Poll Finds Strong Support for Legal Birth Control

[LiviaOlivia]

Poll Finds Strong Support for Legal Birth Control
NPR

June 7, 2005 -- Forty years after the Supreme Court declared birth control legal, a new poll finds broad public support.

Reports have been growing of pharmacists declining to fill birth-control pill prescriptions because of moral or religious objections.

But the poll, commissioned by the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association, found those objectors are members of a small minority. Eighty-eight percent of voters in the poll, including 80 percent of Republicans, said they support women's access to contraception. Eight in 10 respondents who identified themselves as "pro-life" also said women should be able to get contraceptives.

The poll was taken to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Griswold v. Connecticut, in which the Supreme Court struck down a Connecticut ban on selling birth control to married couples. The court did not extend that right to unmarried individuals until 1972, a year before it legalized abortion. -- Julie Rovner

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4683874

[Lautremont]

1. I'm astonished this is even an issue. (nt)

[Jacobin]

2. My thoughts exactly

[question everything]

13. And mine n/t

[Megahurtz]

5. Right!

:wtf: I hope it's not getting this bad.:scared:

[LiviaOlivia]

6. Just in case you haven't been keeping up on current events:

from dKos:http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/6/7/15550/99293

~snip~

Clearly, a huge majority of pro-life people do not want to return to the pre-Griswold era and, we would assume, do not consider blocking implantation to be equivalent to abortion. But, as you all are well aware, despite the overwhelming support for access from people in both parties and on both sides of the abortion debate, as many as 15 states are considering legislation this year that would limit access to contraception. NARAL highlights the broadening battlefield. See: http://www.naral.org/Issues/contraception/pharmacy_refusal/index.cfm
In addition, 5 states are considering what might be called preemptive measures to make sure access remains constant. At the federal level, we have the Access to Legal Pharmaceuticals Act (Sen. Lautenburg (D-NJ), Rep. Maloney (D-NY), Rep Shays (R-CT)) and the Pharmacy Consumer Protection Act (Sen. Boxer (D-CA)).

What is bringing this issue to the forefront is clearly the growing availability of emergency contraceptive options such as Plan B. But the recent spike in political resistance is somewhat puzzling, since the new drugs are functionally equivalent to the birth control pills that have been available for decades, and since a large amount of effort is going into the pharmacy battle which is likely to become moot when Bush leaves office and the drugs can get approved for OTC. My best guess is that it's the combined effectiveness and ease of use of Plan B that has the religious fundamentalists so alarmed. Additionally, they may believe they can mislead pro-life moderates into believing that Plan B is an abortifacient, more akin to RU-486. As for the pharmacies, these people may hold out the hope that Bush's successor will continue to block the drug from going OTC, which I find unlikely as the battle in the states raises the profile of the issue.

Religious zealotry in the pharmacy is nothing new - the primary group pushing it was founding in 1984. In the face of such enormous public disapproval, it's startling that these zealots are now getting so much traction in state legislatures, but it's a battle we are more than happy to join. As many have noted, the debate over "morning after" contraception, like the embryonic stem cell debate, can be a huge moral and political victory for Democrats and progressives. These issues split the Republican party by stripping off a wide swath of moderate pro-life voters who do not accept the absolutism of "life at fertilization." At the same time it unifies pro-choice and moderately pro-life Democrats behind a part of the issue that we all agree on.

[corbett]

8. Check Out This Link For More

http://prochoiceaction.org/campaign/june7

[tammywammy]

10. Thanks for the link n/t

[question everything]

14. Oh please, can someone tell whoever writes this

that they are not "pro-life" but are "anti-choice?"

[livinginphotographs]

19. As an atheist...

pardon my ignorance, but what is the fucking deal with opposition to contraception?

Playing devil's advocate, although I disagree, I can see the pro-life stance. Once again, although I disagree, that sort of makes sense to me from a religious perspective. But contraception? That's like saying I can't walk because I might step on an ant that could potentially exist in the path of my footsteps. It seems like puritanism, plain an simple, that sex is nothing more than something you do to reproduce, and I'd like to find one "Christian" man or woman on this planet that has engaged in sexual activity only in the interest of reproducing.

[TheWraith]

3. Um... Duh? NT.

[LiviaOlivia]

7. Huh?

Read up:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=217&topic_id=1478&mesg_id=1478

and:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=1530408#1530465

[Fridays Child]

4. B*sh needs to publicly state his position on birth control.

At a recent WH press briefing, a reporter asked what B*sh's position is. Scott McClellan nervously hedged and, then, finally responded that he would not dignify the question with an answer.

