Ben Carson on the real battleground for the Republican War On Something To Do With Women:
“They tell you that there’s a war on women,” he said. “There is no war on women. There may be a war on what’s inside of women, but there is no war on women in this country.” [via Raw Story, w. a h/t to TPM]
I’m so glad that’s clear. Ladies: you’re alright. Your ladybits, not so much.
Carson, I may remind you, is running second in recent GOP presidential primary polling.
(another, perhaps apposite image comes below the fold as it is NSFW in a fine art kind of way.)
Images: John Singer Sargent, Madame X, 1883
Giovanni Domenico Cerrini, An Allegory of Painting, c. 1639
Kropadope
Tell that to women’s paychecks.
pete
Man, you know your art! That Cerrini is wonderful.
Kay
I give him credit. That’s really the nut of it. They hope to separate “women” from “what’s inside of women”.
I think that’s impossible physically, ethically and legally (and I’m right) but that’s what this fight is about.
Kropadope
@Kay:
Never saw a horror film, huh?
Capri
He is talking about Fetal-Americans. The lady bits are the un-pure vessels that hold them.
PurpleGirl
“involuntary immigrants”
No, Dr. Carson, they were slaves, considered property and they had no idea of their grandchildren and great-grandchildren being free and prosperous. They did know that their present and immediate future was sour with heartache and pain and endless work.
balconesfault
Paraphrased: “You women just need to accept that once one of your eggs gets fertilized, unless God Himself decides to kill it off, you are as responsible for the well-being of the zygote/embryo/fetus as I would be for the well-being of someone who happened to stray onto my property. Oh wait – if someone strays onto my property, I can shoot them, because property rights and all that. But you don’t get any rights over your womb, because Jesus.”
Russ
Where do these people get this shtuff?
April
My body was a battlefield in their war on women’s bodies just Tuesday. Was in pre-op for a hysterectomy, a long awaited solution to a very painful long term problem. Nurse at sorta catholic hospital in California tells me I need to get up off gurney to give urine sample. Why? To make sure I am not pregnant. My lady bits are all screwed up, literally falling out of my body and I am in tremendous pain waiting months for this surgery. My husband yells loud enough for the whole hospital to hear “we haven’t had sex in months!” And the nurse stiffens and responds “if there is a fetus there will be no surgery at this hospital” But carrying a fetus in my condition would’ve killed me. I felt as if I was no longer a human being on the gurney, much less a cared for patient. All I was until determined otherwise was a potential fetus carrier and damn the carrier.
Pro life In what f’in universe?
I had the surgery and am recovering slowly and hate catholic hospitals. It’s supposed to be the best hospital in the county but I am willing to move to never have to go there again.
Roger Moore
Yeah, and all the women who are harmed in the process are just collateral damage. I guess it’s easier to live with yourself if you believe that crap.
MomSense
I would love to know how it is possible to separate our insides from the rest of us.
Betty Cracker
@April: God, what an awful experience. I don’t blame you for being furious about it. Sorry that happened to you. It probably wouldn’t do much good to complain, but did you? Maybe write a scathing review / account of your experience online as a warning to others?
jl
See, little ladies, they are only concerned about your innards, not you! Nothing to worry about if you look at it that way.
This GOP primary continues to produce fascinating veiwpoints.
I also see in the news that Gaffney’s creeping sharia law scam organization will be a sponsor of the Trump event with Rubio as laughable mascot and mini-me. That might be a fun event.
balconesfault
@April: And the nurse stiffens and responds “if there is a fetus there will be no surgery at this hospital” But carrying a fetus in my condition would’ve killed me.
This way lies madness. And half our culture is celebrating that madness as if it’s divine will.
Baud
@MomSense:
That’s what voting booths are for in their world.
Trentrunner
What does that even mean?
I can see the opposite making some kind of sense, e.g., “The so-called war on women has nothing to do with what’s inside women but what goes on outside women” or something.
