Jessica Valenti is author of The Purity Myth. She has argued that conservatives who are pushing hard for virginity and chastity (with virginity proms and virginity pledges) are sexualizing women every bit as much as our pop culture, though in an opposite direction. She argues that women should be judged by what they say and do, because of their intelligence and kindness. "Our moral compass does not lie between our legs, but that is what the purity myth is telling young women." And by the way,
Media Education Foundation has released a new video about The Purity Myth. Here's the trailer:
What follows is a short interview of Jessica Valenti:
Catholic bishops are having conniption fits over a recent HHS regulation which requires employers which provide health insurance to employees to have coverage which includes contraceptives. The HHS regulation is comparable to 28 states which have laws which also require insurers to have such coverage as part of their policies. The regulation, as do many states’ laws, explicitly excludes purely religious institutions from its purview but, schools, hospitals and foundations among others would be included.
Many critics of the regulation call it a “mandate” but, the requirement is only imposed as to those employers which voluntarily provide insurance coverage as an employee benefit. If the employers chose to not directly provide insurance coverage to their employees as a benefit, they would have no requirement to provide the contraceptive coverage to which the bishops and other religious groups and employers object.
If the institutions covered by the new regulation were to instead provide a cash benefit to an employee equivalent to the cost of health insurance for that employee and their dependents, there would be no conflict between the regulation and the “conscience” of the respective religious institutions. The employees then would be free to exercise their individual informed conscience as to what coverage they would then purchase, if any, from the health insurance exchanges which must be set up by next year under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Some employees might instead choose to pay the new fines under the ACA and keep the difference in cash they obtained from their employer.
All I see here is more anti-Obama rhetoric by neo-conservative Catholic Bishops much as was ado about nothing over the supposed threat of the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA). Even before President Obama took office we Catholics were bombarded with scares and flares of inflammatory rhetoric about how the first thing President Obama would do as President would be to sign FOCA into law. Post cards were laid in pews, to be signed and after strident sermons against FOCA, to be sent to Washington opposing FOCA. Just as there is now no "mandate" regarding the choice of employers to provide any particular benefit, no such bill even existed at the time of the scares and flares. It was all shark control on the Mississippi.
The whole shibboleth about "religious freedom" is a stalking horse for the neo-conservative bishops to inflame independent Catholic voters into supporting Republican candidates with their votes and reward the wealthy contributors to the Church which have taken over donations to the Church after the masses' rebellion against the clergy sex abuse scandal in the US and abroad.
Religious freedom is not threatened by the recent Obama administration's guidelines about employer's voluntary benefits to employees. Religious freedom is threatened by the neo-conservative Catholic bishops' adherence to a world view which only supports Republican candidates and wealthy contributors.
According to Raw Story, an Oklahoma legislator has tried to draw attention to a proposed new law by proposing a modification that would make every sperm sacred.
A pro-choice Democratic legislator has taken a novel approach to fighting an Oklahoma “personhood” bill. According to the blog Jezebel, State Senator Constance Johnson of Oklahoma City has introduced a measure that calls to mind the famous Monty Python “Every Sperm is Sacred” sketch from the 1983 film “The Meaning of Life.”
Guttmacher Institute has released a Fact Sheet on unintended pregnancies in the United States. Here's what I learned:
Most American families want two children.
About half (49%) of the 6.7 million pregnancies in the United States each year (3.2 million) are unintended.
By age 45, more than half of all American women will have experienced an unintended pregnancy, and three in 10 will have had an abortion.
Unintended pregnancy rates are highest among poor and low-income women, women aged 18–24, cohabiting women and minority women. In 2006, black women had the highest unintended pregnancy rate of any racial or ethnic groups.
In 2006, 43% of unintended pregnancies ended in abortion and 48% ended in birth.
Compared with higher-income women, poor and low-income women are less likely to end an unintended pregnancy by abortion.
In 2006, two-thirds (64%) of the 1.6 million births resulting from unintended pregnancies were paid for by public insurance programs, primarily Medicaid.
Total public expenditures for births resulting from unintended pregnancies nationwide were estimated to be $11.1 billion in 2006.
Two-thirds of U.S. women at risk for unintended pregnancy use contraception consistently and correctly throughout the course of any given year; these women account for only 5% of all unintended pregnancies. In contrast, the 19% of women at risk who use contraception inconsistently or incorrectly account for 43% of all unintended pregnancies. The 16% of women at risk who do not practice contraception at all for a month or more during the year account for 52% of all unintended pregnancies.
Without publicly funded family planning services, the number of unintended pregnancies and abortions occurring in the United States would be nearly two-thirds higher among women overall and among teens; the number of unintended pregnancies among poor women would nearly double.
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