Here's this week's reproductive rights news brought to you by the women of Our Word (and at least one of the guys!). If you see something you find relevant please email it to me, bayprairie at gmail dot com

Our award this week for worst medical legislator in a lab coat© goes to wild-eyed Mike Foley of Nebraska. Mike is a danger to women.

Foley: "Pro-life" beliefs are driving efforts

After two days of tiptoeing around the issue, Sen. Mike Foley acknowledged Thursday that his "pro-life" beliefs and his disgust with Planned Parenthood are driving his efforts to redistribute funding for women’s health services.

“I am "pro-life" to the core, with no apologies,� said Foley, who said he is working to make sure Planned Parenthood doesn’t get state funding.

“They are to abortion what McDonald is to cheeseburgers,� the Lincoln senator said. “They do more than anyone else.

“And that’s what this is about.�

::::more below the fold::::also posted at Our Word::::

:::snip:::

Foley’s announcement on the floor of the Legislature came after a letter he sent to some supporters last week became public.

In the letter, Foley said his budget amendment would “at least begin to cut into the disbursement of our tax dollars to Planned Parenthood.�

And he asked people to pray that the amendment would prevail.

The issue goes beyond limiting funding to Planned Parenthood, Foley also acknowledged Thursday. He said he also doesn’t want state tax dollars going to other family planning clinics that offer abortion referral and information, even if they don’t provide abortions.

Access to family planning services is a basic human right in a first world nation. I guess elements in Nebraska strive for third-world status. Yet even the poorest governments in the world realize the value of, and strive to fund, family planning services to improve the quality of life for the nation as a whole. I guess nebraska might not make that cut. It seems to me that in addition to his "pro-life" patriarchal-dominionist beliefs, Mike Foley also believes good government involves violating human rights. He seems to be one of the conservative extremists. Lets look further at the issue.

A number of senators were incensed by what they called Foley’s duplicity: his insistence this week that his primary concern was to broaden the number of clinics that could get the money and provide better distribution of services across the state.

Honesty and integrity is all that senators really have with each other, Sen. Don Pederson of North Platte said during two hours of debate on the issue Thursday.

“I believe we were deliberately deceived,� he said.

“I’m disappointed,� said Lincoln Sen. DiAnna Schimek. “I don’t think from the comments that one could extrapolate that he was trying to destroy funding for the services already there,� she said.

“I’m afraid I was deceived, and I feel betrayed,� said Sen. Joel Johnson of Kearney, who quoted from the Bible, “Thou shalt not bear false witness.� And he repeated the common saying, “Fool me once, it’s your fault. Fool me twice, it’s mine.�

“There won’t be a second time,� Johnson said.

Well lets hope that what Senator Johnson says is true. Of course, in a perfect world there wouldn't even be a first time.

____________

There have been two more deaths reported that involve clostridium infections in women who had recently used Mifeprex in conjunction with misoprostol to abort a pregnancy.

2 more women die using abortion pill

WASHINGTON — Two more women have died after using the abortion pill RU-486, federal health regulators said today, in warning doctors to watch for a rare but deadly infection implicated in earlier deaths.

At least seven U.S. women have died after taking the pill, sold since 2000. The Food and Drug Administration cannot prove the drug was to blame in any of the cases.

In a cluster of four cases in California, the women died from an infection of the bloodstream, or sepsis. Those women did not follow FDA-approved instructions for the pill-triggered abortion, which requires swallowing three tablets of one drug, followed by two of another two days later.

Instead of swallowing the final two tablets, the second course of pills was inserted vaginally in the four women, a so-called "off-label" use of the drug that studies show works and is widely recommended by abortion clinics but does not have federal approval.

The FDA has not confirmed the cause of the latest two deaths. But the symptoms appear to match those seen in the California cases, an FDA spokeswoman said. However, it was not immediately known if the second course of pills had been inserted vaginally in the two women, she added. The spokeswoman declined to be identified, saying she could not speak publicly about the issue.

