Category Archives: abortion

Stuff to Read

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I’m still out of it with the motherbleeping cold. Entertain yourselves —

Matt Taibbi, Wall Street Should Stop Whining

Inside the New Hate

Ed Kilgore, Poor Handel-ing

The Bishops Overreach — see also USA Today —

The White House is “all talk, no action” on moving toward compromise, said Anthony Picarello, general counsel for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. “There has been a lot of talk in the last couple days about compromise, but it sounds to us like a way to turn down the heat, to placate people without doing anything in particular,” Picarello said. “We’re not going to do anything until this is fixed.”

That means removing the provision from the health care law altogether, he said, not simply changing it for Catholic employers and their insurers. He cited the problem that would create for “good Catholic business people who can’t in good conscience cooperate with this.”

“If I quit this job and opened a Taco Bell, I’d be covered by the mandate,” Picarello said.

From what I’ve heard, the White House is not caving. Fingers crossed.

Andrew Rosenthal, “It’s Not About Religious Freedom”

Karen Handel Pushed Onto Her Sword

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Karen Handel, the Fetus Person probably at the center of Komen for the Fail’s recent catastrophe, has resigned from (i.e., been forced out) of her job at Komen. Word is she has refused a severance package, which probably would have required her to keep her mouth shut. So she’s gonna blab. Should be fun.

Her resignation letter oozes with what the witty folks at Balloon Juice are calling “Handel’s Messiah Complex.”

We can all agree that this is a challenging and deeply unsettling situation for all involved in the fight against breast cancer. However, Komen’s decision to change its granting strategy and exit the controversy surrounding Planned Parenthood and its grants was fully vetted by every appropriate level within the organization. At the November Board meeting, the Board received a detailed review of the new model and related criteria. As you will recall, the Board specifically discussed various issues, including the need to protect our mission by ensuring we were not distracted or negatively affected by any other organization’s real or perceived challenges. No objections were made to moving forward.

I am deeply disappointed by the gross mischaracterizations of the strategy, its rationale, and my involvement in it. I openly acknowledge my role in the matter and continue to believe our decision was the best one for Komen’s future and the women we serve. However, the decision to update our granting model was made before I joined Komen, and the controversy related to Planned Parenthood has long been a concern to the organization. Neither the decision nor the changes themselves were based on anyone’s political beliefs or ideology. Rather, both were based on Komen’s mission and how to better serve women, as well as a realization of the need to distance Komen from controversy. I believe that Komen, like any other nonprofit organization, has the right and the responsibility to set criteria and highest standards for how and to whom it grants.

What was a thoughtful and thoroughly reviewed decision – one that would have indeed enabled Komen to deliver even greater community impact – has unfortunately been turned into something about politics. This is entirely untrue. This development should sadden us all greatly.

Poor baby. Not a clue.

IMO some sacrifice was necessary for Komen to hang on to any of its corporate sponsors. The people disillusioned by Komen’s bleep-up were not going to trust it again with their time and donations as long as Handel was still in place. Komen’s prestige will still suffer long-term damage, but this may earn enough forgiveness to enable it to continue some of its merchandising deals.

On the other hand, Art Caplan, a Ph.D. bioethicist, says Handel’s departure is too little, too late.

There is one last step that can be taken to save the mighty Komen from running aground permanently. The entire executive leadership and board must resign. Now. Anything less means that the prominence that Komen achieved will become simply one more in a long list of worthy causes that Americans may or may not choose to support.

What’s especially sad about this is that Komen CEO Nancy Brinker should have known better. Per Soonergrunt, in 2010 Komen turned down money from Curves because it came with a condition to cut off Planned Parenthood. Yeah, the guy who owns Curves is a five-alarm fundy and convicted deadbeat dad who thinks women are cows. Anyway, Brinker wrote,

“The grants in question supplied breast health counseling, screening, and treatment to rural women, poor women, Native American women, many women of color who were underserved—if served at all—in areas where Planned Parenthood facilities were often the only infrastructure available. Though it meant losing corporate money from Curves, we were not about to turn our backs on these women.”

