Doctor Knows Best?

I certainly trust my doctor. In fact, it would never occur to me that she might withhold treatment from ME because it runs counter to HER beliefs.

My guess is that if George W. feels about the same way: He expects his doctors’ actions are guided by his health, not their ideology. If he gets sick, he surely counts on getting every medically indicated treatment necessary.

Maybe not though. His public actions certainly indicate otherwise. His administration has come out against an American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) policy that requires docs to at least let their patients know about evidence based standards of care, even if they won’t perform specific procedures. Duh.

Not surprisingly, abortion, emergency contraception, and birth control are what Bush is fine with doctors denying their patients. I find that unacceptable, both because women should be able to access those procedures, and because withholding treatment based on counter-factual ideology sets a scary precedent.

Friday Diversions

Call Me Lazy. No really, please do. It’s Friday. The work day is over. I’ll do what I damn well please, even if it means sticking a lot of hyperlinks on a page and calling it a post.

As usual, fake news, cuts right to the heart of things. Check out The Onion’s take on a Portland, ME school board’s decision to make birth control available to students through a health clinic on the school grounds. For those of you who missed the back story read all about it on RH reality check, then let me know how you avoided the story. Did you wear ear plugs and a blindfold 24 hours a day for the past two weeks? Run for cover each time someone flipped to Fox News?

Also, thanks to 802 online for pointing out the Which Dyke to Watch Out For (DTWOF) are you quiz. I had lots more fun at work because of it. Take a gander at it yourselves. You don’t have to be a ‘mo for it to be fun, but being a DTWOF reader prolly helps. Oh, and I’m most like Mo. Was there ever any question?

Hang onto your Uteruses, Ladies

Or is it uteri?
A district judge in Illinois blocked the opening of the Aurora Planned Parenthood facility. Read all about it at Feministing, 'cuz I have to go to work. Here is my initial thought though, when it comes to womens health, Americans, judges included, feel increasingly free to act based on their own discomfort, not based on legal precedent or what's good for public health. Shameful & Scary.

Timeless Humor, Unfortunately

From the Onion, October 4, 2000:

Interviewer- Last week, the FDA approved the controversial French abortion pill RU-486, permitting non-surgical abortions in the U.S. for the first time . . . . What do you think?

Patrick Klennert, TV Repairman: "Now, hold on there. Isn't there a line in The Bible specifically prohibiting safe, non-invasive, affordable medical procedures for women?"

The piece has stuck in my mind since I first read it, in the summer of 2001. Rereading it, I chuckle because it is a fake interview, in a spoof newspaper. The realness of it stings. As I think about it, my laughter begins to come from a place of cynicism, nervousness, and then fades out.

The anti-choice cause du jour is trying to deny women in Aurora, Illinois health care access by blocking the opening of a Planned Parenthood health center there. These folks aren’t just opposed to abortion, they are also opposed to the preventative care (including birth control) the center offers.

Why? I don’t care to speculate. Following their unreasonable reasoning is a distraction from the issue at hand: extremist protestors, with ties to violent individuals, are trying to block the opening of a clinic, not on any reasonable legal grounds, but because they are opposed to women having sex without giving birth nine months later.

For those of you who’ve missed my subtle cues, I take this personally. As my current favorite Supreme pointed out last April, in order to achieve equality, a woman must be able to control if and when she has kids. Amen. Furthermore, at their core, anti-birth control arguments rest on a belief that enjoying non procreative sex is immoral. As you might guess, this dyke disagrees.

Counter the protestors by clicking here to display a ribbon in support of the clinic. If you are more ambitiously pro-choice speak up in your community, write a letter to the editor, donate to a clinic. Do something for the care and feeding of our rights. Right now they sure need it.

Maybe He is Newsworthy After All

What does one have to do to get arrested for disorderly conduct? In the case of Larry Craig, tapping his foot in the wrong restroom stall sufficed. Basically the guy was arrested for flirting, albeit in a bizarre way, and with a police officer. Hard as it is to side with a man of Craig’s voting record, it irks me that what he did is criminal. Ellen Goodman wrote a great column on this.

At times like these, being a lawyer sure would come in handy. For starters, how does the law define disorderly conduct. Next, why is flirting, or foot tapping disorderly? Findlaw.com states disorderly conduct is a “catch-all crime” used “to keep the peace when a person is behaving in a disruptive manner, but presents no serious public danger.”A peek at Minnesota’s statute is helpful. In MN being “disorderly” can get you arrested if you are “brawling,” disrupting “lawful assembly” or if you are “offensive, obscene, abusive or boisterous.” Craig wasn’t fighting, or interfering with lawful assembly, so his arrest must have been based on the last category, which is pretty subjective. I am not reassured that offending a policeman is arrest worthy, and would like to understand why this does not conflict with the First Amendment. Any scholars out there want to weigh in?

