“If it’s an honest rape, that individual should go immediately to the emergency room, I would give them a shot of estrogen.”

I’ll give you a moment to pick up the tiny pieces of exploded head that are littering your computer keyboard right now.

I’m not going to rehash the politics of abortion and why Paul is out of line for denying the choice to be pregnancy-free for women who were denied the choice to refuse sex.  Nor am I going to berate him, a gynecologist, for not knowing about the fancy new-fangled technology of oral emergency contraception. Instead, I am going to make this blanket statement: the only thing men should be allowed to discuss within the topic of rape is developing programs to teach other men that rape is criminal. The thesis statement for such a program should be “If you are even a little unsure that your partner wants to engage in sexual activity with you, you should go home and masturbate.”

Next we have some sub-group of the conservative American Family Association calling themselves One Million Moms (which is way too close to the name of this blog and makes me annoyed because it’s all about me) who is mad at JC Penney for hiring Ellen DeGeneres as a spokesperson. They seem to think that Ellen fans are a weird fringe minority and not representative of the wholesome, non-gay families who really shop at JC Penney.

I’d like to take an informal poll here. Who would you rather have a beer with? Ellen DeGeneres or some uptight right-winger who thinks Ellen is a big old pervert? Yeah. Me too. And I’m going to keep shopping at JC Penney because their maternity jeans fit me well. So there. And I should also DVR Ellen.

Finally, Rick “Frothy Mix” Santorum won three primaries last night. WTF?

I can applaud the administration for increasing access to birth control for all insured women by mandating coverage and removing co-pays for the medication but I cannot get behind, once again, turning abortion into a major campaign issue.

It’s no secret that I am pro-choice. I do, to a degree, understand the urgency anti-choice activists feel when they contemplate what, to them, amounts to the murder of the unborn and their desire to keep the issue in the political limelight. But I still think they need to expand their focus onto the other areas of women’s health care that make up the bulk of medical treatment to women in this country.

According to the CDC, in 2008 there were approximately 825,000 induced abortions in the US. In the same year, there were approximately  4,247,000 live births. That means abortion amounted to only 19% of maternal health care in this country.

So why does it amount to nearly 100% of the policy debate about maternal and infant health?

I have yet to hear the candidates talk about bringing easier access to quality gynecological and obstetrical care to all the women of childbearing age in America. There is no discussion about recent studies that show the efficacy of certified midwives in caring for women seeking a home birth. No conversation about expanding rural health centers to make sure women in remote areas have adequate access to prenatal, perinatal and pediatric care. No talk of expanding clinic access in urban areas. No one has said anything about the implications of state and federal cuts to WIC, SCHIP, and Medicaid and their effect on maternal and infant health. There’s no talk about outreach into at-risk populations to assist with contraceptive education, STD prevention, and prenatal care, all of which makes for healthier women and babies.

The only conversation about women’s health that I ever hear from politicians is about abortion and I am sick of it.
As a woman, I am a whole person with a whole set of health needs. I am not simply a creature who either will or won’t get an abortion. There is much more to woman’s health that the binary calculus of pro- or anti-legal abortion access.
As women, it’s time we demand that health care for us, for our whole bodies, reproductive systems and everything else, too, be a campaign issue. We need to recognize that the health of women impacts the health of future generations.

So does everyone running for President.

To see the whole collection, head on over to Babble!

I started there week off here at home, trying to get my head around new regs that force religious universities to add contraception coverage to their employee and student health plans. I wasn’t sure I liked the idea at first, but when smart readers reminded me about the amount of federal funding schools get, I started to rethink my position.

I weighed in on the Komen/Planned Parenthood controversy at The Broad Side. Based on my personal experience with Komen’s staff,  I was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt that the decision had to do with institutional needs and not political agendas. Given that they reversed the decision today under public pressure, I suspect I was wrong and they were trying to make a political statement, one that backfired on them.

I did a profile of a DC area mom-preneur who’s got a great new line of accessories for kids at The DC Moms. Bonus: there’s a giveaway!

Finally, I got all kinds of prolific at Being Pregnant at Babble. I wrote about my pregnant celebrity BFF, new evidence of smoking risks when pregnant, a boob truck in Pittsburgh for breastfeeding awareness, high fiber foods, and onsies with some really whack slogans.

