Yes, that’s a live cow being rolled by a forklift.

Video captured during the investigation of a leading California slaughterhouse shows “downed” cattle (animals too sick or injured to stand) being shocked repeatedly in their rectums, rolled by forklifts, jabbed in the eyes, and shot in the nose with high-intensity water sprays in an attempt to make them stand for inspection.

“These were not rogue employees secretly doing these things,” the investigator said in a telephone interview on the condition of anonymity because he hopes to infiltrate other slaughterhouses. “This is the pen manager and his assistant doing this right in the open.”

In addition to the blatant cruelty of using torture to try to make the animals stand, these efforts pose a serious public health crisis. At least 12 of the 15 documented cases of Mad Cow Disease in North America were reportedly in downed cattle. They have also often been laying in feces, which contributes to the risk of E. coli and salmonella contamination.

And where is this meat going? Why, to the school lunch program, of course:

Over the past five years, Westland has sold about 100 million pounds of frozen beef, valued at $146 million, to the Agriculture Department’s commodities program, which supplies food for school lunches and programs for the needy, according to federal documents.

A little more regulation of the meat industry may be in order, no?

Senators in Indiana and Pennsylvania are trying to pass bills that would allow pharmacists to “conscientiously object” to filling birth control prescriptions.

So, uh… since when are the decisions my doctor and I make about my personal reproductive health any of my pharmacist’s business? How many goddamn hoops should women have to jump through for a little control over their own reproduction?

In other news, the birth control pill evidently reduces the risk of developing ovarian cancer. Groovy.

If you were to ask a conservative man what he would do if someone restrained him and forcefully extracted his bone marrow, his answer would probably make mention of a veritable arsenal kept in his cabinet. He’d likely feel perfectly justified in killing any assailant who would dare to make any use of his body whatsoever without his consent. Whether or not the assailant needed the marrow to save his life would make very little difference.

Why? Because we have a unique right to our own bodies. If anyone wants something of them, they go through us. As much as our homes and property mean to us, the right to ownership over things is nothing compared to our right to bodily autonomy. This is why rape is rape and not ‘theft of sexual services.’ It’s why we don’t draft organ donors or force the population to relinquish a pint of blood every eight weeks. It’s also why forcing pregnancy is illegal and abortion isn’t.

The “pro-life” method of getting around this is claiming that pregnancy and motherhood are the natural purpose of women, and therefore a blessing, regardless of the circumstances. It’s bullshit. Anyone with any respect at all for women knows that each of us have our own hopes and goals in our lives, and sometimes they just don’t include pregnancy or children. For some women, it’s the ultimate joy in life, and for some of us it isn’t. Telling a woman facing an unwanted pregnancy that pregnancy is pregnancy and therefore a blessing is like telling a rape victim that sex is sex.

Here’s the bottom line: whatever the moral dilemma over humanity, personhood, and what that means for a fetus, women have the right to abortion because they have a right to decide what resides in and lives off of their bodies. Many pro-choicers* do in fact see a moral crisis in aborting a late term fetus that may have the capacity for feeling, but they understand that the law shouldn’t force someone to do ‘the right thing’ when it would effectively destroy their basic human rights.

*Even Amanda Marcotte, scourge of the religious right, sees a moral issue with killing a sentient fetus. It just doesn’t mean that women’s rights can be instantly negated.

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If you’re a man and you’ve had a lover terminate a pregnancy, Greg Hasek is a licensed counselor who knows how to make you suffer.

First, he’ll tell you to draw a picture of what your child would look like today if he hadn’t been killed.
Nothing yet? On goes the sentimental music. Tears in Heaven, maybe.
“Guys can’t withstand it,” Hasek says. You might start to weep.
But if you’re still not feeling it (or as Hasek would put it, “still in denial” about the abortion’s impact), he might take you to a playground and tell you to imagine how old your child would be, how he might run around and play with the other kids - if he were here.

The non-medical term for this is ‘messing with your head’; the medical one is malpractice. Therapists like Hasek (who happens to be the executive director of an Oregon clinic) are in a position of power and trust in relation to their clients, and when they coerce feelings of loss, they can easily make them a reality.

And this is how you create a “Post-Abortion Syndrome” man to rally for your cause: you create the image of a wonderful (born) son or daughter, you encourage the man to feel connected and entitled to it, and then you convince him that he’s “lost” this imaginary child. In other words, you use your psychological expertise to create an unquenchable desire for something that has never and can’t ever exist. Men like Hasek have formed a profession around cultivating pain under the guise of “healing.”

This isn’t anything new, of course - “post-abortive” counselors working with pro-life organizations have been using similar tactics for years to turn shaken women into self-proclaimed repentant murderers. But getting your significant other to regret your abortion is a relatively new trick. Let’s hope these people never hook up with the Dog Whisperer; they might be able to get your poodle to regret your abortion, too.