Via Atrios, this wonderful quote from Senator Tom Coburn, R-OK:
During today’s Senate debate on S. 403, a bill on abortion parental notification laws, former physician and One Who Should Know Better, Sen. Tom Coburn, argued that by distributing condoms in schools, we were rationalizing risky behavior to teenagers. “You know, the moral rationalization is if you make a mistake there’s no consequences. I’ve seen the consequences. Condoms and teenagers work about 50% of the time, if you count all the studies up,” said Coburn.
This shitstain is the same one who thought that lesbians were recruiting in the middle school restrooms of Middle America, who sterilized a woman against her consent (probably because Medicaid paid for the procedure), and who thinks that silicone breast implants make women healthier.
Incidentally, the actual rate of effectiveness for condoms, used consistently and correctly, is around 97 percent. But you won’t know that from government publications:
“Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, administration Web sites have been scrubbed for anything vaguely sensitive, and passwords are now required to access even much unclassified information. Though it is not clear whether the White House is directing the changes, several agencies have been following a similar pattern. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and USAID have removed or revised fact sheets on condoms, excising information about their effectiveness in disease prevention, and promoting abstinence instead.” [Washington Post, 12/18/03]
Coburn probably had a hand in that, because he’s been on an anti-condom crusade for a while now, and before he was in the Senate, and after he had served in Congress, he was co-chair of the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV and AIDS and one of President Bush’s top advisors on HIV/AIDS, so his anti-condom stance is particularly damaging.
And he doesn’t just hate condoms, he hates all kinds of contraceptives, especially those that will let women think they can have sex without consequences:
CMDA [the Christian Medical and Dental Association] is also part of a disinformation campaign to denigrate oral contraceptives and condoms. Medicine and science define pregnancy as beginning with the implantation of a fertilized egg. CMDA uses its own definition—that pregnancy begins at the moment an egg is fertilized—and recommends that doctors consider counseling patients that oral contraceptives may cause abortion. This disinformation campaign may have a direct effect on access to contraceptives. In 1998, then-Rep. Tom Coburn (R-OK), an obstetrician, attempted to amend a bill requiring coverage of prescription contraceptives to exclude methods that “interfere with fertilization or terminate a pregnancy,” which would effectively exclude widely used forms of contraception—oral contraceptives, the Depo-Provera contraceptive shot, and intra-uterine devices (IUDs). Coburn also exploited a highly publicized study that said there was a lack of data on the effectiveness of condoms in preventing sexually transmitted diseases other than HIV to claim that condoms do not prevent AIDS.
As if this weren’t bad enough, the bill the Senate was debating, S. 403, is a little more than just a parental-consent bill. The so-called “Child Custody Protection Act” seeks to make a criminal of anyone other than a parent who takes a minor across state lines for an abortion if the parental-notification laws of the state of the minor’s residence were not followed. And this includes anyone not a parent, even immediate family members, grandparents, or other close relatives; they could face a year in jail for transporting a minor who for whatever reason couldn’t or wouldn’t tell her parents she was pregnant and wanted an abortion.
And as NARAL Pro-Choice America’s president Nancy Keenan reminds us in this Op-Ed at TomPaine.com why girls should be trusted to know when it’s inadvisable to tell a parent about a pregnancy or abortion:
We all agree that teenage girls in trouble should turn to their parents for guidance, and thankfully, most already do. But CCPA would not improve a family situation that is already bad. Worse, it would put girls who, for whatever reason, can’t talk to their parents about tough issues like sex into serious danger. In that case, we should urge a teenager to turn to another responsible adult—like a grandmother or clergy member—not isolate her.
The tragic story of 13-year-old Spring Adams in Idaho illustrates how CCPA could jeopardize young women’s safety. Spring was shot to death by her father after he learned she was planning to terminate a pregnancy caused by his incest. If CCPA passes, trusted, caring and responsible adults would be faced with the threat of prosecution for responding to a young woman like Spring who approaches them because she fears involving her parent in her request for an abortion.
Scott has a post up in which he dares anyone, in light of the CCPA, to make the argument now that abortion regulation is really a “state’s rights” issue. And Ann at Feministing has more on the bill and the state of parental-notification laws in the US. She also has a link to email your senator.
