What does Planned Parenthood mean to you?
My Planned Parenthood: The Carnival Collection
As you might have noticed, ahem, today was the My Planned Parenthood Carnival, which I co-hosted with Tami of What Tami Said. The hub for the carnival, at which links to all the other participating blogs can be found, is here. There is so much good reading there!
And, naturally, submissions posted at own blogs are still being accepted.
Shakesville ran My Planned Parenthood Stories all day, too, of course, and here is the full collection, in case you missed any of them:
Angie: Planned Parenthood Saved My Life
Deeky: Today's Visit
Elizabeth in Chicago: A Simple Story
Liss: Like a Trusted Friend
K: Forever Grateful
Portly Dyke: The Radical Notion of Choosing Parenthood
Sonia: Thank You
Lili: I Can Trust Planned Parenthood
Vanshar: About the Menz
koach: For My Sister
Fannie: Healthier
Tenya: I Turned to Planned Parenthood
Teaspoon: Planned Parenthood Was There
Talonas (Lt. Chubbins): Better Parents
Gretchen in Washington: My Life's Backdrop
Mustang Bobby: A Part of My Life for Fifty Years
M: Planned Parenthood Saved My Daughter
My profound thanks to Tami, who is just a total rock star, to everyone who participated, and to everyone who sent private notes of thanks, encouragement, and support.
This isn't an end; this is just a beginning. There were be more carnivals to come—and I hope that they get increasingly bigger, louder, wilder, until we are making such a grand cacophony of clattering teaspoons that we can no longer be ignored.
My teaspoon. My voice. My choice. My Planned Parenthood.
My Planned Parenthood Story: Planned Parenthood Saved My Daughter
by Shaker M
[Trigger warning for reproductive coercion.]
Once upon a time a young woman had the misfortune of finding herself in a situation of having an unplanned pregnancy that was unwanted by her partner.
How many times have we heard stories like this? If this was the only information you had about the situation, how complete is your knowledge of the woman or her situation?
It wouldn't shock anyone who knew my story to know that this was exactly the situation I found myself in August 23, 2002 when my story unfolded.
I found myself in the small office of the local Planned Parenthood, with my husband discussing MY options with a counselor, giving details, setting up appointments…never letting me out of his sight, never letting me discuss what I might want or need, never letting me say more than I agreed.
Instead of an unmarried teenager finding herself pregnant and unsupported by a boyfriend I was a 28 year old, well educated, married, mother of one finding herself in the position of realizing she is pregnant with a child that her husband is pressuring her to abort.
On their 5th Anniversary.
My husband tried to force me to have an abortion I didn't want. He set up appointments for me with Planned Parenthood and the abortion doctor, and made sure that he spoke for "us", never letting me have my say except to nod and agree that this was what I wanted—knowing what I would face at home later if I didn't agree to go through with his demands or if I "shamed" him in front of the nurse.
My local Planned Parenthood offices do not have a doctor on staff full time. Here they primarily provide information, support, counseling, and access to resources that are covered for EVERYONE through our (Canadian) universal health care—if you need an abortion, they will set up the appointment you need, they will go with you to the appointment if you need support; if you need condoms they will give them to you; if you require subsidy to afford birth control they will make an appointment with one of the doctors they work with who will provide you free birth control; if you need prenatal care they will help you find a family doctor; if you need to get away from an abusive partner they will slip you information on where to go and who to call; if you need information on sexuality or STI they will provide that and even screen for STIs; they will go with you if you need someone; they will help you find a translator if you don't speak English; they run support groups.
They SUPPORT the right to choose what is best for you—parenthood if you want it, abortion if you don't, and ways to stay healthy no matter what.
The Nurse at the Planned Parenthood understood the situation I found myself in, a situation that is sadly NOT uncommon, and managed to take me aside and talk to me. She took the time to understand the bind I was in—not wanting to abort my child yet having an abusive partner who did not want me to continue my pregnancy, not having a full time job, not having income on my own, not knowing where to turn or what to do, feeling ashamed and blamed for the "situation" that "I" found myself in.
While many other women go to Planned Parenthood for assistance with abortion, I found that they were just as willing to support my choices to keep my child, offer me access to funding and programs, counseling services for abuse and transition, and legal assistance to prevent my husband from being allowed to force me to do something to my body that I didn't want (at that time). The nurse on duty had no agenda that she was touting—she was not invested in having me keep OR abort my child, she was really and truly there to support MY REPRODUCTIVE choices…
Because of the help I received from a nurse at the Planned Parenthood office I was empowered NOT to have an abortion AND to leave an abusive marriage.
I will always be grateful to the nurse in the Planned Parenthood office for taking the time to make me feel like what I wanted mattered and that I had the right to choose to KEEP my child as much as I would have to ABORT a child.
I firmly and staunchly believe in a woman's RIGHT TO CHOOSE what is best for her and to have access to resources that can impartially assist her in making the best choice for HER. Many people thought that because I chose NOT to abort my daughter that I was anti-abortion. Keeping my child was MY choice, leaving my marriage was MY choice; those were the choices that were right for ME. In another circumstance perhaps the choice that would have been RIGHT FOR ME would have been abortion. All women should be trusted and respected enough to know what is right for THEM and THEIR bodies.
This is why I support Planned Parenthood and I stand with all of the Americans fighting to keep Planned Parenthood funded and available to all people!
Read the rest of the My Planned Parenthood Carnival posts here.
Actual Headline
"Fatties R Us: Washington obesity rate nearly doubles."
While "fatties" is certainly a word that many fat activists use in a reclaimative or ironic way, that is quite evidently not the way the word is being used here.
The story also contains the charming line: "Washington also out-fatted nearby states."
Yiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiikes.
[H/T to Erica.]
My Planned Parenthood: A Part of My Life for Fifty Years
My parents began their involvement with Planned Parenthood of Northwestern Ohio when I was a child, so we're talking at least fifty years ago, if not more. They served on the board of directors, did fund-raising, and worked with the organization at all levels. I learned about the mission by osmosis, and in doing so, it became part of my consciousness. While the methods of family planning were still a mystery to a child of eight or so, the impression that I got from both of my parents was that women making choices about their lives and having a strong support system of caring friends and community was a formative part of my growing up.
I learned that Planned Parenthood could be an oasis in a desert of choices for healthcare, support, and refuge for women and their families regardless of their circumstances. A stint of running the switchboard for the local office to relieve the regular operator during her lunch hour taught me swiftly that PPNO was a lifeline that went far beyond its mission. Its location in a depressed neighborhood in a depressed city made it more than just a medical facility: it was a safe place for many people when they nowhere else to turn.
To this day my parents are still involved with Planned Parenthood -- that's Mom (center) and Dad (right) at the recent "I Stand With Planned Parenthood" rally.
They have borne the slings and arrows of the anti-choice brigades with a grace and tolerance that I admire. They also put their beliefs to work when they ran their window and door business in conservative northern Michigan by supporting the renovation of a local PP office with products sold at or below cost. It might have cost them some customers, but they didn't care; the building was more important.
Thanks, Mom and Dad, for teaching me that there is nothing so worthy as helping people and expecting nothing in return but the humble joy of giving. Nothing has been more life-affirming than that.
Read the rest of the My Planned Parenthood Carnival posts here.
My Planned Parenthood: My Life's Backdrop
by Shaker Gretchen in WashingtonThe first time I called Planned Parenthood, I was scheduling an appointment to get my annual exam and a birth control refill. I was about to be moving from Chicago to the Seattle area, so I called a few weeks ahead, thinking that surely my new-patient, no-insurance status would mean a longer wait. To my surprise, I was offered appointments the next day—I had to turn them down because I wasn't even in the state yet! By contrast, getting my first appointment with my current doctor, even with insurance, meant a two-month wait.
My exam was quick, as painless and no-fuss as possible, and free of any of the raised eyebrows or humiliating follow-up questions I'd had at other clinics. When I went to pay, they connected me with a Washington program that meant my exam and a year of birth control were free. I had no job at the time, and hadn't known how I would afford them—I just knew that I definitely couldn't afford to be pregnant.
