Never mix a low body weight with alcohol or at least make sure that you can keep yourself safe. Worrying afterwards is a little too late to change things.

Thanks K for a totally fab night, wil be doing it again soon...oooh shopping first me thinks for some party clothes :) To everyone else do not worry about me I am fine. I just acted out of character and got a scare. I can easily look back and see where I went wrong.

Onto the next bit...why is emergency contraception SO expensive? I mean £23 for one tablet over the counter, that totally excludes anyone who can't afford that money who isn't able to easily see their GP. Also sneaking around causes headache and panic, thank god it's over.

I will add that I did not actually sleep with anyone in the strictest sense of the phrase. I still stick by my ability to say no but things got too close for comfort and I did put myself at risk. I'm sorry for that and I will be being much more careful in the future. I do not want my past coming back to haunt me.

To those who know, you'll understand, to those who don't sorry if I confused you just had to get some of this out.

XX

The Department of Health and Human Services has proposed a rule that would require that any health care entity that receives federal financing — whether it’s a physician in private practice, a hospital or a state government — certify in writing that none of its employees are required to assist in any way with medical services they find objectionable.

Health and Human Services estimates that the rule, which would affect nearly 600,000 hospitals, clinics and other health care providers, would cost $44.5 million a year to administer. Astonishingly, the department does not even address the real cost to patients who might be refused access to these critical services. Women patients, who look to their health care providers as an unbiased source of medical information, might not even know they were being deprived of advice about their options or denied access to care. SOURCE

One would think that such a proposed rule would have the supposed bastion of women's rights, the Democratic Party, up in arms, but that doesn't appear to be the case. In a letter to the Secretary of HHS, only 28 senators have affixed their signature. The signatories are:

• Senator Patty Murray
• Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton
• Senator Barbara Boxer
• Senator Barack Obama
• Senator Debbie Stabenow
• Senator Maria Cantwell
• Senator Frank R. Lautenberg
• Senator John F. Kerry
• Senator Bernard Sanders
• Senator Robert Menendez
• Senator Charles E. Schumer
• Senator Patrick J. Leahy
• Senator Sherrod Brown
• Senator Claire McCaskill
• Senator Ron Wyden
• Senator Richard J. Durbin
• Senator Sheldon Whitehouse
• Senator Jon Tester
• Senator Barbara A. Mikulski
• Senator Tom Harkin
• Senator Max Baucus
• Senator Dianne Feinstein
• Senator Blanche Lincoln
• Senator Russ Feingold
• Senator Benjamin L. Cardin
• Senator Edward Kennedy
• Senator Harry Reid
• Senator Christopher J. Dodd

The far right wing of the Republican Party, not content to rant and rail against abortion, in an earlier draft of the rule included with abortion commonly used forms of birth control.  In the latest version the rule does not attempt to define abortion, thus leaving it open to the individual health care provider to decide if they choose that birth control IS abortion.

The bigger problem with the rule is that it could affect many forms of health care.  A health care provider could object to providing an AIDS test or emergency contraception to a rape victim as well as dispensing common birth control means such as the birth control pill or IUDs.

The HHS rule is in conflict with many state laws and in conflict with Medicaid and Title X programs.

The fact is, most Americans – regardless of their position on reproductive choice -- agree that increasing access to birth control prevents unintended pregnancies – and results in fewer abortions.  As a matter of public policy, it is utterly irresponsible for the federal government to hinder women’s access to contraceptive services.SOURCE

I believe this is a last minute hail Mary effort by the Bush administration to cater to the far right wing fundamentalists.  It is shameful pandering that could make obtaining birth control and other procedures difficult if not impossible for millions of Americans.

Please, if you find this HHS rule as reprehensible as I do, contact your representatives and let them know women MUST have full access to medical care.

When Sarah Palin was mayor, the city of Wasilla had the most egregious policy against victims of rape in the state of Alaska, possibly the entire country. The rape kit, a set of items used by medical personnel for gathering and preserving physical evidence following a sexual assault, was charged to the victim.

(snip)

Much can be learned about the Palin Administration’s family values from reviewing their spending priorities. Former Chief of Police Irl Stambaugh included forensic rape kits (up to $1,200 per kit) in his budget requests. He was fired by Palin in 1997. In her termination letter, Palin wrote, “…I do not feel I have your full support in my efforts to govern the city of Wasilla. Therefore I intend to terminate your employment. . . ” Staumbaugh headed the police department since it was created in 1993. Before that, he served 22 years with the Anchorage Police Department rising to the rank of captain. Sarah Palin hired Charlie Fannon as the new Wasilla Chief of Police and said it was one of her best decisions as mayor. Fannon eliminated the forensic rape kits from the budget. Though the number of rapes weren’t reported, Fannon claimed it would save Wasilla taxpayers $5,000 to $14,000 a year.

When Eric Croft, a Democrat Legislator from Anchorage, learned of Wasilla’s policy, he drafted HB 270, which Governor Tony Knowles signed into law. The new law made it illegal for any law enforcement agency to bill victims or victims’ insurance companies for the costs of examinations to collect evidence of a sexual assault or determine if a sexual assault actually occurred. Upon signing the law, Governor Knowles said, “We would never bill the victim of a burglary for the cost of gathering evidence, nor should we bill rape victims just because the crime scene happens to be their bodies.”

It's bad enough, but this makes it worse:

Alaska has the nation’s highest per-capita rate of forcible rape. A disproportionate number of rape and sexual assault victims are Native Alaskan women. Alaska Native people in Anchorage were 9.7 times more likely to be sexually assaulted than others living in the city between 2000 and 2003.

Some think she opposed the funding because the rape kits include emergency contraception, which is not abortion, no matter what any retarded so-called "pro-life" activist tells you.  Emergency contraception reduces the number of abortions.  Also, it cuts down on the possibility of a woman having to endure being pregnant with her rapist's child.

Thank god there were good legislators willing to fix this horrible problem.  Speaking of legislators, the writer notes something else I think is significant:

It should be noted Joe Biden introduced legislation to fund rape kits to women in America. John McCain voted against it.

And not only that:

McCain not only opposed Biden's legislation, but also has voted against funding it as recently as October 2007.

McCain voted against final passage of Biden's legislation. He had supported an earlier version, but on the question of actually making the legislation the law of the land, McCain joined 35 conservative Republicans (and 2 Democrats) and said "no" to ensuring that all women had access to rape exams free of charge.

There you have it.

Republican family-values at their finest.  You have a good human being, Joe Biden, trying to protect rape victims, and you have a bad human being, John McCain, and 37 of his fellow bad human beings supporting an anti-woman, anti-human, pro-rapist policy.

Yet another reason that anyone who votes for the McCain-Palin ticket is stupid, malevolent, or both.

WHY would Palin refuse to fund rape kits? Here's your answer.

Daily Kos- by hekebolos

Wed Sep 17, 2008 at 02:54:30 PM PDT

• hekebolos's diary :: ::

I sat with a rape victim during the “harvesting of evidence”. Mascara smeared eyes stared blankly out from a cave of shame. “We’ve got swimmers,” announced the forensic tech in the lab next door. My friend didn’t look surprised. In her 60’s, she was still asked if she felt the need for emergency contraception. Surviving the process would have only been compounded and made worse with an itemized bill; victimized twice courtesy of Sarah Palin and the city of Wasilla.

