By informing consumers, he is of course referring to the Virginia bill requiring women to be vaginally probed against their will before electing to have an abortion.
Because, you know, most of those “consumers” were “uninformed” as to what was in there. Every day, somewhere in the country, someone has a sonogram and says “OMG- that is a potential baby up in there? I thought it was a magic 8-ball or a small alien I was getting rid of.”
Just stupid and offensive.
*** Update ***
DING DING DING- Someone said it better than I did:
Um, what the hell would a woman be doing in an abortion clinic if she didn’t already know what was up in there?
I think women are pretty clear on the concept.
Like I said, this was just a stupid and offensive thing to say.
Comrade Mary
Because it is well known that the seat of reason in women is the cervix, not the cortex.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
“consumers”? Because “patients” might make it too obvious, even to himself, what an asshole he is? I thought this hump was a libertarian?
Yutsano
What. The. Fuck. Over.
Can I haz B Ark naow plz?
Corner Store Operator
Jesus Christ. I don’t read Cowen, but I wasn’t under the impression he was a nutjob culture warrior. I guess I was wrong.
ploeg
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: He is. In practice,”libertarians” = “pro-huffing Republicans”.
greylocks
Can we stick a probe in his ear and see if there’s a brain in there?
max
Because, you know, most of those “consumers” were “uninformed” as to what was in there.
Yeah, but see, Tyler Cowen is, like, reasonable sounding and he, like, plays chess and he’s a professor, so that’s all really OK. Because. Also he apparently dines out a lot. That’s got something to do with it. He’s like cool and stuff or something. He’s just slatey. Yes.
Of course, actually, it’s just proof-positive that you can be ‘super-smart’ and a tenured professor and a libertarian and (OMG) an economist, and still be basically a knuckle-dragging moron.
max
[‘Like David Brooks, but more unpleasant.’]
grandpa john
Don’t remember who said it but this clearly sums up the current GOP
kdaug
Um, what the hell would a woman be doing in an abortion clinic if she didn’t already know what was up in there?
I think women are pretty clear on the concept.
MikeJ
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Republican that wants to smoke pot? How does that conflict with this kind of assholery?
c u n d gulag
I suggest that doctors do Conservative male’s prostrate exams by shoving a rod of white-hot iron up their asses.
After all, if their wives are on the pill, that may help to burn out the prostrate cancer they give them.
Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesh…
South of I-10
What an asshole.
smintheus
Tyler Cowen is every day’s worst person in the world…except for all the other worst people out there.
pragmatism
They just can’t help themselves. Cowen has been gaining traditional cred by attacking kthug and doing some stuff for grantland. But he couldn’t resist hamfistedly going after the 8th grade “X group are hypocrites” angle.
Soonergrunt
Apparently state-mandated sexual assault is now Tyler Cowan’s favorite thing.
Just Some Fuckhead
If these MILPs are just consumers of a service or industry, we should be able to remove all restrictions on abortion and let the free market do its magic.
Judas Escargot
Darth Vader Voice: The Asshole is Strong with This One…
cathyx
I suppose the idea is that if the woman saw a sonogram of the fetus, she might change her mind, except that at 3 months or younger, it doesn’t look like anything human at all.
IM
The libertarian drops the mask.
MattF
Cowan has been pretty much the last man standing while various other ‘thoughtful conservatives’ were shot down. I guess Twitter just offers a constant temptation to say what you actually think– and eventually even the careful ones will fall for it.
Yutsano
@Just Some Fuckhead: Yesbut…we can’t have the wimmin folk making their own choices and stuff. Poor little darlins will just get their heads all confused and then ZOMG GAYMARRIAGE!!
Jules
Us wimmens have such little brains we just won’t understand what being pregnant means until the state sitcks a probe up our vaginas and “informs” us of what is there.
scav
So, presumably he’s 100% on-board with requiring full-color images of diseased lungs on each and every pack of cigarettes? BIG pictures of diseased livers on all alcohol? Oh, sweat shop kids appearing in all computer ads. 15 minutes of forcibly being shown photos of gun-shot heads prior to each and every purchase of firearms (I won’t go so far as all purchase of ammo but some may differ). One TV in all bars must show the results of drinking and driving at all times. clearly I’m off the rails here, but it is rather fun in a sick way
Soonergrunt
@Yutsano: pssst–that ship has sailed.