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“Condoms and teenagers work about 50% of the time, if you count all the studies up,”
This might make sense in a discussion about how teenagers fail to use condoms correctly, leading to a higher failure rate.
Of course, anyone who thinks leaving them to guess what to do will address that satisfactorily is barking mad.
Aren’t conservatives supposed to dislike the nanny state?
Incidentaslly, don’t fertilised eggs often fail to implant even in the absence of contraceptives?
There’s one type of case where I think parental notification laws would be good for the pregnant teen. Suppose she wants to get her parents involved–maybe isn’t really sure she wants to abort–but the guy who got her pregnant is telling her “Don’t tell your parents; they’ll kill me.” Or worse: “Get the abortion without telling your parents or I’ll kill you.” With a notification law in place, he can’t coerce her.
I have no idea how often this sort of thing happens. For all I know, it may be rare compared to the Spring Adams type of situation. Or vice versa.
You know, sometimes I marvel at the number of clueless, abusive *ssholes who wind up in the US government. My first thought is to wonder what his family life is like.
With a notification law in place, he can’t coerce her.
How does that follow? If he’s prepared to threaten her life, don’t you think he’ll find some (probably extremely dangerous) way to get what he wants despite any law?
With a notification law in place, he can’t coerce her.
How does that follow? If he’s prepared to threaten her life, don’t you think he’ll find some (probably extremely dangerous) way to get what he wants despite any law?
Apologies for the duplication.
That’s possible, but certainly not automatic. What he wants is for her to get an abortion on the quiet. Arranging for that in the face of a notification law is a lot harder than making a threat and hoping it’ll cow her.
And remember, the threat to her life was just one of the possibilities I mentioned (the other being an attempt to play on her concern for him).
When a teen has good, understanding parents who work hard at having a good and open dialogue with their children, usually those teens don’t find themselves in such predicaments. They either wouldn’t chose to date such a controlling asshole, or they would feel comfortable enough to be honest and ask for help from said parents.
Families that foster open communication and are emotionally supportive of their children don’t need any laws to make them communicate — they do anyway.
Parental consent laws serve only one purpose: to ensure that those homes that fail to properly rear their daughters get another chance to fail to take responsibility for their failure and blame, neglect and abuse their daughter once again.
More often than not, early sexual activity among girls signals a home of physical/sexual abuse and emotional neglect. Often girls that participate in early sexual activity are looking to meet emotional needs that are unmet at home, or are acting out behavior some higher patriarch taught them long before.
Also, parental consent laws play the old patriarchical game of allowing the head of household, usually the father, to take charge of the girl’s body and life. Worse is that the male gets away scot free to do as he pleases while the family decides to shame and punish the girl.
That a quack nutbag like this gets to act as representative of Okieland says what about them? I’ve been to Oklahoma and visited people there. I’m not surprised in the least.
But I am frightened for our future. How far will Bush and his people go before people get furious?
This rather interesting quote from a New York Times magazine article:
“Senator Coburn told me that he’s not anti-birth-control: ‘I’m not a no-condom person. I prescribe tons of birth control products …’”
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/07/magazine/07contraception.html?pagewanted=8&ei=5088&en=fd92772f01a5c709&ex=1304654400&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
Ew. Sorry about the crappy hyperlink. Try googling “Contra-Contraception” and click on the one that isn’t times select. It’s on one of the last pages.
Yes, probably as often or more often than they succeed. But you don’t see “pro-lifers” worrying about the “babies” who die naturally for some reason.
With the exception of methods that only interfere with implantation (e.g. the coil, I think), don’t all contraceptives do that?
Rex, parental notification laws don’t solve the problem of boyfriends manipulating their girlfriends into having abortions they don’t want. First of all, this can happen regardless of whether the pregnant teen talks to her parents. Second of all, this can hapen in adult relationships, too. Third of all, parents can also pressure their daughters into having–or not having; either way it’s wrong–abortions against their will.
Fourth of all, we could just ban abortion for young women entirely and get rid of the problem altogether. Opposition of manipulative boyfriends crosses the line into restricting reproductive rights comes before parental notification laws, not after.