But reversed makes absolutely no sense. Please, ELI5.
Doug R
he doesn’t have ladybits does he?
Ella in New Mexico
@April: why didn’t they just do a serum pregnancy test in your pre-surgical lab workups? It’s more accurate than a urine test anyday.
And yeah, if it weren’t for THIS kind of shit, Catholic Hospitals in general are some of the best hospitals in the country, for their placing priority on patient care and for the environment they create for their nurses.
So sorry this nurse couldn’t have been more compassionate, regardless of what her employer’s dictates are.
Amir Khalid
Virginie Amélie Avegno Gautreau, the subject of the Singer Sargent painting, led quite an interesting life. I remember reading about her and this portrait on the BBC website.
MomSense
@April:
That sounds traumatic. I’m so sorry.
gene108
From the Raw Story link.
Who the fuck are our enemies?
We do not really have any enemies, as far as nation-states go. Unless we decide to label a country an enemy (such as the Axis of Evil), I do not think any other country out there is really looking to what enemy states normally do, such as invade and conquer your territory.
Scout211
@April:
What a horrible experience. I am so sorry you and your husband had to endure that.
I hope you have a quick recovery and are out of pain soon.
sukabi
@April: she was just fn with you..if it is the best hospital, then they surely know that a blood test is a more accurate method of pregnancy test. Also you wouldn’t have to move off the gurney for the test. The Dr. would have ordered that particular test if it was needed.
Amir Khalid
I can kind of understand the Donald’s appeal as a presidential candidate. He’s an entertaining if boorish speaker, and he’ll gleefully have a go at any of his opponents. But what does the Republican base see in the unexciting and not very outstanding Ben Carson? Is it his tan?
Baud
@Amir Khalid:
That would be my guess. I don’t understand it either. He’s not bombastic like Donald and Cruz, so I don’t know what else it could be.
Villago Delenda Est
Carson should have stuck to brain surgery. Outside of that narrow field, he’s a moran.
Roger Moore
@Amir Khalid:
The tan certainly helps, but he’s undeniably very smart and successful while simultaneously being a total right wing religious nut. That’s like catnip for a certain class of right wing religious nuts.
Kropadope
@MomSense:
Knife? Scalpel? Chainsaw? Axe?
Iowa Old Lady
An OB/Gyn told me about working at a Catholic hospital. The doc was not allowed to do tubal ligations at the hospital but did do them an unaffiliated clinic attached to the hospital by a glassed in walkway. The bishop declared that the walkway had to be torn down. I guess the sin could get across otherwise.
Gin & Tonic
@Ella in New Mexico: There was a story just ealrier this week, about a woman in Calif who had to get the ACLU to threaten to sue a Catholic hospital where she was scheduled for a c-section, because both she and her doctor wanted her to have a tubal ligation at the same time. Catholic hospital said “we can’t do that” until the ACLU said “bullshit.” Trouble is the nearest non-Catholic hospital is 160 miles away, so it’s not like she could just say “well, free market, I’ll go elsewhere.” If they treat the non-Catholic public, I don’t see how they can apply Catholic bishops’ regulations to non-Catholics (I am deliberately calling them “regulations”and not “theology.”)
Villago Delenda Est
@April: That really, really, sucks, and I don’t blame your husband at all for losing his cool over that.
They really do see women as nothing but incubators. It is very unfortunate that there is no afterlife of eternal pain for these people, because they most certainly deserve one.
Emma
@April: Please, please, write an “official” complaint letter and make it public. There’s no way those tests wouldn’t have been done during your pre-surgery crap (my technical term for it). I’ve had 2 breast cancer scares, leading to 4 surgeries, and each time they did blood tests as part of the pre-op. The first time it included a pregnancy test, even though they knew I was post-menopausal. And they weren’t even getting close to my ladybits!
PS: I know it’s your choice and you’re certainly within your rights, and your sanity, to walk away from the whole thing. But sweet Jesus!
