GOP Conspiracy to Commit Rape

New Anti-Obamacare Ads Depict Creepy Gyno Exams To Scare College Students Into Going Uninsured

BY TARA CULP-RESSLER ON SEPTEMBER 19, 2013 AT 11:40 AM

In one ad, “Uncle Sam” leers over a young woman with a speculum

Republican efforts to block Obamacare have taken shape in several different forms. On the federal level, lawmakers repeatedly threaten to cast votes to defund and delay the health law. On the state level, lawmakers are doing their best to impede the law’s new insurance marketplaces, which are set to roll out next month. And as a “grassroots” strategy, Obamacare opponents hope they can simply convince Americans to forgo signing up for health insurance altogether.

A new campaign by Generation Opportunity, a conservative group that Yahoo News reports has “financial ties to billionaire businessmen and political activists Charles and David Koch,” is taking this third approach. Generation Opportunity wants to specifically target college students this fall, spending up to $750,000 on a campaign to convince young people they don’t need health insurance.

“What we’re trying to communicate is, ‘No, you’re actually not required to buy health insurance,’ ” Generation Opportunity’s president, Evan Feinberg,explained in an interview with Yahoo News. “You might have to pay a fine, but that’s going to be cheaper for you and better for you.”

How does Generation Opportunity want to get that message across to college students? They’re planning a college tour, bringing anti-Obamacare literature and beer coozies emblazoned with the words “opt out” to 20 different campuses. And they’re also unveiling an ad campaign that features an unsettling image of “Uncle Sam” appearing in the doctor’s office to subject young adults to invasive exams.

In the first ad, a young woman explains she’s just signed up for Obamacare. She’s led to an exam room and appears to be preparing to have a Pap smear. A figure dressed as Uncle Sam emerges from between her legs. In the final scene, Uncle Sam is shown holding a speculum, the instrument gynecologists typically use to collect a cervical sample.

In the second ad, a similar situation unfolds with a young man who appears to be about to receive a prostate exam. He is told to take off his pants, and Uncle Sam appears behind him.

Generation Opportunity’s ads attempt to convey that Obamacare is a government overreach by suggesting that it will subject Americans to invasive exams. That falls in line with the new conservative myth that the health law will force doctors to ask their patients private questions about their sex lives, which has been stirring up controversy in the right-wing blogosphere this week.

Obamacare does not actually mandate any specific changes in the way that doctors conduct sexual health exams. Ironically, it’s actually Republican policies that threaten to subject female patients to state-mandated vaginal probes. Under forced ultrasound laws — an increasingly popular type of abortion restriction that seeks to enact additional barriers to the procedure — women are required to have a medical procedure regardless of whether their own doctor actually thinks it’s necessary. For very early abortion procedures, when an invasive transvaginal ultrasound is the only way to detect a clear image, that means women seeking abortions may need to undergo a probe.

This isn’t the first “grassroots” effort to try to convince young Americans that they don’t need health coverage. The right-wing group FreedomWorks has been urging young adults to burn their “Obamacare draft cards,” likening going uninsured to resisting the military draft during the Vietnam War. Nonetheless, several recent studies have found that young adults say they want to sign up for insurance under the health law.

UPDATE

Planned Parenthood is condemning the new ads. “It is hard to tell if this is real or if it’s a ‘Saturday Night Live’ parody about the hypocrisy of extremists who want to be in every exam room in America but don’t want to expand access to quality health care,” Eric Ferroro, the group’s vice president for communications, said in a statement. “These videos are the height of hypocrisy.”

As More Young Americans Are Using Birth Control, Teen Births Have Hit A New Record Low

As More Young Americans Are Using Birth Control, Teen Births Have Hit A New Record Low

BY TARA CULP-RESSLER ON SEPTEMBER 6, 2013 AT 8:59 AMThe U.S. teen birth rate has hit its lowest point in the entire 

73 years that the government has been collecting the data, 

according to a new report from the National Center for 

Health Statistics. Researchers say that’s partly because more 

youth are now opting to use effective forms of birth control.

In 2012, there were 29.4 births for every thousand Americans 

teens between the ages of 15 and 19. That represents a six percent

 drop from the year before — and fits into a larger pattern of 

declining teen births across the country. The teen birth rate has 

been steadily falling since 1991. At this point, there are less than 

half the number of children born to teenage mothers than there were 

in 1970, when the teen birth rate hit its peak.

Dr. John Santelli, a professor of population and family health 

at Columbia University who was not connected to the government 

study, told NBC Newsthat the 2012 figures represent “a considerable 

one year drop.” But Santelli also noted that isn’t because there’s 

been much change in teenagers’ sexual activity over the past decade. 

There aren’t fewer adolescents having sex, and there aren’t an increased 

number of abortions being performed.

“What we have seen is greater availability of much more effective 

birth control methods,” Santelli explained. Particularly as more 

medical professionals have been recommending 

long-lasting forms of contraception to their teenage patients, 

Santelli believes more adolescents have been able to take 

effective steps to avoid pregnancy.

“This stunning turnaround in teen birth represents one of the 

nation’s great success stories of the past two decades,

” Bill Albert, the chief program officer at the National Campaign 

to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, told U.S. News & World Report. 

“This report shows that significant progress can and has been made 

on a very challenging social problem that many once considered both 

unsolvable and inevitable.”

Although the national teen birth rate continues to set new record 

lows, there are still significant regional disparities within the 

United States. States in the South, which tend to 

lack adequate sexual health instruction in public schools, 

still have stubbornly high teen birth rates. While some states 

are slowly moving away from abstinence-only education in order 

to attempt to change that, conservatives still tend to

 resist efforts to expand sexual health resources for teens.

Ultimately, though, teaching youth about birth control

 isn’t a controversial policy. The vast majority of Americans 

support expanding comprehensive sex ed — particularly after 

they see the direct results. In California, for example, teen births

 plunged by 60 percent after the state invested more resources 

in sexual health education.

EXCLUSIVE: NEW TEXAS FEMALE ANATOMY CHART

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