Bogus Anti-abortion Arguments

Well, it's been brewing, but here is the big long abortion blog post. I think it's necessary for me to post this in its entirety because of the complete lack of sense I'm hearing from the "pro-life" side, and the deep roots of their agenda popping up everywhere. Have you searched Google lately for anything relating to abortion? They've taken over the search results.

So, I'm going to take some anti-abortion arguments and try to do my best to squash them. The arguments I've heard from anti-abortion people are numbered, my argument against them is underneath:

1. Life starts at the moment of conception. Abortion is killing an innocent child.


I'm sorry, but an acorn is not a tree, an egg is not a chicken and a fetus is not a child. It's a potential child, in the same way that an acorn is a potential tree. It doesn't grow on it's own. It depends on many other things in the same way a fetus depends on the body of woman for it's nutrients. If a woman does not wish to let something grow inside her body, she should be able to remove it.

I've heard the argument, "there's no difference between a baby in the body, and one that's born." The difference is that the woman has, in effect, given the fetus permission to take her nutrients and continue to form until birth. It's all a matter of what the woman wants. The reason it's wrong to kill a baby once it has been born is because the choice was already made by the woman to let the fetus grow and develop into a human, not just a potential human. I feel like this is almost common sense.

2. The religious argument; God hates abortion.

If your version of God creates everything, and oversees everything, then how can God be against abortion? He (and I'll use He because that's what it is to Christians), is responsible for miscarriages. God's the biggest abortionist there is. There are many more miscarriages per year than there will ever be abortions. How can God let that happen? Also, God, by extension, also created the abortion doctors and the technology used to perform abortions. How can you account for that if you believe what you say you believe?

Also, who are you to judge? You don't know the circumstances surrounding every woman who gets an abortion. If you don't like abortion, the solution is simple: don't get one. Personally, I would never get one and will probably never have to make the decision, but if I were pregnant, 15, homeless, with no support, then my perspective may be different. Why is this so hard to understand?

Furthermore doesn't this idea of "conception is the point where life starts" make menstruation and male masturbation a huge sin?! Every time it happens (or you make it happen, whatever, I'm not judging) you are potentially killing half a baby. Go ahead Republicans, try to outlaw then enforce that one.

3. Have you seen those pictures the anti-abortion people hold up?!

Most abortions are done when the fetus is smaller than the tip of your pinky finger. These disgusting posters anti-abortion people use are gross exceptions to the rule. Because they know their argument is goofy and makes outrageous assumptions, they are using fear and disgust to try and make a point.

We could use disgusting pictures of back-alley abortions to prove our point. But, largely we don't, unless it's used with respect, and with a nobler purpose than shock value. Why? Because we have respect, both for the women and for the advancement of our argument. If anti-abortion people had any respect for what they themselves defined as "life," then they wouldn't be using those pictures.

I'll agree in one respect; I'm not okay with most abortions, except for medical reasons or case-by-case reasons, after the end of the second trimester. By that point, the woman should have either made the decision to let the fetus grow or not.

4. Planned Parenthood and other abortion-providers perform abortions on girls under 18 without parental consent.

I think that, if you're old enough to have sex, you should be old enough to deal with the consequences. I don't think a parent should be notified if their daughter gets an abortion. It's her decision, not theirs. They should also be understanding and open-minded enough that their daughter doesn't feel like she's keeping a secret. But it's her body, not theirs.

To the "it's easier to convince teenagers to have an abortion" argument, I call bullshit. Who is convincing anyone to have an abortion? It's a choice. You get the facts and make a choice. This also is an unfair assumption to put on teenagers. It's not like they don't have brains capable of thinking through decisions.

If you want more about Planned Parenthood, and the fact they they support a wide range of services other than abortion (like cancer screenings, etc.), check out my other post.

5. Why not just have the kid and put it up for adoption?

This goes back to the notion of allowing something to grow inside of you. If you don't want to allow it to grow, no one should be legally forcing you to. Adoption is great if you want to take that route, but no one should be forced to have a baby.

And what would happen if women were forced to bring their unwanted pregnancy to term? Unless the GOP wants to adopt and provide great homes, schools, support and resources to these children, don't talk to me about adoption. Even if they did pledge to provide these things, it all still defaults to the women's choice to allow the fetus to grow.

6. "What about dads...that baby is half theirs. They should have a say." .... Or basically any other male-centered argument.

I don't like making this argument, but it does have value. If men were the ones that got pregnant, then you could have a say. But you can't get pregnant. You don't have this fetus growing inside of you. Therefore, whether you are the father or not, it doesn't matter. You can try to talk to the woman in question, but ultimately it's her decision. This is why family planning and birth control are so important. If your a man and you don't like abortions, YOU'RE IN LUCK, you never have to get one!! When you guys start getting pregnant, then we'll talk.



