Malaysia Airlines bans babies from first class

An international airline has banned infants from first class on its Boeing 747-400 jets. Malaysia Airlines' new rule comes after officials received several complaints from passengers, NBC affiliate WHEC-TV reports.

Travelers with babies will now have to book seats in business or economy class, which are equipped with bassinets.

Routes affected by the ban include long-haul flights from Kuala Lumpur to Amsterdam, London and Sydney.

In February, several airlines including British Airways and Virgin Atlantic were considering creating children-free flights.


I am 100% not a baby person. Yet, I think this ruling is over the top. Planes are public transportation. You by a ticket and you get on. If you got money for first class baby tickets go for it. You shouldn't be stopped just because your baby is loud. People need to be able to get from point a to B and should not be hindered just because they have to bring the baby along.

Amen!

Family Planning Saves $4 for every $1 Spent

Here is a MUST READ article about the real impact of family planning spending by the Federal Government put out by the Guttmacher Institute.

Some Factoids:

Publicly funded family planning services are highly cost-effective. More than nine in 10 women receiving them would be eligible for Medicaid-funded prenatal, delivery and postpartum care services if they became pregnant. Avoiding the significant costs associated with these unintended births saves taxpayers $4 for every $1 spent on family planning.

AND

By providing millions of young and low-income women access to voluntary contraceptive services, the national family planning program prevents 1.94 million unintended pregnancies, including almost 400,000 teen pregnancies, each year. These pregnancies would result in 860,000 unintended births, 810,000 abortions and 270,000 miscarriages, according to a new Guttmacher Institute report.

The GOP is trying to spin their cutting of Planned Parenthood and Title X as "austerity measures," but financially the math doesn't work out that way. What it really is, is anti-contraception and anti-woman base appeal. They said they were running to create jobs, but they have no "conservative" ideas that will generate job growth because "conservative" ideas simply expand the impact of a recession, see THE GREAT DEPRESSION for an idea as to how "conservatives" make recessions worse. Perhaps, a crazy person, might argue that by forcing women out of the work-force due to forced pregnancy, it will free up a job for a man, but that thinking was faulty in the 1930's, let alone today. Support Planned Parenthood, Support Title X by CALLING your representative in the house.

This

Disinformation Campaign Targeting African Americans and Planned Parenthood

There's a really good article up on Jezebel HERE about a disinformation campaign aimed at African Americans and Planned Parenthood to equate abortion with slavery and to suggest that African Americans are being targeted by Planned Parenthood for "elimination" through abortion. Planned Parenthood is being pro-active in trying to get the real statistics out, that African Americans account for 15% of their clients and that the general population of African Americans in the US is 13%, which is within the expected population range of use. Also, what stuck out at me is that the organization already has several well-regarded African American healthcare workers and health policy folks in their organization, so there isn't some sort of "white organization seeks leaders in black community" implication of this story--they are a highly diverse organization that seeks out people of many races and genders to do their good work as a matter of principal (and as a matter of greater effectiveness). Read the whole thing, but one other thing that really shocked me was a statistic about infant mortality: "The African-American infant mortality rate is more than twice that of white infants. College and graduate school-educated African-American mothers have a higher infant mortality rate than white mothers who didn't finish high school." You read that right, white high school dropouts are less likely to have their children die in the first year of life than a GRADUATE SCHOOL EDUCATED African American Woman. I'm not saying that high-school drop outs deserve to have their babies die, but education is linked to longevity, access to healthcare, general health, etc. Why are highly accomplished women of color experiencing infant death for their children more than would seem plausible? Gotta be racism...seriously, it has to be...unless somebody can prove to me that black babies are super delicate and white babies are made out of that airplane black box material that survives plane crashes...its gotta be racism.

Don't Let Republicans Re-define Rape

Disgusting, seriously disgusting. Shakesville shares resources to fight HR3 HERE and Amanda Marcotte once again lays it all out on the table HERE. The official (and seriously misleading title of the bill) is: “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act.” Here's the thing though, tax-payer funded abortions are already illegal, except in cases of rape, incest and life of the mother. This bill seeks to do a couple disgusting things: outlaws PRIVATE INSURANCE MONEY from covering abortion, therefore, if you are currently employed through your insurer, you might be covered for abortion services, but after this legislation, that would be banned. Secondly, it seeks to redefine RAPE to "forcible rape" which means that rape by intimidation, rape by drugging, rape by a superior, statutory rape, 'date' rape or acquaintance rape and pretty much any rape in which you weren't beaten nearly to death wouldn't count as rape at all. This also seeks to exclude the incest provision if you are over 18 and raping the mentally incompetent is totally hunky-dory as well. Over 9,000 women every year become pregnant from A REPORTED RAPE. Just let that sink in...how many women become pregnant and don't report the rape? We don't know, there can only be estimates.

Back to the first provision, banning private insurance from paying for abortion: most women who seek out an abortion pay out of pocket, afraid to leave a medical record of shame or that an abortion would get back to their employer, which is sad in and of itself, but when abortions are generally paid for by private insurance, they tend to be the more difficult, surgical abortions. The later term abortions and they are often had because the woman's life or health is in danger or because the fetus isn't viable. Those abortions can be very expensive and they are generally due to crummy luck. Often those are wanted pregnancies, but circumstances turn them into tragedies. Now, those tragedies get to bankrupt families because some self-righteous Republican perverts want to punish dirty sluts because that's their favorite way to pay back their rabid misogynistic base. This isn't about life, its about female sexuality being used as the whipping boy of the culture wars.

Update: Another excellent article breaking this situation down on Alternet, again by Amanda Marcotte, read it HERE.

