Alaska GOP’s Radical Agenda for Women
The minority Republican coalition of Alaska Senators who do not work with the Bipartisan Majority Coalition – Cathy Giessel, John Coghill, Charlie Huggins and Fred Dyson
Imagine a country where a woman is raped and forced to have her rapist’s baby. Imagine children shuffled off to schools that teach religious doctrine as science — on your dime. Picture a government that consults with church leaders before making public policy.
I’m not speculating about a foreign country riddled with American military bases. This is what Alaska faces right now with the influence of an extreme agenda imported from Outside. Hear the warning bell, brothers and sisters. This agenda is backed by deep pockets like Exxon and the reactionary Koch Brothers, and its proponents are dead serious.
I called Juneau last year to request that a bill be heard. The Senate Bipartisan Coalition had agreed it wouldn’t hear “social” bills that only served to divide Alaskans, and suck up time, without moving Alaska forward. I wanted the head of the Health and Human Services committee, Sen. Bettye Davis, to hear the bill mandating transvaginal probes. (It was proposed by Sen. John Coghill and sponsored by Sens. Cathy Geissel, Fred Dyson and Charlie Huggins.)
Why? Because I wanted Alaskans to see the kind of invasive, big-government bills that are in our future if these ideologues get control of the Senate.
I was told that Sen. Coghill had not requested a hearing for his bill. Curious. Why not? Because by introducing the bill, he and the others had fulfilled a promise they’d made to snare an endorsement during the election campaign. No need for more publicity until the next election. Other state legislatures were also making national news with the same bill.
A collective national gasp comes after every radical statement about “forcible rape” (Paul Ryan), “legitimate rape” (Todd Akin), “honest rape” (Ron Paul), or “God’s intent” rape (Richard Mourdock).
These men apparently can’t understand that there are women, listening to the news, making dinner for their children, who hear these words and are brought to tears. They are women who remember a parking lot, a back seat, a moment when they couldn’t get away and “no means no” didn’t mean anything to their rapists.
It’s vulgar that such a crime has been reduced to a shuttlecock in the political world, batted back and forth in a game of “Who loves the fertilized egg the most?”
Rape isn’t a “method of conception,” as Congressman Ryan refers to it. Rape isn’t making love — minus the love. It’s violence and humiliation. It’s a crime of power in which the victim has none. Rape shouldn’t be compounded by the government using its power to force a woman to have a baby.
You may think I’m making this up, based on the rants of a few wingnuts. If so, I invite you to read the national Republican Party platform.
The Republicans would have you believe the 14th Amendment’s protections apply to fetuses. The “unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed.” A pregnant woman is, really, just an eggshell.
The Republican Party didn’t propose stronger penalties for rapists or protections for victims of rape or incest. There is nothing to stop a rapist from seeking custody of a child born of his crime. (I guess that would be an example of family values.)
Anyone who says he doesn’t believe in abortion in cases of incest or rape should answer this question: What should the penalty be for a woman who is raped, impregnated and gets an abortion? Should she spend more time in jail than the man who raped her, or less?
Those are questions for you, Bob Bell, Cathy Giessel, Bob Roses and John Coghill, and every other candidate who would proudly force birth on the pregnant victims of rape.
Fifty-four percent of women don’t report their rapes. Alaska has the highest rates of rape and incest in the country. This question is real, not just some hypothetical discussion so sitting legislators and candidates can score points with “values voters.”
These Republicans are radically out of step with historic Alaskan values. Led by Republican lawmakers, Alaska decriminalized abortion before Roe v. Wade, under our state Constitution’s very strong right-to-privacy provision.
Do you wonder why Alaska Republicans are pushing for a constitutional convention? So they can roll back the right to privacy that guarantees that a woman’s health decisions rest with her, her family and her doctor; so they can roll back the separation of church and state and make sure we all pay for religious schools; and so they can undermine the Owner State for the benefit of resource developers.
It’s radical, and it’s wrong for Alaska.
Law Dog – you forgot to mention the Libya ordeal that Palin helped with that film that was a rouse while they sent in their “black ops” to make a difference – or try to upset the apple cart…it was God’s Will of course…
Now when the feds do their sweep of all activities and cross-reference that with militia groups and sharia law then they will connect the dots…and we will all see an unprecedented arrest sweep across America…all states!
I had a transvag ultrasound a few years ago, for diagnostic reasons. Don’t know if it was due to my particular physical problem or not, but when the tech started to put that thing into me, I couldn’t take the pain. I’m pretty tough when it comes to medical procedures, but that …….. it was just too much. The tech had to stop the procedure and I never did get one done.
If that’s what it would be like, I can’t believe any decent person would do that to a woman.
And what y’all have said, too, about what the punishment would be ……. Good grief, haven’t these guys figured out that they just haven’t made any sense and haven’t thought it out at all? The whole question of enforcement is totally a joke!
YBG
This all makes me “sick.” If one is worried about our children and the debt the country is in, they should be more worried about the fanatics. Women, think who you are voting for. Please all vote.
http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/valleyfever/2012/04/nebraska_woman_lets_jan_brewer_1.php This is what could happen to all of us if………..
Well now we haven’t discussed the hang em high protocol…you know…the one that Todd and Sarah and Chuck & Sally Heath and their Arian Nation brothers…they hung a Vietnam Vet on 11-11-89 in Washington State because he was going to tell that HUGE account holder that $10,000 dollars was not the ‘cash value factor’ of the account…when it was really worth $108.401,500 dollars…those Ritcher Investments for sure eh Palin?
