Jivin J’s Life Links 8-26-11
by JivinJ, host of the blog, JivinJehoshaphat
- A local news station reports on the closing of a Planned Parenthood in Sherman, TX, apparently due to a lack of customers. The report also notes a PP in Gainesville (a city which neighbors Sherman) will close August 29.
- A woman is in intensive care after an Australian abortion clinic botched a late-term abortion:
The woman remains in hospital in intensive care following complications during a late term abortion at the Marie Stopes Maroondah clinic, formerly known as the Croydon Day Centre.
The Herald Sun understands the Medical Board of Australia held a special hearing yesterday to quiz medical staff involved in the procedure.
It is believed that one of the doctors involved has previously been criticised by the MBA.
The article also discusses a recent late-term abortion report which shared some of the reasons women in Australia are getting post 20-week abortions. More than half of Australia’s late-term abortions in 2008 were for “psycho-social” reasons, including 2 abortions on women who were more than 7 months pregnant.
- On Friday, Virginia’s health department is expected to release draft regulations for abortion clinics:
Opponents of the measure previously had estimated that the new regulations could cause 17 of Virginia’s 21 abortion clinics to close because of potential new standards on measurements such as hallway width.
- NPR covers a recent Guttmacher Institute study which found the rate of unintended pregnancy stayed almost the same from 2001 to 2006:
The report found that overall, “the United States did not make progress toward its goal of reducing unintended pregnancy between 2001 and 2006.” In fact, the rate was 49% in 2006, virtually unchanged from 48% in 2001.
- But the highest rate of unintended pregnancy of all the subgroups studied occurred among “cohabitors,” or, to use the vernacular, women who were shacking up.
The largest increase of unintended pregnancies occurred in cohabitators under age 25.
Unsurprisingly, they also quote Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards who uses the study to call for more “affordable birth control” aka “more funding for Planned Parenthood.”
There’s certainly no mention of how PP got probably more than a billion dollars in government funds during the 2001-2006 time period to help reduce rates of unintended pregnancy. I can’t imagine another report showing how completely ineffective Planned Parenthood is at reducing unintended pregnancies. From 1994-2006 the rate of unintended pregnancies among poor women (the group PP supposedly serves so well) rose nearly 50%.
[Photo via healthguru.com]
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
It is fascinating how, no matter what happens with the unintended pregnancy rates, Planned Parenthood always says the answer is to give it more money. If the rates fall, PP says, ” See, birth control works! Give us more money so we can get more people to use it.” If the rates rise, PP says, ” Not enough people are using birth control. Give us more money so we can get more people to use it.” It is a win-win situation for Planned Parenthood and assures them of a never-ending place at the taxpayer-funded trough.
And “when our contraception fails (which it does about 54% of the time-according to Guttmacher’s own stats), come back and see us so we can go on a search, mutilate, dismember and destroy mission for your unborn at $400-$1000 a pop” (depending on how far along you are). Cha-ching! Does anyone hear a cash register ringing and a suction machine? Our tax dollars at work at PP. Sick, sick, sick.
Planned Parenthood wishes we’d all adopt a slut mentality, where doubting the propriety of juvenile sex is considered intolerant, and having our children rutting at 15 is only natural and certainly appropriate — that is, when properly bracketed by their helpful services.
And that’s before we consider their bad side.
“botched a late term abortion”? That’s not what I read. An investigation into what happened has barely commenced, it is a long way short of an outcome into the cause being delivered. One of the doctors said that the woman had a serious pre-existing medical condition and the abortion had nothing to do with her current state of health, which may or may not be the case. We simply do not know yet.
A couple of interesting points from the study on unintended pregnancies that I feel are important :
“…poor women had an unintended pregnancy rate five times that of higher-income women, and an unintended birth rate six times as high”
“…poor women have high unintended pregnancy rates nearly across the board, regardless of their education, race and ethnicity, marital status or age.”
“women who have better access to reproductive health services, have achieved their educational goals or are in relationships that support a desired pregnancy are more likely than other women to achieve planned pregnancies and avoid those they do not want.”
“They also show that marriage is not, in and of itself, a solution to the problems women have in controlling their fertility: In fact, poor women who are married have unintended pregnancy rates more than twice as high as those of higher-income women who are unmarried or cohabiting.”
