Revisiting yesterday's lunchtime rant...
Mar. 18th, 2006 11:05 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
treeskin...which may be found .
I've been reading a lot lately about Plan B, and R-486, and the debates over their safety. It's alarming, how much the studies on these drugs has been colored by the religious bias of the administration. Or of those offering services, emboldened by the administrations strident, chest-thumping religiosity.
I found a good discussion of the debate from CBS News, and archived it here. Here's the part that really bugs me:
In fact, according to a government investigation, top FDA officials had decided to reject Plan B’s over the counter application months before the scientific staff completed its review.
Was there pressure from the White House? The investigators said they couldn’t find out because e-mails and documents relating to the matter were destroyed.
**shakes head**
I've seen too many pro-birthers lumping Plan B and RU-486 together with abortion as another evil; I've seen too many of those same legislators and activists advocating abistinence only education, and cutting funding for family services and prenatal care and....It's not just here, in states like Mississippi and Missouri and South Dakota. GWB has been cutting aid for family planning services abroad, if the providers even mention abortion as a possibility. Many family-planning agencies took the hit in funding, rather than be silenced; the price has been more maternal deaths from lack of services, more deaths from illegal abortions, and more children born in poverty. (See the article I archived here for more details.)
I'm lucky, some ways. I'm an American (at least, as long as women still count as citizens here), and I am just out of the income bracket where women have to depend on the government for such services; I do have the means to see to my own care, and reasonable health insurance. So that gives me more autonomy that many women.
I want to start a family, and worry about bringing a daughter into the world that's coming to be under President Bush. I got a good sexual and health education in my public school, a reasonably balanced overview of the STD's and contraceptives and issues involved at the time, without the "father knows best, just keep your legs crossed" bullshit. My mother's students aren't getting that now, haven't for years. My children will only get that at home, from us, and from our family-by-choice.
Back when Nancy Reagan was doing her "just say no" kick, friends of mine had school-age kids. The youngest started school on that pap, and I remember him coming home and scolding his parents for doing pot. My friends were furious, that the school had turned their son into a narc.
I don't want my children-to-be to absorb that poisonous "sex is bad for you" message that's getting promoted now. (And I fully expect it to still be around, 10-15 years from now. This country is taking a no-holds-barred turn to the right, and there's little I see to bring the masses to their collective senses.) I really don't want my kids to come home from school and narc on me, like my friend's children did, for being a sexual person.
I've been reading a lot lately about Plan B, and R-486, and the debates over their safety. It's alarming, how much the studies on these drugs has been colored by the religious bias of the administration. Or of those offering services, emboldened by the administrations strident, chest-thumping religiosity.
I found a good discussion of the debate from CBS News, and archived it here. Here's the part that really bugs me:
In fact, according to a government investigation, top FDA officials had decided to reject Plan B’s over the counter application months before the scientific staff completed its review.
Was there pressure from the White House? The investigators said they couldn’t find out because e-mails and documents relating to the matter were destroyed.
**shakes head**
I've seen too many pro-birthers lumping Plan B and RU-486 together with abortion as another evil; I've seen too many of those same legislators and activists advocating abistinence only education, and cutting funding for family services and prenatal care and....It's not just here, in states like Mississippi and Missouri and South Dakota. GWB has been cutting aid for family planning services abroad, if the providers even mention abortion as a possibility. Many family-planning agencies took the hit in funding, rather than be silenced; the price has been more maternal deaths from lack of services, more deaths from illegal abortions, and more children born in poverty. (See the article I archived here for more details.)
I'm lucky, some ways. I'm an American (at least, as long as women still count as citizens here), and I am just out of the income bracket where women have to depend on the government for such services; I do have the means to see to my own care, and reasonable health insurance. So that gives me more autonomy that many women.
I want to start a family, and worry about bringing a daughter into the world that's coming to be under President Bush. I got a good sexual and health education in my public school, a reasonably balanced overview of the STD's and contraceptives and issues involved at the time, without the "father knows best, just keep your legs crossed" bullshit. My mother's students aren't getting that now, haven't for years. My children will only get that at home, from us, and from our family-by-choice.
Back when Nancy Reagan was doing her "just say no" kick, friends of mine had school-age kids. The youngest started school on that pap, and I remember him coming home and scolding his parents for doing pot. My friends were furious, that the school had turned their son into a narc.
I don't want my children-to-be to absorb that poisonous "sex is bad for you" message that's getting promoted now. (And I fully expect it to still be around, 10-15 years from now. This country is taking a no-holds-barred turn to the right, and there's little I see to bring the masses to their collective senses.) I really don't want my kids to come home from school and narc on me, like my friend's children did, for being a sexual person.