7. If abortions stay legal, then more and more people will get them.

Do you really think that we can't trust women to make their own decisions? Abortions are not just done haphazardly. It's a medical procedure and, like all medical procedures, should not be taken lightly. No one just goes to get an abortion for fun....are you kidding me?

8. Women are meant to be mothers. Abortions are defying what it is to be a woman.

If you still define womenhood by domestic capabilities, or by genitalia, then I have absolutely no hope for you. Gender is culturally constructed. Some of what's feminine today was masculine a few years ago. What's feminine in our culture is masculine in another. Personally, if you think this way, I only hope that you never end up in a position where you are overseeing women. Women can be mothers, or not. Housewives, or not. It doesn't make them any less of a woman. This is why choice is so very important in the never-ending battle for equality of opportunity.

9. Abortion is a form of racist population control.

Yes, it's true that minority women have abortions more often than white women. But this isn't just about race. Socio-economic status is embedded in this. Lack of access to birth control, bad health-ed classes and many other factors are also embedded in the racial divide of abortion.

No one's limiting your number of children, or encouraging an abortion. If they are, they're idiots.

I've heard some questionable arguments about Margaret Sanger being a racist. Even if there is truth to this, it doesn't matter. The need for birth control and choice is bigger than just one woman, questionable motives or not.

10. If you don't want to have a kid, you shouldn't have sex.

So if you eat fatty and greasy food and develop a heart problem, then your bypass surgery shouldn't be covered? If you play football your whole life, then your knee surgery shouldn't be covered? If you develop cancer from something avoidable then your treatment shouldn't be covered? If you have type 2 diabetes brought on by diet, then your insulin shouldn't be covered? I could go on. Obviously this isn't the case. So why should we make it the case for sex? It makes no sense.

Want to bring Christianity into it? The Bible may condemn premarital sex. I won't argue with that. But it also condemns people that eat shellfish, wear polyester and trim their beards on certain days (Seriously, read your own book). It also says it's okay to kill your kids of they disobey, to stone women for a whole host of minor offenses, and a wide range of other things that are illegal and/or morally reprehensible today. And Christians, last time I checked, you weren't following these things. Why? They're all from the same book. What makes one thing more important than the other? If it was all presumably written with divine intervention, then what makes one thing more important than another? I'm not trying to be offensive, but why do you get to pick and choose if the entire book comes from the same larger source?

This argument that I stated originally, which is very close to the norm of slut-shaming, may have worked when we didn't have widespread access or knowledge of birth control techniques and when the modern school of thought dictated that women didn't like sex; that they were supposed to be submissive and feel ashamed for having sex. I'd like to think we've come a long way since then. Sex is a personal choice. And so abortion should be too.

11. Edit 3/16 12:41 am: Forgot one.... the"if you get an abortion, you'll die/become infertile/get cancer/ put yourself at other health risks" argument

Any statistics about mental health, cancer risks, or just about any other kinds of bodily harm to a woman resulting from abortion, are able to be manipulated by both sides. Find me one statistic about cancer risk, and I'm willing to bet I can find one that negates it. That said, surgical abortion (an outpatient procedure) is a medical procedure, and like ALL medical procedures, freak things can happen. But it's a case by case basis just like any other type of procedure. One person may react to something differently than another, recovery times differ, etc.

Check out this site if you want more info about infertility.

And, about cancer, I'm copying and pasting something I said in my "No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion" post:

Abortion does not cause breast cancer, but it may put a woman at a higher risk. But, so may smoking, genetics, previous conditions, having no children, long-term hormone treatments, getting your period before you're 12, alcohol, being overweight and a whole host of other things. Scientists still don't know what causes cancer, and they still don't agree on whether abortion is a factor. (http://www.cancer.org/Cancer/BreastCancer/MoreInformation/is-abortion-linked-to-breast-cancer)

Some arguments of my own:

1. How is a pill before having sex any different that a pill after having sex? Both are halting pregnancy. I don't understand how people that use birth control can be against abortion. And I have news for you, just about everyone is using birth control. You don't just magically go from an average of 7.0 children per family in 1800, to 3.5 in 1900, to 2.3 in 2000s. It's not like people just stopped having sex. Duh. Which, again, is why abstinence-only education is just beyond ridiculous.

2. There is nothing more big government than trying to tell a woman what to do with her body and limiting her access to abortion clinics and birth control. America is supposed to be the place where anyone can choose their own destiny and make their choices accordingly. For some women, this doesn't involve having children. And for all people, it should involve family planning.

3. Under several different health care plans, Viagra is covered but birth control and abortions are not. This is just ridiculous for obvious reasons.

