It’s pretty weird how that whole theocratic crushing of ideas thing kicks in for Republican Conservative Champions Of Free Speech whenever the subject turns to a woman’s reproductive system.
A University of Missouri doctoral student plans to continue research for her dissertation on the effects of the state’s recently imposed 72-hour waiting period for abortions, despite a state legislator’s push to block the research, the student told Al Jazeera in an exclusive interview.
“I stand by my research project,” Lindsay Ruhr said Wednesday. “I feel that my research is objective, and that the whole point of my research is to understand how this policy affects women. Whether this policy is having a harmful or beneficial effect, we don’t know.”
State Sen. Kurt Schaefer, a Republican from Columbia, Missouri, who chairs the Missouri state senate’s interim Committee on the Sanctity of Life, sent a letter in late October to the University of Missouri calling Ruhr’s dissertation “a marketing aid for Planned Parenthood — one that is funded, in part or in whole, by taxpayer dollars,” according to a copy of the letter posted to HuffingtonPost.com. Schaefer called for the university to hand over documents regarding the project’s approval and said that, because the University of Missouri is a public university, it should not fund research that he said would promote elective abortions. Missouri law prohibits the use of public funds to promote non-life-saving abortions.
“We are still in the process of responding to Sen. Schaefer’s request for documents,” Mary Jenkins, public relations manager for University of Missouri Health, said Wednesday in an email. Schaefer did not respond to Al Jazeera’s multiple interview requests.
Now, let’s break this down here because there’s a national theater chain’s worth of projection going on. First, let’s pause to contemplate that Missouri’s state senate actually has an interim Committee on the Sanctity of Life. Is this going to be a permanent thing in the future? Will this committee mobilize in case Springfield is attacked by extra-dimensional beings dedicated to drawing silly mustaches on all life, ruining its sanctity? I’d like to know.
Second, let’s have a discussion of just how much Christian Taliban fascism garbage that’s packed into this story here. Republicans have long stated that waiting periods, required counseling, forced ultrasounds, etc. before abortions are to be allowed are good for women and change societal behavior in a way that positively affects people, in particular how women act (and please put aside the notion that Republicans think women are broken, stupid creatures that constantly need vaginal guidance, that is.)
Somebody finally decided to take that theory, which is a testable theory, and decided to research and test that theory scientifically as part of a doctoral research project at a university, so far so good. But instead of even waiting for the findings, Sen. Schaefer is effectively saying that research cannot even be done on this subject because it might support the notion that women may be harmed by all these restrictions.
Then you have to make the jump that research that might show women are harmed by abortion restrictions are automatically promotion of abortion itself, and that doing the research at a public university is automatically promotion of abortion. Finally you have to make a massive, rocket-assisted leap in microgravity conditions to reach the notion that a state legislative body has the power to effectively censor a university doctoral thesis that hasn’t even been completed yet.
I mean, we’re all aware that religious fanatics will go to extraordinary lengths to control a woman’s body here, but this is super bonus hyper bonkers mode even for these guys.
But nobody should be surprised.
HinTN
Even though I should be immune, I am continually amazed at the depths to which our theocratic wanna-be and actual economic rulers will sink to service their owners.
chopper
this guy’s head is gonna explode when he finds out the university has a geology department whose research of the age of the earth goes completely against evangelical biblical principles.
agorabum
As always, the model of responsible government oversight for Republicans remains Joe Mccarthy.
Mark B.
There is an ‘interim’ committee designation is because the Missouri Legislature only meets part-time, so they have a committee to consider the issue while they’re not in session. In my opinion, it’s kind of a cheap way to keep the rubes thinking you’re doing something while not actually doing anything. Typically, interim committees can’t do anything but report back to the legislature when it does convene. But they can hold as many hearings as they feel like and give people who are interested in the issue an opportunity to get in front of the committee and bloviate … I mean testify. It’s naked politics, but ti’s pretty effective for the rubes who follow state politics.
SiubhanDuinne
Sounds to me as though Senator Schaefer knows good and damn well that his policies are, in fact, bad for women; he just doesn’t want to take the chance that anything with even a patina of legitimacy (like scientific research) might verify that.
(Lightly edited for clarity.)
debbie
@SiubhanDuinne:
Wouldn’t it be great if the research shows that the waiting period has no effect on the decision?
debbie
Giant type!
Amir Khalid
Numbered comments! Hallelujah! But the numbers are too big. Pout.
Don’t Lindsay Ruhr’s research project and doctoral dissertation have First-Amendment protection?
SiubhanDuinne
@debbie:
In one way, yes (Woman: “I’ve made my decision, and three days later my decision remains unchanged”). In another way, maybe not (Legislator: “If a waiting period doesn’t make any difference, we might as well make it even longer”).
Linnaeus
None dare call it political correctness.
Amir Khalid
The comment numbers are smaller! Yay! But now they’re floating in too much space. Sad face.
geg6
Numbered comments!!!!!!
Schaefer is a coward. Not to mention in violation of academic freedom and freedom speech. Fuck that asshole.
