Prolonged Eye Contact

Arizona Legislators Trying To Declare Pregnancy Two Weeks Prior To Conception

racetothestoneage:

sexedhorrorstories:

supersoygrrrl:

greaterthanlapsed:

This is not a headline from The Onion.

Legislators have had so much success smuggling in ulterior motives with 20-week bans that they’re now looking for ways to expand the amount of hard right anti-choice nonsense they can attach to those bills. The most recent—-and extreme—-example is Arizona. There, lawmakers are writing a 20-week abortion ban that starts counting off at the first day of a woman’s period. Yes, they’re arguing that you’re “pregnant” while you’re actually getting your period. In fact, as Kate Sheppard at Mother Jones explains, they’re really trying to steal as many weeks as possible away from women seeking abortion:

Most women ovulate about 14 or 15 days after their period starts, and women can usually get pregnant from sexual intercourse that occured anywhere between five days before ovulation and a day after it. Arizona’s law would start the clock at a woman’s last period—which means, in practice, that the law prohibits abortion later than 18 weeks after a woman actually becomes pregnant.

That’s bad in and of itself, but taking a step back and looking at the big picture makes this law look even more sinister. Medically speaking, pregnancy starts when a fertilized egg implants in the uterine lining. Anti-choicers have attempted to define it earlier with their failed attempts to pass “personhood” law that would define not just pregnancy, but “personhood” as beginning at conception. Now in Arizona, they’re trying to argue that you’re pregnant a couple of weeks before you even had the sex that resulted in your pregnancy.

Think about the implications down the road. If a woman is “pregnant” two weeks before she becomes pregnant, than any fertile woman—-including those currently menstruating!—-should really be considered pregnant. After all, we don’t know the future. We don’t know that any non-pregnant woman couldn’t be pregnant two weeks from now, making her retroactively pregnant now. Considering that it’s anti-choice nuts we’re talking about, it’s safe to assume that they’d simply prefer a situation where all women of reproductive age are considered to be pregnant, on the grounds that they could be two weeks from now. Better safe than sorry, especially if that mentality means you get to exert maximum control over the bodies of women of reproductive age.

Arizona, what the hell is wrong with you???

Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa?

Turns out this is part of the current 20-week abortion ban bill that’s already passed Arizona’s Senate, too. (Already gave points for that.) I am, however, gonna give this +3 extra embarrassment points for this detail. I mean, holy shit.

*Pregnant people, not just cis women.

This is kinda embarrassing…

People need to stop reblogging this immediately. Amanda Marcotte and Kate Sheppard both fucked up majorly (or they’re intentionally trying to be misleading, who knows). This bill is massively fucked up, full stop. But they are not saying that pregnancy starts two weeks before you even have sex. They’re saying gestational age of the fetus will be calculated from the person’s last menstrual period and, as I’ve said many times on this blog, that’s always how doctors calculate the length of pregnancy! LMP is standard, people! There’s a difference between when pregnancy starts (implantation) and how the length of pregnancy is determined. Don’t believe me, perhaps? Here’s a blog post from Dr. Jen Gunter, whose writing I’ve blogged on here before:

Mother Jones gets facts mixed up in latest abortion article and why it matters:

Arizona is advancing the front line of the war on women. Every week, or so it seems, there are increasingly dystopian bills floated around the state House and Senate. Senate Bill 1359, which hopes to protect doctors from wrongful birth suits, the narrowly defeated no-sex-please-we’re-from-Arizona bill, which would allow employers to ask if their employees getting contraception are using it for “medical” or “sexual” reasons, and finally, as Mother Jones is reporting, House BIll 2036 which would be an anti-abortion bill to out-do everyone. Except, Mother Jones has a very important fact wrong (click here for the link to the Mother Jones Article).

The Mother Jones article claims the bill would impose the most restrictive gestational age limit, but Mother Jones is wrong because the proposed Arizona limit in the bill is 20 weeks, currently the gestational age limit in six states. (The current Arizona law allows abortion up to viability). Bill 2036 spells out how gestational age is calculated, from the last menstrual period, and that is apparently where Mother Jones got confused. See the excerpt below:

Not to go all middle-school health on you, but that’s not exactly the same as the actual date the egg and the sperm hooked up. Figuring out that exact point one became pregnant can be tricky. Most women ovulate about 14 or 15 days after their period starts, and women can usually get pregnant from sexual intercourse that occured [sic] anywhere between five days before ovulation and a day after it. Arizona’s law would start the clock at a woman’s last period—which means, in practice, that the law prohibits abortion later than 18 weeks after a woman actually becomes pregnant.

