It's official:  Americans can no longer take prescription birth control for granted.  Yesterday, Monday, July 25, anti-choice representatives in the U.S. House made it clear that they support pharmacies that refuse to fill birth-control prescriptions - and that women have no right to birth control.

The radical right's campaign to stop birth control
The House Small Business Committee held a hearing on whether pharmacies should be allowed to refuse to fill women's prescriptions.  Anti-choice Rep. Steve King (R-IA) told a witness, who had been denied birth control and emergency contraception by her pharmacist, that she had no "right" to her prescriptions - she only believed she did.  Anti-choice Rep. Marilyn Musgrave (R-CO) told a witness whose prescription had also been rejected by a hostile pharmacist, that her "minor inconvenience" - that is, risking an unintended pregnancy - was nothing compared to the "conscience" of a pharmacist.

The right's anti-birth control campaign doesn't stop in Washington, DC.  Across the country, the radical right has engaged pharmacies in its campaign to block women's access to birth control.  Women like Julee Lacey, a 32-year-old married mother of two and first-grade teacher from Texas, are being turned away by vigilante pharmacists who think it's their job to dispense morals instead of medicine.

Now, as many as 20 states officially protect pharmacists like Karen Brauer, president of Pharmacists for Life, who says she'd lecture women customers to get off the pill.  Other states are pursuing an even more aggressive strategy.  Just last month Wisconsin passed a bill to block state universities from filling birth control prescriptions.

fucking fundamentalists!

Just when you think life in the UK sucks you're reminded it could be worse, you could live in the US 

From ProChoice America:

As many as 20 states officially protect pharmacists like Karen Brauer, president of Pharmacists for Life, who says she'd lecture women customers to get off the pill.

You took the words right out of my mouth!


unbe-fucking-lievable

...

It's official:  Americans can no longer take prescription birth control for granted.  Yesterday, Monday, July 25, anti-choice representatives in the U.S. House made it clear that they support pharmacies that refuse to fill birth-control prescriptions - and that women have no right to birth control.

...

I don't think the firearms/porn/New Republic argument is particularly analogous.  Health care is different, and I think it's more in line with emergency rooms' not being able (legally...) to refuse an emergency patient care.  Birth control is a private matter, much like abortion, that's between me and my doctor--I think it's important not to think of it purely as a commodity.

And unlike, say, porn, it can be an extremely time-sensitive issue.  I might not have the time or resources to drive for hours get to a pharmacist whose "morals" are in keeping with what is medically necessary for me.

I set them up, you knock 'em in.

I've been on the same pill for 10 years

What next, anti-vivisection pharmacists refusing to dispense drugs because theyve been tested on animals?

IFPA Launches Campaign for Safe and Legal Abortion in Ireland

- Release date: 09 August 2005

The Irish Family Planning Association, today (9.08.05), launched a major campaign for the introduction of legal abortion services in Ireland.
The ‘Safe and Legal in Ireland’ campaign will comprise a range of activities, including a legal initiative to challenge the status quo on abortion; a political lobbying campaign and sustained programme of national and international advocacy.

Announcing details of the campaign, the IFPA’s Chairperson, Catherine Forde said, “this campaign is of unique significance, as it represents the first major initative aimed at moving forward on abortion in this country. Previous campaigns on abortion have always been lead by anti-choice groups seeking further regressive and unworkable responses to abortion.

“Since the first Constitutional referendum on abortion in 1983, Ireland has changed: more women living in Ireland access abortion services and more women feel angry and frustrated that they have to travel to Britain and others countries to secure these services. The only thing that has not changed is the lack of courage and leadership demonstrated by successive Governments in dealing with abortion in a realistic and rational way.

The IFPA’s ‘Safe and Legal in Ireland’ campaign is all about ending the hypocrisy of exiling women in crisis pregnancy that choose to have an abortion. Last month, UK Ministry for Health statistics showed that 6,217 women who travelled from Ireland had abortions in England in 2004. From the IFPA’s own post abortion medical and counselling services, we know that potentially hundreds more women secured abortion services in countries such as the Netherlands, France and Spain last year. This highlights the hypocrisy of our legal ban on abortion, which is among the most restrictive in the world.

“Since its foundation, the IFPA has always challenged the restrictions that have prevented women and men making choices about the spacing of their children and caring for their own health. When we first opened our doors as a service provider and advocacy organisation in 1969, our great challenge was making contraception available. After decades of dealing with women with crisis pregnancy, we have decided to make our campaign for safe and legal abortions services in Ireland a priority. And we are confident that this campaign will have results.

“The campaign components have been endorsed by the Board of the IFPA in our Strategic Plan, and we are very pleased that Ivana Bacik, will be its main spokesperson,” said Catherine Forde.

In addition to unveiling the campaign, the IFPA also published its comprehensive policy position on abortion. Within the 13-point policy, the IFPA calls for the removal of Article 40.3.3 from the Constitution and says that abortion is a decision that should be made by a woman in consultation with her medical advisor. The IFPA also says that abortion is not an appropriate method of family planning and it should therefore only act as a solution to a crisis rather than as a means of regulating a woman’s fertility.


(...)

European Court: Legal Initiative
As a core activity of the campaign, the IFPA is facilitating a group of three women to challenge the Irish Government’s ban on abortion in the European Court of Human Rights.

Yesterday (8.08.05) a group of women living in Ireland – all of whom have had recent experience of a crisis pregnancy – lodged a complaint to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). Their complaint centres around four Articles of the European Convention on Human Rights. These include Article 8 with regard to the right of privacy in all family, home and personal interests, and entitlement to no public interference from any public authority in exercising this right; Article 3 which protects individuals from ‘inhuman or degrading treatment’; Article 2 which affords protection of the law to safe-guard the life of an individual and Article 14 which affords rights and freedoms without discrimination on any grounds.