B*sh has been allowed to avoid this question. He is scared of alienating his fundie base but he already knows that the vast majority of voters are overwhelmingly in favor of birth control. As the article points out, even eight out of every ten so-called pro-lifers are in favor of it.

[expatriot]

9. 12% said no or didn't know? WTF?

[HockeyMom]

11. The extreme religious,

including many catholics, believe that the Pill and IUD are abortion too because it MIGHT prevent an fertilized egg (they call them babies) from implanting. These people also believe that barrier methods too are evil because EVERY sex act must have the potential to conceive a baby - that is God's will and the purpose of sex.

These are the people who would like to ban ALL forms of birth control.

Terrifying if they get their way.

[livinginphotographs]

20. I wonder if those same people

Will personally volunteer to feed all the starving, uncared-for children that will result in every single sex act in the world having the possibility of resulting in another child?

I thought not...

[lumpy]

12. Somewhere in the Old Testament

men are admonished not to 'spill their seed on the ground', in other words don't waste that precious 'seed' unless you deposit in the proper receptical {a woman) for the process of conception.

[happyslug]

15. No, only since the 1800s.

The "Spill your seed into the ground" is believed to be a statement not to become involved with certain Egyptian cults that required masturbation (through from what I read only of the Pharaoh for his seed was the seed that brought the annual Nile Flood).

It is only in the 1800s that you see attacks on abortion and birth control. This started with the Medical community taking over child birth. Prior to the 1800s Childbirth was NOT a medical area, it was an area done by midwives. This practices continued into the 1800s. As the medical community improved their skills they started to demand that all medical procedures be done by doctors alone, thus slowly pushed out the mid-wives from birthing.

Now for 2000 years midwives had also provided another service to women, abortions (a while as birth control mechanisms). The Hippocratic oaths forbids doctors from performing abortions but again why it is in the oath is historical not medical. Again during the Classical Greek period mid-wives did abortions and since abortion was tied in with death Doctors were forbidden to have anything to do with the dead (Please note this is Classical Greek Religious practice NOT Christian or Roman Religious Practice).

Thus in the 1800s the Doctors pushed to be only persons at births and to provide abortions (and to provide any birth control means). At first (about 1830s) just outlaw procedures that were deemed unsafe, but within a few decades the Doctors had had the states passed law governing them exclusive control over abortions and birth control.

As so at this time European and American populations stated to ground (in the case of Europe for the first time since the Black Death of the 1300s). One of the reason for this was the need for more workers in the cities. This need for more workers also put pressure on Governments to increase populations by restricting abortions and Birth Control. Thus hand in hand with the Medical Doctors, abortions and Birth Control came under the medical Community and NOT mid wives with pressure to lower the number of abortions and increase the general population.

It was at this point the Religious community first started to talk about abortion other than in terms it had discussed for over 2000 years. For 600 years the Catholic Church and most Christian Churches had followed what had been adopted during the 1300s on abortion (if you want to see what that Decision was read Roe vs Wade, for the US Supreme Court basically adopted the English common law on abortion which was based on Catholic Religious Doctrine of the 1300s). For 600 years it had been and effective policy (replacing a similar but more sexist policy dated to Aristotle which permitted abortions of male babies up to 40 after conception, female babies for 80 days, the church found this even to sexist for itself and adopted the rules that are cited in Roe vs Wade).

Anyway, as the Medical community demanded more and more medical procedures be done by Doctors only, the States started to outlaw abortions "except if medically necessary" and than left that decision up to the Doctors. While the Protestants were the first to endorse this change, it was the Catholic who acted the quickest. In the late 1860s as The Pope lost control over the Papal states to the Modern State of Italy, pope Pius IX called a Council of Bishops. The purpose of the Council was to strengthen his hands against the King of Savory for Control over Italy. It failed to do that, but one of the outcomes was the Catholic Church changed it positions on abortion form Roe vs Wade to the present absolute bar. Various reasons where given for the Change, but the real reason for the Change was to punish Italy (Pope Pius IX was considered insane by this time of his pontificate and seems to believe he could ban abortion and than use his power to wave such rules in Treaties between the Vatican and States who supported him against the King of Savory, it failed for as soon as the Ban was adopted the French Troops keeping the Italians out of Rome had to leave do to the Prussian invasion of 1871, causing Rome to fall to the Kingdom of Italy, something the Vatican would not accept till 1927 and the treaty setting up the present Vatican State).

