Could someone please enlighten me?

[solara]

What the heck is wrong with birth control? I just don't get it. WHY? WHY?
Why is it all of a sudden EVIL to use birth control? It is the smart, the responsible thing to do, especially when the world's population is bordering on obscene.

I really just don't get it.

Why do the Regressives want more babies? They sure as hell don't want to take care of them, or feed them or educate them.

How in the world could they equate access to health care with Pearl Harbour or 9/11 geebus

What are they thinking?

This kind of insane public spew, which is somehow validated by the so called press, frustrates me and scares me.

Does anyone know what is really going on?

[xmas74]

1. It's a way to control women.

The people doing the most yelling and screaming about bc are those who identify with the Quiverfull movement.

[deutsey]

14. Right...those womenin will have sex for fun

and even start expecting to be treated all equal and shit.

[xmas74]

18. bingo.

Us wimmenfolk get access to The Pill and we might not want to stay home ironing shirts.

[arbusto_baboso]

28. And WHO studies show that the surest measure of womens power and equality in a society....

is directly equated to access to birth control. it's not an accident.

[xmas74]

29. Exactly.

That's exactly why these small, hate filled groups want to deny women. It's not about unborn babies or God's will-it's about denying basic human rights to over half the population.

And they're proud of this.

[efhmc]

31. You said it perfectly.

[calimary]

2. I don't get it either. And there is NOTHING wrong with birth control.

It's woman control. THAT is the sticking point. The bad guys think we women don't have any business deciding really personal, intimate matters for ourselves. And that we have no earthly reason to do so, either.

I say FUCK THAT. Sorry to burst their bubble, but the right to choose is NON-NEGOTIABLE.

And you know what else? It's as sacrosanct a right as the right to own guns.

[elleng]

3. I've suspected for a long time

that its related to the old-time 'sin' theories of many ?southern? and 'hyper' religious people, who've held it against urban and 'others' for a long time. Don't do 'it' unless you're married.

Phyllis Schlafley?

[jtuck004]

4. With birth control sex can be fun, men and women can't be as easily controlled.

As you said, it's not about more babies and taking care of them. It's about the strict parent that they aspire to be. To everyone.

[freshwest]

5. Some book reviews and links that may explain this movement. And it's fascist, naturally, but...

The Means of Reproduction: Sex, Power, and the Future of the World

In this groundbreaking work of investigative journalism by the author of the New York Times bestseller Kingdom Coming, Michelle Goldberg exposes the global war on women’s reproductive rights and its disastrous and unreported consequences for the future of global development

Women’s rights are often treated as mere appendages to great questions of war, peace, poverty, and economic development. But as networks of religious fundamentalists, feminists, and bureaucrats struggle to remake sexual and childbearing norms worldwide, the battle to control women’s bodies has become a high-stakes enterprise, with the United States often supporting the most reactionary forces.

In a work of incisive cultural analysis and deep reporting, Michelle Goldberg shows how the emancipation of women has become the key human rights struggle of the twenty-first century. The Means of Reproduction travels through four continents, examining issues such as abortion, female circumcision, and Asia’s missing girls to show how the battle over women’s bodies has been globalized and how, too often, the United States has joined sworn enemies such as Iran and Sudan in an axis of repression. Reporting with unique insight from both the rarefied realm of international policy and from individual women’s lives, Goldberg elucidates the economic, demographic, and health consequences of women’s oppression, which affect more than half the world’s population.

As The Means of Reproduction reveals, the conflict between self-determination and patriarchal tradition has come to define pressing questions of global development. Empowering women is the key to retarding the progress of AIDS, curbing overpopulation, and helping the third world climb out of poverty, but attempts to improve women’s status elicit fierce opposition from conservatives who see women’s submission as key to their own national or religious identity.

From the anticommunist genesis of America’s attempts to stem population growth in poor countries to the current worldwide attack on women’s rights as a decadent Western imposition, Goldberg explores the interplay between the great issues of our time and the politics of sex and childbearing. Finally, The Means of Reproduction shows how women, strengthened by a solidarity that transcends borders, are fighting for freedom.

Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism

"A potent wakeup call to pluralists in the coming showdown with Christian nationalists."—Publishers Weekly, starred review
Michelle Goldberg, a senior political reporter for Salon.com, has been covering the intersection of politics and ideology for years. Before the 2004 election, and during the ensuing months when many Americans were trying to understand how an administration marked by cronyism, disregard for the national budget, and poorly disguised self-interest had been reinstated, Goldberg traveled through the heartland of a country in the grips of a fevered religious radicalism: the America of our time. From the classroom to the mega-church to the federal court, she saw how the growing influence of dominionism-the doctrine that Christians have the right to rule nonbelievers-is threatening the foundations of democracy.