A shame for Komen, but as I said, they knew better.

Update: The folks at LifeNews still don’t have a clue what just happened:

Kristan Hawkins of Students for Life expressed the sentiment of many pro-life advocates responding to the decision, by saying Handel resigned because of Planned Parenthood’s aggressive attacks on Komen after its initial decision.

“Karen Handel was sick and tired of being held hostage by the largest pro-abortion lobby in the country when she and the Komen Foundation were supposed to be focused on saving women’s lives, not endangering them,” she told LifeNews. “They held the Komen Foundation, and the millions of women they serve, hostage until they got their way, pocketing merely a drop in the bucket when it comes to their extensive funding.”

No, what happened is that a whole lot of women and men all around the country spontaneously took to Twitter and Facebook and raised hell. Planned Parenthood by itself doesn’t have the clout to hold anybody hostage. What smacked down Komen was a roar of public opinion.

Are you paying attention, Congress?

Douthat’s Propaganda

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If you go to Pollingreport.com and click on the “abortion” link, you can look at poll results on abortion going back years. You see that several of them break opinion into four categories, such as these from an ABC News/Washington Post poll from July 2011 (responding to the question “Do you think abortion should be legal in all cases, legal in most cases, illegal in most cases, or illegal in all cases?”):

  • Legal in all cases 19%
  • Legal in most cases 35%
  • Illegal in most cases 30%
  • Illegal in all cases 15%

What this says to me is that 54 percent of those polled are mostly opposed to criminalizing abortion, and 45 percent are mostly in favor of criminalization. A whopping 65 percent are not absolutists one way or another. And note that I’d probably put myself in the 65 percent, because I favor a clear gestational limit on elective abortion, per Roe v. Wade guidelines. That puts me in the “legal in most cases” category.

If we scroll down a little further, we find a Gallup poll from May 5-8, 2011 asking the question, “Do you think abortions should be legal under any circumstances, legal only under certain circumstances, or illegal in all circumstances?” According to that poll, the breakdown is:

  • Always legal 27%
  • Sometimes legal 50%
  • Always illegal 22%

Here, both groups of “mostlys,” both mostly legal and mostly illegal, are dumped into a middle ground. Gallup’s polls are, apparently, very popular with Fetus People, because they can be used to argue that all those people in the middle are on their side. However we see in other polls that more than half of the mostlys are “mostly legal,” not “mostly illegal.”

This is the game Douthat is playing in his most recent column, which blames “the media” for the recent Komen for the Cure flap. His basic argument is that nearly all Americans want abortion criminalized, and Komen’s crisis wouldn’t have happened had “the media” not stirred it up.

The real story, of course, is that it wasn’t professional news media that slammed down Komen’s decisions, but vast numbers of people who took to Twitter and Facebook and howled bloody murder about it. Komen’s own affiliate chapters were denouncing the decision, for pity’s sake. One suspects a majority of women who care deeply about women’s health issues are pro-choice, since the Fetus People mostly don’t care if women are dropping dead in the streets as long as they aren’t getting abortions.

DougJarvus Green-Ellis argues that Douthat’s whining is typical of someone who has just been spanked. He also says —

The Chunky one cites some poll numbers about how many Americans identify as pro-life, but that’s neither here nor there: reproductive rights has been a great issue for Republicans for 30 years even though polls show that the country has been split, tending slightly towards pro-choice, during that time. The reason is that pro-lifers think that if Republicans wink at them and say “Dred Scott”, they’ll over-rule Roe v. Wade, whereas pro-choicers think that Roe v. Wade will never be overturned (they’re probably right) and, if they have money, that they or their daughter can go to Mexico or Canada if need be (they’re probably right here too)…so pro-lifers vote the issue and pro-choicers don’t.

