The Importance of Marriage to Middle Income Americans

A new and devastating study on the declining marriage rates of middle income Americans was released last week and here is the transcript.

Highly-educated Americans (those with a college degree or better) have a much higher rate of marriage and the author explains why:

First, they have access to better-paying and more stable work than their less-educated peers. This is important because marriage still depends on money — especially the financial success and stable employment of men.

Second, highly educated Americans are more likely to hold the bourgeois virtues – self-control, a high regard for education, and a long-term orientation — that are crucial to maintaining a marriage in today’s cultural climate.

Third, highly educated Americans are now more likely to attend church or to be engaged in a meaningful civic organization than their less educated peers. This type of civic engagement is important because being connected to communities of memory and mutual aid increases men and women’s odds of getting and staying married.

Finally, highly educated Americans are increasingly prone to adopt a marriage mindset — marked, for instance, by an aversion to divorce and nonmarital pregnancy, and a willingness to stick it out in a marriage — that generally serves them well through the ups and downs of married life. They recognize that they and their children are more likely to thrive — and to succeed in life — if they get and stay married.

Children raised in single parent households have few resources when times are tough. Their parents are poorer--there's power in pairs--and less able to help children adjust to the adult world. And these adults are more willing and prone to accept government aid. The rise in unmarried women with children who are Democrats (who want to redistribute wealth) is not without cause.

The gay marriage debate of the last decade has taken the spotlight off this pressing issue.

Indeed, the biggest marriage story among ordinary Americans is that cohabitation is mounting a major challenge to marriage as the preferred site for childbearing and co-residence in Middle America (as well as in many poor communities). This is disturbing because children and cohabitation do not mix. Children born to cohabiting parents are at least twice as likely to see their parents break up before they turn five, and they are much more likely to suffer educational and emotional problems, compared to children born into married homes. Finally, children in cohabiting households are at least three times more likely to be physically, sexually, or emotionally abused than children in intact, married families. And yet scholars estimate that more than 40 percent of American children will spend some time as the wards of cohabiting adults (one of whom is often unrelated).

That Change Isn't Working for the Moonbats, Either

Shorter Echidne: Wah, wah, wah. Why can't we tell half the voters to f*ck off?

I find it astonishing that the same people who spent years telling us that the minority had rights, too, are now complaining because the President of Us All is supposed to actually give a shit about American citizens, even those who didn't vote for him. You got 53% of the vote, moonbats. That means almost half the country didn't vote for your guy, and the elections of 2010 are shaping up to be a good face-smashing for your side because a lot of the people who did vote for your guy now aren't happy with him.

Look, you guys wanted to govern, so govern. But don't complain because the rest of us don't like what you wanted or where you want to take us. Don't cry because we resist your "change," which is destroying the economy. Don't whinge because the electorate didn't take a hard turn to the left just because they bought Obama's lies. It's still a democracy, even if you don't like it.

Tina Brown: Conservative Women Aren't Real Feminists

WTH is wrong with feminists? Tina Brown offers Exhibit A for why so many young women don't self-identify as feminists. If you don't fit the abortion-lovin' mold, it doesn't matter what else you believe or how many hurdles you jump, you can't be a feminists.

From Hot Air:

a friendly reminder from the editor of “The Daily Beast” that no matter how diverse the GOP becomes, the authenticity card will always be there to discredit its candidates. Four huge wins by Republican women over male opponents? Oh well: If you’re not pro-choice then you’re not a feminist, no matter how much power you may have or how hard you may have worked to get it. The irony is, of those four, the only one for whom gender became an issue was Haley, and that was only because the Carolina sleaze machine started tossing sex smears at her in desperation. Angle was the “tea-party candidate,” not the “woman tea-party candidate,” and Fiorina and Whitman are already nationally famous as CEOs. Had Will Folks and Larry Marchant left Haley alone, she would have been known as the good-government Sanford disciple. Gender wasn’t otherwise relevant in any race, except in the most superficial sense of signaling to voters that this is “something different” in a year when being something different from the usual Washington dreck is good.

