Dec 5th, 2013 9:12 am |
By Ophelia Benson
C J Werleman takes a look at libertarian atheists.
In the days running up to Thanksgiving, Walmart urged its workers to donate food to their most in-need colleagues. You know, instead of Walmart having to pay said workers a livable wage. When people ask me what libertarianism looks like, I tell them that. By people I mean atheists, because for some stupid reason, far too many of my non-believer brethren have hitched their wagon to the daftest of all socio-economic theories.
It doesn’t help when atheist luminaries publicly extol their libertarianism. Penn Jillette writes, “What makes me a libertarian is what makes me an atheist—I don’t know. If I don’t know, I don’t believe….I’ll wait for real evidence and
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(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: FTB
Dec 5th, 2013 8:33 am |
By Ophelia Benson
I mentioned that people don’t believe me when I tell them that Catholic hospitals in the US can and do refuse to perform abortions even to save a woman’s life. Here’s one. It’s the top comment on the video of my talk at the Empowering Women Through Secularism conference in Dublin last June.
Draconisrex1
5 months ago
For a supposed Women’s Rights activist, Ms. Benson is shockingly ignorant of the state of abortion in America. In Ireland women are allowed to die, such as the case of Savita Halappanavar. OTOH, even the Catholic Nun was on board for the woman in Arizona. Sure, the fucking idiot in a dress (Bishop) kicked up a fuss. But she got her abortion. Despite
…
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Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: FTB
Dec 4th, 2013 5:32 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
The hostile amendments to that UN resolution on protecting the defenders of women’s rights did a lot of damage, as a matter of fact.
African nations, the Vatican, Iran, Russia, China and conservative Muslim states had sought to weaken the resolution passed by the assembly’s human rights committee, diplomats and activists said.
…
Fraught negotiations were held over the text.
African countries had insisted on highlighting respect for customs and traditions. Russia, Iran and China had called for language which insisted the rights defenders should follow national laws, diplomats and activists said.
In the end Norway agreed to delete a paragraph which said states should “strongly condemn all forms of violence against women and women human rights defenders and
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Tags: FTB
Dec 4th, 2013 4:48 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
Sure enough. “Life News” reports defeat for “abortion activists” in the debate over the Resolution on Protecting Women Human Rights Defenders.
Under the inspired leadership of the Holy See’s Nuncio, Archbishop Francis Chullikatt, the culture of death took a significant stumble at the Third Committee of the UN in New York last week.
There are around forty resolutions crafted by this UN committee in October and November each year. The worst resolution this year was on “Protecting Women Human Rights Defenders (WHRD)” . Now to the uninitiated this resolution sounds like a fine thing. However it is just a smoke screen used by those promoting both a right to abortion and the radical homosexual agenda.
No, actually, to people who … Read the rest
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Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: FTB
Dec 4th, 2013 4:32 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
The UN General Assembly has adopted the first ever resolution on the protection of women human rights defenders. What a good idea. Given the way a lot of people feel about women’s rights, they’re not going to feel all that friendly toward defenders of women’s rights. There’s an interview with Geir Sjøberg, the Lead Negotiator for Norway on this resolution.
The resolution sends a clear message that violence against women human rights defenders, including gender-based and sexual violence, can never be condoned or accepted under any circumstance. It’s unacceptable to criminalize, stigmatize or curtail women human rights defenders by violent and other means. The resolution prescribes a number of steps to be taken by States to prevent violence, violations
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Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: FTB
Dec 4th, 2013 12:54 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
Journalism? Women in journalism? Better for women than other kinds of work? Less hostile, less contemptuous and dismissive, less given to harassment?
No, that’s not how it is.
This week, the International Women’s Media Foundation and the International News Safety Institute released the results of an online survey asking female journalists around the world to detail the abuse they’ve experienced on the job. Sixty-four percent of the 875 respondents said they had experienced “intimidation, threats, or abuse” in the office or in the field. Most of the abuse was perpetrated by the journalists’ bosses, superiors, and co-workers. Forty-six percent of female journalists said they had experienced sexual harassment at work, including “unwanted comments on dress and appearance.” That harassment was
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Tags: FTB
Dec 3rd, 2013 5:37 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
See update below.
Wow. Nick Cohen talked to Nicola Dandridge about this whole “it’s ok to gender segregate university debates at the behest of theocrats” idea for a piece in the Spectator.
Why not go further? Why not segregate all lectures at universities? Or as, I said to Dandridge, why not segregate by race?
Well she replied, Universities UK cannot recommend racial segregation because Parliament has banned it – wisely it now seems.
What about speakers insisting that homosexuals sit on one side of a hall and heterosexuals on another?
Dandridge appeared to find that notion genuinely discomforting. She did not want to see gays singled out, she said. Not in the least.
‘What’s your problem with women, then?’ I
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Tags: FTB
Dec 3rd, 2013 4:47 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
Aw now NPR is scolding people for not being skeptical of Elan Gale’s story. Aw now I feel bad.
This was reported as fact in all sorts of places, including the New York Daily News, as well as Buzzfeed, which opined that even with all the families gathering happily around their tables, even with the parades and football games, it was Elan Gale telling this woman in “mom jeans” to “eat [not turkey]” that “won Thanksgiving.”
And then, somebody claimed to be a member of her family and claimed she had cancer.
And then Gale disappeared from Twitter.
And then he came back and now seems, kind of, to be acknowledging that — as people had begun to expect
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Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: FTB
Dec 3rd, 2013 4:05 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
Now I want to single out this one part of the ACLU press release for close attention.