Belafon
@MomSense: Perform a lobotomy.
SenyorDave
@Amir Khalid: He’s a black conservative. By definition he is sticking it to the liberals. Much of the right lives for that.
Debbie
April, sorry you had to be subjected to religious freedom at your most vulnerable moment.
I wonder who Ben Carson would allow to take over his inside bits.
Brachiator
@April: What a terrible experience to have to go through. Good to hear that you are recovering. I hope that everything goes well for you and your family.
Calouste
@Amir Khalid: There is some kind of christianist/evangelical dog whistle that normal people really can’t hear. My in-laws, who fall in that group, were already going on about him last Thanksgiving, trying to get us to read his book.
Litlebritdifrnt
@Kay: Kay, have you seen the bullshit going down in Alabama? They introduce a strict voter ID law and are now because of “budget issues” going to shut down 45 of 49 DMV offices across the State. If that isn’t blatant voter suppression I don’t know what the hell is.
Baud
@Debbie:
I think the way it works is, God rules man, man rules women on behalf of God.
For some reason, God seems less interested in mens’ bits.
Brachiator
and poster April’s terrible experience:
Behold the Woman Who Was Not There.
This is just shameful.
WaterGirl
@April: That’s awful, I’m so sorry. They should not be allowed to run hospitals like that.
Edit to correct grammar.
Roger Moore
@Gin & Tonic:
Part of the problem is that even if they can’t legally enforce their beliefs, they’ll fight every inch of the way. They will refuse to tell patients all their options, add needless obstacles, etc. You may be able to get some services by threatening to sue, but just try to get them without a lawyer to back you up.
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
@April: Pictures or it didn’t happen.
/wingnut
And I’m so sorry it did happen. Hope your recovery goes well.
And if there were pictures, wingnuts would use them without permission on giant signs outside PP clinics.
JPL
I mentioned this yesterday. Every Republican candidate, needs to be asked if they are in favor of free pre-natal care, child birth, and health insurance until that child is eighteen. Their answers will be the true indication of their pro-life stance.
@April: How awful.
JPL
@Debbie: I’m not going to volunteer for that job.
Jparente
@sukabi: I don’t have lady bits but I went thru 12 years of catholic school hell and I can confidently say that intimidation is very high on the list of catholic methods. The whole purpose of Catholocism is to convince you that you are sinful and worthless. Your only chance is to await the “salvation” that will come your way in an afterlife. The only way to achieve this salvation is to totally sunmitt to the emotional and spiritual blackmail of a sadistic diety and His manipulative minions here on earth. The hospital’s degrading treatment of a patient makes sense in this context.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@April: Dominican, I bet. Sorry that happened.
Elie
These assholes make no sense. Its just gobleygook answers to questions that they really know they can’t answer…
This is what you have when a political party has evaporated all of its sanity over the flame of fear, resentment and rage, leaving only a slimy residue at the bottom of the flask. This stuff stinks but there is too much of it to just throw away without being mindful of where you discard it — its filled with contaminants and poison.
WereBear said in another post about how this was an expected result of white fear and entitlement reacting to the demographic and economic changes that the world is bringing to their door. I agree with her. I didn’t expect it to be this soon and with this intensity, but I can see that this is what is precisely happening. There is nothing left but the id and the rage it embodies — along with fear and helplessness…
I personally think that Carson has a personality disorder. He is in the Republican Party which is giving him the outlet, but his megalomania and extreme narcissism just didn’t have enough of an outlet with operating on children’s brains. He wanted to run the world and my guess is that if you talked to him, he would have no self doubt about his ability to do just that.
Gindy51
Females are nothing but axlotl tanks to these things in the GOP. http://dune.wikia.com/wiki/Axlotl_Tanks
Eadgyth
Slate was asking why Donald is retaining popularity amongst women with his awful comments. I keep thinking: “Well duh, look at who likes Trump. It’s not liberals and enlightened people.” I would think his comments would hurt him a lot in the general though, and certainly help push the WOW meme.
