I have tried to re-write this many times in an effort to be more diplomatic, to not offend anyone - but the truth is? I can't do it. I can't sugar-coat or placate anyone anymore.  

Our Governor Sam Brownback seems to think it's incredibly easy to find a job, let alone a job with health insurance - because obviously if we silly, little women want our whore pills we should have to pay for them ourselves. 

But here is the problem with that - Jobs are NOT easy to come by. Jobs with benefits are even harder to come by. (Look at the medical field in Wichita - the vast majority of hospital jobs have religious affiliation) What that blow-hard Brownback said was flippin' ignorance. 

However, we all know he's a raging douchebag - NO ONE should have been surprised by his outburst. His concern for the Catholic Church and its delicate sensibilities was at the forefront of that entire interview - but I have to ask myself...where are the everyday Catholics?

Do they not understand that by supporting a Church that undermines their fundamental rights - is reinforcing and supporting that behavior? And potentially for a lot of non-Catholics too? Every time you tithe, every time you fill your pill prescription in secret - every time you ignore that little portion of the church's teachings - you are causing the problem. Now maybe the Catholic Church will never change its policy on contraception - but it's quite obvious that practicing Catholics sure aren't adhering to it. According to a recent Guttmacher study - 98% of Catholic women use some sort of birth control - yet they continue to practice and PAY to practice in a church that disallows that behavior. My message to Catholics - STAND UP FOR YOURSELVES! And if that doesn't work - find another Church to attend. Supporting their antiquated view on the subject of family planning is adding fuel to the fire - one that has the potential to burn all of us.  The only way the Catholic church is going to change is from within.

Until then - I suggest the rest of us make it perfectly clear that the Pope and his pointy hat need to stay the hell away from our uteri. 

The Kansas House seems to feel that it's okay for doctors to withhold information from patients. Provided that patient is a pregnant woman.
"Among the most contested provisions of the bill is the section that would exempt a doctor from a medical malpractice suit if a woman claims the physician withheld information about potential birth defects to prevent her from having an abortion. In addition, a woman would not be able to sue if she suffers health damage from a pregnancy as a result of information withheld from her to prevent an abortion. A wrongful death suit could still be filed, however, if the mother died." (Article found here)
Translation: If your doctor sees something is wrong with your fetus or your pregnancy - they will be legally protected if they don't tell you - as long as you don't die. So basically, if they *think* you *might* abort - they can LIE to you. Lose your uterus? Can't sue. Have a child with birth defects? No recourse.

I can't begin to explain out absolutely LIVID I am about this.  The rest of the bill is typical anti-choice bullshit - but this, this is a new low.

I worked in a pediatric neurology office for six and a half years - we saw children with seizures, genetic defects, hydrocephalus, extreme prematurity - that job has a lot to do with why I do not have children. Too much can go wrong. It got to the point where I was surprised and relieved when someone had a "normal" healthy baby. I watched families struggle with caring for a special needs child, husbands and wives torn apart over some perverse sense of blame. These situations should not be entered into lightly. (By the way, not all patients choose to abort when confronted with these types of situations, but this law would allow the doctor to make that assumption).

What these asshats are proposing would allow zealots with medical degrees to determine the course of their patient's lives. That is dangerous - and pretty frickin' unAmerican. Women have the right to know what is going on with their bodies - and with a fetus taking up residency there. Regardless of what a doctor may "think" his/her patient might do as a result of said information.

Here's an idea - if the idea of abortion is so abhorrent to you, if you are willing to DO HARM to a patient in violation of your hippocratic oath then I strongly suggest you find a new career.  The personal morality of a doctor does not overrule that of a patient. Period.

No, this isn't a rant about how I hate the color pink and how retailers and designers think that if it's for a woman it has to be pink...that's for a different blog.

As you should be aware by now - the Susan G. Komen foundation has pulled its grant money from Planned Parenthood. Bowing to pressure from anti-choice zealots, the Komen Foundation has sold its soul to the anti-choicers to sell a few more pink KitchenAid mixers. This pisses me off on a multitude of levels...first, I support Planned Parenthood - they are a baseline, safety net for thousands of women. This move undermines the mission that the Komen Foundation supposedly stands for.

