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The Anti-Choice Agenda Gets Even More Ridiculous

May 12, 2008 · Filed Under Reproductive Rights ·  

The Pill Kills The anti-choice agenda is just getting even more ridiculous with every campaign that they introduce. The latest campaign The American Life League is pushing is The Pill Kills.

The message behind this campaign is that the pills kills babies and that by using birth control you are subjecting your body to chemical abortions. On June 7, the 43rd anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court decision Griswold v. Connecticut, which gave married people the right to use contraception, they will be gathering outside of reproductive health care facilities with what they are calling “peaceful protests,” but as we have all seen from pictures alone, their protests are hardly peaceful. This campaign is the starting point of the pro-life organizations pushing to make contraception illegal.

As usual with pro-life extremism, they are willing to do anything to push their agenda, including lying to women.

Take a look at their talking points section of the website, you can spot the bullshit immediately:

Q: Isn’t it better to be on the pill when you are sexually active?
A: Better for whom? The pill does not prevent you from getting a sexually transmitted disease, it is not 100 percent effective in preventing pregnancy and you could conceive a child who gets chemically aborted before the baby’s presence is even known to you. Moreover, sexual activity outside of marriage is seriously wrong.

Yep, if you are having sex outside of marriage, you’re just selfish thinking that you should be able to have sex without being shackled to a spouse. Don’t you know that you should be taking every child that god gives you? These people need to realize that pushing personal morals helps no one because not everyone thinks the same way you do. Imagine that.

Q: Is the pill dangerous to my health?
A: Absolutely! There are links between the birth control pill and breast cancer, cervical cancer, deep vein thrombosis (DVT), infertility, birth defects, blood clots, pelvic inflammatory disease, ectopic pregnancy, shrinking of the womb, stroke, weight gain and much more.

These crazy people also claim that clinics such as Planned Parenthood make “big money” but last time I checked, Planned Parenthood gave low income women a place to go and receive safe and confidential health care at little to no cost whatsoever.

I am convinced that the pro-life agenda really doesn’t want to cut down on the number of abortions. With this campaign alone, they are pushing the thought that women shouldn’t use contraception and to those who are buying in to their agenda, they hear “Okay, no contraception.” and especially when it comes to teenagers, who are going to have sex anyway, they are actually making the numbers of abortions performed per year rise as well as the number of children parenting children rise.

If the anti-choice movement really cared about women, they wouldn’t be brainwashing them into thinking that birth control is bad for you, they wouldn’t be lying to people saying that birth control and abortion have harmful side effects that have been proven to be untrue and they wouldn’t be giving women more ways to become pregnant by using their personal morals as a weapon.

I plan on driving to my local Planned Parenthood on June 7 and seeing what the protest looks like there (even though the closest Planned Parenthood to me that I can even call local is about 40 miles away) and see if they’re really pushing the peaceful concept; I’m thinking no… I also plan on taking pictures and seeing how many of these people are willing to talk to me; could be a damn good time indeed.

Via Feministing.

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The Fine Line Between Free Speech and Harassment

March 1, 2008 · Filed Under Reproductive Rights ·  

anti-abortion extremists Anti-abortion extremists in Massachusetts filed a lawsuit challenging the state’s health clinic buffer zone laws.

Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick signed a bill to put a 35-foot buffer zone between reproductive health and family planning clinics and anti-choice protesters last November. The reason behind this law is to ensure the safety of the clinic patients, as well as their staff as they enter and exit the clinics. There have been many cases of anti-abortion extremists protesting outside of these clinics across the country and by doing so, they are clutching their free speech cards and claiming that they are doing nothing wrong. This is true since the people of this country are able to voice their personal opinions and beliefs and there is, of course, nothing wrong with that. However, blatant harassment is not free speech.

You are not practicing free speech when you are screaming in the faces of the staff and patients of these clinics. You are not practicing free speech when you are screaming at the women walking into these health clinics and calling them murderers when you simply assume that is the reason why they must pay a visit to the clinic. You are not practicing free speech when you are telling women that their fetuses have a right to life when they may be visiting the clinic simply to get birth control or for their annual pap smears.

“For too long, patients and staff had to endure in-your-face screaming and harassment just to get to doctor’s appointments,” Angus McQuilken, vice president of public affairs for the Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts, told the Boston Globe. “This 35-foot zone is more than reasonable.”

Between the hostility, billboard-sized pictures of fetuses, flyers that tell women that they are murderers and attempting to invoke guilt and the process of attempting to criminalize women for seeking a medical procedure that is legal, not only do I feel that the 35-foot buffer zone is “more than reasonable,” I feel as if there should be a much greater distance that these people must keep away from the Planned Parenthood health clinics. How dare they attempt to file a lawsuit saying that they are being denied the right to free speech. Women are being denied the right to safely and securely enter a health clinic based on other people’s moral opinions.

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McCain on Choice: Title X and Counseling on Abortion

February 18, 2008 · Filed Under Politics ·  

family planning After a little break, we’re back to John McCain’s anti-choice record.

John McCain, an uber-conservative (for those who still think he’s in any way pro-choice) voted to permit federally funded Title X family planning clinics to decline to counsel women on abortion services.

Title X family planning clinics have served as health care facilities for typically young and low-income women for 30 years; one of the most-recognizable Title X clinics is Planned Parenthood, which makes up 14 percent of Title X projects. Their goal, as health care providers, is to educate women in this country on how to be safe when it comes to sex, avoid unintended pregnancies, and make education and services readily available to the women who need them.

These clinics offer a wide range of information and health care to women who need their services. They offer birth control, emergency contraception, literature and testing for sexually transmitted infections and diseases, education on how to prevent unintended pregnancies, pregnancy tests and screenings for breast and cervical cancer. The best thing about these clinics, in my opinion, is that absolutely no one is turned away from receiving the health care and/or education they need because of inability to pay.

Since Title X is federally funded, a law has been placed in Section 1008 of the law saying that Title X funds cannot be used “in programs where abortion is a method of family planning.” In other words, Title X funds cannot be used to provide abortions. However, Title X projects must offer women neutral and factual information, non-directive counseling and referrals upon request for all of their pregnancy options, including prenatal care and delivery, infant care, foster care or adoption and abortion.

Senator John McCain voted in favor of Title X projects not even counseling women on abortion, as if the option didn’t even exist anymore. If you are pregnant and go into Planned Parenthood, a reproductive health care facility located in a hospital, which make up six percent of Title X projects or health department, 57 percent, and are seeking information about your options as far as pregnancy or not going through with your pregnancy, John McCain voted to make Title X projects refuse to even bring up the option of abortion. In his eyes you have two choices–you are either delivering and raising the child or delivering and giving the child up for adoption.

It’s no secret that McCain wants to abolish reproductive freedom for women, but to insist of closing the door on even the thought of terminating pregnancy is ridiculous. It is saying that McCain, along with the rest of the anti-choice brigade do not believe in women. They do not support or even like women unless they are in their place and doing what the conservative agenda believes is right. They do not trust women to make informed decisions about their own bodies but would love to force them into delivering and raising a child that they are either not ready for, in a matter of financial stability or mentality, or simply do not want. But we went over the reasons for this in the last McCain on Choice post. The more low-income children born to low-income mothers or families, the more future troops we have to carry out our world domination agenda.

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