President Barack Obama said Thursday it was just common sense to keep girls under the age of 17 from being able to buy a morning-after contraceptive pill off a drugstore shelf. Citing his own two daughters, Obama said: “I think most parents would probably feel the same way.”
Plenty of pediatric leaders and women’s advocacy groups did not, as reaction flowed in to the administration’s decision to prevent the over-the-counter sale of the anti-pregnancy drug to sexually active girls of younger ages.
Critics said politics had trumped science, again.
Yes, pretty much. President Obama, when he took office, pledged a commitment to scientific integrity. President Obama has said that he had nothing to do with the decision but does support Sebelius.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has over-ruled the recommendations of the FDA and ‘the morning after’ pill (or Plan B) will not be made available to everyone as an OTC product. Girls must be 17 years or older to buy the product without a prescription.
The Food and Drug Administration recommended on Wednesday that Plan B One-Step, commonly referred to as the “morning-after pill,” be made available over the counter without age restrictions, but an Obama administration official overturned that recommendation.
After ten months of reviewing scientific data, FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg decided on Wednesday that emergency contraception should be made available to everyone over the counter.
“There is adequate and reasonable, well-supported, and science-based evidence that Plan B One-Step is safe and effective and should be approved for nonprescription use for all females of child-bearing potential,” she said in a statement.
If Mississippians vote to pass an unprecedented initiative on Tuesday that would declare a fertilized egg a legal person under the state Constitution, nobody — including the authors of the initiative — knows exactly how that law would be interpreted and enforced. But legal and medical experts are concerned that the “personhood” amendment could spur a litany of expensive court battles, bogus lawsuits and moral and political conundrums beyond the scope of women’s choice.
If Proposition 26 passes, it would ban all abortion for any reason. Additionally, it would probably ban all hormonal contraception like pills, rings loops, etc. It could easily affect in vitro fertilization, as well as throw suspicion on spontaneous abortion (miscarriage) and ectopic pregnancy. Rape, incest and fetal anomaly would have no bearing on easing restrictions.
Obviously Proposition 26 would currently be unconstitutional and would end up in the court system. It is unfathomable that Mississippi would proceed with such an absurd law, yet they are out voting on it today.
The inception of Proposition 26 didn’t start in Mississippi. The idea for it was apparently conceived by a group in Colorado. Mississippi is a test run of sorts. The state was probably chosen because it ranks 49th in education and is one of, if not the poorest state in the union based on median household income. The less people understand about biology and the difference in fertilization and conception, the easier it will be to pass an amendment this absurd in 2011. Doing away with modern birth control is probably the worst way to end abortion.
Love your children. Care for your children. Keep them off of Sudley Road.
Friday I was in the vicinity of your demonstration around 5 pm. There were four or five school age kids out there flapping signs and acting like they were at a car wash. Most of the adults were standing around talking and obviously allowing the kids to do whatever it is kids do when their parents don’t have them under control . I wish I had had my camera. They weren’t being bad. They were being kids and it is a dangerous situation out there on that section of Sudley Road. A kid can fall off the curb, a driver can be distracted and run up on the curb, or a driver can hit someone in front and cause a chain reaction.
Your children and others are in danger when you allow them to hop up and down near the curb, waving signs at drivers who should be watching the road and the cars in front of them. There is a traffic light some 75 feet from where you are standing. Drivers have to be very aware of the traffic situation, not what is going on on the side of the road.
Adults can do what they feel they need to do. I have no problem with the adult demonstrations. What I don’t understand is why do you want to involve your children and put them in harm’s way? Is it going to take a child being injured or killed or another wreck to make some of you all do the responsible thing? My heart was in my throat as I watched them from a nearby building. Being pro-life means being pro-all life, especially your cute little kids who were out there having a good time.
Where are the Manassas City police? The behavior I saw on Friday made me question if a uniform officer ought to be standing watch over all demonstrations. It just isn’t safe to have children out there on a road as busy and heavily trafficed as Sudley Road.
This particular session is the Romney version. Rachel Maddow hosts a man-cave session so that the male politicians understand female parts, pregnancy and birth control and how legislation that defines life beginning at conception or fertilization will outlaw contraception. It could even make miscarriage suspicious and open to investigation by authorities.
