Rona Taylor talks about HIV in NYC women. Men debate how many rights they’ll let women have, and Fox News lies about the HHS regulations on contraception.

 

 

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Links in this episode:

Women’s HIV Collaborative of New York 

For shame

Jodi Jacobson on Saletan

France Kissling on Saletan

No ladies!

Fox lies

Child-free is alright

 

On this episode of Reality Cast, I’ll be interviewing Rona Taylor of the Women’s HIV Collaborative of New York about addressing the root causes of the HIV epidemic.  Also, a group of men on MSNBC condescend to debate how many rights they’ll let the little ladies have, and Fox News just up and lies about the Bush HHS regulations that Obama is about to rescind.

I didn’t want to do a whole segment on this story, because there’s not much I can really say but, "For shame, Catholic Church".

• brazil abortion *

To quote Scott Lemieux, "When your moral principles dictate that state coercion be used to force a 9-year old girl to seriously risk her life by giving birth to her rapist’s child, you really need to get new moral principles."

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Ladies and gentlemen, it’s time for another round of listening to a bunch of men talk about abortion as if it’s an abstract thing that has no bearing on the rights of actual human beings that go by the name of "women".  What’s nice about excluding women from the abortion conversation entirely is that it makes it much easier for everyone in the room to agree that abortion is a terrible, horrible thing that hints at emasculating the impregnator.  And since no one in the room will ever lose their basic human rights because of this conversation, everyone can slap each other on the back afterwards and go have a beer.

The participants today are two men, Chris Matthews and Ken Blackwell, who have major issues with women’s liberation and William Saletan, who is mildly pro-choice.   Things start off on a hokey, nonsense-laden foot.

• woman free 1 *

"People" who choose abortions?  I don’t know whether or not to be glad that women are acknowledged as people, or angry that Matthews is being slippery about how this is fundamentally an issue about women and women’s rights.  Jodi Jacobson (and France Kissling have already responded to Saletan on this.  I have to add that by excluding female voices from the mix and saying that "people" choose abortion, they can maintain this polite fiction that no one is being hateful.

• woman free 2 *

I appreciate that Saletan is trying to catch conservatives in the trap of their own rhetoric about taking responsibility, but I think he’s barking up the wrong tree.  "Taking responsibility" is a classic right wing euphemism, and what it means is paying the price for your sinful behavior by having a baby. By "taking responsibility", liberals mean taking care of yourself and your family so that you’re healthy and happy.  We’re not even working with the same definitions here.  

Thanks to Frances Kissling for pointing out how Matthews trips Saletan up here:

• woman free 3 *

Contraception is not a "lesser evil".  Reliable contraception is a straight-up good.  Would Matthews call indoor plumbing or vaccines a lesser evil?  No, even though contraception is up there as a public health innovation. But one that helps women much more, so suddenly it’s suspect.  

Ken Blackwell takes this and runs with it.

• woman free 4 *

And there it is.  If you use contraception, it’s because you’re a horrible slut who can’t control herself.  And that is and what this has always been about.  Matthews jumps on board, and remember, he’s supposed to be moderate about this.

• woman free 5 *

It’s clear to me, being you know, not crazy, that there’s something really screwed up about a conversation that presumes that there’s a major problem with 99.9% of the sex that Americans have. I’m just guessing on the percentage of intentionally non-procreative sex.  It might be only 99% of sex is for pleasure and not to make babies.  I fail to see how you can consider yourself a moderate if you even engage the idea that non-procreative sex is a problem.  That’s far right wing lunacy.  And yet, here you have two supposed moderates and a right wing loony talking as if there’s a legitimate concern if people are having sex for the fun of it. Even though all panelists have sex for fun and not to procreate, I guarantee it.

But it’s easy to do this when it’s not in mixed company, isn’t it?  Because this isn’t about whether it’s bad for people to have sex for fun.  Straight men have that right, unquestionably.  What’s at issue is that women have sex without intending to end up with a baby because of it.  Entering one woman in the conversation raises the chances considerably that at least one of these men would realize that they’re implying that she is a bad person just for existing, and would have changed the tone of the conversation and the silliness of it entirely.  Which is why no women were invited, I suppose.  Or mentioned, even.  Only Ken Blackwell mentions the word "women", and then only once in ten minutes.

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insert interview

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Wow, hard as it is to believe, but Fox News just reached a new low in blatant lying.  

• fox lies 1 *

There’s no way to get around this.  It’s a blatant lie, served up to a gullible Fox News audience to make them believe that doctors are being forced at gunpoint to perform abortions.  Or will be.  The real story is that the Obama administration is going to repeal a rule passed under the Bush administration that gave all sorts of health workers, not just doctors, the right to interfere with a woman’s access to contraception and sterilization.  In other words, return things to the way they were in October 2008.  There weren’t mandatory abortions then, and so there won’t be now.

• fox lies 2 *

This is a lie twice over.  The first part is that the HHS regulations that are overturned are not about doctors and not really about abortion.  It was about redefining contraception as abortion and giving receptionists, nurses, people who clean instruments, and basically whoever a right to take your birth control pills from you if they can, and not get fired for it.  No one will be required to perform an abortion under the Obama reversal, full stop.  

The second lie is the jail time crap.  This isn’t about going to jail if you don’t fill someone’s birth control prescription, or you try to shut the doors to keep her from getting to it or whatever you want to do.  This is an employee protection thing.  Under the proposed Obama reversal, which is just going back to the old rules, if you obstruct a woman’s right to get to her birth control pills, you can be fired.  If you clean instruments in an abortion clinic and refuse to do your job, you can get fired.  In other words, if you don’t do the job you were hired to do, you get fired.  Why should sperm worshippers get special rights to take jobs they don’t intend to do?

To make this whole segment more appalling, Fox News fear mongers about having a mere woman heading up the HHS.

• fox lies 3 *

What’s so amusing about anti-choicers kicking a fit over this is that they’re pretending that it was even remotely possible that Obama would put an anti-choice nut in the seat.  Really?  Do they really think that?  No, of course not.  We all know that the head of Health and Human Services under a pro-choice President will be pro-choice.  So why the special fits over Kathleen Sebelius?

Two reasons: One, she’s from Kansas and has tangled with noted sex obsessive Phill Kline.  Phill Kline managed to become the attorney general of Kansas despite his obvious obsession with panty-sniffing, and he proceeded to misuse his power repeatedly in order to get Planned Parenthood to hand over every file on women who had abortions so he could drool over it.  He was hoping there was something illegal in the files, but I suspect that was secondary to his desire to invade women’s privacy.  The voters kicked Kline out, but his rampant misogyny has made him an anti-choice hero.

But I think the other thing is that Sebelius is a woman, and that makes it a lot easier to demagogue about her having power.  She’s a middle-aged, dignified, pro-choice woman, and that means she’s exactly the sort of evil harridan that pro-lifers think of when they think of hated feminists.  She’s got two strikes against her for the culture warriors: she’s a woman with power and she’s pro-choice.  No wonder they’re losing their minds.

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And now for the Wisdom of Wingnuts, the no really some women don’t want children edition.  I can’t believe I have to defend Rachel Ray, who I think is easily the worst cook on the Food Network, but this was out of line.

• Rachel ray *

Like Rebecca at Salon says, why don’t we ask ordinary moms if they miss having a multi-million dollar empire?  This notion that being a mother is something all women aspire to and that everything else you do can only pale in comparison to that needs to end.  Men don’t get badgered about not wanting children, nor do they have it suggested to them that their accomplishments don’t matter if they don’t have children.  I just want the same for women.