A couple of weeks ago, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius overruled both the FDA and White House experts, and made it illegal for teenagers under the age of 17  to obtain Plan B without a prescription.  Days later, President Barack Obama agreed with Sebelius’ decision and enforced the ban.  When he did so, he noted it was not just as President – but “as the father of two daughters.”  Ugh.  Inappropriate alert: it’s not okay to make decisions for every teenage girl in America because you’d rather yours never had sex.  Moving on.

First, a little bit about Plan B.  Plan B is a hormone based contraceptive pill that, if taken within 72 hours after unprotected intercourse, can prevent pregnancy.  Plan B is not an abortion pill; Plan B will not induce an abortion; Plan B is not an abortion pill.  Yes, I felt compelled to repeat this several times, because some people just don’t get that this isn’t about abortions – this is about contraception.

Now, let’s apply some logic to the debate over the availability of OTC contraceptives. Since we allow teenagers under the age of 17 to purchase other kinds of over-the-counter contraception, including: condoms (male and female), spermicide, contraceptive films, and vaginal sponges, it stands to reason that we should allow them to purchase this other OTC contraceptive.

Why are we making an exception for this particular method of birth control? Many critics charge that Plan B is dangerous, and can have adverse effects if taken by girls – therefore, because of that risk, their parents should be able to decide if their kid can take the drug, and it shouldn’t be over the counter. Let’s take a look at that argument, too.

Here is a list of other OTC medications that are available without a prescription to teenagers and adolescents (from Jezebel.com):

Robitussin DM
Possible side effects: allergic reaction; impaired thinking and reactions; dizziness or headache; rash; nausea, vomiting, or stomach upset; when abused, can lead to hallucinations and paranoia, as well as possible irregular heartbeat, high blood pressure, brain lesions, epilepsy, and permanent psychosis
Overdose effects: at least one death has been reported as a result of Robitussin overdose, but psychological ill effects, like the feeling of being trapped in a “time loop,” may be more common
Over-the-counter? Yes

Benadryl
Possible side effects: allergic reaction; impaired ability to drive or operate machinery; sleepiness, fatigue, or dizziness; headache; dry mouth; difficulty urinating or an enlarged prostate.
Overdose effects: extreme sleepiness; fever; hallucinations; seizures
Over-the-counter? Yes

Prilosec OTC
Possible side effects: allergic reaction; fever; cold symptoms such as stuffy nose, sneezing, sore throat; stomach pain, gas; nausea, vomiting, diarrhea; headache; magnesium deficiency which may cause seizures; increased risk of bone fractures
Overdose effects: drowsiness; blurred vision; fast heartbeat; nausea; vomiting; sweating; headache; dry mouth
Over-the-counter? Yes

Advil
Possible side effects: allergic reaction; upset stomach, mild heartburn, diarrhea, constipation; bloating, gas; dizziness, headache, nervousness; skin itching or rash; blurred vision; ringing in ears; chest pain, weakness, shortness of breath, slurred speech, problems with vision or balance; black, bloody, or tarry stools, coughing up blood or vomit that looks like coffee grounds; swelling or rapid weight gain; urinating less than usual or not at all; nausea, upper stomach pain, itching, loss of appetite, dark urine, clay-colored stools, jaundice (yellowing of the skin or eyes); fever, sore throat, and headache with a severe blistering, peeling, and red skin rash; bruising, severe tingling, numbness, pain, muscle weakness; or severe headache, neck stiffness, chills, increased sensitivity to light, and/or seizure (convulsions)
Overdose effects: stomach bleeding; difficulty breathing; coma
Over-the-counter? Yes

Tylenol
Possible side effects: allergic reaction
Overdose effects: possible liver failure and death
Over-the-counter? Yes

Now, let’s take a look at the label warnings for Plan B:

Plan B
Possible side effects: allergic reaction; ectopic pregnancy; nausea, diarrhea, or stomach pain; breast pain or tenderness; dizziness, tired feeling; changes in menstrual periods; headache
Overdose effects: nausea, vomiting
Over-the-counter? 17 and older only

It is clear that there are other OTC medications available that have much more dangerous side effects than Plan B could possibly hope to have.  So that, too, is not the real reason we want to keep Plan B out of the hands of adolescents.

The Plan B debate is yet another example of an attempt by our increasingly conservative government to limit access to reasonable contraceptive methods.  Beyond that, it is also part and parcel with the mixed message paradigm we provide to young women every day, through advertising, television shows, and print media: it’s a good idea to look as sexy as you can, but whatever you do, don’t actually explore your sexuality – because if you do, and you make a mistake, we will shame you and expect you to pay for it.

I think the idea of shame is at the core of this debate: parents want to shame their teenage daughters into telling them about their sex lives so that they can buy the drug (in the obvious hope that this threat will prevent an actual sex life); the government wants to shame young women into contrition by forcing them to go to a doctor to get a prescription; our society (increasingly) wants to shame women into unhealthy, unwanted pregnancies by making it harder and harder to take the steps necessary to prevent it in the first place.

