Posts Tagged ‘abstinence’

« Older Entries

Best StOP Posts of the Entire Friggin Year – 2008

Monday, December 22nd, 2008

I was going to do a best blog posts, taking from other blogs, but after churning through a single month archive of a single blog, I realized that it would take me about a year to accomplish such a feat. So, I’m just going to pick stuff from this blog. It’s not wholly narcissistic, since some of the posts will have been written by people who are not me.

In mostly chronological order:

JNTB debunks the Significance of the Dead Sea Scrolls
—
Philadelphic challenges the idea that there can be “fundy atheists.” in Readings… The Hilariously Bad, The Good, and the WTF
—
Laura analyzes the impact of pro-abstinence laws on public school sex education, in Sexual Education and the Implications of Senate Bill 155
—
Velkyn doesn’t like living within A Culture of Lies
—
Procrustes rants about the meaninglessness of prayer in Mourning Cards and Tornadoes
—
Laura dissects the Watchtower and puts it on display in Jehovah’s Witnesses Unearthed
—
Velkyn debunks Dr. Brandon Carter’s “God did it” claims with regard to those nasty gaps in the universe, in Secrets: God: the Evidence, part of the Unearthed series (which is really very good!)
—
Procrustes addresses Roger Severino’s arguments against gay marriage in Regarding Roger Severino’s “Legalizing Gay Marriage Will Spark Lawsuits…”
—
Procrustes’ early criticism of Obama’s fierce loyalty to Christianity, in Thank God Obama Worships the “Right” God (follow up with The Trend of Obama Doubt)
—
FormerFundy argues that Personal Responsibility is Paramount Especially in the Political Realm
—
Spider details and then skillfully criticizes Catholic World Youth Day 2008
—
Procrustes agrees that we should be teaching creationism in schools, but Why Stop at Creationism?
—
In light of the inability of certain groups to protest outside the Democratic National Convention, Laura questions limits to the right of free speech in Run DNC
—
Procrustes, with help from Velkyn, explores what it means versus what it should mean to be tolerant today in Intolerable Tolerance
—
Apropos, JNTB asks, Would a Christian Bail You Out?
—
As the Bush era is finally ending, many of us acknowledge the fact that it’s not really ending. It’ll take decades, if ever, to undue all the harm he’s caused. Procrustes gives us a reminder of all that harm (if you can stomach it) in More U.S. Anti-Contraception in Africa, Plus a Look Back on Bush’s Anti-Choice Legacy (You can follow up on this by reading Laura’s article: Bush Administration Makes Last Ditch Effort to Diminish Women’s Rights)
—
Laura identifies the Mormons as having a terrible amount of power and coercion in the Proposition 8 debacle, in Proposition 8, the Mormons, and the New “Separate But Equal” (Also see the follow-up: Erasing Decades of Moral Progress with Proposition 8)
—
JNTB questions the American ideological pursuit of spreading democracy in Spreading Democracy?
—
Shar’iah Law Rocks (Unfortunately, literally)
—
JNTB examines the perception of what life is, and what human life is, with reference to Motl Brody, in Life and Death
—
Mutha (rearing her head, finally) discusses what real patriotism is (or should be) in Waiter! There’s Dogma in My Primordial Soup!
—
What’s really the State of Christmas?
—
Procrustes asks, Why is there a Legal Provision Allowing a Lighter Sentence Based on Religious Beliefs?
—
If you hadn’t already heard, Being Religious is Like Eating Sand
—
Laura and Absinthium for their amazing Comics (and I’ll take partial blame for most of them, as I was the idea person, they were the artists — were it not for them, all StOP comics would look like a take-off on xkcd or Stick Figure Death Theater)
—
Finally, and out of order, but appropriate for the time of year, Procrustes asks, Is Banning the Words “Christmas” and “Easter” an Appropriate Secular Goal?
—
There’s so much more that I really enjoy, but I can’t rightly put them all on an end-of-the-year list. If anything, be sure to check out the Unearthed series, which really sheds some light on a variety of religious beliefs. For easy access to all StOP’s articles, see the Archives in easy-to-open/read format in the sidebar. Thanks for reading State of Protest!

(Oh, and if you have a favorite StOP post that’s not on the list, let me know in the comments!)

StOP Christmas (heheh)
(man, that’s ugly — My fault!)

