“Moving up to the primary endorsement process, we intentionally started a conversation about women’s rights and what is at the center of it, what shouldn’t be at the center,” [Susan B. Anthony List president Marjorie Dannenfelser] told The Daily Caller. “The women’s movement in its current form has abortion at the core and that is why we have started a dialogue about what true feminism is. It is not because I have ever labeled myself a feminist, but we really felt we needed to take them on on their own ground.”

Ah, so Dannenfelser is a feminist in the same way that I'm pro-life. It's just that the current pro-life movement is focused on ending abortion rights, whereas I'm more interested in making abortion legal and accessible to all women. Because there's no reason that people who are actually against abortion rights should be the only people who are allowed to say that they're against abortion rights.

* Via Vox Populi, Georgetown student Julia Shindel talks to the Chronicle of Higher Education about her reproductive health activism on campus, which included chaining herself to a statue of Georgetown founder John Carroll and wearing duct tape over her mouth. She rates that symbolic silencing method "disgusting."

* The Center for Sexual Pleasure and Health offers up a proposed curriculum on porn.

* Something to remember, via Hysteria!: "There are too many instances in the world when women’s voices are discounted.  Not just our figurative voices—the words we speak and the meanings of those words—but our literal voices too—our sometimes soft, high-timbre ululations. We are told that we are too soft-spoken to hear, that our proclamations carry too much emotion, too much shame, too many tears."

* Queen Emily on what can happen when you're outed as trans:

One time, I inadvertently outed myself to a group of students. I’d been teaching a tremendously interesting media studies class to first years; that is, mostly 17 and 18 year olds. The first three weeks went pretty well. We talked video games and violence, Hollywood, what they actually did with media. The discussions were engaged, it was all going fine. Then, a month in, I came down with a cold. My voice suddenly dropped an octave, because I couldn’t vocalise at my usual pitch. And like that, you could see the lights go on in their eyes. They’d realised I was trans.

. . . The next week, we did adbuster style cut-ups to jam dominant media messages and several groups turned in transphobic assignments, giggling their arses off. They were laughing at me. Another student spent the lesson interrupting me, telling the class how everything I was saying was stupid. And of course, a number of students stopped attending my classes altogether, trying to get into classes in the same unit run by other teachers.

. . . The point is, the mere fact of their knowing that I am trans meant that they, 17 and 18 year olds with scant knowledge of the subject they were taking, suddenly felt entitled to talk over me, to mock me openly when previously they had been respectful. Of itself, being subjected to ungendering takes its toll, especially if it’s something you experience frequently.

* Elena Kagan on abortion. Apparently she believes that the constitution provides for women's lives being protected in abortion regulation. Activist judge!

[youtube:v=mscr8-dHLno]

Photo via George Eastman House

Today, Rev. Patrick Mahoney appeared in court on the charge of "unlawful entry" stemming from his June 8 arrest at D.C.'s downtown Planned Parenthood clinic. Mahoney, for the uninitiated, took a knee for the unborn on Planned Parenthood's sidewalk in defiance of the clinic's signs declaring the entranceway "private property." Mahoney won't be prosecuted on the charge—a rep from the United States Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia confirmed that the office has declined to prosecute the case. Attorney Jim Henderson called the unlawful entry claim a "nonsensically bogus charge"; I have a call out to Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan Washington asking for the organization's take.

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

On Tuesday, June 8, the Rev. Patrick Mahoney arrived at Planned Parenthood with the intention of going to jail over a fence.

Two months earlier, the District had granted the organization a permit to build a 42-inch-high “wrought iron steel fence” around the front lawn of its clinic at 1108 16th St. NW. When Mahoney learned of the construction, he notified police, press, and fellow activists; marched onto the lawn; and knelt to pray in hopes of getting handcuffed.

Landscaping changes rarely prompt civil disobedience. Mahoney, a Presbyterian minister and longtime anti-abortion activist, is more concerned with what lies beyond the fence: a grassy, 40-foot-long entryway with a paved center walk that leads to the clinic, where the services include abortions. The turf has historical significance for Mahoney: For years, he and his allies have come to the yard to pray, confront patients, and attempt to convince pregnant women not to abort.

The new barrier, equipped with signs reading, “Private Property. No Trespassing. Violators Will be Prosecuted,” is meant to keep the anti-choicers at a distance. But it also provides an opportunity for Mahoney to pursue his second-favorite activity involving the property in front of the clinic: litigation.

Before Mahoney staged his public prayer, he brought in his go-to attorney, James Henderson of the American Center for Law & Justice. Henderson investigated the issue with city officials and uncovered city maps indicating that the 40 feet between Planned Parenthood’s doorway and the 16th Street sidewalk is zoned as “public space.”
Clinic reps maintain that the property is theirs to police. “The fence serves to protect the health center and our patients from violations of D.C. trespassing laws while still allowing those who are opposed to legal abortion to exercise their First Amendment rights and express their views along the sidewalk,” Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan Washington CEO Laura Meyers said in a statement.

D.C. police concurred, enabling Mahoney his photogenic arrest. “At this point, our attorneys have advised us that they do consider it private property inside the fence line, so if you go inside the fence line, you will be encroaching upon private property,” Cmdr. Hilton Burton informed Mahoney shortly before his planned prayer. Mahoney prayed anyway, Burton arrested him, and the reverend promised to pursue the issue in court.

Indeed, Mahoney rarely misses the opportunity for a court appearance. In 2000, he sued the Supreme Court over a decision banning large picket signs from sidewalks on the high court’s grounds, thus preventing his entourage from toting what the Washington Post described as a gigantic “full-color depiction of a decapitated fetus.” In 2005, he sued the U.S. Marshals Service for the right to picket in favor of the Ten Commandments in a restricted area opposite St. Matthew’s Cathedral. In 2009, he sued the District for refusing to allow a “chalk art demonstration” in front of the White House that was meant to slam President Obama’s “radical support of abortion.”

But Mahoney’s preferred battleground is Planned Parenthood’s walkway. Over the past 20 years, Mahoney and his colleagues have launched several protracted court cases asserting their religious freedom to “counsel” those on their way into the facility.

To local anti-abortion activists, the 40 feet are worth the decades-long battle. “It’s better access,” explains Erik Whittington of Rock for Life, an anti-abortion initiative targeted at teens. Whittington says he’s prayed outside the clinic “at least once a year” since 1995. “I’ve been up there next to the door; I’ve been up on the grass leading prayer circles,” he says. “For women who are coming here to have an abortion, they’re walking up on that public property for about 15 seconds...Forty feet is a long way.”

With the fence, D.C.’s anti-abortion activists are forced to set up shop on the 16th Street sidewalk, where it’s difficult even to identify women seeking clinic services until they’re already out of earshot. “You don’t really have enough time to talk to them that way,” says Dick Retta, an activist who is familiar with the disputed terrain. “Outside the fence, you’ve only got maybe three to four seconds.”

Back in the ’80s, Mahoney would commandeer local clinic entrances for days at a time. The dispute over the Planned Parenthood entryway originated in 1989, when Mahoney and Christian activist organization Operation Rescue staged a series of “rescue” missions “involving physical blockades” that prevented access to several local health centers. In response, District Court judges laid down an injunction barring the protesters from “trespassing on, blockading, impeding or obstructing access to” D.C. abortion clinics.

Since then, Mahoney has fought a series of injunctions designed to keep him at a distance from local abortion providers. In 1994, Congress made the courts’ job easier with the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act. The measure forced Mahoney to reconsider his tactics. He began, of course, by challenging the act in court. Later, he settled for talks—on-site prayer demonstrations and targeted “sidewalk counseling”—instead of blockades. The idea was to provoke a reaction that Mahoney could then take to court. After all, what’s a few days in front of a clinic when you can tie up an abortion provider in litigation for years?

On Jan. 23, 1998, the day after the 25th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, Mahoney planned one of his arrest-baiting protests at now-defunct abortion provider the Capitol Women’s Center. When Mahoney arrived, “volunteers had already created a human chain in front of the clinic” to assist those entering, according to court documents. Five of Mahoney’s cohorts took a knee on the center’s sidewalk, at which point police officers “cordoned off the front of the clinic with police tape.” Mahoney crossed the line anyway and was arrested for violating FACE. A court issued a permanent injunction forbidding the minister and his allies from “coming within a twenty-foot-radius of any reproductive health facility” located inside the bounds of the Capital Beltway—including Planned Parenthood.

More recently, Mahoney’s litigious strategy has been embraced by younger activists. In 2005, Christendom College student Daniel Heenan sued Planned Parenthood after a tussle with a security guard. In those pre-fence days, the protesters’ no-fly zone was delimited by a spray-painted line on the pavement 20 feet from the clinic. According to court documents, it marked “the boundaries of an injunction issued by the United States District Court for the District of Columbia” against—whom else?—a “discrete group of individuals affiliated with Rev. Patrick Mahoney, who had been found by that court to have violated the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act of 1994.”

Inspired by Mahoney, Heenan had turned up the previous May intending to cross the boundary. Police were summoned. Pro-choice volunteers linked arms. Heenan crossed the line. Then, according to court documents, Harry James, a former Metropolitan Police Department officer working as a clinic security guard, “placed one hand on Heenan’s collar and another on his belt” and “attempted to turn Heenan around and walk him away from the building.” At some point in the commotion, “Heenan fell to the ground, and James tumbled over him.”

Heenan, also represented by Henderson, asked for $35,000. He lost in court. But, just like Mahoney’s suit, the ruckus took up a little bit of Planned Parenthood’s time and energy and money, which was kind of the point.

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

The Abortioneers point us to this 30-second spot targeted at encouraging citizens to make thoughtful decisions about abortion rights. An Abortioneer on the ad's effect: "everyone has an automatic reaction to they way they feel about abortion, simply because it's against Catholic doctrine. But when asked to consider the morality of the issue, they're stumped." (The Abortioneer admits that selective editing may have been involved. That's advertising for you!) More where that came from at the link.

It's 11 a.m. on Tuesday, and anti-abortion activist Reverend Pat Mahoney has arrived at Washington, D.C.'s downtown Planned Parenthood health center with the intention of getting arrested. But first, he has to warm up the crowd.

"For the first time in the history of Washington, D.C., they have banned and prohibited prayer on a public sidewalk,” Mahoney announces to the crowd of television cameras, microphones, and note-pads jockeying for position around him. "Men and women who have prayed here for years have been threatened with arrest. . . We're going to pray here today! And if it means going to jail, then we're going to file a federal civil rights lawsuit against D.C. in order to keep praying!"

Commander Hilton Burton, of the D.C. police's Special Operations Division, has been dispatched to handle Mahoney's public display—and if necessary, arrest him. Mahoney agrees to give Burton ten minutes to confer with his supervisors before the Reverend attempts to perform the stunt that will likely get him handcuffed. Mahoney is happy to claim some extra time to play to his audience.

"As I just informed the Commander, this is just as much a disgrace as the 'White-Only' signs put up during the civil rights movement," Mahoney announces. As he stalls for the cops, additional press file in to jot down his statements and assemble more video recording equipment. Local anti-abortion activists file in with cameras of their own. Several more police officers report to the scene. A reporter fits a microphone into the pocket of  Mahoney's brown jacket. He grins. "If you speak to me,” he informs the crowd, “Just remember, I’m miked!”

The spectacle was two months in the making. It started with a fence. On April 2, the Planned Parenthood Association of D.C. was granted a fence permit to build a "42'' wrought iron steel fence" in front of its clinic at 1108 16th Street NW. Once Mahoney got wind of the construction, he sensed an opportunity to make himself heard.

Mahoney, who heads up the Christian Defense Coalition, doesn't take issue with the fence itself. He's more concerned with what lies beyond the gates: A 40-foot-long grassy entranceway with a paved center walkway that women must traverse in order to receive Planned Parenthood's reproductive health services, which include abortions. For years, anti-abortion activists have come to the turf to pray, confront patients, and attempt to convince pregnant women not to abort. The fence, equipped with signs reading “Private Property. No Trespassing. Violators Will be Prosecuted,” threatens to keep the activists at a distance. And D.C. police officers threaten to arrest anyone who dares protest inside the gates.

Mahoney contends that the space is public property, and he's had James Henderson, an attorney with the American Center for Law and Justice, investigate the issue with the Office of Tax and Revenue,  the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs, and the District Department of Transportation in order to prove it. Planned Parenthood reps maintain that the property is theirs to police. “ At the 16^th Street health center, where Planned Parenthood also provides abortion care, our patients are typically met with and often harassed by people opposed to legal abortion," Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan Washington CEO Laura Meyers said in a statement. "The fence serves to protect the health center and our patients from violations of DC trespassing laws while still allowing those who are opposed to legal abortion to exercise their First Amendment rights and express their views along the sidewalk." (The Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs did not return calls for comment).

So, why not just pray on the sidewalk outside the fence? "It’s better access,"explains  Erik Whittington of Rock for Life, an anti-abortion initiative targeted at teens. Whittington says he's prayed outside the clinic “at least once a year" since 1995. “I’ve been up there next to the door, I've been up on the grass leading prayer circles," he reminisces. "For women who are coming here to have an abortion, they're walking up on that public property for about 15 seconds. . . Forty feet is a long way.”