No matter how diverse the GOP becomes, it's not really diverse. Black Republicans are oreos, successful women aren't "real" feminists, and Hispanic GOPers are "cocoanuts." The problem isn't the diversity of the party. The problem is that Democrats will still argue about those racist, sexist Republicans no matter who joins the party.

How Dare Pro-Lifers Call Themselves Feminists!

My earliest altercation with Amanda Marcotte was over a series of posts she did decrying Feminists for Life for having the audacity to say they are feminists who--gasp!--don't believe in abortion. At the time, I hadn't a clue that linking to Amanda's screed would garner so many nasty comments from women (it was a deluge), but it was quite informative to witness first hand the callous attitude such "women" have for life in general and the lives of both women and babies in particular.

It's nearly four years later, and Feminists for Life is still causing consternation among the pro-abort feminists. This time, Echidne of the Snakes has her rattles in a twist because this organization of obviously not feminists thinks that supporting women in "refusing to choose" abortion is a bad thing. The most peculiar thing about Echidne's arguments is something basically every feminist does: they assume women must have sex and that anything that doesn't prevent the typical consequence of sex (i.e., pregnancy) is actually oppression.

This has always seemed like such a strange argument to me, considering the same women usually rush on to explain how economically burdensome children are and that being forced to actually live with and raise the offspring one casually produced is just downright unfair. What makes this argument so peculiar is that we usually aren't talking about the hard cases--rape, incest, life of the mother--but rather, sex that the woman chose to engage in.

Most girls get the birds and bees talk around the age of 10, and are fully informed about contraception by 14 or 15. During that five years, girls have been exposed to so many pro-sex images, from pictures to text, that if they don't think having sex with whoever is normal, then they must really be sick.

But what if we didn't spend all that time and money convincing 14-year-olds that having sex with their 17-year-old boyfriends was normal and nothing to be ashamed of? What if we spent the time telling them that as children, they probably shouldn't be engaging in risky, life-changing behavior that could end them up with unintended pregnancies for which killing the children is really, really not a good thing to do? My guess would be that we could have fewer children f*cking if we spend at least the same amount of time explaining to the 14-year-olds about the lifetime consequences of having sex with someone just for fun as we do teaching them the joys of fisting, for example. But then, I guess, that would be "slut shaming," as feminists call it, and we certainly don't want girls to feel bad about having sex with guys that they love or like or just met. Because, you know, sex is fun and pregnancies can be terminated and you'll never, ever, ever feel bad about that 20 minute procedure.

This is the world feminists want us to live in, a world where having sex is a meaningless activity and pregnancy is a really weird coincidence, not a consequence. In this world, thinking girls and boys and men and women should refrain from having sex unless they are prepared to be tied to that person forever means you "hate sex," and loving sex means that you don't think it's any more significant than farting. But mostly, in this world, feminists can't tolerate the idea that some women would think equality is a cool thing for women after birth...and before. That's just anti-feminism. Or something.

I Think Amanda Marcotte's Head Just Exploded...

after reading about Raquel Welch's new book.

Welch has written a book, "Raquel: Behind the Cleavage," which might just stand out on bookstore shelves. We need it to!...

Further, what she writes knocks the glimmer off the rose of so-called "sexual freedom." The concept, ushered in by the pill, she says, "has taken the caution and discernment out of choosing a sexual partner, which used to be the equivalent of choosing a life partner. Without a commitment, the trust and loyalty between couples of childbearing age is missing, and obviously leads to incidents of infidelity. No one seems immune."

I'm not one of those pro-lifers who is anticontraception. I think that contraception does give a woman a certain degree of control about when and whether to have children and that the power of that is important for women to get to do other things in their lives that they want to do.