Snarkworth
OMG! Numbered comments! When did this happen?
SiubhanDuinne
Yikes! Look at those comment numbers!
Glad to have them back, although they’re YOOOGE and (to my uneducated eye) there’s way too much white space between the number and the commenter’s name.
Seanly
I just f*cking hate Republican lawmakers. I’m worried that our Catholic Supreme Court is going to finally destroy reproductive rights in USA and put us up there with Afghanistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Ireland for autonomy of women and sexual freedom.
debbie
@Amir Khalid:
I like white space, but it definitely could be tightened up.
Corner Stone
@debbie:
It would be useful if it showed that the waiting period *and all other expenses/hardships incurred due to the enforced waiting period* did not change the individuals decision or outcome.
Soprano2
The Missouri legislature is crazy when it comes to this topic. I’m not surprised they’re trying to prevent her from doing the research – it might find that their stupid waiting period has no effect. What would they tell the rubes then? Or more likely it will find that their stupid waiting period has a detrimental effect on women’s lives, and they can’t be having any proof of that.
Also, it might be kind of cool if extra-dimensional beings attacked my city just to draw mustaches on all of us.
debbie
@SiubhanDuinne:
Well, knowing that these kinds of things have no effect might get them to thinking that education prior to the unzipping of pants could possibly be the answer.
Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA
Link to comments at the bottom of a post, and numbers! Nice.
Anyway.
@SiubhanDuinne:
That’s my guess.
Frankensteinbeck
No, it’s not. As usual, there’s a values conflict here. You’re thinking of practical results, whether women’s health improves, how many abortions actually happen, stuff like that. They’re making a moral, dogmatic statement.
Belafon
And researching whether Putin’s actions are leading is to a nuclear war is obviously advocating for war.
Seanly
@debbie:
Then they’ll just extend the waiting time to 40 weeks.
debbie
@Amir Khalid:
I think you could lose all the space between the number and the poster’s name below and just keep the space between the post and the next number.
Amir Khalid
Also too, blockquotes are once again much in a bigger type size than regular comments. Alas.
pamelabrown53
@debbie:
Giant type is okay if the poster’s name and underneath it the date and time is on the same line as the number.
Amir Khalid
The screen no longer goes dark grey when you refresh the page. Das ist gut. I see in the right hand column, right above the PayPal logo: DONTATE VIA PAYPAL. Das ist nicht so gut.
Mike J
Did the already far too skinny center column (the one with all the content in it) get even skinnier? On my 21″ wide monitor, only the center 7″ is being used for anything worthwhile. I could live with an inch or two on either side for site related nonsense, but wasting two thirds of the screen is ridiculous (and part of the reason people yell “ow my eyes! All this white!” when they look at the site.)
Mike J
@Amir Khalid:
Obviously it should be dentate via paypal. It’s a new e-chewing platform.
Benw
@chopper: and don’t even get him started on the astrophysics dept!
bemused
Numbered comments, yippee!
Benw
I look forward to the interim committee on the sanctity of life’s strong statement condemning the death penalty.
greennotGreen
1) Schaefer doesn’t want the research done because he don’t need no stinkin’ research to know what’s best for women.
2) Numbered comments and link to comments at bottom of post: good. Vast white spaces and white-on-very-pale-grey HTML buttons still not so good. But progress is being made!
catclub
@SiubhanDuinne:
Although if you renumbered them by -1, and did not label comment number 1 as 0, they would be fine, just below rather than above.
Quaker in a Basement
Excellent post, Z. I, for one, welcome our extra-dimensional, silly mustache drawing overlords. I place myself in their service.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Frankensteinbeck:
Yep. The current laws are regulating morality, so the question of whether they actually work or not is completely irrelevant. Comprehensive sex education reduces teen pregnancy more than abstinence-based sex education does, but it doesn’t matter because ABSE is about morality, not effectiveness.
? Martin
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): It’s not even about morality. It’s about turning out reliable Republican single-issue voters.
WereBear
Essentially, they are doing all they can to show Deh Lawd that they are oppressin’ and punishin’ and scoldin’ and otherwise doing all they can to enforce an archaic code of conduct from the Bronze Age, just as the Old Testament Deity would do, were he here and was a brainless Republican legislator.
Because that way it will be you and me, Bunky; thrown into yon Lake o’ Fire.
And not them.
Howlin Wolfe
Doesn’t this hypocritical, sanctimonious, cowardly dweeb of a legislator know that if someone collects the data, it doesn’t matter what the data collector does with it? He could always use the same date in a way that’s hypocritical, sanctimonious and cowardly to promote his own hypocritical, sanctimonious and cowardly ends.
Matt McIrvin
@SiubhanDuinne: They could establish a ban on abortions in the third trimester and then put in a waiting period two trimesters long.
Origuy
@SiubhanDuinne: Tommy said that the whitespace is due to hidden social media icons (Facebook, Reddit, etc.) That will be fixed when the new comment plugin is ready. I don’t know why they are taking up space if they are hidden, but the wonders of CSS are a mystery to me.
