and does that question even have an answer? But more importantly- is it necessary to know when debating abortion? My answers are – we’ll never know, probably not and no.

I told Jovial in comments that when is a zygote a person is a moot question. I should have explained it in more detail. So here goes.

When a zygote is no longer just a clump of cells doesn’t matter at all in the abortion argument. It is a red herring thrown out as a distraction.

In any situation except for pregnancy, we allow people the freedom to choose to risk their own health, happiness and life in order to save the life of another. We do not force people to donate blood, or tissue, or kidneys. We do not require people to risk their lives to save another or face legal ramifications. We do not jail people who don’ step in front of a bullet for someone else, or throw themselves into traffic to push someone out of the way of a speeding bus. We don’t have a draft for the military (yet), or for the police force or fire department either. They are people who have chosen to risk risk their life for the benefit of others. We don’t even force parents to donate blood or tissue or kidney or bone marrow to their own dying child- the parents get to choose if that is a risk they want to take.

It is up to each individual to decide if risking their life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is worth saving another person.

But not when it comes to pregnancy, though the situation is not any different than forcing someone to give a kidney to someone else. It doesn’t matter if you think that it is a clump of cells or a baby from the moment the sperm hits the egg, because it is up to the person who is risking their life, liberty and happiness who gets to decide to take the risk to save a life (or carry a life in this case).

I know, this is a modern country and the risk of dying from pregnancy has been drastically reduced. But there is still a risk. There is also a risk in having an abortion. The only person who can make that choice, who can choose which risk they want to take, is the person who will suffer the effects of that choice.

Everyday a large number of women choose to take that risk and others don’t. Some women have easy pregnancies. Some (me included) do not. Some women want children so badly that there is no risk they wouldn’t take. Some don’t want children (or more children- me included) and would rather risk the consequences of an abortion than a pregnancy and motherhood. That so many women choose to take that risk everyday does not negate the risk.

Now I know what some of you are thinking- a woman decides to have sex, if she didn’t want to get pregnant she shouldn’t have sex. Except that sex is a biological drive, and if women weren’t meant to have sex except to reproduce, then women would only have orgasms when they are ovulating. We also have a biological urge to eat, yet when someone gets food poisoning we don’t blame them for having a failure of discipline. If we eat so many times a day over the course of our lives, the likelihood of getting food poisoning at some point is pretty high. Same thing is true of sex and pregnancy, though only very lucky people get sex three times a day.

So the chances are that even with birth control, most women will get pregnant at some time in their lives. When that happens it is up to the woman to decide if risking her life, her health, her economic status and her liberty are worth the risk of having a child. When that clump of cells becomes a child is not the real issue, who gets the choice to take the risk is.

When he’s a white Christian planning to blow up an abortion clinic.

The Argusleader is running a poll on repealing the South Dakota abortion ban. Be a good sport and go influence the results.

Just in case you are wondering, my beautiful work at home job has engulfed me as of late; my mind has been so much into PHP/MySQL/Linux (I love open source software) that I haven’t been able to get my head around anything else. I have tendency to come and go, so get used it.

Anyway, the RQs constant reminders to not forget the feminine has been ringing loudly in my head for weeks though the topic has been in my head for years. I know this is a generalization, but one has to wonder: why do men still hate women?

Yes, I know the situation has changed. Women have more and better rights than they did forty years ago. More women now apply for school in the U.S. than men (in fact, there is a female glut for applications). Women are portrayed as strong and responsible to the point where men are seen as non-thinking shirkers. Yes, women, at least in this country, do have it better than they used to.

But…

We are not close to a women president (Hillary will present some major problems) and the female representation in Congress comes nowhere close to representing the population of women in the U.S.

Homicide kills more pregnant women than all natural causes combined.

It is okay for a women to act like a man, take a man’s name and wear men’s clothes. But men do not take on women’s names, crossdressing is considered humorous or worse to both men and women and for the most part accepting the feminine is something that couples keep between themselves. “Act like a man”, or “man up” is still advice most men give to other men. Advice to the contrary is never heard.

And then there are reproductive rights. The war on abortion is alive and making headway. Teenage prenancies are up because access to contraception has been restricted. Viagra and Cialis are money makers, but where is the “male pill”?

On the extreme end, Islamists, for the most part, want to keep women in the Dark Ages. Without going too far, I just don’t understand how a women’s body can be considered such an issue to the point where only a husband cans see it (yet the husband could defile another woman and blame the woman for the defilement). I really don’t know where to go on the Islamist view of females, but the hatred of women seems a given in their case. Of course there is also the situations in India and China, where girls are aborted in favor of males to the point where male populations has been skewed to 60% or more.

This may offer a clue. Perhaps, man’s hatred of women was ingrained over such a long period of time that it is difficult to expunge from our cultures. Society does not change overnight. Having said that, I do wonder where women’s issues are headed. Even those who benefit from feminism, deny its existence ( I am not one of those feminists!). I do not blame anyone; taking on an unpopular cause requires a strong personality that obviates many of the things we enjoy in life: friendship, normalcy and regular work-week.