These pricks are fighting a delaying action against the inevitable. Some of them are just smart enough to know that.
David Koch
Man, da blogosphere is just dead today.
It’s deader than Whitney Houston.
Lynn Dee
Not to mention — the kind of “information” this clown is trying to analogize to is generic information about the product, not something specific about the consumer. No one’s required to get a chest X-ray to buy a pack of cigarettes, or submit to a blood test and get a readout of their cholesterol levels before buying a cheeseburger.
Persia
@cathyx: It takes a long damn time to look human:
http://www.baby2see.com/development/ultrasound_sonogram/first_trimester_scans.html#week4
I guess it’s good to see that I wasn’t just crazy all this time and a lot of Republicans are just rapist or rapist-wannabes.
EDIT: I guess I can look forward to seeing this the next time I’m at the bar:
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_CtUgVCleAX0/TC2mym7B_dI/AAAAAAAAAVg/ys0rfujnjnI/s1600/liver_cirrhosis_67105924.jpg
It’s just information. Right?
Exurban Mom
Okay, how’s about this? If you want a prescription for Viagra, you need to prove to a medical professional that you can’t get it up. You know, have a nurse watch you try to give yourself an erection.
I mean, we have to make sure we’re not paying for medications that aren’t truly necessary, don’t we? Are we just going to take Bob Dole’s word that he can’t get it up? We need proof!
smintheus
@Soonergrunt:
Last year, regarding the uproar over intrusive and humiliating passenger screenings by the TSA, Cowen opined that Americans ought to get more sexually liberated like Europeans…who don’t at all mind being groped by government officials, Cowen said.
So yeah, he’s a bit twisted.
Yutsano
@Soonergrunt: It’s the gnashing of teef I look forward to the most. That is the true sign of impotence on their part. That and little blue pills that shall remain nameless (FYWP).
Hill Dweller
@cathyx:
I suspect that is part of it, but I think their overriding motivation is the humiliation of women.
Martin
Just shows how weaksauce DougJ is. Tyler gets paid pretty well to troll the intarwebs. DougJ is still stuck doing it for free.
scav
@Exurban Mom: Don’t forget we may need to think about requiring written permission from the wife involved for each and every time he gets the prescription refilled, plus some sort of accounting for all little pills. Don’t want to encouraging be recreational non-sanctified uses.
cathyx
@Exurban Mom: That seems fair.
ohsuzanna
I think every time you want to have sex, Tyler, the State should put a probe up your bum.
Kyle
Tyler Cowen should be compulsorily anally probed before he can eat a steak. Because it is vital that he be informed about the risk of colon cancer.
Linda Featheringill
@Exurban Mom:
Absolutely. No Viagra unless you can show that you need it.
Also, the customer might be uninformed about the state of his prostate. A trans-rectal ultrasound is the least they can do for him.
Scott
So the libertarian is pro-regulation, as long as the regulations mean that women get raped by the state?
Citizen_X
Cowen should get a mandatory proctology exam before…oh the hell with it. He should get it just because he’s an asshole.
Anonymous At Work
By Cowen’s logic, men seeking Vigara must prove to their doctor that they cannot get an erection. Good luck with that.
General Stuck
I keep saying it’s Freudian whack a doo hour at the wingnut circus. They are circling the drain with their stoooopid ideas, doubling down daily, and none more so than on the social busy body front. One last hurrah, as a party and group to burn the fire hot on the shit pile hoping to turn back the progressive tide.
I mean, how many brain cells does it take to write a law forcing a woman who wants an abortion to endure a non medical procedure with an invasive tool that looks like a upscale dildo. It’s tugging on Super Woman’s Cape, that’s gonna make even baby jeevus squirm a little at the offense of it all.
So they are at once going all in, coming clean with the rubes, and grabbing the brass ring of psycho sexual puritan go getters for gawd, that happen to have a little pol power at the moment for the big push of shoving female repro health back down the memory hole. Out of sight and mind, like it used to be. They taught us these things in high school sex ed at Leroy’s Pool Hall, back in the day.
