Censorship or Tactical Maneuvering?

In advance of spring break, Pro-Life Wisconsin recently submitted an ad to several college newspapers in the state, and is now crying foul because 3 of them have not yet printed said ad. It's an interesting case where one has to wonder whether Pro-Life Wisconsin cared as much about getting out its message about making healthy choices as it did about being able to scream about being censored.

The Badger Herald lays out the claims in the ad itself:

“Be good to yourself over spring break,” the ad reads. “Make smart choices the night before … that way you won’t have any emergencies to deal with the morning after!”

It also says emergency contraception is a powerful, high dose of steroids that “tricks a woman’s body into thinking it is pregnant” and can cause “chemical abortions and deadly blood clots.”

Newspapers at the Marquette University Tribune, the UW-Stout Stoutonia and the UW-La Crosse Racquet were the only three of many to not print the ads in their most recent editions. Contrary to PLW's claims that the ads were outright rejected, however, it seems that at least Marquette and La Crosse Racuet are still considering the ads, concerned over the claims made about whether EC really causes "chemical abortions and deadly blood clots."

I suspect that most people would agree, leaving out any talk of a specific controversial subject, that taking proper time to investigate potentially inflammatory and misleading claims in an advertisement before running it is doing journalistic due diligence. I wish more TV stations would do the same thing before running blatantly false political ads, for instance.

However, wedge abortion into the mix and people tend to fly off the handle without considering all of the facts.

Instead of this being a case of due diligence, it's censorship! Take a look at the comments section under the Badger Herald article for a few good examples of this kind of thinking. One bold anonymous poster says "There is no excuse for the UW System newspapers to reject the Pro-Life Wisconsin ads. The public universities shouldn't be able to discriminate against more conservative views." But this isn't a case of discriminating against conservative views. It's a case of discriminating, in the positive sense of the word, against potentially false and/or harmful views.

According to the National Institutes of Health, "Emergency contraception medicine is not the same as the "abortion pill." A woman who knows she is pregnant takes the abortion pill with the intent to end an early pregnancy (usually 4 to 7 weeks after conception). Emergency contraception pills are taken after unprotected sex to prevent pregnancy from occurring." (emphasis mine)

The risk of "deadly blood clots" is extremely low, and the same as what's associated with taking regular birth control pills.

I don't pretend that the issue of abortion isn't an extreme gray area. All the arguing in the world will never convince some people that it's right or wrong, and that's fine. I take issue when other people start telling me what I should or should not be allowed to do with my own body, and I apply that to both sides of the debate.

The problem here, though, is that we are not talking about abortion. EC, otherwise known as Plan-B, doesn't cause an abortion, it prevents fertilization of the egg in the first place. If you believe that an unfertilized egg constitutes a life the deserves protection, then you might as well forbid women to menstruate. That's as good as telling us that we should be pregnant at all times from puberty through menopause, and you'll forgive me if I take extreme offense to that (not to mention think that you're very silly).

You might think that view is far-fetched, but judging by another comment left under the Badger Herald article, I'm led to believe that there are those out there whose views aren't too far removed:

It's not at all surprising. This is why so many people want to come to America to party--our women are wordly known as promiscuous and preferencing "successful" occupations over motherly duties. Our women have the sexual undiscipline to say "yes" to consensual sex, especially since most of them are chemically induced agreements, then the ungodly nerve to say "no" to the outcome. Abortion is not just murder, it's idolatry--the females are preferring a career without a child, befroe a career with a child.

Apparently there are still folks out there who think of women as nothing much more than baby machines, and that's really fucking sad.

In the end, I applaud the editorial boards of those three papers for taking the time to consider the claims made in those ads. I would urge them to do the same for any ad making potentially unsubstantiated and harmful claims, no matter what end of the political spectrum they fell on. Ad copy is a different beast from news (which may contain unsubstantiated claims in the form of direct quotes, which is fair game), and should be treated accordingly.

The bigger story, plus picking nits

It feels like a cop-out to simply post a link to someone else's article without adding much in the way of your own thoughts on the subject, but sometimes there's really not much to add. Sometimes the article just sums up my feelings so well that all I need to do is point at it and say, "Yeah, that's it."

