The Shutdown Gets Shut Down

Last week, an epic struggle over abortion rights was waged on the Senate floor, the most dramatic such debate in at least two weeks and the likes of which will only be seen five or six more times before the end of 2011.  With just an hour to go until complete and total anarchy (in the way of closed post offices and a parking free-for-all), the government shutdown was halted when the Republicans conceded defeat in their Game of Chicken and generously agreed to devote 0.008% of the federal budget to Planned Parenthood.

http://thefeministgriote.com/?p=775

Here are just a few things that we learned in the week leading up to the Shutdown:

• "Big Abortion" is something we should be worried about.
• Abortion constitutes over 90% of Planned Parenthood's services.
• You can get a mammogram and a Pap Smear at Walgreens.

http://www.newshounds.us/2011/04/12/brian_kilmeades_misogynistic_mocking_of_planned_parenthood.php

Now, while it is evidently permissible in political discourse to use absolutely any fabricated fact or preferably a bullshitted statistic to support your argument, it still remains the case that abortions constitute only 3% of Planned Parenthood's services, and Section 1008 of Title X already prohibits these abortions from being funded by federal dollars.  Yet, in just the same way that all women entering a PP facility for any reason are harassed indiscriminately, so too were the 97% of PP services that are not abortion-related to be defunded in the right's war of attrition on abortion and women's health.

This all leaves me utterly baffled as to what's truly at the root of the debate, because its clearly not the deficit.  I do, however, have my pet theories.  First:  America's religious, corn-fed middle and lower classes care more about fetuses than about women, to put it simply.  Babies have the fortune of being cute and innocent, whereas women have had sufficient time to fuck up in some aspect of life.  I can't tell you how many times I've come across this viewpoint just in perusing other Blogspot blogs and Facebook pages:  babies are sweet, innocent, and "gifts from God," and women who are not interested in producing more of them are whores, murderers, or both.

Second: America is viscerally afraid of and opposed to sex.  We are dedicated to denying that sexuality is a natural and universal aspect of life, whether we are married or single, straight or gay, trying to procreate or not.  Women's health services pertain to STDs, pregnancy, and the general state of having genitals - all of which are matters relate to sex.  Thus, Planned Parenthood falls into the category of "things your parents get awkwardly silent about and hope you don't notice," along with condom commercials and softcore porn mags.  So why devote funds to preventing the byproducts of sex - STDs, pregnancy, and cervical cancer - when these things only happen to bad people who are just getting what they deserve?

Luckily, the joke is on detractors of women's health, because donations to Planned Parenthood have increased 500% since the funding debate first began.  Evidently, there are people other than myself who feel that saving money by not providing condoms to low-income populations may not be the best cost-reduction approach in the long run.

Embarrassing Moments in History: Joycelyn Elders

I firmly believe that the first step in bettering life both at home and abroad would be drastically lowering the rate of unintended and unwanted pregnancies, while simultaneously cultivating healthier attitudes about sex.  Thus, I blog.  Yet my views really aren't all that radical.  They sound basic and intuitive enough, and completely in line with Whole Foods-shopping, NPR-listening liberal ideas.  Yet in practice, in the real world, we are still far away from realizing these standards.  To emphasize this point, I'd like to tell a sad story from (recent) history.

In 1993, Joycelyn Elders, pediatric endocrinologist and expert in childhood sexual development, was appointed the 15th Surgeon General by Bill Clinton.  At that time, the teen pregnancy rate was 11.1%, HIV rates were on the rise, and accordingly, the nation turned to the new Surgeon General for insight and solutions. From the start, however, she was unpopular with conservatives and the Democratic Clinton administration alike, and incited controversy through her support of abortion rights, marijuana legalization, and distribution of contraception in high schools.    

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joycelyn_Elders

Unfortunately, Dr. Elders offended polite sensibilities one too many times when she suggested in December 1994 that masturbation be taught to students as a form of "safe sex," in order to prevent HIV infections and teenage pregnancies.  Her exact words on this topic were "I think that it is a part of human sexuality, and perhaps it should be taught."  These comments fomented considerable  following day, she was sacked by Clinton, who stated that this most recent indecency was "the last straw."  This was approximately one year before he stuck a cigar into an intern's vagina.

http://www.mediabistro.com/fishbowldc/monica-lewinksys-drudge-anniversary_b28876

Claiming that "masturbation is bad" depends on what the definition of "is" is.

