A Threshold (Choices)

The exclusive lede from Reuters:

American women are ending pregnancies with medication almost as often as with surgery, marking a turning point for abortion in the United States, data reviewed by Reuters shows.

It has apparently been something of a long time coming. Pharmaceutical terminations won approval sixteen years ago; the report from Jilian Mincer explains, “the method was expected to quickly overtake the surgical option”. Political opposition to abortion slowed the transition:

Although many limitations remain, innovative dispensing efforts in some states, restricted access to surgical abortions in others and greater awareness boosted medication abortions to 43 percent of pregnancy terminations at Planned Parenthood clinics, the nation’s single largest provider, in 2014, up from 35 percent in 2010, according to previously unreported figures from the nonprofit.

The national rate is likely even higher now because of new federal prescribing guidelines that took effect in March. In three states most impacted by that change―Ohio, Texas and North Dakota―demand for medication abortions tripled in the last several months to as much as 30 percent of all procedures in some clinics, according to data gathered by Reuters from clinics, state health departments and Planned Parenthood affiliates.

Among states with few or no restrictions, medication abortions comprise a greater share, up to 55 percent in Michigan and 64 percent in Iowa.

What, really, can we add? It seems somewhat inappropriate to glibly note that Americans do catch up to the rest of the world, now and then, despite our best efforts to the other.

Oh, right.

Damn.

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Mincer, Jilian. “Exclusive: Abortion by prescription now rivals surgery for U.S. women”. Reuters. 31 October 2016.

Required Reading (Brodonculous Boss Mix)

So, gentlemen … the note from Rich Smith of The Stranger is required reading:

If you’re anything like me, you think of Planned Parenthood as a giant women’s restroom. No boyz allowed. It’s some kind of sacred vagina temple where mystic labia wizards lay their hands upon pregnant women and pass on the ancient tales of womanhood.

But it turns out that’s all crazytalk. Planned Parenthood is for men, too. They do dude stuff. And they do it cheap.

You can get screened for STDs. You can get a general physical for school/sports. If you’re an older guy, you can get your prostate checked out and your balls screened for ball cancer. You can get a vasectomy. If you’re having troubles getting it up or coming too fast, then you can talk to somebody about that stuff as well.

Go. Read. Think.

The John Kasich Show (What Counts)

“I’m willing to fight all day long, but you’ve got to have a good prospect of being able to be successful. Because if you’re not successful, you shut the government down, you open it up and you haven’t achieved anything. You’re just going to have people shake their head and wonder what your thinking was.”

―Gov. John Kasich (R-OH)

Remember, though, this is John Kasich we’re talking about, here. The takeaway from Jennifer Bendery’s report for Huffington Post is that Mr. Kasich is giving his colleagues sound strategic advice. That is to say, we should not let this or his recent sound bite about Kim Davis suggest he is any sort of moderate.

Not Actually a Punch Line

Even though it would make for a crass joke, there are days when we find ourselves wishing it was a punch line. The thing is that as setups go, Jen Sorensen’s explanation only goes downhill from there. And no, that’s not a complaint or disdainful critique of the cartoon; it’s a very good cartoon worth the click to read. Truth is stranger than fiction. You can’t make this sort of joke up. And, besides, you know. Americans. Conservatives. Family values. It’s not actually funny. She is describing a disaster; no matter how we tell it, the story only gets worse as it goes along.

This is a matter of priorities. We are the United States of America, and we damn well know what is important to us.

And this is how we show it.

(sigh)

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Sorensen, Jen. “Pro-life, Boko Haram style”. Daily Kos Comics. 26 May 2015.

Comic Relief

Aaaaaahhhhhh ....

Every frame is striking. Every line a punch. And every once in a while, genius scores a hit.

Which, in turn, seems strange enough given the puerile subject matter.

That’s just how humor works.

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Huber, Adam. “A Bun in the Microwave”. Bug Martini. 25 March 2015.

Is Jennifer Rubin Sinister or Merely Stupid?

Even the simplest of differences can create false appearances. For instance: Is Jennifer Rubin sinister or stupid?

In the end, though, the difference is one of valences. Sinister forgives stupidity in some cases for the fact of reasonable execution, but even the sinister is cultivated around a germ of ignorance.

In the first place, there is Rubin’s arrival at The Washington Post. Eric Alterman of The Nation noted last year—

It is no secret to anyone that conservatives have conducted a remarkably successful, decades-long campaign to undermine the practice of honest, aggressive journalism with trumped-up accusations of liberal bias. They have made massive investments of time and money in groups and individuals devoted to “working the refs,” and these have yielded significant ideological dividends—which, as might be predicted, have only encouraged them to keep it up.

—as a preface to his discussion of Jennifer Rubin as “The Washington Post’s Problem”. She was the third in a string of quota hires made as part of an attempt to deliberately throw their political coverage rightward in order to fend off attacks of being too liberal. Ben Domenech, their first hire for the position, turned out to be a sharp-tongued plagiarist, which was kind of embarrassing for the Post, as you might imagine. Next they plucked Dave Weigel from Reason.com, and one can reasonably say the Reason franchise has never been the same. Yet for all the quality of this pick, Post editors deemed him unsuitable for the task after realizing that he just wasn’t conservative enough. So the newspaper turned to rabid right-winer Jennifer Rubin, and the disaster of her term as a staff blogger really is hard to describe. Alterman’s review for The Nation is an excellent read, but it is also something of a headache insofar as truth is stranger than fiction and the twists and turns of Jennifer Rubin’s greatest contribution to our political discourse would seem to have something to do with mainstreaming hardline rightist tinfoil in major news media. After the 2012 election, Rubin’s ability to change her story without the slightest hint of shame, or even decency, was pretty much on display for anyone to see. Simon Maloy tried to sketch the degree of self-contradiction in her coverage of the Romney loss; it isn’t pretty.