Much can be learned about the Palin Administration’s family values from reviewing their spending priorities. Former Chief of Police Irl Stambaugh included forensic rape kits (up to $1,200 per kit) in his budget requests. He was fired by Palin in 1997. In her termination letter, Palin wrote, “…I do not feel I have your full support in my efforts to govern the city of Wasilla. Therefore I intend to terminate your employment. . . '' Staumbaugh headed the police department since it was created in 1993. Before that, he served 22 years with the Anchorage Police Department rising to the rank of captain. Sarah Palin hired Charlie Fannon as the new Wasilla Chief of Police and said it was one of her best decisions as mayor. Fannon eliminated the forensic rape kits from the budget. Though the number of rapes weren’t reported, Fannon claimed it would save Wasilla taxpayers $5,000 to $14,000 a year.

When Eric Croft, a Democrat Legislator from Anchorage, learned of Wasilla’s policy, he drafted HB 270, which Governor Tony Knowles signed into law. The new law made it illegal for any law enforcement agency to bill victims or victims’ insurance companies for the costs of examinations to collect evidence of a sexual assault or determine if a sexual assault actually occurred. Upon signing the law, Governor Knowles said, “We would never bill the victim of a burglary for the cost of gathering evidence, nor should we bill rape victims just because the crime scene happens to be their bodies.”

Wasilla Police Chief Fannon protested the new law stating it would require the city and communities to come up with more funds to cover the costs of the forensic exams. Really? Are the true costs of sexual assault and forcible rape in a community only measured and reflected in the dollars spent on the forensic rape kit?

Alaska has the nation's highest per-capita rate of forcible rape. A disproportionate number of rape and sexual assault victims are Native Alaskan women. Alaska Native people in Anchorage were 9.7 times more likely to be sexually assaulted than others living in the city between 2000 and 2003. Alaska crime statistics never seemed to make a “Northern Exposure” episode. But this isn’t about statistics-real lives were affected by Palin’s regressive policies. One thing Alaska can’t seem to export is the fundamental information around a woman’s rights. Alaska “liberalized” abortion laws before Roe v. Wade. Our dirty secret had to do with a woman’s right to be safe from rapists. This right to choose was not only threatened, but abolished with Sarah Palin’s archaic policy as Mayor of Wasilla. The rape kit included emergency contraception. To be sure, emergency contraception is not, nor does it cause an abortion. In fact, ec prevents pregnancy and therefore reduces abortions.

Under Palin’s Administration, “Life Begins at Rape” for women unable to pay for their forensic evidence gathering. Justice is served to women who can afford it and denied for those who can’t. I live in Alaska-the wealthiest of the 50 states! Forcing rape victims to pay for their own forensic rape kits is something one would expect to find in a fundamentalist country overseas. I have outrage fatigue. I can’t decide which facet of this policy is more upsetting. Is it the denial of justice for the poor? Is it the punishment of women who had been raped? Is it the political policies of a woman so entrenched in the “Pro-Life” movement she would deny justice to a victim? This is not a “Pro-Life” policy. This is a “Pro-Rapist” policy, and forced pregnancy policy.

It should be noted Joe Biden introduced legislation to fund rape kits to women in America. John McCain voted against it.

When Sarah Palin was elected Alaska’s first female governor, I hoped these issues would be addressed as part of her “historic” platform. When Amnesty International published their study on rape statistics and Alaskan women, the response was pathetic. The now dismissed Commissioner of Public Safety, Walt Monegan, acknowledged the lack of law enforcement in Alaska as part of the problem. Since that time, Walt Monegan has been fired and $2.5 million dollars threatened from the budget for State Troopers. John Cyr is executive director of the Public Safety Employees Association, and has been very critical of the Palin administration’s commitment to keep Alaskan’s safer.

Under the Palin Administration, a law was passed that specifically deals with rapists. I am not making this up. It is now illegal for Alaskans to buy or sell the “Rapist No. 1” doll. Oh, you haven’t heard of it? It’s an “action figure” from Quentin Tarantino’s film “Grindhouse.” Yes, really. So now if you’re raped, you can take comfort in knowing Alaska outlawed an action figure.

For all the Alaskans who have taken the charge to protect fellow citizens from predators, this was A GIANT WASTE OF TIME. It’s embarrassing to write this. Who in the hell has been prosecuted for this “outrageous” purchase. Did she think people in Alaska with the propensity to rape women were suddenly dissuaded because they couldn’t buy a movie action figure?

If Alaska’s sexual assault statistics were true for the rest of the country, rape would be considered an epidemic and the National Guard would be called up. As Mayor and Governor, Sarah Palin has made justice illusive to criminals and forensics a commodity that victims must purchase. Meanwhile, rape prevention sits on the backburner. Being a rape victim isn’t necessary for outrage. You don’t need ovaries to protect the physical sanctity of fellow citizens. Life does not begin at rape, it just gets harder.

Please take time to read the fantastic work of Jacob Alperin-Sheriff. He spent a great deal of time researching this story. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jacob-alperinsheriff/sarah-palin-instituted-ra_b_125833.html My thanks to Eric Croft, author of HB 270, who explained all the reasons he did so.

****UPDATE***** It has been reported here http://campaignsilo.firedoglake.com/2008/09/17/palin-illegally-redid-mayors-office-like-a-bordello/ that Sarah Palin that Mayor Sarah Palin spent $50,000 on remodeling her city mayor's office. THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN 4 YEARS WORTH OF FUNDING THE RAPE KITS NEEDED IN HER CITY. So let's see, ugly wallpaper won over funding justice. Sick.

Spending time with the in/out-laws, I learned a lot about how people change over time. I was telling DadO about my mom's attempt to get welfare after my stepfather's heart attack and her being denied, and he was telling me several stories about governmental corruption. MomO has changed her mind about being pro-choice, though she doesn't identify as pro-life. Something about abortion "devaluing life". The wife says she's changed a lot since she started going back to church... I think part of it has to do with age. The conversation started because we were talking about the ballot initiative in Colorado (and I think there's one up in Montana, too) which would define human life as beginning at the point of conception. This would make things really complicated, but the part that most upset the wife and I was that women who miscarry would be subject to criminal investigation - as would women who used hormonal forms of birth control, because these forms, in a very small percentage of cases, can kill a zygote. Mostly, it stops an embryo from implanting - meaning, there is no pregnancy. Medical experts currently define pregnancy as beginning at implantation, not fertilization - and implantation can happen up to two weeks after fertilization. The horror of it all is that women who miscarry - which is an extremely painful experience for some (and for some, quite joyous - don't say I'm lying, I've met women who were happy to miscarry because it meant they didn't have to abort or change their entire lives, and were thus free to plan their next pregnancy that would be carried to term) - could be subject to criminal investigations. Meaning some asshole (probably a right-wing hyper-masculine nutjob who contributed the max to McCain's campaign and supports Fred Phelps and James Dobson) will come into their home, invade their privacy, interrogate them about every sip of wine they had and every cigarette they smoked - even the ones they had before they found out they were pregnant, because that could have caused damage to the fetus, which would then be defined as a "human," regardless of whether or not it could survive outside the womb.

Personally, I think a fetus becomes a human life at the moment it can survive outside the womb... in rare cases, this is 22 weeks, but in most cases with medical intervention, it's 27 weeks. for full-termers, it's 36 weeks. If personhood is defined any earlier, a woman becomes nothing more than an incubator, and right-wingers who claim that their arguments are about "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" of the fetus, are also saying that the right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" for adult women is less important than of a fetus who has not breathed or cried or had a cognition. If you're thinking right now that I'm an angry feminista, you're right - fists up, tits out, folks, and I doubt that'll ever change. But regardless of my feminist standpoint, conservatives should be on board with keeping this initiative from passing - small government, anyone? Quite frankly, it'll take socialist programs to care for the children who will be born because their mothers weren't allowed emergency contraception, the morning after pill, or hormonal birth control. What if women need hormonal birth control for endometriosis or general period regulation? And socialist programs to care for poor women who can't afford prenatal vitamiins or adequate nutrition during pregnancy, otherwise the criminal investigation into their miscarriages and their children's birth defects should implicate the state agencies that refused to take care of her during pregnancy.