Now, while you catch up an everything I’ve done, I’m going t collapse from literary exhaustion. Have a great weekend!

Let me back up. My friend Lydia at Rants From Mommyland introduced me to Michelle Barce who is about to strike gold with adorable button covers for kids called Snazzits. Her story is amazing and I’m sharing at The DC Moms. You need to hop over there right now and read about her, her jounrey to brin Snazzits to market and enter to win sme of her cute stuff. Please? I mean look how cute this is!

And this!

So, go read my post, enter to win a headband and Snazzits, and have a great day! Kthaxbai!

I’ve been all excited about Kourtney’s second pregnancy since she and boyfriend Scott Disick announced it. She is about as many weeks along as I am! She also has a little boy already! I watch her on TV every week! That makes us totally besties, right? We can text each other and compare weight gain and bitch about maternity clothes! Yay! I have a pregnant friend!

Except for the part where I don’t know Kourtney Kardashian at all and she’d hire a lawyer to serve me with scary papers if I tried sending her pregnancy comparison messages.

Read the rest at Babble!

Those of you who follow such things may have heard that a few months ago, acting on the advice of non-partisan medical experts, the Obama administration ruled the prescription contraceptives for women count as preventative medicine and therefore must be covered by insurance, with no co-pay, under provisions of the Affordable Care Act. My feeling on that was an unequivocal “Boo-yah!”.  Finally, your Nuva-ring has the same medical standing as Cialis and you can afford not to get pregnant by the boner that insurance-covered erectile dyfunction medication built. This is a win for women, for sure. Removing barriers to access to contraception is a BIG thing for me and I’m prepared to hug HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebiliius for saying “Make it so” on this one.

Predictably, there are religious factions that don’t approve of mandated coverage of birth control. Most of them are the same flap-your-gums-every-time-a-woman-has-an-orgasm-for-fun reactionaries who are behind the execrable “conscience clauses” that allow snoopy pharmacists to  tell women they can’t have their birth control because they think it’s wrong. My head explodes whenever I think of those laws because, well, yeah. The religious right has no place in my pants and I have no place in theirs. Better that we should all have access to contraceptives and those who object to them can abstain. But as a nod to religious organizations, there are some exemptions to the mandated contraceptive coverage rules. I believe that organizations that are religiously based and employ a majority of members of that faith do not have to offer contraception coverage as part of a group insurance plan if it violates their faith. That seems cool to me because everyone involved is clear on the situation and is signed on to the morality they espouse.

However, religious colleges and universities are NOT exempt. Schools like Fordham, and Georgetown, and Catholic University will not have to include coverage of contraceptives to their employees and students for the first time.

That’s the part where I’m not sure how I feel.

On the one hand, I think the conservative religious take on sexuality and contraception is  regressive, anti-feminist and doesn’t take into consideration modern realities, I also think – and think it passionately – that they have every right to believe as they do. Every right to conduct themselves as they please with regard to personal sexuality and contraception. I’m not interested in partaking on a crusade to change the views of any church on sexuality and contraception. For that reason, I’m not celebrating religious universities being forced into covering contraception. I’m actually leaning toward thinking that they should have an exemption.

Now, I think that if a university is granted an exemption to contraception coverage mandates, that should be made plain as day on their website and in enrollment and employment materials. There should be no surprises for a student who goes to the health center looking for a refill on birth control pills or the professor seeking an IUD. But a Catholic school is a Catholic school. If it is part of the Church, it should be allowed certain concessions.

However, I wasn’t consulted and I’m wondering what I’m missing in this larger picture that I’m siding with the more restrictive side of this argument in which I am generally Team Permissive. I know that as little as I want to be forced to comply by the rules of a religion to which I do not subscribe, religious leaders have an equally strong wish not to be forced to conformed to my more secular stance. Like I said, I’m not willing to partake in a crusade to undermine religion or religious institutions and I’m pretty sure religious schools should count as religious institutions.

One thing I can say for sure is that I hope that any school that flouts the ruling gets slammed for violating the law. The Catholic Church and adherence to US legal code are not synonymous in my mind ever since that whole thing where priests who were accused of child abuse were sent to another city instead of to questioning by a DA. Religious organizations are entitled to their own beliefs but they are not exempt from civil or criminal law.

