If the Obama administration was already on bad terms with abortion opponents, it’s not going to improve relations by hiring Planned Parenthood’s former spokesman for a job at the Department of Health and Human Services.
Tait Sye, Planned Parenthood’s former media director, has joined HHS as deputy assistant secretary for public affairs, HHS made public Friday. He’ll have the public health portfolio — an area where you can be pretty sure abortion and contraception issues will come up. [Source]
Let me see, where am I working today? Was it Planned Parenthood or the HHS” Oh well same difference.”
20 comments
I find it hysterical that once the un becomes the born you loose all interest in its health. Are you aware of this hypocrisy or do you just not care?
Ah Salvage, but we do care. We do more to help the born than any other throughout the world. It seems obvious that you do not care enough to see beyond your hatred. Until you get past your hatred, you will only see what you want to see and not see what is.
>Ah Salvage, but we do care. We do more to help the born than any other throughout the world. I
Do you? Really! How’s that?
Famously, Cardinal O’Connor (who set up AIDS hospices in NYC) promised any mother in need of help who wanted to have their child and not abort because of coercion or pressures that the Archdiocese of NY would assist the woman however needed. This promise was made and is carried out on a daily basis in NYC. I worked with those who are charged with this mission and did this work myself, so, I know the facts. Quietly, discreetly, this work is carried out in dioceses across the country. Most people are aware of this work.
Well that’s NYC for you, still a semblance of social work going on but good, that’s a great thing, so I assume you’d favor an expansion of such programs to a national level? And why should it just be the church? Why not make it a government thing? Where every pregnant woman in America is guaranteed health care for her during the pregnancy and after and for her child so she never has to worry about medical bills?
Well it is also a government thing, Salvage. Ever heard of WIC? It’s a great program. But I something tells me you didn’t come here to talk health care. Because as you are well aware, the US Bishops unanimously endorsed the health care plan. The US Bishops have been for government health care than most politicians have been and probably you yourself if you think about it. Now I won’t insult you like you insult others on this blog but thinking is a good thing for us Catholics. It gets us out of incessant calumny.
Sure I’ve heard of WIC, great idea, America needs more of that sort of thing.
Funny, all I ever hear from the Bishops is that they want to scuttle the Obama plan because it doesn’t mesh with their beliefs in regards to contraception and abortion.
Like these guys:
http://life.nationalpost.com/2012/03/05/u-s-bishops-eyeing-lawsuit-against-obama-administration-over-contraception-issue/
I think you are from “liberal” side of the Church because you don’t seem in step with what the power of the Church is saying.
Let’s talk contraception and proper sex-ed, that sort of thing prevents far more abortions than people yelling at women walking into clinics yet Catholic belief prevents their endorsement. Which is worse taking a pill that prevents contraception or getting an abortion? Or are they the same thing?
Sex ed and contraception prevents abortion? Are you for real? I don’t think you have read the statistics. And, WIC is much more than a mere idea. And no, the Bishops aren’t about scuttling the whole health care plan are they. What’s the big problem with an exemption if other believers get one as well?
>Sex ed and contraception prevents abortion? Are you for real?
Uh.. yes? See if someone doesn’t want to get pregnant and if they use contraception properly odds are that they won’t get pregnant and thus have an abortion… how does that not make sense to you?
>I don’t think you have read the statistics.
Uh huh, some facts coming your way, be sure to ignore them!
Here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/24/AR2008032401515.html
And here:
http://www.openeducation.net/2009/01/05/abstinence-only-sex-education-statistics-final-nail-in-the-coffin/
I know you won’t click through and read them because theists never do but in a nutshell proper sex-ed reduces pregnancies and “abstinence only” increases them.
At least that’s what the statistics tell us but because you want reality to be another way you’ll keep on insisting it’s the other way around.
Theists and reality never get on very well.
>WIC is much more than a mere idea.
Uh, sure and it should be universal and for everyone, right?
>. And no, the Bishops aren’t about scuttling the whole health care plan are they.
Sure they are, it’s not just about your superstitions, there’s a political angle, they’re very much for the GOP so they’ll work to scuttle anything Democratic, it’s just in the case of health care they can shriek about “religious freedom”. It’s a handy hook to hang on.
>What’s the big problem with an exemption if other believers get one as well?
Because they are forcing the “exemption” on people who may not believe as they do. They are saying “We don’t like X therefore no one should have access to X.”
That’s not freedom by the way, it’s the complete opposite.
See what I mean about theists and reality?
What is your point, Salvage? That there should be more abortion? That more abortions are good for everyone? There are atheists who agree that abortion is not a societal “good”.
> That there should be more abortion?
No, that the only abortion or pregnancy that is your business is your own. You have no right in any way to tell women what they can or cannot do with their bodies.
That’s the whole alpha and omega of the debate.
> There are atheists who agree that abortion is not a societal “good”.
Of course there are that’s because atheism is only about one thing; there are no such things as gods. It makes no other comment and informs no other opinion on any other subject from science to morality.
So I take it that my prediction was right, you did not read those links and I have no doubt that the next time the subject comes up you will insist that sex-ed and contraception does not reduce abortion rates and that statistics back you up.
