Utah Lawmaker: I Don't Mind "the Gays," but "I Don’t Want ‘Em Stuffing it Down My Throat all the Time"
Posted by Zaid Jilani, Think Progress on November 20, 2009 at 2:32 PM.

Earlier this month, the Church of Latter Day Saints made headlines when it threw its support behind a measure in Salt Lake City that barred “landlords and employers from discriminating based on sexuality,” making it the first city in Utah to adopt the gay rights measure. Now, the Mormon Church is backing a similar statewide bill, enlisting the help of a variety of lawmakers to help get it passed. One such lawmaker is Sen. Chris Buttars (R), who, despite his adamant support for an earlier proposition that banned same-sex marriage, does believe that sexual orientation deserves protection from employer and landlord abuse. However, while explaining his opposition to allowing same-sex couples to adopt children, he told the press that while he doesn’t “mind” gays, he doesn’t want them “stuffing it down [his] throat all the time“:

BUTTARS: I meet with the gays here and there. They were in my house two weeks ago. I don’t mind gays. But I don’t want ‘em stuffing it down my throat all the time. Certainly not in my kid’s face.

Watch it:

In the past, Buttars has said that gay men and women are “the greatest threat to America going down.” “I believe they will destroy the foundation of the American society,” he said in February. “In my mind, it’s the beginning of the end. … Sodom and Gomorrah was localized. This is worldwide.” Last year, the NAACP called for his resignation because of his comments about a controversial bill: “This baby is black, I’ll tell you,” said Buttars. “This is a dark and ugly thing.”

Hmmm ... Why Do So Many Wingnuts Have Such an Obsessive Fear of Being Raped?
Posted by Staff, Media Matters for America on November 20, 2009 at 10:45 AM.

Conservative commentators such as Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Michael Savage frequently employ rape metaphors when discussing progressives or progressive policies. For example, Beck said that New Yorkers are "being raped by [their] government," while Limbaugh, during a discussion of health care, told his listeners: "Get ready to get gang-raped again."

Video to your right; much more after the jump ...

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No Stupak Language in Senate Bill; Boxer "Couldn't Be Happier," Hatch Promises "Holy War"
Posted by Adele Stan, AlterNet on November 19, 2009 at 6:46 AM.

At Majority Leader Harry Reid's announcement yesterday about the health-care bill he seeks to introduce on the Senate floor, the elephant in the room was women's reproductive rights, which were not addressed from the podium.

But ever since the House passed its health-care bill with the egregious Stupak amendment attached -- which bars virtually all abortion coverage from being offered in the exchanges through which most individual policies will be purchased -- battles over reproductive rights have taken center stage as the Senate hammered out its version of the legislation, titled the the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. 

The Washington Post reports that the bill does not go the Stupak route, and instead establishes a "firewall" between federally-funded subsidies for insurance premiums and private funds that could be used to pay for plans that contain abortion coverage. ""I couldn't be happier," Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., told the Post. "For those who want to keep abortion out of this bill, Senator Reid did it the right way." Boxer is regarded as the Senate's foremost pro-choice advocate.

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News Flash: Christians Still Not Victimized by Hate Crimes Legislation
Posted by Steven D., Booman Tribune on November 19, 2009 at 6:38 AM.

There is a group which has seen a 25% rise in hate crimes against them in Florida, 17% which involve violent physical assaults. This might surprise some of my counterparts on the Right, but the group which is incurring these vicious attacks is not the one they would suspect.

That's right, violent hate crimes against white Christians are not increasing despite the election of that Kenyan Born Muslim loving Barack Husein Obama. I know it's hard to believe considering all the angst expressed on right wing talk shows about how Christians are under attack and are being victimized and terrorized by Obama, Atheists, Secularists, Democrats and Gays, but its true, nonetheless.

Let me ask all those concerned Republicans and Conservative Christians who are so afraid/whiny/have their undies in a twist over their alleged claim that that the recent hate crimes legislation protecting gays was directed against them (despite the fact that all people of religious faith have been a protected class under hate crime legislation since the first such laws were written years ago.

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Stupak Amendment Could End Abortion Coverage -- For Everyone
Posted by Daniela Perdomo, AlterNet on November 18, 2009 at 12:00 AM.

A little over a week ago, Democrats bent over backwards to appease conservatives in the House by adding the Stupak-Pitt amendment to the health care bill. The amendment imperils access to abortion -- a reproductive freedom affirmed by the Supreme Court of the United States in 1973 -- by making it illegal for women to use government insurance plans to cover costs associated with an abortion. 

And there is more bad news for women: a George Washington University study released this week indicates that the Stupak amendment could have serious implications for industry-wide coverage of medically-indicated abortions.

But if the GWU study is correct, the Stupak amendment would not simply affect women under the public insurance option -- it would affect women covered by private insurance plans, too:

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'Hit the Bitch': Domestic Violence PSA Goes Very, Very Wrong
Posted by Tana Ganeva, AlterNet on November 17, 2009 at 1:15 PM.