In 1996, following Dr. Elders' removal from office, the U.S. famously instituted a nation-wide program of "abstinence-only education," which invested $1.5 billion of taxpayer dollars in attempting to terrify American students out of having premarital sex.  Years later, the rate of pre-marital sex remains steady at 95%, teen pregnancy rates are back on the rise, and millions of American students are still being told not to touch themselves or anyone else in a "special way."

http://spendmoneyonline.net/2008/02/01/anti-masturbation-device-french-c1880/

Anti-masturbation device.  Sin-proof, Clinton-proof.

I myself was one of these students who came up in an abstinence-only sex education curriculum in Georgia.  The majority of our education consisted of horrifying images of STDs, greatly exaggerated statistics about the inefficiency of condoms, and exhortations to "resist peer pressure" - since, naturally, teenagers only want to have sex when pressured to do so by other teenagers, not because it actually feels good or is encouraged by millions of years of evolution.  Masturbation came up exactly once in the discussion, surrounded with plenty of Georgia-variety hellfire and brimstone.  

Given that realization of the futility of such programs has led to some budget cuts, however, I wondered if the Richmond County Board of Education had changed its stance on abstinence-only education.  Having found no relevant information online, I called the Richmond County School Board's office last week to inquire about its current sex education policies.  After the nice lady on the phone offered to transfer me, I was promptly disconnected.  Now, given my familiarity with this particular office, I attribute this carelessness to general ineptitude rather than to some kind of grand conspiracy.  Nevertheless, further inquiry revealed that Georgia is one of 27 states still required by law to focus primarily on abstinence in sex education, and that its abstinence-only-until-marriage programs received almost $10 million in 2009.

http://community.babycenter.com/post/a25578437/featured_debate_teen_pregnancy_and_religion

Georgia ranks 13th in the nation for teenage pregnancy.  Ooops.

In the nation with the highest teen pregnancy rates in the developed world, we inexplicably still pretend that abstinence until marriage is somehow a realistic goal.  Abstinence without masturbation, however, is about as realistic as trying to get America to actually follow the guidelines of the Food Pyramid.  While the importance of contraceptives needs to be emphasized over and over again ad infinitum to middle and high schoolers, the safest place for teenage semen is still in a sock, and the most effective and comprehensive sex education programs should acknowledge that.  Alas, Joycelyn Elders' suggestion was, and still is, far ahead of its time.  This is because for much of the nation, the priority remains not decreasing the overall rate of teenage birth, but promoting some kind of unattainable, Old Testament standard of sexual purity of which even Sarah Palin's children fall short.  We can only hope that a few more decades of these results may change our attitudes.  

Until then, Joycelyn, our hats (and our panties) go off to you!

The Barren Middle Ground

I am glad that I have access to adequate dental care should I need a cavity filled.  That said, having a tooth filled is a pain in the ass:  it's expensive, time-consuming, and just generally unpleasant.  This is why I floss.

Stripped of its surrounding controversy, abortion is essentially the same as a tooth filling or root canal:  it is a medical procedure you're glad is available, but you hope you won't have to take advantage of.  No matter how pro-choice you are, I can guess that you aren't hoping to be put in a position that requires you to choose an abortion.

This is a perfect example of the often-overlooked middle ground between the typically so starkly-divided choice and life camps.  Both sides agree that abortion is not an inherent good, and that the fewer that are needed, the better.  From religious, social, economic, and medical perspectives, limiting the need for and occurrence of abortions, both legal and illegal, should be a common goal.  In place of debates on the legality of late-term abortions, technicalities of "forcible rape," and issues of spousal and parental notification, discussions of preventative measures against unintended pregnancy - contraception and education - might bring us farther in the effort to improve women's health.

