You have GOT to be F**KING KIDDING ME!!!

[greenman]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cristina-page/hhs-moves-to-define-contr_b_112887.html

I don't normally really rant in my LJ, but I think that this warrants it.

Apparently, the federal Department of Health and Human Services is trying to define ANY form of birth control that directly affects a fertilized egg as abortion. That includes not only the various day after pills solutions, but also the various forms of birth control pills themselves, which act on a woman's body to keep the fertilized egg from implanting on the uterine wall. Essentially, it would include any type of chemical birth control solution currently on the market.

Which is the vast majority of birth control solutions available to women. This would also include contraceptive foams, the implanted or patch forms of birth control, or IUD's... Basically, it would include anything but condoms. Which would essentially set the available forms of birth control controllable by women to... None.

Up until now, pregnancy has been defined by the HHS as beginning at the time a fertilized egg implants itself successfully on the uterine wall. This definition is the one used by the American Medical Association and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, who really should have a pretty good idea about the mechanics of fertilization, conception, pregnancy, and birth.

The HHS is trying to change that definition to be defined as beginning at the time of fertilization of the egg, apparently

However, by this very definition, the HHS will be defining any woman who EVER has a miscarriage as having had an abortion. In fact, it will be defining the vast majority of women who have ever had unprotected sex as having had an abortion, as in many cases, an egg can be fertilized, but doesn't ever attach to the uterine wall successfully, and is flushed out of the woman's body naturally. It happens, all the time. But the HHS, in an attempt "to protect individuals and institutions from suffering discrimination on the basis of conscience", is proposing that "the conscience of the individual or institution should be paramount in determining what constitutes abortion".

Not the conscience of the woman involved. Not the recommendations of the medical community. "theconscience of the individual or institution". In other words, anti-choicers who are trying to make the decision for OTHER PEOPLE. This is (if nothing else) a situation not unlike Pilate washing his hands and saying "You deal with it" over the abortion issue, and if nothing else, the anti-choice movement trying to gain ever more control over a woman's right to decide what is best for her body and her life.

I'm a man. My decisions on whether or not to father a child are limited to abstinence, a condom, or as a more permanent solution, surgery. A woman's choice is abstinence, insuring that her partner uses a condom, one of the chemical methods of contraception that are currently being threatened, or much more invasive surgery than I would have to go through. Taking away the chemical (and at least one mechanical form, that of the IUD) leaves women with abstinence, condoms, or invasive surgery. And none of those will protect a woman from pregnancy if she is, for instance, raped. Not many rapists are likely to stop and put on a condom in the process of violently attacking and raping a woman, to insure she doesn't get pregnant as a result. And of course, by the time a survivor of rape would have any possibility of medical help, there wouldn't be any option but "abortion", if this change to the definition of pregnancy and conception is made.

GRAHAAAAAAHAAAAAAAA!!!! Mother(*&(*^%&^$%&**^%(&^!!!!!!!!

Why do .. why does... Who would... GRAAAA!!!!

Comments

[blur01.livejournal.com]

There was a case where a rapist managed to escape conviction be cause he did stop to put on a condom. If I remember correctly, he made his victim put it on him (or, it might have been that she begged that he use one, he agreed...). The courts ruled that this made her a willing participant.

---

I have not yet followed the link so I am not sure if it would also limit the use of other barrier methods such a the female condom and diaphram.

[greenmansgrove.livejournal.com]

As I said, "not many"... And that one seems to have added a serious level of mind-rape as well as body rape, and played it off in such a way that a twisted and sick court validated it.

To me, that's nearly worse than the original rape. "You did everything you could to protect yourself from an inevitable situation, so you were a willing participant." How fucked up is that?

[blur01.livejournal.com]

I appreciate people who can find loopholes. More power to you if you have the mind to be able to warp the system, but it is my opinion that a good system will heal itself after its been attacked and defeated.

And here and now I am going to say "I love you mister Zell".

[greenmansgrove.livejournal.com]

That's great for the system.... But I really feel for the woman who was raped and then subsequently told that she wasn't because she tried to protect herself. That's the fucked up and wrong part, in my mind.

[blur01.livejournal.com]

"Well mister lawyer, I thank you for your bug report. YOU get a win in your column. You, however, mister rapist *BLAM* still dont get to go home. Ma'am, I'm really sorry."

[greenmansgrove.livejournal.com]

If that's the way that our justice system worked... Well, I'm not sure that I'd be happier, or more scared. But then, I'm just never satisfied.