A Danish PSA has managed to trivialize domestic violence to a degree unrivaled by our fashion industry, mainstream media and most irritating comedians (and all those people try really hard). HitTheBitch.com gives you a big, meaty hand with which to slap around a scantily dressed model who jabbers at you accusingly in Danish while sad rap music plays in the background. 

With every slap, the model’s face becomes more bruised, and a graphic at the top of the screen marks your progress form Pussy to Gangsta. I’m a pretty big pussy, so I only made it one fourth of the way to Gangsta before I got weirded out and had to stop. But apparently, once you've beaten the crap out of the model, the site totally topples all of your assumptions about intimate partner violence -- you know, that it makes you an offensive stereotype of a black man -- and you are told instead that you are "100% Idiot!"

And teen boys everywhere lean back and thoughtfully consider the relationship between aggressive ideals of masculinity and violence against women.

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Priceless: Gay Rights Activists Take Over Christian Right Hate-Fest in DC
Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet on November 17, 2009 at 12:00 PM.

I guess Dana Milbank just worships power and delights in picking on the marginalized. So while I've grown to detest him for years of snarky columns cherry-picking little vignettes to make progressives -- environmentalists, anti-war activists, human rights experts -- look like hopeless geeks who should be ignored when the GOP was in power, now that the Democrats are riding high he seems to be focusing that admittedly sharp pen on tea-baggers and the religious right -- the GOP's immoderate base.

Today he tells an interesting story that could have been titled: Reverend Smith Goes to Washington ...

Conservative Christian ministers from across the land, determined to test the bounds of a new law punishing anti-gay hate crimes, assembled outside the Justice Department on Monday to denounce the sin of homosexuality and see whether they would be charged with lawbreaking.

Needless to say, no arrests were made.

No hands were cuffed. In fact, the few cops in attendance were paying no attention to the speakers, instead talking among themselves and checking their BlackBerrys.

The evangelical activists had been hoping to provoke arrest, because, as organizer Gary Cass of the Christian Anti-Defamation Commission put it, "we'd have standing to challenge the law." But their prayers were not answered. Nobody was arrested, which wasn't surprising: To run afoul of the new law, you need to "plan or prepare for an act of physical violence" or "incite an imminent act of physical violence."

But there was some drama ...

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Video: Health-care Abortion Controversy No Joke
Posted by AlterNet Staff, AlterNet on November 17, 2009 at 8:31 AM.

The Center for Reproductive rights is raising money to run this pro-choice ad, just as the Senate prepares to unveil its health-care reform bill.

Enough Crowing Over Carrie Prejean's Sex Tape "Hypocrisy"
Posted by Melissa McEwan, Shakesville on November 16, 2009 at 1:35 PM.

I don't care how many tapes Carrie Prejan made of herself masturbating. I don't care how many nude or semi-nude photos she shot of herself or let other people shoot of her. I don't care if she had breast augmentation surgery. I don't care what she does with her body or what she does sexually, as long as it's consensual.

And neither should anyone else who rightfully objected to her anti-same-sex marriage sentiments.

Support for same-sex marriage is rooted in a belief that people have the rights to love and fuck and spend time with whoever they want, and to do whatever they want with their own bodies. It reflects the idea that sexuality is a private matter -- not in the sense that it shouldn't be seen in public, but in the sense that any individual person's sexuality doesn't personally affect anyone else who isn't sexually involved themselves with that person.

So what difference does it make, in terms of Prejean's bigotry, that she has a sexual life of her own? None. Because denying fellow citizens equal rights is wrong no matter what.

She was wrong when she said it before anyone knew she had a "sex tape," and she's wrong now. The existence of a "sex tape" doesn't somehow make her more wrong.

I see a lot of people, including self-identified progressives, cheering the "schadenfreude" of Prejean's being revealed as -- what? -- having a sexuality, I guess. But slut-shaming Prejean for expressing her sexuality merely perpetuates a culture in which the objection to same-sex marriage is justified with distaste for the icky, icky gay sex. Entrenching puritanical narratives about "deviant" sexuality (and let's all stop and note the hilarious irony that young women who actually express the sexuality the entire culture admonishes them to express are immediately slut-shamed and accused of aberrant behavior) does not help the cause of gay rights. Or women's rights. Which are both denied on the basis of kyriarchal control of bodies that are Othered.

So if you find yourself tempted to crow over Prejean's "hypocrisy," consider that the tapes were made privately and not intended for public consumption. To make hay out of that, when we argue sexuality is a private matter, is a hypocrisy all its own.

And worse than that: To make an issue out of these tapes, to endorse or encourage their release for any reason, is to perpetuate the rape culture. Despite our collective refusal to regard them thus, celebrity sex tapes released without the participants' consent is sexual assault. Consenting to the sex act, even consenting to its being filmed, is not implicit consent that images of the act be publicly distributed.

Prejean was wrong about same-sex marriage. She's not any more wrong if she's a moral scold with an expressed sexuality of her own. And being a bigot doesn't give other people license to victimize her.

These shouldn't be controversial statements.

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Christian Bootcamp Seeks to Arm Home-Schooled Youths for "Spiritual Warfare"
Posted by Eleanor Bader, RH Reality Check on November 16, 2009 at 8:40 AM.