Martin
@Exurban Mom: Uh, no. This will only lead to legislation requiring that two nurses need to observe, aged 18-25, 110 pounds, named Sapphire and Honey, that just realized that it’s entirely too warm in the observation room for the clothing that they’re wearing.
You need to anticipate these things.
Evergreen (formerly Betsy, forever ago)
Christ, this week has really brought even the previously-closeted woman-haters out into the light.
Cowen’s defense is going to be that he was simply making the POINT that regulations requiring companies to disclose information to consumers are bad. See, it’s not that he wants women to be medically raped; it’s that he wants everyone else NOT to be raped. And you know, being forced to disclose things to consumers is just like rape.
Libertarians have long had an unhealthy habit of comparing any state action that they don’t like to rape. It’s one of the many, many ways in which they suck.
cathyx
If this anti abortion, anti contraception trend continues, states that make laws like this will see that those who have money and jobs will leave those states and the only ones who will continue to be residents will be poor and unemployed. That should eventually bankrupt those states.
smintheus
@smintheus: Here’s part of Cowen’s bizarre defense of the TSA’s nude scanners and patdowns, from Nov. 2010:
The comments were so scathing that I notice Cowen deleted some of them (including at least one of mine).
Soonergrunt
@Hill Dweller:
There. FIFY.
Citizen_X
@Scott: Well, Libertarians are only concerned with the rights of “people,” i.e: rich white men and corporations owned by rich white men.
WereBear
For the love of gawd, I believe the woman is fully aware that it is a potential baby. But at 8 weeks, it is the size of a grape, and if you found it in your flour canister, you would shriek and dump out the contents.
While it has the potential to be an actual person, it is not nearly there yet; and if the mother does not have resources to do the job properly, it will be a tragedy.
To quote from The Evil of Inflicting Life on Unwanted Children:
For that matter, it’s very theoretically possible to implant a fetus into a man’s abdomen.
I eagerly await the absolute throngs of Right Wing Warriors who will step up and save these precious snowflakes!
becca
As an economist or as a political strategist, Cowen is a decent food writer.
aimai
@Hill Dweller:
I think they honestly believe that what’s in there in the first weeks looks like a ten month old wearing a “I love life” birthday cap sitting up in a full sized crib filled with stuffed animals and blankies. You only need a vaginal ultrasound when the fetus is so small that you can’t see it with regular imagining (external ultrasound) so I really, aside from the sadism, that most of these assholes actually hold to the “its a teeny tiny homunculus” not that its a rapidly developing alien looking big eyed frog spawn.
aimai
Nietzsche with a bad case of the piles
First, I thank efgoldman for the reference for my newest nom de guerre.
Secondly, here are two comments I read today:
If altar boys could become pregnant we wouldn’t be having this discussion.
A colonoscopy should be required of all Virginia legislators to locate their brains.
IM
perhaps that is all just a ruse to let Poulos look good?
shortstop
There’ve been so many beyond-the-pale comments made the last couple of weeks that it’s hard to single out anything for special disbelief, but I’m still having trouble taking in that someone opened his mouth and this came out:
Wouldn’t it have been simpler for him to just don a t-shirt reading: “Women: Fuck All Them Bitches”?
JonF
Cowen reminds me of the technocrats who have gotten into power in repressive banana republic regimes who don’t blanche at killing a million people just to prove a theory.
shortstop
Apart from the total lack of medical indication for this procedure and the obvious intention to humiliate, I will note, having been through this myself approximately 15 times for a non-pregnancy reason, that it’s quite an uncomfortable thing to do. To improve the imaging, they make you drink two liters of water and hold it for 45 minutes to an hour. During the procedure itself, your full bladder is getting poked mercilessly with the wand.
At least, that’s the old-school method that too many ultrasound techs are still observing — the more up-to-date folks thankgodfully skip the water thing, and I was thrilled to be able to switch to one. And it’s possible that they don’t make pregnant women drink water at all; maybe someone who’s had an early-term vag ultrasound for pregnancy can weigh in.
Brian R.
Who exactly are the “consumers” in this fucktard’s imagination? The women getting an abortion? They’re consuming the abortion? The abortion is a prized purchase that they’ll value?
Please keep talking about these issues, conservative white men. Please. Obama’s margin of victory in 2012 will make FDR and LBJ’s re-election landslides look like nothing by comparison.