Meanwhile, Planned Parenthood Federation of America Inc. said in a statement that it will immediately stop recommending vaginal insertion of the final two tablets. Planned Parenthood estimates RU-486 has been used 560,000 times in the U.S. since it was approved.

This brings the total to six unexplained deaths. The story mentions seven, but the seventh death was due to an undiagnosed ectopic pregnancy (a twin that went undetected). Death is always the natural outcome of an undiagnosed ectopic pregnancy, which will almost invariably rupture a Fallopian tube and cause massive internal bleeding. The fact that the patient in question had taken Mifeprex has no bearing on the seventh death whatsoever. The woman had no clostridium infection.

____________

Here's another pharmacist's "refusal-to-fill" story from the state of Washington.

State panel takes up prescription debate

SEATTLE (AP) -- The Washington State Board of Pharmacy is considering a proposal that would allow pharmacists to refuse to fill prescriptions like emergency contraception on moral, religious or ethical grounds.

Backers like Rod Shafer, executive director of the Washington State Pharmacy Association, argue that pharmacists should have the right to decline work that conflicts with their beliefs as long as they respect the patient.

"We are not dispensing machines," Shafer said. "We are professionals who have as many rights as anybody else."

Abortion-rights advocates counter that pharmacists are bound by state laws to dispense prescribed medications regardless of their personal convictions. The only legal alternative would be if another pharmacist at the same facility could take over, said Nancy Sapiro, with the Northwest Women's Law Center.

"We don't believe saying 'Sorry, we won't dispense that here. Go somewhere else,' is an adequate response," Sapiro said. She added that asking patients to find another pharmacy is especially problematic in rural areas where options are limited.

:::snip:::

No formal complaints have been filed with Washington's pharmacy board, though Planned Parenthood has received reports from women around the state who say pharmacists have refused to fill their prescriptions, said Amy Luftig, a lobbyist for the organization.

Emergency contraception is not the only medication pharmacists are withholding, Luftig said.

In May, she said one pharmacist at a Seattle hospital refused to fill a woman's prescription for antibiotics because it came from a facility that provides abortions. The pharmacist cited religious objections.

And here's a brief editorial opinion on this issue from the Seattle Post-intelligencer editorial board.

'Plan B': Meds vs. morality

The Washington State Board of Pharmacy is considering a policy to outline if and when pharmacists could refuse to fill prescriptions due to their personal moral, religious or ethical objections. Here's our suggestion: never.

:::snip:::

"We are not dispensing machines," sniffed Rod Shafer, executive director of the Washington State Pharmacy Association. "We are professionals who have as many rights as anybody else."

But you don't have the right to deny fundamental rights to others, particularly customers.

As with creationism and its alias, intelligent design, this is an errant attempt to confuse -- and confound -- science with faith.

Pharmacists are free, on the basis of their personal religious faith, to not dispense this or any other medication to themselves, but not to use that basis to judge the difficult decisions others might make.

Very well said.

____________

And in news from Missouri, the Republican party is showing their hand again. We've always known that the Republican party no longer supports a woman's right to choose. In Missouri they're even more extremist than that, the Republicans in the state are against contraception entirely! Here's the story.

House rejects spending for birth control

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. - An attempt to resume state spending on birth control got shot down Wednesday by House members who argued it would have amounted to an endorsement of promiscuous lifestyles.

Missouri stopped providing money for family planning and certain women's health services when Republicans gained control of both chambers of the Legislature in 2003.

But a Democratic lawmaker, in a little-noticed committee amendment, had successfully inserted language into the proposed budget for the fiscal year starting July 1 that would have allowed part of the $9.2 million intended for "core public health functions" to go to contraception provided through public health clinics.

The House voted 96-59 to delete the funding for contraception and infertility treatments after Rep. Susan Phillips told lawmakers that anti-abortion groups such as Missouri Right to Life were opposed to the spending.