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Religion | 1 Comment »

Bush Administration Makes Last Ditch Effort to Diminish Women’s Rights

Thursday, November 20th, 2008

Apparently the Bush administration just wasn’t satisfied with all the other steps they have taken to bring the government into our bedrooms and our doctors’ offices: blocking over-the-counter access to the morning-after pill, granting fetuses a higher legal status than women, likening abortion to terrorism, promoting ineffective abstinence-only education, and fighting congressional efforts to give aid to overseas groups that provide contraceptives.1  It wasn’t enough.  They had to make one last ditch effort to further diminish women’s reproductive rights.

Opposition is growing quickly to a Bush administration proposal which seeks to grant sweeping protections to health care providers who oppose medical procedures, such as abortion, based on their religious beliefs.  The proposed rule2 would prohibit entities that receive federal funding from discriminating against health care workers who refuse to assist in performing abortions or other procedures because of their religious beliefs.  It would also prevent hospitals, clinics, doctors’ offices and pharmacies from requiring any employee to “assist in the performance of any part of a health service program or research activity” financed by the Department of Health and Human Services, if that employee refuses because of religious or moral objections.3

Under the current laws, employers must make reasonable accommodations for employees’ religious practices, so long as those practices do not cause “undue hardship” on the business.  Under this new proposed rule, family planning providers could be forced “to hire employees who may refuse to do their jobs,” according to the Ohio Health Department.  Pharmacies have said this rule would make it legal for their employees to refuse to fill prescriptions for contraceptives and could “lead to Medicaid patients being turned away.”  The rule could also overturn state laws which require insurance companies to cover contraceptives and which require hospitals to offer rape victims emergency contraception, according to state officials.4

Among those in opposition to the proposed rule are the American Hospital Association, the American Medical Association, the National Association of Chain Drug Stores, a vast number of doctors, pharmacists, and hospitals, the attorneys general of 13 states, 28 senators, more than 110 representatives, and many other political leaders, including President-elect Barack Obama.  Among those supporting the proposal are the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Catholic Health Association.5

Three officials from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, including its Bush-appointed legal counsel, Reed Russell, as well as members Stuart Ishimaru and Christine Griffin, are opposing the rule and have stated, along with other senior members of the commission staff, that their agency was not consulted at all before the proposal was issued.  The proposal was received by the White House Office of Management and Budget on August 21 and was approved the same day.  These officials have said the rule is unnecessary for the protection of employees and could potentially cause confusion for employers.  Mr. Russell pointed to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964,6 which already prohibits religious discrimination in hiring practices.   Mr. Ishimaru and Ms. Griffin issued a letter stating that 40 years of court decisions have “carefully balanced employees’ rights to religious freedom and employers’ business needs,” and that this proposed rule would “throw that entire body of law into question.”7

A line needs to be drawn.  If your child needed a blood transfusion in order to survive, and your doctor happened to be a Jehovah’s Witness who believed that blood transfusions were forbidden by her God,8 would it be acceptable to you if she refused to treat your child?  Of course it wouldn’t.  You are welcome to believe whatever you want to believe.  You can believe that tiny, invisible faeries live underground and whisper your morals to you during the night.  Whatever floats your boat.  But as soon as you try to enforce those beliefs on me, I have a problem with that.  And the next time I go to the pharmacy to receive my doctor-prescribed medicines, be they contraceptives or otherwise, I expect those medicines to be provided to me, regardless of what my pharmacist believes about them.  

Download Procrustes’ Crappy Podcast of this Otherwise Excellent Article!

-Laura

  1. http://www.now.org/issues/abortion/roe30/record.html [<]
  2. http://www.hhs.gov/news/press/2008pres/08/20080821reg.pdf [<]
  3. http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2008/11/18/bush-abortion-proposal-raises-ire-of-health-groups-eeoc/ [<]
  4. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/18/washington/18abort.html?partner=permalink&exprod=permalink [<]
  5. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/18/washington/18abort.html?partner=permalink&exprod=permalink [<]
  6. http://www.eeoc.gov/policy/vii.html [<]
  7. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/18/washington/18abort.html?partner=permalink&exprod=permalink [<]
  8. http://www.religioustolerance.org/witness5.htm [<]

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Government, Morality, Religion, Sexuality | 7 Comments »

Dr. Marty Klein: President Obama, End the War on Sex

Friday, November 7th, 2008

On the Sexual Intelligence blog, Dr. Marty Klein predicts that President Obama will merely perpetuate the status quo of the religiously-influenced taboo and criminal prosecution of harmless sex. Dr. Klein hopes that Obama will prove that prediction wrong.

