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TechnoratiMcCain Works Against Access to Contraception
Does He Consider It Murder?
Once again, the media and even Democratic candidate Barack Obama, have failed to follow-up on McCain's stated opposition to abortion by questioning his equal opposition to contraception - the primary means to reduce the rate of abortion.
Nancy Keenan of NARAL Pro-Choice America cites at least 22 John McCain votes against women's access to family-planning services, including birth control. "During his twenty-five years in office, Sen. McCain has consistently voted to block low-income women's access to birth control, to deny our teens accurate information about birth control and condoms, to stop measures that would require insurance companies to cover birth control, and to prevent funds to an organization that provides family-planning services -- not abortion -- for the world's poorest women..."
McCain's voting record is solidly antichoice. His Web site states: "John McCain believes Roe v. Wade is a flawed decision that must be overturned, and as president he will nominate judges who understand that courts should not be in the business of legislating from the bench." One of his three most important goals, he told the American Conservative Union, is to promote "a nation of traditional values that protects the rights of the unborn."
McCain voted in 2005 against a $100-million allocation for preventive health care services targeted at reducing unintended pregnancies; in 2006 he opposed funding for comprehensive, medically accurate sex education for teens. Instead, McCain has lined up behind Bush's ineffective abstinence-only education. When asked if contraception could help stop the spread of HIV, McCain said "You've stumped me."
McCain demured that he didn't know enough to comment on the fairness of health care plans covering Viagra and not contraception -- which can cost a woman up to $600 a year. McCain voted against just such a bill to require health plans to cover birth control the same as other prescription drugs. The great conceit of the right and John McCain is the denial that contraception is fundamental to women's health and lives. Note his cavalier disregard of pregnancy as an issue of women's health during the debate.
McCain supports the global "Gag Rule." It bars foreign family planning organizations from receiving U.S. funds if the group in any way advises clients on abortion as an option or advocates for legal abortion - even when using their own funds. Again, he is in denial about contraceptive access that can reduce the occurrence of abortion.
McCain's promise to "nominate strict constructionist judges" is ultraconservative code for adhering solely to the original Constitution, a test that is selectively applied by the right. The Ninth Amendment in fact preserves all rights existing at the time the Constitution was written. Abortion was not criminalized until 1869, and was accepted in the 1700s, when cook books commonly contained recipes for abortifacients.
Presumably McCain supports the Bush administration targeting of contraception under the pretense of opposing abortion? So-called "conscience clauses" are invoked by pharmacists and health care providers who refuse to fill contraceptive prescriptions or provide health care based on individual religious beliefs.
The Bush administration's Department of Health and Human Services is proposing a rule redefining the start of pregnancy from the point of conception, disregarding the medical definition of pregnancy as beginning with "the implantation of a fertilized egg." The rule would categorize as abortion any contraception (e.g., the pill, IUD, emergency contraception, contraceptive patch) that interferes with the implantation of a fertilized egg, thus outlawing most contraception.
The HHS proposal states, "[T]he conscience of the individual or institution should be paramount in determining what constitutes abortion..." Anyone would have the right to hold women's health care hostage to their beliefs.
The right's adamant opposition to contraception is testament to their larger extreme agenda. The 1965 Supreme Court decision Griswold v. Connecticut that upheld the right to access birth control as a privacy right has long been targeted by Pat Robertson et al: "I want to see it abolished," he said.
The anti-choice, anti-birth control American Life League in June launched a "Protest the Pill Day '08: The Pill Kills Babies." Anti-abortion activist Nellie Gray revealed the intent of the movement in the '80s with her insistence that "Contraception is murder because it prevents the sperm from meeting the egg." This is the fringe steering the Republican agenda, with total capitulation by Republican leaders like John McCain.
Women's autonomy is seriously challenged by the right. Yet, Democrats, including Barack Obama in the last debate, have evaded the obvious follow-up questions, instead listing as alternatives to abortion only adoption and sex education. What about birth control as a means to reduce the need for abortion, not to mention supporting women's right to control their reproductive lives and family size?
12 Comments so far
Show AllPregnant adolescents are right down Cruella's alley. Children raised in poverty doesn't bother her at all. If she weren't a female, I'd call her a sexist pig. I guess these imbeciles don't know that the world has been over-populated for some time now. These children are more fodder, recruits, for the war profiteering military-industrial-complex.
Why is the Catholic church sticking its nose into having pharmacists deny women contraception and the morning-after pill? Why don't they pay more attention to their child-molesting priests instead. Not everyone is Catholic, and not everyone can afford large families, and some people aren't suited to be parents.
Just as the demand for equality between the sexes requires women to make the decisions regarding their health & whether or not they can carry a child to term, so the demand to deny all forms of birth prevention necessarily leads back to reducing the status of all women to that of minors.