No, it doesn’t mean that the law prohibits abortion at 18 weeks. It means 20 weeks. Pregnancy has ALWAYS been calculated from the 1rst day of the last menstrual period. Always, always, always. When we do an ultrasound, we still use that convention. Perhaps it seems odd to non-obstetrical folks, however, since the last day of the period can be inaccurate (do you use flow? spotting? one spot of blood?), as can date of ejaculation (what if you have sex 3 days in a row?), and date of ovulation (how would you know that?), and the fact that fertilization takes 24-48 hours, the 1rst date of the last menstrual period is the only accurate date. Every other state law uses the last menstrual period (as does every obstetrical textbook) because that is the way we calculate gestational age.

There are many things wrong with the bill and to focus on an erroneous gestational age detracts from the real issues. The 20 week bills being introduced around the country are a response to the erroneous claims that a fetus feels pain at 20 weeks. Basing legislation on anything but facts is wrong.

In addition, 20 weeks is overly restrictive as many fetal anomalies are not diagnosed correctly until around the 20 week mark, leaving a mad scramble to get services in state or worse, have to pay to fly out of state. It happens more than you think.).

The bill also mandates an ultrasound, not a transvaginal probe (although mandating any ultrasound is wrong). It should be a medical decision. Mandating that a doctor ask if  the patient wants see the image is also in the bill, but I disagree with the reporter on why that is an issue. The bill only says the doctor has to offer, and studies tell us that the majority of women want to see the image when asked. My issue with that part of the bill is simply the intrusion of the state into the practice of medicine.

And finally, at the end of the bill this statement appears:

The legislature finds that abortion can cause serious both short-term and long-term physical and psychological complications for women…

Which is wrong. The complication rate with an abortion is lower than with a pregnancy that goes to term and there is no credible evidence based medicine that supports any psychological harm from a legal, safe abortion (worthy of a post in itself at a later date).

So there are many reason to take issue with House Bill 2036 from Arizona, but an 18 week gestational age limit is not one of them. Let’s make sure we focus on the facts.

There you go. Can we stop this now?

Have A Baby? There Goes Your Job.

bebinn:

liberalsarecool:

Supreme Courts’s 5-4 decision yesterday to negate part of the Family Leave Act:

“I’ll be damned if the conservatives on the Supreme Court weren’t getting jealous of all the congressional and state-level battles in the war on women and decide that they needed to take up arms themselves….

First, conservatives want to make sure you get pregnant by limiting access to birth control, then force you to have the baby by limiting access to abortions, then if you get fired for taking time off to have the baby, you have no right to recourse for being fired. Great. All these things that have been litigated decades ago and established as basic rights have been inverted.” - Nicole Belle of Crooks & Liars

No birth control, no health screenings for mother or child, no job to come back to. That is the family values of the Republican Party.

You’re damned if you do, and damned if you don’t. Don’t you just love being fertile under conservative control?

KaiserEDU.org Tutorial: Reproductive Health Care Policy for Women in the United States

In this narrated slide tutorial, Usha Ranji, M.S., associate director of women’s health policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation, summarizes major issues in reproductive health care policy. She discusses coverage and financing of reproductive care in public programs and private plans, as well as the key provisions in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) that affect reproductive health.

 Tutorial

[Unfortunately statistics generally only come in one flavor: cis-centric]

Rick Santorum, Meet My Son

bebinn:

This week my son turned blue, and for 30 terrifying seconds, stopped breathing. Called an “apnea seizure,” this is one stage in the progression of Tay-Sachs, the genetic disease Ronan was born with and will die of, but not before he suffers from these and other kinds of seizures and is finally plunged into a completely vegetative state. Nearly two years old, he is already blind, paralyzed, and increasingly nonresponsive. I expect his death to happen this year, and this week’s seizure only highlighted the fact that it could happen at any moment—while I’m at work, at the hair salon, at the grocery store. I love my son more than any person in the world and his life is of utmost value to me. I don’t regret a single minute of this parenting journey, even though I wake up every morning with my heart breaking, feeling the impending dread of his imminent death. This is one set of absolute truths.

Here’s another: If I had known Ronan had Tay-Sachs (I met with two genetic counselors and had every standard prenatal test available to me, including the one for Tay-Sachs, which did not detect my rare mutation, and therefore I waived the test at my CVS procedure), I would have found out what the disease meant for my then unborn child; I would have talked to parents who are raising (and burying) children with this disease, and then I would have had an abortion. Without question and without regret, although this would have been a different kind of loss to mourn and would by no means have been a cavalier or uncomplicated, heartless decision. I’m so grateful that Ronan is my child. I also wish he’d never been born; no person should suffer in this way—daily seizures, blindness, lack of movement, inability to swallow, a devastated brain—with no hope for a cure. Both of these statements are categorically true; neither one is mutually exclusive.

