Christmas contraceptives

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

Excellent overview of 2014.  Best science photos for 2014.

Weird methane readings on Mars... ALIENS!!!1

Bernie Sanders takes on the Koch brothers.

Saint Ronnie couldn't get elected dog catcher in these interesting teabaggery times...

Tampons may save your life...

If you can erase the word, the action never happened.  Right?

Institutionalized racism is hard to root out.

Chipping away at contraceptives.  And women aren't choosing to have more babies, they're just wiser with their birth control methods.  Cutting through the deliberately confusing terminology used when discussing abortion.

Early computers, polar vortexes and Emma Watson

Antikythera mechanism expedition begins search for missing fragments of world’s oldest known computer and more.

My Year As an Abortion Doula

My Year in the NRA

More megaquakes can happen.

An excellent male contraceptive.

Sign of the times.

Polar vortex a sign of global warming.

Internet trolls.

Emma Watson, UN's Goodwill ambassador

The Republican War on Women continues...

Kansas Senate Prepares To Kill Reproductive Rights, Republicans Mock Rape Victims while France... France Makes Contraception and Abortion Free

Update 4/5: But amazingly there is a federal judge:

Judge Orders Morning-After Pill Available for All Ages 

A federal judge ruled Friday that the government must make the most common morning-after pill available over the counter for all ages, instead of requiring a prescription for girls 16 and younger. In his ruling, he also accused the federal government of “bad faith” in dealing with the requests to make the pill universally available, and said its actions had been politically motivated.

Stop it!

Being clueless and rich is hard!

Burns?  Or Romney?

Darrell Issa hits the big time...

Dealing with a troll.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch:

In Arizona, where anti-abortion crusaders have passed some of the most restrictive women’s health laws in the country, abortion rates seemed to have increased. 

And by the way, good Christian women? Shut up.

High Fructose Corn Syrup must be called that, not the 'disguised' name of Corn Sugar.

Maybe the Earth had two moons at one time?

Stuff. Because it's still hot at 11 o'clock at night.

The facts about the Great Pacific Plastic Garbage Gyre.

Your chair is trying to kill you.

Florida... *cough*.. *cough*

An evil plot to create more stupid voters who vote against their own interests.

A Lego bridge in Germany.

Star Trek?!  NO.... ALIENS!!

Contraception saves 250,000 lives each year: study

Odds of record U.S. heat being a random event: 1 in 1.6 million and U.S. Sees Hottest 12 Months And Hottest Half Year On Record and so Climate scientists are finally coming forth and making the connection between human activity and the wild weather.


Woman photographs her own abortion to educate women and fight the ugly fear-mongering anti-choice protesters use.

Rush Limbaugh's phony empire.


Bees are smarter than supercomputers.

Monsanto gets an F.

The war on women, past and future

Thank you, madam, for helping women make their own reproductive choices.

Dr. Jean Pakter, a former health official who made New York City a national model for providing safe, legal abortions and led an innovative effort to educate women about the benefits of birth control, prenatal nutrition and breast-feeding, died on Tuesday in Manhattan. She was 101.

And yet, there is a lack of understanding about reproductive control as a right and some people will never give up trying to stuff women back into a fairy tale make-believe pseudo 1950s life style, where men were men, women were in awe, and minorities knew their place. Times they are a changin' guys.  Finding out that women are humans like men and have feelings comes as a shock to some....

Eclipsing intelligence...

The solar eclipse in pictures.

France bans Monsanto corn.

Street art.

The man who wishes the Google would ignore...

Congress is getting dumber, if you couldn't tell by now.  Especially in their dealings with them wimmen folk.

From lemons to lemonade: Reaction uses carbon dioxide to make carbon-based semiconductor:

(Phys.org) -- A materials scientist at Michigan Technological University has discovered a chemical reaction that not only eats up the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, it also creates something useful. And, by the way, it releases energy.

Ok, I'm ready! Let me go pick some lemons in my backyard... oh.  Rats.

Transvaginal postings....

Laced with a bit of sarcasm... 

Arizona out-crazies other contraception bills. Use birth control, get fired.

 But fair is fair, right? Women legislators turn the tables and introduce bills regulating men's reproductive health

And a handy chart to help you know who to blame for Republicans helplessly haring off after women's reproductive rights....

Is it my imagination....

Or is the world becoming more and more crazy by the minute?

 

Musical architecture

One year anniversary of the Japanese quake.

