WH Wishlist Straight Out of the Handmaiden's Tale

[bigtree]

James V. Lambers @JVLambers 9h9 hours ago
The Handmaid’s Tale isn’t just a book, movie, or series. It’s what the Trump administration and its supporters would love to impose on us all. Read this from Caroline O. (@RVAwonk): https://t.co/GAHv07CsPK

Leaked White House Memo Outlines Plans For All-Out War On Women’s Health

A leaked memo obtained by Crooked Media gives a glimpse into the administration’s views on reproductive health, revealing a policy agenda that would gut evidence-based pregnancy prevention and family planning programs in order to fund abstinence-based education and “fertility awareness” initiatives — otherwise known as “the rhythm method,” a type of birth control that fails to prevent pregnancy for one out of every four couples who use it. Among the programs on the chopping block are Title X — the nation’s only federally funded family planning initiative — and the US Agency for International Development’s (USAID) family planning budget, as well as a federal teen pregnancy prevention program and the World Health Organization’s (WHO) “Let Girls Learn” initiative...

The memo, which reads like a wish-list straight out of The Handmaid’s Tale, says Title X funding to help low-income women afford birth control “should be cut in half at least.” The money would be diverted in part to “childcare programs” — a move that suggests the Trump administration knows cutting Title X funding would result in more (unintended) pregnancies and births. And it would: according to the Guttmacher Institute, Title X services prevent an estimated one million unintended pregnancies each year.

The rest of the funding from Title X would be diverted to “fertility awareness” programs. Fertility awareness is another term for the rhythm method, a “natural” form of birth control that relies on abstinence during the period a woman is fertile each month. Used widely among Catholics and other socially conservative Christians, fertility awareness requires women to keep perfect track of their menstrual cycles, which is difficult given that many women have irregular cycles. Furthermore, fertility is not always predictable. A variety of factors, including pheromones in men’s sweat and saliva, can trigger early ovulation and therefore shift the window of fertility. This explains why the rhythm method fails to prevent pregnancy for about 25 percent of those who use it. In comparison, IUD’s and birth control implants have failure rates of less than one percent, while the birth control pill has a failure rate of about 9 percent (though it can be reduced to as low as one percent when used perfectly).

In other words, as the Trump administration makes it harder to access effective forms of contraception, they’d also like to pour more money into teaching women how to use less effective methods...

read: https://medium.com/@RVAwonk/leaked-white-house-memo-outlines-plans-for-all-out-war-on-womens-health-531cc14f2623

Link to tweet

[NewJeffCT]

1. Chilling

and RVAWonk is usually a very reliable source

[bronxiteforever]

2. Kick and recommend for visibility

[IluvPitties]

3. Conservaturds want total control over women and over America's sexuality.

Theocratic rule.

[Soxfan58]

4. Abstinence only education works

Just ask Bristol Palin.

[Freethinker65]

5. My Catholic SIL used the rhythm method and ended up with 5 kids

She made sure her oldest daughter, once dating age, got on birth control. My BIL was left out of the loop on that decision.

Access to birth control prevents unintended pregnancies and abortions. Abstinence only works for those that choose to abstain.

[sinkingfeeling]

6. Welcome to our third world country.

[secondwind]

7. This is the last straw!!!!! GOTV in November

[RandomAccess]

8. I've thought for a long, long time that we (the left) made a

strategic error par excellence by not DEMANDING more -- much more -- in implementing our CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT to abortion.

Instead, we quiver before the moralists and say such inanities as "well, no one LIKES abortion," and "abortion should be safe and rare" and so on.

If it's a Constitutional RIGHT, then we need not apologize for it, shouldn't need to or negotiate for it, or in any other way allow ourselves to be subservient to other voices on the matter.

[Runningdawg]

9. The quiverfull movement is about to become national policy

but to suggest this country is sliding into Theocracy is just crazy liberal talk - right?

[Solly Mack]

10. K&R