For this reason, conservatives like Douthat think that all talk of reproductive rights helps their cause, no matter what the MSM says. They’re wrong. Republicans have found a sweet spot on the issue, where their side is fired up and the other side is complacent. But that’s only on abortion. As soon as the debate expands to include access to contraceptives or cancer screenings, the terrain shifts, and probably not to a place that is as favorable for them as the current terrain.

My suspicions are that the “sweet spot” will work only as long as the Fetus People don’t actually get their wish. As long as middle-class American women have access to legal abortions, even if they have to drive to another state, people will more or less put up with the status quo and tolerate the shenanigans of the anti-reproductive rights crowd. As it is, a lot of poor women in states like Mississippi must effectively be cut off from legal abortions, although we’re not hearing much about it.

But, IMO, if middle-class women ever thought they’d lose access to legal abortions entirely, the game would be over, and the Fetus People would find themselves swiftly and eternally cast into political purgatory. What was done to Komen was just a preview.

Or, Maybe Not

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Greg Sargent points out that Komen’s reversal statement gives itself lots of wiggle room to cut Planned Parenthood in the future. Komen also has no intention of firing anyone for the debacle.

The anti-reproductive rights site LifeNews is telling its Fetus People readership that

Austin Ruse, the president of the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, who has been very closely following the Komen decision-making process, told LifeNews that the statement is not really a change in position but he says the sentence “We will continue to fund existing grants, including those of Planned Parenthood, and preserve their eligibility to apply for future grants, while maintaining the ability of our affiliates to make funding decisions that meet the needs of their communities” is “troubling” for pro-life advocates.

“This represents nothing new. We have known and have reported that they are continuing five grants through 2012. This is a reference to that. The second clause about eligibility is certainly true. Any group can apply for anything. It does not mean they are going to get anything,” Ruse told LifeNews.

“What this is is an effort to get the mafia off of their backs. As James Taranto said in the Wall Street Journal yesterday, this is a classic shakedown operation. Give us money or we will destroy you. This is Komen’s attempt to save their organization, which we should know is in peril. Our side should know that nothing has changed.”

The above is via Google cache; LifeNews is offline at the moment.

Komen Reversal! Planned Parenthood Re-funded!

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Seconds ago — the Komen Foundation just announced it is reinstating funding to Planned Parenthood. Here is the statement Komen just released:

“We want to apologize to the American public for recent decisions that cast doubt upon our commitment to our mission of saving women’s lives.

The events of this week have been deeply unsettling for our supporters, partners and friends and all of us at Susan G. Komen. We have been distressed at the presumption that the changes made to our funding criteria were done for political reasons or to specifically penalize Planned Parenthood. They were not.

Our original desire was to fulfill our fiduciary duty to our donors by not funding grant applications made by organizations under investigation. We will amend the criteria to make clear that disqualifying investigations must be criminal and conclusive in nature and not political. That is what is right and fair.

Our only goal for our granting process is to support women and families in the fight against breast cancer. Amending our criteria will ensure that politics has no place in our grant process. We will continue to fund existing grants, including those of Planned Parenthood, and preserve their eligibility to apply for future grants, while maintaining the ability of our affiliates to make funding decisions that meet the needs of their communities.”

You know what happened — the CEOs of the corporations sponsoring Komen merchandising deals have been having words with Komen execs.

Update: Personally, I doubt Konen will ever get all the toothpaste back in the tube. This episode is likely to leave a sour taste in a lot of mouths.

Notice that a lot of the backlash came from Komen affiliates. Seriously, women who are activists on women’s health care issues are likely to be pro-choice. Duh, Komen Foundation.

Update: When I heard the news I had just finished reading this interview by Sarah Kliff of Americans United for Life President Charmaine Yoest, whom Kliff argues was a behind-the-scenes influence in the de-funding decision.

Behold the Fail:

Americans United for Life has, for the past year, aggressively pushed Congress to end Planned Parenthood’s federal funding. It has also drafted model legislation that states can use to bar abortion providers from receiving federal funds. Nine states have passed such laws, although the Obama administration has blocked their implementation.

