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vcmwOk, I absolutely believe that access to reproductive health services is the main reason that women are in a better financial and social position now than four decades ago. That's why everyone should go fill out one of the many online forms that will let you protest this piece of **** idea that's getting discussed throughout my flist (that Bush conscience and abortion thing): PDF of the text of this proposed change to funding requirements for health care providers
Planned Parenthood has a letter form on their main page. Go write in it here.
My life as I currently live it would be impossible without access to birth control. I couldn't be a married heterosexually active woman and maintain a job and choose not to have children if I didn't have access to birth control.
So legislation that makes it easier for other people to deny me access to birth control is legislation that makes it harder for me to choose a married heterosexually active life that also includes a career but does not include children. It's just that simple.
RANTING - TECHNICAL DETAILS OF THE DOCUMENT ARE LAUGHABLE
My favorite quotes from the .pdf:
#1)
"
We estimate that each of the 503,904 funding recipients will spend 15 minutes reviewing the certification language and reviewing files before signing. According to BLS wage data, the mean hourly wage for a Medical and Health Services Manager is $40.86. We estimate the loaded rate to be $61.29. Thus, the cost associated with the act of certification is $7.7 million (503,904 x .25 x $61.29).
"
Dude. It's a 40 page document. I read 3 pages a minute. Most people do not.
And this presumes that only 1 person per agency will read the rule. And that there will be no discussion.
Then, it goes on to presume that implementation of the paperwork involved will cost $0.2 million. So apparently, all the necessary paperwork will be inserted in all the necessary documents and posted in less than 15 minutes of staff time per agency (lessee, if 15 minutes of staff time per agency makes it 7.7million, how many minutes make it .2 million? My calculator, with some rounding error, suggests they're making the assumption that implementation of the proposed changes will take 3.89 minutes per agency.
Hah.
I can't get an email written in 3.89 minutes at work, and they think every health agency funded by the government can post notices, change employee training manuals, and put out paperwork in under 3.89 minutes a year?
It takes me an hour just to put up publicity for an event.
Right... Sure...
#2)
"
For the purposes of this part:
“Abortion” means any of the various procedures—including the prescription, dispensing, and administration of any drug or the performance of any procedure or any other action—that results in the termination of the life of a human being in utero between conception and natural birth, whether before or after implantation.
“Assist in the Performance,” means to participate in any activity with a logical connection to a procedure, health service or health service program, or research activity, so long as the individual involved is a part of the workforce of a [Department-funded] entity. This includes referral, training, and other arrangements for the procedure, health service, or research activity.
"
Yes, you're reading it right: they've defined "chemical contraception" as "abortion". So, no Plan B drug for rape victims, and I believe I recall correctly that some birth control pills work by making implantation not happen - those would be abortions by this argument.
Then they've defined "assist in the performance" to mean anyone who does anything in the agency, or trains anyone in the agency, or refers anyone to the agency.
Basically, what this would mean is that Planned Parenthood, for instance, couldn't receive funding from any source that touches the government if it wouldn't agree to hire applicants that were anti-birth control, anti-Plan B, and anti-abortion.
And those doctors, working in Planned Parenthood, would have the right to refuse women coming TO Planned Parenthood a) birth control, b) Plan B, c) abortions, d) referrals to the other doctors at Planned Parenthood who were ready and waiting to provide a, b, or c.
RANTING - MORAL INEQUALITIES IN THE DOCUMENTS ASSUMPTIONS ARE UNFAIR AND QUESTIONABLE
Think that wouldn't happen? Hah! There are plenty of highly mobilized conservative evangelical Christians out there who probably have pastors who would tell them where to go, what to say, and when to apply to take those jobs because then they would be doing the holy work of stopping women from not having babies.
How about the other way around? Are hospitals that are funded by conservative Christian groups going to be forced to hire outspoken abortion advocates who will happily provide referrals away from the conservative hospital to the nearest low cost abortion provider (which at this point might be two states away?) Again I say HAH!, don't hold your breath.