In Kingdom Coming, Goldberg demonstrates how an increasingly bellicose fundamentalism is gaining traction throughout our national life, taking us on a tour of the parallel right-wing evangelical culture that is buoyed by Republican political patronage. Deep within the red zones of a divided America, we meet military retirees pledging to seize the nation in Christ's name, perfidious congressmen courting the confidence of neo-confederates and proponents of theocracy, and leaders of federally funded programs offering Jesus as the solution to the country's social problems.

With her trenchant interviews and the telling testimonies of the people behind this movement, Goldberg gains access into the hearts and minds of citizens who are striving to remake the secular Republic bequeathed by our founders into a Christian nation run according to their interpretation of scripture. In her examination of the ever-widening divide between believers and nonbelievers, Goldberg illustrates the subversive effect of this conservative stranglehold nationwide. In an age when faith rather than reason is heralded and the values of the Enlightenment are threatened by a mystical nationalism claiming divine sanction, Kingdom Coming brings us face to face with the irrational forces that are remaking much of America.

http://www.kingdomcoming.com/

http://www.amazon.com/Kingdom-Coming-Rise-Christian-Nationalism/dp/0393329763/ref=pd_bxgy_b_text_b

http://www.amazon.com/The-Means-Reproduction-Power-Future/dp/B002KAORXE/ref=sr_1_cc_2?s=aps&ie=UTF8&qid=1343885447&sr=1-2-catcorr&keywords=kingdom+coming+michelle+goldberg

When things sound 'feminist' people get afraid of talking about it as if the job is all done, or that it is the war between the sexes, but this is a lot bigger than that. A lof the conservative philosophy is funded by the Koch brothers and they are linked through their families to Stalinism and Nazism. It is laid out in frightening detail in a video and transcript here on DU:

Thom Hartmann: Conservative Millennials, Boomers & Libertarians all being Conned

http://www.democraticunderground.com/101744227

Their methods are fascist. There have been books on the signs of fascism; America has been struggling against the most overt forms in the Bush era and is currently under attack from these fundametalists. They are well-funded. We are pushing back, but it's up to us as Democrats to do this. No matter what disappointments we may have, honestly, no other group is equipped to go up and fight this. Anyway, that's my two cents.

[mrmpa]

6. I've been saying this for years..........

The anti-choice crowd are racists. Bottom line they are against abortions and birth control, because statistically they are what white women do. There are more children of color being born than white babies. If they take away a woman's right to control their bodies, these assholes believe there will be more white children born.

[moondust]

7. Some of it is fundraising.

TEH CRAZY stirs up the lunatic right who are more likely to send money. Michele Bachmann and Alan West are real pros at it but others are catching on.

[TreasonousBastard]

8. Goggle up what they did to Margaret Sanger...

the thought that women could have guilt- and pregnancy-free sex scares the shit out of some people.

[eridani]

9. Because they need lots of psycho genocidal murderers for their holy armies n/t

[Spitfire of ATJ]

10. "What the heck is wrong with birth control?"

As we all know, the ONLY time to have sex is after you and your mate sit down at the kitchen table and look over your finances and decide you can afford a child. Then the dirty sex act is supposed to be a one shot deal in the dark and you are supposed to pray for forgiveness afterwards to the plastic crucifix you hung on the wall behind your headboard.

Got it? No pleasure fucking in an American home. That sort of thing drives away the Lord. No mater how many times you scream, "Oh god! Oh god! Oh god! Yes!".

[The Doctor.]

11. It's part of the deliberate division of The People.

By playing on the ignorance and fear of the morons among us, they can turn them against the people that understand what the problems are and have solutions that would erupt the status quo. TPTB like the status quo that allows them great wealth and resources at the expense of the rest of us, so the message that educated or otherwise enlightened people are evil, immoral, and aloof is just plain easy to manipulate the less educated with.

"They think they know better 'n us! Get em!"

[Motown_Johnny]

12. The religious nuts believe God "in-souls" a human being at the moment of fertilization

So from the instant the sperm penetrates an egg it has a soul. If it dies before it is born and can be baptized then the soul must spend eternity in limbo. Never being able to enter the presence of God since it has original sin.


Crazy, I know.


Original Sin + Not being baptized = bad. Therefore every fertilized egg must be carried to term. After that, they don't care so much.



Ya know, with a screen name like Solara it sounds like you are the one who should be enlightening others.

[bulloney]

13. My area is scattered with yard signs with some verse that God knew us before we were conceived.

They're typical for the pro-life Catholics who will tell you to vote Republican and Obama is out to kill your babies and the like.