I'm going to stop now, and this went in an entirely different direction than I had intended, but there it is...

TPQ

politics-power-and-procreation

A summary of the presentation can be found on PubMed Central:

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1681588

Hillary Clinton
An Outrageous Attempt by the Bush Administration to Undermine Women's Rights
Posted July 21, 2008 | 12:44 PM (EST)

The Bush administration is up to its old tricks again, quietly putting ideology before science and women's health. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is poised to put in place new barriers to accessing common forms of contraception like birth control pills, emergency contraception and IUDs by labeling them "abortion." These proposed regulations set to be released next week will allow healthcare providers to refuse to provide contraception to women who need it. We can't let them get away with this underhanded move to undermine women's health and that's why I am sounding the alarm.

These rules pose a serious threat to providers and uninsured and low-income Americans seeking care. They could prevent providers of federally-funded family planning services, like Medicaid and Title X, from guaranteeing their patients access to the full range of comprehensive family planning services. They'll also build significant barriers to counseling, education, contraception and preventive health services for those who need it most: low-income and uninsured women and men.

The regulations could even invalidate state laws that currently ensure access to contraception for many Americans. In fact, they describe New York and California's laws requiring prescription drug insurance plans to provide coverage for contraceptives as part of "the problem." These rules would even interfere with New York State law that ensures survivors of sexual assault and rape receive emergency contraception in hospital emergency rooms.

[snip]

I have posted information on how to get involved here.

SOURCE

That's right folks...the Bush Administration strikes again.  And this time they are trying to call contraception abortion and force hospitals receiving federal funding to hire providers who think likewise.  Birth control pills and emergency contraception would likely fall into this category.  So, in the world of George Bush and his sadistic minions, women who are raped do not deserve the right to decide whether or not they should try to prevent pregnancy.  I would like to ask Bush, in his informed medical opinion, if (God forbid) anything happened to his daughters, would he deny them basic medical care?  Deny them the option of emergency contraception?  I shudder to think of the support he would lend.

He wants to deny it to low income women and those most in need.

So, if survivors of rape are not allowed EC or an abortion from their federally funded provider, will George Bush take the children that result?  It seems like a reasonable exhange.  Crawford looks pretty spacious, I'm sure he could accomodate the babies of rapists. 

I wonder what McCain will say.  Shall we place bets?

If there were ever a time for Democrats to hold it together, now would be that time.  Nancy Pelosi, Barbara Boxer, Barack Obama....I'm counting on you.

P.S.  The first title for this post was "George Bush is a Fucking Idiot".  Unfortunately, it is my gut reaction whenever he opens his mouth AND there are so many places to take that conversation I felt I had to be more specific.

I'm hearing debates about birth control everywhere lately, especially since a few of my friends are working on the front lines in Colorado. That's an historic happening by the way, and the results of that vote will send ripples through society for generations, either eventually outlawing all forms of chemical and hormonal birth control (which would happen, no matter what people may tell you) or setting a huge precedent by cementing its current status as an accepted part of life.

I happen to be neutral on the issue. Getting into that aspect of the pro-life movement causes a huge conflict of interest for me, because aside from being pro-life, I'm also a rape survivor advocate. Part of my job in that respect is to fight for survivors rights and one of those rights (at least currently) is access to emergency contraception (EC) to prevent any unintended pregnancies that could occur as a result of a sexual assault.

Emergency contraception generally works in one of two ways: By either preventing ovulation entirely, or if it has already begun, by thinning the lining of a womans uterus so an already-fertilised embryo cannot implant and is destroyed. The problem lies in the second method, since most pro-lifers I have met believe that human life begins at conception/fertilisation and not implantation. In that instance, EC acts as a supposed abortifacient. Some people say that EC can cause a pregnancy to terminate after an embryo has successfully implanted. I have never seen any convincing evidence to support that position.

My problem is that, due to my experiences in my years working as an advocate, I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that, because of societal apathy, peoples asinine tendency to blame survivors for being sexually assaulted, and plain old lack of resources, society does not have the means or the will to provide assistance to every person who becomes pregnant as a result of a sexual assault. It just simply will not happen until a lot of things change.

I believe that every unborn child should have the right to live. I believe that, someday, every unborn child will. I am in no way saying that children born of sexual assault are somehow less valuable than those that aren't, and they should never be an exception to any law prohibiting abortion. I wholeheartedly despise the "pro-life" ballot issue in South Dakota for the simple fact that it provides that exception.

What does emergency contraception actually do? When does it act? When doesn't it act? Is an embryo a human life or just a potential life? How do I balance being pro-life with my support for, if not the benefit of emergency contraception, the necessity of it? These are hard questions. They don't have easy answers and they aren't going away anytime soon.

Unfortunately, that means my conflicted conscience isn't going anywhere either.

First thing I want to say is thank you to everyone for your comments on my post yesterday. The outpouring of support made me feel much better. Now, on to an update. 

I finally found somewhere who stocked Plan B yesterday via a link from Manxome (thank you so much for the link; I had all but given up on Plan B at that point). I called the clinic and explained the situation to them. They were helpful and kind and went out of their way to try and alleviate the need for me to drive to them. When I explained how far away I was they tried to route me to alternate clinics that may have a doctor on hand that day. The hope was that they could patch me through to a sister clinic where the doctor would just call in a prescription for me to my local pharmacy thus alleviating the need to drive the hour and a half to them.

Unfortunately, despite their best efforts, we were unable to locate a sister clinic with an on site doctor yesterday. With this in mind I called Dubhe at work and told him the deal. He left work early because, as he said, "This was something that involved both of us and I'm not going to have you be the only one who has to be inconvenienced by this". Well, clearly *I* was forced to take the brunt of the inconvenience due largely to biology and my desire to take this into my own hands. However, the gesture was appreciated and so after he got home we both drove the hour and a half to get the EC (He'll be working late today to make up for the time off yesterday).

The clinic was suitably far away although it was in a town that I'm slightly familiar with. We made good time and I was pleased that the trip there took and hour and ten minutes instead of the hour and a half I had anticipated.

I drove and did a lot of thinking and talking while driving. With the light at the end of the tunnel in sight I was able to think and, well, breathe again two things that I welcomed with open arms. Since this entire ordeal began I have been unable to either think or talk so it was nice to find that I was calming down enough to do both.

In either case the clinic was kind and helpful and after filling out a paper which asked me a few medical questions I was given the medication and I left. It cost me $20 + gas which is a far cry better than a $100.00 co-pay at an emergency room that may or may not give me the medication I needed. I took the first pill in the car and quickly ate a banana to go with it. It was then that I began to really stop and think about this entire experience and you know what? The things that popped into my head confused me and, quite frankly, surprised me.

Now, on Friday night when the condom broke Dubhe was a nervous wreck. He apologized profusely over and over again and I explained to him that I did not hold him responsible. We had practiced safe sex and it was just one of those things that sometimes happen. Saturday morning upon waking I called the pharmacy and thus began the long and horrible weekend.

I found that my confidence and good mood of Saturday morning was being quickly replaced by a feeling of badness and it wasn't until I was driving home yesterday from the clinic that I recognized it for what it was. Something strange happened when I was being interrogated by these nurses and ER's and so forth, I became ashamed of myself and feared that I had done something wrong.