I still can't afford to be pregnant—my fiance and I live paycheck to paycheck as is while he's working through nursing school. We take every possible precaution to prevent pregnancy, and yet every month I still spend the last days before my period arrives wondering: What if this month something went wrong?
Planned Parenthood has always been the answer to that question. They might not be where I'd ultimately end up, depending on the circumstances surrounding an unexpected pregnancy, but I know that they'd be where I would start. They could help me know what options I had, without judging the choice I ended up making. With Planned Parenthood under threat, my options are a whole lot more frightening: Somewhere else—Canada? I wouldn't even know where to start looking.
Even when I'm not actively using their services, Planned Parenthood is the background that makes it possible for me to have a healthy, safe, and fearless sexual life. They make it possible for me to be in a relationship and pursue my dreams at the same time. Maybe someday those dreams will include a child—and if that's the case, I hope that Planned Parenthood will still be around to support me then.
Read the rest of the My Planned Parenthood Carnival posts here.
My Planned Parenthood: Better Parents
by Shaker Talonas (Lt. Chubbins)My story is simple and to the point, but it was today, reading all the other stories out there that I realized what a privilege I had and still have.
Great Indoors and I had been dating about 3 months when the condom broke. I've wanted to be a mom for some time, but not right then, not in the situation we were in. Together GI and I made about $14,000 that year. Neither of us had any health insurance. We were on housing assistance and my parents were buying our groceries and other supplies. We simply did not have the funds or ability to care for a child, nor did we have the emotional maturity.
We went to Planned Parenthood and I was able to get a month's supply of contraceptives to take over 5 days, which would do pretty much the same exact thing as the morning after pill. It worked. If Planned Parenthood hadn't been available to us, and I'd been pregnant, we would have kept the child but would have had to go on more government assistance, Medicaid for the pregnancy and birth, CHIP, etc. It would have put a severe strain on the relationship, and I would have wondered if GI was staying around just because he got me knocked up. While we would have been able to manage with that situation, the ability to wait and hold off on children, the availability of contraceptives and morning after pills, gave us the chance to become more mature, better prepared to take care of children later on.
GI and I now have two children we adore, both of which we were able to take care of and offer a loving and stable home to grow up in. We had a very great privilege to be able to choose when to have children, to be able to settle down a bit and prepare to be a family larger than ourselves. Planned Parenthood was available when we needed it, and we are so very lucky for it. Planned Parenthood helped us to be better parents.
Read the rest of the My Planned Parenthood Carnival posts here.
My Planned Parenthood: PP Was There
by Shaker Teaspoon
My first experience with Planned Parenthood was as moral support for a friend in college. She had been pressured into unprotected sex by her boyfriend, and her period was late. She came to me in tears and said she didn't know what she was going to do if she was pregnant. I hugged her tightly and told her that she had options, and that we'd talk through them all.
We talked about keeping the baby, we talked about adoption, and we talked about abortion. We talked about whether she wanted to tell her very religious parents, and she looked at me and asked me whether I believed abortion was evil. I told her that I thought any compassionate god would understand and that any soul that might be interrupted by not being born would simply come around again to be born another time, perhaps in another place.
Then I looked up Planned Parenthood in the phone book for her, telling her that she didn't have to make any decision yet, because she didn't even know if she was pregnant. I sat with her and held her hand while she made an appointment, and I went with her when she kept it.
She was so afraid, but she did not want to be pregnant. Her hands trembled as she went with the nurse, and a short while later, she came back out, fighting back tears, and she nodded faintly.
I gave her a hug, and she said that the counselor had an open spot right then, was it okay if she talked to them now? I told her I'd wait as long as she needed, and she entered another office. When she came back out nearly an hour later, she was calm and relaxed.
As we drove back to the dorms, she said they'd gone over everything. They told her about WIC and other services available to her if she decided to stay pregnant, and the services that were available if she also decided to keep the baby. They told her about closed and open adoption agencies, and what birth mothers reported as their experiences with both kinds of adoption. They told her about medical abortion and surgical abortion and when she had access to each type. And when, after all that information, she told them she wanted an abortion, they let her use their phone to make the appointment with a clinic in a neighboring community that offered those services on a sliding scale.
A couple of years later, I got married with one more year before I finished my degree, and we were poor college students together, trying to sort out how to be married people. We had little income and less clue, and I needed well woman exams and access to birth control, and I needed it to be inexpensive, and I needed it to be sensitive to the fact that I'd had little preparation for either family planning or gynecological examination.
I remembered my friend's experience with the local Planned Parenthood clinic, so I called and made an appointment. They explained the procedures and went over the various options for birth control in unabashed detail. We made so little that the exam was free, and the pills I eventually selected were only a couple of dollars each month. I would visit them for two more years before one of us managed to find a job with decent pay and health insurance in another town.
In neither case did Planned Parenthood provide life-saving services, though my friend was certainly provided life-changing services that also spared her greater risk later in an unintended and unwanted pregnancy. The services they provided me allowed me to keep my life in the channels I'd set for it, and that gave me time to plan for the day that I would start trying to have the children my husband and I both wanted, but wanted later. Their services allowed both my friend and me to continue our educations, improving our chances for better jobs, and easier lives, than we could have hoped for had we had our children too early. Neither of us were in any position to both have children and pay for college at that point.
Shutting down Planned Parenthood would hurt, among many other groups of people, young people in college who are trying to give themselves a chance at a career that means something to them and offers them financial independence and security. It would hurt young people who might not yet have a supporting network of family and friends or the means to seek care through more expensive channels.
Among their greatest services is information: about our bodies, about our immediate health, and about our options. Thanks for being there, Planned Parenthood. I hope that if my nieces should ever need your services that you will still be there for them.
Read the rest of the My Planned Parenthood Carnival posts here.
My Planned Parenthood: I Turned to PP
by Shaker TenyaI had moved to upstate NY from Virginia at 17-years-old, to be with a boyfriend when he went to college (I planned to go next year)—I was working at a grocery store in that 'just under full time' status corporations are so fond of and whenever I looked into other forms of coverage it all came back to how I should still be covered by my parents. Which I probably was, but any network physicians were 300 miles away.
I turned to Planned Parenthood. I knew of Planned Parenthood. I knew they wouldn't turn me away for not going to a network provider 300 miles away. I knew they wouldn't turn me away for being 17, either. I went in, and they were friendly and welcoming and checked basic healthcare items like my hemoglobin and blood pressure in addition to my pap and talking with me about the best birth control for me. And they gave me some extra condoms. And then charged on a sliding scale based on my grocery store paycheck for all of this.
In subsequent years I went to PP regularly, had a hilarious conversation with one of the midwives there about paganism while in stirrups, changed birth control, talked about strategies for reducing painful sex, and otherwise have just always trusted the providers there. I never needed abortion services (that PP didn't perform them anyway, they referred to another clinic) but I also knew they would be honest with me if that became a concern.
They never second-guessed my own decisions, when I said I wanted to be sexually active with the boyfriend but wanted to be on birth control, that was okay. When I said I was having trouble remembering my pill every day, they put me on a different birth control that wasn't a daily pill. When I had concerns about sex being painful, they discussed that honestly, instead of getting hung up on how old I was or that I wasn't married.
I don't go to PP anymore, as I moved and got pretty reliable health insurance so I started donating instead. I want that option there for other people, I can't imagine what I would have done if they weren't there.
Read the rest of the My Planned Parenthood Carnival posts here.
My Planned Parenthood: Healthier
by Fannie, Shaker and author of Fannie's Room.When I was 22, I received my first Pap test. It was at a Planned Parenthood clinic in the Midwest. I was uninsured, a recent college graduate, and a lesbian.
