Mouse rant blog vent mouse.

Friday, May 07, 2004

Well, I guess we should be grateful they even considered it

As expected, the FDA gave into sexist pressures and condemned women to the results of broken condoms. As is well documented, Plan B is a safe, effective way to keep women from becoming pregnant when they have had a birth control failure of any sort, from forgetting to use it to trying to use it and screwing up or whatever. Emergency contraception is particularly necessary in our abstinence-only enviroment where teenagers who can ill-afford to have unplanned pregnancies are encouraged not to carry condoms or be informed in birth control in anyway.
We can also expect this move to keep the abortion rate level, where it could be expected to go down as it has in other countries where emergency contraception has been made available over-the-counter. Of course, anti-abortion activists don't see this as a real issue, because they firmly believe that abortion will be made illegal again and we can get back to the good old days when poor women had to face the choice of more children than they can raise or risking their lives trying to obtain abortions. Better-off women will do what they always have--have unfortunate but vague female problems that just happen to be fixed with a D&C. Or go where it's legal, like Canada.
As usual, setbacks in the fights for women's rights are a good time to remember to keep our eyes on the prize. Are pregnant teenagers and unmanageably large poor families an unfortunate byproduct of a religious war? It would do well to remember that if ordinary people have too many children too young it becomes difficult to lift themselves up and educate themselves. It certainly keeps them from obtaining the best education possible for their children. Who might benefit from a large underclass who is too busy and uneducated to challenge those on top? And might that have something to do with why the tools for controlling family size are being kept away from those who need those tools the most?

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