This came as a surprise to me. Me? Ashamed? What the fuck was I ashamed over? This made no sense to me at all so I began to look at the events from the weekend. A pattern emerged that troubled me greatly; a pattern of trying to claim all the blame of what had been an accident. I looked closer at what I was feeling and as I did I found that there were some odd as fuck fears down there.

For whatever reason the more clear it became that getting Plan B was not going to be easy the more I began trying to take on blame that was not mine to take. This 'blame grabbing' resulted in feelings of fear, resentment and insecurity. I had spent the weekend thinking to myself, "Geesh, I should have read more about condom use. Maybe if I had done something more I could have prevented this" and that compounded with a desire to not let on to Dubhe just how badly I was being affected by this. Thoughts kept swirling through my mind and the more these thoughts swirled the more I remembered the questions I got from the hospitals and health care providers. The more I thought of those questions the more I tried to grab the blame and foist it onto my own shoulders.

I suddenly found myself spinning my wheels. I wanted to absolve Dubhe of any and all culpability. The more hurdles that appeared before me the more I wished to isolate him from all of it. The more uncomfortable it became the more worried I became that I would be punished or reprimanded. I found myself apologizing for shit that I became angry at myself for apologizing for. I remembered that on Sunday as I was biting my lower lip and twitching and fretting Dubhe said, "Are you ok?" and I responded by apologizing for being such a horny person.

He was puzzled by my reaction and shook his head in confusion before telling me that I'm not a terrible person and that this was an accident. Even as I apologized for some supposed wrong I had foisted onto myself I was angry at myself for saying something so ridiculous to begin with. As I spoke the words or thought the thoughts my warrior screamed, "What the hell are you doing? This isn't your fault! Why are you so worried about making sure that you don't inconvenience him? BB, wake up!!!!"

I didn't say anything like it again but I thought it anyway. These thoughts, whatever they were, were not my own. I knew that there was some mechanism that was causing this terrible fear and worry and I knew that these ideas were not in keeping with what I believed but I didn't have the presence of mind to think about it. All I knew was that I wanted to shelter him from the inconvenience of what I was going through.

Finally, on my way back from the clinic with the pill working its way through my system Dubhe looked at me and said, "So, do you feel better? Do you want to talk about it now? What was going on with all the self-blaming BB?"

And for the first time since all this began I breathed and thought and suddenly everything made sense. My reaction to this situation was not an overblown, hysterical reaction which was entirely out of left field. Rather, it was the very logical reaction to a society which has made an art out of foisting all responsibility onto women. From the responsibility of reproduction and birth control and subsequent raising of children to the responsibility to not 'get raped' and so on.

Indeed, my reaction was not unforeseeable; rather it was perfectly in keeping with what society has taught us from birth.

If you inconvenience a man you must be held accountable. Everything and anything that happens in a relationship must be the fault of the woman somehow. The admonitions to myself of, "I never should have gone off the pill" were yet more ways of taking responsibility for something that wasn't my fault. But what was driving this frenzied state? I asked myself and Dubhe this very important question as we were driving back home.

And then it hit me. The driving force behind all of this nonsense was fear. On some level I believed that if I made this more uncomfortable for him than was absolutely necessary then he would pull away from me. He would withhold intimacy. On some level I was scared that if I didn't take ALL the blame for something that was an honest to goodness accident, that he would be afraid of me. Or that the blame would come back to me eventually. If I stepped up to the plate and apologized before I could be implicated then perhaps I would never be implicated to begin with.

Suffice it to say I was sickened that such fears were still able to be aroused in my feminist brain. What the fuck does it say about me? I'm still pondering the ramifications of knowing that these types of fears are still apparently in my mind.

However, what I'm not questioning is that this society does indeed want to put women's feet to the fire for shit like this. Thirty-four years of living in this society has trained me very well and all of the feminist beliefs and theories and talking have still not completely erased the imprint that the patriarchal teachings had on my psyche. Even when a man involved in such a thing didn't place the blame on me and didn't want me to steal blame from the situation I still responded with the 'acceptable' response.

And that, my friends, is one of the biggest reasons that this bullshit patriarchal agenda has become such a huge fucking monster. So many of us respond exactly as we have been trained when our feet are to the fire. Despite my wishes to NOT have these thoughts. Despite my disgust that they were even IN my head, I could not stop them. The fear was real. This agenda had been imprinted so completely into my head that when trouble occurred I defaulted back to it like a trained dog. I obediently (I daresay reflexively) fell back onto blaming myself for the actions of a man.

Now, neither Dubhe nor I intended this accident. We did everything by the book and followed all the rules of condom usage he was no more at fault than I was. But when push came to shove, even without prompting (goodness knows that he didn't do anything to prompt these thoughts in my head) I still fell back onto them.

On Friday night and Saturday morning I was fine and dandy. After speaking with the hospitals I began to feel like shit until even *I* doubted myself. It seemed that many people believed that I was a rotten excuse for a human being and their doubt in me surfaced in me doubting myself. Even though I knew better.

After this revelation (which left me rather speechless for a few moments while Dubhe watched worriedly) I started getting angry. And that, my friends, is where I am right now. I'm angry. I'm angry as hell at this society that insists that it's their job to know what the fuck is happening inside my vagina.

I'm pissed because ANY pregnancy for me will be risky. After my surgery I was told that with my fucked up cervix if I ever DO become pregnant again that I will likely have to spend it on my back in bed. That surgery in December removed a large portion of my cervix, therefore they would have to suture my cervix shut in order for me to carry a pregnancy to term. Not only that, but I was warned that I would most likely be prescribed bed rest for my entire third trimester and be considered a high risk.

I was also warned that my cervix (or lack thereof) will make fitting for a diaphragm or cervical cap risky in more ways than one. I also refuse to get a tubal libation or a hysterectomy and Dubhe is not eligible to have a vasectomy paid for for another year. To top it off hormonal birth control fucks me up beyond belief and almost inevitably, after a few months of the pill or the shot, I wind up bleeding constantly.

Who are these bastards to deny me EC based upon whether or not I was raped? Based upon whether or not I was a godless whore who was unmarried? Who the hell are they to try and make me feel like shit for not living up to whatever standards they have? If they have 'criteria' then why the fuck weren't they basing their 'criteria' upon actual medical facts about me rather than some moral smokescreen that allows them to play god?

I was given a sharp reality check this weekend that showed me several truths that I had neglected to foresee. The first was that this society has trained me very well to compensate and indeed, overcompensate when a man has to be inconvenienced. And the second is that we have a long, long, long way to go on many fronts.

When I walked into that clinic yesterday I was a nervous wreck. I kept half-expecting the kind woman behind the counter to begin lecturing me about what a whore I was. Of course, that didn't happen, but it serves as a stark reminder to just what this society tells women when they're in trouble.

You know what else is odd? The fact that I felt compelled to write in this post about my attempts at preventing pregnancy. Why I felt compelled to tell everyone that I'm a high risk candidate for pregnancy and to explain precisely why I cannot use many methods of birth control. It's odd that I should even feel the need to qualify myself (defend myself?) by explaining my own unique circumstances.

No doubt that this experience has raised many questions that I need to look at, think about and ponder on. There are many reactions that I had that I need to look at in an attempt to understand where they came from and what I can do to get rid of them.

