Jesus, but what is it with wingnuts and their crackpot scientific theories totally bizarre-o world ideas about how women’s bodies work? I just saw this item (h/t to Wonkette) and I want to scream.
Without further ado:
Women are worse off with contraception because it suppresses and disables who they are, Pedulla said.
“Part of their identity is the potential to be a mother,” Pedulla said. “They are being asked to suppress and radically contradict part of their own identity, and if that wasn’t bad enough, they are being asked to poison their bodies.”
Studies show that women using contraceptives consider pregnancy more unwanted than wanted, he said.
Ummm … DUH!!! That’s the point of being on contraception, you idiot!!!
“Studies show”? Really, you needed a study for that? And this is how you conclude that motherhood is “a natural part of women’s identities?” Seriously? You can just stuff that crap where the sun don’t shine, genius.
This brilliance all came from one Dr. Dominic Pedulla, who requested legislation in Oklahoma banning the Obamacare contraception mandate. The damn thing probably isn’t even legal but he found a like-minded nimrod named Senator Clark Jolley to write one up. This being Oklahoma, of course, it passed the committee and will go to the full state Senate.
Pedulla is supposedly a cardiologist but I looked him up and he actually works at one of those varicose vein centers where rich ladies go to get their legs restored to youthful beauty. He also started something called the Edith Stein Foundation, because he apparently cares about women’s dignity, but actually he just really really really hates birth control. From the Edith Stein Foundation website:
In 1968, an Italian scholar predicted that if contraception were to become a cultural norm, four things would result: a general lowering of moral standards, an increase in promiscuousness and infidelity, a rise in the disrespect men have for women, and the coercive use of reproductive technologies by governments. Strikingly, in the more than forty years since that portentous prognosis, all four of these have been realized. Social science not only shows it, but is showing the connection between a contraceptive culture and the social maladies of our day.
What’s more, medical research has shown and is continuing to show the far reaching ill effects of all methods of contraception. Not many people have heard about the 1968 predictions, and the growing body of evidence against contraceptives. For the dignity and health of women, this has got to stop. This is where the Edith Stein Foundation comes in to educate, advocate, research, connect, and heal.
So in short, contraception is evil. We get it. He doesn’t mention who this “Italian scholar” is, but I’d bet anything he’s talking about Pope Paul VI, who issued an encyclical against birth control in 1968.
I love the Edith Stein Foundation’s “Mission Statement”:
To advocate the dignity of women through fostering a non-contraceptive culture.
Sure, ’cause nothing says “dignity” like some man telling me what’s good for me.
Fuck you, “Dr.” Pedulla. I don’t need you to tell me what my identity is. I’ve got a pretty good handle on that with no help from you. What absolute gall you have to try to wrap your antiquated, oppressive views about women in some kind of feminist package. We aren’t that stupid.
Southern Beale 
omg. stunning.
I love it. These old coots want to climb into our uteruses and declare them ‘just fine’ for all the fetuses we can possibly carry around….and deliver…but they do not bother to advise all us poor dears how to FEED, clothe, educate all these children without ANY help from these ignorant MEN. I was so glad I learned about ‘the pill’, when I was 20…a Navy wife with 3 little ones…and 5 years later I decided to have another…but we struggled to raise all 4…money-wise. I am so glad I refused to listen to all those priests, etc, back in the day and I embraced the pill as a gift!!!
How is having children you don’t want good for anyone’s dignity?
Silly! There’s no such thing as “having children you don’t want!” With the vaginal equipment comes the biological imperative to be a mommy!!!! ALL vaginal-humans want lots and lots of baybeeez! It’s in our DNA!
my ob-gyn once told me that some women want more children than others -that some don’t want any, while some can’t seem to have enough. he said it differs from woman to woman. at the time i thought, “duh,” because i thought that was so self-evident. now i realize how rare a view that is. how can anybody not realize that?
“ALL vaginal-humans want lots and lots of baybeeez! It’s in our DNA
And it’s the job of every man, ‘specially high paid athletes, politicians and big deal business honchos to offer their daddybaby services to all and sundry womenfolk what needs their manjuicieness. All they have to do is the “makin” baby part, no ongoing maintenance required.
There really should be a better term than “fucking asshole troglodyte piece-of-shit misogynist bastard” to describe people like Pedrooler but it will have to do for now.
I love your flowery or should I say ‘de-flowering’ language. It made me smile.
You realize that by this same philosophy, all men must do it to all women all the time so the women can meet their divine destiny and men can fulfill their divine directive. What a deal!
Interesting how the org is named after St. Teresia Benedicta (Edith Stein) – former Jew (converted to RC) and a holocaust survivor. I would have thought they would prefer St. Gianna Beretta Molla who was an Italian physician who was so opposed to abortion she died in childbirth when she was told the fetus would kill her.
Edith Stein was a nun, and so it’s hard to imagine how she could be any authority on procreation or parenting… (The Wiki article about her mentions nothing about her views on contraception either.)
But no one ever said these wingnuts made sense.
Just a correction, Stein was not a Holocaust survivor. She was killed at Auschwitz, and her canonization by Pope JPII was controversial as a result: some opponents said she was martyred because of her Jewish birth, not her Catholic faith, and did not qualify.
I looked over some of her writings and I didn’t see any that talked about family planning or birth control. She was a feminist, though, and advocated for allowing women into the priesthood. Looks to me like Pedulla is a Catholic zealot who’s trying to package his outdated, misogynist ideas as some kind “women’s liberation” movement. Not the first time, heck the Tea Party tried to pretend they were the new hippies. Love how the far right fringe always feels the need to co-opt the cultural success of the left.
But I’m not really all that familiar with her. She might have written or said something anti-contraception at some point, but I sure didn’t see it anywhere.
Hijacking Catholic saints seems to be the latest thing. http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/02/gabriel-possenti-patron-saint-handguns
dear god. why did you have to ruin my blissful ignorance with THAT???
Italian scholar, 45 years ago:a general lowering of moral standards, an increase in promiscuousness and infidelity, a rise in the disrespect men have for women.
Was this to be compared to (my admittedly superficial take on) Italian norms? I mean, we could play all day with how the Stein Foundation doesn’t seem to know much about Italia. Have they even learned the stereotypes, from Fellini to Berlusconi?
My own worst copyeditor:
Read “Did the American conservatives learn anything about Italian (stereotypical) cultural norms before going all-in co-opting this Italian scholar’s work from almost a half century ago?”
It’s not even a stereotype. When I was in Italy in the early ’80s we were routinely molested on public transportation. Once we were chased through Rome by 4 guys in a car as we were walking home from an early dinner — it was only 8 pm. And we didn’t dress like sluts so no, we weren’t “asking for it.” We were just female.
Italy seems to have gotten a lot better in that regard, or perhaps it’s because I’ve gotten older and am less attractive than I was in my 20s, but either way, the horrible way the Italians treated women kept me away from that country for 20 years. Shit, Greece was a hundred times better.
Looks like we cross-posted; I didn’t read your bit before I posted my re-edit of mine.
Thanks for clearing that up; I asked because I know you’re a woman who’s been to the Mediterranean, and I don’t get east of Maine.
What’s funny in terms of the “dressed like sluts” stuff is that the Italian women DID dress like sluts. Mini skirs, 6-inch heels, low cut tops. And they were left alone. I think the fact that we were obviously American had a lot to do with how we were treated. We were told American girls had a reputation for being “easy.”
Speaking of stereotypes, I thought European men were supposed to appreciate grown-up women (i.e. women who look like they’re over 30).
Or is that just something I latched on because European actresses are cast in roles where their characters \have sex lives after they can no longer play 30?