Failed HP CEO and Failed GOP Senate Candidate Carly (Demon-Sheep) Fiorina whose been tasked by the party to be their Point Person [which when you're in the midst of the DMZ can be synonymous with "Cannon Fodder"] on repairing the Party's image with voting women was asked how she exactly intends to do that "repairing" while on CNN today.
She of course proceeded, as your basic GOPer is wont to do, to immediately decry the "Bogus War On Women" meme and of course all the hysteria over the minor little issue of the Hobby Lobby contraceptive decision.
[Replaced Video with one that is more complete - with Updated Comments at the end of post]
http://www.rawstory.com/...
“A lot women including me are sick of the ‘war on women’, and we saw it in spades on Monday after the Hobby Lobby case,” Fiorina told a CNN panel. “The women of Hobby Lobby had access to contraceptive care through their insurance plan before Obamacare. [Ed. Including all 20 FDA approved methods btw] They have access to contraception free - 16 forms of it - after this ruling. But somehow this is the long arm of business and the Republican Party reaching into the body of women. It’s ridiculous.”
“I went to chinese restaurant with my husband the other day, and I got this fortune cookie.
Really, Literal "Fortune Cookie Wisdom" Cariy? Seriously?!"
"I opened my fortune cookie, and here's what my cookie said [Holds it Up for the Camera!] 'Strong and Bitter Words, indicate a Weak Cause"
Oh. my. dear. Fuck! she did NOT just do that!? Yeah, she kinda did.
"And that's exactly right. The war on women is shameless, baseless propaganda, there’s no fact to it, and it’s worked because it’s scared women to death,” she insisted. “Enough. Enough.”
Fortunately Progressive Comedian/Pundit/Radio Host Stephanie Miller was there - and lo - post Fourth Fireworks did ensue.
First came the Comedy...
“I respect you very much as a woman for your accomplishments,” Miller snarked in response. “I even read that you studied medieval history, which I think will come in handy with trying to defend the Republican war on women.”
Hi-yoooo!!
Then came the Factiness.
Miller noted that every woman she knew was “furious about he Hobby Lobby decision.”
“This is not just a war against women, this is a war against science, Carly,” the radio host explained.
“Oh, for heaven sakes,” Fiorina gasped.
Quick someone grab the fainting couch, Carly heard "
The Science" word and now she's having a spell of
the Vapors.
Seeing as I've spent damn near all week researching this stuff, Stephanie's right, doctors and scientist do not recognize any of the 20 methods as an "Abortion".
So says the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.
A common misconception is that emergency contraception causes an abortion. Inhibition or delay of ovulation is the principal mechanism of action (8–13). Review of evidence suggests that emergency contraception cannot prevent implantation of a fertilized egg (1, 12–14). Emergency contraception is not effective after implantation; therefore, it is not an abortifacient.
Back to Stephanie.
“These religious people believe certain drugs cause abortions, doctors and scientists say they do not,” Miller continued. “They prevent abortion… I have friends who need it for endometriosis. How do you say you’re small government, and get the government involved in those personal decisions between a woman and her doctor?”
.
Now Launching Fiorina One into Orbit. Countdown T-Minus 3...2...1.. Lift-Off!.
“I — this is crazy to me,” Fiorina stuttered. “Your arguments are so counter-factual. Twenty forms of birth control are mandated, by the way, not by Obamacare. They’re mandated by some HHS bureaucrats who go into the basement and write a regulation after Obamacare passes, and they decide. Elected by no one, accountable to no one.”
Er, Speaking of Counter-Factual - HHS did not write the details of the preventive care mandate.
Doctors Did. Specifically the Institute of Medicine received that task as an independent agency on behalf of HHS. If you dare to question this... it's
in the SCOTUS Majority Opinion.
As altered by the Women’s Health Amendment’s passage, the ACA requires new insurance plans to include coverage without cost sharing of “such additional preventive care and screenings . . . as provided for in comprehensive guidelines supported by the Health Resources and Services Administration [(HRSA)],” a unit of HHS. 42 U. S. C. §300gg–13(a)(4). Thus charged, the HRSA developed recommendations in consultation with the Institute of Medicine (IOM). See 77 Fed. Reg. 8725–8726 (2012).3 The IOM convened a group of independent experts, including “specialists in disease prevention [and] women’s health”; those experts prepared a report evaluating the efficacy of a number of preventive services. IOM, Clinical Prevention Services for Women: Closing the Gaps 2 (2011) (hereinafter IOM Report). Consistent with the findings of “[n]umerous health professional associations” and other organizations, the IOM experts determined that preventive coverage should include the “full range” of FDA- approved contraceptive methods. Id., at 10. See also id., at 102–110.
