Women who do not follow their sexual "rules" need to be punished, and birth control lets them have sex without being "punished." Simple as that.

That sums it up pretty well.

One other possibility, at least for religious conservatives, is that they need human misery to sell their product. If people are happy and unworried, they don't seek the kind of comfort/abuse that religious conservatives offer. And, without those seekers, those collection baskets dry up.

It's not a war against sexual pleasure as much as it's a war on women, the poor, and all those darn brown people. Fundies and right wingers don't have to be logical. Because all those darn women making choices!
After all war on women and the poor is just what blue-eyed Jesus wanted!

Ah, the oldest conservative value: hatred of sex.

I've never understood what was so terrible about having sex for pleasure. It takes a special kind of misery to hate other people for enjoying life.

@2: "[T]hey need human misery to sell their product." Bingo, nail on head, hole-in-one, dingdingding.

They hate sex because two seriously fucked-up men were hugely influential in the formation and solidification of Christianity: Paul (Saul of Tarsus) and Augustine of Hippo.

Paul was a misogynist and probably a closeted, self-loathing homosexual. He really started the anti-woman and anti-sex aspect of Christianity. He described marital sex as being only slightly better than burning in hell. He would have benefited from therapy, had they had it then.

Augustine decided to renounce sex when he got religion (because Paul had made sex an evil) and in typical convert-cum-12-stepper fashion, demonized it wildly. He's the dude you have to thank for even making masturbation a sin. He said if your body distracts you from thinking only pure thoughts, you should (literally) cut off your hand--you know, the hand you're wanking with.

These guys were extremely influential. Their writings defined Christianity and cemented its attitudes about sex negativity and misogyny.

Just our culture's luck that two fuckwads got to the religion in its nascent days, huh?

@5:

It comes down to the fact that many people who identify as Conservative simply don't believe in the concept of "sex for pleasure". In their minds sex has one - and only one - purpose: procreation. Having sex for any other reason than making babies is viewed as a transgression against the "natural function" (read: God's Intent) of sex, and therefore must be discouraged by any means necessary, which traditionally has taken the form of some sort of public condemnation, whether death by stoning, wearing the Scarlet Letter, "slut-shaming", you name it - almost all of which (unsurprisingly) is directed against women. It's a form of patriarchal subjugation pure-and-simple.

That's why there's been so much focus on contraception by the Right: for the first time in our species' history the females have actually been able to achieve a fairly high degree of control over their reproductive capacity; when they could have sex, with whom, and for reasons that have nothing to do with procreation - all areas that have more or less been under the control of men since just about Day One. It's almost like it's become so specifically ingrained into the male psyche through both biological and cultural vectors that the loss of such power and control over half the human race is not only terrifying to many (including, sadly, many females), but furthermore, when combined with the comparatively rapid pace of the change - in a mere 60 years or so, a veritable drop in the ocean time-wise - is just too radical and rapid a shift in the paradigm for them to accommodate.

it's sex that they hate—it's sex for pleasure that they hate

It's sex not involving their own personal selves that they hate. Remember Rush Limbaugh's mysterious trips to the Dominican Republic?

100% spot on, Dan. It amazes me how many people don't realize that this is exactly what the conservative position is.

Who will ensure and pay for IUD removal in 10 years---and why isn't this obvious question covered in the Slog's write up?

Removal can cost as much as implantation, depending on location and access to health resources. Self-removal is a dice roll, risking uterine tearing and hemorrhage. And, unlike subdural implants, leaving IUDs in beyond their lifespan increases their risk.

I'm basically with @1 on this - it's punishment for having pleasure - contraception, abortion and homosexuality are pleasure without "punishment" (children).

I think, though, there is a little more to it: it's mostly about maintaining an old-school patriarchy; if women make it out of their teenage years (pre-25) sans children, their educational and professional careers faire much much better: they aren't dependent on men. And for a certain class of men - self-loathing closeted gay men and caveman losers (yes, unlikely allies, but look who makes up the fundamentalist Christian right) - this may mean life without access to women...ever. Because women with options don't have to settle for closeted gays (who can use the threat of pregnancy to avoid sex they don't want anyway) or the lunk-headed caveman they're stuck with because of one moment's poor judgement.

