Category Archives: Media

Trump v. Kelly (and Everybody Else)

January 27, 2016

Ballot Check Yes No

Once again, almost committing myself to vote for Trump, I pull my mental pencil back from the ballot.

Not again, I cry inwardly. Not again. With all of the talent and knowledge Trump could bring to the presidency, why does he not see the damage he will do with his petulant pettiness and pointless vindictive vendettas?

Did Trump think he could truly make it to the Oval Office without being challenged about his Question Markstatements on women? Kelly did him a favor. And you would think a man ready to “speak his mind” would have thanked her. Her hateful question?

“Mr. Trump, one of the things people love about you is you speak your mind and you don’t use a politician’s filter. However, that is not without its downsides, in particular, when it comes to women. You’ve called women you don’t like ‘fat pigs,’ ‘dogs,’ ‘slobs’ and ‘disgusting animals.’ …

Your Twitter account has several disparaging comments about women’s looks. You once told a contestant on ‘Celebrity Apprentice’ it would be a pretty picture to see her on her knees.

Does that sound to you like the temperament of a man we should elect as president, and how will you answer the charge from Hillary Clinton, who was likely to be the Democratic nominee, that you are part of the war on women?”

Trump CandidateA truly presidential man would have seen this as the perfect opportunity to set the public straight on his respect for women. A truly prepared presidential candidate would have anticipated this and all other potential challenges to his candidacy. He wouldn’t have been surprised. He would have had his response prepared and delivered it without a single misstep.

If this question is enough to feed Trump’s factory of bile and engender his retaliation, what Trump Meanwill 4 years of his leadership foster in a culture force-fed on Twitter?  Haven’t we suffered enough of 8 years of pique and trivial pursuit?

So, now Trump is ticked. Everyone is supposed to suffer his pain: Fox, Roger Ailes, Megyn Kelly…and most especially…the voters. Trump’s henchman on Laura Ingraham’s show positively celebrated his prediction that no one will watch the debate. Muscle KidTrump, apparently, is THAT big! Wow!

Or…Trump is THAT small? Absolutely! He has had five months to show America what really matters, what REALLY makes him mad. Trump has given us months of calling everyone Stupid. And months of declaring that Mexico and China WILL do what he says. He’s going to be the Global Bigshot. Just trust him.

So a Global Bigshot spends all his ammunition for a World War on a woman who reads a list of his own statements and asks him to explain?

It is getting harder and harder to imagine voting for Trump. A truly presidential man should have better things to do…and better ways to do them!

******************

*For further information on debate questions for Trump:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/01/26/here-are-the-megyn-kelly-questions-that-donald-trump-is-still-sore-about/

*************************************************
Copyright 2016. All Rights Reserved

Google Chooses Abortion

April 30, 2014

Google Logo GThe headline is blatantly clear: Google removes advertisements for ‘crisis pregnancy centers’

As reported by Julian Hattern, TheHill.com, this Google decision was the result of Google “bowing to pressure” from pro-abortion groups.  Right.

So Google just collapsed like that.  A few abortion-happy people pounded on its doors, and Google folded.

Imagine that.  A corporation that announced ending “2013 with another great quarter of Dollar Signmomentum and growth.  Google’s standalone revenue was up 22% year on year, at $15.7 billion”…and Google didn’t have the gumption to put a guard at the door.  Could Google have afforded to hire a bouncer to escort the pro-abortion crowd outside?

Oh, I’m sorry.  I read too quickly and missed the key issue cited by Google for its marriage with abortion advocates.

Google claims moral superiority.  It simply does not want to be caught, “aiding and abetting ideologically driven groups with a calculated campaign to lie to and shame women making one of the most important decisions of our lives.”

Google SquicWellllllll…Gooooooooooooogle.  It’s a little late to claim the high ground!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ideologically driven groups?  Can anyone imagine a more well-funded ideologically driven group than one made up of NARAL, Planned Parenthood and other pro-abortion advocates.  I would love to hear from college student groups who battle for the simple right to display the life-size models of babies in the womb on campuses during any event dealing with “reproduction rights.”

Calculated campaign?  Isn’t Google’s announcement the best evidence yet of the calculated campaign of pro-abortion groups for the singular purpose of….