I suppose I don’t have an answer that fits in this space. I could say that in light of the history of hatred women have faced, we should encouraged by the progress we have seen, but that is a cop-out.

I can give a short answer that I tell my white friends about racism. If you are a man, and you hate misogyny, talk to other men about it. Women can only do so much. The change must come from within.

Planned parenthood has opened a new quick-service clinic in a suburb of St. Paul, Minnesota.

The clinic will not perform abortions. Instead, lotions, essential oils and
decorative carrying cases for pills and condoms will beckon shoppers inside,
where they can also get oral contraceptives, pregnancy tests and screening for
HIV, chlamydia and gonorrhea _ all in about 20 minutes. If customers are
interested, the clinic may add massages and other spa services later,
spokeswoman Marta Coursey said.

Great. I’m all about the shiny condom cases and lotions while getting birth control. However there is a problem with this set-up.

But it won’t take patients on subsidized health plans if they can’t pay out of pocket. those customers can visit one of Planned Parenthood’s 22 existing clinics in Minnesota, which operate on a sliding scale based on the patient’s income.

Planned Parenthood’s justification for this:

As federal and state aid for family planning services declines, Stoesz said Planned Parenthood will be able to expand only through clinics that pay for themselves. Success in Woodbury could lead to express clinics in other locations, she added.

I know funding is tight, but the problem is not that women who can afford it can’t get access to birth control. It’s that women who can’t afford it can’t get access.

In case you’re not familiar (I wasn’t until very recently), “Jumping the Shark” in TV Land refers to the turning point at which it becomes apparent that a show has stayed too long at the party, and is using irrelevant, outlandish, or just plain stupid gimmicks to keep the audence’s attention… usually to its detriment (The expression came from the episode of Happy Days in which the Fonz jumped over a shark on waterskis)

Anyhow, Anna contends that the increasing number of officials making public statements against contraception (even between married couples) may well be just such a turning point. She says it better than I can:

McCarthy’s witch hunts stopped when he began attacking the Army. In televised hearings that turned the tide of public opinion against him, McCarthy accused Army Attorney General Joseph Welch of employing a man who belonged to an organization that had been accused of Communist sympathies. Welch asked, “Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?”

***snip***

for a topic traditionally confined to individuals, families, and their doctors,
a move into the sphere of public policy is shocking indeed. I think that
ultimately, this shock will have the effect of moving contraceptive choices back
where they belong — with couples themselves.

I sincerely hope so. I want to believe it.

Another post from Anna resonates here — I have to admit – I’m not a big fan of abortion — I have doubts about it – real ones, that have nothing to do with the sex lives of people i’ve never met(hey what you do is your business) little to do with my religious beliefs(did Jesus even say anything about this? seriously, someone who knows the bible help me out here! Redd?) and a lot to do with knowing very well someone who was born so prematurely his mom was not considered “pregnant enough” to merit a bed in the maternity ward after delivery.

But I also don’t dare presume to elevate my feelings to the status of law for the most personal decison imaginable.

So it seems to me, that

Weeks ago I told you all that Greg Palast belongs on my hot brains list. His latest article just proves that brains and balls make him dreamy. Now it’s time to learn about ChoicePoint (or how to privately outsource domestic spying so that you avoid nasty constitutional problems).

They are paid to keep an eye on you — because the FBI can’t. For the government to collect this stuff is against the law unless you’re suspected of a crime. (The law in question is the Constitution.) But ChoicePoint can collect it
for “commercial” purchases — and under the Bush Administration’s suspect
reading of the Patriot Act — our domestic spying apparatchiks can then BUY
the info from ChoicePoint.

The same private company that is selling your phone records and credit card purchase information to Big Brother is also -SUPRISE- collecting DNA samples from as many Americans as they can.

And now ChoicePoint and George Bush want your blood. Forget your phone
bill. ChoicePoint, a sickened executive of the company told us in confidence,
“hope[s] to build a database of DNA samples from every person in the United
States …linked to all the other information held by CP [ChoicePoint]” from
medical to voting records.

Wow! Now the gorvernment will have one stop shopping for keeping track of those nasty little people we like to call citizens.

What would they possibly want to do with both your medical records and your voting records. Huhm. Let’s see-

Do you like employing that so-called free speech part of the constitution? Ever take an anti-depressant? Wait till government paints you as a mentally unstable nut bag with medical documents to back them up after you publicly declare your support for the other guy.

Do you think that family planning is a good thing? Wait till the government can tell everyone you know or work with exactly what measures you use for family planning based on your private medical records. Ever have an abortion, or maybe an std? Your boss will love to get that information from the feds so that he can know how you spend your free time. What about potential employers? It would be so much easier if they could find out in advance what kind of health issues you have so they know not to hire you if you are going to increase their insurance costs.

But what would they do with your DNA? Think about it and read the entire article here.