“The IFPA has provided these women with the legal research and support to enable them to take this important case to the European Court. It is our assessment that the grounds under which these woman are taking the case are very strong, and we hope that the case will advance quickly through the Court, ultimately making a strong recommendation to the Government to address what, in our view, is a violation of human rights,” said Ms Bacik.

The identity of the three women will remain confidential as it proceeds through the European Court of Human Rights.



Political Lobbying
The IFPA will be seeking a meeting with the leaders of each of the political parties over the coming months to explain the rationale for safe and legal abortion, with a view to securing a commitment to move forward on the issue should they form part of the Government after the next general election.

According to Ivana Bacik, “last month, Minister for State at the Department of Justice, Frank Fahey, appeared before a UN Committee on Discrimination against Women, and stated that this Government has no intention of changing the legal status on abortion. This complacent response will be challenged, as there is a responsibility – at the very least – to provide a legal framework for the Supreme Court ruling in the 1992 X Case.

“In the past, those seeking to further restrict Ireland’s abortion laws have secured meetings at senior Government level, followed by commitments to tighten the law. Public opinion, most recently in the 2002 referendum, has shown that the Irish people do not want to move backwards. We hope, and expect that in our campaign for safe and legal abortion, people like the Taoiseach, Tánaiste and other party leaders will respond in a rational way.”


National and International Advocacy
In preparation for the launch of the ‘Safe and Legal in Ireland’ campaign, the IFPA has been working with other pro-choice organisations to build support for our agenda.

“The response to date has been very positive, and we will now be extending this movement of support to include the wider community, including young politically active people who are anxious to see a realistic response to abortion in Ireland,” said Ivana Bacik.

Among some of the international work that is already planned, the IFPA and some Irish women who have had abortions will take part in hearings on abortion in the European Parliament in October.

Over the coming weeks, the IFPA will launch its campaign web-site, which will provide details of how the public can get involved, either through becoming a campaign activist or donating money.

“There are many, especially policy makers and politicians, who will not welcome this campaign for safe and legal abortion, because of the many bitter and divisive rows that have gone before on this issue. However, this campaign is unique and different, as it is the first campaign that has been lead outside of a referendum which looks to move forward on abortion,” concluded Ms Bacik.

I'm not a believer in... artificial birth control. It goes down the line of being able to do whatever you want to do without having the responsibility that comes with that. I don't think it works. I think it's harmful to women. I think it's harmful to our society. To have a society that says that sex outside of marriage is something that should be encouraged, or tolerated, particularly among the young. [W]e've seen very, very harmful long-term consequences to our society. Birth control enables that, and I don't think it's a healthy thing for our country

Senator Rick Santorum, Fuckwit from Pennsylvania said:



Full clip available here.

Santorum was on the Daily Show a couple of weeks ago, flogging his new book. See the clip on the excellent onegoodmove.org here.

The Bush administration recently proposed a radical federal regulation change that would allow doctors to knowingly withhold information from their patients about widely accepted medical treatment options like birth control, emergency contraception, and abortion services. Even worse, this new rule could allow individual health care providers to redefine abortion to include the most common forms of birth control — and then refuse to provide them.

You can't even bloody google for any info on Abortion without the GodSquad getting involved!

Democrats are quick to attack the religiosity of Republicans, but Democratic ideology itself seems to have become a secular substitute religion. Since when did Democrats become so judgmental and intolerant? Conservatives are demonized, with the universe polarized into a Manichaean battle of us versus them, good versus evil. Democrats are clinging to pat group opinions as if they were inflexible moral absolutes. The party is in peril if it cannot observe and listen and adapt to changing social circumstances.

Let's take the issue of abortion rights, of which I am a firm supporter. As an atheist and libertarian, I believe that government must stay completely out of the sphere of personal choice. Every individual has an absolute right to control his or her body.

But the pro-life position, whether or not it is based on religious orthodoxy, is more ethically highly evolved than my own tenet of unconstrained access to abortion on demand. My argument (as in my first book, "Sexual Personae,") has always been that nature has a master plan pushing every species toward procreation and that it is our right and even obligation as rational human beings to defy nature's fascism. Nature herself is a mass murderer, making casual, cruel experiments and condemning 10,000 to die so that one more fit will live and thrive.

The gigantic, instantaneous coast-to-coast rage directed at Sarah Palin when she was identified as pro-life was, I submit, a psychological response by loyal liberals who on some level do not want to open themselves to deep questioning about abortion and its human consequences. I have written about the eerie silence that fell over campus audiences in the early 1990s when I raised this issue on my book tours. At such moments, everyone in the hall seemed to feel the uneasy conscience of feminism. Naomi Wolf later bravely tried to address this same subject but seems to have given up in the face of the resistance she encountered.

If Sarah Palin tries to intrude her conservative Christian values into secular government, then she must be opposed and stopped. But she has every right to express her views and to argue for society's acceptance of the high principle of the sanctity of human life.

My personal views on the issue have been shaped by these arguments.

My personal views on the subject have been shaped by my very own brain!

Bummer when your religious, "no sex outside of marriage!" pharmacist refuses to fill your birth control pill prescription.

And how would that pharmacist know the prescription was for birth control, rather than other reasons?

Roo, do you happen to know what the official response from the American Medical Association is on this? It strikes me that a doctor who deliberately withholds informations is going against AMA ethical guidelines.