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torquillEx-head of FDA under criminal investigation by a grand jury over the "Plan B" contraceptive pill snafu.
Normally I wouldn't post something like this, as it's just one step in an investigation... but it got me to thinking.
I never used to view the fanatic "pro-life" people as misogynistic, particularly; it didn't seem like they were trying to keep women under their boot, as I heard a lot of people assert. It was a religious conflict, like prayer in schools, which was a regrettable but understandable situation. I thought the issue really was about abortion itself.
I have come to really doubt that view, given some of the actions by the "pro-life" people in power. Sometimes the only way I can explain their actions is by concluding that they want to subjugate women to men's will. I've never been a radical feminist, and it sounds like a really wingnutty statement when out in the open, but it's the only way I can grasp their actions (short of them being raving lunatic insane, which a few of them probably are).
Now this whole Plan B thing -- this guy saw the holdup in the FDA, and promised that if he was put in as chief, he's cut through all of this "it's for scientific reasons" bullshit delay and push it through. He gets in, and almost immediately announces an indefinite delay, which still remains. Now when he's brought before a jury about his own claims that the delay was scientifically necessary, his lawyer wants him to take the fifth.
This kind of neanderthalic moron is the reason women can't get decent contraceptives as easily as we should. Women find that BC pills aren't covered by their insurance and aren't carried by all pharmacies, condoms can be scarce in stores in the heartland, the morning-after pill (for heaven's sake, fertilization wouldn't even have happened yet!) is unavailable, and yet Viagra is given out like candy. Sure, have more sex, unless you're a woman, then you'll be punished for your sin with a baby. Nope, no abortion, you shouldn't have been having that sex anyway, never mind that the man has no penalty at all. The anti-abortion laws being passed that make no exception for rape or incest cement the view that those acts must have been the woman's fault too. Exception for the health of the mother? If they can't be baby factories without getting crippled or dying, who the heck cares?
It's the rant that I've heard since I was little, with a few details changed, and I never put much stock in it other than for a few fringe nuts who bomb abortion clinics and condemn their own daughters to hell for having premarital sex. Yet now I'm making it. It took a lot to beat down my more moderate view, but as the "pro-life" faction has been given free rein lately, it's gotten harder and harder to cling to the assumption that they're not trying to deny women the same freedom of action that men have. These people want women barefoot, married, pregnant, and chained to the house. I don't think that much of America, given a break from the talk-radio spew, would agree with that... but they are not the people in power or the ones with the megaphones.
I re-read "The Gate to Women's Country" this month. The Holyland people seemed pretty farfetched when I read it the first time. They don't seem so unlikely now. I can see men out there who would fit right in.
The point of this whole rant -- which has gotten longer than I meant it to -- was not to scream and rant and say it's unfair (though it is). The point was to ask a question of the ex-FDA chief, the people in South Dakota who don't care about rape or incest victims, the pharmacists who dispense Viagra but won't give out birth-control pills.
What have I ever done to you?
Normally I wouldn't post something like this, as it's just one step in an investigation... but it got me to thinking.
I never used to view the fanatic "pro-life" people as misogynistic, particularly; it didn't seem like they were trying to keep women under their boot, as I heard a lot of people assert. It was a religious conflict, like prayer in schools, which was a regrettable but understandable situation. I thought the issue really was about abortion itself.
I have come to really doubt that view, given some of the actions by the "pro-life" people in power. Sometimes the only way I can explain their actions is by concluding that they want to subjugate women to men's will. I've never been a radical feminist, and it sounds like a really wingnutty statement when out in the open, but it's the only way I can grasp their actions (short of them being raving lunatic insane, which a few of them probably are).
Now this whole Plan B thing -- this guy saw the holdup in the FDA, and promised that if he was put in as chief, he's cut through all of this "it's for scientific reasons" bullshit delay and push it through. He gets in, and almost immediately announces an indefinite delay, which still remains. Now when he's brought before a jury about his own claims that the delay was scientifically necessary, his lawyer wants him to take the fifth.
This kind of neanderthalic moron is the reason women can't get decent contraceptives as easily as we should. Women find that BC pills aren't covered by their insurance and aren't carried by all pharmacies, condoms can be scarce in stores in the heartland, the morning-after pill (for heaven's sake, fertilization wouldn't even have happened yet!) is unavailable, and yet Viagra is given out like candy. Sure, have more sex, unless you're a woman, then you'll be punished for your sin with a baby. Nope, no abortion, you shouldn't have been having that sex anyway, never mind that the man has no penalty at all. The anti-abortion laws being passed that make no exception for rape or incest cement the view that those acts must have been the woman's fault too. Exception for the health of the mother? If they can't be baby factories without getting crippled or dying, who the heck cares?