4. Abortions are not permitted in military hospitals. Obviously, having sex while enlisted may be frowned upon, but it does happen. And rape in the military does happen. Abortions need to be available so women don't feel as though they need to revert to the coat hanger.

5. Whether you outlaw it or not, abortions are going to happen. Instead of being in a sanitary doctor's office where the risk of medical problems from abortion are less than the risk of medical problems from getting tonsils out, the abortion would be performed in someone's house. Or in an alley. With unsanitary equipment. And you can't stop it from happening. If I wasn't so against the use of fear-mongering to gain favor, I would put the graphic pictures of back-alley abortions on signs to use against the people who support revoking the legal status of abortion.

6. I don't support looking at people as thought they were dollar signs, but if you are cost-minded, and not against government-funded abortion based on supposed moral beliefs, then think about how much more welfare money this country would have to give out to women if they were forced to have unplanned children that they simply don't have the means to support.


So, are there any more anti-abortion arguments you've heard? Can you spot any holes in my own arguments, perhaps things I can improve upon? Any other comments?

Edit 3/16: Also, I really recommend checking out the 12th & Delaware documentary if you haven't already.

Various Atrocities Aimed at Women

Congresswoman Elenore Holmes Norton (DC) speaking about proposed legislation and making a call for young feminists to join together and speak out against the war on women.

I went to Washington D.C. this weekend for the National Young Feminist Leadership Conference. It was incredible....all of it; the conference itself, the restaurants in the area and exploring D.C. after midnight on Friday and Saturday.

But this post isn't about Thai Place, Busboys and Poets, Tonic or GW Delicatessen that served great food, or my adventures, or the magnificent cupcakes from Georgetown Cupcakes. It's about what I learned from the conference.

My favorite quotes from the conference were:

"If you want change to happen get off the sidewalk and get on the street and start walking." -U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis

"When there are a few women in politics, women change. When there are a lot of women in politics, politics changes."- Women's Learning Partnership President Mahnaz Afkhami

I've never been in a room full of so many passionate and like-minded people. The speakers of the general assemblies were great, and the workshops I chose to attend were also great.

As I'm sure most of you know, a women's right to reproductive choice is on the chopping block. I learned a lot about legislation, particularly the Stupak on Steroids bill and the attacks on Planned Parenthood and other Title X organizations. All of the speakers of the first panel were awesome:

• NOW President Terry O'Neill
• Congresswoman Elenore Holmes Norton (DC)
• Founder and President of the Salem College FMLA Kari Ross
  
• iamdrtiller.com creator Steph Herold
• Executive Director of the White House Council on Women and Girls, Tina Tchen
• FMF President Ellie Smeal
  

The first workshop I went to had three women that became professional organizers and advocates for reproductive health and women's rights. My favorite speaker was Samantha Sewell (Conference and Events Program Director for Bluegreen Alliance) , but Dvora Lovinger (Deputy Chief of Staff for John Sarbanes) and Jen Heitel Yakush (SIECUS Director of Public Policy) were great too. The speakers talked about how they went from being an undergraduate to landing their dream jobs. I'm really considering entering that field, so it was great to hear from people that were in my position not too long ago. All were genuine and passionate about the issues that matter most to me, like reproductive choice, sex education in schools and working with politicians to get legislation passed.

The second workshop, with FMF President Ellie Smeal and FMF Global Programs Coordinator Anushay Hossain, was about opposition research and questioning the fundamentals of the pro-life movement. Ellie spoke about how deeply embedded the pro-life agenda is in our culture. From access and cost of birth control and contraceptives, to religious influence, to government mandates that control education and funding to sex education and AIDS prevention abroad, to questioning the money trail that leads up to the working-aged white males that make up most (or at least half) of the people that yell outside of abortion clinics. It's all interrelated, and it all works to limit the choice of women and their opportunity for independence.

The last panel I went to focused on a global view of women's health. My brain didn't want to function when UNFPA Chief Sarah Craven said that in Ethiopia, with a population of 7 million (so about 3.5 million women) there are only 104 OB-GYN's, and only 50 of them are practicing. Most of them only practice in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia. Because of this, both the maternal mortality and infant mortality rate are staggering. Pregnant women have to travel for hours and sometimes days, usually via donkey, to get to the hospital. When the mothers do manage to live through birth, they often suffer chronic health problems as a result of the lack of OB-GYN's and other resources available. All of this is happening when most girls become wives at 14-16 years old, which carries its own inherent birthing risks. Most women in Ethiopia have their first sexual encounter before they have their first period.

It's a similar story in Iran and Afghanistan, as I heard from WLP President Mahnaz Afkhami and nurse Mina Ayob. Most women don't have access to prenatal care, and few even know what it is. There aren't enough hospitals with the facilities needed to perform caesarean sections or other things needed for the birthing a breached baby.