In making that recommendation, the IOM’s report expressed concerns similar to those voiced by congressional proponents of the Women’s Health Amendment. The report noted the disproportionate burden women carried for comprehensive health services and the adverse health consequences of excluding contraception from preventive care available to employees without cost sharing. See, e.g., id., at 19 (“[W]omen are consistently more likely than men to report a wide range of cost-related barriers to receiving . . . medical tests and treatments and to filling prescriptions for themselves and their families.”); id., at 103–104, 107 (pregnancy may be contraindicated for women with certain medical conditions, for example, some congenital heart diseases, pulmonary hypertension, and Marfan syndrome, and contraceptives may be used to reduce risk of endometrial cancer, among other serious medical conditions); id., at 103 (women with unintended pregnancies are more likely to experience depression and anxiety, and their children face “increased odbirth and low birth weight”).
The point here is that for some women, Pregnancy Itself is a health risk [like my own step-sons ex-girlfriend who has Multiple Schlorisis and
took quite a risk with her pregnancy] not every contraceptive is appropriate for just
any woman to use, there can be side-effects and well as complications so the IOM recommended that
everything be included specifically to give a broad array of options to handle exactly those conditions.
Yeah, well so much for the "War on Women - and Science" being a "Myth" claim. I'm sure Carly's going to have great success with it if a Comediene can knock her block off in mere seconds.
The point here is that Hobby Lobby is quite literally trying to re-write fact and science to fit their religious view and in the process drive a wedge between doctor and patient on what their medical choices should be without an additional financial burden that MEN don't have to be concerned with when it comes to having a comparable array of options.
That fact should have been considered a 14th Amendment Violation (and the RFRA has been previously struck down for 14th Amendment violations as it was in 2006) but apparently not this time. Cuz, Religion Trumps All in Conservative Land.
Vyan
3:39 PM PT: Attempting to Embed the Rawstory version of the Clip that includes Stephanie's comments.
Direct Link: http://www.rawstory.com/...
7:37 PM PT: Ok, I'll be going through comments from the last 3 hours while I've been gone momentarily, but first I want to say that sometimes it's not the number of words you use, it's the way you use them.
From my perspective when Stephanie says this... it's Game Over, man, Game Over!
These religious people 'believe' certain drugs cause abortions, doctors and scientists say they do not,” Miller continued. “They prevent implantation, they prevent abortion…
That is quite literally, factually, demonstrably
true. That's a knock-out punch, a
finishing move as we used to say in Mortal Kombat parlance. This simple statement means that the entire house of rhetorical cards that the Hobby Lobby case is built on is made of tissue paper. They were objecting to "abortion inducing drugs and equipment" - but the AMA, FDA and ACOG say that none of the 20 approved methods
DO. THAT.
So, after that round-house to the solar plexus, the fact that Carly continues to sputter nonsense and lies about "Basement Bureaucrats" on her way down to the rhetorical mat face down is irrelevant. She can claim that women are still getting 16 methods "for free" all she wants, that doesn't change the fact that the Doctors and Experts recommended all 20 of them for good reasons and that these particular four are really no different medically than the others. She's endorsing the idea that there "Is no war on women" even after the defunding of Plan Parenthood in states like Texas, the use of T.R.A.P. laws and requirements for Hospital admitting privileges that make no medical sense to shut down women's clinics, the implementation of Vaginal Ultrasounds that are medically unnecessary and now - NOW - we're told that even though MEN aren't being asked, required or expected to pay a single solitary DIME extra for their reproductive health issues, Women Now Are for certain methods, but not for others, all because their boss just might have a "religious objection" to it that oh-by-the-way isn't based on science, medicine or facts?
How exactly other than this can you spell "Government Sanctioned Gender Discrimination?"
The meme that Fiorina is employing is one that I've run into on twitter several times, the idea that a) What's wrong with paying for an "elective/recreational" prescription out of your own pocket anyway? and b) That the entire contraceptive portion of the ACA was crafted after the fact by the Obama Administration as a way to "Stick it to the Church and Pro-Life" movement. Both of these view are of course, All Derp - All the Time - but I guarantee you'll be hearing them again and again. The first I've debunked above in the original diary, the second flies in the face of the Women's Health Amendment to the ACA sponsored by Senator Barabara McCulsky which specifically required a review of Women's Health Services by the IOM. That review is what produced the requirement for the Contaceptive Mandate as part of Preventive Health Services that had to be provided "Without an Additional Co-Payment".
This morning I compiled a (so far) near comprehensive list of Knock-Downs for Wingnut Hobby Lobby talking points. It's long because there are many of them. When you're done with this diary, please have a look at that one to arm yourself with Rapid Responses as the Derp begins to fly hot and heavy over the next few months.