The last few years, the churches, especially the Catholic, have been behind the move to permit pharmacists to deny both contraception and the morning-after pill, which means that their faithful claim a moral right that allows them physical rights over women. The fundamentalist churches, as a result of their unified stance with right-wing Catholics, also arrogate this right to themselves.
We're marching proudly backwards to the future. McCain and Palin still have a chance to win this election. A hilarious satire of all this is the book The Decency Rules and Regulations Manual -- what these people would do to us if they were given half a chance. It's available everywhere. There's also a quiz: What Would Sarah Do? at www.homelanddecency.com. What will be her actions her first days in office. Great satire.
Excuse me! The problem being is that most fundamentalists are the way they are because they purposely obtuse and are sexually stunted. Women scare the be-Jesus out of them.
No Contraception! Wow, and I have to endure every day commercials on Television before NOON about how I can get it up and keep it up stronger than ever, even ones for drugs to get her in the mood too. WOW! And now the plague has even hit the airwaves of Radio. Even Readers' Digest has become a pharmaceutical cook book of what is available out there. It is good to see the commercials of the old gent with his wifeypoo who probably can no longer have kids to boot, walking along the beach hand in hand smiling and such. Cause you know why? They have great SEX! OMG, run for the hills! SEX is actually used as RECREATION, please do not let the Republicans in on this concept. But if you do, please break it to them gently. And now for our FOX feature presentation, brought to you by Viagra the good blue pill, and Enzyte the Natural Male Enhancement!
I just love the way the Corporate Media (MOST SUPPORT THE REPUBLICAN PARTY!) has propped up the sexualization of America which previously just included Teens, and now.......
Coffeelover,,,,,,,
"Abortion" is just a DISTRACTION. Roe v Wade is already irrelevant thanks to the various ways of chipping away at the decision. The real dominant one is Casey v Planned Parenthood these days. The same rightwing lunatics who complain about "abortion" don't mind ABORTING people once born, be it the environment, out of control violence, cannon fodder for resource wars, privatization of healthcare and good food all the while subsidizing Big Oil/Agri/Pharma/Corn, etc ... Both candidates were IDIOTS last night to even talk about the issue. If you don't want a same sex marriage, don't have one and instead learn to understand the opposite sex better. If you don't want to pay taxes, don't get a job. How hard is that to understand ?
Sioux Rose
MUJERIEGO: Interesting assessment. I would venture to say it's a case of mass schizophrenia in that the greater the effort to block contraception/birth control or abortion, the greater the clarion call TO war. People fixated on HATING other need some cause to hide behind to convince themselves of their moral goodness. By identifying with the unborn, they receive a sense of "righteousness" that in their twisted worldview makes up for their lack of due consideration or any remote sense of compassion for those who suffer from the egregious weapons of war.
There is also the authoritarian model, what George Lakoff defines as the "strict family model" with its father, the HEAD who makes all rules, and the wife (and daughters) all rendered subservient. When women have lovers, can enjoy sex, it's very easy to say "ta ta" to Daddy and make one's own life. THIS sexual freedom is greatly feared by ALL patriarchal cultures, a facet held in common with this group's anointed enemy, the Muslims. Both wish to control patrilineage by controlling women and their reproductive destines. A society's spiritual consciousness can be discerned from how it treats and regards its female members, particularly the rights allotted to them!
[Anti-abortion activist Nellie Gray revealed the intent of the movement in the '80s with her insistence that "Contraception is murder because it prevents the sperm from meeting the egg]
I suppose masturbation is mass murder to these nutty ones... It'd be funny if it weren't so sad. To think that people who should be able to think buy into the crap that the pukes spew boggles the mind.
McCain is anti-contraception.
Palin is anti-abortion, even in cases of incest and rape.
Did I miss them stepping out of the pages of Margaret Atwood's 'The Handmaid's Tale'?
What's next for them... offering a bounty on abortion clininc staff?
McCain's promise to "nominate strict constructionist judges" is ultraconservative code for adhering solely to the original Constitution,
So, he is pro slavery?
the right just wants to turn women into unwilling breeding stock for future generations of canon fodder. Free Viagra for old fascist men, no contraception for women equals armies of unwanted, imbred soldiers to be drafted.
"The only means of strengthening one's intellect is to make up one's mind about nothing, to let the mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts." - John Keats
Just think what life would be like in Ireland if all the hundred million, more or less, Irish living in the US were still there.
They can't all come to America Mr. McCain. We can't keep having 3+ children per couple, either.
If McCain is elected, our concern about his family planning record will be of limited concern compared to Sarah Crusader-caribou-bimbo-earmarkqueen-wickedwitchofthenorth Palin's anti-family planning jihad.
We will witness accelerated family planning terrorism on top of the economic terrorism the Republicans have already wrought on this world.