Last week, Donald Trump was asked a question about whether he was going to limit access to contraception if elected for a second term. His answer made everyone freak the f**k out. The Trump-is-coming-after-your-birth-control-pill fallout was so swift (and so clearly good for Biden), that that he issued an ALL CAPS clarification on social media: “I HAVE NEVER, AND WILL NEVER ADVOCATE IMPOSING RESTRICTIONS ON BIRTH CONTROL, or other contraceptives.” I’m going to forgive him for not realizing that birth control and contraceptives mean the same thing. Many people use the phrase birth control to mean the pill, and I think it’s good that he even recognizes there are other options. (Of course, we know from Stormy’s testimony that he’s not big… on condoms.) I’m even going to believe him when he says he has no personal intentions of imposing restrictions on birth control. The man who once called coming out of the 80’s without an STD his private Vietnam War has clearly needed birth control in his life. Grabbing pussies can’t knock anyone up, but birth control is advisable when cheating on Wife #1 with soon-to-be Wife #2 or on Wife #3 with a porn star. You’d also think he’d want to protect his supposed fortune from any accidental heirs. Birth control helps with that too. (I’m almost surprised that we haven’t had a paternity challenge yet, but can you imagine finding out at this point in history that this grotesque human being provided half of your DNA?) I think Donald Trump likes birth control. I’m betting he likes abortion too (hell, it may be the reason we haven’t seen any paternity challenges yet). But make no mistake, the people he puts in power do not like birth control. He’s stacked the federal judiciary with anti-abortion, anti-contraception, Comstock-loving prudes. Matthew Kacsmaryk alone has tried to get rid of mifepristone (because far right doctors might have to interact with a woman who took it), birth control for minors in Texas (because one father worried his daughters might ask for it someday), and all free preventative care (because one employer didn’t want to pay for gay men to protect themselves against HIV). It's not just judges. In his first (and pray only) term, the Department of Health and Human Services was staffed by numerous people who didn’t believe in providing access to contraception. The head of Office of Refugee Resettlement wanted to dismantle the Title X contraceptive program or at least make women who used it promise they’d never get an abortion. A legal advisor to the Secretary openly believed that emergency contraception and IUDs cause abortion despite science saying otherwise. And Valerie Huber, who spent her career championing keeping your legs crossed as the only sure-fire method of contraception, was put in charge of the nation’s family planning program. I have no doubt that Donald Trump’s second term would gut contraceptive access in the country, not because he gives a s**t, but because the people riding his coattails want to control women, and they blame the pill for everything from divorce to the existence of homosexuality (ancient Greece be damned). At best, Trump will leave the decisions up to the states, and we know how it goes for women in much of the country. There is another reason to be freaking out about his original contraception comments, however, and I fear it’s getting lost in topic-specific discussions. The man has no idea what he’s talking about, ever. His original comment wasn’t about contraception at all. Sure, he was asked whether he would support restrictions on contraception, but his answer could have been about anything:
This is either the answer of the kid who didn’t read the book before the teacher called on him or the octogenarian who can’t remember what a book is right that second and is trying to cover it up. He’s given similar answers multiple times during this third campaign for the country’s highest job. In April, he told us he had strong views on mifepristone that he would share “next week.” That month, he also promised a strong opinion on the Comstock Act in “14 days.” He’s even said he has a strong view on whether we should defend Taiwan from a Chinese attack, but declined to share them because “only stupid people are going to give it away.” Donald Trump hasn’t known what he’s talking about in years. He was never well-versed in domestic or foreign issues, his sentences make no sense, and these days he sometimes forgets how to speak in the middle of sentence. The man clearly has dementia. His answers are vague because he’s not sharp enough to do better. It’s possible that he just couldn’t remember what his handlers wanted him to say about birth control, but it’s equally as likely that he couldn’t remember whether mifepristone was the abortion pill or a small island nation. So he uses a lot of words to say absolutely nothing, which should indeed freak us all the f**k out. Stepford Senator Introduces Bill Riddled with MisinformationIn another case of people freaking out at the right thing for the wrong reasons, the media was abuzz a few weeks ago with fears that Senator Katie Britt’s bill was going to force pregnant women to register with the government. A registry straight out of A Handmaid’s Tale is certainly something we’d expect from the Alabama Republican who delivered the party’s melodramatic State of the Union rebuttal from her kitchen table (just where Butker wants her). The Senator, who was nearly in tears at the godless state of the country in which she’s raising her kids, gave Gilead vibes for sure, but her bill is not quite Atwoodian. The MOMS (More Opportunities for Moms to Succeed) Act creates a “clearinghouse of relevant resources available for pregnant and postpartum women, and women parenting young children,” and offers grants to entities across the country that provide care and services to pregnant and parenting women. Ignoring for a minute that the whole thing is limited to women when we know that not everyone who gets pregnant identifies as a woman and that men should and do parent young children as well, there are some interesting ideas in here. Some of the grants would be used to provide general health services including obstetrics and gynecological services, primary care, dental care, and breastfeeding help. Other funds would be earmarked specifically for getting equipment such as at-home fetal monitors to pregnant women in medically underserved areas as a way to improving maternal and infant health outcomes and reduce maternal mortality. We need this, especially now as already underserved communities are losing doctors who don’t want to go to jail for providing medically necessary emergency care to pregnant