This thing Carson said is just gross. My immediate reaction is revulsion; that’s before I get to processing the words logically; I doubt I am alone in that. I think he is trying to clever and euphemistic, but it leaves you to have to think about innards and guts and organs….I’m sure it is crystal to some but not to the non-rabid.
Gravenstone
@Emma: Agreed with the suggestion to file a formal complaint. I would also suggest you cc your state and federal representatives. Might not help, but it certainly won’t hurt, other than reliving the emotional duress during the recounting.
Yatsuno
@Elie:
I think that’s part of it. There’s also the fact that, being the top neurosurgeon in one of the top hospitals in the world, he had more than his share of being paraded in front of top donors. And no matter how successful he was, he would never get on the level of the donors he interacted with. So his only recourse is to attempt to gain more power than even they could have. He has a snowball’s chance in Hades, but he’s still gonna try.
trollhattan
@April:
Horrible. Inexcusable. Same organization that aided, abetted, protected and hid legions of pederasts rather than admit they existed or were a problem. And you get this treatment? Did they check your purse for condoms and chewing gum, too?
Geeno
He’s saying that there’s a war on “the unborn” (inside of women) not a war on women.
Retarded I know, but that’s the way they talk.
Mike J
@Yatsuno: Vox has an article on what smart people don’t understand about politics. They’re targeting the geek demo, but I think it is much more widely spread.
Krugman wrote about the article.
trollhattan
@Gravenstone:
I’d also submit it to the local newspaper as a guest op-ed piece.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mike J: I had seen the Vox piece and thought was pretty good. Krugman’s take is a good one.
Roger Moore
@Geeno:
That’s my take on it, too, though why he couldn’t come right out and say that is another question.
skerry
@April: I am so sorry you had to go through that. Wishing you a quick, safe recovery.
Kay
@Litlebritdifrnt:
I haven’t seen it and thank you for telling me.
scav
Wimminz! We don’t hate you we hate your guts!.
Love the sinner, hate the sin!
Does sound SOP, in a slight variation of key.
Villago Delenda Est
@SenyorDave: Cleek’s Law. Yet again.
Loneoak
Struggling to decide whether Trump being in the lead or Carson being in second in the surer sign of the apocalypse.
#peakwingnut
Mike J
@Omnes Omnibus: I waiting to finish reading the latest Neal Stephenson to write up the stuff that really, really sucks about it. The bits where he;s talking about orbital mechanics are good, the bits in which he sneeringly discusses politics are dreadful, and he commits errors of fact that reversed, would be the equivalent of John Grisham writing that 1 G = 400 kazillion miles per hectare ^4.
Baud
@Mike J:
Thanks! Excellent article.
Loneoak
Btw, in case you’ve never seen it, this made me do a spit take when re-watching The Wire a couple years ago.
Kay
@Brachiator:
We’ve just come full circle. We’re back to the original question, which was a really hard question and that’s why Right wingers have now just decided to skip the woman completely.
That was easy. Why didn’t we think of just erasing the woman? Makes it much easier to solve!
Joe Falco
@Baud:
Only as it concerns circumcision and even then it’s very convenient that New Testament says guys don’t have to get one to be considered Christian.
The sooner the god-botherers are swept into the dustbin of history, the better.
Keith G
@Amir Khalid:
Carson attacked Obama to his face at the national prayer breakfast …and since this was a Black man doing the deed…it sent orgasmic shutters throughout the hard right.
So ol’ Benny has a cushion of goodwill with many in the base.
Baud
@Joe Falco:
I hope there is a Plan B, because that’s not happening anytime soon.
Kay
I always think the challenge for people who hate Roe should be “okay, you write it. come up with a better balancing scheme for this unique situation”.