Mitt Romney is not the only person who is agreeing to legislation he really doesn’t understand. Most people don’t understand the unintended consequence of their words. Romney is just playing to his base. He doesn’t understand that his words would medically make contraception, which he believes in, illegal. Local politicians like Jackson Miller have voted for similartype legislation. Jackson also supports contraception and isnt aware of the unintended consequences.
One exception is too-long -in-office Delegate Bob Marshall, who originally ran on a term limits ticket when he first became a delegate. Bob Marshall has continually pushed for legislation that defines when life begins. He has sponsored legislation that goes back further than conception to include life beginning at the moment of fertilization or union of sperm and egg. Unlike Mitt Romney and Jackson Miller, Bob Marshall knows exactly what he is saying and doing. He has made a life time career out of attempting to outlaw not only abortion but also the use of contraception. He and his buddy at American Life League, Judie Brown, set out years ago to trick voters and the uninformed into passing legislation that would, in essence, make using contraception illegal. Don’t be caught off guard.
American Life League is located in Stafford, Virginia. Bob Marshall was involved in the formation of the organization, along with long time leader, Judie Brown. ALL is most definitely anti abortion AND anti contraception. If you queston Bob Marshall about wanting to outlaw contraception at one of the meet the candidates nights, he will not deny the charge. He just won’t bring it up and let the voters know his true intentions.
It is time for Delegate Bob to retire. His term limits have expired. Send his opponent Carl Genthner to Richmond. Carl supports the women of Virginia making their own contraception decisions and won’t try to trick them with defining life.
Candidate Chris Royse is running for supervisor of the Woodbridge Magisterial District and has challenged Supervisor Frank Principi, again. Royse did something a few years ago that I haven’t quite gotten over–something I think was unconscionable for a public office seeker to do. He called on the leaders of the Arlington Diocese to withhold communion from both Supervisor Principi and Congressman Gerry Connolly. What a nerve!
Royse identified both men as Catholics and accused them in a public letter in the News and Messenger of “supporting pro-choice agendas in direct violation of church teachings.” In the first place, since when did Royse become the ” mind police or the arbiter of who is and who is not right with the Church?” What pro-choice agenda has Frank Principi supported as a supervisor in Prince William County? What does Prince William County have to do with abortion services? Do we have a hidden clinic no one has heard of?
Emboldened by recent wins at the polls, House Republicans, led by Rep. Stearns of Florida has demanded 10 years worth of records from Planned Parenthood in order to shut them down.
I thought McCarthyism was over. Congress wastes more time getting involved in football, baseball, steroid use with atheletes and women’s reproduction. They need to work on the economy and creating jobs.
A study released by the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene reveals Chelsea to have the highest abortion rate in New York City, with 67.23 percent of pregnancies ending in abortion.
Jamaica, Central Harlem, Greenwich Village, and Bedford-Stuyvesant also ranked high on the list. The neighborhood with the lowest abortion rate is the Upper East Side, which also happens to be Manhattan’s safest neighborhood as well.
Many of us will recognize the areas with high abortion rates as the neighborhoods that have the greatest poverty in New York City. This data tells us that high abortion frequency is closely tied to poverty and the dysfunction of poverty. The statistics are staggering. So are the stats for crime, high school drop out, welfare, prostitution, government assistance and drug use.
There are 22 facilities that provide first-trimester abortions in Virginia, and all of them may have to close their doors over the next two years if they can’t meet the state government’s rigorous new health clinic regulations.
Virginia lawmakers passed legislation in the spring that required the Department of Health to release a set of “emergency” draft regulations for abortion clinics that were to go into effect by December 31.
The rules, released late on Friday, borrow a number of very specific physical plant requirements from a rulebook intended for the construction of new hospitals. For instance, a clinic must have 5-foot-wide hallways, 8-foot-wide areas outside of procedure rooms, specific numbers of toilets and types of sinks and all the latest requirements for air circulation flow and electrical wiring.
“On the first read, it seems hard to imagine that many facilities will be able to comply,” Jordan Goldberg, state advocacy counsel for the Center for Reproductive Rights, told HuffPost. “We can fairly say that the regulations as drafted are the most severe, onerous and restrictive that have been proposed anywhere. They’re intended to apply to facilities that don’t yet exist.”
If the Board of Health passes the new standards on September 15, abortion clinics have until January to show the state a plan for the extensive and expensive renovations they’ll have to undergo in order to meet the new requirements.