"If you hand out contraception to single women, we're saying promiscuity is OK as a state, and I am not in support of that," Phillips, R-Kansas City, said in an interview.

That's pretty outrageous, don't you feel? Elements of the Republican party are assuming the role of wild-eyed morality arbiters in Missouri. Is that really a role that we as a nation want to assign to legislators? This is a policy aimed at punishing poor women for moralistic reasons and it's based on racism too, make no mistake about that.

Here are some thoughts on this issue expressed in a Missouri-focused blog, Fired up! Missouri.

House GOP Bans County Health Clinics From Providing Birth Control

So the GOP has finally come clean that they are opposed to contraception. They used to argue that they opposed family planning because Planned Parenthood played a role. But now the GOP has targeted family planning provided by the county health clinics. Their action is a direct attack on women's access to traditional family planning services.

The amendment, offered by Rep. Susan Phillips (R-Kansas City) removed "voluntary choice of contraception, including natural family planning" as one of the permissible services that county health clinics could provide with state funding.

Denial of family planning to poor women by the state is a denial of basic human rights. My heart goes out to the women who suffer from these abusive actions.

____________

Here's an interesting article that ran this week in the New York Times on an evolutionary biologist's puzzlement about pregnancy and a theory he's developed.

Silent Struggle: A New Theory of Pregnancy

As a biologist fresh out of graduate school in the late 1980's, Dr. Haig decided to look at pregnancy from an evolutionary point of view. As his guide, he used the work of Robert Trivers, an evolutionary biologist at Rutgers University.

In the 1970's, Dr. Trivers argued that families create an evolutionary conflict. Natural selection should favor parents who can successfully raise the most offspring. For that strategy to work, they can't put too many resources into any one child. But the child's chances for reproductive success will increase as its care and feeding increase. Theoretically, Dr. Trivers argued, natural selection could favor genes that help children get more resources from their parents than the parents want to give.

As Dr. Haig considered the case of pregnancy, it seemed like the perfect arena for this sort of conflict. A child develops in intimate contact with its mother. Its development in the womb is crucial to its long-term health. So it was plausible that nature would favor genes that allowed fetuses to draw more resources from their mothers.

____________

Here's our South Dakota news roundup. I bet all of you have been waiting for that (not).

Abortion-ban opponents weigh options

A leading opponent of South Dakota's ban on abortion said Thursday she expects to decide within 10 days whether to galvanize residents for a statewide vote.

As opponents and supporters of South Dakota's ban on abortion swarmed downtown Sioux Falls on Thursday waving banners and shouting slogans, state Planned Parenthood director Kate Looby said she wants to make a decision by March 20 whether to challenge the law that bans most abortions.

The noon rally, which drew more than 300 people to the federal courthouse on Phillips Avenue, is the latest flare-up in a battle that shows no signs of cooling. It was one of 50 gatherings organized by Planned Parenthood nationwide.

But the rallies in Sioux Falls and Rapid City held special significance because of the state's abortion ban, which has focused the nation's attention on South Dakota since it was signed into law Monday by Gov. Mike Rounds. The law is seen as a direct challenge to Roe vs. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court case in 1973 that made abortion legal nationwide.

To put the issue on the ballot in November's general election, abortion-rights supporters would have 90 days to collect 16,728 signatures of registered voters. If successful, the law wouldn't go into effect until after voters have their say on the issue.

A decision to challenge the law with a statewide vote would be weighed by several factors, Looby said, including the amount of support such an effort would receive both nationally and statewide.

"It has to come from a groundswell of support from South Dakota," she said.

Here's a story from South Dakota that's potentially bad news for conservative extremists. I pray that it is so.

Abortion Ban Fuels Candidate Recruitment

A Sioux Falls political consultant says legislative candidates are coming forward as a result of the Legislature's abortion ban.

Steve Hildebrand, organizer of the group Common Sense South Dakota, says the goal is to challenge incumbents whom the group considers conservative extremists.