Yoest hopes that the Komen decision is the beginning of a similar push, on the private side, to curtail Planned Parenthood’s funding, although she does not expect other funders to get on board overnight.

“We’ll be looking at their other supporters,” she said. “Let’s be honest, they’ve been very fashionable amongst a certain philanthropic set. I hope that this is a beginning of people re-looking at associations with the nation’s largest abortion provider.”

Probably not, but it might cause people to keep Yoest at arm’s length.

Update: One of the comments coming from right-wingers is that Planned Parenthood doesn’t do mammograms, just referrals. According to a news story by the CBS Pittsburgh affiliate, the referrals also included vouchers to pay for the mammorgrams, and Komen was providing the money that Planned Parenthood was using for the vouchers. So cutting off Planned Parenthood really does amount of cutting off access to mammograms, even if the mammograms are not being done at Planned Parenthood.

Susan G. Komen and the Meaning of “Pressure” (Updated)

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Steal This Graphic!

You’ve probably heard that the Susan B. Komen Foundation has caved to pressure from right-wing organizations and de-funded Planned Parenthood. This will result in more breast cancer deaths, since it cuts millions of uninsured women off from any possibility of breast cancer screenings.

According to Sarah Kliff, the Komen Foundation says it is de-funding Planned Parenthood because it is under congressional investigation. Of course, the only reason it is under congressional investigation is that wingnuts in Congress are subjecting it to a witch hunt.

I think the Sarah B. Komen Foundation is about to learn the true meaning of the word “pressure.” My suspicions are that the bulk of its supporters are mostly feminist, and pro-choice, women. Not necessarily activists, but at least several degrees to the left of Phyllis Shlafly and Sarah Palin.

As Joan Walsh tweeted, “The Komen Foundation just destroyed its brand, and it’s going to be very, very sorry.”

Mistermix:

I’m confident that Komen’s funding will be replaced, and also that Komen will be a pale pink shadow of its former self unless it reverses this stupid decision and fires the people responsible. Check out list after list after list of Komen’s corporate sponsors. Do you think New Balance, Ford and Georgia-Pacific signed on for a public fight over Planned Parenthood? When Yoplait put a pink lid on its yogurt, did they do it to make it easier to boycott their products? Because that’s what’s going to happen. Unlike most boycotts, it’s easy to figure out which products you shouldn’t buy: anything that displays a pink ribbon with the Komen name.

When Komen starts losing corporate sponsorship, it will re-think its decision. No more pink ribbons.

Update: I second Tbogg —

We’ve done this before, but you can make a donation to Planned Parenthood and request a thank you card be sent to

Karen Handel
Senior VP of Fail
c/o Susan G. Komen Foundation
P.O. Box 650309
Dallas, TX 75265-0309

The New Comstock Act?

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Bonnie pointed this out in the comments; I wanted to be sure y’all saw it —

Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC), one of the most die-hard anti-choice lawmakers, has jumped on the bandwagon by sneaking a radical anti-abortion amendment onto a completely unrelated piece of legislation. DeMint’s amendment would ban women and their doctors from discussing abortion over the Internet:

Anti-choice Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) just filed an anti-choice amendment to a bill related to agriculture, transportation, housing, and other programs. The DeMint amendment could bar discussion of abortion over the Internet and through videoconferencing, even if a woman’s health is at risk and if this kind of communication with her doctor is her best option to receive care.

Under this amendment, women would need a separate, segregated Internet just for talking about abortion care with their doctors.

It’s not clear to me whether this act would censor all information about abortion on the Internet or whether it only applies to doctors using video conferencing or email to consult with patients. If the latter, I don’t even know what DeMint is trying to achieve, other than inconvenience and annoy people.

Also, last week the House passed the “let women die” bill. But they can’t pass a jobs bill.

