I'm guessing 100% effective. Right?

I can't even have a conversation with somebody who I know is a Trump voter at this point.

That seems wrong as there must be some that are nice people.

It's just that such a level of stupidity makes it feel like I am talking to a less evolved life form.

I don't believe this is completely accurate, but I know it certainly should be.

I am sure there are some in this country who would call me elitist, but I find that I cannot even consider having a conversation with a person who voted for Donald Trump.

And I certainly could not sleep with a woman who had done so, after all it is immoral to have sex with the mentally handicapped.

Florida politicians think it is perfectly okay to defund Planned parenthood because dentists and elementary school can always provide breast exams and birth control. Wait, what?

Courtesy of the Guardian:  

A bill passed in the Florida legislature this week would effectively defund Planned Parenthood and other reproductive rights clinics by preventing state agencies from working with any organization that provides abortion care other than that for victims of rape, incest, or if the life of the woman is at risk. 

As the bill heads to governor Rick Scott for his signature, several state lawmakers who have insisted that plentiful alternatives exist for reproductive and sexual healthcare have cited a list of health centers that includes dentists, optometrists, and elementary schools. 

“I don’t understand how they put this list together,” said Kheyanna Suarez, a student at Florida Atlantic University who first started visiting Planned Parenthood when she was 16. “Were they blind and mashed everything from Google on to one list? A dental office, a Salvation Army, an elementary school – I can’t go and get care at those places. If I have to leave my healthcare up to the places on that list, I am scared. I don’t think an elementary school can prescribe me birth control.”

During a March 2 hearing state lawmaker Lori Berman asked a co-sponsor of the bill for a list of alternative clinics that could provide the same services to those provided by Planned Parenthood.

This is what she received: 

The state list of federally qualified health centers that Berman received the next day includes 67 schools ranging from the elementary to high school level. 

During the hearing, the bill’s supporters also repeatedly noted that there are 29 federally funded public health centers for every one Planned Parenthood health center in the state, implying that the defunding of Planned Parenthood would have little impact on patients. The anti-choice Florida Family Policy Council, an affiliate of Focus on the Family, and Americans Defending Freedom repeatedly cited this 29:1 ratio in their lobbying for HB 1411. 

“That ratio number is based on this list,” Berman told the Guardian, “which is a fallacious list since many of the providers on that list are in no position to provide women’s healthcare.”

And let's not forget that all of this overreaction is based on those doctored videos that have been proven in a court of law to have been falsified and whose creators have now been indicted.

And yet this witch hunt continues on as if those facts simply do not matter.

Because let's fact it, to conservatives those facts simply do not matter.

Opponent of Planned Parenthood admits that it is not really about abortion. It's about enjoying sex.

Courtesy of Politicususa:  

When Republicans and their evangelical base were desperate to restrict women’s access to any form of birth control, one of the complaints was that just the idea of a woman, married or not, having “consequence free sex” was an abomination that religious Republicans would not allow or condone. In their minds there has to be a severe, usually an 18 year and nine month, “consequence” for any woman who has sexual relations; even when their “man” demands being serviced” and the woman is ill. Now, a representative of one of the anti-choice cabals planning to harass Planned Parenthood clinics around the nation this weekend has admitted that the crusade against Planned Parenthood is a purely religious assault founded on ending the corrupt sexual ethic of promoting sex not intended for procreation. 

The spokeswoman for Citizens for a Pro-Life Society explained why evangelicals, the personhood movement, anti-choice fascists, Catholic bishops, and their Republican facilitators are so intent on destroying Planned Parenthood, and it is not about banning abortion or protecting zygotes and fetuses. Monica Miller is one of this weekend’s ‘harass Planned Parenthood” rally organizers who was honest and angry when she said, 

“Planned Parenthood from the top to the bottom is a corrupt organization… corrupt in its view of the sanctity of life and corrupt in its view of human sexuality. I say even if Planned Parenthood didn’t perform one single abortion, just the mere fact that its sexual ethic is corrupted means right there, should be the reason right there, that they should not receive any federal money. The kind of sexual ethic that Planned Parenthood promotes is sex for recreation, sex for mere pleasure.”

It has NEVER been about protecting lives in the womb, it is about making sure that the sexual organs of women are used only for procreation and not recreation. 

Which of course means that every woman who stands on the street corner outside of a Planned Parenthood clinic, waving a placard and viciously yelling at those walking through the front doors, are fighting to keep themselves, and others of their gender, oppressed and forever relegated to human breeding stock.

Bristol Palin finally finds somebody in the media to defend her so there you liberal haterz!!!!!!!