Rev. Rusty Lee Thomas, Assistant Director of Operation Save America, is worried. According to studies by the Barna Research Group, California pollsters specializing in tracking religious and spiritual attitudes, only nine percent of teenaged Christians believe in moral absolutes. What’s more, Barna reports that the vast majority of kids raised Christian will abandon all or part of their faith by the time they finish high school. "Assembly of God leaders estimate between 65 and 70 percent will depart, while the Southern Baptist Council on Family Life estimates roughly 88 percent will leave," Thomas writes.

To remedy this, Thomas' Elijah Ministries has started the Kingdom Leadership Institute, a weeklong ideological boot camp for home-schooled Christians between the ages of 14 and 21. His recently released book, The Kingdom Leadership Institute Manual, is a roadmap for their training and a fascinating -- if twisted -- look at the concerns of far right evangelicals, complete with a game plan for action.

There's no pussy-footing in Thomas' screed. For him the battle between God and Satan is at hand, pitting True Believers against Sinners. Common ground? Impossible since there are only two sides, one resulting in heavenly salvation and the other ending with the earth’s destruction.

"Life is not a playground," he rails. "It is a war zone -- a clash of ideas, philosophies, values, and worldviews. It demands leaders who do not shrink back in [sic] the day of battle." He calls it "spiritual warfare" and repeatedly summons images straight out of the Middle Ages, with gallant Knights protecting grateful maidens, and courtliness trumping gender equity.

Contemporary equals bad, he rants. "During Colonial times, children would be up at four in the morning to help with chores; spoke only when spoken to by an adult; and by the age of seven or eight, boys had chosen their craft or trade and were ready to become apprentices. What a contrast compared to the unruliness, laziness, and lack of direction that characterizes many in this generation."  One can only wonder about the regimen imposed on the good reverend’s 13 children and two grandchildren.

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The Kingdom Leadership Institute Manual. "It is a war zone."&topic=politics">

Hypocrisy Watch: RNC Insurance Plan Has Covered Abortions for 18 Years
Posted by Steve Benen, Washington Monthly on November 13, 2009 at 5:17 PM.

RNC SUBSIDIZES ABORTIONS FOR 18 YEARS -- AND COUNTING.... The debate over financing of abortions -- the basis for the offensive Stupak amendment -- is all about money being fungible. Amy Sullivan explained the problem nicely recently: "The problem, they say, is that if any insurance plan that covers abortion is allowed to participate in a public exchange, then premiums paid to that plan in the form of taxpayer-funded subsidies help support that abortion coverage even if individual abortion procedures are paid for out of a separate pool of privately-paid premium dollars."

But applying this argument can prove problematic. Focus on the Family, for example, one of the nation's largest religious right organizations and a fierce opponent of abortion rights, has health insurance for its employees through a company that covers "abortion services." The far-right outfit, by its own standards, indirectly subsidizes abortions.

Apparently, the Republican National Committee has the same problem. Politico reported yesterday afternoon that the RNC -- whose platform calls abortion "a fundamental assault on innocent human life" -- gets insurance through Cigna with a plan that covers elective abortion.

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Politico Trivializes Rape by Gov Contractors, Spins Franken Amendment as Partisan Attack (Obsenity-Laden Rant Alert)
Posted by Thers, Whiskey Fire on November 13, 2009 at 2:53 PM.

Here is why I dislike the American Political Insider Press, and by "dislike," I mean, "want to toss into a vat of shark-infested sulfuric acid." It is because of this class of thing from The Politico.

When Al Franken ran for the Senate last year, the former “Saturday Night Live” star had to reassure skeptics that the fierce partisan attacks he lobbed at Republicans as an author and radio host wouldn’t define his style as a legislator. 

But because of one of his first pieces of legislation, Democrats now have their most brazen attack line of the emerging 2010 campaign season: that Republicans are insensitive to rape victims. 

The charge stems from a Franken-sponsored amendment that would prohibit the Department of Defense from contracting with companies that require employees to resolve workplace complaints — including complaints of sexual assault — through private arbitration rather than the courts. 

Only in the god-blighted shitworld of the horrible fuckassed American Political Insider Press is it possible to even fucking think for a motherfucking minute that it's Playing with Partisan Dynamite to argue that the American government should not negotiate expensive contracts with companies that shield rapists. What the fuck? What the motherfucking fuck?

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Cold-Hearted: Conservative Gov Blocks Same-Sex Partners from Making Funeral Arrangements for Loved Ones in RI
Posted by PZ Myers, Pharyngula on November 13, 2009 at 5:11 AM.

Sometimes I find it hard to believe how callous these conservative politicians can be. The governor of Rhode Island has just vetoed a bill that would have allowed a same-sex partner to make funeral arrangements for a dead partner. So imagine this: someone wracked with grief at the loss of someone to whom they had committed a substantial part of their life now gets to also be told that they are locked out of the responsibility of taking care of anything to do with the funeral ceremony. How degrading and insensitive; how vile and intrusive.