But having said that, the sad truth is that the sexual revolution has done more to dehumanize women than anything of the last hundred years. The rise of sex without love or responsibility has caused women (and men) to do things with their bodies that the vast majority would never have thought about doing were it not for contraception and abortion.

I've been castigated repeatedly by the likes of Amanda Marcotte for suggesting that women can and should say "no" to sex when it is outside marriage, where both partners have a commitment to a lifelong relationship. To scratch the itch, then find oneself connected to a guy one doesn't know, must be a disgusting and nightmarish thing. But complaining that the contraception didn't work is childish and, frankly, the least of the woman's problems. Why have sex with a person that you don't want to be linked to for life? And this isn't even talking about divorced parents, which is an entirely different type of problem. How on earth can a person be so flippant with one's body as to give it to anyone who has the slightest appeal, or perhaps only convenience?

None of this is to excuse men for doing the same thing for centuries. But if men's biological history is any indication, not being responsible for bearing children tends to make a person less responsible with their sexuality than knowing that you could be bearing and caring for this person's children for decades to come. Most men aren't so irresponsible. They desire a wife and family. But our society seems to have evolved into a system supporting, through entertainment and politics, the very basest of instincts of mankind. For a presidential candidate to say he wouldn't want his children "punished" with a baby, and that that justifies killing the punishment, should have made most voters recoil. How can a man who says he wants citizens to trust him with so much power hold life in such contempt? And yet, 53% of Americans voted for this man, arguing that his philosophy was "centrist."

When Raquel Welch of all people is arguing that contraception has cheapened sex and dehumanized women, it should give us all pause. I'm sure feminists will howl that she only regrets what she's gotten the chance to do and that she now wants to stop others from having fun. But that's an argument any 14-year-old would make. Having "control of your body" should mean more than throwing it away.

Sex Education All Cleaned Up

After reading this paean to the birth control pill, I can't help but wonder why feminists feel compelled to doctor Margaret Sanger's birth control views?

One of his targets was Margaret Sanger, a nurse who wrote a sex education column, “What Every Girl Should Know,” for a left-wing New York newspaper, The Call. When Comstock banned her column on venereal disease, the paper ran an empty space with the title: “What Every Girl Should Know: Nothing, by Order of the U.S. Post Office.”

Sanger was the first person to publish an evaluation of all the available forms of birth control. As a reward, she got a criminal obscenity charge. She fled to Europe to avoid going to jail, and her husband was imprisoned for passing out one of her pamphlets. In the end, he got 30 days, and Anthony Comstock got a chill during the trial that led to a fatal case of pneumonia.

Sanger was also a huge proponent of eugenics and forced sterilization of the mentally disabled. Oddly enough, feminists, while praising birth control, don't like to bring up its sordid history as a tool for eugenics and racists. I guess it sort of goes with Jessica Valenti's lament that MTV isn't showing teenagers getting abortions. You know, history doesn't make abortion sound so attractive.

Ultrasound Is Intrusive?

Really? Via Echidne of the Snakes is this article on proposed pro-life legislation.

Oklahoma Gov. Brad Henry vetoed two abortion bills that he said are an unconstitutional attempt by the Legislature to insert government into the private lives and decisions of citizens.

One measure would have required women to undergo an intrusive ultrasound and listen to a detailed description of the fetus before getting abortions. Henry said Friday that legislation is flawed because it does not allow rape and incest victims to be exempted.

"Intrusive ultrasound"? I've had all kinds of ultrasounds before, but never heard them described as "intrusive." Why is requiring an ultrasound before killing your baby heinous, which is the way this is being described?

Lawmakers who supported the vetoed measures promised an override vote in the House and Senate as early as next week. A national abortion rights group has said the ultrasound bill would have been among the strictest anti-abortion measures in the United States if it had been signed into law.

Henry said "it would be unconscionable to subject rape and incest victims to such treatment" because it would victimize a victim a second time.