Why does that never happen? Instead we just get these pronouncements.
Baud
@Kay:
Yeah, let’s not ask them to write anything.
Anne Laurie
@sukabi:
It’s not about the science, it’s about the public display of the hospitals Holy Purity of Essence.
“Whether or not you’re pregnant is not the issue; it’s whether a handful of rosary-clutching scolds breathing down the necks of our spineless board of directors can see that we’re enforcing their preferred religious codes concerning women who might be pregnant.”
The whited sepulchers who pay the moles to selectively edit Planned Parenthood videos can’t read blood tests. But they can — and the hospital is no doubt afraid they do — have someone making sure that every hysterectomy patient is hoiked off her gurney and forced to pee in a cup (preferably before witnesses).
Think of it as the sexist version of drug-testing welfare recipients. It’s not about cost-effectiveness, it’s about Being Seen As Righteous Before All the Other Pharisees.
trollhattan
@Loneoak:
Funny–don’t recall that scene at all. And queuing up next is forty-eight minutes of Ben Carson questioning evolution in front of Adventists. Confess I had no idea Adventists were in bed with Southern Baptists on this; they seem so smart otherwise.
RK
Donna Brazile praised Bush for his handling of Katrina? Any thoughts?
MomSense
@Belafon:
If Carson or Trump become President, I’ll need a lobotomy.
Turgidson
The GOP’s pitch to women, “Vote for me, you stupid bitches!”, is moving along splendidly.
Anne Laurie
@Amir Khalid:
If you’re a committed Republican voter who doesn’t like Shouty People — there are some, I’m told, if only among old people who vote (R) out of long habit — Carson is a very soothing alternative.
And if you’re being polled about a double-digit collection of very similar suited persons whose names make you reach for the tv clicker, then Carson has that… very subtle visual cue by which he stands out. Which reinforces his not-shouty persona.
Yeah, I’m sure there are Repubs who consider Dr. Carson the political equivalent of “I have a Black friend, who agrees with me.” But since he seems to be polling as everybody’s second choice, I’m sure a lot of GOP voters also think of him as “the one who’s not screaming all the time”.
J R in WV
@Kay:
But they would be happy with “the slutty woman dies” as a good outcome in every case, since they don’t believe in freedom for women.
Redshift
@Kay: This is too rarely stated in response to people who declare liberals unwilling to compromise on abortion: Roe v Wade is a compromise. It balances the rights of the woman and the rights of the fetus. As usual, conservatives are insisting that the status quo is “what liberals want,” so the only fair “compromise” is something closer to what they want. Which is pure bullshit.
pat
@April:
My sister had her nurses training at a catholic hospital in the 60’s. If a woman wanted her tubes tied after a delivery, she was transported across town to the Methodist hospital.
I will never go to a catholic hospital, not for anything. Fortunately we have a choice here.
WereBear
@April: I am so sorry that happened. Wishing you a fast recovery to enjoy feeling good again.
Catholic hospitals make money from moving into healthcare. That’s why they are doing it.
And the way they treat women and those at the end of life is frightening to any humanitarian individual.
Redshift
@gene108: In the conservative bubble, our enemies are:
a) Terrorist groups who are totally going to kill us all, even if they have no capability to, because they say they want to.
b) Countries whose leaders say mean things about us, and therefore need to be bombed.
Yeah, neither of these is any actual threat to the country, but if you don’t have real threats, you have to make them up or else conservatives might not piss their pants in fear and vote for strong daddy candidates.
WereBear
This happened unironicalllly?
Mr WereBear blames her, in part, for the loss of the 2000 election.
Zinsky
@Anne Laurie: I think the right-wing tools see Carson as the “anti-Obama Negro”. If he were to get elected by some miraculous means, they would end up hating his ass and wanting him dead too. It’s what they do…
mzinformation
This says it all:
https://instagram.com/p/603W3Ikbav/
RK
Having read his remarks at Raw Story I’m with Carson. MLK was bad for this country because he was a divider not a uniter. Thanks Ben for opening my eyes to reality.
