Access To Birth Control Is A Fundamental Component Of Climate Survival

Any morally acceptable pathway to prevent catastrophic global warming includes broad access to affordable birth control for the world’s women. The conservative war on birth control is a war on women’s rights, and thus on the rights of us all. Manmade global warming is one of the most troubling symptoms of economic and social injustice around the planet, and the ”countries in the developing world least responsible for the growing emissions are likely to experience the heaviest impact of climate change, with women bearing the greatest toll.” Researchers have found that empowering women to reduce unplanned pregnancies is one of the most cost-effective ways to combat greenhouse pollution, as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson discussed at the Durban climate conference last December:

In addressing climate resilience, Robinson stressed the importance of focusing on health and burden impacts of climate change. One of the keys is access to reproductive health for women.

Good grief. Is there a class Lefties attend to learn to write like that, like Marxist Magniloquence 101? Anyhow, this goes back to one of the Warmist’s biggest issues: reducing the global population. And, interestingly, this ties into what Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger wanted, namely, reducing the number of minorities, which is what happens when birth control is spread around to much of the developing world, particularly places like the African continent. You want racism? That’s racism! Planning based on the doctrine of eugenics.

The more world leaders focus on giving women and girls the tools of empowerment — access to family planning, education, and the political and economic system — the better future all of us will have.

A world where women and girls have more power is a healthier world.

That’s interesting, since Liberals get the vapors when Conservatives talk about liberating women from being 2nd class citizens as they are in much of the Islamic world. But, really, this is all about spreading abortion on demand around the world. Cheaply. Which is where the asterisk in the headline comes in: liberals think contraceptives, sterilization (Sanger loved the thought of sterilizing Blacks and defectives a hoot), and abortions should be free, and, by free, I mean “someone else pays.” Liberals never seem to want to pay for anything themselves. That’s why they loved Obama’s insurance mandate, as Someone Else would pay for their condoms and birth control pills, and screw what the constitution says about religious freedom.

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach.

But, Obama is not giving up on forcing his views on American’s, reducing their freedom (via Hot Air)

(ABC News) President Obama “reinforced” his stance on the controversial contraception mandate while speaking at the Democrats’ annual retreat at Nationals Park in Washington, D.C. today, Senate Democrats said.

The retreat was closed to media.

Following President Obama’s speech at the retreat, a small group of Senate Democrats, mostly women, left the retreat early in order to hold a news conference on Capitol Hill to counter the Republicans’ news conference today at which they called for the mandate to be overturned.

Democrats said they will “fight strongly” to keep the mandate in place.

“It is our clear understanding from the administration that the president believes as we do, and the vast majority of the American women should have access to birth control,” Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., said pointing out that 15 percent of women use birth control for medical issues. “It’s medicine, and women deserve their medicine.”

Yet, they do have access to contraception, regardless of whether their health insurance offers it or not. They can get a prescription from a doctor and pick up birth control pills. No one is stopping them. They can go down to the local pharmacy and buy condoms! Amazing, eh? And easy! They’re even available at grocery stores and small places like 7/11, WaWa, Kangaroo, and so on. By this same argument the Democrats are making, every plan should include, say, laser eye surgery. For free. No co-pays. Yet, most don’t even include a small discount. Government is not mandating. But, 1 in 4 American’s will need some sort of corrective eye implements by age 40.

“The power to decide whether or not to use contraception lies with a woman – not her boss,” said Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y. “What is more intrusive than trying to allow an employer to make medical decisions for someone who works for them?”

As Allahpundit wrote Anyone want to field that question from ObamaCare supporter Kirsten Gillibrand? What about the Central Government’s power to decide? But, neither is deciding whether or not to use contraception, they are deciding whether it is in the health insurance plans. Government is mandating over the specific religious objections of Catholics, a clear violation of the 1st Amendment, along with the liberals own talking points about a “separation of Church and State.”

