Right now I’m reading “Quiverfull: Inside the Christian Patriarchy Movement” by Katherine Joyce, and I keep running into a problem- I cannot understand these people at all. I can understand them as well as I understand gyroscopes: I can describe to you what they are going to do, but for the life of you I can’t wrap my mind why.

For those of you who don’t know “Quiverfull” is a blanket term regarding people who are believers in a Biblical Patriarchy (women submit to their husbands or fathers- and I do mean “submit”), and more importantly, who are staunchly anti-birth control; no condoms, no pills, no sterilization, no rhythm method, nothing but “God’s Will”. The phrase comes from Psalm 127:5 “Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them(children). They will not be put to shame when they contend with their enemies in the gate.” Quiverfull people believe that they are in a cultural war with liberal secularists, and they intended to win through demographics alone. They believe that these roles and behaviors are “god’s will” and that they are on the side of righteousness. Frequently, they are into seriously modest dress and homeschooling.

I keep running into the same problem with these beliefs- I don’t understand why they would want to worship this god. I’m fairly anti-authoritarian: I want to choose which authority I follow, and at the end of the day I think I am ultimately responsible for any action I take, whether or not someone in power over me told me to do it or not. I don’t want to risk my health and my life. I am drawn towards debate, and I am occasionally smarter than my husband. These proscribed roles, in other words, would make me MISERABLE (and my husband miserable too). So, if the Quiverfull people are correct, and there is a god, and he made me the exact opposite of what I’m supposed to be (indeed, a lot of Quiverfull talk about how women have an inherently rebellious nature because of Eve), which sounds like a recipe for misery, then god’s a dick. Why should I worship a dick? The general answer of “because of heaven and hell” is 100% unsatisfying to me- I’m supposed to toady up to a bully just to avoid getting beat up? That’s not moral- that’s cowardly.

So, this post is for any lurking Quiverfulls. Heck, if you’re just a person who thinks god cares more about what we do with our genitals than whether or not we hurt people, you can post too. I’ll leave off the “prove that god even exists part”- for this exercise I’ll just go with it for now. I need support for “if god exists, why should we worship him?” Make your case.

EDIT: Like all things I want to know, I had to search google to see if it had any knowledge. The first website had a post that made exactly zero sense to me, but the answer was

We worship Him because He commands it. We worship Him because He alone deserves it, knowing what He is and what He does. We worship Him because without so doing we cannot rise to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.

So…yeah, worship a bully because a bully says so? Even though he’s a bully? And I don’t want to be a bully?

I really wish I knew someone in real life who held these views and would talk to me. I’m missing something important here- something that’d snap it into place.

It’s Friday night, and there have got to be 500 people packed into the Sluice Box, a beer-soaked clapboard honky-tonk at the Alaska State Fair – the state’s biggest event all year – just down the highway from Governor Sarah Palin’s hometown of Wasilla. The legendary Hobo Jim, Alaska’s official state balladeer, the guy who has opened sessions of the legislature with a song, is onstage, working blue.

“Here’s to the girl from the great Northwest,” he sings, “with tits as hard as a hornet’s nest.” The crowd whistles its approval.

For the record, he’s not singing about Palin, though the curvature and comeliness of McCain’s surprise vice-presidential nominee pick are brought up by just about everyone here, man and woman, in a way that would make lower-48 liberals and feminists cringe.

Mmm…you know, there are certain things that people who don’t like a certain other set of people say that are red flags cluing one in on the fact that that person, indeed, does not like them. The above is a great example of that. It’s interesting that some journalists appear to believe that the spirit of the supposed ideal of journalistic neutrality is fulfilled by passive-aggression–frankly, I’d prefer that they just openly said fuck the whole ideal! and engaged in outright aggression. It’d leave less of a greasy aftertaste.

At any rate, it’s a strange article. He begins by stating that he thinks that Sarah Palin’s underaged daughter’s pregnancy is nobody’s business but her and her family’s, which makes the fact that he’s writing an article about said pregnancy in a nationally popular magazine rather odd. Would he like us better if we quit reading his article right then in solidarity? He then goes on to describe how they’re all real men in Alaska–hunting is apparently not something they do in any of those other 48 states, you know, the ones occupied by liberals and feminists, and Alaska also has people who’ve lost family members to industrial accidents and that go serve in Iraq, which again sets them quite apart from the 48 Contiguous Pussy States where that shit apparently hardly ever even comes up. The naturally flowing conclusion that he draws from all this is so that really, it is SO not a big deal to be an underaged mother. (You can almost hear him shout Isn’t this REFRESHING, readers??)