The new regulations are especially onerous and are in place to make abortion unattainable because no provider can meet the standards of the new hospital regulations. Unfortunately, this entire assault is very disingenuous. If the anti-abortion crew or the state of Virginia really cared about the health of women (and men too, for that matter) they would impose the same standards on other outpatient medical centers that offer invasive dental, cosmetic, optical and digestive procedures. These non-abortion outpatient centers currently don’t face similar state oversight, yet they often involve very invasive medical techniques.
Perhaps all outpatient surgery/invasive procedure centers need an upgrade. If that is the case, let’s level the playing field and put the same standards in place for all. Otherwise, let’s just be honest and say the purpose of the bill to make it impossible to perform first trimester abortions in Virginia. Let’s admit that in reality a minority wanted to impose its will on the majority. It didn’t have the votes to outlaw abortion so it tricked foolish lawmakers into this insidious sneak attack to make abortion simply unattainable in Virginia.
This really was a cowardly vote. However, Virginians were warned last election. I guess they will have to live with it or travel outside of the state if they need services.
Sarah Palin has dismissed Gloria Steinem’s brand of feminism as very passé. Steinem has argued that Palin and Bachmann sold out the women’s movement. Palin pretty much dismissed Steinem by saying that she was so yesterday. Are Bachmann and Palin even feminists or do they want to be? I would say no. However they can reap the rewards from the feminist movement. Perhaps that is what it was all about.
Steinem was was feted at a luncheon on Wednesday in celebration of the HBO documentary about her life, Gloria: In Her Own Words according to New York Magazine:
Steinem elaborated. “I can testify, the very same things people were telling me 30 or 40 years ago — it’s against nature, you can’t do this, my wife is not interested — all these [people] are now saying, well, feminism used to be necessary, but it’s not anymore. That is the new form of obstruction. And, of course, it’s accompanied by the other natural thing that happens if you have a big social justice movement: You make jobs for people who sell it out. So we have Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann, who are on my list of ‘the women only a man could love.'”
A man has been arrested in Madison, Wisconsin for plotting to kill abortion providers at Planned Parenthood. According to Little Green Footballs:
MILWAUKEE (AP) — A Marshfield man who planned to kill abortion providers in Madison this week was thwarted on the eve of the intended attack when his gun accidentally fired in a motel room, leading to his arrest for reckless endangerment, according to a federal complaint filed Thursday.
If you can’t kill off a law, whittle away at it. Should Roe be overturned, abortion rights will cease to exist in Virginia.
Here is why there may not be a challenge to the restrictive clinic rules in Virginia.
Don’t try to reassure. It will no longer work. We can read the terrain. I have been voting for a Supreme Court justice for several decades. This presidential election was no different. President Obama did not disappoint.
Stewart claims that Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ) only lied to get his way. Kyl claims that 90% of what Planned Parenthood does is abortion when the actual number is around 3%. Easy to get 3% mixed up with 90%.
If you‘re wondering where Bristol Palin got the $172,000 in cash to buy her home in Maricopa, Ariz., — Loan from her parents? “Dancing With the Stars” payoff? A gift from her baby daddy, Levi Johnston? — it looks like part of it might have come from her work as an abstinence advocate.
The blog Palingates, soon followed by the AP, reported that according to tax forms, the teen mom earned $262,000 in 2009 for her work with The Candie’s Foundation.
Bristol was just 18 and a new mother when she became an ambassador for the foundation in 2009.
Is it just me or does abstinence mean …not having sex? So if you don’t have sex, how do you end up with a trashy boyfriend and a baby? I know these young kids and all and the generation gap, but there are just a few things I simply don’t understand.
During the Bush Administration, the ‘conscience clause’ allowed health care providers to decline care to patients if it would violate their religious beliefs. President Obama has tried to clarify the new rules which come after consideration of more than 300,000 public comments. Basically, the new rules say that contraception is not abortion; specifically: “There is no indication that the federal health care provider conscience statutes intended that the term ‘abortion’ included contraception.”
“The language published today reaffirms the principles of protecting the doctor-patient relationship by repealing the most onerous and intrusive parts of Bush’s last-minute refusal rule,” said Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America.
NARAL said the rules, as originally written, “could have allowed insurance companies to deny claims for birth control pills, hospitals to refuse emergency contraception to rape survivors, and employees at HMOs to refuse their patients referrals for abortion care.”