So, undergoing an abortion isn't victimizing anyone--well, except the baby who gets killed, but that doesn't count, don't you know--but getting an ultrasound is victimizing? In other words, giving the patient full knowledge of what they're doing is "victimizing a victim for a second time," but letting her get an abortion without knowledge is ok?

"State policymakers should never mandate that a citizen be forced to undergo any medical procedure against his or her will, especially when such a procedure could cause physical or mental trauma. To do so amounts to an unconstitutional invasion of privacy," he said.

Wait. We have all kinds of laws on the books regarding medical procedures and what can and can't be done, and some of that can be pretty traumatizing. We have the new Obamacare bill which sure looks like legislation which will force patients to undergo all sorts of procedures--including procedures like long waits for care, for example--but that's ok because it's not making it more difficult to kill one's offspring? And having to wait weeks to get your cancer treatment or being unable to get treatment (since there won't be enough providers for all the "free" care the government will now be giving out) is pretty traumatizing mentally. But I guess that will be ok, provided taxpayers fund your abortions.

Under the ultrasound legislation, doctors would have been required to use a vaginal probe in cases where it would provide a clearer picture of the fetus than a regular ultrasound. Doctors have said this is usually the case early in pregnancies, when most abortions are done.

Oh, so it's like having an annual exam. God knows that's really traumatizing. Certainly don't want women to know what they're getting rid of. That might look too much like your well woman exam.

Why are women perfectly capable of making major decisions with all kinds of information (according to feminists) but knowing that the products of conception are actually a human being makes them swoon?

Unintended Consequences of China's One Child Policy

Liberals love abortion, embracing it as a woman's "choice" and a way for poor women to get out of poverty. And since they see abortion as a universal good, they tend to ignore what abortion has done in places like China, where girls are so despised that the sex imbalance will have devastating consequences in the 21st century. How do feminists justify their support of abortion in places such as this?

Mean Girls?

Recently, a friend of mine became aware of the suicide of a teenage girl in Massachusetts, ostensibly because of bullying by "mean girls." The girl, Phoebe Prince, had moved to the United States from Ireland, and evidently, she had been the vicitm of bullying before "because she was pretty and other students were jealous of her."

The case has become something of a sensation, with columns and opinion pieces both here and across the pond, most tut-tutting that administrators and teachers should have "done" something. But what, precisely? Followed Phoebe from class to class, to and from home, on every date (it seems she had a few)? Should they have read every text, every comment on MySpace and Facebook? And is this, as some are saying, an epidemic.

Sorry, ladies, but the answer is no.

The National Crime Victimization Survey, a detailed annual survey of more than 40,000 Americans by the Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics, is considered the most reliable measure of crime because it includes offenses not reported to the police. From 1993 through 2007, the survey reported significant declines in rates of victimization of girls, including all violent crime (down 57 percent), serious and misdemeanor assaults (down 53 percent), robbery (down 83 percent) and sex offenses (down 67 percent).

Girls aren't more violent. They just aren't. Why do girls like Phoebe Prince commit suicide? It's probably a mixture of the bullying and Phoebe's reaction to the bullying. Personally, I blame the 24/7 contact that modern teens have. When I was a teenager back in the Stone Age, the problem with bullies at school stayed at school. When you went home, you didn't have to deal with them anymore because they weren't likely to be calling you to harass you (unless it was a prank phone call, of course).

There have always been bullies. The way children are expected to deal with them has changed. Perhaps some of the problem is based on the way we expect children to handle taunting and teasing. Perhaps we don't prepare our children as well to deal with such things. Or maybe the teasing and taunting is just meaner. Regardless of the reason, mean girls aren't more violent than they were in previous generations. But don't expect the myth of the mean girl to go away any time soon.

I Know Where They Went

Asia 'missing' 96 million women: UN

Asia is "missing" about 96 million women -- the vast majority in China and India -- who died from discriminatory health care and neglect or who were never born at all, the UN estimated on Monday.

