With
the myriad ways that God was invoked on the House floor, one might
reasonably assume that the Almighty had sent a gilded memorandum,
replete with red letters to the Speaker of the House.
Let’s
be very clear: The Bible says nothing about abortion. Anyone who tells
you otherwise is offering you their inaccurate interpretation of
scripture.
But the bibble never shuts up about the divine injunction to kill unbelievers and rape their daughters.
As Digby says: If you think it isn't about sex, think again
Katha Pollit's column at the Nation this week proves it:
What
if there were something that simultaneously cut the
unintended-pregnancy rate and the abortion rate, while saving a bundle
of taxpayer money? Wouldn’t that be wonderful? Turns out there is. In
2009, the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation donated over $23 million to
the Colorado Family Planning Initiative, a five-year experimental
program that offered low-income teenage girls and young women in the
state long-acting reversible contraceptives (LARCs)—IUDs or hormonal
implants—at no cost. These devices, which require no further action once
inserted and remain effective for years, are by far the best method of
birth control available, with less than a 1 percent failure rate. (The
real-use failure rate for the Pill is 10 times higher.) One reason more
women don’t use LARCs is cost: While they save the patient money over
time, the up-front price can be as high as $1,200. (Even when insurance
covers them, many teens fear the claim forms sent to their parents would
reveal they are sexually active.) Another reason is that women simply
don’t know about LARCs and assume the cheaper pills available at clinics
are their only option.
Given the opportunity
to make an informed decision at no cost, around 30,000 participants in
Colorado chose LARCs. The results were staggering: a 40 percent decline
in teen births, and a 34 percent decline in teen abortions. And for
every dollar spent on the program, the state saved $5.85 in short-term
Medicaid costs, in addition to other cost reductions and the enormous
social benefit of freeing low-income teens from unwanted pregnancies and
what too often follows: dropping out of school, unready motherhood, and
poverty.
That is an amazing success story. For once government works at achieving the goals it intended to achieve. Huzzah.
Well, think again:
As
Republican State Senator Kevin Lundberg put it, using an IUD could mean
“stopping a small child from implanting.” (Fun fact: Lundberg is the
head of the Senate’s Health and Human Services Committee.) That IUDs
work by preventing the implantation of fertilized eggs is a cherished
conviction of abortion opponents, who reject the massive amount of
scientific evidence that the devices work by preventing fertilization.
It is “theoretically possible” that IUDs can prevent implantation, Turok
said, “but the chances are infinitesimally small.” And he noted that
“every legitimate scientific organization defines pregnancy as
implantation,” not fertilization. But to opponents, a woman with an IUD
is like an abortion clinic on legs: Who knows how many “small children”
she’s killing in there?
Besides, teenagers shouldn’t be having sex. “We’re providing this long-term birth control and telling girls, ‘You
don’t have to worry. You’re covered,’” said Representative Kathleen
Conti. “That does allow a lot of young ladies to go out there and look
for love in all the wrong places.”(Because the fear of pregnancy has
worked so well to keep girls virginal.) Other reasons to kill the
program? IUDs cause breast cancer (unproved). Birth rates are down in
two Colorado counties (so?). STD rates are up (no, they’re not; in fact,
they’ve stayed the same, which strongly suggests LARCs don’t increase
sexual activity).
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