Others here have talked about the issue in more detail, but I really just can’t believe that in the year 2012, with everything that is going on, Republicans want to pick a losing fight over condoms and the pill. I thought they were stupid, but I didn’t think they were that stupid. It’s like they’ve given up on taking us back to 1950 and have just decided to pretend it is 1950 all over again.
I’m just speechless.
And every single one of you who got the vapors when Markos wrote a book called the American Taliban should be writing him an apology right about now.
capt
Of course this is the party of Ron Paul and as a serious candidate he speaks of reversing the 1964 civil rights act.
I think the GOP is forcing their own extinction.
*fingers crossed*
liberal
At first blush, it seems like a losing issue, but never underestimate the stupidity of the American people.
mickey g
Most of their base is stupid.
4tehlulz
Only when Markos apologizes to the Taliban for insulting their intelligence.
Patricia Kayden
How are you so confident that it is a losing battle? I have a feeling that the admin will cave on this.
Villago Delenda Est
Like I said in a previous thread, the consultants told these morans not to go there, but gosh, the prudish pricks can’t help themselves.
Rosalita
It’s just absolutely amazing. With all the things that need to be done in this country, the assault on women’s choice and health continues at the top of their list. Will the general public pay attention this time and vote some of these bastards out of office? I’m hopeful but not optimistic.
flukebucket
There are times when I think they are doing everything they can possibly do to lose. There is nothing coming from that side that makes any sense at all. And Mitt Romney looks about as uncomfortable in a pair of blue jeans as I do in a neck tie. I can’t wait to see him out behind a pick up truck with a dull chain saw cutting up a brush pile.
West of the Cascades
I can’t believe they’re doing it a week after the Komen Foundation crashed and burned on a women’s health issue. I’ve thought several times over the last decade (and always been wrong) that the most recent Republican outrage would be the defining moment in that party’s demise, but this one may finally be the combination of outrageous position, timing, and breadth of impact (and immediacy of impact) that takes them down.
JScott
Our very own Joe Manchin is just making my head explode. WVers need to get all up on his Twitter feed.
Rommie
“Emotionally exhausted, and morally bankrupt”
I call that an appropriate toe-tag for the modern GOP.
Svensker
All the usual suspects on my FB page are screaming about how Obama is destroying religious liberty OMG elventy leven. Including the women.
I just can’t take it anymore.
johio
John, You’d better let your senator know your position on this. Manchin has taken the side of the Catholic bishops. I just wrote him an email on it, but I don’t live in WVa any more, so I doubt he cares about my opinion.
West of the Cascades
@Patricia Kayden: if the right had kept this to “don’t discriminate against poor Catholic hospitals who are doing so much good!” the administration might have caved.
Now that it’s a full “all corporations can cut off birth control insurance for any flimsy reason they can articulate as long as it sounds religious,” and they’re being transparent about that, AND the administration has shifted into campaign mode (and doesn’t have to “act” – just has to defend a reasonable regulation it has already promulgated), I think there’s less likely to be a cave here.
scav
Could be that they’re more worried about the headlines of apathy getting a solid hold than they are about whipping up some hyperventilating frenzy at this stage of the process.
pragmatism
the wingers put a lot of their eggs in the “no one can be elected with economy in bad shape, he admitted he should be a one term prez if it is” theory. if things keep getting better, the arguments will get more and more bizzare.
beltane
Mark Halperin says this is bad news for Obama. It’s official: the GOP has screwed themselves on this.
the fake fake al
What else is there besides Obama Hate, and Rove has plenty of that waiting in the wings.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Rosalita:
Jobs, jobs, jobs.
@West of the Cascades: ’
The American electorate has a short attention span, and it’s longer by magnitudes than that of the Establishment Media. The Iraq War just kinda happened, nothin’ anybody could do about it, and no reason anybody should get upset about it. John McCain may have wanted to put Sarah Palin a heartbeat away from the Presidency and been disastrously wrong or gutless on every foreign policy question of the last decade, but that’s no reflection on his unquestionable status as a statesman and non-partisan authority on every imaginable topic.
gex
@Rosalita: They’ve been convinced that government can’t do anything good, except when it restricts the freedom of women and gays. So they aren’t at all upset that other issues aren’t being prioritized.
JGabriel
John Cole @ Top:
And yet, it’s entirely believable that Democrats might cave (Hello, Joe Manchin!) and let the GOP win this loser issue.
Sometimes I think our jackasses are even worse than the GOP’s.
.
Kane
Every time a republican rings the bell of the culture wars, an independent voter gains their wings to fly away from the GOP.
Served
Give it 10 days and we’ll be back to the guttural cries of SHARIAAAA LAWWWWWW.
Comrade Javamanphil
@beltane: Don’t you mean Bad news for Bam? Halperin’s too lazy to even type the man’s full name.
FormerSwingVoter
Let’s not pretend we’re winning this issue in the polls 90-10 or something – there are lots of vile people in this country, and most of them vote.
People are dramatically overstating how bad this will hurt Republicans. Being backwards, ignorant jackasses dedicated to the complete destruction of every liberty the middle class enjoys hasn’t hurt them on any other issue, so why would it do so here?
cathyx
John-
OT but I just want to say that I read your middle of the night post about your dad and I hope you realize how lucky you are. I would give anything to have a dad that I could write such nice things about. I guess I got in the wrong line when they were giving out parents.
Now on topic, I think that the republicans think this issue will rally their base. It won’t, but we all know how out of touch they are.
beltane
@Served: I’d have to do some research into this but it is entirely possible that Sharia Law is more enlightened on the subject of contraception than the RC Church.
MattF
I guess it’s doubling down– which is, as a matter of fact, a winning strategy if there’s no penalty for losing.
jl
I will have some reaction when I can wrap my head around the developments. On this here very blog I read that the ‘religious freedom’ argument is about to be expanded to any religious person who runs any business.
The mind boggles. I cannot believe the the GOP and reactionary elements of organized religion really believe that the public will follow them on this nonsense.
So, must be either a bluff to see if Obama will cave on healthcare reform (unfortunately, not a particularly bad bet, see bank settlement), and maybe demoralize his supporters. Or stunt to rev up sagging GOP primary.
Cannot believe they are serious.
E.D. Kain
John, they’re picking a fight on these issues precisely because it is an election year.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Comrade Javamanphil: god, I hate that precious shit. “I’m just like a character from the Front Page! Look at me, Daddy!”
mattski
The more the economy improves between now and the election the more the need for the republicans to talk up the culture wars… read something like that early in the day. draw your own conclusions. I used crayon
Hill Dweller
@JGabriel: As I was saying on the other thread, TPM’s HuffPo/Politico style headline doesn’t match the substance of the article.
scav
@beltane: but but, telling women to wear burqas is bad and not to be tolerated, even in foreign countries, while telling them what medicine they can to put in their bodies is sacred and not to be questioned. Women, apparently, can be trusted to dress themselves in the morning but no more in this world view.
Bobby
And once again Mr. Cole makes a rather simple category error, conflating the legal right to obtain contraception with the right to have the purchase publicly-subsidized. As everyone knows, the Taliban is much more rigorous in maintaining these distinctions.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
@FormerSwingVoter:
This issue is going to be as beneficial to the Republicans as the corpse fucking of Terri Schiavo was. Republicans fucked the shit out of the Schiavo corpse and the rest of the country looked on in disgust and horror. This will play out the same way.
Cat Lady
Morning Ho said that Biden and Daley tried to warn off the WH from doing this, and Sebelius and FLOTUS and the women on staff made the better argument. I know I wouldn’t want to have FLOTUS pissed off at me, so I’ll be very surprised if they back down. I’m convinced, as are they, that it’s a political winner for them, with the added benefit of being the right thing to do. Remember when Bush kept doing outrageous thing after outrageous thing so that you could no longer focus on any one thing – I think that they’re playing that kind of long game now that the economic winds seem to be at their back. Make the GOP lose their shit every day all day, and twice on Sunday.
dedc79
The conservative mindset is the assumption that one’s own preferences, experiences and values are (or should be) shared by all. Hence the assumption that they have popular support in all things, no matter how crazy.
Yevgraf
I’m feeling like a dirty old man for wanting to party with the current Snorg Tees girl on the right side of my page.
Tractarian
@E.D. Kain:
Fixed!
The Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion
Sorta OT, but related to the anti-vagina jihad, looks like Komen may have shit the wrong bed.
pj
3 guesses as to which supreme court justice authored this citation:
“The government’s ability to enforce generally applicable prohibitions of socially harmful conduct, like its ability to carry out other aspects of public policy, “cannot depend on measuring the effects of a governmental action on a religious objector’s spiritual development.” To make an individual’s obligation to obey such a law contingent upon the law’s coincidence with his religious beliefs, except where the State’s interest is “compelling” — permitting him, by virtue of his beliefs, “to become a law unto himself,” — contradicts both constitutional tradition and common sense.”
Spaghetti Lee
The Republican party has a long and infamous history of turning shit to (electoral) gold, so I wouldn’t be surprised if the issue drags on longer and the conversation gets stupider than it has any right to. The media certainly won’t stop them, as we’ve already seen.
I think it may have started as a sort of kamikaze run on one of the last issues they had available (because the economy is getting better and they’ve got nothing to say about it, etc.), and once they saw it make a ripple in the politico-media/sphere, they decided, hell, let’s go with it. I think the whole “Any individual should be able to supersede the govt. based on personal beliefs” (i.e. fucking nullification) thing that it’s apparently turned into will be so big and grandiose that it will end up collapsing on them, but…
GeneJockey
I think what needs to happen is for someone on our side to present a counterproposal to Rubio’s new bill, that allows religious exceptions for EVERYTHING. If Catholic bosses don’t feel they can ‘in good conscience’ pay for contraception, then how can we ask Jehovah’s Witness bosses to pay for transufions, or Christian Scientist bosses to pay for…well, anything?