Since 1871 and Vatican I, abortion had taken a life of its own. Even during Vatican II of the 1960s (which undid a lot of the damages caused in Vatican I), abortion was to hot a topic to touch. There is some indications that John Paul I was interested in changing the rule, but he died just as he was to attend a meeting with some abortion reform catholics (He was succeeded by John Paul II, who had little interest in Abortion except to continue what had been the rule since 1869).

I write this to give you an idea behind the history of abortion and Christian theology. The Catholic Church had always consider abortion a "sin" but only a "Sever Sin" since 1869. The difference between a "Sin" and a "Severe Sin" is large. A "Severe Sin" damns you to hell for it is a violation of the Ten Commandments, while a "Sin" is just a minor error that you should seek forgiveness for but only damnable if it shows a pattern of sins indicating an intention NOT to try to follow the Ten Commandments.

Given this difference in the definition of sin and severe sin, the Catholic Church had to change abortion from a sin to Murder to make it a severe sin. For abortion to be murder the Fetus had to be a person who can be murdered. While it appears Pius IX did this to use as a tool against Catholic Countries, when Rome fell to the Italians abortion within the Church took a life of its own. With The increasing LEGAL ban on abortion during this time period lobbied for by the Medical Community this change was NOT that radical. It is only with the post-WWII period and the demand for legal abortion did abortion become a real political problem for both the Church and the State. Both have been trying to deal with it only since WWII.

Thus the issue is NOT "Seed onto the Ground" but when does a fetus becomes a Human being. Even from a medical point of view that is a difficult question. Women abort fetus on their own, thus "Natural" abortions per se has NEVER been a severe sin (or even a sin). Women can cause such natural abortions just by walking (rare but not unheard of). If a women knows she is such a women does that make her a Murderer if she walks to the bathroom and in the process her body rejects the fetus? The consensus is No, you need something more than a natural act. But how much more? What is the cutoff? If a women knows she will naturally abort if she talks a walk but only in her last trimester can we require her to stay in bed? Again the Church would say no, walking is a natural act, but we are now talking of the third trimester which the Church and the Law under Roe vs Wade would permit reasonable restrictions.

Birth is often used as a cutoff, but with today's technology we can keep most fetus that reaches the last trimester alive, thus can be use birth as the cut off? Given the long history of premature births and the survival of such babies, birth is not the clear cut off that it appears at first glance. The Ancient Romans used the ability to walk and talk, but that is when you are one year old, again no one is saying we should adopt infanticide.

The older I get the more I see the wisdom of the Catholic Doctrine of the Middle Ages (i.e. Roe vs Wade). It is the best balance between between protecting the rights of the children AND the rights of the mothers. I do not like abortion, but a complete ban on abortion is just not viable nor is permitting abortion up to and including births (And even up to births exceptions to a ban has to be adopted see Roe vs Wade which addresses the restrictions on restrictions on the last trimester abortions).

Abortion is a difficult subject and the devil is in the details not the general concept and till the 1800s the Church and society had a good handle on the subject. It is only with the inference by the Medical Community and the Modern Industrial state that changes were sought, and when those changes turned out to be worse than the disease we are slowly going back to the Middle ages rule on abortion.

[PassingFair]

16. What about.....

Onan? Did he die for NOTHING?

[happyslug]

17. I go with Wikipedia on Onan

And the reason he was killed was NOT that he "spilled his seed on the ground" but he was making sure his late brother's wife had no child. Onan's brother had died with a wife who had no children by Onan's brother. Under Jewish law of the time period Onan was suppose to make her pregnant and the resulting child was viewed as his brother's not his.

Thus the term "Spilled his seed on the Ground" may very while be a term of art within the bible i.e. he was SUPPOSE to have sex with her and get her pregnant so that she could have a child to take care of her in her old age but he did not. It was his REFUSAL to get her pregnant that he was punished for NOT for masturbation.

For more see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onan

[PassingFair]

18. "I have to go with Twain on Onanism"

http://www.ralphmag.org/onan.html

;-)

The older I get, the more I appreciate that man.....

[happyslug]

21. I liked his "Diary of Adan and Eve"

and other later writings. He had a flair to show the ridiculous of a situation or statement.

[Merlin]

22. Unfortunately NPR's brief web blurb is the only source for this story.

Not even the NFPRHA's web site has any info about a poll.

It's a terrific story that should make major news if/when picked up in the mainstream.