Are poor women more likely to be in a non-marital relationship? I don’t know.
“…not only improved access to reproductive health care, but also looking to broader social and economic inequities.”
Do poor women need more advice and assistance with family planning, contraception and their socio-economic circumstances? I believe so.
Reality, shy of going into every home and writing contraceptive directions on every door and piping in a litany of local health clinics over loud speakers how could low income people possibly have *more* “advise and assistance with family planning and contraceptives”?? If you are female you can’t make it through: a doctor’s yearly appointment, a obgyn/gyn appointment, a WIC meeting, a DHS meeting, a hospital visit, or an education/employment consult without being offered family planning ‘services’, information, and contraceptives at least once. You can’t get through middle school, much less high school without a working knowledge of the female reproductive system and memorizing the various forms of ‘birth control’. You certainly can’t get throught a pregnancy (and many low income women have children) without being given multiple options to discuss contraceptive use, effectiveness, and how your going to obtain it. Heck, in today’s day most obgyns will do everything short of chaining you to the exam table at your post partum check until you’ve discussed how you’re planning on avoiding pregnancy. At every libary, community center, and otherwise public bulletin board/flyer wall there is bond to be atleast one public service announcement/ad for a low-income health clinic.
Throwing money and saying people need more access or information to ‘family planning’ is truly absurd. What do you want to do? Tattoo the numbers of the 14 separate local places to get info/advise/free/reduced cost access onto every woman’s arm upon their 10th b-day? If ‘more’ was the answer, it would have been answered bt now.
(Con from above, cell won’t let me edit) eventually you have to treat people like adults, yes even ‘poor’ people, and hold them responsible for their actions.
You are assuming Jespren, that poor people see a doctor on a regular basis, even pregnant ones. Or are at school for long enough to receive adequate information, when it’s allowed to be imparted.
Hallway width? I guess right wingers ‘hate’ regulations just like they ‘hate’ pork barrel spending!
Yes, because being able to wheel a patient out in a gurney in an emergency situation is just a nonsensical, superfluous regulation, right RINO? XD
Reality, well, since the drop out rate for elementary school is almost non-existant (and mostly involves home schoolers not kids who ‘fall off the grid’) yes, they *are* in school long enough to get the information. And if they don’t see a doctor at least on occassion then it’s not because they lack access (see above on free clinics/health centers/low cost clinics) but because they don’t choose to go. Furthermore it’s well documented that the poor widely over-utilize ERs for basic medical care. Even more medicaid and state health insurances have drastically lower co-pays than most private insurances, in many instances poor people see doctors *more* than middle class people. And every single state in the union has some form of free healthcare for uninsured pregnant woman, so, again, if they aren’t seeing a doctor (which is absurd, the statistics for lower income people giving birth unassisted at home are miniscule, higher income women are much more likely to forgo ‘traditiona’ obgyn prenatal care) it’s because they *choose* not to, not because they lack access.
That some people don’t take advantage of free clinics, free/reduced price care and medication (for family planning), and free/reduced price prenatal/post natal care isn’t because it’s not there on a silver platter, it’s because they are choosing not to do so.
For (specific) instance. My family is poor, in fact we just recently got off medicaid and onto private insurance through my husband’s new job. We now have quite a bit less access to medicine and healthcare as we did when ‘officially’ poor. We live in a small city. Even so, within walking distance there is a reduced cost urgent care clinic, within a 75 cent bus ride there are 2 more reduced cost urgent care clinics, 2 hospitals with ERs which will see you “regardless of ability to pay” (as the mandatory sign says), 1 free clinic, a Planned Parenthood, and an independant women’s care clinic, there are also numerous private doctors offices, all who accept the state insurance. Furthermore, also within a 75 cent bus ride, is the WIC and DHS offices. Not sure where they are but there are also at least 2 free standing Crisis Pregnancy Centers in the immediate area as well.
Now I’m not saying it’s exactly like this everywhere. I grew up in very rural environment. The closest hospital was about 20 miles away, although they did put an urgent care/basic care health clinic in the immediate area just after we moved. But even there, there was a county health clinic for reduced cost/free basic health care like vaccinations and, yes, family planning, the local hospital took the states low income insurance, there was a local pharmacy, and the local stores/convience stores sold condoms. We had our first ‘contraceptive’ talk in 5th grade along with the mandatory talk about puberty/periods that were likely to start soon (ironically I was one of the only girls who didn’t get their period that year).