Shame on Governor Carcieri. It takes a real man to kick the heart-broken and bereaved at the moment of their deepest hurt, and Carcieri has arranged to do it over and over again for years to come.

Catholic Church Threatens to Stop Taking DC's Money if Officials Don't Bow to its Demands on Same-Sex Marriage
Posted by Melissa McEwan, Shakesville on November 12, 2009 at 5:44 PM.

God is love, bitchez:

The Catholic Archdiocese of Washington said Wednesday that it will be unable to continue the social service programs it runs for the District if the city doesn't change a proposed same-sex marriage law, a threat that could affect tens of thousands of people the church helps with adoption, homelessness and health care. 

Under the bill, headed for a D.C. Council vote next month, religious organizations would not be required to perform or make space available for same-sex weddings. But they would have to obey city laws prohibiting discrimination against gay men and lesbians.

Fearful that they could be forced, among other things, to extend employee benefits to same-sex married couples, church officials said they would have no choice but to abandon their contracts with the city.

"If the city requires this, we can't do it," Susan Gibbs, spokeswoman for the archdiocese, said Wednesday. "The city is saying in order to provide social services, you need to be secular. For us, that's really a problem."

Just so we're all on the same page, the Catholic Church doesn't want to extend partner benefits to same-sex married couples, because they view homosexuality as a sin. The Catholic Church also believes that all of its employees are sinners, by virtue of its doctrine viewing all humans as sinners. But they're not arguing that they shouldn't be compelled to extend benefits to those sinners, nor would they argue that providing healthcare coverage to people whose bad health habits they regard as sinful (gluttony! sloth! lust!) is a tacit endorsement of those sins. It's a special argument reserved especially just for the very special case of gay people and their specialized sin.

Catholic Charities, the church's social services arm, is one of dozens of nonprofit organizations that partner with the District. It serves 68,000 people in the city, including the one-third of Washington's homeless people who go to city-owned shelters managed by the church. City leaders said the church is not the dominant provider of any particular social service, but the church pointed out that it supplements funding for city programs with $10 million from its own coffers.

"All of those services will be adversely impacted if the exemption language remains so narrow," Jane G. Belford, chancellor of the Washington Archdiocese, wrote to the council this week.

Ah, it reminds me of those lovely words spoken by the Savior during his Sermon on the Mount: "And lo I beseech you to fuck over the homeless if the gays get too uppity."

Councilperson David Catania, who sponsored DC's same-sex marriage bill and chairs the Health Committee, sniffed at the church's threat: "They don't represent, in my mind, an indispensable component of our social services infrastructure." Councilperson Mary Cheh was even less generous, saying the church's behavior was "somewhat childish."

Transgender Asylum-Seeker Caught in Immigration Detention Hell
Posted by Staff, RestoreFairness.org on November 12, 2009 at 3:18 PM.

Courage comes in many different forms. For Esmeralda a transgender asylum seeker from Mexico who faced horrific circumstances in immigration detention, it came in the form of seeking justice. Kept in a segregated cell with other transgender detainees, Esmeralda never realized that her experience in detention would match the trauma of discrimination she had faced back home. But her story is also one of hope for change.

Esmeralda: A Transgender Detainee Speaks Out from Breakthrough on Vimeo.

While the Obama administration has pledged to reform the detention system, its promises do not go far enough. Spread over a patchwork of more than 500 county jails, privately run prisons and federal facilities, immigration detention is a $1.8 billion business estimated to hold 442,941 detainees in custody in 2009 alone.

Transferred far away from their homes and families, stories are rife of how detainees are denied visitation, access to lawyers, medical care, and are subject to physical and verbal abuse. Many vulnerable people, including asylum seekers, pregnant women, children, lawful permanent residents and even U.S. citizens are among those detained.

Listen to Esmeralda’s voice of courage and take action now to fix a broken detention system.

Hey, I've Got a "Moral Objection" to Health Insurance Covering Viagra
Posted by Digby, Hullabaloo on November 12, 2009 at 2:00 PM.

I have a moral objection to paying for any kind of erectile dysfunction medicine in the new health reform bill and I think men who want to use it should just pay for it out of pocket. After all, I won't ever need such a pill. And anyway, it's no biggie. Just because most of them can get it under their insurance today doesn't mean they shouldn't have it stripped from their coverage in the future because of my moral objections. (I don't think there's even been a Supreme Court ruling making wood a constitutional right. I might be wrong about that.)

Many of the men who are prescribed this medication are on Medicare, so I think it should be stripped out of that coverage as well.

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So the Stupak Amendment Sucks: Here's What You Can Do About It
Posted by Jill Filipovic, Feministe on November 10, 2009 at 6:00 AM.

Saturday night, by a five-vote margin, the House of Representatives passed health care reform legislation. It's an incredible victory -- Americans desperately need health care reform, and this bill is a step in the right direction. It means that millions of uninsured and under-insured people will be able to go to the doctor when they get sick, and will be able to get treatment when they need it. It means an end to gender-based insurance ratings; it means an end to listing pregnancy, c-section, rape and domestic violence as pre-existing conditions; it means maternity coverage. Those are fantastic victories.

