Pineapple Valances

Am I the same person who recently claimed to be eerily non-responsive to discussions about abortion and the death penalty?  You know, someone "too cool for school," above it all, so right that there just is no point in engaging in discussions that continue to entertain differing (i.e., wrong) points of view?

My reactions to some news stories are surprising me, their author, their source. I refer to the reactions, of course. I haven't made the news, thank goodness, in years.

(Ah, italics.)

Today, for example, I've been foundering (and, yes, floundering, as well) in the shallow end of the rage pool...

Just to reassure some of you who have been wondering whether I am still in here, somewhere, whether I merit your continued faith? You betcha, I am, and I do! Proof positive? Would anyone else interrupt a rant over the failure of HHS Secretary Sebelius to advance reproductive options and choices in situations inherently imbued (even *fraught*) with the worst of pregnancy's circumstances... with frilly pronouncements about stuff best left to Dictionary Geeks?

Because I gotta tell ya: founder is one of my favorite verbs!

How can you not love an action word that means "to fill with water and sink," or, if you prefer, and if circumstances merit, "to become wrecked, fail utterly."

It's a wonderfully adverbial verb, furiously conditioning itself before your lips even hit its final frenchified lip-pursing action, all that indefinite -e-r-r-r-r.

In a pinch, this verb-that-was-clearly-made-for-moi can also convey "to stumble, break down, or go lame," with an option for becoming "ill from overeating."

One verb that alone is able to cover my entire day thus far?  That even has a fair grasp on my week as a whole, and, for that matter, gives a pretty darned fair representation of the last decade? I love it. You've gotta love it. Or at least respect the hell out of it.

I stumbled, 

broke down, 

and went lame. 

I filled up with water;  

I sank. 

I was a wreck; 

I failed utterly.

I became ill from overeating.   

Over at RH Reality Check, Jodi Jacobson has my outrage covered, and thank goodness for that. Lord only knows what transitive, intransitive, regular, and irregular garbage I'd make of it.

The Editor-In-Chief wrote:

In what can only be called an astounding move by an Administration that pledged on inauguration day that medical and health decisions would be based on fact not ideology and for which women are a major constituency, today Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) overruled a much-awaited decision by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to make emergency contraception (EC) available over-the-counter (OTC) to women of all ages.


According to the New York Times, "no health secretary has ever [overruled an FDA decision] before."


EC has been available over-the-counter for women ages 18 and older for at least two years. The FDA has been further reviewing data on whether the method should be available OTC without a prescription to those age 17 and younger at risk from unprotected intercourse.


In a statement this afternoon FDA underscored that it "had been carefully evaluating for over a decade whether emergency contraceptives containing levonorgestrel, such as Plan B One-Step, are safe and effective for nonprescription use to reduce the chance of pregnancy after unprotected sexual intercourse."


Experts, noted the statement, "including obstetrician/gynecologists and pediatricians, reviewed the totality of the data and agreed that it met the regulatory standard for a nonprescription drug and that Plan B One-Step should be approved for all females of child-bearing potential."


"I reviewed and thoughtfully considered the data, clinical information, and analysis provided by the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER)," wrote Dr. Margaret Hamburg, head of the FDA and author of the statement, "and I agree with the Center that there is adequate and reasonable, well-supported, and science-based evidence that Plan B One-Step is safe and effective and should be approved for nonprescription use for all females of child-bearing potential."


However, she wrote:

[T]this morning I received a memorandum from the Secretary of Health and Human Services invoking her authority under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act to execute its provisions and stating that she does not agree with the Agency’s decision to allow the marketing of Plan B One-Step nonprescription for all females of child-bearing potential. Because of her disagreement with FDA’s determination, the Secretary has directed me to issue a complete response letter, which means that the supplement for nonprescription use in females under the age of 17 is not approved. Following Secretary Sebelius’s direction, FDA sent the complete response letter to Teva today. Plan B One-Step will remain on the market and will remain available for all ages, but a prescription will continue to be required for females under the age of 17.

Read the rest of Jacobson's article HERE.

Now, this is an occasion wherein argument and discussion among people of open minds and good heart will yield helpful discussion. Of course, that was also the case last year, yesterday, and would still have been true tomorrow had Secretary Sebelius allowed the FDA's studied opinion to go unchallenged... you know, as a scientific, studied opinion.

I guess that my essential self remains relatively stable and unchanging, because I am more than happy to have the hypothetical conversation flit from civility to shock and back again, without me.

I want to say two things:

1. You made the wrong decision, Secretary Sebelius, and
2. As I tweeted you upon hearing of your unwanted intervention, "[k]nowing the emergencies 2which this contraception is a response, how dare you contravene the scientific opinion with... moralism?"

Apparently, folks don't give much thought or credence to the situations in which a female child "of child-bearing potential" needs emergency contraception. It's much easier to imagine a twenty-something woman who enjoys sex but who failed to "protect herself" before some ill-advised sexual encounter that took place somewhere badly decorated. There were probably bedbugs and unsavory viruses involved, as well. Really, sniff, pregnancy is the least of her worries. And furthermore: harrumph.

Or maybe folks envision a tramp-in-the-making, the bright, shining daughter, somehow, of vested, puritanical virgins.  And maybe, just maybe, experiencing motherhood at 16 -- unprepared! underage! -- will teach that thoughtless girl a lesson she'll never forget.  Sniff and harrumph, squared.

No, I don't think that you think that way. I don't know, frankly, how you think, though I would hope that only people of a certain Ilk come to congregate at The Manor -- and that once you got here, you'd hang your Ilk at [one of] the door[s].

We all know it's true, be we liberal on this issue or conservative, that an Ilk really just gets the old foot in the old door.

Anyway.

The conversation needs to be ugly, as ugly as the circumstances of emergency contraception. Ignorance is ugly, and I don't pretend to disagree that some of those who need EC are ignorant, maybe stupid. Even so, I missed the commandment where we punish the ignorant and, in our perfected authority, deny their choices.

Uglier still? Rape by stranger. Rape by a familiar, rape by the trusted, rape by authority. Rape and no one with whom to talk, no one to tell, no one to help. Rape in an atmosphere of total fear and distrust, or worse, an atmosphere of cheery imploded values, a crisp, freshly laundered valance -- a pineapple motif, I think, pineapple for hospitality! -- on the kitchen window, a casserole in the oven, male kin in the den, rooting for State.

So start a conversation, or instigate one like you're committing arson, but also, go to the pharmacy and pick up some EC. Show it around, be flashy. Make fun temporary tattoos for the
kids out of its logo. Teach the rug rats how to form the letter B in American and International Sign Language. Leave the package of EC on the kitchen counter, maybe with a red bow to go with the bowl of shiny apples. Say its name. Announce that you have it, should there be a need in your general environs to prevent pregnancy. Maybe say where you plan to store it -- which, and I am just guessing here, is probably best somewhere cool, dark, and dry.

I do pity the pharmacists in all this.
What?
I do, I really do.