GeneJockey
I think what needs to happen is for someone on our side to present a counterproposal to Rubio’s new bill, that allows religious exceptions for EVERYTHING. If Catholic bosses don’t feel they can ‘in good conscience’ pay for contraception, then how can we ask Jehovah’s Witness bosses to pay for transfusions, or Christian Scientist bosses to pay for…well, anything?
jibeaux
Well, you can’t say they aren’t doing everything in their power to lock down that 2% of the voters who never use it.
amused
Republicans want to pick a losing fight over condoms and the pill
Hang on, are condoms being discussed at all? Also, too, fuck TPM, there’s the 3 usual Blue dogs acting like the assholes they are, and “Dems caving??” Of course, the question mark mark makes it all better. Just as FoxPropagandaNet.
I’ve emailed Marshall a couple times on his his misleading headlines, and his response was to call me an asshole. Don’t fall for his shit.
ruemara
@Patricia Kayden: You realize that the Democratic legislators are caving before the WH has? Or does the pre-emptive cry of “cave” only operate for Obama?
Martin
@amused:
In theory. But I admit I’m struggling to imagine receiving a prescription for condoms.
slag
They’re just searching far and wide for ways to bring ACA back into the news more often because they think it’s a good issue for them. And it is. At this moment in time.
J.W. Hamner
Didn’t they try a similar “religious freedom” tack with pharmacists not wanting to dispense Plan B? I’d be curious to see how polling changed on that during the public debate on that, but it doesn’t look like any was done from a quick Google.
It’s hard for me to believe there’s a lot of universal unsafe sex fans out there waiting to be courted, but they must have some info that suggests otherwise.
jl
@Bobby: Where did Cole make a category error in his post? I don’t see anything about rights or subsidization in Cole’s post. I see a simple statement of surprise about a very extreme position pushed by GOP and reactionary elements in some organized religious sects.
beltane
@scav: The American Taliban likes to be able to ogle women and and treat them as subhuman filth. I don’t exactly see their position as morally superior in any way.
cathyx
I think this law should go one step further and make everyone who wants to buy contraception prove they aren’t Catholic in order to get it.
geg6
@Patricia Kayden:
Been reading TPM too much lately?
parsimon
From the OP:
Republicans want to pick a losing fight over condoms and the pill
N.B. that it’s not over condoms, since those don’t require a prescription. This is a minor point depending on your emphasis, but worth bearing in mind.
g
SO if I understand the core issue here, the Catholics are saying they don’t want to have to pay for benefits that they are religiously opposed to.
What’s the actual dollar value of the contraceptive coverage vs. not covering it?
And doesn’t a policy that does fails to prevent unwanted pregnancies statistically result in more pregnancies – with more expensive treatment and procedures covered?
Wouldn’t it make sense that such a policy would have higher premiums than one that helps prevent unwanted pregnancies?
So essentially, are the Catholic institutions willing to pay more in order to deprive their employees of a benefit that – if they’re devout – few of them will take advantage of?
redshirt
Help a redshirt out:
I don’t watch any TV news, nor do I consult any traditional newspapers/websites. Believe it – I get my news from BJ, and other blogs.
This issue has been a top priority here the last few days. In the interest of sanity, I checked out some newspaper websites, but it didn’t seem to be a big deal on these sites.
Is this big news “out there”, or is it only in the small community of “people who pay attention”?
Shinobi
I’m already paying $50 a month for BC, is that not a high enough sex tax for these people? I already feel like since I’m paying this much I should be having more sex.
Perhaps they haven’t considered the unintended consequences….or perhaps they HAVE. Gotta make sure the ladies get their monies worth.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@ruemara:
The inability of lefty purists to accept the fact of Congress is as baffling to me as people like Tweety and Dionne telling me the fact that they and every other Catholic in this country ignores the Church on this (and most other issues) is completely irrelevant to this discussion.
jibeaux
@amused: Santorum disagrees with a SCOTUS decision saying the states have no authority to prohibit married people from accessing contraceptives. So in his world I guess there should be states out there banning condoms. This does not seem to be especially likely (“you know what would be great? Dramatically increased public health costs and saying goodbye to our mistresses!”), but I think it’s ominous that in the year 2012 a GOP frontrunner is taking stands on issues that were more or less settled a half century ago.
beltane
@cathyx: That would be one way to starve the beast. If made to choose between contraception and their church membership, very few people would choose the keep their church membership. The RC Church would be reduced to nothing but old ladies and and closeted gay men.
Martin
@J.W. Hamner:
They have no such info. They’re trying to thread the needle between a policy that almost everyone supports and “Obama is trying to be a dictator”, and come out with the public on the anti-Obama side.
But the left here really does need to make the moral case for why prescription birth control should be covered.
Southern Beale
Gallup daily tracking poll has Obama approval rating back up to 49%:
I don’t have a link but I saw somewhere today that the Congress’ approval rating is at 10%.
gex
@g: Hey, you know what I don’t want to do? Have the federal government give the Catholics $3bn a year. But we do. So they can shut the fuck up. Maybe we need to pull that funding if they don’t want to follow federal guidelines.
gumbo
I posted this comment on Kay’s thread below, but I thought it bore repeating . . .
I called the White House today (after getting busy signals all morning, I finally made it through this afternoon), and the woman who answered the phone was so happy to hear from me. She said I was one of the only people calling in support of reproductive freedom. The religious right is organized, vocal, and successfully chipping away at our hard-fought rights.
If you have a minute, PLEASE call the White House and let them know that a majority of us out here support access to contraception, and that women’s health should not be used as a political football.
W.H. Comment Line: (202) 456-1111
jheartney
I’ve been saying for some time that once they got done with Roe they’d come after Griswold. And that they live in such a sealed bubble that they don’t understand they’re playing Russian Roulette with rounds in every chamber.
Marcellus Shale, Public Dick
fuck that, the culture war is the only war the gop can win, and that is only because everyone who might vote their way is anti-something. they just have to throw shit at single issue wall long enough.
the scary part to me is, whenever conservatives are standing up for puritan wholesomeness, they are behind the scenes pushing some sort of scourge, meant to keep the wrong people from being confused for puritans.
billions of dollars will be spent, don’t think attacking women is where it ends.
Laertes
@E.D. Kain:
Are you sure that “they” picked this fight? Seems to me that Obama chose this fight.
jl
If WH and Dems in Congress cave on this, I want a religious exemption from paying portion of my taxes that go to defense spending. I consider some of our anti terrorist drone strike policy tantamount to committing murder, and religious freedom says I don’t have to subsidize it.
And as I recall, ‘No Murder’ is right there in the ten commandments. I don’t see anything about contraception. Except for Lot (I think) being struck down for spilling his seed on the ground. I think that is only mention of anything that could be called ‘birth control’ in the Bible. But probably the randy goofballs that make up the GOP would not go for that angle on birth control
Edit: oops, it was Onan, not Lot who done got killed for spilling his seed, note well, to prevent a birth, not for recreation.
And, hey, tax payments are fungible, so, no federal taxes for me at all.
MosesZD
I think the Republicans won’t like the factual counter-response:
The use of and easy access to contraceptives is being seen as the cause of numbers published this week by the Guttmacher Institute, showing that the U.S. teen pregnancy rate has hit a 30-year low.
The use of and easy access to contraceptives is being seen as the cause of numbers published this week by the Guttmacher Institute, showing that the U.S. teen pregnancy rate has hit a 30-year low.
The study found that in 2008, just 67.8 per every 1,000 women between the ages of 15 and 19 got pregnant. That’s down from 1990′s high point, when 116.9 out of every 1,000 became pregnant.
“Continuing decreases in teen pregnancy more recently may be driven by increased use of the most effective contraceptive methods as well as dual method use,” the Guttmacher Institute explained. “In sum, teens appear to be making the decision to be more effective contraceptive users, and their actions are paying off in lower pregnancy, birth and abortion rates.”
So, birth control works. And we get fewer abortions. They should be happy about that…
Except, of course, it doesn’t meet their phoney ‘family values’ bullshit. Which, of course, they do not practice though they preach it.
artem1s
not really surprising considering these people think W’s REAL policy failure was not instituting American Sharia Law (TM) before the scary brown people got here and instituted their own first.
If you asked the average hover-rounder I bet he’d say the 2008 crash was the fault of RINOs not pushing social reforms harder. If only they hadn’t caved on Terry Shivo we’d all be living in a 1950s nirvana, dontchaknow!
Mino
Well, I think Democratic women will punish Manchin and Kaine. And I can’t blame them. Kaine is holding a lead right now; wonder what it will be when the news gets around. That’s gonna be a good indicator.
beltane
As a woman I don’t really get your argument. My uterus and ovaries are just as much a part of my body as my liver and kidneys. Pregnancy is often dangerous, and is sometimes even deadly. What is the moral case for deeming some organs unworthy of medical care?
Martin
@g: Actually, none of that is the issue at all. My wife is on prescription birth control even though I’ve had a V. Birth control pills are how you treat certain hormone issues – the birth control is the side effect, not the reason for prescribing for quite a few people. It’s used to treat endometriosis and it’s recommended for people with certain high cancer risks as it can cut the risk of those cancers significantly.
Those are the reasons why it should be covered, and it’s simply wrong for an organization to deny their employees the right to a cancer treatment or any other kind of hormone treatment simply because the side effect might be to prevent pregnancy.
Sasha
Harlan Ellison summarized it best:
“The two most common elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity.”
Southern Beale
@Martin:
Why shouldn’t it be covered? ED pills are covered. Vasectomy is covered by most if not all plans. It’s covered if it’s for medical reasons (like hormone regulation) not birth control. Why wouldn’t it be covered? Because you don’t “have” to have sex? That’s just stupid. You don’t “have” to run a marathon or work out but if you get injured doing those things it’s covered.
I don’t even understand your question. A moral case? WTF does that even mean? Healthcare is healthcare. Contraceptives are part of healthcare.
Cons need to make a moral case why it shouldn’t be covered. So some Catholics are pissed? Then don’t use it. You don’t HAVE to use it.
Look, this is one of the many things that sucks about having an employer-based health insurance system. We tried to get health insurance unhooked from employment but oooooh nooooo can’t do that, that’s EVUL. Well, then you have some employers who are gonna object to a part of the law then. Fuck off, you should have been demanding a Medicare for all system then, but you didn’t, did you? That way you wouldn’t have been asked to provide anything and you’d be left trying to convince your faithful that birth control is against God’s will … something, I may add, that you’ve been really unsuccessful at for about 40 years.
FlipYrWhig
@Svensker: The religious liberty of bosses imposing their religious views on their employees? That’s the total fucking opposite of religious liberty.