I'm crossing my fingers and hoping that the EC wasn't too late at the same time that I'm cursing an institution that feels that it has a right to force pregnancy upon ANY woman, regardless of her circumstances. I'm thinking very seriously about what my own reactions to this situation can tell me about inner mindsets that I still have. Overall I have been challenged and while it has shown me a few things that worry me (Why am I so afraid of alienating Dubhe? Why am I so fearful of being alone, to the point that I revert to this fear when placed in a situation out of my control?) I think that this experience can also serve as a stunning reminder of exactly where we are in terms of women's reproductive rights. As well as shining a harsh light onto training that I have absorbed so deeply despite my best efforts to erase it.

My reactions and thoughts throughout this experience have lifted a curtain into my own fears. The knowledge that I went out of my way to take on blame and save a man from inconvenience (even though he didn't wish to be saved) tells me some things about myself that disturb me. The fact that this sort of treatment is still given to women who find themselves in this position is a stunning reminder of just how dangerously close we are to losing any say so we have in how our bodies are used.

Even though Plan B has been authorized for over the counter sales we still see the soldiers of the patriarchy trying to keep a foothold on that control as long as they possibly can. Would anyone question the food you ate before you bought an over the counter antacid? Would anyone force you to meet their 'criteria' before you asked for that bottle of Tums?

EC has been approved for sale over the counter and women are still jumping through hoops to get it, the tenacity with which these control freaks are still attempting to maintain their toehold on what happens in my uterus is disgusting. The ingrained response that I found myself having in this situation boggles my mind and lifts the veil on just how much fucking work we have to do before we're all safe. When we look at these events against a backdrop of rape and brutality that women suffer with everyday it adds an even deeper level to the events I experienced over the weekend.

It appears that men as a collective will not be happy until each and every living being is beneath their boot of control. Combined with the articles here and here (two tiny little posts that I've been thinking about in a sea of violent news) we start seeing a bigger picture. When I take a look at my experiences this weekend with a system which seeks only to place as much control on me as it can and combine it with a generalized system that does the same the picture comes clearly into focus.

There is so much work to be done and so many fronts on this war. We look at the news about war, global warming, feminism, racism, and we see a common thread. That thread is that the collective that calls itself 'mankind' (and I will take them literally to the word on this one. They want 'mankind' they got it...I'm speaking exclusively to the collective of men with my usage of this word) is unhappy unless they are in control of everything. Control, violence and fear are the patterns that they have stuck to for so many thousands of years. Too few of them step forward to mark themselves as 'different'. Too many of them wish to sit on the fence, being sympathetic to the issues that the collective mankind have caused and yet refusing to stand up and fight against the systems which allow them such power.

The threads of destruction, violence and domination over all life follow mankind through all of his bloody history and every day countless people are touched by it. Some more subtly, like my quest for EC this weekend, and some more violently like the wife of the dentist who was charged with murdering his wife. Some of mankinds victims are subtly affected while others are more outwardly affected but all of them are victims of the seemingly collective desire for control, power, and destruction that appears to run through the collective beating heart of mankind.

As for me. Well, I have some thinking to do. This experience has brought many of my own ideas and inner fears to light from my reactions to my thought processes to the reactions of the institutions around me. Lots of food for thought and, over the course of the next few weeks, I hope to post on some of the things I have learned and what they've taught me.

~BB

That my pissed off ranty post over the trouble I had trying to get Emergency Contraception when a condom broke would invoke so much interest. I am utterly and completely stunned at the outpouring of support that has been given to me.

So, I've been doing a little of this and a little of that the last few hours and I popped back in to un-mod some comments and damn, was I ever surprised at what I found. Apparently my article was also linked by Boing Boing and I sat looking at the tons of comments that had appeared over the course of the last few hours with a look of stunned gratitude on my face.

Now, that's not to say that before this time I wasn't surprised. I had quite a few emails over this whole thing all of them were supportive and kind, I also got an email from a very nice woman at NARAL who wanted some information about the hospitals and doctors that denied me. She also sent me a link to a very informative site about a study that had been done in my state. Apparently only 2 hospitals in my entire STATE will give EC to any woman who needs it and 24% of the hospitals won't even give it out to women who have been raped.

Anyway, almost every comment on that thread has been kind, thoughtful and supportive and to all of those people I say Thank you. Thank you for the support you have so freely given. I cannot tell you how much it means to me that so many have left such wonderful, kind and supportive comments.

However (isn't there always a 'however' or a 'but'?) not everyone has been supportive, with my powers of moderation I have largely kept the few comments that have been nasty and spiteful from getting through into the general comments. I deleted one or two at the beginning of this because I already felt like shit after what I had to go through to get the pills to begin with. However, I have kept the most recent ones and while I don't usually post trollish comments I have decided to do so here because all of these comments will illustrate something much better than I ever could.

So now, without further ado, the Hall of Shame....or rather, those people to whom I give a great big happy "Fuck off" to.

Now before I start I want to remind everyone that this is not an abortion we're talking about here. Rather these responses are directed at a woman who already has three children and who is barely scraping by as it is. These comments are directed to a woman who used responsible methods and who, if she were actually pregnant, would be in a high-risk group. These are responses NOT to an abortion, but rather to a simple medication that is nothing more than a large dose of oral contraception. EC is NOT an 'abortion pill' and there's still a chance that it didn't work and I will have to take alternative choices to keep my family from losing our home and living in the streets.

My family and I are balancing on the edge of a knife as it pertains to finances. The fucked up leadership that this country is currently under has forced many people who were barely hanging on as it is into utter financial ruin. I'm clawing for a foothold right now as I slip dangerously close to financial ruin myself another child would not only make us unable to pay for our heat, groceries and the like but also my mortgage.

So, without further ado I give you the Parade of Shame. I'm going to go ahead and mark them by stating #1, #2 and so forth. Mostly because I can’t help but take a stab at some of the stuff they're saying.

#1. My thoughts, after reading your post, led me to question why you haven't been more proactive; why aren't you on birth control pills or an IUD if you don't want to get pregnant? This way you sort of avoid the morality issue by preventing a pregnancy, rather than possibly aborting one. If it ain't a baby, then you ain't pregnant, know what I mean?

To be perfectly honest you don't have a right to know what's going on with my contraception. However, because I posted it elsewhere on my blog I will go ahead and tell you.

I am one of those who cannot take birth control. Through my entire reproductive life I have been switched from one form of BC to another. My system utterly rejects it and, after a few months after starting a different pill, I begin to bleed. The bleeding steadily becomes heavier until I am bleeding non-stop. If I don't cease hormonal contraception at that point my iron begins to drop (I'm also anemic and too much bleeding brings me big problems).

Therefore, the last prescription I had was perhaps the last one there was to give me. The pills were a lose hormone and after several months I could no longer tolerate them either.

IUD's cost money. I have no health insurance, plus I have had most of my cervix removed and the cervical cap and other barrier methods will have little or no effectiveness on me (or so I've been told by my doctor). Therefore we use condoms as a means of birth control. Not that it's any of your business and, had you actually read my site you would have already known this.

While you think rape is a horrific crime, (which of course it is) I question the thought process that does not think abortion is a horrific crime as well.

Because a fetus is not a full-fledged human being with a life and responsibilities. Unlike you I do not believe that there is even a soul in a fetus until much later in a pregnancy.

Preventing pregnancy relieves you of the consequences you will suffer, possibly for the rest of your life, if you have an abortion. That's the problem with places like Planned Parenthood - they don't tell you that part. Believe me, I know - from the point of view of a teenage Mom, and from counseling teenage Moms and those who are considering abortion.

I assure you that if this EC failed and I AM pregnant that I will desire an abortion like an animal in a leg trap desires to chew off its own leg. See, the problem with your morality is that it doesn't take into account the fact that the 3 existing children I have are my top priority and another child will ruin their lives as well.