But, think about what that sign says. It's from some verse of the Bible. If God really does know us before we are conceived, then what's the sense of birth control? You were created because one specific sperm cell fertilized one specific egg. If the verse is true, you will be conceived despite your parents practicing birth control, right? Due to menstruation, that egg has only one window of time in which it can be fertilized. Then, it's gone forever. And men involuntarily discharge their sperm when not in the act of procreating, right? And those sperm cells are gone forever, right?

My point is that this whole discussion about birth control from some religions is about a few people at the top of that religion's hierarchy attempting to maintain control of its followers. And they do it with mind games...playing the guilt card...and scaring people into thinking that you're on your way to Hell if you don't listen to what they say as it pertains to sex.

[JHB]

15. It's about control and enforcing how people "should" act

These are people who think there's only one right way for people to act, especially in regard to sex, and the historical lack of effective birth control helped enforce that. The Pill completely upended their comfy worldview, with sexual matters becoming less taboo and women doing all sorts of thing that weren't "their place" to do.

This has been the ultimate goal of the people driving the anti-choice movement: not to just overturn Roe v Wade, but to overturn Griswold, the case that overturned bans on contraception and articulated a right to privacy.

For people who want to use state power to enforce their vision of authorized sex (especially for women) birth control is and always has been "evil" (except when they use it themselves).

[lunatica]

16. If someone is telling you what you're allowed to do it's all about control

It's very simple. What's not to understand?

[Ganja Ninja]

17. Birth control is a commie plot just like flouride.

Why do you hate America?

{/sarcasm}

[ehrnst]

19. Because it takes away fear of pregnancy from sex, and allows women to compete with men

in the larger world, being freed from childrearing.

Once you understand that they want women in a subservient role both in sexual matters, and societal matters, then you get why they are threatened by contraception.

[Gregorian]

20. Wow. That's got to be very close to the heart of this.

Thanks. I had to see this to remember that I already knew it.

[Fumesucker]

21. At its core virtually every Republican policy is about cheap labor..

No birth control means more impoverished workers that can be exploited.

Republicans cloak this crap in religion but it's a cynical move to lower labor costs for the wealthy..

[moondust]

24. Sick.

Politicians doing all they can to create more desperate citizens and to gut assistance programs in order to lower taxes--all on behalf of their wealthy cronies and donors--clearly constitutes government against the people.

[solara]

22. I just didn't see it coming I guess

And now that sinful, dirty old birth control is at the forefront of the Regressive platform. I thought all this sexist crap was settled already. I mean I get it about abortions. I can understand why the christianatics are trying to over turn Roe v. Wade..not that they really have to it seems, I mean they seem to be doing pretty well state by state. But their anti birth control stance still stymies me.

I suspect all your comments are pretty much on point.. keep women in their place..(when did that exhausted meme rear it's ugly head again?) control..control..control.. and...'hot damn! We got us some renewable energy alright, hell ya.. a working force of 'proles' that just keeps on coming'


Holy Huxley! HTF did we get here?

oh right

[dixiegrrrrl]

23. Those of us in the abortion fight in the 70's knew what it was about.

Remember that the Roe vs Wade followed the invention of The Pill by just a few years.
they never were separate issues.
Fortunatley, the new wave of feminism hit just at the right time and gave a lot of momentum to birth control/abortion, Planned Patenthood and progress.
But many of us knew the fight was NOT over, because it never was about birth control/abortion/feminist
issues by themselves.
It was about Patriacrchy.
And that is a global problem going back to the beginning of civilization.

[solara]

25. I see what you mean. I remember the 70's

But I wasn't as engaged in that fight as I should have been and that could be why this whole sexist re-emergence hoop-de-doo surprises and disgusts me so much.

Thanks for the reminder about Patriarchy being the bottom line. Perhaps these old, mean spirited, self-important patriarchs sense a final end to their centuries old attempts at the murderous suppression and control of women, which is finally and ultimately failing. Maybe they are just stupid with desperation.

Some might even say that the pendulum swings and the time of the Goddess is once again nigh..

[dixiegrrrrl]

27. I am seeing the faintist hints of a swing again.

I remember saying to my BFF at the time, in the early 70's, that we had won, but there would be a swing in the future.
Hopefully too many women...and men... are too used to the changes we fought for those many years ago.

[Ilsa]

26. They also can control women's economic futures

by keeping them pregnant.
They are monsters.

[Honeycombe8]

30. Some people are against it for religious reasons, and don't want to pay for others to have it.

Because they are against it. It's the part of the law that makes universities & other non-religious institutions, but who are affiliated with established religions (Catholic Church), provide free birth control to its employees. They regard it as infringement on religious freedom NOT to provide things they believe are against their religion.

Others are just jumping on teh bandwagon as another way to hate on the ACA.