In America, there is this essential idea that, for females, sex comes with a price, and each and every one of us are expected to pay.  Since society can’t fully exact this toll on adult women – too many of us are both too confident in our sexuality and too resourceful to give up our birth control options – the next best thing is to get ‘em while they’re young, and make sure we start punishing and shaming young women in the early stages of their sexual understanding.

Barring Plan B from OTC sales for teenagers isn’t designed to prevent negative side effects or to prevent some girls from having sex. It’s just another example of the government butting into women’s reproductive rights, using the threat of humiliation to keep our “ladies” chaste and “loose women” appropriately branded.  This decision is designed to punish for a lifetime the mistake of a moment.

For shame.

In my post-turkey laziness, I was idly poking around the internet.  And then I started to notice some similarities between certain headlines.  Here’s a sampling of what I saw in 20 minutes of screen-time:

“Christina Aguilera Gets Slammed For Skin-Tight, Cleavage-Baring AMA Outfit” – US Weekly

“Hot! Kristen Wiig Sizzles in Black Lingerie for GQ Photo Shoot” – US Weekly

“Can Parents Be Convinced To Want Baby Girls?” -Jezebel

“CURVY Kate Winslet doesn’t miss a trick as she clads her curves in another optical illusion frock.” – The Sun

“’She doesn’t look like a princess. Where’s her dress?’: What primary school children thought of Duchess Kate when she paid them a surprise visit in jeans” – Daily Mail Online

“Man Posts Evidence of Bride’s Lost Virginity To Facebook, World Retches” -Jezebel

“Newly single? Jennifer Love Hewitt looks heartbroken as she picks up comfort food in sweats and no make-up” -Daily Mail

“Bitch Stole My Look: Jennifer Lopez vs. Britney Spears”-Eonline (“bitch stole my look” is a running feature on this site)

Now. It’s not news that women are objectified in popular culture. But it’s truly shocking (to me, at least) that for the entire length of time there has been print media in the United States, there has been visual and linguistic objectification of women. It’s bad enough when we’re subjected to these images in advertisements, but when the arbitrary concepts of “hotness” or “thinness” are actual headlines in and of themselves – when all we know about a princess is that she’s supposed to wear a dress – when all we care about when we see an accomplished actress is whether or not she’s wearing sweatpants (and by the way, do you know why women wear sweats and leave the house without makeup? Because sweats are comfy, duh) – and when we constantly set successful women up as each others’ foils – well, sometimes, I just feel like things are getting worse, not better.  It’s obscenely pervasive.  It pisses me off.  And I feel like we’ve all kind of just laid down and accepted that this is the way things have got to be.

I see a lot of equality movements getting traction these days, and I am a part of many of them, and I say RIGHT ON to them all.  I’m concerned, however, that feminism – the reasoned, theoretical and practical, and yes, dogmatic set of beliefs that hold that women are of equal value to our society and in our culture – isn’t a part of conversations of equality anymore, except as something of a footnote.  I’m concerned that at a time when young progressives are riding a swelling tide of progressive thought, none of it is focused specifically on the role of women in society.  I can’t fathom how women’s lack of equality in the financial sector isn’t a huge topic of conversation within the Occupy Wall Street movement.  Or why we don’t talk about the (almost nonexistent) number of single women who exist within the 1%. Why we’re not talking more about the extreme marginalization of women of color and women who are immigrants.

I don’t understand how we can allow female legislators to be called “socialist bitches” without causing a hue and cry.  I don’t understand how in just 20 minutes on the internet, I can find – as I just randomly surf – eight examples of abject objectification of high profile women, as well as just some straight out misogyny. I feel like women are somehow getting lost in the new struggle for a new order, and I’m not sure how to prevent this from happening, or how to bring about a new consciousness around the issues that women still face in society today.  I’m all out of answers on this one.  Any ideas?

Scene: I am in an office at an institution of higher learning, in the Education department. Feeling like utter crap with a splitting-headache-moving-toward-migraine, I am trying to get some last-minute work things completed before I have to bail on the day due to pitiful sick-faceness.

Suddenly, two people meet in the hallway outside the door and start squealing like pigs about to go for slaughter (did I mention my headache?).  And…we’re off.

Characters:
Mary* – older secretary for department who has been here since the beginning of time
Jennifer – young-mid 30′s, former student, graduated about ten years ago

Jennifer: “Are you Mary?”

Mary: (hesitant) “Yes…”

Jennifer: “Hi, I’m Jennifer Bates? I was here ten years ago, do you remem…”

Mary: “JENNIFER! I thought you looked familiar! Of course I remember you!”

Jennifer: “Wow, you have a fantastic memory, good for you!”

-more squealing ensues-

Mary: “Well, how have you been?”

Jennifer: “I stayed in, like, education, I’m teaching in a public school, I love it!”

Mary: “Oh, what a sweetheart you are! Where do you do all this?”

Jennifer: “Well, I moved to Texas, so that was, like, a change.”

Mary: “Are you here visiting?”