Lying and shaming women into making one of the most important decisions of their lives?  Let’s hear it from all of the two or three college women in America who went to Planned Parenthood “health services” with their “unplanned pregnancy” and were confronted with…

  • an ultrasound
  • pictures of fetal development (i.e. pictures of real babies in the womb)
  • potential harmful consequences of an abortion
  • information, help and assistance in seeking adoption…

Let’s hear it from women across America who are shamed into abortion with lies that:

  • their family (parents) will disown them,
  • their prospects for career and happiness will end with a baby,
  • abortion is a simple procedure that will give them happiness and fulfillment,
  • after all, the blob of tissue (product of conception) is not really a baby, and
  • they will “get on with their lives” in the same way one does after having a tooth pulled.

Accurate resources?  Google claims this is all about getting truthful information out to women.  Smile Baby on ArmAw, shucks.  How about getting the truth about babies and pregnancy from the very people who make their living getting rid of the babies and pregnancy?

Planned Parenthood’s website talks about pregnancy.  Their great medically accurate pronouncement is soooo informative:

The stages of embryonic and fetal development also follow a common pattern.  Still, pregnancy can be confusing and sometimes mysterious. It’s normal to wonder what happens during each of the stages of pregnancy.

Pregnancy, week one through week 32, a la Planned Parenthood’s website?  Want to find out about how a baby is made?  Forget it.

Planned Parenthood’s truth about babies begins with a “ball of cells,” moves to “embryo” for a week or two, and finally settles into “fetus” for the duration…all the way to week 32, just minutes before birth of the “fetus” into life as a baby!  Oh…let’s remember their black-line drawing of the “ball of cells”…soooo illustrative!

Ultrasound 8 wkAny of you get those cute little ultrasounds of your fetus sucking its thumb?  Won’t find it at Planned Parenthood’s website.

Any of you post the pictures of your 10-week “fetus” on the fridge, a picture from your ultrasound?  Doubtful you will get that at Planned Parenthood.

Truth about babies is not very helpful if you are in the business of selling abortions.  In the words of our very own President, we don’t want our women “punished by a baby.”

Oh…well…yes, Planned Parenthood does do its best to “tell the truth about pregnancy.”  Here you go, all you expectant moms looking forward to cuddling your little bambino…or PPbambina…or fetusita?  Enjoying your pregnancy?  Guess that’s because you don’t have Planned Parenthood to tell you “the truth”:

Just as your baby is ready to fall into your arms, Planned Parenthood encourages you to imagine your delight:

Week 31–32

  • The fetus has a CRL of about 11 inches (28 cm).
  • Lanugo starts falling off.

Delighted?  Well, Planned Parenthood will pour this salt on the wounds of baby-regret:

PREGNANCY SYMPTOMS [Week 28-32]
Women often start feeling tired and have a more difficult time breathing as the uterus expands up. They may get varicose veins — blue or red swollen veins most often in the legs — or hemorrhoids — varicose veins of the rectum. Hemorrhoids can be painful and itchy and cause bleeding. Women may also get stretch marks where skin has been expanded. Braxton-Hicks contractions, heartburn, and constipation may continue. Women may urinate a bit when sneezing or laughing because of pressure from the uterus on the bladder. Hormones may make hair appear fuller and healthier.

Wow!  That sounds like FUN!  Get your abortion now…before you suffer one more minute.

Those cute little intrautero pictures of real live babies…babies with all their fingers and toes…ready Ultrasound 32 wk to meet mom and dad in another week or so?  Not at Planned Parenthood’s website.  Just a little too much truth for their abortion business.  You’ll have to go to a Pregnancy Care Center for this…if you can find it…now that Google has decided we can’t have enough abortion in America.

Is there any good news in this?  Maybe.

Reporter Hattern tells us,  a “Google spokesperson said that the company is ‘constantly reviewing ads to ensure they comply with our AdWords policies, which include strict guidelines related to ad relevance, clarity, and accuracy.”‘  Maybe we can hope they will apply this to pro-abortion advocates.

Finally, notes are encouraged to CEO Larry Page, to “support your commitment to ending this manipulation of women making vital health decisions.”

