Sen. Kelly Gets His Way – Pregnancy Tests in Bars
Yes, Alaska Senator Pete Kelly is getting his way. As the Anchorage Daily News reported back in March, Pete Kelly of Fairbanks wanted to distribute pregnancy tests in bar bathrooms. In case you forgot watch the video below for a reminder – The pregnancy test questions start at about 1 min into the video.
Q. The idea is to make pregnancy tests available for free?
A. 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.
That interview and the quotable moments from it proceeded to go viral – suddenly yet another Alaska politico made national headlines, unfortunately not for their governing for their inane ideas. Sen. Kelly in the interview goes on to say that birth control – like condoms wouldn’t make any sense to distribute.
Q. But isn’t the act of using birth control, in itself, acting responsibly?
A. Maybe, maybe not.
…That’s about a level of social engineering that we don’t want to get into.
I’ll just quote Shannyn Moore for the response to this one from her ADN column that week:
Social engineering? But putting a bouquet of EPT tests in bar bathrooms isn’t social engineering?! Cutting the funding of birth control to low-income women isn’t social engineering?!A few weeks ago, Sen. Fred Dyson balked at funding birth control because we shouldn’t be paying for people’s “recreation.” Yeah. But we do want to fund their pregnancy tests? Oh, and through Medicare and the VA and IHS we pay for Viagra and Cialis. Any calls to defund that? Erections have consequences.
So, now that I’ve got you caught up – here’s the real deal behind Kelly’s barroom bathroom fantasy. Not plexiglass bowls but vending machines – like this one. They’ll be payed for as part of a “two-year, $400,000 University of Alaska” according to the Anchorage Daily News‘ Kyle Hopkins. There will also be condoms available alongside the pregnancy tests. The condoms though, will NOT be paid for by the state.
From here The Mudflats did some digging. The group that the state will be working with is from Minnesota and is called “Healthy Brains for Children” they’re a non-profit that “promote[s] the healthy practice of refraining from drinking alcohol during pregnancies through the use of public presentations, …and through the installation of pregnancy test dispensers in bathrooms in bars.” Yeah, that’s a thing.
Healthy Brains for Children which as of it’s last tax filings is broke – but no worries, the distributor of the pregnancy machines probably can work out a sweet deal with the non-profit as they’re run by the same person. Forchil. Inc’s manager is also Jody Allen Crowe.
Crowe is also the author of “The Fatal Link: The Connection Between School Shooters and the Brain Damage from Prenatal Exposure to Alcohol.” From the description on Amazon.com it explains “[Jody Allen] Crowe was a fifth grade student in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, when the first school shooting fatality in the nation occurred in 1966.” Now, I’m not sure what sort of claim to fame that is… but either way it’s not true. [According to a quick Wikipedia search there was quite a few before then.]
He is also the proprietor of H2Onguard Inc. a ‘non-lethal solution’ to school shootings. I’m not quite sure what the solution is (maybe it’s H2O based?) but it does have a snappy video.
Even after several years with TheMudflats, I rarely end articles with a ‘huh, what’s going on here.’ But I may make this a first. Fetal alcohol syndrome is absolutely an issue that Alaska needs to deal with – but is this really the best way forward? This is weird, even for Alaska. We’ll be following up with the Healthy Brains charity and Pete Kelly’s office to find out how all this went down.
If anyone out there knows anything that TheMudflats readers should know – please send me an e-mail at zdroberts (at) gmail.com with documents, e-mails or heck even rumors.
Read the entire report from Anchorage Daily News Kyle Hopkins – here and the original Pete Kelly Interview here.
Catch up on Alaska’s own Pete Kelly in our 2012 article “Meet Pete Kelly. Whoa.“
Let’ face the facts folks Pete Kelly is a big time criminal and does not work for most of the states population as a legislator as he works instead for special interest groups like the Koch Bros and the folks that believe the dinosaurs roamed the earth six thousand years ago. This guy creeps me out and we have elected a whole lot of these types so all I can say is get out and vote these dummies out!
So…
“The two-year, $400,000 University of Alaska effort aims to study if posters that warn women against drinking while pregnant work better when pasted on pregnancy test dispensers rather than simply hung on a wall.”
http://www.adn.com/2014/06/13/3516167/coming-soon-to-alaska-bars-free.html?sp=/99/100/&ihp=1
???
1-How the hell do they whoever they are, propose to quantify this? Bathroom graffiti? Surveys of gals leaving the toilet? Followup interviews in six weeks? Six months? Testimonials on youtube? Eh?
2- Is anyone addressing the fact that the 32% drop in FAS births in the state in recent years comes mostly from the Native population ? Tribal health organizations have been/are doing something very right with the monies Senator Stevens earmarked to fight this preventable problem and with programs since.