Yep, it gets even more unreal than that–don’t believe me? Here ya go:

The fact is, regardless of what you will hear over the next few days, Bristol [Palin]‘s pregnancy is not a legitimate political issue. Sarah Palin is a longterm member of a group called Feminists for Life, which is not opposed to birth control. So you probably can’t tag her for consigning young people to unwanted pregnancies.

Oh, my. You most certainly can, including that of her own daughter, unless you’re trying to stretch reality even further and claim that Bristol Palin is having a planned pregnancy. Let’s see, for instance, what Feminists for Life actually does have to say about contraception:

What is Feminists for Life’s position on contraception?
Feminists for Life’s mission is to address the unmet needs of women who are pregnant or parenting. Preconception issues including abstinence and contraception are outside of our mission.

Erm, but they DO have a stated position on, for instance, assisted suicide, which seems to be a leetle further afield from the topic of pregnancy than contraception is…come on, what’s the REAL reason—?

Some FFL members and supporters support the use of non-abortifacient contraception while others oppose contraception for a variety of reasons

Translated: not all of us have multiple kids, making indelicate questions about our contraceptive status unavoidable if we were to outright oppose it.

FFL is concerned that certain forms of contraception have had adverse health effects on women.

Translated: But if we can find a health link, no matter how dubious, we’re primed and ready to jump on that bandwagon at the slightest moment’s notice!!

But how about Sarah Palin herself?

Q. Will you support the right of parents to opt out their children from curricula, books, classes, or surveys, which parents consider privacy-invading or offensive to their religion or conscience?

Sarah Palin: Yes. Parents should have the ultimate control over what their children are taught.

Q. Will you support funding for abstinence-until-marriage education instead of for explicit sex-education programs, school-based clinics, and the distribution of contraceptives in schools?

Sarah Palin: Yes, the explicit sex-ed programs will not find my support.

You know, sometimes it is useful to actually get to see, so CLEARLY illustrated, where the fervent support of the above positions lands the daughters of those who practice said preachery. No theories or opinions here, folks! Real-life consequences of real-life philosophies.

And after all this, here is the conclusion that Nathan Thornburgh says he’s come to:

As for the idea — sure to be floated—that the avowedly anti-abortion Palin may have pressured her poor daughter to ruin her life by carrying an unwanted baby to term, I wouldn’t bet on it.

Is my favorite part of the above sentence the pooh-poohing of the idea that having a baby at age 17 might be quite life-altering in a negative way or that any girl forced to do so is a sarcastically pooor weeeetle thaaaaang, or is it that he thinks that it’s even possible that Bristol Palin was presented with all her choices in a rational and unbiased fashion?

(sigh) I’ll let you know when I figure that out…

(insert shriek, squeal and giggle)

It all started when I saw this post title on Hugo’s blog: ““Bowflex Boy” and Kristy McNichol: desire, celebrity, and the sexiness of earthy reality.” I didn’t immediately cotton onto the meaning of “Bowflex Boy,” and I think Hugo and I must be separated in age by at least a few years ’cause Kristy McNichol is a very vague childhood memory of mine. But further down in the post, Hugo says:

If you remember the ’80s, you remember the ad. I’ve done a Google image search, and can’t find it, but the picture is indelibly carved on my brain. A young, dark-haired man is pulling off his white t-shirt, lifting his arms over his shoulders. His body beneath is tanned and spectacularly toned.

(this is where the shriek, squeal and giggle came in)

Oh hell yes, I remember Bowflex Boy! Now, I had no idea that poster was some kind of nationwide sensation, not at the time nor at any point since–as a matter of fact, all my little friends had their walls plastered with big hair band icons–I was the only girl I knew who had, of all things, a home gym equipment advertisement on my wall.

Hugo goes on to talk about how insecure Bowflex Boy’s amazing abs made him feel when hanging over his head as he was naked in college and trying to make out with some chick and (I think) by extension how this makes him empathize with women who feel stressed by the nonstop avalanche of perfect female bodies plastered on every available wall, billboard and media device. (I say I think because I had a hard time focusing on the rest of his post–I kept getting lost in fond reveries of Bowflex Boy.) I did manage to gather, though, that another of his points was that, while perfect bodies cause us to feel lustful, we shouldn’t trouble ourselves because we can and do feel as much or more lust for the imperfect bodies of the real people we find ourselves in bed with.

The thing about Bowflex Boy, though, was that it actually wasn’t his aforementioned awesome abs, or pecs, or biceps, that made me fall in lust with his poster at age sixteen. They were very nice, but honestly, Bowflex Boy wasn’t THAT muscular. He was well-defined, but actually on the slim side, and you could tell from his proportions that he probably wasn’t a particularly tall guy either. What got me going, and has definitely been a trend ever since, was the subtlety of the sexuality presented.

(Oh, yeah, SUBTLETY! Some dude taking his shirt off is SUBTLE?)

