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Reproductive Rights, Week in Review, Mar. 26-Apl. 1 words by bayprairie posted April 3, 2006 - 1:57am
Here's this week's reproductive rights news brought to you by the women of Our Word (and at least one of the guys!). If you see something you find relevant please email it to me, bayprairie at gmail dot com William Saletan, The Judas Goat of pro-choice critique William Saletan, the self-styled "liberal Republican," who hails these days from the elitist community of Chevy Chase, Maryland and who's the chief national correspondent and 'Human Nature' columnist at Slate.com is in the news again. This week, his topic is Plan B. But before we get into that, let's review his other great contributions to journalism. ::::more below the fold:::: When he isn't collecting "Believe It Or Not" style sniglets, such as he did this week with, Doctors removed two fetuses from a-month-old girl or A two-headed toddler died just before her second birthday, he's blessing us with sparkly journalistic-rhinestones such as these: The difference between gay marriage and polygamy, Stop giving healthy people Social Security, South Dakota's invitation to snuff your embryo,The temptation of remote-controlled killing, and Teachers who have sex with boys. If he would stick with piddling mundanities such as these in his monkeyshine attempts to entertain and enlighten Boobus americanus I'd be finding no fault with him. But William Saletan's self-proclaimed moral authority is sometimes dangerous. He sees himself as an expert on American women's reproductive rights and speaks as if he's an authority on the subject. What's worse, many others view him that way too. I put together this weekly blog post on the issues that concern me and my friends. I read about these issues in the news and I share those news stories in this piece. I do no original writing nor do I share any original thoughts. It goes without saying that I'm no expert on anything. At the same time, the undermining of a woman's right to choose does greatly concern me. And I feel compassion for women who have hard choices to make, often with no good options available to them and I seek to understand. I feel that Saletan in his writings only seeks to undermine women's freedoms. I'm not alone in these feelings. Others feel the same way also. What's fortunate for us is that many of them, unlike Mr Saletan, are experts. In the past I have shared some very good rebuttals of Saletan such as these. This one was from the Reproductive Rights, Week in Review, Jan. 22-28.
I also put up a stand-alone piece in which Joyce Arthur wrote him an open letter in rebuttal here: Joyce Arthur to William Saletan I'm pleased to share with you today another great piece that I just found out about earlier this week. Its also from a really great site, The Well-Timed Period. This is a site you should bookmark, if you haven't already. The fact that I missed this post from early this past month proves I haven't been on top of making my regular rounds. As Marisa said in the email she sent to alert us to this piece, the poster "eviscerates" Saletan.
Unlike me, the woman who writes at this blog is an expert and she rebuts Saletan using facts. Go give it a read. Currently Saletan's off on another tangent this week, Emergency Contraception.
It seems that Saletan's biggest worry about women's healthcare in these United States is figuring out which part of it he's against. Figuring out what his "views" are. It's a good thing we have such men looking out for us isn't it? I'm sure he has our best interest at heart. Much better, I'm sure, than I am capable of. At any rate I'll include no more writing of his in this piece out of concern for your health, and besides, I have to run go flush a few fertilized embryos down the loo. If I could tell Mr Saletan something though, I think I'd feel obliged to say the same things to him that Jon Stewart said so very well to Tucker Carlson and Paul Begala.
You're a hack Mr Saletan. Stop hurting us with your compassionless words. And stop empowering those who wish to erase the freedoms we've fought for and won. ____________ An article ran in the New York Times, April 1st, concerning the deaths of 6 American women (plus one in Canada) who had recently had a medical abortion using RU-486.