Given the, erm, intimate nature of the exam and horror stories I had heard of other lesbian and bisexual women who discussed their sexual orientation openly with insensitive pap-smearers, I was a bit apprehensive. Although I have sinced learned that women who have sex with women are less likely than heterosexual women to have had pap smears due to a lack of insurance, previous bad experiences with providers, and a mistaken belief that one doesn't need the exam if one isn't having sex with men, back then I was still overcoming some internalized homophobia.
I didn't know yet that I deserved medical care from doctors and nurses who wouldn't condemn my "lifestyle choice." I thought it was okay for medical providers to alienate patients who deviated from some hypothetical Default Patient.
Due to my finances, Planned Parenthood was my only option at the time for getting the dreaded Pap test and so I scheduled my appointment and hoped for the best. In the days before my appointment I tried to build up courage by telling myself that maybe being a lesbian at a place that provides abortions might be, like, a relatively minor shenanigan? (I also had internalized a lot of anti-choice rhetoric, too).
So, the day of my appointment, after making my way past three abortion protestors and their gruesome signs, I entered the lobby and began filling out the intake forms. Although this was a good decade ago, I remember that the forms asked me whether I had sex with men, women, or both. Not only is this information pertinent to gynecological exam, but I found it refreshing and validating that it was not assumed that all patients engaged in heterosexual sex.
Then, when I told the nurse who did my initial screening that I was sexually active, she asked me what sort of birth control I was using. Unfortunately, she did not seem to have read my answers on the form. I told her that I wasn't using birth control since I was in a relationship with a woman. She seemed flustered, perhaps because it was obvious she hadn't read my form, but then said something along the lines of, "Well, that's okay. Just make sure you clean the sex toys" and proceeded to give me safe sex tips.
It wasn't a perfect interaction, but it wasn't a traumatic one either. In fact, she raised good points about the need for women who have sex with women to think about STI risk. I'm not sure that I knew, at 22, that such risks existed. And, in turn, I like to think that I reminded the nurse that, yes, non-heterosexual patients too utilize Planned Parenthood. I'll take that over judgmental bigotry any day.
Because of Planned Parenthood, I developed a healthier relationship with the US medical system, a system that I had thought was not entirely open to me because of my income and sexual orientation. Because of Planned Parenthood, I am now a healthier person.
Read the rest of the My Planned Parenthood Carnival posts here.
[Cross-posted.]
Photo of the Day
JED BROPHY as Nori, ADAM BROWN as Ori and MARK HADLOW as Dori in New Line Cinema's and MGM's fantasy adventure THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY, a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo by James Fisher.Via Peter Jackson.
DORI, NORI & ORI: These three brothers, all sons of the same mother, could not be more different from each other. Dori, the oldest, spends much of his time watching out for Ori, the youngest; making sure he's not caught a chill or got himself killed by Wargs or Goblins. Nobody quite knows what Nori gets up to most of the time, except that it's guaranteed to be dodgy and quite probably, illegal. Dori, Nori and Ori are intensely loyal to each other – and whilst they are perfectly happy fighting amongst themselves, woe-betide anyone who means harm to one of these brothers.
My Planned Parenthood: For My Sister
by Shaker koach
My story is brief, simple, and like the stories of thousands of other women. And it is really my sister's story, which I am sharing with her permission.
My sister is in her twenties, underemployed, and without health insurance. She has a boyfriend with whom she practices safer sex. When her period was recently late, she bought a pregnancy test, but the results were unclear. She went to Planned Parenthood to get tested and to talk with someone.
She was able to receive thorough counseling about the possible medical indications of a late menstrual cycle, the various testing she might need, and what her various options might be.
Later that week, her period started; it was just irregularly timed, and she is not pregnant and there is nothing wrong with her. Thankfully, she was able to seek help—medical and emotional—at Planned Parenthood, where she could have received further help if she needed it.
This story is simple and unspectacular, but I hope it conveys the day-to-day realities faced by thousands of women. When they need help, Planned Parenthood is there, with many, many services.
Read the rest of the My Planned Parenthood Carnival posts here.
My Planned Parenthood: About the Menz
by Shaker VansharI hesitated a bit about writing this, since I'm a straight, white, cis male and always think twice and thrice before injecting my own experiences into these conversations. But I feel it's important to say that yes, even a guy like me, with my mountain of privilege, can and has benefited from Planned Parenthood.
See, when I was 20, I contracted an STI. I was/am normally very, very careful with safer sex practices, but I'd just joined a polyfidelitous commune, and was certain that everyone inside was safe, and I was in love, etc. Turns out one of the other men in the group had an interesting definition of what "safe" meant, and I woke up one morning in an awful lot of pain.
I was in a new town, a thousand miles away from my old support structure, with no job, no insurance, and no idea what was wrong with me. I remembered the abstinence-only sex-ed I'd received in high school and was absolutely convinced that I was ruined for life, that some horrible deformity would befall me and no one would ever love me again, and other horrible things that felt like certainties. And I had absolutely no idea who to talk to about it, or how to afford treatment.
Then my girlfriend (now partner) suggested Planned Parenthood, and I was all "Wut? Don't they only treat women?" A common misconception that I am VERY fortunate was wrong.
I was already indebted to the organization because they provided low-cost birth control to everyone in the commune, but I'd never actually been further in than the waiting room. The health care professional (it's been long enough now that I can't recall if she was a doctor or a nurse or what, other than awesome) I saw was very understanding and patient with my nervousness and embarrassment, asked careful questions about my sexual history and symptoms, and ran a few tests. She didn't so much as bat an eye at my, hrm, unusual living circumstances, and she quickly figured out that I had chlamydia, in the very early stages, and all I needed was a blast of antibiotics, which they had on hand. She also very tactfully suggested that everyone else in our home swing by for testing and treatment as needed.
All told, the experience cost me about $20, which was about all I had. A few of my family also needed treatment (I was just the first to show symptoms), and what could have become a medical catastrophe for us was dealt with quickly, empathetically, and affordably, thanks to PP. I owe my health and continued sexual freedom to PP, both for all that they've done for my partners over the years, and for myself.
Read the rest of the My Planned Parenthood Carnival posts here.
My Planned Parenthood: I Can Trust PP
by Shaker Lili
So there is this Planned Parenthood carnival thing going on today.
I am very supportive of the mission Planned Parenthood is pursuing, and of the services they offer, but I didn't think I had anything to contribute to the carnival, because I've never actually been to a Planned Parenthood clinic. I was privileged to grow up in a household where we had uninterrupted quality health insurance, and with parents who, even though they did successfully transmit puritanical religious ideas about sex for a number of years (as a result of my upbringing in their home, the only person with whom I've had sex is my husband, for example), they were not remiss about contraceptive education nor in providing access to it (for my terrible periods, and later at my younger sister's unspecified request). Most of my friends and acquaintances for most of my life were in similar situations.
I've been reading other PP Carnival stories today, and I just came to the realization that I have a story to tell after all.
Because, you see, even though I am a middle-class woman with access to a number of providers, insurance, and education, at the age of 27 years I have had only one gynecological appointment in my life—at thirteen, to obtain the aforementioned menstrual cramp diagnosis and relief. I've made many excuses to myself about this: "Oh, I'm not sexually active so I don't have to go", "I don't have time to go", "I need a referral and that's so annoying", "It'll take too long to find someone", etc., when the truth is that the idea of going simply makes me 100% uncomfortable.
I've never had close relationships with my physicians and I've never been able to discuss my reproductive health comfortably with them. I've always felt intrinsically judged, whether it was the nurse who disbelieved me when at the age of 24 in a routine exam I stated I was not sexually active, to the doctor who didn't take the side effects of my hormonal birth control very seriously (I no longer take it), to the fact that I am now sexually active and contemplating things like potentially having children, and have no idea to what qualified authority I can bring my many questions, given that they include everything from "given my family's history, how likely am I to have a high risk pregnancy" to "if I get pregnant before I want to be, what are my resources for that situation in this geographic area". Those two questions are so socially dichotomized that I can't imagine asking them of the same physician—I feel as though s/he would be left boggling at me, "Well, do you want to get pregnant or don't you?" because these questions could not possibly both be relevant to the same patient, because no patient could possibly want to make a decision about pregnancy based on information about her health and readiness as well as a desire to have a child.