------No offense intended, just trying to pass along some common sense. ------

We cannot continue to just go around having sex, creating babies, and then discarding them like a tampon. You're not the only one who matters in this world of ours, and by not caring about others, you yourself are the one who ends up suffering.
Good Luck.

Ummm, actually yes I can. If you want to be technical about it I can indeed run around creating babies and discarding them like tampons. And when you say that I'm not the only one that matters, I wonder if you think that my three children matter? All of my sons were aware of what was happening and every damned one of them agreed that they'd rather be able to keep our house that we've worked so hard for than to be out on the street with a kid.

Do you want to deprive my kids of a home? Wow, so much for caring about kids eh?

#2. I have to say it's encouraging that Ohio doctors have the moral backbone to stand for what they believe in (not prescribing Plan B).

Yes because forcing mothers onto welfare and into the streets with existing children is soooooo moral. Fuck off shithead.

It's also ironic that you sarcastically commented that "I found that the more hospitals and clinics and doctors I called the more ashamed I became." It is harsh to just come out and say it, but you aren't married, and it is natural to be ashamed when you are sleeping around outside of marriage (even if it's with someone you've been with for a long time). Because it is wrong, you are ashamed. That's pretty simple.

Oh wow, and here I thought it was just the wingnut assholes at the hospitals who kept treating me like a slut that bothered me.

Come to think of it who the hell do my horses think they are engaging in sexual intercourse without being married! I bet they feel like complete hell about themselves for not being moral because, you know, the urge to get married is a genetic urge that we're just born with. Shame on them! Shame, shame, shame!

It really does boil down to a previous post - if you don't want more kids, and you want the freedom to sleep around and not be ashamed when it ends up like this, get your tubes tied! It's not rocket science, but it would help you avoid running into situations where you are forced to explain your immoral lifestyle.

Sorry, I have no desire to undergo female castration, I've seen the shit other women have gone through and I'm not stepping up to that plate. Not to mention the lack of insurance is a bit of a brick wall, but of course I suspect that idea never crossed your mind did it?

#3 I have no pity for you, you disgusting, filthy whore.

Ahhh, so now we see what they really think eh? Apparently I'm a 'whore' and that's a good enough reason to force me to carry a child. It appears that these guys are only concerned with the fact that I had sex, that’s the only thing I need to have done to qualify for “disgusting, filthy whore”.

#4 "I was feeling ashamed at being such an unworthy dirty whore." If it quacks like a duck, and fucks like a duck...

And yet another upstanding citizen who most likely reads the bible with that mouth. And yet again, the only thing I had to do to qualify for this treatment was have sex. I wonder what I would have been had I not even bothered to use a condom? *grin*

This next one is from a self-proclaimed doctor, he actually posted twice and both of them are really indicative of his mindset

#5 It is not malpractice NOT to treat someone. If you refuse to see the patient, there is no malpractice. Malpractice only exists if there is an established doctor-patient relationship. That's why those doctors didn't want to talk to bitingbeaver directly. If they initiate a relationship, they're liable. If not, they're not.

Ok, I'm with him so far...guess you learn something new everyday huh? But this next line is where he screws up

You'd never win such a frivolous lawsuit, anyway.

Because of course it's frivolous to want to make my own choices on something like pregnancy. Geesh, shouldn't I have figured out by now that I'm just a baby making machine? It's so frivolous to concern yourself with something like keeping a roof over my existing children’s heads. It’s very frivolous to actually think about whether or not you can raise another child for 18 years. What a frivolous thing to think about!

And here's the good doctors second post!

I am a physician. I agree that you shouldn't have been treated like that. However, it is not a physician's "duty" to prescribe EC. That's what planned parenthood is for. Donate $$ to planned parenthood so they can stay open on weekends. The ERs are already overcrowded with traumas and major emergencies, especially on weekends, so it's not appropriate to seek EC at an ER. Remember, healthcare is not an entitlement, its a privilege.

Ahhh, I see. How about this then? The next time someone comes to the ER with a gunshot wound how about you refuse to treat them? No? Well why not? Geesh, if it's a privilege then you should be asking the victim all sorts of questions, you know, see if he's moral enough to be treated by you. Oh...I see, I guess that's just different right?

#6 Oh, BB, I'm SO sorry the consequences of sleeping around have caught up with you! Maybe if you saved all the money you spend on booze and cigarettes you could afford to get your boyfriend an operation to prevent this!

Nah, I don't smoke or drink enough to save that kind of money *biggrin*. Not to mention, the last time I checked it wasn’t illegal to smoke or to drink.

Oh and by the way, has anyone noticed the lack of talk about 'babies' in these comments? Most of them seem to just be pissed that I have sex. Gotta love fundies!

#7 Erm, calling a child a parasite is going a tad too far dont you think? I understand your position, but dont blame the child if you become pregnant

No, I do not think it's going too far. If the EC didn’t work then there is no 'child' here, just a bunch of cells that could one day be a child. As for the 'parasite' thing? Well, let's see, parasites live off the life of another without giving anything in return....yep, sounds like a fetus to me!

Not to mention my religion dictates that a child isn't ensouled until after birth *wickedgrin*. I demand religious respect here!

Here's the thing folks. If I've said something to offend you then too bad. I spent an entire weekend looking for someone to get me a medication that I needed to prevent a pregnancy. Hours of listening to doctors play god and tell me what I can and can't do with my fucking uterus before I finally had to take a 3 hour round trip drive to a clinic that would dispense me the medication I needed to literally keep myself and my children with a roof over their heads.

If you think that anything I have said is offensive then shut the hell up because I for one think it's offensive as hell that these so called pro-lifers clearly didn't give a shit about the 3 existing lives that I already take care of and who I was trying to protect.

I also find it offensive that because I had consensual sex within the confines of a monogamous relationship with a partner of 3 years and I am still accused of 'sleeping around'. Furthermore you sanctimonious godbags one reason I'm NOT married is because my abusive as fuck x husband has refused to grant me a divorce for years after I pissed him off by kicking him out when he beat my kids. But I guess that doesn't fucking matter does it you sick fucks?

I also find it offensive that you assume that I believe that a fetus is a 'baby'. Keep your Christian god out of my frigging womb. I happen to follow an entirely different religion that has no such ridiculous ideas ensconsed in it.

Furthermore, I find it offensive that even IF I met each and every one of your pre-existing ideas of who I am that it would even matter. I don't care if a woman sleeps with 1000 partners while unmarried without using any form of birth control. The fact that you all seem to believe that your morality belongs in HER womb is fucking sick.

So take your garbage elsewhere because I will have none of it.

~BB

It appears that the fuss is beginning to die down a bit and I'm happy to say that with about 360 comments thus far on the EC thread and around 50,000 hits yesterday on sitemeter only a comparitive handful of comments have been negative. I modded almost all of the negative comments out but, as per usual, I saved them in a file. 

I thought about letting the comments stay in the actual thread, but to be perfectly honest I figured that most folks aren't going to read 360 comments and these gems make the pro-choice stance better than anything I could say. It would have been a shame to let them get lost in the shuffle when there's a valuable lesson to be learned with them.

There's too many of them for me to personally respond to them but I thought I'd give you a taste of the hatred that pro-birthers actually have of women. All of the comments are the original and none of them have been altered in any way. So, with that I'll let the forced birthers show everyone, in their own words, why they're all a bunch of sick fucks.

Here's the parade of forced birthers.

joe: dirty whores like you are sickening.. deal with responsibility you abortion whore.

DAVID!!! :SUPPORT OUR PRESIDENT!!!! YOU LIBS JUST DON"T GET IT DO YOU!!!! JESUS WILL BE BACK ANY DAY NOW AND THEN YOU'LL ALL BE CRUISIN FOR A BRUISIN!!!!