Ooops now he is dead…gosh all those ‘missed opportunities’ eh Palin? cough cough…
We already know she thinks rape victims need to pay for their own kits…and since Frank reversed the Statute of Limitations that won’t work out so well for Palin and Parnell who continue to block a child rape case…
Guess they don’t want anyone to find out they hung the drug dealer in 2006…hey another hanging…or that the one they hung is the brother of the rapist…damn those federal investigators from Washington DC…
What a bunch of law abiding and fact finding folks…smirk….sniff…I can smell your fear from here Palin/Parnell…
Rape isn’t even about sex. It’s not sex. It’s an act of violence, like being beat up.
Thomas Friedman has an excellent post in yesterday’s NY Times, in which he states that being “pro-life” should include being concerned with what happens AFTER birth, that it must include supporting anti-pollution laws, etc.:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/28/opinion/sunday/friedman-why-i-am-pro-life.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&_r=0
Great post, Shannyn. I, too, am a rape survivor, and these RWNJs making pronouncements about MY body make me want to get as violent with them as the rapists were with me (yes, there were three of them, and a gun).
Women,children,the poor,the elderly,the disabled and puppies: If you can’t beat ’em-blame a godless,commie liberal!
Like I wrote Sen. Grassley when this topic first started to appear—-The Taliban has come to America.
That’s the way America is now treating American women. Makes me sick to my stomach.
And the Des Moines Sunday Register has a FULL PAGE Ad today—-Paid for by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association urging voters to vote for biblical values and support the nation of Israel.
So much for separation of church and state.
We have lost over 5,000 men and women in Afganistan. What the hell?
Back when Graham was trying to deify Tricky Dick,he wondered aloud if god hears the prayers of Jews. Must have gotten religion somewhere along the way. Steve King claims that the violence against women act interferes with the institution of marriage.
Do what you want to the womenfolks,but dinnaya touch me guns or taxbreaks,Bucko. Isn’t it obvious that rethuglicans can only get off by abusing women and children? Isn’t it a crying damn shame that more women are not aware of this or don’t care enough about this to know? I’d be ashamed of being a man if more women would show some kind of emotional reaction to the new Puritans. Jumped up christ on a crutch rw women,DO SOMETHING,even if it is wrong!
Problem is, Mikey, a lot of those rw women are more comfortable with totally prescribed codes of behavior and division of labors along gender lines. It is a personality type.
Some of the others ? Who knows, but the core of rw women who feel safe and cared for living within a very narrow well defined world are just the same as their male counterparts.
They are quite happy to proscribe the behavior of the majority of humans to keep their dinky goofball lil phony world.
I took my nine year old GD Miss Molly to the Prairie Heritage Center Saturday. Two hours and a million questions later,Molly wanted to return the next day for more fun and learning. I cannot for the life of me,ever see a world where curiosity is stifled or non-existent. Intellectual curiosity is a gene that must be missing in nutter’s DNA. And rethugs claim it is liberal education policies that hurt children.
I agree , but I have met too many of the small world men and women to ignore the reality of their existence.
Someday I should go look up something Spanish philosopher Ortega y Gasset said about it all- very striking. ( I love Ortega- sexist man of his times and all)
Miss Molly sounds like my GD and GB. We’ve helped pass on that curiosity gene, haven’t we?
I hope Molly and Chloe grow up and speak up like you and all the women from the “Flats”
The GOP is stealing our votes!
http://www.ukprogressive.co.uk/breaking-retired-nsa-analyst-proves-gop-is-stealing-elections/article20598.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEzY2tnwExs
Spread the word, Mudpups.
DD
DD — Absolutely!!! EVERYONE should be scared stiff and on top of this.
It’s been happening since at least 2000 (Florida, anyone?), and in the off-year elections too.
Believe me, PAPER BALLOTS and HAND COUNTS are the only way to stop it. And then, good luck trying to prove it …… sad to say. But at least there’d be a chance.
I live in a little fairy tale world, where we vote with the old paper ballots. We have one Diebold machine at the polls, but no one ever used it at the last primary. People here like their paper ballots.
Hey, maybe it could take a little longer to count them, but at the end of election night, we’d feel more certain that our vote really mattered.
Let’s get rid of voting machines, eh?
AND — if you have any chance to be a POLL WATCHER, please volunteer! We all need you!
(Anyone interested in more of this, check out bradblog.com.)
YBG
It is all about hairy knuckle dragging Neanderthals wanting control over women. These same people have no problem with raping mother nature, polluting our air, water, and food and killing innocent men, women, and children, including pregnant women, in their wars for oil.
So what would these clowns do about a 12 yr old girl who became pregnant by her uncle, father, brother, or cousin?
Excellent writing!
I have asked a pro-life friend if Roe v. Wade were reinstated, should women who go ahead and get abortions in capital punishment states be executed? She was startled by my question and admitted she hadn’t considered the possibility of punishment for abortion.
I asked what would happen if there was a miscarriage, should there be an investigation? No answer.
The anti-abortion crowd seems to think that if abortion is outlawed it will magically go away….
There’s a great video on youtube of anti-abortion protestors asked what the penalty should be for getting an abortion. Not one of them had ever thought about it. Years of protest without a single thought.