Photo of Bamiyan Buddas destroyed by the Taliban from TurkicPress.com.

Via Daily Kos Alexander Burns says

The Center for American Progress Action Fund and Planned Parenthood Action Fund will argue at a briefing this morning that Republicans are "pushing an extreme ideological agenda" on social issues that’s likely to alienate female swing voters at the start of the 2012 cycle. In a memo that will be shared with reporters, the Planned Parenthood Action Fund takes aim at several specific bills – backed by GOP Reps. Chris Smith of New Jersey, Mike Pence of Indiana and Joe Pitts of Pennsylvania – that aim to restrict federal funding for abortion services and groups that provide them, including Planned Parenthood. From the memo: "House leadership is already risking a political backlash ... [T]hey have introduced a number of anti-women’s health bills that will alienate a key voting demographic, independent women voters.... they risk being out of step with the American public by pushing an extreme ideological agenda that takes away women’s health benefits and rights, instead of focusing on jobs and the economy."

Source: The very-poorly permalinked Politico Morningscore for 2/2/2011

I'd just add that another rather useful component of that backlash might be the just how little money all this ideology-driven women-bashing, hippie-punching, windmill-defunding, polar-bear-killing will actually save from the federal budget.

All cuts they're talking about will save on the order of only dozens of millions of dollars. Not the billions the wingers and maybe too many normal conservatives and moderates imagine. Let alone the trillions one would actually need to cut if Republicans were serious about deficits. Which of course they're not. Nor have they ever been.

Now. Will teahaddists and other extremists be taken aback by relatively minuscule amount of money the Federal government actually spends on protecting women, or children, or the environment, or promoting conservation or climate protection from what... well... men like Chris Smith or Mike Pence or Joe Pitts evidently want to be able to do to them? No, because for the most part teahaddists and their allies also want the same things.

But centrist, moderate, independent, and swing voters, as well as the majority of ordinary conservatives who aren't as... singleminded about culture warfare aren't going to like it.

Scott Lemieux, piling on to his colleague Pema Levy's "excellent response to William Saletan" on whether we should restrict late-term abortion in order to protect what he seems to think are, I dunno, more "legitimate" ones says

In Canada, late-term abortions are not legally restricted, and Canada also doesn't have the other kinds of restrictions found in many American states and doesn't exclude abortion from guarantees of health care. As far as I can tell, there's no evidence that Canadian women get late-term abortions at significantly higher rates (and historically overall abortion rates in Canada have actually been lower). Essentially, absent evidence to the contrary, I think the presumption in favor of a woman's decision-making capacity is justified, and further restrictions are likely to do more harm than good.

Source: TAPPED

Levy and Lemieux both note that, gee, maybe the reason for Saletan's hand-wringy concern that many women seeking 2nd- and 3rd-trimester abortions waited so long, compared to our generally demographically similar Canadian cousins, might be that getting an abortion in the U.S. is already pretty frickin' hard.  So Saletan's right on one count:

Contraception or abstinence is best, emergency contraception is next best, early abortion is next best, and we should make these options more accessible, not less.

Source: Slate.com

What he doesn't add, of course, is that by and large the same core group of extremists who go around cooking up the most egregiously intrusive restrictions on abortion are the same ones who also are most bitterly opposed to any and all forms of contraception as well.  So as far as they're concerned making it as hard to avoid unplanned, unwanted pregnancies as it is to terminate them is a win-win situation.

For that reason I wish Saletan would spend more of his time really digging into that and less time hand-wringing about "circumstances," as if those circumstances weren't the result of calculated political activism.  He's a professional, well-inside-the-mainstream journalist so he knows all the parties involved, he knows the history, and I think he's really, genuinely committed to reproductive rights.  I just disagree with his tactics of "maybe if we stop the lastest of late-term abortions they'll stop agitating to restrict condom sales."  Good faith efforts work only with those who are acting in good faith.

Ever notice how sometimes the deeper one digs the more interesting some news tidbits become?

In a news-roundup post, Beth Saunders of RHRealityCheck.org passes along with insufficient comment a tidbit from an anti-choice website that...

Twenty percent of British women used emergency contraception in the past year, according to a survey by the Co-Operative Pharmacy.

Source: RHRealityCheck.org

If you go to the site itself (LifeSiteNews) you get a little more background... but obviously you also get more anti-choice slant (emphasis mine)

A Co-Operative Pharmacy survey of 3000 people found that 20 percent of women aged 18 to 35 took the “emergency contraceptive” pill last year. The same group said they had typically used the drug, which only acts as a genuine contraceptive in some cases, when they had had sex after using drugs and/or alcohol.

The poll further found that up to 250,000 women had used the drug two or more times during the year. One in fifty 18-21 year-olds said they used the MAP as their normal form of contraception. One sixth of the women surveyed said they had contracted a sexually transmitted disease.