That ongoing (14 years!) reluctance means I've never had a pap smear, or been evaluated for cervical cancer, or even had a basic patient history completed that could highlight risks associated with my particular reproductive system.
I'm not even entirely sure what the point of a pap smear is. Yeah, the internet is out there, but experience in other areas of my medical life has taught me distrust of even so-called vetted sites. Maybe I'm old-fashioned in that regard, wanting a qualified person to explain to me via some kind of one-on-one interaction about these things, but when I had my gallbladder removed I very much did not appreciate the numerous scare tactics that abounded online. I have no reason to believe questions about reproductive health would be any less polarized.
I am generally speaking pretty good at taking care of the rest of me. I have yearly appointments, I investigate bodily anomalies, and I try to follow the advice of my physicians in good faith. Yet on this issue I have been a very poor caretaker of my body. That does no service to me or to my family.
Living in the US and in particular in Indiana I have no guarantee that when I go to see a doctor about these issues the information I receive will not be influenced by the moral view of either my physician or the state officials who have so kindly legislated both a moral agenda and bad science into medical practice. I am a scientist myself, and as my friends could tell you, nothing rankles me like bad science—when a discipline meant to help and illuminate the world (even if it sometimes falls short of that goal or is misappropriated) is hijacked by non-scientists who are in fact ascientific in their beliefs but have no moral qualms about camouflaging their mission in a trusted vehicle, it is incendiary to me. And it doesn't help me feel reassured that quality healthcare is available to me as a woman despite the privilege of my income and situation.
So this is my Planned Parenthood story: When I get home from work tonight, I am going to schedule an appointment at a local branch, because hearing everyone else's stories convinces me that Planned Parenthood is to be trusted with matters as important as my reproductive health, and that the individual choices I have made and am making, which are appropriate to my individual life, will be extended credibility and respect.
And when I get my next paycheck, I'm going to make a healthy donation as well.
—Lili, Indiana, USA
Read the rest of the My Planned Parenthood Carnival posts here.
My Planned Parenthood: Thank You
by Shaker Sonia
The abortion was a long time ago. It still hurts to think about, for mixed reasons, including prior trauma and not having children afterwards.
Nevertheless, I am deeply grateful for the privilege of not having a baby at the age of 18 with an abusive man. What I remember most clearly about the procedure itself is that I was physically trembling, and a kind nurse (or volunteer?) held my hand comfortingly the whole time.
Thank you, Planned Parenthood.
Read the rest of the My Planned Parenthood Carnival posts here.
My Planned Parenthood: The Radical Notion of Choosing Parenthood
My Planned Parenthood story doesn't involve any particular tales of obtaining contraception, getting a low-cost exam, or having access to a safe, legal abortion.
Instead, I want to talk about how Planned Parenthood improved my life (and, I believe, the lives of my family members), by simply existing, and adhering to its primary mission:
Planned Parenthood believes in the fundamental right of each individual, throughout the world, to manage his or her fertility, regardless of the individual's income, marital status, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, age, national origin, or residence.I was born in 1956. At that time, the phrase "birth control" was younger than I am now, and "The Pill" would not be approved for contraceptive use in the United States for another four years.
During my childhood, the notion that individuals might choose the number of children they engendered was still very controversial in and of itself -- contraceptives were not available to married women in all US States until 1965 (I was age 9), and not available to unmarried women in all States until 1972 (I was 16). Roe v. Wade would not be decided for another year after that.
I've wrestled a bit with how to tell my personal story without invading my parents' privacy -- so I'll make it brief and discrete: After I was born (the fourth of four childen -- an "average" size US family in those days), my parents chose birth control.
I believe that, because of this, I grew up in a family that had better economic viability, a higher level of physical and mental health, and a better quality of life in general.
Without the efforts of Planned Parenthood (and other organizations like it) in educating, offering resources, and advocating for the concept of parenthood as a choice, that may never have happened -- my parents might have never known they had a choice about how many children they were going to have.
It's easy to forget, sometimes, that the idea of "chosen parenthood" is a fairly recent one in my nation -- that easily-obtainable contraception has been available to just two and a half generations, and that safe, medical abortion was legalized less than 40 years ago.
My great-grandmother gave birth to thirteen children. Whether she saw this as a choice or an inevitability, I will probably never know.
I know that I have had the privilege to see child-bearing as a choice, nearly since the time it was a possibility for me, and for that, I thank Planned Parenthood.
Read the rest of the My Planned Parenthood Carnival posts here.
OMGLOLWTF WHUT?!
As those on the left of the political spectrum in the US react with outrage to the report that Obama is willing to treat Social Security and Medicare as bargaining chips with the Republicans, Obama has responded by acknowledging that "there is going to be pain involved politically on all sides" during debt negotiations.
Yep. That was definitely my biggest objection. That it might be politically unwise to dismantle the nation's social safety net.
Blink.
I mean, that is some profoundly clueless shit, right there.
Don't get me wrong. It is politically unwise. But I think most of us are rather more concerned about leaving people to eat dog food until they die in abject poverty without heat or healthcare, than concerned about whether the assholes who refuse to tell the rich and corporations that kicking a little bit more into the kitty is JUST PART OF LIVING IN A DECENT SOCIETY get reelected.
Let them eat bootstraps!
Update on Ms. Burkholder & Yamhill Co.
On Tuesday, I posted about Bridget Burkholder, the incarcerated woman who needs an abortion and was denied transportation due to her pre-trial status by the Sheriff, general inaction by the judge at the time, and the complication of a 14 yr. old county ordinance. They--Judge Collins and Sheriff Crabtree--also weren't convinced she was mentally competent enough to decide to choose to have an abortion.
Late yesterday she was committed to a mental health facility:
On Wednesday, Collins issued a magistrate’s hold ordering the county’s civil commitment investigator, Todd Sprague, to evaluate Burkholder’s mental status. He issued a report, which Collins relied on to order her to a mental health facility. She will leave Thursday morning.In order to obtain a medical procedure--one even the prosecutor acknowledged she has a right to have--her best bet, thanks to the officials past and present in Yamhill Co., is being committed. And that's certainly not a guarantee.
The decision regarding the abortion will be left up to doctors at the new facility.
My Planned Parenthood: Forever Grateful
by Shaker K
[Trigger warning for depression, emotional abuse, and sexual and reproductive coercion.]
When I was 19, I withdrew from college to move back home to Georgia. Due to about a hundred different stressors in my life, I was at that point extremely depressed. Soon after arriving home, I jumped into a relationship—for lack of a better term—with a man who was, in hindsight, extremely emotionally and sexually manipulative.
At the time, I thought I was in love, I was so listless I believed I needed someone to tell me who to be, how to feel, and what to do, and I certainly didn't believe anyone else would love me. I blamed my insecurities and fears on my depression, rather than the relationship, and worse, I treated the depression as a personal failing.
It didn't take long for him to convince me that men just hate to wear condoms, and we could use the pull-out method until I got a steadier job and could afford the birth control I had recently run out of. It also didn't take long for me to become pregnant. He certainly did not want a child, and I didn't either, not least because at that point I had figured out "something is wrong here," even if I didn't have the language then to understand what, exactly, was wrong with the relationship.
I researched what I could, and I decided to pay a visit to the local crisis pregnancy center, located across the street from Planned Parenthood. At the CPC, I filled out a basic introduction sheet, and among the options I was considering, I checked off "abortion." The following two hours were some of the most harrowing of my life.
I was shown pictures of live babies, asked to hold a model of a fetus in my hand, and quoted biblical passages about murder. I was also "counseled" at length by a woman who claimed to have been in my position before, who once wanted an abortion and whose decision to keep the baby instead saved her from her whore behavior (her words, not mine). She then quoted statistics I now know to be false about the links between abortion and breast cancer, later fertility and mortality. She explained to me all the kind, loving Christian families who would love to adopt a baby as beautiful as mine was sure to be, if only I would risk my physical and mental health for nine months to deliver it to them.