Now, D.C.'s anti-abortion activists are forced to set up shop on the main 16th Street sidewalk, where it's difficult to even identify women seeking clinic services until they're already out of earshot. "You don’t really have enough time to talk to them that way," says Dick Retta, an anti-abortion activist who is familiar with the disputed terrain. "Outside the fence, you've only got maybe three to four seconds."

The fence may have been a bust for local sidewalk counselors. But as Mahoney knows, having your speech rights curbed in even a tiny section of the District can get a lot of people to pay attention to what you have to say.

* The Abortioneers ask: Why can't anti-abortion activists get along?

A grumpy anti and a soft-spoken priest [were] protesting at the same clinic.

Priest was youngish, bright-eyed and eager to start doing God's work. Grumpy was a veteran with a gruff voice and quivering jowls. Priest was not amused by his hollering; he only wanted to pray for the women and their dying babies. He inched away slowly at first, then took giant steps towards the other end of the sidewalk, leering at Grumpy all the time. By noon, as Priest prepared to depart, he put his hand on Grumpy's shoulder, made sure he looked him in the eye, and asked, "Do you really think you can help these women by screaming at them?" It was a genuine, reasonable question.

Priest never came back.

* Via Nerve: A Swiss prophylactic manufacturer has begun producing extra-small condoms for sexually active preteens. From the New York Daily News:

Dubbed the Hotshot, the prophylactic was developed in response to a study that indicated young teens were regularly engaging in unprotected sex.

"The result that shocked us concerned young boys who display apparently risky behaviour," said Nancy Bodmer, who oversaw the research for the study at the Center for Development and Personality Psychology at Basel University in Switzerland.

"They have more of a tendency not to protect themselves," she said, adding that because of their young age, they also do not know much about sexuality.

A friend's take: "I like the concern about unwise sexual activity shown by the manufacturers, who named it . . . 'The Hotshot.'"

* Bitch takes on the "innovative" new marketing campaign used to promote popular videogame Bayonetta. Bayonetta, for the uninitiated, stars a sexy heroine who kills bad guys via stripping, rolls on the ground in porny poses while killing said bad guys, and restores her power by sucking on a lollipop. How could this videogame ever spawn a misogynistic marketing campaign, you ask? Bitch answers:

[youtube:v=hcaKvZLNVek]

* On another note, try Meat Cards: the "one-and-only laser etched beef jerky business cards."

Photo via Darrow Montgomery

Divine Mercy Care, a pro-life pharmacy that opened in Chantilly in 2008, has shut its doors. Divine Mercy Care claimed to treat "every person who comes in as if they are Christ sitting across from you,” only employed pro-life employees, and refused to sell birth control pills (also: candy). I can't exactly say the DMC had a good run; when I visited the pharmacy shortly after its grand opening in October of 2008, nobody was buyin' then, either. I guess refusing to sell stuff isn't a very effective business strategy after all. [Via NBC]

Last week, I interviewed Jaclyn Friedman about fucking while feminist and the tangled web feminists weave when we try to bring a relationship partner into our down-with-the-patriarchy worlds. In the interview, Friedman expressed the desire to establish a dating litmus test that feminists can use to weed out incompatible matches early on in the relationship. Friedman used to screen guys who professed a love for Fight Club, but she abandoned that particular test after she "learned that a lot of smart, progressive, even feminist guy like Fight Club." Is there any shortcut that feminists can use to ensure they're not wasting their time on misogynists? After Friedman bared her dating dilemmas, the feminist blogosphere exploded with insight on the idea of the feminist fucking litmus test. But first, I'll share my own litmus test:

Mine is pretty simple. I don't require people I date to identify as feminist, or be aware of what "male privilege" is, or watch porn with a critical eye, or give even the tiniest shit about gender roles in Superbowl commercials. Of course, I've got some idiosyncratic deal-breakers unrelated to feminism (if you have ever changed your handle or IP address in order to comment multiple times on a blog post, it is probably not going to work out). My dating litmus test is the same one that many have used to consider candidates for the United States Supreme Court: If you don't support a woman's right to abortion, then we can't have sex, ever.

Jill Filipovic at Feministe suggests that it's a lot easier to suggest litmus tests for other feminists to follow than to actually weed out men based solely on principle:

Even getting to the point of “this is a person worth dating in the first place” is… not easy. Any relationship requires compromise and flexibility, sure; but how and where to compromise on the feminism thing is particularly difficult because we aren’t talking about a political issue here, we’re talking about a way of seeing the world. I also watch a lot of women date men who are, to be kind, Not Great, but they want to date someone and Not Great Guy is there I guess. I remember being at one feminist conference or another, and an audience member who identified as a feminist asked a panel of feminist writers what they do about the men in their lives who joke about sexism — she was engaged, she said, and her fiance and her dad love to joke about how she should get in the kitchen and make them a sandwich, ha ha ha, and she told them a bunch of times that it bothers her but that they still do it. And all I could think was, “Oh sister they are not joking, dump that dude and dump him now.” But I’m pretty sure I could have said that and she would not have dumped that dude, now or otherwise. And then I remembered that I once dated a dude who sat me down to watch an episode of Tough Love (“I know you’re skeptical, but he totally helps these girls!”) where host-man tells one of the contestants that she’s so slutty she’s going to get herself raped. I voiced my disgust and he was basically like, “But host-man is kind of right, don’t you think?” And I didn’t dump that dude on the spot either, even though I felt so gut-punched I could barely talk.

Point being, it’s awfully easy to look at other feminist women and think that they are making obviously terrible choices with their love lives; it is much harder to actually find someone who meets all the requirements of a feminist litmus test, and is single and is someone you’re attracted to and is also attacted to you and is someone who you want to discuss things other than feminism with and is in the right place at the right time. So if you want a relationship — and I think that most people really do want relationships — you have to be able to put some things aside. Where and how you put your feminism aside is, for me, significantly harder than he likes cats and I’m more of a dog person.

Andrea Grimes at Heartless Doll doesn't cop to a particular litmus test, but she does say that her feminism has greatly improved her love life. At some point, her standards shifted in imperceptible ways, and it resulted in a quality-over-quantity change to her dating roster:

I didn't self-identify as feminist until a couple of years ago. It was a long process of consciousness-raising through blog-reading, book-buying and news consumption before I finally, at the age of 24, decided that feminism was the way to go. And I definitely did a whole hell of a lot more dating–casual and serious–before I was 24. Is feminism to "blame"? Hard to say. Being in college, and being young generally, put me in a bigger dating pool. I was less jaded, willing to put up with all kinds of shit and fairly serious about seeing what the world had to offer me in the way of dick.

. . . As I've gotten older, I find it much, much more difficult to even crush on anyone. The allure of the deadbeat rock-star-bartender is gone. I no longer want to sleep with a guy just because he looks like Dan Radcliffe. I'm not gazing longingly at every writer under age 70 with a Rolling Stone byline. Having had several long-term relationships and experienced the good and the bad that comes with, I'm much, much less personally invested in finding one again and far more comfortable and happy with myself overall. I fantasize about weddings, not marriage. (I  need to upgrade my Hello Kitty toaster, anyway.)

But while my dating quantity has gone down as I identified as a feminist, the quality of dating has gone way, way up. If I never again talked to most of the guys I slept with before I was 24, I would not much be bothered. But the guys I've met and loved and screwed since will, I hope, remain my friends to some degree or another.

I think being a feminist has made me a better girlfriend, a better dater, a better lover, a better person generally. What's not to like? (Apart from the functional alcoholism and cat obsession.) Indeed, I polled guys I've dated since my feminist awakening, and none of them seem to take much issue with my fierce-ladyness. In fact, it seems to be something they're into. I asked them whether my feminism was a problem, and whether they're more or less attracted to feminists generally.

Merrit Martin from Heartless Doll says forearms first, feminism later:

... when I was dating, I would look for someone interested in learning about the feminist ideals and women's issues I believe in . . . though, to be honest, I'd do that after the first chit-chat and "do I even like his voice, forearms, hair, etc." part. I have to be honest—the physical part is important. I may be fairly traditional in terms of waiting a while before doing the deed, but if I can't even comprehend his P in my V (or at least Frenching a little), there's no point in finding out how he feels about Margaret Sanger.

Natalia Antonova keeps her feminism in perspective:

When I first meet someone, and decide that I adore them, I don’t really consider their politics at first. And while I usually mention that I’m a feminist, I do it in a flirtatious way—“yeah, I’m a feminist. A hardcore one.” . . . I don’t mind being anyone’s challenge, not initially, probably because I believe that initial attraction is always pretty superficial. I don’t even care if a guy offends me at first, because I’ll argue with him, and maybe he’ll argue back, and maybe we’ll discover that we actually have more in common than we realize, or else even less in common than previously thought. I’ve made my peace with the fact that “feminist” tends to be a loaded term, and when it provokes a reaction, I just deal with it, and move on. I don’t even think about it much anymore. It’s a little like being on autopilot.

Whenever I sacrifice my feminism for a man, I do it while remembering that it’s feminism that allows me that choice in the first place.

Viv at Finally, a Feminism 101 Blog has got a litmus test that works on the very first date:

In terms of feminist dating litmus tests, it’s nearly 20 years since I last dated, and perhaps this one isn’t so uncommon now as it was then, but one of my litmus tests was: is he OK about me thinking of something we could go see together, me ringing him up to invite him, and then me organising and paying for the tickets plus paying for the meal beforehand? My experience was that some men found this reversal of stereotypical dating roles confronting. Most were surprised, definitely. My partner of the last nearly 20 years hardly turned a hair (this doesn’t mean that we haven’t had our “why can’t you see this is a problem?” moments at times, but it was a damn good start).

Some Sexist commenters offered up their own guidelines. bellacoker looks for men who have been capable of change:

I have a litmus test, but not about feminism particularly. If the topic comes up in conversation I pay close attention to how potential partners discuss their previous partners, how those relationships ended and how they distribute the blame.

Super bonus points for being able to analyze personal situations critically and admit and learn from their own imperfections. Complete deal breaker for references to how their ex’s are any kind of “crazy,” unless diagnosed by an actual mental health professional in a clinical setting.

Amber looks for men who treat her as an individual:

In my current relationship with a very good man I have taken an incremental approach to explaining what feminism is and how it relates to his life. When we hear a story about “corrective rape” in South Africa on NPR that can become a conversation about the rape culture here. When we see an ad that sexualizes rape, I try to explain how these images normalize violence against women. Why “Law and Order SVU” sucks. Point being, I’ve tried to show him the world through my eyes. There are compromises; the gender roles are a little more traditional than I would like but he passes my personal litmus test of seeing me as an individual rather than filling the role as an archetype for their personal narrative. I’ll take it.

And DB's litmus test sounds awkward:

Potential litmus #1:

his last girlfriend isn’t an idiot (ask for references)

Photo by L Marie, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

Did ya'll watch C-SPAN last night? The Republican strategy of frantically burying their racist and classist rhetoric under a protective shield of faux concern for unborn babies was in full, glorious display. Between the white dudes arguing that socialist health care reform will "enslave" the American people (inside) and the white dudes chanting racial epithets at black representatives (outside), I managed to catch this gem from Republican Indiana Rep. Mike Pence (above), who argued that supporting health care amounts to signing a devil's deal with Barack Obama, "the most pro-abortion president in American history."

Because even when the U.S. government explicitly states that it will continue to not fund abortions, Republicans just can't seem to let go of their major justification for denying health care to poor, uninsured Americans: their irrational hatred of women.

"Only in Washington, D.C. could you exchange the pro-life protections enshrined in the law for thirty years for a piece of paper signed by the most pro-abortion president in American history," Pence announced. Well, certainly Obama deserves some sort of award for this distinction! After two centuries of only mildly pro-abortion presidents, and wishy-washy presidents with no discernible views on abortion (I'm looking at you, Millard Fillmore), it's refreshing to finally find a president whose love for abortion can be definitively measured as more intense than the love for abortion held by the 43 men who came before him. I can just imagine Pence furiously calculating Obama's love for abortion, checking and re-checking the mathematics deep into the night in preparation for the health care debate: "multiply by amount of sorrow expressed at George Tiller's murder . . . divided by the cosine of Clinton's love for abortion . . . carry the two . . . my God! It is true!"

All of which is by way of saying, a friend made this commemorative online thingy, and I thought it was funny.

Signed, the most pro-abortion blogger to work in the 2300 block of Champlain St. NW in American history.

Question for the columnist: Is this guy a dick, or what?

If that very unfortunate scenario sounds familiar, it's because last November, Daily Telegraph advice-giver Lesley Garner answered a question from a woman in an eerily similar situation. Garner failed.

Garner's advice-seeker had been raped, become pregnant, and had the baby. Her husband split, leaving her to raise the child as a single mother. Her question: Should she attempt to rekindle a relationship with the man who had dumped her as a result of her sexual assault?

