An Alaska Republican is pushing to put free pregnancy tests in bars in order to discourage pregnant people from drinking, but thinks that providing no-cost birth control in the same manner is “social engineering.”
In an interview with the Anchorage Daily News, state Sen. Pete Kelly explained his dream of putting pregnancy tests in public restrooms thusly: “So if you’re drinking — if you’re out at the big birthday celebration and you’re kind of like, ‘Gee, I wonder if I …,’ You can just go in the bathroom and there should be a plastic, Plexiglas bowl in there [filled with free pregnancy tests.]”
While I’m not entirely convinced that clubgoers will feel inclined to piss on a stick in the middle of a “big birthday celebration,” I’m definitely in favor of making pregnancy tests free and widely available in places like public restrooms. (A savvy Alaskan would be well served to stash a few of the free tests to have on hand at more convenient, less public moments.)
But when asked about another sensible reproductive health proposal — making birth control free and widely available — Kelly balked.
“No, because the thinking is a little opposite. This assumes that if you know, you’ll act responsibly. Birth control is for people who don’t necessarily want to act responsibly,” he explained. “That’s — I’m not going to tell them what to do, or help them do it, that’s their business. But if we have a pregnancy test, because someone just doesn’t know. That’s probably a way we can help them.”
When the person interviewing Kelly suggested that using birth control may also be responsible, Kelly replied, “Maybe, maybe not. That’s a level of social engineering that we don’t want to get into. All we want to do is make sure that people are informed and they’ll make the right decision.”
So it IS responsible to pee on a stick before drinking in a bar to determine whether or not you are pregnant first, but NOT responsible to use birth control to keep that from happening in the first place?
Okay that's going to kill some brain cells.
Sometimes there is so much stupid up here that I am afraid to leave my house
Drinking -- a little -- when you're pregnant is actually okay. One study recently showed that women who drink A LITTLE have babies with higher IQs, a finding that the medical community immediately poo-pooed by saying that the women who drink A LITTLE when pregnant tend to be of a higher social class, so...I guess only rich women are allowed to have the occasional glass of wine when pregnant and we poor ladies have to be treated like idiots?
ReplyDeletehttp://www2.potsdam.edu/alcohol/FetalAlcoholSyndrome.html#.Uy3mMNyLFg0
DeleteEuropean study that shows that no more than one drink per day during pregnancy is ok.
Yeah, I feel the American medical community just thinks that women are too stupid to exercise self control and that if we're told that we can drink a little that we'll all go crazy. That's why they say NO CAFFEINE when the science doesn't show any real link between caffeine consumption and bad outcomes for pregnancies.
DeleteGoddamn fucking asshole! His problem is that HE doesn't have to worry about getting a woman pregnant since the last time he got it up, he was a 12-year old reading Playboy under the covers with a flashlight. He also needed a flashlight to find his dick and he still needs the flashlight to find it.
ReplyDeleteIf you think you have a lot of stupid south of the Alaska Range Jesse, you ought to rub elbows with some of my fellow Fairbanksians. Pete Kelly, Coghill, Tammy Wilson, Joe Miller. They are a stain on our community.
ReplyDeleteOh believe me I know that.
DeleteAnd trust me, I feel your pain.
To: Pete Kelly
ReplyDeleteFrom: Responsible Alaskans
Please crawl back into your cave.
p.s. Please take Fred Dyson with you.
Well, this is the state that allowed the Palin Klan into their Governor's Mansion, which in turn sent her ignorance and fury into ALL of our living rooms, after all. What he thinks makes almost as much sense as calling a family with at least TWO out of wedlock pregnancies (three, if you count Sarah's first one) some kind of good Christian, moral family.
ReplyDeleteAlaskans have a horrible record of voting in horrid folks - Republicans always!!! They are anti women, anti voting rights and on and on. When are Alaskans going to wise up? Look at them putting Palin and Parnell into office! What jokesters - only it isn't funny!
DeleteWTF?
ReplyDelete"Birth control is for irresponsible people"?
Really, this is one of the dumbest things I have ever heard in my life---and I've heard a shitload of dumbness (especially coming out of the great white north these last few years).
So its all about the fetus------ that they are going to refuse to feed once its born, try to block health care for it or give decent schools as they kick its parents off of unemployment. And by the way---what will they be putting in the men's bathrooms?
Back in the 1990s, I was working for a huge national company (you'd instantly recognize the name) that refused to cover birth control of any sort for women. As the HR idiot told all of us (men and women) in a meeting, "We want you girls to be responsible". The "girls" the HR idiot was talking to were all married women in their 30s and 40s, most with master's degrees in various IT and Engineering specialities.