Google PopeyeThis is your cue, ladies.  All of you who know the truth being hidden in the campaign to convince women they must have that abortion or suffer life with an inconvenient baby

CEO Larry Pages needs your note.

Hey Larry Page…listen to this!  [Use this link to his Google.page]

If anyone builds a campaign to send Google’s Mr. Page the real facts about abortion and its ideological campaign against the truth, let us know.  We are all about truth, and Mr. Page should get a dose of it.

***************************

Copyright 2014.  All Rights Reserve.

 

Comments on Comments on Miley

August 28, 2013

Watch the video?  Or not watch?

Miley CyrusBased on all of the comments, I feel like I could pretty much choreograph Miley’s VMA dance…even not having seen the dance.  Everybody seems to have something to say about Miley Cyrus.  Lots of bad comments.  Some good comments…or perhaps…comments only attempting to point to a redeeming good.

But, from this Monday morning quarterback, with all of our eyes glued to Miley, we are failing to see the bigger picture.  Where are the more important comments directed to Miley’s audience?

I decided not to watch.  Miley.  Reading all of the comments on Miley “grabbing her crotch,” multiple times…this is visual enough for me.

I didn’t watch, even though I know that I am now committing a modern American sin.  I am commenting on something I did not see firsthand.

In America, we have hundreds of reasons for watching anything and everything.  We’re bored.  Curious.  We have to be able to talk with our coworkers about it tomorrow.  And if none of that pulls us in, we must watch on YouTube, the day after, just to prove that we have the right to have an opinion about a 20-year-old’s lascivious tongue-wagging, crotch-grabbing on-stage embarrassment.  The modern sin is not watching.

I have not watched many things that were much-watched in America.  The first time I felt somewhat apologetic about not watching was a few months after May 25, 1977.  Everyone was talking about Star Wars.  My blank stare outed me every time.  “You mean you haven’t seen Star WarStarWars Logos?”

At its release, I had been busy.  Work, rehabbing a house, camping under the stars and road trips to Tennessee occupied all of my time.  Doing seemed so much more fun than sitting…sitting and watching someone else do all the doing.  Star Wars just didn’t make it to my radar.  I was not making a political statement…a cultural statement…a statement of any kind.  I just figured I would get around to watching it when I had time.

In 1977, movies came…and movies went.  There was no VCR, DVD or Net Flix.  Eventually, Star Wars left the scene…without me…and people stopped talking about it.  At that point, it just didn’t seem worth thinking about Star Wars any longer.  And I didn’t.

Things were fairly quiet on the movie front…for three years…until the 2000 release of…you guessed it…Son of Star Wars. StarWars Light Show Now, I ask you, if I had not seen the first Star Wars, how could I possibly see Son of Star Wars?  That would be a sequential disaster, trying to understand the “son” without knowing his “father.”

I had survived my first period of Not Watching.  So the stages of reaction to my Not Watching were familiar as they repeated:

  • You mean you haven’t seen Son of Star Wars?
  • You mean you have to wait for the first Star Wars to be re-released?
  • You’re kidding, aren’t you?
  • Head-scratching.
  • Eventually…next year…a movie is released that I do see, Raiders of the Lost Ark.
  • Nobody is talking about Son of Star Wars.
  • Nobody remembers that I did not see Son of Star Wars.
  • Nobody cares…if they ever did.

The greatest lesson about Miley at the VMA is not about Miley, or her choreographer, her dance partners, her parents, her agents, the VMA show producers…or anyone else having to do with Miley.  The greatest lesson is about our own compulsion to watch.

We watch anything, anywhere, for any reason whatsoever.  We carry our little portable phone watcher machines with us.  And if we lose the signal in the subway, we watch multiple times at home on YouTube.  Watching is a cultural disease.

Not Watching- that is an art.  I didn’t see Miley because when I saw MTV for the first time…years ago…it had already degraded into a popular medium for teaching pre-teens how to lap dance.  I take my Not Watching seriously enough that I cornered the gym manager to ask why children had to group-watch MTV in the lobby of the gym.  We were there to create healthy bodies.  What about healthy minds?