I went home afterward and cried for hours; while I hadn't been convinced I was a murderer going straight to hell, the message got through just enough to make me feel utterly horrible about myself and my intentions. The next day, I went to Planned Parenthood anyway.
The people I encountered there were vastly different from the demons I had expected. They were both clinical and kind, and they offered me pamphlets and counseling about everything from abortion to adoption to what I could do if I chose to keep the baby instead. When I insisted on abortion, they respected it without question, confident at this point that I knew my own mind and knew what I needed.
I was quoted a price and scheduled an appointment. I was given free pre-abortion counseling, which told me what to expect and how to prepare, not only the basic mechanics, but emotionally as well. They also warned me (ever so gently) to come in through the back, where there were gates and security set up to keep protesters out.
The boyfriend and I had to borrow money to afford the abortion, even so. There were people we both trusted to keep their mouths shut and who were kind enough to agree that if we had to borrow money just to have an abortion, we certainly couldn't afford prenatal care or an actual child. We both scraped up enough money and in enough time that I was able to get my abortion.
Given the circumstances of the relationship, I insisted that my best friend join me, and she did, with no judgment and plenty of understanding. The PP workers were all kind, from the clinic workers to the doctor himself, and not once did I feel that I was making the worst choice possible. It was treated as something I felt I had to do, and it was respected as such.
Afterward, I received further counseling and a follow-up examination. This counseling helped me out of the emotional funk as well as helped me to get on a birth control I could afford with my limited means. At every point in the process, it was the people at Planned Parenthood who took care of me and encouraged me, judgment-free and always helpful.
Since then, I have had a child, and this one was actively chosen. Planned Parenthood helped me then, too. They again offered me counseling and pointed me in the right direction to find good prenatal care that I could afford.
For several years, I struggled with having had an abortion, but it wasn't the act itself that haunted me. It was the treatment I received at the hands of the CPC. With education and experience, this sadness turned to anger that any woman would be put through the same.
I do not doubt for one moment that the person I was at 19 could not have handled either an adoption or raising a child. I do not doubt that if my current child even existed, hir quality of life would be much poorer, not merely financially, but due to my own emotions. In many ways, Planned Parenthood saved not only my life, but that of the child I chose. I will always, always be grateful to them.
Read the rest of the My Planned Parenthood Carnival posts here.
Quote of the Day
"Planned Parenthood made it possible for me to explore my adult sexuality, while remaining safe and child free."—Tami, in her My Planned Parenthood post.
Also see at Tami's place: Ashley's Story.
My Planned Parenthood: Like a Trusted Friend
I have never used Planned Parenthood.
I've had the privilege of being on my parents' health insurance—provided by the government for whom they worked as public school teachers—as a child and as a dependent college student, and the privilege of jobs which provided me with access to health insurance throughout most of my adult life, and the privilege of being able to access health insurance through my spouse's job now that I am self-employed. My primary care has always been through a general practitioner at a local clinic.
And, although I've been in need of contraception since the age of 18, hormonal birth control doesn't agree with me. I've used barrier methods my entire life.
I've also never needed an abortion.
That's something I've never wanted to say on this blog—that I've never had an abortion. I've never wanted to say it, because it always felt like distancing myself from people who have had abortions (and it was frankly no one else's business either way). But now it's important to acknowledge that truth as part of explaining why Planned Parenthood is so valuable to me: I would have terminated a pregnancy at virtually every point in my life thus far, and I would have gone to Planned Parenthood for the abortion.
Because I have not wanted to be pregnant, but have wanted to have PIV sex, I am fastidious about using birth control. Nonetheless, particularly when I was younger, every period that was even a day late could arouse in me a desperate panic that I was pregnant. It is an exaggeration to say I had Planned Parenthood on speed dial just in case, but not much of one. I knew where my local Planned Parenthood clinic was, I knew how much an abortion cost, and I was never intimate with anyone who might have tried to coerce me into making a different decision.
I was comfortable with my plan, and would not be dissuaded from it—and that comfort and certainty was possible because Planned Parenthood had helped one of my high school acquaintances terminate a pregnancy, and another of my high school acquaintances have a baby, by providing her with low-cost prenatal care. They took good care of women. And I knew, if I ever needed them, they would take good care of me.
I know that still. Of course, their ability to provide healthcare to me, if I should need it, and to millions of other ladies, gents, and gender-rebels across this nation, is contingent upon the people we elect to office understanding—and caring—that Planned Parenthood is an integral part of communities, and that providing abortions is one small part of a network of necessary services, but it is also a crucial part of those services.
And it always will be, as long as there are people who don't want to be pregnant.
That there are women—like me—who don't want to be pregnant, who desperately don't want to be pregnant, at a particular moment in their lives or throughout their entire lives, is anathema to the opponents of Planned Parenthood. They can't abide the thought that there exist women who, even given all the "right" circumstances for parenthood, all the things that are meant to make motherhood irresistibly desirable and eminently doable—a stable partnership, a stable job, a stable income, a stable home, stability security stability security stability security—actively choose something else for our lives.
We are selfish, they say. We are frivolous, they say. We are unnatural. That's what they say.
But, at Planned Parenthood, we are not regarded as selfish, or frivolous, or unnatural. We are women. We are patients. We are making a choice.
I have never used Planned Parenthood, but I choose to support Planned Parenthood—because I know if I ever needed their services, they would support me.
Read the rest of the My Planned Parenthood Carnival posts here.
News of the World to Close
Wow. As a result of the phone-hacking scandal about which I wrote yesterday, Rupert Murdoch's News of the World will close its doors, effective Sunday.
I wish I could feel good about that, but I'm guessing Murdoch will just launch a new brand in its place, guessing (probably quite rightly) that shutting down NotW will feel to most people like sufficient justice for its profound ethical lapses.
I'm also not sure what shutting down the paper means in terms of possible settlements, although I imagine News International might have to absorb that liability. Perhaps someone with more knowledge of British law can address that in comments.
In any case, the unprincipled and possibly criminal actions of the NotW editors who oversaw the phone-hacking now have a lot more victims: Every employee of the paper will now be unemployed, care of their fuckery.
My Planned Parenthood: A Simple Story
by Shaker Elizabeth in Chicago
My Planned Parenthood story is a simple one, but I imagine it is rather common. When I was in college, I had a terrible experience in my student health center on campus where a nurse slut-shamed me during my examination. After I recovered from this incident, I sought out my local Planned Parenthood to get information and to receive birth control pills.
Even though the clinic had a rather cramped and crowded waiting room, both the receptionist and the doctor I worked with treated me with respect. After I reported my income (which was almost nothing), Planned Parenthood gave me my birth control pills for free.
I was a young adult who, without Planned Parenthood, would have not had easy, no-cost access to birth control.
Shaming me would not have stopped me from sleeping with my boyfriend at the time, but it could have prevented me from seeking safe birth control, had I not had access to this organization. I was able to prevent pregnancy, and prevent the need for an abortion, because of Planned Parenthood. And for that, and for everything they do, they will always have my gratitude and support.
Read the rest of the My Planned Parenthood Carnival posts here.
More Kansas News
We all remember what's going in in Kansas, right? The first bit of news is that there are some serious privacy concerns in regards to those new regulations:
One regulation says "all records shall be available at the facility for inspection" by the secretary of health and environment or his staff. Abortion-rights advocates said giving such access allows health department officials to review highly personal information, and they don't trust Republican Gov. Sam Brownback's administration because he is a strong opponent of abortion.Oh really?
"It's totally unjustified and an invasion of patient privacy," said Bonnie Scott Jones, an attorney for the New York-based Center for Reproductive Rights, which is representing two doctors in the federal lawsuit.
