Is The Forced Contraception Alleged By Britney Spears Legal?

 Is The Forced Contraception Alleged By Britney Spears Legal?

(Link): Britney Spears says conservatorship won’t let her remove her IUD. Is that even legal?  – article behind paywall

(Link): Britney Spears forced IUD sparks important conversations about disability, reproductive rights

by David Oliver

Britney Spears said many things when she addressed the court Wednesday and spoke for 20 minutes about the way her years-long conservatorship has affected her life, but one detail shocked her fanbase and fueled conversations about reproductive and disability rights.

“I want to be able to get married and have a baby,” she said during the hearing. “I was told right now in the conservatorship, I’m not able to get married or have a baby. I have (an) IUD inside of (me) right now, so I don’t get pregnant.

“I wanted to take the IUD out, so I can start trying to have another baby, but this so-called team won’t let me go to the doctor to take it out because they don’t want me to have any more children.”

…”Britney Spears has experienced the nexus of sexism and sanism in the public eye and now the court system,” disability rights activist Rebecca Cokley said.
“Having her right to parent, her right to work or not to work, her very right to bodily autonomy taken away for someone’s profit for 13 years is a public policy failure. One all too common for people with mental illness and developmental disabilities.”

Joy Pullman at The Federalist is At It Again: This Time, She’s Promoting ‘Bedroom Evangelism,’ Which is Not Biblical

Joy Pullman at The Federalist is At It Again: This Time, She’s Promoting ‘Bedroom Evangelism,’ Which is Not Biblical

As a moderately conservative individual, I agree with much of the content published at The Federalist, but certainly not all. This is one of those times when no, I don’t agree.

The name Joy Pullman looked familiar to me, and sure enough, a few years ago, I did a post or two criticizing (Link): one of her other articles.

This time, I am disagreeing with this following piece at The Federalist by Joy Pullman;
I will put some excerpts in, and below that, discuss where my areas of disagreement are
(and it’s a super long excerpt – my comments will be way, way below):

(Link): Christianity’s Growth Problem Isn’t Politics, It’s Our Failure To Have And Evangelize Children

Like just about every other Western Christian body, as well as the United States, the SBC is left to squabble over shrinking slices of a dwindling pie.

by Joy Pullman

The New York Times put out a lengthy preview of the Southern Baptist Convention’s top controversies heading into their annual meeting this week in Nashville, Tenn. Members of the nation’s largest evangelical denomination are weighing the future of their religious body amid numerous theological controversies.

… Decline Stems From No Babies, Not Being Too Trumpy
The Times reports that one of the SBC’s concerns is “15-year decline” in members, both through potential theological schisms intertwined with politics, such as critical race theory, and through an aging and thus declining membership.

….While the Times makes much of contrasting the SBC’s political conservatism with its forecast of demographically decisive American leftism, it doesn’t note that the SBC’s decline is directly related to following broader American culture, instead of Christian beliefs, on a keystone of institutional vibrancy: fertility.

Vietnamese Factory Busted Recycling Hundreds of Thousands of Used Condoms

Vietnamese Factory Busted Recycling Hundreds of Thousands of Used Condoms

This is so very gross. There are advantages to being celibate – when you’re not having sex, you don’t have to worry about stuff like this.

(Link): If you go to Vietnam, bring your own! Police seize 324,000 used condoms being washed ready to be resold

Police in Vietnam have seized 324,000 used condoms which were being recycled to be sold again.

Paid workers were tasked with cleaning the rubber contraceptives before reshaping them with wooden dildos.

The condoms were then repackaged before being resold to the public and thousands had already been sent out to the unsuspecting public.

(Link): Vietnamese Factory Busted Recycling Hundreds of Thousands of used Condoms

Sept 23, 2020
by Natalie O’Neill

So much for “protection.”

A factory in Vietnam was busted washing and reselling more than 320,000 used condoms to pass them off as new, according to police who raided the dangerous operation.

Teen Girls On The Pill Are More Depressed (2019 Study)

Teen Girls On The Pill Are More Depressed (2019 Study)

(Link): Teen Girls On The Pill Are More Depressed (2019 Study)

Excerpts:

Teenage girls on the pill are more likely to suffer from symptoms linked todepression, according to a new study.

