The Calgary chapter of The Salvation Army, that bastion of anti-gay hatred and occasional fundamentalism, has made a bit of a stir lately over the revelation that donated Harry Potter and Twilight toys will not be distributed to children in need along with other toys they receive to distribute, nor will they be passed on to other charities who will distribute them, because they are toys revolving around "witchcraft" and "the demonic" and the rest of the utterly predictable list of objections this kind of thing always brings up.
Which is stupid, and denying children in need toys they would enjoy and play with simply because of one's personal religious beliefs is reprehensible, but nothing more than I'd expect from SA. I just have one question, though, and this is for all the anti-HP types who freak out about OMG WITCHES over it:
If your god is, as you so love to claim, a "god of love"...why do you so vehemently hate a book series in which the entire premise of the protagonist's power against the main antagonist is, quite literally, LOVE?
(For those who have not read Harry Potter, Harry survived Voldemort's original murder attempt and retains an odd, inexplicable power to resist him, despite being in all other ways a more or less average young wizard, because his mother loved him so much she sacrificed herself to protect him, leaving him with the lingering protection of love, something Voldemort cannot understand, fight, or control.) It just makes no sense. You're screaming about OMG demons and witchcraft for a book series where *love* is the basic premise of the protagonist's power, and in which the forces of light are doing battle with the forces of darkness. Not to mention, spoiler alert, in the end the protagonist sacrifices himself willingly to help his side win the battle. Jesus parallel much?
It's just dumb, and anyone with half a brain can see through the fearmongering. Please stop now, and stop letting your irrational hate interfere with children getting toys to play with.
12.13.2010
Anti-Choice Hypocrisy, Part 465,423,831,835
Exhibit A: "Informed" Consent, or "Whose information are we offering here?"
A so-called "informed consent" bill is introduced by an anti-choice legislator in Guam. Reproductive justice advocates know these bills are purely propaganda, designed to emotionalize the pregnancy and try to turn women away from abortion. Sure enough, the original form of the bill requires women be told the "gestational age, anatomical and physiological characteristics of the fetus, as well as of the medical assistance benefits for prenatal care, childbirth and neonatal care," plus a video describing "the unborn child" and information on agencies offering "abortion alternatives". Other legislators, however, got their hands on the bill during the amendments process, and the finished version instead requires that the woman be given information including "the name of the physician who will perform the abortion, the medical risks associated with carrying the child to term, the need for anti-Rh immune globulin therapy, and the consequences of refusing the therapy." You know. Actual, relevant information on carrying a pregnancy to term.
The legislator who originally introduced the bill is having a tantrum now, saying "...after further review of the bill in its final form, I realized this potential law may encourage abortions. ... This one-sided presentation no longer protects Guam's future children." So, acknowledging that there are physical risks associated with carrying a pregnancy to term and giving birth = encouraging abortions, and we can't have that...but downplaying those risks and editorializing about the "unborn child" in a blatant, outright attempt to encourage giving birth is perfectly fine? Look, sir, your bill was clearly intended to influence women's decisions about their pregnancies in the first place. You have no leg to stand on here, just because you're upset that it might influence them in the other direction than what you wanted. If you don't want women influenced in a way you don't like, don't try to step in and influence them your way, either, because this is what you open the door to: equal-opportunity influencing. Which, let's face it: that's not what you hypocrites want.
But back to this whole idea of "informed consent". Pregnancy *has* risks. That is solid, undeniable, medically-established FACT. First-trimester abortion (which is when some 98% of all abortions take place) is, statistically speaking, safer than giving birth at full term. Anti-choicers claim to want to "inform" women, but when it comes to giving them actual information about the risks of pregnancy and childbirth, they want to cover up all the negative information and portray it as a win-win situation. How could this be said to be about information at all, at that point? It's not. It's about deception and influence and controlling women to do what they want us to do. Period the end. So they don't like *actual* informed consent requirements, because they're afraid of what women will do if they're actually given information and space to make their own decisions.
Exhibit B: Clinic Regulations, or "We are rubber, you are glue, attempts to regulate us bounce off of us and stick to you!"
Last month, a bill passed the Michigan Senate, regulating how clinics which perform abortions dispose of the products of conception. Based on an unfounded accusation that someone found fetal remains in a dumpster behind a clinic (although police investigations over a period of 8 months found no such remains, and what the hell were they doing going through the dumpster anyway?), the bill would require clinics to bury or cremate fetal remains, and would mean fetal remains are no longer classified as "products of conception" along with the placenta and other tissues.