If you were truly against abortion you would insist that everyone have free access to sex-ed and contraception.
That would most certainly lead to less abortion and that should please you, no?
Salvage, sorry but those statistics aren’t current. The best model we have is nyc where contraception is free for the taking in public schools with a great deal of sex-ed as you would style it and yet abortion rates are sky-high there. Sorry but your thesis doesn’t hold water.
At any rate, I find it hard to understand why you think abortion is some sort of societal “good”. It’s effects around the world show only misery.
> Salvage, sorry but those statistics aren’t current.
Yes, there has been radical changes in the last three years making those numbers completely useless! You just looked at the date on the URL can came to that conclusion did you?
> The best model we have is nyc
Huh? How do you figure that? Are you telling me that NYC is a model for the rest of America? Really? Why is it the best?
>where contraception is free for the taking in public schools with a great deal of sex-ed as you would style it and yet abortion rates are sky-high there.
Ah, I see it’s the best because you can interpret the data to support your opinion thus allowing you to dismiss facts like:
“The researchers found that teens who received comprehensive sex education were 60 percent less likely to get pregnant or to get someone pregnant than those who received no sex education. ”
See? That means they don’t have to get abortions! That’s a good thing right?
New York is unique in many ways making it a useless model for something like this. It has a massive population, a high cost of living and other factors that influence family planning.
Let’s say NYC didn’t have proper sex-education and access to birth control, are you saying that there would be less abortion / unwanted pregnancies?
>Sorry but your thesis doesn’t hold water.
That birth control and knowing how to use it doesn’t control birth? I’m thinking that it holds more water than Sea World. But please tell me how knowing how to not have children will lead to people who don’t want to have children getting pregnant?
> At any rate, I find it hard to understand why you think abortion is some sort of societal “good”.
Probably because I’ve said no such thing?
You won’t answer my questions I ask or points I make but you will answer the ones I don’t, weird.
Can you just stick to what I say?
Abortion is neither good nor bad, if you don’t want to have an abortion, great! If you want to have an abortion, great! Because my opinion is meaningless unless it’s my body we are talking about, then it’s the only opinion that counts on the subject.
What is good however is women having the final say as to what they do with their body. Do you disagree?
Let me guess, you won’t answer that question no matter how many times I ask.
>It’s effects around the world show only misery.
Huh? What are you talking about? What parts of the world have been made miserable by abortion? Like New York with its “sky-high” abortion rate? That’s a miserable place is it?
salvage, I *have* clicked through and read the two articles. First, assuming that there are no other problems with confounding variables, sample size, or randomization, at best the results equate the two programs. Sex education > no sex education says nothing about abstinence education, nor does “There was no evidence to suggest that abstinence-only education decreased the likelihood of ever having sex or getting pregnant” say anything about “comprehensive” being better. At best, here, you should be arguing that the programs are interchangeable, statistically-speaking. So abstinence-only education is fine by that count.
As an expert in program evaluation, I can tell you that the OE article suggests to me a need to reevaluate the methodology of the abstinence education programs, including follow-up, AND to consider the considerable swath of factors that will come into play after the program itself is completed. Considering the culture, it is statistically dishonest to consider long-term impact without also reporting the environment and other influences on those students. Comparatively, I would imagine that stop-smoking programs are less effective for people that live in homes with smokers or work around smokers. There is hardly a truly sterile environment in which to study the impact of the program apart from other later effects. If anything, this tells me that abstinence programs need to continue far longer to counteract the later influences that lead to failure. This success model has been used by AA, SA, etc. Follow-up works, lack of follow up leads to failure. That’s about as general a rule as you can get in program evaluation.
To put it colloquially, if you stand outside of a Jenny Craig, offer donuts, and then report on how many people break their diet, that’s not a mark against Jenny.
I should note, too, that we have to distinguish between the principle and the application.
For example, if I keep a condom in my pocket or I wear it only *after* sex (in other words, use it wrong), I have broken away from the proper use of the system. To compare apples to apples, we have to look at the numbers for the principles and for the implementation.
Has abstinence education been implemented poorly? Perhaps. I haven’t read enough data to make a judgment, but I also have no problem with coming to agree with that.
What about the underlying best-case? Which should we shoot for?
The best case in abstinence is not having sex. True “accidents” are likely statistically insignificant (the old sperm-carried-by-a-bullet story, toilet seats, heavy rubbing going too far through clothes, etc.).
How about rape? If we take the 1995 CDC study as our basis, then 20% of the roughly 10.5 million women in college are raped. If we assume (incorrectly) that every sex act during a fertile time leads to a pregnancy, and an even distribution of fertile days over the month (uncertain), we end up with 350,000 pregnancies out of 10.5 million college women or 3.3%.
So if we’re truly practicing abstinence – no consentual sex without wanting to get pregnant – and we allow for some very liberal estimating, we have 3.3% of college women pregnant without wanting to be.