Jennifer: “No, well, kind of, I’m here to, like, get rid of some property, I moved, like, kind of suddenly and now I have to, like, take care of loose ends.”

Mary: “Oh, okay. So you’re staying in Texas, how is it?”

Jennifer: “I live outside of Dallas, I like it a lot.”

Mary: “That’s nice.”

Jennifer: “I became a Christian and came to Jesus and that has made everything in my life just *so much* better.”

Mary: “That’s nice.”

Jennifer: “I mean, I’m still working in education but it’s so different where I live. In my small town, you, like, know everybody and everybody, like, knows you. And, like, everybody at school goes to church together. Like, all the teachers do.”

Mary: “That’s nice.”

Jennifer: “And there’s no, like, conflict of, like, faith in the schools? You know? I mean, you can, like, be who you are.”

Mary: “That’s nice.”

Jennifer: “I mean, you can’t, like, stand up and give a sermon in front of the classroom…

Mary: “Right…”

Jennifer: “…but you can have your faith there and talk about Jesus Christ being our savior to the students and it’s, like, okay.”

Mary: “That’s nice.”

At the time I finally reached behind my ear and flicked my auditory “off” switch, this conversation was still in full swing, with “Jennifer” getting increasingly dogmatic in her descriptions to “Mary” about how great it was to be able to talk about Jesus in the classroom. To her students. To her elementary school students who, at their age, tend to take Teacher’s Words as gospel (get it, gospel?).

I am glad that Jennifer has found a place to teach in which she feels comfortable, but I really wish it was a private, parochial school that was not fully funded by the state, rather than a public school, which is essentially a government institution and should not be promoting religion in the classroom.  Call me crazy, but I am a big fan (huge!) of that pesky little Establishment Clause, and it’s super good buddy, the Free Exercise Clause, which, when taken together, basically says that Congress (and this was applied to the States via the Incorporation doctrine) both can’t create a governmental religion and can’t prevent people from practicing their religion – but can prevent people from teaching  religion in public schools.  (continued below image)

There are reasons for our laws. by M. Wuerker

It is extremely irresponsible for a public school teacher, and in this case, an entire community of teachers within a public school, to stand in the classroom and promulgate their ideas about Jesus Christ being a personal savior. In their role as teachers, paid by the state, they are employed as agents of the government and are restricted by the rules of our constitutional and statutory laws.  It is highly illegal for them to be doing this kind of “work” among students in that setting.  It is also potentially dangerous to the students themselves, some of whom may have differing religious beliefs but who, after being forcibly exposed to Christian postulations in the classroom, may experience crises of faith and poorly understood cognitive conflicts that they are afraid to discuss with their family or religious leadership, for fear of upsetting people, saying the wrong thing, or going against their family’s belief system.

This isn’t mere speculation on my part. As a child, I saw this happen over and over again with well-meaning but incredibly wrongheaded teachers who would say inappropriate religion-based things in the classroom, alienating all non-Christian kids and sometimes all non-Catholic kids and sending us (yes, “us,” I was one of those kids, it’s personal, dammit) into spiraling emotional vortexes of self-doubt and utter confusion.  Like the time I was told IN SCHOOL that I – and all Jews – were personally responsible for the death of Jesus Christ. I was ten years old. Whoa!  There was no opposing viewpoint presented. I wasn’t the only kid who felt this way or had this experience. Come on, folks, get it together.

There’s a reason that public schools are prohibited from teaching religion. Let’s try to respect that, shall we? I mean, as a teacher, do you really want your legacy to be legions of children lying awake nights, wondering if they and their entire family will be going to hell right quick? I didn’t think so. Please take this into consideration.  As we learned from Ecclesiastes 3:1, “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.”  That time is not between 9am and 3pm in your classroom, Jennifer. Please stop it.

And while we’re talking about public school “fails:”  this, ladies and gentlemen, is why American students need to, like, learn about the constitutional separation of, like, church and state. Like now.

*All names have been changed to protect the innocent. And the guilty.

Marriage equality is poised to come to the floor for a vote in the New York State Senate – sometime today, sometime on Monday, sometime, sometime. Of course, the number of promises broken by the Republican caucus is legion, and includes yesterday’s assurance that a vote would come by end-of-day, and yet there’s still nothing on the table. Please keep in mind that this first step is just the senators allowing the bill to come to the floor, not passing the damn thing. So far, they won’t even let the measure come up for a vote, and I can only assume that this is because they’re afraid if they do, the measure will pass.

I’ve been part of this debate for years and I’ve been following the chaos of the conversation in this legislative session for the past several months, and there are some things I want to say, and other things I need to know.

Things I need to say:

There’s a difference between “biblical” marriage, which is defined in whatever way a particular denomination wishes to do so, and “statutory” marriage, which is a legal, government-approved union of two lives. The NY vote is on statutory marriage concerns. Talking about the bible, God, theological morality, and religious notions of what “marriage” means is not appropriate to this debate, in that our constitution promises us separation of church and state.  Going to the Capitol building and holding up a sign that says “Defend Biblical Marriage” does nothing but prove that the sign-holder is ignorant of one of the fundamental tenets of the principles on which our country was founded. Go to your church, temple, mosque, or whatever building in which you pray and hold up a sign that exhorts those inside to “defend biblical marriage.” Don’t do it at the state house. It is the most specious argument you could come up with to support your position.

