The Maine Thing is Being Fertile

In Maine, we have found something almost as rare as a 3-legged Sasquatch. It's a Republican who wants to expand the Affordable Care Act.

Maine Senate Majority Leader Rep. Garrett Mason authored a bill that would force insurance companies to pay for fertility treatments. Which sounds, for a Republican, almost sympathetic: you have a couple trying desperately to have a child, and finally reach the point where their only solution is medical treatment that would cost thousands of dollars that they just can't afford. And Maine wants to make their lives just a little bit better.

Except for one thing: it includes a morals clause. The original language of LD 943, An Act to Provide Access to Infertility Treatment, has the following provisions:

A. The covered individual must be married;
B. The covered individual's infertility may not be the result of a sexually transmitted disease

And once again, the "small government Republicans" want to ensure that they can get the government to intervene in women's personal lives. Because everybody deserves the chance to have children, unless they're a slut. Because god knows that if they had an STD, they must have proven that they're unfit parents, right?

Now, Mason has said that he's open to removing the provisions. "I'm totally willing to do something that fits Maine better, and that is why we have the committee process."

Which is probably best. It's good that he's willing to remove these ignorant nanny-state provisions. I mean, it totally shows what a completely unthinking, small-minded, judgmental, moralistic fucknozzle Garrett Mason was to include them in the first place, but still. It's nice that he's willing to put them aside.

Because in its original form, this bill would lose the first time it went before the Supreme Court, which should have been obvious to anyone with the brain power of an Eastern White Pine (the State Tree of Maine).

It's good to know that rape victims who received an STD from their attacker might have had a good chance of being declared "unfit parents" in Maine, thanks to this simpering, slack-jawed, puffy-faced used car salesman.

I'm a little curious whether, if a couple has a divorce midway through treatment for infertility, would they be on the hook for the entire bill? Or just for the portion of the infertility treatment that came after the divorce was finalized? And would there be a "statute of limitations" for divorce? How long would the new parents need to stay married before the state wouldn't arrest them?

This bill has, at least, one area where it isn't discriminatory. Maine has recognized same-sex marriage since 2012. So at least it would be easier for lesbian couples to get pregnant.

Rape, and a Little Reality

So, another sad example of male privilege and victim-blaming came to light last week, when Canadian teen Rehtaeh Parsons hanged herself after the RCMP decided that it didn't have enough to act on, and closed the case. Despite one of the four boys having circulated evidence of him committing the crime (which also constitutes child pornography, incidentally). Despite the fact that it took hacker group Anonymous about two hours to find the names of the four boys involved.

Backed against a wall, the RCMP agreed to reopen the case. So, bravo, Anonymous.

This case is remarkably similar to the Steubenville, Ohio rape case, in which two teens took advantage of a drunk underage girl to abuse her when she couldn't fight back. In both cases, the victim was blamed for being a slut, when they were both unconscious (or all but) at the time. In both cases, the police tried to cover it up, and members of Anonymous wouldn't let them.

The Far Right (and some other idiots) practically dryhumped the Steubenville story, trying to empathize with the rapists and saying it was the victim's fault (because, after all, all men rape - they can't help themselves, right?).

Easily the weirdest reaction, though, came from a libertarian college professor, who put it this way:

Let’s suppose that you, or I, or someone we love, or someone we care about from afar, is raped while unconscious in a way that causes no direct physical harm — no injury, no pregnancy, no disease transmission. (Note: The Steubenville rape victim, according to all the accounts I’ve read, was not even aware that she’d been sexually assaulted until she learned about it from the Internet some days later.) Despite the lack of physical damage, we are shocked, appalled and horrified at the thought of being treated in this way, and suffer deep trauma as a result. Ought the law discourage such acts of rape? Should they be illegal?...

As long as I’m safely unconscious and therefore shielded from the costs of an assault, why shouldn’t the rest of the world (or more specifically my attackers) be allowed to reap the benefits?

Now, I'm not going to try to refute his argument directly (if you aren't sociopathic, the answer should be obvious). What I'm going to point out is this:

A. Following that logic out to its obvious conclusion, there is no private possession of any item. This is more extensive than anything ever suggested by any follower of communism or socialism.