Martin
@Laertes:
Half the states already have this policy. Hell, half the states in the south already have this policy. This policy has been in place all over the country for over a decade – including quite a lot of high Catholic population states. Why the outrage now?
28 Percent
@FormerSwingVoter: Strongly disagree. When they move from the rest of their anti-choice rhetoric and into attacking birth control, what Republicans are really doing is damaging their brand association with personal responsibility. For most people, practicing safe sex is practically synonymous with engaging in responsible behavior.
The social conservative schtick was never the Republicans’ selling point. What made them resonate with the larger population was the way they tied their market libertarianism and traditional values blather together and sold it under the spin of “personal responsibility.” This is another Schaivo incident, where they take a stand that flies directly in the face of the precept of self-determination and personal responsibility. Their only hope for not taking a major hit on this is that they don’t get the kind of media circus that erupted around Terri Schaivo. The bigger this battle, the more it stays in the news, the better for Democrats.
28 Percent
@FormerSwingVoter: Strongly disagree. When they move from the rest of their anti-choice rhetoric and into attacking birth control, what Republicans are really doing is damaging their brand association with personal responsibility. For most people, practicing safe sex is practically synonymous with engaging in responsible behavior.
The social conservative schtick was never the Republicans’ selling point. What made them resonate with the larger population was the way they tied their market libertarianism and traditional values blather together and sold it under the spin of “personal responsibility.” This is another Schaivo incident, where they take a stand that flies directly in the face of the precept of self-determination and personal responsibility. Their only hope for not taking a major hit on this is that they don’t get the kind of media circus that erupted around Terri Schaivo. The bigger this battle, the more it stays in the news, the better for Democrats.
Billy Beane
Markos is an asshole firebagger and apparently so are you Wrong Way Cole!
Not surprisingly you have bought into his obvious attempt to hijack the emotions that the words Taliban conjur as well.
But I would expect nothing less from a not Republican who was easily convinced to vote for Bush twice!
jl
Also, too, if we go this far for religious liberty on birth control, then a simple statement of religious conscience should get people out of the draft. That was Madison’s position, and if they can get their way on birth control this would be a good time to go back to Madisonian principles on compulsory military service.
Maybe the US could run on such an extreme interpretation of religious freedom. But I doubt the GOP or religious nuts will go along on anything except for their favorite hobby horse.
beltane
@Martin: You are now making a distinction between “good girl” health care and “bad girl” health care. If sexually active woman is on the pill to treat her endometrriosis it is OK, but if she is on the pill to prevent uterine prolapse or diabetes caused by pregnancy it is morally unacceptable.
scav
Religiously- or business- garbed death panels seem to be the ones they’re backing as A-OK and all-‘mercan.
kindness
I won’t give the right a pass on this issue. They don’t have a majority behind them, in fact the majority agrees with the current Obama policy statement.
But what about you progressives on this site? Why do I see so many here acting like ‘Of Course Democrats & Obama are going to cave to these assholes’? Yea, this administration has pissed me off too many times rolling over instead of putting up the good fight. But a bunch of you are already throwing crap at Obama and he hasn’t caved yet. WTF is that about?
You want congress to follow you? You want Obama to follow you? Call them. Write them. Call them every day. Do for this issue what we did for Komen/Planned Parenthood and for the FSM’s sake, give our side a little credit, won’t you?
Martin
@Southern Beale:
Because conservative voters only hear moral justifications for policy. It’s just how they are. The don’t think of the other reasons why birth control is prescribed, but they will respond to the moral argument that an institution that opposes birth control shouldn’t have to pay for birth control. And that’s where they stop.
You can be mad all you want that they respond to that argument or that they don’t respond to the argument about cost or whatever, but that’s how they are – in the same way that you usually can’t sway liberals solely on moral arguments outside of civli rights and a few others.
I don’t disagree with you at all on why they should be covered as you can see above, but if you want to be heard, you have to speak their language. What you instinctively know they need to be reminded of, so don’t leave that part out.
cathyx
And while the Catholic church is at it, they should insist that the baby daddy take full responsibility for the costs associated with the pregnancy, birth, and raising of the kid, and if he doesn’t, the church should step up and cover the costs.
artem1s
@ruemara:
that’s an interesting point. I’m sure it has occurred to the Kocksucking brothers that this will be an issue with Catholic voters in Sherrod Brown’s and Kucinich’s districts. Is this a move to keep certain legislators from riding Obama’s coat tails? Or appearing with him during campaign stops?
Not that it will work but it makes more sense when I look at it from this angle than from an assault on the President’s re-election campaign.
Bob2
Remember that time when Markos called those American contractors that got killed mercenaries and it turned out he was right?
Scott P.
I wonder if the best way to end this nonsense is to start spreading around the idea that denying birth control in health plans is an article of Sharia law (don’t think that it is, but no matter). Vote against the establishment of Sharia law in the U.S.!
AliceBlue
@gumbo:
Thanks for the number.
I called and got through the first time! Please do this, everyone–it only takes a few seconds.
geg6
@Southern Beale:
Bravo! Exactly. Fuck making a moral argument about why a woman should have control over her own reproductive and medical decisions. It’s up to them to make the moral arguments that she shouldn’t have that control. I wanna hear it, badly.
beltane
@Southern Beale: Thank you. The only “moral” argument here exists if you believe that women, as daughters of Eve, are cursed, worthy only to bear children in pain and suffering.
Incidentally, when anesthesia for childbirth was first in use religious leaders were up in arms because a pain free childbirth was against God’s will. They have not really changed their views since them.
Martin
@beltane:
No, I’m making a point that the doctor knows what’s best for the patient as these examples illustrate, now STFU about this religious freedom bullshit. The church doesn’t get to decide how a doctor treats a patient. Period. It’s an absolute position, but you need to put a moral counterargument against the one that the right have put forward, because their argument has created an emotional connection to the issue. Ours really hasn’t or else Tweety and the other old white Catholic guys wouldn’t be so off of the rails on this.
Rafer Janders
But the left here really does need to make the moral case for why prescription birth control should be covered.
Why that, more than any other prescription medication? Why do we need to make the moral case for that more than for, say, high blood pressure medication? People get blood pressure medication to forestall unwanted heart attacks and stroke; people get birth control prescriptions to forestall unwanted pregnancy. Why does one medication require a “moral case” to be made for it that the other doesn’t?
It’s really all just about the sex with you people, isn’t it?
geg6
@AliceBlue:
I did it and got through the first time, too. Call people!
28 Percent
@Martin: The problem that “the left” continuously has is that we parse the issue for our opponents. Instead of talking about why coverage is the moral issue, the better ground to fight on is that using birth control is the responsible choice and Republicans want to punish people who do the right thing and act responsibly by making them pay more for birth control. Get people to refer to it as “the Pill Tax” and keep Republicans arguing about it all summer, and your biggest worry is going to be finding a caterer for your election night party.
Laertes
@Martin:
Because Obama is involved?
You might as well ask why the individual mandate, Republican orthodoxy for years, suddenly became evil soshulism.
The administration knew perfectly well that this would be a thing. From where I stand, it looks like favorable ground on which to fight, so I don’t blame them. It helps define the Republicans as nutters, at a time when their primary campaign is going to force their standard-bearers to out-nutter each other in public.
Bobby
@jl Cole is likely correct that this dispute is politically unwise in a year in which economic concerns (rightfully) hold sway. However, he takes this point and then, as is his wont, switches his rhetorical bombast to 11 — oddly conscripting the current birth control controversy into some effort to validate the unimpressive Markos Moulitsas and his ill-begotten literary attempt to imitate Jonah Goldberg. I figure this is just Part VIII in a very long installment of “Balloon Juice rallies the troops in an election year” — I’d refer you to the post this past week where a sleep-deprived Cole strains to convince you that Republicans want to rape you, eat your children, AND poop in your refrigerator on the way out — so I really doubt Cole has any interest in accuracy, context, or discretion of any kind. Safe to say, it takes a sense of grandiosity that I don’t possess to transform a rather conventional political dispute over the regulatory execution of a major piece of health care legislation into a modern-day Kristallnacht.
Martin
@geg6:
Then prepare to lose.
Honestly, this is what pisses me off so much about the left. They’d so often rather lose the issue than actually have to make the case that the public needs to hear about it. I’m sorry that voters need the moral argument – but they simply do, it’s just how they’re wired – but they’ll respond to it and come to your side if you can just get off your high horse and make it.
geg6
@Martin:
Because old white Catholic guys are always looking for ways to help women self-determine, right? Fuck Tweety and fuck all the other old white Catholic guys and fuck the Catholic Church. I don’t need to make any moral arguments to these assholes. They need to make one to me. So far, they haven’t come close.
FormerSwingVoter
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford: @28 Percent:
I really hope I’m wrong. But you can only wait at the station of “Being Terrible People Will Play Poorly With Voters At Some Point” before you start to come to terms with the fact that maybe the train ain’t coming.
jibeaux
O/T the barackobama spotify playlist is pretty good so far.
g
@Martin: Don’t mistake me for being on the Bishops’ side – I’m just curious about their argument.
Because it seems to me that they’re arguing “why should we pay for something that violates our principles.”
I’m curious why everyone (Okay, not you guys, but the media & politicians) seems to be taking as a given that providing contraception covering is an added cost. But how can that be, when having babies is much more expensive than buying contraception?
Would the policy allow for use of “certain” medications for treatment of hormonal disorders. In which case, I predict that the percentage of the American female population suffering for hormonal disorders would rise dramatically. [Snark]
slag
@Martin:
Exactly right. Those plumes are going to blow to wherever they predict the high ground to be. We own the high ground on this issue. Let’s claim it.
jl
@Bobby:
” I figure this is just Part VIII in a very long installment of “Balloon Juice rallies the troops in an election year” ”
That has nothing to do with a category error in this particular post
” I’d refer you to the post this past week where a sleep-deprived Cole strains to convince you that Republicans want to rape you, eat your children, AND poop in your refrigerator on the way out ”
I don’t remember that post. Please provide a link. Poop in the fridge is a memorable concept, and I think it would have stuck in my mind.