Basically; these are the guys who are sitting around "hunting" with a six pack on the side of the road, with a pack of dogs and a spotlight...you force them to walk out into the woods alone with a bow and arrow...and they're likely to just starve to death.

The women who subscribe to this sex-negative patriarchy are women who don't like sex, but want a man, and resent the "hussies" who might beat them out by offering sex. Seriously: male heteronormativity and female slut-shaming are principally enforced by straight women.

It’s a modern manifestation of an atavism.

COMTE @10 has it: ‘It's a form of patriarchal subjugation pure-and-simple.

‘That's why there's been so much focus on contraception by the Right: for the first time in our species' history the females have actually been able to achieve a fairly high degree of control over their reproductive capacity; when they could have sex, with whom, and for reasons that have nothing to do with procreation - all areas that have more or less been under the control of men since just about Day One.’

It’s a modern manifestation of an atavism.

It’s related to invading a neighbouring village, killing men and infants and abducting the women. To primate infanticide. To catcalling. To sexual assault of women who identifiy themselves as not being under the sexual control of the right team — by wearing a hijab, or heels, or Doc Martens. To jealousy. To certain men’s inability to accept the legitimacy of any woman’s leadership.

It’s about having a strong interest in controlling women’s reproduction. Hundreds of thousands of years ago that was expressed by killing her children so she’d be available to have the killer’s children. These days you can’t do that, so that urge is expressed in more modern ways of depriving women of control over their own reproduction.

@3

From things like Danny Boy the Savage I expect this kind of bigotry. From a very few of those writing here I disagree with their considered positions, but see how got into their errors.

Conservative can mean that our government as the Constitution established it is pretty damn good, and the need for radical alteration in the teeth of the language of that document bad for all of us.

Conservative can mean that freedom means responsibility. Having a family, choosing a career, investing in a home or retirement- all these are choices in which the Constitution grants the feds little or no role. And having made choices, conservative ideals would ask a citizen to act like an adult and deal with the consequences.

Enabling poor choices, like having a child outside a committed heterosexual relationship, isn't a good idea. It isn't good policy. And it isn't a valid federal activity. I and most conservatives I know may disagree with others sexual choices while still believing they have the right to make them. It's when you ask us to pay for them we kick, not before.

Keep "pure" that is, staying a virgin (to most conservatives, that means girls still have a hymen) until their first marriage, is what these guys (and most of them are male) say they want. So no contraceptives because that "encourages" sex. So instead, the girls (to please their boyfriends) have unprotected anal sex. And once girls sign an abstinence pledge they are more likely to have such sex...since after all they must do so to show that they abstain from real sex by maintaining a hymen.

Instead, if you don't want so much free sex, then teach real sex education, so they can see what they are doing (and being discouraged from doing--think that is foolish? kids without sex ed can't believe they are pregnant, after all they never slept together!) And add in a course on how to negotiate with their boyfriends nicely that they really mean it: no sex is no sex. Just telling them to say no is ineffective and stupid. And by all measures NOT WORKING.

We should reward people who choose to get an IUD during childbearing years.

I think it's completely useless to expect conservatives to employ rational thought regarding any public policy. They are simply incapable.

What is Seattleblues' obsession with kids? Everyone he disagrees with--in other words, everyone--he infantilizes. Dan is "Danny Boy" today; venomlash is often "junior"; others are also rendered young and immature by him.

The argument that beats the typical conservative's religious belief is money (and possibly guns). Explain to them (very slowly) how much less money society would spend on contraceptives than unwanted babies. It lowers both welfare and insurance costs.

As seatackled says, this isn't hatred of sex for pleasure. This is about control.

It's not hatred of sex. It's control.

What @2 said.

Conservatives are only satisfied when everyone is miserable, angry, and terrified.

@16: you claim it is about not wanting to pay, but still object when we demonstrate that cost to you would be less than the alternatives.

Basically I'm saying you are a liar who cannot argue in good faith because your positions are not internally consistent.

Oh SB, clueless to a fault - as always.

The entire POINT of contraception is to give women the power to make a RESPONSIBLE choice: whether to have children or to not have children. Women who choose to take contraception, for other than the myriad of biological conditions it otherwise mitigates or alleviates, are engaged in a concerted effort to NOT make "poor choices", just as you so blithely - and condescendingly - INSIST THEY DO.

