It’s 2011 & Your Body Belongs to the State
By Thomas Dewar
All that is required for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing.
–Edmund Burke
91 years after the 19th Amendment was ratified and enfranchised female Americans with the right to cast a ballot, we still debate whether or not over half the population should have control over their own physical personhood.
On the national level, Republican House members—who campaigned on their Democratic counterparts not having done enough to create jobs—have pulled one doozy of a bait-and-switch once in office. Not only was the economic plight of America’s middle class promptly ignored and forgotten, but Boehner’s minions were willing to shut down government rather than give up on their demands to defund Planned Parenthood. And they didn’t stop there.
HR 3, passed by the House earlier this month, would make significant changes to the tax code to essentially block women from purchasing abortion coverage. Its proponents claim that it would simply block public funding of abortion, but it goes much further. This is the same bill that could require rape victims to succumb to IRS audits to prove that their abortion was due to rape and therefore coverable by insurance.
The House Rules Committee, for its part, has decided to show its support for the troops by blocking a vote last week on a bill that would have lifted the ban on abortion coverage for military women who have been raped or are victims of incest.
Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot.
Among the states, Wisconsin is considering a ban on insurance coverage for abortion (SB 92). The State Senate has already passed a bill declaring October “Pregnancy Care Month” to honor the work of Crisis Pregnancy Centers, which are essentially the provider arm of the anti-choice movement. Ironically, these centers use the same types of coercion and harassment deployed by abusive partners…and they will share October with Domestic Violence Awareness Month.
Indiana, meanwhile, was first to press a direct defunding by name of Planned Parenthood through eliminating Medicaid payments to them. The feds, thankfully, announced this week that the move is not legal. But we already knew that.
Ohio’s “Heartbeat Bill” has set the stage for the most likely challenge to Roe v. Wade. Still working its way through state government, it would ban abortion as soon as a fetus has a heartbeat—a time not specifically defined in the bill. At a committee hearing for the bill, theocratic wingnuts brought in an ultrasound machine to provide “testimony from a fetus.”
Texas and Florida have both passed mandatory ultrasound laws this year, which both governors have promised to sign, and Arizona passed and has now enacted mandatory ultrasounds, as well.
Apparently, a pregnant woman simply has no clue about what’s happening to and within her own body unless a man shoves an ultrasound into her face. Silly girls. How would they find their way without our condescension?
Here in Alaska, an unconstitutional and unenforceable ban outlaws abortion procedures provided as early as 12 weeks (AK Stat. § 18.16.050). A court held that Alaska’s ban is unconstitutional under the state constitution because the ban is “void for vagueness” and has issued a permanent injunction prohibiting its enforcement.
A 2004 state law forces Alaskan women to submit to biased counseling in order to access reproductive services, and the state allows certain individuals or entities to refuse to provide abortion services. A parental notification measure enacted last August does not even provide young women under 18 an explicit exception in cases of rape, nor, apparently, bothers to consider that there may be really good reasons why she cannot approach someone who may be the source of her trauma in the first place.
Alaska’s aptly acronymed “TRAP” (Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers) imposes a variety of burdensome requirements on abortion providers that are not imposed on other health-care providers.
Countless other examples can be added to this pathetic roster, but you get the idea.
The same folks who bray about “big government” having no business providing oversight of corporate polluters, unsafe mines or sketchy Wall Street shenanigans maintain that same government fits just fine into every uterus in America. Sloganeering about “individual liberty” fades into a newly discovered appetite for “government overreach.”
And at the same time we collectively pat ourselves on the back whenever a girl in Afghanistan is able to attend school for the first time—an unquestionably laudable development—the concerted war on women and girls within our own nation proceeds unabated and, indeed, intensifies.
People of my gender do not get to take a pass on this. Just as racism isn’t a “black issue” but a white one, the current legislative jihad against women and their rights shouldn’t be filed under “women’s issues.” It isn’t as if they’re doing this to themselves, as even a cursory look at the politicians and organizations leading the charge against women bears out.
It isn’t enough to take a nominal position on the issue or to assure a woman of our pro-choiciness when asked about it at a cocktail party. Men have a particular and moral obligation to put a stop to this assault and to stand by our sisters, mothers, daughters, girlfriends, wives, coworkers, neighbors and friends. Contact your elected officials. Contribute to NARAL and/or Planned Parenthood. Write a letter to the editor. Help elect candidates who respect women and their right to self-determination.