Jeffro
@J R in WV:
True, and they should be held to account about how, remarkably, they are always the ones who decide who’s slutty and who isn’t…
“Senator Cruz: if your wife were raped, should she be able to abort the resultant pregnancy?”
“Governor Walker: if you wife had an ectopic pregnancy, should she simply…die…instead of aborting the pregnancy?”
“Senator Rubio: do you feel that a 10-year old whose father has impregnated her should have to bear the child?”
And ask them all: what sort of jail terms would be appropriate for these women if they did go ‘underground’ and have an abortion? 10 years? 20?
And ask them all: “Since comprehensive sex education (as well as free birth control) have been scientifically proven time and again to reduce unwanted pregnancies (and hence abortions)…how do you stand on those issues?”
geg6
Gawd, makes me happy that all the Catholic hospitals around here have been bought up by UPMC and Allegheny General.
Peale
@Kay: what, you don’t think having the government investigate miscarriages to make sure the mother wasn’t purposefully terminating her pregnancy isn’t a well thought out policy position? I mean, everyone should have to hire an attorney from the moment they discover they are pregnant just to wal them through the process and maybe hire a compliance officer.
Jeffro
@Zinsky:
I don’t think they’d want him dead, but they most certainly would expect him to fall in line and carry out the wingnut playbook. He’d be happy to oblige at every turn so no reason to think they’d bump him off.
boatboy_srq
@Eadgyth:
I keep thinking that the response falls under “the bile that we hear from Trump is less unacceptable than the innuendos the others tiptoe around; at least we have a good idea how far Trump will go…” To the wingnuts, the pre-Trump dogwhistles don’t sound so honest or heartfelt now that Trump has laid out the positions clearly; what was comforting before is now watered-down toadying to the Undecided Voter phantoms, where the previously “beyond-the-Pale” blatant bigotry and crudity is now the new forthright.
One facet of Trumpmentum I hadn’t thought of until writing that last bit is the suggestion that the GOTea base has finally given up completely on reaching out to anyone. Dogwhistle worked in the past because there were people outside the base who could be fooled by it into voting for somebody who didn’t sound like the b#tsh!t-crazy base voters. It isn’t working so well in the present because it sounds to the base like waffling (which is cowardly) and like triangulation to reach the undecided (which is heard as Giving In to Those People), and the GOTea base has decided that it doesn’t need undecided voters, just the Legally Entitled Voters – hence the various voter suppression efforts now underway. The GOP party machinery may still recognize that it needs more than the base to win the general election. The base seems either beyond caring about that as it pursues its varied hot-button agenda items, or else convinced that by eliminating Voter Fraud™ they can weed out all Those People who don’t belong (or shouldn’t have a say) and the remaining legitimate voters will be more of their mind.
Consider how many wingnuts think undocumented immigrants are voting in US elections by the millions; how many think the same people are collecting benefits without paying taxes (when it’s really the other way around); and how many of their new neighbors look just like what they imagine the Eeeeevil Illeeeygul Immygrunts look like (or at least how Fauxnooze and jingoistic films portray them). They refute their imminent-minority-status with the assertions that their neighbors aren’t really Real Ahmurrcans and that they’re being overrun by Those People coming in from Those Places. Given all of that, the likelihood that they think they need Other Persons of Color, wimminz, or any other group outside themselves is pretty low, and Trump has given them the first candidacy in many years – since Buchanan if not Goldwater – who doesn’t feel the need to humor outgroups. This is the group that Huckabee appealed to four years ago; the key difference is that The Huckster still used dogwhistle because he recognized he had moderate rubes to fleece, while today Trump either doesn’t recognize that or doesn’t care.