This is not a bug, though, nor a by-product. This is intentional. When you dig into ObamaCare, you see that one of the main points is to make sure private sector employers who offer health insurance drop their coverages. Central government would much rather have the private sector pay the $2,000 fine to the Central Government, rather than pay the $6-12 thousand per year per employee they are paying now, with the employees then joining the government health insurance exchange. With each company that ends up dropping their offers, the Democrats can demonize them and says “look how mean private sector companies are!”

If just one employee obtains insurance through the exchange, their company is responsible for paying the fine for every employee. In retail, there can be, roughly, 25% of the employees being part-time. Some companies offer insurance for them, but, none take it, because it is much more expensive. Some do not even offer to part time. Companies will not take the chance that just one obtains insurance through the exchange. They will drop their plans. And that’s beside the notion that the fine is cheaper than the out-lays.

Let’s not forget this from the other day

“Unless this rule is overturned, we Catholics will be compelled to either violate our consciences or drop health care coverage for our employees (and suffer the penalties for doing so),” according to a letter from Archbishop Joseph Naumann of the Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas.

“Drop health care coverage.” That’s the point. But, why Obama would want to pick this fight in a presidential election year is strange. Perhaps he thinks that no matter how shabbily he treats Catholics, they’ll still vote for him. Democrats treat lots of voter blocks poorly, and, yes, they are dumb enough to vote Democrats. Will this time be different? Perhaps Obama was trying to change the narrative, which is that he is incompetent, has no clue how to deal with the economy, and is against creating private sector jobs. Move the conversation away from Keystone XL, Solyndra and other failed “green” companies, the waste of Stimulus, and Fast and Furious. Or, perhaps, he just doesn’t know better, and made a whopper of a mistake in green lighting this agenda.

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach.

ACLU:

The American Civil Liberty Union announced today that President Obama’s decision to mandate coverage for birth control does not violate religious liberty.
The ACLU’s Alicia Gay warns that the “powerful lobbying arm of the Catholic Church” mistakenly claims that the HHS contraception mandate violates their religious liberty.
Individuals who choose not to pay for employees’ contraceptives, the ACLU counters, are forcing their beliefs on their employees.

“The fundamental promise of religious liberty in this country doesn’t create a right to impose those views on others, including ignoring civil rights laws or denying critical health care,” Gay insists.

Somehow in the ACLU’s backwards world they think that the “wall of separation” between church and state is only for the church to not infringe upon the government. It is laughable because the founders’ clear intent was to keep government out of religion. It isn’t shocking, they’ve held this belief forever. If an individual wants to mention Jesus in a graduation speech they think it is the beginning of the end, but government forcing a religion to violate its own beliefs is A OK with this dangerous organization.

Just look at this sentence: “Individuals who choose not to pay for employees’ contraceptives, the ACLU counters, are forcing their beliefs on their employees.” So, according to ACLU illogic individuals who do not pay for other people’s contraceptives are somehow forcing their beliefs on others. But somehow on the same coin….the government forcing people who do not believe in contraceptives to pay for those that do are not forcing their beliefs on others. It makes your head spin.

Ed Morrissey is all over this:

The rights in the Constitution are not granted to American citizens because the government decided to offer them beneficently at their discretion. They exist in the document as a testament to our natural rights, part of our innate humanness, and are detailed in the Constitution as a bar to government’s overreach in trampling them. If the ACLU can’t figure that much out, then not only have they jumped the shark, they’ve nuked the fridge and made themselves entirely irrelevant except for the elitist crowd that cheers on tyranny. And that is exactly what has happened with this HHS mandate.

Rhymes With Right:

The ACLU seems to thinkt that if Catholic institutions are not forced to pay for the birth control, sterilization, and abortions of their employees that some substantive right is being violated. That is nonsensical – as nonsensical as arguing that a Jewish nursing home with a kosher kitchen failing to provide bacon and pork products to its non-Jewish employees is somehow an unlawful and illegitimate imposition of Judaism upon those employees.