Island nation of Kiribati plans mass relocation due to climate change

Top Rabbi believes Catholic Church is imposing Sharia Law on Americans over contraception

How to read gang tags and disses on LA streets

via Bryan, Iran will have the bomb... yesterday, today, any minute now....

Five hundred new fairytales discovered in Germany

I think I have found the way to stop wars.  Flood the area with kittens.

Study: Hate of Obama fuels 755% growth in extremist groups

Unlike traditional hate groups, “Patriot” groups subscribe to a set of conspiracy theories and see the government as their primary enemy. 

“Basically what ‘Patriot’ groups think is that the federal government is an evil cabal in the hands of bad people,” Potok explained. “The government is about to impose martial law on the country, very probably with the help of foreign troops, perhaps U.N. troops. They intend to confiscate all guns from Americans. Those liberty-loving Americans who resisted will be thrown into concentration camps that have secretly constructed by FEMA. And ultimately the government will force us all into a socialistic kind of one-world government, the so-called New World Order.”

The more things change, the more they stay the same.... Kansas Republicans look to profit off abortion taxes

Gee... I wonder why? Aren't Republicans the party of family values? No love for the GOP among America's women...  Could it be because people feel free to call this 16 year old a slut?

And here we go..

The end result in anti-abortion efforts. A 'friend' of the sister turned this woman in:

Unable to afford the doctors visits and medical bills associated with an actual medical abortion, Jennie L. McCormack of Idaho instead had her sister purchase drugs online to ingest in order to cause a miscarriage. McCormack, who is the mother of three, is now being charged with "unlawful abortion" according to the Associated Press.

If McCormack is found guilty, she could be subject to a $5,000 penalty as well as up to five years in prison.

And in comments on Facebook where this article was shared, something I agree with:

I just love how when I talk to anti-choicers about the ways in which we can work together to help end abortion by making sure every woman has easy access to contraception and hammering the facts about safe sex into our youths' heads through comprehensive sex-education, they suddenly clam up and get silent. That just proves to me that they don't really care about reducing abortion & unwanted pregnancies, they just want to control people.

Update: And further into the fringes: Anti-Abortion Groups Push To Outlaw Contraceptives By Redefining Personhood

Update 6/6: More on the woman who had to carry her baby to term even though the amniotic sac had broken and the baby would not develop lungs properly. All because of the anti-abortion pro-life laws that had been passed in the state. The baby suffocated to death at birth.

War on contraception and the women's right to choose

Amanda Marcotte:

Unfortunately, barring some miraculous turn of events in the courts that shut this all down, we can probably expect to see more of this on the state and local level in conservative areas. A switch has been flipped in the conservative movement, and it’s not enough anymore to simply oppose abortion rights anymore, but to move even more radically in a direction of denying women any right to control their bodies whatsoever.

As I have said repeatedly, it all comes down to sex. And the control or total denial of it for women, those hussies! Unless it's for husbands and their insured Viagra....

Blog sprinkles

Keep Sarah Palin off of Discovery Channel:

"I am appalled that Discovery Communications -- home of numerous eco-conscious offerings -- has picked up "Sarah Palin's Alaska." Sarah Palin's anti-nature crusade as governor makes her extremely unsuitable to host a show in your lineup. I urge you to cancel the show before it airs."

Plan B has more options: Understanding Ella, the Latest Controversy in 'Morning After Pills' And a clever response to an anti-abortion ad.

One more reason we really don't want Chinese food products....

According to a 2008 State Oceanic Administration report, raw sewage and pollution from agricultural run-off has polluted 83 percent of China's coastal waters, leading to algae and other problems.

The Council of Dads has advice.

Seventh graders prove science isn't dead.

It's dangerous to ask for help in a forum.

The 7.2 Mexicali, Mexico, earthquake was so powerful that it shifted the Earth's crust 31 inches near Calexico, Calif., according to radar images and data released by NASA on Wednesday.

Irony. And more BP jokes.

We're number one!1! ... uh... We're number seven!!

Despite having the most costly health system in the world, the United States consistently underperforms on most dimensions of performance, relative to other countries. This report—an update to three earlier editions—includes data from seven countries and incorporates patients' and physicians' survey results on care experiences and ratings on dimensions of care. Compared with six other nations—Australia, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom—the U.S. health care system ranks last or next-to-last on five dimensions of a high performance health system: quality, access, efficiency, equity, and healthy lives.

Strange what happens when you run out of money, isn't it?