By this reasoning, nobody should ever be allowed to take their keys with them after they drive to work; while you're in your office, other people should be allowed to use your car. After all, if they refill the gas and return it before you leave for the day, there's no problem, right?

Nor can you lock your door: people should be allowed to have parties in your house while you aren't there, shouldn't they? As long as they clean up after themselves, no harm, no foul, right?

(Let's just pretend that there's no such thing as "depreciation" in the tax code: these are his thought experiments, not mine.)

B. Would you like to guess why the Right Wing is losing the idiotically-named "War on Women"? It's fascinating how this argument joins up with the abortion question: it's all the same. Dr Landsburg doesn't expand on his rape-apology in the way that I just did, because that's where it breaks down. In his view, not only is a woman's body just property (and not property that she controls, by the way), but it isn't even as important as his house, or his car. She's just there to be used by other people.

This is why the Right Wing is roughly as popular as chlamydia in most polls.

Carry his rape-baby or go to jail.

One of the reasons that the Republicans couldn't win the election in 2012 was that they were continuing to appeal only to the white male demographic.

They didn't bother worrying about hispanic vote: look at their reaction to the Dream Act. Or their "walls, razor wire and armed guards" view of immigration policy. Or the continued push toward "English-only" legislation.

They didn't give a tanned damn about the black vote: check out their full-throated support of George Zimmerman, who apparently felt threatened by the existence of skinny teenagers armed with Skittles. For that matter, note the dog-whistles (and occasional open racism) distributed through their attacks on our first black president.

And going into the home stretch of the election, the GOP seemed to double down on their "War on Women," with lawmakers talking about "legitimate rape" and trying to make it harder for a woman to get a legal medical procedure, than it is for a convicted felon to buy military-grade hardware.

Full disclosure: I am not a big fan of the term "War on Women," but I'm at a loss what else to call it. The opposite of "Women's Lib" would be "Women's Enslavement," but that's a bit hyperbolic, so I'm not going to even touch it. In fact, "War on Anything" is pretty well over-used, because they can be such a convenient shorthand. Will some linguistics major please look into this for me?

In regards to the GOP policy toward women, they have a radical portion of their party who keeps trying to turn back the clock to a mythical Fifties, where the blacks and hispanics were all happy in their low-paying jobs, and the few women in the work force (the ones who weren't staying at home baking) were available to be chased around the desk playing hard-but-not-impossible-to-get.

See, in their views, a Woman's Purpose (subtitle: "Assigned To Her By God") is to be forever in a subservient role, helping Her Man, cleaning, cooking, and procreating. If she gets a job, she's still expected to get home in time to get the kids from daycare and cook dinner. And this is pretty obvious by how they try to legislate.

Hell, at least blacks were considered three-fifths of a person. In some quarters, women are lucky to get that much appreciation today, especially in in the paycheck.

(And I'm not saying that the melanin-enhanced peoples have it much better; I'm just trying to make a rhetorical point here...)

And one of the things they want to avoid is even the possibility that a woman will have control of her own genitals.

Simple logic and actual scientific studies have shown that adequate sex education and access to contraception both decrease abortions (and we even have the actual examples of places like Denmark, where abortion is available, but almost unheard of), but we still have the insane cognitive dissonance of opposition to abortion, and contraception, matched up with support for abstinence-only education.

Which brings us to my own (adopted) state of New Mexico.

Now, I'll admit that I have little or no use for Huffington Post. There are a number of reasons for this, but I'm going to give them credit for one thing: they were the first news outlet to break this one.

A Republican lawmaker in New Mexico introduced a bill on Wednesday that would legally require victims of rape to carry their pregnancies to term in order to use the fetus as evidence for a sexual assault trial.

House Bill 206, introduced by state Rep. Cathrynn Brown (R), would charge a rape victim who ended her pregnancy with a third-degree felony for "tampering with evidence."

Now, since Huffpo broke the story, it's been picked up by other news groups, and the public outcry against this brain-meltingly obvious idiocy has made Representative Brown very sad. She's now trying to explain to everybody how she was being "misrepresented."

