Rush Limbaugh Is A Big Fat Idiot: Just As Accurate Today

I apologize for the absence the past few days.  What with preparing for spring break and doing a bit of moving it's been a hectic week.  But something has been happening that's been so crappy, and yet unsurprising, that I had to post about it.

We all know that Rush Limbaugh is a big fat idiot.  This isn't just about partisanship--Limbaugh has been intentionally cruel and shocking throughout his entire career to garner listeners.  He's invented the term "feminazi", mocked Michael J. Fox's Parkinson's tremors, and referred to Chelsea Clinton as the "White House dog".  But somehow, Limbaugh has managed to force himself back into public discourse--ad outrage--this week.

At this point, most of you are familiar with the controversy over the birth control pill that has been happening in Congress over the past few weeks.  There was a woman named Sandra Fluke, a Georgetown law student, who testified in front of Congress about the importance of birth control for medical reasons.  There are many medical conditions that utilize birth control as a treatment, and Fluke was there to testify about one of them.  The Blunt Act, which was the bill proposed in Congress that would allow insurance companies to refuse to provide birth control (or any service) if they objected to it morally, did not pass.  But Limbaugh didn't see fit to let things go--in fact, he decided to escalate things to a whole new level.

On Tuesday, Limbaugh called Fluke a "slut" and a "prostitute".   On Thursday, he said that, if she wanted insurance to cover her slutty sluttage (not a direct quote, of course) that she should video herself having sex and post it online for him and everyone else to watch.  It was really the latter comments that really got everyone in defense mode, understandably. 

What Limbaugh has said about this courageous woman is slander, and she could potentially sue.  many will say that he was simply exercising free speech, and that may be legitimate.  That also means that we can fight against it, be it through petitions to his radio station or advertisers or simply spreading the word about what he's done and boycotting his show.  I can honestly only go through so much of being torn down for using something (birth control) that was apparently non-controversial before a month ago before I snap.  And maybe this was the end. 

For the record, both President Obama and the president of Georgetown University have stood up in defense of Fluke.  And that's great.  On the other hand, one of the other women of Georgetown wrote an editorial to tell you that Sandra Fluke does not represent all Georgetown women/skanks.  Glad she solved that one for us, and it's such a productive piece, too!

There are plenty of petitions out there that you can sign.  Limbaugh has issued a weak-ass non-apology and many of his advertisers have pulled out, something I imagine Rush knows plenty about as he's been married four times, has no kids and is against birth control.  Unfortunately, I'm too cynical to think that this will have the desired effect. 

I am so proud, though, that a message has been sent.  We can't keep getting trampled on week after week after week, getting called sluts and whores for using perfectly legal medications and procedures, being pushed back generations in our rights and acceptable behaviors.  We need to push back, and I think that this debacle has been an indication that women (and feminist men) are willing to do that.  Thank God. 

Let's keep pushing, ladies and gentlemen.

Tomorrow I'll have the next installment in my Feminist Relationships series.  I'm sure I will be inundating you with posts this week what with being off.  I'm also working on kind of an epic pet project that will eventually turn itself into an epic post here.  Enjoy your Saturday night, and don't forget, Rush Limbaugh thinks you're a slut, so enjoy that thought.

Pennsylvania Jumps on Abortion Restrictions Bandwagon

Okay, I promised some less-serious material today, and I will provide it after this one last quick thing. 

Many of you may have heard about the Virginia state legislature pushing through a bill that would require ultrasounds for women seeking abortion.  Pennsylvania's state house is about to do the same--and in some ways even more insidiously.  The new bill about to be passed--HB1077--would require a woman to have an ultrasound 24 hours before seeking an abortion and for the screen to be pointed in her direction. 

The creepy part of this--and the Virginia bill as well--is the 24 hour waiting period.  There is no medical reason for a 24 hour waiting period after an ultrasound.  If the only reason for conducting the procedure was to be certain the woman was pregnant it could be done moments before and fulfill the medical requirements.  This is a sort of "Now you do this and sit and think about what you've done!" measure that assumes women can't make these choices in their own minds.  It's dangerous and it's becoming more common.

So take a moment to sign the petition and tell your friends to do the same.  Thanks for your time.  I promise some fun stuff is coming later this afternoon!

The Language Of The Abortion Debate

Abortion--and reproductive rights in general--have been pushed to the national spotlight over the past year in a way we have not seen in decades.  State legislatures all over the country, and even the national Congress, have been proposing legislation and having debates that would limit the reproductive freedom of women.  One of the most interesting things about this, to me, is the language that has been used to describe and define the people--usually the vocal people--on either side of the debate.  None of it seems quite right.

There are a variety of monikers for those on both sides of this issue: pro-choice vs. pro-life, pro-choice vs. anti-choice,  pro-abortion vs. anti-abortion...the list goes on.  Some of the most heated debates I have seen in the past year have not necessarily been about the issue of abortion.  Oftentimes the people arguing are filled with rage that the other person defined them in a certain way, and implied something about their position, by calling them something they felt to be inaccurate.  The truth is that they are all inaccurate in some way.

