Violet Socks has been on a roll the last couple of days. She lives in Virginia where the state legislature has passed the vaginal ultrasound before abortion bill. There’s no reason why it has to be vaginal. It could have been done the normal way with that jelly stuff on the abdomen. In fact, it didn’t have to be done at all. No one who wants an abortion is going to be the least deterred by this. But the humiliation is revolting. On top of everything else, you’ve got to put up with a probe for no reason except sheer meanness.
And then there is the Santorum donor’s comments today:
FRIESS: On this contraceptive thing, my gosh, it’s so inexpensive. You know, back in my days, they used Bayer Aspirin for contraceptives. The gals put it between their knees and it wasn’t that costly.
Cheap? Yes. Effective? Well, there’s plenty of walking, talking data on the efficacy of this method.
What puzzles me is WHY you would want to go back to that or have anyone else go back to that if you lived through it the first time. It makes no damn sense. It especially makes no sense if you know it didn’t work the first time around and that even the threat of infection, infertility and death didn’t deter anyone. Think about that. The death penalty is supposed to be a deterrent but it doesn’t have much effect on people who are determined to have an abortion and it doesn’t stop them from having sex. There’s nothing a religious person can do to change that. Nothing. A religious person can only make it more dangerous. These are well known facts that history has proven for thousands of years. Birth control and safe abortions were improvements on this history.
The religious can get all pissy and prudish and insufferable to be around about it but this is something they are going to have to face at some point. Their crusade against sex is going to fail. It’s going to fail as sure as the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. They’re only going to feel rage and frustration from failing to get all of the women in the world to exercise self-control because it is never, ever going to work. Just like the Rapture is never going to come. Wishing does not make it so. Your blood pressure will go down once you stop obsessing about premarital sex because there’s not a thing you can do about it without going all Taliban and Old Testament. And the Taliban *still* catches people having sex when they aren’t supposed to. Even the strictest religion in the world and the harshest abortion laws on the books will not stop this. It doesn’t even matter if you don’t believe in evidence or data or reality. People are going to continue to have sex and get pregnant unintentionally and there’s not a damn thing the country’s Christians can do to stop it. Not a thing.
There’s no point to the intrusiveness of the religious unless they like to be mean and judgmental and if their religious convictions give them a sense of power and superiority that they can’t get any other way. They’re not doing it for OUR benefit.
Anyway, I keep saying that the election of 2008 let all of the worms that lurk in the mud hatch out without any kind of restraint. Misogyny was given free reign and those of us who were paying attention (that would not include Amanda Marcotte or Naomi Wolf or the leadership of NOW, Emily’s List and NARAL) were alarmed that no one was held accountable. It was bound to turn out badly. The past four years has been one relentless campaign against women in the doctor’s office, in the White House conference rooms and in the workplace. Did anyone notice that two of the biggest stories about women in 2011 were about women who were tried for murders but were really convicted of being pretty, and sexually unrepressed? It was a shock to my system that a murder could be pinned on Amanda Knox in the most lurid, outlandish way because she was having fun in Italy. And Casey Anthony, whatever you think about her role in the crime, was viciously smeared by cable news people for being an unrepentant barroom floozy. In Anthony’s case, the sexy dancing and drinking was the bigger crime and should have been enough to get her the death penalty despite the lack of evidence.
How did we get to the place where we are so totally divorced from reality? I’m disappointed and angry that my daughters will grow up in a country where they will have fewer options and get even less respect from their workplace peers than my generation did.
Women were their own worst enemy in 2008.
Here’s how Obama *should* be handling women’s reproductive health:
See? What was so damned hard about that? This is not a trick question requiring political polling firms.
Oh, well, Amanda et al, can always invest in aspirin.
Filed under: General | Tagged: Amanda Marcotte, Chris Smith, Hillary Clinton, Reproductive health, Violet Socks |
The Confluence 
Deep down inside Obama hates women?
The more I see and hear about him, the more I’m convinced that Obama is indifferent to everyone but himself. He cares greatly about his own welfare.
I don’t understand. I just can’t comprehend it or wrap my head around it. Why are lunatics like Rick Santorium’s views allowed to be broadcasted on national television, let alone taken seriously? It just blows my mind.
When is this BS going to stop? I’m over it. Hand me a drink.
I love how HRC doesn’t waffle on her positions. More like her would be nice.
I think the bad economy, lost homes, lost jobs and basics getting more expensive has helped create a climate where women were even more vulnerable to regressive policies because everybody is in survival mode and only caring about what affects them.