Rep. Cathrynn Brown, a Republican from Carlsbad, said Thursday she will revise the bill, which she said was intended to target perpetrators of rape or incest who try to cover their tracks by forcing their victims to have abortions...

Although the clause regarding intent would seem to preclude rape victims from being charged, several critics read the bill as possibly including them. Brown said she will clarify the language to remove any ambiguity.

Yeah, but while that may be the way she tried to sell it (and I'll give a tip of my hat to Ted for pointing it out to me)... well, in her defense, she's an idiot. Just how often, exactly, does a rapist drag a woman to a doctor to abort his rape-baby?

Because, yeah, the way she was selling this to her friends and supporters probably sounded just like that. The version on her own website has been undergoing daily changes since it went up, but has been warm and friendly to the poor beleaguered victim since day one. But the one that was introduced to the state legislature had some... well, let's just call them "inconsistencies" from the story Ms Brown has been trying to sell.

See, here's how it was presented:

AN ACT

RELATING TO CRIMINAL LAW; SPECIFYING PROCURING OF AN ABORTION AS TAMPERING WITH EVIDENCE IN CASES OF CRIMINAL SEXUAL PENETRATION OR INCEST.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF NEW MEXICO:

SECTION 1. Section 30-22-5 NMSA 1978 (being Laws 1963, Chapter 303, Section 22-5, as amended) is amended to read:

"30-22-5. TAMPERING WITH EVIDENCE.--

A. Tampering with evidence consists of destroying, changing, hiding, placing or fabricating any physical evidence with intent to prevent the apprehension, prosecution or conviction of any person or to throw suspicion of the commission of a crime upon another.

B. Tampering with evidence shall include procuring or facilitating an abortion, or compelling or coercing another to obtain an abortion, of a fetus that is the result of criminal sexual penetration or incest with the intent to destroy evidence of the crime.

C. Whoever commits tampering with evidence shall be punished as follows:

It then goes on to explain, if you're curious, what crimes will be added (or applied) to everybody involved, with no question about who it is (the rapist, the victim, or the doctor). And that's it. Short, sweet and stupid.

So, if you get raped, and then you get an abortion, you go to jail. It's a simple equation.

"Ah," but the calm, rational side of you explains, "it's right there in the bill! You have to have 'the intent to prevent the apprehension' of the rapist! Obviously, a victim isn't going to do that, right?"

Well, aside from the fact that "calm" and "rational" can rarely be applied to the anti-abortion lobby, let's consider for a minute. There's a term that needs to be applied here: "Thought crime." It's illegal to get an abortion that might tamper with evidence. Unless you can prove that you hadn't intended to tamper with evidence. You have to prove what you'd been thinking about.

"But... but... but..." your calm, rational side sputters, not yet willing to give up. "That isn't true! The state has to prove that you were planning to tamper with evidence!"

No, afraid not. The state has to prove that you did tamper with evidence, and then show that you might have still harbored feelings for the rapist. (Not hard to do, if it's, say, your dad, or some guy you haven't actively attacked with a knife...) After all, you got the abortion. They can prove that happened.

A woman still gets blamed for getting raped if she dresses "too provocatively" or goes to the wrong part of town. We tell women how to avoid getting raped; we don't tell men "don't rape."

We just assume that the natural state of man is "rapist." Since he's going to try to have sex regardless of any other factors, it's her job to avoid getting in that position.

If you then factor in the concept of "Stockholm Syndrome," please try to explain where this won't go wrong. Women already get accused of fabricating rape charges because they had sex, but then had "second thoughts" the next day.

Our society has some seriously messed-up priorities when it comes to rape.

_____________

Update (1/28/2013): So, I just corrected the formatting in the text of the bill. I tried to show it the way it was presented on the legislative website (with paragraph B underlined and the rest of it) and just managed to make it invisible. So now it's just shown as text, because some people shouldn't be allowed to use HTML.

Abort! Abort!

I've worked various election campaigns, and phone-banking is one of the most depressing, soul-grinding things you can do. Important, but sweet baby Jesus, you get to hear from all the losers, idiots and, worse, the one-issue voters.