Female infanticide and sex-selective abortion have caused a severe gender imbalance in Asia, and the problem is worsening despite rapid economic growth in the region, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) report said.

"The old mindset with its preference for male children has now combined with modern medical technology" that makes it easier to predict and abort unborn girls, said Anuradha Rajivan, the report's lead author.

"It is not just female infanticide but sex-selective abortion of unborn girls that cause so-called 'missing' females," she said, contrasting the issue with recent improvements in female life expectancy and education.

Pro-choicers can't even bring themselves to decry sex-selective abortion. After all, that's a "choice," too.

A Pro-Choicer Agrees With Tim Tebow

Sally Jenkins has an incredible column up about the flap over Tim Tebow's pro-life Super Bowl ad.

Jenkins is pro-choice but makes the argument that Tebow's ad is, in fact, pro-choice, because Pam Tebow had the choice to have an abortion and chose not to. As a pro-lifer, I think this is the uncomfortable stretch those who support abortion on demand have to make, but I'm even willing to accept it, provided those calling themselves pro-choice decide to support all women's choices, including the choice to have children others think they shouldn't.

Jenkins is one of them.

She also goes on to make excellent points about why NOW, Amanda Marcotte and the hysterical feminists are flat out wrong about Tebow.

Here's what we do need a lot more of: Tebows. Collegians who are selfless enough to choose not to spend summers poolside, but travel to impoverished countries to dispense medical care to children, as Tebow has every summer of his career. Athletes who believe in something other than themselves, and are willing to put their backbone where their mouth is. Celebrities who are self-possessed and self-controlled enough to use their wattage to advertise commitment over decadence.

You know what we really need more of? Famous guys who aren't embarrassed to practice sexual restraint, and to say it out loud. If we had more of those, women might have fewer abortions. See, the best way to deal with unwanted pregnancy is to not get the sperm in the egg and the egg implanted to begin with, and that is an issue for men, too -- and they should step up to that.

Emphasis mine.

Feminists hate talking about abstinence, whether it's simply telling people to keep their pants zipped till they are prepared to be parents or supporting abstinence education, which works better than comprehensive sex ed. This is because expecting people to show self-restraint is, somehow, the same as forcing women to wear burqas or chastity belts. The argument is that telling people not to act on every urge is evil or means you hate sex (quite the opposite, actually).

We need more feminists making the argument for abstinence because it creates fewer unwanted pregnancies. That means not hopping into bed with the guy you met tonight just because you're horny, but recognizing that if things go awry, you, as a woman, are the one left holding the bag, so to speak. This isn't "slut shaming," just biology.

Leftwing Speech Supporters Press CBS Not to Air Tim Tebow Pro-Life Ad

Yet another affirmation of their free speech bonifides here as leftwing groups pressure CBS not to air Tim Tebow's ad supporting life.

I guess when you can't come up with a pro-abortion message that doesn't sound like, "Yes, kill your baby because it's your choice," the only option you have available is to try to stop those supporting the babies from speaking out.

Sexist Pigs Elected Scott Brown

That's what the New York Times is saying.

The defeat of Martha Coakley in last week’s special election to fill the Senate seat that was long held by Edward M. Kennedy has reignited the debate over whether there is a glass ceiling for women in Massachusetts politics.

It seems hard to argue that the biggest problem with Martha Coakley's campaign was her vagina. Ineptitude, arrogance, Obamacare and the general contempt that Democrats seem to have for voters are more likely reasons for her defeat.

Pandagon Watch: The Unbelievably Stupid Jesse Taylor Editon

God bless Chuck Serio for monitoring Pandagon for me (since Amanda Marcotte not only doesn't want me commenting on her site; she blocked my IP address so I can't even see it), because without him, we wouldn't get to see the naked stupidity and unbelievable callousness of jerks like Jesse Taylor.

Apparently, Jesse's wound up because Tim Tebow is making a commercial with a pro-life message, and the commercial will air during the Super Bowl.

