“The pill” and IUDs will be called “Abortion methods” under a new Health and Human Services rule (video). As the report states, “the rule would deny federal money to healthcare centers that punish workers who refuse to take part in anything from a clinical abortion to prescribing birth control pills.” The rule would also allow “insurers that get federal money to drop their coverage of contraceptives if they want to.”
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El Cid
Why aren’t they classifying them as “Narco-Killers of God’s Soul Children”? That way people can feel like not only are they not going to be not covered, but perhaps criminally charged!
The Moar You Know
Well, I knew this was coming. Apparently, so did Margaret Atwood. I’m sure this will go down well with the GOPs female base, who, hilariously enough, tend to be sluts of the highest order (I mean that in a good way).
Might as well practice to get familiar with where they’ve moved this Overton window: I murdered over 100 million human beings this morning.
Krista
Well, all of my fellow feminists, the ones who were so strongly for Hillary…the ones who fought tooth and claw against sexism….they will surely be making a strong public denunciation of this policy and will be organizing protests and marches, right?
/crickets
Face
I predict this will cause absolute chaos in the hospitals. The ability to deny any medicine that each individual person can interpret as aborofacient (sp?) is completely antithetical to the health care industry in general.
Fuck the Hippocratic oath — “Let that fucker die! I dont want to possibly kill her fetus!”
D-i-s-a-s-t-e-r
Mountain Laurel
What?? What?? This is incredible even for them!! Yes, Margaret Atwood sure saw it coming, didn’t she?
172 days left according to my desk calendar counter (I love Mother).
Incertus
Anti-choicers have been against birth control for a long time. They’re just being more open about it now. Hopefully, that will doom them to the obscurity they so richly deserve.
Kirk
Actually, the scariest part of the whole bit is a subtle change.
Today, abortion is expelling a fetus, or in some places an embryo.
With this rule, abortion is expelling a fertilized egg – not even a blastocyst, but a zygote of 16 or fewer cells.
At that point, pretty much everything but condoms and rhythm methods become abortificants, neatly bypassing Griswold.
4tehlulz
The only thing surprising about this is that they didn’t try this sooner.
PaulW
I would think there’s a lot of *guys* who’d want to sue to keep contraceptives available. Can you say ‘paternity suits’? Especially in this day and age of near-perfect DNA testing?
Ripley
So, male masturbation will be outlawed in the near future, I presume…?
Insurers are getting Federal money? For what? Seriously, I don’t get this. Also, one interesting aspect of this is that they seem to have forgotten that the Federal gov’t employs a few folks (some of them women, even!) who might take a dim view of this proposal. They’re not all Regent U. grads, y’know.
Oh, and I’d be interested to find out if the Bush twins are birth control consumers/advocates/users.
Apsaras
Last night, at a bar, a lady declined my offer for sex. Filthy abortionist!
Shinobi
I wish I could go back in time and convince Barbara to Abort Dubya.
Punchy
This explains why the woman at Sears refused to sell me coat-hangers…
Redleg
Jeezus fucking Kreist. Where is the outrage over this? When the fuck is the MSM going to finally put it all together that the Bush administration is run by a bunch of fundamentalist christian kooks?
David Hunt
One sad/pathetic/scary part of this whole thing is that I don’t think you’re too far off in theme, if not in detail. I’m beginning to think that this whole crusade against “abortion” is, at its core, driven by a desire to control women and get them back into the home where they’re barefoot and pregnant like they’re supposed to be. I’ve been sitting at my desk doing mindless work for twenty minutes trying to think of another explanation.
Seanly
Punchy wins Teh Internets for the day.
I fucking hate the Republican leadership. I hate the anti-choice crowd. I hate all those smug, moralizing, hypocritical motherfuckers. Sometimes I wished that I believed in Hell so I could think of all these jackasses nicely roasting and getting some measure of justice that they’ll never be subject to on this earth.
David Hunt
I’m quite sure that they figured that out a long time ago. The real answer is “when are they going to start caring/reporting it?”
Incertus
That’s exactly what’s going on here. They’d love to create Margaret Atwood’s Gilead if they could. Of course, we’re largely talking about the activist types here–not the average, low-information people who call themselves “pro-life” because they haven’t thought it through yet. That’s why I have hope that these asswipes have shot themselves in the foot with this reach–it’s one thing to say “we’re protecting the unborn.” It’s another thing entirely to say “get pregnant, bitch.”