Simultaneously, over this past year anti-choice "crisis pregnancy centers" in Baltimore and NYC have been screaming bloody murder about "violations" of their First Amendment rights, because of bills being debated/passed that would require them to display signs openly admitting that they do not provide or refer for abortion or contraceptive services, and advertising whether or not there is any medically-licensed staff on-site.
What's wrong with this picture?
Seriously. Anti-choice CPCs, generally staffed only by volunteers, which are well-documented to lie, pressure, manipulate, and threaten women into keeping their pregnancies, throw tantrums worthy of a spoiled 4-year-old being denied hir favorite toy at the idea of being subject to any kind of truth-in-advertising regulations, while the same anti-choice legislators who support those CPCs will happily regulate every possible aspect of a *real* clinic's functioning they can get their hands on, from record-keeping to scripting their counseling sessions to which kinds of ultrasounds they must offer on what kind of equipment and, now, how they dispose of medical waste. (Yes, antis, pregnancy tissue, including the fetal remains, are medical waste, same as tissue remnants from any surgical procedure. So are your tonsils. Get over it.)
Have these idiots even noticed what gigantic, flaming hypocrites they all are? Do they even care, at this point? Or are they so far gone in their war on women's autonomy that they will ignore any contradiction and go to any lengths, no matter how irrational, to further their ultimate goal of total control over women's sexuality and reproductive rights?
This, by the way? Is why common-ground approaches are doomed to fail. You can't compromise with this kind of shit. Attempts to do so will only give them more ground, and they will *never* be satisfied. I thought we would have learned this by now.
A so-called "informed consent" bill is introduced by an anti-choice legislator in Guam. Reproductive justice advocates know these bills are purely propaganda, designed to emotionalize the pregnancy and try to turn women away from abortion. Sure enough, the original form of the bill requires women be told the "gestational age, anatomical and physiological characteristics of the fetus, as well as of the medical assistance benefits for prenatal care, childbirth and neonatal care," plus a video describing "the unborn child" and information on agencies offering "abortion alternatives". Other legislators, however, got their hands on the bill during the amendments process, and the finished version instead requires that the woman be given information including "the name of the physician who will perform the abortion, the medical risks associated with carrying the child to term, the need for anti-Rh immune globulin therapy, and the consequences of refusing the therapy." You know. Actual, relevant information on carrying a pregnancy to term.
The legislator who originally introduced the bill is having a tantrum now, saying "...after further review of the bill in its final form, I realized this potential law may encourage abortions. ... This one-sided presentation no longer protects Guam's future children." So, acknowledging that there are physical risks associated with carrying a pregnancy to term and giving birth = encouraging abortions, and we can't have that...but downplaying those risks and editorializing about the "unborn child" in a blatant, outright attempt to encourage giving birth is perfectly fine? Look, sir, your bill was clearly intended to influence women's decisions about their pregnancies in the first place. You have no leg to stand on here, just because you're upset that it might influence them in the other direction than what you wanted. If you don't want women influenced in a way you don't like, don't try to step in and influence them your way, either, because this is what you open the door to: equal-opportunity influencing. Which, let's face it: that's not what you hypocrites want.
But back to this whole idea of "informed consent". Pregnancy *has* risks. That is solid, undeniable, medically-established FACT. First-trimester abortion (which is when some 98% of all abortions take place) is, statistically speaking, safer than giving birth at full term. Anti-choicers claim to want to "inform" women, but when it comes to giving them actual information about the risks of pregnancy and childbirth, they want to cover up all the negative information and portray it as a win-win situation. How could this be said to be about information at all, at that point? It's not. It's about deception and influence and controlling women to do what they want us to do. Period the end. So they don't like *actual* informed consent requirements, because they're afraid of what women will do if they're actually given information and space to make their own decisions.
Exhibit B: Clinic Regulations, or "We are rubber, you are glue, attempts to regulate us bounce off of us and stick to you!"
Last month, a bill passed the Michigan Senate, regulating how clinics which perform abortions dispose of the products of conception. Based on an unfounded accusation that someone found fetal remains in a dumpster behind a clinic (although police investigations over a period of 8 months found no such remains, and what the hell were they doing going through the dumpster anyway?), the bill would require clinics to bury or cremate fetal remains, and would mean fetal remains are no longer classified as "products of conception" along with the placenta and other tissues.
Simultaneously, over this past year anti-choice "crisis pregnancy centers" in Baltimore and NYC have been screaming bloody murder about "violations" of their First Amendment rights, because of bills being debated/passed that would require them to display signs openly admitting that they do not provide or refer for abortion or contraceptive services, and advertising whether or not there is any medically-licensed staff on-site.