Also in Afghanistan, I learned that most of the money the U.S. sends goes to constructing traditional madrasas, schools that only allow boys. The only real aid we provide for women is the training of midwives. But there still isn't a widespread effort to provide contraceptives and sex-negotiation skills to women. It all has to go through the men. This isn't just Afghanistan either, this is the extent of our efforts in many different countries. We focus on abstinence and fidelity instead of the proper use of contraceptives and sex negotiation techniques for women who are culturally forced to submit to their husbands. Organizations that do anything otherwise don't receive funding because they have to sign an agreement saying that their focus is on abstinence and fidelity.

And, of course, we know this is happening at our schools in the U.S. too. Abstinence-only education and slut-shaming is the norm instead of a focus on practical advice that everyone should know. Kids have sex. Sorry parents, teachers, religion...it's true. So stop pretending that it doesn't happen because it's causing serious harm to America's youth, and youth worldwide.

With all of this, there was a lot of talk about the union-busting nonsense in Wisconsin, which now threatens Ohio and other states too. In Wisconsin, unions of firefighters and police officers were allowed to remain, while unions of teachers, nurses and care-providers were not. Can you see the gender lines here? Walker said that public service employees are the police and firefighters, but then what are teachers, nurses and care-providers? We need them just as much as we need police officers and firefighters.

There was also discussion about the education cuts federally and at the state level, and the importance of higher education in general. Hilda Solis was amazing. For more on education cuts, check out my last post on Corbett.


So, the conference was awesome. D.C. is wonderful. I took some pictures that you can find on either my Flickr account or Facebook. Here's a taste:

Corbett

Why is education always the first thing to be cut?

We NEED educated people to make sure these kinds of things never happen again. Duh.

Pennsylvania Gov. Corbett, in his infinite wisdom, wants to implement serious cuts to education, reducing funds by 52%. PASSHE (PA State System of Higher Education) already suffered big cuts in the last year. I know that at my school, IUP, there was a lot of work done to put a cap on new hires, and try to do away with majors and entire departments that didn't have a specified number (I think it was 30) graduates in the past five years. One of these departments was philosophy...I don't think a university could be called a university without a philosophy department.

But Corbett wants to continue to make it harder for kids like me to get an decent education:

"The Republican wants to slash funding for the 14 State System of Higher Education schools from $444 million to $232 million. State-related universities don't fare any better. Penn State's funding, for instance, would drop from $304 million to $152 million." from here.

Also, Penn State president Graham Spanier called it ""a near-total abandonment of higher education," in this article (same as above). Penn State may even have to close some of its campuses.

Higher education cuts aren't the only ones. Public schools have a lot to lose too. The Pittsburgh Public School District stands to lose $34 million with Corbett's budget plan.

On top of all this, Corbett refuses to even tax Marcellus shale natural gas, saying that it would hurt the budding industry. Ridiculous.

"The amount the Legislature spends on itself would decrease 1.4 percent, to $296 million, a smaller percentage cut than at least 13 other agencies including the departments of Agriculture, Education, Emergency Management and Health."

Read more: Corbett drops budget ax on education, state employees - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/s_726380.html#ixzz1GDaB7NP4 (this article also has highlights of all of the cuts if you scroll to the bottom)

So, Corbett's paycheck is more important than our education, heath, food and emergency funding. Awesome. I'm glad to know that my state really cares about my well-being. I'll probably post a follow-up to this as I find more info. This will be my last post for a couple days because I'm off to D.C. tomorrow for the 2011 National Young Feminists Leadership Conference!

Also, here's a couple videos from WTAE about the spending cuts:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4WvgYfdm9w

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BD9_dAhMJNA (focuses on education)

Gingrich and Huckabee

So I'm pretty content at the moment. I've done nothing but sleep, watch movies and read books for the past five days. Spring break is awesome. But, while flipping through the channels, I caught a lot of fragmented conversations about Newt Gingrich as a 2012 GOP candidate and Mike Huckabee sounding off about Natalie Portman's pregnancy.

edit 3/ 15: According to Rachel Maddow (video at the bottom of the page), Gingrich probably isn't even running, he just wants to make it appear as though he's running to get money.

Gingrich has said he's running for president in 2012. He's is one of those people that believes in a very narrow definition of patriotism, and he throws the word around a lot. The following quote, from http://www.ontheissues.org/newt_gingrich.htm, infuriates me:

Replace multiculturalism with patriotic education. (Dec 2006):

In the classroom, the very concept of America is under assault. The traditional notion of our country as a union of one people, the American people, has been assaulted by multiculturalism, situational ethics, and a values-neutral model in which Western values and American history are ignored or ridiculed. Unless we act to reverse this trend, our next generation will grow up with no understanding of core American values. This will destroy America as we know it, as surely as if a foreign conqueror had overwhelmed us.