” I really doubt Cole has any interest in accuracy, context, or discretion of any kind. Safe to say, it takes a sense of grandiosity that I don’t possess to transform a rather conventional political dispute over the regulatory execution of a major piece of health care legislation into a modern-day Kristallnacht. ”
Thanks for sharing your doubts.
So, what about your assertion about THIS post? You got nothing?
You have a case to make, make it, quit making stuff up.
geg6
@Martin:
I think you are underestimating the power of 51%.
@28 Percent:
You seem to be one of the few that gets it here. You are correct. The Pill Tax. I like it.
AliceBlue
@Bobby:
I actually do believe Republicans want to rape me and poop in my fridge. I don’t have any kids, so they’ll be eating my dog, cats, and llamas.
Amir Khalid
@Scott P.:
That would be factually wrong, of course, since there is no Islamic objection to birth control per se any more than there is a Biblical one. (It’s been noted in these threads that the Bible is silent on this matter.) And spreading untruths about Sharia law would be a tremendous insult to American Muslims. It is not how the good guys roll; you shouldn’t suggest it, even in jest.
Nutella
Exactly. That’s why having no copay for preventive care is in ACA. More preventive care = lower total health care cost.
These clowns are demanding that the US health care system remain the most expensive in the first world so they can continue to discriminate against women employees. Yes, lesser benefits are employment discrimination.
Shalimar
As long as they’re completely disregarding privacy and going on a crusade against sex, can we get a list of Viagra users printed in local newspapers every month as a public service announcement? Or better yet, spousal notification before a prescription can be written. I hear notification is all the rage with the anti-abortion people so they should be on board. “Is your husband getting limp dick drugs without your knowledge?”
GregB
Well, I hope we can expand this religious freedom in the workplace hubbub to include allowing me to smoke weed on the job.
I’m a Rastafarian air-traffic controllers who’s having my religious rights trampled!
beltane
@Martin: What is moral argument for denying women the same right as men to make reproductive and medical decisions? Huh, what is it? The only argument the right is making is a deeply immoral one, an argument that women are worth less than men and were put on earth to keep their mouths shut and their legs open. If the “morality’ of this argument is persuasive tot he American people than we are truly lost and no better than Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia.
TooManyJens
@cathyx:
Better yet, make everyone who wants to deny contraception coverage to their employees prove that they don’t use it. Just so that we know it’s sincerely about conscience.
FormerSwingVoter
@Martin: Isn’t it a pretty simple moral argument, though? You can just make it a gender-equality issue.
Men have easy, cheap, prescription-free and generally private access to birth control in condoms – the insistence that the same for women be available by prescription only at all is simple, unadulterated sexism. Demanding that your boss be able to make decisions about your sex life is outright insane, serves no purpose, and directly and immediately reduces the freedoms of working Americans in very real, actual, immediately recognizable ways.
They don’t have the right to make those decisions for you, whether they be governmental or private. You do. Some people will – and, if it’s best for them, should – choose not to use birth control for a variety of reasons. Those people do not have the right to take that decision away from others, no matter what makes the most sense to them personally.
How’s that? Do I get a gold star?
BenA
@AliceBlue:
All that repression works itself out in weird ways doesn’t it? I’ve never heard of a fridge pooping fetish before though…
David in NY
Should an employer who is a member of the Jehovah’s Witnesses be permitted to refuse to cover blood transfusions?
slag
@beltane:
You may not believe this, but people do interpret their “religious freedom” argument in this instance as a moral one. Absurd? Yes. Ineffective? No.
pseudonymous in nc
@g:
I’d imagine that a group plan that doesn’t cover it is more expensive than one that does. First reason: larger group plans are cheaper than smaller group plans, because you have a larger risk pool. Second reason: the actuarial cost of pregnancy, whether or not it’s brought to term, is more than the cost of contraception.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@BenA:
there are things about Jonah Goldberg none of us really want to know
KevinA
Yes, the Admin. will at least partially cave. Look, I’m a liberal Catholic, and shake my head at the reactionary leadership of the Church, but I know this: they WILL NOT backdown. Never.
When they’re determined to hold to a stupid, anti-modern policy/”value,” they’ll go all the way. Yes, that means all the way to dropping insurance for ALL employees, rather than “partake in intrinsic evil.” Who does that help? No one.
Maus
Yeah, with Paul’s Dixiecratness and States Rights being “the new revolution” that the media’s spreading, the Birchers are more mainstream than ever and the Culture Wars are going strong.
@beltane:
Yeah, you keep arguing against subjective opinions, don’t bother letting me know how that pans out.
Martin
@Rafer Janders:
Because a moral case has been made only about this prescription medication, and we’re leaving that unaddressed and assuming that the public will automatically hear our moral argument without us making it. Well, if that was true then the moral argument against birth control never would have taken hold even as much as it has.
I hear a lot of calls for fighting fire with fire around here, but when a moral argument is made and takes hold with the public, rather than combat that directly, instead we get a bunch of “Fuck that, these people should instantly know our moral position without us making – what are they, stupid?” Well, if moral positions were that cut and dry and instantly knowable, religion never would have formed, and in 1776 we’d have formed a government that outlawed slavery, had equal rights for all, universal healthcare, and a bazillion other things. But since obviously that didn’t happen, we can conclude that the moral arguments must be made over and over and over again. So just make them and stop resisting.
Maybe it’s just because I have kids, but I finally realized that my daughter asks questions like Republicans all the time. It’s not because she’s stupid or an asshole, it’s because on the topic she asked about, we never got around to explaining why its so very important that she have access to birth control, or why Medicaid is important or why the tax policy needs to be changed. Maybe she could figure these things out on her own, but maybe she won’t. Maybe she’ll instead turn on Hannity one day who rants over why the rich pay so much and say “Hey, yeah, maybe the rich do pay too much!”
Why cede these battles – because you’re too good for them? Because it’s a waste of your time to explain why birth control is healthcare? Well, enjoy losing then.
Look, I’m not telling any of you that you’re wrong about the issue. I’m 100% behind you. I’m just telling you that you’re fighting the issue wrong and challenging you to fight it better. That’s all. I want to win, and I’m not too proud to present the case in a manner that they’ll hear it, rather than the manner in which I’d prefer to make it.
pseudonymous in nc
@Martin:
Because the bishops have decided to pick a fight in an election year to show that a decade of retreat over the sexual abuse of children hasn’t left them neutered.
Mino
I called the White House number. Very short wait.
Nutella
@Martin:
OK, then can you suggest a moral argument that we all can make to win on this issue?
Or is it easier for you to complain that everyone else is doing it wrong?
Another Halocene Human
Eh, Markos still deserves sh!t for AMERICAN TALIBAN because he stole the idea and name from my old internet buddy, Psycho Dave. He self-published a pamphlet on the Dominionists in the early 1990’s. From Rushdooney to Pat Robertson. Scary stuff.
slag
@pseudonymous in nc:
That and they know they’re losing on the gay thing. Gotta turn some screws somewhere.
Equality-minded folks need to stick together on this stuff. It’s our only strength so we might as well use it.
TooManyJens
I just called the White House too. Said that health insurance coverage is compensation for a job, and that employers have no business telling employees how they can use their compensation. I swear, if they could get away with it, some of these people would pay employees in special money that couldn’t be spent on birth control, and would cry about their rights being taken away if the government said everybody had to pay their employees in regular money.
David in NY
@KevinA: Except, as I understand it, the Church’s failure to cover their employees will cause them to pay a penalty and the employees will get their contraceptives covered under a different, subsidized, plan. That’s a moral victory for ya’!
Martin
@g:
Ah, because it is. You’re right – it shouldn’t be, but insurers do the accounting the way that they do, and they’re going to charge for anything you add.
But you’re onto the reason why Obama pushed for this, and that is that when you get into Medicaid and other government supported healthcare, there’s a clear budget savings by doing this. So beyond the moral issue, there’s actually a a good budgetary benefit. But that doesn’t apply to private insurance – the birth control is going to cost extra.
Nutella
@KevinA:
If they cancel insurance for everybody they’ll have to pay the extra tax mandated by ACA, so I think that’s less of a danger than it was.
Some posters contrasting the cardinal geezer in pink silk to a wholesome American nuclear family and their doctor with logo: “Who do you trust to make health care decisions about family planning?” might be useful.
eemom
IMO it would make no sense for the WH to “cave” on this. Let the fucktards sue to try and stop it. Hell, they’re in court all the time anyway defending their filthy institution against civil claims by sex abuse survivors.
beltane
@slag: You can’t make a moral argument with people whose concept of “religious liberty” requires that they have the right to persecute and oppress others. I don’t give a sh*t about Catholic women who feel it’s their lot in life to give birth every year (funny how few of them do), but when they insist on dictating how my husband and I make love they are infringing on my freedom and on the sanctity of my marriage. I am not a Catholic and I am not a Christian. If it comes down to my freedom verses their “religious liberty” the pederast worshippers out there can take their sanctimony and shove it up their dirty, child-raping asses.
Tod Kelly
@Martin:
I suspect not.
This supposes that the country is really on the fence about birth control being a controversial, moral issue. But it isn’t.
This is more a case of a very, very small minority mistakenly thinking that everyone thinks like them. (A common presumption of any side of the aisle, to be sure.)
NR
@KevinA:
Yep. And people around here will defend it.
pete
White House: If phoning takes too long, go to whitehouse.gov and use the Contact form.
The issue is important in itself, but what the increasingly desperate Republicans are really saying is: SQUIRREL. And they don’t care who gets hurt.
beltane
@Nutella: I think we’re supposed to plead with the bishops that since some chaste women use the birth control pill for reasons having nothing to do with contraception they should be covered. This, of course, would not apply to IUDs, barrier devices, or tubal ligation.
dmbeaster
Why this issue now? Its a combination of the Catholic Bishops attacking Obama and fomenting hatred about “Obamacare,” which is an irresistible mixture for the media trumpeting this. Plus someone figured out to pitch the issue as one of “religious freedom” which has recently been redefined as the freedom of bigots to impose their cultural values on everyone else.
A policy decision that has already been broadly implemented elsewhere (i.e., requiring medical plans to cover contraception for women) is now a hot potato because it can be cast in the Obama White House horse race context.
