SharQubus

Obama promised to ‘return science to its rightful place’. So why is he breaking that promise with restrictions on emergency contraception?

By Hadley Freeman | The Guardian

The Republican party’s self-serving and dangerous disregard of science has been a rash on the American government for some time, one that blistered into a seeping sore under George W Bush’s administration. Bush politicised science the way he politicised religion, two acts that have no place in an enlightened and democratic society. Needless to say, these two acts frequently overlapped, with the Bush administration repeatedly ignoring the advice of scientists about the prevention of sexually transmitted diseases and teenage pregnancies – promoting unrealistic chastity programmes instead – as much as he did about climate change.

In the early days of his presidency, President Obama repeatedly cited this massive failing of the previous administration as a point of difference, promising to “return science to its rightful place” in his inaugural speech. Last week, he broke that promise, badly.

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This is a really good read that, after complaining about how this latest decision reflects how badly Obama has politcised science (just like his Republican predecessor), goes on to talk about this study which shows how little difference there is between statements from Men’s magazines and convicted rapists and also how women in the media talk about each other. I’ve always liked Hadley’s work and I recommend reading all the articles she links to in this one also.

My favorite part of this post though came, quite surprisingly, below the line in the comments section. User RichJames drops this gem in response to the disregard for science in American politics:

True - but the war against science is the only war that America is actually winning.

I want that on a bumper sticker: “The War on Science, the only war America is winning”. Fucking beautiful.