CNN has a debate over the contraception mandate and one of the entries is by Valerie Pokorny, who is “actively involved in marriage preparation programs, natural family planning instruction and chastity education in the Archdiocese of San Antonio, Texas.” Prepare to have your jaw agape at her presumptuous irrationality. The title — “Contraception denigrates me as a woman” — should give you some idea of what you can expect.
Indeed, throughout history woman has been at a sore disadvantage in terms of having the freedom to thrive and contribute her many, varied gifts to society.
This is why I find the case made by our current administration in regard to the Health and Human Services mandate so difficult to swallow.
The Obama administration’s primary talking point on this issue is that “Every woman should be in control of the decisions that affect her own health.”
I agree. 100 percent.
But from there, the defense sounds like slick advertising for the contraceptive industry: To be a healthy woman, you need contraception. All the successful women use it. You can’t live without it.
Should I so easily accept the implication that I need to alter a part of myself that’s working properly in order to be free or fulfilled? I find this premise tremendously offensive. To me, this exerts pressure tantamount to that felt by women who purge after eating to attain or maintain a particular body image. It encourages women to think that their value is somehow intrinsically tied to how sexually available and desirable they are.
This is simply bizarre. She actually seems to think that women use birth control only because men want them to be “sexually available” to them without the risk of pregnancy to tie them down. Presumptuous much? How about the tens of millions of women who use birth control who are in committed relationships and just don’t want to have a child, either right now or ever? They do not seem to exist in Valerie Pokorny’s world. Nor do women who choose all on their own to be “sexually available” with partners of their own choosing, not because a man wants them to be.
I thought the whole moral obligation to fulfill a husband’s sexual needs was a thing of the past… but alas, it’s been repackaged for a new secular generation. Women are still evaluated heavily on the basis of their uninhibited sexual availability, which contraception ensures precisely by severing women from their fertility…
My fertility is not a disease. It does not need to be repressed, manipulated, or rejected. It ought to be accepted and respected accordingly, by individuals and by society as a whole. And if that means exercising a bit of self control now and then, well, that’s a hell of a lot more dignified than saying, “Eh, we got this pill that makes self control unnecessary. I want pleasure now. Let’s get it on!”
Sorry, but you’re the one still stuck in the past here. Women choose to sever themselves from their fertility, some temporarily and some permanently. That’s their choice. You don’t like the idea of doing so? Then don’t do it. Your body, your choice. But stop pretending that the only reason any other woman would choose to do so is because men have turned them into “sluts” for their own sexual pleasure.
29 comments
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slc1
February 21, 2012 at 1:11 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Sounds like she’s writing Santorum’s material.
Bronze Dog
February 21, 2012 at 1:17 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
It irritates me that she denigrates women by assuming they’re monolithic in their desires and motives, rather than stop to think that different people might want different things out of life.
But then again, that’s pretty much the basis of all fundie projection: Assume you are the Platonic eidolon of humanity, and that everyone who doesn’t agree with you is an inferior copy.
raven
February 21, 2012 at 1:19 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Oh FFS.
One of the main reasons women use birth control is real simple and obvious.
For and because of their children.
In our society with it’s floundering economy, shortage of good jobs which are all uncertain, and murky futures, it’s hard for a huge number of families to have a reliable source of income to pay for the kids and everything else, house, bills, cars, cell phones, internet access, medical care, pet food etc.
Plus these days, a college degree from a good school is pretty much mandatory and even then doesn’t guarantee a whole lot. And college has gotten outrageously expensive, way more than when I went.
Children are a huge expense for 20+ years. Most people have made the choice to have a few and bring them up as well as possible and prepare them for their rough future. As opposed to dropping a litter or two, raising them in poverty, and sending them out to fend for themselves at age 18.
That is why the US family size is 2+.
That is why the Catholic family size is…2+.
Catholics aren’t stupid. Valerie Pokorny is.
Mr Ed
February 21, 2012 at 1:21 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
CONTRACEPTION IS SEXUAL REPREHENSION
Ms. Daisy Cutter, Gynofascist in a Spiffy Hugo Boss Uniform
February 21, 2012 at 1:26 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Oh, that’s a really old right-wing canard. Women don’t really like sexytiemz, you see. We only want it so we can find a Lord & Protector with whom to make babbies. Real Men™ only want sex, not commitment, babbies, or love. Therefore, contraception is a sinister plot to drain us of our precious oxytocin.
Didaktylos
February 21, 2012 at 1:29 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
How many times has SHE given birth?
wendy
February 21, 2012 at 1:30 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
“And if that means exercising a bit of self control now and then, well, that’s a hell of a lot more dignified than saying, “Eh, we got this pill that makes self control unnecessary. I want pleasure now. Let’s get it on!”
This is the saddest part of the whole, damn thing. In order to be dignified, I have to suppress one of my four F’s. But only now and again.
davidct
February 21, 2012 at 1:34 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I thought that the way to control women was to keep them barefoot and pregnant. Now it turns out that that is the philosophy is liberation. Having control over one’s fertility is now slavery. I wonder how Valerie would look in a burka a little hot in San Antonio but anything for liberation.
doktorzoom
February 21, 2012 at 1:35 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I object to cancer. Why is the Obama administration forcing insurance companies to pay for cancer treatments?
ischemgeek
February 21, 2012 at 1:38 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I … argh.
If my birth control denigrates my womanhood, I suppose the fact that I am educated and have no intention of being barefoot in the kitchen for the rest of my life is also somehow misogynisic?