Warren Terra
I think the financial aspect of this Virginia law deserves more attention.
The Legislature has redefined a medical procedure to include something that is completely unrelated and takes place ten days beforehand. Sure, in this case the “something” is rape, and that’s really awfully unfortunate, but let’s not throw out the baby with the bathwater, as it were.
Now that the legislature can do this for Abortion, they can do it for other procedures, too. Imagine for example if they redefined a prostate exam to include a steak dinner ten days beforehand? It’s now part of the procedure, your insurance has to cover it! Blood tests with itunes downloads! Mammograms with spa treatments! Lancing an abscess with tickets to a baseball game! The possibilities are endless!
Rita R.
Beyond the desire to humiliate women and make getting an abortion as awful an experience as possible — which can by no means be understated — the trans-vaginal ultrasound requirement is of a piece with their portrayal of women as cavalierly having abortions without much thought or consideration. Remember one of these assholes — I forget who — saying years ago that girls in high school were getting abortions to fit into their prom dresses?
It’s the whole reason for waiting periods, making women listen to heartbeats, etc. It’s not that they think women are dumb and don’t know what’s in the uterus — although, I wouldn’t put it past some of the knuckle-draggers to believe that — it’s that they want make carefree baby-killing sluts do the thinking and agonizing over the decision that they don’t believe women seeking an abortion have already done.
YellowJournalism
Nope. Still had to drink the water. That was almost three years ago.
shortstop
@Rita R.: I think all of that is certainly true — there’s no doubt the message is that women are unthinking, selfish twits who just need to be forcibly “educated” — but it’s also designed to make getting an abortion as difficult as possible for women by imposing obstacles that are really pretty large for many. With abortion services unavailable in almost all American counties and completely absent in many states, most women have to travel quite a distance to reach an abortion provider.
If they have to take off several days’ work (for many, that means losing pay), arrange for childcare and long-distance transportation, and stay multiple nights in a hotel because someone’s decided they need a waiting period or an unnecessary presurgical procedure, it all becomes quite a burden for many low-income women. The GOP is correctly hoping that some won’t be able to get all the pieces lined up at the same time to make an abortion happen.
shortstop
@YellowJournalism: And it SUCKED, right?!
Rita R.
@shortstop:
I’ve had a TV ultrasound twice, one of which was 20 years ago, so they’ve been around for awhile. What struck me about the first time though, which didn’t happen with the more recent one, was that the tech actually handed me the wand to insert, and I think she then did whatever adjusting needed to be done during the procedure. I remember thinking how odd it was and that it had to be some kind of legal CYA thing to prevent patients from accusing the techs of sexual assault. Kind of interesting in light of the argument that the TV ultrasound requirement actually violates Virginia’s rape law.
Rita R.
@shortstop:
Yes, definitely, I agree. And all the same people who constantly shout about limited government staying out of their lives.
latts
@shortstop:
They don’t– in fact, they asked me if I needed to urinate beforehand. It’s moderately uncomfortable IMO… I can kinda see how it maybe could be useful immediately before an abortion, to locate the sac & so forth, but as a separate guilt-trip procedure it’s spectacularly shitty.
@cathyx:
Correct– I lost one at 6.5 weeks (i.e., at one month of ‘personhood’ as the first two weeks are pre-ovulatory) recently, and it looked like a tiny (<1cm), lumpy kidney bean with a little pink thread. The commonly-used photos of embryos are backlit to show detail– and I did observe the white spinal-column thread & the darker mass of future abdominal stuff– and give it a warmer, more human look, but it was really just an odd red/purplish lump. I'll admit to being kind of amazed that it could have eventually become a person bearing half of my DNA, but did not think of it in any way as actually being a person, nor would I have tolerated anyone else insisting that it was. It was a disappointment, but not traumatic.
shortstop
@Rita R.: They’ve always done that for mine. I think it’s probably partly concerns about sexual assault accusations and partly just wanting patients to be more comfortable physically and emotionally.
I assume you had to consume Lake Victoria as well? Really, I’ll stop talking about this soon, but the discomfort angle cannot be overemphasized to our male readers, most of whom are blessed with more capacious urine storage systems (one of these days you guys are going to figure out it’s bladder envy, not penis envy, that afflicts womens).
c u n d gulag
@efgoldman:
LOL!