Dr. Klein also provides a handy list of things that need fixing on the sexual front. Check out the Sexual Intelligence for more great posts. And do what you can to urge Obama to fight this war (as well as the other pointless wars) instead of perpetuating it. Here’s the list, in full (because I was going to just pick a few of my favorites, but they’re all absolutely spot on).

* End funding for abstinence-only training in public schools.

* End the Department of Justice’s war on adult entertainment. Keep the war on child porn. Make it clear they’re two different things.

* Decriminalize all consensual sex that teens have with other teens. Decriminalize teens sharing photos of themselves having sex.

* Increase financial support for Planned Parenthood, an investment proven to reduce poverty and domestic violence.

* Take the moral leadership to decrease abortion—by funding contraception services and comprehensive sex education, not by criminalizing abortion.

* Require all sex education programs to be scientifically accurate. Isn’t that required by the policies of car manufacturers, meat-packing plants, and toothpaste makers?

* Require all municipalities that want to restrict commercial sexual expression (strip clubs, adult bookstores, swing clubs, etc.) to actually demonstrate a need to do so, rather than simply claim “effects like crime, disease, and blight are well-established.” Because they’re not.

* Require all federal judges to take a Continuing Education course about sexuality. Healthy sexuality, not “sex addiction” or child molestation. Make this education mandatory for anyone aspiring to be a judge.

* Get the FCC out of the censorship business. Let Americans use the “off” and “change channel” buttons on their TV remotes whenever they want; it’s good practice for voting.

* Remove the blocking software from every federally-funded computer in America—libraries, universities, airports. Start with the computers in the White House and Congress.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Government, Morality, Religion, Sexuality | 2 Comments »

Massachusetts School Board OKs Contraceptive Distribution – To Parents

Thursday, October 9th, 2008

The Massachusetts school made famous for its “Pregnancy Pact” scandal (17 pregnancies last year) has taken the bold and progressive move of authorizing distribution of contraceptives to students through the school clinic. Bravo!

Bullshit.

The school is getting praise for being receptive to student needs, and for being an icon of rationality, but it’s not being progressive. It’s being tyrannical, old fashioned, and ineffective. Why? Students must have parental consent to receive the contraceptives. Think about it. The students that are having sex and having unwilling pregnancies are not the kids who will be asking their parents to contact the school to allow them to receive contraceptives, let alone the kids who would even admit to their parents that they’re actually having sex (or thinking about potentially having sex, and would like to be prepared, just in case).

What’s really going on is a scare tactic. This is an underhanded, covert support of the continuously failed faith-based abstinence program. It forces a child to get parental consent not to have an unwanted pregnancy. It creates a no-win choice for kids who don’t feel comfortable talking to their parents about their private lives: either have unprotected sex or abstain from sex. That’s not a good or realistic set of choices.

And what about children who are having sex, but whose parents refuse to give permission?

This is not progress.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Government, Logic, Morality, Religion | 7 Comments »

More U.S. Anti-Contraception Coercion in Africa, Plus a Look Back on Bush’s Anti-Choice Legacy

Monday, October 6th, 2008

The Bush administration, in its last few months of power, hasn’t stopped its bulldozing of the concept of family planning. This past Thursday, the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development admitted to telling six African governments to stop giving the Marie Stopes International family planning organization U.S.-donated contraceptives that the organization would have distributed to the African populations.1 This is a move that further endangers poor African women and girls. First, this is indicative of the Bush administration — not really a surprise. However, what is a surprise is that this issue is not something that has been brought up in the current campaign for the presidency. Perhaps a question relating to family planning and funding will be asked at the next debate. (I doubt it, though).

This is just one of many of the Bush agenda’s anti-privacy, anti-choice attacks. Upon the brink of Bush’s departure, we should remember his maniacal legacy.