Yes, they're out there. We could be emerging from the rubble of a GOP-led recession, the challenger could be saber-rattling for a third war in the Middle East and trying to set up robber barons for another Gilded Age, and you'd still have people on the phones listening to babbling lunatics explain how they could never vote for the Negro Abortionist.

Well, if there's people out there fixating on one subject, let's look at that subject for a moment, shall we?

(If you know anybody doing phone-banking in these waning days of the campaign, feel free to share this with them. You don't even need to give me credit for it. I'll be honest. It won't help: one-issue voters are not changing their minds, regardless of how many facts you run past them. But, well... at least you'll feel better.)

Barack Obama has been reliably pro-choice his entire career. This is not under dispute. But despite what many on the right like to claim, he is not a "radical abortionist."

While he did vote against bills to prevent "sex-selection" abortion and various bills which claimed to protect infants born alive due to failed abortions, but not due to some radical agenda. All were introduced by radical anti-abortionists, and all were so general that they could be twisted by political activists to begin the process of making all abortions illegal. Plus, the "failed abortion" acts were redundant even before they were written: Illinois law already protects an aborted fetus which turns out to be born alive.

But if you think that a vote for Romney is a "pro-life" vote, then, I'm sorry, but you're an idiot.

Because the truth of the matter is, nobody (probably not even Mitt Romney) knows what Romney's personal feelings are on abortion. Just looking at the evidence, his political advisers have determined that it would be best for his campaign if he was pro-life. But the people who know him give the impression that he isn't so much "pro-choice" as "uncaring." This isn't really a subject he feels like addressing.

But there's nothing here that qualifies as evidence. So, to determine the truth, we have to look at his record, and consider what Mitt Romney has actually done.

That, however, is also a mistake. Because the only conclusion to be drawn from history is that Mittens will say anything and do anything if he believes it is politically expedient.

In 1994, debating Teddy Kennedy, Romney said that he supported Roe vs Wade. Kennedy responded "I am pro-choice. My opponent is multiple choice," leading Romney to tell a heartwarming story of a close relative named Ann Keenan.

"I have my own beliefs, and those beliefs are very dear to me. One of them is that I do not impose my beliefs on other people. Many, many years ago, I had a dear, close family relative that was very close to me who passed away from an illegal abortion. It is since that time that my mother and my family have been committed to the belief that we can believe as we want, but we will not force our beliefs on others on that matter. And you will not see me wavering on that."

Look it up. While you do, keep in mind that one joke he made there, that he will "not impose (his) beliefs on other people." (It'll seem funnier later.)

In 2002, debating gubernatorial opponent Shannon O'Brien, he added "I will preserve and protect a woman's right to choose. I am not going to change our pro-choice laws in Massachusetts in any way. I am not going to make any changes which would make it more difficult for a woman to make that choice herself."

But in 2005, as governor, Romney vetoed a law which would ease access to emergency contraception. He explained through an Op-Ed in the Boston Globe, where he said he was "pro-life" and opposed any "judicial mandate" that dictated a nationwide abortion law, arguing instead that the issue should be left up to the states.

"I believe that abortion is the wrong choice except in cases of incest, rape, and to save the life of the mother," Romney wrote. "I believe that the states, through the democratic process, should determine their own abortion laws and not have them dictated by judicial mandate." Romney said he would uphold his campaign promise not to change Massachusetts' abortion laws, even though that campaign pledge was preceded by Romney's statement that he would "protect a woman's right to chose."

Then, during his first presidential bid in 2007, Romney explained that he had "changed my mind" on abortion while serving his one term as Massachusetts governor, and that "we should overturn Roe v. Wade and return these issues to the states." He also said he would be "delighted" to sign a bill as president that would outlaw abortion, if there "was such a consensus in this country that we said we don't want to have abortion in this country at all, period."

(He even had a cute little explanation, about how Reagan and both Bushes had started out pro-choice, and changed to become pro-life. Like so many of Romney's stories, it was a lie. But even though he was called out on it, he used it again a few years later.) Still with me?

From 2005 to 2011, Romney consistently said that he was "pro-life" and believes abortion should be legal only in the case "of rape, incest, or to save the life of the mother." That may be the longest stretch he ever went without reversing himself.