How about instead we provide free counseling services for pregnant teens (and women)?
No, Andrew, some interfere with ovulation.
Implantation only occurs about 1/3 of the time.
Rex, read some history. One of the main policy reasons abortion was legalized was that a lot of men coerced their partners into having illegal abortions. Actually, if abortion becomes illegal, that’s even better for men who don’t want anyone to know, because if a woman reports him for coercing her, she is also likely to go to jail for seeking the abortion. An illegal abortionist is not going to call the cops when they have a 14 year old in their waiting room with a nervous father, no mother in sight and it just doesn’t seem likely that the girl had a “boyfriend.” As it is, this frequently happens. The girl may eventually get an abortion, but not until a criminal investigation is open and the non-molesting parent is involved. Parental consent laws are simply a strategy to take reproductive rights from a population that is not in a good position to demand them, on the road to taking them away for everyone. That’s all.
No, he’ll still arrange for her to get an abortion on the quiet, it’s just that it’ll be an illegal one. Later she may show up in the ER with poisoning, a perforated uterus, sepsis, hemorrhage, retained products of conception, etc and possibly die or lose all chance of future fertility. But at least her parents will know what she did and be able to punish her properly, right? If she survives anyway.
I realise this is how hormonal contraceptives work (including of course Plan B), but in turn, they’re interfering with fertilisation by there not being any egg there to fertilise. My point is that stopping anything which interferes with fertilisation seems ridiculous, especially as the earliest I’ve ever heard a pro-life campaigner claim that life begins is when sperm and egg meet.
So typical of Coburn to fail to realize that, if this is true, it probably has a hell of a lot to do with the abstinence-only sex ed he and his fellow godbags love to go on about.
I grew up in both Utah and Oklahoma, where, had it not been for my mother, who gave me the facts of life straight up when I was five, I would have gone through adolescence laboring under the delusion that having a penis in my vagina would lead directly to suicide, drug use and death. Of course, the presence of pregnant teenage girls everywhere in the halls of my junior high and high school was just highly ironic in light of this teaching philosophy.
And just where will he find an illegal abortionist, given that abortion is legal in all 50 states? Next door to the guy who sells bootleg whiskey?
This would be a good point if I’d expressed approval of making abortion illegal, which I didn’t. That might be the ultimate goal of some people pushing parental notification laws, but that doesn’t mean the rest of us can’t consider such laws on their own merits.
Find one? Become one. Remember the incidents a few months ago in which two teenage boys were charged with assault for beating their pregnant girlfriends trying to induce abortions? Or he might tell her that he heard that drinking lye would cause a miscarriage or stick something sharp in her uterus, etc. Or maybe go to his friendly local drug dealer and ask if he knows anyone with a rusty coathanger.
I just received a NARAL email that said the parental notification act passed.
Please don’t burden the OB/Gyn community with the inclusion of Senator Coburn. He is a family practitioner who also practises obstetrics.
By the way, there is plenty of uncertainty about the women who supposedly was sterilized against her will. I know from first-hand experience that a patient’s version of an event can differ greatly from what actually happened.
Rex Little:
So why bring it up? I ask because that sort of stalking-horse maneuver is a common strategy of people who want to justify making women’s lives worse
kate:
A nice thought, but, I would say, only probabilistically true. I’m no supporter of notification laws, but I don’t imagine that every happy family will discuss it anyway. To a certain extent, in fact, a 16-year-old who was raised right may well say “I’m an adult, I can handle this myself” and not feel she needs to bother talking to her parents about it — she knows they’ll still love her and all, but she doesn’t feel the need to have the conversation, all the same. I don’t think that’s a bad outcome; indeed, I take issue with the underlying assumption that the parents need to know in the first place provided the facility is clean and they’re not paying for it.
Hershele, I agree. If I just think about myself and my own family, I know that if I had gotten pregnant as a teenager, I could have talked to my parents about it, and although they probably would have been upset, they would have been supportive. However – and of course this is only speculation in retrospect (retrospeculation?) – I am almost certain that if I had gotten pregnant as a teenager, I wouldn’t have told my parents. I would have felt mature enough and intelligent enough to take care of it on my own, and I wouldn’t have wanted them to find out. I think I only would have talked to them about it if there were some problem/issue that came up that I felt like I couldn’t handle on my own.