After being mercilessly mocked by the media, and becoming so incensed that Nancy French had to post in an angry voice for her on her blog, Bristol has finally found a journalist to take her side:

Thanks, Federalist, for being more even handed than the other publications.

I mean sure the reporter is a conservative mouth piece, who graduated from an Evangelical college which mostly takes home schoolers, and has recently been in the news due to a sexual assault, but hey at least it was positive.

Or was it?

From The Federalist: 

Granted, Palin isn’t the best person to be a spokesperson for an abstinence advocacy organization, as clearly she isn’t practicing what she preaches, but that doesn’t strip her of the right to have a say on the reproductive process. 

The reporter,  Bre Payton, then goes on to agree with many of the misstatements made by Nancy/Bristol/Sarah in that initial piece, but of course since she is a conservative religious fundamentalist she kind of has to.

However it is hard to see this is as much of an endorsement of Bristol as a conservative spokesperson if the reporter also has to include her personal failings. 

I mean the point that many of the articles made while calling Palin out was that not only did she have her facts wrong, but that she herself was not the right person to deliver them for public consumption.

Bre Payton argues that Bristol has the right to have an opinion, and that is true.

However other media outlets also have the right to argue that her opinion is not worth anything based on her life choices, lack of education, and hypocrisy. 

And then if you add to that the fact that Bristol is not even the one really writing these posts, well then you turn the hypocrisy up to eleven.

Currently, thanks to the efforts of Nancy French and her employer Sarah Palin, Bristol is everyone's favorite punching bag.

If she does not like that, and based on that recent post about being called an idiot she must not, then Bristol knows what she needs to do about it.

And she might want to hurry, because Wonkette is already having another field day with that idiot post.

Stop telling Bristol Palin to shut up! As long as she has a ghostwriter putting words in her mouth she doesn't have to!!!!!!!!

This is the actual picture that Bristol.Nancy/Sarah chose for this post. I'm not mocking.

Courtesy of Brancy's blog:

Everyone’s telling me to shut up about commenting on the issue in Washington State… Do they not realize what is going on? (I'm going to say "yes" here.)

You have to get a parents approval to take aspirin or ibuprofen at school, you have to have your parents present to go tanning in a tanning bed, or get your eye brows waxed, or get your belly button or ears pierced. But girls as young as 10 – YES I SAID 10 – can get an IUD put in without their parents knowing??????? 

How is that NOT black and white to people? (Uh..because it's NOT black and white?)


I know I’m the last to talk about birth control. (Two baby daddies right? LOLZ!)

(She said it, not me.)

But I am expecting a girl and do have a 14 year old sister and I would be so concerned for her going into a clinic and having something pretty serious put into her body. (I told you it was a girl.)

I’m not against birth control by ANY MEANS so do not twist my words. But I am against the government going between a parent and a child at such a young age. THERE IS A BIG DAMN DIFFERENCE. 10-11-12 year olds don’t know what’s best for them. 

Their parents do. 

(Yes but these IUDs are implanted with a surgical procedure, which requires a doctor. And surely even Bristol Palin recognizes that doctors are perfectly capable of telling their patients what is good or not good for them.)

So anyone who’s saying I have “no place to talk” .. Let’s look at the issue – the important part of this entire blog post – why I brought it to your attention. 

WE as parents know what’s best for our young daughters – NOT the government. (For clarifications sake the "government" is NOT placing IUDs in the bodies of little girls. Doctors do that. And just for a moment imagine the likelihood of a ten year old girl transporting herself to a clinic in order to get an IUD all on her own. More than likely if any ten year olds have received these, they did so with their parents fully aware.)


Okay now I am not at this point certain whether Nancy French has been channeling Bristol so long that she is now typing like a barely educated Wasillabilly or if in fact Brislt wrote all or part of this.

I will let you decide. 

However it is worth noting that whoever is the driving force behind these posts, and it could very well be Sarah herself, they are becoming increasingly defensive and combative.

Which makes it seem that somebody, or perhaps a couple of somebodies, are on the verge of a complete, and very public, breakdown. 

Well I've got my popcorn.

Nancy French says something ignorant while wearing her Bristol Palin skin suit and gets mocked by the media. It must be a day ending in a "y."

Courtesy of Bristol's fish lip photo depository.

To be honest I kind of read this post a few day ago and went "meh." I mean sure it's stupid, but since it was written by Nancy French, and not the fish lip selfie taker, I was not sure it was worthy of my precious time and energy. (That's right "precious.")

However as it turns out others were not similarly inclined. So now it's news, of a sort.

So here we go.

First off you should know that this is a rant about a program in Washington which mimics a HIGHLY successful program in Colorado that saw teen pregnancies drop by a whopping 42%.