Yeah, really. This is what I remember of the poster: The lighting is dim–not dark or fuzzy, just a low quiet illumination. His shirt is halfway over his head, hiding his eyes and most of his nose. His head is inclined down and his mouth is relaxed, neither smiling nor frowning–just calm. Motion is implied, but smooth and gentle motion, without aggression or haste, but without production, either.

(Warning: The rest of this post may contain Too Much Information. Proceed at your own risk.)

My mom used to keep issues of Playgirl (and other magazines, but we’ll stick with Playgirl for the purposes of this post) around the house–I don’t know when she started, but I first happened across them when I was around twelve years old. I wasn’t too interested at the time, and in spite of my increasing interest in sex and sexual matters as the years rolled by, never really did get interested in them. Why?

The men in the pictures were naked. I didn’t have a problem with that, but their nudity consisted of staring fixedly at the camera, so by default fixedly at the viewer of the picture, in a stiff awkward pose usually involving one bent leg, one straight leg and arms akimbo at their sides. The penis, by contrast, was mostly flaccid and resting like an afterthought against whichever thigh was nearest. And it was the same with my girlfriends’ big hair band posters except that they had clothes on–the men staring directly into the camera, shoulders thrust back, arms akimbo–often staring down their noses at the camera–lips thrust out, rigid stance–it reminds me of Everything Zen by Bush, as in “…there’s no sex in your violence..!”

I have a naked picture of my boyfriend that I really like–I have been known to cart it along with me on business trips even. In it, he’s lying on the bed, clearly relaxed; he is holding his erect penis in his hand, not tightly squeezing or loosely cupping but holding with an interest, let’s say. He’s looking down at it; his expression is intent, with a hint of a smile on his mouth. I find this picture incredibly sensual. It is, in a nutshell, sex without violence–with self-knowledge, with ease and without aggression. He wants to please and to be pleased. He also isn’t a big tall guy–the lightness of his frame suggests grace, but his shape is pure male, wide shoulders and defined shoulders and biceps trailing to narrow hips–strength, but without force or crushing.

Of all the pictures and posters I saw as a teen and even into my young adulthood, only the Bowflex Boy offered that sensuality to a woman. What I don’t know is if what draws me so strongly is unusual, my own idiosyncracy, and most women are drawn to the large and forceful aggression generally pictured in the posters back then, or if that vision of male sexuality is simply what the heterosexual men who overwhelmingly dominated marketing in those days just decided that that was what women wanted to see. The fact that that poster was apparently so popular, though, inclines me to think that perhaps it really isn’t just me…anybody* have any thoughts on that?

*Note: I apologize for the heteronormative focus of this post–female het desire for a male is the only form of sexual desire I really have significant first-person experience with, though.

When investigating Pro-Life Organizations, I choose to focus on 6 factors: are they secular or religious, does it appear to be women leading the organization, do they support sexual education, or contraception, or welfare for new mothers, and are they violent or peaceful?

At each link, there is a brief description of how I came to where to classify each organizations. I tried to stick straight to what the organization itself said. For some organizations (like Libertarians for Life) I am sure that do not support welfare, but that organization does not address anything else besides abortion, so I left them at “does not address welfare”.

The information is not surprising for any feminist. The organizations are overwhelmingly run by men, Christian, and anti-contraceptive. Beyond that, most of them are either against comprehensive sexual education, and welfare, or do not address it at all. Thankfully, most of the organizations are not violent, but there are enough that are violent or connected to violence to have a chilling effect.

For my next few blogposts, I’d like to go into some detail to some of these organizations. I plan to cover the most popular one, the national Right to Life Committee, but I will leave up to the readers to decide which organizations they would like some more details on without actually wanting to read their sites.

Short version: Sarasota Planned Parenthood and Habitat for Humanity team up with a plan that will help Planned Parenthood with some zoning issues and help Habitat get some almost-free land. For their altruism, they’re repaid with the nastiest of the nasty anti-choice contingent:

“We could have put up any building we wanted,” said Barbara Zdravecky, president of Planned Parenthood. “We wanted to donate the land so Habitat could build more attainable housing.”

But after Habitat donors learned about it and complained, Habitat International told the local board to drop it. The local Habitat board dropped the deal Tuesday night, less than a month before it was set for a final vote by the city.

…

The barrage of e-mails started with James Sedlak, vice president of the American Life League, a Virginia-based group that has led protests at Planned Parenthood offices in Sarasota. They said it showed a cozy relationship between Habitat and Planned Parenthood, which the league has accused of pushing pornography to children, among other things.

The American Life League must be so pleased. They’ve managed to screw over woman and poor people in one fell swoop.

Donate to Habitat, but let them know how you feel about them caving to pressure from anti-woman nutjobs.