First, let's take the entire legal aspect out of the equation and stick to the philosophical for a second.  I am even surprising myself by saying this, but I can understand why someone would think that life begins at conception.  Perhaps it is because I grew up with a family that thought this way, but there is no denying that a reasonable person could hold that belief.  There is absolutely no way to be 100%, scientifically certain that life does not begin at conception.  It becomes entirely about the personal belief of whomever you're talking to.  I have spent years considering, and researching, and discussing, and I have formed my own opinion--that life begins at birth.  This makes sense to me.  It is difficult for me to believe that two cells that are entirely invisible to the naked eye could be considered a life simply because they would be entirely incapable of surviving on their own.  But I would not laugh in the face of someone who believes otherwise--as long as they left me alone about it.

Now, to add another layer to it, we can split those who believe that life begins at conception or some phase of gestation into two groups: the first that believes that that is exactly the way it is and that abortion should be illegal, and the second which realizes that they have a personal belief that should not affect how others live their lives.  How common is it to hear someone say "I would never have an abortion but I'm not going to stop anyone else from doing it"?  These are reasonable people who could easily be considered to be "anti-abortion" but who are not on the same side of this issue as people who stand outside abortion clinics telling women that God hates them, or even people who write letters to their congressperson telling them to pass a Personhood amendment.

  Debunking the term "pro-abortion" is even easier: no one is pro-abortion.  No one.  No one wants to go into OB/GYN offices throwing flyers for clinics in the air and yelling "ABORT!  IT'S SO MUCH FUN!"  No one goes on a weekend vacation to an abortion clinic.  No one relishes the opportunity to terminate a pregnancy, whether they actually do it or not. 

"Pro-life" is also problematic for a number of reasons.  A month or so ago, I was watching a "debate" on Fox News featuring the then-five GOP presidential candidates.  A man in the audience stood up to ask Jon Huntsman (who was still in the race at the time) a question.  It basically boiled down to "How can you call yourself pro-life when you believe abortions should be okay in the case of rape, incest, or danger to the mother?"  I nearly threw a shoe at the TV.  How this man could not see the irony in the fact that he would not allowing Jon Huntsman "pro-life" street cred because he wouldn't let a pregnant woman die I will never know.  This is an extreme case, obviously, but it also implies something more sinister.  The opposite of pro-life is pro-death, obviously, and people who believe abortion should be legal are not that.  It's unfair to call yourself pro-life because no one can disagree with that term-it's like saying you're pro-kittens.  Even if your position is entirely noble, pro-life is a bit too saintly a badge for anyone to wear.

This leaves us with "pro-choice" and "anti-choice", which I think are probably the most fitting.  They are two sides of the same coin, not bringing confusing second ideas into the equation the way "pro-choice" and "pro-life" do.  Not to mention that you can still be anti-abortion and pro-choice; I know plenty of people who are.  Being pro-choice just means that you acknowledge that, legally, your opinion is not the supreme one and whether you think abortion is murder or not is irrelevant in the grand scheme.  It's about allowing other people to have the ability to form those beliefs for themselves.  It's about having the freedom to have no children or 21 children if that's what you want.  Making choice the center of the debate is crucial, because that's what it's really about. 

It might seem nitpicky but language matters.  Again, if an uninformed person hears "pro-choice" vs. "pro-life" they are going to think, "Hmmm, life is better than choice."  It frames the whole debate and grounds it in certain fixed terminology, and the importance of that cannot be emphasized enough.

Tomorrow I'm going to get away from this really heavy stuff and have a couple posts that are on the lighter side along with some links to awesome things you should read.  In the meantime, here is a kickass Ani DiFranco song about the important of choice. 

Welcme To The World We Live In

Hello, everyone!  I hope that you will all enjoy this blog and what it has to offer, and I hope that you will each contribute to it in some way.  I wanted to talk briefly about why I created this blog and some of the issues that are currently inspiring my feminist activism. 

Us Pennsylvanians were unfortunately aware of the existence of Rick Santorum long before he slithered onto the national stage.  Now that he is a competitive candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, I find myself ducking under a chair in shame every time he mentions he is from this area.  It continually amazes me that he was so successful in southwestern Pennsylvania, and it amazes me further that he is doing so well now.  He's doing really, really well, as it turns out--even with women.  57 percent of conservative women approve of Santorum, according to an ABC-Washington Post poll conducted this past week.  This is disregarding the fact that Rick Santorum disapproves of abortion, birth control, amniocentesis, sex outside of the context of procreation, and single parents.  I would like to dissect the reasons women would approve of Rick Santorum, but that will have to come at a later date.

Besides the GOP race, which is at this point becoming a contest to see who hates women's rights the most, we have the continual hatred of Planned Parenthood, birth control access, abortion rights, the rights of women as autonomous human beings, slut-shaming, and victim-blaming to inspire our ire.  I hope to explore all of these topics soon--one or two of them later today, even--and I would love to hear what everyone else has to say about them.  Thank you very much for reading!  I hope you will all contribute to this blog in one way or another.