The new licensing law declares information in medical records must be kept confidential, and another statute makes it a misdemeanor for health department employees to disclose such data publicly. Department spokeswoman Miranda Myrick noted that federal law also applies.
She added, "When surveyors are inspecting facilities, the medical records do not leave the facilities."
Abortion opponents say access to medical records is necessary if the department is to provide proper oversight.
[...]
"That struck me as a pretty standard provision, that regulatory agencies would have access to records," said Kansas House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lance Kinzer, an Olathe Republican who opposes abortion.
Mary Kay Culp, executive director of Kansans for Life, said the privacy issue is "the only tool" abortion-rights supporters have in trying to prevent scrutiny of providers.
"If health and law enforcement inspectors aren't allowed access to abortion records, how exactly is legal abortion any different from illegal abortion?" she said.
You may or may not recall that earlier this year former Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline faced an ethics hearing. Kline outright said:
[H]e and his subordinates had the right to deceive other state agencies and didn’t have a duty to immediately correct flawed information provided to a trial judge as they started investigating abortion providers.Kline actually has two ethics hearings to face and the next one is scheduled for July 19th.
So, you see, there is great concern regarding Kansas's ability to keep patient information private.
In Kansas, when it comes to oversight of clinics and doctors and hospitals, there are two separate offices that handle it. The Health Dept. oversees hospitals and surgical centers--of which Planned Parenthood is considered. The state Board of Healing Arts, however, oversees the other two clinics (Aid for Women and Center for Women's Health). The Board is also what licenses doctors.
Well, Gov. Sam Brownback just appointed Rick Macias, an attorney who has been affiliated with Operation Rescue to head the Board.
The Board of Healing Arts has been under fire in recent years for moving slowly to deal with bad doctors. At one point, the board ranked 41st nationally in its discipline of doctors.Operation Rescue's president, Troy Newman, said:
A 2006 audit found that the agency was slow to discipline doctors and didn’t investigate many complaints.
The problem came to a head in 2007 when federal authorities accused a Wichita-area doctor of illegally distributing medications. Fifty-six of his patients died of overdoses. Victims and their families had complained to the state board for years about the doctor, but nothing was done until federal charges were filed.
Burkhart [Julie, president Trust Women] questioned whether Macias could regulate doctors when he defended abortion opponents who protested at clinics.
“We are especially concerned about Mr. Macias’ apparent conflict of interest in regulating health care providers when he has been so involved with those charged with blocking and disrupting clinic access and violating the privacy of patients,” she said.
“Elections have consequences. Deal with it. Now, Sam Brownback gets a chance to appoint who he wants to lead these organizations and staff these committees."Fan-fucking-tastic, eh?
My Planned Parenthood: Today's Visit
Posted as Part of the My Planned Parenthood Blog Carnival.
I went to Planned Parenthood today. I went alone.
I am a man. I am gay. I am sexually active. I went to Planned Parenthood for an HIV test.
There is a myth, one promoted by the anti-choicers that Planned Parenthood is some kind of abortion factory, killing babies with tax-payer funds, but, apart from the facts that abortions don't kill babies and the Hyde Amendment already prevents the use of tax-payer funds for abortions, Planned Parenthood offers so much more than abortion services. And Planned Parenthood doesn't only serve women. Services are available to men, too.
I was able to walk in, ask for a HIV test, and within minutes the staff was drawing my blood. Fifteen minutes later, I had the results.
The horrendous cuts to their funding, the anti-choicers' (very successful) attempts to shut down Planned Parenthood affects more than just women. It does more than just stop Planned Parenthood from performing abortions. It also affects gay men like me who need access to STI screening. It affects entire communities.
Read the rest of the My Planned Parenthood Carnival posts here.
[Cross-posted.]
I'm So Glad We Elected a Democrat, Part One Billion and Five
President Obama is pressing congressional leaders to consider a far-reaching debt-reduction plan that would force Democrats to accept major changes to Social Security and Medicare in exchange for Republican support for fresh tax revenue.What the everloving fuck. That was a terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad plan when George W. Bush proposed it, and it's a terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad plan now.
At a meeting with top House and Senate leaders set for Thursday morning, Obama plans to argue that a rare consensus has emerged about the size and scope of the nation's budget problems and that policymakers should seize the moment to take dramatic action.Yes, it would be a real mistake for Democrats to let pass the opportunity to unwind all that socialist claptrap instituted by that loser FDR. Why let the Republicans get all the credit for ruining the country?!
As part of his pitch, Obama is proposing significant reductions in Medicare spending and for the first time is offering to tackle the rising cost of Social Security, according to people in both parties with knowledge of the proposal. The move marks a major shift for the White House and could present a direct challenge to Democratic lawmakers who have vowed to protect health and retirement benefits from the assault on government spending.
"Obviously, there will be some Democrats who don't believe we need to do entitlement reform. But there seems to be some hunger to do something of some significance," said a Democratic official familiar with the administration's thinking. "These moments come along at most once a decade. And it would be a real mistake if we let it pass us by."
For the record, although I sincerely doubt there's any confusion about this outside the White House: All the times I've written some variation on, "I hope Obama is a more successful president than Bush," that did not mean, "I hope he is more successful at DISMANTLING THE SOCIAL SAFETY NET."
My Planned Parenthood: PP Saved My Life
by Shaker Angie
Planned Parenthood quite possibly saved my life.
Like many women, I turned to Planned Parenthood for my regular well-woman check up and birth control when my previous OB-GYN retired. I didn't have the time or interest in doing the research necessary to find a new OB-GYN, so I went to Planned Parenthood because I knew that I could trust the nurse practitioners and doctors there.
During a routine well-woman exam, the nurse practitioner at Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region found abnormal cells on my cervix. Planned Parenthood also provided me with all the follow-up care I needed to make sure that that diagnosis did not progress into cervical cancer. Another nurse practitioner at Planned Parenthood did a colposcopy and cervical biopsy. They also provided the pap tests needed to make sure the cells didn't come back.
Routine. No big deal. This is what they do. They provide the quality, affordable care women, men, and teens need and deserve. I am sure they have provided the exact same care to thousands of other St. Louis women who owe their health to the dedicated, professional staff at Planned Parenthood.
I hate to think how this story might have ended had Planned Parenthood not been in St. Louis. I was young and invincible, I might have put off my well woman exam indefinitely had there not been someone I trusted available. I had insurance; I chose Planned Parenthood because I knew that I would get quality care from them. The well woman exam is a very intimate exam. I would not trust just any doctor or nurse with my reproductive health.
This past February I gave birth to my first child, a daughter. Had the nurse practitioner at Planned Parenthood not found my precancerous cells and protected my cervix from cancer, it might not have been strong enough to support the weight of my growing uterus, fetus, and amniotic fluids. While maintaining the ability to grow and birth a healthy baby is not the only reason I am glad I didn't get cancer, it is definitely one of the big ones.
My story all-too common. HPV, the virus that causes most cervical cancers, is so common that 50% of sexually active Americans have it (accessed: 3 July 2011). Hopefully this statistic will decrease with the widespread availability of the HPV vaccine (which, by the way, is available for all genders at Planned Parenthood).
I want Planned Parenthood to be there for my daughter when she needs them. These state and federal attacks on Planned Parenthood have got to stop. They are really an attack on every man, woman, and teen—both Democrats and Republicans—who needs Planned Parenthood to stay healthy.
Some say that there are other places to go for the care Planned Parenthood provides. I also go to a doctor who works in a community health center for my primary care. She is an excellent doctor, but the wait to see her is often long and the waiting room is always packed. Our safety-net public health system is stretched to its limits.
If Planned Parenthood were gone, their patients wouldn't go somewhere else for care because there is just not the infrastructure available to absorb them.
Read the rest of the My Planned Parenthood Carnival posts here.