The best pushback is to stress, as John as done, the anti-contraception angle of this whole thing, even though that is not the precise issue. The other side already knows that this exposure exists, so they are defining the anti-contraception as instead against quasi-aborticants masquerading as contraception. But it is nonetheless a true part of what this is all about – the alleged right of the church to extend its religious control into secular matters.
Like most issues, this will resonate hardest with the interest group most affected – women. Cue the articles in Politico in 6 months speculating as to why there is such a gender gap in the support for Obama. And naturally, it will be cast as a problem for Obama for his lack of support in men rather than a problem for the GOP for the lack of support for women, as well as general cluelessness as to why the gap exists.
Bobby
@jl No need to be so literal — a sense of humor can go a long way. The dispute cannot be mindlessly reduced to “condoms and the pill,” “returning us to the 1950s,” or covert theocratic fascism. Cole might have the kernel of a legitimate complaint if there were anything close to a concentrated movement in this country to deny women the ability to purchase contraception in the open market (as there clearly is with abortion). The objection is to having what is otherwise an elective purchase publicly-subsidized. It is not even a dog-whistle or a code revealing a hidden agenda against women’s health. That is the category error, and it is quite obvious.
Scott P.
Nobody’s objecting to Vi*gra subsidies. Try again.
FlipYrWhig
@beltane: I don’t know how any definition of “religious liberty” can include being an employee of a company and having the owner’s religious views trample all over yours. And, for that matter, contraception isn’t a religious practice in the first place — it’s a practice religious honchos have opinions on, sure, but that’s not what religious freedom is, to wit, the freedom to WORSHIP as you see fit.
KevinA
@David in NY:
I don’t disagree. But to you and others, I’ll say this: They don’t care. They will follow-thru, illogical though it is.
And, again, while the employees will be able to get insurance on their own, this will be a burden on them and create chaos in the market. Principle and practice don’t always meet. In principle, I’m with the Admin.; in practice, it will only hurt 100’s of 1000’s of employees. Real world can suck, but I like to deal in that first.
Can't Be Bothered
Concern trolls, concern trolls everywhere.
Cargo
It’s an interesting inversion here. Statistics show that teen pregnancy, violent crime, etc. are all sharply down from their 1960s and 70s peaks. A combination of economics, education and social policy is responsible for these shifts.
But it was just those peaks in violent crime and teenage pregnancy that enabled reactionary movement conservatives to gain as much power as they have.
Somewhere someone in conservative policy circles must have concluded that the secret to their power is having an epidemic of abortions, pregnancies, sexual licentiousness, crime and violent streets, etc. and so they’re working on some level to bring back those glory days. Creating the conditions for their own “law and order” candidates to prevail.
Martin
@FormerSwingVoter:
Yeah, it is an easy argument, which is why it’s pissing me off so much that everyone refuses to do it. Everyone *knows* the argument, instinctively even. You just need to turn it into sentences and say it.
Gender equality is one argument. Not a terribly powerful one though, because the reality is that men and women do and always will have different healthcare issues and costs. Getting access to healthcare works better morally, but how it’s paid for isn’t nearly as strong, and ultimately that’s the issue here – and you might as well head off the “should vasectomies be covered” and so on questions that will inevitably come up.
What we need to do is answer “Why is it unfair or unjust for an employer to not pay for prescription birth control if they are morally opposed to it.” And I think the best lines of attack are:
1) There are broad reasons beyond preventing pregnancy why these medications are regularly prescribed, as is common with many medications. Employers should not be able to dictate to an employees physician how they should treat their patient, and employers have no right to peer into an employees medical file to see why that might be prescribed.
2) Even though the employer may have moral objections, the employee may not share those objections. Health insurance is simply a different form of compensation, and having employers tell employees how that compensation may be used along religious lines violates the religious freedom of the employee. Exempting prescribed birth control for religious reasons is no different than forbidding an employee from using their salary to buy the very same birth control.
blondie
The forced-birthers believe they have won the abortion fight; so now they’re just taking it to the next level — fighting to make it increasingly difficult to obtain birth control.
slag
@beltane:
Agreed. But the point isn’t to persuade the Pope. The point is to persuade those who haven’t been giving the issue a whole lot of thought. Look–a lot of people can hold conflicting ideas in their heads at the same time and not explode from the experience. They just choose not to. So, we need to help them recall the morality that they still hold but that may be momentarily overridden by other supposedly competing priorities.
We need to help those who are otherwise preoccupied remember our side of the argument. Because our side is good! And most people are actually on it. They just may be in danger of temporarily forgetting that fact. Let’s not let them.
polyorchnid octopunch
@Martin: Yeah, we should take this further and ask why any prescriptions should be covered. I mean, if you get leukemia, I don’t understand why you should get any help paying for the chemo. Really, so… fuck you.
WeeBey
There’s only one conclusion to be drawn: Republicans want your daughter to do anal.
That might cost us in the youth vote, though.
Nutella
Bobby @141
There is a concentrated movement to deny women the ability to purchase contraception. This is just one small part of it. If you haven’t noticed it, you’re not paying attention. These people are called ‘forced-birthers’ and they are getting louder and louder. See here and here for more discussion.
blondie
@Bobby:
An employer’s provision of health insurance coverage to employees is not an public subsidy. You know what “elective purchase” is commonly covered without debate — prescriptions for Viagra. Further, attempting to define prescription birth control as an “elective purchase” demonstrates a fundamental lack of understanding of women’s health.
Nutella
@KevinA:
Are you proposing that the practical thing to do is to throw women under the bus to buy off the bishops?
If so, then you are as big a scumbag as all the bishops put together.
And from that practical point of view, they’ll just demand more concessions so it doesn’t even work to treat women like shit just this once in hopes that the shitters will back off.
FormerSwingVoter
@Martin: I like the second argument better than the first – the first argument concedes that employers do and should have the right to make reproductive choices for their employees, but that birth control has other uses, which is something I deeply disagree with (that employers have that right, not that the pill has other uses).
The second argument – that demanding that employers can determine how, when, and why employees choose to use their benefits is no different than employers determining how, when, and why employees choose to spend their salary – seems much better to me.
rikryah
I’m not speechless. I say BRING IT.
I’m ready for the fight.
JC
I say that this is another Schiavo. How could it not be?
I mean – contraception. Better health. Less abortions. The freedom of an individual to be covered by what he/she, and doctor, determine are the health needs – and not have an employer dictate what you can and can’t do for your health.
These are obvious things.
goethean
You know, a significant percentage of my tax dollars go towards killin’ brown folks in order to steal their oil. This fact violates my religious beliefs. Can I get a waiver?
geg6
@rikryah:
Me, too. All this bullshit about tiptoeing around people’s feefees and “morals” and such is the same crap I’ve been hearing for years on this and choice. Which would, it seems, explain, at least partially, WHY we are now finding ourselves now having to fight not just for birth control coverage at Catholic hospitals and colleges, but, in less than 24-hours, for such coverage from ANY employer.
Fuck that shit.
Emma
@KevinA: So what you’re saying is that we have to accept being ruled by the Pope rather than by the laws of the United States. “Nice country you’ve got there, it would be too bad if something happened to it.” You’ve heard the one about Danegeld?
Martin
@FormerSwingVoter: You need the first argument to neuter their moral charge a bit. They’re saying it’s immoral to force the church to pay for this, and you immediately counter that its immoral for the church to refuse to pay for cancer treatment – because it’s the same medication. They forget that, or they don’t know it, or they think we don’t care. We do care, and it’s a very legitimate issue, and we should argue that the employees right to receive cancer treatment and doctor’s right to proscribe that cancer treatment trumps the church’s moral issue.
The 2nd argument is actually harder to make because the public doesn’t see that employee benefits outside of salary belong to the employee. They do, but there’s no real attitude of this. Employers have snookered everyone pretty good here. It’s a clean issue once you get to that state, but we need to work to get them to that state.
And as an aside, if the WH yields on this issue at all, it’ll not be to remove the birth control mandate. It’ll simply be to change who pays for it, since thats the basis of the moral argument. The feds can offer to pay for that coverage for church affiliated large employers. Now the right needs to offer up a much harder argument – that the church should have the right to prevent employees from even using birth control, and even they know that’s a non-starter, as much as they want to make the argument.
Mnemosyne
@28 Percent:
Yep. IMO, the reason they were able to get as much traction for their anti-abortion stance as they have is that, on some level, a lot of people feel that having an abortion is a way to escape your responsibility to that baby. I don’t agree, but I think that’s what the unexamined feeling is for a lot of vaguely anti-abortion people. So they were successfully able to make an argument that getting an abortion was itself an irresponsible act.
I think they’re going to have a hell of a lot harder time convincing people that using birth control is somehow a sign of irresponsibility.
kindness
Just called the White House & told them to keep the birth control regs as they have been proposed. Not sure if my 2 cents matters but at least I tried to matter.
Martin
@geg6:
I’m not saying you need to accept their moral arguments. I’m just saying that their moral arguments WORK. And if all of these ‘obvious’ things were actually obvious, everyone would be on our side, and clearly they aren’t. If you want to persuade the public to our side, then do it in a manner that works. If you want to keep fighting this battle for the next 30 years, then keep doing what you’re doing because after 30 years you’re still failing to make your case. You can blame the listener all you want, but I’m just saying that you might actually succeed by changing how you deliver the message.
feebog
I don’t see why the White House, or the Sentate for that matter, should listen to the clergy of the Roman Catholic Church on this issue. 98% of catholic women who are of child bearing age use some type of birth control, despite the church’s absolute ban on any type of birth control whatsoever.
Simple question, if the layity of the RCC does not listen to the clergy regarding this issue, why should anyone else? The Church has no credibility on this issue. None. This should be pointed out every single time the issue arises.
priscianusjr
I think the reason this is happening now is that the Republican Party has devolved into a fringe group, or rather a collection of fringe groups, and there’s no buffer of “adults” any more. Well technically there are some adults, but first of all, it’s already pretty pathetic when your “elder statesmen” are people like Karl Rove; and second of all, none of the base cares a rat’s ass what those people think anyway. So if any of these fringe groups is influential enough, e.g. the RC Opus Dei allies of the Xian Right, nothing can stop them from running away with the agenda when occasion arises. Next week there’ll be some other fringe element foaming at the mouth about something else.