You may recall how Garner responded: She informed the woman that her rape "wasn’t exactly a rape but a situation between you and your boss that got out of hand." Garner also insisted that a husband jetting after his wife is impregnated through rape is "a no-brainer . . . No man could contemplate this. He would have found your decision inexplicable."

In my critique of Garner's advice (in short, do not advise rape victims that they are not rape victims, and also, please refrain from informing women that their reproductive choices are thoroughly "inexplicable" to other humans), I noted that I was not an advice columnist, but that I suspected the husband in question to be a "dickwad." Now that we've got a legit advice-giver in the form of Carolyn Hax to weigh in on the subject, we may finally learn the answer: Are you a dick for abandoning your wife after she is impregnated from her rape?

But first, the big wind-up:

Oakland, Calif.: Hello Carolyn. A friend's wife became pregnant as a result of a sexual assault. She has decided to not have an abortion, and doesn't know yet whether she wants to give the child up for an adoption. Would the husband be a [glass bowl] for refusing to raise this child, and divorcing if necessary? Thanks.

Essentially, the reader is asking Hax this: "Oh, hello Carolyn, my friend's wife was raped. LONG STORY SHORT, now my friend has been seriously inconvenienced by this, so can you please let him know he's not a dick for peacing? Thanks."

Hax delivers a reasoned response that manages to give credit to the difficulty of the husband's situation while still conveying the fact that, yes, he is a gigantic jackass:

Wow. I think the only happy outcome is one the husband and wife conjure together. Technically, this isn't something the wife can force on the husband and expect him to agree to joyfully.

That said, technically, this pregnancy wasn't something to be forced on the wife, and yet it was. So, in a rare case where bean-counting is the way to go, the husband needs to let go of any notion of an ideal outcome here, in direct proportion to the wife's distance from her notion of an ideal outcome. This is the only fair and decent course.

Finally, there's the child to be considered, who is obviously innocent, and deserves to enter the world with just as clean a slate as any other child's.

I'm not saying this wouldn't be a Herculean challenge for the husband, because it would–but embracing the innocent child strikes me as immeasurably better for the soul than leaving one's rape-victim wife to be a single mom.

I trust Hax on this one. Here's why: Observe how Hax refrains from suggesting that (a) perhaps this rape victim was not in fact raped, nor that (b) rape victims who carry their pregnancies to term deserve to be alone for the choices they have made. Incredible. It is thus resolved: abandoning your rape-victim wife is a dick move.

UPDATE: It's worse than I thought. The rape victim's husband's friend weighs in to further contextualize the situation:

Oakland again: Thanks Carolyn. Obviously this whole situation is devastating for them. I don't know if this make a difference, but the couple is white, and the assailant was Afircan-American, and the husband isn't exactly progressive when it comes to race relations.

That first point makes sense—feminist women were thrown under the bus in order to pass the health care bill, and they're right to be pissed about it. But what's this business about forcing us to vote for lady politicians? "A major element in our battle for equality is getting women into positions of power," Siskind explains. "The hope is that these leaders, once in place, would promote women’s issues and encourage the next generation of women leaders. Speaker Pelosi reveals a flaw in feminist thinking: There are exceptions. A powerful woman can in fact be an enemy to women."

Speaker Pelosi has taught Siskind a very important lesson: Supporting female politicians is not the same as supporting women. If only Siskind had figured that out sooner, before she wrote a big 'ol article entitled "Should Women Back Palin in 2012?"

The obvious answer to that piece's titular question, of course, is "fuck no." Sarah Palin is, officially, the worst. But Siskind defies feminist conventional wisdom by throwing out this compelling argument: "Here's the difference: Sarah Palin played women's basketball."

Barring the possibility Siskind believes that sinking sweet jump shots is now a requirement for President of the United States (at this point, I wouldn't put anything past her)—I'm going to guess that Siskind supports Palin for President because she is a lady. Siskind is willing to support a woman who definitely opposes abortion rights, is totally a firm believer in teen abstinence, and is most certainly opposed to sensible rape policy—but is a lady. Why, again? Oh yeah: Because "the hope is that these leaders, once in place, would promote women’s issues and encourage the next generation of women leaders."

That is a really dumb thing to hope, Amy Siskind. And that false hope becomes—forgive me for borrowing the terminology here—a nightmare when you learn of the wide variety of women Siskind is willing to support as her leader, just because they are women:

We should embrace what the current Newsmax cover describes as The Newer Feminism, which has a home for leaders regardless of political affiliation: Hillary Clinton, Sarah Palin, Suzy Welch, and Kathy Ireland, among others.

So, in the next presidential election, I'm going to vote for Sarah Palin and hope she suddenly starts caring about women's issues. I'm going to vote for Kathy Ireland and hope she suddenly turns into someone qualified to lead the nation in more than just underwear sales. And I'm going to vote for Hillary Clinton and hope she turns into a hippopotamus.

I kid. But just in case you weren't convinced that Siskind doesn't base her faith in female politicians on blind hope, consider this argument: "I know I'll hear from critics who claim that Palin would not share my policy views," Siskind writes. "But what makes them so sure?"

We aren't stuck with Stupak because we have lifted an anti-woman woman to the Speaker of the House. We're stuck with Stupak because we have elected plenty of representatives—male and female—who are really, actually anti-women in their policies. I'll take a pro-woman man over Siskind's theory of spontaneous feminist conversion any day. Besides, women are not the only group who need more representation in the U.S. government. It's worth noting that Siskind converted from a lifelong Democrat to a McCain supporter because he chose a woman as his running-mate. On the one hand, that says a lot about Siskind's eagerness to support women in government. On the other hand, I guess that means she doesn't think it's important for African-Americans to gain representation.

The most troubling thing about Siskind's aggressive campaign to put more women in office—even if their policy positions directly oppose women—is its one caveat. Why support Palin and not Pelosi? To Siskind, we must always support female politicians, no matter what—unless that female politician does not aggressively campaign to put more women in office. Keep in mind—we don't even know if Sarah Palin would support more women in government—that's just another of Siskind's "hopes." If representation is going to be our one-and-only issue, we should all be supporting Amy Siskind for president. And that's a very scary thought indeed.

The situation: "Eva," a married woman, is raped by her boss on a business trip. She becomes pregnant. She decides to get an abortion. Her husband is supportive of the abortion, but not of Eva—"He drove me to a clinic for a consultation and waited outside in the car because he 'didn't want to hear me talk about conception dates,'" she writes. Eva later decides not to go through with the abortion. Her husband leaves her. She raises a beautiful baby boy on her own. Now, seven years later, she wants to reconnect with her ex. But there is a complication: "What happened on that trip wasn't quite rape but I wasn't exactly willing either. The man was my boss and he was very drunk and forceful. I tried to push him away without upsetting him, but he was too strong and I didn't fight him."

Now, if I were the advice columnist here, I know what I'd say: "your ex-husband is a dickwad." But I'm not an advice columnist. Lesley Garner is. Her advice is of the "stop lying about getting raped and admit that it was selfish to not get an abortion" variety.

That's right: Garner tells Eva that (a) she wasn't actually raped; and that (b) any woman who refuses to abort her (made-up) rape baby is selfish for denying her husband's feelings. Let's start with the rape part:

Let's look at the bit about telling the truth first. Your letter is full of confusion and chaos, and then I reached the end and saw that the story with which you began—the story that you told your husband—wasn't even true. This was a shock to me, so you can bet it would be a very big shock to your husband.

The thing that strikes me most about your whole story is that you seem to have very little understanding of how your husband might feel. It is all about you and your needs. I think it is highly unlikely that your husband will welcome you back but I guarantee that, should you get to sit down and talk together, the further revelation that your rape wasn't exactly a rape but a situation between you and your boss that got out of hand would be the final blow.

. . . Something isn't right here, which makes me wonder whether you are telling the truth to yourself, never mind your husband.

Ah. It wasn't a "rape." It was a "situation." Situations! Anything goes in them, really! Remember this next time the man responsible for your paycheck gets drunk and forces you to have sex with him, but you decide not to physically fight him, because he is a strong, drunk, forceful man responsible for your paycheck: What were you doing turning up in that "situation" to begin with? Add that to the list of things to avoid if you don't want to get raped, ladies: Short skirts, beer, and "situations."

Again, I'm not an advice columnist, but isn't the more troublesome detail here that Eva would describe her "situation" as "not quite rape"? Shouldn't we address the fact that Eva appears to be in such denial about that "situation" that almost a decade later, she can't come to terms with what actually happened to her? No time: We still have to deal with Eva's horrible decision not to get an abortion!

Garner writes:

I see a complete mismatch between what has actually happened and the fantasies that you are weaving around the relationship. So I feel I should spell a few things out.

. . . You made a unilateral decision. You decided to continue with the pregnancy in the absolutely unrealistic expectation that your husband would be happy to bring up the child of another man, his wife's rapist. This is a no-brainer, Eva. No man could contemplate this. He would have found your decision inexplicable.

. . . On the whole, men's hearts are not melted by children who are not their own. Even a tender-hearted man is going to find it hard to be charmed by the child of a man he believes raped his wife. There is no bond between your former husband and this child, and I doubt there ever could be.

Oh, that "unilateral decision" to have an abortion! Whenever women make that decision all on their own, without even thinking of the "feelings" of their husband, government, or Telegraph advice columnist, some bad shit is bound to go down that will ruin their lives forever, right?

One last time—I'm not an advice columnist—but if I were, I would focus on reminding Eva about what a total dickwad her husband was after she had to endure being raped and impregnated by her boss. Perhaps we just gently tell Eva that, really, the problem is not in her decision to carry a pregnancy to term, but rather the decision to continue to allow this fucking guy to have any sway over her child, her happiness, or her life.

It's clear that both Lesley Garner and I aren't really down with the idea of Eva and her ex getting back together. We just happen to disagree on a few of the minor details—like what rape means, and whose feelings should be most valued in the case of abortion. Nevertheless, Garner's conclusion is a good one: "As for your lovely son, yes, it would be good if he had a father but he will also thrive if he has a happy, stable mother who has the support of a network of friends and family . . . become a happier and more fulfilled person in yourself and you have a much better chance of a strong relationship in the future." A good place to start? Ignoring every piece of advice that preceded Garner's final thought.

The battle for ideological dominance in our nation's capital's collegiate sex columns continues. Are our local campus columnists on the forefront of radical sex writing, or are they bringing back the good old days of romance born out of  aggressive homophobia?

This week: pro-life gay man worries that if he could have children, his pro-choice boyfriend might kill them; how to talk to a girl without being a creep; your boyfriend is cheating on you to avoid rumors he's on the down low.

AMERICAN UNIVERSITY

Sex Tips: In this edition of the AU Eagle's triple-threat sex column, Buster Darkhole, Maxwell Hillcrest, and Amber Sparkles take on the issue of  . . . ideological rifts in on-campus relationships. How apropos!

The inspiration: A pro-life man writes in to ask if his crush on a pro-choice man is too immoral to pursue. "While he and I can’t have children, it’s more the idea that if we had children he would be OK with killing them," he writes. "Is this enough to kill a relationship?” I bet you weren't expecting Buster Darkhole's response: "let me just say that it is a relief to find another pro-life gay on this campus."

Life Lesson: The American University community contains at least two pro-life gay men.

Progressive Meter: Sorry, my brain just exploded attempting to accurately gauge the progressiveness of this situation. I think we'll split the odds and go for a 5.

—

UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND

Sex Tips: The Diamondback's latest advice column schools undergrads on how to "start up a conversation without seeming creepy." Columnist Esti Frischling's suggestion: " The rule is this: Any guy can get any girl. . . .  If you approach this situation knowing without a doubt that you are going to get some serious ass, your actual chances improve drastically," she writes. "Seeing as you already know you’re going to get with this girl in the near future, you can certainly start to relax around her. Suddenly, imagining her naked in class changes from awkward and creepy to fun and clairvoyant. . . . Keep in mind: You are the man."

Life Lesson: She wants to fuck you.

Progressive Meter: Assuming that a strange woman wants to have sex with you whenever you like will inevitably lead to complications. As one commenter notes, it ain't the first time she's doled out this advice. So much for the "without seeming creepy" part. Zero.

—

HOWARD UNIVERSITY

Sex Tips: In this Howard University Hilltop opinion piece, Morgan Winbush attempts to get to the bottom of Howard's "dating double standard." She writes: "in a man’s world; you have to be on top of everything including your woman and your relationships. . . . Messing around with other women feed into the need for a man to feel as if he is needed. The more women who 'need' him the more he is solidified as a man possessing the qualities that are 'manly' and thusly proving himself to be the leader of the pack when it comes to female dependency. 'Is he gay?' 'Is he on the DL?' — the more female partners a man has the less likely these labels will be placed on him." But aggressively proving one's heterosexuality ain't just for men any more: "times have progressed and women want just as much ego rubbing as their counterparts."

Life Lesson: Your boyfriend is cheating on you so that nobody thinks he's gay. At least now you can get in on the homophobic fun, too.

