Amanda had a great post on this too. I think the most interesting/sad part of this story is how much it busts the myth of who gets an abortion and why they get it.

What I find great about the article, and this is why telling stories is so important, is the writer deftly undermines every anti-choice stereotype of who the women are that get abortions and why they do it. (Or in this case, the kind of women who dare use contraception like Plan B.) The reason we hear over and over again that women get abortions and/or use emergency contraception is that they are “selfish� and want to have sex without “consequences�. Or that if they just embraced motherhood, they’d find they liked it. Well, Dana L. has embraced motherhood and likes it but wants only two kids. She’s not “selfish�, whatever that means, because, as she mentions up front, she obviously doesn’t have a whole lot of time to herself.

The other powerful aspect of this story is how intertwined all discussion of reproductive rights needs to be. It's not just about contraception or abortion rights, but the pull between the often-times contradictory policies the right has put in place in this country.

Matt -
unfortunately the point you made went right over the heads of the anti-choicers. If you read the online chat transcript, most of the posts are people saying that at 42 years old she should be more responsible with her birth control, it is the doctor's right not to prescribe her birth control, and that she should have had the baby and given it up for adoption.

This is just so pathetically ironic! Poor woman!

She wasn't "forced" into anything. If they didn't want any more children, they should have both been more responsible with their birth control. At least have some condoms on hand for the times during which the diaphragm is ignored.

Those right wingers are such bastards. SO CLOSED MINDED!!!

I mean, what's not to love about abortion?

How Do You Want Your Abortion? Perhaps with a Side of Fries?

btw, hot t-shirt.

[sigh] Look at all the conservatives getting riled up because a woman chooses to excercise control over her body and her future.

No one should be forced to have a baby if they don't want to, even if there is an option of giving it up for adoption. Conservatives just can't stand the idea of women having control over their own bodies, and want to punish people for having sex. There's no reason forgetting to use a condom once should screw up the whole life you have planned for yourself or your family.

You can choose to blame her and say "she should have been more responsible" or you can be realistic and say that she's human and made a mistake, the government shouldn't be allowed to put her in a position where that one little mistake will undo all that she's worked for in her life.

Every woman should know that Plan B contains exactly the same active ingredients as most Birth Control pills. The equivalent number of BC pills to take is easy to find on many websites by using a search engine. If you have a doctor or pharmacist who refuses to give you Plan B, just get a prescription for the standard BC pills! It would not be a bad idea for every woman of reproductive age in America to get such a prescription just to have a 28 day packet available anytime you or a girlfriend needs it. You could MAKE Plan B "de facto Over The Counter"!

It's hard to read, even the pro-choice people are playing the "why do you think you can have sex & not pay the price for it?" game.

I know it's cliche to mention the "Handmaid's Tale" but I can't help remembering the circle of women around the gang-rape victim chanting "your fault, your fault." If you blame someone else enough, your birth control will never fail?

I'm tired of abortion being demonized. As long as women get pregnant it has existed and always will.

Stranger makes a good point, there are things you can do to get around stupid docs and pharmacies that won't perscribe ec. I just think it's ridiculous that women should have to; it's ridiculous that a doctor or pharmacy can try to police someone's moral character. I mean, if you don't believe in ec then don't take it, but as a doctor it's not your right to impose those beleifs on others.

wouldn't a lot of pro-lifers say plan B was abortion anyway, so it really makes no difference? that, either way, she was having an abortion?

Accidents happen like birth control failing. Sometimes, one forgets (gee to be human). Sometimes that cold medicine cancels out the birth control.

This plan B should be made available.

Finally, I noticed all this belly aching about birth control, but has anybody questioned: Levitra or Viagra?

I have an unmarried male neighbor upstairs who uses Viagra faithfully (with an equally unmarried woman).

No one is even remotely making a fuss over this issue.

I am very sorry for this, Dana.
Politicians are really far from understanding people rights everywhere in this world.

I am dumbfounded that criticism concentrates on blaming her for not taking responsibility for having unprotected sex. Um, was abortion her first choice? No, she did took responsibility for the mistake she made and immediately sought to rectify it. Any woman faced with the real possibility of an unwanted pregnancy should have this option available to her, regardless of value judgements about how she got pregnant in the first place.
I am also amazed that supposedly educated people think EC is a form of abortion (pick up a basic biology text people and learn how EC actually works). I'd be interested to know how anti-choice people propose to manage the health, social and economic costs of the increase in births of unwanted children that would result from removing a woman's choice, particularly given the struggling health and child protection systems in America.
I can only hope that my own Australia will not blindly follow America's example for once...

