While Africans die

A congressional battle looms over increases and amendments to the $15 billion AIDS program focusing primarily on sub-Saharan Africa. Desperately seeking a legacy that involves saving rather than snuffing out peoples' lives, Bush wants to double spending, the Democrats want to triple it -- everyone's on the same general page, for a change -- so who's the dissenting voice? If you guessed "pearl-clutching fetus fetishists", dingdingding! you win. What are they griping about now?

"Democrats also want to slash spending on a multimillion-dollar component that emphasizes sexual abstinence. And that has conservative groups furious."

That's right! The Democrats intend to stop throwing good money after bad into the areas that are provably ineffective, and concentrate funding on things that actually, um, work. And that's got the fundies feverishly beating their bibles and shrieking like hyenas in heat.

"Democrats have angered conservative groups with plans to remove a provision, inserted by the then-GOP controlled Congress five years ago, requiring that one-third of HIV/AIDS prevention money go to abstinence programs.

That's about 7 percent of all spending. Another controversial provision that could come out forbids grants to groups that provide medical care to prostitutes." (Emphasis, and disgust, mine.)

Wow. I don't know about you, but I sure can't think of anything more Christian than refusing medical care to prostitutes, especially in an area of the world so devastatingly poverty-stricken that prostitution runs rampant. Have the foaming fundies revised their bibles to censor out the story of Mary Magdalene?

Finally, a spokesfetishist for that fount of bigotry and misogyny, the Family Research Council, removes any and all doubt that he and his ilk are batshit insane:

"McClusky accuses Democrats of trying to change the program into a bill that would promote sex trafficking and fund family planning programs that are involved in abortion."

Family planning = sex trafficking, got that? Jesus Christ in a flame-festooned sidecar, how long before these nitwits' ridiculous blatherings are relegated to the garbage dump of irrelevancy where they belong? Must we wait another year??

Oops

CBC Facebook Wish List Watch: I spoke too soon, the cretins have slithered back to the top. Somehow in the 2 hours between 6:09 and 8:09pm, they got another 1,540 votes. Hahahaha, unleash the bots! Oh, now we're back up, ahead by about 6. And now we're down by 5. Horserace! Desperate times call for desperate measures: the anti-choice nutter below seems to be saying how terribly bad (and yet easy) it is to cheat:

Sigh. The overkill has reached critical mass when even the MSM has a good idea of what's happening. The Tyee weighed in on it today, saying:

"Ummm. Wait a minute. Great that everyone’s getting involved and everything, participating in a debate, keeping the wheels of democracy turning. But survey after survey, and opinion poll after opinion poll have shown that a clear majority of Canadians are opposed to restrictive abortion laws. And opinion polls also show that the majority of Canadians are not interested in repealing Bill C-38, which legalized same-sex marriage.

Clearly, the debate has been seized by a very vocal minority.

It’s like when Sanjaya fans perverted the American Idol vote. Except, you know, instead of having to endure off-key Kinks covers, I now have to endure the idea of religious totality over my womb. And instead of watching talented singers being kicked off a crappy reality show, I’m watching state-sanctioned homophobia.

That right-wing traditionalists have weighed into the debate so heavily is not an indictment of their side; rather, just another example of how effective special interest groups can be at mobilizing. I don’t blame them for that."

I don't blame them either. That's democracy, and as much as I don't believe they have any business trying to legislate my crotch, they have a right to speak their minds; I'd encourage it. It's just sad, sick and more than a little perverse that with everything else going on in the world, they're captivated not by war or poverty or climate change, but by Canada's collective beaver.

Meh. It's probably been a blast for the fundies to finally see socon issues actually get to the top of a list, any list, even one as silly as the Wish List. It's mobilizing and probably good for their morale. But typically what they don't realize is that when this thing is over in two weeks, that's the end of it. They wanted a debate on what should be allowed to go on in the crotches of the nation, and they got it: but it isn't about to be repeat itself outside of Facebook. In other words, anywhere that matters.

Yo, fetus fetishists:

the jig's up, CBC is wise to you chumps -- this afternoon they spent some time perusing this blog for evidence of your freepitude on the Wish List. Your wish will no doubt get the most votes, the result of sending sending How-To guides to all those kids from schools like Our Lady Of Perpetual Copraphagy, and posting alerts on right-wing websites and listservs. (We won't even get into the sockpuppetry.) In the event that you're given a chance to speak on air, I guarantee you'll be called upon to explain "Freepology 101". Just something to think about! Hope this helps!!!

Birth certificates for stillborns?

The fetus-fetishists do a lot of weird and inexplicable things, but this is downright creepy, "ewww"-worthy, even. Their latest pet project is getting birth certificates for stillborns. From that fount of fetus worship, misogyny and bigotry, "lifesite":

"NEW YORK, May 23, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Joanne Cacciatore has waged a decade-long battle to convince elected officials to recognize the need of parents to recognize the humanity of their stillborn babies with birth certificates. Ms. Cacciatore, the founder of the M.I.S.S. foundation and the MISSing Angels petition, spoke with LifeSiteNews.com about her own personal experience advocating the rights of herself and other parents seeking closure and the frustrating opposition she faces from abortion advocates opposed to birth certificates as some sort of stealth pro-life legislation."

Stealth strategy? Anti-choicers? Noooooo, those good people would never engage in something so devious. Would they.

It's easy to see how it would be profoundly traumatizing for a woman to carry a wanted pregnancy to term, only to have the dream of a new addition to the family crushed by stillbirth. I can even see how (if not agree with) some might need to commemorate the event somehow, if only to give them a sense of closure and help them heal. But no way should the grieving/healing process involve the government issuing legal documents to say "this person lived" when he/she clearly didn't. There are counsellors (or even clergy, if you're so inclined) that would be infinitely more helpful in dealing with this kind of trauma. A birth certificate? No, you have to grab a few lungsful of air to get one of those.

Stealth? "Birth certificates for stillborns" epitomizes stealth anti-choice tactics. The only purpose it would serve is to get the definition of "personhood" one step closer to the womb. Sad to say, the anti-abortion lobby is so determined to get the government to define a fetus as a "person" that they'll go to the lengths of exploiting traumatized women to do it. Bastards.