Atheism, fuck yeah!
Welcome atheists, skeptics, freethinkers all,
to this little corner of godlessness.
~Mooglets

HERE’S what a woman in Texas now faces if she seeks an abortion.

Under a new lawthat took effect three weeks ago with the strong backing of Gov. Rick Perry, she first must typically endure an ultrasound probe inserted into her vagina. Then she listens to the audio thumping of the fetal heartbeat and watches the fetus on an ultrasound screen.

She must listen to a doctor explain the body parts and internal organs of the fetus as they’re shown on the monitor. She signs a document saying that she understands all this, and it is placed in her medical files. Finally, she goes home and must wait 24 hours before returning to get the abortion.

“It’s state-sanctioned abuse,” said Dr. Curtis Boyd, a Texas physician who provides abortions. “It borders on a definition of rape. Many states describe rape as putting any object into an orifice against a person’s will. Well, that’s what this is. A woman is coerced to do this, just as I’m coerced.”

“The state of Texas is waging war on women and their families,” Dr. Boyd added. “The new law is demeaning and disrespectful to the women of Texas, and insulting to the doctors and nurses who care for them.”

That law is part of a war over women’s health being fought around the country — and in much of the country, women are losing. State by state, legislatures are creating new obstacles to abortions and are treating women in ways that are patronizing and humiliating.

Twenty states now require abortion providers to conduct ultrasounds first in some situations, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research organization. The new Texas law is the most extreme to take effect so far, but similar laws have been passed in North Carolina and Oklahoma and are on hold pending legal battles.

Alabama, Kentucky, Rhode Island and Mississippi are also considering Texas-style legislation bordering on state-sanctioned rape. And what else do you call it when states mandate invasive probes in women’s bodies?

“If you look up the term rape, that’s what it is: the penetration of the vagina without the woman’s consent,” said Linda Coleman, an Alabama state senator who is fighting the proposal in her state. “As a woman, I am livid and outraged.”

States put in place a record number of new restrictions on abortions last year, Guttmacher says. It counts 92 new curbs in 24 states.

“It was a debacle,” Elizabeth Nash, who manages state issues for Guttmacher, told me. “It’s been awful. Last year was unbelievable. We’ve never seen anything like it.”

Yes, there have been a few victories for women. The notorious Virginia proposal that would have required vaginal ultrasounds before an abortion was modified to require only abdominal ultrasounds.

Yet over all, the pattern has been retrograde: humiliating obstacles to abortions, cuts in family-planning programs, and limits on comprehensive sex education in schools.

If Texas legislators wanted to reduce abortions, the obvious approach would be to reduce unwanted pregnancies. The small proportion of women and girls who aren’t using contraceptives account for half of all abortions in America, according to Guttmacher. Yet Texas has some of the weakest sex-education programs in the nation, and last year it cut spending for family planning by 66 percent.

The new Texas law was passed last year but was held up because of a lawsuit by the Center for Reproductive Rights. In a scathing opinion, Judge Sam Sparks of Federal District Court described the law as “an attempt by the Texas legislature to discourage women from exercising their constitutional rights.” In the end, the courts upheld the law, and it took effect last month.

It requires abortion providers to give women a list of crisis pregnancy centers where, in theory, they can get unbiased counseling and in some cases ultrasounds. In fact, these centers are often set up to ensnare pregnant women and shame them or hound them if they are considering abortions.

“They are traps for women, set up by the state of Texas,” Dr. Boyd said.

The law then requires the physician to go over a politicized list of so-called dangers of abortion, like “the risks of infection and hemorrhage” and “the possibility of increased risk of breast cancer.” Then there is the mandated ultrasound, which in the first trimester normally means a vaginal ultrasound. Doctors sometimes seek vaginal ultrasounds before an abortion, with the patient’s consent, but it’s different when the state forces women to undergo the procedure.

The best formulation on this topic was Bill Clinton’s, that abortion should be “safe, legal and rare.” Achieving that isn’t easy, and there is no silver bullet to reduce unwanted pregnancies. But family planning and comprehensive sex education are a surer path than demeaning  vulnerable women with state-sanctioned abuse and humiliation.

