Attention Rick Santorum, You've Got Mail

This should play neatly into the hands of nutjob Republican candidate, Rick Santorum.   As a devout, even rabid Catholic, Santorum draws a lot of flack for his extreme social conservatism and the hyperbole in his arguments against everything from same sex marriage to abortion.   Now a couple of British medical academics have given Santorum the fodder that he needs so badly.

In an article published in the British Journal of Medical Ethics, entitled After Birth Abortion; Why Should the Baby Live?, Professors Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva, argue that parents ought to be able to have their baby put down if it turns out to be disabled when it is born.

They argued: “The moral status of an infant is equivalent to that of a fetus in the sense that both lack those properties that justify the attribution of a right to life to an individual.”

Rather than being “actual persons”, newborns were “potential persons”. They explained: “Both a fetus and a newborn certainly are human beings and potential persons, but neither is a ‘person’ in the sense of ‘subject of a moral right to life’. 

This is a hard one to believe.  It sounds like something straight out of Nazi Germany.   And, for that, it should appeal to the Santorumistas and their candidate.   I wonder how long it will be before we hear from him on this?

How to Put Planned Parenthood Out of the Abortion Business

The fundie Right doesn't hesitate to condemn Planned Parenthood for providing abortion services.  Slate's William Saletan offers a brilliant idea on how to put Planned Parenthood out of the abortion business -  send it as much money as you can.

Look at the latest annual report from Planned Parenthood Federation of America, issued two months ago. The table on page 5 shows that over the course of a year, PPFA provided 3,685,437 contraceptive services and 329,445 abortions. That’s a ratio of 11 to 1.

Internationally, the ratio is even higher. Look at the latest annual report from the International Planned Parenthood Federation. The table on page 13 shows that over the course of a year, IPPF provided 33,854,786 contraceptive services and 1,411,494 abortions. That’s a ratio of 24 to 1. Did I mention condoms? IPPF distributed 152,397,194 condoms. That’s 108 condoms per abortion.

What happens when you provide condoms and contraceptive services? Women who don’t want to get pregnant don’t get pregnant. Which means fewer women are in the market for abortions. The abortion business dries up.

...If you want to drive Planned Parenthood out of the abortion business, don’t send them less money. Send them more. Help Planned Parenthood become what it has wanted to be all along: The organization that helps women avoid unwanted pregnancies, so they don’t have to abort them.

Of course the fundie Right, yielding to their fundamentalist compulsions, refuses to accept the education-contraception-abortion link.   And that's just one reason why they're dangerous idiots.

At Least There'll Be Enough Porta-Potties

It's hardly the best way to recall the momentous day but, according to McClatchey Newspapers, Obama's inauguration day also turned out to be "the largest temporary toilet event in the history of the United States."

Most of the blue beacons were provided by Don's Johns of Chantilly, Virginia. According to McClatchey the johns didn't get nearly the workout planners had expected. Which is probably good news as it ensures there'll be plenty of surplus available for the 200,000 anti-abortion protestors who'll march on Washington today to demand that Obama move to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Observers (okay, just me) predict that a gang that large that thinks it has the slightest chance of getting that point across to Obama is so full of it they might just be able to fill the unused capacity of all those porta-potties.