Dep't. of Told You So: California teen births hit a record low

By GottaLaff

Here it comes, a king size portion of told you so:

Births to teen mothers in California reached a record low in 2008, according to new figures released Monday by the state Department of Public Health.

About 35 babies were born that year for every 1,000 teen females, nearly two fewer babies than the 2007 rate.

"This is absolutely phenomenal," said Norman Constantine, a senior scientist at the Oakland-based Public Health Institute and a clinical professor at the UC Berkeley School of Public Health. "It's almost unbelievable at a time when the national rate continues to go up." [...]

The numbers also reveal a steep decline in the Latina teen birth rate. While figures for African Americans, whites, Asians and Pacific Islanders gradually declined between 2006 and 2008, the rate among Latina teens fell from 65 in 2006 to 56.9 in 2008.

Why the big fat "I told you so"? you may be asking. Because for years it's been drummed into our heads that the abstinence only policy was the single most effective way to reduce teen pregnancy. That's what conservatives insist is the way, the only way, to accomplish numbers like these.

Right?

Weaver attributed the improvement to state-supported teen-pregnancy prevention efforts, including family planning programs, comprehensive sex education and reproductive health services. [...]

Experts also lauded California for never having accepted federal dollars tied to abstinence-only funding. Weaver referred to California's approach as "abstinence plus."

Told you so.

Fox News hosts falsely asserted that doctors could be jailed for refusing to perform abortions under Obama administration

No lie untold.

Eradicating the ugly Bush stain: Obama Planning To Reverse New Rules On Abortion, Birth Control

By GottaLaff

Remember that post about that horrid new Bush rule about the "right of conscience"? It was one of the very first ugly Bush stains. Well, thanks to president-elect Obama, we may very well be able to Shout it out!

The outgoing Bush administration this week will finalize a regulation establishing a "right of conscience" allowing medical staff to refuse to participate in any practice they object to on moral grounds, including abortion but possibly birth control and other health care as well.

In transition offices across town, officials in the incoming Obama administration have begun considering how and when to undo it.

The regulation is one of a swath of abortion and other reproductive-health issues under review by the Obama team, which is preparing to reverse a variety of Bush measures, according to officials close to the transition. The review is part of a sweeping scrutiny of Bush-era legislation and regulation on issues across the federal government, from environmental and labor rules to defense spending.

On abortion and related matters, action is expected early on executive, regulatory, budgetary and legislative fronts.

Decisions that the new administration will weigh include: whether to cut funding for sexual abstinence programs; whether to increase funding for comprehensive sex education programs that include discussion of birth control; whether to allow federal health plans to pay for abortions; and whether to overturn regulations such as one that makes fetuses eligible for health-care coverage under the Children's Health Insurance Program.

Women's health advocates are also pushing for a change in rules that would lower the cost of birth control at college health clinics.

Obama aides will have to settle many of these questions in issuing their first budget in February.

Every time I read about Obama's plans, I have to pinch myself. Eight years of abuse tends to result in reflexive wincing, even after the bad guy has left and the good guy has swooped in to save the day.

Bush's New Rule: Abortion, artificial insemination, birth control subject to 'right of conscience'

By GottaLaff

We have fewer than 50 days left until Obama is sworn in, and the talking heads on the Tee Vee Machine have been wondering out loud what further damage Bush the Cretin could do. Here's a stupefyingly appalling, jaw-dropping example of another toxic power play:

The outgoing Bush administration is planning to announce a broad new "right of conscience" rule permitting medical facilities, doctors, nurses, pharmacists and other healthcare workers to refuse to participate in any procedure they find morally objectionable, including abortion and possibly even artificial insemination and birth control.

For more than 30 years, federal law has dictated that doctors and nurses may refuse to perform abortions. The new rule would go further by making clear that healthcare workers also may refuse to provide information or advice to patients who might want an abortion.

It also seeks to cover more employees. For example, in addition to a surgeon and a nurse in an operating room, the rule would extend to "an employee whose task it is to clean the instruments," the draft rule said.

The "conscience" rule could set the stage for an abortion controversy in the early months of Barack Obama's administration.

There now. Isn't that a super duper special reminder of what the Chimpenfuhrer has up his sleeve?

While the rule could eventually be overturned by the new administration, the process might open a wound that could take months of wrangling to close again.

Health and Human Services Department officials said the rule would apply to "any entity" that receives federal funds. It estimated 584,000 entities could be covered, including 4,800 hospitals, 234,000 doctor's offices and 58,000 pharmacies.

Proponents, including the Christian Medical Assn. and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, say the rule is not limited to abortion. It will protect doctors who do not wish to prescribe birth control or to provide artificial insemination, said Dr. David Stevens, president of CMA.

"The real battle line is the morning-after pill," he said. "This prevents the embryo from implanting. This involves moral complicity. Doctors should not be required to dispense a medication they have a moral objection to."

Critics of the rule say it will sacrifice patients' health to the religious beliefs of providers.

Gee, ya think?

Judith Waxman, a lawyer for the National Women's Law Center, said Leavitt's office has extended the law far beyond what was understood. "This goes way beyond abortion," she said. It could reach disputes over contraception, sperm donations and end-of-life care.

"This kind of rule could wreak havoc in a hospital if any employee can declare they are not willing to do certain parts of their job," she said.

During his interview with Charles Gibson, Bush said:

"The president ends up carrying a lot of people's grief in his soul."