The New York Times

This is seriously one of the most disgusting articles I’ve read recently.

~Mooglets

LIMBAUGH: “So Miss Fluke, and the rest of you Feminazis, here’s the deal. If we are going to pay for your contraceptives, and thus pay for you to have sex. We want something for it. We want you post the videos online so we can all watch.”

Yesterday, as ThinkProgress noted, conservative shock jock and strident women-basher Rush Limbaugh called Sandra Fluke, the Georgetown student who House Republicans wouldn’t let testify at a contraception hearing last week, a “slut” and a prostitute. “She’s having so much sex she can’t afford the contraception,” Limbaugh said.

The remarks drew widespread condemnation, with House Democratic Leader Nancy Polosi (D-CA), demanding that “Republican leaders in the House tocondemn these vicious attacks on Ms. Fluke.”

But on his radio show today, Limbaugh showed no remorse and instead reveled in the attention. Referring to Fluke, Limbaugh demanded that women post sex tapes online if they use insurance-covered birth control:

LIMBAUGH: So Miss Fluke, and the rest of you Feminazis, here’s the deal. If we are going to pay for your contraceptives, and thus pay for you to have sex. We want something for it. We want you post the videos online so we can all watch.

Listen here:  Youtube Video

Limbaugh also said he found the outrage over his remarks “absolutely hilarious.” He again completely misrepresented Fluke’s testimony, saying, she “went before a Congressional committee and said she’s having so much sex she’s going broke buying contraceptives and wants us to buy them.” In fact, Fluke testimony was about a friend — who is gay — and needed contraception for medical reasons, but was denied coverage by Georgetown, a Catholic university.

He went on to say, “I will buy all of the women at Georgetown University as much Aspirin to put between their knees as they want” — a reference to Rick Santorum-backer Foster Friess’ home-spun idea of birth control.

Think Progress

To be perfectly honest guys? I thought that quote I put at the top of this article was from The Onion, or some other satirical website. Turns out? It’s real, he really said that, this is actually something that happened.

I am sickened. 

~Mooglets

The Senate defeated Sen. Roy Blunt’s amendment to allow employers to refuse to cover health services Thursday, dealing Republicans a high-profile setback in the fight over the Obama administration’s contraception coverage mandate.

The vote is unlikely to end the fight over the contraception rule, though, as Blunt said the issue won’t go away until the administration backs down and gives a broader religious exemption to the coverage mandate.

And Democrats — who think they have a political winner if they can frame the debate as a women’s health issue — say they’ll be there to refight the issue as many times as it takes.

“We know that this is just an attempt in a series of attempts,” Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said after the vote. “We’re going to stand up; we’re going to fight back.”

Sen. Olympia Snowe, the Maine Republican who this week said she would not run for reelection, joined nearly all Democrats in a 51-48 vote to dispense of the amendment, which would have allowed employers to decline to cover certain health benefits that conflict with their religious beliefs.

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) voted for the proposed amendment to the Senate transportation bill, saying the Obama administration did not respond to her concerns about whether self-insured health plans of faith-based organizations would be exempt from the contraception coverage mandate. So did Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), who this week questioned why Republicans were voting on the proposal now.

Democratic Sens. Ben Nelson of Nebraska, Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Bob Casey of Pennsylvania joined Republicans in support of the amendment.

Afterwards, Blunt said the vote went “just as he expected it to go.”

“I’m pleased it was bipartisan; I’m pleased that three Democrats were supportive. It’s a matter of conscience, people have to do what they have to do on something like this,” he said.

“I’m confident this issue is not over and won’t be over until the administration figures out how to accommodate people’s religious views as it relates to these new mandates,” Blunt said.

Some of the opponents of the contraception coverage rule are eyeing the House as the next battleground.

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops said it would build on the vote to push its case to overturn the new contraception coverage rule in the House. “We will build on this base of support as we pursue legislation in the House of Representatives,” Bishop William Lori, chairman of the USCCB’s Religious Liberty Committee, said in a statement.