Update: Digby figured it out. The bill is supposed to stop any federal funding of the RU-486 drug, including grants for webcam consultations, in which a woman is prescribed the abortion drug after a webcam conversation with the doctor.

Remembering Sherri Finkbine

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Something of a follow up to the last post — some of you younger folk (I assume at least a few younger folk beside my nephew Ian read this blog, although you wouldn’t know it from the comments) might not know about Sherri Finkbine. And the rest of you more mature (ahem) readers might have forgotten.

Back in the 1950s and early 1960s, Sherri Finkbine of Phoenix, Arizona, was one of the “Romper Room” ladies (it’s coming back to you now, isn’t it?). Romper Room was a popular children’s television program that I used to watch, although the only parts of it I remember is the stuff about “do bees” and “don’t bees” and the “magic mirror” segment in which the Romper Room Lady said happy birthday and such to various children watching at home.

Anyway, sometime in the early 1960s, Finkbine was pregnant with her fifth child when she took some tranquilizers. Back then we didn’t know about drugs crossing the placenta and getting into the fetus; pregnant ladies smoked and drank too. It turned out these tranquilizers contained Thalidomide. Thalidomide was a new drug not approved for sale in the U.S.; Mr. Finkbine, a high school teacher, had bought the tranquilizers in London while chaperoning a school trip.

But doctors in Europe had just figured out that Thalidomide was causing a rash of extreme birth defects, including missing limbs, deafness, and blindness. This was actually one of the first big clues doctors had that things women eat and drink might affect a fetus.

Finkbine’s physician advised her to terminate the pregnancy; she and her husband agreed. A local hospital tentatively agreed to do the procedure. But state and local law enforcement got wind of this and told the hospital, the doctor, and the Finkbines that they would all be subject to prosecution under Arizona abortion law if the abortion was performed.

But then Finkbine gave an interview to a local newspaper about her situation, possibly in hopes of gaining public support (although she said later she had expected anonymity) and to warn pregnant women not to take the tranquilizers. And then all hell broke loose.

Finkbine’s pending abortion became global news. Wingnuts from the Atlantic to the Pacific publicly vilified her. The Finkbines appealed to the Arizona Supreme Court to allow the abortion, but lost. And time was passing.

Finally, in August 1962, Finkbine and her husband flew to Sweden and had a late-term abortion performed there. The Swedish hospital confirmed that the fetus was missing both legs and had only one arm.

After the Finkbines returned to Arizona, Mrs. Finkbine was dismissed by the television show and Mr. Finkbine was suspended from his teaching job. “Their children were hounded, anonymous death threats poured in by post and telephone and the press swarmed around their home,” the BBC said. The Finkbines had two more children but eventually divorced in 1973.

Just a reminder of what America was like before Roe v. Wade.

Reproduction Rights News

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This week a judge in Texas blocked parts of a new abortion law that requires women to receive sonograms, including trans vaginal sonograms, before an abortion and for physicians to provide a description of the sonogram written by Texas state politicians. As I understand it, the sonograms themselves are not blocked, but the judge said that for the legislature to mandate to a physician what to say to his patients about anything is a violation of free speech rights.

The judge also said that a woman can’t be compelled to look at the sonogram or read the propaganda leaflets the state wants provided to her. As I understand it, this reverses one part of the actual law that says women may refuse to listen to the description of the sonogram only under some circumstances.

However, to receive the privilege of not hearing the propaganda, she would have had to sign an affidavit declaring that she is a victim or rape or incest, or a minor receiving an abortion without her parents’ knowledge but with permission of a court, or that the fetus has an irreversible medical abnormality. The law doesn’t make clear how public those affidavits would have been. I’m also not sure who’s going to pay for all those sonograms.

This law was high on the agenda of Gov. Rick Perry, the current front runner for the Republican nomination. And I suppose I’ll have to change this photo from Holsteins to Longhorns.

In better news, NPR reports that the Obama justice department is more aggressively prosecuting abortion protesters who block access to clinics.