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Lies about contraception, and a Florida law to revoke sexual liberation
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Anti-choicers think this is more important than a grown woman
The anti-choice movement has moved to Florida, where a hyper-religious group calling itself "Personhood Florida" has proposed a Constitutional amendment banning all abortion and contraception (including Plan B) viewed as abortifacient, without any exception, even if the pregnancy would kill the pregnant woman. (Some compassion.) Fortunately, the group has a high hurdle to leap: it must collect 676,811 signatures before February 1 in order to get its amendment on the ballot. Personhood Florida's leader summarized the organization's intelligence when he made the statement, “There are some (birth control) methods that kill a child.”
Claiming that hormonal contraceptives cause abortion is not a new tactic for the anti-choice right, but since its inception, it has been a transparently false one based on a complete lack of understanding of biology and anatomy. Briefly, hormonal contraception increases the level of progesterone in the body, thereby stopping the hormonal chain reaction that would ordinarily cause the ovary to release an egg. No egg means no chance at anything getting fertilized if sperm find their way into the woman's body. If you'd like even more specifics, the biologist P.Z. Myers gives a more extended lesson here.
Because anti-choicers are not, indeed, interested in the life of the fetus, but rather interested in controlling women's sexuality and curtailing their liberties, they do not recognize the simple, proven biological facts represented above. Instead, they seize on the rumor (one that has no research to support it) that suggests that contraceptives act in a completely different way, by altering the lining of the uterus so that fertilized eggs cannot implant and become a fetus. It's worth noting that at the time of fertilization, this is what the anti-choicers are calling an innocent little baby:
I say again, there is no research that supports this idea, and even if this false rumor were true, it still would not constitute an abortion because there would be no pregnancy to abort. Pregnancy begins at implantation, and if the blastocyst cannot implant, then it cannot be aborted. (Those who mistakenly believe pregnancy begins at some other time can take it up with the country's numerous organizations of medical professionals, which all agree that pregnancy begins at implantation, and the federal government, which defines pregnancy as such.)
Plan B, or emergency contraception, is no different. It works in exactly the same way as normal hormonal birth control, except much more rapidly because it contains a much higher concentration of hormones which shut down egg production. Those who fought so diligently to oppose it are better off speculating that the availability of yet another form of contraception will lead to "sex cults," because there's far more evidence for that ridiculous idea than for the one that calls the drug an abortifacient.
When anti-choicers limit themselves to taking away a woman's right to an abortion, they can conceivably defend themselves as simply looking out for "life" in its various forms, although they seem to have a habit of forgetting about the life of the pregnant woman. However, when they cross over into anti-contraception territory, their true colors show. At least those who are simply anti-abortion (ostensibly) respect a woman's right to have a sexual relationship, but those who spread lies about contraception and try to outlaw it show that they are interested in one thing only: controlling women, specifically their sexuality. To this end, they employ a number of grossly dishonest tactics. The most obvious is that they lie, but they do so in so many different ways. For example, "crisis pregnancy centers" regularly delay telling a woman the positive result of her pregnancy test until she's carried the pregnancy for so long that she can no longer seek an abortion in her state.
Although current poll data is not available, past polls reveal that roughly half of Americans are pro-choice. Roe v. Wade is the law of the land, and it's common knowledge that no matter how evil, murderous, immoral and wrong some may think it is, women have an absolute right to get an abortion if they so choose. Extreme anti-woman laws like this Florida proposition will not pass, because while there's certainly no shortage of misogynists in this country, there's an even greater number of sensible pro-choicers who recognize the importance of a woman's right to choose. Even in Iran, a draconian theocracy, this law would be rejected as too extreme; think on that.
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