Mr. Hildebrand, bless his heart, is talking about conservative extremists such as Rep. Roger Hunt, R-Brandon, the lead sponsor on South Dakota's infamous HB1215.

New faces, anti-Roe philosophy leads to strict abortion law

Hunt said he and others who supported HB1215 are pushing for a greater degree of responsibility in "protecting the unborn." Hunt rejects the notion that HB1215 or its supporters represent a conservative extreme. Protecting is an American ideal, he said.

"I don't think it's a moral extreme to talk of saving life," Hunt said. "We go to war over the annihilation of whole groups of people. It's something that the United States has always had as a priority."

Well I disagree with Mr. Hunt. Criminalizing abortions won't stop them. All criminalizing abortion does is turns the forced-birth state of South Dakota into a violator of basic human rights. Anyway, I include the link to Mr Hunt's comment not so much because I'm in awe of his wild-eyed opinions (hint: I'm not) but because the article that's hyperlinked has a good overview of the history of anti-choice legislation in S.D. over the past several decades. It also includes the roll call votes of the House and Senate in passage of the bill that some might find useful. Here's why, I can't help but notice the tallies on the HB1215 bill.

House of Representatives
Yes - 47
No - 22

In the House there were six Democratic party members voting to support the abusive bill. Nine Republicans had the good sense to cross over to the "no" side, voting with the remaining Democratic party's 13 "no" votes. This means approx. 32 percent of the Democratic house membership in South Dakota supports this egregious violations of women's reproductive rights.

Those Democratic House forced-birthers are: David Gassman, D-Canova; Margaret Gillespie, D-Hudson; Mary Glenski, D-Sioux Falls; Michael Kroger, D-Dell Rapids; Gerald Lange, D-Madison; Kathy Miles, D-Sioux Falls;

Senate
Yes - 23
No - 12

In the Senate there were also 6 Democratic party members who crossed over and voted to support the abusive bill. 8 Republicans supported women with a no vote. If none of the Democratic party members had voted against women's reproductive rights the vote would have been failed in the Senate with 17 votes for - 18 votes against. Only four Democratic Senators voted "no" on this bill, 60% of the Senate Democrats in South Dakota are anti-choice.

The Democratic Senate women's rights haters are: Julie Bartling, D-Burke; Frank Kloucek, D-Scotland; Gil Koetzle, D-Sioux Falls; Garry Moore, D-Yankton; Jim Peterson, D-Revillo; Dan Sutton, D-Flandreau.

Women in this country can't trust either party. You had better be doing your research before you vote and I suggest women never choose a candidate based on the idea that party membership indicates support for your rights. It no longer does. Witness the facts above in which a majority of the Democratic party in the South Dakota Senate voted to terminate women's reproductive rights.

In other South Dakota news we have a poll with some interesting results.

Focus: South Dakota Poll On Abortion

The bill that makes most abortions in South Dakota illegal is too extreme for most South Dakotans. According to a recent poll, it goes against their own personal beliefs.

The poll was paid for by Focus: South Dakota, a local group that plans on circulating petitions to put the issue on the November ballot.

Robinson and Muenster Associates conducted the poll. It interviewed 630 voters from across South Dakota last week. The political affiliation of participants is similar to the state's political party makeup.

Of those polled, 71% to 17% would like to see the bill referred to the ballot in November.

When asked how they would vote on it, 35% said they would keep the ban in place, while 57% would vote to overturn it because it does not include exceptions for rape and incest, while 9% were undecided.

The results are consistent when asked specifically about their position on abortion. 62% said the bill conflicts with what they believe, but 32.9% agree with it.

____________

This past week the Center for Reproductive Rights testified before the United Nations Human Rights Committee on U.S. Government failure to protect women's reproductive rights. These rights are covered in a treaty defending civil and political rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). The Center is a US-based organization that uses the law to advance reproductive freedom as a fundamental right that all governments are legally obligated to protect, respect and fulfill.