The default Christianity of this country means that genuine protest by Pagan or Atheist people is seldom recognized or supported as a moral issue felt as deeply by those individuals as conservative evangelical Christian principles are felt by their holders. (Peoples of the book have a bit easier time, in comparison. Don't believe me? Try to get Rosh Hashanah off work as a religious holiday. If you don't work for a major university or something, that might have been pretty hard, right? Now try to get the Summer Solstice off work as a religious holiday. Both exercises were really really hard, but one was easier than the other, wasn't it? Right, moving on.)
RANTING - SOCIAL and ECONOMIC AGENDAS OF DOCUMENT COMPLETELY IGNORED
Now, as to why I think that contraceptive access is the MAIN reason that women have a better life in the workforce now, and why it is not a symptom, not a side effect, but the main reason:
When my grandmother was a professional nurse in the 1960s, she applied with my grandfather for a housing loan. Grandpa worked in a hardware store, grandma was a professional. The bank loan officer said to grandma, in front of grandpa, in the bank office, "Your income cannot be considered in determining your loan eligibility, because you're a woman and you might get pregnant and quit your job at any time."
This was not an uncommon argument during the 1960s, and the 1960s weren't that long ago.
The end result of taking away contraceptive access for women would be to roll back four decades of progress on women's labor conditions.
In the 1970s newspapers still ran separate employment ads for men and women. The 1970s really weren't that long ago.
A lot of people want to talk about access to birth control as if it were a moral issue separable from its social consequences. It isn't separable. They're a package deal. Access to birth control increases women's control over their economic life, and lack of access to birth control decreases women's control over their economic life.
The moral argument is painful for a lot of people, but the social argument gets lost there. Anyone who believes that "contraceptives are abortion and abortion is killing a person and killing people is wrong" is totally welcome to that belief as far as I'm concerned. They just ought to be made to realize that "lack of access to contraceptives is saying that women should be economically controlled by men unless they give up their sexual identities". We had that system before. It was called a nunnery. If you were a medieval woman, that's where you had to go if you didn't want to have babies. Even Queen Elizabeth had to stay single to keep her job.
Personally, I believe that decisions should be judged in part by their end result if that end result is logically foreseeable at the time the action takes place and the decision makers had time to consider the foreseeable results of their actions.
As far as I'm concerned, foreseeable results of legislation like this include: reducing economic opportunities for women, damaging separation of church and state, prioritizing the values of conservative evangelical religious believers over the rights of women who do not share those values, and devaluing the beliefs of those who support reproductive choice and access for women.
END RANT - NOT THAT I'M IN ANY WAY SURPRISED
The whole thrust of conservative social forces in our society over the last few decades has been a fervent desire to stop the changes that peaked in the 1960s and 1970s.
Radicals are going to insist that black people deserve access to schooling - allow a public school system of de facto segregation to develop, and make sure those mostly black schools don't have funding for toilet paper and books. Dude, we can airlift things into Iraq. If we as a nation truly felt that education for black youth was a priority, ghetto schools would have books.
Radicals are going to insist that women have control over their bodies - agree that they have control, but only if they are also rich enough and connected enough to exercise that control in the face of opposition from "providers" who lecture them on morality. In a nation where there is no universal health care, don't require employers to pay for birth control pills in their health insurance coverage. Change laws about drug access so that cheap birth control is no longer available through college health care. (That happened last year, in case you missed it. It sucked.)
Radicals are going to use coverage of the effects of war on civilians in Vietnam to create mass protest - make sure that future wars are recorded only by sympathetic chosen coverage "embedded" with the troops, who won't go around showing the napalmed children ever again.
Y'know, actually, I don't blame the conservatives at all for their disquiet, their protest, their anger. I imagine that if you were conservative the 1960s and 1970s felt like there was a rug under you and thousands of weird looking people with bad hair and strange too-colorful clothes were yanking on it. I don't feel any anger towards their side: liberals and conservatives are both sophists in public - we use rhetoric to try to sway people. It's a thing.