The problem with you and your ilk is that, while you talk about their "right (to make) sexual choices" out of one side of your mouth, you play the "but I do not wish to pay for them" out of the other, fully realizing that the social cost of allowing women to choose contraception is far LOWER than the cost of abortions, unwanted pregnancies, and a lifetime of raising children via the social safety net - all of which occur already regardless of your quasi-Libertarian protestations.

If you were looking at it from a purely objective, cost-benefit perspective, you'd be forced to concede this, so you have to fall back on some vaguely moralistic condemnation ("personal responsibility!" "poor choices!") to delude yourself into the oxymoronic position that denying women access to contraception - BECAUSE YOU PERSONALLY OBJECT TO PAYING FOR IT - is somehow a morally defensible position based on an economic principle - which, in point of fact is completely and demonstrably faulty at its core.

So really, it's not about that at all is it? I mean, how could it be, when you rail so vociferously over making an almost insignificant up-front social contribution on the one hand - hoisted on the petard of "personal responsibility", but express absolutely no objection whatsoever on the other hand to paying the far higher back-end social cost - to which you already contribute, whether you acknowledge it or not - that such a contribution could all but eliminate?

Hobby Lobby is not against birth control. They provide for free (no co-pay, no deductible) 16 types of birth control through their insurance. They object to covering 4 types that can prevent implantation of a fertilized embryo, which they view as abortion (and thus murder).

@16: "Conservative can mean that our government as the Constitution established it is pretty damn good, and the need for radical alteration in the teeth of the language of that document bad for all of us."
And yet you think that the federal government shouldn't be allowed to tax your income, as it is explicitly allowed to under Amendment XIV.
"Enabling poor choices, like having a child outside a committed heterosexual relationship, isn't a good idea. It isn't good policy. "
And yet you oppose policies to PREVENT that particular poor choice, despite the fact that it would actually save taxpayers money! Opinion discarded, buh-bye.

@20: Actually, I'd say he renders the rest of us venerable and sagacious in comparison. Well, maybe not Bailo.

@16:

-Enabling poor choices, like having a child outside a committed heterosexual relationship, isn't a good idea. It isn't good policy. And it isn't a valid federal activity.-

I agree. And restricting access to birth control will definitely enable those poor choices. People should be able to make responsible choices, like being able to choose a type of birth control that works best for them.

@29: They object to IUDs with progestin, even though the progestin prevents ovulation in the first place, preventing conception at all. Additionally, implantation (not fertilization) is the beginning of pregnancy by any internally-consistent definition of the word.

Funny - until I saw all the "@ 16" comments following mine, I had no idea SB posted anything. That's how sorry of an excuse for a conservative foil he has become.

Amend the Constitution so that Supreme Court justices retire after 20 years? Seems fair. After all, how long did justices live after being appointed back in the late 18th Century when the Constitution was written?

@13, I'm going to need some data on that. I've had two IUD insertions, which both involved a 6 week follow-up exam, and 1 removal. The removal was really fast and easy. I think a nurse did it, whereas the insertions were done by a skilled ob/gyn.

The word is "insure", btw, and IUDs are probably the cheapest birth control over time. And Guttmacher estimates that birth control of any kind more than pays for itself. So, data to back up any of your claims?

@30

Maybe wrong word. He envisions everyone else as immature, etc. I figure that whoever he is in real life, his online persona under that screen name is of someone who will beat his kids, so pretending that he is older and wiser gives him the "right" to beat us, figuratively speaking.

Crazy shit going on in those cranial recesses of his.

It's kind of like recycling.

For thousands of years, the only way to prevent unwanted pregnancy and disease was conduct—abstinence, exclusivity, moderation. The only way to tell who was the father of what kid was reputation. So, for almost all of human history and prehistory, cultures built traditions and value systems around conduct and reputation. Discipline, moderation and self-denial, which are pretty great on their own, were given high places in these systems. Avoiding unwanted pregnancy wasn't only a practical goal; the avoider was a good person with specific mental virtues.

All that tradition doesn't magically go away when science gives us a way to have our cake and eat it too.

Look at recycling: In the late 1980s and early 1990s, recycling education was in high gear. Reuse, reduce, recycle! Give your trash a second chance. Don't throw that paper and glass in the trash, you wasteful person. Do you want to kill the Earth? If you had recycling bins in your kitchen, you weren't just achieving a practical goal; the recycler was a good person.