Researchers found that 16-year-olds taking oral contraceptives reported more depressive symptoms – such as crying and having problems with sleep and eating – than those that did not.

Doctors say depressive symptoms can be subtler than diagnosed clinical depression, but are much more common and nonetheless have a profound impact on someone’s quality of life.

The Fear of Male Birth Control

The Fear of Male Birth Control

A Podcast is on this page:

(Link): The Fear of Male Birth Control

What’s keeping men from sharing more of the burden?

Being freaked out by vasectomies is not an excuse. https://t.co/Cq7eoswjNY

— Slate (@Slate) August 30, 2019

When it comes to birth control, women’s bodies are regularly put through the wringer. What’s keeping men from sharing more of the burden?

Listen to Man Up with @aymanndotcom on @ApplePodcasts 🎧 https://t.co/633qU9KjGc pic.twitter.com/6iBA9P0Ppx

— Slate (@Slate) August 29, 2019

The Unintended Consequences of the Contraceptive Mandate by Greer Donley

The Unintended Consequences of the Contraceptive Mandate by Greer Donley

(Link): The Unintended Consequences of the Contraceptive Mandate

Excerpts:

June 2019

Its exclusion of men perpetuates harmful stereotypes. The most obvious one is that birth control is a woman’s responsibility.

In 1971, the Supreme Court for the first time struck down a law under the Constitution’s equal-protection clause that treated men and women differently.

Courts since then have invalidated countless laws that discriminated on the basis of sex.

Bucking convention, advocates frequently attacked laws that were designed to benefit women under the theory that such laws perpetuated harmful sex stereotypes that “put women, not on a pedestal, but in a cage.”

Americans now take for granted that the government acts illegally when it creates self-fulfilling legislation that presumes women are caregivers or do not work outside the home.

A Male Birth Control Gel Is Getting Closer to Reality

A Male Birth Control Gel Is Getting Closer to Reality

(Link): A Male Birth Control Gel Is Getting Closer to Reality

Excerpts:

by Michelle Fay Cortez
November 2018

(Bloomberg) — U.S. government scientists will test an experimental birth control method for men, which would be a major advance in contraception and bring more equality to a family planning burden borne largely by women.

The study is being conducted by the National Institutes of Health and will involve 420 couples. The experimental treatment is a gel, applied to the back and shoulders, that combines two types of hormones to halt the production of sperm while maintaining the energy and libido benefits of testosterone.

‘Men Are 100% Responsible For Unwanted Pregnancies’ Writes Blogger in Viral Twitter Thread

‘Men Are 100% Responsible For Unwanted Pregnancies’ Writes Blogger in Viral Twitter Thread

(Link): ‘Men are 100% responsible for unwanted pregnancies’ writes blogger in viral Twitter thread

‘Stop trying to control women’s bodies and sexuality’

A blogger from Oakland, California has become a viral sensation after sharing her views on abortion on Twitter, in which she argues that “all unwanted pregnancies are caused by the the irresponsible ejaculations of men”.

Gabrielle Blair, a Mormon and mother-of-six, began her series of tweets by claiming that men have “zero interest in stopping abortion” and are almost entirely responsible for accidental pregnancies.

“Women can only get pregnant about two days each month,” she writes. “And that’s for a limited number of years.

“That makes 24 days a year where a woman might get pregnant. But men can cause pregnancy 365 days a year.

“In fact, if you’re a man who ejaculates multiple times a day, you could cause multiple pregnancies daily. In theory, a man could cause 1000+ unwanted pregnancies in just one year.”

How A Rare Poison Could Help Bring The First Male Birth Control Pill to Market

(Link): How A Rare Poison Could Help Bring The First Male Birth Control Pill to Market

After decades of research, development of a male birth control may now be one step closer. My colleagues and I are working on a promising lead for a male birth control pill based on ouabain—a plant extract that African warriors and hunters traditionally used as a heart-stopping poison on their arrows.