Source: LifeSiteNews

And if you go to the actual Co-Operative Pharmacy press release you get the same core information minus (shock, gasp, surprise!) mention of "only acts as a genuine contraceptive in some cases."  Which is good because, of course, that would be factually incorrect.  Here's the straight story from the source.

Thousands of women risk waking up on New Years Day with more than a hangover as over one in five blame partying with drink or drugs for not using contraception with a new partner, figures* reveal today (1 January 2011).

The Co-operative Pharmacy, part of The Co-operative Group, questioned 3,000 people about contraception and found that one in five women aged 18 to 35 years old have used the morning after pill in the last 12 months. One in six women admitted to having had a sexual disease.

The research also revealed that the preferred method of contraception for almost half of all women was the pill and two out of five favoured condoms. 250,000** women have used the emergency contraceptive three times or more and more than one in 50 of those aged 18 to 21 said they preferred to use the morning after pill as a regular form of contraception.

Source Co-Operative Pharmacy

I don't feel qualified to comment on on-the-ground experiences (feel free to chime if you know otherwise) but it sounds like most pharmacists don't agree that EC is all that great on one's system.  From the Co-Operative press release:

Mandeep Mudhar, Head of NHS Development at The Co-operative Pharmacy, said: “Our research shows that some women are taking unnecessary risks with their health. The morning after pill should be a last resort to prevent an unwanted pregnancy after having unprotected sex or if another method of contraception has failed, such as if you have forgotten to take one of your contraceptive pills.

“However, the emergency contraceptive pill does not protect against sexually transmitted infections. Pharmacists provide free accessible advice about contraception but we would always urge people to use a condom, particularly with a new partner, as it offers the greatest protection.”

That sounds about right.  I'd just add, though, that the key word above would be "particularly with a new partner."

Few young single people have "Jersey Shore" style lifestyles where they're prepared at every moment to be ready to fall into bed with someone new.  Instead, most young single people, women as much as men, tend to go through sexual "boom and bust" relationships.  And for people for whom hormonal contraception is an option (obviously only women so far, darn it) it often doesn't feel worth the hassle and often the discomfort of staying on a medication you may expect to need only a few times a year.

To that extent that most women who report using emergency contraception as their "primary contraceptive" are almost all still using it only once a year we're not necessarily talking about a giant epidemic of "irresponsibility" here.  Nor, I would add, does that suggest epidemics of "promiscuity" either.  Unless by promiscuity you mean "once last year."

The EC/STI connection is a little more problematic.  First of the STI question seems to have been about lifetime experience with STIs whereas the rest of the survey reports about annual experience with contraception.  I mention this only to tidy up the numbers, not to minimize the actual risk.  Second, by focusing on the EC angle the story almost necessarily underplays the story of very large numbers of people using no protection for first-time sex.

Proposal: I know it sounds counterintuitive but I think it occurs to  me it might be a very good idea to encourage manufacturers and/or pharmacists to include a condom in every package of EC.  It's counterintuitive because one tends to view EC as something you take after the fact.  And indeed it is.

EC is not, however, always purchased after the fact.  I expect it's a lot easier to remember that if you've already Backed Up Your Birth Control it might be easier to remember you've also got at least one backup condom.  And even if not?  Well, you've still got a condom for next time.  Even if, as those survey numbers suggest, next time also happens to be next year.  And one way or other, knowing there's a condom in the box "puts the idea into consciousness" as the new-agers say.

Extra credit if the condoms have the retro-20th-Century "for prevention of disease only" motif!

Jodi Jacobson of RHRealityCheck.org pulls together some fairly binding evidence that George W. Bush wouldn’t know the truth if it bit him on the ass the staunchly Republican Bush family has always been strongly pro-choice.

The Bush family has a long history of support for Planned Parenthood.  Prescott Bush, father of George H. W. Bush (Bush 1) and grandfather of Bush 2 was the treasurer of Planned Parenthood when it launched its first national fundraising campaign in 1947. Birth control being controversial in the period pre- Griswold v. Connecticut (and yes, history obviously repeats itself), Prescott Bush was attacked for his pro-choice position and knocked out of the running for a Senate seat in Connecticut.

Writing at SFGate.com in 2005, Vicki Haddock recounts the history:

Prescott Bush won a Senate seat two years later, and his son George and daughter-in-law Barbara continued to support Planned Parenthood even after George’s election to Congress from Texas.

“In fact,” writes Haddock, “he was such an advocate for family planning that some House colleagues gave him the nickname “Rubbers.”“ 

Source: RHRealityCheck.org.

That sounds about right. It’s still very possible that when presented with a jar containing the remains of his mother’s miscarriages he decided to become anti-abortion. But it’s not likely that then or now his mother has ever opposed choice, and there’s no reason to believe at all that she intended for her son to oppose it.

That shouldn’t even be controversial! Not all that long ago Republicans were at least as likely as Democrats to support family planning. And of course somewhere between many and most Republicans, like most Americans, period, still do. It’s just now political suicide rather than a minor setback for them to admit it.