For those of you who are delaying in the hopes this bill and the movement behind it will somehow wither and die because you go on summer break, I’ve got news for you: this bill will be voted upon, if not during this session than during the next, if not in the next than the one after that; this head-in-the-sand approach to legislation, where you try to delay it until the people forget about it, is not going to work here – in fact it never works, ever, anywhere. People aren’t going to forget that a large percentage of our population lacks the civil rights that are promised to all Americans. And when it does come up for a vote, the Senators who have thus far refused to let the vote go to the floor and who will vote no when it does come up are going to find themselves, embarrassingly, on the wrong side of history. They will (deservedly) be relegated in the history books as short-sighted bigots who, even in a time of great social change, even in a time when the majority of Americans and the majority of New Yorkers support marriage equality, could not see the forest through the trees.

Things I need to know:

Can somebody please explain to me how it hurts your religion or your church-sanctioned marriage if other people are allowed to receive state-sanctioned marriage certificates?

Did you know that you still get two different certificates when you get married, one from your religious institution and one from the governing body in your municipality?

Do you understand that we’re talking about two different things?

Do you realize you will never be forced to go to a marriage you don’t want to attend?

Do you understand that neither you nor your religious leader will ever be forced to perform a marriage ceremony he or she doesn’t want to perform?

Do you understand that your life will look exactly the same tomorrow as it does today if this bill passes?

Do you realize that your wife will not love you any more, nor will your husband love you any less, if a same-sex couple somewhere in your state gets married?

Do you understand that these people who want equality don’t want to change your views on marriage, they just want the same civil rights that you enjoy? Rights that you promised to uphold and fight for by dint of being an elected official?

Do you realize that you’ll never have to witness one of these marriages if you don’t want to?

Why does this matter so much to you?

How, exactly, does this affect you?

What changes in your life if people of the same sex get married?

What scares you so much?

Senators, you were elected to be leaders, and instead you have chosen to be followers: followers of fear, followers of bigotry, followers of a false panic, followers of people who are leading you down the wrong path.  Marriage equality will eventually come to be, not just in New York State but throughout the entire United States of America.  Those of us who see the inherent injustice in this new paradigm of inequality are not going to let it go. You can’t wait us out. This will happen, and it will happen sooner rather than later. And when it does, I assure you that you want to be on the right side of history, my friends. See: Strom Thurmond. See: Robert Byrd. See: every single politician who opposed civil rights in the 1960’s. See: their embarrassment. See: their shame. Listen: those still alive are apologizing still, even now, fifty years later. See them, hear them, and ask yourself, “is this how I want to be remembered? Is this legacy of intolerance the one I want to leave my children? Is this the kind of person I am?”  And if it is the kind of person you are right now, well, I have to ask: is it really the kind of person you want to be?

*Disclaimer: this post contains a good deal of profanity and some e-shouting.

A year ago this month, talk show host and political commentator Jon Stewart referred to Arizona as a “meth lab of democracy” in the wake of our state legislature’s passage of three preposterous bills: the “birther bill,” which requires that presidential candidates provide their birth certificates to the State of Arizona in order to get on the ballot; the infamous SB1070, which makes it a statutory crime to be in the state illegally (even though immigration is under federal jurisdiction); and a bill allowing gun owners to carry concealed weapons without a permit. I mean…really.  I was angry then, but I’m even angrier now.

Sadly, things haven’t gotten any better with this legislative session; in fact, we are hip deep in a cesspool of ignorance. Over the past few weeks, the legislature and the governor have passed several laws that are not only designed to restrict a woman’s access to abortion services but also to convince the rest of the country that those of us who live and vote in Arizona are blithering idiots who don’t understand how the world works.  Let me explain.

First, the legislature passed and Governor Brewer signed a bill that makes it a crime for doctors to provide abortions if the mother’s decision is based on the sex or race of the fetus. Which is preposterous on any number of levels. First of all, according to many legal experts, the law might be unconstitutional because requiring women to go into detailed descriptions for – and a defense of – their reasons for choosing an abortion could be considered an undue burden. Secondly, there is no evidence to support the idea that women choose abortions based on the sex or race of a fetus. Basically, this was a law passed to create an issue THAT DOESN’T ALREADY EXIST in order to give a bunch of conservative legislators a chance to reaffirm to their constituencies just how anti-choice they really are. Good use of time and money, folks. Moving on.