…Today, men have just two choices when it comes to birth control: condoms or a vasectomy.

Let’s Rethink Sex by C. Emba

I agreed with much of this editorial by Emba (posted much farther below) and don’t have a problem with it.

I’m a right winger. Imagine my surprise a while back when I was visiting a right wing political blog on which one of the blog owners criticized this editorial by Emba.

From what I can recall, the conservative author found Emba’s cry for the public to take sex more seriously and not sleep around so much, to be unrealistic or too stuffy, too… whatever.

I was appalled that a conservative author on a conservative site (the same author has claimed in previous blog posts on other topics to be a Christian) would be attacking a well-reasoned editorial pointing out that perhaps the avalanche of sexual harassment stories we’ve all been seeing in the media in the realms of Hollywood, sports, politics and more, can be due to people having an “anything goes” mentality towards sex. I agree with her.

Before seeing this editorial a few weeks ago, I was thinking of writing one similar to it myself (and still may).

I would fully expect the majority of liberals out there – especially the feminists – to mock the notion of being chaste or more deliberate about when, if, where, and with whom to have sex, but a conservative? (Liberal feminists (Link): have already done so before, as a matter of fact.)

Maybe I should not be surprised.

I’ve been posting stories to this blog off and on for around the last seven years, and I’ve seen several instances of conservative Christians who have a “meh, who cares, it’s just fornication, go ahead and do it, sex is no biggie” attitude that one would expect to see from some Non-Christians or from liberal feminists.

But the conservatives and Christians go along with this sort of thinking as well.

Even Sex Is In Crisis in Venezuela, Where Contraceptives Are Growing Scarce

Even Sex Is In Crisis in Venezuela, Where Contraceptives Are Growing Scarce

(Link):  Even Sex Is In Crisis in Venezuela, Where Contraceptives Are Growing Scarce

Excerpts:

CARACAS, Venezuela — Yorlenis Gutierrez, a 28-year-old mother, spent months vainly scouring pharmacies for a drug whose scarcity is complicating her sex life and that of countless Venezuelans. In a country beset by shortages, this is one of the hardest: the disappearance of contraceptives.

  When she couldn’t renew her supply of birth control pills, Gutierrez and her husband made a choice. Long-term abstinence was not an option, they agreed.

They tried to be careful, but soon she was pregnant with her second child.

Er, what? Long term abstinence is certainly an option.

I seldom to never feel sorry for people when they make a choice to have sex but then get pregnant, get an STD, or whatever.

When they act as though being celibate longer than a week is a huge, huge burden that cannot be overcome. No sympathy from me.

Continuing with article’s excerpts:

But the shortage of contraceptives has put Venezuelans in a particularly bleak quandary: Have sex — or don’t ?

Fewer People Are Getting Married – And That’s A Good Thing by J. Wright

Fewer People Are Getting Married – And That’s A Good Thing by J. Wright

If you are new to my blog, I’d like to inform you that I am a conservative, a right winger.

I am not against “the family unit” or against marriage, but, I have noticed that a lot of other conservatives have disparaged singleness and have elevated marriage (as well as parenting and natalism) in to false idols they worship.

So, I’m not against marriage, babies, or the nuclear family, but I am opposed to the over-emphasis upon those things by my fellow conservatives.

(Link): Fewer People Are Getting Married – And That’s A Good Thing by J. Wright

Excerpts:

In a week full of terrible things, the Wall Street Journal published an essay entitled  (Link): “Cheap Sex and the Decline of Marriage” that pondered, “Why is marriage in retreat among young Americans? Because it is now much easier for men to find sexual satisfaction outside marriage.”

“Women: They’re Destroying Everything with Their Sluttery” is, I suppose, kind of a fun theory for an article if your readers hate women.

But the notion that unmarried young people are having an unprecedented amount of sex is without basis in fact. Studies from the (Link): Archives of Sexual Behavior indicate that extramarital sex is actually on the decline. Baby boomers are estimated to have 11 average sexual partners over their lifetimes, while millennials are expected to have only eight.

It stands to reason that women as well as men are having less cheap and easy sex.

Oh, well.