Pansynthesis

[In case it needs to be said: I don't agree with every word of everything I link to. --L.]

Action Alert

"I have just received a plea for donations from Heather Corinna of Scarleteen, the feminist sex ed website. Scarleteen is the most popular sexual health website online; it specializes in providing free resources and education to teenagers and young adults of all walks of life. Most Shakers know what a valuable resource this free online service is in a time when sex education in schools is so unreliable and when so many families will not or cannot properly educate their children on sexual health.

"Heather Corinna, much like Melissa, maintains Scarleteen and keeps it an independent media as a full-time job, surviving on donations and some freelance writing. She has recently had healthcare bills that put her in the financial hole, and therefore needs the money to make a living wage, but she also wants to expand the services that Scarleteen provides and that teenagers so desperately need. My favorite of her ideas for 2010 is Find a Doc…"

St-st-stupak!

[TRIGGER WARNING for Echidne's post]

"You can send a coathanger message to all those who voted for the Stupak amendment here. What is truly fascinating, though, is the initial form of the Stupak amendment…

"No real lady would want to block health care reform just for the sake of something as trivial as abortion coverage. Because we NEED health care reform.

"We do, of course. But when are we going to need women's equality?"

Now In The Pulpit: E.J. Dionne

"Do I hear an AMEN? Louder, please! There's nothing to worry about here. All the Stupak amendment does is extend the reach of the Hyde amendment!

"Besides, women don't really use their insurance for abortion coverage, anyway, so who is losing anything at all here? Well, never mind that basic reproductive health visits are not in the basic list which must be covered without extra pay from the patients! That only affects half of Americans, the half which is invisible."

[Emphasis mine. --L.]

Daily Kos: State of the Nation

"This is the most expansive restriction on access to abortion Congress has passed. It goes well beyond Hyde, which has never been codified and which only governs federal, public plans. It's particularly galling that it comes under the umbrella of healthcare 'reform.'

"Remember the promises? Reform was about expanding choices, not allowing government to come between you and your doctor, no one will lose their coverage, and if you like your current plan you get to keep it. Apparently being female is a preexisting condition that exempts us from the promises, too."

No Abortions in the Big Tent

"Yesterday, The Politico reported that the Republican National Committee's employee healthcare plan covers elective abortion and has done so since 1991.

"Today, they report that RNC Chair Michael Steele has announced they're changing the coverage immediately…"

[My face:

O.o

--L.]

Abortion and the health-care battle : The New Yorker

"In the United States, at the time the Constitution was adopted, abortions before 'quickening' were both legal and commonplace, often performed by midwives. In the nineteenth century, under the influence of the ascendant medical profession, which opposed abortion (and wanted to control health care), states began to outlaw the procedure [...]

"Throughout this long legal history, the one constant has been that women have continued to have abortions. The rate has declined slightly in recent years, but, according to the Guttmacher Institute, thirty-five per cent of all women of reproductive age in America today will have had an abortion by the time they are forty-five. It might be assumed that such a common procedure would be included in a nation’s plan to protect the health of its citizens. [...]

"A clear understanding of the structure of the health-care proposals currently under consideration shows why the Stupak amendment is such a threat to abortion rights. At the heart of the proposals is the idea of an exchange, where consumers will be able to select among competing insurance plans. Theoretically, the exchange will increase consumer choice, promote competition, and (somewhat more theoretically) lower costs for everyone. If there is a public option, it will be offered through the exchange. At first, many of the people using the exchange will be those who are unable to pay for health insurance on their own. For them, the government will offer a sliding scale of subsidies. It is largely these subsidies which will increase the availability of insurance; estimates of how many people will gain coverage vary, but it may be close to forty million.

"Restrictions on the use of federal funds for abortion go back to the Hyde amendment, which became law more than thirty years ago; for example, there has long been a ban on abortions under Medicaid or in military hospitals. But the implications of the Stupak amendment are broader, because of the structure of the exchange. To start with, Stupak states that anyone who buys insurance with a government subsidy cannot choose a plan that covers abortion, even if that person receives only a small subsidy, and even if only a tiny portion of the full premium goes for abortion care. And the influence of the amendment reaches beyond the recipients of federal subsidies. Stupak would prohibit the public option from offering any plans that cover abortion. Further, it is expected that each year more Americans will use the exchange, including people who don’t need subsidies, but under the Stupak amendment insurance companies would have no incentive to offer those people coverage for abortion services, since doing so might cost them the business of subsidized customers. Today, most policies cover abortion; in a post-Stupak world, they probably won’t.

"[...] it’s not only with regard to insurance that abortion services are being treated like a second-class form of medicine. There is, for instance, the proliferation of “conscience clauses,” which allow medical professionals to refuse to conduct procedures that they disapprove of. Shortly after Roe, Congress passed the first major conscience clause, which stated that medical professionals and hospitals that receive certain federal funds did not have to provide abortions or sterilizations if they objected on “the basis of religious beliefs or moral convictions.” The Bush Administration sought to dramatically expand the clauses to cover not only doctors and nurses but anyone who works in a hospital, including pharmacists, and to increase the range of practices that might be rejected—a step that could potentially include such services as the dispensing of birth control.

"[...] as Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg observed not long ago, abortion rights “center on a woman’s autonomy to determine her life’s course, and thus to enjoy equal citizenship stature.” Every diminishment of that right diminishes women. With stakes of such magnitude, it is wise to weigh carefully the difference between compromise and surrender."