Hat tip: nom_de_grr.

Interspaced between this was some history of childbirth, particularly in the United States. Starting at around the turn of the century, births shifted from something that was at home, to something that was done at a hospital. This shift was not because medical science was particularly good at childbearing (or really, because it was even as midwifery) but because an interesting intersection that we all know and love: capitalism, sexism, and racism. Doctors at the time went on a massive advertising campaign, aimed at telling women that other women were not as good at delivering babies as they were. That these Russian, German, and other immigrant women just wanted your money, and you were a bad mother if you didn’t go to the hospital to get a delivery done there. Interestingly enough; it was not actually safer to go to the hospital, if you were in labor. Midwifery had been around for awhile, women knew how to deliver babies. They, at the very least, knew that you washed your hands before you went to the next birth, something that doctors at the time considered immaterial. Midwifes also knew to listen to a pregnant women when she was in labor, as opposed to putting up a sheet and ignoring her. They also knew that squatting, or in water, was an easier and safer way to give birth then lying on one’s back, where you have to not only have to work against your body, but gravity (but hey, with your legs like that, it was easier for the doctor).

It then went on to talk about “twilight sleep” or “zombie sleep”. For those of you who are unfamiliar (and I certainly was before I saw this) twilight sleep was when a women came to the hospital, and then was injected with morphine and scopolamine. Now, supposedly this was to kill pain; but what it really did was put pregnant women into an alternate state of mind, so that they forgot the labor pains. They also forgot the labor. And how to control their own body. Women had to be tied down to the bed, (with sheepskin, so that they wouldn’t leave big bruises or scratches). Watching the videos were again horrific: a women, tied to a bed, thrashing about, with a curtain at her midsection, and four white guys staring intently at her uterus. For something that is normally held as one of the most feminine of experiences, it was eerily impersonal.*

The movie then continued to show the difference between medical birth and midwifery. For one thing, the births done with a midwife seemed a whole lot less painful. The midwife was there the whole time, as opposed to a doctor who showed up at the last second. The position seemed more comfortable as well; if the woman wanted to get up and walk around, she was allowed to. If she wanted to squat, she squatted. With a midwife, they listened to what the women said she wanted. With the doctors, it seemed as if the doctor told her what she wanted.

Not to say that the movie was Luddite, at all. Every midwife there said that she was grateful that there was the knowledge of obstetricians out there, for the complicated births. But they all made mention that, 9 times out of 10, women did not need to go to the doctor. That first and foremost, those doctors are surgeons, and sometimes do unnecessary cesareans out of misplaced concern, or because of time constraints, that is not actually healthy for the mother or the new baby. They compared infant mortality in the United States with other countries in Europe where it was far more common to have a midwife, and lo and behold, the US has more infant deaths then Europe. However, they never proved a causal relationship; there are a variety of reasons why that might be.

Among the problems of medicalization they talked about, one was talking about how the introduction of medicine was playing weird problems with women’s hormones. First, a women is given an epidural, for the pain. But an epidural numbs more than just pain, it also makes it more difficult to have contractions. So then, a women is given pitocin, which is a synthetic form of oxytocin (the birthing hormone). Pitocin has some major problems though: first, the contractions it causes are longer, and stronger (and therefore more painful). Also, it can constrict bloodflow to the uterus, so that the fetus has less oxygen flowing to it. So, to numb the pain, they give the women another epidural. And this starts the cycle again, until the fetus goes into distress (and the mother is also pretty distressed at this point as well). At this point, they rush the women to get a Cesarean, leaving a scar in the women, an increased risk of infection, and a now-distressed baby.

A few things struck me watching this film, in no particular order:

1) Why does any women ever (well, with Tom Beatty make that any person) ever get and stay pregnant long enough to give birth? Seriously, even with the midwife, water births, were it just seemed like a grunt and slip, and “ooo, baby” it still seemed painful, long, and full of viscera. This movie made me hug my orthotricyclin like no one’s business.

2) This movie was far too crunchy for my tastes. I can see why childbirth is a unique experience for women, because it is generally just women that can do it. But seriously, I prefer the ideas they mention at the end a lot better: where hospitals have birthing centers, where midwifes work. You can have your birth in a water way, or at the very least squatting, but you are still at the hospital if you are that 1 in 10 case that needs emergency help.

3) What is it with some guys and their seemingly uncontrollable urges to take women’s experiences and define them/ control them? First you have medical doctors saying that women don’t actually know what’s going on for pregnancy, and then you have guys making laws about when it’s okay for us to have an abortion, and guys who think that birth control is emasculating, and guys who seem to think they know what happens during PMS better than women. It’s really annoying; I don’t assume to know what it’s like to have blue balls, why should they assume they have any IDEA what it’s like to go around in a feminine fleshy meatbag?