Second - because well, I don't like the Komen Foundation much to begin with. I feel their incessant pinkification of EVERYTHING detracts attention from ya know...CANCER. I support Awareness organizations that actually worry about awareness - rather than product placement. (Like my birthday wish to raise money for Lung Cancer Alliance).

Let me be perfectly clear - I fucking HATE Cancer. (Full Disclosure: My mom died at the age of 43 of lung cancer, she survived 3 months after diagnosis. Lung Cancer kills more people than breast, prostate, liver, colon, kidney and melanoma cancers COMBINED - yet we turn everything pink). I appreciate the strides that have been made, thanks in part to money raised by the Komen Foundation - but I really feel they have lost their way.

I stand with Planned Parenthood - The Komen Foundation will not get another dime of my money. 

“Kansas is now a pro-life state, and we’re not going back,” Gov. Sam Brownback said to a roaring applause from a crowd of more than 1,000."

There was a rally on the steps of the state capitol this morning - cheering the erosion of rights for women throughout the state.

I wish there would be a point when I could stop being embarrassed of my state - but while reading about the anti-woman, anti-choice, pro-Government-intrusion rally...I made the mistake of reading one of the comments..I really should know better.  Honestly, it made me livid.

Do you see it? "if a women (sic) wants to cut out her uterus she is free to do so."  Well, Dr. Boxlock_ that is actually absolutely positively false - unless of course you are talking about a woman of means. For example - I have been begging for a hysterectomy for about 10 years now. Due to various "female" issues and a strong family history of cancer - I'm of the opinion that I'm not using it and well, there is a chance it's going to kill me. A wee bit irrational, yes, I'll admit that - however - if I really could "cut out" my uterus, like Mr. Boxlock_ thinks I can, then I probably would have done it by now. I was actually told that because I have no kids and wasn't a certain age yet - that no doctor would touch me. The doctor also told me if I had already had a couple kids, she'd "take it out tomorrow". *sigh*

Yes, it was a female doctor - no I didn't go back to her.

The antis always like to say that a woman's opportunity for choice is before she has sex - yet they work to undermine sex ed, rail against contraception, refuse to consider that abortion might be a good option for some women, gut social safety net funding and public education. I fail to see how that is "pro-life" at all. 


As Randi Rhodes says "Love the fetus, hate the child"

Today - I wanted to reaffirm my support of a woman's right to choose. I have been neglecting my site and blog - partly due to activist burnout, partly due to a demanding job. That got me thinking...

So much legislative action has been focused on whittling away that the basic right to birth control and abortion - that a woman's basic right to support herself is under attack.

The goal of these laws are not only to undermine the most basic rights of women, but to control us - if a woman cannot control the spacing and number of pregnancies, it is going to be much harder for a woman to be productive in the workforce. These laws have the effect of making women second class citizens. We have the right to work, we have the right to support ourselves and our families, we have the right to decide what happens to our bodies and we have the right to control our family size. It's that simple. There is no more common ground to come to - we have given up everything we can give up, any more "compromise" and the cause is lost. I, for one, will not go quietly. 

As I sit here waiting for word from Mississippi...I am a mix of emotions.  I am anxious, scared, hopeless, angry and determined.  The idea that a group of men think they have the right to control my womb - is insulting, degrading and infuriating.  I realize this vote is only binding in Mississippi - but don't think for one second that these "Personhood" groups will stop there.  They are an insidious outgrowth of the anti-abortion fringe.  Their goal - to make women slaves to their reproductive capacity.

I CONTROL MY UTERUS - NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND!

It is patently ridiculous that in a state as poverty stricken as Mississippi that this would even been thought about! What they need is more sex ed, more use of birth control and more assistance for the families stuck in the cycle of poverty.  Their infant and maternal mortality rates are a joke, yet every woman should have to carry any egg is fertilized to term, or die trying.