Our state, in its infinite wisdom, then passed a bill that does two things. Firstly, it prohibits doctors from providing medical abortions through “telemedicine,” where a doctor appears on a video screen while a registered nurse or nurse practitioner at a licensed clinic gives a supervised does of FDA-approved medication. This might not seem so unreasonable until you consider the reality that we live in a state that has incredibly rural areas where underprivileged women only have access to clinics, not doctors, and without the telemedicine option will not be able to receive safe, legal abortions. This is just a de facto way of making abortion illegal to poor rural women and to a large percentage of the Native American population. Oh, sexist AND racist, a twofer, way to go.

Secondly, the bill “guarantees every woman considering an abortion is provided with an ultrasound, sees the results and hears the heartbeat, if audible.”  Basically, this bill legalizes the emotional manipulation of women on what, for some, is already the most traumatic day of their lives. It assumes that women don’t realize just what abortion means and how it can affect them; it forces them to undergo what will undoubtedly be a profoundly distressing experience.   To start with, this assumes that women have not thought through their decision to abort, that women who make this choice are somehow doing so from a place of ignorance and not a place of deep reflection after and already heartbreaking decision-making process.  As though these girls and women show up at the clinic getting ready to have a great day, asking friends to take a picture of them outside the doors of the facility so they can post them on Facebook and show everyone how they spent their Saturday. As though this kind of forced “reality check” (their words, not mine) will make a woman truly understand the weight of her choices and consider her decision in a way she hasn’t before. I call bullshit! This isn’t ever an easy decision and always involves great reflection and soul-searching and for the vast, vast majority of people is not taken lightly.  How dare you assume that because I or any other woman is having an abortion we are ignorant morons who haven’t deliberated, and debated, and agonized over our decisions?  By the time a woman has made this choice – a choice which the United States Supreme Court assures me is still legal, dammit – she’s already gone through a whole host of variables in her head, considered her future, considered her family, considered her future family, cried, and agonized.  It’s not like picking a breakfast cereal and we don’t treat it as such, you idiots.

Additionally, I would like to pre-empt the anti-choice folks out there who will surely say: “well, if hearing the heartbeat is so devastating, then maybe a woman should realize that this is a life and not have an abortion,” and so on and so forth. Here are some statistics: a fetus’ heartbeat can sometimes be heard as early as 6 or 7 weeks. That is way before we even get to the debate threshold about fetal sensation (commonly assumed to occur at 20 weeks), and MONTHS BEFORE THE FETUS IS VIABLE OUTSIDE OF A WOMAN’S BODY.  I’m sorry. If the only way this collection of cells can exist is by utilizing all of my bodily functions to multiply and divide then it is part of MY body, NOT yours, and I – and all the other women out there – get to choose what the hell happens to it. Keep your goddamn hands off my body and I’ll pretend that you’re not a bunch of sexist, racist assholes with a political agenda that has nothing to do with the real sensitivities and sensibilities of this decision.

Now, we come to the third part of our Ignorance Trifecta, the bill that is currently sitting on Jan Brewer’s desk. This bill also strikes at two areas: it will prohibit receipt of tax credits for money donated to any (federally recognized, people!) non-profit that “provides, promotes, pays for or gives referrals for abortions,” and it will also ban state schools from using state monies OR tuition OR fees to train students to perform abortions.

Oh. My. God.

I’m not even going to tackle the absurdity of a state essentially invalidating a non-profit’s federally recognized tax status in an economic end-run around federal abortion laws. I can’t with that right now. I’m going to just talk about the second part of the bill and how incredibly stupid it is.  We are telling the state medical schools that they can’t train their students in how to perform abortions – a procedure that is at times medically necessary to preserve the life of a mother and sometimes even her future reproductive health. Basically, in Arizona, it’s about to be illegal to train doctors to become doctors. Are you fucking kidding me?

According to Steven Goldschmid, dean of the University of Arizona College of Medicine in Tucson (and a doctor himself), “If enacted, this proposed legislation will certainly jeopardize the accreditation of our obstetrics-gynecology residency program.”  So you’re telling me that the elected political leadership of this state is willing to risk the prestigious accreditation of part of it’s medical college – and presumably risk losing the 200 students currently enrolled, students whose tuition helps to perpetuate the University’s existence and helps to feed state coffers – in a push to not just make abortions illegal but to restrict doctors from learning about procedures that could save a woman’s life. That’s what you’re saying. That’s what you’re doing. Who are you people? What gives you the right, on your high horses in Phoenix, to determine any of this, much less what medical students should be taught as part of their training to become doctors? For all of the anti-choice movement’s talk about the importance of life, they seem to not really care, since they’re willing to let thousands of Arizona trained doctors run around with holes in their education that could directly lead to the death of women since those doctors were never instructed in techniques that would be used to save their lives.  This is criminal stupidity and bootstrap aggrandizing at its worst. People will die as a result of this legislation. I guess there’s nothing left to say but: “congratulations.”