But I'm clear on the underlying truth: there is a war between the ones who say there is a war and the ones who say there isn't any war. Leonard Cohen nailed it in one.
Peace and reproductive freedom.
Out.
Planned Parenthood has a letter form on their main page. Go write in it here.
My life as I currently live it would be impossible without access to birth control. I couldn't be a married heterosexually active woman and maintain a job and choose not to have children if I didn't have access to birth control.
So legislation that makes it easier for other people to deny me access to birth control is legislation that makes it harder for me to choose a married heterosexually active life that also includes a career but does not include children. It's just that simple.
RANTING - TECHNICAL DETAILS OF THE DOCUMENT ARE LAUGHABLE
My favorite quotes from the .pdf:
#1)
"
We estimate that each of the 503,904 funding recipients will spend 15 minutes reviewing the certification language and reviewing files before signing. According to BLS wage data, the mean hourly wage for a Medical and Health Services Manager is $40.86. We estimate the loaded rate to be $61.29. Thus, the cost associated with the act of certification is $7.7 million (503,904 x .25 x $61.29).
"
Dude. It's a 40 page document. I read 3 pages a minute. Most people do not.
And this presumes that only 1 person per agency will read the rule. And that there will be no discussion.
Then, it goes on to presume that implementation of the paperwork involved will cost $0.2 million. So apparently, all the necessary paperwork will be inserted in all the necessary documents and posted in less than 15 minutes of staff time per agency (lessee, if 15 minutes of staff time per agency makes it 7.7million, how many minutes make it .2 million? My calculator, with some rounding error, suggests they're making the assumption that implementation of the proposed changes will take 3.89 minutes per agency.
Hah.
I can't get an email written in 3.89 minutes at work, and they think every health agency funded by the government can post notices, change employee training manuals, and put out paperwork in under 3.89 minutes a year?
It takes me an hour just to put up publicity for an event.
Right... Sure...
#2)
"
For the purposes of this part:
“Abortion” means any of the various procedures—including the prescription, dispensing, and administration of any drug or the performance of any procedure or any other action—that results in the termination of the life of a human being in utero between conception and natural birth, whether before or after implantation.
“Assist in the Performance,” means to participate in any activity with a logical connection to a procedure, health service or health service program, or research activity, so long as the individual involved is a part of the workforce of a [Department-funded] entity. This includes referral, training, and other arrangements for the procedure, health service, or research activity.
"
Yes, you're reading it right: they've defined "chemical contraception" as "abortion". So, no Plan B drug for rape victims, and I believe I recall correctly that some birth control pills work by making implantation not happen - those would be abortions by this argument.
Then they've defined "assist in the performance" to mean anyone who does anything in the agency, or trains anyone in the agency, or refers anyone to the agency.
Basically, what this would mean is that Planned Parenthood, for instance, couldn't receive funding from any source that touches the government if it wouldn't agree to hire applicants that were anti-birth control, anti-Plan B, and anti-abortion.
And those doctors, working in Planned Parenthood, would have the right to refuse women coming TO Planned Parenthood a) birth control, b) Plan B, c) abortions, d) referrals to the other doctors at Planned Parenthood who were ready and waiting to provide a, b, or c.
RANTING - MORAL INEQUALITIES IN THE DOCUMENTS ASSUMPTIONS ARE UNFAIR AND QUESTIONABLE
Think that wouldn't happen? Hah! There are plenty of highly mobilized conservative evangelical Christians out there who probably have pastors who would tell them where to go, what to say, and when to apply to take those jobs because then they would be doing the holy work of stopping women from not having babies.
How about the other way around? Are hospitals that are funded by conservative Christian groups going to be forced to hire outspoken abortion advocates who will happily provide referrals away from the conservative hospital to the nearest low cost abortion provider (which at this point might be two states away?) Again I say HAH!, don't hold your breath.