Mnemosyne
@Martin:
I think 28 Percent is on the right track — conservatives managed to torpedo support for abortion by presenting it as somehow “irresponsible” for women to get one.
To me, the question to be asking conservatives is, “Why do you keep talking about ‘personal responsibility’ and then want to make it impossible for women to make responsible choices?”
Villago Delenda Est
@J.W. Hamner:
There are, because sex without the approval of clergy is a sin. It’s supposed to be unsafe. It’s supposed to endanger your life. You need to PAY for it. With disease, with death. The 60’s was all about tossing that shit out the window, which is why they hate the 60’s so much.
chopper
@David in NY:
this. this is it in a nutshell. is the janitor who cleans the toilets at The Watchtower going to get denied coverage for his appendectomy now?
Martin
@Mnemosyne:
Nobody is making that argument here though. Nobody on the right is making the argument that using birth control is immoral – we’re projecting that because we know that they believe that and have also made that argument in the past, but they aren’t making it here. Here they’re making the argument that employers paying for birth control is immoral – that it’s taking an individuals right (that they might even be willing to concede here) and transferring that right to an obligation for the employer. That’s their argument, and if we fight some other battle other than that one, we lose by default because it’ll appear we’re avoiding the issue by refusing to make a case, implying we have no defense for the policy.
What we really need to do is address the cost issue directly, since this is only about how to pay for it.
Another Halocene Human
@g:
I’m curious why everyone (Okay, not you guys, but the media & politicians) seems to be taking as a given that providing contraception covering is an added cost. But how can that be, when having babies is much more expensive than buying contraception?
It’s not an added cost in the health care premium. (Births are way more expensive. So is hospitalization for all the horrid things that can go wrong with the reproductive system.) IT’S AN ADDED COST WHEN YOU LOSE YOUR TAX BREAK.
This is about making YOU pay and giving THEM a tax break. I’m going to repeat what somebody here said yesterday: THERE IS NO CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT TO TAX BREAKS.
The suggestion about branding this “the Pill tax” was good, too.
I disagree with arguing on moral terms, except for those who can be reached about the real, medical need for this coverage. (It certainly got to me.) And that is about facts, not airy-fairy theologizing, anyway. No. We move the discussion to the practicalities. This is about Timothy Dolan and the Ad-Hoc Committee and his Talibangical buddies picking your pocket.
Dolan already scored by getting vouchers reinstated in DC, over the objections of the people of DC. Pure subsidy to his failing Catholic schools. They’ve also screamed like bitches about getting taxpayer funding yanked for their adoption agencies for failing to comply with new laws. Boo-de-fricking-hoo. Actually, that last is all Ratzi’s fault, as the local leadership of those orgs was completely happy to comply with state law… until Benedick’d unleashed The Great Purging.
Too bad. Little children were the collateral damage. Thanks, Nazipapst.
shortstop
@Nutella:
Nailed his MO.
@Tod Kelly: Bingo.
Mary
@Bobby:
Not publicly subsidized. As Kay has pointed out multiple times on the front page, the issue is insurance provided by employers as part of the overall compensation paid to their employees.
amused
Shorter Martin: Shut up, ladies, while I mansplain how to do this right.
shortstop
@Martin:
This is ludicrous. The entire reason given by the bishops for protesting this is that it forces employers to violate their consciences — there is no clearer way of someone saying they believe “birth control is immoral.” The entire argument against “obligation” coming from the right is predicated on that presumption of immorality; you simply can’t separate the two. And you’re aware of this on some level, or you wouldn’t even be bringing in the “oral contraceptives have other medical uses” argument, which is itself an attempt to defang the idea that using birth control to prevent pregnancy is immoral. You’ve really tied yourself up in knots here.
Lit3Bolt
Shorter Republican Party: When I rape my daughter, I expect her to carry her baby to term.
shortstop
@amused: In his defense, he regularly exhibits an equally misplaced condescension while talking to men about other subjects. ;)
gex
@blondie: And they were trying to redefine rape. “Honest rape” is now a term. Women are just baby machines to them. If they weren’t such homophobes, they wouldn’t fuck women at all, they hate ’em so much.
@WeeBey: Saddlebacking IS all the rage for abstinence pledged teens.
Culture of Truth
Is it also true that if conservatives fight some other battle other than the one liberals are making, they lose by default because it’ll appear they are avoiding the issue by refusing to make a case, implying they have no defense for their policy?
The Dangerman
It’s not a fight for 1950.
It’s because they got a big steaming pile of NUTHIN to run on. It’s like Monkeys flinging their poo; it’s all they got and fling they will do.
blondie
Is all this crap payback for JFK having to promise his election would not result in the Pope controlling the U.S. President? Cause it seems like that’s what they’re trying to do now.
Lit3Bolt
@amused: @Martin:
Yes, because an employer obviously has a moral obligation to be concerned about how his employees reproduce. You know what? Employers cover health costs. Contraceptives are part of women’s health. Condoms are part of men’s health. Health insurance should cover both. If it doesn’t, it is an oversight of a bygone era when elderly celibate queens could dictate the reproductive rights of a population and justify it by the writings of a nomadic tribe of goatfuckers in 2000 BC.
Put it this way…how many families do you know have 10 children? That’s the constituency the Right is going for. That’s the voting bloc they’re trying to sway. My advice is to let them go for it.
Martin
@Mnemosyne:
Oh, he’s absolutely right there. But that’s their moral argument working. Responsibility is a moral argument.
Because we don’t make the case that our position is about responsibility. Fighting moral arguments is tricky, so maybe the problem here is that people struggle with how to do it. The first thing to understand is that you cannot directly attack or question their moral argument unless it is very poorly reasoned. Their moral case against abortion is quite well reasoned though – because the truth is that at least some of the cases out there are exactly what they claim – avoiding being responsible for the baby. I know that’s true because there’s a case in my family where that’s true, so their argument is valid even if only in the solitary case of my family. So you have to accept their moral argument as valid. Against that, you need to lean a moral arguments of your own. Your goal isn’t to prove that their argument is wrong – because you’ll never do that. Your goal is a stalemate, with the recognition that the policy they advocate in support of their moral argument leads to immoral results in other cases. That’s your victory point because generally speaking they will at least recognize your moral arguments as valid (the real radicals won’t, but they’re a small group). That’s when you can start to have a real discussion about policy and where things like ‘personal responsibility’ fit into this.
It can be very effective, but we tend to skip over the whole ‘common ground’ piece, and increasingly I think that’s just a huge failing on our part. They’ll engage on policy and facts and all of that just as we want, but they need that first step done first, and I don’t think that’s unreasonable because it’s that first step which is why they care about this in the first place.
Mnemosyne
@Martin:
But the only reason they can make that argument is if they’re arguing that using birth control is somehow itself immoral (and irresponsible). Otherwise, they’d have to broaden the argument to say that having employers pay for any part of health care is immoral (which is where I think they’re heading, but let’s not get too far ahead of them) because who knows what employees are getting up to in their private lives that might conflict with their employers’ religious beliefs?
That’s why we have to keep steering it back to the moral belief that using contraception is the responsible, moral thing to do and make them explain why the employer’s moral beliefs should overrule the employee’s moral beliefs.
gex
Lots of boy names above appeasement posts.
Martin
@amused:
How’s that working out for you? Because based on the headlines, not so well. You want to convince me you’ve got a plan for getting policymakers on your side, prove it with results.
Mnemosyne
@Martin:
As I said, if what you want is the moral argument, the moral argument is that the employee’s moral beliefs should not be dictated by their employer. The right needs to make a case that the employer should be allowed to impose their moral beliefs to their employees.
I think this argument would have a surprising resonance for evangelicals who are convinced that they are constantly being imposed upon by other people’s morality.
Catsy
@FormerSwingVoter:
No, but it’s still an overwhelming majority just on this particular battle alone–let alone the overall question of birth control access.
And you are dramatically underestimating just how much the issue of birth control access cuts across ideological and gender lines. Most pro-life Republicans, including Catholics, support access to birth control. The only ones who don’t are the Catholic hierarchy and extreme fringe moral scolds like Santorum.
Every issue is not necessarily interchangeable with every other issue; if being ignorant jackasses about X Y and Z doesn’t hurt them, it does not automatically follow that issue A won’t either.
geg6
@Martin:
Dude, I’ve been delivering the message the way you think is the right way for 30 fucking years. And this is where it’s gotten us.
I’m done explaining to them. They need to explain it to ME in a way that doesn’t lead me to say that I want an exception to all the federal funding and mandates that I have moral objections to, just like their “moral” objections to birth control and choice. Let them do it. I dare them.
chopper
@gex:
clearly it’s all about sex. in instead of the catholic church it was the christian scientists, and instead of the pill it was ‘any and all medical care’ people would be laughing out loud. hey look, the christian science monitor is trying to deny basic care to their insured employees ‘for religious reasons’, that’s unfair!
but this involves slut-shaming so it’s totes different.
geg6
@amused:
Yeah, I’m really starting to get that vibe.
It’s like the people (mostly men) who told me that crushing SGK would somehow ruin the fight against breast cancer and I should not cheer for their demise. Whatthefuckever, dude.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Joan Walsh is about to be on Tweety to discuss this. $10,000 Romneybucks she is shouted down by the “host” and Michael Steele.
Martin
@Culture of Truth:
With the public? Yeah, usually. They can scream about man on dog sex all they want, but gay marriage marches ever forward. I’m not saying there aren’t setbacks – particularly legislatively because you fight legislative battles different than public opinion battles – but conservatives have been losing battles left and right by avoiding addressing the core argument the left has been making.
geg6
@Martin:
Yeah, because having a baby you are in no way ready to be responsible for is the moral thing to do.
You’re buying into their bullshit and its ugly to see.
General Stuck
We are caught in a reverse wingnut black hole, being sucked into the past by a giant wingnut vortex of stupid. Now Rubio wants to allow ANY bidness to refuse birth control. Soon, Senator Demented will call for a pilot program to bring back Jim Crow, followed by scientific recognition that errant swamp gas from the left coast is sliming our precious bodily fluids. Mr. Wizzzaaaaaarrrrdddd!!