However since this is Nancy French who is pro-everybody get should get pregnant advocate Sarah Palin's ghost typist, the facts were somewhat misrepresented. To put it mildly.

Do you remember what it was like to be a 10 year old? I remember being an unabashed tomboy concerned with playing outside and acing 5th grade. 

But life isn’t so innocent and carefree for some 10 years old in Washington State. This summer a report came out claiming that some schools in Washington were giving free birth control implants to children as young as 10 years old! These birth control devices are implanted in a girl’s uterus, and all of this can be done without a parent’s consent!

So if that sounds wrong to you it's because of course it is.

French also goes on to make this claim:

It is crazy that the government is offering a controversial form of birth control that can have serious life-long side effects to 10-year-old CHILDREN, but then to do all of this behind a parent’s back is simply outrageous!

Now if anybody should recognize crazy it would be Nancy French, however facts are another issue altogether. As the folks over at Raw Story pointed out: 

Palin’s anger was directed toward the Take Charge program, a state Medicaid initiative that provides birth control at no cost for adults without health insurance, as well as to underage girls. She did not mention that it is legal in Washington — as it is in 11 other states — for minors to obtain birth control without either parents’ consent or an exemption from a judge. 

The daughter of former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) also repeated the conservative claim that Take Charge was offering intra-uterine devices (IUDs) to 10-year-old girls, citing a report by the conservative site Judicial Watch making the same claim. 

However, the report Palin cited did not offer any specific statistics showing that 10-year-olds were getting the devices. Instead, it noted that only four 11-year-olds received birth control from state officials between 2013 and earlier this year. By comparison, 2,336 girls between 16 and 17 years old — the same age Palin was during her first pregnancy — received IUDs during the same period. 

Palin’s argument that IUDs can have “life-long side effects” was also debunked in 2012, when the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists determined that they were safe for use by teens.

So we have misrepresentation, followed by exaggeration,  followed by faux outrage. Yep that is a SarahPAC funded screed if ever we've heard one.

This same story was also covered by Wonkette (Who had a field day with it.), the Inqusitr, Jezebel, and the Huffington Post.

A number of them also referenced Bristol's past "work" as an abstinence spokesperson, as well as the fact that she is currently knocked up again.

Ultimately it once again shows Bristol to be an ill informed hypocrite, who is lecturing the country about teen pregnancies and birth control while still living off the proceeds from her own famous teen pregnancy and avoidance of birth control.

And since I have not mentioned it for awhile let's all remember that Bristol chose to get pregnant with Tripp, he was NOT an accident, and that she may have had numerous un-publicized pregnancies in the years since.

Or else she was raiding Dunkin Donuts, Taco Bell, and Chick-fil-a, every night after DWTS rehearsals.

Once again it is almost impossible to feel badly for Bristol (Especially if you know what I know about her.), however the fact that her mother continually opens her up to ridicule like this is a kind of hateful parental abuse that one does not see very often.

You might even begin to think that Sarah despises her oldest daughter.

Hmm, perhaps that is why we have not heard her brag about becoming a grandmother yet again?

Sarah Palin defends Donald Trump (Of course) and attacks President Obama (Also of course.)

So in for some reason after Donald Trump claimed that he was not "morally obligated" to defend the President from that guy that stood up and called him a Muslim, Klondike Kardashian now feels obligated to throw her two cents at the controversy.

Courtesy of Palin's Facebook page:  

Obama - Is It Too Much To Defend Christianity? But wait a minute, think about what Trump is saying here. He's right. Why would any strong, independent candidate succumb to a liberal media's pressure to defend someone else's faith?  (Because it's the right thing to do?) That's the takeaway here. 

And here's another: Rational people scratch their heads when they see the Obama Administration harass Catholic nuns and Christian business owners (The word "harass" here means to have them provide comprehensive health insurance in their businesses which includes access to birth control. And which by doing would help to curb the number of abortions. Something the Catholic nuns and Christians seem especially worked up over.) , and try to demonize Christians for things that happened centuries ago. (In this context "demonize" means to "mention the Crusades.") This, while refusing to acknowledge Christian genocide happening TODAY in the name of Islam. So... with Obama and a lapdog media being overly sensitive whenever this President's actions are scrutinized, resulting in the public's legitimate questions about his worldview influencing his actions (The word "worldview" is code for "secret Muslim."), here's the solution: perhaps if Obama stopped attacking Christians, people who question him could stop questioning whether he is one.  (Actually no they wouldn't.)

(*Cue intolerant liberals: do your thing and misconstrue all this and pour on the hate. In 3-2-1...)

