Birth Control Pills
Photo: Don Farrall, Photodisc, Getty Images
Because access to contraception is so popular, it's difficult for the anti-choice movement to openly proclaim its opposition to birth control. Instead, they work on measures which can be portrayed as "pro-life" and thus are sure to get a lot of sympathy but which, in the long run, are designed to undermine Americans' ability to use birth control.
The most blatant example of this comes from Florida where a proposed constitutional amendment defines a "person" as existing "from the beginning of the biological development of that human being." This could make birth control pills a crime because it's possible for them to prevent a fertilized egg from implanting in the uterine wall.
"By their definition, anything that you might do to interfere with the implantation of a fertilized egg would be tantamount to murder," said Marc Farinella, a campaign consultant for Florida Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink, presumptive Democratic candidate for governor.
As described by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, birth control pills and intrauterine devices work partly by causing the lining of the uterus to thin, "making it less likely that a fertilized egg can attach to it." ...
[Pat McEwen of Palm Bay, one of two leaders of the loose collection of activists collectively known as Personhood Florida, is] not convinced her proposed amendment would criminalize the pill. But she would support banning it, she said, if she were truly convinced it prevents implantation.
The American Life League has no such doubts. On its Web site, the league slams the pill for numerous reasons, including: "The pill will irritate the lining of the uterus so that the newly formed human being cannot attach to his/her mother's womb and dies. This is called a chemical abortion."
Source: Tampa Bay Online
Opposition to birth control is increasing in evangelical circles and they are, curiously, relying heavily on Catholic teachings. While Catholic teaching officially rejects the use of contraceptives, you don't see Catholics trying to undermine access to them -- but that's what some evangelicals seem to have in mind. This is strange given the traditional Protestant support for family planning, but it makes sense in the context of the Culture Wars and some Christian traditions.
Broader legal availability of contraceptives was the major step right before the establishment of the right to abortion -- and this is not a coincidence. Both are about the ability of people to determine their future and their sexual behavior independent of both biology and religious tradition. This is what anti-choice zealots wish to end. Unfortunately, many people don't realize that contraception is next on the list after abortion, and that ending legal choice for abortion paves the way for ending choice with contraception.
Too many conservative Christians simply can't handle personal autonomy in general, but especially female autonomy. Personal autonomy is wrong because it allows people to make decisions about their own lives, or jointly make decisions about governing a community, without regard to what some god supposedly wants. Female autonomy is especially bad because not only does it permit women to make decisions about their lives without regard to what some god supposedly wants, but also without regard to what men in the community want.
So in the end, it really is all about power: will people be permitted to have power over their own lives and the liberty to make choices about how to lead their lives, or will a small number of privileged people be given the power to make such decisions for everyone else? Will human relationships be more horizontal, with people generally being equals in how their relate to one another, or will human relationships be more vertical, with clear hierarchical relationships determining who has power over whom who is privileged over whom, and who must submit to whom.
Both contraception and abortion should be safe, private matters outside the powers of the government to prevent simply because some religious dogmas forbid them. Unfortunately, too many religious believers refuse to accept any restrictions on the authority of their religious dogmas -- they are convinced that because their dogmas are divinely ordained rather than human created (like the law), then their dogmas take precedent over everything else.
How do these dimwits rationalize that their god most LOVE abortions then?
In case you didn’t know anywhere from 25% to 50% of ALL pregnancies (fertilized eggs) spontaniously self abort. Think about it for just a second. Evolutionarially, this is the way that nature keeps obvious mistakes from happening. But according to these wackjobs, that means that up to 50% of all “souls” never even have a chance to be born. That makes their god one sick mofo. Or maybe he just loves doing abortions.
Sorry, I could go on, but I’d just get angry at their incredibly primitive (lack of) thought processes.
(1) Larian?…I’ve been long commenting, similarly, regarding that issue; one of my major pet peeves involving the whole ridiculous abortion debate. Basically, IMO, all religions shut down at the very LEAST a MAJOR portion of any believer’s critical thinking skill…if they ever had any to begin with.
One NEVER, from my experience, hears anyone bring up “miscarriages” in any public debate. And “religiously speaking”…if you’ll excuse the expression…the Jews, who ARE, you would think, the lineal Biblical predecessors of both the Christians and Muslims, traditionally, if I’m not mistaken, don’t consider an UNBORN fetus to be truly a human being. It’s only AFTER the fetus is actually “born”, and takes the first, independent, “breath of life” that it’s truly considered a “human child”. IOW, abortion, and of course, Birth Control methods are no big deal in Judaism.
So much, of course, for “tradition”…?
As for the Bible; I guess it never hurts to remind the religious sheeple that there’s essentially nothing in the Bible about abortion.
On that note (Concert A flat?), here’s my favorite relevant article link: (copy/paste?)
[http://ffrf.org/nontracts/abortion.php]
And, as to those “poor (un-baptized, no less) souls”; now, since the RCC has closed down Limbo, what’s to become of them? (kidding!)
If they go directly to “Heaven”, I guess they get a better deal than all of us poor shlubs, who have to actually “schlepp” all the way through life, with all it’s myriad “damnation jeopardy”.