My Planned Parenthood Carnival
Today is the My Planned Parenthood Carnival, which I am co-hosting with Tami of What Tami Said. The hub for the carnival, at which links to all the individual posts of people participating is here, and Shakesville will be running My Planned Parenthood Stories all day today, underlining how important Planned Parenthood is and what will be lost if it continues to be defunded across the nation as it has been in Indiana, the state in which Tami and I both reside.
It's not too late to participate! The hub post will be updated throughout the day with new links, and you are still welcome to submit a guest post to run at Shakesville or at What Tami Said. Raise your voice in support of Planned Parenthood.
Please share the carnival links to this post and the hub post far and wide, and tweet about it using the hashtag #MyPP.
And please consider donating to Planned Parenthood Indiana or a Planned Parenthood near you.
Question of the Day
What is your favorite daydream?
Other than my recurring fantasy of winning a Willy Wonka-style contest to inherit and oversee Rip Taylor's confetti empire following an extended apprenticeship with the man himself in his glitter castle, I guess I'd have to say I daydream a lot about having a fenced-in backyard. #boring
Thank You, Mr. President
[Trigger warning for self-harm and sexual violence.]
The Obama administration has made an important policy shift in presidential condolence letters:
Most families who lose a loved one in the war zones receive a letter of condolence from the President of the United States. But there are a few who do not receive this honor. It's long standing policy - going back many years - that troops who commit suicide in war do not get the president's acknowledgment.This is a much more compassionate and fair policy, which acknowledges that the service of someone who ends hir own life is no less valuable than the service of someone whose life is taken by an enemy, especially since, in most cases, it's effectively the war that kills them either way.
...Under a decades-old White House policy, inherited by the Obama administration, military families received letters from the president only if their loved ones died on the battlefield or in accidents in war zones.
Now, the policy is changing. ... We're told the policy affects all military families whose loved ones die in war zones, regardless of how they died.
It's also of particular importance for the families of female soldiers like Pfc. LaVena Johnson, whose deaths are reported as suicides despite the distinct likelihood of their having been killed by fellow soldiers who raped them, and other survivors of soldiers whose deaths are staged as suicides for various reasons.
Photo of the Day
The above photo, which shows part of a 50-mile wide dust storm as it traveled over a Phoenix neighborhood last night, was taken by @JordanDepot and found via the Atlantic, which has a collection of videos and images of the storm. Adam Clark Estes notes dryly (no pun intended):
Now, we have a new reason to compare the Great Recession to the Great Depression: Steinbeck-style dust storms. Tuesday evening, a massive cloud of darkness known as a "habub" overtook Phoenix. The National Weather Service reports that the wall of dust towered 8,000 to 10,000 feet high before it hit the Phoenix valley, and local meteorologists estimated the storm to be about 50 miles wide when it struck the city.Swell.
Environmentalists remind us that the conditions that create dust storms can be linked to climate change and poor farming practices. Today, the Earth is twice as dusty as it was in the 19th-century. At least we have YouTube and Twitpic to document the incredibly terrifying consequences?
Nero tweeted while Rome choked on dust, or whatever.
Quote of the Day
"It's the hope of Servicemembers Legal Defense Network that this favorable ruling will not be challenged by the Defense Department. In fact, this whole matter could have been avoided had we had certification back in the spring. It's time to get on with that important certification, end the DADT confusion for all service members, and put a final end to this misguided policy."—Aubrey Sarvis, Army Veteran and Executive Director of the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision today to order "the U.S. government to immediately cease enforcing the longstanding ban on openly gay members of the military."
In other words, the court ordered the government to stop making excuses, pull its thumb out, get with the fucking program already, and officially end DADT.
This is so the worst thing you're going to read all day.
This WaPo profile [trigger warning for virulent gay hatred and misogyny] of GOP presidential wannabe Michele Bachmann (R-Etchinducing) and her husband, Dr. Marcus Bachmann, Professional Gay-Hater, is one of the most depressing things I've ever read.
They are terrible people with miserable lives who make other people's lives a misery because of their intensely stupid and exhaustively compassionless belief system.
If they weren't such influential assholes, I'd feel sorry for them.
Open Thread on the Obama Townhall
I wasn't going to even post anything about this because ARGH. But then I started watching it and following it on Twitter, where you can ask Obama questions using the hashtag #AskObama, and then I had to post about it because ARGH.
Wednesday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by Shaxco, makers of Deeky's Bacon-Scented Buttplugs.
Recommended Reading:
Matt: Barack Obama's Dangerous Embrace of Economic Fatalism
Eleanor: [TW for war, violence, and sexual assault] War Resisters Inject Truth into Military Recruitment
Resistance: [TW for racism] Embracing Diversity
Andrew: Obama Names Lesbian To West Point Advisory Board
I read these last two pieces back-to-back. Another "interesting" juxtaposition.
Renee: African American Romantic Comedies: Colorism
Melissa: Forbes 2011 List of the Highest Paid Actresses
Leave your links in comments...
Seen
Television Host and Grown Man Ty Pennington playing with toys in
his bathtub while giggling uproariously, in People magazine.
Every conceivable thing about this picture annoys me—which has nothing to do with Ty Pennington himself (although, for the record, I find him insufferably annoying, too). It just invokes so many different horrendo narratives of the Patriarchy: Boys will boys (and men will be boys, too); women are grown-ups but men are children; it's adorable when men are immature/refuse to grow up/are just Big Kids, etc. All of which have dire consequences for women (and lots of men, too), perhaps especially straight/bi women disconnected from advanced feminist ideas who partner with infantile men in an emotionally discordant relationship that our culture incessantly assures them is adorable and fun.
And there's a lot of intersectional and class privilege stuff going on there, too, especially in the context of the larger article, which is all about the custom redesign of his Manhattan condo.
I could spend the next hour deconstructing all this stuff, but it would really just be a long way of saying this picture aggravates the shit out of me.
I don't know to whom it's supposed to appeal, exactly. But it ain't me.
The UK's Phone-Hacking Scandal, and Why You Should Care About It (Plus Teaspooning)
So, as you may—or may not, for reasons that will become evident—have heard, there is an exploding phone hacking scandal in Britain, comprehensive coverage of which by the Guardian can be found here. The broadest gist is that a British tabloid hired a private investigator to hack into the voicemail boxes of famous or otherwise newsworthy people—and, in at least one particularly awful case, the voicemails of a murdered girl were deleted. More on that in a moment.
Although this happened in Britain (and only in Britain so far as we know), it's also an important story for the US and elsewhere, too, because the tabloid at the center of the story is the News of the World, which is owned by the UK subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, the same company that owns Fox in the US.
Shaker Richard Gadsden, who's a UK-based Shaker, put together a great summary of the phone-hacking scandal and its history, which I am publishing with his permission. First, some background:
Mobile phones (cellphones) have voicemail. You can access the voicemail from any other phone by dialing the call centre and putting in the phone number of the mailbox you want and the PIN. Unless the user has positively selected a PIN when they set up the phone, the PIN defaults to 0000 or 1111, depending on the network. Most people only ever call their voicemail from their own phone, and they don't need the PIN to get in from their own phone, so they never find out that the PIN even exists.Fast forward three years, and Andy Coulson, after having become Director of Communications for the Conservative party, is now Director of Communications for the Prime Minister. The story might have died altogether, were it not for the fact that a 2009 Guardian investigation uncovered evidence of police malfeasance.
A Private Investigator, called Glenn Mulcaire, discovered that he could listen to the voicemails left for well-known people by calling into the call centre and putting in the right PIN. (It is believed that a number of other PIs were doing the same for other newspapers, but this has never been proven.)
He started selling the recordings he took of the voicemails to the News of the World, a tabloid newspaper here in the UK, owned by News International (the UK subsidiary of News Corp, which is the Murdoch media empire, including Fox in the US, and Sky here in the UK).
This originally came out in 2006, when it was found that he'd gained access to the voicemails of members of the Royal family; there was a police investigation at the time, Mulcaire and Clive Goodman (royal editor of the NoW at the time) were arrested and served time in prison. The editor at the time, Andy Coulson was sacked.