Not Watching – I no longer watch SuperBowl half-time shows.  Janet Jackson convinced me that I don’t need half-time shows.  Not just Janet…but the whole media complex that winks and profits from this type of cultural pollution.  I don’t care who is on stage or how much money went into the production or how much hype is put into getting me to watch.  There are better things to do.

This is the perfect age for Not Watchers.  Cable TV offers 1000 channels.  NetflixIf only 20 are worth anything, that is five times more than the four channels I had as a teen…20 more than the zero channels my parents grew up with.  Netflix is a virtual library of anything a watcher could watch.  Even if you are picky, that is a lot of watching.

And what about the Doing?  What are we missing about Doing in a culture addicted to Watching?

Janet Jackson, Lady Gaga, Miley…if I never watch any of them…I can have a wonderful, fulfilling life.  Beauty FlowerIt is one life…one chance on earth…one opportunity to feast my eyes on the beautiful, the creative, the brilliant, the honorable…the redemptive.

I can’t agree with many of the comments made by Justin Timberlake in defense of Miley.  But when I agree with JT, it is a big high-five agreement.  “It’s the VMAs, what did you guys expect?”

If Americans have anything to learn from this “shocking” performance of Miley’s, it is this…there is much to be gained by learning how to Not Watch.

Not Watching – You will survive.  Next week, nobody will know if you Soul Eyewatched…or not.  The week after that…they won’t care.  If it’s worth it, and if you have the time, five years from now you can download it.

Your eyes are the gateway to your soul.  Healthy bodies, healthy minds.  Try Not Watching.

You will survive!

Silent No More

June 17, 2013

Jane Jimenez

Jane Jimenez

Georgette stood quietly facing the demonstration of women in front of the Supreme Court.  Her hand-made sign spoke for her:  I Regret Choosing Abortion.  While these women called themselves the National Organization for Women, she wanted them to know they didn’t speak for all women.  They didn’t speak for her.US Supreme Court

In the early evening, standing as a silent witness to the NOW members at their annual candlelight vigil commemorating Roe v. Wade, Georgette’s deepest hope was to create dialogue.  “If I’m expressing regret,” she asked, “would they try to connect with me?”

Forney MicAfter more than an hour, she had her answer.  Georgette recalls, “One woman said to me, ‘I’m sorry you feel that way.’  But she was the only person that even came close to reaching out to me.  The rest of them sneered and jeered…dismissive of me.  I’m thinking, ‘Wait a second.  These are supposed to be women representing women…and they’re not.  They are women who are representing abortion.’”

Georgette went home that night committed to action.  “I felt that we really Georgette Forney Portrait 2needed to start a new NOW organization…a new organization that really did represent women who were hurting after their abortion experience, who were willing to reach out to other women who were hurting.  Nobody cared about us.”

The sting of their disinterest was personal.  At sixteen, in 1976, Georgette found herself pregnant and told her boyfriend she would take care of the problem.  “I remember driving down to the clinic thinking, ‘This feels very wrong, but because it is legal, it must be OK.’”

After her abortion, she spent the night with her sister.  Her boyfriend paid her for “his half,” and Georgette’s main concern was how to appear normal so her mom wouldn’t figure it out.  “I decided I could just pretend yesterday didn’t happen.  Block it out.  And that’s what I did.”

Even in the years before becoming a Christian, her denial was not perfect. “I could go long, long periods of time and never even think about an abortion…except when I heard the word.  It would always feel like somebody stuck a knife in my stomach and twisted it….then I would promptly go back to ignoring it.”

Once she became a Christian, she knew she would have to face some hard realities.

At first, it was painful.  “I understood that abortion was wrong in God’s eyes,” she explains.  “I knew that it was a baby.  I knew that I had lost out on being a parent to a wonderful child, and I began the grieving process.”  In a program with other women working to heal from abortion she began to accept God’s forgiveness and to resolve her conflicted feelings.

It was especially difficult for her to understand how she could advise women against abortion. “I was listening to other women in the group talk about how abortion had hurt them,” Georgette says. “It kind of clicked for me that it’s OK for me to stand up and say abortion isn’t good, even though I had one.  I began to understand that you could, in a sense, change your mind as you realized that it wasn’t a good choice down the road.”