( words about: 95-10 | abortion | birth control | Democrats for Life | feminism | reproductive rights )
You described Will Saletan as a Judas goat, and some providers of women's health care consider him a Trojan horse. I think of him as more of a Trojan Shetland pony, and this week he rides again. Saletan can't even advocate OTC status for EC without dealing from the bottom of the deck. Who's his cited medical authority? Not the gold standard research published by the Population Council almost a year ago, but the Catholic Health Association. Then he falsely characterizes even the postulated effect of EC in preventing implantation (an idea now all but completely discredited) not as a process that would produce the same natural outcome as if a particular act of intercourse had occurred at some other time of the month, but as actively killing an embryo -- which sounds very close to Judie Brown's description of EC as a "baby pesticide." And still he says, "If you don't know much about this murky week in the reproductive process, it's time to learn." Saletan can call himself pro-choice until the cows come home, but no one who sees EC's mode of action as a "dirty little secret" is on our side. May his chickens come home to roost. We can help the Lilith Fund provide equal access for the women of Texas (1)
his most holy source, the Catholic Health Association. that one flew right by me. i know why i missed it too. he blew my hair back with the second sentence after he cited them where he said: To verify fertilization before then, you'd have to open the woman up. And that would kill the embryo. and my jaw hit the floor. i suppose these days, on hack journalism planet, it's no longer considered proper to say that the a test to verify fertilization would be medically unethical. no, we have to deal with "open the woman up". that strikes me as saletan sharing just a wee bit too much for my comfort, if you know what i mean. i suddenly sense some deep seated issues. note carefully his seeming lack of concern after "opening her up". oh, but that would kill the embryo, better not do that. what about the woman you just "opened up" you maroon? the statement has cult of the fetus written all over it. mark my words. he's believing in it now. "innocent" life. i wonder if he sounds like yoda when he says it. ANNNNDDDDDD speaking of the Catholic Health Assocation, lets go run over and see what they have to say about EC. I know they have some emergency room issues and after all Saletan's just a tool of theirs, it seems. the pope's man on the inside at slate. here's a little sniglet from their page on how they feel about EC given to rape victims. based on a short read it seems the desires and needs patient doesn't really come first at all. it's all about morality. Emergency Contraception and Catholic Health Care: Moral Considerations 4 Is it morally permissible for Catholic hospitals to offer emergency contraception to women who have been sexually assaulted? Yes, it is morally permissible to do so within certain moral limits. Sexual assault is an egregiously violent act against a woman inflicting horrendous trauma upon her, especially if a pregnancy results. The woman is justified in defending herself against this act of aggression and its consequences, including a possible conception. This is recognized and supported by Directive 36 of the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services that reads, in part: "A female who has been raped should be able to defend herself against a potential conception from the sexual assault." 5 What are the "moral limits" for Catholic health care providers when administering emergency contraception to a victim of sexual assault? First, it is never permitted to directly terminate an established pregnancy (Directive 45). This would constitute an abortion. Second, as Directive 36 states, it is never permissible to administer any medications that "have as their purpose or direct effect the removal, destruction, or interference with the implantation of the fertilized ovum" (emphasis added). Hence, steps can be taken to prevent a conceptus from coming into existence, but once it has come into existence nothing can be done that would result in its demise either prior to or post implantation. Directly bringing about the demise of a conceptus is also considered to be an abortion (Directive 45). 6 So what is morally permitted? According to Directive 36, it is morally permitted to treat the woman with medications "that would prevent ovulation, sperm capacitation, or fertilization." In other words, it is morally permissible to use contraceptive agents to produce an effect that ultimately prevents fertilization from occurring. The Directive stipulates, however, that administration of these medications can occur only after "appropriate testing" and if "there is no evidence that conception has occurred." 7 What is "appropriate testing" and how can we determine that "there is no evidence that conception has occurred"? As the name suggests, the pregnancy approach tests only for the existence of a pre-existing pregnancy, that is, one that occurred before and is unrelated to the sexual assault. This approach makes no attempt to determine whether conception has occurred because of the sexual assault on the assumption that no tests presently available or personal information supplied by the woman can provide evidence of conception from a recent sexual assault. The most that can be done is to rule out a prior pregnancy. If the pregnancy test is negative, the woman is offered emergency contraception. If it is positive, she is not given the medications because there is no chance of her becoming pregnant from the sexual assault if she is already pregnant. The ovulation approach tests for the presence of a pre-existing pregnancy and, in addition, also tries to ascertain whether the woman is at that point in her menstrual cycle when conception might have occurred. As previously noted, there is no current method for ascertaining that an ovum has been fertilized until implantation. All that can be determined is that the woman is at that point in her cycle where conception is a possibility (though a remote one, less than 1% to 5%). Those who espouse this approach believe that the presence of ovulation is an indication that conception might have occurred. This approach permits the administration of contraceptive medications only if the woman s pregnancy test is negative and personal and/or empirical data (the results from tests for ovulation) indicate that she is not presently ovulating or in the early post-ovulatory phase of her menstrual cycle. The tests that are administered' (1)
Do those who believe life begins at fertilization also consider it murder to extract an absorbed twin or remove a second head? (1)
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