Mermaid Musings

What a crazy day.

I was going to take a bit of time to rant about the Global Gag Rule and the privilege that causes the communications director to say this: “Americans deserve to know whether politics played a role in this matter. It is important that government resources, especially about health care, provide accurate and unbiased information,” in response to the asinine decision on the part of we-know-not-who to remove the word ’abortion’ from the search terms of POPLINE (a very popular medical literature database).

But before I get to that, I was distracted once again by the homophobic morons that continue to lurk and go ballistic when the state of California apparently included sexual orientation in their anti-discrimination policies for public schools. Apparently this turns California public schools into ’homosexual indoctrination centers’ to push forward the ’gay agenda.’

What cave are these people living in that they interpret anti-discrimination policies as attacks on family and moral values? Since when is it moral to hate people and abuse them for any reason? I guess I just don’t understand this kind of moral illness.

Anyway, back to gagging the globe on the issue of abortion.

First and foremost, it is the height of arrogance that the US government believes that it has the right to tell any health care facility outside of the United States what can or cannot be said in terms of health care options. In fact, as the communications director of NARAL pointed out, Americans have the right to access full information about health care options. But if you live outside the United States in a country that is dependent on international development aid money from the US, you are not allowed to mention the word abortion. That’s the Global Gag Rule. Because the Administration of George Bush (and his father and Ronald Reagan before him) are opposed to abortions, they’ve prohibited women’s health care workers for even mentioning abortion as an option to women in countries that receive development aid from the US for their health care -even if abortion is legal in that country.

Who the fuck do these penis-wielding assholes think they are?!

Oh, yeah, white boys.

So, interestingly enough, this global gag rule recently impacted Americans, in the form of the removal of the word abortion from the search terms on POPLINE. Apparently, the database, which is run through Johns Hopkins University, receives some kind of funding from US AID, which somehow puts the database under the auspices of the global gag rule.

The white boys at NARAL went ballistic, of course, because AMERICANS have a right to information.

Fortunately, the dean in charge at Johns Hopkins came to his senses and ordered that ’abortion’ be reinserted in POPLINE’s search terms. Can’t complain there.

But where is NARAL’s statement abhorring the Global Gag Rule and the right of every woman, no matter where she lives, having the right to know her full range of reproductive options when faced with an unplanned pregnancy?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful that NARAL was keeping an eye on this and raised a stink enough to get it reversed (and that the dean at Johns Hopkins is enlightened enough to see a problem and move to correct it), but would it really kill the cause to go after the root of the problem? Why is it we can react so quickly and so vociferously when it is AMERICANS (and mostly doctors and med students at that, after all, how many average americans get on POPLINE?) who are being denied information but where is our outrage and our raised voices for the thousands of women who die annually in countries where abortion is legal because they couldn’t find a safe provider because the US government prevents anyone who could have given them that information from talking about it?