[dorothyk.livejournal.com]

On the other hand, the more extreme it gets, the larger the number of pro-choice supporters there will be. Once all the conservative business folks lose the right to make choices about family planning, they will happily jump on board to prevent their choices from being taken from them. I can easily see this backfiring, in pro-choice's favor. I doubt, for that reason, that there is any chance it will go through. In some ways that's kinda a shame. I'd really rather give the conservative middle a good chance to get upset first... and let them help blow it out of the water.

Otherwise, I'm totally in agreement.

[greenmansgrove.livejournal.com]

My biggest fear is that the conservative middle will not rouse themselves until it's WAY too late.

First They Came...

When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.

When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.

When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.

When they came for the Jews,
I remained silent;
I wasn't a Jew.

When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.

-Pastor Martin Niemöller

[echoweaver.livejournal.com]

There is truth to that, but it's worth keeping in mind that MANY, perhaps even MOST conservative middle ground couples use birth control.

[blur01.livejournal.com]

I was about to quote this as well. The time is NOW, not later.

[stephanieb.livejournal.com]

Excellent rant! I do want to clarify that most forms of birth control, including Plan B, DON'T actually act by making the uterine wall inhospitable to fertilized eggs, at least in the vast majority of cases.

A good, detailed explanation of how Plan B works and doesn't work is here: http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2006/04/why_the_wingnuts_hate_plan_b.php
Basically, it's a big dose of progesterone, which actually is what's released by the body to make the uterine lining MORE hospitable. The primary action of Plan B is to prevent ovulation, which is why its effectiveness rapidly decreases the longer after unprotected sex to take it.

Copper IUDs have a spermicidal effect rather than impeding fertilized eggs-the latter effect is theoretically possible but apparently very rare in real life. There was a study, which I can't track down right now, that showed that women having unprotected sex shed WAY more fertilized eggs out of their bodies than women with IUDs did.

Hormonal IUDs work the same way, and also prevent ovulation.

Planned Parenthood tells me that there's no actual evidence that birth control pills work by making the uterine wall inhospitable. Their primary modes of action are preventing ovulation, and thickening cervical mucous to keep the sperm out.

http://www.plannedparenthood.org/health-topics/birth-control-4211.htm

Contraceptive foams are straight spermicides-no effect on the uterine lining.

Most of these methods have several theoretically possible modes of action. Science is honest (unlike "pro-lifers") when it doesn't know things for sure, so they list all the possible modes. While it is POSSIBLE that any of these methods (except contraceptive foams) could work the way the "pro-lifers" say, it's unlikely, and IMO, in the case of Plan B, almost biologically impossible. But of course the people who want to control women and sex latched on to the POSSIBILITY of poor homeless fertilized eggs, and thus we have this idiotic and dangerous rule.

As I have been known to say before, "pro-life," my fat ass. If they really wanted to prevent abortion, they'd be handing out IUDs on street corners, and Plan B and birth control pills in the school nurses lounge. And if they really cared about kids, they'd fund SCHIP and Head Start like crazy. And and and-the list of things that honestly pro-life people would work on instead of birth control and abortion is damn near endless, and this is your LiveJournal, not mine:)

[greenmansgrove.livejournal.com]

You're right about all those methods of birth control... Though with many of them, they don't prevent the egg from being fertilized, which is where the big change they're making is. Obviously, the spermicidal ones do, but aren't there at least a couple of birth control pills that work by means other than preventing ovulation?

Thanks for the clarification, though. I saw another article after I posted that indicated that I hadn't been completely accurate about which types of contraception it would affect, but I hadn't had a chance to see where I was wrong yet.

[wiebelstez.livejournal.com]

all oral contraceptives are only meant to prevent ovulation. that is how they work. the only reason for a fertiozed egg to not attach to the uterine wall is that it was fertized too late (timeing of sex) or the enviroment in the uterus has the wrong hormones for that time. (plan b effects this but it is not its primary mode of working). if it is true that this law targets only fertized eggs than plan b and iud's will be the only type of birth control that i can see being effects. tehn truthfully women will go back to taking mutiple tabs of their ocp several days in a row to create the same effect (jsut with more homes and more risk and cost). (also nto avaible to women that arn't on ocp's to begin with. foams kill sperm, barriers well that is self explanitory and iuds although hormones help prevent ovualtion the lining is also affected by the hormones by greatly thinning the lining thus affecting the ability for a fertized egg to implant. those iud's without hormones also affect implantaion.

i do not agree with the concept that fertizization is what defines life...i wonder if this is to target the whole hoopla over petrie fetized eggs and the destruction/expirimention on them. if that is defined as life then the impications in that venue are huge.

the advances in science make us have to now define things that never needed defining in teh past...lines get very blurred....

as science becomes more advanced i wonder if we are becoming less.........