It's the rant that I've heard since I was little, with a few details changed, and I never put much stock in it other than for a few fringe nuts who bomb abortion clinics and condemn their own daughters to hell for having premarital sex. Yet now I'm making it. It took a lot to beat down my more moderate view, but as the "pro-life" faction has been given free rein lately, it's gotten harder and harder to cling to the assumption that they're not trying to deny women the same freedom of action that men have. These people want women barefoot, married, pregnant, and chained to the house. I don't think that much of America, given a break from the talk-radio spew, would agree with that... but they are not the people in power or the ones with the megaphones.
I re-read "The Gate to Women's Country" this month. The Holyland people seemed pretty farfetched when I read it the first time. They don't seem so unlikely now. I can see men out there who would fit right in.
The point of this whole rant -- which has gotten longer than I meant it to -- was not to scream and rant and say it's unfair (though it is). The point was to ask a question of the ex-FDA chief, the people in South Dakota who don't care about rape or incest victims, the pharmacists who dispense Viagra but won't give out birth-control pills.
What have I ever done to you?
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no subject
Date: 2006-04-29 18:47 (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-30 06:40 (UTC)These clowns make me embarrased to call myself pro-life. You're right, it's not about saving childen, it's about controlling what people do.
no subject
Date: 2006-04-30 07:56 (UTC)Nobody wants more abortions. That's one of the biggest straw men used today. I just wish these people would relent on contraceptive use. (I'm all for adoption, but it's not a panacea.)
Then again, I'm not much for any organized religion which demonizes natural healthy human impulses... but that's a whole different rant. :)
no subject
Date: 2006-04-30 18:54 (UTC)People (especially women) like to think that this sort of thing is about controlling women's rights, because they assume that if an issue is important to them that it must also be important to the people who are hurting them. It gives validation to their cause (and validation to themselves), and makes it easier to demonize the opposition and find a target for their anger, and yes, there are a few people here and there who really do want to keep women down, but the truth is, there's a much simpler explanation for most of this which is almost certainly more true:
Most men, including most conservative politicians, don't care about reproductive rights at all. No, I don't mean they don't like them, I mean that they actually don't care at all, one way or the other. It's not even an issue. The decisions of all of the male politicians, and agency directors, and policy-setters are simply about the same thing that all the other decisions everybody makes every day are about: politics and money.
The conservative right use religion to gain support, and they're very effective at it. They've found that abortion is a strong religious issue with many people, and they use it very carefully to gain the support of those people by turning it into a political issue and holding themselves up as the moral champions. But it's not about women at all, and it's not about morals, or even abortion, it's just about gaining support from as many people as they can however they can do it, the same as they've done with all kinds of other issues.
Then politicians run for office, and to be honest I suspect most of them don't really care one way or the other about abortion, but the conservatives are a powerful force, and they want abortion to continue to be an issue, because as long as it's an issue, they've got followers, so they exert their will, and get people to take sides, and make it an issue, and then they exert their will to lump as much stuff as possible into the "abortion" maelstrom. But they don't just exert their will to silently squash reproductive options, which in many cases if they wanted to I believe they could do much more effectively than they do, because they don't actually want to win this fight. They want it to continue to be as big an issue as possible. They actually want patsys like this to say one thing and then do another, because that keeps the whole issue in the papers and fresh in people's minds and keeps their support numbers up, to give them the strength to push through all the other agendas they have.
And guys like this ex-FDA-chief, well, they're mostly all just politicians, which means they have to say and do whatever they think will get them enough support to keep them in office, or they're out of a job, so they try to test the waters and go with the flow. I wouldn't be surprised if half the time they don't even realize that it is a "women's issue" they're actually deciding on, they're just doing what's best for them at the time, because, well, that's politics.
But lots of women out there take it personally, and conclude it must be a deliberate attack on them. This is understandable, but frustrating to see, because it really makes them all pawns of the conservatives as well. They often ignore the very real politics behind a lot of decisions and fight many battles based on false premises, which means they concentrate their efforts in the wrong places, and ultimately keep losing ground because of it, all the while helping the conservatives to keep it a big issue in the public's mind. (and then, since it's become a "minority repression" issue, it becomes all PC, and anybody who doesn't completely agree with the majority opinion is branded the enemy, which just makes everything less effective and more spectacular, etc).
It's not that men like this are trying to control women. The truth is that usually, in these issues, women aren't important enough to matter at all.
no subject
Date: 2006-04-30 19:00 (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-01 17:31 (UTC)