Kay
@Baud:
No, let’s. What’s the state role inside someone’s body? That’s what they actually engaged with and agonized over in Roe. They said there were three interests- the woman, the pregnancy or fetus and the state’s interest. That’s why they split it into tiers. Because they’re not magicians. It’s great that Doctor Ben Carson has solved this rhetorically by pretending there’s some difference between women and what they sometimes are, but all he did is dodge the central dilemma. He knows better.
Calouste
@Elie: Time to recycle an old joke:
Q: What’s the difference between God and a brain surgeon?
A: God doesn’t think he is a brain surgeon.
mdblanche
Uh oh, it doesn’t look like Carson has been fighting the War on Women to everybody’s satisfaction.
MattF
@Loneoak: Remember that The Wire took place in Baltimore and Carson was at Johns Hopkins, so I’m sure the school kids there were all told about his accomplishments, as something to aspire to.
trollhattan
@mzinformation:
Love it! What say you, Willard?
trollhattan
@Calouste:
I remember it as a question on meeting everybody at the pearly gates:
“Who’s the old guy with the doctor bag?”
“Oh, that’s God, he thinks he’s a surgeon.”
trollhattan
@mdblanche:
Wow, doesn’t take them long to go Godwin on him, does it?
These People are absolutely mental.
mdblanche
@boatboy_srq: Dog whistles are also how they reached the “I’m not a racist, but” set. For the people who are tired of having to speak in code and want to say what they really think Trump is a dream come true. But for the people who have to lie to themselves about why they vote Republican so they can sleep at night, he could be too much to handle.
Jeffro
@trollhattan: They just cannot conceive (ouch, there’s that word) that fetal tissue – aborted or stillborn – could possibly be used by humans, for the advancement of humankind. It takes god completely out of the picture in about a dozen different ways.
wuzzat
@Jeffro:
Huckabee’s answer to this was already “Yes,” and he’s still right in the upper-middle of the pack. Given this group’s race to out-evil each other, I’m not entirely confidant that you’d get an unqualified “no” out of any of them.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@April:
Christ, what an asshole. I agree with everyone else that you should make an official complaint to everyone in sight. To add to everyone else’s suggestions, see if you can figure out how to file a complaint with the Joint Commission. That’s the organization that certifies every hospital in the US, and I guarantee you from experience that the administrators of that hospital will shit themselves if the Joint Commission contacts them. In the hospital world, it’s like saying, “The attorney general is here with a warrant.”
A guy
Lily Ledbetter sat on her rights! Probably cause she is a chick
wuzzat
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): Here is the link to lodge a complaint with the Joint Commission: http://www.jointcommission.org/report_a_complaint.aspx
Also, if this is a hospital policy issue, vs. an individual nurse being an asshole, it might be worth dropping a line to the nursing union rep (assuming they’re unionized), framed as “hospital administration is forcing nurses to abandon sound nursing practices to the detriment of patients.” If the CNA is anything like their sister union in MA, they will be all up in that shit.
That said, these are just some of the options that are out there. If you just want to focus on recovering and forget about these assholes, then that’s what you should do.
Don K
@April:
As a gay man with a husband (or “husband”, as the catholics and fundies would have it), there’s no way I would be treated in a catholic hospital unless I was brought in unconscious and had absolutely no choice in the matter.
EthylEster
@Trentrunner:
I’m pretty sure he is saying that there is a war on fetuses, which are inside women.
Which implies he thinks of women as always pregnant.
EthylEster
@Geeno:
You got there first!
Not a lot of imagination around here….
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@wuzzat:
The CNA is pretty militant, so that’s probably a good idea. They’re also not too fond of the Catholic hospital takeovers around these parts and would like a chance to point out why these mergers are a bad idea.