2008 and this administration surely set the tone for the war on women.
I completely agree that some women are their own worst enemies where they keep clapping and cheering – hoping the cool guys will still like them.
As I see and experience sexism and misogyni, it’s a much more Fundamental and Ingrained … concept? … in society. Women are inferior! Period.
I come from a country where neither abortion nor religion are “issues”. Abortion has been legal and free for decades and our religious beliefs are private tending towards heathen. Women are equal to men in many respects … and yet in many others far from. But the level of sexism and misogyni that thrives in public fora even here – and in Scandinavia – is mindnumbing. Often it’s subtle and even women who call themselves feminists don’t react. And oh yes here too women are backstabbing women where solidarity would have been expected.
And as much as I hate using the word “whining” about anyone’s complaints about anything, that’s the word that often comes to mind when men “thrust” themselves into those equality discussions. They are the actual victims, don’t you know. And women are just “whining”!
I’m afraid that sexism and misogyni are here to stay. I for one don’t see us – as in Society – moving away from it anytime soon. Or ever for that matter. And that saddens me to no end.
And I absolutely agree: More women standing up for, being clear on, their positions would be more than welcome. And helpful !
I agree. Women must stand up for themselves or they will fall for anything. For to many, the idea of protesting is to write nasty words about the bad guys in blogs.
Forgot a word in my last paragraph. Meant to say: If only more strong women would speak out – on behalf of Women. More women in power, women with ‘access’ speaking up.
When so relatively few do, could part of the explanation be that they fear losing the power, the ‘access’ they have obtained?
Perhaps it was cowardly of me, but I am glad I emigrated. Here in France (not a feminist paradise by any stretch of the imagination) we have a genuine, card-carrying fascist in the person of Marine Le Pen running for President, yet not even the crudest or most leftist engage in the kind of slut-whore-bimbo-bitch-cunt discourse about her that every woman politician attaining a certain level of success is subjected to in the United States. The contrast is enlightening.
I agree with the post. Tribalism (rooting for your team or party regardless of what they do) is the worst form of corruption because it kills all your principles. If we actually held our institututions accountable for the things they did, regardless of who was running them, we’d be in a better place. Instead, we normalize appeasement on misogyny and on civil liberties because the guy in the WH thinks that’s better for his re-election chances. Well, no. I refuse to abandon what I believe in and be a fanboy.
“In 1969, [President Richard M.] Nixon told Congress, ‘No American woman should be denied access to family planning assistance because of her economic condition.’ The following year, he signed Title X into law.”
You can find that in the article at http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/11/14/111114fa_fact_lepore, and no doubt elsewhere as well.
We’ve come a long way, baby. I’m looking at you, buddy, and your hopey dopey “feminist” apologists.
I agree with Riverdaughter. Obama appears to show some antisocial personality disorder characteristics, one of which is lack of remorse e.g., for breaking so many campaign promises. Antisocials are skilled at blaming others.
She lives in Virginia where the state legislature has passed the vaginal ultrasound before abortion bill. There’s no reason why it has to be vaginal. It could have been done the normal way with that jelly stuff on the abdomen.
I think the reason it has to be vaginal is because the regular abdominal ultrasound doesn’t work in the first trimester (ultrasounds are usually performed at 16 to 18 weeks, according to eHealthMD.) If this the law should actually become enforced, maybe it will backfire with women looking at the smudge of cells on the monitor and saying, “That’s it? Well schedule me that abortion. Hell, give me two.”
(My DIL just had an ultrasound at 9 weeks….so they work in the first trimester.)
Before week 12 of a pregnancy a woman is more susceptible to a miscarriage, e.g., a spontaneous abortion. I have got to believe inserting a probe and the stress of that procedure would certainly be a factor in precipitating one.
Hypothetically….a woman accepts this intrusive exam, has a miscarriage, and then sues for the loss of her baby….after all, she is required to look at the image before she has an abortion. God, I hope she sues the legislature, too! And the governor!
I had to have this exam prior to a hysterectomy and it was not fun, not painless and certainly stressful.
My hypothetical assumes, of course, that she aborts the abortion after falling in love with her smudge of cells.
Thank you. I was misinformed. It is ironic they would push a procedure that endangers the baby. Maybe if there were doctors at the hearings???
http://www.godlessprolifers.org/home.html
How many of those legislators ran into the men’s room after that vote to manipulate themselves while fantasizing about women being probed?
Santorum has never met a coat hanger he didn’t like.
No wire hangers!!!