I am dumbfounded that criticism concentrates on blaming her for not taking responsibility for having unprotected sex. Um, was abortion her first choice? No, she did took responsibility for the mistake she made and immediately sought to rectify it. Any woman faced with the real possibility of an unwanted pregnancy should have this option available to her, regardless of value judgements about how she got pregnant in the first place.
I am also amazed that supposedly educated people think EC is a form of abortion (pick up a basic biology text people and learn how EC actually works). I'd be interested to know how anti-choice people propose to manage the health, social and economic costs of the increase in births of unwanted children that would result from removing a woman's choice, particularly given the struggling health and child protection systems in America.
I can only hope that my own Australia will not blindly follow America's example for once...

I am dumbfounded that criticism concentrates on blaming her for not taking responsibility for having unprotected sex. Um, was abortion her first choice? No, she did took responsibility for the mistake she made and immediately sought to rectify it. Any woman faced with the real possibility of an unwanted pregnancy should have this option available to her, regardless of value judgements about how she got pregnant in the first place.
I am also amazed that supposedly educated people think EC is a form of abortion (pick up a basic biology text people and learn how EC actually works). I'd be interested to know how anti-choice people propose to manage the health, social and economic costs of the increase in births of unwanted children that would result from removing a woman's choice, particularly given the struggling health and child protection systems in America.
I can only hope that my own Australia will not blindly follow America's example for once...

I wholeheartedly agree Amy.

I love when there is some policy that trades off between either making protected sex easier for women on the one hand, and at the same time reducing the number of abortions, or making protected sex more difficult and also increasing the number of abortions.

You see the anti-choicers call themselves pro-life because they claim the debate is not about which choices women have but the lives of fetuses. This type of issue allows a perfect test of whether the debate is really about choice or life. If the debate was about life, the "pro-lifers" should support any policy that "protects life" by reducing the number of abortions in the real world. However, when these issues come up, the "pro-lifers" inevitably align themselves against the pro-choicers by taking the option which makes protected sex less likely and thus abortion more likely (ie abstinence only education, difficult to get contraception, plan B, cutting off economic aid to poor women). By their own calculus they are taking the "pro-death" but "anti-choice" position.

THEIR behavior is consistent with the "pro-choice/anti-choice" dichotomy rather than one about "life". On the other hand, I dont know a single pro-choicer who would object to reducing the actual number of abortions. Does that make us more pro-life than them?

"However, when these issues come up, the "pro-lifers" inevitably align themselves against the pro-choicers by taking the option which makes protected sex less likely and thus abortion more likely (ie abstinence only education, difficult to get contraception, plan B, cutting off economic aid to poor women)"

Way to generalize, angryleft. I'm a pro-lifer, and all for the use of contraception, education about it, and economic aid to poor women. It doesn't help your side at all to make incorrect assumptions, rather than actual arguments about the issues.

Besides the idiodic judgments over who is entitled or not entitled to abortion, there are the "gotchas" sprung on women by doctors and pharmacists who don't give referrals or are ambiguous about providing a reproductive service. The same thing happened to me when my contraceptive failed and I tried to get a referral for an abortion in 1973 when it was legal. The doctor tried to make me think I wasn't really pregnant, but having had 3 already, I knew I was. Fortunately, I was a member of the National Organization for Women and was able to obtain a referral from them. When birth control pills first came on the market, it was common for some doctors to refuse to prescribe it, especially in small towns. The loss of subsequent business overrode the doctor's moral concerns pretty fast.

noname ii,

To be clear, I obviously wasn't referring to every single person on the planet who might call themselves pro-life. What I was referring to are the practical manifestations of the political movement that likes to call itself pro-life. When it comes down to policy, this is what matters. This movement as a whole supports Republican conservative culture-war politics which opposes any measure (like the HPV vaccine) even if unrelated to actual abortion, or even if it would reduce abortion, that might be seen to make protected sex easier for women. You may disagree noname ii, and I applaud you for it, but people like you are not the mainstream anti-choice movement these days. As a movement, this is what these anti-choicers are. Hypocrites.