Tamesha Means rushed to Mercy Health Partners in Muskegon, Michigan, when her water broke after only 18 weeks of pregnancy. Based on the bishops’ religious directives, the hospital sent her home twice even though Means was in excruciating pain; there was virtually no chance that her pregnancy could survive, and continuing the pregnancy posed significant risks to her health.
Because of its Catholic affiliation and binding directives, the hospital told Means that there was nothing it could do and did not tell Means that terminating her pregnancy was an option and the safest course for her condition. When Means returned to the hospital
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Tags: FTB
Dec 3rd, 2013 3:57 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
The ACLU has a press release on its lawsuit against the bishops, so I can just publish the whole thing here for your enlightenment and discussion.
ACLU Sues Bishops on Behalf of Pregnant Woman Denied Care at Catholic Hospital
Suit Claims Religious Directives Put Women’s Health at Risk
December 2, 2013
CONTACT: 212-549-2666; media@aclu.org
NEW YORK and DETROIT— The American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Michigan have filed a lawsuit on behalf of a pregnant woman who miscarried and was denied appropriate medical treatment because the only hospital in her county is required to abide by religious directives. The directives, written by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, prohibited that hospital from complying with the applicable … Read the rest
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Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: ACLU, FTB, Theocracy, US Conference of Catholic Bishops
Dec 3rd, 2013 3:24 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
More from the Austin Statesman story last December.
University officials said Friday they didn’t know of another public medical school whose primary teaching hospital is Catholic.
So, setting a precedent. A very bad precedent.
Central Health, a public entity, along with the women it serves and doctors it works with, already has had to jump through hoops to accommodate the church, said Meghan Smith, domestic program associate for Catholics for Choice, which supports women’s access to contraception and abortion.
Ian Smith, a lawyer with Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said future doctors will have to jump through similar hoops. “You have the University of Texas sending public school students to a hospital where … they have
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Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: Catholic health care, FTB
Dec 3rd, 2013 2:13 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
Ok new item to contemplate in slack-jawed horror and then shout the place down about. A Twitter friend alerted me to the fact that the University of Texas at Austin medical school recently partnered with a Catholic hospital group, Seton, and the students were told they have to comply with the ERD.
I can barely get my head around it. It’s a state school. And the ERD tells hospital and medical staff that they may not perform abortions ever.
A publicly funded university is ordering its med students to comply with church rules. In the United States, in 2013.
From the Austin Statesman a year ago, December 2012.
Plans to establish a medical school at the University of
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Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: Catholic healthcare, FTB, Separation of church and healthcare
Dec 3rd, 2013 11:47 am |
By Ophelia Benson
Yesssssssssss. It’s about fucking time.
USA Today: Woman sues over Catholic hospitals’ abortion rule
DETROIT — A Michigan woman is taking on the nation’s Catholic hospitals in federal court, alleging they are forcing pregnant women in crisis into having painful miscarriages rather than terminate the pregnancy — and not giving them any options.
The Muskegon woman, who developed an infection and miscarried 18 weeks into her pregnancy, sued the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops on Monday, alleging the group’s anti-abortion directive denies proper medical care to women like herself.
In her case, the lawsuit said, the directive contributed to a painful miscarriage and offered her no options.
In other words, a potential Savita Halappanavar, with the difference being that she … Read the rest
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Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: FTB, Savita Halappanavar, US Conference of Catholic Bishops
Dec 3rd, 2013 10:03 am |
By Ophelia Benson
Elan Gale says haha it was just a joke. Or a story or a test or an experiment or a lie. It was untrue. It was a fiction, an invention, an imaginary incident.
elan gale @theyearofelan
Here is Diana sitting in a chair
pic.twitter.com/OE5q7j8dhr
The photo is of an empty chair. Geddit?
He tweets again to say he meant Diane. Then he wraps up:
elan gale @theyearofelan
I conclude by saying hopefully a few people got a few laughs over a slow Thanksgiving weekend
So it was comedy, staged for the world’s entertainment.
What genre of comedy? Humiliation comedy; public shaming comedy; hipster guy taunting an unhip woman in unhip jeans comedy, with the pretext that she was self-absorbed … Read the rest
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Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: FTB
Dec 2nd, 2013 4:49 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
Jason figured out something about the “rage blogging” trope.
The really interesting thing is, the people complaining about “rage bloggers” and “drama” are doing the exact same thing as the bloggers they complain about, by pointing to things they disagree with and disagreeing with them. Publicly. Calling them out on things they disagree with, even while they themselves decry the “call-out culture” of disagreeing with people publicly.
Well yes.
Actually the people doing that fit the description much better than we do, because they’re the ones who spend literally hours on Twitter or that unsavory forum every day tap tap tapping about nothing but a small handful of bloggers. That’s the only subject of their rage-tweeting and rage-forum posting.… Read the rest
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Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: FTB
Dec 2nd, 2013 1:11 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
More Elan-commentary.
Ken White at Popehat:
Mr. Gale serves to teach us two lessons about social media and the internet — and more broadly, about life.
Lesson One: Douchebaggery Is Not A Zero-Sum Game
The first lesson is that boorish behavior is not binary. People are complex, life is complex, and despite our hunger to see the world in simple terms of white hats versus black hats, sometimes all participants in a social media melee are assholes.
In this instance, it’s perfectly possible to recognize that (1) that “Diane” — if she exists — was contemptibly rude and entitled towards airline staff who have no control over when a plane leaves and who are simply doing their jobs under
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Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: Elan Gale, FTB