Well okay intolerant liberals you heard her. 

Analysis shows that those Planned Parenthood videos were purposefully altered to give false impression. Gee, really?

Courtesy of HuffPo: 

The undercover Planned Parenthood videos that spurred a congressional investigation were so severely manipulated that they wouldn't hold up in court, according to an analysis by three teams of forensic experts. 

Planned Parenthood hired independent research firm Fusion GPS to investigate the validity of the first five "sting" videos released by the Center for Medical Progress, an anti-abortion group. 

Glenn Simpson, a partner at the firm and a former Wall Street Journal reporter, assembled three teams of neutral experts to comb through the tapes using special video software. He said the teams found that all of the videos analyzed -- even the supposedly "full," unedited footage the CMP released -- were missing large sections of time and misleadingly altered so that separate conversations appeared to take place in an uninterrupted take. Moreover, the forensic team found that the transcripts CMS released with the videos were frequently erroneous. 

"It appears they commit what I would call 'wishful thinking' about what was said," Simpson told reporters Thursday.

So not only were the videos used to attack Planned Parenthood altered, but even the so-called "unedited" versions, which already undermined the premise that Planned Parenthood was selling fetal tissue for a profit, were changed to push forward a false impression. 

Color me unsurprised.

And yet THIS is what is being used to once again launch an attack against women's access to legal abortion services, as well as cancer screenings and important information about contraception and STD's.

Arkansas is ending its contract with Planned Parenthood in response to heavily edited videos.

Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson

Courtesy of HuffPo: 

Arkansas is ending its Medicaid payments to Planned Parenthood, Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson said Friday, despite warnings federal officials have given other states that such a move could violate the law. 

Hutchinson ordered the Arkansas Department of Human Services to terminate its Medicaid provider contract in 30 days. The move came in response to secretly recorded videos released by an anti-abortion group showing Planned Parenthood officials describing how they provide fetal tissue from abortions for medical research. 

"It is apparent that after the recent revelations on the actions of Planned Parenthood, that this organization does not represent the values of the people of our state and Arkansas is better served by terminating any and all existing contracts with them," Hutchinson said in a statement.

As it turns out Arkansas may find themselves in some serious hot water over this decision.

Courtesy of Reuters: 

The U.S. government has warned states moving to defund women's health group Planned Parenthood that they may be in conflict with federal law, officials said on Wednesday. 

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, a federal agency, was in contact with officials in Louisiana and Alabama this month, said a spokesperson for the agency's parent, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). 

The agency warned those two states that their plans to terminate Medicaid provider agreements with Planned Parenthood may illegally restrict beneficiary access to services, the spokesperson said in a statement.

I knew when I saw that first video that things were going to get bad, and I predict that this is just the beginning. 

These conservatives have just been waiting for an excuse to go after Planned Parenthood, and to find a way to deny women access to contraceptives and now they have it.

Hillary Clinton comes out forcefully to protect Planned Parenthood.

Courtesy of Mediaite: 

Following the release of a series of undercover videos shot at Planned Parenthood clinics that claim to catch the women’s health and abortion provider attempting to sell fetal organs, Hillary Clinton has released a new two minute video that defends the organization from what she describes as a “full-on assault on women’s health.” 

Speaking directly into the camera, Clinton calls out GOP candidates like Scott Walker, Jeb Bush and Rick Perry for their efforts to defund Planned Parenthood. She also reminds voters that beyond just abortions, the organization also provides “life-saving preventive care” like cancer screenings, breast exams and birth control, to millions of women and men. 

“When they attack women’s health, they attack America’s health,” she says. “And it’s wrong. And we’re not going to let them get away with it.” 

“I’m proud to stand with Planned Parenthood,” Clinton concludes, definitively.

It has been awhile since I have been able to say this but today I am incredibly proud that this woman is our leading candidate for President. 

make no mistake I still have some issues, but this took real guts and conviction and that is what I am looking for in our next President.

So now Sarah Palin wants you to boycott companies that support Planned Parenthood. You know, because they're evil or something.

Courtesy of Anti-Abortion Barbie's Facebook page:

Time to reconsider patronizing these companies directly supporting Planned Parenthood? Yep. Make your voice heard today, America. 

She does see the logo for ExxonMobil, right?

Is it possible that her hatred of reproductive rights supersedes her idolization of the fossil fuel industry?

Of course the idea to boycott companies supporting Planned Parenthood is certainly not a Palin's, but rather one put forward by conservative media.

No surprise, the woman has not had an original thought since she faked her last pregnancy. (Oh wait, that was the plot from a Desperate Housewives episode. So yeah no original thoughts.)