[geekymary.livejournal.com]

This isn't going anywhere. Not in an election year. I don't think anyone in Congress would want to touch something this divisive.

Bushies are trying to get one last thing in before they go.

[billroper]

Looking at the original article, it appears that HHS is saying that, for example and in effect, a Roman Catholic hospital can't be required under the law to provide certain classes of contraception. I'm not sure that's an evil thing as long as a woman continues to have a choice about where to seek service.

If you want to argue that a woman will find it substantially more difficult to find the contraception support that she needs if this proposed rule is applied, that would seem to be a different argument than the one that you're making.

[greenmansgrove.livejournal.com]

That wouldn't be entirely unreasonable... If it weren't for the fact that there's a lot of places outside of large cities where your choices for health care service are much more limited, and often connected to religious organizations.

That, and I'm really worried from a larger overview point about the slow erosion of people's right to choose. Yes, a doctor has the right to have an opinion about the types of services that he or she provides. However, the patient also has a right to know about all the options, not just the ones that the doctor is willing to perform. The change as stated would allow a doctor to not even mention certain types of birth control as an option, as determined by "the conscience of the individual or institution". That's the part that really worries me.

[tlunquist.livejournal.com]

Indeed, once doctors are not required to discuss all the options, it's a very short hop from there to a gag rule - saying they *can't* talk about all the options.

[bammba-m.livejournal.com]

i don't like the idea that i should consider birth control just in case i'm ever raped. it makes me think i might get raped. which, as a rape survivor, is not a mindset i enjoy being in. yes, it's a reality of our society. no, i don't particularly enjoy living in fear.

i guess i'm saying that if the only reason to continue using chemical birth control is because women might get raped, we need to come up with a better reason.

(otherwise, i agree entirely)

[greenmansgrove.livejournal.com]

In no way do I mean to imply that is the ONLY reason to continue using chemical forms of birth control. In fact, I brought that up mostly as a brute force, club over the head kind of addition.

Personally, I believe that the best reason to not make this definition change is that it removes even more choice from women about the control of their bodies. Personally, I believe that the choice to have an abortion or not is something that no woman would ever have to make. But I would also prefer that women have that option at all. And the whole idea of changing the definition of conception from the time of implantation to the time of fertilization (which is nearly impossible to track or define, by the way) is another step in the anti-choice movement to ban abortion and remove more choices from women.

[bammba-m.livejournal.com]

i agree with you, i really do. i just think that your brute force club on the head preys upon some idea of the vulnerability of women that we as a society shouldn't be encouraging.

"valid point, valid point, valid point, and women might get raped"

it's sad to me that so many arguments need to get to the point of brute force points. i am all in favor of women having more choices.

i guess i've agreed with your rant out of hand, and then gone on to a completely different rant of my own. sorry. :P

[drawshad.livejournal.com]

All but 2 girls on my floor in college were on Birth Control pills. Of those, 2 were sexually active. The rest of us were on it for various other reasons: controlling acne, alleviating debilitating cramps and other menstrual related symptoms, etc. People who make these laws forget that BCPs are like female wonder-drugs in certain situations.

[curiousalexa.livejournal.com]

But wait, it gets better!

the AMA has agreed to back a measure called "Resolution 205," a request to support the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists' (ACOG) position that home births are not safe.

"We are against home births, period,"

http://www.abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=5340949&page=1

So not only do women lose options to prevent pregnancy, they'll also be required to pay hospital bills to complete it. The good news is, this is still in the proposed legislation stage...

[huashan.livejournal.com]

Watch how people in Congress vote. If they vote wrong in your opinion, work to make sure they don't get to vote in Congress anymore. Do the same thing for anyone who runs part of the government and does it wrong and for the people that put those people in charge.

And more importantly...when a huge number of people realize that things are going wrong and make a radical change in government by voting and the people who were voted in FAIL to do what they were voted in to do, make sure that those people feel the repercussions of their actions and lose those jobs. The only way to make this country work is to find a way to make politicians suffer the consequences of their actions.

[tlunquist.livejournal.com]

Can we use two by fours?

[jil-fred.livejournal.com]

Whole thing p*sses me off. First the rights of women to get equal pay for equal work are attacked (Ledbetter vs Goodyear), now this crap. Women are apparently the "minority" group it is always safe to pick on. I agree with Mary that this is Bush's going away gift to his ultra right wing crowd. Cannot wait until this schmuck is out of a job. These a**holes, who would seemingly like to see all us women chained to the stove barefoot and preggers, really need to look at how the economy really runs now. Returning to 1953 is not an option.