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Jeff Bennion is an ex-gay activist

Appeals court hears arguments over Texas law

Legal arguments in Texas

Nicki Minaj on her abortion

Say what, Mike Huckabee?

Troy Newman’s self-delusions

Transcript

On this episode of Reality Cast, I’ll be talking with Vicki Saporta from the National Abortion Federation about the new slew of federal bills intended to restrict abortion. Texas’ abortion law is back in court again, and feminist-friendly pop stars anger conservatives.

Last week, I did a segment on that show My Husband’s Not Gay, and since then there’s been a lot of criticism of the show for selling a false message about how anti-gay religious beliefs aren’t as harmful as they really are. And TLC is acting really strange about it, as MSNBC reported.

• Gay *

TLC refuses to say why they’re vetoing Jeff Bennion from public appearances to promote the show. So I’m going to speculate wildly here and point out that while Jeff is portrayed as an ordinary Joe just trying to muddle with what he calls “same-sex attraction” while being married to a woman, Media Matters discovered that he is actually a prominent “ex-gay” activist. As I pointed out on the show last week, the “ex-gay” movement is losing steam rapidly and this whole thing about admitting you are attracted to men but being married to a woman anyway is a shiny new tactic to try to keep the whole thing alive. Bennion, in other words, has what Media Matters called “a real professional incentive to use his new, national platform” in order to lure people back into trying to un-gay themselves. Thus TLC’s embarrassed unwillingness to let him do more press.

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The Texas abortion law is back in court again, with the Fifth Circuit Court hearing arguments about a law requiring clinics to meet ambulatory surgical center standards. These standards, which treat abortion clinics like hospitals, are not necessary for most abortions, which are quick outpatient procedures that are safer than colonscopies. Indeed, these standards are so ridiculous that they’re applied to places that only dispense the abortion pill, which means that they want you to have a full surgical suite for the privilege of swallowing a pill and going home to have what amounts to a very heavy period. It’s like requiring you to go to the hospital if you have a bout of constipation, in terms of making any kind of medical sense. It’s clear as a bell that the only purpose of these laws is to shut down safe abortion clinics and drive women onto the black market to punish them for being sexual, but NPR allowed a lying anti-choicer to spout her lies about it anyway.

• Texas 1 *

Ah yes, invoking a man who was in flagrant violation of the existing laws in order to justify new laws. Does this B.S. convince anyone? I doubt it. It’s so clearly dishonest. But let’s be clear. Gosnell was breaking the laws that apply to all doctors, not just abortion providers, and the problem was that no one bothered to check up on his clinic because he served low-income women and women of color. In fact, one reason he had so many patients was that good, clean clinics were being run out of business by anti-choicers like this lady, who think you deserve to go to a rat-infested hellhole for an abortion because they think you’re a bad person who deserves to suffer. So that’s what they do: Shut down good clinics so all that is left is the people running illegal ones, like Gosnell. It’s rich of her to hand-wring about Gosnell when her entire plan is to make sure that’s what women seeking abortion have to turn to. Passing more regulations to shut down Kermit Gosnell is like banning coffee in response to finding out that you have a cocaine dealer on your street. Cocaine is already illegal. Banning coffee won’t make it more illegal.

The new Gov. Greg Abbott was, if anything, even more nonsensical in his blatherings about this.

• Texas 2 *

So on one hand, he admits that the law is about making abortion hard to get and trying to keep women from getting abortions. But then he defends it by saying it’s not that big a deal because you can still get your abortion. On what planet does it make sense to defend a law by saying, oh yeah, we spend millions of dollars to defend this law but that’s okay, because it doesn’t work anyway? But honestly I do think I know what this little two-step is about. Greg Abbott is reassuring conservative voters that they will still be able to get abortions and this is only about taking access away from poor women who can’t afford to travel. The New Mexico thing is just a coded way of saying that. Unfortunately, the Fifth Circuit Court has indicated in the past that they think that it’s perfectly fine to pass laws that are about taking abortion access away from poor women while leaving it in place for middle class and wealthy women.