Uhm, I wonder what that sh*t smells like?
Jeter’s jock?
Eeeeeew!
Rita R.
@shortstop:
Actually, no on the water for the TV ultrasounds. Got lucky I guess. When I have had to drink tons of liquid was for regular abdominal ultrasounds. And that, yes, is very uncomfortable, especially as they push down on the abdomen, your bladder is screaming and there’s nothing you can do about it.
Calouste
@max:
Some people, me for instance, would say that if you self-identify as a libertarian you are a knuckle-dragging moron.
El Cid
I don’t think he gives a shit about the actual situation there in that medical office; he’s just taking a cheap opportunity to try to say that all those consumer product regulations that all the libs luv are really just the same ha ha ha in your eye product regulaterz nerds!
It’s about saying ‘fuck you’ to product regulations and not giving a fuck what it sounds like regarding women being, um, ultra-feltup.
Evergreen (formerly Betsy, forever ago)
@El Cid: Exactly my point. And nothing will ever persuade him that mandatory product disclosures are perhaps morally and qualitatively distict from forcible penetration.
El Cid
@Evergreen (formerly Betsy, forever ago): Really, I don’t think he gives a shit one way or another.
He has an opportunity to use ‘something liberals are getting mad at’ to tweak ‘liberals who are pro-regulation’ and that’s that.
Whether it’s ‘really’ or ‘not really’ similar, he doesn’t care.
It’s the libertarian intellectual’s version of ‘Ha ha how ya like all that global warmin’ now, huh?’ whenever there’s a bad snow: you don’t have to actually think the two have anything to do with each other in order for it to be a good loudmouth obnoxious thing to say.
PIGL
Nothing will pursuade him of anything that scores points against Republicans. The guy is a “conservative” economist, whose very job is contarianism, dedicated to showing how everything liberals say is the opposite of what they mean and everyu policy they favour will have Exactly The Opposite of the intended effect.
Most economists are fucking reactionary idiots who should be deprived of the right of political activity and public speech, and should be nowhere near a University.
I’ve had this conversation with economists before, and they get all defensive…that’s not economics, they say. Prove it, sez I, that your discipline is not 95% dominated by lying, whoring, intellectualy bankrupt enablers of fascism. In response, they got nothing.
EDIT: El Cid said just much the same thing as I, but in a more adult manner, that I can respect but not emulate because visceral hatred and loathing makes me go all irrational.
Jennifer
I’m not going to re-post my email to Kathleen Sebelius, since I posted it in comments both at TBogg’s and roy’s, but the gist was: can they not formulate an ACA rule that stipulates that non-necessary medical procedures mandated by state law cannot be billed to patients, insurers, or Medicaid/Medicare?
This procedure costs $200 on average. Insurers are not going to pay for it because there’s no medical reason to perform the procedure. That’s part of the design here – not only to punish the sluts by shoving something up their hoo-ha, but to make them PAY for it as well. A lot of women have no insurance at all and probably most of the others don’t have coverge that covers abortion, so you’re already looking at a woman having to come up with ~ $500 to get the abortion in the first place – now these asshats have added another 50% to the cost for no reason other than to punish the sluts and hopefully, to price it out of range for some of them. That’ll teach those filthy tarts to use their genitals!
My thought was that these bufords would think twice before passing this kind of shit if they knew they were going to have to raise taxes on their teabagging constituents to pay for it. Which is why we need a rule that says, no, the state cannot mandate unneeded medical procedures and then pass the costs for them onto anyont else.
Evergreen (formerly Betsy, forever ago)
@El Cid:
I mostly agree, except that I’ve had too many experiences of entitled douchebags using rape as a metaphor for helmet laws and such. They like to tell me I’m too touchy when I object. They are very attached to rape metaphors, these libertarians.
Elliecat
@Rita R.:
Geez, I never once thought this. I always understood it to be a courtesy, allowing the patient to comfortably place the wand rather than have someone jabbing around trying to get it in. I appreciated the control it allowed me. But YMMV.
Having had more vaginal u/s than I can count (fertility patient), I have to say I only found them painful if my ovaries were enlarged. Otherwise, vaginal ultrasound was a lot less uncomfortable/painful than a pelvic exam done with a speculum. (Do women getting abortions not have to have pelvic exams first?)