DeleteThe will put Viagra in the men's bathrooms so they are ready for all those irresponsible women.
Delete9:46 -
DeleteBut if those 'girls' were REALLY responsible, they would get themselves pregnant and stay home to give those nice cushy, well-paying jobs to some manly man who really deserves it! Right?
(I would use the term Neanderthal, but that just insults the Neanderthals who likely had more sense than these idiots!)
Remember kids, there was a huge backlash about "public money" going to pay for birth control from these knuckledragging dipshits in response to Obama wanting ALL private insurance plans paid for by women and their employers to cover birth control…
DeleteBut not a peep about the fact that hundreds of millions of dollars in PUBLIC MONEY have gone to pay for penis pumps.
Hey, Sarah! Since you're so into cutting government waste and such a feminist, where's your outrage about $$$ going to penis pumps?
If you're out drinking and acting in a wild way, there isn't a pregnancy test in the world that can reveal a "pregnancy" that is an hour or so old. It takes that long for the sperm to reach the egg, and some more time for the egg to get implanted in the uterus. That guy needs a basic biology class instead of more of that creationism crap. The responsible way to prevent a pregnancy is with birth control-- something that he called "social engineering." That guy is as bad as the "rape will shut down a pregnancy" guy and the other nitwits who have no idea how a woman's body works. If they don't know how if works, maybe they should shut up until they learn some basic biology.
ReplyDeleteI think implantation can tsk give days...but these are people who are so ignorant that they think that life begins when the sperm and egg meet, even though there is no pregnancy test in the world what can predict that because there's no physical change in a woman's body until implantation,
DeleteIt took me a couple of readings to get what he was talking about, but what I THINK he means is that the partygoer can check and see if they're pregnant before they drink any alcohol that might be offered at the birthday celebration.
DeleteOf course, any intelligent woman who thinks she might be pregnant either takes a test BEFORE the party, or simply abstains during that celebration and tests when she gets home.
Not that this explanation of his comments makes much more sense than an immediate pregnancy, but anyone who calls a woman using birth control 'irresponsible' can't be relied on for any kind of logic.
WTF?
ReplyDeleteI have lived too long to expect stupid to be bred out of the gene pool.
RJ in Brownbackistan
so what the hell is Viagra for?
ReplyDeleteI'm at a loss for words! BEYOND STUPID.
ReplyDeleteOMFG! Seriously? Hmm, let me see, don't use birth control so you get pregnant because you might after consuming alcohol but no worries, the next time your back you can pick one up in the bathroom, that's cool ? Is the intention to keep breeding more idiots?
ReplyDeleteKelly's dream is so much grander than having a bowl of pregnancy tests in bar restrooms.
ReplyDelete2:99 Kelly: "ultimately you have to ask yourself if someone is damning their child to a lifetime of mental and physical problems, as well, uhm and it’s going to end up costing the state. At that time that we have to say maybe there’s some level of involuntary commitment that happens….just during that period of the pregnancy. We’re not doing that right now. That’s being discussed."
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/03/alaska-gop-pregnancy-tests-bars-birth-control
'damning their child to a lifetime of mental and physical problems"
Would Kelly say the same thing about Down Syndrome which is more frequent than FAS? It's not 100% preventable like FAS but research shows it's more likely when either or both parents are older. Someone should ask Kelly whether sexually active women and men over 35 are irresponsible and a burden on the state.
That's part of the fetal personhood movement. To hear more about this -- and of you want to get so angry you'll want to throw things-- I suggest looking up the episode of Fresh Air on NPR about the topic. I consider myself well educated about current events and I had no idea that peopl were trying to do this! It's actually an informative hour of radio,with both sides given an opportunity to speak followed by a doctor who refuted some wacky suggestions that the pro-personhood person said as well as to talk about the facts.
DeletePregnant women in WI can get locked up for admiring previous drug use and other states have similar laws "to protect the fetus" but according to the doctor, in some cases, it's not ideal for the fetus for the mom to stop cold turkey. Nevermind that though! The point these people want to make are that fetuses are people and abortion should count as murder. Another woman got arrested for falling down stairs because a nurse thought she was trying to abort the fetus. Because she had thought about an abortion earlier in her pregnancy.
A woman's HIPPA rights, apparently, are non existent when she becomes pregnant in some states and doctors are OBLIGATED to report drug and alcohol use to the state!
I'm pregnant and I've indulged in the occasional glass of wine -- like once a month, maybe? -- and I know that it's okay but if my doctor asks me, I'm going to lie because even though I live in a state that's pretty progressive, I'm terrified about what telling the truth would mean.