"Economic Disaster Longtime Coming" via Firedoglake

Meanwhile, stateside, the Assembly just passed the emergency contraception bill, with 16 Republicans bravely splitting ranks to vote yes. Save a somewhat predictable dick move by Steve Nass (R-Whitewater) that will keep the bill from going to the governor's desk (where it will likely be signed) until the full Assembly reconvenes in February, final passage seems likely. This is great news.

As a side note, there was one quote in the article that grabbed my attention:

The director of legislation for a group that opposes abortion and birth control, however, said in a statement that those who voted for the bill "flouted both their moral duty to protect pre-born children and their legal duty to protect conscience rights." Matt Sande of Pro-Life Wisconsin said the vote "is cause for great frustration and anger in the pro-life community. This is a day that will be long remembered."

Pre-born? That's right up there with pre-pregnant, which is how our wonderful CDC now categorizes every woman, regardless of whether or not she ever intends to actually have a child. The term is so loaded, so presumptuous, that it becomes nearly impossible to speak out against it for fear of immediately being called a baby hating whack-job. Look, health guidelines for women should simply encourage all of us to be, y'know, healthy, for our own sake. If we then choose to become pregnant (or just do so by accident), it stands to reason that we'll already be living a lifestyle conducive to a healthy pregnancy. But to call all women "pre-pregnant" is to essentially call us nothing more than baby machines, whose main duty to the country is to produce future citizens (whether the message is intended or not).

Screw that noise. And screw this "pre-born" nonsense, too. If you want to debate the issue of abortion, please do, but don't couch it in such ludicrously loaded terms so that you can launch substance-free attacks against anyone who disagrees with you.

P.S. Besides, terms like "pre-born" and "pre-pregnant" sound way too much like "pre-clear," which is what those wacky Scientologists call everyone who hasn't paid them lots of money yet. Do you really want that association on your back?

Do you bite your hypocritical thumb at me sir?

Bouncing around ye olde blogosphere today, as I'm wont to do, I stumbled across a post by Milwaukee's own folkbum, who noted an article written by MJS editorialist Patrick McIlheran about the recently passed access to emergency contraception bill. Folkbum rightfully points out both the hypocrisy and plain old disgusting nature of the article, homing in on one passage in particular.

Jones-Nosacek points out that Plan B amounts to an extra-large dose of contraceptive drugs. If people worry about trace amounts of endocrine-disrupting chemicals in water, Plan B ought to be at least a little worrying, given that endocrine disruption is what it's all about, she says. Yet the law doesn't let doctors apply any medical judgment to the patient before giving the drug: It must be given on request to any woman of any age.

A man who has consistently railed against environmentalists who speak out against pollutants trying to use their own arguments against something he opposes? I think I just threw up in my mouth a little.

Beyond that, the article argues that religious hospitals shouldn't have to make emergency contraception available to rape victims because it violates their right to refuse to do something that goes against their beliefs. It's a common argument, and one with some merit: after all, I'm a huge proponent of the separation of church and state, so just as I believe that no one should dictate what religion I should or should not follow, I also believe that no one should force someone to do something that goes against their beliefs (unless, of course, we're talking about life-and-death situations and cases involving abuse).

But here's the thing: those Catholic (and other religious) hospitals? They're getting something like half of their operating expenses from public programs like Medicare and Medicaid. Very little of their funding comes from churches or other religious sources. Here's the breakdown:

• Combined Medicare and Medicaid payments accounted for half the revenues of religiously-sponsored hospitals in 1998.
• In 1998, religious hospitals nationwide received more than $45.2 billion in public funds: $35.7 billion in Medicare payments, an estimated $8.8 billion in Medicaid payments and nearly $700 million in other types of government appropriations. In 1999, Medicare alone provided $41.3 billion of sectarian hospitals’ patient revenues.
• The other half of religious hospitals’ operating revenues came almost entirely from insurance companies and other third party payers, not from churches or other religious sources.
• By 1999, of all community hospitals, religiously-sponsored facilities were the most reliant on Medicare payments, with Medicare alone accounting for 36 percent of gross patient revenue (compared to 34 percent for all hospitals). Religious hospitals, like nonsectarian facilities, used federal funds from the 1946 Hospital Survey and Construction Act (better known as Hill-Burton) to rapidly expand in the 1950s and 60s. Many of those same hospitals now utilize tax-exempt government bond issues to obtain low-cost financing of reconstruction and further expansion, the study found In two large states, New York and California, religious hospitals received at least $650 million from such government bond issues in 1998. Like other non-profit entities, religious hospitals enjoy the benefits of tax-exempt status, including exemption from property taxes and eligibility for charitable donations.

