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Dear Michele Bachmann,
I know you are a political figure that gets a lot of attention. I know that, in the past, you have received a lot of heckling from, well, liberal people like me. I (we) tend to disagree with a lot of your politics, and think of you as being anti-feminist for making statements like school-based health clinics are actually “sex clinics” designed to funnel more 13 year olds to have abortion at Planned Parenthood without parental consent. Um, huh?
Anyways, I get that we don’t see eye-to-eye on a lot of issues that are really important to me, but for some reason I felt especially icky seeing that you had your husband send an email out to supporters in effort to defend your honor. In response to an anti-Michele Bachmann event entitled “F--- Michele Bachmann” – which, I will grant you, is disrespectful and even vulgar – you had to have your husband take it to the internets in outrage? Why? You are a Member of Congress – an elected official serving in a high office within the federal government! You are a powerful person! It’s your name on that plaque outside your office on Capitol Hill! Why, oh why, did you feel it necessary to have your husband as messenger the minute the conversation changes to sex, and honor, and respect?
I think this leaves me feeling queasy in a totally different way than your regular politics. I think that despite promoting policies that were anti-woman, at least I knew that you are a powerful woman. So my question is, since when do powerful women trot out the Disney defense and have their male partners stick up for them when it has to do with sex/character? Just, ugh…Even from you, I expected more…
It only takes a minute – if you live in Pennsylvania, we need your help to convince leaders in the PA House of Representatives to support the Healthy Youth Act! Click here to send an email to your rep, and to the House leaders who haven’t committed to call the bill to the floor for a vote (the only way it can move forward).
Photo: marten_janson
This story made me queasy: a young woman in DC was shot over the weekend because the shooter was mad that he couldn’t get her phone number. (BTW, she is currently doing well, but surgeons still need to remove a bullet from her ankle.) Totally horrific and unnecessary, but also super sexist. This woman was walking with friends when a man asked for her phone number. She said no, and he said he would start shooting if she didn’t give him her number, and then opened fire. Um, excuse me?
Watching the segment on the local news last night made me think about all the times I’ve been catcalled on the streets, ignored said catcallers, and then been called a “dumb b*tch” or “stupid sl*t” or whatever choice words the guy decides to use. In my experience, it seems that the men who do this feel like I owe them something – a smile, a date, a phone number, whatever – and when I don’t give it to them, they’re allowed to belittle me, or in the case of this young woman, commit an act of violence. Just. Messed up.
From billboards to bus rides -- as Sarah and others have written about before, the Georgia Right to Life group recently launched an anti-abortion campaign specifically targeting African American communities. Well, it looks like a new component to this broad campaign in the southern states is taking off – this summer, “Pro-Life Freedom Rides” will be taking place between Washington, DC, Birmingham, AL and Atlanta, GA. According to the Montgomery Advisor, a group of ministers is planning to make an announcement this morning about anti-choice “Freedom Rides” that will attempt to link the Civil Rights Movement with efforts to deny a woman’s right to obtaining abortion services.
Go check out Heidi Williamson’s post on RH Reality Check on Black Abortion: Battleground Atlanta. It details the anti-choice legislation that was introduced this year in Georgia, coupled with the horrific billboards. Williamson points out that the anti-choice brigade often rolls out their most extreme legislation in the south, where it is most likely to pass, before moving through the rest of the country. This year already it’s been the billboards and the legislation. With these so-called “Freedom Rides,” I would certainly take Williamson’s piece one step further and argue that the conservative anti-choice movement is going to be focusing on African American communities in the south – trying both to gain new constituents and new ground while in reality just again attempting to deny women essential reproductive health care.
It blows my mind that anyone – and much less a member of the Commonwealth’s General Assembly – could say something so absolutely terrible. He said this during a press conference to oppose funding for Planned Parenthood.
No matter what you think of Planned Parenthood (97% of their services, by the way, are focused on prevention care such as Pap tests, breast cancer screenings, and contraceptive services), it disgusts me to think that Marshall would get up in front of a group of Christians and claim: “The number of children who are born subsequent to a first abortion with handicaps has increased dramatically. Why? Because when you abort the first born of any, nature takes its vengeance on the subsequent children…In the Old Testament, the first born of every being, animal and man, was dedicated to the Lord. There's a special punishment Christians would suggest.”
This year, members of the General Assembly have really climbed up onto their morality high horses are unfairly targeting Planned Parenthood. But this statement just crosses the line. If you'd like to help support the amazing work of Planned Parenthood VA, click here to see a list of bills they’re working on.
As has been mentioned a few times here on Amplify before, crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs) are fake clinics set up to scare women out of making the decision to get an abortion and even to use birth control. These centers are the same ones that you see advertising “Pregnant and Scared?” and offering free pregnancy tests and “counseling”, and even though they’re set up to look legitimate, are generally not medical offices and typically promote unbiased and medically inaccurate information. One of their favorites is that abortion causes breast cancer, which is absolutely false. Oh yeah – and many CPCs also receive boatloads of our tax dollars. Thanks, government.
A few weeks ago I married my sweetheart in a beautiful outdoor civil ceremony. We’ve been together for years and have been talking about marriage for just as long: did we want to be married? Is it fair to enter into “opposite marriage” when same-sex couples in most states can’t? How do we throw a fun party while not getting sucked into the draining wedding industrial complex? What does marriage entail for couples’ finances? Family obligations? Names?As blogger m_chandler let us know, the Pittsburg Board of Education voted a few weeks ago to have a comprehensive sex education policy in schools. This is a huge accomplishment for Pittsburg (and all the youth activists who took a stand!) but the rest of Pennsylvania is largely still lagging behind. The state gets a big fat F on its sex ed report card due to the harmful abstinence-only funding coming into the state and an incomplete policy: Pennsylvania has no teaching standards for sex education.
Florida—the state best known for sunny beaches and spring break—is becoming known for its horrible abstinence-only policies about sex education. As information comes to light about all the sexual health misinformation being taught in Florida’s classrooms (and as we are reminded that the volume of harmful abstinence-only money funneling into the state is second only to the amount pouring into Texas), it’s heartening that there is a coalition standing up for Florida’s youth.
It's a good time for this...the sexual health situation in Florida is particularly bad right now. The state currently ranks sixth highest in unintended pregnancies and second highest in HIV/AIDS rate in the nation. Beyond that, I’ve heard from advocates on the ground in Florida that young people, while lacking factual sexual health information, have been subjected to sexual health myths like “drinking a capful of bleach will prevent against the spread of HIV/AIDS” (heard from a 14 year old boy in Miami), or “sitting in pans of bleach cures genital herpes” (info from teen girls in Jacksonville). Other lies being spread as truths on the bus or around town: smoking pot or drinking mountain dew will prevent against getting a female pregnant, and, astonishingly, if you put a little bit of earwax in a woman’s vagina, you could tell if she had an STI. Given all this, plus the $13 million for failed abstinence-only programs in the state last year alone, it’s no surprise that Florida gets consistent F’s on its report card.
The Healthy Teens Campaign in Florida is fighting back against all the rampant misinformation by trying to get better sex ed in schools. The Healthy Teens Act would require Florida public schools that already teach information about sexually transmitted infections, family planning, and pregnancy to provide medically-accurate and comprehensive sex education - including facts about abstinence and methods of preventing unintended pregnancy and the spread of diseases.
If you live in Florida, go here to send a message to your state legislator urging their support for the Healthy Teens Act. You can also forward the alert onto friends-- the Florida legislative session is a short 60 days, so legislators need to hear from as many people as possible now. Fight the earwax myth and all the failed funds...Support the Healthy Teens Act today!
