Can we talk about Sandy Rios and why she sucks?

Have you watched the clip Sparky posted on Friday? If you haven't, watch it now. I'll wait.

Okay. So can we take a minute to talk about how incredibly fucked up the views espoused in the clip are?

If you watch the whole segment from FOX News, Sandy Rios, Vice President of Family PAC Federal, says some insane things that deserve more attention:

“Why in the world would you encourage your daughters, and your granddaughters, and whoever else comes behind you to have unrestricted, unlimited sex anytime, anywhere and that, somehow if you prevent pregnancy, that somehow you’ve helped them. I would submit to you that uncontrolled sexual behavior is what is harming our girls, not their lack of birth control — which by the way they don’t seem interested in taking anyway. Having a baby is not the worst thing. I think having multiple sex partners without any kind of restraint or responsibility is much more damning, why would you support that?”

So, this is a pretty popular, deeply embedded societal belief: If women take birth control, they WILL have wild promiscuous sex. If they have access to EC, they WILL abuse it and use it as a method of birth control. Why is our country so terrified of women having access to birth control? What is so threatening about the prospect of women being in control of their bodies?

Also - "Having a baby is not the worst thing." EXSQUEEZE ME? Having an unwanted child seems like a pretty bad option, for both the mother and child. Instead, Rios demonizes women who have multiple sexual partners, saying that is much worse. So it's better to have sex and have babies, versus have sex? .......................What?

“Is the White House out of their mind? Does the West Wing not know what the left wing is doing? We’re $14 trillion in debt and now we’re going to cover birth control, breast pumps, counseling for abuse? Are we going to do pedicures and manicures as well?”

:LSKDJFDSL:KFNDSKBGFHJKFJGKFHDJH

I like how birth control, which in the long run will save the country billions per year, breast pumps, which have proven to improve the health of the mother and the child (thus also has long term savings benefits), and counseling for abuse survivors somehow equates to a completely frivolous, unnecessary purchase like a manicure.

And what is with her complete dismissal of abuse survivors? Statistically, she knows someone who has been abused. Therapy is fucking expensive. If you are lucky enough to have insurance, it probably doesn't cover the full cost of each session, which in metropolitan areas easily runs $150 for a 45 minute session, so it can add up quickly. If you don't have insurance, good luck paying for that. $150 4x or 2x a month? Forget it. Free counseling for abuse survivors is a completely awesome service. I'm sure Rios prefers our society's traditional method of Shame & Silence. I'll just stay with my husband and he can keep beating me, NBD. :/