A growing number of centrist Democrats say they’re open to trimming Pentagon spending in the face of record budget deficits and mounting public debt.

Liberal Democrats for years have called for cuts to the massive defense budget to no avail. Even after Democrats regained control of Congress in 2007, their few attempts at reining in defense spending have proven futile, partly because of opposition from centrist Democrats hawkish on defense issues.

Obama and McChrystal.

Are we going to let the terrorists win?

Are we going to let other Dr. Tiller-like murders happen?



From this website.

When are we going to demand the police and FBI protect them?

Why?

Because women need to be able to control their bodies, control their own reproductive processes. It is that simple.

Throwing a sop to the religious fanatics

The outgoing Bush administration is planning to announce a broad new "right of conscience" rule permitting medical facilities, doctors, nurses, pharmacists and other healthcare workers to refuse to participate in any procedure they find morally objectionable, including abortion and possibly even artificial insemination and birth control.

For more than 30 years, federal law has dictated that doctors and nurses may refuse to perform abortions. The new rule would go further by making clear that healthcare workers also may refuse to provide information or advice to patients who might want an abortion.

It also seeks to cover more employees. For example, in addition to a surgeon and a nurse in an operating room, the rule would extend to "an employee whose task it is to clean the instruments," the draft rule said.

The "conscience" rule could set the stage for an abortion controversy in the early months of Barack Obama's administration.

[snip]

Health and Human Services Department officials said the rule would apply to "any entity" that receives federal funds. It estimated 584,000 entities could be covered, including 4,800 hospitals, 234,000 doctor's offices and 58,000 pharmacies.

Proponents, including the Christian Medical Assn. and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, say the rule is not limited to abortion. It will protect doctors who do not wish to prescribe birth control or to provide artificial insemination, said Dr. David Stevens, president of CMA.

"The real battle line is the morning-after pill," he said. "This prevents the embryo from implanting. This involves moral complicity. Doctors should not be required to dispense a medication they have a moral objection to."

Critics of the rule say it will sacrifice patients' health to the religious beliefs of providers.

The American Medical Assn. and the American Hospital Assn. in October urged HHS to drop the regulation. The Planned Parenthood Foundation and other backers of abortion rights condemned the rule as a last-gasp effort by the Bush administration to please social conservatives.

"It's unconscionable that the Bush administration, while promising a smooth transition, would take a final opportunity to politicize women's health," said Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood.

Despite the controversy, HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt said he intends to issue the rule as a final regulation before the Obama administration takes office, to protect the moral conscience of persons in the healthcare industry. Abortion-rights advocates are just as insistent that the rights of a patient come first.

The article lists the dangers of healthcare personnel who refused to participate:

In calling for limits on “conscientious refusals,” ACOG cited four recent examples. In Texas, a pharmacist rejected a rape victim's prescription for emergency contraception. In Virginia, a 42-year-old mother of two became pregnant after being refused emergency contraception. In California, a physician refused to perform artificial insemination for a lesbian couple. (In August, the California Supreme Court ruled that this refusal amounted to illegal discrimination based on sexual orientation.) And in Nebraska, a 19-year-old with a life-threatening embolism was refused an early abortion at a religiously affiliated hospital.

Allowing people to get in between a doctor and a patient is bizarre. What do these people want, religious police as in Saudi Arabia? Being able to deny women all forms of contraception because using birth control will make women promiscuous? Not allowing women to control their bodies? Trying to ban sex toys? Refusing gay people their civil rights?

All I see are lawsuits. Although this technique is working in more impoverished states, what doctor's office, pharmacy, hospital, outclinic really wants to be known as a denier of such services? How ugly and hateful do people have to be to refuse to do a job when they have gone to school to learn medicine or pharmaceuticals in order to help people? Does it give them savage pleasure to thwart such evils as sex? Do they really want to force women to have babies? Does their belief in God include the concept of Love?

Where are they intending to go with this? And why on earth are we letting them affect our laws?

Why Republicans are against birth control

Following the fundies to their tangled conclusions

Will lead to scenes like this illustrated by mapaghimagsik of Taking Stock:



And going even further: Menstruation is murder!

How many GOP women do not use any form of birth control?

It would be interesting to find out how hypocritical these people are.

This presidential campaign we will soon be leaving the pro-life/pro-choice debate behind and start talking about the evils of contraception itself.