Fortunately in other, more fact based media outlets the videos are being treated like the hoaxes that we all know them to be.

Courtesy of the New Republic:

Just as there are people who believe the moon landing was faked, there are those who refuse to believe that the full scope of reproductive health care is grounded in medical evidence. As the facts are inconvenient, the only option is to circumvent them by any means possible. These videos are the kind of propaganda that only reinforces those fixed, false beliefs.

Some media outlets have even pointed out that these attacks against Planned Parenthood are no really about abortion, but about contraception.

Courtesy of Raw Story: 

Planned Parenthood combines two things that conservatives hate: 1) It provides services that allow low income people to live better lives and improve their economic opportunities.* 2) It promotes the idea that women should be able to have sex on their own terms. 

Allowing women to have sex on their own terms is threatening because it really disrupts the system that keeps men in power over women in personal relationships. It’s not just that it makes it harder to trap a woman with pregnancy, though that is part of it. But it’s more that, as long as unwanted childbearing is a threat hanging over women’s head, it injects a major power imbalance into sexual relationships. The woman has to live with the “consequences” for having sex, but the man can walk away. So that helps keep up cultural norms that make women placating and submissive. But the more that women can have sex on their own terms without fear of unintended childbearing, the more leverage they have in relationships with men. Is he a domineering dick? Well, good thing you didn’t have kids with him! Just walk away. You can experiment, date around more, just generally live your life. 

It also, needless to say, removes a lot of men’s economic power over women. Now that women can complete college and get a career going before having kids, they compete with men on more equal footing.

And hopefully people will pay attention to this fact, because apparently the group  behind these highly edited tapes, says there are many more coming.

But at least we have one presidential candidate speaking out in support of Planned Parenthood.

Hillary Clinton: 

“I think it is unfortunate that Planned Parenthood has been the object of such a concerted attack for so many years,” the Democratic front-runner said at an event in Greenville, South Carolina. “And it’s really an attack against a woman’s right to choose, to make the most personal, difficult decisions that any woman would face, based on her faith and the medical advice that she’s given.”

Good for her. And once she's elected, good for us.

What the future could hold for America if the religious Right Wing get their way.

Courtesy of the Daily Beast:

A 10-year-old pregnant with her stepfather’s child will not be allowed to get an abortion because the government of Paraguay doesn’t believe that her life in immediate danger. 

On April 23, the unnamed girl was reportedly checked into the hospital by her mother. She complained of stomach pains and tests showed she was already 21-weeks pregnant. Earlier this week, her mother apparently requested her daughter be given an abortion, and when it was revealed that her stepfather impregnated her, the mother was taken into custody. 

Doctors requested permission to perform the procedure. In Paraguay, abortions can’t be performed in the case of rape or incest, and only if the government decides that a life is in danger. In this case they decided it wasn’t.

So not only did this innocent child suffer the trauma of sexual abuse at the hands of her stepfather, but now she is expected to carry his baby to term. Which for a ten year old child is a prospect fraught with danger. 

For those who do not think this can happen in America, you are right.

For now.

But if the religious conservatives get what they ultimately want, incidents like this will start to take place right here in the US of A.

As a matter of fact if Mike Huckabee were to be elected, we could be dealing with this as early as 2017.

This courtesy of a New York Times article from 1996: 

Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas today refused to authorize a Medicaid payment for an abortion for a 15-year-old girl whose stepfather has been charged with incest, despite a Federal judge's order that such payments were required by Federal law.

Frightening isn't it?

And it is not only abortion that the Religious Right wants to do away with. It's also access to birth control.

From a book by Robert Boston called "Taking Liberties": 

The hierarchy of the Catholic Church lobbied to restrict access to all contraceptive devices and medications. Many Protestant leaders did as well. Most Protestant denominations would later drop their opposition to birth control. The Catholic hierarchy never did. 

It’s important to understand that church officials sought to ban birth control even for married couples and non-Catholics and that this continued until the 1960s. In addition, the laws that church officials pushed to pass didn’t just outlaw birth control, they also forbade information about birth control. Well into the twentieth century, in some states, a married couple could ask a doctor for advice about how best to limit the size of their family and be told that he could not legally distribute such information. Laws like this were common throughout the nineteenth and into the twentieth century in New England states, which had a strong Catholic tradition.

Today these anti-contraception ideas have spread from the Catholic church and metastasized within the Evangelical community as well. 

They don't often publicize with the same ferocity with which they oppose abortion, but the Hobby Lobby case opened a preview into what they are ultimately fighting to attain.

Total control over a woman's reproductive system, which they see as a birthing center for God with which no man, or woman, has the right to interfere.