@Andrew. Actually, both IUDs (the coil) and hormonal birthcontrol work to prevent ovulation, and when that fails, to prevent implanation by making the uterine lining really unfriendly. The IUD is a little bit more effective because there is no human error, other than expulsion, and that it also acts as a physical barrier in sperm finding egg. It is completely ridiculous to oppose anything that prevents fertilization, but it is just as ridiculous to oppose methods that prevent implantation because eggs are fertilized and not implanted all the time. Even the most stringent pro-life lady has bled out many a fetus that way.
(I think Doris Dawn’s ears are burning.)
I agree with this. Ideally, a young woman should talk to her good parents about this decision just as she would talk to them about the decision to become sexually active, or the decision to drop out of college and ride a unicycle at Burning Man. While the decision is ultimately hers, parents can offer a lot of valuable advice in situations like this. Most of them are basically good and supportive people who want to be involved in their child’s life for the right reasons.
However, I don’t agree that that ideal should be legislated for the sake of its emotional benefits, not in the face of the enormous drawbacks it will have for far more vulnerable young women who don’t have protection from or from their parents. To the extent that there are concerns about medical safety in terms of transparency and follow-up, it seems like the best way to satisfy them would be to regulate clinics in general, without impinging on any patient’s privacy. That’s been the strategy with every other medical procedure, and this shouldn’t be any different. Placing the burden on each young woman to bring her parents into the equation is a proven method of driving girls away from medical care, not facilitating its supervision. (Plus, I have a lot of trouble taking these concerns at face value from people who want to void funding for these clinics; nothing protects conscientious standards of care like a shoestring budget and an overwhelming demographic.)
I know of one woman who got an abortion as a teenager. She told her mom, who actually paid for it, but not her dad. Her dad was a cop, the father was black, the girl and her family were all white, and I think the girl and her mom were concerned that dad would decide to go after boyfriend, daughter or both while drunk. There is no way in hell to ever prove to a court that these suspicions were justified, but apparently the mother thought enough of the possibility not to tell her own husband. Now you tell me that there aren’t some teenagers out there whose suspicions about similar circumstances aren’t necessarily untrue just because they are minors. Unfortunately, sometimes those suspicions rightfully extend to both parents. Homicide is the number one cause of death for pregnant women, and now pregnant girls can’t protect themselves by not telling their potentially violent parents about an abortion. Lovely.
Re How often pregnant teens tell their parents… The latest statistics I’ve seen show that pregnant teens under 15 go to their parents about 95% of the time, with virtually the entire remaining 5% coming in cases of abuse or incest in the houshold. Teens who are 15-17 tell their parents about 65% of the time, but of the remaining 35% nearly all of them tell a “trusted adult,” including another relative. Obviously not all that 35% fear abuse in the home or are victims of incest, but many of them have the hesitation because of other family problems, such as alcholism or drug addiction in the family, etc.
These statistics make a lot of sense to me and I don’t think they justify parental notification laws – and certainly not CCPA – because a small number of teens don’t fear abuse and don’t tell their parents. The reality is, once you hit 15, 16, 17, you may not get everything right, but you do know better than the government what your family can or cannot handle.
A friend of mine had an abortion at 17. She didn’t tell her parents because her mo had recently been committed to a psych unit. She knew it was too much for her dad to handle, even though she knew he’d have supported her decision either way. And older relative helped her find an abortion provider. When my sister was 18, she got pregnant following a birth control failure and she did tell our mom, even though she was legally an adult. Our mom was with her the whole way through my sister’s abortion, never judged, never questioned, and probably felt like my sister was doing the brave and best thing. I’d bet that the majority of women who have abortions through their 20s tell their mom. That’s what you do when you CAN.
These stories are exactly why this bill is ridiculous, wrong, and hurtful. What a disappointment that such a majority of Senators doesn’t get that. I doubt their daughters would ever feel comfortable telling them if they needed an abortion.
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