Some odd-balls of the right wing variety think Craig was charged because he’s conservative. You know, its part of the liberal media/ liberal courts conspiracy to pervert America’s soul, or some such drivel. That analysis ignores the fact that anti-gay conservatives benefit from this debacle. Craig’s arrest enforces the notion that acting gay is perverse and, quite literally, criminal. Also, the GOP gets to appeal to their conservative base, the Christian right especially, by publicly purging Craig for actions the base finds morally repugnant. In this way, the situation benefits the Cheney types more than the Clinton types, and all at the expense of Joe Gay.

Two Things I Know for Sure

1) Lately the GOP has perpetuated a culture of shame around sex*. A growing faction of the party paints premarital sex as destructive, single parents as irresponsible, women who have abortions as evil, ditto women who take birth control. Of course, in their eyes, gays make the short list of threats to family values too. I’m guessing it’s ‘cause we have non-heterosexual sex, outside of wedlock, how shameful**.

2) Larry Craig’s exposed genitals have been getting more, er, coverage than they deserve. It is important for Americans to know when our leaders don’t hold themselves to standards to which they would hold others. Also there is perverse pleasure in watching the hypocrisy of moral majority types unfold. Even so, does this minor story really need to fill a news cycle? If it must, can we make things more exciting by filling in details. Exactly what is lewd & lascivious conduct anyway? But really, Craig’s marital infidelity is worth way less airtime than actual news like, say, the attorney general’s resignation, the war in Iraq, mismanagement of Katrina clean up funds.

Ps. Craig, thanks for clarifying that you're not gay. The (alleged) cruising had me confused. I’m glad to know you aren’t, ‘cause you sure are creepy.

*Okay, they’ve been doing it as long as I’ve been alive. Wait, Wait, not doing “IT,” mind you, it’s only okay to “do IT” for procreative purposes. Unless you are a powerful (preferably white) man who acts like sex is immoral. Then, “doing IT” for pleasure is okay.

**All the flap around gay marriage does suggest that queer sex inside of wedlock would be just as threatening to them. Go figure.

Sometimes the Left Side of the Aisle is Right-on:

The GOP’s assault on Women’s rights, civil liberties, the environment, etc got you down? As Rep Henry Waxman pointed out last week, don’t take it personally “Bush has also declared war on the Enlightenment.”

A Great Start to the Week

My dad always says don’t buy fish on a Monday because odds are low it will be fresh. I can be slow to admit when the guy is right. It’s true though, buying sushi yesterday, in a sketchy restaurant, hours from any body of water hospitable to tuna no less, was not a recipe for gastrointestinal bliss. Ugh.

(caution, not-so original rant ahead).

Speaking of things that make me nauseous, Bush, for the zillionth time, played the fear card, saying we need to follow his Iraq policy “for the sake of our children & grandchildren.” Whenever he invokes the future, or family, I reach for the barf bag. W, buddy, global warming will harm future generations, so will your limits on stem cell research, erosion of women’s reproductive health options, &, more broadly, lack of attention to the health care crisis. The only thing staler than this war is W’s smug bullshit.

Gonzales v Carhart

Gonzales v Carhartt

The so called partial birth abortion ban doesn’t intend to protect women or fetuses. It isn’t only an effort to end post-viability abortion, it isn’t an effort to “draw a bright line between abortion & infanticide,” as congressmen so smugly claim, nor is it based on medical/public health concerns. It doesn’t even make much sense.

The ban seriously jeopardizes women’s health. We can no longer take for granted the right to make reproductive decisions based on medical knowledge and individual needs. Period. Don’t just notice this in passing. Read Justice Ginsburg’s dissenting opinion (starts on pg 54). Read the majority opinion. Read the law it upholds.

I am angry. Yesterday, when the news broke, I was seeing too much red to see the keyboard. For now the most constructive thing I can say is read the dissenting opinion. Justice Ginsburg gets to the heart of the matter: the federal abortion ban “and the court’s defense of it, cannot be understood as anything other than an effort to chip away at” women’s right to an abortion, “a right declared again and again by this Court—and with increasing comprehension of its centrality to women’s lives”