The reality here is that the ACLU isn’t concerned about the First Amendment here. It is instead concerned about the perpetual extension of the abortion culture in America. As a result, they are willing to see the federal government require that those with moral scruples against abortion be forced to burn a little incense at the altar of Margaret Sanger – or be crushed by the instruments of the state in the same way that the ancient Romans sought to crush the early Christian community for refusing to make such sacrifices at the altar of the emperors.

This isn’t new for the ACLU. They have always been hypocrites when it comes to the first amendment, especially if it conflicts with the abortion agenda. Abortion has always trumped the 1st Amendment as the ACLU’s top priority.

Also see: PJ Tattler
The Barber Shop

(Marjorie Clifton at HuffPo) I am the product of 14 years of Catholic school and am a practicing Catholic, actively involved in the church all of my life. As a woman with a career in politics and women’s leadership, I have quietly worked within the church to make change and have cautiously offered my voice only when I felt it was essential. But, I can be quiet no longer.

You are welcome to speak out. It’s your Constitutional right. You are not free to push your beliefs on others by government law. That is against everything this country was founded on. Oh, and violates the portion of that same 1st Amendment regarding religion

Recently, the Catholic leadership came out in opposition to the mandate in our new healthcare law that all health insurance providers offer coverage for prescribed birth control, even for employees in some Catholic Institutions. But, let’s be clear about what the real issue is here. It is not about government controls, and it is not about infringement of our religious beliefs. It is about a church that has lost touch with reality. The leadership of the Catholic Church either is ignoring or is unaware of the disconnect between Catholic teaching and Catholic reality.

No, it is about government, and using the out of control force of government to make Catholic institutions, and other religious institutions, offer birth control. Also, sterilizations and the morning after pill. Ms. Clifton rationalizes this as “well, Catholics have sex, so, their health insurance provider should be not only forced to offer this products, but do so with a zero deductible.” So, the church is left with the choice of either offering the health insurance which violates their beliefs or dropping coverage.

Essentially, it boils down to people forcing their beliefs on other people. This is America. The religious institutions have the right, and the constitutional right, to offer insurance that adheres to their beliefs. The people who work for them have the freedom to go out and get their own insurance if they want free birth control and morning after pills. Liberals do not want anyone to have a choice. It’s their way or no way. They aren’t very tolerant of opposing viewpoints.

One has to wonder how the Obama admin. and liberals would react if the Muslim leaders came out against this decree.

Of course, these mandates are not direct: they require insurance carriers to offer the measures, but, then the religious institutions won’t have choice themselves. All are forced to offer birth control, sterilization, and abortion pills.

“Unless this rule is overturned, we Catholics will be compelled to either violate our consciences or drop health care coverage for our employees (and suffer the penalties for doing so),” according to a letter from Archbishop Joseph Naumann of the Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas.

He and other church prelates asked that the message be read from pulpits over the weekend.

“We cannot — we will not — comply with this unjust law,” Naumann’s letter stated.

An Obama appointee muzzled Army chaplains from reading the letter over the weekend, a clear violation of the 1st Amendment.

Liberals constantly tell us about this mythical separation of church and state. Funny how all of a sudden the State is allowed to dictate to the church.

A physics education does however seem to have given them some faint attachment to the scientific method, so they go to considerable lengths to substantiate their claims. But do they turn to physics to substantiate their claims? Not at all. Far from offering any comparison of male and female work in physics, they turn to sociology! Like sociologists they have faith that questionnaire surveys will tell them something about reality. I did such surveys for many years and eventually concluded that they don’t.

Their anti-scientific orientation is most clearly revealed by “the dog that didn’t bark”, however. They ignore over a hundred years of research that repeatedly reveals women to have better verbal ability and men to have better mathematical ability. And since physics these days is little more than applied mathematics, that datum could hardly be more relevant. It suggests that not many women have what it takes to be good physicists.

They could of coures disagree with what is one of the most replicated findings in science but instead of disagreeing with it, they simply ignore it — thus violating one of the most fudamental canons of science: That you must have regard for what others before you have written on your subject.

