Planned Parenthood workers and "fembots" fight back, pro-choice means less abortion, an interview with Jenn Frederick about domestic violence myths and misconceptions and the place of vaginas and bathroom stalls in electoral politics.

Links in this episode:
Matt Lauer interviews Larry Craig
I Am Emily X
Planned Parenthood's diverse services
Guttmacher report on abortion worldwide
Alex Witt calls Giuliani "pro-abortion"
"Pro-life" policies more anti-sex than pro-life
Fembots?!
Vaginas scare Cliff May

Transcript:

This week on Reality Cast, I'll be interviewing Jenn Frederick about domestic violence myths and misconceptions, talking about framing and language in the abortion debate, and tackling this ridiculous new sexist stereotype about fembots.

But first, Larry Craig just doesn't know when to give up. Matt Lauer had an interview with him where Craig was a train wreck and simply didn't do anything to help his case.

*insert larry craig clip*

Credit to Matt Lauer for not cracking up during the ridiculous interview, even during the part where he had to sort of act out the toe tapping, foot-nudging, hand waving maneuver that Senator Craig did, and now claims he did just for the hell of it and certainly not to get any sex.

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The good news is that the protesters at the new Aurora, IL Planned Parenthood are inspiring some good, angry pushback from the pro-choice community, with doctors and other health workers from Planned Parenthood coming out to talk about what they do for a living and what their lives are really like. Turns out they're good people, but you already knew that. One blog that's cropped up is I Am Emily X, a blog where Planned Parenthood workers can talk back to the protesters who are making it hard for them to dispense basic medical care to women who need it.

*insert planned parenthood slut clip*

To the press it's all babies babies babies but in person, I guess anti-choicers are more blunt about how they feel about women who have sex.

This woman describes the effect of the protesters on her patients.

*insert planned parenthood not abortion*

She's telling the truth—contrary to the way anti-choicers portray Planned Parenthood, it's not an "abortion mill". Abortion is only 3% of its services. The rest is basic gyno care, contraception services, STD services and the like. But I have a feeling that the anti-choicers, with their choice use of words like "slut", might not care if they block women from getting birth control or treatment for STDs.

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People have asked me and well, complained in comments about my tendency to call our side "pro-choice" and our opposition "anti-choice". And I agree that "pro-choice" is a weak phrase, that something like "advocates for reproductive justice" is more accurate but it's a mouthful. In truth, though, no one really complained about that, because all the complaints were coming, for obvious reasons, from anti-choicers who want me to comply with their "pro-life" P.R. campaign.

It's an amazing bit of entitlement. I don't see why I owe a damn thing to people who wish to take away my basic right to bodily autonomy. What I especially won't do for them is lie for them, and calling them "pro-life" is a blatant lie.

The Guttmacher Institute just released another report showing exactly how pro-death anti-choice policies really are. The report showed that while abortion bans did absolutely nothing to reduce the abortion rate, they were extremely effective in getting women killed and maimed, to the tune of 70,000 deaths a year and 5 million maimings, many of which result in permanent damage. If you stand by a policy to kill 70,000 women a year, you are a lot of things, but "pro-life" isn't one of them.

While the media continues to use the inaccurate term "pro-life" to describe people who are better described as anti-choice, I saw alarming evidence that other inaccurate frames from anti-choicers were creeping into the media. For instance, Alex Witt used a bit of right wing framing on MSNBC Live recently.

*insert pro-abortion clip*

Alex! To really sound like an anti-choice crank, you need to say "pro-abort". No, for real. Check out any anti-choice website and you'll see the term "pro-abort" instead of "pro-abortion". They think it sounds more insulting or something, but it just has the effect of making them sound like they're incapable of handling more than two syllables per word.

The problem with the term "pro-abortion" is not the supposed insulting part. For instance, I think it's a good term to describe someone who is currently pregnant and seeking a way not to be. But it's not a good term to describe people who support abortion rights. For instance, you can support abortion rights while personally not wishing to ever have an abortion, which is sort of Giuliani's position on this for obvious reasons. I've met plenty of pro-choice activists who themselves wouldn't feel right getting an abortion, but they respect freedom of religion, and don't think that you should have to live by their religious rules.

In fact, according to the Guttmacher report, if you're personally uncomfortable with abortion and wish to see less of them, the best stance to take is to be pro-choice. The rule of thumb is that the more liberal the abortion laws in a country, the lower the abortion rate. That's because there's more to being pro- and anti-choice than just views on abortion. Pro-choicers tend to advocate a whole package of contraception access and sex education, and anti-choicers tend to oppose the whole package. Pro-choice policies reduce the number one cause of abortion, unplanned pregnancy.

So, strictly from a numbers sense, anti-choicers are the ones better described as "pro-abortion". Which makes sense. Their views are more consistent with punishing women for having sex than anything else, and really, what's a better punishment for sex than getting an unsafe, dirty abortion because you didn't have condoms in the first place?

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*insert interview*

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I don't have a mailbag this week, but that's okay, because I want to take the extra time to express my dismay at the Today show, who ran a segment on how women who take advantage of our hard won right to delay marriage and childbirth are actually not humans, but in fact mechanical devices called, I swear to god, "fembots". And lest you think I'm exaggerating about what makes you a "fembot", let me assure you that I'm not.

*insert fembot 1*

I'm having a little trouble believing that nearly every female friend of mine who has decided to live a little and delay marriage and babies until they're ready can be treated like a subhuman machine. I'd even go so far as to say that women like me who don't want kids are perfectly human, too. I think women can have a range of lifestyle choices and be just fine. But nope, according to the Today show, we're all broken shells, barely women at all, just really pathetic and sad.

*insert fembot 2*

She does go on to admitting that it's entirely possible for a woman to have a career and maybe even wait to have babies until she's out of her teen years without being an emotional cripple, but the show immediately follows up with a checklist, and more warnings that women who have careers or don't get married to the very first boy they kiss are in grave, grave danger of becoming very close to sociopathic.

*insert fembot 3*

I'd think that if our brains were wired for nurturing, we wouldn't be in grave danger of losing our capacity to love just because we know how to unwrap a condom or because we have desk jobs.

Thanks to Andi at WIMN's Voices for the tip on this. The battle against reproductive rights isn't just being played out in the courts and on the streets. Stuff like this, where it's implied that women who exert control over their lives are actually not real women at all, is also a threat. The birth control pill, the ability to marry when you want, the right to choose, the right to earn a living—these are all things that improve women's lives, but shows like this pretend the opposite is true.

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This week's Wisdom of Wingnuts is about vaginas, and how they seem to scare a good deal of the DC punditry, at least when they're underneath the skirts of candidates. This clip is of Tucker Carlson and right wing pundit Cliff May, hyperventilating over the possibility that people might enjoy electing a female President.

*insert vaginal American clip*

If she wins the nomination, I expect that the misogynist hysteria is just going to get uglier and uglier.