Bush

Bush, Hating on Women on the Way Out

Unfortunately -- albeit unsurprisingly -- President Bush, much in the way he entered the office, feels the need to leave it by spitting right in the face of women and our health.

Ready to vote? I am.

Vote!I want to take a few minutes of your time and tell you not about me, but about some of the women I meet at the clinic I work at, who come into my office for counsel and tell me some of the most intimate details of their lives.

I want to tell how you much they are like me, you, other women and people you know. I want to tell you how important they are, even though they are clearly so easy for some to ignore or dismiss, even though they are so often rendered invisible.

Dear HHS: How about you consult YOUR conscience?

I am writing to urge you to stop efforts to block women's access to basic reproductive health services.

I understand that the proposed regulations that the Department of Health and Human Services released on August 21, 2008 expand existing law to allow more health care providers and institutions to refuse to provide needed care.

Since this proposal has come to light, I have looked for any evidence that it is in response to a mass of healthcare workers voicing complaint and finding they are incapable of doing the very jobs they have agreed to do. I have found no such thing.

Nearly Half of U.S. States Now Refusing Abstinence-Only Sex Ed and Federal Funding

As reported at Time Magazine this week, most of the United States has started to wise up about the ineffectiveness and bias of abstinence-only (which differs from abstinence-plus or comprehensive sex education, both of which contain accurate and in-depth information on sex and sexual health, but which usually also make clear that forestalling sex or certain kinds of sex is often most safe) sex education pushed by the Bush administration, and which is funded by billions of taxpayer dollars to date, and $50 mil

Teen Pregnancy Rates Up in the U.S.: 10 Likely Reasons Why That Aren't Just About Sex Ed

Increases in pregnancy and birth rates to any group, including teens, are about more than just what sort of sex education people are getting. By all means, a lack of accessible, approachable and accurate comprehensive sex education is always going to create problems with unwanted pregnancy. It always has. So, sound, accurate sexuality education is a vital starting point, but what else should we be addressing?

Low-Income Access to Contraception... Orr Not?

U.S. President Bush has just appointed a visible critic and opponent of contraception to head Title X, our family planning program whose purpose is to provide access to contraception and other family planning services.

In a 2000 Weekly Standard article, Orr railed against requiring health insurance plans to cover contraceptives. “It’s not about choice,” said Orr. “It’s not about health care. It’s about making everyone collaborators with the culture of death.”

Here we go... AGAIN.

James Holsinger, a Kentucky cardiologist who President Bush last month nominated as the next surgeon general, might "be headed for a nomination fight," after lawmakers and gay and lesbian advocacy groups raised concern about his position on gay-rights issues, CQ Today reports (Armstrong, CQ Today, 6/8). According to some gay rights groups, Holsinger in 1991 wrote in a report for a United Methodist committee that gay sex is unnatural and potentially leads to serious health issues (Alonso-Zaldivar, Los Angeles Times, 6/9).

Watch Your Reproductive Rights Vanish Right Before Your Very Eyes!

It's hard enough to stomach this administration's claims of a "War on Terror," when fighting that war (as if that wasn't ironic enough already) involves taking water and work away from civilians, and thousands of deaths and injuries for Iraqis and American soldiers alike.

But when, today, the Supreme Court negated federal protections for abortion clinics against violence, when the Bush administration supported a "pro-life" group with a validated history of a wide scope of clinic violence, including bombings (again with the irony), all one could really ask oneself was...

What? Bush nominates someone who'll support the extreme right to the Supreme Court?

I don't believe it! Who saw it coming? How could this happen?

(Yeah, I'm no more convincing with playacting than the administration is.)

In a completely unsurprising turn of events, following Bush's failed (though one has to wonder if it wasn't supposed to) attempt to bring the conservative-but-not-conservative-enough Gidget-esque Bush loyalist Harriet Miers into the O'Connor's Supreme Court seat, Bush has now brought in a candidate who Pat Robertson calls "a grand-slam home run."