What slain labor activist Joe Hill said so presciently before his murder also applies to reproductive rights a century later. “Don’t mourn for me. Organize.”
"We take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion." –Lincoln
Special thanks to my friend Lisa Subeck, Executive Director of NARAL Wisconsin and member of the Madison City Council, for her contributions to this piece.
Speaking as a former Farmer,these social engineering fools are consistent with the mechanical engineers that design farm equipment,with nearly identical results(and one glaring difference). I have said many times that if the people that design combines or tractors ever had to work and try to repair these complicated monstrosities,they would design them much simpler. Same for Rethuglican social engineers,the glaring difference is mechanical engineers try to advance technology towards the future and Rethuglicans are headed way backwards to when women had no rights.
Every generation up until now has been looking to the future…the space program, building railroads, exploring the oceans, exploring the continents, inventing and tinkering. Every single generation until now. The repubs want to hurl us back into the dark ages.
If they can legislate that we HAVE to have a baby, how many more steps is it to legislating that you CANNOT have one?
And whatever happened to zero population growth? Oh, wait, I know the answer to this one….we need more WHITE babies so that the brown people do not outnumber us. Too late assh*&#s.
Long time choice/women’s rights advocate person here.
I don’t think the “young ones” get it.
In the ’60s in a few places like WDC, you had some (minimal) choice. If you didn’t want to be pregnant, you could go to a psychiatrist and say you were suicidal about being pregnant. You would then be admitted to a psych ward, declared nutz, and get an abortion. (BTW if you were in the Peace Corps, Sibley Hospital was your “go to place” for a quick and free abortion!) So yes, in the pre-Roe days, some places provided abortions, but only after you were deemed nutz.
After Roe, options opened up, but from the start, you had to brave intrusions, picket lines, threats, etc.
I lived near a family planning center for women with low income. I saw the picket lines, and I used to call daily to say “thank you”. I never needed the service, but I told the receptionist that I was grateful to know that they were near if I ever needed them.
Although I didn’t need them, I knew those who did. I knew families who buried the young women who died from back alley abortions. I knew the familes who took their daughters to the secret places in the states where they suffered without anestheisia. And too often serious damage.
Even in the 1970’s-1980’s, clinics were under attack, including bombings. I joined with others to form a human ring around a family planning clinic under attack.
Everything women now enjoy about equal rights at work, equal credit, equal everything, came from the right to control out own bodies. When that right is gone, we lose everything.
Great diary. It seems that 91 years later we are still fighting for our rights. When did things go backwards?
I love your opening quote.
If you haven’t watched it, you might want to. Iron Jawed Angels. It was an HBO production and was amazing. It can be googled. It is the story of women’s sufferage and Alice Paul’s journey and battle for the right to vote. It really doesn’t have much to do with reproduction, but ultimately it really does.
Thanks for a great post.
It was a great movie, Seattlefan. We are going backwards because too many young girls can tell you everything about Snookie, yet they know so little about about women’s history.
Yes, Mr Dewar
” Men have a particular and moral obligation to put a stop to this assault and to stand by our sisters, mothers, daughters, girlfriends, wives, coworkers, neighbors and friends.”
Yes.
We’ll not be returning to the days when we had to convince the gents to vote in a way which was fair to us before we could vote for ourselves.
We can use all the real help we can muster. Our brothers, fathers, sons, boyfriends, coworkers, neighbors, and friends walk this walk through life with us, we stand for them, they need to stand with us.
I just finished writing my yearly donation checks to both NARAL and PP last week. I also wrote to Yon Dung during the generation of the House Bill which (he states in his reply) he co-sponsored. He sent me a canned reply stating that he has always been against abortion and has no intention of doing anything other than continuing on this path. I wrote him back and suggested that his votes should not be about what HE believes, but about what his constituents want (as he is there to represent us and not himself). I also asked him why the GOP were wasting time and money on this kind of legislation instead of their promised “jobs, jobs, jobs” platform that they have no solutions for. I also asked him what his party, the party of getting big government out of our lives, thinks of their disconnect on this subject. Unfortunately, in the area where I live, there is not a hope in he## of getting past the Talevangelists. I have ZERO respect for this clown, but he probably feels justified because there probably ARE more constituents screaming for this legislation rather than against it.