Then some studies come out and it turns out that recycling isn't so efficient after all, that recycling aluminum cans is a net gain but recycling other stuff is a net loss in fuel an pollution. ...is it so easy for you to throw that paper in the trash? Oh no. Because you've still got that lesson in your head: That would make me a bad person.

Discipline, moderation and self-denial are still on the table, but there's one less practical reason to use them. People who are anti-contraception are wrong (and shooting themselves in the foot if they're also anti-abortion) and they'll have to get used to it, but there is a reason why they're not used to it now.

There is a more sinister force at work, economics. Conservatives know that capitalism needs a steadily growing supply of cheap, unskilled labor to exploit. There is no better supply of this labor than teenage and unwed mothers. Therefore if you eliminate easy access to birth control, you get a surplus of babies from disadvantaged backgrounds which feeds your labor pool and keeps the price of labor down. The argument against birth control is essentially a (labor) supply and demand argument and their "religious" views are just a smokescreen for continued exploitation of the working class and the poor.

@9,

With all due respect, the entity that really fucked over Christianity and made it all about consolidation of power and not good works was the Roman Empire. Paul and Augustine are/were just window dressing.

All the while Christian/Conservatives' daughters are STILL having consequence-free anal sex...

Way to go, guys, way to go.

@38 - You are quite wrong. Various cultures throughout history figured out ways to prevent pregnancy other than abstinence: ( Heating the testicles to over 107F will kill sperm; using Rosehips in the vagina will increase acidity to kill sperm; condoms were made from animal skins; etc., etc. )
Also, quite a number of cultures didn't care "who the father was", because they had different mores and traditions around caring for children - ALL the men & all the women help care for the children. There are many ways to achieve the same goal.
Our culture is quite unaware of the majority of options available to humanity.

I believe conservatives really would rather pay more in order to spew their holier-than-thou attitudes.

Conservatives don't give a shit about fiscal responsibility--they want people to be miserable. Period. And they'll happily pay a premium to do so.

First, I nowhere object to contraception. I object to paying for someone else, just as I'd object to paying for the motel room they're having sex in. If you're adult enough to have sex, you're adult enough to pay for the costs of it.

Second, in regards to addressing terminal cases of arrested development as juvenile, act like grown ups and I'll treat you like grown ups.

Vl as usual can't read, and makes insane claims as to what I wrote. I have never denied federal authority to tax income. But far better than half the activities of federal government falls well outside their constitutional authority. And yes, I object to being forced to pay for the tyranny that steals from me to benefit wastrels and lazy people.

How about this? If care for your child is paid for by others, you lose parental rights and the child can be adopted by heterosexual parents able and willing to care for it. That way the cost burden you're all so concerned about doesn't exist. Problem solved.

@ 44, tough titty. Pay up. Your FAIR share, please, not the piddly penny-pinching amount you howl about.

@44 - the problem then, is that you're cutting your own nose off to spite yourself: to save yourself the cost of providing contraception, you'll incur the costs of pregnancy and childbirth (or abortion), and those are all more expensive than contraception. Penny wise and pound foolish. Of course, I'm taking you at your word that this is your real objection: you don't want to pay for someone else's condoms (or IUDs, pills, whatever).

Fine, you say, we shouldn't be paying for any of their healthcare, period. Well, you still incur the costs: as the Freakonomics folks have pointed out, the great reductions in violent crime we've experienced - and the associated potential savings in law enforcement - are largely the result of the great reduction in unwanted pregnancies that occurred following Griswold and Roe. Unwanted children disproportionately grow up to be problem members of society - something else the actuarial tables don't lie about.

But your argument is presented by Hobby Lobby and the Not-for-profits with an exemption, who then turn and all object to even the compromise the Obama Administration worked out with insurers: having insurers provide the contraceptives for free, with no charge in the premiums. Because, in fact, the premiums are lower...insurers don't do faith-based costing - they use actuarial tables. And the numbers don't lie: premiums are lower because contraceptives are cheaper.