The former Florida quarterback and his mother will appear in a 30-second commercial during the Super Bowl next month. The Christian group Focus on the Family says the Tebows will share a personal story centering on the theme “Celebrate Family, Celebrate Life.”

The group isn’t releasing details, but the commercial is likely to be an anti-abortion message chronicling Pam Tebow’s 1987 pregnancy. After getting sick during a mission trip to the Philippines, she ignored a recommendation by doctors to abort her fifth child and gave birth to Tim.

Jesse's enraged that the football star and his mother actually think not killing your babies is a good thing! Can you imagine?! The doctors told this woman she would die if she had the baby...and she selfishly didn't die but gave birth to a healthy baby who then went on to do wonderful things and have a great life! How utterly selfish of her!

Jesse's upset that Pam and Bob Tebow (a) didn't do what the doctors told them to do and (b) actually found a doctor who agreed to care for her so she wouldn't die (that selfish bitch!) and that the baby wouldn't die (that more selfish bitch!)

What this teaches us is that abortion is evil, so long as you have around the clock medical care and are lucky enough to defy the odds, not die and not have your baby come out stillborn. That’s the major problem with us pro-choicers: we keep forcing women to make hard moral choices like “Do I want to chance my own death?” rather than just telling them to suck it up and face it like a man. Well, if a man was about to potentially pass a lump of dead biological matter through their nonexistent vaginas and potentially die in the process.

Yeah, Jesse. That's the message. It couldn't be a message more along the lines of, Lots of people will pressure a pregnant woman to do what they've decided is the best thing for her and kill her baby, because making her own choice--which is what they spend so much time telling us they are for--is evil. These people always support a woman choosing to kill her own child for any reason whatsoever. But risking one's life for one's children is just plain stupid, vile and, yes, morally wrong.
Here's Jesse's flippant response to my argument:

Pam Tebow made a decision based on her circumstances. She chose to take a risk, and it worked out. Good for her, she should have had that choice. But there’s a rare breed of woman, called “most of them”, who might not have an all-day, every-day doctor on call, or who might be in more danger than Pam Tebow, or who make a different calculation and don’t want to run the risk of being the dead mother of a dead baby. Fie on their monstrous asses, though. Fie!

See, the problem isn't that Pam Tebow defied her doctor, risked her life, and loved her child more than herself. It's that she and her husband sought and found medical care to help her. Oh, and she didn't die like she should have.

But wait, there's more! Most people won't have famous and athletic children, and you won't know anyway, so it's ok to kill your babies (not just the ones that are medically risky but the ones you decide you don't want just cuz).

There’s also the teensy problem of the presumption that every woman having an abortion is somehow ending the life of Football Jesus. You will never know who 99.99% of people in this world are. You won’t read the novels they don’t write, you won’t listen to the music they don’t produce. This is not to say that human life isn’t valuable. This is to say that if your case against abortion is that your future child could be a one in a several hundred million talent, you need a better case.

Of course, Tim Tebow is about to fail miserably in the NFL like most of the rest of us six billion-plus schmucks would, so maybe this is a better ad than I thought...

I'm not surprised in the least that Jesse Taylor put together such an outrageously insensitve and stupid post. Like Amanda, women having abortions to prove that they have a "choice" is far more important than women actually making principled choices that have longer term consequences. So-called pro-choicers like Jesse and Amanda let the mask slip every time they write things like this, because it shows that they don't support women's choices; they only support women having abortions. Because choosing to have medically risky babies or financially risky babies or life-altering, career-changing babies is just plain stupid or, at best, simply unnecessary risky behavior.

Obamacare and Maternity Health: What's Missing...

...from this article?

Perhaps the biggest loss for women's health reform is that with all the drama over abortion, maternity care has remained a huge blindspot — and a costly one, at that.