But they came at a price -- and as usual, women paid. As Ann put it, It's pretty fucking cramped underneath this bus, what with 50% of Americans down here. The Stupak amendment to the health care bill, which blocks even private insurance companies from covering abortion services, passed -- with 64 Democrats supporting it. You can read their names here. Thirty-nine Democrats voted against health care reform. The majority of those Democrats also voted for the Stupak amendment.

That's right: There were 21 Democrats who voted to kill the health care bill, but who also voted for an anti-choice amendment to attach to that bill. If any Democrats need to be taken out in the next primary cycle -- besides Stupak -- it's these 21.

I'm happy that a health care bill passed in the house. But checking my email Saturday morning and getting word about the Stupak amendment felt like a gut-punch. Spending the afternoon listening to the floor debates, and then watching the votes tick in, was sickening. I don't envy Nancy Pelosi's position, and I don't actually fault her for putting the amendment up for a vote -- but I do fault the anti-choice Democrats who voted for it. I especially fault Rep. Stupak, who is a Democrat himself. It's one thing to be a pro-life Dem who supports lowering the abortion rate through contraception access and sexual health education (oh, and comprehensive health care reform), but who doesn't need to punish women. It's quite another to sponsor a bill that strips health care from women in the name of “pro-life” politics. Of course, Stupak and his co-sponsor, Joe Pitts, are no strangers to compromising women’s lives in the name of life:

The amendment, named for Representatives Bart Stupak, D-Mich, and Joe Pitts, R-Penn. Stupak is a so-called "Democrat for Life;" Pitts has been a dogged supporter of failed abstinence-only policies, domestically and internationally, and was among those who succeeded in adding language forbidding the provision of contraceptive supplies for HIV-positive women in U.S. global AIDS funding.

Bravo, really guys.

Reproductive health care is health care. And thanks to spineless, misogynist Democrats, women are not going to get the care they need. Beyond that, this is just another example of a party reliant on women to win elections throwing women under the bus as soon as our needs become inconvenient. As Ann says:

[Liberal dudes will] be explaining that it's not a big deal because the Stupak amendment can be stripped out by the conference committee (which I very much hope it will, but am not holding my breath) and because there are potential loopholes (though I have yet to hear a convincing one).

On some level, I don't care about the nitty-gritty details of this amendment. This isn't just about how the money is allocated or what workarounds exist. This has me so incredibly infuriated because it further segregates abortion as something different, off the menu of regular health care. It is a huge backward step in the battle to convey -- not just politically, but to women in their everyday lives -- that reproductive health care is normal and necessary, and must be there if (or, more accurately, when) you need it.

This also sets apart women's rights from the Democratic/progressive/whatever agenda. As something expendable. But fundamental rights for women are not peripheral. They are core. And not just because of so-called "progressive" values. In a political sense, too: Seeing as how the Democratic party relies on women voters to win elections, you would think they would have come around to this no-brainer by now.

Yes, we got hosed.

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Focus on the Family's Insurance Plan Covers Abortion (And Other Ironies of The Latest Assault on Choice)
Posted by Eyal Press, TheNation.com on November 9, 2009 at 5:00 PM.

As is now widely known, added to the health care reform bill just passed by the House of Representatives was a provision barring access to abortion called the Stupak-Pitts Amendment. Passed with the support of sixty-four Democrats, Stupak-Pitts doesn't merely prohibit coverage of abortion in a public option. It also forbids women who receive a federal subsidy from purchasing any health insurance plan that covers the procedure, even if the abortion is paid out of a separate pool of private premium dollars (for all the background and details, see my colleague Emily Douglas' post).

If this highly regressive amendment makes its way into the legislation that Barack Obama eventually signs, millions of less affluent women who obtain access to affordable health insurance will thus join the ranks of low-income women on Medicaid, most of whom live in states that don't cover abortion procedures. The two-tiered system that dictates who in America has "choice" (more privileged women do, less affluent women do not) will be further entrenched.

But if the social consequences of Stupak-Pitts are clear, the logic is not. Supporters of the provision evidently want to assure taxpayers that they will not be forced to subsidize abortion in any way. But if they are serious about this, why haven't they drawn up an amendment abolishing tax breaks for employer-sponsored health insurance? As Jonathan Cohn has pointed out, this is by far the largest subsidy in health care policy today. (It is also a regressive subsidy, but that's another story.) If the employer-sponsored insurance that a worker gets happens to cover abortion – which, in roughly half the cases, it does – than that taxpayer already subsidizes abortion.

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Will the Stupak Amendment Force Women Who've Miscarried to Lose Insurance Coverage?
Posted by Robin Marty, RH Reality Check on November 9, 2009 at 1:00 PM.

This weekend, a group of male pro-life Democrats gambled with women's health, and women lost. By broadly writing in that insurers can chose whether or not to cover "abortion services," pro-life amendments don't just affect their intended victims -- women seeking a way out of an unwanted or medically harmful pregnancy. They also affect another group of victims -- women whose pregnancies have already ended but have not yet miscarried.

I'm one of those women, and this past Halloween I had what the hospital officially termed an "abortion."