Anonymous: Insensitive bastard WHORE!

kamakazibuttsecks: LOL!!!!!!!!

Amanda: Get your "boyfriend" to get a vasectomy. Or get your tubes tied. Problem solved.

bandit: 'The fucked up leadership that this country is currently under has forced many people who were barely hanging on as it is into utter financial ruin.'
Right....it's all somebody elses fault. Loser.

Michael: Logic would indicate that if you didn't want to get pregant you shouldn't have been screwing. You have a CHOICE not to get fucked, right? You're sound as if you were rapped. Sex doesn't happen on accident. You have no self control and now you have to have an abortion or a fourth child. Dumbass.

Conservative: Haha you whore! Ashamed is how you should feel.

firf jiggler: Well congradulations are in order here. Maybe if you are prego ,you will have a smart child who will grow up to be president and will change all those horrible laws that don't allow you to kill babies.

john: You had me on your side until you described a baby as a parasite, and not knowing whether or not you are pregnant, you decided to suck down a shit load of alcohol and smoke cigarettes. It is the last paragraphs that make most people think less of you, not the sex part. And like most women like you, you want to put the responsibility of pregnancy on everyone else, but it wasn't the doctors who made you have sex, you CHOSE to. You always have the freedom to chose, are you woman enough to accept the responsibility of YOUR choices???

aj: The Taliban would have had you stoned to death, and then let the guy go, because they had no proof that he was involved. With three children, wouldn't be easier to get your tubes tied, rather then go through this every time the condom breaks? Now that you know what the attitude of the medical people around you is, do you plan on taking responsibility for your own actions, before it happens again? Like stocking up, as was suggested above. Or is it easier to blame others for your mistakes?

dragoon: wow most of you are horrible people. Should not have sex outside of marriage it's your fault all this happened. Abrotion is evil and I can't believe that you called a baby a parasite. No doubt that you are going to hell. Jesus taught not to kill. FUCK YOU!

cypher: I'm really sorry about your predicament. However, that said, I really don't understand everyone's position here. It is really disturbing to me to hear a living, growing, developing fetus called a "parasite"--especially since you've already got kids of your own.

America should be ashamed.

Jason: Too all you idiots blathering on here, here's the opinion of an ACTUAL LAWYER: You're a little slutty whore who couldn't even own up enough to actually go see see a doctor. Thus, not seeing a doctor, means nothing ever happened. No discrimination or whatever other nonsense you feminazis wanna throw out. Had you actually gone to a doctor, they're perfectly fine in denying you an Rx all the same. I can go to my doctor and say I need lots of crystal meth, it doesn't mean he'll write me an Rx for, because in reality I just want it.

Anonymous: I don't understand. There was a condom involved, which implies the presence of a penis. What sort of man would fuck a feminist?

That's all of them for the moment. I think they make the pro-choice case better than I can do myself. I did notice something that stood out as I was marking these comments down, so, being the curious mind I was I began writing down the names that people chose to use when commenting.

Now, there are a total of 32 comments. Here's a breakdown on something I thought may be interesting.

Number of decidedly male names - 12

Number of decidedly female names - 1

Number of anonymous posters - 9

Number of ambiguous (i.e. 'bandit', 'conservative', 'white male' etc.) - 10

Note that there was only one person who retained a female name. Twelve commenters used decidedly male names like 'Mark' or 'Jason'.

Now, it's clear that this is but a tiny little sample on a random blog that, in the big scheme of things, is pretty damned small. You can take these numbers as you want and I won't extrapolate a meaning to them outside of 'hmmmm'. In any case, what IS striking is that during all of this Dubhe became completely invisible.

Indeed, he thought about posting something last night in regards to this phenomenon but note how none of these raging lunatics said things like, "That fucking whore, why the fuck did he let his dick out of his pants?" or, "You know that whore that fucked you should have been more careful!" Afterall, the condom was on his dick when the accident occured, so it's odd that there are so many who wish to call me a 'dirty whore' when it's apparent that Dubhe and the role he played in this, is utterly, completely forgotten.

Funny how he became the invisible man in all this eh?

Oh, I'd also like to note that I actually received several death threats via email through this entire ordeal. Not to mention the 'advice' I received via email that was written to sound like real advice but, upon further inspection the herbal 'cures' that he recommended taking were lethal. So, not only were there deaththreats but I received at least two emails that were disguised as 'helpful' which listed deadly herbs for ingestion. But yeah, the forced birthers have a hard on for life eh? So much for that idea. Apparently I deserve to be, in effect, murdered because I used contraception.

The reason I mention that is because I want to warn women out there. If you ask for advice on matters like this and someone sends you something then please, please, please check out the voracity of the claims. Be safe my friends because some of these guys really want you dead for wishing to control your uterus.

Also, there was another interesting comment that I meant to attend to but it has become lost in the shuffle. It was from someone who brought up a very good point which, during the process of defending myself, living my life and so forth, I neglected to mention.

This commenter mentioned that this planet is already so overpopulated with humans that we're destroying everything and they noted the absence of this reason in my posts. I want everyone to know that this is yet ANOTHER reason that having a kid is out of the question. This planet is suffering the plague of humanity and this push for reproduction is going to overwhelm this world entirely at some point. I've contributed to this problem three times and while I very much love my children I have also decided that I will not be bringing another person into this already stressed global ecosystem.

Also, I wanted to note that in the flurry of comments I think I let through a few comments in other threads that I wouldn't normally approve. I got overwhelmed and a few times I just glanced at the comments and approved them without actually reading them.

The other thing I wanted to mention was that some people wrote to me telling me to publish proof of this fiasco. They wanted names of hospitals and so forth. Now, I have actually sent these names to NARAL but I will not, I repeat, will NOT publish the names of the hospitals on this blog. Anyone who has spent any time reading what I write understands that I'm not a well known and loved celebrity. Indeed, my religious beliefs alone have gained me a stalker and I have 3-4 people who would just LOVE the opportunity to find out where I am.

The simple fact of the matter is that with these sorts of vitriolic comments coupled with the normal run of the mill cyber stalkers I have I would never, in a zillion years, publish something that someone could use to find me with. So no, I will not give you more information although, for what it's worth, I have informed a few local people and will most likely be getting names out locally. I guess it's just up to you to believe this story or not because I will not be putting any information out here, on this blog, that could be used to track me down.

Despite the fact that some people apparently believe otherwise I am quite happy and I have three children whom I love and adore. I'll be damned if I'll jeopardize any of that just to prove to a bunch of strangers that my story is true. Of course, it seems to me that the fact that there are so many people siding with the hospitals and doctors on this one should tell you something about the possibility, indeed, the reality of situations like this.

Ahhh well, I have things to do today so I need to get away from this computer. I could end this by trying to explain (defend? justify?) myself again but you know what? I don't owe an apology or an explanation to any of these asshats and I'll be damned if I try to make my incident rise to the level of 'acceptability' amoung these people. And with that, I'm off to get some shit done today.

Have a great Saturday folks!
~BB

Family First, as always, is taking a conservative christian approach to this issue and objecting on the grounds that emergency contraception encourages promiscuity, which I find rather disappointing. If a girl was looking for convenient ways to have sex without complications, condoms and birth control pills to prevent ovulation would be much higher up the list of convenient aides to pregnancy-free sex, with the big advantage in the case of condoms of also preventing sexually transmitted infections. This also ignores the fact that encouraging teenagers to use contraception is far more effective in preventing them from having sex.