The US spent $86 billion on maternity care in 2006 and another $26 billion caring for babies born preterm, now also at a record high of 12 percent. Prematurity is a leading cause of infant death, yet the majority of premies are induced or surgically delivered too early. This over-medicalisation means that childbirth costs Americans more than twice per capita what other countries with better outcomes spend. Medicaid picks up nearly half the bill in the US. If we gave just a little attention to improving care, we could literally save billions.

"Improve quality and reduce costs" — this has been Obama's mantra for health reform. How is it that instead of addressing real threats to women's and babies' health, "reform" has led us toward rolling back abortion access? Advocacy groups have been defending "abortion rights" and, to a lesser extent, "birthing rights," but it's possible that such a single-issue focus has helped to marginalise. To what other bodily system or medical procedure do we attribute rights? We don't have endocrine rights or MRI rights; men don't have testicular rights or Viagra rights. Rights belong to human beings. We have rights.

Or do we? A society that would force a woman to carry an unwanted pregnancy would also force her to have major abdominal surgery. Women won't get real health reform until we reform this fundamental lack of respect for women. The bus stops here.

The author, an abortion supporter, notes that women's health care is about far more than abortion, even though that one procedure sucks all the oxygen out of any conversation. She then goes on to discuss the difficulty many women face trying to have a Vaginal Birth After Cesarean (VBAC).

The Vbac ban is only a subset of a much larger problem. Decades of research tell us that optimal maternity care is something very different from what most American women receive. Optimal care means that the physiological birth process is supported with minimal intervention: labour begins spontaneously, women are free to move around and push in upright positions, and providers avoid surgical intervention unless absolutely necessary.

Meanwhile, the majority of labouring women are confined to hospital beds, strapped to mandatory but ineffective fetal monitors, induced or sped up with artificial hormones, and consequently experiencing unnecessary pelvic trauma and the highest cesarean section rate on record, at 32 percent (10-15 percent is considered the maximum we would expect for health reasons). If you question whether this has anything to do with women's bodily integrity, talk to a woman who's had an infected caesarian scar or an episiotomy that tore into her perineum.

But why do women face so many roadblocks to birth the way they want? The author doesn't address it, but the answer is simple: money and liability. Sites like this one help the prospective plaintiff look for a John Edwards-style ambulance chaser to help them get their jackpot justice. This forces doctors, hospitals and insurers to go to greater lengths to thwart lawsuits. That means forcing women to have cesareans rather than allowing them to determine the risks and rewards of vaginal births, pain medication, fetal monitors and so on.

Those really concerned about protecting women's bodily autonomy should include tort reform in any health care bills. I don't expect that to happen in the Democrats' Obamacare debates.

Abortion Increases Breast Cancer Risk?

Thanks to Chuck Serio for this link.

Less than two months since the U.S. Preventative Services Task Force issued new guidelines recommending against routine mammograms for women in their forties, a second breast cancer scandal involving a U.S. government panel of experts has come to light which has implications for healthcare reform.

An April 2009 study by Jessica Dolle et al. of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center examining the relationship between oral contraceptives (OCs) and triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) in women under age 45 contained an admission from U.S. National Cancer Institute (NCI) researcher Louise Brinton and her colleagues (including Janet Daling) that abortion raises breast cancer risk by 40%. [1]

Additionally, Dolle's team showed that women who start OCs before age 18 multiply their risk of TNBC by 3.7 times and recent users of OCs within the last one to five years multiply their risk by 4.2 times. TNBC is an aggressive form of breast cancer associated with high mortality.

Given the push by feminists for more contraception earlier, I don't really expect to see any lefty bloggers (*cough* Amanda Marcotte *cough*) changing their minds about marketing The Pill to your 15-year-old. But they should, considering the risks.

I'm Gonna Faint...I Agree With Media Matters on Something!

Of course, it could just be that Media Matters finally noticed the blatant sexism with which the MSM treat former Alaska governor Sarah Palin. Or maybe Newsweek just went so far over the top that even Media Matters could no longer ignore it.

