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

[mandrakan.livejournal.com]

I don't have a source at the moment. But clearly wikipedia is one. I don't see how you can say that a woman is pregnant when nothing yet has happened to her body. Should the egg not implant, under the fertilization definition, she would have miscarried without ever having "carried."

I would argue that the medical definition of a medical procedure is the relevant one. If people want to argue that preventing implantation is immoral, that's their own business, but it's not abortion. You can also argue that a condom is immoral--all those tens of thousands of dead sperm. But if they want to argue that it's murder, then as acroyear90 says, every miscarriage becomes a possible case of negligent homicide. If you miscarry after riding a roller coaster, you could be charged with depraved indifference, second degree murder (first degree in Colorado).

A woman does not produce a fertilized egg every month, but she'll never be sure that any given month's period does not include the loss of a fertilized egg. And under the fertilization definition, that's a baby.

[javasaurus.livejournal.com]

I don't see how you can say that a woman is pregnant when nothing yet has happened to her body.

I was pointing out that there are two definitions of "pregnant" in common usage. I wasn't making claims about which is correct.

Let me try it this way: there are two ways to consider pregnancy: from the mother's POV, and from the pre-baby's POV. If you define pregnancy based on the mother's reaction, then the implantation definition makes sense. If you define it based on the pre-baby's POV, then the fertilization def makes sense.

[mandrakan.livejournal.com]

But it's the mother that's pregnant. If the fetus were pregnant, we'd be talking about tribbles and infinite recursion loops, and that would be...um...fine, actually.