patients. Britt’s home state may run out of women’s health care providers in the not-so-distant future. Apparently, applications to OB/GYN residency programs in Alabama were down 21% this year. Unfortunately, it’s all a ruse. This isn’t about funding legitimate health care providers to offer much-needed services; the bill is about making a Far-Right vision of maternal health care a reality. As such, it also supports adoption agencies and goes after biological fathers for child support from the date of conception. Under this vision, funded agencies could offer abortion pill reversal (a procedure that does not exist), but not the abortion pill itself. Why? Because organizations that actually provide abortion or even counsel women that abortion is a possibility are ineligible for these grants. A main goal of the legislation seems to be codifying anti-abortion language into our federal laws. The bill rewrites existing code to insert the phrase “unborn child” in every place where the term child originally appeared. It defines the “unborn child” as “a member of the species homo sapiens, at any stage of development, who is carried in the womb.’’ I, for one, am glad we cleared up the species issue, but this is really just fetal personhood language starting at conception, and that’s dangerous. As for the pregnancy.gov website that caused the registry rumors, it, too, is a Far-Right version of what could have been a good idea. Again, no agency that provides abortion or counsels about abortion could be included as a resource. Instead, the clearinghouse is supposed to focus on comprehensive alternatives to abortion; information about abortion risks, including complications and failures; and links to information on child development from moment of conception. The website would allow visitors to enter personal information, including their location, so that they could receive additional resources from HHS, but Britt promises that registering with the site is optional. I wouldn’t volunteer information about my uterus to any government entity right now, but I don’t think the intent was to follow women and make sure they’re breeding by the rules. Trump’s Reich (his word, not mine) might turn it into that if they get elected, but for now we can focus on the fact that it’s just a bunch of anti-abortion horses**t. Sorry Katie, that’s not how it f**king works. Luckily, Democrats control the Senate, and the MOMS Act will not go far. Britt also co-sponsored a bill that promises to protect IVF. Read Jessica Valenti’s explanation of why it really doesn’t on Abortion Every Day, another snarky and informative Substack. Study Find Microplastics In TesticlesA new study found that men and dogs share a common and most definitely unwanted feature—plastic in their testicles. No, we’re not talking about neuticals, the ball-replacements designed to make sure your neutered Bullmastiff still has that manly swing. We’re talking tiny little pieces of plastic from the chemicals in our environment that make their way into the testes. Researchers have been studying microplastics for years, and these substances have been found all over the human body from the brain to the bloodstream to the lungs. They’ve also been found in semen, so the fact that a new study finds them in testicles is not surprising. Still, it adds to concerns about the impact of our environment on reproduction. For the study, researchers from the University of New Mexico examined the testicles of 23 humans and 47 dogs. (Dog testicles were provided fresh by the local vet who takes them out pretty routinely. Human testicles were from cadavers ages 16 to 88.) Apparently, spermatogenesis in dogs more closely matches the human process than lab rats’ spermmaking does. Also, dogs live in our homes, so they are exposed to many of the same chemicals we are (though one researcher pointed out that dogs rarely drink from plastic water bottles). To determine how much plastic was in each testicle, the researchers weighed and measured the ball and then dissolved the biological tissue leaving only solids. About 75% of the solids that remained were determined to be microplastics. One expert described these as “shard-like stabby bits.” Ouch. There is good reason to believe that microplastics are bad for our reproductive health, but science has yet to determine exactly what they do to us or what health issues they cause. When it comes to reproduction, microplastics might mess with hormones during fetal development, they might cause cancer, or they might lead to damaging inflammation. And—because of all of this—they might be the culprit behind mankind’s well-documented decreasing sperm counts. The researchers did find that sperm count was lower in those dog balls that also had higher rates of PVC (one chemical in microplastics), but correlation does not mean causation. Moreover, similar studies couldn’t be done on the homo sapien samples because they were, well, too dead to have a sperm count. We are surrounded by plastics and are just starting to learn the ways in which this might be harmful to our bodies. Previous research has confirmed, for example, that phthalates, another kind of microplastic, decrease sperms’ ability to swim and messes with their heads (not in an emotional way) causing fragmented DNA. This study adds to the growing sense that microplastics are impacting our reproduction, but it will take more research to figure out how. As one expert told NPR, "Having something unnatural like that in the testes is not particularly good news for good reproductive health." While science figures it out, we could all limit our exposure to plastics by skipping bottled water, skipping take-out food, and not microwaving anything in plastic containers. No one, however, is suggesting that we microwave our testicles Tucker Carlson-style. Take Oova’s Menopause and Perimenopause SurveyA few months ago, I interviewed Amy Divaraniya who started Oova, a company that offers hormone tests for fertility and perimenopause, after her own experience with infertility taught her just how much she didn’t know. Now the company wants to learn even more. Oova is conducting a survey on menopause and perimenopause. They want to hear from menstruating people whether you’re in between hot flashes or still getting an annoyingly regular period (or both). Take the survey here. Sex on Wednesday is free today. But if you enjoyed this post, you can tell Sex on Wednesday that their writing is valuable by pledging a future subscription. You won't be charged unless they enable payments.
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One Word: Plastics
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