Like her or not, Palin is a former governor and vice presidential candidate. She deserves the same respect every single one of her male counterparts receives when they are featured on the cover of the magazine. I must have missed the cover of Vice President Joe Biden in short shorts or of Mitt Romney in a bathing suit.

I've frequently noted the sexism that was blatantly on display during the presidential campaign of '08, from the outrageous behavior towards Hillary Clinton to the nasty, hateful and sexist attacks on Sarah Palin. It's nice when Media Matters notices these things for a change. It would be nice if they did it a little more often.

Kudos to Echidne

As I've said previously, it's not often I agree with Echidne of the Snakes, politically or regarding feminism, but she has put together some very fine posts over the last week regarding evolutionary psychology (particularly Satoshi Kanazawa) and her regular roundup of stories regarding the abuse of women. At first, these areas don't seem linked, but the problem with Kanazawa's work is one can certainly see where adhering to his theories (such as that men should dominate women) can lead to abuse of women (such as this article about Somali Islamists whipping women for wearing bras). Much food for thought here.

We Need Squelch Free Speech Since Pro-Choicers Are Violent

Well, no, that's not really true. But if I were using the logic of the pro-abortion crowd whenever an abortion doctor is killed, I'd be calling them terrorists after a lunatic gunned down a pro-life supporter.

Shockingly, I'm not seeing any postings on this event on feminist blogs or even the major leftwing blogs like Daily KOS. But that's ok, because they didn't cover the killing of an abortion doctor either. Riiight.

Like others, I'm not arguing that one death is more important than another. But watching the total blackout on the left of this news is telling. Kill an abortion doctor? That's a tragedy and it should be covered extensively. Kill a pro-life supporter? Not news.

UPDATE: Majikthise has actually created a post about the shooting, but, well, let's say it doesn't come across as nearly as angry she was about the killing of Tiller. And now there's this post that offers dual explanations: the killing may not be related to abortion at all! and "He was asking for it!"

Hillary Clinton and Hissy Fits

I must admit that I haven't been paying as much attention to international affairs of late, what with the health care reform "riots" being so much more entertaining (and enlightening. I had no idea we were all still evil-mongering, Nazi mobs). In fact, I completely missed Clinton's it's not all about Bill moment, but, frankly, I can't blame her for being more than a little annoyed at the rude question about what her husband thought regarding international affairs.

Liz at Echidne of the Snakes notes the various characterizations of Clinton's statement as "fatigue," "a temper tantrum," and--my favorite--"a hissy fit."

How often does the media describe a man's behavior as a hissy fit?...

Around the globe, women are fighting for equal rights. The more privileged among us are struggling for workplace equality: fair pay and a shot at the corner office. The less fortunate are fighting for the most basic rights: for their safety and the safety of their children. Hillary Clinton sees these struggles every day. So when asked what appeared to be a sexist question in a country where women are in grave danger, I think a temper tantrum, an eruption or an outburst would have been perfectly justified. In fact, when you view Clinton's reaction through a broader lense, when you look at all of the experiences that framed her answer, I think her response was calm, cool and collected.

Clinton's experience--being glossed over for the opinions of her husband--are similar to any woman who has gone car-shopping with her spouse, then looked at appliances at Best Buy. Amazingly, according to sales clerks, women do not drive but do spend a remarkable amount of time in front of the stove or washing machine.

As luck would have it, I do most of the cooking and the laundry in our house. But I also do a significant amount of driving. So, I guess, choosing the car is as much a woman's responsibility as buying a washing machine or a stove.

In a similar vein, Hillary Clinton is the Secretary of State, not her popular (in more ways than one) husband. She has a right to be indignant when snubbed, and not have it called a "hissy fit." This isn't the old days. Welcome to the 21st century, Democratic Republic of Congo!

OTOH, what does President Obama think about his Secretary of State having to stand up for herself this way?