The ridiculous mental quicksand notions of Heaven…Hell…and Purgatory come to mind; followed quickly by recent memory of some very articulate and relevant Christopher Hitchens YouTube debates.
Does “North Korea” ring anyone’s “Heavenly” Hitchens comment bells?
And then, of course, there’s the “New Age” style theory of Reincarnation…(which I have, at the moment, no intention of touching with a ten foot…
coat hanger?)
Or, Like you said, Larian, “I could go on…”; but, especially in my case, does anyone really give a Shi-ite?
What I find most interesting about the abortion debate is that it assumes that ending a human life = murder. And yet, the “right to life” derived from the Constitution (I assume where it says the state can’t kill you without due process) is not some “trump all” right. Recently in Texas, a man killed some intruders in his home, and he is not facing charges. His “right” to protect his person and property over-rode the “right to life” of the intruders. Likewise, when Teri Schiavo surprised us all and was able to breathe on her own after a respirator was removed, her husband’s “right” to oversee her medical care in the event she was incapacitated, meant that she was allowed to die (basically it over-rode her right to life) at his request and with the consent of her doctor. Additionally, I donate blood and am an organ donor; but if someone needed a kidney from me, and would die without my specific donation, my right to authority over my own body would legally prevail; if the person died, I would not be up on murder charges–EVEN if the person who died was my own biological child who was in my custody and care.
There is, as far as I’m aware, no law that says that because a man or woman has a child, that they are then compelled to give up rights to their internal organs to continue the child’s life if it will cease without the use of the parents’ organs. No living child has a right to life that over-rides the mother’s or father’s right to refuse a kidney to save their own child’s life.
So, my question continues to be: If the child cannot live without the use of another human’s body, how is denying the “other body” a murder–even if the child dies? Why should an unborn child have _more_ rights than a child who is, say, 5 years old? I don’t get that.
So, to me, even if we were to say “conception” is where life begins, I don’t see how that would block birth control or abortion rights and choices. Don’t get me wrong–I see that anti-choice/pro-life groups think it will. But even if they get the “conception” clause–whether they believe it or not–they still need to demonstrate how the death that results from birth control or abortion constitutes a murder, anymore than a mother’s right to not give a kidney to save her 5-year-old’s life would be “murder” (and it’s legally _not_ murder).
???
Good point, Tracie. How is refusal to allow a ZEF to use one’s body as an incubator any more of a murder than refusal to donate one’s kidney to it after it’s born? They carry similar risks, after all. I never considered that.
Seth:
The rebuttal is normally that the baby has to be “unhooked” rather than hooked up. However, I compare that to a mother who agrees to a kidney transplant and then changes her mind. Obviously the doctors aren’t going to physically force her to go through with it. And any medical apparatus that has been “hooked up” would be unhooked if the mother was able to express that she just can’t or won’t follow through. So, you _could_ unhook from the 5-year-old if the result was death, and still not face murder charges. I just haven’t really heard a compelling argument for how rights of unborns are or should be any different than the rights of born children. But it sounds to me like pro-life/anti-choice groups are asking for exactly that.
If you went to the ultimate state of the ridiculous extreme on the subject… Think about it. Wouldn’t the fetus or zygote then require a Social Security card, ID, insurance as your minor “child”? If the gender is unknown, how do you give a name to a clump of cells of unknown gender anyway?
What happens in the case of a miscarriage? Is the unfortunate mother required to be arrested for manslaughter? Is the father considered an accomplice?
Is the unborn considered in the census? Can you use the zygote as a deduction on your income tax? What is the actual legal definition of being a “person” ? I’m beginning to think these “right-to-lifers” don’t make the criteria as it is, themselves.
These exaggerated concepts I have highlighted, of course, are facetious, but in the mind of some of these “pro-lifers” even these wouldn’t seem impossible to implement in their convoluted reasoning.
Basically, I think most lawmakers could see the ramifications of designating the unborn “personhood”.
This is why, I don’t believe this idea could be taken seriously, by any sensible legislator. Then again…who knows? These are strange times. When I think of the “C-street gang”, my blood boils. Yet there they are blithely carrying on, as if nothing occurred.
To me it’s all about “Control.”
These people want to take control. And it’s not just limited to reproductive rights. They want to control everything.
Funny how they don’t see themselves in the same light as they view Islamic religious leaders in such countries as Saudi Arabia, Iran, or Iraq. Or like similar groups such as the Taliban or Al Quida.
They all want to have control. From religious beliefs to how you go to the bathroom.
Their view of the world is also skewed. They also don’t know the origins of the birth control pill. They also don’t want to know how it has improved women’s and men’s lives around the world.
At one time I thought how sad these people were in that this was all their lives revolved around.
I don’t feel sad for them anymore.
These people will use intimidation, death threats, physical intimidation, commit physical injury to people and in some cases actually kill people.
I don’t feel sorry for them at all. In fact, the only way I see to fight them is to get right in their faces, out scream them and out threaten them.
Sadly, it’s the only thing they seem to understand.
The problem with most right-to-lifers is that they firmly believe that life begins at conception and ends at birth. They tend to view public education healthcare, etc as “socialist” or (Horrors!) “comminust”.