That’s right; apparently 195 Republicans believe that sex is for procreation only. Or at least, they don’t want to give Democrats anything to run on.
Anyone surprised by this have not been paying attention.
The Republican party has mistaken the popular appeal of The Handmaid’s Tale for public enthusiasm for the underlying premise. It is good for once to see the GOP making a Democrat-like move to undermine their own support.
Stranger
The legislation includes the right to emergency contraception. Is this specifically intended as a way to weaken abortion bans?
Don’t get me wrong, I’m 100% in favor of Dems doing everything possible in that regard. But it would mean there’s a little more nuance to this than “Republicans don’t believe in birth control.”
Eight legislators does not a party make, of course.
No, I mean all of the other GOP legislators that didn’t vote for it. Even among people who oppose abortion, access to contraception is broadly popular and is the only demonstrably effective method of significantly reducing unwanted pregnancies. Except for the kooks that think every hypothetical pregnancy is a blessing from the God of Their Choice and contraception is an immortal sin, this just isn’t going to be a popular position for even conservative candidates.
Stranger
Ah, sorry; I misread it.
Emergency contraception pills can be used up to 5 days after sex to prevent pregnancy, not end it. Calling it abortion is objectively inaccurate.
The “Plan B” pill delays ovulation. It is literally preventing pregnancy much in the way that a condom or birth control pill does. It’s not 100% effective, it is between 75-89% effective. The only difference between it and other contraceptives is timing; it doesn’t need to be done prior to or during sex, it can be used afterward (though it has to be used pretty soon after, the recommendation is within 72 hours but it might work a couple of days after that). Because of that, people get the idea that it’s terminating an existing pregnancy, but that isn’t what’s happening.
It’s a pretty poor way to weaken an abortion ban, since it doesn’t cause an abortion.
You and I know that, but some of the abortion bans being discussed include a ban on Plan B. It is inaccurate to call that an abortion ban, yet legislators are lumping it under that.
Combine that with half of Congress being clueless about the basics of reproduction, and I can see some idiots thinking it weakens abortion bans. But you’re right, the people who wrote it probably understand science better and weren’t intentionally trying to address abortion.
I hope so. They were politicians, but I assume they had some input from people with professional knowledge about contraception and reproductive health. The text of the bill (which isn’t huge, it is only 14 pages) has some pretty charged language in it.
The United States has a long history of reproductive coercion, including the childbearing forced upon enslaved women, as well as the forced sterilization of Black women, Puerto Rican women, indigenous women, immigrant women, and disabled women, and reproductive coercion continues to occur.
The right to make personal decisions about contraceptive use is important for all Americans, and is especially critical for historically marginalized groups, including Black, indigenous, and other people of color; immigrants; LGBTQ people; people with disabilities; people with low incomes; and people living in rural and underserved areas. Many people who are part of these marginalized groups already face barriers – exacerbated by social, political, economic, and environmental inequities – to comprehensive health care, including reproductive health care, that reduce their ability to make decisions about their health, families, and lives.
It’s not a cut and dry as “people deserve the right to contraception”. I don’t disagree with any of the language written, but I can see how this might scare off Republicans who don’t want their base seeing their name attached to it.
So I agree with you when you said,
Certain forms are. Condoms are generally popular, because men want access to them. The pill, which at this point is your grandma’s BC, is okay. But they don’t like IUDs and they don’t like morning after pills. Ostensibly, this is because these might stop pregnancy by stopping implantation rather than fertilization, though that isn’t the primary mechanism of either.
I think the real issue is that IUDs and morning after pills are associated with sexual freedom. They let sluts be sluts without risk of consequence. Modern IUDs work extraordinarily well without the risks of the Pill, and they really probably ought to be offered to all young women as early as they want them. They give a woman much more long term control over her fertility. But the Dalkon shield stuff and just general cultural baggage have left them with a stigma: you can just have sex whenever! Good girls wait till they are in a relationship, ands then go get on the pill. And the morning after pill obviously lets woman make mistakes and still avoid consequences!
They will come after these two first, and there will be support.
The real dilemma will be IVF and even things like IUI and drug-assisted ovulation. On one hand, lots of conservatives have children and grandchildren because of these technologies. And they are big industries. On the other hand, if your gonna hold that life begins at conception, IVF is an abomination. And conservatives who haven’t had fertility challenges often have real santimonious views about “God’s plan” and “nature’s way” and “Fertility problems are caused by being a bad woman” and “if you can’t concieve, its because your unwomanly job is stressing you out” or “if you want kids, you should start at 22.”
This won’t get past the Senate and is just theater for the respective bases. If this were a scenario in which failing to pass this would have had a real-world impact on people, more Republicans would have voted in favor. Not a lot, because over a certain threshold passage is guaranteed and a No vote is safely symbolic, but more. As it stands, this is all just empty posturing.
Getting the message out that “Republican Candidate X opposes your right to plan your family” is worth it.
The GOP base won’t read it that way. They will see it for what it is, which is “thumbing our nose at the Democrats,” and that’s a winner.
“The GOP base” isn’t the target audience. The target audience is the undecided voters who swing the ballot, and the young people and low-information voters who typically sit out off-years, and people who might otherwise not vote at all.
The last time the national Democrats built their campaign strategy around winning those votes, it got them 60 seats in the Senate.
That’s true, but these highly-desirable voters don’t pay attention to these purely-theatrical political maneuvers. You yourself call them “low information” voters.
The actual target audience for this symbolic vote is the hardened base on each side. The Dem base wants to see its representatives “doing something!” after decades of lazy inaction, and the Republican Troll Party base just wants to see its representatives sticking fingers into Democrats’ eyes.
I hope this isn’t too controversial, but there are extremist Republicans who could argue:
- without contraception, a baby will be born
- with contraception, a baby will not be born
- therefore contraception is murder
Too controversial? Heck, that has been and still is (AFAIK) essentially the Catholic Church’s position-- every intentional male ejaculation must have pregnancy as a possible result. That’s why all barrier-type birth control, masturbation,* and male-to-male intercourse are mortal sins-- wasting seed. I’m not making this up.
* Not sure why female masturbation is a mortal sin. I guess “what’s sauce for the gander, etc.” If masturbation isn’t a mortal sin any more, then pity the squirmy 12-year old me in the confessional stammering my pathetic list of sins to some old (or young) priest on the other side of the screen c. 1960.
Every sperm is sacred
Every sperm is great
If a sperm is wasted
God gets quite irate
The Roman Catholic Church is the world’s biggest fertility cult that also happens to be an enclave for sexual predators. Go figure.
Stranger