Might someone without a car, a college education, and a 6 figure income have to work harder to get condoms, diaphrams, IUDs, the pill, or prenatal care? Of course, but then, lower income people have to work harder to take a two week vacation to the tropics, to obtain a designer wardrobe, or put organic, local food on the table. Or any food on the table. Being poor sucks, in pretty much all areas. Ask a rich person and most of them say being rich sucks in many ways too. Current society has more than enough opertunities for anyone who WANTS family planning/contraceptives to obtain it. It’s not necessary, nor helpful, to pretend like the poor are sub-adult in intelligence and need us to hand deliever such services because society doesn’t see them using then as much as they (liberals primarily) think the poor should be using them. I had read something from the CDC, a survey of sexual active women who were not on contraceptives asking to self-report why they weren’t. Only 2% said ‘lack of access’ was a reason. 2%! The majority, well over 50% although I don’t remember the exact figure, weren’t on bc because they didn’t like the side effects (from lack of sensation with barrier methods to medical side effects from hormonal b/c). You could put kiosks on every corner dispensing ‘the pill’ and condoms for free and you’re still going to have almost the exact same usage level as now. Throwing money at the ‘problem’ (lack of use) is not going to make those side effects go away, or make women who don’t feel the risk of pregnancy/std outweigh the negative side effects of contraceptives suddenly change their minds.
The natural evolution of developing societies is in the direction of lower birthrates. Along comes PP, hitching their horse to a well-moving cart already impelled by a complex of forces well beyond their — or any one else’s — ready control.
Then a ways down the road they claim the progress was on account of their effort. :-/
Or not. Consider the millions they’ve raked in contracting with Chicago Public Schools.
All I know is that the federal Dept. of Ed. is staffed by a feller whose policies (and non-compete contracting with PP) failed liberal Chicago, and whose students incurred pregnancy at an alarmingly disproportionate rate (c.f. Robeson High School, despite a decade of well-intentioned idiocy: http://www.cnsnews.com/node/57878)
I see that the HHS OAH has $75 million to blow on further “evidence-based” efforts to stem the tide nationally that comparable policies during Duncan’s tenure couldn’t achieve in Chicago. Oh, right! Not enough money! So let’s throw another $4 million at Chicago — a third of it, apparently, directly from Obamacare. Great. Maybe the proportion of live births in Chicago to teenage mothers alone can drop from 18+% to, like, 17.9%.
Time to reboot this machine and evict the morons that perpetuate this. They’re little better than career politicians cultivating a perennially dependent class of constituents.
Jespren, on another thread a little while ago I posted that I had read that 94% of sex-ed textbooks used in Texan schools were abstinence only, with no content on contraception. And that Texas is one of only five states with a teen pregnancy rate above 10%.
In regards to the topic here, I quoted some parts of the cited article and asked a couple of questions. I did not make extensive comments on the subject.
“That some people don’t take advantage of free clinics, free/reduced price care and medication (for family planning), and free/reduced price prenatal/post natal care isn’t because it’s not there on a silver platter, it’s because they are choosing not to do so.” – I agree. So how do we address this?