Progressive Meter: Winbush makes a good-faith effort to encourage fellow students to embrace female promiscuity alongside the traditional male version. In the meantime, she raises the specter of the guy on the "down low" without even giving a positive shout-out to the campus LGBT contingent. Three.

Photo by Ollie Crafoord, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

This week, anti-abortion activists staged an eBay auction to help raise a legal defense fund for Scott Roeder, who was charged with murdering abortion provider George Tiller back in May. With the auction, anti-abortion activists were hoping to capitalize on Roeder's newfound notoriety by selling off a series of his signed, pro-life memorabilia.

But before the items could hit the virtual auction block, eBay announced that the memorabilia would be removed from the Web site. In a statement, the company said that it would “not allow listings that promote or glorify violence, hate, racial or religious intolerance, or items that encourage, promote, facilitate or instruct others to engage in illegal activity.”

St. Louis cartoonist Gary McCoy had a more personal beef with the auction: It totally ripped off his work.

Among the offending items listed for auction: A cartoon presumably penned by one of Roeder's fellow inmates and kindred spirits, Jason Dubrowski. The cartoon depicts a newspaper clipping that reads, "Late-term abortion provider killed. Pres. Obama 'shocked and outraged.'" Beyond the paper is the cartoon's ironic payoff: rows of graves, each marked "Aborted Baby." It's signed: To all you prolifers, thanks for your support. Scott Roeder.

McCoy, a conservative cartoonist who regularly addresses abortion in his work, published that very same image back on June 1—minus the alleged murderer's salutation. Today, Cagle Cartoons, which syndicates McCoy's work, recognized Roeder and Dubrowski's cartoon as a near replica of McCoy's effort, and called the incarcerated duo out for their plagiarism. As the syndicate's blog notes, Roeder "seems to admit" the theft in the cartoon's eBay listing: “His name is Jason Dubrowski and is one of the best artists I’ve seen in here . . . The drawing of the field of babies tombstones with the newspaper headline comments of Obama was done after a Christian newsletter printed this illustration which a lady in Valley Center sent to me.”

McCoy was not impressed with the tribute from "one of the best artists" in prison. "I was extremely upset to learn that my cartoon was being plagiarized in order to defend Scott Roeder," says McCoy, who was alerted to the misappropriation this morning by friends, colleagues, and even Roeder's estranged wife, Lindsey. Lindsey called McCoy to inform him that Roeder had previously sent both her and her son a copy of McCoy's original cartoon from prison. Clearly, Roeder was a fan.

McCoy claims he only intended the cartoon to condemn abortion, not support murder. "It was merely my attempt to comment on the contrast between Obama being outraged over Dr. Tiller’s murder, and his lack of action on abortion," says McCoy. "Look, I’m pro-life. But I don’t condone the killing of abortion doctors. Most legitimate pro-lifers condemn that action. Only the fanatical fringe do that sort of thing, and it really upsets us."

Roeder and Dubrowski aren't the only ones who have insulted McCoy's work this week. eBay's response to the auction "kind of irked me as well," says McCoy. "They say they don’t allow listings that promote or glorify violence, and it kind of bothers me that they thought my cartoon promoted violence. I'm glad they took the cartoon down, of course, but I wish they had made it clear that they removed it because it was a plagiarized cartoon, and not because my cartoon was violent."

The folks at Overturn Roe have put together an instructional video to help you burn your very own effigies of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid this Halloween, instead of engaging in normal human activity like dispensing candy to children. According to Overturn Roe's set of "Marching Orders" [PDF], demonstrating that our Congressional leaders are going to burn in hell if they don't repent for making us pay for child killing in the health care bill is not going to be easy. "Decide you are going to do this—no matter what—even if it is just you and 2 other people," the orders read. "Do not ask permission; do not ask for peoples’ opinions as to whether or not you should do this."

Alright then. Let's get started!

1. Be sure to spend a lot of money on this. Pick up your corporate effigy at Kinkos and Home Depot: "Hi, I just sent you a PDF of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. I want that in full color, on paper, 3 foot by 5 foot."

2. And time.

3. Even when it's not burning, it should look like it's burning.

4. Alienate your friends. When you invite people to your effigy burning, "Get a FIRM answer. 'Maybe I’ll be there' means 'no.' 'I’ll try to be there' means 'no.' Your heart will be grieved before this is over, because people who you thought would join you won’t. (Some people are terribly afraid that their reputation will be hurt.)"

5. Don't tell your religious leaders. "If you have a pro-life Priest or Bishop, invite them to come. If they are not really pro-life, don’t waste your time. And if you are afraid of them trying to talk you out of it, do not ask them, unless you can ignore their bad counsel. (That is why I said in #1 to just decide that you are doing this no matter what.)"

6. You should probably also get these sunglasses.

7. Annoy the media. "If you do a great event, and a few hundred cars see you, this is good. If your local TV or Radio or Newspaper or Internet Papers cover you, you reach thousands, hundreds of thousands, or even millions. This is great. It is critical that you follow these instructions EXACTLY as we give them to you."

8. Then, ignore them. "You are free to say the same thing, over and over, hammer your point. If you feel a reporter is trying to get you to say something you do not want to say, just ignore the question, and say your message. For example, you could say: 'That’s not the point: The point is it’s immoral to perform abortions and distribute contraception' and 'Would Notre Dame honor Pilate after he condemned Christ to death?'"

9. Burn. "If you don't know how to start a fire, ask a Boy Scout." Or, just unload a shitload of lighter fluid into your backyard.

10. Buuuuuuuuurn. "We suggest you check what your local ordinances are on open flame."

The danger of swine flu in pregnant women has received a great deal of press attention recently. As concerns over the health of pregnant women rise, the abortion debate has slyly emerged as a a central influence in the dialogue.

Yesterday, the New York Times told the story of Aubrey Opdyke, a 27-year-old woman who was pregnant when she contracted swine flu last June. What began as mild symptoms of aches and fatigue turned into a harrowing four month ordeal. Writes reporter John McNeil:

In the four months she was hospitalized, she spent five weeks in a coma, suffered six collapsed lungs and a near-fatal seizure. High-pressure ventilation blew her up like a molten balloon until “she looked like she weighed 400 pounds,” her husband, Bryan, said, and she has stretch marks from her neck to her ankles. Her muscles and lungs are still so weak that she uses a walker.While hospitalized, she missed seeing her 4-year-old daughter, Hope, learn to swim and start pre-school.

And, most important, she lost her baby. Parker Christine Opdyke, almost 27 weeks in the womb, was delivered by emergency Caesarean section on July 18, when her fetal heart rate plummeted during Ms. Opdyke’s third lung collapse. Her airways were too blocked to let a breathing tube in, possibly a side effect of the drugs saving her mother. She lived seven minutes.

In McNeil's profile of Opdyke, losing the baby was "most important"—more traumatic than even falling into the coma, suffering a seizure, temporarily losing the ability to walk, talk, and see her family, and facing death. The trauma of losing a child in the womb is clearly central to Opdyke's experience. But it is still Opdyke's experience—the ordeal is hers, not her baby's. Compare that treatment to a previous profile of Opdyke, which ran in the Scripps Treasure Coast Newspapers. It's worth it to examine the entire lede:

The baby was beautiful, with tufts of long eyelashes—just like her mother.

But she didn’t cry.

Her heart stopped minutes after doctors delivered her from the belly of Aubrey Opdyke, who had swine flu and lay in a medically induced coma.

Aubrey never had the chance to see her.

So the baby’s grandmother, Joanne Felker of Stuart, readied tiny Parker Christine for photographs and a video.

She bathed her and held her.

“She looks like she’s just peaceful,” Felker said of the images, shot by the volunteer group Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep.

One of these days, the family will show the images to Aubrey.

They’ll fill in the blanks about the time she has spent in a coma at Wellington Regional Medical Center, battling a case of H1N1 influenza that took Parker’s life on July 18 — more than two months before she was supposed to be born.

This is a story about a fetus. Opdyke, who endured months of comas, collapsed lungs, and seizure in a fight to stay alive, is introduced in a prepositional phrase: "from the belly of." Joanne Felker is not Opdyke's mother; she is "the baby's grandmother." The loss of Parker Christine is mourned at length, but the fact that Opdyke herself was on the verge of death is never mentioned in the story. Tellingly, Opdyke was not even able to speak at the time this profile was written about her. Given her condition, it's doubtful she had a hand in authorizing the story at all:

Now that doctors have eased her off coma-inducing medication, Aubrey can blink in response to visitors.

She indicated that she recognized her husband, Bryan Opdyke, and can wiggle her toes.

The sources in the story are Opdyke's mother, her former co-workers, and her former Girl Scout troop leader. Opdyke's husband is not quoted in the story. That's too bad, because he provided an extremely interesting insight to the New York Times:

Mr. Opdyke was warned he might have to choose—her life or that of the baby, who was just at the border of survivability outside the womb.

“I said, ‘Save Aubrey,’ ” he said of the woman he married last year. “I can make another baby, but I can’t replace her.”

Her third lung collapse forced the issue. Parker had to be delivered, but she did not survive.

The Times addresses the issue head-on: Losing Parker was a tragedy for the Opdykes, but it may very well have saved a woman's life. Andrea Opdyke wasn't given many choices throughout her horrific ideal. At least, in the New York Times, she's afforded a voice in her own story.

Photo by flickr user Andres Rueda, Creative Commons 2.0

Depressing Feminist Graph #1:

According to the Economist, safe abortions worldwide decreased markedly between 1995 and 2003. Unsafe abortions, though—holding strong as ever! The good—and totally obvious—news is that banning and restricting abortion does not decrease abortions, so you might as well just make them legal and safe. In fact, in places where abortions are legal and safe, women have fewer safe abortions, too, probably because the contraception is flowin' freely there as well. [Depressing Feminist Graph hat tip to Pukeimmediately].

Depressing Feminist Graph #2:

Unfortunately, when that contraception flows all the way into the strip club, it can have some negative economic effects for exotic dancers. The second depressing feminist graph comes courtesy of Julie Sunday, who notes a recent study which found that "women on the pill are attracted to more 'boyish' features in men." The feminist blogs are all over the study's more widely reported findings. But Sunday read, like, the whole fucking thing, and mined this interesting economic tidbit:

Strippers who are not taking the pill report an increase in lapdance revenue around ovulation whereas pill-taking strippers (who are thus not ovulating) do not see a spike in their revenue and earn less throughout the cycle. No, really.

Dotted line: strippers on the pill; solid line: strippers not on the pill.

Damn, girl. That's a 50-dollar-per-shift difference during the menstrual cycle, and a full 200-dollar-per-shift-difference at the stripper's most fertile. Somebody should do this study on women in other professions and see what they can shell up. Julie Sunday suggests that strippers looking for safety in the bedroom and success in the workplace ought to just go hormone-free, but not every type of contraception works for every woman. Would you change your method of contraception to get more tips?

"Reducing." "Eliminating." Saul doesn't use the word "abortion" until page three, when she notes that "many opponents criticize selective reduction as a form of abortion." It is abortion. So why don't we call it that?

Saul's story aims to accurately describe real pregnancy experiences, and the highly politicized debate surrounding abortion has a funny way of conveniently ignoring these stories. The hopeful parents Saul interviews largely fall outside the mainstream abortion debate: they are men and women who desperately desire children, and must decide whether to abort multiple fetuses or run the risk of losing their chance of ever having a healthy baby. The typical characterizations that pro-lifers associate with the word "abortion"— "baby killers," "Godless whores," "irresponsible sluts"—don't exactly fit when they're applied to people who go to great lengths to create life.

Saul's heavy use of euphemism throughout the piece deliberately shields these women's choices from the misplaced moral superiority of the abortion debate. Calling the procedure "reducing" or "eliminating" instead of "aborting" helps to respect the full experience of women who fight for one healthy child, but end up with seven fetuses that are unlikely to survive. The use of the "reduction" euphemism in the medical community may also help some women make informed medical decisions affecting their lives and the lives of their children. Some patients may be so opposed to abortion—or simply so put-off by the cultural perceptions of the word "abortion"—that they may endanger themselves or the lives of their potential children if they are forced to choose one.

But the medical community's reluctance to discuss the possibility of "selective reduction" honestly and frankly with women can also harm those women who don't realize that fertilization techniques may require abortion. One woman in the story, who chose to "reduce" her pregnancy from five fetuses to three, told the Times:

“I think there’s a huge problem in the reproductive technology industry . . . I was told the chances that I would have triplets were less than 1 percent. There was no talk of being faced with a decision like that until the day that we had the ultrasound. Then you have two weeks to decide. And you don’t get counseling from anybody.”