Racism plays a role in this as well, because you don’t see any of these folks saying to women of color “you need to have more babies.” Women of color are Cadillac-driving welfare queens in their minds.
Krista
All snark aside, though — this is a serious, serious blow for the reproductive rights of American women AND men.
This new rule will make it easier for health-care practitioners to deny the Pill to their patients, and it will make it harder for women to afford the Pill, even if they can get it. The Pill and the IUD are the two most effective forms of birth control out there besides sterlization. Now, their usage is likely to decrease — particularly in rural areas, where just going to the next pharmacy (as free-market proponents have blithely suggested), isn’t a viable option.
And if Pill usage decreases due to cost and lack of availability, then we’re going to see a lot of women for whom their only affordable/available options are barrier methods (cap, diaphragm, condom) — methods which ALL have much higher failure rates than the hormonal methods.
Failure rates with “typical use” for the Pill and the IUD range between 2% and 5%. Barrier methods? Failure rates between 14% and 40%.
So, boys and girls, logic tells us that if the Pill and IUD are harder/more expensive to obtain, unwanted pregnancy rates will increase. Which will, of course, lead to more abortions, as not all of these women will choose to keep the baby or give it up for adoption.
Therefore, by defining the IUD and Pill as abortion, Health and Human Services will ultimately manage to increase the number of actual abortions that people are getting.
It’s only 1:20 in the afternoon, but I swear to fuck, I need a drink.
Mike35
But, of course, the real slap in the face to women is if Obama selects a woman not named “Hilary Clinton” as his running mate.
Josh
I live in Texas, and with the exception of one Spanish-language sign, all of the “Choose Life” billboards, banners, posters and bumper stickers I’ve seen here in the Bahbul Belt feature smiling, cooing Caucasian cherubs.
TheFountainHead
I hope to impregnate every single one of their daughters.
scav
Guys can apparently kill full grown people in FL if they “feel” their life is in jeopardy but woman should just shut up and die if a potential person is “actually” threatening their lives. And do you ever think we’ll see a rape charge updated to manslaughter when the victim dies in childbirth? Please – let’s not let all those female types get uppity.
spoosmith
Yet this is the very same group who is convinced that the muslims are going to enact Sharia law. What is the difference?
TenguPhule
Don’t worry, they’re working on it.
Martin
Medical and other state programs. SCHIP. COBRA? There are lots of government run or mandated programs that use federal money. Ironically, they are the lifeline for many minority groups – so more brown babies? The GOP has confused me this time.
M.Z. Forrest
A Catholic hospital in Connecticut did not want to provide Plan B contraception without a pregnancy test. They told the State that they would pay for a taxi ride to another hospital that would provide Plan B. This bill would protect that hospital and many pharmacists and other health care professionals. It’s things like this that make me waver in my support for Obama this fall. It is bad enough that abortion is legal in this country. It is worse that a person would be professionally obligated to participate in one. If you guys can’t be satisfied enough with legalization of this heinous act and insist that others must participate in it, you deserve to lose.
Kurzbein
I don’t think David Hunt has it quite right. I don’t think the intent is to get women back in the home barefoot and pregnant, though that might be a side benefit. This is really about regulating sex. To their way of thinking, pregnancy is the deterrent to having sex that contraception subverts, and that’s not in accordance with God’s plan. Take away contraception – defined as broadly as possible – and that deterrent suddenly regains its proper importance. In other words, they’re a bunch of prudish fundamentalist wankers.
Josh
Except that pills and IUDs aren’t abortofacients.
M.Z. Forrest
Except that pills and IUDs aren’t abortofacients.
Such an opinion isn’t formed from Catholic principles. Those principles are germaine given that a substancial number of the hospitals in this country are Catholic and consider those principles binding.
The Moar You Know
One of these things is not like the others,
One of these things just doesn’t belong,
Can you tell which thing is not like the others
By the time I finish my song?
Did you guess which thing was not like the others?
Did you guess which thing just doesn’t belong?
If you guessed this one is not like the others,
Then you’re absolutely…right!