Reality, saw that on the other thread but figured we’d get to it here so didn’t comment. While I find the statistic difficult, but not outside the realm of possibility, it matters little. There is a HUGE difference between an ‘aproved’ textbook and what’s actually getting taught. In all 3 of the classes that could be termed ‘sex ed’, including the semster long class that was little but, not a single portion of the actual class room sex ed was from the textbook. Sure, we read it for homework, but all the ‘real’ information came from additional ‘supplemental’ materials. When, in my study/research/advocacy of parental rights I come across egregiously inappropriate/explicit sex ed it’s almost never part of the official class materials but rather ‘supplements’, frequently these supplementals are okayed by the teacher or sometimes the principal for each individual school (although many are very similiar nationwide since they are primarily from one of only a few organisations, PP being among them), they almost never make the sylubus, they weren’t voted on by the school board and parents rarely get notification of what they actually entail. It’s these supplements that are far more dangerous than the actual textbook (I’m not strictly speaking against discussing contraceptives in school but I think , if they are discussed, that students should be given real-world failure rates and transmission rates, not the companies lab-based ‘ideal’ failure rates. And I’ve yet to see a single supplemental put out by PP, UNISF, SEICUS, etc that show the actual numbers, that’s mostly why I call such things dangerous). In short what’s in the textbook is immaterial, you have to look at what kids and parents are reporting that is being taught in the classroom. And, with few exceptions, the message kids seem to be getting is ‘sex is great! No need to wait! Wear a condom and you’re great!’ Also, what’s being taught in a formal ‘sex ed’ class is also immaterial to what kids are being taught as a whole. For instance in my high school ‘sex ed’ was officially taught in health, but we had school assemblies about sexual abuse, eating disorders, underage drinking, and puberty that all spoke about contraceptive use. We had an English teacher who spoke frequently and casually about sex (it was said that you could answer any question he asked with ‘i think it relates back to sex’ and get a congratulatory response from him for your insight), and even in gym class (only teacher I ever had who was seriously misogynistic!) we got a handout and a lecture on ‘safe-sex’ and contraceptives the first day. And this was in a high school that, supposedly, parents could opt out their kids from any sex-ed info. How can the opt out if it’s completely intermixed without any warning? We even ended up discussing what would properly be termed sex ed in a human physiology class, which could make sense, excep.t it wasn’t in the text nor the sylubus.
I don’t know how old you are Reality, I’m about 10 years out of high school, but I kept in contact with my high school teachers up until 3 years ago, and I keep as up to date as possible on parental rights infringements/issues, so I hear a lot. My experiences are neither rare, unique, nor extreme. The NEA is pushing for more and more sex ed to be included in non traditional subjects. And unless a policy is in place expressly forbidding that, those teachers who want to push ‘comprehensive’ sex ed by and large have the green light to just do that as they wish, with whatever supplementary materials they want in whatever subject they teach. I wish I could hand you some worksheets I’ve seen come out of high schools that claimed to be ‘abstainent based sex ed’. You might not be as horrified as I, but I bet you’d be shocked.
Oh, sorry, way past my bedtime, will comment on your other point in the morn (or possibly while nursing my babe in the middle of the night.)
I live in Texas. I graduated a little over ten years ago and text book or no (I frankly can’t remember which texts we used at the time) we were taught “comprehensive” sex-Ed.
I no of no one who did not no how and where to obtain BC and I also worked with the general public at a freestanding bithcenter that offered cheap preg tests and signed Medicaid forms. Women are not getting pregnant due to a lack of knowledge about or access to birthcontrol. They are getting pregnant because of the choices they are making.
Reality says:
I posted that I had read that 94% of sex-ed textbooks used in Texan schools were abstinence only, with no content on contraception.
****************************************************
My son’s textbook doesn’t cover any information about contraception either, but it’s still part of the curriculum.
Reality, I told you i’d get back to your 2nd point. “What do we do to address this?” Address *what*? People are free to make their own choices. The government does not need to ‘fix’ the fact that many women/men choose not to use family planning. The liberal government needs to take a giant step back and let people, even those poor lower class people liberals insist on treating like children, own their own actions and live with the consquences, positive or negative, thereof. They don’t need more government funded ways to be saved from themselves, they need to be held accountable.
If you’re about 10 years out of high school Jespren then you are probably younger than my eldest.
“…let people, even those poor lower class people liberals insist on treating like children, own their own actions and live with the consquences, positive or negative, thereof.” – and then you complain about the rate of abortion.
Reality, abortion isn’t living with the consequences of your actions, it’s trying to avoid those consequences by killing a 3rd party who is fully innocent. It IS the government’s job to protect people from being murdered. And, to be fair, I don’t really complain about the *rate* of abortion, complaining about how frequently people abort would really only make sense if it was illegal (being saddened by the rate, or seeing it as a moral failure of society is different. You ‘complain’ about how many crimes are commited, you advocate against an unjustice), rather I am infuriated that society allows for the killing of innocents under the lie of another person’s ‘privacy’. It’s so absurd that sometimes I have to wonder how people who think that makes sense can function in society. If I don’t want my neighbor looking at me in my undies I close the window, not kill my neighbor.
