Nelson: FAIL
by Amanda Marcotte, RH Reality Check
December 13, 2009 - 11:26pm (Print)
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Tom Coburn thinks we're soft for caring about women
On this episode of Reality Cast, I'll be interviewing Diana Kasdan from the ACLU about a jail that put one of its inmates in danger of miscarriage. Also, the ongoing abortion debate in health care reform causes Anderson Cooper to ask about the reality of abortion, and I revisit the Sex, Really podcast as they romanticize abstinence until marriage.
I have to highlight this clip of Tom Coburn, because it's a classic example of how anti-feminism is being used as a tool to attack health care. He's complaining about the Mikulski amendment to make sure that breast cancer screening stays covered for women 40 and up.
- coburn *
Like how he implied that if women get breast cancer screening, men won't get diddly squat? Classic conservative move. The truth is that men will get more access to health care right with women, but Coburn is encouraging men to shoot themselves in the foot in order to deprive women of something they need.
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Well, none of us can say we didn't see this coming. There was no reason to think the that toxic mix of crazed sexism and opposition to health care reform that resulted in the Stupak-Pitts amendment wouldn't crop up again in the Senate. And just as in the House, the Democrat who has brought it to the fore is someone whose commitment to health care reform is questionable, but whose commitment to oppressing women is unquestionable. Senator Ben Nelson, a Democrat with a 0 rating from NARAL, introduced a Senate version of the Stupak-Pitts amendment. Here's Rachel Maddow, covering the insanity.
- nelson 1 *
That was Senator Mikulski, kicking butt. On the whole, the Nelson amendment hasn't received even close to as much panicking as the Stupak-Pitts amendment, in part because observers think it's mostly a symbolic gesture on Nelson's part. Certainly, the whole thing had a creepy gloss to it. Nelson practically bragged about having the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops "review" it. You really have to love the mental image of a middle-aged man handing over an anti-woman amendment to a bunch of celibate men so they can make sure that it maximizes the financial penalty for women who find themselves pregnant against their will. Or, I love it, because I love it when people are reminded how much the anti-choice mentality is about male dominance over women.
Far be it for me to find a silver lining in all of this, but I figure that after all the relentless coverage of this issue, you guys deserve some positivity in your lives. Or at least some inspiration to find new and better ways to start reminding people of how important abortion rights are, and how completely screwed up our opponents are on this issue.
Anderson Cooper covered the issue by actually covering the basic realities of abortion. It was shocking to see, since we so very rarely actually get a look at abortion from a pragmatic point of view. Cooper actually decided to go to Planned Parenthood in New York City and gasp! Talk to providers.
- nelson 2 *
I'll confess that I was surprised to find out that even in New York, providers and patients are in so much danger that they have to have security. It's useful to remember at this point that 87% of insurance companies cover abortion. But also that a lot of women probably don't realize that they're covered. So Planned Parenthood establishing that up front is no small thing.
- nelson 3 *
The revelation that Planned Parenthood takes the time to make sure that someone owns her decision and makes the right one for her may seem like old news to you, but I suspect it's a revelation to much of the audience watching this. After all, most Americans have been trained to think that people who provide abortion are somehow bad guys. In reality, they're often the only people who are really offering sincere help to women facing unintended pregnancies.
Cooper then took the time to demystify the actual environment and process of an abortion.
- nelson 4 *
The interesting thing about the price of an abortion is that it's right in that spot where it's inexpensive by medical standards, but still out of the price range of many women. That's why the Stupak-Pitts amendment is so cruel. Since this procedure is so common, it's a matter of maximizing the number of people who get financially screwed for no real reason, except to punish them for having sex while female.
- nelson 5 *
The problem with anti-choice rhetoric around abortion is that since it's attached to sexuality so much, it's easy for them to pretend it's a luxury item. As if it were a vibrator or some lingerie, a sexual enhancement of some sort. But of course, it's not such thing, and as that exchange shows, the only impact of restricting funding is that it costs women more money and makes the procedure more complicated and painful for them. Which in turn demonstrates that anti-choice moves like Stupak-Pitts have only one goal and result in mind, which is punishing women for having sex. Hopefully, Cooper's just-the-facts approach will help clue people in.