Bey
Well, we’re finally here aren’t we? MZ Forrest’s tender regard for the unborn has morphed into it’s true form: hatred and fear of women and their sexuality.
This has always and forever been about controlling women. They’ve just stopped hiding is all.
No one gives a shit about the already born.
MZ how many babies have you adopted? How much volunteer time do you spend with programs like Big Brother/Big Sister? Do you cheerfully pay your property taxes and volunteer at the school carnival?
Notorious P.A.T.
So, preventing a pregnancy is the same as ending a life to these people?
I failed to conceive a child today. I am a murderer.
M.Z. Forrest
You may wish it were about me, but it isn’t. I have clearly stated where the real objection lies. You may wish to tell the Catholic Church and those that support her to go fly a kite. As a political strategy, I believe it to be rather poor.
As for caring about the born and unborn, the Catholic Church is the largest health care provider in the world. They also operate countless orphanages and hospices. No secular organization comes close to doing the amount of charitable work the Catholic Church does. Arguing the Catholic Church has no regard for the living is simply absurd.
ColoRambler
That’s right, it’s formed from observing reality. None of these methods use any form of abortion (even the non-medical definition of “preventing implantation”) as a method of contraception. Depending on details, they might prevent ovulation (Pill), thicken cervical mucus (progestin-only Pill and hormonal IUD), or serve as a spermicide (all IUDs, particularly copper IUDs), but none of these actually interrupt a pregnancy.
If by “abortifacient” they mean anything that might, in some rare, perverse case, cause a fertilized egg to fail to implant, then these methods might count. However, so would hundreds of other drugs and medical procedures no one thinks of as “abortifacient”, and which no one would deny under equivalent circumstances.
capelza
M.Z. Forrest..as well the Church should do massive amounts of charitable work…since they advocate uncontrolled birth rates in poor countries that have booming populations that aren’t equipped to care for said populations.
Our small rural hospital was taken over by a Catholic organization, and this was a controversy when they were suggested. We are not near an alternative hospital that could provide anything the Catholic Church deems wrong. So in essence they have control of the county in this sense.
Incertus
Have they come to the conclusion that raising their own altar boys from scratch is more cost-effective?
liberal
M.Z. Forrest wrote,
I agree—rape victims should be forced to bear the offspring of their assailants.
Not.
Richard Bottoms
Fuck the GOP and the whole moderate Republican myth.
These same whiners here will be back voting for the GOP next time they find someone can do a better job of saying soothing things while voting the exact opposite way because they are the party of the regular guy.
KRK
I can’t believe how many commenters are surprised at this. (And how many think this has anything to do with masturbation. Nobody cares, really. Knock yourself out.) Because both the pill and IUD can prevent implantation of a fertilized egg, they’re anathema to the “life begins at conception” movement.
As Incertus says, forcing these folks to acknowledge the full extent of their interest in controlling people’s reproductive lives, and therefore their sexual behavior, should provoke a backlash from nominal pro-lifers who actually like being able to limit the number of children they (and their children) have. Best case scenario, they might have to rethink whether it really is that clear when life “begins.”
Punchy
Shorter M.Z. — NO FAGS, NO PILL, NO EVOLUTIONISTS ALLOWED IN MAH JESUZ HOZPITAL!
Andrew
No to be too blunt, but what happens if you stick a consecrated wafer up your hoohah and it stops a fertilized egg from implanting?
Does that mean Jesus just gave you an abortion?
4ehlulz
>>You may wish to tell the Catholic Church and those that support her to go fly a kite.
Don’t like the strings? Don’t take the cash.
Noah
You guys seen the Bush or Batman? video yet? It’s hilarious!
lou
I wonder what Bush’s friends in the pharmaceutical industry think about this? The birth control pill is one of the most prescribed medicines in this country. They can’t be very happy with these rules. Maybe the Medicare boondoggle was an olive branch to assuage them and that’s why this is coming down the pike now.
Tony J
Nah. The GOP only throws out red-meat to The Base during election season. With McCain’s campaign doing a nose-dive into the Big Muddy, methinks the White House thought it might be time to boost enthusiasm amongst the people who would love to live in Gilead by putting in place ridiculously fundamentalist standards that an Obama Presidency would, obviously, get rid of.