Hospitals and doctors in general do not have terminology to classify a difference between the termination of a live pregnancy and one in which the fetus has already died. To them, a D&C is a D&C, regardless of the state of the "conception materials" removed.  Regardless of how many times I made sure to mention to the staff, either for the sake of my sanity or to spare me some sort of imagined shame, that I was ridding myself of my "dead fetus," to them, it was all the same.

I had learned the day before that the baby I thought was nearly 12 weeks old had no heartbeat, and had actually died at 8 weeks. I was given three options: wait for a miscarriage to occur on its own, something I was told my body had no intention of doing anytime soon, take medication that would expel the fetus, passing it in my own home (classified a "chemical abortion") or come in for a D&C to remove the fetal materials. 

As much as I struggled with the sudden realization that the pregnancy was over, I also found myself trying to decide financially what I was willing to do. A chemical abortion would cost $40, but I would be alone, bleeding, and it could still be incomplete and I would require a D&C anyway, since my pregnancy was so advanced. Surgery would be quick, total, and under controlled circumstances, but would likely be our full maxed insurance amount of $1500.  And of course, there was the free option of waiting for my body to finally realize I wasn't pregnant, but after 4 weeks the risk of infection was steadily climbing, increasing my chances of future miscarriage, infertility, or even death. With a toddler at home, and still nursing hopes for extending our family some day, this was not an option.

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Pretentious Scold Bernard-Henri Lévy Decries "Lynching" of Roman Polanski
Posted by , Shakesville on November 9, 2009 at 7:00 AM.

[Trigger warnings apply, especially for the external links.]

I found this article by Bernard-Henri Lévy (the creator of the original "Free Polanski" petition) on a French site the other day, and I wanted to translate some of it for you. Turns out the HuffPo has already taken care of that. It sickens me that the man gets a platform for the bile he is spewing.

In this new pile of utter bullshit, Mr. Lévy once more tries to educate the simple-minded on why arresting Roman Polanski should be a moral no-no. He should know. After all, his own website describes him as "dedicated to all struggles for human dignity."

For those who can bear to do so, let's have a look at some of his arguments. The gist of his text is that the way everyone is behaving in the Polanski affair is just shameful. He keeps repeating this word, over and over again, like he invented the anaphore.

Since we're at this point, since time is passing and everyone seems to find nothing wrong with the situation, since Roman Polanski's supporters are losing faith and, sometimes, are even starting to doubt [yay!], since the pack of gossipers have even succeeded, it seems, in convincing the French minister of culture that he spoke too hastily, and under the influence of emotion, though he only did his duty, I want to say again, once more, why this affair is shameful. [...] It is shameful to see the regulars of the global Café du Commerce [the French equivalent of bar-room politics], whose Pavlovian anti-Americanism never leaves them at a loss for words when lambasting America on any and everything, are suddenly silent, become gentle as lambs and, when it comes to Polanski, just repeat: "Ah, that's America... better not mess with American law... dura lex sed lex (the law is harsh, but it is the law)..."

Those people (who are they, anyway?) couldn't possibly have come to the conclusion that he should be extradited, could they? No, they are suddenly, inexplicably intimidated by America, that's it!

It is shameful to see the intellectuals, whose role should be to calm the frenzy and cool popular anger [elitism anyone?], ratchet up, like Michel Onfray in Libération, the moment when "the worst are full of passionate intensity" (Yeats) and to indulge, in the name of abused childhood, in the most obnoxious amalgams [Onfray had said that if you think a pedophile sex tourist should be punished, you simply cannot say otherwise about Polanski].

Right. Because Maude help us if the intellectuals aren't there to think for the masses. Also: I feel passionately about this issue. Does that make me one of "the worst"? Ouch.

[W]hy don't we hear these intellectuals denounce with equal ardor, the limitless outrage that is the martyrdom of child soldiers in Africa, or child slaves in Asia, or the hundreds of millions of children dead of hunger, according to the estimates of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), for the last...32 years?

It is shameful to see Luc Besson rush to television, cloaked in ingenuous probity, inveigh against Polanski, like in the worst era of the McCarthyist witch hunts, and denounce his friend.

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Anti-Woman Amendment to Health Care Passes House
Posted by Adele Stan on November 7, 2009 at 7:47 PM.

After a spirited debate on the floor of the House of Representatives, the anti-choice amendment to the Democrats' health-care reform bill offered by Representatives Bart Stupak, D-Mich., and Joe Pitts, R-Penn., passed by a vote of 240-194, with one member, Rep. John Shaddegg, R-Ariz., voting "present." Both Stupak and Pitts are members of the secretive Capitol Hill religious group known as The Family.

The House will vote shortly on the Pelosi health-care reform bill, with the amendment attached. House leaders agreed to let Stupak offer the amendment after conservative Democrats balked at voting for a health-care bill that did not pass muster with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, despite the bill's provision barring public funds from being used to pay for abortions. In order to get to the 218 votes required to pass health-care reform, House leaders felt the need to provide cover for Democrats from conservative districts.