So do I need to remind you again why it is of the utmost importance to make sure to elect a President who will choose Supreme Court Justices that are pro-choice?

I didn't think so.

Colorado proves that education, not slut shaming, is the best way to prevent teen pregnancies.

Courtesy of Pew Charitable Trusts:  

President Barack Obama hailed a landmark achievement in his State of the Union address last month: Teen pregnancies in the U.S. have hit an all-time low. But the U.S. still has a teen birthrate of 31.2 per 1,000 teens, nearly one-and-a-half times the rate in the United Kingdom, which has one of the highest rates in Western Europe. 

Colorado may have found a way to close the gap. The state’s teen birthrate dropped 40 percent between 2009 and 2013, driven largely by a public health initiative that gives low-income young women across the state long-acting contraceptives such as intrauterine devices (IUDs) and hormonal implants. 

Backed by $23.5 million from the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation, Colorado attracted national recognition for its program after Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper announced the results of a cost-savings study last summer. The state saved $42.5 million in 2010 alone, an average return of $5.85 in avoided Medicaid costs for prenatal, delivery and first year of infant care for every $1 spent on the program. 

More important, Hickenlooper said, the initiative “has helped thousands of young Colorado women continue their education, pursue their professional goals and postpone pregnancy until they are ready to start a family.”

But wait, according to the conservatives the best way to avoid teen pregnancy is by keeping sex ed out of public school classroom, get rid of Planned Parenthood, and dress your daughters like puritans?

So gee simply educating both teen boys and teen girls about sex and providing access to birth control can bring teen pregnancy rates down by almost half, and allow young women to live full and productive lives while choosing parenthood on THEIR terms.

Whoda thunk it?

Pope Francis backs ban on contraception and calls gay marriage “ideological colonization of the family.” So much for progress within the Catholic Church.

"What did you expect? I'm the Pope."

Courtesy of Crux:  

In points he’s made before in other settings, Pope Francis on Friday criticized what he called the “ideological colonization of the family,” language that many took as a reference to gay marriage, and also defended a previous pope who upheld the Church’s ban on contraception. 

“The family is threatened by growing efforts on the part of some to redefine the very institution of marriage, by relativism, by the culture of the ephemeral, by a lack of openness to life,” Francis said. 

A Vatican spokesman confirmed Friday evening that, at least in part, the pope had gay marriage in mind. 

The remarks came in a session Francis held with more than 1,000 families in a downtown Manila arena, amid the pontiff’s Jan. 12-19 trip to Sri Lanka and the Philippines.

Gee and just when everybody was starting to like this guy. 

It might be time to remind people that the only reason that the Catholic church is so adamantly against birth control is simply because the church is terrified to reveal to the world that Popes are not infallible: 

“If it should be declared that contraception is not evil in itself, then we should have to concede frankly that the Holy Spirit had been on the side of the Protestant churches in 1930 (when the encyclical Casti connubii was promulgated), in 1951 (Pius XII’s address to the midwives), and in 1958 (the address delivered before the Society of Hematologists in the year the pope died). It should likewise have to be admitted that for a half a century the Spirit failed to protect Pius XI, Pius XII, and a large part of the Catholic hierarchy from a very serious error. This would mean that the leaders of the Church, acting with extreme imprudence, had condemned thousands of innocent human acts, forbidding, under pain of eternal damnation, a practice which would now be sanctioned. The fact can neither be denied nor ignored that these same acts would now be declared licit on the grounds of principles cited by the Protestants, which popes and bishops have either condemned or at least not approved.”

Without religion there would be no reason to hate the gays, and without the Catholic church there would be virtually no resistance to birth control, or abortion for that matter.

Arizona school board member complains that Biology textbook violates her "religious rights." Decides to cut out offending pages. A little thing we call "censorship."

Courtesy of The New York Times:  

The textbook, the one with the wide-eyed lemur peering off the cover, has been handed out for years to students in honors biology classes at the high schools here, offering lessons on bread-and-butter subjects like mitosis and meiosis, photosynthesis and anatomy. 

But now, the school board in this suburb of Phoenix has voted to excise or redact two pages deep inside the book — 544 and 545 — because they discuss sexually transmitted diseases and contraception, including mifepristone, a drug that can be used to prevent or halt a pregnancy. 

A law passed two years ago in Arizona requires schools to teach “preference, encouragement and support to childbirth and adoption” over abortion, and the school board decided that those pages were in violation of this law — even though the Arizona Education Department, which examined the book for compliance, found that they were not. 

