It’s called “America”. A nation where the left essentially doesn’t exist, the center barely more so, and a nation ruled by political parties that consist of a right wing party, and an even more right wing party.
But doesn’t any definition of left and right in politics have to encompass views that are actually held to have any meaning? I suppose we could define Democrats as being 15 X left wing and Republicans as being 13 X left wing, but wouldn’t it be more helpful to place the center where the differences arise, put the GOP to the right of that and the Dems to the left?
Many of them are too feeble or lack a means of transportation, not because they lack interest.
Yes, I think that the idea you’re a “right winger” if you want to have parental control of medications that minors take is pretty odd. There seems to be a certain contingent of birth control/abortion advocates that will not give one inch on the subject, but this is really one of those issues that reasonable people on both sides of the political spectrum can disagree on.
The reason is simple, most parents aren’t comfortable with their children going to take morning-after pills without them knowing about it. I think Obama generally supports the morning after pill being widely available but he himself as a parent of one daughter in teenager years and another on its way probably understands parents not comfortable with their minor-age daughters being able to grab this pill at any Walgreens or CVS.
Some parents have no problem with it, but that’s a minority of parents. Most parents do not want their children to be sexual active at age 15 or younger, and while not entirely logically that opposition to their children being sexually active at that age is going to extend to them not wanting the kids to be able to go buy stuff like this because of various stupid reasons people think lots of things. Plus, most people also have yet to consider morning after pills the same as “normal” contraception, something that will change in time.
It’s one of those things that, supporting his original position mostly covered the vast majority of people who would need it or actually use it (adults), and his new stance (well, the HHS Secretary’s) on age 15+ covers probably 99%. I know the popular myth is teenagers have sex constantly, but actually something like 50+% of them graduate High School virgins and the percent that are not sexually active is higher the younger you get, so this is something that affects a small number of young, sexually active teenage girls pre-age 15 who can’t vote, mostly gives the voting people who care about the issue what they want and tries to tread a middle ground with angry parents. It’s basically pure political balancing act, nothing more, nothing less. Also, the President happens to always be a politician.
All of them that don’t have age restricted ingredients like pseudoephedrine and alcohol.
I bought caffeine pills and Midol and cough syrup for myself at that age. 6th grade cocktail, that was…
I guess that is the point. Should contraception be an age restricted ingredient? As a dad, I would certainly like to know if my 13 year old girl is fucking a bunch of guys. Or better yet, I would like her Mom to know so she can put her on the pill and lie to me so I don’t become homicidal. 
In any event a policy of allowing very young girls to be sexually active with access to contraception, given to them by adults, while hiding that fact from their parents is a terrible idea. The policy should encourage young girls to talk to their parents if they choose to be sexually active.
I don’t think wanting 15 year olds to have kids is “reasonable.” We’re talking about making EMERGENCY contraception available to kids who have already HAD sex. Saying that in that scenario, them getting pregnant is a good thing is not a reasonable position to take. There is a correct, black-and-white answer here, and it’s not the one the God-Emperor Obama has arrived at.
The implications go beyond that. If and when it is legal, then 15 year olds will know that they can engage in risky, unprotected sex with the idea that they can go to Walgreen’s tomorrow and get the morning after pill. This affects behavior by young children.
In practice, this tends to mean that the girl getting raped by her father ends up having to ask her rapist for birth control. I’ve heard of just that happening with abortion and parental consent laws, and a case with the father murdering his daughter for asking (after a judge told her she had to ask her child molesting father for permission).
People in these parental consent arguments often forget or ignore the question of what happens when dysfunctional or outright criminal parents become involved, instead of reasonable and decent ones.
And frankly, a great deal of the opposition to things like birth control for teens is due to a desire to “punish the sluts”; to inflict suffering on “loose” girls so they can be used as an example to terrorize other girls into compliance. Or to simply kill them for being “sinful”. Just look at the whole HPV vaccine debate, with the right wing deliberately trying to condemn girls to death.
Would you quit? No one here thinks of him like that. No one is calling him that. You’re getting pretty broad support here, despite the fact that you like to pretend that liberal criticism of Obama is an anathema on this board. Not everyone agrees with you. It’s a board with a lot of opinions. Knock off the martyr act, you’re embarrassing yourself.
While I obviously strongly disagree with you, thanks for being open about your racism.
Policy can do no such thing. Only parents can, and it’s the parents that *don’t *encourage their girls to talk to them that are the exact problem.
Policy can make girls desperate. Policy can make them think they have no choice but to pay (in money, in sex, perhaps) someone older to buy the medication for them. Policy can make them delay or avoid purchasing the medication so they get pregnant and need an abortion. But policy cannot make a terrified girl talk to her parents.
If Obama was God-Emperor he’d just vaporize the Republicans with his mind anyway, and we wouldn’t be having this discussion.
Anyway to the OP, I think the decision by the Justice Department is based on two things that can be found right in the OP’s article.
The first is that they perceive preventing children from getting the pill without their parents’ position to be the moderate position.
To me this is no different than Bill and Hillary Clinton saying they were pro-choice but requiring parental notification laws.
They argue, and Obama has argued, that it’s ridiculous for parents to be able to prevent children from getting tattoos and piercings without parental approval but get access to drugs like that and/or abortions without them.
For myself, I disagree and feel that parents who get all huffy about their 13 year-old sons getting tattoos or their 13 year-old daughters getting a ring pierced through their vaginas need to get a life, but others disagree.
The second obviously is they feel the need to back up their cabinet secretary.
Any real solution in such a situation has to start by getting the child out of the rapist’s household and guardianship, or it’s going to be ineffective no matter what you do. If she’s buying birth control pills without telling him, he can still find them, and he probably controls access to the money she’s using to buy them in the first place. And even if she does manage to scrounge up the money herself and keep the pills hidden, she’s still getting raped.
Meanwhile, of course, if you can get the victim out from the rapist’s guardianship, then he also won’t have the authority to deny her access to contraception, either (not that it would be necessary, since in this situation she’s not getting raped any more).
Or she can get a prescription. Or some other intervention that might lead to her rapist father going to jail. I don’t know why this hypothetical 13 year old getting plan b no questions asked is the best outcome given that it just means she get raped some more, but doesn’t get pregnant. Am I missing something here about why this decision marks Obama betraying the left instead of what seems like a pretty rational compromise?
In such scenarios the local law is likely to be on the side of her abusive father and not her; misogyny is why such laws are passed in the first place.
Nope. We’re a democracy first and foremost, and if this were put to a vote, it would pass overwhelmingly in favor of Obama’s position.
Gay people expressing abstract desire for bigoted imbeciles who happen to be black to not be shanghaied into voting when they don’t even want to anyway = racism
Bigoted imbeciles who happen to be black voting to remove rights from gay people = fantastic expression of democracy
Thank you for being open about your idiocy.