Teenage and unmarried pregnancy is celebrated in Alaska. Bristol is the norm. 30 y/o mothers can’t wait for their 15 y/o daughters to give them grandchildren. It’s sick!
And there really are a lot of educated men and women (including my doctor B-I-L from he##) who will go on and on about “girls from the ghettos” coming into the hospital to have their 17th or 18th abortion and “why should we pay for it?” my response for this has always been “and do you really want to pay (through all of those things you hate so much–food stamps, Welfare, Medicaid) to provide some minimal standard of living for all of those unwanted babies?” Of course, their response is “they should just keep their legs together”.
This subject makes me foam at the mouth. the only thing that they will take away is the option of a safe abortion. They cannot take away the choice. Women have had the choice since we figured out where babies come from. They can only take away the safety. And how many deaths will they have on their souls then?
Don’t like abortion? Don’t have one. You surely don’t have the right to legislate MY body.
I have never in my life voted for anyone who supports this crap and I never will. I will go to my deathbed fighting them every step of the way.
Great comment! Full of passion and truth. I will join you in that fight.
All together now: voting GOP is immoral.
Oh, wait, I’ve said that already?
Correction. The last part of the last sentence under point 7 was posted as “would allow racially segregated schools from be exempt from taxation” but should have read “would allow racially segregated schools to be exempt from taxation.”
Once again, I let my passion overpower my proofing. I simply seem incapable of calming discussing some of the more horrendous policies generated by the right-wing of the Republican Party – even if those were promoted and implemented decades ago because they still are alive and well 30 years later. I could not have imagined this insanity to reappear in the 21st century. As women, we were beginning to relax and think the hardest battles were behind us. Now we see it is a constant fight for equality and respect.
This move to restrict women’s rights over their bodies is not new. It probably goes further back then what I am going to present below, but when you hear someone proudly proclaim to be a Reagan Republican, be afraid, be very afraid – particularly if you are a woman or a man who loves the women in his life.
In the highly recommended, but very difficult to find, book “One Sweet Guy and what he’s doing to you” by acclaimed journalist, Arthur E. Rowse, the author discusses the issue of “intimate affairs” under the Reagan administration.
This will sound so familiar to us because of our current crop of GOTP politicians, but might shock those who thought of Ronald Reagan as a godsend for our country. I have never been in that camp, but we all know Sarah Palin and others tout him as their ultimate role model.
Here’s a short summary from the book on highlights relating to today’s post. My comments are in brackets.
1. In order to gain the support of fundamentalists and right-wing organizations during his campaigns, Reagan endorsed their demands “without qualification.” He promised them that he would appoint judges are every level who “respect traditional family values and the sanctity of innocent human life.” (Buzz words even then for anti-abortion.) Even though he had to retract those comments when it pointed out that judges cannot advocate for particular viewpoints, he fulfilled his promises.
[rule of thumb: if you suspect a judge of favoring anti-abortion viewpoints, find out when he was appointed. Chances are still good he was appointed by Reagan – or if not, then by one of the two Bushes.]
2. Reagan opposed abortion even in cases of rape and incest. He was quoted as saying he did NOT agree with the concept that “a woman has aright to control her own body.”
3. During a press conference just after becoming President, his comments seemed to support a bill that was pending to declare human life begins at conception instead of birth. The bill was intended to do away with the need to ban abortion because abortions would then automatically be considered murder. In July of his first year as President, the Senate Judiciary Committee subcommittee actually passed that bill along party lines (3 to 2).
4. Reagan kept promises made to the far right by appointing people who opposed abortion to every available post that could affect any government program dealing with abortion. Anyone remember the infamous Surgeon General Everett Koop? Koop was just one of these appointees. He’d become nationally known for separating Siamese twins and for opposing homosexuality, women’s liberation and abortions.
Dr. Koop was the first nominee that the Public Health Assn. opposed in 100 years!