… why am I reminded of that Wierd Al song? Up is down, black is white, and short is long…
eric
February 21, 2012 at 1:58 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
To be fair, Valerie Pokorny doesn’t speak for men, either.
lofgren
February 21, 2012 at 1:58 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
If that’s the way she feels, she’s welcome to not use birth control. Choice!
The Lorax
February 21, 2012 at 2:14 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
What part of this is being forced down their throats? Seriously? Don’t they realize that “insurance” doesn’t mean “you must use it”? I have car insurance; does that mean I need to get into a fender bender? I have dental insurance; does that mean I need to smash my teeth with a baseball bat? I have life insurance; does that mean I need to die? Sheesh.
Reginald Selkirk
February 21, 2012 at 2:28 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
As opposed to how many babies they have popped out?
.
Here’s a radical notion: why not let each woman decide what she values?
d cwilson
February 21, 2012 at 2:28 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Shorter version of Pokorky’s screed:
Women who don’t want to have (any more) children are sluts. Real women are baby machines first, human beings second.
What really gets me is how the fundie mind always seems to view the possibility that other people might make different choices than they do is an attack on their religion.
lofgren
February 21, 2012 at 2:49 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I have actually been given a special dispensation to speak for all women for the length of this comment:
Fuck you, Valerie Pokorny.
I’ll now yield the floor to individual women to elaborate on that sentiment.
reverendrodney
February 21, 2012 at 3:00 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
She ought to team up with Dana Loesch!
Captain Mike
February 21, 2012 at 3:19 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
That pretty much sums it up.
democommie
February 21, 2012 at 3:44 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
If she has a job and hasn’t had at least one kid a year since she got married at 18, then Valerie Pornkey is FUCKING HYPOCRITE. Dear me, have I insulted someone, yet again?
macktheturtle
February 21, 2012 at 4:31 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Interesting argument about her fertility. Wonder if it works just as well for other aspects of he human body?
“My . . . nudity . . . is not a disease. It does not need to be repressed, manipulated, or rejected. It ought to be accepted and respected accordingly, by individuals and by society as a whole.”
chilidog99
February 21, 2012 at 5:21 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
“Och, you’re a stupid woman, Valerie Podgorny!”*
*apologies to blancmanges everywhere.
Dr X
February 21, 2012 at 5:57 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@SLC1
She might as well be. I don’t know about others who grew up Catholic in the 60s or earlier, but for me, all of it is eerily familiar, twisted, Catholic thinking. Actually, when I listen to Santorum, what I recognize most readily is the very dark, spirit-destroying style of thinking that causes people to either reject many of the teachings or spend their lives constantly dealing with anxious guilt, running back and forth to the confessional. These people start with unexamined guilt about their sexual impulses, then wrap it in sanctifying, obsessive twaddle, attempting to channel their sexual behavior into a philosophically derived set of rules from God to make sexual expression okay. But it’s equivalent to constructing a huge philosophical system to explain why stepping on a sidewalk crack will break your mother’s back. If you can just avoid the cracks, your mother will be safe. Then it becomes unbearable to watch people other people walk the sidewalks unconcerned with the cracks, yet free of guilt. They just don’t understand the moral theology behind the crack-stepping prohibition. Mothers everywhere will suffer broken backs and society as we know it will end.
meg
February 21, 2012 at 6:09 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I know it probably doesn’t mean a lot to Valerie and those who agree with her re the whole contraception debate, but you do realise the rest of the world is thinking ‘Europe is struggling to stay economically afloat, Syria is imploding, Iran is making a lot of sword rattling type noises, et etc, and this is what you’re concentrating on? Right. . .
cactusren
February 21, 2012 at 9:14 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
d cwilson said:
Well, yes, because they want everyone to follow their OneTrueReligion (TM). If some people have other ways of thinking, then their children might discover that there ARE other ways of thinking, and might then stray from the fold. Which means they will be damned to hell, and no one wants their child (or other loved ones) to go to hell. So yes, they’re terrified that people exist who don’t think exactly like they do.
Francisco Bacopa
February 21, 2012 at 11:12 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
There is only one response here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DcdONaKSQM
How could the the Republicans have drifted to the right of a popular country music song from 1972. They have truly gone insane.
And please, you must note that in this song she might dress in a way to turn on other guys, she’s pretty much interested in as much freaky sex as she can have with her husband.
Noadi
February 22, 2012 at 4:12 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I concur. Guess what? I’m a woman and I actually enjoy sex, a lot. I don’t want to be “sexually available” to my boyfriend for his sake but for my own. I also had debilitating painful menstruation without hormonal birth control. In fact I’ve stayed on birth control for long periods of time when I wasn’t having any sex since I don’t like laying curled in the fetal position for 3 days a month. Birth control has more uses than just contraception.
lordshipmayhem
February 22, 2012 at 9:55 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@ slc1 #1
Sounds like she is santorum.
interrobang
February 22, 2012 at 10:37 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
If I had to live in her world, I’d have to be both celibate and chaste — there’s no point to getting married if you don’t want kids, and I have no interest in kids. Somehow, I don’t feel degraded by the fact that I can actually have a sex life without having babies. (Also, her fertility may not be a disease, but, given how much trouble I have with my periods, mine is.)
Pieter B, FCD
February 23, 2012 at 4:43 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
She’s done a bit of tweeting.This one jumped out at me:
In other words, pump ‘em out whether you can afford ‘em or not; having just one or two children isn’t fair to them.