So their own writing suggests one very good reason why there are not many women physicists: They are just not very good scientists. Their own work suggests that hormones take the place of rationality.

And in the end why does it matter that most physicists are men? I can’t see that humanity is badly served by that reality but the case that it does matter is presumably arguable. But they make no attempt to argue it. They just resort to that terminally destructive and totally unrealistic Leftist obsession with “equality”. They are very poor intellects indeed. Procrustes would be proud of them.

For reference, I reproduce below the concluding section of their article:

The global survey follows a body of work that has examined the importance to career success of access to resources and opportunities. The survey found that women are less likely than men to report access to various resources and opportunities that would be helpful in advancing a scientific career. It also confirmed, consistent with cultural norms, that men are more likely than women to have a spouse who will shoulder the burden of housework. We noted the cultural expectation that women are responsible for child care and documented survey results showing that parenting affects the careers of women more than it does the careers of men.

Admittedly, our results are derived from the testimony of survey respondents, and it is conceivable that the sex differences we have found exist not because women are treated differently but because they differ from men in their expectations about work. However, the results reported here will come as no surprise to the researchers who have already found that resources, opportunities, and family responsibilities affect women’s careers.4,6 We believe the results reflect an underlying reality of disadvantage—not differing work expectations—and that all the sex-based differences documented here adversely affect the careers of women physicists.

The low representation of women in physics is a problem the community needs to address, but the community also needs to address inequities in access to resources and opportunities. Cultural expectations about home and family also inhibit the progress of women physicists; those, of course, are much more difficult to change. Nonetheless, we look forward to a future in which science truly means science for all.

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.). For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see TONGUE-TIED. Also, don’t forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me here

If this was supposed to be damage control, Susan G. Komen for the Cure proved Thursday that it has a lot to learn.

On a day when the breast cancer charity’s top official made the rounds with the national media, insisting the organization’s decision to stop giving grants to Planned Parenthood wasn’t political, the firestorm only got worse. Top Democrats piled on; the head of the Komen chapter in Los Angeles quit; and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is giving a $250,000 matching gift to Planned Parenthood.

I’m not seeing what Komen did wrong; do you? I see that 22 Democrat Senators are choosing to whine about what a private corporation does with their money, without mentioning that PP is known mostly for abortions, not “breast exams”, and turning this political. Same with Bloomberg.

Brinker said there was broad consensus from Komen’s board over the new policies. Additionally, she said the charity was trying to refocus grants on providers that are able to perform mammography services rather than just breast screenings. Planned Parenthood does not have mammography equipment and refers women to providers for the service.

“We are the stewards of other people’s money, and we need to ensure that money is going to programs for women in the most impactful way,” Brinker said, echoing a statement she made on a YouTube video late Wednesday night.

I can see how that would upset liberals, who seem to expect Other People’s Money to be wasted, rather than being treated respectfully.

We also have a Memorandum pull of a story entitled “HOPE KILLS: Susan G Komen Foundation Would Rather Be Associated With A Handgun Than Planned Parenthood.” The author, Michael Brendan Dougherty, is whining about a Walther P22 that comes in pink, with part of the sales going to the Komen Foundation. Except, the gun is meant to protect the life of a woman. Liberals do not want women to have guns. Liberals want women to be raped, beaten, and die, apparently. The guns are also not performing abortions and killing unborn children, many of whom are female. Why do liberals hate women?

And then we have the whole “breast exam” thing. As Life News points out

During a conference call with reporters this afternoon, Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure CEO Nancy Brinker and President Elizabeth Thompson revealed the main reason why the Planned Parenthood abortion business lost its funding. It doesn’t do mammograms.

“It was nothing they were doing wrong,” Brinker explained. “We have decided not to fund, wherever possible, pass-through grants. We were giving them money, they were sending women out for mammograms. What we would like to have are clinics where we can directly fund mammograms.”

She added, later in the day on Twitter:, saying the money “will be invested in programs to serve low-income, uninsured and underinsured women.”