It is absolutely necessary to establish a firm foundation of patriotic education upon which further knowledge can be built; otherwise, Americans will lack understanding of American values & how important & great it is to be an American.

It is important to understand what makes America so unique and why generations of diverse people immigrated to this great land for freedom and opportunity. If Americans do not appreciate America, then how can they be ready and willing to defend her?

Source: Rediscovering God in America, by Newt Gingrich, p.133-134 Dec 31, 2006

I don't understand why being worldly and learning about many different cultures and beliefs is frowned upon in this country. How can we know ourselves if we don't know anyone else? Why do you think Americans are told to pretend to be Canadians while abroad? Because we don't care to know about the rest of the world, but we expect everyone to look at us and tell us we've done right.

Ugh...

People like Newt throw around this expression of "American values," but I just don't understand what is meant by it. Other than a notion of individualism, I'm really not sure what else could be considered an American value. We profess to be humanitarians, to be morally responsible, the land of plenty, etc. but we are forever doing things to negate these.

Gingrich wants to eliminate the EPA, he's against gay marriage and he's anti-abortion. Oh, and also, Gingrich was the one who helped to impeach Clinton based on his sex scandal, while Gingrich himself was cheating on his wife. Awesome. I totally want this maniac running my country.

Here's one of his more famous speeches:



yuck. I think he has some intelligent moments, but he reeks of that narrow-minded republican conservative dogma.




Now onto Huckabee. He spoke out against Natalie Portman for being pregnant but not married, saying that she's a poor role model for young girls. This same guy praised Bristol Palin while she was pregnant, saying he was happy that her family is supporting her.

Why Portman? I'm not sure but I think that the fact that she campaigned for Obama has something to do with it.

I don't know enough about Portman to say whether she could be a role model for young girls. I just know I loved her in V for Vendetta, The Other Boleyn Girl, Garden State and her SNL video (<- lots of bleeped-out swearing. but it's funny and you should watch it if you haven't). She's a great actress, an activist, and she seems like a pretty cool person. I really liked this video of her from Time:




So why is Huckabee picking on her? He doesn't like that she's supposedly glamorizing single motherhood. Yeah, it's true that most single mothers aren't going to be making millions of dollars like Natalie. Duh. We know this. I think it's ridiculous for Huckabee to pick on Natalie. And it already looks like most of America is on her side.




Also, I'm excited to be leaving for Washington D.C. on Friday for the Feminist Leadership Conference!!


Edit 3/15: lol @ Newt Gingrich even more. Here's the episode of Maddow that I mentioned in the beginning of this post:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Lady Gaga

I know this will win me some haters, but I just can't hop on the Gaga train.

I never liked her music to begin with. I hate most of the mechanical crap that so many people are embedding into their music, though I do have some exceptions like M.I.A. But largely, if I want to listen to computer noises, I would. I'd rather listen to a person's voice and a person playing an instrument.

But anyway, she played a show in Arizona and condemned the passing of SB1070, the bill that basically made racial profiling legal in order to get rid of illegal immigrants. This was her little rant:

"I’ll tell you what we have to do about SB1070. We have to be active, we have to actively protest, and the nature of the monster ball is to actively protest prejudice and injustice and the bullshit that is put on our society because you’re a superstar no matter who you are or where you come from, and you were born that way."

Cool, right?! A star using their visibility to do good. But here's where I have a problem:

I'm pretty sure the people that have hundreds to spend on going to your shows are already the superstars. Most Mexican immigrants don't come into this country with a few hundred extra dollars to spend on seeing Gaga. If she really practiced what she preached, her shows would be free. She has some cool ideas, but she lacks the follow-through.

As for all the crazy fashion crap, it's a gimmick. It's to get us to forget that she sounds like any other computerized pop person, except she wears weird clothes and talks likes she's on something.

I'm also not okay with her new song "Born this Way." These are the lyrics. For such a strong subject, she's using really repetitive, largely meaningless lyrics. If this meant so much to her, you would think she would try to have it pack a little more punch.

Here's a review of the song, one that I agree with.

I'd be much more inclined to listen to her if she stayed Stephanie Germanotta and didn't turn into Lady Gaga. I think she's a less talented rip off of Madonna. She was so much better before she went crazy:

People That Could Benefit From a Little Googleing

I'm an English and Journalism major, so I'm totally familiar with the art form of making it look like you've read something that you didn't. But, at least most of the time, I do some google-ing before I have to pretend to know something. Here are some people in and around politics that could have benefited from doing a little homework:

"...the very founders that wrote those documents worked tirelessly until slavery was no more in the United States....Men like John Quincy Adams, who would not rest until slavery was extinguished in the country."
--Michele Bachmann, during her Tea Party response to Obama's State of the Union Address

Oh yeah, and the moon's made out of cheese and I'm sitting here sharing a milkshake with James Dean. Really, THAT'S how ludicrous that statement is. That's more than just not knowing history, that's totally giving credit where credit is NOT due. Sure, Adams helped to get the conversation started about ending slavery, but of the so-called "founding fathers," many were slave owners, like Thomas Jefferson. The 13th Amendment (outlawing slavery) wasn't ratified until 1865. John Quincy Adams was already dead. Washington, Franklin, Monroe, Madison, Jefferson, and the first Adams were already dead. Even with the 13th Amendment, segregation was instated till the middle of the 60s, and we're still fighting civil rights battles today.