The euphemistic word choice can also hurt women who have abortions under other circumstances. The hesitancy to apply the term "abortion" to women who actually want babies does a disservice to all women who choose to end a pregnancy. Women choose abortion for a variety of reasons. Some women who are not carrying "multiples" choose abortion despite a desperate desire to have a child. Some women choose abortion in order to protect their children from lives that are sure to be short and painful. Some women choose abortion in order to save their own lives from dangerous pregnancies. Some women choose abortion because their bodies are unfit to carry a child. Some women choose abortion in order to protect the best interests of the children they already have. Some women choose abortion in order to protect the best interests of the children they want to have in the future. Some women choose abortion because they don't want to have children. And some women choose abortion for reasons that are none of your business. When reporters choose to remove a select group of women from the discussion of "abortion," they imply that all other decisions to abort are somehow less valid.

Saul's story shows that the decision to abort is often complicated, difficult, and personal. It also shows that politicizing the decision to have an abortion can prove extremely dangerous to both women and children. In Saul's story, women who choose to "reduce" their fetuses escape the "abortion" label because their choice to abort is explicitly aimed at encouraging life. Their choice completely upends the false dichotomy in the political debate between "abortion" and "life." That's all the more reason to call the procedure "abortion."

What if Bill Clinton had openly announced, as he later did to his biographer, that Al Gore was "blowing" the 2000 election by refusing to allow Clinton to campaign for him? Maybe George W. Bush would never be president!

What if Bush had openly announced, as he did privately to his speech-writer, that his "heart was never into" banning gay marriage? Maybe gay people could be married!

And what if Richard Nixon had openly announced, as he did to his Oval Office tapes, that he thought abortion was okay "when you have a black and a white"? Maybe . . . Barack Obama's mom would have aborted him, and "the world’s most famous mixed-race man" would never have even existed!

Wait, what?

It sure is fun to "wonder." But pretending to pinpoint the precise political conditions that would have convinced a dead woman to have aborted her pregnancy 48 years ago instead of carry it to term is both dishonest and offensive.

Even if Nixon had announced that interracial couples would be free to abort their fetuses with impunity, why would that have convinced a white woman in a relationship with a black man to do such a thing? Why would anyone have cared what Richard Nixon thought, anyway? When Barack Obama was in the womb, Richard Nixon was already a lame-duck Vice President. And Nixon didn't record his thoughts on interracial abortions until 1973, when Barack Obama was 12 years old. What is Egan even talking about?

The larger question is: why are commentators so quick to assume that Obama's mother would have been interested in having an abortion at all, under any circumstances, ever?

Egan isn't the first to jump down the rabbit-hole of Obama's non-abortion history. In July, Republican Kansas Rep. Todd Tiahrt suggested that if Barack Obama's mother had been offered "financial incentives" to have an abortion, then Obama may have been aborted and we would never have had a president who supported abortion. Wrap your mind around that one, liberals!

The speculation over Obama's mother's what-if-abortion is not a fun exercise in how even the smallest actions decisions can affect human history. It is, however, obviously racist (in his anti-abortion screed, Tiahrt also wondered aloud whether Clarence Thomas would have been aborted), and patently anti-choice.

Obama's mother isn't around to say, "I never would have had an abortion," or, "I would have had an abortion if I could have afforded it," or, "I would have had an abortion if Richard Nixon had been president over a decade before he was actually president, and had broadcast his racist Oval Office tapes over the radio in my first trimester." This doesn't seem to matter to the "What if" abortion set. When these commentators claim to know whether a dead lady they've never met would have had an abortion half a century ago, and why, they are saying that the mother's opinion is unimportant to the discussion of abortion. They are robbing her of her ability to choose. In this case, commentators are posthumously robbing Obama's mother of her ability to choose an abortion she never had, which just goes to show how seriously they take the whole "choice" thing.

One woman recalls her post-20 week abortion:

The baby had contracted a virus and you could see on the MRI that its organs were all messed up. It looked like there were bubbles in them, instead of solid masses like they were supposed to be. Then they figured out that the baby had been exposed to Fifth disease. All sorts of researchers contacted us, because they wanted to study it.

That was at about 20 weeks. I got a blood transfusion and I thought everything was cool. We went on vacation. But then we came back, and the doctor realized everything wasn't cool. His brain had a hemorrhage. The MRI reminded me of my other son's. He's autistic, and when he was three he'd had an MRI that also showed abnormalities. At a minimum, they said the baby would have developmental delays. But the doctor also used the words: "This child could not make it into childhood." I was six months along then, and I was already showing. But we couldn't handle having another special needs kid. Psychically, we just couldn't handle it.

. . . I cry all the time, and that will be for the rest of my life. Because I really, really wanted that baby.

And from another patient of Dr. Tiller's

In July 1993, my husband and I received the worst news about our son's impending birth: He suffered from multiple, severe fetal anomalies, both internal and external, thought to be the result of a rare blood disorder. If he could survive his early birth at 24 weeks he most likely would not survive his blood cancer beyond the age of 9.

. . . While still reeling from the shock, we were told we could take our chances and let the baby be born, but that the state would be forced to intervene if we did not then take every measure to keep our son alive. Or, we could consider two late-term abortion clinics—one in Wichita, Kan., the other in Holland! Our initial thoughts were "how could we be in a major NYC hospital in the United States and be told these are our only choices?" To say it was surreal is an understatement.

In preparation for President Obama's controversial commencement address at the University of Notre Dame, where he will no doubt speak at length about the virtues of killing newborns, anti-abortion protesters have converged on the University of Notre Dame campus. Some of them are simply rolling around vacant strollers (representing the never-born) or crafting signs reading "I Regret My Abortion"—bush league.

Only one dude is shaming our abortionist president the right way: with a small plane that tows "a banner depicting the remains of an aborted fetus and the words '10 Week Abortion.'"

Pwned.

Catholic Universities: respecting the lives of women since probably never.

Photo by Fated to Pretend

If only! Ann Coulter voices her support of an investigator's right to choose to waterboard.

I think I'm arriving at some sort of unified theory of Coulterism:

abortion IS WORSE THAN terrorism IS WORSE THAN waterboarding

terrorists DESERVE TO BE waterboarded

abortionists DESERVE TO BE terrorized

Joy Behar DESERVES TO BE aborted

This one's a two-fer, in response to my post on the omnipresent anti-abortion Metro ads, "Metro Swathed in Anti-Abortion Shame."

Craig Howell writes:

Um, there’s a First Amendment issue here, folks. As a government agency, Metro cannot indulge in viewpoint discrimination. This matter was settled 30 years ago when the courts told Metro it could not refuse to run bus ads sponsored by the Gay Activists Alliance. I have been a member of what is now the Gay & Lesbian Activists Alliance since 1973, and this victory remains one of our signature achievements.

Lisa responds:

Amanda, you pointed out the legal problem with this ad campaign yourself. When you say, “but when ad bombardments are targeted specifically on a captive audience of economically vulnerable women, they can be outright threatening,” you hit the nail on the head.

In Lehman v. City of Shaker Heights, Justice Douglas says in a concurring opinion, “the right of the commuters to be free from forced intrusions on their privacy precludes the city from transforming its vehicles of public transportation into forums for the dissemination of ideas upon this captive audience.”

I think this applies here, and the revenue from the Crisis Pregnancy Crap Houses should be turned down. I don’t want to be forced to ride a shame mobile.

Photo via This is Everything.

Abortion, after all, is settled law, and Obama is the duly elected president. Clearly, the American people have moved on.

Or have they? And should we? Is there really ever a time when we should be comfortable with the ratification of abortion? It has always seemed to me that the truest form of feminism, as in the earliest days of suffrage, would be to hold abhorrent the state-sanctioned destruction of women's unique life-bearing gifts. Out of material expedience, we've somehow managed to convince ourselves that life is a mistake. [Emphasis all mine].

Oh yeah, the "truest form of feminism" must be wherever feminism was ONE HUNDRED FUCKING YEARS AGO. Now that women have the vote, what more do they want—the capacity to murder babies at will?

I, too, wish we could go back to the good 'ol days of feminism, when women were forced to provide their "unique life-bearing gifts" on demand instead of, you know, if and when they chose to give the fucking gift. I WANT ALL GIFTS ALL THE TIME! MORE GIFTS! MORE MORE MORE!

[via Pukeimmediately].

Last month, Virginia liberals were up in arms over the state's proposal to offer a "Choose Life" vanity plate option at the DMV. On March 30, Gov. Tim Kaine signed the plates into law.

Now, a new proposition would allow Florida drivers to choose Christ. Drivers could also choose Cross In Front of Stained Glass. When the proposed legislation surfaced, Democratic state senator Nan Rich urged Gov. Charlie Crist to veto the Jesus plate.

Crist responded that those who didn't want Jesus on their license plates "don’t have to buy one."

Which raises the question: Who wouldn't want Jesus on their license plate? Look how fucking sweet that is! This is a momentous occasion: A vanity plate that both right-wing religious drivers and ironic liberal drivers can both believe in.

Waldman cites a 2007 Third Way study which found that "69 percent of Americans believe abortion is the 'taking of a human life,' but 72 percent believe it should be legal." Waldman attributes the statistic to the idea that most people believe that "some living things are more alive than others, and so the later in the pregnancy it gets, the more uncomfortable people become with the idea of ending it. . . . they believe both that a life stirs very early on and that a one-week-old embryo is more 'killable' than a nine-month-old fetus."

The idea of "gradations of life" has not been particularly embraced by either side in the political turf war over abortion: Pro-lifers have focused on preventing all post-conception fetus elimination, while pro-choicers have underscored a woman's right to choose at any time. But as Waldman points out, Roe v. Wade legislated specifically when women should have the right to choose, based on how baby-like her fetus has become: Roe "gave an inviolable legal right to abortion in the first trimester, allowed for certain restrictions in the second trimester, and actually allowed states to ban abortion in the third trimester."

In Waldman's "Fantasy of a Less Toxic Abortion Debate," those on both side of the abortion debate would "embrace the safe-legal-early doctrine." Here's what Waldman's fantasy would look like:

Pro-choicers who accepted this framework would be implicitly conceding that, for at least part of the pregnancy, there's a "baby" in the womb—and the woman's right to terminate that life is neither absolute nor nine months in duration. With early abortions not only legal but easier, pro-choice activists could then have the confidence to accept what many of them have publicly avoided but privately wanted: reasonable, tightly written prohibitions on third trimester abortions while genuinely protecting the life of the mother.

Open minded pro-lifers would take note of these concessions from their "enemies," viewing them as a sign that these pro-choicers—far from being hideous baby killers—fully embrace a moral dimension to the abortion decision.

Meanwhile, any pro-lifers who accept this framework would be making a concession, too. They'd be saying, in effect, that if the other side can concede that something precious is alive—and becoming more alive with each day—then they could, in turn, acknowledge that reasonable people, of different faiths, can disagree about when exactly that baby becomes alive enough to have legal rights.

I understand that Waldman is trying to make nice. I, too, would like to see us all find common ground on abortion. But while Waldman thinks that will come with acknowledging that there are "gradations of life" in the womb. I think it starts with acknowledging the life of the woman.

Remember her? She's the one who's pregnant with the thing somewhere in between a "clump of undifferentiated cells" and a nine-month-old "baby" ready to pop out into a human. The fetus is in her womb—she knows what's going on in there, and she takes that into consideration in deciding if and when to have an abortion. The moral question of determining the life of the fetus isn't made in a vacuum—it's made in the context of another life.

In order to find common ground, pro-choicers don't need to acknowledge that fetuses are "babies," and pro-lifers don't need to deny that for them, life begins at conception. Both positions are valid. A pregnant woman should be free to choose between them.

[Via Slate's XX Factor]

That's what Ruth Marcus claims in today's Washington Post, quoting Sarah Palin's remarks from a—what else—a pro-life fundraiser. At the dinner, Palin discussed her "choice" to have a child with Down syndrome  at the age of 44—a choice that, as Marcus points out, Palin wants to deny other women. Marcus is miffed that right-to-lifers like Palin routinely justify their anti-choice positions by describing their own "correct" "decisions" to have children. This isn't the fist time Palin has used choice to explain why women shouldn't chose—who could forget Palin's election-season classic, "We're proud of Bristol's decision to have her baby"?

Palin's pro-"choice" comments—where she describes twice considering abortion before deciding to carry her pregnancy to term—after the jump.

"I had found out that I was pregnant while out of state first, at an oil and gas conference. While out of state, there just for a fleeting moment, wow, I knew, nobody knows me here, nobody would ever know. I thought, wow, it is easy, could be easy to think, maybe, of trying to change the circumstances. No one would know. No one would ever know.

"Then when my amniocentesis results came back, showing what they called abnormalities. Oh, dear God, I knew, I had instantly an understanding for that fleeting moment why someone would believe it could seem possible to change those circumstances. Just make it all go away and get some normalcy back in life. Just take care of it. Because at the time only my doctor knew the results, Todd didn't even know. No one would know. But I would know. First, I thought how in the world could we manage a change of this magnitude. I was a very busy governor with four busy kids and a husband with a job hundreds of miles away up on the North Slope oil fields. And, oh, the criticism that I knew was coming. Plus, I was old . . .