PP doesn’t offer mammograms. Let’s be honest, as Life News points out, they do do breast exams. But no mammograms. No PP abortion mills have the necessary medical devices on location. That said, the Left is not upset about Komen pulling funding to PP over breast exams, they are upset about Komen dissing the Left’s favorite abortion provider.

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach.

Recently the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation announced that it was no longer going to be offering funds and grants to Planned Parenthood, the nation’s leading abortion mill operator. This decision has sent Planned Parenthood over the edge of both sanity and civility with a new fundraising letter that dispenses with its past staid talk about women’s healthcare and goes straight for thuggish threats of retaliation, finger pointing, and attacks on other women.

The Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation, a well known breast cancer-fighting charity, decided to withhold further donations to the abortion provider for several reasons, one of which is that Planned Parenthood is under investigation by Congress for violating various state abortion laws.

Last month the Associated Press reported Komen’s new criteria and why it is excluding PP. “Komen spokeswoman Leslie Aun said the cutoff results from the charity’s newly adopted criteria barring grants to organizations that are under investigation by local, state or federal authorities,” the report said. “According to Komen, this applies to Planned Parenthood because it’s the focus of an inquiry launched by Rep. Cliff Stearns, R-Fla., seeking to determine whether public money was improperly spent on abortions.”

The foundation gave more than $569,000 to Planned Parenthood in 2010.

As to the charges against Planned Parenthood that are pending in the congressional investigation, you might recall the stellar work of Lila Rose whose videos brought to our attention that Planned Parenthood was violating state laws by ignoring requirements to report child abuse and rape while pushing abortions on minors.

But Planned Parenthood apparently isn’t taking this lying down. They aren’t just lamenting Komen’s decision, they are getting mad.

In a fundraising letter emailed to supporters, the abortion provider proved themselves to be less a “healthcare” organization, and more the ideologically driven advocacy group that detractors say they are. The email is blunt and asks supporters to sign onto the extremist rhetoric and send it on to others. Most interesting, the letter doesn’t just attack opponents in general but specifically attacks women that oppose Planned Parenthood.

Here is the text of that shockingly harsh letter: (CLICK HERE for a screen shot of the letter)

This is for all the anti-choice, anti-women people out there.

Listen up.

You can spend every minute of every day trying to force the rest of us to live by your ideology. You can go after federal funds for health care and pressure private organizations like the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation to stop funding breast cancer screenings for poor women. You can try to make it impossible to get birth control.

But you know what you can’t do? You can’t win. You can’t break us. Planned Parenthood isn’t just a family of organizations. It’s a movement. It’s women and men of all ages who believe that health care — including reproductive health care — is a basic human right. We are millions strong. We are everywhere. We act, we give, and we do whatever it takes to make sure that Planned Parenthood is there for the women, men, and teens who rely on them.

Know this: When you go after Planned Parenthood and the people they serve, you go after ME. I stand with Planned Parenthood. I stand with them against anyone who wants to stop women from receiving the health care they need. I stand with them today, tomorrow, and for as long as I need to.

I don’t now about you but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a fundrasing letter like this supposedly emanating from a “health care” organization. Imagine if a hospital or other medical organization sent such a letter as this to its customers.

Also amazing is the bald attack on women who don’t agree with PP. This also proves that they aren’t an organization interested in women, but one only interested in women that agree with their ideologically extreme position on abortion.

In any case, what we seem to be seeing here is the last bit of a veneer of legitimacy ripped from Planned Parenthood. It is now fully embracing its ideological drive toward infanticide and has cast away any pretext that it is at all interested in mere healthcare. With this letter Planned Parenthood is admitting that it is a “movement,” not a healthcare provider.

What’s a Republican Feminist To Do?

Of course, we could ask “how many Republican women call themselves “feminists”?” How many have hairy legs and armpits? How many complain about “reproductive rights” and the government getting in the way of the ability to make a “choice” to kill an unborn infant?

In the winter line-up of Republican presidential candidates, a moderate pro-choice Republican woman has no choice. She might feel as if she were so, well, last century.

