THIS is not THAT, Part One: Contraception is not Abortion!

Interesting discussion on MMFA today.  And unless you're a truly brainwashed right-winger, I can't imagine how ANYONE could have a hard time admitting that Coakley's words were cleary being taken out of context, to the point where the meaning of her whole message has been dramatically altered.  But RightOn kept right on rolling, demonstrating that when it comes to partisan politics ENGLISH is apparently not his native tongue. (Reading Comprehension FAIL, though I still enjoyed the debate.  He's one of the guys that I know I can hit hard, because I know he'll come back at me just as hard.  That's what makes it so worthwhile! I really had a blast today! LOL) And should you have any doubts about MY interpretation of her words, here's FACT CHECK's take on it.  From that, it's pretty clear to me who's doing the lying, and who's merely making partisan points that are, in fact, TRUE in thier ads!  And Coakley'd ad, addressing Brown's absurd health care ammendment, alone might have been worth posting about, but Pongowinston TWICE refered us (in the same trhead) to THIS NONSENSE.

Now... first let me handle that laughably hypocritical blog post.  (1) Only Right-Wing morons think that voting for a bill means that you whole-heartedly support every single aspect of that bill.  (And even THEN, only when it serves their purpose too!)  So it's utter nonsense to think that by supporting the health care bill in general, that some how means she anti-abortion, becuase of the one ammendment in their in a vain attempt to pccify REPUBLICANS.  Which brings me to (2) We all know who the "Pro-Life" (anti-Choice) party is, and who that ammendment is in there for.  So don't go trying to make the Dem's look bad by saying their anti-abortion, even in cases of rape.  They aren't anti-abortion at all, ins't that your lot's usual narritive?  And seriously - since when did conservatives start caring about a woman's access to abortion services anyway?  But even putting the author's hypocritical accusations aside, the two ammendments are a false comaprison anyway.

Brown's, which would allow providers to opt out of emergency contraception on religious grounds, is not the same thing as what's in the bill that Coakley supports, which would allow providers to refuse to perform abortions on religous or moral grounds.  (And I love how he says that "even nmore broad" as if only religious people have the right to have principles! Typical RW, Christian arrogance.)  But after reading all this, I thought I'd say a bit about how I see the abortion vs. emergency contraception argument.

I'm actually OK with the ammendment that Coakley can live with, and utterly despise the one Brown proposed.
With regards to abortion, I am 100% OK with a Doctor or other health care provider refusing to perform abortions, in all cases that don't save the life of the Mother.  And Religion does not need to rear it's ugly, horned head in order for this to make sense.  The principle here is very simple: The OB need merely see both mother and baby/fetus as his patients for his hypocratic oath to prevent him from doing harm to either.  I will not put an instrument in someone's hand and legally compel them to do soemthing they feel is immoral.  I will never "force their hand."  What's more, I can support it on practical grounds, because abortions that are not life saving, very rarely (never?) need to be done RIGHT NOW.  A given person usually has options other than the just the one doctor, and if they don't at the time, they still have some time to find them.

 The situation is entirely different with emergency contrception.  In order for this to be effective, it MUST be given within a specific time window.  And the clock is ticking.  If you're in a rural area, and the next hospital is a few towns away... THAT'S NOT AN OPTION.  Niether is waiting until the next day.  Now... let's say the Nurses, Doctors, etc... are all strict Catholics.  Well... the church says. "No contraception."  So... what does that mean for them?  IT MEANS THAT IF THEY ARE RAPED AND FACING A FORCED PREGNANCY THAT THEY CAN'T HAVE ANY!!!  It certainly DOES NOT give them the right to deny legal and accepted medical care to a rape victim who either INS'T Catholic, or decides (as 99% of them do do) "Screw the church, I'm not having my rapists baby!"   And refusing to give someone else emergency contraception is tantamount to raping them all over again.  Worse actually, as it forces them to actually BEAR THE CHILD of their attacker.  It's nothing more than a despicable forcing of THEIR RIDICULOUS SUPERSTITIONS onto someone else.  Your religions binds YOUR OWN ACTIONS only.  It does not bind those of anyone else.

And I feel every bit as strongly about pharmacicsts who refuse to fill birth control pill scripts.  Putting aside that estrogen is used for far more than just contraception, this again is nothing more than them telling you how to live.  Them forcing their values on YOU.  If THEY don't believe in contraception, then it is on them not to practice it.  They have no say in what YOU DO.  YOUR LIFE is none of their business, nor does THEIR RELIGION compel YOU to act in any given way. It is just not thier call. And I would be 100% happy to revoke the liscense of any pharmacist who does business that way. Period.

One final thing, because I titled this, "Contraception is not Abortion," I'd like to use some logic from a RW anti-abortion bumper sticker that I'm sure we've all seen: If it's not a baby, then your not pregnant!  Well... I've already spelled out my thoughts on when the potential for life begins, but let's take that, and apply it to the bumper sticker logic... How about: If you don't have a fetilized embryo implanted in the wall of your uterus then you're not pregnant! Sound good? And how about: If you're not pregnant, the it's not an abortion? Here's another popular one: Abortion stops a beating heart! Well... Not if the embryo never implants in the uterine wall it doesn't! Because it never happens!  And that what emergency contraception does.  It prevents abortion (with is the ending of a pregnancy) by preventing the pregnancy from ever happening.  No reasonable definition of "pregnant" could fail to include an embryo in the uterine wall, and no pregnancy test in the world would detect the embryo until after it implants.  And once it does, no method of contraception will continue to work. 

So, like I said: The clock is ticking.  And the ER sure as hell is not the time or place to force your superstitious nonsense onto a rape victim, and end up victimizing her all over again.  It's absurd, and anyone who would support such a measure fails basic logical reasoning, biology 101 and constitutional law.  Any health care provider who would victimize any human being in this way deserves to lose their liscense revoked.  Period.  (After they've been sued for whatever they can be.)

You cannot have freedom of religion, until you have freedom from religion.  And ALL of the founding fathers knew this to be true, regardless of what the modern conservative revisionist would have you believe.