And why the congratulations? Because let’s be honest: the right-wing is winning, and when it comes to issues like abortion, it’s all our fault. The left in this country is really great at starting a movement, like ones about women’s rights and access to choice, and then letting them go once we assume that the momentum of what we believe to be right will carry us on a forward path. But that simply isn’t true. We’ve seen, time and time again, that the other side is tenacious and has no plans to back down, and that reality has led to states throughout America – not just in Arizona, but in places like Indiana, South Dakota, Florida, Mississippi – restricting women’s access to their federally guaranteed right to choose. This is a battle we’re losing and we’re letting it happen. Why are we not out in the streets protesting? Why are we not shutting down the government in Phoenix? Why am I just sitting here typing this blog post and yelling and shouting but not agitating for change beyond this digital forum?  Why are you just sitting there reading it? What has happened to our activist spirit, our desire for change, our feminist (I did it, I said the dirty word) roots, our desire to fight the fights that our collective mothers fought when they strove for equality and safety and the right to own their own bodies and their own lives? What the hell has become of us, and at this rate, where the hell are we going to end up?

In some ways, the worst part of all of these bills is how they infantilize women, degrade our intelligence, and invalidate the choices we make. If only we could see ultrasound pictures, we’d grow to understand the process of conception, gestation, and birth. If only you remind us that practicing eugenics is immoral, we’d stop aborting fetuses based on race and gender. If only we were smarter, more informed, better educated, we would see the light and stop believing that our bodies and our destinies are our own.  This is the debate that is out there. This is what the other side is saying with their bills and their new laws and their slippery slope toward criminalizing a woman’s right to choose. They’re telling us we’re stupid. They’re telling us we don’t understand. They’re telling us we can’t make choices on our own.  Our country is again at a philosophical crossroads about the validity and equality of women. We’ve been here before and we’ll be here again but this is a crisis point and we have to acknowledge that reality and do what we can to turn back the tide of sexism and gender bias that licks at our doorstep, threatening to overwhelm our political and social structure.  The time to speak has come. The time to act is now.

I had kind of a grumpy day today: an early morning meeting was cancelled over twenty minutes after it was supposed to begin; they were painting in the hallways at my job and the smell was gross; I was really busy at work and didn’t get to take a proper lunch (I don’t do well when I miss meals); I’ve done a bunch of things today but still have a bunch more to do before the end of the evening…and The New York Times started charging for digital access to its website.

How. Dare. They!

Well, I know exactly how they dare. Several studies and several hundreds of thousands of dollars later, the Times completed a cost-benefit analysis that told them their online readership would be willing to pay for access to articles and archives on nytimes.com.  Now, the plan is not entirely cut-and-dried. The new fee scale acknowledges that there are plenty of casual readers out there who only read a few stories a month, and so the first twenty articles you view are free; the Times has also figured out that it will be important to keep relevant as a news source in the era of blogs, Tweets and re-posts, and so accessing the site from an outside link also doesn’t count toward your monthly total. There are checks built in so that an occasional reader can still get his or her Times fix without payment or hassle. But me? Well, I’m sunk.

So far this month I have accessed 151 articles via The New York Times’ website. That’s way more than 20. I am going to have to figure out a way to get my news without paying the monthly access fee, the lowest of which starts at $15.00/month, and which I can’t afford right now. If I had a daily, weekend, or even just Sunday subscription, access would be free, but the prices for home delivery in Arizona are so high that it doesn’t really pay to get the paper delivered every morning. Plus, it’s wasteful to print on all that paper when I can get the same stories in environmentally-friendly fashion on the Internet. What to do? I was already plotting establishing several different email accounts to use when accessing articles, and switching browsers when I hit my limits, and doing vast web searches for links so that I could get to the site that way, when I stumbled across this article on lifehacker that helpfully provides your average surfer with several ways to bypass the 20-article limit.

Victory! (Or so I thought.)

Unfortunately (for my conscience), some overriding super-ego made its presence known when I was about twenty seconds into reading this article (nineteen seconds into feeling like I had won the lottery). I started to wonder about just how ethical this course of action would be – after all, I am basically asking somebody to provide a service to me for which I refuse to pay, even as I know that people’s hard work and, at times, personal risk go into creating the content of which I am so fond.  Am I making a fair assumption? That because news on the web is largely free, I should be entitled to having every news source I want present its goods to me without charge?  What about the fact that every time I do go on the page, even now, I’m bombarded with advertising – advertising that the Times makes a pretty penny selling to major national and international companies? Does that excuse my refusal to pay? Wait – does the fact that I’m on a tight budget make it okay for me to sneak free stuff for now, with the understanding that once I can afford it, I should pay the subscription fee? And more than all of this, an essential question of ethics: am I so sure that I deserve these wares that I’m willing to circumvent the “rules” (such as they are) and go around the business’ back in order to get what I want?

The answer: I don’t know, but for right now, I’m headed online to read the paper, free of charge, as I try to figure out what’s “right” – or if that even matters in this circumstance, given our digital age.

What do you think?