It is not news that the Republican Party has moved further right on social issues over the past few decades, but the 2012 campaign is a clear marker showing that the party has left legal abortion behind. All the contenders, past and present, adamantly oppose legal abortion, even the libertarian obstetrician-gynecologist, Ron Paul. Overturning legal abortion may in fact be the one thing they all agree on — so it doesn’t come up much in debates, speeches or interviews. But it is on their agenda.

What we see is that Liberals consider support for abortion on demand to be a bedrock of being a feminist. Are there “moderate pro-abortion Republican women”? Probably. Do they seem to obsess over the ability for someone to have an abortion if they so choose? Doubtful. Unlike Democrats, Republicans do not obsess over being able to kill an unborn child simply because they became pregnant after a night of casual, promiscuous, and unprotected sex. Republicans, including women, refuse to be tied to labels and put in boxes.

By contrast, whatever he did in his personal life, President Clinton brought a sound grasp of women’s lives to the stump and to the Oval Office. The first bill he signed into law, the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993, was a huge gift to working women.

Clinton also had another gift for women: taking advantage of an intern young enough to be his daughter, receiving oral sex under his desk while he smoked a cigar. And we’ll keep this post PG rated by not discussing what he also did with a cigar. How’s that for having a sound grasp of women’s lives? If a Republican did that, he’d be branded a sexist and slapped with a sexual harassment suit. Oh, wait, Clinton was branded a sexist and slapped with multiple suits. If memory serves, Liberals were concerned with….destroying the women who filed those suits. I do love how Mz. Steihm casually dismisses the issue.

President Obama signed the pay equity act named for Lilly Ledbetter. His affordable health care act would make birth control more freely available.

It’s very interesting that Mz. Steihm would bring ObamaCare up in her post: we constantly hear from Liberals that they want government out of our health decisions, especially as it pertains to “women’s health issues”, ie, abortion on demand. They always fail to mention that they love government funding abortions so that people do not have to put out their money for an abortion after a night of casual, promiscuous, and unprotected sex. And that they love government regulations, laws, and court decisions that keep abortion “legal and rare.” But, then we come to ObamaCare: what other legislation passed in the history of the United States has involved the government more in “women’s health issues” than this one? Real health issues. We have the Independent Payment Advisory Board, which will make decisions about payments and treatments. We have massive reductions in Medicare and Medicaid funding. Most women think ObamaCare is bad for their families. ObamaCare will drive up the costs for health insurance and care. And we have supporters and proponents of ObamaCare calling for women to have breast exams later in life, because it is a waste of money to have them before 50. Those “death panels” are still there, regarding life decisions. Unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats will make decisions on health and cost.

That sure seems like government is getting heavily involved in “women’s health issues”, along with everyone else’s. One would think Liberals would be against government intruding on this issue. Alas, no, their only care is that government not place any restrictions on abortion on demand, even when it comes to later term abortion and requiring parental notification (of course, in the hypocrite world of Liberalism, they’d freak out if they weren’t notified about their own child). Daring to require a 24 hour waiting period or getting an ultrasound makes even the few rational liberals out there talk as if the legislation means women are going to be chained in a cell and forced to have the baby from their casual night of unprotected sex.

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach.

Washington Post – Why Komen defunded Planned Parenthood

Well, they didn’t really “defund” PP, because PP gets lots of money from other sources, including the Central Government.

The Associated Press reports that Susan G. Komen for the Cure, the nation’s leading breast-cancer charity, will cut off its funding to Planned Parenthood affiliates, where the foundation has traditionally paid for preventive screening services.

According to the AP, the move will mean “a cutoff of hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants, mainly for breast exams.” Planned Parenthood confirms that Komen is the first, and only, organization to cut off funding since the Congress began debating the issue in earnest last winter.

And there we get the talking point about “breast exams”, which is apparently the only thing PP does. Why’d Komen cut support?

Komen said it could not continue to fund Planned Parenthood because it has adopted new guidelines that bar it from funding organizations under congressional investigation. The House oversight and investigations subcommittee announced in the fall an investigation into Planned Parenthood’s funding.