 MORE ABOUT THE STUPAK AMENDMENT HERE

House Takes Up-or-Down Vote on Stupak Amendment, Threatening Women's Rights
Posted by RH Reality Check, RH Reality Check on November 7, 2009 at 5:00 PM.

This post is from Jodi Jacobson's blog at RH Reality Check.

House Democratic leaders will allow an up-or-down vote on the Stupak-Pitts amendment, which seeks to block even private insurance plans from funding abortion care.

In other words, this amendment, if passed and included in a final health reform bill, would block you from getting insurance to cover legal procedures in the United States of America, with premiums paid with your personal funds. Planned Parenthood, NARAL Pro-Choice America, the National Women's Law Center and other groups are calling for immediate action against the amendment, and you can click here to find your representative and tell them to vote no on Stupak.

The amendment, named for Representatives Bart Stupak, D-Mich, and Joe Pitts, R-Penn.  Stupak is a so-called "Democrat for Life;" Pitts has been a dogged supporter of failed abstinence-only policies, domestically and internationally, and was among those who succeeded in adding language forbidding the provision of contraceptive supplies for HIV-positive women in US global AIDS funding.

The agreement to vote on the Stupak-Pitts amendment came after 1:00 am this morning when an effort to adopt compromise language crafted by Rep. Brad Ellsworth apparently was rejected by Stupak and his supporters.  We reported on the Ellsworth Amendment here.  Rejection of the Ellsworth Amendment makes clear the agenda of Stupak's amendment is to ban abortion care in private insurance plans, because Ellsworth provided numerous protections against the use of federal funds for abortions other than those for rape, incest, and danger to the life of the mother, for all of which the law now allows federal funding.

The Hill reports that:

Liberals on the committee threatened to vote against the final healthcare bill if it included Stupak's language, warning that it would be a return to the days of back-alley abortions.

"I forsee a return to the dark ages," Alcee Hastings, D-Fla., told The Hill. "I'm 73, I've seen these dark things, they use these coat hangers and die."

"I used to think that life was black or white, but the older I get the most gray it becomes," liberal Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., told the panelists of the House Rules committee as they debated whether to allow the amendment. "I find this amendment very, very uncomfortable."

Having successfully made birth control "too controversial for health reform," Stupak, working with other "Dems for Life," the now unabashedly ultra-right Republican party and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops threatened to block passage of the health reform bill unless he got his way on the vote. His efforts are backed up by a massive organizing effort undertaken by the Catholic Bishops to mobilize ultra-conservative Catholics throughout the country. More than 85 percent of Catholics in the United States use birth control, and Catholic women have abortions at the same rate as women in the general population.

Women's rights advocates, including the speaker of the House and a majority of the Democratic caucus, support a provision in the health-care bill that would subsidize abortions for poor women who can't afford them, in keeping with current law.

"Rep. Stupak’s proposal to codify the Hyde amendment in health-care reform would force women who want comprehensive reproductive health-care coverage to purchase a separate, single-service rider," said Cecile Richards, President of Planned Parenthood Federation of America. In the statement, Richards explains:

Such an "abortion rider," whereby abortion care could only be covered by a single-service plan in the exchange, is discriminatory and illogical. Women do not plan to have unintended pregnancies or medically complicated pregnancies that require ending the pregnancy. In fact, about half of all pregnancies in the U.S. are unintended, and abortion is not something that women plan to insure against. As a result, an "abortion rider" policy is unworkable. Women would not choose to purchase it, and would subsequently be unable to obtain the care they need. Proposing a separate ‘abortion rider’ represents exactly the type of government interference in the health care marketplace that conservatives purport to vehemently oppose.

For these and other reasons, "Planned Parenthood strongly opposes the Stupak-Pitts amendment which would result in women losing health benefits they have today," said Richards in a statement released early this morning. The statement continues:

This amendment would violate the spirit of health care reform, which is meant to guarantee quality, affordable health care coverage for all, by [instead] creating a two-tiered system that would punish women, particularly those with low and modest incomes. Women won't stand for legislation that takes away their current benefits and leaves them worse off after health care reform than they are today.

While Rep. Stupak claims that his amendment simply applies the Hyde amendment to health reform, nothing could be farther from the truth

In fact, "the Stupak-Pitts amendment would result in a new restriction on women's access to abortion coverage in the private health insurance market," continued Richards, "undermining the ability of women to purchase private health plans that covers abortion, even if they pay for most of the premium with their own money."

On Friday, House Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., said passing Stupak's legislation could jeopardize passage of the bill, because abortion-rights supporters were likely to vote against a bill that includes it.

BACKGROUND on STUPAK-PITTS AMENDMENT:

The Stupak-Pitts amendment would:

• Prohibit individuals who receive the affordability tax credits from purchasing a private insurance plan that covers abortion, despite the fact that a majority of health insurance plans currently cover abortion.
• Result in a de facto ban on private insurance companies providing abortion coverage in the health insurance exchange, since the vast majority of participants would receive affordability tax credits.
• Prohibit the public option from providing abortion care, despite the fact that it would be funded through private premium dollars.

The current compromise in the bill, the Capps Amendment, already strikes the right balance between pro-choice and anti-choice interests.