Such Refreshing Honesty!

"Beinart does sound like a single-issue Democrat. You have to understand that all these policies are ultimately about power: who has it, how it is acquired and how it is protected, and who has power over others. Beinart seems to think that it's sufficient if poor men get more economic power. That they get to keep and grow their power over women, for example, is perfectly AOK with him. Because the latter power is somehow not real, does not affect women's daily lives or their ability to make a living. It's just cultural liberalism, like wearing only black frocks and going to art exhibitions. It's not about the daily life of women everywhere, including poor women, but more like a frill around the neck of your Thanksgiving turkey."

Why Right-Wing Economists Are Hated

Video WH ‘held for review’: Obama official Melody Barnes’ support for marriage equality

"The Obama White House was trapped in yet another public 'gaffe' over its preposterous dealings re: LGBT rights because of Melody Barnes’s statement. Since it couldn’t give a rational explanation for withholding the tape’s release, the anonymous paranoid Obama officials decided they would hold on to it until the news 'dead drop' on Friday, when the MSM goes to sleep for the weekend. Unfortunately, the Internet never sleeps, peeps.

"The Advocate obtained the tape from the college’s communications department and transcribed it, so there wasn’t any question about what Barnes told the students at Boston College. More below the fold."

We call them the Cracker Taliban for a reason

[On the Canton, NC book-burning which took place on Halloween.]

"Right wing Christians try to pretend there’s some kind of yawning gulf between Islam and Christianity, but this sort of thing just goes to show that no matter what the technical religion is, crazy ass fundamentalists are all the same. The Cracker Taliban would happily ban art and music to prove their bona fides. [...]

"This kind of goofiness is why it’s really ill-advised for Democrats to think they can “compromise” with religious fanatics in their own party like Bart Stupak. Giving these people an inch to satisfy their craving for forcing suffering on others—especially on women—really does only encourage them to demand a mile. There is no such thing as a limit. The whole point is to keep pushing it, to prove how tough you are. The fantasy for anti-choice nuts is to get to a point where they can really prove that they are happy to sacrifice not only pleasure, but life itself for their principles. Not their own lives or pleasure, of course. Their pleasure is making others bend to their will, and that’s not ever questioned. Their lives are too precious, of course. But a 9-year-old rape victim who could die if she gives birth is the optimal sacrifice to demonstrate that they are more hardcore than thou in the sadistic Jesus freak shit.

"[...] There is always something else on the horizon that might give someone else pleasure, something that needs to be stomped out."

Recommended Reading for November 13

"Mental Health and Promiscuity:

"'However, even in this environment there is one area that has always troubled me and that revolves around the concept of promiscuity as diagnositic criteria.

"'My first and biggest problem with this is that I have NEVER heard this brought up as a symptom of mental illness when discussing a male. It is always something that is brought up about a female. I can’t help but assume that this is linked to the belief that “excessive” sexual activity is normal for a man and not a symptom of mental illness while no “healthy” woman would engage in or enjoy casual or alternative styles of sex. I also think it is linked to the belief that women are the only ones that have sex with other people due to low self esteem or possibly in a reckless manner because they have some self-destruct tendencies. See, sex is damaging to women, they can’t just enjoy casual encounters or engage in sex purely for self-satisfaction: they must be wounded in some way or they must be wrongly searching for the intimacy they so desire."

Power and Responsibility

"When I mention that Don has a homecare worker, and explain what that job is, I often get this question:

"Why don’t you do all that stuff for him?'

"[...] it implies that, because I’m his spouse, I should be in the caretaker role. I should be making sure all his personal hygiene needs are taken care of. There’s a power imbalance there that makes me uncomfortable. It puts me in role as adult, and Don in role of child, and this is just not acceptable.

"[...] Don’s personal level of comfort should not depend on my energy levels. It shouldn’t depend on my mood. It shouldn’t depend on whether or not I’m angry at him today, or I’m too busy, or if I’m home.

"Right now, it depends on whether the woman who is paid to come to our home and do these things shows up. If she calls in sick, there is someone else who will come in.[...] I know what will happen to Don’s care in those situations. More importantly, Don knows what will happen in those situations. He has personal autonomy.

"Don’s health needs shouldn’t be dependent on me in any way, because that’s not safe for Don."

The Wife As A Deputy

"…all the hidden assumptions about what women are for and about the role of the First Lady. Should she be the Perfect Mum? The Perfect Feminist? The Perfect Representative of her ethnic group, age group, body shape group? Should she be the Earth Goddess of us all? Should she be assertive or retreating? Should she participate in politics or not? If not, what should she do? And why do we have any right to even discuss this?

"Then there's the fact that she is both a public person and one who is not paid for her work. [...]

"' Queen Shibtu's role of "wife-as-deputy" is the highest to which such women can aspire. Their power derives entirely from the male on whom they depend. Their influence and actual role in shaping events are real, as is their power over the men and women of lower rank whom they own or control. But in matters of sexuality, they are utterly subordinate to men. In fact, as we have seen in the cases of several royal wives, their power in economic and political life depends on the adequacy of the sexual services they perform for their men. If they no longer please, as in the case of Kirum or Kunshimatum, they are out of power at the whim of their lord.'"

The Link(s): Fri, Nov 13th, 2pm to Tue, Nov 17th, 2pm by Lee Salazar, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. Terms and conditions beyond the scope of this license may be available at leesalazar.com.