Factual Corrections

The Hobby Lobby Angry Poodle says, “Four of the 20 contraceptives effectively prevent fertilized eggs from implanting themselves into the uterine wall, thus stopping an unintended pregnancy before it starts. Hobby Lobby — believing life begins at conception — regards this as murder to which it will not be an accomplice” and that it is a debatable point. It is not. It is absolutely untrue. IUDs interfere with sperm, not with embryo implantation, according to webmd.

The same is true for emergency contraception.

The products that Hobby Lobby decided to disapprove of after the Affordable Care Act was implemented (they were included in the company’s health plan prior to being approached by a Catholic group dedicated to taking down the ACA) do not cause abortions.

In a recent news story about the local buffer zone, you refer to a Florida gynecologist as an “abortionist.” Is this the 1950s? That term is outdated and ridiculous. Proctologists perform colonoscopies among other medical services, they are not called colonoscopists. Dentists are not root canalists. To define a doctor by one of the procedures they are trained to do or by one of the medicines they prescribe does not make sense grammatically and makes the medical provider sound like some sort of medieval executioner.

Abortion is something that, whatever you may think about it, can save women’s lives. Even the most ardent “pro-life” folks recognize this — they just want people to be forced to die for their ideology even if the fetus can’t be saved and the mother can. I was raised by these types of people (and here in Santa Barbara during the turbulent 1980s, as you detail in the article), so I know what I’m talking about!