This movie is one that I think people should definitely watch** (if you have a netflix account, it’s instantly downloadable, by the way). It shows a very interesting perception of childbirth, from women’s point of view.

*Interestingly enough, the feminists at the time held up scopolamine as a liberation. The movie made mention that at the time, childbirth was still thought as something that should be as painful as possible, for the “curse of eve”. The feminist at the time, saw this as an opportunity to not have to suffer through childbirth, and jumped on the opportunity to show that no, childbirth was painful because there wasn’t the medicine to fix it, not because of any Biblical curse. Next time an anti-choicer shows up saying that early feminists were against abortion (which they should have been, because at the time an abortion had more of a chance of killing you than childbirth), point out that they also supported drugging women during childbirth. We are all a part of the time we grew up in, bound by some of those mindsets and technologies.

**If you’re like me, you’ll watch most of this movie through slits in your fingers. Seriously, think horror movie viscera, and then imagine in that in your most sensitive parts.

These people have apparently decided that Horton Hears A Who’s message of being nice to small things is the perfect opportunity to remind people that abortion is wrong. Because there’s nothing people respond to better than having their leisure time hijacked by barely-coherent protesters.

All hell broke loose at the Hollywood premiere of “Horton Hears a Who!” today when a group of pro-lifers infiltrated the screening, then chanted anti-abortion slogans after the flick.

The theme of the movie is based on the motto: “After all, a person is a person, no matter how small.” So the pro-lifers thought it was a good idea to use this theme to their advantage — even though their complicated message was falling mostly on the ears of children.

But hey, at least they made a difference:

Shouts of protest were returned by some in attendance, including, “This is a kids premiere,” “How dare you,” and “Do you really care that much about this?”

I’m reminded of that Dilbert cartoon in which Dilbert explains that reality is defined by the craziest person in the room – these people have to know that this intrusive, in-your-face form of protesting with its tenuous relation to whatever the situation is and its bizarre symbols (seriously, wtf is up with that red tape?) doesn’t win any converts, but it does piss people off. Do they really think they’re getting something done or are they just creaming their jeans at how rebellious and brave they are, confusing the public’s justified anger over the inappropriateness of the display with Satan-inspired anti-Christian persecution?

6) At what age does Roe require minor girls to have parental notification before an abortion?
Parental notification is not required
Girls 18 and younger
Girls 16 and younger
Girls 13 and younger

Picking answer 1 shows that not only do you know Roe, you are also probably aware that the question of if minors require parental notification before getting an abortion was not included in the Roe v Wade case, and that lawyers for both sides, only having a half an hour to actually make a case, probably stuck to the issue at hand. Roe was over 18 when she tried to get that abortion, and the Supreme Court is more famous for refusing to hear cases than for randomly throwing extraneous legal issues into the ones they do hear.

Question 9:

9) Which of our nation’s founding documents contains the phrase “right to an abortion”?
Declaration of Independence
U.S. Constitution
Bill of Rights
None of the Above
All of the Above

It’s true that every last right we have is enumerated in great detail in the Bill of Rights, which is actually 50,423 pages long and explicitly states that if it’s not in there, you ain’t got a right to it. This is why the Supreme Court has to make up work for itself; everything is so clearly written out that there is no need for a court devoted entirely to Constitutional matters.

Question 12:

12) Under Roe, which of these are allowed to perform abortions?
Licensed physician
Nurse practitioner
Resident assistant
Registered nurse
All of the above

And hidden question 13:

If Roe wasn’t keeping states from banning abortions outright, which of the following would you find performing abortions in areas where it was illegal?
Doctors, if you can find one
Nurses, ditto
Midwives, ditto
That woman that that woman in your sister’s office heard about
The pregnant woman herself, via something she read on the internet that she hopes is true
The pregnant woman’s boyfriend, via blunt force trauma
Fake doctors who will fill the void as options one through three are thrown in jail
Abortions will actually disappear, being replaced by abandonment and/or infanticide, which will offer a lower maternal death rate than coat hanger abortions

Just joshin’ – there is no question 13.

Pfft, I wish! The Weinermobile, how cool would that be? No, our visitor is more controversial.

No, they usually show up right before break, and stick to the bars off campus. Come on, guess!

It’s the Busybody ‘Christian’ Ultrasoundmobile! Squeeeee!

That’s right, my school is one of three (count ‘em!) universities to be on the Ultrasoundmobile’s exciting three-county, semester long tour! I can’t wait to get my unnecessary ultrasound! Girls from all over campus will flock to get free quasi-medical attention from the inside of an RV, which would save them the arduous walk to the student clinic or the even more torturous journey to the local Planned Parenthood.

