Scanner : health care

Blog for Choice Today

Emily Farris — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 17:53:00 GMT

Today is the 36th Anniversary of Roe v. Wade and NARAL's National Blog for Choice Day. If you'll recall, last year on this day we blogged about our own experience with choice and this year, NARAL is asking participants to blog about their top pro-choice hope for President Obama and/or the new Congress.

See what Scanner Brian and Scanner Emily had to say after the jump and learn how to sign up.

Scanner Brian: "For the first time in Gonzales versus Carhart," Obama said, "the Supreme Court held—upheld a federal ban on abortions with criminal penalties for doctors. For the first time, the Court's endorsed an abortion restriction without an exception for women's health. The decision presumed that the health of women is best protected by the Court—not by doctors and not by the woman herself. That presumption is wrong."

My hope is that Obama rescinds these restrictions. There is no way you can justify saying that abortion is bad AND a mother should still have the baby even if her life is in danger.

Scanner Emily: I hope that today Obama reverses the "Global Gag Rule," that tomorrow he talks about it using the term "anti-choice" and that going forward he encourages Congress to lift restrictions on female reproductive care for women who have Federally-provided health care. And that's just the beginning. When I lived in New York, my "girl parts" were insured by the state. My girl parts should be insured by every state. Unfortunately, I now live in a state that, like my father, would rather just ignore the fact that I have a vagina.

Add your blog to the Blog for Choice Blogroll.

Related:

Roe v. Wade 35 Years Later

My Obama, My Choice

Abortion Issue Heats Up... For The GOP

Send Flowers to Your Abortion Doctor

George W. Bush Attacks Our Vaginas

Brian Fairbanks — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 18:11:00 GMT

Gore Vidal predicted more than five years ago that George W. Bush would leave office the most hated President in history, and he was unfortunately right. (We would've been satisfied if Bush had simply been voted out in 2004 by any margin.) And it seems George is more than happy to accommodate this prophecy, regarding his legacy as little more than a few good days and some more money for his ultra-rich friends.

With his latest move, W. has now made it easier for you to be denied contraception...

Bush has now imposed a 127-page rule preventing any health care provider from being fired for refusing a patient medical care on religious grounds. Well, that's just great-- a rule that's supposed to let doctors and nurses avoid participating in abortions (hey, dumbass-- there's already a law for that, so that's not what this is about!) is actually a rule that will allow providers to avoid giving women access to contraceptives, ostensibly to keep them from having gay premarital ass sex... or something.

We all know what this is really about:

1) Preventing people from obtaining the pill from pharmacies

2) Preventing lesbians from conceiving

3) Preventing rape victims and others from receiving the morning after pill

4) Preventing women in danger of dying in childbirth from having abortions... and on and on and on.

If doctors are allowed to refuse to do anything "morally objectionable," does this mean a doctor could refuse to treat a gay man who has been the victim of an attack?

Barack Obama, are you reading this? What are you going to do, on your first day in office, after signing the bailout? We hope it's shooting down this order before it has time to do any real damage...

Related:

The Latest Kool Kid Kraze: Vodka Tampons

Obama Was A Pimp: Or At Least the 80's Made Him Look That Way

Did Obama Sell Out The Gays?

Most Repulsive Christmas Video of the Year

Boy Takes Viagra To Survive... A Two-Year-Old Boy, That Is...

Brian Fairbanks — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 15:29:00 GMT

Someone should really get us a subscription to the Sun for Christmas because it has really become our go-to publication for insane and highly unbelievable news stories.

Today, the highly disreputable publication brings us the story of Calvin Muteesa, aged two, who has been taking up to six Viagra a day since he was three months old...

Calvin has pulmonary arterial hypertension, a rare condition which means his blood pressure is dangerously high. This starves his lungs of oxygen-rich blood.
The youngster struggles for breath and his heart has to work twice as hard to force blood to his lungs. Viagra relaxes his pulmonary artery, which carries blood to the lungs, and allows more blood and oxygen through.

Turns out that Calvin only began consuming the anti-impotence drug as a last resort-- a nurse offhandedly suggested it to the boy's mother, who realized that it might help with Calvin's blood flow issues.