"So we went through some things a year ago that now lets me understand a woman's, a girl's temptation to maybe try to make it all go away if she has been influenced by society to believe that she's not strong enough or smart enough or equipped enough or convenienced enough to make the choice to let the child live. I do understand what these women, what these girls go through in that thought process."

Photo by √oхέƒx™

Holy shit, China. How did you manage to lose all these little girls?! Prepare to send out the biggest fucking Amber alert of all time!

Oh wait, this is Saletan we're talking about—the reluctant pro-choice columnist of our time. That unbelievable lede that refers to real humans is actually about fetuses, right?

Yeah, yeah: We found 'em. Those sixteen million "girls" were actually, Saletan figures, fetuses terminated by Chinese parents who are only allowed one kid, but can have as many sex-specific abortions as they want. Don't get me wrong—I think it's terrible that some parents, in all cultures, still value boys over girls. But the distinction between "girls" and "aborted fetuses" is an important one.

If Saletan wants to frame the question around live humans, he could just as easily have asserted that "there are too many actual human boys in China," since it's the sex disparity that's ultimately causing the country problems. That's a lot different than what he did say, which is, essentially: "There are too many female ghost fetuses in China." The construction not only dips into far-right pro-life rhetoric—counting the number of "murdered" children that could be our friends and neighbors today—it isn't totally accurate, either. After all, Chinese girls "disappear" through adoption, too. Boys go missing, too: Even without sex-selective abortion, the one-child-only rule will still necessitate the procedure.

Post-lede, Saletan's piece actually handles the intricacies of China's one-child policy, sex-selective abortion, and the boy surplus admirably. Saletan even rejoices in the fact that China has recognized that it is in the country's own self-interest to limit sexist abortion—though Saletan still "wishes this turnaround were being driven by a better motive."

As I argued in last month's Saletan-flavored Sexist Beatdown, I find Saletan's forays into the fringes of the abortion debate interesting—I just wish we didn't always have to endure the dreaded "Saletan Curveball" in order to get to the good stuff.

Go to the ACLU Action Center here, or visit Planned Parenthood's action page here, or Compassion & Choices' action page here, all of whom have made it incredibly easy to make your voice heard by the Obama administration.

If all goes according to plan, the conscience rule will have accomplished nothing at all. Mwa ha ha.

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Sarah Seltzer for Reproductive Health Reality Check wonders if Levi is a "victim" in the Palin spotlight. "The Internet is buzzing over Levi Johnston's appearance on Tyra yesterday to 'break his silence,' and providing us all with a reminder that patriarchal policies like abstinence-only education hurt young men, too," writes Seltzer.

I couldn't agree more: We're all victims here: Levi, Bristol, Tripp, and Palin herself all suffered at the hands of her ridiculous abstinence (with a teenage pregnancy backup) method. Everyone, that is, except Tyra, who pulls a fierce Katie Couric to get the daytime interview of the post-pregnancy season.

Franks previously introduced a different version of the bill, known as the "Susan B. Anthony Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act of 2008," in the last session of Congress, but the session ended before action was taken.

The Intellectual Conservative Arizona blog notes that 87 percent of Americans support a law to "ban sex selection abortion." The race thing is a little trickier. Barring some sort of hidden interracial extramarital affair—an unlikely scenario—why would any woman abort a baby based on its race? Isn't the fetus' race known before the baby is even conceived?

That's where eugenics arguments become confused with demographics. According to the ICA:

It is estimated that as many as 50 percent of African-American babies conceived in the U.S. each year are eliminated by government subsidized abortion providers. Following the unearthing of the nation-wide race-targeted abortion donations, civil rights activists and African-American pastors from across the country protested government acquiescence in race-targeted abortion and the government funding of clinics that they believe are purposefully placed in the inner city and targeted to minority women.

Ah, of course! This is not about preventing eugenics (itself a scare tactic used to rile up the anti-abortionists). Nope, this is about denying women the right to choose. Those government-funded clinics are not "purposefully placed in the inner city" to target black babies; they're purposefully placed there to give poor women an affordable abortion option. The fact that many of those non-white fetuses are carried by poor women is a reality that Trent Franks, apparently, is not eager to address.

So, Franks would like to take away a black woman's right to choose, lest she choose to abort her black fetus? Yep, there's only one way to fight eugenics, people, and it's with unapologetic racism.

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This time, it's the American Right to Life Action group repeatedly harassing Ann Coulter for her support of Mitt Romney, who is maybe pro-choice and also Mormon! (She gets pissed). This is all still relevant because Romney might come back in 2012 to secure his polygamous alien reign and abort your teenagers, or something.

Welcome back to "Sexist Beatdown," the weekly event wherein Sady, of New York ladyblog "Tiger Beatdown," and myself, of D.C. ladyblog "The Sexist" carry on evolved conversation on such topics as abnormal boners. This week, we discuss William Saletan, the Slate contributor obsessed with what Sady and I have, but what he does not: wombs (and the fetuses that sometimes develop in them).

Saletan is the king of the Ethical Ladypart Curveball, searching out freaky weird situations involving reproductive rights, in order to blow his fucking mind and encourage him to completely rethink the ethical rules involving abortion. Observe:

"If you stop paying a surrogate mother, what happens to the fetus?"

"Would you abort a fetus just because it wasn't yours?"

Hey, we're cool with "lady's choice." Not Saletan—it can never be that easy for Saletan. Is this awesome, or awesomely offensive? We decide, after the jump.

SADY: good morning! are you ready for SALETAN?

AMANDA: rarely am i afforded the pleasure of discussing a topic of such immediate ethical consequence!

SADY: indeed! i have now read the preface to SALETAN's book! on! abortion! It is entitled "Bearing Right," and it is about how conservatives have "won" the "abortion war" by changing the terms in which we talk about it, by, for example, not making it about a person's right to choose what happens in her own body. i have also read several columns by saletan in which he refuses to frame abortion as a question of a person's right to control what happens in her own body! so, he's learned well, one supposes.

AMANDA: and this, i suppose, is why saletan continually frames the abortion debate around pregnancies that do not happen inside a woman's body, but rather inside ... another woman's body.

SADY: exactly, or the IVF thing, which he hammers on constantly. he keeps talking about how, in the course of IVF, non-viable or extra embryos are produced and discarded. selecting embryos really pushes his buttons.

AMANDA: yes, i think it's very problematic. he thinks that when a pre-baby is in a petrie dish, it is therefore out of the realm of concern for a woman's body. but, look, it's got to go in some woman's body sometime. if saletan wants to implant all the frozen embryos in the world into his body to try to nurture them into little league, he's free to do so. BUT i am here to defend saletan!

SADY: oh ho! an unexpected position! what, pray tell, is your defense? i am probably way too hard on him, i will tell you that much for free. i mean, a lot of his positions – contraception being the best way to avoid abortion, for example – are completely sensible. however, i feel he pushes for some weird policy of shaming people to make them better. even in a 100% perfect educated world, people will miss a pill or get drunk and forget their condoms. it's not great, but it happens.

AMANDA: i think my only defense is a journalistic one. yeah. i dont think saletan and i agree on abortion, but i do share his interest in the fringe cases. the construction of his that you make fun of, an introduction, followed by a crazy ethical question like, "but, would you abort your medically unsafe pregnancy if there were a one percent chance your baby was the son of god?" i mean, i kind of LOVE those. i'm sure you take some sort of sick pleasure in them also

SADY: yes, it's true, the Saletan Curveball is strong.

AMANDA: but the point i guess is that these very uncommon cases that may never actually happen are where all the interesting debate comes in. i do often disagree with the results he draws from them though. the one where the women aborted the fetus that was possibly not hers—saletan basically says she and the biological mom should talk it out. like he's advising women who may go through this in the future—essentially, no one

SADY: exactly. i guess one of my main issues with the way he constructs these incredibly rare and weird scenarios is that i feel manipulated, as a reader. the second person that recurs – what if YOU, dear Reader, had YOUR fetus implanted in another lady's uterus? what if YOU loved YOUR fetus? wouldn't YOU be sad? – just sort of (a) runs right over these individual people and their individual perspectives, and (b) doesn't seek to allow you any empathy or identification with anyone else in the story. i feel like he's trying to back me into a corner, whereas, having a uterus, i could be either lady in some ridiculous implausible scenario. but i'm not either one! and i don't know their positions in the matter, because saletan doesn't tell me!

AMANDA: yeah. he essentially says that the person who cares more about fetuses should be able to make the decision

SADY: i say we do it biblically. cut that fetus in half! this is my King Solomon jurisprudence.

AMANDA: and in his mind, a woman who pays 100,000 for a surrogate womb cares about her fetus. the woman raking in the cash is just punching the clock. i looked at where the money goes, when you pay a company to find you a surrogate womb. one interesting tidbit: you have to pay the woman carrying the fetus $2,000 if you choose to abort it

SADY: oh, yowza.

AMANDA: so the assumption is that the bother or emotional stress of having to become pregnant and then abort it is worth 2,000 dollars. i say, if those women have to spend more than that on their pregnancies of these alien fetuses, that is when they are clear to abort without saletan's concern. think about it—their abortion grief is established to be worth only 2,000 bucks to the people who donated the embryo. spending more than that on not aborting the baby is charity, in my opinion. i wish saletan would get even deeper into his arguments, is what i'm saying. the columns are just too short. i need more what ifs!!

SADY: exactly, yet when he raised the issue of surrogates terminating the pregnancies due to lack of funds, he POSTED A DUDE'S CONTACT INFORMATION so that people could contact him to stop it. without checking with the dude to see whether any surrogates actually sought to do so! and my understanding is, one did, then changed her mind, so there are Zero Aborting Broke Surrogates in the picture. yet that dude got a whole lot of e-mails, unexpectedly, probably some from 100% certified crazy-pantses. and saletan didn't check on this? he has the dude's contact information! yet did not use it!this is what i mean when i say that he has no concern for the people in the picture.

AMANDA: yeah, and he did then say—well, i mean, these women are working for free and they deserve the money anyway. but why is this different from any other sort of breach of contract? you get the money LATER, in court. not from saletan.

SADY: hah, yeah, maybe he should just set up a paypal link on the page!

AMANDA: i guess he feels like the "pregnancy" and the "women" are so delicate that they need the money now, or a terrible ethical situation will rise again. but i applaud saletan for bringing all this weird lady part shit to my attention, because i think it's fascinating

SADY: oh, yeah, and i agree with you. more complexity = longer columns = better saletan. MORE SALETAN, is what we need! and, yes, i would never have learned as much as i have about weird pregnancy issues without him. so: thanks, guy.

AMANDA: i have a lot of unanswered questions. for example: if the woman implanted with the other lady's embryo did not abort the fetus would saletan ask her to give the baby to the other woman? or does she get to keep it? this could possibly be MORE traumatic for the other woman.

SADY: well, considering that he referred to it as THAT LADY's baby throughout, and talked about how she might never get another chance, i think he's asking her to be a surrogate.

AMANDA: shit, i would keep it. the one thing that i have to ask, personally, about all this stuff is: why is this even happening? the lengths people will go. just buy one! i think it's cheaper

SADY: exactly! i have an ethical question: is it wrong for me to sell my babies on the black market? what if they're REALLY CUTE? but, yeah, for all the every-sperm-is-sacred thing we're hearing, adoption never even enters the picture.

AMANDA: yeah. every sperm and egg are sacred, as long as they are mine. the other ones you have to birth, too, i just don't have any insight into what the hell you do with them once they're not fetuses anymore

SADY: well, you know. at that point the ETHICAL QUANDARIES become far less fascinating, i suppose.

AMANDA: yeah, then it's just kind of a bummer

SADY: until the ex-fetus grows up, and becomes a lady, and somehow gets pregnant with a toaster! how did THAT get in there? what do we do with the embryonic toasters? don't they deserve a chance to toast? i guess what i am saying is, there are many odd fringe cases left unexplored.

AMANDA: yeah, but the point is, we already have a mechanism by which to deal with those. the woman decides, the end. but saletan can certainly write an overture to her which she may or may not consider. what i want to know is—how do i get saletan to set up a paypal account for me? i'm currently not considering aborting anything

SADY: hah, yeah, we were all once fetuses. we deserve the right to live, and in my case, cable, which i can't afford. how do i get saletan to extend his noble efforts to my cable bill?

AMANDA: what about the fetuses without cable?

SADY: um, can they download stuff from itunes, maybe?

AMANDA: kids, they can do anything

SADY: just don't put an iphone in there, or your fetus will sext!

AMANDA: by william saletan

The District of Columbia isn't the only locality sparing with lawmakers over political license plates. If Virginia state senator Ken Cuccinnelli gets his way, Virginia drivers will soon be able to wear their anti-abortion stances on their bumpers.

Last month, Cuccinnelli supported a bill that would allow Virginia residents to buy 'Choose Life' license plates from the Department of Motor Vehicles. Proceeds of the sales would go toward the state's "crisis pregnancy centers," outlets which provide freaked pregnant women with information about what to do next—and it's certainly not abortion!