Back to Richard:
In 2009, the Guardian discovered that the police had ignored evidence collected from Mulcaire that lots of other people had been "phone-hacked", had not informed hundreds of other victims (including senior politicians and journalists at other newspapers). This became a political scandal, especially because [of Andy Coulson's prominent position in the Prime Minister's office]. There was a Select Committee enquiry, and a number of out-of-court settlements between NoW and alleged phone-hacking victims.Again, the story may have effectively died here, as a shady tabloid unethically digging into celebrities' private lives is terrible, but sadly not particularly shocking. And, the wheels of justice seemed to be turning.
One of the reasons that the story continued in 2010 was that [the actress] Sienna Miller refused any out-of-court settlement with a confidentiality clause and insisted on extensive discovery in the courts; the other main reason was that the New York Times investigated it and found more connections between Andy Coulson as (then) editor and the scandal, which resulted in him resigning as Director of Communications on 21 January 2011.
The police have now restarted their investigation - it seems that they deliberately down-played the investigation originally because they have a close relationship with the NI papers that they didn't want to damage - but they started arresting people in bunches (at which point Sienna Miller accepted an out-of-court settlement as it looked like the facts were coming out anyway).
But the phone-hacking was even worse than it originally appeared.
On Monday, the Guardian published a heartbreaking update on the scandal in which it was revealed that the News of the World's private investigator, the aforementioned Glenn Mulcaire, had, in 2002, hacked into the voicemail of a missing 13-year-old girl named Milly Dowler, who had been, it was later discovered, murdered by a man named Levi Bellfield, who was convicted and sentenced to life last month for murdering Milly.
Mulcaire did not stop at merely listening to the messages on Milly's phone, though. From the Guardian's Monday piece:
As her friends and parents called and left messages imploring Milly to get in touch with them, the News of the World was listening and recording their every private word.Truly contemptible, just an absolute abdication of even the merest traces of decency.
But the journalists at the News of the World then encountered a problem. Milly's voicemail box filled up and would accept no more messages. Apparently thirsty for more information from more voicemails, the paper intervened – and deleted the messages that had been left in the first few days after her disappearance. According to one source, this had a devastating effect: when her friends and family called again and discovered that her voicemail had been cleared, they concluded that this must have been done by Milly herself and, therefore, that she must still be alive. But she was not. The interference created false hope and extra agony for those who were misled by it.
The Dowler family then granted an exclusive interview to the News of the World in which they talked about their hope, quite unaware that it had been falsely kindled by the newspaper's own intervention.
Naturally, the deletion of the voicemails not only gave Milly's family false hope; it also interfered with the police investigation.
Back to Richard:
This has now broken the story from the media pages onto the front pages of the newspapers, and much higher up the public consciousness.It's just beyond the beyond. I spent last night reading a ton of coverage of the phone-hacking, and it just left me feeling light-headed with revulsion and what I can only describe as dismay, though the word seems insufficient, at the entitlement, the callousness, the chilling lack of empathy which led to these actions.
In rapid succession, a number of other high-profile victims of crime have been found in the Mulcaire files - the victims of the Soham murders (another pair of young abducted girls) and some of the 7/7 victims too.
And I fear that we have yet seen only the tip of this decidedly grim iceberg.
What we can do in response, however, is lift our teaspoons. Richard notes that advertisers have started pulling their ads from News of the World, and suggests: "One useful teaspoon would be to write to those advertisers and ask them to pull advertising from all News Corp owned media world-wide. Ford, as the first advertiser to pull out of NotW, would be a good one to start with, as they are big sponsors of Sky TV in the UK and of a number of Fox TV properties over there. Hitting the entire Murdoch empire, rather than just one newspaper (which they could just close down and then relaunch under a new name) would achieve far more in driving to some kind of responsible journalism."
For US Shakers, here's a list of Fox News sponsors here, for a start.
And here is a sample letter, which you are free to borrow in whole or in part:
Dear Fox News Advertiser,Please feel welcome and encouraged to leave in comments other ideas for teaspooning and/or additional advertisers in global Murdoch properties for contact.
I am writing to inform you that I will not purchase your products as long as you continue to advertise on Fox News.
As you are certainly aware, Fox News is a property of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, the UK subsidiary of which is deeply embroiled in a phone-hacking scandal in which his employees engaged in profoundly unethical ways, and, in least one case, possibly criminal ways, by interfering with a police investigation of a missing teenage girl. Nonetheless, Murdoch continues to stand behind those employees.
Your advertising dollars are supporting irresponsible, unethical, and dangerous journalism, abroad and very likely at home, too.
I urge you to stop advertising on Fox News immediately.
Sincerely,
[Name]
My thanks to Richard for his valuable contributions to this piece.
Two Facts
1. Someone is still paying Jonah Goldberg to write a garbage column.
2. Jonah Goldberg uses this week's garbage column to write some shambling deposit of tommyrot in which he mendaciously deconstructs an NPR piece about the ubiquity of the phrase, "That's racist!" which the younger set uses as an absurdery to mock racial sensitivity, in order to assert that conservatives are like kids, man: They don't get all sensitive about racial stuff.
Goldberg's right that (many) conservatives are like (many) kids, in the sense that neither one has a particular sensitivity toward covert racism. Thing is, kids have the excuse of youth and inexperience: White kids also have privilege making them insensitive to race; and some kids of color experience something similar to what I did growing up as a girl in a feminist age—the promise of equality that makes social justice seem quaint and antiquated until you run headlong into evidence of the promise unfulfilled.
Conservatives like Goldberg, however, who fancy themselves beyond the tedium of racial sensitivity, do not have the excuse of youth and inexperience. They're just assholes.
Number of the Day
$18.25 Million: The amount of money raised by Mitt Romney for his presidential bid in the last quarter.
While Romney, whose team now has $12.6 million cash left on hand, is in a strong position, the latest numbers were somewhat below expectations. At this point in 2007, Romney had collected $23 million despite being less established as a top tier candidate. But he's essentially competing against himself at this point: none of his rivals are expected to even crack the $10 million barrier.Rep. Michele Bachmann, who has not reported her fundraising numbers yet, has been his closest rival in straw polls, but is not expected to best $18m.
As a result of the several awesome SCOTUS decisions on campaign financing since the last election, 2/3 of Romney's fundraising has come from a single super-PAC, "Restore Our Future, which can collect unlimited corporate donations and raised $12 million this quarter."
So, quite literally, corporations are buying the Republican nomination. And, at this point, they're putting their money on Mitt.
The Reciprocal Property of Granderson
Occasional CNN.com non-contributor LZ Granderson is [TW: corporal punishment] fed up with children's obnoxious, juvenile, and self-centered outbursts, and presumably vice versa.
Question of the Day
From the same day last year: What's your favorite food cooked outside, be it via an imu or lovo or hāngi or clambake or other earth oven, a tandoor, a grill or barbecue pit, a spit, a solar cooker, a kettle boil, a skewer over a campfire, or some other method altogether?
Number of the Day
One: The number of countries in the rest of the developed world who have a lower corporate tax rate than the US. That one is Iceland.
During negotiations regarding raising the nation's debt limit, congressional Republicans have defended tax loopholes for corporations, claiming that America has a high corporate tax rate that is stifling economic growth and job creation. But the Center for Tax Justice (CTJ) has crunched the most recent data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the Office of Management and Budget, and the Census Bureau, and finds that "the U.S. is already one of the least taxed countries [pdf] for corporations in the developed world."Of course.
As a share of GDP, the U.S. had the second lowest tax rate, behind only Iceland. This statistic flips on its head the often-repeated Republican charge that America has the second highest corporate tax rate in the world (which is only true on paper). In 2009, U.S. corporate taxes had fallen to only 1.3 percent of GDP, from 4 percent in 1965.
Conservatives love to point out that other OECD countries have lowered their corporate tax rates in recent years, but they conveniently ignore [pdf] that "these countries have also closed corporate tax loopholes while the U.S. has expanded them."
