In this Bloggingheads conversation between BeliefNet’s Steven Waldman and Slate’s William Saletan, two dudes demonstrate why two dudes should not film themselves talking off-the-cuff about abortion for an hour. They call the segment “Two Men, No Uteruses.” Waldman and Saletan putting their headsets together to figure out how to convince women not to be so aborty? I call it torture.

Broadsheet’s Amy Benfer sums up the low point of the dialogue, which begins around the 26-minute mark:

Read More “Prevent Abortion By Selling Babies!” »

DoubleX is collecting memories of women who received abortions from Dr. George Tiller, who was murdered in his Witchita, Kan. church on Sunday morning. The stories provide a good deal of insight into why women receive late-term abortions, and why Tiller’s work was so important. Tiller’s clinic was one of only three to provide late-term abortions in the United States.

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.

Read More “Memories of Late-Term Abortions” »

Feminism: Oooooooooover it.

In this edition of Sexist Beatdown, Sady of Tiger Beatdown and myself of the Sexist talk of DoubleX, Slate’s new online magazine for women—it’s just like us, except we’re the problem! Also, people who don’t report their own rapes. It is mostly them (and not, saaaay, rapists) who are the problem.

Oh, problems. They create so many pageviews, which, in turn, solve our main problem ($$$). I think it’s about time for Sady and I to CASH IN: What’s the problem with DoubleX, anyway?

SADY: hello! are you ready to speak? or are you too busy KILLING FEMINISM?

AMANDA: i actually just thew up a blog post, which, as you shall see, is what i actually think is “killing” “feminism.” let me start with the Bust quote on DoubleX’s dead feminism obsession, though: “We don’t know about you, but we’re disappointed. (And we also need to figure out the best way to fight off this new undead feminism before it eats our brains.)”

Read More “Sexist Beatdown: DoubleX Is Killing Feminist Blogs Which Are Killing Feminism Edition” »

Slate, which has been rolling out its female-specific content in the form of the XX Factor blog for months, has finally relaunched the feature in full-fledged magazine form. I haven’t fully dived into “DoubleX” yet, but it already registers one improvement on its predecessor: You don’t have to jump over to Slate’s alien message board “The Fray” to write a comment—comment forms now pop up directly beneath the post.

… But thats not all! DoubleX is doing even more to encourage you to fill out a comment form. In an e-mail last month, the magazine’s editors informed loyal readers that they’re “going to start having cocktail meetups and other fun events for our core commenters in New York and D.C.”

So if having your voice heard ain’t enough—drink specials?

According to Slate’s William Saletan, whose abortiony rhetorical stylings my colleagues and I have discussed at length, “Sixteen million girls are missing in China.”

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?

Read More ““Sixteen Million Girls Are Missing in China”” »

Why do women stay in abusive relationships? That’s the question Slate’s Linda Hirshman poses in her review of the new abuse memoir Crazy Love. Hirshman thinks the question is a “terribly important one” to ask women, and that it is a “mark of respect” to do so.

And yet, Hirshman’s question remains a rhetorical in her review of Leslie Morgan Steiner’s book—because Hirshman never attempts to answer it. She writes:

Read More “Why Do Women Stay in Abusive Relationships?” »

Unborn fetuses: Your lives are in Saletan’s hands.

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.
Read More “Sexist Beatdown: Debating William Saletan Edition” »

Getting your baby in there doesn’t come cheap.

In his Slate column this week, William Saletan discussed what happens when biological parents stop paying the surrogates who are carrying their fetuses. SurroGenesis is a California surrogacy service that sets up infertile couples with willing replacement mamas, and facilitates payments between the two parties—well, it used to. It recently announced that its bank account is empty, along with $2 million in payments infertile families had intended for the keepers of their growing fetuses. Dozens of women currently undergoing the arduous and expensive task of carrying another couple’s child are now left without a paycheck.

How much is the going rate for a womb rental, anyway? Check out SurroGenesis’ surrogacy fees—including $2,000 for “termination” (not guaranteed) and $5,000 for “Loss of Reproductive Organs (very rare)”—after the jump.

Read More “How Much Does it Cost to Rent a Womb?” »

This week, Slate’s Ad Report Card attempted to explain the unexplainable: The commercial for the “6 Hour Power” energy drink, which ad-grader Seth Stevenson suggests is possibly “the most sexually explicit ad ever.”

Watch the commercial here, please.

After counting down 6 Hour Power’s explicit ways (”You rarely see skirts this short or cleavage this prominent outside the confines of soft-core porn”; “At the height of his excitement, leaning back in his chair, the boss flips his necktie over his shoulder”), Stevenson lights on a more pressing concern: This ad does not make any fucking sense:

Read More “6 Hour Power Secretary Ad: Sexy, Nonsensical” »

* Slate intrudes on the Sexist beat, telling you how to donate a kidney through your vagina (”Good news: You can now get a kidney from a vagina. . . . The kidney doesn’t start in the vagina, of course”), and asking whether sharing a bed with your baby is a good idea (Answer: No).

* Progress! DC Nearlyweds refers to “bridesmaids” as “bridesmaids,” not as an acronym shared by “Bowel Movement”!

*Girls Gone Wild creator Joe Francis goes wild, evades taxes, gets arrested. Say hi to Daschle for us! [via Feministing].

* A 26-year-old Montgomory County couple was indicted for prostituting minors in Gaithersburg and Washington: “U.S. Attorney Rod Rosenstein says the two created a sex-trafficking scheme where the three girls were drugged using cocaine, PCP, and marijuana or alcohol before having sex in Montgomery County or D.C.”Lloyd Royal and Angela Bentolila are also accused of forcing the girls to sell cocaine, forcing them to have sex with Royal, and using their home and car for prostitution.

* Photo by Trevor Blake.