If an organization is getting most of its funding from public, governmental sources, then it ought to be beholden to the rules and mores codified in state and federal law. Otherwise all the arguments for "separation of church and state" being thrown around by opponents to the Plan B laws are rendered the hideously hypocritical bleats we've long suspected they were.

A hospital wishing to turn their noses up at the law should cease accepting public funding, period. Otherwise, there is simply no excuse for forcing a rape victim to jump through a series of hoops to get EC. It's about as uncharitable and uncaring as you can get.


(image credit: ec.princeton.edu)

The Assembly gets something (mostly) right

Even though the Republicans pulled a petty maneuver to keep it in the Assembly until the next calendar (probably January), I'm very glad to see that this passed:

MADISON, Wis. (AP) - The state Assembly has given preliminary approval to a bill that would require hospitals to supply emergency contraception to rape victims if they ask for it.

The bill would require emergency rooms give sexual assault victims information on the so-called morning-after pill and dispense it upon a victim's request.

Supporters contend the measure will help prevent pregnancies in rape victims. Critics have likened the drug to abortion.

The Assembly passed the measure 56-41 Tuesday night just before midnight, but majority Republicans used a parliamentary tactic to prevent it from leaving the Assembly.

I've written about my feelings on the subject before, but allow me to reiterate that 1) this is an important and necessary piece of legislation that will offer much-needed help to people in need and 2) THE MORNING-AFTER PILL IS NOT ABORTION. It prevents contraception from ever happening in the first place, thus avoiding the possibility of needing an abortion altogether. You'd think those crazy anti-abortion people would be happy as clams about this.

Compassion, but only sometimes

I'm very pleased to see that the Assembly moved two bills forward recently, both dealing with care for victims of sexual assault. The first bill apparently enjoys broad bipartisan support and will likely pass without much issue. That one deals with the forensic exams administered after an assault to collect DNA and other evidence against the assailant. It would take the burden of paying for them off of the victims and provide full state funding. I'm not sure how it was that we went so long without realizing that forcing the victim to pay for this essential service was a bad idea, but I'm extremely relieved to see it being rectified now, and with great support.

The second, more uncertain bill would "mandate that rape victims receive information about emergency contraception in all Wisconsin emergency rooms and have access to EC upon request."

Right on cue, however, social conservatives have their panties in a twist over that one, claiming that the bill would trample the rights of religious institutions (think St. Mary's).

AB 377 was referred to the Assembly Judiciary and Ethics Committee after the Senate vote, where an amendment was added in Sept. that would allow hospitals to refuse to comply with the law if it violated their religious or moral beliefs.

Pocan said in a statement that the amendment “nullifies” the bill, though amendment supporters have stated that it protects hospitals’ religious freedoms. State Rep. Frederick Kessler, D-Milwaukee, who co-sponsored AB377, said he was still hopeful the bill would pass the Assembly.

Ultimately, if any amendment were going to be added to this bill, I would suggest something a little less broad, but also something that allows places that oppose the use of contraception (like St. Mary's) a way out. For example, word it like this: "Any health care institution with religious or moral objections to the use of emergency contraceptives shall be required to provide information to victims of sexual assault about alternative places where EC can be procured, and provide transportation to said alternative at the patient's request."

Ultimately, I wish everyone would just get over themselves about the contraception issue. It's not abortion. There is no new life involved. Contraception and things like Plan B stop conception before it ever happens. No harm, no foul.

But I also realize that this issue won't resolve itself like that for a long while yet. While that frustrates me and many other pro-choice advocates to no end, we also need to be willing to make strong compromises along the way. The bill is a good one, and if we need to add an amendment that gets religious hospitals off the hook to get it passed, then so be it. The wording, however, needs to be precise and clear in that the option for EC must still be available to those in need and that your responsibility as a health care provider is to make sure they have easy access, even if that means driving them to the next hospital down the road (say, Meriter).