Say goodbye to the birth control pill?

[OnionPatch]

I've been thinking about what will happen if they go nuclear and nix the filibuster. It's quite likely a supreme court judge will retire or pass away before Bush's term is over and you know he'll end up appointing the most extreme right-winger for sure if the filibuster is gone. That means Roe v. Wade will be overturned and abortion will become illegal. If abortion is illegal, I firmly believe they will try to make the pill illegal as well because, as the fundamentalists are always pointing out, it can act as an abortifant. I know that the way the pill normally works is to suppress ovulation but from what I understand, it can and does in some cases prevent a fertilized egg from attaching to the uterine wall. My OB/GYN even told me that if you take several of them a day for 2-3 days after unprotected sex, it can work as a morning-after pill. (I can't remember how many or for how long, so don't take my word for it, please!) I would not doubt for a minute that the right will use this as a reason to make the birth control pill illegal.

Do people understand that we are headed in this direction? I'm past the age of worrying about unwanted pregnancy and I don't have to worry about this personally, but it disturbs me. In some perverse way though, it also makes me laugh when I imagine all the young/middle-aged, Bush-voting guys finding out their girlfriends (and mistresses) can't take the pill anymore. All the righties out there who are not religious may start to regret their strategy of getting the fundies all stirred up when it starts to affect them personally.

Or am I wrong?

[Maat]

1. Actually, they are keeping me healthy right now, and I'm 46.

But I knew they were going to attack birth control.

I've posted on it before.

Once I posted a link from the Religious Right website that articulates the Republican talking points on a fairly regular basis. It put birth control pills in the category of abortion. Unfrickinbelievable!

[OnionPatch]

5. The thing that gets me about it is

that if they make the pill illegal, the abortion rate will skyrocket. It doesn't matter if it's illegal. It will skyrocket and many women will die.

[Maat]

12. It is heartbreaking.

And I warned the Rethuglicans in the neighborhood (who all have a family of manageable size due to availing themselves of b.c. pills); they said, 'that isn't in danger.'

Maybe I can horde them for my kid's use in about ten years or so. How long do they last? (Just kidding, Agent Mike)

[bettyellen]

2. naaaah, they're too cozy with big pharma.......

but they'll let the fundies think that's where they're headed just to string em along.
and try and outlaw abotion completely.

[AndyTiedye]

11. Big Pharm Would Make More Money Off All of the Extra Children

especially the ones with the serious birth defects.

[rwenos]

3. Silence is Indeed Puzzling

The whole fillibuster thing is ultimately about the Court. Rehnquist is ill and will be the first to go, once the fillibuster issue is resolved. His retirement and replacement by Kenneth Starr or Antonin Scalia as Chief Justice won't change much, because a conservative will be replaced by a conservative.

The NEXT retirement is the big one. It will be either John Paul Stevens (who's 84), or Kennedy. Both have refused to limit the fundamental right to abortion. Kennedy, a true conservative, has been pilloried by the Right lately, for refusing to overrule Roe v. Wade last time they had the chance.

That second vacancy will most likely change the country DRAMATICALLY. EVERYONE should be talking about this. This is DEATHLY serious.

[LdyGuique]

4. If Roe vs Wade is overturned, it will go back to the individual

States to make determinations on abortion as a practice. Many states would not outlaw abortion.

Contraception and morning after are FDA approved. It is unlikely that they would go to this extreme (making it illegal) as the entire medical community (except for the CRW) and most of the public would go into an uproar -- we would have those demonstrations in the streets.

[rwenos]

6. I Live in Cali -- Problem Won't Be Here

My 12 year old daughter's right is most likely safe in California. It's the old thing, like pre-Civil Rights Movement. The Balkanization of Rights. The South will go backwards, the west, Upper Midwest and Northeast will go forward.

Just don't let your daughter travel in the South.

[OnionPatch]

7. Do you really think they'll do that?

I just don't have any faith that they will leave it to the states. They have demonstrated that they will just change any laws or procedures they need to enact any laws they want. I can't see the fundies being satisfied with just outlawing abortion in, say, Alabama. I would think eventually they would try to make it federal.

[rwenos]

8. Absolutely Yes

Unless Congress flat out outlaws abortion nationally (which they certainly have the Constitutional authority to do), the abolition of the fundamental right to abortion as a federal Constitutional right would leave the matter to the several states.

My wife's family lives in Texas, and I've spent a fair amount of holiday time there in the last 15 years. The Texas Legislature will outlaw abortion the day after Roe falls.

[OnionPatch]

10. That's good to know

But I just can't believe they'd be willing to stop there. I feel they'll keep pushing. According to them, it is "the biggest Holocaust the world has known" isn't it? Well, at least it may keep them at bay for awhile.

[AndyTiedye]

13. The Supreme Court Could Ban Abortion & the Pill Natiowide If They Want To

and the sort of "Justices" that ** would appoint will do exactly that if they get in.

Then it would take a Constitutional amendment to restore any kind of reproductive freedom at all. Which means that freedom would be gone
forever, because the Bible Belt can block any Constitutional amemndment.

[CornField]

9. Unfortunately you are not wrong

All birth control pills have the ability to act as an abortifant. My understanding is that the pills work by convincing the body it is already pregnant... that way no egg is released by ovulation. This doesn't always work, however, so there is another aspect to the pills that prevents a healthy lining in the uterus -- making it a place that a fertilized egg would find inhospitable.

Are there still women in the U.S. who do not realize that birth control pills (and other hormonal methods) are in the sights of the right wing? If so, what do those women think the pharmacists (and doctors) are doing objecting to dispensing the pills on moral grounds?

Let's take a close look at the agenda:

1) Provide no facts to children/teens regarding sexuality. Keep sexual education limited to "just say no." (Because it worked so damn well the first time around!)

2) Appoint SC judges that will ban abortion

3) Promote that birth control = abortion... thereby making it illegal

4) Once again keep women barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen (by choice or not)

Ironically, the same people who condemn abortion also condemn criminals. I guess they failed to realize the correlation between the rise in abortions in the 1970s and the decrease in crime in the 1990s? There is a significant link between the economy and abortion. It's too bad "they" refuse to see it.

[colinmom71]

14. Actually, a substance can only be an abortifacient...

If there is already an established pregnancy to abort. Since actual pregnancy does not begin until implantation occurs, BC pills cannot be accurately considered an abortifacient by interfering in implantation of a fertilized ovum. The same holds true for the "morning after pills". Not that accuracy means anything to those rabidly opposed to women controlling their own fertility and reproductive health...

Sorry if it seems "ticky" of me to interject here, but I think the distinction between how BC pills actually function and the medical definition of pregnancy in relation to that function bears pointing out every once in a while...

[CornField]

15. I didn't find it ticky at all

I'm actually very pleased to have the additional information. Thank you!

I know this information won't be worth a grain of salt with those who believe life is created at fertilization. It does, however, show the extremes of their belief that any potential life is more important than that of an existing woman.

[OnionPatch]

16. But I think you are right that

they will not make any kind of medical distinction. I've talked to fundies; a fertilized egg is a life, according to them. It doesn't matter if it is attached or not.

[Pool Hall Ace]

17. So do they believe that frozen embryos are human lives?

..

[OnionPatch]

19. Yes!!

They do!

[mondo joe]

18. But they don't care about medical definitions.

Yes, medicallly pregnancy does not begin until implantation. But for the "life begins at conception" that's just tricky liberal doubletalk.