At long last, a political post (and very snarky)

As you all know, the ultrasound bill has been altered so that the woman will now be allowed rather than forced to view the ultrasound. This, of course, makes the bill utterly ridiculous since women were already allowed to view their ultrasounds before their abortions--I mean, the machine's right there beside you--but, whatever. At least it's no longer oppressive.

The same can't be said for the state's newest attempt at reigning in women's free-ranging sexuality: S. 126, the pharmacist refusal bill. This bill will allow pharmacists not to dispense any drugs that they have a moral objection to. Bills like this are being proposed around the country in an effort to reduce access to emergency contraception and birth control pills, but they would allow a pharmacist to refuse to fill a prescription for anything at all. This should make everybody extremely nervous. When they start going after abortion and contraception, you've got to start wondering what their real agenda is. (Hmmm...control of women's bodies?) There's an article about this on the TellThem! blog. Word is that the Senate Medical Affairs Committee will be discussing this bill on Wednesday, April 18, so it's time to contact those senators again. We made them change the bill last time, and we can do it again.

And finally, I'd just like to weigh in briefly on the Duke lacrosse issue. Biffle took the high road in his post, but I'm going to be less hopeful here. What triggered this response was a recent op-ed by Kathleen Parker. In her piece, she disparages the faculty who spoke out against the lacrosse team and Duke's president for suspending the team. She notes, "It was not a pretty day for due process."

The thing I would like to remind readers is that Duke's president suspended the lacrosse players not based on the rape charges but based, instead, on a bunch of things that happened that were widely acknowledged to be true--indeed, to my knowledge, were never denied at all. Namely, the lacrosse team regularly had parties in which they hired strippers and drank themselves into oblivion, and one player sent an email to the team which read,

tommrow night, after tonights show, ive decided to have some strippers over...i plan to kill the bitches as soon as the walk in and proceding to cut their skin off while cumming in my duke issue spandex

The coach should have resigned. He should have been ashamed, as should all the lacrosse players. The kind of racist, misogynist rape culture that would allow an email like this to be seen as a joke is appalling. Keep this email in mind while the papers declare the innocence of the boys accused of raping the woman at their party, and while Parker claims "Those who have performed most honorably throughout this disgraceful season of sexual spin and racial one-upmanship are the athletes."