What all these entities really object to is providing contraceptives because it lowers the risks of having sex, and what they really care about is making it harder for people to have sex - not what they have to pay for out of pocket. What they really care about is making sure free or heavily subsidized contraception is not an option for the people over whom they can exercise some influence. This isn't about personal liberty and freedom - it's about limiting options for other people. Nobody is forcing anybody to use contraceptions under any of these schemes.

I thought conservatives were about pragmatic fiscal conservation (restraint). That's Dan's point and it's exactly the issue. Grow up and see free contraception as enlightened self-interest, if you must see everything through the filter of self-interest.

#32 They object to all IUDs. Many do not use progesterone. Do those that do have a 100% success rate? If not then they do, sometimes, prevent implantation of an embryo.
At the point of fertilization, a unique set of DNA has been produced. For many (including a lot of scientists), this is the start of life. Here is rather detailed description from a pro-life obstetrician about how IUDs work: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/38… Yes, yes, I know this is a right winger, religious nut, etc. But, is she wrong? Here's the thing: I don't know for sure and neither do you.

#33 I am aware of that. I was responding to Dan's swipe at Hobby Lobby in the original piece. What no one seems to realize is that the Supreme Court made this ruling based on Religious Freedom Restoration Act (passed by a unanimous House and 97-3 in the Senate-signed by Bill Clinton). The Act says that the government can only violate religious conscience if it does so by the least burdensome way possible. If the Obama administration has simply allowed Hobby Lobby and other such companies the same accommodation it gave to religious non-profits, then this case never would have happened. This would have followed the law, given Hobby Lobby's employees all the free IUDs they need and ended the controversy.

Also see the article I cited above for a scientific opinion that disagrees with you.

@44: "I have never denied federal authority to tax income."
DUDE, YOU REFERRED TO TAXATION AS "ROBBERY" JUST TWO DAYS AGO. "I call robbery taking my hard earned money by extortion in the tax codes and giving it to wastrels." (source)

Do you believe that the federal government has the power to tax income? If so, do you believe that the federal government has the power to spend allocated funds according to budgets approved by both houses of Congress? If so, wherein lies the "robbery" about which you seem incapable of shutting up? Judicious persons can distinguish between something being disagreeable to them and being illegal or wrong.

@48, 49: That is not a "scientific opinion". That is just an "opinion". Why? There's no science involved. And by that I mean there are no sources cited. She SAYS that things work a certain way, but she doesn't provide any evidence.

So #50 where is your "science" that says otherwise? Again, as I said, I don't really know and, unless you are a biologist who specializes in human reproduction or an obstetrician, neither do you (and even then, really not). .

#51, yeah, I know, National Review. As I mentioned they are a right wing Christian publication. However, your comments is a little rich coming from someone who posted a piece from Al Jazeera to support their side of the science. And the author of that one, Marisa Taylor, what scientific training and credentials does she have that led you to think she was an authority on this subject?

@ 53, that is very weak tea. You called your cited article "scientific." An actual scientist who posts here regularly pointed out why it is not. You come back with a defensive post - most likely because you're embarrassed - instead of one that fairly addresses the point.

Give it another try.

@ 54, further weak tea. Blip's early link was to a news article, not an opinion piece like yours. Op eds are not valid evidence because - regardless of who publishes it - they are not held to any sort of standard of truth. News articles are. An Op Ed can claim the sky is green. An Op Ed is never a credible source.

(If you're going to question the validity of a news article based upon the purported slant of the outlet reporting it, said outlet should have a history of bad reporting - e.g., Fox News, whose news division - not their talking heads, but their actual news broadcast - published Breitbart's edited videos of Shirley Sherrod.)

Dan, you are not helping any cause or movement when you publish shit opinions like

"... Because it's sex that they hate—it's sex for pleasure that they hate—and they hate that kind of sex more than they hate abortion, teen moms, and welfare spending combined. ..."

I just want to ask you what the fuck are you thinking?

I can't figure out if you are just trying to hurl insults like that idiot Goldy, or just a failed attempt -- like Goldy -- to be funny.

their problem is that they confuse hate for love, but not that they hate pleasurable or "consequence-free sex" (which is a fairly idiotic term anyway) Although pregnancy-free sex might be an accurate term, but I don't think you are going for accuracy in this post.

