Living Through Absurd Times

• Health Care Inequality is Key to Abortion Rates

It's a crime that we need to expend so much energy answering the absurd charges made by anti-choicers about the rate of abortions in communities of color. Charges like - we're waging big marketing campaigns targeting women of color, or that women of color use abortion as birth control, or women of color don't use condoms or contraceptives. All those charges are just malicious BS - made by people and groups who are vehemently against birth control and prevention and refuse to fund such programs. And who jump at every opportunity to de-fund programs that disproportionately impact poor women and women of color .

Hello! It's all about access fellas! Thankfully, Dr Melissa Gilliam, an African American woman, a physician, and a reproductive-health specialist, speaks truth to absurd claims by discussing the real-life consequences of unequal access to good health care. Dr. Gilliam is associate professor of obstetrics/gynecology at the University of Chicago and chairwoman of the Guttmacher Institute board of directors. She recently penned this excellent Op/Ed which ran in the August 10th edition of The Philadelphia Inquirer.

This should put an end to the absurd charges, but I'm betting it probably won't. Pass this article along to your friends. Everyone needs to be educated on this topic.

• Abortion Doesn't Cause Mental Illness

Here's another absurd claim - that abortion causes mental illness - promulgated by evildoers on the anti-choice side for decades. This should also be put to rest, but don't hold your breath.

Here's the good news - at the recent gathering of the American Psychology Association, their Mental Health and Abortion Task Force issued a 91-page report which says, in brief, "...there is no evidence that a single abortion causes significant mental health problems."

The New York Times summarizes it beautifully in an article in today's edition.

The false claims of mental health problems following abortion are put out there in bogus "studies" by the same people who brought you the bogus breast cancer and abortion lies.

• Is the NYC MTA Serious?
  

As if living in the 1950's, the MTA ruled that a pregnant officer was "unfit for duty," took away her gun and sent her to work in a toll booth. Even though her doctor pronounced the 10-week pregnant Lori Ann DiPalo fit for duty, the MTA thought otherwise.

You can read about this absurdity here.

Is it just me or does standing in a toll booth on your feet for 8 hours and sucking up car and truck fumes sound more unhealthy than enforcing the law?