Teens: Rhythm Method Causing More Pregnancies

Mike Stobbe writes " A growing number of teen girls in America say they use the rhythm method for birth control, and more teens also think it's OK for an unmarried female to have a baby, according to a government survey released Wednesday. "

We need to get a handle on sex education in America. Young women are risking their health out of stupidity.

Pregnant at 47: Can I do that?

Elizabeth Cohen, CNN Senior Medical Correspondent reports on pregancy in later life.

The key to this phenomena is
1. Money, about $16,000
2. Donor eggs
3. Healthy uterus

Celebs who fit in this category are:

• Actress Geena Davis had a baby at age 46,
• Actress Beverly D'Angelo at 49
• Actress Marcia Cross at 44
• Supermodel Iman at 45.
• Actress Holly Hunter had twins at 47.

If you are a regular person these are the facts:

1. Spontaneous pregnancy [rates for] someone 47 is VERY low . Your chances of conceiving naturally at that age are less than 5 percent each month, and the miscarriage rate in the first trimester is 70 to 80 percent.

2. Success with IVF at this age with patient's own eggs is practically unheard of.

3. 70 percent to 75 percent success rate when women in their mid- to late 40s use donor eggs.

4. It costs $20,000 to $30,000 per attempt to get pregnant with donor eggs at the New York University Fertility Center,.

Damnit Oklahoma!

So, Oklahoma has a new anti-abortion Bill up in the State legislature that not only seeks to force women to have vaginal ultrasounds (which can be triggering for rape victims and which are medically unnecessary) but that seeks to HAVE DOCTORS HIDE INFORMATION ABOUT FETAL ABNORMALITIES FROM PREGNANT WOMEN. Seriously....seriously!

So, not only does this Bill demand medically unnecessary procedures as a precondition for abortion, but it actually encourages medical malpractice--which hopefully will be its Achilles Heel if it does pass and will be overturned as Unconstitutional in Federal courts. But, this is another Bill pro-choice advocates will have to contest and spend large sums of money to legally defeat instead of advocating for greater access to abortion services and contraceptive services for women. If you live in Oklahoma (or not) contact your legislature to stop this Unconstitutional Bill before it becomes another expensive exercise in proving once again, that women and full human beings worthy of the ability to make their own choices (and have ALL the information) about their bodies and pregnancy. OK legislature page is HERE.

Furor over adopted boy sent back to Russia

This has really set back single women controlling their reproductive rights. Incidents like this limit the options women have in the pursuit of motherhood. Theologian has reported that that there are body mass restrictions on Chinese adoptions.

This one case has stopped over 1,600 adoption applications in Russia.

I am not pro-parenthood, but I think all people should be judged on their own merit and not on the actions of others in their demographic.

My heart goes out to all those parents who got the letter that their application is on hold due to this woman's actions.

Onion Video: It Would Be Funnier if This Video Weren't So Close to Reality

New Law Requires Women To Name Baby, Paint Nursery Before Getting Abortion

Elton John Cannot Adopt the Orphan Boy

The Ukrainian orphan Elton John wants to adopt will not go home with the singer and his longtime partner David Furnish, a Ukrainian family minister said Monday – citing a national law that prohibits unmarried couples from adopting, the Associated Press reports.

Ukrainian laws are very strict when it comes to adoption. Not only do the laws ban same-sex couples from adopting, they also state that the parents cannot be more than 45 years older than the child. Their only hope would be a presidential dispensation to take home 14-month-old Lev.

I am all for gay adoption. Kids need families so I think we should let family's be created. But I am down with the age law. I think a parent that is 45 years older then the kid is creating a situation of heartache. I don't think it is better to love and lose, then to never love at all.

Please note Elton John is 62.

Kourtney Kardashian: I Considered Having an Abortion

Kourtney Kardashian said:

“I definitely thought about it long and hard, about if I wanted to keep the baby or not, and I wasn’t thinking about adoption,” Kourtney, 30, told People Magazine.

After scouring the Internet, Kardashian says she started to realize that an abortion wasn't an option for her. "I was just sitting there crying, thinking, 'I can't do that,' " she says. "And I felt in my body, this is meant to be. God does things for a reason, and I just felt like it was the right thing that was happening in my life.

Kourtney adds, “For me, all the reasons why I wouldn't keep the baby were so selfish: It wasn't like I was raped, it's not like I'm 16. I'm 30 years old, I make my own money, I support myself, I can afford to have a baby. And I am with someone who I love, and have been with for a long time.

"My doctor told me there is nothing you will ever regret about having the baby, but he was like, 'You may regret not having the baby.' And I was like: That is so true.”

Well, I am glad Kourtney Kardashian kept it real and stated she went through a wide array of emotions and thoughts during this process. I feel that a lot of times in the Celebrity Bump watch the only emotion shown is I am so happy to have a baby.

Celine Dion Is Pregnant With Second Child at 41!

I am happy for Celine Dion pregnancy, but I think her money makes this an option. She did in vitro fertilization with her first child and most likely did it with the second child. I think for the average middle class woman this option is not trully available. Here is the list of things money provides Celine Dion:

1. The option of bed rest if it is a high risk pregancy.
2. The option of the best care medical care if she has a special needs child.
3. The money to try mutiple in vitro applications. They cost about $12,400 each try.

Reproductive Freedom

Now that women are coming out of the woodwork claiming to be Michael Jackson's Baby Mama, will it be necessary to prove maternity at the same rate that Maury Povich prove paternity via DNA test.

I believe in order to have true equal rights. Women have to be able to become just as negligent with their eggs as men to with their sperm. If not, we have to force men to be just as responsible for their spawn as the womb who carried it in the womb for 9 months.