Pregnancy Tests In Bars... Because Preventing Pregnancy Is "Social Engineering" -- You May Now Facepalm

State Senator Pete Kelly is the co-chair of the Alaska Senate Finance Committee and he has a mission. He wants to wipe out fetal alcohol disorders in his state. A lofty goal and a good one. But his implementation needs some work.

Sen. Pete Kelly thinks that women shouldn’t drink if they are pregnant and studies back him up. But here’s how he plans to stop it: pregnancy tests in bars. That’s right. Every woman should be able to grab a pregnancy test off the counter next to the beer nuts (or in the bathroom — he’s not real clear). As Sen. Pete Kelly says:

“You grab one. Literally, you can go into the bathroom at the bar and test. So if you’re drinking, you’re out at the big birthday celebration and you’re like, ‘Gee, I wonder if I …?’ You should be able to go in the bathroom and there’s that plastic, Plexiglas bowl in there and that’s part of the public relations campaign too. Is you’re going to have some kind of card on there with a message.” (source)

Well, sure! Because what woman doesn’t want to discover she’s pregnant in the bathroom of a bar? And what about the bars — do they want a bowl of pregnancy tests hanging out next to the Budweiser sign? Sen. Kelly says that he’s given them a “heads up” and that the program will be voluntary… at first. Then it might become part of licensing. That should go over well.

But why wait until a woman may possibly be pregnant? Why not set condoms out, too? You know, preventative measures. Oh, no. Sen. Pete Kelly doesn’t like that idea!

“No. Because the thinking is a little opposite. This assumes that if you know (you are pregnant) you’ll act responsibly. Birth control is for people who don’t necessarily want to act responsibly.”  (source)

And now we come down to it. This is just one more shot in the Republican war on women. Because we poor, brainless ladies just can’t act responsibly. We need those big, strong men to show us the way. That the use of birth control actually is responsible is a fact lost on Sen. Kelly. because…

“… That’s about a level of social engineering that we don’t want to get into. All we want to do is make sure people are informed. They’ll make the right decision.” (source)

So, using birth control is “social engineering?” Sounds like Sen. Kelly is just making an excuse so he doesn’t accidentally tell the reporter from the Anchorage Daily News that he, Sen. Pete Kelly, is a misogynist.

Elsewhere in the interview, Sen. Pete Kelly talks about the “Natural Responders” part of his program. These are people — it’s assumed to be women –who will intervene in the life of any woman who may be pregnant and, possibly, drinking. These responders will operate in the community and in the high schools. How will these people be recruited? Ah, here is where we spot Sen. Kelly’s underlying assumptions:

“We’re going to find those people (with the help of the First Alaskans Institute) and then encourage them … They can become part of something and go out and start finding these people and saying, ‘Hey look, you’re drinking, you’re of child-bearing age,’ or ‘We know you’re having unprotected sex, you’ve got to stop doing that.’” (emphasis mine) (source)

And if that doesn’t work?

“… we can then guide them into the system where there are some therapeutic beds where they can stay and we can attend to them through the health and social services department while they are pregnant.” (source)

Because those Injun women just can’t leave that firewater alone. And they obviously can’t be trusted to take care of themselves, so the state will do it for them. I thought the GOP was the party that hated the “nanny state” stuff? Oh, that’s right — it’s okay when it’s something they want.

So, to sum up: Sen. Pete Kelly is against providing birth control to low-income Inuit women. But he’s perfectly okay with spending millions of dollars to make sure that they check to see if they’re pregnant before drinking. He wants to recruit an army of busybodies who will insinuate themselves into the lives of Native women. He wants to be able to put any women who object into hospitals to take care of them until they deliver. On the state’s dime.

Of course, Alaska hasn’t got on board with the Medicaid expansion. Considering that the pregnancy rates for Alaskan girls 15-17 is 25%, that might want to rethink that. The infant mortality rate among Alaska Native Indians is 8.5%, which is almost twice the rate as among white women. This, too, could be positively impacted by expanding Medicaid. But the Republicans in Alaska’s legislature would rather make their constituents suffer just to spite President Obama and his “socialist” health care.

But let’s be honest, here. Sen. Pete Kelly really doesn’t care about women. He apparently is concerned about fetal alcohol syndrome and that’s great. But his reasoning on how to deal with it is faulty, to say the least. We all know that it would be much better — and work better — if contraceptives were free and easily available. But, gosh, that would only encourage those irresponsible women to have sex. I guess Sen. Pete Kelly forgot that it takes an irresponsible man to cause a pregnancy, too.

Sen. Pete Kelly is just the latest misogynistic Republican to take a shot in the GOP war on women. Remember this, ladies, next November. We can get rid of these men by voting them out. Register, vote and tell your friends to do the same. Enough of this!