See, they now have to vote for McCain, whatever they think about him. The only other option is letting a Negro Babykiller sweep into power with a mandate to reverse the only real gain they’ve ever won from El Residente’s terms in office.
Zifnab
Mother of god, McCain’s new campaign ad is freak’n epic.
Tony J
That just sums it up. “It was tarry, wasn’t it?” Otherwise there’s not much difference.
YellowJournalism
With the inclusion of that parting of the red sea clip, I would say that pretty much described it.
That thing has to be a spoof, or else the McCain camp need to understand that the Daily Show is not a real news show and you shouldn’t take ad creation tips from their writers.
Punchy
Uh….uh…well…er….hmmm….uh, OK….
Jesus would have been a wicked good gynocologist back in his day. He could heal by just touching with his fingers. Bet he woulda had a huge clientele.
malraux
I don’t think there is much if any evidence supporting the ability of the pill to block implantation. To the best of my knowledge, all the evidence really says is that if it does, the effect is immeasurably small. Not sure about the data on IUDs, but I’d expect the primarily hormonal based ones like mirana (sp?) to have a very similar effect as the pill.
ksmiami
Republicans have become the party against the enjoyment of sex unless it involves the following:
Rubber wetsuits
dual dildos
congressmen
skinny blond heiresses
How is this not a huge story???
Xenos
All your uteri are belong to us!
Shinobi
MZ,
Every time I’ve gotten EC I had to take a pregnancy test. Not to prove that I didn’t get pregnant in the last 72 hours (the length of time EC is useable) because pregnancy tests cannot detect pregnancy that early. My understanding is the purpose is actually to prove that I wasn’t pregnant before the sex act for which I am attempting to get EC because EC can cause complications with a viable pregnancy.
EC will not terminate a pregnancy that has already begun. It only prevents the embryo from implanting in the uterus.
Xenos
So, who the fuck cares? Surely not the 80% of Catholics who practice birth control. Surely not the protestants who support or oppose abortion, a practice that does not include the pill, the IUD, or plan B, for reasons of their own. The Jews, the Muslims, the Unitarians… who gives a fuck what a bunch of stubborn monotheists think, right?
malraux
There is no evidence that Plan B prevents implantation. Jama Link
Xenos
And as a final detail, pregnancy does not begin at fertilization. It begins at implantation. Something like half of all fertilizations fail (naturally) to implant, which would make a healthy woman practicing proper Catholic teaching in her marriage into an abortion machine. But lets not screw up the RC Church dogma with all these facts, right?
Thank G-d for Henry VIII!
binzinerator
I always knew this is what fundies are ultimately about: Control of women’s bodies and their reproductive organs. And I knew the fundie right would begin to call birth control “abortion” when they went after RU486 — the so-called morning after pill.
It was obvious their intentions because that pill works exactly the same way as regular birth control pills. It uses the same hormones to prevent pregnancy as the Pill, which is by preventing any fertilized egg from implanting in the uterus. This also how the IUD works, but by physical not chemical interference. So if the fundies have a huge campaign of lies to convince the public RU486 is abortion, then I knew it wasn’t long before they would demand that all contraception is abortion. (The next step will to ban it, just like they tried with RU486.)
And there on CNN and here on Wall Street Journal online is the emerging outline of their not-so-hidden agenda.
From the WSJ article:
I noticed that the forms of birth control affected by this proposal are all expressly for women. All modern birth control for women will be considered an abortion. Condoms, used by men, are not. Well, duh. This is the religious right talking, after all. Women were made by god to be subservient to men. Says so in the Bible.
The fundies also want to make it legal for doctors, nurses, pharmacists, even emergency room personnel attending rape victims, to refuse to provide health care to women. It means a receptionist can legally refuse to book your appointment to obtain contraception because he doesn’t agree with your religious beliefs.
The religious right insists these people be called “conscientious objectors”, you know, just like the people who refuse to blow up real, live breathing human beings in war. And they insist that requiring fundie providers to offer contraception to women is “religious discrimination”. Riiiight. But denying health care to someone based on religious beliefs isn’t, right?
And it really angers me too that these fundamentalist assholes are wrapping themselves in the language of the civil rights movement and hijacking the term used for pacifists.
Then again, these are the kind of people who say the lord’s work is being done when a Planned Parenthood is bombed.