You’ve probably seen the utterly inappropriate, extremely racist and ultimately befuddling video posted to YouTube by Alexandra Wallace. This obscenely ignorant undergrad decided, for reasons I cannot possibly fathom, to film herself criticizing the entire Asian student community at UCLA, accusing them of (among other things), lacking self-sufficiency, foregoing American manners (whatever that could possibly mean), and, worst of all, speaking on their cell phones in the library. Her rant was immediately denounced by the university’s administration, a vast majority of its students and various anti-defamation leagues, and Wallace issued an apology soon after the video went viral. But in the wake of her stupidity arose the most amazing thing: a host of videotaped responses, serious and funny ones, parodies, angry tirades, musical answers and related satires. An entire collection of genius work that can be viewed as incisive commentary on not just Wallace’s video but on the nature of modern racism and the Internet age in general.

Despite this, a majority of the news coverage regarding the event has centered around the hate speech with which some chose to respond to Wallace’s rant. In the same way that her tirade, which is essentially three minutes of stupidity, got way more press than is probably deserved (and I am well aware that I’m helping to foster that), the dangerous and violent responses of a decided minority have entirely captured the public’s attention. They haven’t escaped Wallace’s notice, either; she released a statement to UCLA’s Daily Bruin stating that she was withdrawing from classes at the college due to “the harassment of my family, the publishing of my personal information, death threats and being ostracized from an entire community.”

Whether or not Wallace should have dropped out of school is not a question I feel comfortable answering. I’m inclined to say that she should have ridden out the storm and that, given enough time, things would have died down to an annoying buzz rather than their current thunderous roar. Ultimately, though, that decision is hers and her family’s to make. What concerns me is a twofold problem that I see happening again and again: firstly, that people feel like the way to respond to ignorance is with more and greater ignorance, and secondly, that all of the good that came in the wake of this incident – all of the satirical creativity, all of these new ways to tackle issues of race and racism via technology, all of the intelligent conversation that has sprung up around those silly three minutes is utterly lost among the ugly and rash decisions of a few.

As becomes the case with so many saddening things, it turns out that there have been some bits of genius during these past couple of weeks, light spots to move toward, to reflect on.  Instead of celebrating them, though, we as a society continue to be focused on our darkest recesses rather than our lightest selves.  There are lightness and goodness in the ways in which we’ve learned to use technology and the instant gratification it provides to educate each other, share with each other, and learn from each other. The Internet is not some theoretical demon, and the series of interconnected tubes is not going to swallow us whole. Wallace’s story stands as one of the boldest so far in reminding us that the Internet is not a private playspace.  However, this is a lesson most of us have already learned; what we need to focus on now are the ways in which the public nature of the medium can be used and celebrated for the good that does exist.

I learned something new this weekend!

There’s a little-known provision in the United States Constitution that states members of Congress “shall in all cases, except treason, felony and breach of the peace, be privileged from arrest.”  Similar provisions are also contained within a number of state constitutions, including (you guessed it), Arizona’s, which holds that legislators are “privileged from arrest in all cases except treason, felony and breach of the peace, and they shall not be subject to any civil process during the session of the Legislature, nor for 15 days before the commencement of each session.” This was brought to my attention in the wake of Arizona State Senate Majority Leader Scott Bundgaard’s recent, um, “conflict” with his (now former) girlfriend; apparently, as they were driving home together in February after attending a charity version of “Dancing with the Stars,” (I’m not even going there), they started beating on each other (not going there, either). After throwing each other’s things out of the moving car (I’m going here: littering, people! Get it together!), the pair stopped at the side of the road where they were approached by an officer and where Mr. Bundgaard, according to Phoenix police spokesman Tommy Thompson,  invoked Article 4 of the state constitution. His companion was arrested for domestic violence and was hauled off to jail; Mr. Bundgaard, presumably, just went home.

This isn’t the first time an Arizona state legislator has used Article 4 to sidestep legal responsibility. In 1988, then State Senator and now (sigh) Governor Jan Brewer was involved in an accident, failed four field sobriety tests,  and was also sent on her way (to continue her stellar legislative career and become, arguably, Arizona’s most notorious governor).  The federal statute has been invoked as well; in 1999, Senator Robert C. Byrd (D-WVa) referenced the constitutional provision when involved in an accident, although, according to the New York Times, “he later backed down and had an aide ask the police in Fairfax County, Va., to issue him a citation.”

Okay, seriously? I mean, seriously? Legislators are immune from arrest and prosecution for a whole host of crimes that would send the average Joe or Jane to jail? Something doesn’t seem right about this. As I was contemplating just how ridiculous and arbitrary our justice system can be, I realized that I wasn’t being entirely fair. After all, there are other circumstances in which people are determined to be not accountable for their crimes. Specifically, if they are children or if they, in some other way, demonstrate diminished capacity at the time of their infraction, i.e., if they are developmentally disabled or insane.

So basically, the law treats legislators as though they were either children or crazy people.

I guess I can’t really argue with that.