How about condoms? Reported numbers vary, but we have a typical use failure rate of around 15% and a perfect-use failure rate of 2-3%. Let’s take the perfect use rate of 2% (from http://www.contraceptivetechnology.org/table.html). If those same college women have sex every week, roughly one of those four acts will take place during a fertile time. Assuming, again, an even distribution of fertility cycles, we have 25% of those women able to have a baby when they have sex. Two percent of them experience condom failure. That’s 52,500 pregnant that week. We’ve eliminated some women from the conception pool, so over a year, each week has fewer pregnancies, ending up with a cumulative 2.4 million over a year. That’s 22.9%.
In principle, one is clearly better.
Is it wise, then, to celebrate a better implementation of a inferior idea?
>So abstinence-only education is fine by that count.
Nope. It’s not. Telling teens “Don’t have sex!” and not preparing them for when they do have sex is silly. It is not fine by any count, it’s worse than useless it’s counter productive and you can squint at that stats that prove that all you like; doesn’t change the fact that “abstinence only” does give all the facts.
Your comparisons to smoking and dieting are ridiculous.
It’s simple, you teach people how to use contraception and there will be less pregnancies. Like how you teach people to use seatbelts and there are less auto accident fatalities? No, people still do get killed in car crashes, even ones who wear their seatbelts but does that mean you don’t tell them to?
So that is the answer to your “Birth control fails sometimes so you shouldn’t use it!” argument which really isn’t much of an argument because you would apply it to nothing else.
>Has abstinence education been implemented poorly?
There’s no proper way to implement it, it’s as stupid an idea as it is unnatural.
We like to have sex. No, like is too small a word for it, we are compelled to have sex, it is a drive that is some 2.5 to 3.5 billion years old. If our DNA could speak it would only say “MAKE MORE OF ME”.
So you couple that with a teenager’s still developing brain soaked in hormones and there will be sex.
So you tell them: DON’T! but if you do, here’s what could happen and here’s the way to do it so that doesn’t happen.
And that’s best done in a sterile classroom with a gym teacher who will thump the first smart ass remark, at least that’s how I learned it.
That’s the reality, people have sex and if you don’t want them to have abortions than make sure when they do have sex they don’t split the egg.
I’ll ask again, should women have the final say over their bodies? It’s rather telling the way you ignore that point.
Unfortunately contraceptives fail. They supposedly guarantee sex without consequences, so when the consequences occur, abortion is the default. Statistics do show an increase unplanned pregnancy that coorelated directly with the availability of contraceptives. Further, British studies show that comprehensive sex ed has only led to an increase in teen pregnancy. Yes, women should be respected and when you say that you are “compelled” to have sex, it doesn’t show a whole lot of respect either for yourself or for the other person.
>Unfortunately contraceptives fail.
Of course they do. So what?
>They supposedly guarantee sex without consequences,
Uh no, they don’t guarantee sex and certainly not without “consequences” what they actually do is, depending on the type, is to prevent contraception.
And yes, sometimes they fail but that’s why we have sex ed classes so people know the best way to use them effectively.
Thus preventing abortion and I’ll ask again, which is worse taking the pill or having an abortion or are they the same thing? And not, taking the pill does not abort anything at all other than an egg, or have you declared eggs people as well?
> so when the consequences occur, abortion is the default.
Oh that consequence, what an odd thing to call it.
So what you’re saying is that if a woman has sex she should be doing it only for the “consequence”?
So tell me, what’s so wrong with a woman having sex because it’s fun? A pleasure? Something she wants to do?
>Statistics do show an increase unplanned pregnancy that coorelated directly with the availability of contraceptives.
Show me please.
>Further, British studies show that comprehensive sex ed has only led to an increase in teen pregnancy.
Again can you provide a link?
> Yes, women should be respected and when you say that you are “compelled” to have sex, it doesn’t show a whole lot of respect either for yourself or for the other person.
LOL! Yes! By pointing out a biological truth I am “disrespecting”! My goodness, I don’t know if you’re aware be we also defecate! I hope you have a fainting couch nearby!
People have sex, I know, I know it makes your god very angry when they do it without its blessing but regardless people do. Sometimes they have sex with complete strangers, sometimes with old friends because the cable is on the fritz. This has been going on for about 3.4 billion years now so it’s odd that your god is just gotten around to making noises about it in the last 6,000 years or so.
A bit late is what I’m trying to say.
Sexual repression and Catholicism, so twisted around each other which ironically lead to some of the best sex I ever had so I do owe the Vatican a measure of thanks.
Women suffer miserably for abortion, and families, and society with the loss of so much human potential. I don’t agree with Salvage that we are better off without the millions slaughtered.
>Women suffer miserably for abortion,
And some women suffer miserably from having children. It’s not your choice to make is the point you won’t even acknowledge much less try to understand.
>and families, and society with the loss of so much human potential.
Even if the hypothetical had substance then the argument could be made then that all women must be pregnant all the time. that each egg that gets washed away is a human and the woman is robbing society of their potential.
>I don’t agree with Salvage that we are better off without the millions slaughtered.
Where did I say that? I think you have trouble understanding stuff or you’re just a liar in either case I’m going to stop talking to you now.
I don’t agree with Salvage that we are better off without the millions slaughtered.