Bush was the first and only president to sign legislation outlawing an abortion procedure.2
Bush was the first also to criminalize a medical procedure.
Although six federal courts ruled the Federal Abortion Ban to be unconstitutional, the Supreme Court (in 2007, with two Bush appointees) ruled in favor of the ban.3

Bush signed the first federal law granting separate legal status to an embryo or fetus.4

Bush signed the Federal Refusal Clause, giving any health-care corporation permission to ignore any pro-choice law that ensures women have access to abortion services or referrals.5

Bush executed the Global gag rule,6 and then later expanded it.7

Bush has nominated three outspoken opponents of pro-choice to the Supreme Court (Miers, Roberts, and Alito).8

Bush made at least 73 nominations to the federal appeals courts, none of whom endorsed Roe v. Wade, though 19 were clearly anti-choice.9

Three executive branch nominations were anti-choice (John Ashcroft,10 Tommy Thompson,11 Michael Leavitt).12

Bush named at least 16 anti-choice activists to serve in various administration posts that oversee reproductive health (Sen. Tom Coburn, W. David Hager, Eric Keroack).13

Bush’s FDA took more than three years to approve emergency contraception for over-the-counter sales, although the agency’s own expert advisory panels voted 23-4 to recommend the move.14
The primary reason for the stall? A “minority report” written by none other than W. David Hager.15 Hager claimed that his report was “not written… from an “evangelical Christian perspective,” but from a scientific one.” And then went on to say, “”I argued from a scientific perspective, and God took that information, and he used it through this minority report to influence the decision. Once again, what Satan meant for evil, God turned into good.” 16

Eight Bush annual budgets have been anti-choice, cutting family planning program funds, promoting abstinence-only curricula, and extending discriminatory abortion restrictions.17

Bush has spoken at eight annual “March for Life”18 events, and has issued seven annual proclamations designating the Sunday closest to the Roe anniversary as “National Sanctity of Human Life Day.”19

The Bush administration ended 30 years of federal funding for a public health conference hosted by the nonpartisan Global Health Council, specifically because organizations with pro-choice positions were among the conference’s participants.20

Bush’s UN delegations have sought anti-choice changes to international agreements, promoting censorship and medical misinformation, and attempting to propose that “life begins at conception.”21

Recommended Reading:

The Globalization of an Agenda: The Right Targets the U.N. with its Anti-Choice Politics, Pam Chamberlain, PublicEye.org. http://www.publiceye.org/magazine/v20n1/chamberlain_globalization.html

Bush’s Other War (and related links), International Women’s Health Coalition. http://www.iwhc.org/resources/bushsotherwar/othernominations.cfm

Wikipedia: Fetal Rights. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fetal_rights

Other Resources:

http://www.prochoiceamerica.org/issues/bush-administration/
http://www.prochoiceamerica.org/issues/bush-administration/bushs-war-on-choice.html (Note that the general rundown of Bush’s legacy was taken mostly from this widely-distributed list, but the list was not footnoted and none of the assertions had citations or support. I personally researched and cited each assertion.)
http://msmagazine.com/news/news_results.asp?Body=appointment

  1. US cuts off family planning group in Africa, http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/10/02/ap/preswho/main4496798.shtml and http://www.wtopnews.com/index.php?nid=116&sid=1490029 [<]
  2. http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/11/20031105-1.html [<]
  3. http://www.scotusblog.com/movabletype/archives/2007/04/court_rules_att.html [<]
  4. http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/abortion/unbornbill32504.html [<]
  5. http://msmagazine.com/news/uswirestory.asp?id=8647 [<]
  6. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexico_City_Policy [<]
  7. http://www.africa.upenn.edu/afrfocus/afrifocus112805.html [<]
  8. http://www.iwhc.org/resources/bushsotherwar/judicialnominations.cfm [<]
  9. http://www.iwhc.org/resources/bushsotherwar/judicialnominations.cfm [<]
  10. http://msmagazine.com/news/uswirestory.asp?id=4716 [<]
  11. http://msmagazine.com/news/uswirestory.asp?id=4718 [<]
  12. http://msmagazine.com/news/uswirestory.asp?id=10617 [<]
  13. http://www.iwhc.org/resources/bushsotherwar/othernominations.cfm [<]
  14. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/24/AR2006082400559.html [<]
  15. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hager [<]
  16. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/11/AR2005051101812.html [<]
  17. http://www.womensenews.org/article.cfm/dyn/aid/1189/context/archive and http://www.globalhealth.org/news/article/6923 [<]
  18. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_for_Life [<]
  19. http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/01/15/bush.abortion/ [<]
  20. http://www.globalhealth.org/news/article/5830 and http://www.globalhealth.org/news/article/4450 [<]
  21. http://www.publiceye.org/magazine/v20n1/chamberlain_globalization.html [<]

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Atheism, Government, Logic, Morality, Religion, Science | 2 Comments »

« Older Entries