Because I, of course, Blame The Patriarchy I thought I’d pass on this from Planned Parenthood via Twisty Faster.

An Indiana mother recently accompanied her daughter and her daughter’s boyfriend to one of Indiana’s Planned Parenthood clinics, but they unwittingly walked into
a“crisis pregnancy center” run by an anti-abortion group — one that shared a
parking lot with the real Planned Parenthood clinic, and was designed
expressly to lure Planned Parenthood patients and deceive them.

The group took down the girl’s confidential personal information and told her to come back for her appointment, which they said would be in their “other office” (the real Planned Parenthood office nearby). When she arrived for her appointment, not only did the Planned Parenthood staff have no record of her, but the police were there — the “crisis pregnancy center” had called them, claiming that a minor was being forced to have an abortion against her will.

The “crisis pregnancy center” staff then proceeded to wage a campaign of intimidation and harassment over the following days, showing up at the girl’s home and calling her father’s workplace. Our clinic director reports that she was “scared to death to leave her house.” They even went to her school and urged classmates to pressure her not to have an abortion.

Behind the Story: The anti-choice movement is setting up so-called “crisis pregnancy centers” across the country. Some of them have neutral-sounding names and run ads that falsely promise the full range of reproductive health services, but dispense anti-choice propaganda and intimidation instead. And according to The New York Times, there are currently more of these centers in the U.S. than there are actual abortion providers! What’s more, these centers have received $60 million of government grants.They’re being funded by our tax dollars

On a side note, Dilettante has asked that I include something on shared household/childrearing duties from a feminist perspective. First, it’s hard to be too worried over whose turn it is to do the dishes when you can’t control your own body. Secondly I am probably the wrong person to talk about this because until recently I have had very little interest in sharing a household with anyone. I am the Red Queen after all- I don’t like to share authority with anyone, but with that comes a certain expectation of responsibility. When I have had another adult around – things become fairly egalitarian though. For instance, my current partner and I are both fabulous cooks, so we trade off cooking responsibilities and Kid is learning how to wash dishes, so everyone contributes.

Ohio is looking to pass a bill that would not only make abortion a felony – but would criminalize getting one in another state. Before long, Ohio is going to require that women get written permission from husbands and fathers to travel- just like Saudi Arabia.

Bring on the burkas and arranged marriages.

Damn, how awesome is it that The Stranger is our local alternative paper? Last week there was a fantastic article about Club Z and this week The Stranger hits one over the fence on refusal clauses and pharmacists.

Here’s my take on the idea that pharmacists should be able to refuse to dispense things that go against their morality. This is a Right to Work Country which is basically an odd way of saying that people have the right to choose what jobs they want and employers have a right to choose what workers they want. We are not arbitrarily assigned some profession based on a central planning committee. We can choose what type of work we want to do as long as we are willing to accept the consequences of that choice. I could choose to be an artist as long as I was willing to accept that I won’t receive a regular paycheck, or I can choose to be a store clerk as long as I accept that I will have to follow the rules of the store.

Pharmacists don’t have to be pharmacists. They know going into the profession that they may be required to dispense things that they morally disagree with. I morally disagree with the military industrial complex- so I do not work for GE. I have a friend who also disagrees with it, but he likes the paycheck and the chance to live overseas that working for GE gives him, so he accepts the moral consequences. If he didn’t he would find work elsewhere.

But what about doctors? Doctors get a refusal clause because A) They perform the specific act resulting in life or death – pharmacists perform an auxiliary function but not the actual administration of either medications (doctors dispense RU486 in the office) or procedures that result in abortions and B) they physically risk their lives and families by choosing to perform abortions. No pharmacists have been killed to my knowledge for dispensing birth control- though that may change will the zealot of the wing nuts.

However, if it were up to me I would say there is enough specialization in medicine that if a doctor doesn’t want to perform abortions then he should not become a gynecologist- he can be a proctologist instead. Since specialization in not available for pharmacists (they are their own specialization within the medical field already) then they should choose another profession where their morals won’t be in conflict.

But why shouldn’t it be the patients that have to change pharmacies instead of the the pharmacists changing professions? Patients do have some choice of what pharmacy they go to, but it is in the interest of the greater good that patients in a crisis get the treatment they need in a timely manner rather than that pharmacists get to refuse service based on morality. We understand this with doctors, and doctors are not allowed to refuse treatment of a patient in a crisis. For example, if a woman came into the emergency room with an ectopic pregnancy a doctor could not refuse to perform a lifesaving operation even though he would be removing a fertilized egg. However, because doctors in hospitals are rarely there alone, the doctors usually have a backup if there is a procedure they are unwilling to do. But pharmacists generally work alone (or with clerks who do not have the same authorization as the pharmacist) and therefore a viable substitute cannot be utilized in a timely fashion. I would have no problems with a morality clause if pharmacies were required to keep 2 pharmacists on hand if one had objections to dispensing certain drugs. This would increase the cost of prescription drugs though, because of the necessity for redundant labor.