Georgette’s handmade sign with its five words I Regret Aborting My Child helped her finally break through the personal silence that had imprisoned her for so many years.  Leaving the Supreme Court that night, she could no longer retreat and let others define abortion solely as a choice that helps women.

Back at home, she met with good friend Janet Morana.  “I wanted my voice to be there in opposition to this other voice that was saying women need the right to abortion.”

SNM FoundersJanet agreed.  She told Georgette, “I’m convinced that you’re not the only person that feels this way, that has had an abortion and has come to healing.  You want to get the message out that abortion wasn’t good for women, for those who are considering an abortion…maybe to stop them…and to reach out to women who are still locked in denial.”

They decided to return the next year to the Supreme Court steps, meeting again in front of NOW’s annual candlelight vigil, and to hold an event where women would stand up one after the other sharing the truth of what had happened to them in their abortions.  Women would be Silent No More.  Georgette’s vision was clear.  “I wanted the truth to stand.”

Plans revolved around “the sign” – something each woman could hold.  Janet, a former school teacher, envisioned the new signs stark, “like a blackboard, that if you could be standing 50 yards away, you’ll see the message.”  On large poster board, she set large white letters into a plain black background:  I Regret My Abortion.

Jennifer ONeillJennifer O’Neill signed on as their national spokesperson.  Discussing her own abortion in her autobiography Surviving MyselfSurviving Myself, Jennifer tells how she was pressured by her fiancé to have the abortion.  Today she is intent on revealing the lies used to protect abortion.  “Women are not given the truth so that they can make an informed decision.”  She speaks from experience.  “I had to have two operations because of scarring.  I had trouble conceiving.  Women have higher rates of miscarriage.  I had nine.  We are not told any of that.”

As Janet and Georgette reached out to ministries, making certain abortion counselors would be available to women at the event, word of their plans began to filter out through the Internet.  In only three months, 579 women had registered to participate.  Some wanted to speak.  Others asked to stand and hold signs.  Still others, unable to travel to Washington D.C., organized events in their own cities.

On January 22, 2003, on the 30th memorial of Roe v. Wade, women gathered in unity at the Supreme Court to be Silent No More about abortion.  “It was an absolutely freezing cold day,” Janet remembers.  Beginning at 5:00 p.m., the sun had set.  “We were totally frozen.  The wind chill factor was below zero.”

Jennifer O’Neill led the evening with her personal testimony of abortion’s harmful impact on her life.  She was followed, one by one, by sixty women who stepped to the microphone and shared their testimonies.

Once again, members of NOW rejected the message of Silent No More, yelling taunts and jockeying for position.  Just as conflict seemed possible, Bryan Kemper arrived with nearly 40 teens from Rock for Life who had asked to come and pray for the women. “They were some of the extreme rockers, but there they were,” Georgette says.  “These kids came in, and they just knelt down in between the two groups and acted as a barrier.”

For two and a half hours, in the freezing cold, this bold group of women and teens gave witness to the harmful impact of abortion on women… long after NOW organizers had packed up and gone home. In each personal story, the women of Silent No More gave individual proof of the long list of negative consequences stemming from abortion.

The next morning, The Washington Post carried a front page photo of Silent No More.  Janet was thrilled.  “To me, that was a breakthrough in the blackout of the media, just to have a picture.”

Beyond the Washington D.C. event, women around the country conducted their own public events holding up the black-and-white signs and giving their personal testimonies.  In Arizona, Joan Maloof gathered a group of women who met at the state capitol.  “We were stunned when we stepped up to the podium and saw the number of microphones,” she says, “and the number of people that were gathered….One woman gave her testimony in Spanish.”

SNM LogoNow active in all fifty states, the Silent No More Awareness Campaign is a non-denominational Christian effort with no political or legal agenda.  Its emphasis is on awareness, seeking both to educate the public on the harmful consequences of abortion and to reach out to hurting women with compassion and help.

Women can register on their website confidentially.  “This is not about getting every woman who’s gone through abortion out to speak in public,” Janet Morana explains.  “The most important thing is to meet the women where they are.  They’re not all on the same level.  Some of them might want to come to an event, and they’re not even ready to hold a sign yet.  They’ll just want to stand there as a prayer warrior in support of the other women.  It’s in their journey of healing.”