5. The Washington Post ran an article accusing another Reagan appointee, Richard Schweiker, who had been a Senator and was Reagan’s Sec. of Health and Human Services, of preventing witnesses from testifying about a study promoting the benefits of medical abortions during the debate on that bill about when human life begins. Even the Center for Disease Control (the CDC) had trouble getting their 11-page report in as evidence because that report showed that legal abortions had produced a “substantial decline in abortion-related illnesses” and abortion-related deaths. Legal abortions had also reduced the risk of death in abortions to 1/7 of the fatality rate in pregnancy and childbirth. The study also indicated that “legal abortions had brought a drop in teenage marriage and illegitimate births.”
Well, actually, the CDC report was introduced but read by a Reaganite who left out most of the
positive findings.
6. In May 1980 (only months after Reagan’s swearing-in), the Senate voted to add an anti-abortion amendment to the comprehensive budget bill. It specifically targeted poor women by denying them money for abortion unless the woman’s life was at stake [I wonder how “at stake” differs from “at risk” – knowing that in legalese, every word is usually chosen for a specific purpose.] Then the House voted to apply that prohibition to all federal employee health insurance policies.
7. Reagan promoted the “Family Protection Bill” as well in 1980 – which banned federal money for abortions, sex education, contraceptives and family planning. It also used phrases such as “perverse lifestyles” as code words for homosexuality, and [get this] even banned money for treatment of venereal disease. [Seriously – banning money to treat veneral disease.]
That bill also denied free legal services for abortion and divorce [Remember, there are members of Congress and various state legislatures right now who want Covenant Marriages that would also prohibit divorce.] And, just to put the proverbial conservative frosting on the cake – that bill also blocked federal funds to prevent child abuse and would allow racially segregated schools from be exempt from taxation.
I never, ever, make apologies for being anti-Reagan or against anyone proclaiming to be a follower of Ronald Reagan. Now you know why – and this is just the tip of the iceberg of the horrible, no-good, cruel and ignorant policies that came down upon us during the Reagan administration. These attitudes still control much of political discourse and certainly still impact our lives.
BTW, in case you think Arthur E. Rowse is some crank, remember this: the National Press Corps make an award in his name every year to journalists deemed to have achieved excellence in reporting.
I recommend that you try to find this book and his other, more recent one about Reagan, “The Man Who Sold the World: Ronald Reagan and His Betrayal of Main Street America.”
I would apologize for the length of my comment, but Thomas Dewar’s excellent post here today moved me to share these crucial points about the dangers of the GOP. Too many Republicans have created a myth around Reagan and probably don’t even know what he and his administration did to this country and how he targeted women in particular through his affiliation with and acceptance of radical right-wing fundamentalists. Anyone who proclaims they want to follow in “Ronnie’s footsteps” is a dangerous person to elect into office.
Several books where mentioned above that mirror the message in The Handmaid’s Tale. The storyline is easily applicable and appropriate to this kind of governing.
Thanks again to Dewar for writing an excellent post and to Devon for publishing it.
Excellent post. I read an article about Guv Brownback and he is another far right loon you have to deal with. Kansas is now a sunurb of bible belt Texahoma. Good luck maintaining your sanity.
What really gets me is the women that are working so hard to take away other women’s rights to the care and control of their own bodies and reproductive destinies. I simply can not wrap my mind around women doing this to their own gender. How much of a religious whacko do you have to be?
Men attempt to control what they fear. Powerful women in control of their own destiny are frightening to a lot of men. Men that think they are not accountable to the women in their lives turn into men that think it is OK to trade the wife in and get a younger model, to father babies with the housekeeper, and to pass laws restricting women’s rights. They turn into the Christian version of the Taliban.
We overcome this problem one male child at a time, by raising sons that are self-aware and not afraid. And by holding the men in our lives accountable for working with us to end these attacks on women.
Women in this country gained rights by demanding them. We demanded access to birth control, we demanded access to the voting booth, we demanded access to credit and to the banking system, and we demanded access to equal opportunity in the workplace. Then, we thought we were done marching in the streets, and the religious right took over, eroding those rights.
We can regain our right to access to reproductive health care, but it will mean we have to do that job all over again, and demand that right. I remember a time when women went to jail for practicing medicine without a license if we used herbs or other treatments to correct a yeast infection. I was told by my female doctor when I was 20 that I had no need for birth control until I was married, and she refused to give it to me.
