Look here, and see citation number 23.
It cites my post (Update: or rather the category containing that post, which had [at the time] only that one post in it) about Yvonne Jurewicz, who died due to a coat hanger abortion in 1990. And since I provide full page numbers and dates for the newspaper article I quote in the cited post, citing me specifically is unnecessary. Hence, this situation likely won’t last too long…
I think we should file this under the “You can’t make this up” category (emphasis added):
WASHINGTON — Marriage should be limited to unions of a man and a woman because they alone can “produce unplanned and unintended offspring,” opponents of gay marriage have told the Supreme Court.
By contrast, when same-sex couples decide to have children, “substantial advance planning is required,” said Paul D. Clement, a lawyer for House Republicans.
This unusual defense of traditional marriage was set out last week in a pair of opening legal briefs in the two gay marriage cases to be decided by the Supreme Court this spring.
This argument from shotgun wedding pretty much shows how opponents of marriage have no real arguments. That’s why they’ve come up with an argument that actually comes up with a reason to support same–sex marriage. Also juxtapose how many of those who oppose marriage equality also attack Planned Parenthood and seek to restrict access to abortion and contraception.
The apparently disturbing thing about this argument is that it has been used before and apparently accepted by some US court.
Via Lawyers, Guns, and Money.
Today is Blog for Choice Day 2013. The topic for this year is “Why are you pro–choice?”
I am pro–choice because reproductive freedom is an essential prerequisite for women’s rights. Societies where abortion is illegal are among the worst places to be a woman. Societies where opponents of abortion and reproductive freedom get their laws kill women. Reproductive freedom saves lives. Reproductive freedom is one of the most powerful ways to lift women out of poverty.
And with today being the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the need for reproductive freedom is more essential than ever. Recent times have seen record numbers of attempts in the US at chipping away at reproductive rights.
Blog for Choice mini-roundup:
Anti–choice policies claim another victim:
Savita Halappanavar (31), a dentist, presented with back pain at the hospital on October 21st, was found to be miscarrying, and died of septicaemia a week later.
Her husband, Praveen Halappanavar (34), an engineer at Boston Scientific in Galway, says she asked several times over a three-day period that the pregnancy be terminated. He says that, having been told she was miscarrying, and after one day in severe pain, Ms Halappanavar asked for a medical termination.
This was refused, he says, because the foetal heartbeat was still present and they were told, “this is a Catholic country”.
Anti–woman policies killed a woman. Thank a pro–lifer today.
Via RH Reality Check, DAMMIT JANET!, and a lot of other places.
Yet another study has found that gay and lesbian parents are just as good as straight parents, even when the circumstances are (for lack of a better term) stacked against them. It examined (at 2, 12, and 24 months after adoption) 82 high–risk children who were adopted. Of those children, 60 were adopted by different–sex couples and 22 by same–sex couples. The result?
From the abstract:
On average, children in both household types showed significant gains in cognitive development and maintained similar levels of behavior problems over time, despite gay and lesbian parents raising children with higher levels of biological and environmental risks prior to adoptive placement. Results demonstrated that high-risk children show similar patterns of development over time in heterosexual and gay and lesbian adoptive households.
And as mentioned at Salon, LGBT couples were more likely to adopt higher–risk high–risk children.
These results are entirely consistent with numerous previous studies: same–sex couples are just as good at parenting as different–sex couples, and perhaps even a little bit better.
Of course, I know that (almost certainly) not one wingnut or homophobe will change their views about this. Besides being driven by homophobia, I also see those people’s opposition to LGBT adoption as being driven by misogyny. After all, if you truly, truly believed that abortion was murder, how the hell could being adopted by a same–sex couple possibly be worse than killing someone? Now, you would think that it would be better to be adopted by a same–sex couple than to be dead. This would apply even if same–sex couples were the worst possible parents (which they’re not). This is why anyone who is why simultaneously being both anti–choice and anti–LGBT adoption is a hopelessly incoherent position. These people cannot possibly think that research going on since the 1970′s and all showing the same result (same–sex couples are just as good as different–sex couples) is inadequate. The only possible explanation is that they really do believe that being raised by a same–sex couple is worse than death. If they do believe that then they really are the worst sort of homophobe. If they don’t, then they are simply the usual anti–choicer who sees forced birth as a woman’s punishment for daring to have sex. That’s why those people’s opposition to LGBT adoption is motivated not only by homophobia but also by deep misogyny.
A new peer–reviewed study* published in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology has shown that free birth control substantially reduces the abortion rate. This is of course nothing new to rational people. The driver of the abortion rate is the unintended pregnancy rate, and with nearly half of American pregnancies being unintended, this study provides more evidence of the best way to reduce it.
When cost was not a factor, women generally chose the most effective contraception methods available, known as Long–Acting Reversible Contraception (LARC). Examples of those include IUDs and implants. This resulted in a substantial reduction in the abortion rate in the study group. Providing free birth control to all women could prevent 62–78% of all abortions each year.
It’s not like we needed more evidence that anti–choicers would, if they really were concerned with reducing the abortion rate (by more than half), would push for more birth control access and use. I mean, if you truly believed abortion was killing someone, how could paying for birth control possibly be too high a cost or more than halving the rate be too ineffective? But know I anti–choicers won’t.
* The study can be downloaded and read as a PDF here. It’s title is “Preventing Unintended Pregnancies by Providing No-Cost Contraception.
Edited to remove a superfluous link.
I first saw this video from the Guttmacher Institute at ThinkProgress. It shows how each year, around 47,000 women die from unsafe abortions.
If all those anti–choicers truly cared about reducing the abortion rate and saving lives, they’d be pushing birth control endlessly. But since they don’t, it’s obvious that the abortion debate isn’t really about abortion. Rather, it’s about controlling women and punishing them for having sex.
