a brain and central nervous system.” The program begins at conception; therefore, so does personhood.
…
George and Tollefsen reason that the embryo is fully human and its life therefore inviolable, because its program is self-contained. “Nothing extrinsic to the developing organism itself acts on it to produce a new character or new direction of growth,” they write. The embryo has all the “structures necessary for providing the new individual with a suitable environment and adequate nutrition.” It can “get itself to the uterus,” “burrow” into the uterine wall and begin “taking in nourishment” from “a congenial environment.”.
I notice this goes with your argument that women are seen just as a womb, why these people are arguing that women don’t even really help the embryo. Saletan notes how bad their science is, but I still see this as the main point of attack (after all, the science is just a way to disguise religion, much the way ‘intelligent design’ does).
Except that most of the same people who are “pro-life” also oppose things like giving condoms to people in areas where AIDS is epidemic. I can’t quite figure out how ensuring the death of thousands counts as “pro-life.”
“The power to name is the power to define. And we need to control the definitions in order to control the debate.”
Very true.
But the power to compel (certain) people to continually act directly against their own interests, actively discard all reason, all logic, all science, and not too infrequently their own lives, all in the name of blind obedience to somebody’s mythical being - THAT’S power…
In sheer pragmatic terms, anti-choicers are pro-abortion, because they wish to ban contraception, and banning contraception would raise the abortion rate.
I think the way the see it, they want young women that have sex to be punished.
I wonder what anti-condom propaganda would sound like! Even in my silly no-sex-omg-taboo country we sell condoms, so if the anti-choicers started to go for the condoms, what would they say?? “Condoms will make your penii fall off”?
“Definitions belong to the definers, not the defined,” sez Toni Morrison, writing about the necessity of infanticide during chattel slavery.
I think it’s essential to the contraception/abortion debate that the fundies who want to control your dirty thoughts acts have basic property interests in the lives of the working class. They want to be able to pass on their wealth, and they want you to be able to pass on your job. But they want you to want that, too, so that you don’t do a crazy thing like deciding you don’t want kids or don’t want to make political decisions for “our children.” Funny how that doesn’t translate to climate change, because i suppose it will be our children’s job to provide ballast for the ark.
What serena kitt said. Only there’s no ark, and no Jesus coming to save you for the Rapture. Check out Kelpie Wilson’s Abortion And The Earth sometime. Abortion only became a crime (punished by a stake through the heart) when kids became man’s property. And why did he need so many kids? To fight wars and conquer more land. The problem is, the earth is running out of land and the next war will probably finish us.
Mnemosyne:
They want to save both lives and souls. Keeping sex safe is enabling people to keep sinning, condemning them to hell. It’s the same philosophy that allowed Mother Teresa to withhold medical care to poor people because the most important thing she could do for them was to save their souls, and having more nuns in more places would better serve that goal.
I don’t know if they sincerely believe that people can just give up sexin’ if they’re afraid enough, or if they think that those who don’t stop deserve whatever God hands out.
But they’re *not* saving lives by banning condoms in areas where AIDS is epidemic. In fact, they’re doing quite the opposite.I’m really shocked to hear that about Mother Teresa. IIRC, Jesus never made anyone choose between physical and spiritual healing–he always did both.
I am totally onboard for starting a smuggling operation in condoms, diaphragms, sponges and pills for S. Dakota. After all, it’s not far from Canada, a natural supply point, no?
BC for SD!
Personally I think it’s related to the large number of kids who graduate and leave SD as soon as they can for better lives. The population’s dropping and so is the tax base. More knocked-up teens forced to stay in dead-end lives in dead-end towns will, in the aging addled minds of the state legislature, put off that inevitability.
I am totally onboard for starting a smuggling operation in condoms, diaphragms, sponges and pills for S. Dakota. After all, it’s not far from Canada, a natural supply point, no?
BC for SD!
Personally I think it’s related to the large number of kids who graduate and leave SD as soon as they can for better lives. The population’s dropping and so is the tax base. More knocked-up teens forced to stay in dead-end lives in dead-end towns will, in the aging addled minds of the state legislature, put off that inevitability.
The civility scolding only goes one way. I get reminded all the time that I need to acknowledge the good faith of the other side.
In my large, rural, repub clan…I get a variation of this one too.
The great thing about hitting young Grandma status in our traditional family is that one no longer has to make nice…peers and elders can no longer pull rank with any success..
So I can respond to the civility scolding by pointing out that I’m not the one violating all standards of civility by inserting myself and my values into the reproductive lives of others…or words to that effect,
Works everytime.
Since when couldn’t they do that anyway? I mean, sure, there’s the likelihood that a guy’s chosen fucktoy could get pregnant and therefore swell up all unsexylike for several months and then have yucky excess weight afterwards, thus necessitating the acquisition of a new fucktoy, but really it’s not the men that contraception protects from significant consequences.
Do the anti’s ever think ANYTHING through coherently, or do they just depend on the fingers-in-ears thing as a blanket defense tactic?
Well, SD is pretty rural, so I think one could play on the spirit of self-reliance, NRA membership, etc.