The New York Times ran a front-page article in yesterday’s (March 6^th 2011) paper describing the plight of a Pennsylvania psychiatrist, formerly a “talk therapist,” who, due to insurance companies’ refusal to pay high premiums for once-standard cognitive therapy, has turned his practice exclusively into one of medicinal intervention and prescription adjustment. Basically, instead of talking to patients for 45 minutes about their problems, working through various root causes and developing working solutions to improve their lives, he now meets with his clientele for a maximum of 15 minutes per patient, dashes off a prescription for one of any number of anti-depressants, -psychotics, or –anxiety medications and sends them on their most decidedly not merry way.  The article goes on to explain that the movement away from talk therapy solutions and toward medication-based solutions has dominated that field of psychotherapy in recent years. The reason? Simple economics.

In its profile of Dr. Donald Levin, a practitioner for nearly 40 years, the Times goes on to explain that, due to insurance company policies, “a psychiatrist can earn $150 for three 15-minute medication visits compared with $90 for a 45-minute talk therapy session.” And so Dr. Levin, like so many of his peers, has completely adjusted his medical practice to one that doles out literally hundreds of prescriptions a week to patients whose names he “often cannot remember.” His caseload has gone from between 50 and 60 individuals to 1,200. By Dr. Levin’s own admission, he has “had to train [himself] not to get too interested in their problems…and not to get sidetracked trying to be a semi-therapist.”

Wait, what?

Since when did psychiatry become a profession in which acting as a therapist was a bad thing, a practice that needs to be actively protected against?  More to the point, just how is it possible that insurance companies have so much power that they can dictate not just the amount patient care is worth but the nature of patient care itself? The reason here is once again, simple: doctors have let them.  By and large, medical professionals, instead of banding together and fighting against the insurance companies, have simply rolled over, accepted the policy changes and adjusted their practices to ensure that as individual practitioners they continue to make top dollar.

Now, I understand Dr. Levin when he (rightly) points out “[n]obody wants to go backwards, moneywise, in their career…[w]ould you?” But there is an inherent selfishness in his statements about wanting to continue the same lifestyle that he and his wife have held for the past 40 years. Because in his refusal to challenge absurd and business- rather than patient-centered insurance mandates, he is effectively saying that he gets to maintain his lifestyle at the expense of the millions of people in need of adequate mental health services. While drug therapies are viable options in many cases, they are not in all circumstances, and to this day most practitioners recommend talk therapy as a complement to prescription management. In their quest for more money, doctors talked themselves out of the maxim they are required to swear to when they take the Hippocratic oath – “abstain from doing harm” – and have convinced themselves that it is okay to provide less than the full complement of treatment to patients because to do so would mean to take less monetary compensation for themselves.

Most of us reading the Times article or this blog post will find themselves at least mildly outraged at the failings of the industrial-medical complex and the increased burden that some people’s greed places on the middle-class American consumer. However, we have to acknowledge that the only way in which this system changes is if Dr. Levin, and others in his profession, are willing to change the way they view the world and their role in it; in short, they have to act against their own interests – in this case, financial – in order to maintain the formerly held standard of patient care.  It’s easy for us to look at people who make a lot of money and argue that they should take a little less of the pie to benefit the greater good, but who among us would actually be willing to make a similar sacrifice? In fact, who among us does, regularly, make similar sacrifices?

Each day, we are faced with a world filled with problems and concerns that, though seemingly beyond our control, can in fact be influenced by our actions. Psychiatrists aren’t the only people (although they are a particularly strong lobby in this case) who can stand up to insurance companies; we can do so as well, through the power of our votes and a commitment to elect legislators who are determined to end unfair practices and put patient care at the top of their concerns.  Instead, we rail against politicians for implementing “universal” health care and threaten to vote them all out of office for being socialist madmen who might cost us a fraction more in insurance premiums to ensure care for all. There are plenty of other ways in which we, as individuals, refuse to put the interests of the greater good before the concerns of our pocketbook. We rail against higher municipal taxes and then complain that our streets are unsafe and our parks untended; we argue against property taxes and then criticize the local school district; we send up a hue and cry when unqualified, immoral candidates storm Congressional offices in sweeping election “reforms,” but the percentage of eligible voters going to the polls during midterm elections hasn’t hit 40 since 1970, and hasn’t risen over 60% in a presidential election since 1968.

Making democracy work takes sacrifices from us all, whether those sacrifices involve spending time, money, energy, or thought on the way our government is run, and yet all too often we look to the left or right and avoid the mirror when change is required in our society.  Change starts within us all, and we determine its impact; it is not enough to complain about the wrong that exists in the world. It is only enough when we spend resources of our own to stand up for the things we believe in and to attempt the creation of new paradigms for society, business, and government. Sometimes, these resources may be ones that we are readily willing to spend, but other times we will be called upon to truly examine whether an extra twenty dollars in our pocket over the course of a year is worth the rippling damage cutting health care subsidies (for example) will cause. It might seem a stretch to use the death of psychiatric talk therapy as a logical stepping stone to calling for greater societal participation in general, but I disagree. Rather, I think that Dr. Levin’s particular plight can stand in as a microcosm for every individual’s need to sometimes look beyond their own gains and consider the larger society, and the greater good, when making decisions about how to lead ethical lives in a participatory democracy. It behooves us all to first, do no harm.