Here's some background on the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) from the United Nations Population Fund

In recent decades, most nations have come to recognize and accept the right of their citizens to reproductive health. Accordingly, they have signed treaties and accords, and endorsed the programmes of conferences on population and development.

The importance of this, of course, is that there is now an international standard that practice can be measured against–a standard that draws on the best principles of all societies, and can protect individuals from local injustices and discrimination. There are now several legal instruments recognized by the world community that support and demand the protection of the right to reproductive and sexual health.

The right to reproductive and sexual health is not really new. It is a necessary component of long-established and internationally recognized human rights: to life and survival, liberty and personal security, equal treatment, education, development, and the highest attainable standard of health. Nor is it a specifically "Western" idea. In every culture, the health and security of the individual are recognized as important to both the individual and the community.

In 1945, the United Nations Charter was drawn up in the aftermath of World War II. There, at the beginning, the nations declared that one purpose of their new assembly would be to "achieve international cooperation in . . . promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion."

Just three years later, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights set a "common standard of achievement for all peoples and nations" for ensuring fundamental political, social, economic, and cultural rights and freedoms. Declaring that these rights were the foundation of freedom, justice, and peace in the world, the document also reaffirmed the UN Charter’s "faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, and in the equal rights of men and women."

Over the years, the process of refining and reinforcing these basic international agreements has continued. In the 1970s, the international community agreed to two additional treaty covenants: the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (the "Political Covenant"), and the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (the "Economic Rights Covenant").

What are your Reproductive and Sexual rights then, and what do they entail?

• The right to survival/right to life: abrogated by maternal mortality.
• The right to liberty and security of the person: abrogated by female genital mutilation, compulsory sterilization, and the criminalization of contraception, among others.
• The right to the highest attainable standard of health.
• The right to family planning.
• The right to marry and found a family.
• The right to a private and family life: abrogated by state or community interference in the decision of whether or when to have children.
• The right to the benefits of scientific progress: including quality contraception.
• The right to receive and impart information, and to freedom of thought.
• The right of women to education.
• The right to non-discrimination on the basis of sex.
• The right to non-discrimination on the basis of age: abrogated when young people are denied information and confidentiality about reproductive health services.

Here's information about the testimony

U.S. Women Face Unprecedented Assault on Reproductive Rights, Center for Reproductive Rights Testifies Before Human Rights Committee

"We are once again at a crossroads in this country. Reproductive rights are under unprecedented attack from both Houses of Congress, from the Executive Branch, and from many state governments," Priscilla Smith, Director of the Domestic Legal Program at the Center for Reproductive Rights told the Committee. "Access to reproductive health care is limited to certain racial groups and socioeconomic classes. Many laws force women to carry pregnancies to term or increase the risk to women’s health. And the last six years have been characterized by a federal campaign to distort and suppress accurate information about reproductive health care."

Despite high income levels in the U.S. and the fact that contraception and abortion are largely legal, women in this country face substantial and intrusive limits on access to both. These restrictions violate numerous provisions in the ICCPR which the U.S. has signed and ratified.

In the testimony before the Human Rights Commission Priscilla Smith, the Director of the Domestic Legal Program at the Center) highlighted three areas that should be of concern to the committee.

• Disregard for women’s right to health.
• Increased restrictions on women’s access to contraception.
• Distortion and Suppression of accurate information.

The testimonies (there was other testimony on a variety of human rights issues) are an opening phase to the committee’s formal review of U.S. compliance with the ICCPR this July in Geneva.

Here are some quotes of from the testimony. You can read the full text of attorney Priscilla Smith's remarks here :::warning PDF hyperlink:::

This is a particularly important time for the Committee to be examining U.S. compliance, or the lack thereof, with its obligations under the ICCPR, and for these issues to receive international attention. We are once again at a crossroads in this country. Reproductive rights, especially the right to abortion, are under attack from both Houses of Congress, from the Executive Branch, and from many state governments as well. While the world is moving forward, this country is being dragged into the past, on this issue as on so many others.