During her response, Bachmann also used the phrase "American exceptionalism." This works both ways; both they way your 1st grade teacher used it to describe your work of art, but also meaning that America as somehow an "exception." We've used this belief to do a lot of stupid things, and I was irritated that Bachmann used this in her speech.

"In case you missed it, this week, there was a tragedy in Kansas. Ten thousand people died -- an entire town destroyed."
--President Obama, on a tornado in Kansas

I guess 10,000 died in Obamaland, but, here on Earth, it was 12. I'm all for upping the drama, but not to the effect of killing off 9,988 extra people. All you had to do was take out your Blackberry and Google it. THAT'S IT!


Glenn Beck's Thomas Paine worship...

I'm no expert on Paine. I've only read parts of Age of Reason and Common Sense in a couple classes. But, I'm expert enough to say that Beck is backing the wrong guy and he, quite obviously, has never actually read Paine. Both of these are quotes from Paine's "Age of Reason" .....

• "I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish Church, by the Roman Church, by the Greek Church, by the Turkish Church, by the Protestant Church, nor by any Church that I know of. My own mind is my own Church."

• "Of all the systems of religion that ever were invented, there is no more derogatory to the Almighty, more unedifiying to man, more repugnant to reason, and more contradictory to itself than this thing called Christianity. Too absurd for belief, too impossible to convince, and too inconsistent for practice, it renders the heart torpid or produces only atheists or fanatics. As an engine of power, it serves the purpose of despotism, and as a means of wealth, the avarice of priests, but so far as respects the good of man in general it leads to nothing here or hereafter."
  

Seeing any problems here? Beck is a Mormon. He said:

''I haven't seen Jesus and what he would do on a talk show on Fox, but I'm going to try.'' —Glenn Beck, FOX News Channel's Glenn Beck show, April 21, 2010

He ALWAYS plays the god card in his political rhetoric. And he's siding with an atheist? In fact, most of the so-called founding fathers were deists, not Christians. So, sorry Beck, it looks like Paine's just not that into you. Calling one of your books, "Common Sense," after Paine's work of the same name is just not cool. You should probably start wearing the costume of someone closer to your particular brand of crazy.... like Sarah Palin. Speaking of Sarah.....

“Especially within hours of a tragedy unfolding, journalists and pundits should not manufacture a blood libel that serves only to incite the very hatred and violence they purport to condemn. That is reprehensible.”
--Sarah Palin, about the bad press she was getting in lieu of the tragedy in Arizona

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0111/47477.html#ixzz1Ck3kwkwb

This is the definition of "Blood Libel," from wikipedia:

"Blood libel (also blood accusation^[1][2]) is a false accusation or claim^[3][4][5] that religious minorities, usually Jews, murder children to use their blood in certain aspects of their religious rituals and holidays.^[1][2][6] Historically, these claims—alongside those of well poisoning and host desecration—have been a major theme in European persecution of Jews."

So, basically, Sarah Palin just compared her bad press to the persecution of the Jews. Let that sink in for a minute. Jewish people, your persecution and torture at the hands of many different groups, all throughout history, is being equated with Palin showing up in a few unfavorable articles about her use of gun-related rhetoric. If this doesn't label her as a sociopath, I don't know what does. I don't think I can even say anything else about this without breaking something.


(Edit: I didn't put Christine O'Donnell's denial of the separation of church and state on the list because it's another one of my posts, entirely dedicated to her crazy antics)


This list could be a thousand times longer, and all of these people are repeat offenders. I just picked the ones that made me the most angry. If you can think of anything else that belongs on the list, make your case in the comments section. I just thought of one I didn't put on the list...the Tea Party for not bothering to use Google to find the meaning of another tea-related word.

Thanks for reading!!

Methinks you should boycott Chick-Fil-A

Hey, a group of us at IUP are organizing a campaign to get Chick-Fil-A removed from our campus because of the way they foster gender discrimination. If you're interested in doing something with us or on your own, you can check out http://iuprapidresponse.wordpress.com/ for more info. Thanks!!