I might go and get mine this week, since things should be quiet at the begining of the semester before the girls have had a chance to get their bearings and start slutting around. Another month or two and they’ll be mobbed so I’d best get mine while the getting is good.

The Fetus Pictures RV’s website promises a comprehensive set of services:

* free limited ultrasounds performed by a registered diagnostic medical ultrasonographer
* free urine self administered pregnancy tests
* pregnancy options consulting
* information on abortion, adoption & parenting
* referrals as necessary

Wow! A real live RDMU! This means they’re legit, not like that pick-up truck driven by that shady unemployed ex-military guy. That was a disaster. Plus he charged the girls for their pregnancy tests. Let’s go to the parent site and get some information on abortion, adoption and parenting!

We’ve designed this section of our website to show you how baby develops in the first nine months of his/her life.

…Week 2: This is the time when the baby’s mother will notice that she’s missed menstruation.

Important fact: the medical community uses the mother’s last menstrual period to determine length of pregnancy. This means that, at the time of conception, the unborn baby is actually considered two weeks old.

This is because the medical establishment agrees that 14 days before conception is when the angels begin to prepare your baby’s soul for it’s earthly journey. Or, it’s a convenient technicality. Whichever.

Those were some nice fetus pictures in that Pre-Born Development page. But what about me, what is the rest of the pregnancy like? Let’s look for answers in the seperate “Pregnancy” page:

Finding out that you’re pregnant …

… can be scary, exciting, and overwhelming all at the same time. We want you to be informed before you make a decision about your pregnancy.

You have three basic choices.

You can carry the baby to term and parent (see pregnancy information), carry the baby to term and have an adoption plan in place, or you can have an abortion. You are the one person who will be most deeply affected by this choice.

Want to see your baby?

Visit our pre-born development section for pictures and descriptions of how your baby is developing.

Contact us for a free pregnancy test or a free limited ultrasound. Visit our services page to see what we can offer you – all of our services are confidential and free of charge.

That’s it, that’s the whole page. I guess there’s nothing I need to know about the time between when I’m cooing over ultrasounds and when the little zygote spawns off. Must not be that big a deal. Let’s focus on the future – will I parent, adopt or abort?

Adoption sounds good:

Adoption agencies have long waiting lists of couple who are unable to have children and who are ready to love and raise a child. It’s estimated that at least 15-20 couples wait for every healthy infant available. Many families are also waiting to adopt babies who are born with handicaps.

Wait, I found a little mistake, let me help you:

Adoption agencies have long waiting lists of couple who are unable to have children and who are ready to love and raise a child. It’s estimated that at least 15-20 couples wait for every healthy [white] infant available. Many families are also waiting to adopt [white] babies who are born with handicaps.

That’s a lot of commitment, maybe I should abort:

You think it’s just a “blob of tissue” and you don’t think it will matter.
Did you know that after just six weeks, your baby’s heart is beating? Around 20 weeks, you can feel your baby move and find out if it’s a boy or girl. Check out our pre-born development section for pictures of what your baby looks like right now.

Physical Health Risks of Abortion
If you’ve been told that abortion is safe because it’s legal, please consider the following complications that may occur with abortion:

– ripping or perforation of the uterus
– excessive bleeding
– infection
– hemorrhage
– cervical injury
– fever
– endotoxic shock
– second degree burns
– vomiting
– chronic abdominal pain
– increase of risk of ectopic (tubal) pregnancy
– increase of risk of breast cancer
– increase of risk of Pelvic Inflammatory Disease (P.I.D.)

Mental Health Risks of Abortion
Studies of women after they’ve chosen abortion have found that:

28% attempted suicide
31% experienced suicidal feelings
60% commented that the decision to abort made their lives worse
94% regretted their decision

Oh, woe! That’s so awful I barely have the heart to scroll through the whole separate page on the gory details of abortion procedures. Clearly pregnancy and birth are the safer, easier route! After all, if there were risks associated with either of these things, the nice people in the fetus foto RV would tell me!

Also, they’ll help me with free advice after the baby is born, and access to a thrift store. They’ll give me the phone number I can call when I need to get help on my utility bills, and the names and locations of several food banks, temp agencies and counseling centers. But it could be worse – I’d had the abortion, I’d most certainly die of breast cancer.

Ok, back in reality, this is the dumbest shit thing I’ve seen since last year’s aborto-plane. I understand the Navigators have a mission to get all in everybody’s business for the Lord, which is why they’ve helped promote the Fetus Foto RV, and I understand the logic of including college campuses on the tour, but it’s really not a great idea to combine misleading scare tactics with the college crowd, since for every Fetus Foto RV Certified Registered Real Live Trained Medical Type Person there’s a real nurse, a real friend or a real feminist lurking on campus and speaking out against this crap at every opportunity.