The default Christianity of this country means that genuine protest by Pagan or Atheist people is seldom recognized or supported as a moral issue felt as deeply by those individuals as conservative evangelical Christian principles are felt by their holders. (Peoples of the book have a bit easier time, in comparison. Don't believe me? Try to get Rosh Hashanah off work as a religious holiday. If you don't work for a major university or something, that might have been pretty hard, right? Now try to get the Summer Solstice off work as a religious holiday. Both exercises were really really hard, but one was easier than the other, wasn't it? Right, moving on.)
RANTING - SOCIAL and ECONOMIC AGENDAS OF DOCUMENT COMPLETELY IGNORED
Now, as to why I think that contraceptive access is the MAIN reason that women have a better life in the workforce now, and why it is not a symptom, not a side effect, but the main reason:
When my grandmother was a professional nurse in the 1960s, she applied with my grandfather for a housing loan. Grandpa worked in a hardware store, grandma was a professional. The bank loan officer said to grandma, in front of grandpa, in the bank office, "Your income cannot be considered in determining your loan eligibility, because you're a woman and you might get pregnant and quit your job at any time."
This was not an uncommon argument during the 1960s, and the 1960s weren't that long ago.
The end result of taking away contraceptive access for women would be to roll back four decades of progress on women's labor conditions.
In the 1970s newspapers still ran separate employment ads for men and women. The 1970s really weren't that long ago.
A lot of people want to talk about access to birth control as if it were a moral issue separable from its social consequences. It isn't separable. They're a package deal. Access to birth control increases women's control over their economic life, and lack of access to birth control decreases women's control over their economic life.
The moral argument is painful for a lot of people, but the social argument gets lost there. Anyone who believes that "contraceptives are abortion and abortion is killing a person and killing people is wrong" is totally welcome to that belief as far as I'm concerned. They just ought to be made to realize that "lack of access to contraceptives is saying that women should be economically controlled by men unless they give up their sexual identities". We had that system before. It was called a nunnery. If you were a medieval woman, that's where you had to go if you didn't want to have babies. Even Queen Elizabeth had to stay single to keep her job.
Personally, I believe that decisions should be judged in part by their end result if that end result is logically foreseeable at the time the action takes place and the decision makers had time to consider the foreseeable results of their actions.
As far as I'm concerned, foreseeable results of legislation like this include: reducing economic opportunities for women, damaging separation of church and state, prioritizing the values of conservative evangelical religious believers over the rights of women who do not share those values, and devaluing the beliefs of those who support reproductive choice and access for women.
END RANT - NOT THAT I'M IN ANY WAY SURPRISED
The whole thrust of conservative social forces in our society over the last few decades has been a fervent desire to stop the changes that peaked in the 1960s and 1970s.
Radicals are going to insist that black people deserve access to schooling - allow a public school system of de facto segregation to develop, and make sure those mostly black schools don't have funding for toilet paper and books. Dude, we can airlift things into Iraq. If we as a nation truly felt that education for black youth was a priority, ghetto schools would have books.
Radicals are going to insist that women have control over their bodies - agree that they have control, but only if they are also rich enough and connected enough to exercise that control in the face of opposition from "providers" who lecture them on morality. In a nation where there is no universal health care, don't require employers to pay for birth control pills in their health insurance coverage. Change laws about drug access so that cheap birth control is no longer available through college health care. (That happened last year, in case you missed it. It sucked.)
Radicals are going to use coverage of the effects of war on civilians in Vietnam to create mass protest - make sure that future wars are recorded only by sympathetic chosen coverage "embedded" with the troops, who won't go around showing the napalmed children ever again.
Y'know, actually, I don't blame the conservatives at all for their disquiet, their protest, their anger. I imagine that if you were conservative the 1960s and 1970s felt like there was a rug under you and thousands of weird looking people with bad hair and strange too-colorful clothes were yanking on it. I don't feel any anger towards their side: liberals and conservatives are both sophists in public - we use rhetoric to try to sway people. It's a thing.
But I'm clear on the underlying truth: there is a war between the ones who say there is a war and the ones who say there isn't any war. Leonard Cohen nailed it in one.
Peace and reproductive freedom.
Out.