Update 2/13/11: Here's a video I found that talks about the controversy. It does a good job of showing both sides of the issue:

Ronald Reagan

So, Reagan's 100th birthday would have been on Sunday the 6th. I don't know who would be more out of touch with the American public, actual Reagan or 100 year old zombie Reagan...though perhaps zombie Reagan would solve my burning question: "Does Sarah Palin actually have a brain, or is she a cyborg controlled by Darth Vader and Glenn Beck ?"



Jelly Belly brain flavored beans...oh man. Gold mine? Methinks so.

(I have a weird fascination with the connection between Reagan and his jelly bean obsession.)

Sorry, I had to have a zombie reference. But, there is a real problem with America's Reagan worship. He could speak. He looked pretty trustworthy. But behind that was a man who really set this country back a few years in his policies and actions. He shouldn't be worshiped and canonized in this country. Why? Read on:

1. He didn't care about the environment. This was the man that said:

"Trees cause more pollution than automobiles do" (1981)

Um. What?! This probably explains why Reagan decided it would be awesome to give corporations pretty much free reign over national land for drilling, clear cutting and other nonsense. He also appointed James Wall and Anne Gorsuch to head the department of interior. Neither of them knew what they were doing and neither much cared. Reagan also drastically cut back money given to the EPA to deal with environmental disasters and conservation efforts. (I'm in an Environmental Lit class this semester, read Greening of A Nation for a pretty good history of environmentalism in the U.S. It was required reading for my class. )

2. He illegally and secretly sold arms to Iran. Of course, nothing could ever be proven because witnesses were threatened and whatnot, but the other big names thought to be involved have committed suicide. He also did some under-the-table stuff with Iraq and contributed to the rampant militarization of the middle east along with George Bush vol. 1. (http://www.news24.com/World/News/Reagan-set-roots-for-al-Qaeda-20040607
has a good article if you're interested)

3. He was one of the most anti-abortion presidents ever.

"I've noticed that everybody that is for abortion has already been born. "
~Ronald Reagan, quoted in New York Times, 22 September 1980 (http://www.quotegarden.com/)

Let's unwrap this. One, he's making that bogus claim that life starts at the moment of conception. Well, with that logic, everything (EVERYTHING) that results in loss of sperm or egg is a child lost. It's preventing the life of a child. Nonsense. Two, thank you captain obvious. The only people that have access to worldly dissent and decision are the living. Take out "abortion" and replace it with "zombie rights legislation" and it's still true. This makes it a stupid thing to say. Three, Reagan is a man. I don't know about you, but I'm sick of men telling me what I, a woman, can do with my body. So STFU.


4. He didn't care about the AIDS epidemic. From Examiner.com:

"Consider that Mayor Dianne Feinstein's AIDS budget for the City of San Francisco was bigger than President Reagan's AIDS budget was for the entire nation..."

He just didn't care. He had complete apathy toward the issue, even when one of his friends, Rock Hudson, had died from the disease.


5. He ended detente with Russia and, instead of using diplomacy, he out-spent the USSR and sent the U.S. into an economic meltdown that lasted till the 90s. Reaganomics didn't work despite what Fox has told you.

6. There's considerable evidence (called October Surprise) that points Reagan to the Iran Hostage Crisis. Iranian students and military people had taken 52 people from the U.S. and held them hostage from November 1971 till January 1981 when Reagan took office. Why'd they let them go right then? A lot of people say Reagan bargained with Iran to hold the hostages until then so Reagan would look like some sort of savior for getting their freedom. True or not, given his track record, it still makes me wonder.

7. He was on another planet for much of his presidency. The man couldn't differentiate movies from real life. He even implemented Star Wars and called Russia the evil empire, which was just totally awesome foreign policy.

8. Here are just a few of Reagan's kernels of wisdom that should make you livid, from here:

"There is absolutely no circumstance whatever under which I would accept that spot. Even if they tied and gagged me, I would find a way to signal by wiggling my ears." --on possibly being offered the vice presidency in 1968

"Facts are stupid things."

"All the waste in a year from a nuclear power plant can be stored under a desk."
Quoted in the Burlington (Vermont) Free Press, February 15, 1980 (he was a presidential candidate). (In reality, the average nuclear reactor generates 30 tons of radioactive waste per year.)


"Fascism was really the basis for the New Deal."
quoted in Time, May 17, 1976

"I favor the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and it must be enforced at the point of a bayonet, if necessary."
Los Angeles Times, October 20, 1965

MLK would be rolling in his grave. Combating violence with violence? Not cool.



This list could go on, but those were the big things that stuck out to me. Reagan did do a few good things while in office, but based on the way politicians try to align themselves with him, you'd think he was infallible. He wasn't. He made a lot of dumb mistakes and set this country back a substantial amount in the 80's and it would be well-advised for the American public to recognize that he wasn't such a great president.