The novelty license plates, championed by Choose Life, Inc., are currently "on the road" in 13 states: Florida, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Hawaii, Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, Connecticut, South Dakota, Montana, Ohio Kentucky, and—yes, it is too late for them—Maryland.

When the bill was defeated in Virginia's Senate Transportation Committee, Cuccinnelli's initiative was tacked on to another initiative, which was passed. Supporters can already download their "Choose Life" plate application here [PDF]. Just check "Special Interest," write in "Choose Life," and agree to fork over $25, and you're on your way to driving away abortion!

Well, as long as Virginia Governor Tim Kaine signs the legislation into law. Now, Planned Parenthood is asking Virginians to call the Governor to ask him to veto the legislation. If form letters aren't your thing, you can call Kaine up at (804) 786-2211.

I've had a lot of conversations with a lot of pro-life activists about their feelings on abortion, contraception, and pregnancy. I feel like I'm fairly well-versed in the pro-life position at this point, but one belief has remained a mystery to me: Why are pro-lifers against In Vitro Fertalization?

Thankfully, octuplet mom Nadya Suleman has swooped onto the national scene to answer my call!

And I thought it was just a general distaste for science. Turns out, in IVF, it's not uncommon for a larger number of eggs to be removed from the mother than are meant to be stuffed back in her. Some eggs don't take to fertalization when put in the little swimmy dish with the sperm; those are discarded.

But six of Suleman's eggs found some sperm they loved very much, and they all developed into embryos, and at that point—hey—wouldn't it be almost kind of like an abortion to throw those good embryos away?

In a Dateline interview, Suleman said, "Those are my children and that's what was available and I used them. So I took a risk. It's a gamble. It always is." But at least it's not abortion.

And so, Suleman—against the advice of the medical community and everyone else in the entire world—had all six embryos implanted in her room, got two little extra surprises, and now has eight octuplets to add to her already ample brood. Like magic!

That's pro-life In Vitro for you; I can see why most pro-lifers might just advocate for calling the whole thing off.

Photo by ScottD_Arch

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Lyrical sample:

I never tell a woman what to do with her body.
But if she don't love children, then we can't party.
I think about it every year, so I picked up a pen.
Happy birthday, I love you, whoever you would have been.

Umm, actually, that's pretty awesome. Just block out the part where Flipsyde is all like, "paid for the murder before they even determined sex . . . sometimes I wonder as a fetus if you fought for your life," and this empty-swing rap ballad is surprisingly listenable. Bonus: Flipsyde establishes street cred by admitting to "sippin' on a beer."

I received a letter today, in an envelope with no return address. The note was written on a typewriter and signed in pen: "For life, a mom." I met the note's sender at last week's March for Life, where she told me the sad story of an abortion she's regretted for 35 years. She also informed me of an abortion industry I wasn't yet privy to—the fetal accessories market. "They make fetus earrings, you know," the woman told me, indicating the pro-choice establishment. I didn't tell her I was pro-choice—I just told her I didn't have my ears pierced. She promised to send me the literature anyway.

A few days later, there they were—nine pages that had seen so many trips through the copy machine that the photographs looked like dark-room negatives. "Please xerox and distribute enclosed and publicized it," the note read. Most of the literature was fairly standard pro-life material. "WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE?" read one page, comparing a photograph of a Holocaust concentration camp with a pile of aborted fetuses. "THE LINK BETWEEN ABORTION AND BREAST CANCER," read another, before cobbled statistics claiming that women who have their first child before the age of 18 have a reduced risk of cancer.

The abortion accessories, though, were new to me. "FETUS EARRINGS," read one report, sourced to the "Right to Life of Huntsville, Texas." It detailed an apparent Australian fashion trend wherein earrings are fashioned from "ten to twelve week old aborted babies who are freeze dried, have an eye-hook put into their heads, and are then made to dangle from the ears."

Another, "PAPERWEIGHTS: FETUS," came courtesy of the Pro-Life News. That page reported on the use of unborn baby fat in "face cream, shampoo, and rouge," as well as paperweights which ranged from $60 to $97.80, depending on the unborn body part suspended in the plastic desk accessory.

I won't be sending these pages through the copier again; I won't gather them up, stake out a street corner, and pass them out to anyone willing to open their hand, take a piece of paper, and scan its words in the steps from there to the trash can. The personal note, though—a testament to how much we all have invested in this issue—is worth remembering.

Photographs by Amanda Hess

Even before the 2009 March for Life kicked off today on the National Mall, pro-lifers were complaining—to the Washington Times, no less—that the media was not giving them a fair shake. The complaints are pretty much garden variety press gripes: stories too limited in scope; participants not afforded the full, sympathetic profile treatment; items pushed to the back pages or not published at all. Here's why pro-lifers will have even less clippings to scrapbook after this year's coverage:

The inauguration. While the crowd may be large, it's a footnote in comparison to the massive sea of humanity that flooded the mall on Tuesday. Plus, people are expecting pro-lifers to show up. They're like the fat guy who scarfs down 28 wieners at Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest every year—sure it's impressive, but look at that tiny lady who ate 59 in her first event!

It's a thankless assignment. No matter what you write on a subject like abortion, not everybody it going to love you for it. You're lucky if you get the framing right. Follow AP Style and go the "pro-abortion rights" and "anti-abortion" route and you'll be on the receiving end of a flood of e-mails from pro-lifers alleging they know where your sympathies lie. That the media is bias against their position is probably one of the only issues on which both sides agree.

"Once in a yeartime" just doesn't have the same ring to it. Roe v. Wade will be still be around next January, and the marchers will too. While Obama may be for abortion rights, he's not in favor of political suicide, and that ruling is not going anywhere anytime soon. Unless something completely unforseeable happens, we'll be in the same situation next year.

Can't quote a fetus. Journalists love the "voice to the voiceless" angle that pro-lifers advance, but they can't speak to the unborn, even on deep background.

It's an off year. Thirty-six doesn't end with a five or a zero. Sorry, no reflective what does this mean for our country pieces.

Nothing newsworthy happens. Marches and protests, no matter what the cause, are pre-scheduled events intended to attract media attention, and journalists are mindful of that fact. These are pro-lifers, so don't expect any violence to write home about.

This 67-year-old pro-life activist at today's March for Life, who didn't want her name published—"I'm very well known, and I don't want people to know I've had an abortion," she says—lists three things to like about our new President.

1. "He's married, even though it's to that angry, hateful Michelle, who last year delivered a pro-abortion speech, a pro-abortion speech at a Planned Parenthood abortuary."

2. "He has two children, who will be shocked to learn later that he said he would be willing to kill their child."

3. "He's educated. But I have five degrees, and they mean nothing to me, just a bunch of dust piled upon nothing alongside the abortion I have to live with every day of my life."

The activist wears a child's lipstick toy around her neck, a sign of solidarity to another politician—Sarah Palin, who has stronger presidential credentials, she says: "She showed such bravery to carry a Downs Syndrome child to term at the age of 42."

"It's a Vietnam for women," says the activist of the anti-abortion fight. She counts May 6, 1974, as the day she lost everything in the war. "I aborted—killed—dismembered—my own child," she says. "I never would have done it if it were illegal. They made it seem so easy, cheap, legal, and moral. It's not."

The activist hasn't recovered from the abortion she had 34 years ago. But she's been healed by the grace of God. She was one of the lucky ones, she says: "Women who have abortions, they either kill themselves or become Christians."

High school students Elizabeth Liang, 18, Morgan Seibert, 17, and Megan Gutting, 17, took a whirlwind trip to Washington, D.C. by bus last night to participate in the march for life. The three Grand Rapids, Mich. teens, who arrived at 7 this morning, missed the inaugural festivities by a couple days—they opted to attend the protest instead of the celebration—but still shared in the excitement of their new pro-choice President.

"I love Obama," says Gutting, who carried a sign reading, "A Nation That Kills Its Own Children Is A Nation Without Hope." "But for reasons other than abortion, obviously."

"He's very positive," adds Liang, carting an "As A Former Fetus I Oppose Abortion" sign. "He's about change, and unity."

Seibert, who inscribed a Dr. Suess quote—"A Person Is A Person No Matter How Small"—on her sign, added to the Obama accolades. "I think he's what we need right now," she said.

Today is the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court case that established a woman's constitutional right to an abortion. This was a great day for pro-choice women, but the pro-lifers have always celebrated it the hardest. Today, thousands of anti-abortion activists will descend on Washington, D.C. to protest the 36-year-old decision in front of the downtown Planned Parenthood clinic, the U.S. Capitol, and the U.S. Supreme Court in the March for Life 2009. Here's a map of their protest plans.

I'll be reporting from the march throughout the day.

Photo by PinkMoose

For some, abortion activism begins at conception.

If you're under 35 years old, you are a post-Roe baby. You were born onto an abortion battleground. Both pro-choice and pro-life advocates want to recruit you into the second generation of the movement. Each side holds tactical advantages in winning your support. To choicers, you're a young person to whom legalized abortion has always been the norm. To lifers, you're a "survivor"—you've lived though your aborted "peers" have not. Below, a primer on age-appropriate outreach efforts on both sides of the movement, from conception to college applications.

—
CONCEPTION.

Publicize your pregnancy—or your abortion. Pregnant pro-lifers can photograph their fetuses for use in sidewalk anti-abortion campaigns. Face the Truth, an anti-abortion initiative promoted by the Pro-Life Action League, enlarges graphic photographs of fetuses-healthy and aborted-for display on major thoroughfares across America. One common objection to the practice-that it is a "dishonor" to the unborn-is addressed in the league's FAQ. "We honor these aborted babies' memories by exposing the cruelties they suffered," it reads. "What would truly dishonor these children would be to hide the evidence of what was done to them for fear of upsetting some people or looking 'extreme.'"

As for pro-choicers, Kierra Johnson, executive director of Choice USA, says the pro-life movement doesn't have sovereignty over the pregnant. "What makes it frustrating is that they have really simple illustrations of what being pro-life means," says Johnson. "A pregnant anybody is their symbol. For us, it's a little more complex. The picture runs the gamut for us, from young people who have decided to have children to those who decided not to carry a pregnancy to term."

—
BIRTH.

Still close to the womb but not old enough to wish they had never been born, babies are natural recruits to the pro-life position. "It's never too early to start talking about life," says Pro-Life Action League founder Joe Scheidler, a 35-year veteran of the movement who has raised seven pro-life children and 19 pro-life grandkids.

Sarah Smith Bartel, a 31-year-old Hyattsville grad student, brought her 2-year-old and 5-year-old daughters along when she held vigil outside of D.C.'s Planned Parenthood this fall during the "40 Days for Life" campaign. "When I've got my daughters with me, they have a symbolic value," says Smith Bartel, who first engaged her kids in the movement in D.C.'s annual Roe protest, the "March for Life," when they were just 1 and 3 years old.

Pro-choice advocates, meanwhile, can earn instant cred by having a baby-and proving that choice doesn't always lead to abortion. "You come across these young people who will say, 'I feel like I was an activist from the time I was born,'" says Johnson. "They'll say, 'My mom took me to a pro-choice rally when I was 2, or when she was pregnant with me.'"

—
ELEMENTARY.

Once their children reach school, parents can begin their transition from accessory to activist. "We're pretty successful with kids. They have an intrinsic knowledge that human life is valuable," adds Scheidler, who tours Catholic elementary schools around the country educating youth about fetal development. By late elementary school, Scheidler's pro-life content turns explicitly anti-abortion, with the permission of the teacher. "Having prepared them by seeing the child alive, I will show them the photos of what abortion does," says Scheidler.

Smith Bartel says that her 5-year-old developed her own activist streak only in the past four to five months. "Now that [she's] older, she has a lot of questions about what we're doing and what's going on [at the clinic]," says Smith Bartel of her precocious pro-lifer. "My daughter doesn't know what football is, but she knows what slavery is, and what racism is, and she knows what abortion is. She'll stomp around the house, saying, 'When will this stinking law end?'"

Seeds of reproductive rights awareness can also be sown "as early as first grade," with the introduction of human sexuality classes in public schools. "A lot of the anti-choice rhetoric gets heard because [pro-lifers] have more access through churches, after-school programs, and even in public schools," says Johnson, so groups like Choice USA and NARAL Pro-Choice America work legislatively to further comprehensive sex education in schools from elementary on. "I do think it starts with little kids, elementary school kids," says Johnson. "I don't mean we're going to show the STD video to a 5-year-oldŠit's not all about sex. It's about communication, self-esteem, and self-empowerment."
—
MIDDLE SCHOOL.

Hit them on their beepers. By the time kids start toting their own cell phones and opting into online social networks, pro-choice groups are ready to reach out with tech-savvy initiatives tailored by age. "The cell phone has become an important symbol of activism," says Ted Miller, communications director for NARAL Pro-Choice America. Last month, NARAL launched a new youth-oriented Web site, called Free.Will.Power, which Miller says is targeted at youths ages 16 to 24. Among its adolescent-friendly initiatives are automated text message services, YouTube videos, downloadable ringtones, a T-shirt contest, and an online quiz. "Do sexual assault survivors have access to emergency contraception, like the 'morning-after' pill in emergency rooms?" one question prompts, before answering, "I know, it's soooo not okay."

