Personal Responsibility, Bush Derangement Syndrome, and a Health Dose of Conservative-Bashing

Forwarded to me through a valuable source, The Washington Post printed this story by an anonymous writer detailing the horrors of birth control in 2006.

The conservative politics of the Bush administration forced me to have an abortion I didn't want. Well, not literally, but let me explain.

This article is written by a woman suffering from Bush Derangement Syndrome (an irrational and illogical hatred of George W. Bush that causes a person to blame him for everything). To start the article off by claiming that George Bush is responsible for your abortion is amazing - to say the least.

I am a 42-year-old happily married mother of two elementary-schoolers. My husband and I both work, and like many couples, we're starved for time together. One Thursday evening this past March, we managed to snag some rare couple time and, in a sudden rush of passion, I failed to insert my diaphragm.

Unable to get the "Plan B" emergency contraception pill, this anonymous writer goes on to explain the horrors of forgetting that unprotected sex with your husband can get you pregnant.

And I thought of the emotional upheavals that an unplanned pregnancy would cause our family. My husband and I are involved in all aspects of our children's lives, but even so, we feel we don't get enough time to spend with them as it is.

Oh the horrors of one more child! What ever can she do?

My anger propelled me to get to the bottom of the story. It turns out that in December 2003, an FDA advisory committee, whose suggestions the agency usually follows, recommended that the drug be made available over the counter, or without a prescription. Nonetheless, in May 2004, the FDA top brass overruled the advisory panel and gave the thumbs-down to over-the-counter sales of Plan B, requesting more data on how girls younger than 16 could use it safely without a doctor's supervision.

Apparently, one of the concerns is that ready availability of Plan B could lead teenage girls to have premarital sex. Yet this concern -- valid or not -- wound up penalizing an over-the-hill married woman for having sex with her husband. Talk about the law of unintended consequences.

Evidently this statement, in combination with the fact that some doctors do not prescribe the "Plan B" pill due to personal moral convictions (which they are not required to explain) falls through the spiral of liberal illogicality into being the President of the United States' fault.

Upon attempting to pass the assertion that it is hard to find an abortion clinic in Virginia this anonymous writer goes on to say:

Finally, I decided to check the Planned Parenthood Web site to see whether its clinics performed abortions. They did, but I learned that if I had the abortion in Virginia, the procedure would take two days because of a mandatory 24-hour waiting period, which requires that you go in first for a day of counseling and then wait a day to think things over before returning to have the abortion. Because of work and the children, I couldn't afford two days off, so I opted to have the procedure done on a Saturday in downtown D.C. while my husband took the kids to the Smithsonian.

Did you catch that? This poor woman was further traumatized by her Bush-mandated abortion because she couldn't take two days off from work. Has she ever gotten the flu? Oh, and she doesn't forget to mock that waiting period consultation; I suppose she ignores the serious psychological implications of abortion on women.

I shuffled to the front door through a phalanx of umbrellaed protesters, who chanted loudly about Jesus and chided me not to go into that house of abortion.

Is she expecting us to believe that every day this DC abortion clinic faces protesters? Or is she merely claiming that on the particular day she went happened to be a day the clinic was being protested?

All the while, I was thinking that if religion hadn't been allowed to seep into American politics the way it has, I wouldn't even be there.

Eh? Non Sequitur anyone? How does religion in politics have anything to do with you remembering your contraception?

It was a decision I am sorry I had to make. It was awful, painful, sickening. But I feel that this administration gave me practically no choice but to have an unwanted abortion because the way it has politicized religion made it well-nigh impossible for me to get emergency contraception that would have prevented the pregnancy in the first place.

You see, her constantly repeated point is that somehow Bush supporters or Bush (and the Evil Karl Rove) have somehow infiltrated the FDA and caused them to block over the counter approval of the "Plan B" drug. This assertion is baseless and silly.

The subject under which this was forwarded to me was "Personal Responsibility." Indeed.