But those interested in achieving any degree of compromise in  are few and far between.  Instead, discussion gives way to incoherent shouting, and polarizing rhetoric fuels the fight on both sides.  Arguments addressing "a woman's right to choose" are shot down with appeals to "a child's right to life."  Clever and incendiary bumper stickers stare each other down in the nation's parking lots while accomplishing absolutely nothing.    Ultimately, the issue has polarized us so much that the idealism on both sides - but particularly on the right - refuses to bend for the sake of practicality.

http://www.bible.ca/oral-birth-control-NO.gif

The pro-life movement is generally disinterested with preventing the need for abortion through access to birth control and education, because as I've said before, this movement is as much about sex as it is about abortion.  Sex is a sin, as is abortion:  religion is not a relativist institution, and it knows not how to choose "the lesser of two evils."  For many, the sole measure acceptable for the discussion of pregnancy prevention has long been, and continues to be, abstinence.  Efforts to increase access to birth control, to develop programs for comprehensive sex education, and even to provide the potentially life-saving HPV injection to adolescent girls have all been viewed by the right-wing as an invitation to, and tacit approval of, premarital sex. Statistics that show abstinence before marriage to be an unreasonable expectation do little to change religious arguments, and sexuality continues to be discussed only in normative terms.  Pro-life leaders are too idealistic to compromise, and no solution can be acceptable if it acknowledges the inevitability of extramarital sex.

http://www.nicodetourn.com/img/abstinence-life-control.jpg

Accordingly, numerous family-planning measures have recently been felled before the unwavering sexual idealism of the right wing.  In addition to the widely-publicized defunding of Planned Parenthood, and last year's decision to continue funding abstinence-only education programs, a measure to provide monies to the the United Nations Population Fund also floundered in the House just last week.  Interestingly, this organization does not provide funds for abortion.  Instead, it grants access worldwide to family planning resources, sex education, and maternal care, with the expressed goal of decreasing the number of unsafe abortions.  This is a cause we could, and should, all get behind.  Unfortunately, this extending of the olive branch is unlikely to happen any time soon, since it would mean acknowledging that sex does not necessitate marriage, and that pregnancy need not follow sex.  Lest you were wondering, the Ten Commandments are ever-present in our legislature... though I know not of any measures based on the presumption that we do not covet.

Sex: Crime & Punishment

It appears that the U.S. is experiencing a disturbing trend with regard to beliefs on abortion.  According to the Gallup Values & Beliefs Survey, 2009 marked the first year that more Americans self-identified as "pro-choice" than "pro-life."  Remarkably, the percentage of Americans who describe themselves as "pro-life" has been climbing gradually since the mid-90's.

This change over time is so depressing to those of the pro-choice persuasion that it's barely worth talking about.  However, what I find more interesting is another result of the Gallup survey:

Evidently, the percentage of Americans who see the issue completely in black and white, who feel that abortion should be strictly legal or illegal, is relatively small.  The majority of those polled actually believe that abortion should be legal only under certain circumstances.  These "certain" circumstances always boil down to exactly two:  1) To save the life of the mother, and 2) In cases of rape or incest.

First, it is fairly difficult to find someone opposed to abortions performed to save a mother's life (although  the pale green line at the bottom of this graph indicates that these folk do indeed exist).  This is one circumstance rarely (and thankfully so!) subject to public debate.

The second clause is one that has generated a great deal of discussion, particularly recently.  Just this past month, the House got its panties into a wad over the precise definition of "rape," arguing whether federal funds should be allocated for abortions in all cases of rape, or merely for those cases John Boehner deems legitimate.

Biologically, a fetus is a fetus, whether it was conceived through rape, incest, or consensual sex; it is the same entity in question.  However, in these certain cases, an abortion crosses a fine line from the "murder of innocents" to an understandable and necessary course of action.  What is it that sways public opinion in these cases?

Ultimately, it is the willingness of the mother.  If a woman was raped, and presumably did not enjoy the violent act, then she need not be burdened further with bearing and raising a child she did not intend to conceive - she need not pay the price for a crime perpetrated against her.  On the other hand, if a woman had consensual sex, and especially enjoyable sex, then the subtle implication of the "in all cases except rape and incest" argument is that an unwanted pregnancy is the punishment she deserves.

Ultimately, the abortion debate is as much about sex as it is about the termination of pregnancy, because the one act so clearly predicates the other.  To me, this smacks not of sincere people genuinely concerned with innocent fetal life, but rather of those who view sex as a crime, and pregnancy as just desserts for loose women.  If you are going to be truly pro-life or pro-choice, at least be consistent in your arguments.  Either that, or acknowledge that the issue is a thousand shades of gray.