I want people to face the consequences of their actions, that means if they get pregnant when they don’t want that child (who is already in existance) they can either grin and bear it and raise the child to the best of their abilities, or they can find someone else who can.
You know, there is a point I’ve made before that I would like to make to you. The basic lie of abortion seems to be that since the mother’s body is fully supporting the developing human being, they should have the right to kill said human being. Well many pregnancy books list the newborn month as the 10th month of pregnancy, or even the first 3 infant months as the 4th trimester. I exclusively breastfed my youngest for her first 5 months of life (and she took the majority of her caloric intake from my breastmilk until about 13 months). She was with me 24-7, carried by my body, fed by my body, she slept with me, and I only slept when she did. For all intent and purpose we were a single organism. Every single cell of her very immature being was fully sustained by my being. She had the typical underdeveloped (but still developing) body and mind of a young infant. What’s more it actually was quite a bit harder, involving more effort on my part, more work, more sleeplessness, more food, more responsibility, and more giving up of the things I otherwise might be doing to care for her ante natal than pre natal. Moreover she was still not a viable human being. If I didn’t provide these things for her she would have been unable to provide them for herself, leading to her death unless a 3rd party could be found to sustain her. How is it that her reliance upon me would have been legal justification for killing her at 4 months post conception, but not at 9 months, 12 months, or 14 months post conception?
Now sure, if I didn’t nurse her my husband could have given her formula. But we’re poor. We would not have been able to afford to feed her formula, especially if my husband had to quit his job to stay home and feed her the newborn required every 3 hours! So should I have been forgiven her death if breastfeeding hurt so I stopped, allowing her to wither and die without the sustaining, life-giving suport she needed? After all, being forced to use my body to provide for a 3rd party is what pro-aborts rail against. How is providing food and care with my breasts and arms any different than my blood and womb? How can you ‘force’ woman to care for their 12 month post conception offspring but allow for her to kill ‘it’ just a few months earlier, babe’s needs were exactly the same, to be fully cared for by it’s mother. In fact my oldest will be 3 this week, and he still needs my body to keep him alive, caring for him, providing food, shelter, heat/cold, and cleaning him with my body, this puts my body under a great deal of strain. Can I claim bodily autonomy and not care for his needs?
Can I claim bodily autonomy and not care for his needs?
Jespren, not sure about a three year old, but some places you can take a baby to a hospital ER or a fire station or something and drop it off, no questions asked.
Yes, but while the parent has default custody of the child by virtue of being that child’s parent, they are still obligated not to kill him/her, Doug.
Doug (sorry for the delay), yes, parents don’t have to raise their children to adulthood. In all states newborns and infants (the age varries) may be dropped off without recrimination at a sanctury location (usually a hospital or firehouse/police station). An older kid, while there will be questions asked, can be turned over to children’s services at any age. However the parent must still care for the child until and unless they can arrange for such a drop off. A newborn can not be left to starve in the crib because the parents decided to take advantage of the sancturary laws but didn’t/couldn’t take the child to a drop point. They would be guilty of murder, regardless of the availibility of sanctuary laws. If it’s 11pm and the earliest a mom can take her child to the hospital is 4pm the next day then she can’t kill it at 11:30pm because she doesn’t want to care for it for the next day. Likewise if a parent wants to turn over an older child and DHS says they will send someone over in 2 days to start the process and the child will leave the house in another 7-10 days (I’m making numbers up, but I do know people who willingly turn over kids usually can not do it immediately) the parent would still be responsible for their wellbeing.
I’m not saying *any* parent should be ethically or legally required to care for any child conceived for the next 18 years. But it does make logical and ethical sense to require them to care for them until and unless they can find another to do so. A woman who finds herself with an unintended pregnancy might have to care for her child for 5-9 months (depending upon when she finds out she’s pregnant and when she gives birth) until another can be found to take care of the child. It’s perhaps an ‘unfortunate’ amount of time. (And I don’t object to an early but viable induction to end pregnancy early, even though, under normal circumstances I am very much against such, so a woman desperate to give her child for adoption should be allowed to electively induce at an age where safe viability of the child is determined, which is frequently at 32-36 weeks, sometimes earlier.) The very fact that states have sancturary laws make a complete lie of a woman ‘needing’ an abortion.