I think I’ve figured it out. The abstinence-only/virginity pledging until marriage/promising purity to your father crowd actually has no illusions that it won’t all turn out exactly the way it did with Bristol Palin. If that happens, in fact, they’ll do just what these people in the video do – rationalize away everything and anything that has to do with those who believe exactly the way they do. There is not an ounce of critical thought in this crowd – just blind acceptance that abstinence-only is the only route (even if it doesn’t work), that abortion is wrong (even if a woman is attacked and pregnant by her rapist), that life begins at conception (even if that means imbuing fertilized eggs with citizen’s rights), and that virginity pledges made to your father are not wholly creepy (I have no parenthetical here to add).
Watch the rationalization at work (h/t to Cristina Page at Birthcontrolwatch.org for the video):
Just as all women benefit from legal affirmation of their right to choose abortion, so do all terminally ill Americans benefit when they are free to make affirmative choices about how their lives will end.
In most Muslim-majority countries, abortion is generally prohibited with exceptions made where the health of the mother is at risk, but doctors often aren't aware of the legal exceptions.
Pakistani specialists say fistula can be prevented by stopping early marriages, delaying the age of first pregnancy and by timely access to good emergency obstetric care -- but education is also key.
While acknowledging the "cultural context" in which many students live, Jamaican Minister of Education Andrew Holness has refused to supply students with condoms in the schools.
Steven Mosher attacks UNFPA and Cristina Page, again. The facts speak for themselves and demonstrate just how desperate the fringe of the far-right is getting.
During this Holy Season for every faith, many are up in arms over a prayer Rick Warren will offer, some planning to disrupt it, which will only cede the moral authority progressives now have.
Health care providers already strain to serve women while respecting workers' rights under existing laws. Now Secretary Leavitt has put even more obstacles between patients and the health care they need.
While the Global Gag Rule was designed to reduce abortion, there's no evidence that it has. And the policy's domino effect has had negative effects on people's lives in ways that have nothing to do with abortion.
Miraculous biblical stories of birth fit more closely with our notions of reproductive technologies than with the Vatican's re-assertion that the only authentic context for human life is an act of reciprocal love between a man and woman in marriage.
Pharmacists in D.C. can and do refuse to provide women's health care based on such "personal views" as latent sexism, unsubstantiated medical opinion, or whim.
President Bush's provider conscience expansion is set to go into effect January 18, but the National Partnership for Family Planning and Reproductive Health has launched a petition to block the new regulation.
Drugs and "home remedies" are commonly used by Latina women seeking to induce abortion; Obama staff meet with faith groups; jobs in Nigeria require HIV-negative test result; Indian call center fields questions on contraception.
A statement today by Alaska Governor Sarah Palin celebrated the birth of her first grandchild, baby boy Tripp. In the same statement, Bristol Palin tells teens, in effect, don't do as I do. But neither take on the abstinence-only debate straight on.