We have no business taking these rights for granted, any more than we have any business taking the right to free speech for granted.
We would get rid of those men naturally if women didn’t marry them and they didn’t parent a new generation of rubes.
When women understand truly that they don’t have to marry to be fulfilled, happy, successful, have a place in society, etc., then we’ll have a lot of women who are happier single than marrying idiots. Unfortunately, for every unenlightened men, there seems to be an equally unenlightened woman.
Minorities fighting for their rights have always found their most potent and damning enemies from right within their own ranks–the slave that turns in runaways, the slave-owning black, the woman who thinks we’re all daughters of Eve (what a moran of a person) so they all must be subject to their husbands and raise kids, even though all those sons of Adam (what a weenie) don’t have to be farmers and ranchers. Just sayin’. I find it interesting that those who espouse those two as models tend to take on their worst qualities.
And just for the record, I’m a Bible readin’ Christian, yes I am. And I’m a much better person than Adam or Eve. I’m much more evolved than they. 🙂
fanatic religious extremists and government: do NOT mix
But if they insist:
A counter proposal to the Republican Talibangicals: At the time a human male begins producing reproductive swimmers, he gathers a sufficient quantity in a vial. The vial is placed in cryostorage for future use by its owner. The human male receives a vasectomy. Make it the law. Abortion problem solved. Don’t legislate ovaries: legislate testes.
Splendid idea! It would probably cut down on testosterone fueled wars also.
I have another suggestion.
Every time a man decides to ‘release’ his swimmers anywhere other than in his wife, he must first undergo a procedure where a camera is placed in a catheter and inserted…well, where catheters go. He must watch all of his potential children on a screen and must listen to a doctor explain, in great detail, how he is condemning them all to death.
Then he must wait 72 hours.
Conservative RWNJ legislators: You want government to force its way into the most private places in a woman’s body, then we can insist on the same ‘privilege’ for you.
(I apologize to all the wonderful and enlightened men reading this at the ‘flats who are squirming right about now. Now you understand how we women feel about this absurd and offensive legislation.)
Exactly, Lennie, “absurd and offensive legislation”!!!
The party of “smaller government” wants to monitor our bedrooms and our doctor’s offices. WTF is up the Republican fixation on s.
e.
x.
P.S. GOPtpers; abstinence flies in the face of “go ye therefore and multiply.”
just sayin’: teens and impulse control ~ if science were your strong suit, you’d rethink your position, but, by all means, go with the “pray it away” meme…… it’s worked so well for all these many eons ($P would say “ions.”)
Now that is one brilliant idea.
The most significant message of Christianity is that God gave us free choice and that the mature expression of Christian faith is spiritual power, not political power. All these efforts at laws limiting women’s choices are an incredible distortion of that message.
Small donations work, too, but this site is a wealth of knowledge about what we each can do.
http://www.naral.org/
I do think that we need to pass legislation so that all recipients of prescriptions for Viagra type medications are required to justify the need for such preparations before a panel of women. Such panel shall be composed of older women of all ethnic/religious persuasions and prescriptions must be approved by a two-thirds vote of the panel. Results of such judgements could be made public upon request under FOIA. After all, it would be wrong to counter God’s judgement that a man’s capacity for sexual satisfaction should be of limited duration.
AND, unmarried men, those who are suspected pedophiles, and/or men who have been proven to be unfaithful to their past and/or current wife, will be denied a legal prescription. Rulings of any Municipal Denial of Male Sexual Satisfaction Panels may be appealed only by current wife along with a note from the couple’s religious adviser.
Excellent ideas!
When they outlaw abortion completely, contraception isn’t far behind….
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2011/06/03/235552/personhood-bills-attack-contraception/
Yep, that is really what the defunding Planned Parenthood is about IMHO. Remember how Bush defunded all the birth control assistance in Africa.
The Abstinence Only Movement is for real and not just meant for young women. Many of these people also believe that many forms of BC are “abortion”. Their ignorance is astounding.
The more I witness, the more I think it’s not ignorance. I think a certain percentage of men want slavery back.
