Everything (Sexual) Is Abortion
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Emily, agreed that the Mikulski amendment seems more like pandering than it does genuine protection of women's health care. That said, the anti-choice reaction to it gives me pause. It's not just that anything that rabid anti-choicers oppose is something that's probably puppies- and rainbows-level good—though that's usually true—but it also serves as a reminder of how little protection basic health care for women has, due to anti-choice lobbying against any health care they feel encourages women to be sexually free.
I can't tell if the Mikulski amendment covers contraception from the first news reports, but it's clear to me that the anti-choice lobby fears that it does. Of course, you have to speak right-wing-nut-ese to see this. The LifeNews article simply expresses concern that the bill will mandate abortion coverage, which is a ridiculous fear on its face. Ridiculous if you assume that by "abortion," LifeNews means abortion—ending a pregnancy through drugs or surgery. But often in anti-choice literature, "abortion" is treated as a catch-all phrase that means both abortion and hormonal contraception, and nonhormonal contraception is considered a form of Abortion Lite, because any kind of fertility control encourages the "abortion/contraception mentality." For outsiders, equating contraception with abortion is incoherent; for the hardcore anti-choicers, the two are linked so firmly that one can bracket contraception into the general category "abortion" without batting an eyelash.
Reading this article, I suspect that part of the objection to this amendment is the possibility that it will cover hormonal contraception, which hardcore anti-choicers believe causes abortion. (It actually works by surpressing ovulation.) Whether or not that specific hook is true or not is somewhat irrelevant, though. Even if coverage for the pill isn't mandated, there is almost no way that counseling and prescription-writing for the pill won't be under this amendment. That's because the vast majority of gynecologists use the occasion of the pap smear to talk about contraception options and write prescriptions. Which, in the topsy-turvy anti-choice world, is a form of paying for abortion. You have to back-rationalize about 15 steps, but it can be done. And goes a long way to explaining why they're panicking.
And it also explains why we need to have some sort of amendment protecting women's basic cancer screenings, because the relationship between the pap smear and the birth control pill could create trouble for mandated pap-smear coverage down the road. Let's not forget how the Bush administration politicized contraception. If another conservative administration was put in charge, they could easily staff the health care exchange board with belligerent anti-choicers who not only strip women of contraception coverage, but anything related to it, including the pap smear.
Comments
Maybe, but how do you know?
By: RalphS | Fri, 12/04/2009 - 19:41
"It actually works by surpressing ovulation." (I'm going to interpret you as meaning it works _only_ by suppressing ovulation)
I realize this is a blog and not a legal brief, but doesn't that point beg for additional evidence? If a large number of people believe otherwise, isn't that a point of interest? It seems to me that your statement expresses a view uncritically accepted by many on both sides of the abortion divide. You may have very good reasons for believing it, but personally, I'd have been more interested in your post if you had given some hint of what those reasons are. At the very least you could have linked to William Saletan's posts on the issue - not that his arguments are very good.
The real concern right now
By: anngirl1138 | Fri, 12/04/2009 - 16:24
The real concern right now (not that the right's somewhat in plain sight agenda of putting women back in some mythical place they've escaped from isn't a concern - it's just not the first one right now) is that with all the politics and posturing, women are going to lose access to a proven cancer prevention screen - the pap test.
Life does not begin at conception in the minds of the majority of Americans. In fact, a fetus isn't capable of a life outside the womb until 25 wks of gestation. Even with all the advances in neonatal care, the survival rate for less than that is zero. Which should tell us something. But sadly it doesn't.
In the eyes of the pro-life, a women is nothing more than a vessel which suits the Right just fine. Women with any sort of control or power are a threat to them it seems. The religious earnest are being used but seem to be okay with it as long as they can force their beliefs on everyone else. It makes me wonder how they can tell themselves apart from jihadists in the Mid-east. Or maybe they know they are no different and don't care.
Young women in the U.S. are the losers being so complacent about their so-called equality that they will not realize what they have lost until it is gone.
Referring to the other guys
By: Robyrt | Fri, 12/04/2009 - 15:44
Referring to the other guys as "anti-choice" makes me assume you are wrong. With the puppies and rainbows thing, I wouldn't bring this article up to my pro-life friends even if it were 100% true.
It doesn't work by only suppressing ovulation
By: MIWoman | Fri, 12/04/2009 - 15:47
Hormonal contraception does not work by suppressing ovulation (I think the author meant suppressing, not surpressing, which isn't a word). It attempts to do so, but in fact work in three different ways. Read the insert that comes with your Pills, Patches, etc. It clearly states that the hormonal contraception has three methods of action: 1) it attempts to prevent ovulation; 2) it thickens cervical mucus to inhibit sperm motility; and 3) it changes the endometrial lining of the uterus to make is less likely to support an embryo.
The pill does not ALWAYS prevent ovulation, not even when taken correctly.
Basically, hormonal contraception is attempting to prevent ovulation, if that fails (which it is estimated it does approximately >25% of the time), the built in "back up" methods are to inhibit sperm motility (thicken cervical mucus so sperm cannot reach a released egg) and to make the endometrium inhospitable to an embryo trying to implant (reduces the build up of blood vessels to the uterus to thin the lining).
As much as we'd like to pretend it isn't, for some people (the "anti-choicers") it is a huge moral issue. I think those people have every right to know how hormonal contraception works so that can make the decision to use it or not to use it themselves. If a person believes life begins at fertilization of the egg, then the pill could present some moral dilemas for them because we can't tell how many times ovulation actually does occur, sperm is not prevented from reaching the egg and fertilization does occur. In this case, the only way hormonal contraception would prevent a pregnancy is by not allowing the fertilized egg to properly implant into the uterus. To many of these people taking active steps to prevent the progression of the pregnancy (by preventing implantation) in this manner is the equivalent of abortion.
If you are one of the many people that believes life begins at conception (medically defined as implantation), then it may not have moral implications for you because by using hormonal contraception you are preventing that from occurring. If you believe life begins when the fetus is born, again, it may not have moral implications for you. Each person has to decide that for themselves.
Please stop perpetuating the myth that hormonal contraception prevents pregnancy simply by suppressing ovulation. It isn't true.
not unclear in the slightest.
By: lorikay4 | Fri, 12/04/2009 - 14:09
I've been hollering and jumping up and down about the demented anti-choice equation of birth control to abortion for a couple of years, and it's gratifying to see it get out of the comment boxes and directly discussed in ANY web journalism item.
What I don't have an answer to is the question of how to get nominally pro-choice women active on this problem. We have ceded so damn much rhetorical real estate to the nutter right on sexual matters. Ugh.
Meandering
By: Nociti | Fri, 12/04/2009 - 13:47
I wish someone would take this Amanda Marcotte person aside and teach her how to correctly formulate an argument and then make a clear point. Reading what she writes is like trying to untangle an enormous knot of wet spaghetti.