DS can occur in pregnancies of women of all ages. The percentage is higher in older women because they have fewer pregnancies.
DeleteNot quite complete, 11:40 AM. A better way of stating it is:
DeleteWomen who are 35 years or older when they become pregnant are more likely to have a pregnancy affected by Down syndrome than women who become pregnant at a younger age. However, the majority of babies with Down syndrome are born to mothers less than 35 years old, because there are many more births among younger women.
(Getting pregnant when you are over 35, if you manage to beat the odds and do so as your fertility is greatly decreased, carries a statistically greater risk of having a baby with Down Syndrome compared to a woman under 35.)
Don't the people who elect these guys pay attention to the stupid things they say?? I can't imagine ANY woman voting for a man who suggests that she pee on a stick in a bar bathroom. Who IS this guy????
ReplyDeleteSo how to end fetal alcohol syndrome? Sen Kelly, who apparently doesn't think just a few months ago:
ReplyDelete"Kelly said it is scary that one of the strongest indicators a woman will have a baby with FAS is if the woman already has one or more children with the problem.
“If they knew, they wouldn’t do it. But the people that are so addicted to alcohol and their lives are so messed up, some of them just can’t come to that realization. But over time we can cause the people around them to come to a hyper realization of what’s going on and they can, with any luck, gather around those folks and help them out.”
http://www.alaskadispatch.com/article/20140130/alaska-group-hopes-end-fetal-alcohol-syndrome
Contraception? Making sure people who are addicted to alcohol and who are having children really want to have those children? Apparently not.
it makes me wonder, i spent 15 yrs in the service (canada)
ReplyDeleteand traveled to 27 country's, because i love to travel and see new things, when i got out, i bought a long haul truck and trucked most all of canada and the usa, for close to 20yrs, and i can say without a doubt,, the most stupid people i have ever met were people from the states and they all had the same thing in common, the bible... what a shocker eh?
Isn't this Something ! Stupid is as stupid says. I have never seen or heard so many stupid politicians , and their followers. I was sent in the mail my stickers from Planned Parenthood that I requested. So my car now has a window sticker that says" I stand with Planned Parenthood. " All our water is being poisoned by Companies, How many people can't use the water on their own property because of Fracking? How are we going to have enough water for drinking, cleaning and bathing? That is just one aspect of overcrowding with too many births. WE can't let them win, I'm 67 and I was told about the importance of not having more children than you can afford. That gone were the days of having big families.
ReplyDeleteAnother GOP monkey spanker.
ReplyDeleteO/T but a crucial update:
ReplyDeleteRepublicans Should Go Crawl In A Ditch As Obamacare Crushes Enrollment Goal (Video)
It’s not looking good for the Republican naysayers who have insisted, no matter how many times their predictions of doom and gloom for Obamacare have proven to be wrong, the law is about to fail. They are still insisting that there is no chance that the enrollment goal of 6 million can be reached by the March 31 deadline.
The latest forecast made by Charles Gaba on his blog, acasignups.net is that enrollment is on a pace to actually exceed that goal by approximately half a million. Opponents of the law have tied their last ditch hopes for the law’s failure to the assumption that the goal of 6 million could not be reached by the deadline and with that goal in sight have nothing left, they know that this was the last chance they had to get rid of the law.
http://aattp.org/republicans-should-go-crawl-in-a-ditch-as-obamacare-crushes-enrollment-goal-video/
President Obama has stayed consistent in his absolute commitment to the health of Americans and the need for health insurance and it's on track to become a permanent fixture in our country. It's not perfect, but it's a huge step in the right direction.
And Sarah, you can go fuck yourself. Obamacare is here to stay!
Hmm, Pete Kelly only had 3 children with his wife of 32 years. Wonder how they achieved that? Did they only have sex three times only for procreation purposes or perhaps did she or he use birth control?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.petekellyforsenate.com/about.html
Hey no worries Gryph, we have a Mayor here in Canada with the name of Rob Ford. There is always crazy in every corner of the earth. My hope is that the sane will recognize and keep these idiots out of govt. and vote them out in the next elections.
ReplyDeleteWell, this is going to add a whole new meaning to "hold my beer and watch this..."
ReplyDeleteIt's not just Alaska. The entire GOP is messed up beyond belief. Yeah, great idea. While they're at it, how about cheek swabs for DNA for the men folk and fingerprints for everyone!
ReplyDeleteAs a woman, I'm shocked beyond belief that there are any women who vote for the GOP. There's nothing less attractive than a stupid man who thinks of women as chattel.
This guy is a douche. Come on Alaska. Any woman who votes for this guy deserves to be oppressed.
ReplyDelete