Also, I have never heard of needing a full bladder for vaginal u/s. On the contrary, I had a couple times when I was asked to get off the table and go empty my bladder. In my first pregnancy they made me do the full bladder for abdominal u/s but not in subsequent ones.
barry
@Corner Store Operator: “Jesus Christ. I don’t read Cowen, but I wasn’t under the impression he was a nutjob culture warrior. I guess I was wrong.”
He’s head of the Koch brothel called the Mercatus Center at George Mason, and is (IIRC) an Austrian.
Of course he’s a right-wing loon, and as we keep seeing the gap between the alleged libertarians and the talibaneglicals is not big.
chrismealy
All the shit people give about Ezra Klein and Matt Yglesias being sellouts, it’s because they listen to Tyler fucking Cowen. They’re not neoliberals, they Cowenites (or believers in Cowenism, whatever).
Every lefty you tells you how smart and thoughtful he is, fuck them.
chrismealy
He’s not an Austrian (much to their regret) but he is 100% Koch.
RedKitten
And you know what the kicker is? Because these trans-vag ultrasounds will be legally required, but not MEDICALLY required, how much do you want to bet that insurers won’t give a fuck if it’s legally required and will decline payment on it?
So not only are women being raped, they’re being screwed…
shortstop
Gosh! On the off chance that there’s someone here who might want to hear more about my very personal ultrasound experience, I have to amend myself. It’s been long enough since I went to the pro-water-drinking techs that I’d forgotten that first they do the transabdominal ultra with your bladder full, then they send you to the loo before doing the transvag. A friend of mine who’s been through the same thing many times reminded me.
So, this particular point may be irrelevant unless they’re doing a combo of transabdom and transvag on the hapless Virginia abortion patients. The discomfort of a full-bladder US was only the icing on the big honking cake of righteous indignation at this new law, however.
Jennifer
@RedKitten: Yeah, that’s what I just said.
Southern Beale
IIRC correctly the Virginia state senator who sponsored this bill said it was so women would know if they were medically able to undergo the abortion procedure.
Which is kinda stupid because if you’re not medically sound enough to have an abortion you sure as hell aren’t medically sound enough to carry a fetus to term and go through childbirth.
I can’t wait for these fetal ultrasounds to start finding all sorts of medical issues deeming abortion medically necessary. Bet they’d repeal this bill in a heartbeat if doctors used that tactic.
RedKitten
@Jennifer: Oops…didn’t read that. Sorry.
Well, just take my post as extra validation, then.
cynn
Here’s the deal, conservopricks. I’m scheduled for my first colonoscopy next week. If you find anything worthwhile, keep it with my compliments. It could be your only viable candidate…
And latts, I had an ultrasound way into my pregnancy, to see if my kid had Down’s because I was so old. I was lucky to have such thoughtful and professional techs.
Sad Iron
Someone needs to propose the following legislation: no man can have a prescription for downward-facing-johnson drugs until they unsuccessfully try to masturbate in the office waiting room.
Michael
Many people have asked, how does a guy who’s obviously smart and perceptive, like Cowen is, end up Libertarian.
The answer is always the same: he hates the shit out of women. And . . . voila!
pseudonymous in nc
Cowen is a Koch-bankrolled libertarian, which usually translates into “socially retarded misogynist”.
kth
Well, it was already pretty obvious how awful Cowen was, but it’s nice to have such a terse and compact confirmation.
Rita R.
@Elliecat:
Shortstop said the same thing and you’re both probably right. Don’t know why my mind went automatically to the litigious…
calling all toasters
Cowen needs a colonoscopy each time he writes anything so he can be informed as to whether he still has a brain.
owlbear1
I see there is still zero evidence required that an Invisible Super Monkey’s will somehow be placated with the procedure.
Bill Murray
@JonF: yes, I think Tyler has Milton Friedman as a hero
oldmtnbkr
I frequent Marginal Revolution and a couple other blogs that might be described as “quality” or “tote-bagger” conservative blogs so as to avoid being defined as a close-minded liberal, but mostly leave reading the awful stuff to Pierce, Sadly No, etc. Apart from this recent post of Cowen’s on the VA law, the most repellent thing I’ve read there was his post (and worse, the RW comments)on the TN subscription-funded fire department that let a family’s house burn down because they were late on their dues.