When you post shit like this, you are helping the world transition into an conscious awareness about the same as the dipshits that publish bullshit stories about all Muslims beings jihadist terrorists are helping the world transition into a peaceful State without full scale wars

This shit isn't helping, you are just being a prick

@48 No biologist says syngamy is the "start" of life. The haploid cells are just as alive as the zygote. In lots of organisms (e.g. ferns, kelp, jellyfish) the haploid cells have a rich life of their own, but ours are only good for a few hours.

The "start of life" was in abiogenesis a gazillion years ago. A poorly understood event, still, and likely to remain that way. After that, it's live cells all the way down.

When an embryo has human rights is a legal and/or religious question, not a scientific one. Most of us would like it to be more legal than religious.

@20: Seattleblues is a pedophile.

@29: I view drone killings as mass murder and the invasion of Iraq as genocide, and unlike Hobby Lobby my opinions have some factual merit. I'm still waiting for the Supreme Cronies to recognize my right to opt out of paying for American imperialism.

an at hist_ed, I understand you are passionate with your convictions, but until the GOP can come up with a better system than issuing County Vital records on the day of birth -- which isn't likely to happen -- you'd be wise to think about how writing law in order to push any agenda on the masses doesn't add to a society based of the Freedoms, Liberties, and fundamental Rights Declared for all People, it detracts and tramples on those most basic Rights, Liberties, and Freedoms.

Being ignorant of those important Declarations is what is slowly and systematically destructing the United States of America

First things first, you can't reverse engineer Our system of LAW thinking you can begin with the goal of Christian Society and then work backwards.

Those types of goals will always end up with a government and set of rules that accommodates abuse and atrocities

and that is why Our Constitution is so perfect, or was at one time before idiot politicians (and the journalists who enable them) began tearing at it, if you can't first start from a fundamental set of rules based on equality, fairness, and justice... and if you cannot put your faith in those fundamental rules, you don't deserve the rights, liberties, and freedoms you already have

If you can only agree to a set of fundamental LAW of rights, rules, and procedures when they end in a favorable way for you and your beliefs, you shouldn't have any say in the laws that govern free societies.

@cost concerns

I already suggested a solution. Have a kid taxpayers must support and you lose parental rights. There are many, many heterosexual married couples wanting badly to adopt who can afford to care for the child. Admittedly hard on "parents" who choose to have children they have no means of supporting. But better for the child and taxpaying citizens.

@lefty bigots

Demonizing everyone who thinks maybe people ought to maybe take some personal responsibility, that government ought to live within its mandate and means and that your lifestyle choices imply no fiscal responsibility on the part of that government- how's that working out for you?

You can write all sorts of childish bullshit, insane accusations (I know not a single conservative who isn't fully aware and appreciative of sex as a pleasurable act, morons) and outright lies. All it makes you is childish, deceitful and crazy.

@60

I view you as certifiable. Too bad you have no job that actually provides an income whose taxes you can whine about.

If you hate the US so much, leave. Anytime. Plenty of hard working potential immigrants who understand just how great this nation is whose place you're wasting in your hatred of it. Oh, yeah. No other country actually wants a twenty something with no skills or money who lives with their parents. Guess we're stuck with your worthless ass.

Oh SB. Why can't you just support what works? It costs you a lot less.

Oh yeah. I remember. Because if you did, what would you have to feel righteous about if we actually addressed the fucking problem realistically?

@ 43 nails it.

@50

I have three cars. If a neighbor has only one should government be allowed to void title to one of them for his benefit?

How exactly is the extortion of using the money I earned to support someone who won't make good choices any different?

Taxing authority and government activity do actually have limits, though you wish they didn't.

And it's entirely possible for a thing to be formally legal and also profoundly wrong and ill considered.

@29 16 types of birth control? Wtf are you talking about? Here are the four types that exist: sterilization (vasectomy, tubal) barriers ( condoms, diaphrams, spermicide) hormones ( pill, patch, shot, ring) and copper (paragard IUD, probably also considered a barrier) They apparently don't believe in the hormonal ones or the IUD. So where in the world are you getting 16?

No Scrawny Kayaker (comment 58) there is not one legitimate scientist who believes that life comes from not life, and if you understood how evolution works as opposed to Dawkins and every other journalist who cannot comprehend the principles of evolution, you wouldn't make such a foolish statement like "abiogenesis" as being the origin of life.

