THE LAWSON FILE: FRUITCAKES GONE WILD

The truth is way out there and the truth is that now the so called pro-life fanatics want to outlaw the birth control pill. A mainstay in women's reproductive freedom since the 60s is under attack by a bunch of nuts who have nothing better to do then creep in to the bedrooms of every American and issue a seal of approval or disapproval on whatever is going on there.

Give me a break already.

Pro-lifers led by the American Life League (ALL) are planning June 7 protests outside of facilities that distribute the pill because they say the pill kills babies and is just another form of abortion.

Where am I?

Marie Hahnenberg, Project Manager of Protest the Pill Day says, “Pro-lifers understand that life does in fact begin at fertilization and the birth control pill kills babies.”

The fact that such proclamations are medical hogwash doesn't really matter to these people. They've got an agenda to promote. On their website amongst other gems are the following:

The regular birth control pill is a “chemical abortion.”

The pill “can make a woman more susceptible to the AIDS virus.”

And “sexual activity outside of marriage is seriously wrong.”

As you'd expect ALL does not believe abortion should be allowed in any instance, including protecting the life of the woman, rape, or incest.

ALL's commander in chief Judie Brown resigned from the National Right to Life Committee because its leadership decided to make exceptions for rape and incest for abortion; Brown says exceptions "can never be morally justified" and that "expert medical opinion" insists "abortion can never be necessary to save the life of the mother."

But what else could a woman who has also said a, "single cell zygotic child" is "not a potential human being; she is a complete human being," believe.

All out for zygotes!

And what about Sex education. The SF Chronicle way back in 2001 reported:

"...the group contends sex education, must be "built on absolute truth. There are absolute standards of right and wrong, and no one has the 'right to choose' immorality." The only sex ed programs that ALL will tolerate are those that lead students toward "the practice of virtue and that avoid examining the subject of sex in any concrete, detailed or descriptive way in the classroom or other public setting."'

People for the American Way says ALL founded by Judie and Paul Brown with help from right-wing strategist Paul Weyrich is closely aligned with the Catholic Church and opposes birth control, stem cell research and euthanasia. ALL was an enthusiastic backer of the extreme anti-abortion tactics promoted by Operation Rescue.

It was one year ago today that Erik Whittington, American Life League's youth outreach director summed up her organizations mission in a press release as ALL demonstrated at a Sojourners conference, "This past weekend, Sojourners opened Pentecost 2007: Taking Vision to the Street, a conference aimed at placing “poverty at the top of our nation’s agenda.” Today, Sojourners will host a march that will run from National City Christian Church to the Upper Senate Park. American Life League, through its youth outreach project Rock for Life, will be there to present to conference attendees the importance of putting abortion, not poverty, at the top of the list of social concerns."

You wouldn't think they'd be so stupid as to openly reveal their agenda, but, when you're speaking on behalf on the Almighty, well, what can I say.

I almost have to be glad to see ALL these fools out protesting and spouting their line. It once and for all exposes what the so called pro-life movement is all about.

In that vein, I'd encourage everyone to check out their website at http://www.all.org/ .

The following is from Feministing.com

No, Virginia, the Pill does NOT "Kill": How the Latest Anti-Roe Strategy Misleads Women
Contributed by Dr. Dana Stone, MD

Many people who agree with anti-choice advocates in the abortion debate may not be so comfortable with the more radical subgroup whose goal is abolishing access to birth control. The American Life League (ALL) plans to commemorate June 7th, the 33rd anniversary of the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) ruling establishing the right of married couples to make the personal decision to use birth control, as "Protest the Pill Day."

As a practicing doctor, and an OB/GYN, I'd like to point out that the primary claims on ALL's "The Pill Kills" Web site -- that birth control pills are a form of "chemical abortion" able to "kill innocent preborn children" -- are 100% medically inaccurate. And most of the others have been cherry picked from the drug insert the FDA requires with the pill, then spun in a way that is purposely misleading. (More about that later.)

That's because ALL's work has absolutely nothing to do with medical accuracy or maternal or fetal health. What we're seeing here is just the latest round in a grudge match that's been going on since 1965, the year that SCOTUS decided Griswold v. Connecticut.

This landmark case established the constitutional right to privacy as the basis for striking down a Connecticut law that prohibited the use of contraceptives. Eight years later, in 1973, it underpinned the SCOTUS decision in Roe v. Wade, which held that most laws against abortion in the United States violated a constitutional right to privacy under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

And that's what's really bugging ALL.


We now face fringe movements trying to turn a woman's egg into a baby, birth control pills into a form of abortion, and all forms of contraception into murder. Call it nostalgia for the good old days, when men were men, sex was unspeakable, and women lived in fear of unintended pregnancies.

Let's get the medical facts straight. Birth control pills use two different mechanisms to prevent the release of an egg each month. Other effects of the pill can either reduce sperm motility or thin the uterine lining -- all simply to keep a fertilized egg from implanting if ovulation does occur.

There. That's it. That's the basis of ALL's claim that the pill is equivalent to "chemical abortion": more colorfully, that hundreds of millions of such losses have occurred within a 30-year span.

But that number, like the myth of "chemical abortion," is a complete fabrication: 30-60% of all pregnancies are spontaneously and naturally lost in the first three months -- half of them so early that they are unrecognizable as pregnancies. So there's no way that ALL can possibly quantify how often it allegedly occurs due to the use of birth control pills.

Equally sketchy is ALL's claim that birth control pills are "absolutely" dangerous to women's health. Yes, pills can have some dangerous side effects. That's why women are required to visit a doctor before getting a prescription, and encouraged to make follow-up visits. But ALL -- this time conveniently skirting the information on the FDA insert -- doesn't mention that women ages 15-39 have up to 20 times higher risk of death from pregnancy than from using birth control pills.

Or that the medical benefits of being on the pill are proven. Studies have shown that the pill can reduce uterine and ovarian cancer risks by 50%. It also protects against tubal pregnancy, pelvic infections, anemia, endometriosis, and other gynecological problems. By contrast, the federal government's Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (PRAMS) data showed that 12% of pregnant women required a hospital stay unrelated to their delivery of at least one day during their pregnancies.

Let's stick with the facts. Women's and children's health improve when a woman has the freedom to plan the number and timing of her children. All birth control methods have consistently been shown to be safer for a woman than pregnancy; meanwhile, multiple, fast-paced pregnancies run demonstrably high risks for pregnancy loss, fetal growth restriction, and infant mortality.

Pro-choice and pro-life advocates alike should understand that the best way to decrease the number of abortions is to make effective contraception available for couples.

Dr. Dana Stone, MD, is a board-certified OB/GYN who practices in Oklahoma City. She works actively in her specialty and state medical organizations to promote women's health issues.