Want more? Check out http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/21/opinion/21krugman.html for a really good article.

p.s. there are a lot of links to Wikipedia, not because Wikipedia is the best and most trusted source ever, but because it does a good job of giving a general overview of the linked events.

No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion

I think the GOP has to reevaluate their platform. They want a limited government, but they want to tell women that they have to carry children. They also want to tell us who we can and can't love, but that's a post for later.

I'm talking about this "No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion" nonsense.

Abortions are expensive. This bill is less about tax dollars and more about eradicating abortion entirely. It targets the poor. The women that are using government aid to have abortions are women that obviously could not afford it otherwise. I don't think it's up to anyone but these women to choose to have a child or not.

It also takes away money from Planned Parenthood because some of them provide abortion services. Planned Parenthood also offers help and education to a lot of people. It's just insane to take away this organization.

I've heard the argument from a spending perspective, something like "well, we have to start cutting somewhere." But if these women with limited financial capabilities were forced to undergo full-term pregnancy, who do you think will be paying the taxes to support their kids? They don't just disappear. They have to live somehow.

Some people have made the argument that they don't want their tax dollars funding something they don't believe in. With that logic, the entire system of government would collapse. Example? Imagine if people that send their children to private schools decided they didn't want to pay school tax to support public schools. I don't support the war in Iraq, but I have to pay tax to fund the military. I don't agree with a whole host of past wars and foreign policy nonsense that we're STILL paying for. But I still pay taxes. You don't get to opt out of taxes if you don't support the cause, sorry. They only thing you can do at that point is move somewhere else.

I don't care about the religious argument. It doesn't matter. If you outlaw abortion, what do you think will happen? That people will suddenly agree with you and admit to some warped sense wrongdoing? No. It'll be a coat hanger in a back alley. Abortions are going to happen whether you like it or not, and I don't think anyone but the patient has any right to judge.

• Depending on where you live, it's really not easy to get an abortion. There are more than 5 times the number of "family centers" than there are of places that offer abortion procedures. State laws also provide a lot of legality issues and other things like mandatory counseling, parental notification, and limiting public spending on abortion services.

• It's not like people just decide to get an abortion. It's a big decision. This whole notion of "Oh, if the government pays for it, everyone will do it" is just ridiculous.
  

• Abortion does not cause breast cancer, but it may put a woman at a higher risk. But, so may smoking, genetics, previous conditions, having no children, long-term hormone treatments, getting your period before you're 12, alcohol, being overweight and a whole host of other things. Scientists still don't know what causes cancer, and they still don't agree on whether abortion is a factor. (http://www.cancer.org/Cancer/BreastCancer/MoreInformation/is-abortion-linked-to-breast-cancer)
  

Check out the documentary 12th & Delaware if you're interested in the abortion debate. It's a really great documentary. It gives both sides a lot of face time.

Also, here's the proposed bill in it's entirety http://www.opencongress.org/bill/112-h3/text.

Redefining Rape

The GOP was trying to pass a law that made forcible rape the only "real" kind of rape eligible for abortion. If a 12 year old girl is seduced and impregnated by an older man, or even her uncle, she has the have a child. Date rape? Have to have it. This is not only dangerous, but it gives more rights to rapists. It's already hard to prove a rape case because of the he said/she said ( or he/he or she/she) nature of it.

What if we decided that unarmed robbery was no longer stealing or theft but borrowing? How would that impact the law? Language is everything.


For more info, check out http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/01/republican-plan-redefine-rape-abortion. It's one-sided but it's a good article.

Chick-Fil-A

In case you've been living under a rock, let me give you a quick recap of the Chick Fil A fiasco.

They've been exposed to support organizations that foster homophobic hate, the ironically named Pennsylvania Family Institute. Chick-Fil-A support their so-called marriage classes that focus on bringing back the Bible's version of marriage. Supprt was given to the Pennsylvania Family Institute in the form of food donations to the marriage meetings.

Protests are happening all over the country, especially on college campuses, to kick out the franchise for mixing fast food and the conservative agenda.

I love waffle fries. I don't want to pick between virtue and potato any day. But when businesses make poor choices, it's our duty to let them know they've done wrong. And how? Hit them in the pocket books. Stop buying their stuff. Get your trans fat fix somewhere else.


So, Chick Fill A, I say stick to what you do best, making waffle fries, and leave the politics to Washington. And I'm really going to miss your fries and lemonade.

So kiddies, spread the word and don't eat the chicken.


check out http://news.change.org/stories/chick-fil-a-partners-with-rabid-anti-gay-group for more info. Do some google-ing too because it's an up-and-coming controversy.


My next post will be on the "No Taxpayer funding for Abortion" nonsense. I'm in the process of trying to get enough info to figure out what's actually going on, so stay tuned.