That’s why. And that’s all the WP article says. Providing funds would be against Komen’s guidelines. Makes sense for them to hold off. And Liberals go crazy!

• and there go my contributions to the Kormen funds. since they’d rather have poor rural women die of cancer than stand up to the anti abortion fanatics, I hope they go under to (funny, liberals are pro-abortion fanatics)
• When I read this story I was so sad. I ran in one of the first races the Kormen foundation operated in D.C. and have been in awe of its work on behalf of women over the years. Unfortunately, this will make me think twice about giving any of more of my money to it. I would rather give to Planned Parenthood, which, despite the attacks from people and groups who seem to hate women, has managed to continue to provide the health services that women need and want. What a sad day for the Kormen foundation and for Susan Kromen’s memory. (abortions are health services?)
• Komen = scum; So they won’t fund women’s preventative health services at Planned Parenthood anymore because they are being “investigated”. Right. Like the investigation is about criminal activity — political non-sense. Komen should be ashamed.

The comments at the WP keep going strong, over 550, and most are in the vein of the above.

• Feministing Ugh. What bleak news. It seems the right-wing anti-woman agenda is continuing to creep up on us in new and damaging ways. I hope there will be considerable fallout and will post more updates as they come in. (we got the “anti-woman” talking point)
• Feminist Sadly, Planned Parenthood is not unused to falling victim to politics, but it rather smarts when the middle finger has a pink ribbon around it from an organization ostensibly devoted to women’s health. If you had some money set aside for a golf visor or a t-shirt or a cup of yogurt with a pink ribbon on it, Planned Parenthood is establishing a Breast Health Emergency Fund to try and regain some of the lost funds. (so, Komen is mean and partisan, so let’s stop giving to an organization that is all about dealing with women’s health regarding breast cancer because we support women’s health)
• Tbogg puts this under the sexist tag “shut up dumb lady, Pink is the new yellow” and recommends not giving to Komen anymore.
• The always loony Balloon Juice starts out with “Komen for the Cure is abandoning women in need” and then recommends not giving to Komen, an organization which helps women in need.

It continues like that across the left-o-sphere, at the DU, and in the comments at the blogs and Old Media articles. Liberals always say they are against war and strife, want to solve “climate change”, and want the world to have a Coke and sing kumbaya because killing is bad, yet, stand up for abortions at the drop of a hat, wrapping it in all sorts of disingenuous language, even though 91% of pregnant women who visit Planned Parenthood have abortions.

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach.

The paper was of course zealous to rule out genetic differences but that does rather leave them without an explanation for Chinese excellence in mathematics. Regardless of the country in which they reside, Chinese tend to be prominent among leading mathematicians — and China itself is a major centre of mathematical excellence. Yet China is still in many ways a very traditional society in which the very notion of gender equality would normally be scoffed at. The way they abort girl babies is surely enough evidence of that.

Anyway, the paper more or less assumes what it has to prove. In a rather self-contradictory way, the authors seem to assume that educational performance fully indexes innate ability. The paper draws its “evidence” not from IQ tests but from various international measures of educational attainment. And educational attainment is the product of many things other than IQ. Hard work anyone? Social pressures anyone? So I partially agree with the first line of their “Conclusions”:

In summary, we conclude that gender equity and other sociocultural factors, not national income, school type, or religion per se, are the primary determinants of mathematics performance at all levels for both boys and girls

You note that they skate entirely over IQ.

They go on to argue that eliminating gender “inequities” is needed to lift female mathematical achievements. After decades of feminism and affirmative action it is hard to imagine how more might be done on that front in the USA other than by procrustean quota systems so the recommendation is as vacuous as it is irrelevant.

Women will always be up against their lower level of mathematical ability that IQ tests reveal so clearly. In recent years women have been pushed into mathematics to satisfy feminist dogma but few will rise to the heights.

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.). For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see TONGUE-TIED. Also, don’t forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me here