I scan the headlines for something intelligent and informative to read. Of course, depending on the site, this varies. What I try not to focus on is the election or President Bush. Every once in a while there is a headline that increases my curiosity of what Mr. Bush is up to now. What is his Public Relations and the media up to.

I find politics interesting when the politicians are actually doing something about the economy, labor and healthcare. To what extremes they will go to get attention, good press or bad press. After all, there is no such thing as bad press in Public Relations.

Dear Mr. Bush, you will go down in history for not only being the president who is in need of speech therapy, and perhaps math. And please – what a humiliating joke was the last election?

Take a look at this article in the Wall Street Jornal. It’s about the current administration drafting a regulation which treats the pill as abortion. This abortion law would not only target medical abortion (the abortion pill), but also your “standard” birth control pill. The Bush administration has presented some concerns about widely used birth control methods having the same effects as abortion.

From the Wall Street Journal’s article of July 31, 2008:

A draft regulation, still being revised and debated, treats most birth-control pills and intrauterine devices as abortion because they can work by preventing fertilized eggs from implanting in the uterus. The regulation considers that destroying “the life of a human being.”

Now I just would love to seat Walker down and ask him: why do you bring this to the table now? Why make a fuss of this? What are you trying to distract from?

I see the church and a side dish of HMO lobbying here. Yes, our good old HMOs.

If Mr. Bush puts the kibosh on the morning-after pill, there is a chance of the need for more abortion clinics, when the pregnancy actually exists.

The Dreaded Abortion Pill

Should the morning-after pill be limited to rape victims? I don’t think so. Too many binge drinkers out there, you know, enjoying their spontaneity and unprotected consensual sex.

I don’t feel that the abortion pill should be handed out like gummi bears. Abortion should be taken more seriously. If you are going to be sexually active, then you need to take responsibility. If you do not wish to become pregnant, it is up to us women to decide which method to use.

The pill: you can read on Wikipedia information about its roots in the 1930s, and that the government had no interest in pursuing the research at that time. Perhaps due to the church. Later in history of course, the need for birth control was taken seriously.

Even with contraception available, abortion was and still is an option for many women. I really think it is more of a matter of abusing what has been offered. It’s a lack of education or responsibility maybe.

My experiences with the pill have been short termed. I don’t like anything messing up my body’s natural rhythm.

Abortion Facts

The American Psychiatric Association (APA) reports that abortion is not a threat to women’s mental health. This is an article at salon.com with the full report linked to it. I would have to say though, terminating an unwanted pregnancy still would be a very hard experience for any woman.

Guilt and hormones mustering up a woman’s emotional chemistry after abortion – I would say has a lot to do with her mental health. The APA researchers who did the study point out that actually, abortion has become more acceptable nowadays and there are individual reactions that differ from woman to woman after having the abortion procedure done.

Public facts: A factsheet by the Center for Reproductive Rights entitled World’s Abortion Laws (PDF) states:

Currently, 61% of the world’s people live in countries where induced abortion is permitted either for a wide range of reasons or without restriction as to reason. In contrast, 26% of all people reside in countries where abortion is generally prohibited.

Abortion is an option for all women. Personally though, I find with the many birth control methods and the morning after pill being available for up to 72 hours after having unprotected sex, it shouldn’t have to go as far as that.

Speaking about the church, there even exists an organization solely dedicated to this issue. Catholics for Choice aims to “support a woman’s moral and legal right to follow her conscience in matters of sexuality and reproductive health”.

I am pro choice – every woman should have the choice to decide for herself when it is the right time for her to have a baby. If she chooses to be the one taking a time-out from her career or if her significant other is going to stay at home and raise the kid. This is up to the couple and not the church.

It is ludicrous to have the church still trying to jump in bed with couples after all this time.

Women have come a long way. I feel lucky, I went to a four year university, entered a male dominated career and now have my own business. This is something my mom could only dream of doing, but she made it possible for me.

Women have a choice to have a career as well as motherhood. Being able to find own means how to handle it is one’s individual right. Your life should not stop if an unexpected pregnancy occurs.

I have friends who have had abortions. Their abortions could possibly have been prevented if they had been more educated on contraceptives. These women have become career professionals and have since married and started a family years after the abortion.

I see the above mentioned fluff as a technique used by the Bush Administration to rally up some press. The agenda is almost certainly the upcoming election and an attempt

1. to distract from current events that throw a shadow on the Administration’s policies (meaning everything else they do), and
2. to lead the public to believe that a Republican Administration in the following term is the right choice.

What a rediculous pun.

Of course, the Democratic Party needed to respond to this kind of large-scale media fluffing. Their stand on this issue, which has also triggered an opinion article on The Carpetbagger Report (among many others), is to now make more assistance available to mothers who decide to have their baby. Basically, they want to associate the pro-life movement with a President Obama. Well, they do need to respond somehow, don’t they?

I have to wonder, with Pro-life being such an issue in the church, has the church fallen into a more political venue? Politics and the church need to remain separate. Let me rephrase that: the church needs to stay the hell out of politics. Besides, wasn’t this the exact foundation our forefathers built this nation on? Didn’t the pilgrims escape from the “Old World” for just the reason that the church had too much influence on their freedom?

We need to take responsibility for our actions. There should be better sex education classes in our schools informing students at an age-appropriate time and level. This is really where it has to start. Again, the keyword here is education. Educating our children to know the facts. Educating the people to know the facts. Educating facts, not some far-fetched, lobby-induced, agenda-driven, full-blown political race PR.

Birth control is absolutely necessary. It allows couples to plan a family when they are mentally and financially able. The Pro-life movement, which is merely a euphemism for Anti-choice, is trying to restrict existing rights in a number of ways. I’d like to recommend an eye-opening article to you: The Center for Reproductive Rights has quite a read on this issue.

Weapons of Mass Distraction

Robin Williams put it the right way in a funny yet very serious manner. The more I think of it, the more it amazes me that the government is able to use its resources to sway us away from issues so simple to resolve. We really need the right education before, and not after.

People are like sheep. They follow. Then there is the Darwin theory. Combine the two and you got yourself the perfect reason why going into politics has become a legit career choice in this country. Why would anybody want to educate people when it is working to their advantage not to do so?

America claims to be the richest and strongest country. But we are just an infant compared to the rest of the world. Just as an example, the majority of the world has had women in power for centuries. And I will not go off on the war and other hot political issues. Another example: I am concerned that the “greatest country” doesn’t provide Health Insurance. (Don’t tell me you’d actually call what we have by that name.) Like the majority of Europe, or Canada, or even Cuba. Let’s just call it by its real name: Health Business.

With Pro-life, anti abortion and Bush, HMOs will be able to expand this business and extend their market. This will be profitable to those few people who are educated about the system and know how to use it to their advantage. To the rest of America, it will not.

Educated people: who needs more of them anyway. Why educate the sheep when you can milk them.