During the Republican primary last year, Romney expanded that view to explain how he believed he should cut all federal funding for Planned Parenthood, reverse Roe v. Wade "because it is bad law and bad medicine," and end funding for any international aid program that "promotes or performs abortions on women around the world."

But remember: he won't force his beliefs on other people.

He wrote it out for us in a National Review Op-Ed in June 2011. "If I have the opportunity to serve as our nation's next president, I commit to doing everything in my power to cultivate, promote, and support a culture of life in America." Apparently, one of his advisers thought he needed to take a hard right tack.

Having said repeatedly that abortion laws should be left up to the states, in October 2011 he went on Fox "News" and told Mike Huckabee that he "absolutely" supports a Constitutional amendment banning abortion.

But now, less than two months after accepting the GOP nomination, Romney is casually trying to amble back toward the center on his abortion stance, telling the Des Moines Register last month that he would not make abortion legislation part of his agenda. "There's no legislation with regards to abortion that I'm familiar with that would become part of my agenda." (It comes about 14 minutes into the audio of the interview.)

Funny, because in his National Review Op-Ed, he named three specific pieces of legislation he supported: "I support the Hyde Amendment, which broadly bars the use of federal funds for abortions... I will reinstate the Mexico City Policy (to bar foreign aid from abortion providers)... I will advocate for and support a Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act to protect unborn children..."

But hell, his friends, family and coworkers are just as confused about Romney's position as Romney is. After he spoke to the Des Moines Register, Romney's spokesperson, Andrea Saul was quick to contradict her candidate, saying "Mitt Romney is proudly pro-life and will be a pro-life president."

On the other hand, his sister Jane, back in August (you remember August, right? Her brother was "severely conservative" back then...), said that any fear that Romney would restrict abortion was "conjured," and that "it's not his focus."

At a "Women for Mitt" event held in conjunction with the Republican National Convention in Tampa, she said "He's not going to be touching any of that...  Mitt's much more in the middle" than even the GOP platform (which supports several anti-abortion initiatives and a "Right to Life" amendment with no exceptions for rape or incest).

Romney's surrogate, former Senator Norm Coleman, seems to agree with Jane, saying in Ohio last week, "President Bush was president for eight years, Roe v. Wade wasn't reversed. He had two Supreme Court picks, Roe v. Wade wasn't reversed. It's not going to be reversed."

And then we have that last debate with Obama, where Romney went even further left, saying Obama was "totally wrong" about him wanting to shut down Planned Parenthood. Of course, he was also trying to blame gun violence on single mothers (presumably women who had escaped his binders), so perhaps he was just having an off night.

It's funny, isn't it? Romney's positions on abortion seem to change whenever there's an election nearby, and what position would be most popular with the people voting in that election. That's kind of weird. You have to wonder - is he a vacillating bag of douche, or a cynical, calculating fucknozzle?

Personally, I vote for the second one.

...As if one dries/The streams from off my face.

Almost a year ago, a young woman named Savannah Dietrich (now 17) went to a party, drank too much, and passed out. That's not, perhaps, the smartest behavior, but it's not something she should have to pay for the rest of her life.

While she was unconscious, two other teenagers, Austin Zehnder and Will Frey, raped her, took pictures, and emailed them to friends. That's a crime, and should be punished.

But the boys struck a plea deal last month, pleading guilty to felony sexual abuse and misdemeanor voyeurism. Their sentencing hearing is scheduled for next month. But one other legal action was taken: Ms Dietrich was hit with a gag order, telling her that she couldn't talk to the press or reveal the names of her attackers.

The punishment for that could be six months in jail (not 100 days, as the video below claims) and a $500 fine, probably more than the boys would have received: juveniles tend to recieve lighter sentences, and their names aren't released to the public - apparently in the theory that they never learned that rape is wrong.

But Ms Dietrich decided to fight back. She tweeted their names to everyone she knew and opened her Facebook page to the public; she followed the court order to the point that she never revealed what the proposed sentencing was, but said that it was "a slap on the wrist."