And I have no respect for those who claim to be real scientists yet are to stupid to recognize the truth in their abiogenetic claims: which is that there only concern is opposing the idiots who disgustingly claim a religious name and use it as an excuse to be too stupid to recognize what they call love, is truthfully hate

Deep down they know it, just like the liars who claim to legitimate evidence of life originating on this earth as opposed to arriving here know damn well their stated beliefs are based solely on refuting their idiot twin brothers and sisters of the religious right wing.

People are not wrong for choosing to believe anything, no matter how outlandish, this is until they cannot be honest about ulterior motives for adopting the bullshit lies they parade as truth.

are you sure you're not Goldy's wife?

I don't know, perhaps you just went to the same school where he learned his snake oil salesman technique in lieu of using facts and truth to debate

any journalist who fails to understand that the truth will no longer remain silent, is just another washed up has been, who failed to continue walking into the twenty first century

a time and place where implementing new grammar rules or inventing nonsense new words when accurate ones had already been discovered were tactics that truthfully died in the nineteenth century. It's just that piss poor journalists still deny getting the memo

nearly 200 years later, and they as of yet remain every ounce as ignorant as the ancestors

@29 i see the "16" methods.
Male condoms
Female condoms
(That would be "condoms"- thats one method.)

Diaphragms with spermicide
Sponges with spermicide
Cervical caps with spermicide
(Barriers, all a long shot less effective than the pull-out method)

Spermicide alone
(That's been listed 3 times already)

Birth-control pills with estrogen and progestin (“Combined Pill)
Birth-control pills with progestin alone (“The Mini Pill)
Birth control pills (extended/continuous use)
(The pill. Listed 3 times)

Contraceptive patches
Contraceptive rings
Progestin injections
Implantable rods
(Different ways of delivering the hormones in the pill)

Vasectomies
Female sterilization surgeries
Female sterilization implants
(Sterilization. Thats 1 method listed 3 damn times)

Thats four (4) methods. Don't get me started on the ignorance of providing the monthly pill but not the plan B version, as they are the Same. Damn. Thing. Google how many regular Ortho tri Cyclens you take to get the morning-after effect. I am old enough to remember when that was a thing.

@65: ...eeexcept that the taxes YOU pay are not dependent on the financial status of anyone but yourself. You've got this simplistic idea of "government takes my money and gives it to some lazy fag somewhere" (not a direct quote) that doesn't have anything to do with how things actually work.
Everyone pays some taxes. Everyone gets some benefit. But whenever anyone gets some benefit YOU think they don't deserve, you insist that your paltry contribution to the collective whole gives you total control over how the whole is spent.

Your spiteful insistence that it is wrong for public dollars to pay for anything for poor people, whether or not it saves taxpayer money overall, is nothing shy of ridiculous.
By your logic, we should do away with prisons! Who cares if incarcerating and rehabilitating criminals keeps them off the street? Our hard-earned dollars shouldn't pay for food and housing for lawbreakers!

"And it's entirely possible for a thing to be formally legal and also profoundly wrong and ill considered."
That's funny, since you seem to be incapable of distinguishing between the two. You think Obamacare is wrong, so you insist it's "illegal" and "unconstitutional" despite it BEING a law and BEING FOUND BY THE SUPREME COURT to be Constitutional. Don't try to pull a fast one with me, you worm.

I would like to make a correction, however. I have in several places mistakenly attributed the right of Congress to tax incomes to the 14th Amendment; the correct source of authorization is the 16th Amendment. I apologize for the inaccuracy.

I shall leave you with the following two direct quotes from you, Seattleblues:
"Taxing authority and government activity do actually have limits, though you wish they didn't."
"I already suggested a solution. Have a kid taxpayers must support and you lose parental rights."
That's right. You want to restrict the federal government to its barest defined powers, but you also want it to take kids away from people who get welfare benefits. Do you see any inconsistency here?

Ms Cute - Misogynist was all you needed.

I'm conservative, and I believe that contraceptive implants should be required for teens in at-risk populations. Just think - without all those neglected babies from unwed teen mothers, you could send the crime rate and the poverty rate through the floor within a generation. Added bonus - that many fewer voters for the bad guys.

