Conservatives So, So Grossed Out that a Democrat Said 'Menstruation' While Discussing Birth Control

By Erin Gloria Ryan | August 6, 2012 | 9:40pm

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Today, during discussion of the Affordable Care Act’s Women’s Health package, Senator Tom Harkin mentioned that birth control pills can benefit women who have difficulty with menstruation. And conservatives, themselves obsessed with regulating women’s anatomy, once again proved that they’re incapable of dealing with the utter, Carrie-getting-her-period-in-the-shower grotesqueness of all things female body-related by reacting with horror. How dare a politician use medically accurate language in discussions of hoo-ha whore pills for the Down There? What has happened to civility in this country?!

Harkin was defending the Affordable Care Act’s mandate that insurance plans cover preventative care, including birth control pills, which many conservatives don’t like because they enable whorishness and offend religious people who don’t want other women to use their insurance plans to buy birth control for themselves.

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So what’s the horrible, gross thing that Harkin dared utter in the presence of delicate man-ears?

There are many women who take birth control pills, for example, because they have terrible menstrual cramps once a month, some of them almost incapacitated, can’t work. I know of young women myself who, because of this, aren’t able to work and be productive, and it’s prescribed by their doctor.

SOMEONE PLEASE FETCH ME A HANDFUL OF SMELLING SALTS AND A COPY OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES.

Dana Loesch over at Breitbart was one of the folks horrified by Harkin’s true and accurate statement that uses medically appropriate terms. Besides, she asserts, he’s LYING. He’s another LYING LIAR of LIES. She writes,

It’s asinine to suggest that birth control is the only way women can control menstrual cramps. Speaking from experience with endometriosis, there are a number of other remedies available to women that assist with this issue, not just birth control pills. If it was about women’s health, the “birth control” aspect wouldn’t be at the spear of the left’s push.

Harkin never asserts that all women who have cramps must use pills; just that some women who have cramps experience relief after using birth control as prescribed by their doctors, who presumably know a thing or two about how to treat people who are not feeling well. Additionally, Loesch doesn’t discuss the fact that there are actually many aspects of the ACA’s women’s health package — like domestic violence counseling, breast screening, and HPV testing— that have nothing to do with birth control. She also fails to disclose what, exactly, those other remedies for cramps are, but I’m sure they work on everyone, since she’s got personal anecdata about endometriosis and is a ~~medical doctor~~ Tea Party radio pundit from St. Louis. Besides, why go with what medical cure works best when we can ignore the last 50 years of advances in women’s health and try to use, I don’t know, dream catchers and prayers to get rid of cramps instead of what’s most effective? Let’s prioritize the unprovable beliefs of offended bishops over the health of women who actually need birth control for actual medical conditions.

Know what’s worse than men telling women what they must do? Other women helping men who tell other women what’s best for them. And menstrual cramps.

[Big Government]

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