Abortions are not linked to cancer, pregnancy itself can be a dangerous undertaking – more so than an early-trimester abortion, actually – and there are many reasons that a woman who has terminated a pregnancy would feel bad but in our crazy, complicated lives it doesn’t necessarily follow that having the baby would have made everything all better.

The scare tactics and pseudo-medical trappings distract from any useful service they might be providing. And the services I see on their site – a mix of Salvation Army-style charity and compiling a slightly more convenient list of readily available, secular services – do not justify the deception they’re giving to scared college students, or worse, desperate and scared poor women who might not have the access to better information or family resources the college girls generally have, and may be more likely to mistake the happy pink ultrasoundmobile for a trip to the doctor, web-based disclaimer notwithstanding. Of the 11 stops on the Fetus Foto tour, 3 are colleges (Wooster being home to two things – their University and a sizable Amish population) and the rest are public areas in an area of the state not known for high levels of education or information.

It’s things like this that make me hope there actually is a God. Lying to vulnerable women seems like the sort of thing you’d have to answer for when you’re dead. I just hope to be in line behind one of these guys, so I when I’m cast to hell with all the rest of you godless sinners, I can amuse myself on the way down thinking about the shocked reaction of the guy falling in front of me. Come on, the looks on their faces are going to be priceless.

Speaking of pregnant celebrities…satire, meet reality. You two have more in common than you think.

Anyway, enough scariness, back to the article-mocking.

Maybe there’s something in the water. Even the most casual pop-culture consumer has probably noticed that the latest must-have celebrity accessory is, apparently, a belly. Check out the July 10 issue of Star magazine. It features the “Hollywood Bump Brigade” with pictures of preggo Jennie Garth, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Sofia Coppola. Britney Spears channeled her inner-Demi Moore by posing naked with her bump on the cover of this month’s Harper’s Bazaar. Angelina Jolie took it all to a whole new level by commandeering a coastal African country for her delivery.

Unless the water of New York and California is filled with radioactive super sperm , I highly doubt the water is what is causing this red-hot trend. But I’m not a doctor, I’m just someone who gets annoyed when people who are paid to write start off with a lazy inappropriate cliche.

Ok, for starters, Britney Spears has no inner Demi Moore. Britney Spears has a worthless husband, suprise second pregnancy, poor parenting skills and a need to stay in the spotlight so her career doesn’t fade any more rapidly than it was before she starting churning out K-Fed spawn. She needs a divorce lawyer and some decent advice on everything from hair dye to childcare. Bazaar making her look all cute and toned and airbrushed on the cover of a magazine like everything in her life is OK, enviable, even, is not helping. Bazaar, stop enabling Britney Spears!

Secondly, Jolie’s sealing up an entire nation so she can have a baby was one of the greatest abuses of power ever in history orchestrated by a someone who was not royalty. That’s not a “whole new level” that is a “shameful act for which she should be smacked about the face and head by the very human-rights organizations that she has helped in the past.” She’d thank them later. Also, please note that that baby was all of 7 days old before the grocery store headlines went from “Oh gurgle gurgle look at the sexy awesome family” to “Baby ruining relationship, oh my God! It’s all over!” so maybe you don’t want to draw any more attention to them in this article seeing as…

You’re point seems to be that a properly cared for an Pilates-ed up “bump” is an accessory, when in fact it is a fetus, which turns into a baby, which is a whole nother thing entirely and which should not be taken lightly as it is a life changing event that can not be sent to the thrift store once it is no longer fashionable.

Julia Beck, founder of Forty Weeks, a marketing company that studies expectant and new parents, says there has indeed been a bump in the number of visible bumps. The culture of pregnancy, she says, is undergoing something of a rebirth. What was once something to be endured—a practically taboo means to an end—has become the end in itself. It’s hip to be round.

Let’s try that again, with honesty this time:

Julia Beck, founder of Forty Weeks, a marketing compnay that studies expectant and new parents, says that there has indeed been a bump in the number of visible bumps. As it turns out, she says, pregnant woman are a rich, wonderful, almost mouth-watering market who until recently were swaddled in tents of such embarassing colors and patterns that they could hardly be seen outdoors. If we can show them sexy pregnant celebrities wearing sexy expensive maternity clothes, then we can tap into their deepest insecurities at a time when their hormones are doing most of the work for us and get them to spend sooo much money, oh, god, it makes me want to orgasm just thinking about it….what? Oh, yeah, printable quote…uhhh, culture of pregancy, hip to be round, something like that ok?

That seems a bit more like it.

So Julia’s totally plugging the baby-industrial complex here. She’s not even trying to hide it. There are a bunch of wonderful ways to snark this article, but I think it’s best to watch Julia machete her way through this infomercial with all the grace of those Disney Ballerina-Ostriches.