Those in the pro-life movement have also mobilized to put technology on their side. "Your generation is the first generation that can go to the bookshelf and pull off a VCR cassette, or go to a photo album and see pictures, of what you looked like before you were born," says Troy Newman, president of pro-life initiative Operation Rescue, who says that the visuals are important evidence against abortion. This is also the age that children of pro-lifers may begin to experience abortion fatigue-and rebellious tweens may defect to the pro-choice movement. "You can turn people off. They get tired of it," says Scheidler, who also says that it's important for pro-life families to take an abortion vacation once in a while. "You have to do other things sometimes," he says. "If we go on a family trip, I don't talk about it too much."

—
HIGH SCHOOL.

Adopt an activist. Most pro-choice efforts ramp up in high school, where most young adults become sexually active, making abortion a personal possibility as well as a political one. They also begin to develop an interest in social justice-and start looking to beef up their college applications. In addition to NARAL's Web-based efforts, Choice USA offers sex-ed and community-organizing training to local charter schools, and many of the Feminist Majority Foundation's college chapters adopt high school groups for reproductive rights mentoring.

Generations for Life, the youth wing of the Pro-Life Action League, encourages high school groups to raise money for pregnancy crisis centers and stage walks and hiking excursions for life. For pro-life high schoolers, the ultimate destination is Washington, D.C.—Missy Smith, a local activist who founded Wake Up (Women Against the Killing and Exploitation of Unprotected Persons) estimates that as many as 25,000 high school and college students attend a youth Mass at the Verizon Center each year on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade.

In high school, the pro-life set also focuses on abortion as a social issue-and begins folding in its anti-abortion message with such high school history class milestones as slavery and the Holocaust. "Your generation has been targeted for extinction," says Newman of the post-Roes. "Many Jewish people feel that their aunts and uncles were targeted for extinction. Many African people feel that about slavery. My generation doesn't understand that."

Photo courtesy of the Pro-Life Action League.

The foundation also breaks down the new female house members' positions on abortion, after the jump.

7 Pro-Choice Democrats:
Ann Kirkpatrick (D-AZ)
Betsy Markey (D-CO)
Suzanne Kosmas (D-FL)
Debbie Halvorson (D-IL)
Chellie Pingree (D-ME)
Dina Titus (D-NV)
Marcia Fudge (D-OH)

1 Pro-Choice Republican:
Lynn Jenkins (R-KS)

1 Anti-Choice Democrat:
Kathy Dahlkemper (D-PA)

1 Anti-Choice Republican:
Cynthia Lummis (R-WY)

I am the only customer inside Chantilly's Divine Mercy Care Pharmacy on Halloween morning, and I'm not buying. A week earlier, the pro-life outfit was blessed by a bishop, sprinkled with holy water, and courted by the national press in preparation for its Oct. 21 grand opening. Right now, it's hard up for any man off the street.

Robert Semler, pharmacist and manager, sits behind a partition separating his pharmacy from the rest of the small shop. Up front, the pharmacy's face is Pam Semler's, a nurse and pharmacist's wife whose soft features are framed by a thick blond fringe and a pair of round glasses. She is the pharmacy's sole staff member and, as a condition of employment, must "accept the moral teachings of the Roman Catholic Church." Divine Mercy Care executive director Bob Laird explains later, over the phone, that means "treating every person who comes in as if they are Christ sitting across from you." It also means that all employees must be pro-life.

As Pam bids me good morning, I break it to her that I'm not a customer. Pam hedges my first question—"business has been fine"—before deferring all other inquiries to a glossy DMC Pharmacy brochure, which provides corporate contact info along with a brief biography of Robert Semler, who does not emerge during my visit. Semler is a "long standing member of Pharmacists for Life International" whose "pro-life beliefs were solidified after hearing Fr. Frank Pavone of Priests for Life stating for Christ, 'Either you are with Me or against Me,'" the brochure reads.

I sense that Pam already knows which side of the divide I'm on as she gives me the OK to peruse the products that sit in her immaculate shop. She shuffles quietly behind me as Semler announces housekeeping tasks and indulges Pam's small talk.

"Metamucil comes in a pink lemonade flavor now," says Pam. "Imagine that."

"No, I can't," her husband replies from behind the partition.

"Sounds pretty unappetizing."

"Yes."

At an upcoming Divine Mercy Care fundraising gala, "Platinum Sponsors" who donate more than $10,000 may elect to sit at a table with Semler and his spouse. Fundraising is a significant component of the income of the DMC, which also administers a pro-life OB-GYN clinic, Fairfax's Tepeyac Family Center.

Laird says the low foot traffic is to be expected of any startup. "We're expecting the pharmacy to start slow, but we believe it will be a financial success," he says. "If we didn't expect it to be a success, we wouldn't have done it."

I spend my own audience with the Semlers in silence as I take stock of the Catholic-prepped shelves, carefully arranged with medical accoutrements (no candy, batteries, or magazines here). Many are targeted toward women—Dr. Scholl's For Her Comfort Insoles, Midol Teen Formula, Vagisil Talc-Free Deodorant Powder. A small waiting area is stocked with two white wicker chairs and a pile of Taste of Home magazines, along with a basket of blank index cards "for recipes." The female-oriented atmosphere glosses over one glaring omission: The pharmacy will not stock birth control pills or emergency contraception.

Instead, Divine Mercy Care provides its own brand of medical choice. Atop a stack of leaflets about herbal supplements sits a fact-sheet for the Doctor's Natural Therapy brand of Natural Hormone Balancing Creams. The creams, made of "Natural USP Progesterone from wild yam," offer up a natural alternative to the therapeutic effects of oral contraception and hormone replacement therapy. "Have you experienced any of these symptoms?" the fact sheet asks before listing 21 problems the ointment resolves: PMS, Hot Flashes, Irregular Menstruation, Cramping, Mood Swings, Hormone-Related Headaches, Fatigue, Irritability, Anxiety, Weight Gain, Water Retention, Confusion, Breast Tenderness, Miscarriages, Infertility, Decreased Libido, Dryness, Bone Loss, Hair Loss, Insomnia, Premature Aging.

I pause briefly at "Confusion" and wonder how the wild yam came to hold the key to curing all symptoms that ail my gender.

But Divine Mercy Care stocks a stronger alternative to birth control: information. Near the exit sits a stack of "Art of Natural Family Planning" student guides distributed by pro-life group Couple to Couple League International. I leaf through a copy as I sit on a wicker chair, waiting for another customer to arrive to provide sound bites explaining the pro-life pharmacy phenomenon. "How does contraception availability compromise your trust in a pharmacist?" I want to ask. "What role does holy water play in your choice of pharmacy?"

But the book provides more insight into the space where anti-contraceptive morality meets reality: The tutorial describes, in minute detail, the "natural" processes by which couples may have sex while avoiding pregnancy-and still adhering to the teachings of the Catholic Church. Natural Family Planning involves eschewing condoms, oral contraceptives, and the withdrawal method in favor of close watch of the woman's fertility cycle, achieved by monitoring her shifts in temperature and cataloging monthly changes to her vagina, from mucus elasticity to cervix hardness. Laird says that natural family planning helps couples continue "the marital act," "something that takes place between a man and a woman vaginally, naturally." A typical requirement for the "marital act" reads like the positioning of troops for battle: "Three normal post-peak temperatures in a rising pattern above the LTL AND the third temperature at or above the HTL OR the cervix closed and hard for three days."

The guide's moral justification for this process is more difficult to parse, with reasoning ranging from "providence" to "aesthetics." "It is God who in His providence has allowed us to learn in the late 20th century about woman's alternating fertility and infertility-and about Natural Family Planning-at the same time that other medical advances greatly increased the population survival rate," Couple to Couple explains before detailing a more compelling argument-the sex is better, too. "Contraceptive condoms (male or female), sponges, diaphragms and foams have definite problems in the area of 'aesthetics'-many couples find them downright unpleasant, and they interfere with spontaneity."

I weigh the difference between wild yam extract and estrogen, barrier methods and calculated infertile sex, "sex for pleasure" and "family planning," and wish I could find a customer to help explain her preferences. I consider the fact that on Halloween, even the staunchest pro-life customer might be moved to skip across the street to the CVS, where Kit Kats are stocked alongside condoms. Before I leave, I wonder if I can justify expensing the $24.95 book for further study. Instead, I settle on a companion piece, the "Art of Natural Family Planning Chart Booklet" ($2). I approach Pam for the sale.

"Are you going to use it?" she asks, hesitating to go back behind the counter to ring up my purchase.
Of course I'm not going to use it, I think. I'm going to skim over it, extract its detail, and use it to color my essay on your place of business.

"They're paired with the books, and we only have a limited number," Pam explains, still not making the move behind the counter. Her husband sits silent behind the partition. I eye the large stack of charts by the door, which has not opened since my arrival. "So you're not going to sell it to me?"

Pam doesn't answer me, just sighs, moves behind the counter, and punches in the data. I stand in silence for several minutes as Pam moves through the arduous sale; the item's ID number, 123-456, doesn't register correctly in the pharmacy's system. Pam follows a dozen curt orders from her husband before dialing a number on the telephone for outside help. I offer to pay for the booklet without a receipt.

At last I leave with booklet in hand. Within it are hundreds of tidy checkable boxes for tracking one's "coitus record" and "mucus sensations."

Photo by Gnarles Monkey.

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Planned Parenthood's Schumacher Health Center, 1108 16th St. NW.

This 16th St. clinic, a stone's throw from the White House, is the area's leading source for affordable women's health care, birth control, and abortion services. For the same reasons, the center falls victim to the largest unofficial barrier to contraception access: The "sidewalk helper."

Roshan Anthonypillai, who fills a weekday 8 to 9 a.m. shift at the clinic, is dedicated to helping women who come to Planned Parenthood seeking to terminate their pregnancies. But Anthonypillai works as a different sort of abortion counselor; he is a representative of "40 Days For for Life," a national anti-abortion campaign that has organized activists in 170 cities to hold vigil outside abortion clinics from Sept. 24 through Nov. 2 this year. Every day before work, Anthonypillai stands on the sidewalk outside the clinic, holding rosary beads and guarding a few trinkets arranged at the trunk of a tree: a small makeshift crucifix and a paper bag luminary adorned with a red cross.

"By standing here, I think I've convinced two to three women not to have an abortion," says Anthonypillai, a 35-year-old Ashburn resident and a Catholic. Volunteers report those numbers back to 40 Days, which keeps a tally of saved lives; the campaign claims to have stopped as many as 268 abortions nationwide this year. Many more women, Anthonypillai says, have made the wrong choice. "Every young woman that I've seen, personally, coming in here, is coming to get an abortion," he says of the clinic, which also offers gynecological exams, STD testing, and birth control. The clinic, meanwhile, keeps tabs on people like Anthonypillai: It staffs escorts to shield patients from protesters and sends visitors through a metal detector before letting them into the waiting room, where no cell phone use is permitted.

A little after 9 a.m. brings the changing of the abortion clinic guard; Anthonypillai hands off duties to Sarah Smith Bartel, a Hyattsville graduate student who arrives with her two daughters, Clare, 4, and Kate, 2. The girls take turns sipping from a thermos of hot chocolate as their mother explains her position. I'm trying to offer these women the right choice, one that recognizes the true femininity and essence of womanhood," says Smith Bartel. "And, of course, preserves the life of the unborn child." But though Anthonypillai is happy to head off to work, he says he has no plans to suspend the vigil come Election Day. "I'll still be here, praying," he says.

KNOCK-UP RISK: Depends on the shift.

a) hyperbole
b) cattiness

To wit: The homepage says it provides info that the "'drive-by' pharmacy media choose to ignore or misreport." I didn't even know the pharmacy media existed, much less a conspiratorial pharmacy media bent upon aborting fetuses along with The Truth. PFLI goes on to refer to wonderful feminist blog Feministing as a "radical abortoholic website."

The best part of the Web site, though, is the "Hate Mail" section, also referred to as "Stupid Sayings." Here, the Webmaster really gives it to the radical abortoholics who write in with their baby-killing gripes. PFLI introduces one letter by noting, it has been a little while since we got some good hate mail from these advocates of love, peace and Barrie Hussein-style Infanticide." Another complaint receives a rating of "8 red (commie) stars on the Stupid Scale." And another letter, written by a "law student" (scare quotes PFLI's), receives the damning response, "Kiss your mama with that mouth?"

What professional pharmacy would want to be affiliated with this organization?

The executive director of Divine Mercy Care, Robert Laird, notes that the absent items won't affect the DMC's mission of “Bringing the Healing Presence of Christ through Healthcare” because, well, "Birth control is not health care." Cigarettes and porn mags: also not health care.

Laird added that the pharmacy will be "catering to a special niche of people who like the pro-life message in their business." Laird says the DMC will neither fill a birth control prescription nor direct customers to another pharmacy that might help them.

The Post wrote its own story about the pharmacy back in June.