The nation’s Roman Catholic bishops have rejected a compromise on birth control coverage that President Obama offered on Friday and said they would continue to fight the president’s plan to find a way for employees of Catholic hospitals, universities and service agencies to receive free contraceptive coverage in their health insurance plans, without direct involvement or financing from the institutions.

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops - which has led the opposition to the plan - said in a statement late Friday that the solution offered by the White House to quell a political furor was “unacceptable and must be corrected” because it still infringed on the religious liberty and conscience of Catholics.

The bishops’ decision to rebuff the compromise means that “religious freedom” will continue to be a rallying cry for some Catholics who have heard it preached from the pulpit for the last three weeks, for evangelical Christians on the religious right, for Republican candidates on the campaign trail and for members of Congress who are supporting a legislative fix on Capitol Hill.

Administration officials said the White House had never expected to get the bishops’ support, given their absolute opposition to contraception, and was surprised when the initial statement of the bishops conference on Friday was noncommittal and went so far as to call the president’s modification a step in the right direction.

Mr. Obama said that the compromise would take the Catholic institutions out of the equation by relieving them from either paying for coverage for contraceptives or providing any referral to their employees for the coverage. Instead, insurance companies would be required to pay for the contraceptives, and to arrange it. The insurers will agree, the White House said, because it is more expensive for them to pay for pregnancies than to pay for contraceptives.

Churches and houses of worship that object to birth control coverage are already exempted. The compromise applies to primarily Catholic institutions, such as hospitals, universities and charities, that employ and serve large numbers of non-Catholics.

The bishops said the plan offered insufficient protection for their institutions: “In the case where the employee and insurer agree to add the objectionable coverage, that coverage is still provided as a part of the objecting employer’s plan, financed in the same way as the rest of the coverage offered by the objecting employer. This, too, raises serious moral concerns.” The Obama administration plans to hold a series of meetings in the coming days and will invite the bishops and other religious leaders to collaborate on developing the new policy, said an administration official who was not authorized to speak on the record.

“I guess we’ll try to treat that constructively,” said Richard M. Doerflinger, associate director of pro-life activities at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. “But within the meantime we also have to explore other avenues, and there are two other branches of government that may treat our concerns more seriously.”

Already three lawsuits have been filed against the birth control mandate, two by religious colleges and one by a Catholic media outlet.

The bishops will also renew their call for lawmakers to pass the “Respect for Rights of Conscience Act,” which would exempt both insurance providers and purchasers - and not just those who are religiously affiliated - from any mandate to cover items of services that is contrary to either’s “religious beliefs or moral convictions.”

The Senate version of the bill was introduced by Senators Roy Blunt of Missouri, Marco Rubio of Florida, and Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, all Republicans. It has 36 Republican sponsors and co-sponsors, and one Democratic one - Ben Nelson of Nebraska.

However, the bishops are now facing a potential rift with some of their allies who welcomed the compromise yesterday - including Catholic Charities, the Catholic Health Association, which represents Catholic hospitals across the country and individual Catholic Democrats and liberals who had helped persuade the administration to make the change.

James Salt, executive director of Catholics United, a liberal advocacy group that is organizing support for the Obama administration, said, “The bishops’ blanket opposition appears to serve the interests of a political agenda, not the needs of the American people.”

The bishops had initially called the compromise “a first step in the right direction.” But late Friday they released a second statement saying that the plan raised “a grave moral concern.” Mr. Doerflinger said the reason was that they did not see the rule itself until 7 p.m.; the administration official said, however, that the new rule had not been written yet because the details had not been hashed out, and that the bishops must have read the old rule.

The bishops also were dismayed that the administration did not consult them in crafting the compromise, presenting it to them as a fait accompli.

Mr. Doerflinger said, “We were not part of the negotiation and we were told there wasn’t one by the White House.”

The bishops used the turn of events to renew their objections to the broad requirement that was part of the sweeping health care overhaul passed in 2010 that any employer who has a moral or religious objection - even a small business owner - must offer birth control in their insurance coverage because it is preventive care.

“All the other mandated ‘preventive services’ prevent disease, and pregnancy is not a disease,” the bishops said.

NY Times