I am old enough to have had an illegal abortion in some dirty back room and came very close to hemohhaging to death. So I support the right to privacy – you darn betcha! I can only hope abortion stay safe and legal, because if it doesn’t, we will right back to dirty back rooms and coat hangers. Abortions will always be with us one way or the other. Always have – always will. So unless you are truly evil and just want women to die from illegal abortions, stop this madness.
As horrible as it was then when you risked your health…your life, it’s going to get worse. A woman was just arrested and charged in Idaho with ‘unlawful abortion’. She can be fined up to $5,000 and possibly serve up to 5 years in prison.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/52841266/Prof-Brad-Scharlott-Palin-the-Press-and-the-Fake-Pregnancy-Rumor
Democrats are being far too quiet. The recent defense of Planned Parenthood has been to minimize their role in performing abortions. The right to abortion and abortion itself needs to be unashamedly defended.
There are a lot of crazy people in this country. It seems that most of them, among those who vote, vote republican. I have never invited the government into my body, and I never will. That is among the major reasons I cannot bring myself to vote R. It’s my body; it’s none of your affair. I’ve never had an abortion, I’ve never needed one. If I had, it would have been my own business.
Meanwhile, in addition to all this madness, they allow and even encourage rampant pollution of all of nature. I’ll never figure them out. They’re all madder than hatters.
Thanks so much for this post. When are more women going to become alarmed by all this!
It cannot be legal for a state to tell a private business owner that he can’t provide insurance coverage for a particular, legal, medical procedure.
Apparently, a pregnant woman simply has no clue about what’s happening to and within her own body unless a man shoves an ultrasound into her face.
From what I hear, that’s not exactly where they shove the ultrasound… apparently, ultrasounds that early in a pregnancy has to be performed trans-vaginally… which one might consider a form of legalized rape.
And these “playing doctor” Republican men don’t know or don’t care about the fact that an invasive ultrasound or invasive anything vaginal is dangerous during pregnancy. Hell, the ultrasound instrument itself could cause complications, including a damaged fetus. But what do they care, if the “bad girls” are kept in line.
I recently wrote to Iowa Senator Grassley and told him that women in this country are being treated like the taliban treat women. I never got an answer on that remark.
That sounds like a good idea; send letters like that to ALL RWNJ legistlators and demand that they refute such a comparison – if they can. Keep those cards and letters going.
Here is an article which expands upon this:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2011-06-03/abortions-return-to-back-alleys-amid-restrictive-new-state-laws/
Scary.
I suggest that every female in America read the chilling book “The Handmaid’s Tale” to see where all this control of women is headed. The author is Margaret Atwood and I have been haunted by it since I read it by all the news report that seem to substantiate her version of the future of women.
And read “Rachel and her Children”
There is a pretty good movie treatment of this awesome novel as well starring Faye Dunaway and Robert Duvall and Natasha Richardson.
I read that about 20 years ago and it is one of those books that STILL haunts me. Another really good read along these same lines is “The Fifth Sacred Thing” by Starhawk.
I strongly ditto Chespen’s book suggestion. You’ll never look at women’s rights to the care and control of their own bodies the same again. It is a chilling and haunting book that foretold what is happening to us right now.
Rethuglicans say they want smaller government, but the lying sacks of manure want to legislate every little social issue within which they are interested. And for you demented Palinbots who like to troll here, being pro-choice does not mean pro-abortion. I personally am pro-choice. For me that means that it is a woman’s choice and between her and her God. It isn’t for government to legislate. As for the anti-birth control morons, a woman’s eggs are hers and hers alone. They do not belong to the government. Next, these control-freak, fake, uber-religious morons will be trying to ban hysterectomies and D and C’s. Better to let the woman bleed to death or die of cancer than remove the baby maker.
Geez, I’m beyond sick of these “religious” nut jobs trying to own America. Didn’t the Pilgrims come to America to get away from religious persecution? Wasn’t part of the foundation of our government to provide religious freedom from anal orifices like these idiots? Rant over.
I agree it’s frightening to watch. It’s even more frightening to watch contraceptive care be targeted as well.
Lisa: That has been their ultimate goal for years.
If we started introducing legislation in every state about mandatory circumcisions and vasectomy’s for boy’s just hitting puberty, and designed for every step of their formative years (registering with the Armed Services, getting a drivers or marriage license, your first prostate exam. . .) you’d certainly witness an outraged backlash against invasive legislation.