I am deeply, deeply offended at the fact we citizens explicitly support rampant reproduction by having to make up for the tax deductions taken for children and for donations to religious establishments. This is more expensive with respect to conservative religious fundamentalists they breed irresponsibly, tithe, and suck up more resources than single, childless people.

I think deductions should only be allowed for things that are actually in support of society.

I still can't believe that conservatives think that CHILDREN are an appropriate punishment for people they deem to be IRRESPONSIBLE!!!!!

@74 Where the hell did you take that conservatives like children any more than women ?

"Republicans and Democrats were pretty unified on the issue: 87 percent of GOP respondents approved of contraception, versus 90 percent of Democrats."

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/051…

Once again, Dan Savage pulls lies out of his ass. Yes, some religious nutcases are against birth control, but most conservatives are fine with it.

In other news: the liberal war on large sodas continues. Because a few liberal lawmakers are against large sodas we know that EVERY AND ALL LIBERALS hate super-size Coke:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sara-haviv…

@42 Not the case. Even cultures that had access to condoms (since the Egyptians) and abortifacients like sylphium (harvested to extinction) never used them to the extent that they in any way eclipsed behavior and conduct—because they don't work nearly as well as the modern pill, modern condoms, and other modern methods. Truly practical and effective chemical birth control is new. Cultures that didn't care who the father of a child was are so far in the minority that they can be said to have a negligible influence on the actions and beliefs of today's American conservatives, which is the issue at hand.

Do not overestimate what ancient people understood about the human body: Case in point, the Romans, who were very interested in birth control and had access to the best doctors, got the rhythm process backwards. They thought that a woman was least fertile between her periods.

@77: Conservatives are fighting contraception in this case, and in many. Allow me to draw a parallel here: an overwhelming majority of Americans, including a majority of Republicans, support universal background checks. However, it is Republicans leading the charge against such a measure; is it fair to say that Republicans are fighting universal background checks?
I'm perfectly fine with a headline saying "liberals fight against big sodas" or whatever. As long as it doesn't say "ALL liberals", it's accurate. And as much as I think banning big sodas is a dumb idea, nobody needs 64oz of diabeetus potion at once.

But guuuuys! If poor women can afford contraception or abortions, where will the next generation of low-wage workers COME FROM!? C'mon, think it through!

@72: Why only "at-risk" teens?

SB: Don't you think that taking babies away from parents is a governmental overreach?

The thing not being mentioned here. The Colorado program was, mostly privately funded by a grant and that program worked well. So SeattleBlues you didn't pay for anyone's contraceptive. And it saved the taxpayers money. Yet conservatives are STILL bad mouthing it. Saying that numbers are fake. And access to contraceptives increases abortions when the numbers prove otherwise. If they aren't paying for it and it works. Why do they have an issue with it?

It's impossible to be the 1% unless there's a bunch of poor people to make up the remaining 99% simple as that. We need a bunch of poor single moms having a bunch of poor kids to populate the for profit prison system, die overseas in made up wars, and ave away for the profit of the afore mentioned 1%. Don't over complicate it. It's just business.

@79
*tips hat* I see what you're saying. Good point.

The other factor here is pro-natilism. That is, the more people (especially "their" kind of people), the better. The Catholic religion is explicit about this. The right wing theocrats less so, but its implicit in their belief system. This follows from ultra-conservatism. Until very recently it was essential for humans to have many children to assure continuance of our species. This is a very basic evolutionarily derived imperative. The basic selection pressure of short life-spans and high death rates has now changed, but our biology has not caught up. Evolution simply hasn't had time to work on this aspect of our biology/behavior. But most people are now able to see that more people per se is not necessarily good and infinite people is very very bad. That is modernism over-riding a basic biological imperative. But the extreme righties reject modernism. They still believe that infinite people is good. Yes, they are nuts and out of touch with reality, but this is where their assault on women's right is ultimately coming from.

@87 Apparently a difficult concept for liberals and conservatives alike.

You play you pay. Society will take care of the minority that has serious problems. Don't blame them for yours.

Conservatives never seem to explain the reasoning behind their belief that sex needs to have consequences. Would one of the conservatives in this thread please explain to me, in your own words, why it's so damn important for sex to have consequences?

@90 : read #84. It's just business.

Well, everyone should know that women don't need contraceptives. Women need to stay home, cook, do housework and be a factory for producing chirruns. And while you're up make me a sammich.