Nellie in NZ
Called the White House. Thanks for posting the number.
shortstop
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: All we need now is a demonstrably drunk Dick Armey.
chopper
@Mnemosyne:
better would be to say my employer should not get to dictate the manner under which i reproduce.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Tweety is talking about “all the opposition”. Five Democrats, including two back bench House critters, one of whom (Lipinski) almost lost a primary in ’08. I just checked the websites of the Boston Globe, the Denver Post, and the Chicago Sun-Times, the ‘blue collar’ Chicago paper. No mention of this on their virtual front pages.
Tweety asks if “convents can be forced to buy birth control”. God the man is a buffoon.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Oh my god. Tweety is on a fucking roll.
“I’ve tried not to take a position on this”
“We’ve given women all kinds of rights”
ReflectedSky
@gumbo: Just called. Didn’t have to wait that long. I was so happy to be able to say something positive about the administration that I was almost giddy. The guy taking my comment seemed startled, but happy about it. (I’m one of those that thinks Obama’s basically governed as a liberal Republican and cut progessive action off at the knees until he had to start campaigning again.)
I made sure to state that this was the most exciting development out of the administration in a while. I realize many of you wouldn’t agree with me, but to me, it really is. I like his recent messaging over economic issues, but he doesn’t have to put his money where his mouth is with that. Here we have an actual policy that will move forward and save lives as long as he doesn’t back down.
slag
@Martin:
I don’t think having different healthcare issues and costs undermines the gender equality angle a bit. Different can be equal. There’s nothing wrong with that.
Personally, I’m all on board with a gender equality argument because that’s what appeals to me. Women deserve whole body health care just as much as men do regardless of anatomical differences.
However, I see no reason to limit ourselves to one of the many possible arguments. I say use them all. They’re all good, and some of them will appeal to some people while others will appeal to other people. Why fight over them? You don’t have to pick. They don’t contradict. They’re equally different and equally good.
Culture of Truth
@Martin: I think that’s correct. Somehow I got the impression you felt liberals have lost the argument for 30 years because they don’t understand how all voters are wired. I’m not saying liberals shouldn’t try to make moral arugments, but I don’t think we begin with the assumption the public is largely on the conservative side on these isssues.
Violet
Why isn’t someone fighting fire with fire? Why is the Church of Scientology complaining that they have to cover mental health and it’s against their morals? Can the Hindus complain about having to cover any kind of medication or treatment that is connected to cows? What about Jews and Muslims having to cover any kind of medication that has anything to do with pigs?
Heck, does the Church of the FSM have something they can claim goes against their morals? Maybe v1agra since it makes noodley appendages stiffen up?
If all the various religious institutions start whining, maybe people will see how ridiculous this is and what a minefield it is.
slag
@geg6:
I agree with this. Abortion is quite often the responsible choice. I’m “pro-abortion” in that sense. I want pregnant women to see abortion as one of several responsible choices so that they will choose the right one for their circumstances.
blondie
@geg6: Clearly. And punishing a woman for being slutty enough to get pregnant by forcing her to birth a baby that she doesn’t want is obviously the moral and good choice for the woman and baby. Good times all around!
Culture of Truth
that’s the kind of thing one usually hears from a tumbrel.
ReflectedSky
@Martin: Wait, what?
How is forcing women to bear children, even if they have been raped, more moral — under any circumstances? You’re saying someone might be evading responsibility. How is it MORE MORAL to force someone to give birth to a child that that person doesn’t want and may not have the capability to raise decently. The same people trying to eliminate birth control and abortion are ones trying to eliminate ALL social services and access to health care. How is it MORE MORAL to destroy the life of the woman involved, and the baby produced by the unwanted pregnancy, even if it is simply unwanted? Pregnancy and childbirth is still dangerous. How is it MORE MORAL to force a woman into a situation that could damage her health or kill her rather than allow her to eliminate a cluster of cells?
And please don’t go on about adoption. I’m an adoptee. I’m glad I’m adopted, but my birth mother was permanently traumatized by the experience. And that still doesn’t address the possible health damage just from carrying the pregnancy to term.
Also, under current Republican/reactionary/fundamentalist/conservative thinking, you know who doesn’t have to experience responsibility? The man. Republicans in some red state (I think Oklahoma) just blocked an amendment to an anti-reproductive freedom bill that would have required that the biological father be economically on the hook for all offspring. How is that MORE MORAL?
This is about controlling women — controlling their options both sexually and economically. There’s no other explanation that covers both their rigid insistence on not allowing women to have sex without pregnancy, and not forcing their male partners to also experience the burden of responsibility.
slag
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
How nice of us! Aren’t we great people? And now they just want more more more. Selfish bitches!
FlipYrWhig
Used Whitehouse.gov to post an edited assemblage of my posts on these threads. Felt GOOD.
Villago Delenda Est
@geg6:
Well, this person with a pen1s is cheering for the demise of SGK.
@Culture of Truth:
The tumbrel ride cannot come too soon for the vile likes of Tweety, Dionne, and Shields.
blondie
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
What!? Isn’t MSNBC supposed to be the “liberal” news network?
slightly-peeved
Here’s a moral argument that ties into the one that Obama’s already been making for several months:
The 1 percent shouldn’t get to pick and choose what healthcare the 99 percent get. It’s about people getting fair treatment, rather than getting screwed by their bosses. Again.
That’s if Obama wants to shut this argument down quick. Which he may well not, because in the context of the Republican pri mary it’s an awesome argument. If Romney pushes it, he’s flip-flopping again, since he funded birth control in Mass. If the Republicans really want to run this type of campaign, they’ll need to give Santorum the nom, and then it’ll won’t just be about insurance, it’ll be about banning contraception entirely.
FlipYrWhig
@Violet: Totally agree. Maybe the Amish carpenters who make wood frames for mattresses should object that the mattress company employees get treatment for gunshot wounds, which offends their conscience.
Culture of Truth
What if Mary had been on the pill?
(yes I’m going to hell)
FlipYrWhig
@slightly-peeved:
LOVE LOVE LOVE. Let’s run with it!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@blondie: he followed it up with “and they deserve them, of course”, the man’s mouth runs a mile and a half a head of his brain, but I thought it was I think it tells you something about the way he thinks in his lizard brain
bemused
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Tweety doesn’t bother to do research. His interpretation is all that counts. and he always so pleased with himself like a little kid. Not so long ago he wouldn’t listen to David Corn and Joan Walsh telling him he had it (forget the issue) all wrong. Hardball two hours later had made some “adjustments”.
rikryah
VIAGRA IS COVERED.
so, yes, BIRTH CONTROL SHOULD BE COVERED TOO.
Martin
@Culture of Truth:
No, I don’t think the public is by default on the conservative side. My argument is that if one side makes a moral argument and the other doesn’t, there’s a whole bunch of people that will immediately find the moral argument convincing because it appeals to their emotions and because they are driven primarily by moral arguments. I think quite a lot of people on the left are wired that way as well. My suggestion is that by not bringing the moral argument forward, you completely cede the playing field to the right.
Lojasmo
@Martin:
Because blah.
Kay Shawn
The economy is improving, however slightly. The Goopers don’t want to talk about that, so back to a longtime favorite: bashing women.
blondie
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
And he thinks that made it better? His whole brain is apparently lizard.
slightly-peeved
@216: what I also like about it is that it links back to why this policy is there in he first place; to prevent employers forcing bullshit spotty plans on their employees. This is a big benefit of the ACA, and needs to be talked about more.
FlipYrWhig
@slightly-peeved: I stole your line and posted it to my Facebook wall. I bet my Occupy brother is going to dig it…
slag
@Martin:
Totally agree on this! And there’s no reason for us to do this. As long as we’re intellectually honest and consistent. Especially in this case, where there are so many good, compelling moral arguments to be made. But they’re being made on the fringes at this time.
Instead of moral contrast, we get little more than talk of “compromise”. Which has its own justifications but doesn’t deal with the morality of the question at hand. Rather it avoids morality altogether–even subtly undermining the moral arguments. I find this troubling.
Rafer Janders
Their moral case against abortion is quite well reasoned though – because the truth is that at least some of the cases out there are exactly what they claim – avoiding being responsible for the baby.
Umm, so not having the baby you don’t want to be responsible for is the irresponsible thing to do? And the responsible thing would be to give birth to it, and then neglect it because you never wanted the little bastard in the first place?
Martin
@ReflectedSky:
I never suggested it was. Not even close. You’re jumping way ahead.
Initially all they are saying is that some abortions are done to avoid responsibility for the baby. And that is undeniably true for some abortions. And if we leave the argument there, they win the moral high ground among those that are too lazy, unimaginative, etc. to fill in the other moral arguments. Remember, some people NEED to go to church to fill those things in – they don’t have exploratory imaginations that allow them to wage debates within their own head. Someone actually needs to perform that role for them.
When you get to rape and incest, it gets more complicated. They continue to argue that it’s morally wrong to avoid responsibility for the baby. We would argue that it’s immoral to force a woman into that position. They would almost certainly agree with us and point out that two wrongs don’t make a right. But here you’ve accused them of taking an immoral position, when they never have, and the discussion will end right at that point with no progress ever getting made. You cannot, cannot do that if you want to get anywhere.
Their argument is that even in the case of rape the fetus deserves to be born, someone needs to be responsible, and that adoption is always available so there is a reasonable remedy (at which point you counter with the argument that birth/adoption is not without its emotional costs that you are still forcing on the woman). Their argument gets very convoluted in the case of incest, if it’s aired at all. That’s a real moral dilemma for them (which they avoid addressing as a result) and by all means we should point it out.
The other category left unaddressed is the health of the mother, or a fetus that will never survive. And there a very clear moral case FOR abortion there. It is immoral to condemn a women to death who is carrying a fetus that cannot survive and will otherwise kill her. And that does happen.
In the end, you’re after a detente. That there is no way of crafting a policy that is without moral hazard. There’s no way to do the moral thing for some of these cases without opening yourself to the cases that they feel is immoral. And this is where you shift gears and say “Those cases you worry about can be avoided if we now have this conversation about birth control” and so you bring that in and off you go.