CSS, for the uninitiated, stands for Cascading Style Sheets. The cascading part means that you can have many of them on a web page and they interact in strange and wondrous ways. Each plugin probably brings in its own.
Howlin Wolfe
@Frankensteinbeck: The legislator is making a moral statement. The grad student is doing social science research on a hypothesis that is as testable as any other.
satby
@Frankensteinbeck: exactly. They don’t need no steenkin science.
Duane
The Golux
@Origuy:
Except when used in reference to a Republican, in which case it stands for Cretinous Shit Stain.
Patricia Kayden
“let’s pause to contemplate that Missouri’s state senate actually has an interim Committee on the Sanctity of Life.”
Michael Brown’s family and friends and Black Lives Matter supporters would be interested to hear more about this Committee. Does it care about Black lives or only fetuses?
Paul in KY
@? Martin: They live & die with the single issue voter.
Duane
@Soprano2:
Debbie
@Patricia Kayden:
Hell, they don’t even care about the fetuses they care about after they’re born.
Elmo
…and nobody so far has done the obvious, that now Missouri is the Don’t Show Me state?
Duane
@Benw:
JustRuss
@Elmo: Well played.
SiubhanDuinne
@debbie:
And we can’t have that.
SiubhanDuinne
Okay, I wontate.
Grumpy Code Monkey
We know what we know, we know that what we know is right, we know that it’s right no matter what the science says, so we know that the science doesn’t even need to be done. And, we know that scientists fake their data to promote specific liberal agendas like global warming and unisex toilets, so we know that the science shouldn’t be done in the first place.
SiubhanDuinne
@Origuy:
Thanks, Origuy. Yes, until John or Tommy or Mistermix or someone puts up a front page with “Th-th-that’s it, folks!” to tell us that the redesign is complete and meets their total satisfaction, I’m going to keep on assuming that the glitchy and unaesthetic stuff is temporary.
One thing I would like to know, though (and maybe this is also still under construction): It used to be when I went to the “Contact” box and clicked on the name of the front-pager I wanted to write to, a draft email would pop up with the email address of the person automatically populating the “To:” line. Now, nothing. Am I overlooking a step? Are other Juicers having this problem?
nominus
Why the fuck are they bothering to try to stop the research? If climate change has shown us anything, it wouldn’t matter what the conclusion is, they’ll just ignore it and scream “bias” if it shows something they don’t agree with.
mwing
Because I work at a University, I am wondering how the State legislature would become aware of the topic of a student’s Ph.D. thesis in the first place. Do they get sent a list, or something? Are dissertation topics of dissertation that aren’t even done yet, posted on the schools web site? I’m pretty sure we don’t do anything like that.
Ydobon
@Amir Khalid: I think you meant to ask:
Well, if they did, life would be good! But …
gelfling545
@debbie: I love the white space but it’s because I am old & it’s easier to read.
J R in WV
@SiubhanDuinne:
If you right-click on the email address and select “copy email address”, then you can start your preferred email client – paste in the poster’s email address ( that you just now copied into the invisible clip-board ) and do your email writing and sending from there.
Someone else has probably already listed these steps, but here they are. And opening up each user’s favorite email automatically may happen before all is said and done with the re-build, which is still ongoing.
Sophist
@Origuy:
I thought it stood for “Cansei de Ser Sexy”?
polyorchnid octopunch
That Schaefer guy would’ve been right at home in the Harper government. Hope you folks can excise the shitheels from your polity sometime this century.
polyorchnid octopunch
@Seanly: Ireland has gotten significantly better in the past few years. I think the death of Savita Halappanavar (an Indian national, and a Hindu) in Irish hospital because they wouldn’t save her from her haemorrhaging uterus because “abortion!” ended up moving a lot of people in that country. It was an international story and I think for many Irish it brought a sense of shame.
Jeffro
@debbie: it would be even better if the waiting. Not only had no effect on the decision but made it more likely that the patient was likely to donate to the Democratic Party in the future
Kerry Reid
I went to college at Mizzou with Schaefer. He was a fucking tool even then. Albeit one who was trying to pass as a sorta-punk kid.
Linnaeus
@mwing:
It’s not unheard of for college and university departments to post information about dissertations in progress (sometimes it’s just the title, sometimes they will post abstracts), although I didn’t see any on Missouri’s School of Social Work website.
Pogonip
Test
Vor
Regarding the comment numbers, I present this scene from “Austin Powers in Goldmember” http://youtu.be/HXJefJOU5OE
Duane
Brandon
I’m surprised I am the first one to note the lack of concern from the anti-Campus PC Brigade, i.e. the Jonathan Chait’s of the world, over this issue. These guys are fighting the phony free speech/academic freedom issues and not the real ones.
PurpleGirl
@debbie: Never, ever, does it become a responsibility of a man to take precautions and not have sex if he wants it. It’s a man’s right without any restrictions to have sex when he wants it.
Original Lee
Yay! Comment numbers! Thank you!
Paul in KY
@mwing: I wondered that also. Probably some dickwad at university blabbed to the asshole legislator.