The controversy has turned into a referendum on the 2012 law, with supporters saying the textbook content cannot be removed fast enough and opponents crying foul for any number of reasons: technical, ethical, pedagogical. But the Gilbert school board is moving forward, trying to figure out how to remove the material in question — by way of black markers or scissors, if need be — despite resistance from parents, residents, the American Civil Liberties Union and even the district’s superintendent. 

“It comes down to, it’s the law, and we need to be in compliance with the law,” said Julie Smith, a member of the Gilbert Public Schools governing board and also a parent who raised concerns about the book. “If people don’t like the law, they need to take it up with their state legislator. I don’t write the law. It’s my job to uphold it.”

The offending pages.

By the way that Julie Smith woman is apparently the driving force behind this censorship.

And here are her reasons why:

Ms. Smith, the school board member and parent, said she had been driving her family home from church back in January when her son told her about what was in the textbook. “I almost drove off the road,” she said. 

“I’m Catholic; we do not contracept,” Ms. Smith said. “It is a grave sin.” By including those pages in the curriculum, she added, “you have violated my religious rights.”

"We do not contracept?"  Well considering this woman's heavy handed parenting style that's probably too bad.

As for violating her religions rights? Well nobody's religious rights should have any impact whatsoever on what is taught in a public school classroom.

And in my opinion if science classes are taught in a factual manner than they should violate somebody's religious beliefs almost daily.

By the way you know that removing these pages, or using a sharpie to black them out, is going to do NOTHING to stop students from accessing them. It's called the internet folks, and if the kids want to read them (And after this you they all will.), then by gosh they will do exactly that.

Colorado's teen birth rate drops 40% after they decided to offer free birth control. Go figure.

Courtesy of CNN:

Colorado's teen birth rate dropped 40% between 2009 and 2013, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment announced this week, in part due to a program that provides long-acting contraception to low-income women. 

Colorado's Family Planning Initiative provided funding for 68 family clinics across the state to offer around 30,000 intrauterine devices and implants to young women at low or no cost. An IUD is a small T-shaped device that is inserted into the uterus by a doctor. They're either wrapped in copper or contain hormones, which kill sperm and make the uterine lining too thin for egg implantation. Because IUDs stay in place for five to 10 years, they're easier to comply with than taking daily birth control pills. 

An anonymous donor funded the $23 million initiative, which also provided training, outreach and technical assistance to clinics statewide. 

The state health department conducted a study, to be published in the fall issue of Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health, to analyze the program's impact. It found that the low-cost IUDs were a significant factor in the state's overall decrease in teen births.

According to the study the number of women choosing IUD's for their contraception needs, quadrupled, and Colorado went from being ranked 29th lowest in the teen birth rate, to being ranked the 19th lowest.

What's more the 75% of the decline was attributed to the clinics offering access to the free or low cost birth control.

Wait, are we to believe that offering teenagers a safe effective means of birth control works better than simply slut shaming young girls and telling them that they are sinners for having normal biological feelings?

Hmm, now where did I get the idea that only abstinence was the right way to deal with teen sex?

Hang on, it will come to me.

Thanks to Obamacare, and despite the recent Hobby Lobby case, there has been a huge increase in the number of women with access to free birth control.

Courtesy of HuffPo:  

More than half of privately insured women are getting free birth control under President Barack Obama's health law, a major coverage shift that's likely to advance. 

This week the Supreme Court allowed some employers with religious scruples to opt out, but most companies appear to be going in the opposite direction. 

Recent data from the IMS Institute document a sharp change during 2013. The share of privately insured women who got their birth control pills without a copayment jumped to 56 percent, from 14 percent in 2012. The law's requirement that most health plans cover birth control as prevention, at no additional cost to women, took full effect in 2013. 

The average annual saving for women was $269. "It's a big number," said institute director Michael Kleinrock. The institute is the research arm of IMS Health, a Connecticut-based technology company that uses pharmacy records to track prescription drug sales. 

Many medical groups see a strong rationale for free birth control. Contraception can help make a woman's next pregnancy healthier by spacing births far enough apart, generally 18 months to two years. Closely spaced births carry a risk of such problems as prematurity, low birth weight, even autism. And even modest copays for medical care can discourage its use. 

"It's one of the most concrete ways that women have seen that the Affordable Care Act is helping them," said Amy Allina, deputy director of the National Women's Health Network, an advocacy that supports the law's requirement.

Damn right is helping women and I hope that they keep that in mind during these next midterm elections.

I have this fantasy of all that could be accomplished if the Democrats not only held onto the Senate but also captured the House.

Yes I know that it is about as likely as Scarlett Johansson showing up at my doorstep telling me that she wants to have my baby, but still a Liberal can dream can't he?

At the very least we need to hang onto the Senate, and hopefully the female vote will be there for Obama like he has been there for the female voter.