Pam Spaulding of Americablog has the details:

It's been pretty clear that the anti-choice crowd has its sights on not only controlling the womb, but women's sexuality as well. That's why this should scare the bejesus out of women. According to Birth Control Watch, 86 anti-abortion groups are committed to opposing any form of contraception.

Abortion will never end as long as society approves the use of contraception. The practice of contraception means children are unwanted and provides the rationalization for abortion. It is a violation of human dignity to promote or accept the use of contraception.

OK. That extreme view is no surprise. But wait a minute -- there are occupants of the GOP clown car that are equally willing to deny contraception because of their anti-choice views - and they are on the record about it.

Do you want the policies of these men in your bedroom, in your womb, in your doctor's office, at your local pharmacy?

Cristina Page has an excellent piece in the Baltimore Sun that shows just how extreme the views of the GOP candidates are.

Birth Control Watch has more: (my bold)

Eighty six anti-abortion groups have committed to opposing all forms of contraception. Among the groups are Right to Life of Kansas, Pro-Life Ohio, the Life League of New Mexico, North Dakota Right to Life, Connecticut Right to Life, California Right to Life, and the Delaware Pro-life Coalition. However, few of these state's media outlets are covering the groups' opposition to contraception--no matter how eager the groups are to display their extreme agenda. Thus the public doesn't know that their elected officials are pandering to anti-birth control forces in order to secure these groups' support. Yet these groups and their unpopular and dangerous agenda escape notice. Because of this, we'll wake up one day to discover that almost half the candidates running for president are opposed to contraception. Maybe tomorrow?

A study out of France shows once again that the religious right is wrong in its dire warnings of the impact emergency contraception will have on women's sexual choices. Instead of the free-for-all sexapalooza we've been told to brace ourselves for, researchers have discovered the over-the-counter access to EC in France has not had much impact on the amount of sex women have or the number of partners they've have it with. STDs haven't surged to alarming rates either. The only change was a dip in unintended pregnancy rates. Alors, Christian conservatives, time to come to your senses?

A new Zogby poll revealed that 83% of Americans want scientists to continue researching for more birth control methods. Although the same poll found that Americans are satisfied with the birth control choices they have currently, clearly the vast majority of Americans want more birth control access and options. These Americans will be happy to know then that the popular "Sponge," contraceptive was reintroduced to the market this week. It offers women a highly effective over-the-counter birth control option other than the condom. The Sponge was discontinued in 1995 when the manufacturer did not wish to upgrade its factory equipment to satisfy FDA requirements. Synova Healthcare Group secured the rights to the Sponge early this year and, in the process, gave formerly not "sponge-worthy" men new hope.

But don't forget about the pill! We've long known that the birth control pill protects against ovarian cancer, but new research published in International Family Planning Perspectives shows that pills with the lowest hormonal content offer the greatest protection. In fact, depending on the oral contraceptive formulation, the odds of ovarian cancer were reduced by up to 80% among pill users compared to those not on the pill. The lower the dose of one particular progestin, the lower the risk of ovarian cancer. If all women had used some type of birth control pill the study found an estimated four in 10 malignancies might have been avoided; if all had used low-dose pills, that proportion would have been almost three-quarters. Many women believe that if there is no reason to be on the pill other than pregnancy prevention. Not true. And there's no excuse for not making this information widely known now.

Update: Cristia Page of The Huffington Post has more:

In their affair with the "Right to Life" movement, the candidates are being unfaithful to the American public that is devoted to family planning. And like any cheater, they're doing their best to avoid directly answering questions such as: Do you support couples having access to safe and effective birth control options, including emergency contraception?" Considering that even 80 percent of self-described "pro-life" voters and a majority of Republican voters strongly support contraception, these candidates should soon figure out how risky an affair it is.

If you don't start having more babies, the church will die!

JJ of Unrepentant Old Hippie shares a bizarre petition sent to Catholics:

"As you know, the contraceptive mentality pervades the Catholic Church in Canada. Most Catholic couples of child-bearing age are preventing children through sterilization or contraception. The birthrate is suicidal. The death of the Church is certain where contraception prevails. It has been truly said that “Our greatest moral responsibility is to convert the contraceptive mentality.

Contraception is the root of which many spiritual evils are the fruit: abortion, infidelity, divorce, pre-marital sex, acceptance of homosexual activity, the clamor for same-sex “marriage” and the corruption of politics and the media. These inevitably follow when, on a large scale, sexual activity is deliberately diverted from its life-giving purpose to sterile lustful indulgence."

Wow. Just .... wow.