The campaign continues to gain momentum with new volunteers and projects.  Dr. Alveda King, niece of Martin Luther King, Jr., Alveda Kingplayed a key role in the filming of a Silent No More commercial.  Shot in Arizona, with the help of Joan Maloof and Arizona volunteers, it speaks to the common experience of post-abortive women:  “You see, abortion didn’t solve our problems.  It just created new ones.”

Alveda King credits her grandfather, Martin Luther King, Sr., with saving her from choosing abortion a second time.  “That was the Christian foundation speaking through my grandfather.”

When she began witnessing about abortion in 1983, people came to her “one by one, secretly.”  In recent years, she hears from women more and more, telling her “Well, you know, that happened to me, too.  And this is how I felt.”  Alveda is encouraged.  “People are responding and getting healing.  So it’s positive.”

Jennifer O’Neill agrees.  At large conferences for women, abortion is not a common topic.  But when she spoke openly about abortion and abuse for Women of Faith, she was on her feet all day at her book table, “hugging women that were lined up.  I could see their faces, the ones that had had abortions….Just holding onto me…this glimmer of hope that they could finally be released.”

As she says, the Silent No More Awareness Campaign “creates a safe place for women to break their silence about the pain of abortion.”  But it doesn’t stop there.  True healing comes from Jesus Christ and a loving heavenly Father.

Joan Maloof has spent years teaching a special Bible study for post-abortive women, Forgiven and Set Free.  “I would say the number one consequence that women confess first is guilt…overwhelming guilt.”  She encourages pastors and churches to “address the abortion issue with compassion.  I think more people would come forward and receive healing.  Then those healed people would be a real tool in changing the hearts and minds of others.”

Jennifer agrees. “It is safe to say we all know someone who’s had an abortion, if not had one ourselves.  Invite them to consider that possibly many of the ills in their life—physical, emotional, spiritual—could have been born of that act of abortion. SNM Signs Then they can begin to heal.”  Acknowledging the source of our faith, she says, “Jesus died on the cross for all of our sins, not for just some of them….He can heal us.”

One woman, one sign, and one lonely night standing for truth.  God’s truth shines brighter, bringing hope and healing, thanks to the courage of the women of Silent No More.

 

RADIO:  Hear Georgette tell her story.

************************

Rachel Vineyard LogoRachel’s Vineyard is a ministry serving men and women and is dedicated to healing the pain of abortion.  In addition to the information available online, they offer a variety of programs including one-on-one personal support, DVD educational programs, newsletters and retreats.  Women and men who attend a Rachel’s Vineyard Weekend are also eligible to join their online community Companions on a Journey.

Follow the Money

“Follow the money,” was the memorable quote from All the President’s Men.  Deep Throat advised Bob Woodward that the key to understanding the Watergate mystery was the money.

May 6, 2013

Jane Jimenez

Jane Jimenez

Sex is a big industry in America.  Forget pornography.  Don’t even consider prostitution.

Leaving them aside, the sex industry permeates every detail of our life in America. If you want to understand much of the cultural war dealing with issues between the sexes, you will do well to understand the influence business has…and wants to have…in helping to shape our sexual ethics…and actions.

We can each make a short list of the more obvious and visible business profit motives:

  • Cher, Madonna and Lady Gaga, their music, their dress, and their public behaviors.Lady Gaga
  • Abercrombie and Fitch advertising campaigns featuring groups of half-dressed teens suggestively staged together in group hugs.
  • Abercrombie for Kids and its line of underwear for young girls with the sayings “Wink Wink” and “Eye Candy” screenprinted on them.
  • Publishers who fight for the right to publish Fifty Shades of Grey as a trilogy.  One story, three opportunities to profit.  Anyone want to predict Son of Fifty Shades?

But the most pernicious profits made in shaping the sexual ethics of our culture are made in industries you would not immediately think of.  These profits are pernicious because of the lies needed to cultivate and protect sexual products and habits that hurt men and women.

Consider the world of medicine.  In the purest sense, doctors, hospitals and drugs are supposed to serve the needs of people.  They are supposed to preserve and restore health.  For the most part, they do this job well.