The other good news is that the Senate voted down the amendment. But we still have to reconcile the House and Senate bills.
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* insert interview *
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It's been awhile since we've visited the Sex, Really podcast. But rest assured, Laura Sessions Stepp is still being paid by The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy in order to promote her rigid, gender-stereotyped notions about sexuality. Namely, that women who have sex without obtaining some kind of strong commitment and hopefully some jewelry to seal the deal are hopeless sluts that will never find love. And though the National Campaign is ostensibly here to help teenage girls and women prevent unplanned pregnancy, Sessions Stepp remains mostly uninterested in methods that are proven to work, namely contraception usage. Oh, they've covered it some. But now she's back where she wants to be, promoting abstinence until marriage.
We've heard the horror stories that haunt Sessions Stepp before: young women who have sex without extracting payment first in the form of very expensive dinners, girls who have had casual sex spending Friday nights alone like the virgins do, college aged guys who don't want to get married yet. And now for the pay-off: saccharine sweet stories about how the only thing you need to do to have a perfect life is not have sex until you're married.
- sex really 1 *
Which is her way of accidentally tipping us off to the fact that this podcast extolling the virtues of abstinence has no grounding in reality. I'm sure the people she interviews are real, sure, but they define the exception to the rule. Most people who vow abstinence as teenagers change their mind. Therefore the people interviewed are exceptions to the rule, outliers who can't tell us anything about how most people can or should conduct themselves in the world.
Her first guest is a Mormon woman who waited until marriage, though she wants to take time to scare us with frightful stories about kissing boys without getting the dinner or commitment payment up front.
- sex really 2 *
I think the maudlin music behind Echo's confession that she kissed boys she didn't intend to marry was my favorite part. Oh, the tragedy! Oh, the humanity! Boys got kissed and didn't have to pay for it by pretending to love you, or at least buy you dinner.
Sessions Stepp wants to call Echo the "poster child" for what she calls, and I'm not kidding, "hot chastity". The implication is that if you don't have sex, that's hotter than having sex, in the sense that staying out of water is wetter than getting in it. This is the story used to imply that Echo's got it better than you fornicators.
- sex really 3 *
This is why the concept of "hot chastity" is so silly. I don't doubt that kiss was hot, but the implication is that the rest of us don't have access to those kinds of emotions or moments, a statement that is easy to disprove. People have these feelings after having sex. People fall in love after having their hearts broken. Love tends to crop up for people all the time, no matter how much sex they've had.
The attempts to romanticize Echo's story and make it something that all women everywhere should want are also insulting. I'm glad that Echo's choices worked out for her, but no amount of dramatic music is going to distract most of us from the cold, hard facts. And that is that Echo's husband is 15 years older than her, and she's had a crush on him since she was 9 and he was 24, and that this is all interlaced with Mormon-specific ideas about how you know who your eternal spouse is. That works for Echo, but for the rest of us, the details of the story couldn't be further from what we want romantically, and frankly, the idea of falling in love with your husband at age 9 is a little creepy.
The other stories she covers are just as odd. Which isn't to say that the people in them are bad or anything. I'm sure they're great. But it goes to show that even when trying to paint abstinence as a viable option, all you're going to end up doing is sending the message that it falls outside of the range of life choices most of us are willing to accept for ourselves.
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And now for the Wisdom of Wingnuts, come again version. Media Czech at Barefoot and Progressive found this video from a self-appointed prophet, explaining how it is that most of us aren't going to get into the Rapture lottery.
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If this is true, then the Rapture will come and go without anyone noticing, since the number of people eligible is so tiny. You'd think that if god wanted to make a dramatic statement with the Rapture, he'd rapture enough people for it to be a noteworthy event.
Follow Amanda Marcotte on Twitter, @amandamarcotte