Of course, it need not be mentioned that this is not a story that could ever happen in America. Most insurance companies don't cover Viagra (for anyone) and a few pills can run upwards of one hundred dollars by prescription. Universal healthcare anyone?

Via the Sun. Photo via.

Related:

Pamela Anderson's Boobs Did Not Kill Hugh Hefner

If Your Date Orders Caviar, Almond-Covered Truffles, And Ginger Beer... Now You Know Why

Is The GOP Over Yet? A New Poll Seems To Think So...

Boy Dies From Urinary Tract Infection While Parents Pray

Brian Fairbanks — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 14:15:00 GMT

We're not out to attack religious people or anything. It's just that in the past few weeks, there have been a bevy of news stories out there in this country that happened to feature wackos who happened to be religious doing things that happen to be totally bonkers nutjob crazy.

Now we hear from Strollerderby and the AP that a boy in Oregon died from a urinary tract infection (!) after his parents failed to so much as request a catheter for him. The fucked up part about all this is that they might not even be charged in his death...

Oregon state law allows minors 14 and older to be responsible for their own medical decisions. The family in this case is claiming the boy made the conscious choice to eschew regular medicine and turn to prayer. The prayer failed when the blockage caused urea to poison the organs in his system, eventually leading to heart failure.

While we disagree with the notion that 14-year-olds can be responsible for their own wise medical decisions (we're in our late 20s and can't make any decision now, let alone a medical one), just like we don't think teenagers should spend their lives in prison for any reason, we respect this law, since it might be applied to abortions and other decisions the teenager wants to make on their own without parental interference. The problem is, in this case, if the boy changed his mind while he was bedridden and wanted to seek medical treatment for his bronchial pneumonia, his protectors wouldn't have helped him. (And the fact that when his condition got worse and worse despite their praying and they weren't willing to step back and say, "You know what? Maybe this praying thing isn't working out? We should defy God because our son is so precious to us?" Okay, wait, that sounds terrible... but you know what we mean-- this is just terrible. People can believe whatever they want, but when a child's life is at stake and you don't do anything, that's where the secular world should step in and, at the very least, make sure this family never lets a child die again.)

You can disagree, as we're sure some of you will, but this is only an opinion. Some people might say that we shouldn't tell others to compromise their beliefs for anything, not even to save a life. We respect that point of view, although respectfully disagree with it.

One more thing. Seriously, we're asking: is there a passage of the Bible that specifically mentions doctors, medical treatment, medicine and condemns every one of them? It's fine to pray, but if you break your arm, for example, don't you get a cast? Just wondering.

Via Strollerderby.

John Conyers: On Our To Do List

Katie Halper — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 16:00:00 GMT

John Conyers is one sexy beast of a congressman. This civil rights activist is a rainbow lover and shows much love for Americans, Albanians and the people of Darfur. Conyers speaks the universal language of love and his website whispers sweet ~~nothings~~ significant things in English, Arabic and Spanish. The Congressman is a giver-- not a taker, who would love to spoil you, the American people, rotten. He wants to lavish you in health care coverage. And he's going to give you tips on avoiding uncomfortable premature housing ejaculation. This "congressman with benefits" is all about getting you benefits. His long, righteous voting record shows how much he loves women and jazz, a killer combo.

The Congressman knows how to spice things up, play rough, and give tit for tat. Watch a coy Conyers humiliate a bodacious blond after the jump.

The congressman has so much love, it's no surprise that he was the one who introduced the bill to make MLK Day a federal holiday. When Conyers criticized McCain for waiting 25 years to apologize for opposing MLK Day, an MSNBC anchor said, "silly, old, angry, black congressman. Don't you know that McCaine apologized for opposing MLK day! Or are you too old to hear or see that?" (I paraphrase)

The insatiable Conyers responded by tearing McCain a new one and teasing the anchor, all the while maintaining his composure and debonair, dapper, glasses-in-mouth demeanor:

Well look. I’m happy. That was in 1983, he didn’t make any apology, he didn’t make any apologies in 1987, so I guess I’m thrilled and forgiving that finally when he’s running for President he remembers to apologize. No, that’s great.

Congressman Conyers gave it hard and rough to McCain. So we have no choice but to give Conyers the props he deserves by putting him on our "To Do" List.