Oh, and the guys too of course.

Supreme Court hands down decision favoring Hobby Lobby in their case against Obamacare provision requiring companies to offer health insurance that covers birth control. Update!

Courtesy of the Chicago Tribune:  

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday ruled that business owners can object on religious grounds to a provision of President Barack Obama's healthcare law that requires closely held companies to provide health insurance that covers birth control. 

The court held on a 5-4 vote on ideological lines that such companies can seek an exemption from the so-called birth control mandate of the healthcare law. The decision means employees of those companies will have to obtain certain forms of birth control from other sources. 

In a majority opinion by conservative Justice Samuel Alito, the court said the ruling applies only to the birth control mandate and does not mean companies would necessarily succeed if they made similar claims to other insurance requirements, such as vaccinations and drug transfusions.

This is a very unfortunate decision by the Supreme Court, and very discriminatory toward women.

I can assure that Hobby Lobby has no such objection to offering health insurance that covers Viagra for men. It is only preventing the potential pregnancies that might result from those medication induced boners that gives them the vapors.

And the argument against providing this coverage due to religious beliefs is itself completely indefensible. It is essentially some mutation of the pro-life argument against providing abortion, however the majority of the medications restricted by this decision are for the prevention of conception, not the termination of conception.

The Bible says NOTHING about birth control and even if it did there should NEVER be an instance where an employer's religious beliefs superseded the family planning or health concerns of their female employees.

Update: Here are the five top takeaways from Justice Ginsberg's dissent. 

 5. The ruling is too broad: “In a decision of startling breadth, the Court holds that commercial enterprises, including corporations, along with partnerships and sole proprietorships, can opt out of any law (saving only tax laws) they judge incompatible with their sincerely held religious beliefs.” 

4. For-profit corporations are not religious organizations: “Religious organizations exist to foster the interests of persons subscribing to the same religious faith. Not so of for-profit corporations. Workers who sustain the operations of those corporations commonly are not drawn from one religious community.” 

3. The ruling violates separation of church and state: “The exemption sought by Hobby Lobby and Conestoga would…deny legions of women who do not hold their employers’ beliefs access to contraceptive coverage” 

2. The ruling favors an extreme form of “Christianity” over other religions: “Approving some religious claims while deeming others unworthy of accommodation could be ‘perceived as favoring one religion over another,’ the very ‘risk the [Constitution's] Establishment Clause was designed to preclude.” 

1. Where does it end?: “Would the exemption…extend to employers with religiously grounded objections to blood transfusions (Jehovah’s Witnesses); antidepressants (Scientologists); medications derived from pigs, including anesthesia, intravenous fluids, and pills coated with gelatin (certain Muslims, Jews, and Hindus); and vaccinations[?]…Not much help there for the lower courts bound by today’s decision. 

[...] The court, I fear, has ventured into a minefield.”

You can read her entire dissent at the link at the top.

Obamacare saved women 483 million on their birth control pills last year.

Courtesy of Think Progress:

Women in the United States saved an estimated $483 million on their out-of-pocket costs for the birth control pill, according to new data from the IMS Institute on Healthcare Informatics. The health care data company found that Obamacare has “dramatically reduced” women’s out-of-pocket costs now that insurers are required to cover preventative care without charging an additional co-pay. 

Compared to the data from 2012, about 24 million more birth control pill prescriptions were filled without a co-pay in 2013. That means each of the women filling those prescriptions ended up saving an average of $269. Those savings can make all the difference for women who are struggling to afford the reproductive care they need. According to the IMS Institute’s data, there was 4.6 percent increase in prescriptions for birth control between 2012 and 2013. 

One of the most common misconceptions about Obamacare’s contraceptive provision is the assumption that women are now getting birth control “for free.” In reality, however, these women are accessing birth control through their private, employer-sponsored health insurance plans. Women do pay for the benefits included in those plans, both by working at their job and by paying a monthly premium. Under Obamacare, the difference is that they don’t have to pay an additional out-of-pocket cost for the preventative health benefits specific to their gender.

This is why if you are a woman, you MUST vote Democratic!

Obviously I think you also should if you are a man, but for women it seems like a no brainer.

This is the party that is fighting for an increased minimum wage, passed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, and has made it impossible for insurance companies to treat being a woman as a preexisting condition.

By the way, let me just mention, that this kind of access to birth control is far more likely to bring down the number of abortions in this country then the Republican approach of shaming women and shutting down Planned Parenthood clinics.

But if we let the Republicans regain the Senate, or take more seats in the House, this kind of progress will slow down immensely, or disappear forever.

Well at least until we get Hillary into the White House that is.