Comments on: Anti-choicers still want to ban your contraception

by: (: Tom :)

Wed, 13 Feb 2008 21:56:33 +0000

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!”

by: Jesurgislac

Wed, 13 Feb 2008 03:53:28 +0000

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.

by: mpowell

Tue, 12 Feb 2008 18:07:17 +0000

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.

by: preying mantis

Tue, 12 Feb 2008 16:02:44 +0000

“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.

by: annejumps

Tue, 12 Feb 2008 15:12:11 +0000

Then there's current pro-life heaven El Salvador, and Ceausescu's Romania, where women were required to have four children (later five).

by: syfr

Tue, 12 Feb 2008 14:01:56 +0000

mantis, if I recall what I once read somewhere, (great sourcing, isn’t it?) managers in the factory track their worker’s cycles.

by: Kristen from MA, Mistress of Mushrooms

Tue, 12 Feb 2008 13:57:38 +0000

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.

by: Dorothy

Tue, 12 Feb 2008 13:11:58 +0000

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.”

by: Mezosub

Tue, 12 Feb 2008 12:44:11 +0000

What preying mantis said. That sounds like an urban myth to me.

by: runningfortheborder

Tue, 12 Feb 2008 12:43:20 +0000

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