My dear departed Dad was what used to be called a Commonweal/Dorothy Day Catholic (and, I’m proud to say,got to shake hands with FDR), and of course that’s how I was raised. I bailed from the church 40-plus years ago over birth control and the Vietnam War; but culturally, I’m still Christian, broadly defined. To me today’s GOP and the libertarians typified by Cowen and the Pauls seem seriously amoral in many ways.
The Oracle
Radical Republicans, those of the radical religious sort, are giving a whole new meaning to the term Date Rape.
Pregnant women, but only those seeking an abortion, are being told that they must make a “date” with their doctor, during which “date” the doctor is being told that he or she must prescribe an unwanted, unrequested and unnecessary ultrasound procedure, ordering that a probe must be thrust up an unwilling pregnant woman’s vagina.
Ergo, Date Rape…except with a radical Republican twist, because radical religious Republicans, in essence, are forcing this Date Rape to occur at gun-point, with radical “religious test” Republicans using our government to force and enforce this Date Rape of pregnant women by their doctors.
If this were a necessary life-saving procedure, then it would be required of all pregnant women, whether wanting an abortion or not. Thus, this is discrimination of the most vile kind, with the people being discriminated against being told that they even have to pay for being Date Raped at Republican gun-point.
I won’t believe anything radical religious Republicans have to say about fetuses, which they claim are “persons,” until a fetus signs a written permission form, giving radical religious Republicans permission to continue their insane assault on the rights of pregnant women in America.
Nancy Irving
In most states, being penetrated with an object without one’s consent is legally rape.
But Virginia is for lovers, I guess.
Billy Beane
Hey look, someone on the internet said something stupid. Let’s draw even more attention to it.
Thanks for keeping us so well infRomed Cole. I feel so comfortable knowing people like you are watching out for this stuff…..pffft.
Kathy
Stumbled over here from a gasp… conservative website… and would ask you to point out, via screen shots of the offensive bills being considered by the different states, the words “trans vaginal”.
Thank You,
Kathy K
Stetson Kennedy
I suggest that the next time Mr. Cowen has to take a crap, that he be forced to go through a sonogram. I mean, it’s only fair that he should know what’s up there.
darleen click
geez, statson,
the next time Mr. Cowen has to take a crap, that he be forced to go through a sonogram
Because a nascent human life is equivalent to fecal matter?
And really, the analogy is that taking a crap is similar to birth because both occur as designed by nature. Abortion is more like refusing to take a crap by taking daily enemas.
which you might need to dislodge your head.
Scott Lemieux
So the libertarian is pro-regulation, as long as the regulations mean that women get raped by the state?
I think he’s actually trying to make the opposite point. I.e. if you oppose the VA law then you should therefore logically oppose consumer regulations that actually serve some useful purpose and don’t involve sexual assault, because…look, it’s Halley’s Comet!
latts
Abdominal ultrasound is less useful for dating an early pregnancy because it is more difficult to get an accurate measurement of the embryo. If the purpose is dating, the TV ultrasound would be the indicated method. I think the purpose is hassling & humiliating the woman (it also says they have to sign something saying they refused to look at the u/s, which is overbearing to the point of sociopathy), so my objections are specifically that there is a waiting period afterwards that makes two invasive exams necessary, and that the woman should be badgered into looking at the u/s when there is zero medical or state interest in her doing so.
Of course, the state has no legal interest in any individual pregnancy, but you can’t tell fanatics that something’s none of their fucking business any more.
TenguPhule
And Darleen Click takes the title of Worst Person in the World!
brantl
The best line for what to do with this guy comes from M*A*S*H*: “Give him a high colonic (enema)and put him on a ten mile hike. Which might give him an actual idea what the women are getting, even if not an exact match….
Eugene Debs
@Just Some Fuckhead:
“If these MILPs are just consumers of a service or industry, we should be able to remove all restrictions on abortion and let the free market do its magic.” -JSF
That’s beautifully brilliant. Non-sequitor; Hypocrisy; GOP is thy name.
IdiotSavant
more along the lines of Tyler just isn’t that funny, and his attempts at humor have a lot to be desired.