The consequences of this proposal if enacted are going to be far-reaching if enacted. The article says “If the regulation is enacted, insurers, hospitals, HMOs and other institutions could claim that a law requiring them to dispense contraception or subsidize an IUD discriminated against their religious convictions. State and local governments would have to certify in writing that they don’t practice such discrimination. Those who didn’t comply could lose federal funding or be sued for damages.”
“Certify in writing that they don’t practice such discrimination.” Fucking hypocrite fundies. It really fucking pisses me off these fundies cry “discrimination!” when they aren’t given a free hand to discriminate against someone else.
Of course, the whole point of all this bullshit is this: If these assholes succeed in getting most contraception legally defined as “abortion”, then the availability of those contraceptive methods are dependent upon Roe v. Wade. If it is struck down, the Pill becomes illegal.
And even now, Roe v. Wade has been compartmentalized by the right so that the availability of abortion is controlled on the state or community level. So even if Roe v. Wade stands, they can effectively restrict contraceptives.
This will affect young and poor women especially hard if they have to drive 200 miles to get birth control pills. And I recall the fundies have been trying for some time now to make it illegal to cross state lines to get an abortion.
I despise these people. These people use every effort to make slaves of women, to treat them as cattle. And one thing that is always done with cattle and slaves is to take away control of their own reproduction.
JWW
Michael,
What’s your worry. Current science hasn’t gotten to the point of man on man anal sex producing anything but a mess on the sheets.
binzinerator
Update: My wife tells me no, IUDs work by interfering with sperm in reaching the egg, not by preventing any fertilized eggs from implanting.
Apparently for all the amazing powers we guys may attribute to our sperm, they aren’t particularly good swimmers and are easily confused, misdirected and bamboozled. Sorta like low-information voters.
And reading that JAMA link on Plan B, see I was wrong again: Apparently these types of contraceptives work by interfering with sperm migration.
But my being wrong makes the fundies even more fucking wrong than before. These methods have nothing to do with fertilized eggs. Lies and lies about lies.
But fundies lying and intentionally misrepresenting science to fit their own religious agenda? I’m shocked, shocked I tells ya!
malraux
No, RU 486 is the abortion pill. It does cause an abortion. It has nothing to do with a conversation about contraception.
grumpy realist
I guess the next thing will be accusing women who have miscarriages of “accidental manslaughter”….
Which means that if you have a hard time carrying kids to term because of environmental factors or heredity or whatever, deliberately planning to get pregnant and then having a miscarriage will be actual manslaughter, correct? Like my mother, who had a horrible time carrying kids to term due to having had German measles back when she was young. At least two still-births and one miscarriage. You prolifers going to clap her in prison?
Oh, and y’know, a high percentage of miscarriages happen because of deformities in the developing embryo. Now obviously we have to deal with the dread holocaust of life due to miscarriage, right? So we must come up with a medicine that forces the woman’s body to hold on to the embryo until birth, birth deformities and all….shouldn’t we mandate that all women be forced to use such medication, because after all, it will “save a life!”
(Ever heard about thalidomide, people? Yup, that’s how it works…)
Welcome to flipper-baby central….
Delia
Regular birth control pills work by preventing ovulation, not by preventing the implantation of a fertilized egg. That’s why they’re also used for regulating irregular periods, extremely painful periods which are common for teenagers, endometriosis, and even very bad acne. My sister had a particular kind prescribed for some prememopausal problems she was having.
The way they work is based on human physiology, not on Catholic or anybody else’s theology.
And as Xenos points out, at least half fertilized eggs fail to implant in the course of nature. That’s why it seems ridiculous, even if you’re religious (and I am, btw) to believe that there’s a soul present in an egg from the moment of fertilization.
This is one more Bushist encroachment of ideology on science. Even for those who are strongly anti-abortion, I can’t believe that taking away women’s birth control is going to do wonders for the gooper brand as November draws near.
And for whoever was wondering about the Bush twins and their birth control. Oh grow up. Since when has the aristocracy lived by the same rules as the rest of us?
Dave_Violence
Where the hell do you think lawyers come from?
TenguPhule
Fixed.
TenguPhule
Because a person’s personal bigotry is more important then professional principles.
Great, can we have Doctors refusing to treat all Republicans and Religious Fundies next?