NEWSWEEK: It seems like pregnancy is almost hip right now.
Julia Beck: It is definitely hip to be pregnant right now.

Why is that?
I think what we’re looking at is a shift from pregnancy simply being a means to an end—in other words, it was a 40-week obligation, there was a gestational period going at the end of which that’s when the fun began. The exit strategy was literally a baby’s entry into the world. So we shifted.

When did that start?
The major shift was about five years ago. It became much more experiential. People began to see pregnancy as a major accomplishment and they really began to think about it as the moment itself. So you then began to see products that are answering that call.

That’s right, pregnancy is cool now because we got all introspective – and everyone knows you can’t spell “introspection” without “complete range of new products and services – ask me for details!” Well, you can’t in American English, anyway.

What kinds of new products and services, you ask? Well…

First of all this whole notion of being very pleased with your pregnant self, this notion of finding ways to celebrate pregnancy by having very interestingly themed baby showers or very well-thought out nurseries or a higher standard of baby carriage.

Finding ways to celebrate services! And products of a higher standard! What is a pregancy without an interestingly themed baby shower or a monster freaking expensive baby carriage?

No, really.

Yeah, higher standard of baby carriage, but some of them go for $800 or more. It also gets to the edge of ridiculous.
It does get to the ridiculous. But at the same time it’s all about range of option and the one thing you can’t argue with is more options. More women are able to really find what they want and parents are able to find the right parenting tools for themselves. Before we had a really, really narrow field. I have an 8-year-old and I couldn’t decorate that nursery in anything that wasn’t really typical duck and bunny look. But then people came out like Amy Coe and she started to infuse vintage-inspired fabrics into a nursery. More sophisticated, more elegant

Julia’s loathe to agree that an $800 baby stroller is silly, because she is focused like a laser on her message (Message: Any money spent on goods or services to make your pregancy perfect is money well spent. Ask me how!). What it’s about is options! Wealthy self absorbed pregnant women can’t have too many options, you know. The non-wealthy ones, eh, fuck ‘em, they hardly pay for goods or services at all. As a marketing executive, Julia can’t even see them. Sometimes she actually sits on them on the subway because she honestly thought the seat was empty.

I’m not a parent and hardly a pregnancy expert, but I have to call bullshit on the idea that decorating for a child in a way that won’t drive you insane requires the help of Amy Coe. My mom did it on her own. The walls were yellow. The furniture was wood. And the decorations were toys. Done and done.

Are you a new mom? You need Julia. Are you the type of woman who generally feels like she’s in charge of any situation? Then you just need to hand Julia a blank, signed check right now.

Women are waiting more often now than they used to. Why are they waiting and how does it affect their lifestyle to suddenly become pregnant?
You take a woman who has accomplished great things in the career place. She’s used to having support personnel under her; she knows how to solve problems. You’re literally throwing her down on her back at the bottom of the learning curve. What that does is open a whole new industry which is the expert baby advice, because they are less likely to go with their intuition. That is one of the elements that is the most troublesome to me.

Are you past child-bearing age, not actually a woman, or not even necessarily human, but you know someone who is or might one day be pregnant? Then you need Julia, too.

Any sense of what the next big thing is going to be?
I’m fixated on everyone else trying to pretend they’re pregnant—I call it pregnancy by association. Expectant fathers, expectant grandparents, expectant siblings and expectant pets. There’s products for everybody right now. There are diaper bags just for dad. There are “I’m a Big Sister” T-shirts. The other trend that is here but growing by leaps and bounds is the green baby. Certainly celebrities are embracing that trend, and, as always, they’re the first. They’ve been doing organic baby food on the West Coast for a while.

Julia, she’s available. Julia. With so much at stake, can you afford to not give Julia money? Call Julia now. Operators are standing by.

BONUS! Entry-level patriarchy blaming! Practice here if Twisty won’t let you comment yet!

Amanda has discussed the fixation on pregnant celebrities before, although I can only find one example of it I know she’s attacked it a couple of times.

Analyze Julia’s statements, and tell us what part of the patriarchy/conspicuous consumer culture she’s pimping for most offensively, and why. For those of you who don’t meet Twisty’s standards, this is an excellent opportunity to hone your patriarchy-blaming skills. Don’t be shy, now. There’s plenty here to work with.

UPDATED: I googled Amy Coe, and oh my jesus freaking criminey, I didn’t realize it was that bad. I must have been thinking of someone completely different – I swear to god the baby-room designer I read about in People or wherever at the laundromat wasn’t that bad. It didn’t occur to me that there could be more than one baby-room designer. I am shamefully naive. And wickedly tempted to send the link to my pregnant pending-sister-in-law.