So complete the following slogan:
“You can have my condoms, when ….”
Bumper stickers, here we come!
Amanda - you post such pretty pictures
Oh but they do use that “men will use you instead of respect you” in the Catholic arguments against contraception too, regardless of logic. I kept asking them how using you as a baby machine was more respectful, but they would not (could not) answer.
Nothip, If a man ever said that to me, I’d tell him to shut up and take off his pants already, I’m not interested in what he “thinks” about me.
Just to see how they’d react to that.
Would they start keeping track of women’s cycles
Which is exactly what they do in China.
“Which is exactly what they do in China.”
Why? That seems logistically and ideologically implausible, given China’s huge population and at least somewhat enforced one-child policy.
@ Snarki:
“You can have my condoms, when you pry them off my cold dead dick.”
@ Incertus Brian, Nacho Daddy:
*knock* *knock* *knock*
“Ma’am, I’m Detective Coitus with the Fuck Police. We’ve had a report of ovulation on the premises.”
@ Snarki:
“You can have my condoms, when you pry them off my cold dead dick.”
@ Incertus Brian, Nacho Daddy:
*knock* *knock* *knock*
“Ma’am, I’m Detective Coitus with the Fuck Police. We’ve had a report of ovulation on the premises.”
It never stops with these yahoos!!! Can you imagine McCain trying to ban contraception?
The thought of McCain at the helm give me goosebumps… I saw a trailer for a new independent movie that’s coming to DVD where a guy moves to Canada in response to Kerry’s defeat in ‘04. Any takers if the GOP takes capital hill again?
For more who knows, maybe the movie will inspire a whole new breed of border jumpers if the country goes red again…
You can check out the trailer at http://www.bluestatemovie.com
What preying mantis said. That sounds like an urban myth to me.
In the argument over terms (anti-choice, anti-abortion, forced-birthers, forced pregnancy), I think Incerto came up with the winner:
Fuck police.
(Or “sex police” if you’re in a situation where “fuck” is not acceptable.) That’s really the point, isn’t it? They want to control who has sex with whom, how they have it, and how often.
Think of the framing possibilities:
We could argue for special police sex patrols and neighborhood watches.
We could designate our schools and parks as “Gun-free, Drug-free, Fuck-free” locations.
We could create a class of fuckanistas to enforce this season’s fuck fashions. (”Oh, doggie style is SOOOOOO last year!”)
We could create a new reality show called “What Not to Fuck”.
We could set up a series of fuck licenses, so you can be licensed as an private fucker, a commercial fucker, or a group certified fucker.
We could give a new meaning to the ad campaign “Take a bite out of crime.”
no, not exactly but something similar. (a woman that I work with just did a research paper on the one child policy, and some of the examples she wrote about were chilling.) one example: in the many of the large factories, women must be routinely x-rayed to confirm that their IUDs are in place.
mantis, if I recall what I once read somewhere, (great sourcing, isn’t it?) managers in the factory track their worker’s cycles.
Then there’s current pro-life heaven El Salvador, and Ceausescu’s Romania, where women were required to have four children (later five).
“in the many of the large factories, women must be routinely x-rayed to confirm that their IUDs are in place.”
That seems a lot more practical than either trying to prevent pregnancy by tracking cycles or tracking cycles in order to coerce an abortion as soon as possible.
I don’t think that it would be too hard for the legislature in South Dakota to make access to contraception more difficult to come by. Amanda touches on some category contraception methods that they could go after, but, remember, they don’t have to ban something outright. They can just make it harder to get or easier to prevent access to. If you can pass laws limiting the distribution of condoms in schools, requiring parental consent for hormonal contraception or removing contraception costs from various health care options that states governs, you can go pretty far without the average person, who would not support a contraception ban outright, from realizing what is effectively being done. Furthermore, you get most of what you want, which is control over who gets to use contraception.
That’s the whole reason why using the courts to protect rights can be so much more effective. It can be a lot easier to rely on a reaonably intelligent judge to say: no, this law violates a protected right, than to rely on legislatures who are vulnerable to demagoguery.
More seriously, I doubt there would be any efforts made against the rhythm method or condoms, because the issue for pro-lifers is that women mustn’t be allowed to decide when/how many children to have. IUDs and the pill are objectionable to pro-lifers because a woman can have an IUD in, or take the pill, and no man she’s having sex with need ever know. The diaphragm is less objectionable because the man she’s having sex with is likely to know about it - and after all, if he decides she should be pregnant, he can always sabotage it. Condoms are more or less acceptable so long as only men decide when they’re used. The rhythm method is perfectly acceptable, because it puts the man in full control - the woman can tell him she doesn’t want to have intercourse because she doesn’t want co conceive, but pro-lifers are in general not supporters of legislation protecting women against rape by husbands or boyfriends.
Why does a Monty Python skit keep going through my mind?
“Constable Diaphragm, Detective Coitus reports an ongoing ovulation on Ipswich Road.”
“Good Lord, Lieutenant Condom! Get the Sperm Squad on it right away!”