But not a peep is expressed when they seek to curb access and performance of legally protected medical services to women. Under the Bush Administration, they even designed a law to protect conscientious objectors (of abortion) from the janitors to the techs that are tasked with sterilizing tools and equipment that may or may not be involved with a woman’s plumbing.
“Everybody goes to clinics, to doctors, to hospitals, so on,” John Kyl (R-AZ) said. “Some people go to Planned Parenthood. But you don’t have to go to Planned Parenthood to get your cholesterol or your blood pressure checked. If you want an abortion, you go to Planned Parenthood, and that’s well over 90% of what Planned Parenthood does.”
That’s not even close to being accurate. Just 3% of the organization’s work is related to terminating pregnancies, while “well over 90% of Planned Parenthood does” relates to preventative health care services.
When CNN sought an explanation from the senator about the glaring error, Kyl’s office defended that “his remark was not intended to be a factual statement.”
When we have someone whom is supposed to be the ‘adult in the room,’ a Senate Minority Leader no less, God help us when they can lie and spin and inflame and issue just to get their way to impede reproductive services to half the Nation’s population.
I truly believe that men should have no say at all with regard to issues like rape and abortion. They are the perpetrators. One of our male friends was distressed when I made that statement originally so I explained that if a woman is pregnant she is much less likely to turn to abortion if the father stands with her.
And as for rape, those idiot GOP men in the House who spent so much taxpayer time redefining rape last winter because is 2006 or 2007 (I can’t remember which year) there were fewer that 300 federally paid abortion (victims of rape or medical conditions that would cost the woman her life) simply made fools of themselves. Rape is rape; for the GOP if the woman isn’t killed she hasn’t been raped.
If women had tunnelvision as bad as Conservative men,then you could make a case that abortion should be mandatory and in some cases retro-active. I guess I fall into the never class on this issue. I would never presume to know what is best for the woman in this situation. I would never ask or persuade a woman to have an abortion and I would never prevent a woman from having an abortion. Frankly,what a woman or a woman and her doctor decide is best, is none of my business. Until we arrive at a place where all children are wanted and there is a guarantee that they can and will be provided for once they are born,anti women’s groups don’t have much of a leg to stand on.
Where have all the smart people gone?
Interesting article although I’m not surprised at the determination of RWNJ to rule a woman’s uterus. I suppose women could band together and deny men certain favors. The problem with that is you can’t tell just by looking at RWNJ men what their sexual preferences or proclivities happen to be. Nothing I ever did growing up shames me like belonging to the Brotherhood of Men with Christian Conservative Nutters.
Michael – shame is crippling, as so many of us have learned. You have nothing to be ashamed of. You are a decent, funny, wise man (and a wise guy, for that matter.) Don’t be ashamed, be a-shoutin’!
Where’s the ‘Like’ button?
‘Like!’
x2!
Buck up boyo!
RWNJ-ery is an equal opportunity failing which transcends gender.
We’ve got em on the ladies’ side too, from Phylliss Schlafly to the Quiverfull gals.
We’ll never get off the dime if we wallow around in shame over ne’er do wells in our respective fraternitys and sororities.
We need all the hands we can muster to push back at this latest round and that includes you.
Please join the Whiskey -Tango Foxtrot party Mr Dewar is calling for with an easy mind and heart.
If I don’t have to take responsibility for the stumbling tea drunk SP, you don’t have to take responsibility for the abusive assaultive Rick Perry but we do have to head em off and put an end to this crazy throwback run at law which affects women . We do.
Oh, mike, you are a true man that all women admire. Please keep your open, true mind and help educate other men. Thank you for caring so much.
Thank you. It is frightening to watch the growing movement against women’s rights.
Appears we are going back to the dark ages and it is frightening as hell. The Republicans have got to be stopped!!!!!! Vote them out next election cycle.
Thank you for this well written piece! The Republican overreach is on steroids and getting scarier by the day.
I agree–very well written and scary. I’ve never understood why something that is legal consumes so much time and effort to make it illegal.
I want to shake folks who say that eliminating abortion will be better for families. Guess they’ve never had to be responsible for a large family on a shoestring OR they’ve never been a child in such a household who grew up with little attention, food or chance to advance.–not to speak of those who have been assaulted.