Au contraire. The grief is all ours.

Headlines we've been waiting to see

By GottaLaff

How nice to see Bush's name slowly fade from the headlines:

Obama likely to renew funds for birth control clinics

Guantanamo prisoners hoping for change under Obama

Media modernizing for Obama coverage

Plan for 'activist presidency' on track despite crisis
Signs coming out of Barack Obama's transition conclave in Chicago suggest he has no intention of lowering his sights for an activist, big ideas, presidency despite the deep economic crisis. [...]

But Obama's approach to framing his administration , frequent campaign trail allusions to activist presidents of the past and possible cabinet picks may signal he views the crisis not as a constraint, but an opportunity.

Glass half full. How novel.

John Sidney McCain doesn't like women, and here's proof

By GottaLaff

Paddy sent me an e-mail, which is also posted here. Plus, I'm re-posting my "Grow Up, J Sid" video since it makes similar points. :

Don’t Like Women? That’s OK, Neither Does He

You ever get the feeling that some guys just really don’t like women at all, or care what they think, or respect them?

Seems John McCain is one of them.

He’s decided that a woman shouldn’t be able to end a pregnancy EVEN IF IT’S GOING TO KILL HER. The story is here:

(http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Vote2008/story?id=4824779&page=1)

Yes, he’s going to let the right-wing radicals who run the Republican Party push for outlawing abortion even if a woman has been brutally raped.

Even if she’s a 14 year old violated by her own father.

Even if she might die if the pregnancy is brought to term.

And speaking of rape, McCain thinks a joke about a woman being beaten and raped is just hilarious:

(http://thepoliticalcarnival.blogspot.com/2008/07/infamous-mcjoke-about-rape.html)

And it’s not just McCain’s determination to overturn Roe v. Wade. On a whole host of issues, he’s against women’s rights:

(http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/06/07/mccain-and-womens-issues-its-more-than-just-roe/)

He voted against requiring health care plans to cover birth control (3/22/03).

He voted against comprehensive, medically accurate sex education (7/25/06).

He voted against international family planning funding (3/14/96).

He voted against funding to prevent teen and unintended pregnancies (3/17/05).

He voted against public education for emergency contraception (3/17/05).

And he voted against restoring Medicaid funding that could be used for family planning for low-income women (3/17/05)

Of course, McCain cheated on his loyal, devoted first wife and dumped her for someone with a lot more money. His first wife wasn’t attractive to him any more. But I guess being in a car wreck does cut down on your sex appeal.

(http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1024927/The-wife-John-McCain-callously-left-behind.html)

And this whole “equal pay for women” thing? McCain says he’s for it—but when the chips are down he votes against it:

(http://blog.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/04/24/by_juliet_eilperin_washington.html)

Yes, McCain thinks that women are basically 2nd rate people who can’t be allowed to make their own decisions. But there’s one way McCain puts his wife out front and center:

He said she should enter a topless beauty pageant.
(http://thepoliticalcarnival.blogspot.com/2008/08/pour-some-sugar-on-cindy-mccain.html)

Wow. What a guy. Just what we need.

To go back to the 19th century.

Oh, and let's not forget that old chestnut, calling his wife the C-Word. He'd make some role model for our kids, huh?

McViagra opposes contraception while "men are lavished with cut-rate erections"

By GottaLaff

Oooo, looky, a summer rerun:


As for the post title, apologies for the juxtaposition of "cut" and "erection" in the same sentence, but there's a good reason:

John McCain is so opposed to contraception he voted against requiring insurance plans to cover it like other drugs, and either so indifferent to women's health and rights or just so out of it he doesn't even remember how he voted. That's the way to show American women you really care.

This is not a trivial issue. There's the basic unfairness of not covering these essential, even life-saving drugs and devices, so fundamental to women's health and well-being, and the added insult of denying coverage while men are lavished with cut-rate erections.

It's understandable for someone like J Sid, who most likely needs all the Viagra he can get, to support coverage for the little blue pill. But because more and more men are using drugs because "better erections can mean better sex", more and more women need more and more birth control. And speaking of coverage:

Where is the discussion of the real issue, which is that for over twenty years John McCain has voted against contraception every time it came up and -- now he tells us! -- doesn't even care or know enough to explain why. [...]

But so far the media has refused to present McCain's anti-contraception record as a big, coherent story that tells us a great deal about who he is and what policies he would pursue in the White House.

Maybe The New Yorker could do a cover about it. Then the media might find it interesting enough to discuss.

Planned Parenthood highlights the Viagra moment

By Paddy



I'm telling you, they want to outlaw birth control completely. Go read this if you don't believe me. About the ad, the first thing that came to mind was "hoisted on your own petard there, my friend".

(CNN) — Planned Parenthood Action Fund is launching a new ad Wednesday in crucial battleground states set to highlight a campaign trail moment John McCain would rather soon forget.

The 30-second spot aimed at women voters shows McCain's apparent unease when a reporter asked him last week whether it was unfair that some insurance plans covered Viagra and not birth control.

"Ever use birth control? Than you'll want to hear this," the ad's narrator states before a flustered McCain is shown saying, "I don't know enough about it to give you an informed answer."

Planned Parenthood spokesman Tait Sye says the ad will run in Colorado, Iowa, Minnesota, New Mexico, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Washington, D.C. during television programs popular with women — including Wednesday's season premier of "Project Runway" and "Army Wives" on Lifetime. It will also air during Oprah in some markets.