What's wrong with this picture?
Seriously. Anti-choice CPCs, generally staffed only by volunteers, which are well-documented to lie, pressure, manipulate, and threaten women into keeping their pregnancies, throw tantrums worthy of a spoiled 4-year-old being denied hir favorite toy at the idea of being subject to any kind of truth-in-advertising regulations, while the same anti-choice legislators who support those CPCs will happily regulate every possible aspect of a *real* clinic's functioning they can get their hands on, from record-keeping to scripting their counseling sessions to which kinds of ultrasounds they must offer on what kind of equipment and, now, how they dispose of medical waste. (Yes, antis, pregnancy tissue, including the fetal remains, are medical waste, same as tissue remnants from any surgical procedure. So are your tonsils. Get over it.)
Have these idiots even noticed what gigantic, flaming hypocrites they all are? Do they even care, at this point? Or are they so far gone in their war on women's autonomy that they will ignore any contradiction and go to any lengths, no matter how irrational, to further their ultimate goal of total control over women's sexuality and reproductive rights?
This, by the way? Is why common-ground approaches are doomed to fail. You can't compromise with this kind of shit. Attempts to do so will only give them more ground, and they will *never* be satisfied. I thought we would have learned this by now.
12.10.2010
Pregnant Women Are Public Property
If you don't know PostSecret, here's the quick version: an art project begun several years ago, in which people were asked to anonymously write a secret of theirs on a postcard and mail it in, blossomed and grew into a huge thing. There's the website, where a selection of a dozen or so postcards are posted every Sunday. There are, I think, four books now of collected secret postcards. There's the exhibit, which travels from gallery to gallery around the country, displaying secrets of all kinds, all anonymous. There are events, at which PostSecret founder Frank Warren talks about the beginning of PS, what it's done, what he's learned from it, and people have an opportunity to share their secrets. It's all about finding our common humanity in the things we would never admit out loud. I find it fascinating.
I also follow the @PostSecret Twitter account. Frank tweets random stuff, and also sometimes tweets secrets from postcards that don't make it into the weekly post. Then yesterday, this tweet was posted:
But this one about the decaf for pregnant women goes beyond that. It's not just "customer service employee is judging you", it's "a person feels that they are entitled to decide how a pregnant woman's body should be treated better than the pregnant woman in question." And it ties into a long, ugly history of the public feeling like pregnant women's bodies are fair game for denial of bodily sovereignty. It's a way of playing "good mother, bad mother" with a total stranger who is just trying to have a damn cup of coffee. It's a person saying, "Because you are pregnant, I am going to make decisions for you instead of letting you decide for yourself." It's sexist, it's fucked up, and I have the sneaking suspicion that the person whose secret this was fully expects to have public opinion on hir side. Because after all, the person whose decisions zie's overriding so cavalierly? It's only a pregnant woman.
I also follow the @PostSecret Twitter account. Frank tweets random stuff, and also sometimes tweets secrets from postcards that don't make it into the weekly post. Then yesterday, this tweet was posted:
Today's Secret: "I work at Starbucks. I judge pregnant mothers and decaffeinate their drinks, even though they ask for caffeinated."I'm sorry, what??? Now, I've seen secrets like this pop up before. A few months ago, there was one about a civil servant who always marked down servicemembers as blood/tissue donors in case of death, whether they had said they wanted to or not, which a lot of people were angry about, myself included. There are a half-dozen secrets I can think of that involve someone in some kind of service-based position admitting to the ways in which they judge, help, or sneakily undermine customers, from a grocery store checker who "forgets" to scan every tenth item for people paying with food stamps or using WIC coupons, to a call center rep admitting zie puts angry customers on hold to let them cool down instead of dealing with them. As a retail shift manager who does, in fact, decide whether or not we'll take your return based on how argumentative or pissy you are with me about it, I can relate.
But this one about the decaf for pregnant women goes beyond that. It's not just "customer service employee is judging you", it's "a person feels that they are entitled to decide how a pregnant woman's body should be treated better than the pregnant woman in question." And it ties into a long, ugly history of the public feeling like pregnant women's bodies are fair game for denial of bodily sovereignty. It's a way of playing "good mother, bad mother" with a total stranger who is just trying to have a damn cup of coffee. It's a person saying, "Because you are pregnant, I am going to make decisions for you instead of letting you decide for yourself." It's sexist, it's fucked up, and I have the sneaking suspicion that the person whose secret this was fully expects to have public opinion on hir side. Because after all, the person whose decisions zie's overriding so cavalierly? It's only a pregnant woman.
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