Today, I would like to draw the Committee’s attention to two issues that are particularly disturbing: inadequate access to all forms of reproductive health care and a campaign by the federal government to distort and suppress accurate information about reproductive health care and to promote gender stereotyping through abstinence-only sex education programs.

:::snip:::

In this country, however, non-whites are disproportionately likely to be uninsured and therefore are much more likely to have their access to reproductive health care impeded either by lack of insurance or by government imposed restrictions on coverage. As a result, non-white women experience worse outcomes than white women on virtually every measure of reproductive health care. Perhaps most shocking, African-Americans are four times more likely to die in childbirth than white women. That means that while only 6 out of 100,000 white women who give birth die in childbirth, almost 25 out of 100,000 African-Americans do.

With respect to abortion, rather than promoting efforts to prevent unwanted pregnancy and to preserve the health of women who do seek abortion, this country is moving backwards. Given the recent changes in the composition of our Supreme Court, some states have been racing to be the first in line to enact outright bans on abortion that they hope will strike at the protections of Roe v. Wade itself. South Dakota, as you may have heard, has won that race, enacting a law that prohibits abortion even where pregnancy results from rape and incest, a law that even some anti-abortion extremists describe as "extreme."

...The Food and Drug Administration of the United States has refused to make Emergency Contraception (sometimes known as the "morning after pill") available over-the-counter, despite the strong recommendations of its own scientists’ to approve over the counter status and even though EC would prevent as many as half of the unintended pregnancies that occur in this country each year.

Of course, these impositions on the right to health care target reproductive health care for women only. There have been no similar efforts to restrict reproductive health care for men.

:::snip:::

...This Committee has valiantly reminded states to ensure “that traditional, historical, religious or cultural attitudes are not used to justify violations of women's right to equality before the law and to equal enjoyment of all Covenant rights,� and has expressed concern where insufficient steps have been taken to counter the belief that a woman’s “primary role is as wife and mother.� Despite this though, the United States Government actively supports abstinence-only sex education programs that teach students that birth control is dangerous and ineffective and that, therefore, young people should not use it. These programs teach that condoms do not work and, even worse, that they are porous and therefore HIV and other STI pathogens can pass through them. As a result, young people who have taken these programs are more likely to have unprotected sex and rates of STI infection and transmission are increased.

These programs also promote blatant gender stereotypes such as that women marry to obtain “financial support� from men, while men marry to obtain “domestic support� from women; that men and boys are and should be career-oriented and uninterested in relationship or family, while women are and should be family- and relationship-oriented and uninterested in academic or professional achievement. As Human Rights Watch has reported, the US exports these harmful programs to countries receiving its financial assistance, such as Uganda, with a high prevalence of HIV. Also, outside the constraints of US constitutional tradition, gender stereotyping is more blatant: USAID-funded programs promote premarital chastity and marital fidelity for women, but not for men.

Finally, the Global Gag Rule, also known as the “Mexico City Policy,� is another example of US hypocrisy. The gag rule forbids any recipient of USAID funding from providing information about or referrals for abortion, or from advocating that abortion be safe and legal. A restriction on expression that would be unconstitutional if applied here in the US is imposed on NGOs in aid-recipient countries. The implementation of the gag rule has been linked to increased transmission of STIs, including HIV, and the deaths of women undergoing illegal abortions in recipient countries.

United States citizens should be concerned with our country's status as a violator of basic human rights. It appears that sometime after July such a determination may be made.

____________

Pennsylvania news.

Abortion divisive issue for Casey

WASHINGTON -- Pennsylvania Treasurer Bob Casey's name is recognized in many circles because his late father stood up to the Democratic Party in opposition to abortion. Now, that name is again causing trouble within the party as the younger Casey campaigns for U.S. Senate.

Abortion-rights advocate Kate Michelman drew attention to the simmering unhappiness with Casey among some in the abortion-rights wing of the party by mulling a run as an independent, though she ultimately decided against it.

