Comments on: State legislators want to get the government out of dudes’ lives but up into your ladybusiness

By: Weekend Reading « Backslash Scott Thoughts

Weekend Reading « Backslash Scott Thoughts — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 17:12:04 +0000

[...] State legislators want the government out of your business, unless your business is ladybusiness. [...]

By: wini

wini — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 21:22:09 +0000

I always forget what the AMA really is, thanks for the reminder.

By: Historiann

Historiann — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 19:04:01 +0000

Here's the Doonesbury series on the new Texas abortion law. The LA Times, like many papers, is choosing to publish this series on the op-ed page rather than in the funny papers. You know the ladybusiness: it's none of the newspapers' business, although Garry Trudeau is only writing about real life laws as applied to real life women! Would that state legislatures were so decorous with our ladybusiness. . .

By: Susan

Susan — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 17:48:59 +0000

This makes me so sick it’s hard to think rationally. i do wonder why anyone would choose to practice medicine in Texas, however.

But I think Perpetua’s comment on the general rights of pregnant women is very important. Somehow, our society has decided that once you are pregnant, your fetus always trumps you, under all circumstances, and those brilliant state legislators are ready to tell you what is best for your fetus.

By: rustonite

rustonite — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 17:36:14 +0000

I once knew a state legislator. He graduated from the same high school a year before me (1999), went to college, then ran for the state house, and was lucky enough to be running against a complete moron who had an affair in a state park. Spent three years in the house, did nothing, and then resigned to become a lobbyist. That’s some quality politicking.

By: Perpetua

Perpetua — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 17:30:02 +0000

I might have said this here before, in another thread, but it bears repeating. These sorts of horrifying stories (like @ Dutchie’s) are part of a larger story of the diminishing rights of pregnant women on all levels – what I mean is, this erosion of rights isn’t just about termination rights but a woman’s complete lack of right to bodily autonomy during pregnancy and childbirth, including the criminalization of drug use by pregnant women and court-ordered C-sections (the stories that pregnant women tell about their birthing experiences in many hospitals are hair-raising; while it’s a controversial term, there is a reason why some women are talking about ‘birth rape’). All of these invasions have been justified as protecting the fetus (against the poor and ignorant decision making skills of its mother). My point is this: it’s been happening all over the places on a variety of fronts before now, and many OBs have been complicit in the coercion and abuse of women (that’s part of my answer to @quixote’s question). Of course, it appears to be getting worse. Forcing physicians to provide misinformation is repellent, and (to me) the most terrifying aspect is that our dim-bulb representatives appear to believe that it IS medically true. We also need to start confronting the deliberate misinformation/ propaganda loop that is eating away at our public intellectual culture, such that it is.

By: quixote

quixote — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 16:35:16 +0000

I’m not sure where I saw this. Someone pointed out that medical rape is exactly the same sort of state-sponsored torture that we tell doctors to refuse to participate in when it happens in acknowledged dictatorships.

Where is the outrage among doctors and their organizations that they’re being turned into tools of state-sponsored torture right here in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave? Well? Where is it?

Those who say, “I’m so sorry, but I could lose my license” can now understand what motivated some doctors in, say, the USSR, who consigned sane people to mental institutions.

By: Historiann

Historiann — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 15:04:29 +0000

The AMA is a lobbying organization designed to protect physicians’ perks. (Fratguy is not a member, in case you’re wondering.) It is NOT an organization that sponsors rigorous reviews of the state of the field, unlike various subspecialty organizations (the AAP, ACOG, etc.)

You’d think there were self-respecting converative ob/gynecologists who would have stepped forward in Texas to halt the misinformation. Then again, the afactual bull$hit only serves to highlight that the required ultrasound & little song-and-dance number are a political imposition & not medically necessary or useful.

By: wini

wini — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 14:31:16 +0000

In addition to what has been said above about state legislators, what also didn’t surprise me is that Texas doesn’t have some sort of requirement for an outside review of “factual” “scientific” statements.

The information that was read to that woman was untrue (abortion raises risk for breast cancer & the mental health effects of abortion) and/or so misleading as to be untrue (only warning of the risks of abortion and not the much greater risks of pregnancy). Apparently there is no part of the good ole boy system whereby things that your doctor says to you have to be medically accurate.

Is there anything that AMA is looking into? I mean, really.

By: Tim Lacy

Tim Lacy — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 00:57:42 +0000

And seconded on the dimness of state legislator types. A sad crew, across our 50 states. – L