The morning-after pill is called emergency contraception for a reason- it's really only useful in an emergency. Suggesting that making it available to people for free makes them more likely to have sex is like suggesting fire extinguishers encourage people to commit arson- the fact is that people will make a decision (whether it's about sex or arson) based on what they believe, think, and feel is right at the time, possibly ignoring one or two of those factors if they're not making a large impression. If Family First really wants to discourage promiscuity, they should insist on raising the standard of sex education to make teenagers more aware of its consequences, oppose oversexualisation of (young) women in general media, and encourage child-raising to be reserved for loving, stable families.

Ireland does not allow over-the-counter access to the morning after pill either. Its pretty awful considering how women who may not have the 50 euro fee to see the doctor and then the 17 euro cost of the pill itself will more than likely not avail of it - thereby obviously increasing the chances of unwanted pregnancy....

I'd love to do something like this at some stage.

http://womenarenotstupid.co.uk/

"Basically, at the moment if a woman wants emergency contraception she must get it herself at the time of needing it. Although in 2006 the Royal Pharmaceutical Society issued a statement saying that it is not against the advanced supply of emergency contraception in principle, in many instances women are being refused advance provision by pharmacists.

This means that a woman can't buy it in advance from pharmacies to keep in the bathroom cabinet in case a condom splits. Nor can someone else buy it for her unless they can convince the pharmacist that it is an exceptional situation such as a person being housebound. Being stuck at work or at home looking after children is not usually deemed a good enough reason. Mums cannot buy it for daughters. A woman's partner cannot buy it for her. Nor can her friend.

Many people including some pharmacists argue that this is because emergency contraception should not be used other than in an emergency and that they need to ask certain questions of women before they can take it. This suggests women are incapable of self-diagnosing - something we actually do every time we take a painkiller which, taken wrongly, could also harm us." Ellie Levenson

http://www.womenarenotstupid.co.uk/ - The Campaign Website

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/morningafterpill/ - The Petition

• You're never too big to wear a condom. I mean, I knew condoms could stretch a lot, but this is a good demonstration of how miraculous they are. We're so lucky to live in a time when reliable birth control is readily available.
• An inside look at the testing process that condoms undergo before they're distributed in South Africa.
• Generic Lybrel is caught up in some legal issues, but should be available eventually.
• Strapped Condoms (launched by Houston's very own J-Prince) has been raising awareness about safe sex among teens for a couple years, and now they have new ads out featuring Li'l Wayne (who allegedly goes to school with me, but I can't find him in the people search online).
• And finally, a new law in Wisconsin requires hospitals to provide rape victims with emergency contraception. Props.

“This is not the way I would want to aspire in my career. It’s a very ironic feeling, and I just have to try and do my best,” he said on AM radio from Albany.
He stated he wanted to five-day transition period before taking the oath on Monday. This would enable him to get up to speed on state business.

“We needed to get the state back to work. And we needed to have our government functioning,” he said. “We needed to show that to people Monday.”

With Spitzer's resignation, the fight over Abortion Rights continue, including the Abortion Pill and The Morning After Pill.

The New Yorkers For Parental Rights is already urging soon-to-be Gov. David Paterson to reject Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s attempt to adopt the Reproductive Health & Privacy Protection Act (RHAPP).

Most suspect Gov Paterson to be as reasonable in regard to the protection of the right of women to have access to abortion and other women's health related issues.

One can only hope that Gov. Paterson will continue the struggle for abortion rights and protect the access for women to abortion providers of their choosing.

Getting access to emergency contraception -- always a time-sensitive task -- can be all too difficult for some women. (We're looking at you, Target, for refusing to stock Plan B.) Women who can't get a prescription for E.C. often have to rely on generous friends willing to part with a few birth control pills, or even turn to Facebook, the social networking site that allegedly has several underground networks dedicated to helping provide Plan B to high school and college students.

Now, there's another alternative -- on Wednesday Feministing tipped us off to the cheerily named initiative Emergency Kindness, which launched on Oct. 21. Emergency Kindness makes E.C. available online so that every woman with Internet access can get the drug when she needs it.

It works like this: Users submit Plan B requests using Emergency Kindness' online form. The organization then alerts two of its "Janes" (members of a volunteer network that, sadly, brings to mind the pre-Roe era's community of underground abortion providers), who arrange to overnight or hand-deliver emergency contraception to the woman in need, free of charge. If asked, the Janes will disguise the E.C. to help keep the client's needs confidential. Emergency Kindness asks that clients disclose any other medications they're taking, and provides information on how Plan B works, but doesn't ask for clients' ages. The woman behind the network, who goes by "San Cai," personally screens each potential new Jane. (If you're interested in becoming a Jane, go here.) And we particularly love the manifesto promising a no-judgment, no-shame attitude for those seeking E.C.

It's not a perfect system, by any means, and we sure wish women didn't have to go underground for easy access to emergency contraception. But given the current circumstances, we're glad Emergency Kindness is out there.
www.emergencykindness.net

They're not the first to do this, just the first without pay. There's also http://www.getthepill.com/

An addendum, for some historical and legal background:

Jane: Abortion and the Underground by Cheryl ter Hor

(This originally appeared in the WomanNews section of the Chicago Tribune Online in September 1999)

In 1971, Susan was 21, in a dead-end job and a dead-end relationship, and she had just discovered her IUD birth control had failed her.

Although she wanted children eventually, she knew it wasn't a good time to have a baby.

So she called Jane in Hyde Park.

From 1969 to 1973, before the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark Roe vs. Wade decision legalized abortion in the United States, thousands of women did just what Susan did. Jane, officially known as the Abortion Counseling Service of the Chicago Women's Liberation Union, arranged and participated in more than 11,000 illegal abortions in Chicago and the suburbs in those turbulent years.

Some members of Jane, many of whom were college students, housewives and mothers, eventually learned how to perform abortions themselves--despite having no formal medical training--and did them in the bedrooms of various secret apartments around the city. The idea was to decrease the cost and increase the availability and safety of the procedure for otherwise desperate women.

Chicago author and freelance writer Paula Kamen became fascinated when she heard of Jane at a women's rights panel several years ago. The result is her play, "Jane: Abortion and the Underground," which opens this Saturday as a Green Highway Theater Co. production. In recent years, Jane also has been the subject of a book, "The Story of Jane: The Legendary Underground Feminist Abortion Service" by Laura Kaplan, herself a member of Jane, and a documentary, "Jane: An Abortion Service," that aired on PBS in 1998.

"I was intrigued by these bourgeois housewives running an illicit abortion service between car-pooling to dance lessons," Kamen, 32, says. "Women of my generation have no idea--before Jane, it was just shocking what people had to go through. Cook County (Hospital) was getting hundreds of (victims of) botched abortions a month. Abortions were unsafe, they cost thousands of dollars, and many of the abortionists had mob ties."

Kamen built the play around case histories of the women involved in Jane, after interviewing dozens of Jane members and those who sought the service's help. The play originally debuted for a brief run in 1993, then was completely revised for its new run.

"Most of the work written about abortion is a debate on the issue," notes Janel Winter, producer and director of the play. "This is about women's lives and women working together to help each other."

Like other women who called Jane, Susan (who did not wish to be identified by her real name) was told an abortion would cost $300. She balked and was told that if she could scrape together $100, an abortion could be arranged.

Susan was directed to a house where a woman would counsel her on what to expect during the procedure. "While her kids were playing in the room, my counselor served me tea and told me what was going to happen," Susan remembers. "I was so impressed that someone with kids would help me have an abortion."

She was directed to go to what Jane members called "The Front," a dorm room at the University of Chicago in Hyde Park, where she found a do