Do we wanna talk about access to regular healthcare for Alaskan women?
Or are we gonna keep playing the game that sexual health is all about recreation and that sex education -including birth control information and supplies, education about STDs, FAS, and the like are off limits?
Ohhh a bazillion Pfffftttts! on this crap.
Give real information to people, supply birth control, and get over the phony moral gobbeldygook about “recreation” crimenently!
Well said! I think that $400,000 could be better spent paying for basic biology courses including human reproduction and evolution (with testing!) which should be required for all Alaska legislators to complete on their own time before they could introduce or vote on any health legislation. Sort of the three Rs – readin’, writin’ and reproduction. Or perhaps we should require poster in all male bathrooms: Masterbate Daily – it helps prevent unintended pregnancies and suppresses those nasty urges to copulate for recreation. Oh yeah, and please dispose of products of said practices responsibly, not in your sheets unless you do the washing.
I agree the 400K could /would be better spent educating women/men, girls/boys about biology, theirs included.
The more I think about this the more it torches my shorts.
I sent my son off as a teen to the men’s part of Planned Parenthood. Those folks were better able to answer his tough questions in a non-loaded setting. ( I did understand there’s something just a bit creepy to teen boys talking about sex and birth control and the like with their moms )
His school was in the throes of one of those abstinence only education battles with some parents so was not up to the task . THAT stunk.
That crap still stinks. Pretending pregnancy test kits with posters about the dangers of alcohol and FAS seen AFTER a gal has had alcohol just adds to the stench.
They wanna do something ? Put the poster in the gents and offer free condoms!
Yup, we are on the same page here. It is hard for parents of either sex to talk with their children about the details of sexuality in the bedroom. Excellent plan to have available non-threatening, non-embarrassing person of same gender as child to explain and answer questions. Not that that would exempt parents from responsibly dealing with sex education as well.
For all these reasons, I am running for common sense in Alaska, and against Pete Kelly for Senate Seat A. Please shoot me an email with contact info if you can help in the good fight. We have a lot of work ahead but we already have the help of many great people! [email protected]
Well, obviously Pete Kelly just needs to sponsor legislation prohibiting alcohol in Alaska altogether. Now THAT would solve the problem. Seems fair and equitable to me. Can’t imagine why he hasn’t thought of it. I’m sure it would make him re-electable forever.
Somebody tell Pete Kelly that Chasity Belts are in fashion and guess what? Clear plastic bowls are being used to serve alcohol.
How stupid if this?
wait don’t answer that…
Hmmm . . . . “chastity belt” would be a good name for a cocktail . . . it would have to be really strong.
Guess I should have googled before commenting. The “chastity belt” cocktail is already established.
Ingredients : Chastity Belt
– 2 d coffee liqueur (tia maria,kahlua)
– 1 d hazelnut liqueur (frangelico)
– 1 d irish cream (bailey’s)
– 1/2 d cream
Though I can’t guarantee it would live up to its promise.
Speechless
Why not invite Kelly to the nearest bar and ask him to demonstrate vending machine and bust him for being a pervert?
Anybody know the percentage of poorer women in Alaska that have credit cards to swipe for a preg test? If you only have a grace period of 16 or 18 days before alcohol starts to harm the zygote and you discover youi are way beyond that period,who pays for your mental anguish?Let’s take this to the next logical step-have a morning after pill machine installed in bathrooms that dispenses free pills,just to ease milady’s peace of mind.
Kudos to Kelly for recognizing a problem exists. After that, he doesn’t have a clue – which is a lot nicer than what I was going to say If, as he states, ” So if you’re drinking…” , it’s ALREADY TOO LATE. Alcohol has been consumed and as happens after alcohol consumption, urinary output increases, necessitating a trip to the bathroom. Then? the woman thinks, hmm, might I be pregnant? What if she isn’t – yet but might be by the end of the night? Free condoms in that case would prevent fetal alcohol syndrome, as well as preventing abortion.
You can’t use logic to explain it because it defies logic. You can’t use economics to justify it, because it doesn’t make economic sense. You can’t use religion to justify it, because you know women in bars, drinking, having SEX – that’s all against the Jesus don’t cha know. Can’t use past performance as a measure, because this tactic has shown to do NOTHING to stop the occurrence of pregnant woman drinking. (BTW most of our FAS problems exist in the rural communities where there AREN’T ANY BARS!)
Oh, and I thought the party of personal responsibility was all about getting the Government out of your business, oops unless its your woman’s business, and THEN its o.k. to use public dollars to pay for it.
Somebody is making money off of this. The only explanation.
???