Let's be perfectly clear - those of the Personhood movement, those of the anti-abortion movement - could care less about the poor, the disadvantaged, the handicapped - because well, they aren't politically divisive.  These types of issues are nothing more than a rallying cry for their base, so that while doing all these things - they can get their ultra right-wing, uber-pro-business-at-all-costs-corporations-are-people candidates elected. Think about it - if it was geniunely a concern for human life - why would they be working against health care reform, against public education, hell - even some of the "pro-life" people are anti-pell grant! 

I fear that if *we* (I mean all women) lose in Mississippi - we are on the way to losing elsewhere. I am not trying to be alarmist - but the consequences really are that dire. All I can say is that until doctors will perform hysterectomies on demand - they will pry my birth control pills out of my cold, dead hands. 

EDITED TO ADD: YAY! The Amendment Failed!  The voice of reason and the rights of women won this round - but make no mistake - the war rages on. 
To those that might find this post from the state of Mississippi - reach out to the legislators that supported this amendment. Ask them what they plan to do about infant and maternal mortality, the high rates of teen pregnancy, the high rates of STDs - the cycle of poverty that is eating at your state.  Don't let them off the hook!

The state of Mississippi is set to vote November 8th on an amendment to their state Constitution - that says "life" begins at conception.  A fertilized egg - according to this amendment - has just as many rights as the breathing, thinking, walking, talking, feeling woman that carries it.  It would outlaw abortion in nearly every case - it would have effects on the current practices of IVF - it would halt any chance of stem cell research in the state and it would outlaw most forms of hormonal birth control.

Let that sink in for a second.

Women would be very limited on preventing pregnancy, would have no way to legally terminate an unwanted pregnancy and would basically be a slave to their uterus and the wills of ultra-conservative control freaks. 

Without the basic right to control reproduction - women will never be equal in society. 

There has been an onslaught of anti-women health care bills passed, but the truth is - many woman have been subjected to this kind of discriminatory treatment from the time they reached child-bearing age.  Many doctors base important decisions on preserving a pregnancy or a woman's fertility.  However - that isn't always in the woman's best interest or even what she wants.  I, for example, was told by a doctor that she wouldn't approve a hysterectomy because I am under an arbitrary age guideline and have no children - not because my symptoms didn't yet warrant it.  THIS IS NOT RARE!
In a case here in Wichita a few years back - a pregnant woman goes to the doctor for a pain in her side - four months later she is dead.  From the article: "Heather seemed to have morning sickness all the time.
In March, about three months into her pregnancy, she went to a doctor because of a pain in her side. That led to lesions being found on her liver. For the welfare of the fetus, the doctor decided to wait until the baby was born before investigating further."  Unless this woman was adequately informed, unless she agreed to wait for treatment - this doctor should have been brought up on criminal charges or at the very least sued into oblivion.
But this happens all the time.

This is what I wish people would understand:
1) Women are more than the contents of their uterus.
2) Women have the right to determine what resides in their bodies.
3) The "Right to Life" of a woman takes precedence over the rights of a potential life residing in her body - until SHE decides it doesn't

THE FIGHT FOR ACCURATE, HONEST, PRO-WOMAN HEALTHCARE BEGINS WITH YOU!

I'd like to apologize for the lack of new posts and news... Real life happens and it got the better of me for awhile.

For those of you that don't know - just a little over a month ago - I did a faceplant at about 35 mph, on the way to work.  Needless to say - waking up in an ambulance is not exactly my idea of a good time. So for the last couple weeks - I've been healing.  My face is almost back to normal and I finally feel like I can concentrate.

So what does that have to do with you?

Well, there's been a lot going on in my little state.  The ACLU brought a lawsuit against the state for its private insurance abortion coverage ban.  The State was told to start paying Planned Parenthood. Troy Newman tried to intimidate ProChoice folks at our state fair and then bragged about it on Facebook....didn't know about that?  More after the break (beware - big picture - just in case it loads slowly).