RK
Don’r be fooled by Carson’s quiet demeanor. He’s a provocateur.
scav
@EthylEster: No, we understand the doublespeak as intended, but are enjoying the words that came out of his mouth as they speak to a greater truth. Try to keep up.
rikyrah
@Litlebritdifrnt:
I hope that someone does FrontPage it
rikyrah
@mdblanche:
That’s how I see it. Trump does not speak in dogwhistles……which is why they need for him to go away. The middle that they need to put them over the top, needs a cover for why they vote GOP.
psychobroad
@April: Blankalmighty that’s the worst story I’ve ever heard, I am so sorry! Fuck Catholics, and I say that as someone who was a Catholic, and a believer, for years. Fuck them.
equs_1776
@WereBear: I have been trying not to comment, but interesting last coupla comments. My late sweetheart was Methodist, but the Catholics had all the hospitals in the area. The end suffering was extended, poorly if at all relieved, and …likely profitable. 10 years gone,
OK now, but fuck them all.
jonas
@MattF: Ta-Nehisi Coates, who grew up in Baltimore, remembers Carson being continually trotted out to young black kids as a “credit to his race” type inspirational figure. Unfortunately Carson seems to have caught on early to the idea that you can earn a lot more attention telling rich, racist white people how they’re not really racist for thinking black people suck than by doing anything actually constructive to address racism.
Emily68
I don’t have my glasses on and I read this as Sergent had painted Malcom X.
sempronia
utterly dead thread, but here goes, cuz shouting into the ether is fun!
So sorry this happened to you, when you were in pain and had already dealt with so much. Just wanted to put in the hospital’s probable reasons for asking, because it might take some of the bitterness out of it. Hospitals ALWAYS check before any kind of surgery because if someone is pregnant, different medications are used, and certain common ones are not (some antibiotics, anesthetics, etc.). The policies I have worked under say that every woman gets a pregnancy test unless she has had a hysterectomy or is post-menopausal. You can still get pregnant after a tubal ligation, so that doesn’t count. Neither does being a nun. Coming in for a hysterectomy, no matter what the reason, is not sufficient to stop requiring the test, because there are definitely women out there who would hold off on surgery, despite the risks of pregnancy, if they found out they were pregnant. It’s easier to just test everybody rather than make case by case determinations about who needs it and who doesn’t. Urine tests are cheaper and faster than blood tests, and can be done same-day.
If your test had for some reason come back positive, I don’t know what would have happened, given that it’s a Catholic place. At my hospitals, it would trigger a discussion between you and your OB doctor as to whether or not to go ahead with surgery. Here in the US, I can’t imagine anyone, Catholic hospital or not, forcing you to go through with a pregnancy given your particular condition. If they did, it would be newsworthy.
I worked at a catholic hospital once that was the only hospital in the county, so they had to do tubal ligations and vasectomies (apparently they also did abortions). They scheduled all the vasectomies for Mondays in a clinic room separate from the main hospital, and called it the Hall of Sin. Payments for the procedure also went to a separate funding stream.
all this is why I didn’t do OB, or anything to do with women’s health…..
Bardi
@Geeno: He said there is a war on what is inside women, which I took to be the uterus and everything contained within and not necessarily a fetus. The war concerns whether the presumptive owner, the women, has a right to determine what to do with herself, or whether outside forces can/will, if necessary, override her choices.
MsInformed
@MomSense: It’s simple…we are not real people.
strawhat
@April: Similar thing happened to me at a non-Catholic, non-religious-based hospital. Waiting on the gurney, I ask what’s the delay, they reply, waiting for the pregnancy test.
brendancalling
@April: if I was your husband, I would have been arrested for punching that nurse in the head.
sufferinsuccotash
I blame Descartes.
Procopius
.@sempronia: I should restrain myself, because I have no personal knowledge, but I’ve read articles about Catholic hospital chains in the eastern U.S. buying non-Catholic hospitals to expand their market, and they definitely impose extreme reactionary rules, including forbidding any surgery, indeed any medical procedure, that might endanger a fetus. They also will not offer counseling on birth control.
Exaussie
@balconesfault:
Perfect!