In response to Rick Santorum’s recent opposition to prenatal testing, Emily Rapp offers an unflinching, nuanced perspective on prenatal testing and pregnancy decisions. This article will probably make you uncomfortable, but that is the reality of life and death. It isn’t black and white, good or bad, right or wrong. When does the consideration of suffering and the quality of life begin to take precedence over our human determination to triumph over death? Can death be an act of love and compassion? Do we trust pregnant people to know what’s best for them and their children?

GOP Rep: ‘One Of The Points Of Providing Health Care For Women’ Is ‘Having Babies Born’

After the White House announced a rule mandating employers to offer contraception as part of their health insurance plans, officials added an accommodation permitting religiously affiliated institutions to opt out of the requirement. Under the rule, insurance companies would offer the benefit directly to the employee. That way, all women would have access to birth control, institutions avoid compromising their moral beliefs and insurance companies could avoid the costs of unintended pregnancies or medical complications.

But when Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius explained the economics of expanding access to birth control to Rep. Tim Murphy (R-PA) at a House Energy and Commerce Committee on Thursday, the Congressman was shocked:

MURPHY: So you’re saying by not having babies born, we’re going to save money on health care?

SEBELIUS: Providing contraception as a critical preventive health benefit for women and for their children reduces health care.

MURPHY: Not having babies born is a critical benefit? This is absolutely amazing to me.

In an interview with Fox News about his confrontation with Sebelius, Murphy disagreed with Sebelius’ assessment:

MURPHY: When Secretary Sebelius said that basically pregnancy is an expense, that means that by not having to pay for prenatal care and not having to pay for labor and delivery or the pediatric costs of raising a child, they figured they could save a lot of money. And it really baffled me how we were going to expect to pay for health care by not having babies. I thought that was one of the points of providing health care for women. And quite frankly it doesn’t make sense financially.

Watch:

The “financial” logic is sound. A study from 2000 estimated that it costs employers 15 to 17 percent more to not provide contraceptive coverage to employees than it would if the insurance coverage included the benefit. This higher spending accounts for the direct medical costs of a pregnancy and indirect expenses like employee absence and reduced productivity.

______________________________________________

• Not just cis women need this coverage for contraception or pregnancy related expenses.
• This seems like willful ignorance on Murphy’s part. What is there not to understand? Providing contraception reduces unwanted, unintended pregnancies. Covering contraception is like $1000/year and a pregnancy is $15000+ with no complications. 
• Why am I surprised though? This is the same dick from yesterday that wanted to use religious belief instead of science to determine if Plan B is an abortifacient. [It’s not.]

U.S. TEEN PREGNANCY RATE AT LOWEST LEVEL IN NEARLY 40 YEARS

Teen pregnancies have declined dramatically in the United States since their peak in the early 1990s, as have the births and abortions that result; in 2008, teen pregnancies reached their lowest level in nearly 40 years, according to “U.S. Teenage Pregnancies, Births and Abortions, 2008: National Trends by Age, Race and Ethnicity,” by Kathryn Kost and Stanley Henshaw of the Guttmacher Institute. In 2008, the teen pregnancy rate was 67.8 pregnancies per 1,000 women aged 15–19, which means that about 7% of U.S. teens became pregnant that year. This rate represents a 42% decline from the peak in 1990 (116.9 per 1,000). Similarly, the birthrate declined 35% between 1991 and 2008, from 61.8 to 40.2 births per 1,000 teens; the abortion rate declined 59% from its 1988 peak of 43.5 abortions per 1,000 teens to its 2008 level of 17.8 per 1,000.

Even with dramatic reductions in pregnancy, birth and abortion rates among all racial and ethnic groups, disparities between black, white and Hispanic teens persist. After peaking in the early 1990s, the teen pregnancy rate dropped by 37% among Hispanics, 48% among blacks and 50% among non-Hispanic whites; yet the rates among black and Hispanic teens remain 2–3 times as high as that of non-Hispanic white teens. There were also considerable disparities in birth and abortion rates. The birthrates in 2008 among black and Hispanic teens, as well as Hispanic teens’ abortion rate, were twice the rates among whites; the abortion rate for black teens was four times that of whites.

“The recent declines in teen pregnancy rates are great news.” says lead author Kathryn Kost. “However, the continued inequities among racial and ethnic minorities are cause for concern. It is time to redouble our efforts to ensure that all teens have access to the information and contraceptive services they need to prevent unwanted pregnancies.”

A large body of research has shown that the long-term decline in teen pregnancy, birth and abortion rates was driven primarily by improved use of contraception among teens. And while there was also a decrease during the 1990s in the overall proportion of females aged 15–19 who were sexually experienced, there has been almost no change in the proportion in recent years. Continuing decreases in teen pregnancy more recently may be driven by increased use of the most effective contraceptive methods as well as dual method use. In sum, teens appear to be making the decision to be more effective contraceptive users, and their actions are paying off in lower pregnancy, birth and abortion rates.

[Emphasis mine]