If this administration is really determined to let science and evidence be the basis of policy...

[acroyear]

...then why is Plan B still lodged in an eternal bureaucratic quagmire rather than being out there on the market where women who need it can get it?

Update: Chris Mooney wonders why, as important as her whistle-blowing was on the situation, the author didn't get more serious into trying to determine the political origins of this political issue.  She raised a lot of questions as rhetorical, without presuming to answer any of them.  Should she have?  Mooney thinks so, but I'm not so sure.  Maybe this is one of those cases where if one presents the problem and its cause at the same time, one overloads the audience with poltical speculation that's automatically met by cynicism (disguised as skepticism, but its not really).

Maybe its best to have independent voices look at the facts she's presented and assemble theories to the causes a little more scientifically, to try to drum up evidence that religion is driving this attack on women's rights rather than flatly saying it just because it fits a (well known) trend.

If you simply blame "the religious right", as Mooney did, you come off as a pundit and partisan, making more enemies than allies.  We (those who favor good education and science) need to separate the religious right ("social conservatives") from their republican mainstream ("academic conservatives") rather than give them more reasons to be allies by increasing their common enemies.

Comments

[caseylane.livejournal.com]

Well, as two more states have joined SD in trying to outlaw abortion, Plan B may become a non-issue.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Except for the part where it should become MORE of an issue, since its availability and use would prevent the need for abortions, and because it itself, despite anti-woman propaganda, does not cause abortion.

[caseylane.livejournal.com]

Try telling them that. They insist that it causes abortion and that's why it's been held up so long. Idiots.

Funny, they don't want abortion, or birth control. Wonder why they think women are so stupid that they can't be trusted to make decisions for themselves.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

They insist that it causes abortion

Well, yes. Because taking away birth control polls very poorly. But redefining birth control as chemical abortions, and allowing pharmacists to refuse BC prescriptions "as a matter of faith" - well, that plays very well, especially when you're trying to make sure that the woman cannot be the victim because somebody else is.

The whole "it's a person from the moment of conception" movement was a way to transmute common forms of birth control into "abortions" in order to take birth control away. Even though it's impossible to measure a "pregnancy" before implantation.

As for Wonder why they think women are so stupid that they can't be trusted to make decisions for themselves, well, we're WOMEN after all. Subservient to men, etc. And besides, if people are allowed to make their own decisions, they might *GASP!* make ones that aren't approved of.

[scaleslea.livejournal.com]

Their using their own mothers as an exemplar for all women?

Doc

[scaleslea.livejournal.com]

Argh! They ARE. They're even. Not Their.

Razzin frazzin...

Doc

[scaleslea.livejournal.com]

If abortion is illegal, then contraception becomes more vital. So Plan B would be needed more than ever before.

Doc

[caseylane.livejournal.com]

Well, with people refusing to even dispense birth control at some pharmacies it may become more difficult to come by. Right now the courts are saying that the pharmacy must find someone to give it to the person, but with the Supreme Court make-up like it is, that may change.

When people believe that sex is only for marriage and any and all pregnancies must be carried, they don't care about those that don't agree with them.

Abortion is a real church vs state issue, but sadly the church side seems to be better organized.

[scaleslea.livejournal.com]

They also don't care about the lives of the children who result from these pregnancies. They want to punish the parents in the here and now, and they use the "saving precious life" argument because no one wants to appear to be AGAINST life. But when the kids who are the result of these non-aborted pregnancies are dying in the streets, or managing to survive through violent crime, well that's THE PARENTS' fault. Not the fault of the legislative asshats who forced them to become parents. No, not at all...

Doc

[thatliardiego.livejournal.com]

First Roe, then Griswold...

[mandrakan.livejournal.com]

They can pry my National Lampoon's Vacation from my cold, dead...er, actually, yeesh, they can have it.

[thatliardiego.livejournal.com]

Clark Griswold did Jane Roe?

Ew, now I know why she wanted an abortion.

[caseylane.livejournal.com]

Like this pick-up I saw with two bumper stickers. One said "Choose Life" and the other said "Can't feed 'em, Don't breed 'em". I wanted to go and thump the guy on the head with something.