I may come to a giant epiphany about this at any moment and I’ll alert you if I do. Meanwhile, it’s a lot to ponder.

I’m particularly excited about this because I’m hesitant to write about my pregnancy here. I assume most of you come here for a dose heavy-handed criticism of politicians and celebrities, liberally laced with profanity. You’re not expecting to read about my musings on whether or not to buy a fancy diaper bag. I also know that, in any crowd of women, at least one of them is likely NOT to be pregnant and wishing she was.  For that woman, hearing blithe discussion of a pregnancy feels like a stab in the heart. I don’t want to be delivering that stab to a woman who came here to see what I have to say about Newt Gingrich’s ideas for a lunar colony.

By the way, I find Newt’s long-time obsession with space travel kind of endearing. It makes me think he was a kid who wanted to be an astronaut and loved reading 60′s-era sci-fi. That’s kind of cute. It’s a terrible basis for national policy-making but cute nonetheless.

Anyway, my new writing project at Babble will give me a chance to go on at length about pregnancy while leaving this space unchanged. I’ll also be picking up the pace and posting more frequently at The Broad Side and The DC Moms this year. I’ll keep you all posted on where on the web you can find me on any given day and I’ll post a round-up once a week in case you want to play catch up.

So, enjoy your weekend and, if you’re in Florida, try to avoid Newt lest he recruit you for his lunar colony, where I suspect all marriages will be open ones and Newt will be President for Life.

All of which is to say, I may be watching House Hunters at 9 tonight. So, instead of my commentary on the speech, here is some text I took the liberty of writing for the President. JUst in case he feels like getting real.

My fellow Americans. I’ll keep this short.

Here’s the deal. I’m sick to death of being called unAmerican. Stop it ok? It’s dumb, deliberately imflamatory thing to say and it’s not fucking true. You know who’s unAmerican? President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, a country that’s such a tremendous shitshow right now that we’re about to shut down out embassy there. Betcha didn’t know that did you? Of course not. That’s the stuff Secretary Clinton and the intelligence community and I are dealing with while you all flail around about Mitt’s taxes and Newt’s wives. So, let’s think about whose eye is on the ball and whose eye is on the gossip sheets, shall we?

Every single one of us in this room has the same goals. No, not raising enough money to get re-elected in the fall. Although, yeah, we all pay too much attention to that. But the goal I mean is a prosperous nation where everyone who needs one has a job that pays for a roof, three meals, healthcare, transportation and education for their family. We ALL want that. Not one person in this room can look me in the eye and say “No, that goal sucks”. We all want that and it’s what makes us quintessentially Americans: wanting the best for America.

Where we differ – often wildly – is on how to operationalize that goal. I’ve got some ideas for how to get us there. You have different ideas. We all have some good ideas and some bad ideas. BUT NONE OF US HAVE IDEAS THAT ARE SPECIFICALLY DESIGNED TO UNDERMINE THE GOAL I STATED EARLIER. Anyone who is out there trying to make people believe that someone actually wants to destroy American prosperity is a shithead. A fearmongering shithead who’s forgotten the importance of a prosperous America in all the fuss about getting elected.

Let’s all agree to start talking like grown-ups and discussing real, actual, proposed solutions and their merits rather than this endless game of assigning fictitious motives to our opponents. Ok? Ok.

Now, I would like everyone to get on the phone to their favorite economist and start talking turkey. Don’t go yapping to reporters. We have too much work to do to take time off for grandstanding. That means me, too. Start coming up with workable plans for restoring American prosperity – plans, not soundbytes – and we’ll get together at 14:00 tomorrow to discuss.

Meanwhile, I’ve got a briefing on a shitshow in Syria to attend.

Peace out, America.

The other fact that should be upsetting is the inherent unfairness of the staggered primary system. Not to the candidates. It’s arguable that being able to focus on one state at a time is better for candidates. But the practical result of the staggered primary system is one in which each successive state to vote gets a less robust slate of choices. Iowa and New Hampshire got to choose from the entire field. But even South Carolina, with the third primary of the season, faced a diminished ballot and I don’t doubt that Floridians will have fewer choices yet.

Check out the whole thing at The Broad Side!