But if you go in guns blazing and accuse them of supporting immoral positions because you assume that they have already hashed out all 11 dimensions of this and one consequence of the policy is an immoral act, which they never thought of, or which they may not even agree with in the policy, then you’re done. And I see people do this ALL. THE. TIME. You really have to learn to respect their moral view, because you’ll never, ever move them off of it. They may move of their own accord, but if you push, they’ll only push back. If you show respect for their moral positions, offer up your own, point out when the two are in conflict, and then treat how a policy could work to fit the views of both sides, you’ll probably get pretty far with most people. And you may find that there is no way to shape a policy to work. That’s certainly true with abortion and birth control if you fully plumb the depths of the issue. And in that case, where no agreement can be reached, you offer up that you have to have faith in people to do the right thing and give them the freedom to choose the right path and accept that sometimes they’ll make the wrong choice – and we can work through other means to minimize that – but there’s no better solution.
Mnemosyne
@geg6:
@ReflectedSky:
To be fair to Martin, I think he was echoing my point that some people do buy into the right’s argument that getting an abortion is somehow “irresponsible” and the “responsible” thing to do would be to have the baby. That’s why we get poll results where people say that some abortions are okay but not others.
The Other Chuck
@Culture of Truth:
Pretty sure if the kid could turn water into wine, Dad can turn birth control into sugar pills.
The Other Chuck
@Lojasmo:
Because shut up that’s why.
Another Halocene Human
@Shalimar: Is your bishop getting limp dick drugs on the parish’s dime?
Mnemosyne
@Rafer Janders:
Some people really do believe that, crazy as it sounds to us. For the most part, those same people support contraception, so they’re not totally lost causes. That’s why I think Republicans have overreached with this: they made a moral case that abortion is somehow a sign of “irresponsibility,” but they’re not going to be able to make the same case with contraception because the majority of the people who are convinced that getting an abortion is somehow “irresponsible” think that the failure was a failure to use contraception, not a failure to not have sex at all, ever.
General Stuck
Before Roe was decided, there was a clear moral case, that overpowered the learned moralities of a deeply religious country. It was the morality of girls getting “in trouble” and they and sometimes their parents doing desperate things to fix that trouble. In a country still up to it eyeballs in Victorian era mores over sex and marriage.
It was the morality of the cold bite of reality, from reading too many accounts in the local paper of all sorts of half assed often dangerous efforts to abort fetuses from the unmarried pregnant female. I can remember reading accounts as a teenager, of death from botched abortion attempts, or back alley bootleg abortionists, ending in young girl bleeding out as a result.
So Roe was decided, even if by legal scholars claims of poorly decided, by legal norms of constitutional law. It didn’t matter, as the bulk of the citizens quietly and loudly demanded relief to make abortions legal. And many of them pretty religious, but also with a keen sense for social problems that are self inflicted.
There were those in the minority, a distinct minority who would not under any circumstances relent in their objections to legal abortions. They are still around today, and most all are evangelical Christians, or politicians seeking electoral favor with these people.
I doubt any moral argument would change the minds of these absolutist moralists, and they will continue to undermine abortion rights. And even though it’s been 4 decades, a majority of the public can recall, or learn second hand, of the lack of morality involved with forcing young women into taking actions that too often killed of mangled their bodies and minds. This is all I need to know to support abortion rights, that and the fact I don’t have a uterus, and if I did, it wouldn’t belong to the state.
TAGinMO
@pj: That’s Scalia in the Oregon peyote case, right?
FlipYrWhig
@General Stuck:
And it DAMN sure wouldn’t belong to your employer.
Mary
This is a winning issue for our side for one simple reason – a very large percentage of voters will be saving a fairly significant amount of money in a way that is clear and easy to understand. Most people use contraception, regardless of what their clergy tell them to do, and those people are going to be very happy to have the cost of contraception defrayed by insurance.
Martin
@Mnemosyne:
Exactly. And I’ll be honest, in general I cannot personally refute the top-line moral argument against abortion: the category (however small) of individuals that willingly choose to have sex without high-probably birth control and then seek an abortion. I have no credible argument against that because I do think that actions should have consequences – for both the man and woman. Personally I do think that’s wrong, and I do think that some abortions are okay and others aren’t.
That said, I could not support a policy banning those cases because I think it’s impossible to identify those cases, I think it’s impossible to otherwise avoid the consequences we seek to avoid (neglect), and so on. Fix all of the other structural policy and social problem around the issue – wipe out rape (even by the husband), wipe out incest, make birth control universally available, teach sex ed everywhere and well, make sure we have a real safety net, make it so fathers are universally held accountable, and so on, and then we can talk because until all of that happens, there are bigger moral wrongs that abortion fixes than the ones it causes.
And another inconsistency you see in the polling is a pretty broad recognition of the ideal/practical realities of this. Upwards of a third of the country put themselves both in the pro-life and pro-choice camp. They think both that abortion is morally wrong, and that it should be legal. That is, either they don’t feel that their moral views are appropriate to project onto others, or that the understand that there are situations that should override their moral objections. I always find that group to be quite encouraging as it suggests maybe we aren’t so screwed as a nation as I sometimes feel we are.
JC
@Violet: A-Effing-Men on this.
The problem may be it’s too smart to get through – after all, “who cares” about Xtian scientists, Hindoos, etc. A double standard is fine.
Still, I like it – what is a treasured medical procedure, that no one would say you ‘can’ refuse?
(See, that’s the thing – ‘contraception’ seems obvious, to me, as something any health coverage has to provide – for all the reasons already stated. I can’t even get my head around where these guys are coming from.)
JC
@Mary: I think from a cold-eyed realist point of view, this is simply true.
Just as with Schiavo, people are going to FEEL the benefits – or not – of employers saying ‘you can’t have that treatment covered’.
And people will scream, “hell no, this is between me and my doctor, back off!”
Carl Nyberg
John Cole, while I am in awe of your wit and devastating take down of the GOP, I feel you have overlooked something important.
The corporate media is doing it’s best to do two things with this story line.
1. The corporate media (including Talking Points Memo) is working to persuade audiences that there is a controversy. (They are ignoring that (according to an attorney friend) this very point has already been ruled upon by SCOTUS. Employers don’t get to object to medical matters of the employee based on the religious beliefs of the employer. Feudalism is not the law of the land.)
2. In addition to going along with the idea that there is a controversy, the corporate media is selling the idea that it is a very important controversy. It’s not. The bank settlement is a far bigger deal.
But rather than inform their audiences about the details of the bank settlement, cable news is pushing the emotional buttons of its audience.
While I’d love to blame the Republicans and the corporate media, there are plenty of dimwit Democrats going along with the idea that there is a controversy here.
It’s like there’s a conspiracy to have our elections be a food fight over social hot button issues to avoid discussing economic issues.
KevinA
@Nutella:
Except, in the end, I don’t think it WILL help the women employed by the Church. I know, with the ACA exchanges, they will be able to get insurance, but the burden will be on them. Politically, those folks won’t like it. Policy-wise, putting that on, say, a single parent isn’t good, IMHO. Not to mention, those employees being forced out will create market chaos and distortion.
Do I like this? Not one bit. But, in the end, call it blackmail (and it is), the exemption will be expanded. This ends no other way.
General Stuck
@Carl Nyberg:
There no doubt is. Or call it republican campaign strategy to shift focus from a recovering economy, onto social wedge issue. SOP for wingnut central command to make this pivot, and all the Borg in the countryside follows, dragging the Mighty Wurlitzer into old new territory.
Won’t work for the simple reason the economy is still of paramount concern to most people. The wingers are caught in a desert zone between two oasis and only a trend to play off of. A trend for the economy to improve just enough to spoil it as a winning issue for them, and not yet recovered to prosperity, when the wingnuts social wedge issues are most effective. And choosing contraception as the hill to die on, will not make much sense to most people, no matter how much the media bangs the war drums.
Carl Nyberg
General Stuck, sir, I have not made myself clear.
The Democrats also want to make the fight about social issues because they also want to get money from banks and other deep pocket interests groups (corporations and industries).
The Republican Party couldn’t suck this badly without collusion from the Democrats *and* the media.
Who has influence over the GOP, the Dems and the media?
General Stuck
@Carl Nyberg:
Thanks for being clear. LOLwut? There are some assholish chickenshit dems out there, and otherwise I have no idea what you are talking about with this comment. I may have stepped in a spoof trap, sumbody save me!
ReflectedSky
@Martin: I tried to bring in a quote, but I’m new to commenting here and rushing because I’ve got dinner in the oven.
I agree that pushing just results in pushing back. But the kinds of people who can be addressed in the way you are suggesting already have been. This issue is being pushed by people who are not interested in any such discussion or interaction. Everybody in the mushy middle would be perfectly happy for abortion to be legal if for no other reason so that they could stop having to hear about it. That’s one of the reasons the far right has made such strides. Most people fundamentally get that they’re not really in a position to dictate on this issue, but it makes many of them uncomfortable, so they’d like to not think about it, please.
I don’t think I understand your basic point. You seem to be saying that the reason abortion continues to be a hot button issue is because some abortions are immoral, which opens the door to the rabid right, but that if we acknowledge that, we’ll defang them. If I’m stating your position correctly, I vehemently disagree. It is not that having an abortion of choice is innately immoral, it’s that as a culture, we are still uncomfortable with sexuality, and so seek to restrain it, the driving institutions of the culture are still misogynist, and so responsive to forces that constrain women’s choices, and and abortion involves killing something. It doesn’t involve killing a citizen, it doesn’t involve killing something you could categorize as a person until at least the second half of the pregnancy. But there’s a living creature of human origin in there with the potential to be a person, and it’s going to die. Nobody with any decency is going to cheer and throw confetti over that. Everybody tries to paper that over. The right tries to pretend it’s a person, and uses hostile concepts about women and sex to avoid how unfair it is to the woman — the host body — not to give her physical autonomy. The left tries to downplay any connection to cute babies because it isn’t a cute baby when it’s being aborted. It isn’t even sentient, if you do it early enough.
The reality is that as a matter of public policy, it’s immoral to outlaw abortion. That leads to later abortions and illegal abortions, both of which cause more hurt and harm both to the pregnant woman who you view as immoral and the fetus, which the far right views as innocent. Their position causes more physical pain and suffering than would the liberal strategy of providing easy access to birth control, health care and early term abortion. But it wouldn’t punish women for having sex, which you seem to view as necessary to act morally. Or rather, you seem to feel that the general population feels its important to punish women for having sex. But I really don’t think that’s true. I don’t think the mushy middle is dying to punish women.