Carrie Feibel of Houston Public Media went onto NPR to talk about some of the legal issues. She talked about how it all comes down to how far you have to drive.

• Texas 3 *

Basically, what it comes down to is whether or not the Fifth Circuit Court thinks a burden is undue if it primarily affects poor women. The last time this law went before the court, it was clear the judges felt that a law that allows the well-off to get abortions but prevents poor women from getting abortions isn’t an undue burden. It’s really despicable, how much this comes down to treating working class women like they are second class citizens. The whole point of this law is to set the practical price of an abortion out of reach for low-income women while making it accessible to everyone else. Unfortunately, it’s a strategy that seems to be working.

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Interview

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I gotta say, it continues to be fascinating watching how female pop stars these days are becoming more aggressively feminist and giving conservatives heartburn by doing so. I wrote about this at Rewire, but in case you missed it, Nicki Minaj has a new album out and she briefly references a pregnancy she aborted in high school.

• Pop 1 *

Rolling Stone asked her about this in an interview and she’s pretty straightforward about it.

• Pop 2 *

A lot of the focus in the headlines about this has been on the fact that she says the experience “haunted” her, but I thought I’d quote that longer part for context. Much needed context, because, of course, anti-choicers are busy hustling and exploiting her story. Perennial jerk and anti-choice activist Alveda King snootily did an interview where she claimed that Nicki Minaj will eventually regret her abortion and start being anti-choice because, as anyone who listens to this podcast will know, anti-choicers have zero compunction about saying obviously false things all the time. Talking out of their ass is so easy for them that I think they forgot how to talk out of their mouths. Personally, I think Minaj was perfectly clear about how she feels and there is no need to second guess her here.

Beyoncé has been giving conservatives indigestion for years now, both in her enthusiastic support for President Obama and now because she’s come out strongly as a feminist. Mike Huckabee, who is a mean-spirited bully who pretends to be jovial, decided to go on the attack against her recently because she, gasp, has done some records suggesting she enjoys sex. Jinx, the vlogger at the Complex read an excerpt from Huckabee’s new book and I warn you, it is one of the most asinine and prejudiced things that I’ve heard from a supposed presidential candidate in a long time.

• Pop 3 *

Jinx’s take on this is worth hearing.

• Pop 4 *

Racist, sexist, prudish, the whole thing. Really quite amazing. But I also want to flag how condescending it is. Huckabee acts like he’s complimenting Beyoncé by saying she can sing and dance, but really it’s a backhanded compliment, because he’s doing it in service of implying that’s all she can do. He’s denying that she is an artist with a vision and treating her like she’s a wedding singer he hired and so he can tell her what to do. The notion that Beyoncé is just a puppet being pulled by her husband is so ridiculous that it’s actually a bit hard to take as an insult. It’s like it never even occurred to Huckabee that women have thoughts and wills of their own, much less a desire to create art and express themselves artistically. And yes, expressing thoughts about sex is a legitimate form of artistic expression. No, he just thinks she’s a pretty little dancing and singing bird who is being controlled by a man because he can’t imagine women can think for themselves. And this man thinks he’s got the moral and intellectual authority to tell us what to do? He can’t even accept a reality that’s staring him right in the face, which is that women are autonomous creatures with minds of our own.

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And now for the Wisdom of Wingnuts, I do believe they are deluding themselves edition. Troy Newman of Operation Rescue has a vision, a very self-deluded vision.

• CPCs *

Sure, there are tons of them. That’s because they sit mostly empty, trying to lure women inside by pretending to be abortion clinics. They can afford to have a bazillion of them because they don’t do anything and therefore don’t cost anything. It’s not like women get pregnant and just do whatever the people in the first place they wander into say. CPCs know that women actually want abortions, which is why they pretend to be abortion clinics, which they wouldn’t have to do if they were actually as popular as Newman pretends. The other thing is this: This is not about offering alternatives, but the illusion of offering alternatives. The second abortion is banned in a state, mark my words, all the CPCs will close up shop and go home. That’s because they were there to trick people into thinking anti-choicers offer service, but they do not. They will only pretend to care as long as it takes to take away your rights, at what point they will immediately drop the façade.