Michelman, a Pennsylvanian who is the former president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, had the potential to be Casey's strongest opponent among Democratic voters -- and a wedge Democratic leaders wanted to avoid in their attempt to unseat Sen. Rick Santorum, the No. 3 Senate Republican.

Michelman said there is angst in her camp over Casey's endorsement of Judge Samuel Alito's appointment to the Supreme Court, and party leaders promised that Casey, if elected, would not vote to confirm justices opposed to abortion. She said angst was worsened after South Dakota outlawed abortion in most cases.

"He's a perfectly fine person, but not someone we can trust to defend our rights, not at all," Michelman said prior to announcing she would not run. "If that upsets the political establishment, so be it."

Citing obligations to her family, Michelman said Sunday in a op-ed piece in The Philadelphia Inquirer that she would not run. She said Pennsylvania would be better served with Casey in office rather than Santorum.

:::snip:::

Casey is expected to handily defeat Democratic opponents Chuck Pennacchio and Alan Sandals in the May Democratic primary.

Even if Michelman had run, Joanne Messenlehner, 67, a Democratic state committee member from Northhampton County, said Casey would still likely win the race because there's so much enthusiasm behind him.

She recalled attending a Democratic committee women's caucus meeting in which a woman who suggested they support an abortion-rights candidate as a form of protest was booed.

"We know we can beat Rick Santorum with Bob Casey," Messenlehner said.

I hate to say this and I'll probably get some flack for doing so. I hope Casey loses. All we need is an empowered anti-choice element in the Democratic party, as if we don't already have one. I mean look at how the democratic party sealed the victory for the abusive South Dakota bill. They made it happen!!!!! Democrats passed that bill in the Senate!

If I were a resident in PA i'd support Pennacchio or Sandals in the primary and then when election day came, if my only two choices were Casey and Santorum, I'd choose none of the above. I will not support a candidate who is actively anti-choice.

EVER.

And up until this most recent primary I've always voted straight-ticket.

NO MORE. What the democratic party doesn't realize is I've lived with Tom Delay as my representative for half my life now. Santorum isn't any worse. Life goes on. People survive. It's maybe a little more important to teach a lesson in some cases, than it is to accept a lesser evil. An Evil is an Evil is an Evil, as Getrude Stein might say.

Screw you, Bob Casey, Jr.

____________

In this week's pot-meet-kettle moment© we have this story from one of the fundie-extremist sites, LifeSite. Gee, I really hate to put in a hyperlink to the opposition, you know? Anywho...

Name and Shame: Catholic College Sites Linking to Abortion Centers Exposed

MANASSAS, VA (March 16, 2006) - Despite the Catholic Church's clear opposition to abortion, contraception and premarital sexual activity, a Cardinal Newman Society (CNS) review of Catholic college and university Web sites has revealed links and referrals to abortion clinics including Planned Parenthood-the largest abortion provider in the United States-and abortion-rights and pro-contraception groups.

In a reply on our email list to a link that lead to this story a list-member had this to say:

"oh thats just too funny! the catholic church worried about the scandal of consorting w/ pro choice organizations. maybe they should worry a bit more about their priests consorting with underage boys and girls."

Pot meet Kettle!!!!!

:::disclaimer:::

Don't get me WRONG now, I'm not DISSING all catholics, just MOST of the Bishops, TEH POPE and a quite a bit of the ruling hierarchy. Many catholics are fine with choice, understand and believe in women's autonomy and I congratulate those that are. I'm like that too, by the way. I'm a pro-choice catholic!!!!! And lots of catholics get abortions, not just the ones who are pro-choice, even the ones that don't believe in the right to choose sometimes choose. You see the dirty-little-secret of the anti-choice movement is that so many of them are against abortion until they have instances in their lives where they realize they need one.

And then of course, they do! And lickety-split they go back to being anti-choice!

See you next week.