It stipulates that health plans cannot be mandated to cover abortion, but they can choose to.

• If a plan chooses to cover abortion, the compromise stipulates that no federal funds can go towards abortion, consistent with current federal policy.
• It ensures state laws regarding abortion coverage are not pre-empted, so if states want to pass further restrictions on abortion coverage, they can.  This a significant win for anti-choice organizations.
• Protects conscience rights of health care providers and facilities.

The following is a list of editorials in major newspapers that have opposed Stupak-Pitts and similar proposals:

An editorial in USA Today (11/2/09): “[The Stupak amendment] goes too far. It would mark a broad new expansion in the effort to restrict access to abortion. Nearly 90% of private health insurance policies now offer abortion coverage, and almost half of women with private insurance have it. But women covered under the new system would have to find supplemental insurance or pay out of pocket for an unanticipated procedure that can cost from hundreds to tens of thousands of dollars, depending on complexity. For anyone unable to afford it, this would amount to a de facto ban.”

An editorial in the New York Times said (10/1/09):
“Conservative critics of pending reform bills want to prohibit the use of tax subsidies to buy any health insurance policy that covers abortion. Some want to require women to buy an extra insurance “rider” if they want abortion coverage, an unworkable approach given that almost no one expects to need an abortion, few women would buy the rider and, therefore, few insurance companies would even offer it.”

An editorial in the LA Times said (11/6/09):
“The real goal of abortion opponents isn't to maintain the status quo. It's to extend federal prohibitions into private pocketbooks. By restricting coverage offered through the exchange, they hope to make abortion coverage so unattractive that insurers eventually stop offering it in the market for individual and small-group policies.”

An editorial in The St. Petersburg Times said (11/5/09):
"Contrary to the claims of Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., who has been leading the antiabortion effort, the Capps amendment would not expand federal funding for abortion. Instead it would establish some basic principles to reflect the current health insurance landscape in which nearly 90 percent of private plans offer abortion coverage."

Anti-Rape Activist Gabrielle Union Speaks Out About Her Own Rape and the Richmond, CA Gang Rape
Posted by Melissa McEwan, Shakesville on November 5, 2009 at 4:00 AM.

Actress and anti-rape activist Gabrielle Union, blogging about her reaction to commentary about the Richmond rape case and about her own rape (ellipses original):

I'm sad more than anything. After googling the gang rape story in Richmond and reading comments on blogs, it just leaves me sickened and really sad. The fact that race and socio-economics have been used to explain away a brutal gang rape...just sad...maybe I just have seen every kind of rapist and survivor...every race, color, religion, socio-economic status group...it's all the same...a lack of regard for violence against women. Tolerated, and in this case encouraged by the mob surrounding the perps...laughing, joking and taking pics.

When I was 19 years old, I was raped. I was working at a shoe store in California, and the store was robbed. The person robbing the store ended up putting a gun to my head and raping me. As he was raping me, I felt as though I was floating over myself, thinking, 'This isn't happening.' I blanked out and had an out-of-body experience, like I was hovering above seeing this ­horrible thing happen to someone else...not me. I was fortunate enough to go the UCLA rape crisis center after this horrific ordeal. It gave me my life back. My dignity and self-esteem were gone and they helped me find them again.

That's why I now lobby for state legislatures across the country and the federal government to help raise funds and awareness for rape crisis centers, and I speak to all different kinds of people across the country about what happened to me. My goal is to never hear the words 'me too' from someone after I say 'I was raped.'

Blub.

Meet the 28 (Male) Anti-Choice Dems Who Are Stalling Health Reform
Posted by mcjoan, Daily Kos on November 3, 2009 at 3:00 PM.

WaPo reports today that a number of anti-choice holdouts among Democrats are "threatening to oppose the measure over the issue of abortion to create a question about its passage."

"I will continue whipping my colleagues to oppose bringing the bill to the floor for a vote until a clean vote against public funding for abortion is allowed," Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) said Monday in a statement. He said last week that 40 Democrats could vote with him to oppose the legislation -- enough to derail the bill.

To be clear, Stupak and his colleagues are joining with Republicans in trying to prevent the bill from coming to the floor at all if their extreme anti-choice amendment is not allowed. Stupak wants to prohibit abortion coverage completely in the exchange, meaning that if a woman wanted reproductive health coverage that included abortion servcies, she'd have to purchase an additional insurance rider. That would mean that a young woman covered by her parent's plan would have to negotiate with her parents for the coverage. Or a woman in an abusive relationship would have to negotiate that with her partner. Women would have to plan in advance, think ahead to whether any circumstance in their future life might lead them to have an unplanned or unwanted pregnancy and buy that extra insurance, just in case.

It's a backdoor attempt by Stupak and his colleagues to get abortion coverage excluded from private insurance, as well as public--which has been in place since 1976 with the Hyde Amendment, a rider that has been attached to appropriations bills for the past 33 years. The proposed House bill already goes much further in restricting access to abortion services than pro-choice advocates like, and in many ways marks a significant step back for choice. One of the primary issues is that it would codify the Hyde Amendment, making it permanent law.

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