But when health is tied to sexual behaviors, we enter a new realm where free sex becomes a direct path to free money.  As sexual behavior has exploded in our culture, so have profits.

PillThe first wave of profits washed up on America’s shore with the introduction in 1960 of “the Pill”. The key to liberation of human sexual behavior, Enovid manufactured by G.D.Searle was first introduced “for the benefit of married women” to help them “plan their pregnancies.”  By the end of 1961, 132 reports of thrombosis and embolism were filed, reports that included 11 deaths.

Approved as “safe and effective,” Enovid sales continued, as evidence of its Enoviddangers was shelved.  Barbara Seaman dedicated her career as a reporter to finding the evidence…by following the money…digging into reports, interviewing doctors and women, and attending hearings.

Evidence existed to indict the pill.  But, as Seaman remembers, “[it] was scattered in the international medical literature, was difficult to interpret, and was obscured by a mantle of  ‘diplomatic immunity’ granted the pill in response to fears of unchecked population growth.”  Seaman dogged the industry and compiled her evidence into an expose, The Doctors’ Case Against the Pill.

Seaman BkIn the 25th Anniversary Edition, Updated, feminist Gloria Steinem puts Seaman on a well-deserved pedestal. “Barbara Seaman is the first prophet of the women’s health movement and The Doctors’ Case Against the Pill is a prophecy that is still coming true.  By alerting us to the dangers of the high dose contraceptive pill, Seaman won drug labeling for all health consumers.  This 25th anniversary edition takes that model of empowerment into the future.”

That was just what Seaman had wanted.  “My goal was to pull together all the evidence on side effects, dramatize (or melodramatize) it as much as possible, and issue a plea for women’s informed consent.”  With her book, women would finally get the truth they deserved:  their “safe and effective” pill had ”over 50 potential side effects…linked to infertility, breast cancer, menstrual irregularities, and emotional disturbances.”

Money…lies…profits…this is a recipe for the kind of success some people think is fair game.  In his book Adverse Reactions, author Thomas Maeder, reveals the philosophy of Harry Loynd, once a president of Parke-Davis.  Loynd’s motto, loudly touted, was, “Pills are to sell, not to take.”  At sales meetings he boasted, “If we put horse manure in a capsule, we could sell it to 95 percent of these doctors.”

After 25 years, Seaman got praise from Gloria Steinem.  But in 1969, when The Doctors’ Case Against the Pill was published, Seaman suffered severe financial and legal attacks.  Planned Parenthood, in conjunction with drug industry companies, raised $100,000 for an injunction, attempting to kill publication of the book.

When Seaman’s book did hit the shelves, drug companies then killed her magazine connections.  Drug ad executives approached publishers with a do-or-die offer.  “Corporation X is launching a seven-and-a half-million-dollar campaign for its new diaper-rash ointment.”  Your magazine is our first choice for these ad dollars…except… “on the editorial side you have an individual [Seaman] who is hurting sales of our most important prescription drug.”

What was at stake?  For the women of America, their lives were at risk.  For drug companies, it was Dollar Signprofits.  By 1969, an estimated 12 to 15 million women were taking the pill.  At a time when teacher salaries were less than ten thousand, profits from the annual sale of more than 15 million pill bottles was a lot of money.  It still is.

The Doctors’ Case Against the Pill remains a riveting story about the David and Goliath size battle.  One fiercely determined woman wins against multi-million dollar corporations and their greed, lies and deceit.

BC Pill PkgsIn the 60’s, the contraceptive pill was an entirely new product.  Since then, the pill has spawned a whole arsenal of drugs and practices that promise us “free sex”:  Norplant, Depo Provera, emergency contraception, Plan B, abortion, Gardasil, and more…much more.

Think Seaman’s book has ended the stream of lies that conceal dangers to women and men related to our sexual practices?  Hardly.  The lies…and truth…are out there.  Just look for the money…and follow it.

***************************************

April 29, 2013:   Lies, Lies and Damned Lies

STAY CONNECTED…

From the Home Front is committed to shining the light on truth,exposing lies and deceit.  Future columns will address the full extent of the profiteering by companies promoting the “safe sex” message and culture.