Thanks in part to the public outcry, charges against Savannah Dietrich have been dropped. The judge has managed to muzzle the press, though, so while we know the name of Savannah Dietrich, the names of her attackers, Austin Zehnder and Will Frey, are nowhere to be found on the mainstream media. What the judge hasn't been able to control, though, is the internet.



It doesn't take much to google their names, where you can discover that they play lacrosse for a community team. You even get to see what these two douches look like.

Frey

Zehnder

There are some stories that need to be told. Over and over again. Until society stops trying to blame the victim.

I gave that bitch some rights - bitches love rights

Well, two days ago, a random douchenozzle put a comment on a post I wrote six months ago, about the internet's reaction to Rebecca Watson admitting that she felt uncomfortable in an elevator, and explaining why.

What he wrote, in part, was a fairly standard male-privilege response.

This whole blog is an equivocation fallacy... If we were to take that seriously, then I suppose I should never talk to a woman anywhere, because rape DOES happen anywhere.

What some people seem to want is for a special exception to be made for women, because they view women as inferior. The people who feel this way are radical-feminists, pretending to be feminists.

This guy was undoubtedly just some random troll (his nickname was probably created seconds before he posted), but nonetheless, I responded to him.

Maybe I was a little rude (because I'm normally such a calm, generous, diplomatic person), but to be honest, my only regret is that I left off a question mark and used the phrase "you're an idiot" twice. Because I can do so much better than that.

My only excuse is that cheap boxed Merlot is a harsh mistress.

As far as I'm concerned, any male who uses the phrase "radical feminist" is almost automatically an inbred mouth-breather with limited capacity for reasonable thought. There are only two types of people: feminists, and morons.

(Quick disclaimer: sure, if you look hard enough, you can find a couple of lesbian separatists out there who want to live without ever seeing a man, or occasionally dominate men, reversing the status quo and sticking women on top of the bigotry heap. But they're a really tiny minority - the exception, not the rule - and it's rampant, overblown stupidity to equate the one with the other.)

You could argue that I'm setting up a strawman to make an argument, but this idiot male attitude is all too common. When you start with the two largest religions in the world openly stating that women are inferior to men, and somebody suggests that maybe the two should be equal, it leads you down a path where drug-abusing sociopaths make up words like "feminazi."

And you end up with men who think all women who don't fall into their stereotypes of "Madonna" or "Whore" must be ball-busting lesbian bitches.

And sometimes, you even end up with people trying to claim that the Costa Concordia disaster was made worse because of feminism.

Apparently, in their minds, there is only a limited supply of rights, and in order for somebody else to get any, they have to lose some. Sorry, guys, that's not how it works: we aren't about to reach "Peak Rights."

Anyone who has wives or daughters (I have one of each) and doesn't want to see them succeed is a subhuman asshat who never evolved past masturbating in public and flinging their own feces.

Because it's a basic fact of life - men do get all the breaks: society contains a built-in bias that allows men to succeed more easily than women. Hate to be the one to break it to you, children, but if you're too microcephalic to figure it out, I'm not going to help you at all. Instead, I'm going to give you math. Because I'm cruel.

Women make up roughly 50% of the US population, but only run about 1% of the Fortune 500 companies.

The average woman earns less than the average man (about 75%, give or take - admittedly, better than it was in the 60s).

"Ah," says the voice of Male Privilege, "could that be because men are smarter?"

No, sorry. About the same - although men tend to think that they are.

(Interesting side-note: because the concentration of money is in the hands of white males, white women earn, on average, 45% less than the salary of white men - a greater disparity than among any other race.)

And those numbers only get worse if you keep digging. According to the Department of Justice, one out of every six US women have been victims of a completed or attempted rape. The male stat? One in thirty-three. (And let's not even get into the concept of sexual slavery.)

But you aren't supposed to bring up these pesky little facts, and a young woman shouldn't talk about how she didn't appreciate getting hit on in an enclosed space. Because pinheaded morons start blathering on about "radical feminism."

Really? It's radical to think that women should be treated the same as men? And at the same time, it's radical to pay attention to the fact that some people feel uncomfortable in certain situations, and you should respect that?

Fuck you. Fuck every bloated, self-involved whiny little boy who uses the word "feminist" when deep down, they're screaming "cooties!"