Get your hangers and knitting needles ready…

Cause the way things are going, we will be forced into using these instruments for something other than hanging up clothes and knitting a sweater. The assault against women and their rights has been increasing with staunch religious fervor, and complete and utter disregard for a woman’s right to act according to her own wishes and demand her rights to freedom of choice.

I would like to comment more on this, but I will post up links and tidbits of recent news links and save the rest for the comment section.

In Virginia, as well as LA and other states, the false meme of safety is being used to once again explain the reasons for attacking a woman’s right to choose for her own self…

Feminist Wire Daily Newsbriefs: U.S. and Global News Coverage

The Virginia Senate voted yesterday to pass a bill (SB 924) requiring that clinics that perform first trimester abortions meet the Board of Health regulations on hospitals, which are far more stringent than the regulations on physician’s offices. The 20-20 tie was broken in the Democratic state Senate by an unusual vote from Lieutenant Governor Bill Bolling (R). The House voted in favor of the bill on Monday. Republican Governor Bob McDonnell announced that he will sign the bill.

These regulations will significantly and unnecessarily increase the cost of early abortions and will make it difficult to get an abortion in Virginia. The costs of implementing the required changes could cause as many as 17 of the state’s 21 abortion clinics to shut down.

Tarina Keene, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia, stated,”[The bill] represents a shameful level of political interference in the doctor-patient relationship. The politicians behind this plan falsely claim they are protecting women’s health, yet their ultimate goal is to make it even more difficult for women to access abortion care in Virginia.”

Judge dismisses La. abortion clinic lawsuit – CNBC

BATON ROUGE, La. – The state won a lawsuit over a new law that gives Louisiana’s health secretary more discretion to shut down an abortion clinic for safety or health concerns.

A group of outpatient abortion clinics had sued the state Department of Health and Hospitals in federal court, saying the law deprives them of basic protections given to other licensed health care facilities in the state and encourages discriminatory enforcement against them.

In Texas, they are also working on intruding on a woman’s right….

Texas House committee approves requirement for sonogram before abortion | Texas Legislature News – News for Dallas, Texas – The Dallas Morning News

AUSTIN — A requirement for women to receive a sonogram before an abortion cleared a key committee Wednesday and is poised to become the first bill considered this year by the full House, probably by next week.

Supporters praised the bill as a way to ensure that women see fetal development and hear their baby’s heartbeat before making an irreversible decision, while abortion rights advocates lamented the state imposing its judgment into a conversation between doctors and patients.

A similar bill already has cleared the Senate, and while there are differences between the two proposals, supporters are confident they can be reconciled, making Texas abortion laws some of the most restrictive in the nation.

Do you remember that song, “Meat is Murder” well according to Google…the word abortion is murder!

The most important news and commentary to read right now. – The Slatest – Slate Magazine

Abortion Opponents Link “Abortion” to “Murder” in Google Searches

Since yesterday afternoon, anybody Googling the term “murder” is going to be greeted by an odd second hit: the Wikipedia entry for “abortion.” The ranking is the result of a Google-bomb campaign by abortion activists, and it was exposed this morning by BoingBoing’s Cory Doctorow. (Googlebombing is when a group of people game Google’s search results to push or demote specific pages.) Doctorow points out the obvious: “However you feel about abortion, this Wikipedia page is pretty clearly not the second-most relevant document regarding murder on the entire English-speaking World Wide Web.” Regardless, Jezebel’s Anna North adds that the campaign probably won’t go much further than an meaningless prank: “Few people are stupid enough to decide that abortion is murder simply based on a Google association—and whoever is Googling ‘murder’ is unlikely to be looking for serious political debate.”

And lastly, did you see this ad that I linked to yesterday in the comments section of the Thursday reads? Well it has been taken down…and here are a few tidbits.

They Took Down That Offensive Anti-Abortion Billboard in Soho — Daily Intel

Last night, Lamar Advertising agreed to pull a three-story anti-abortion billboard featuring a young black girl with the caption, “The most dangerous place for African Americans is in the womb.” The billboard, put up by the Texas-based group Life Always, was also walking distance from a Planned Parenthood on Bleecker.

This next link is about the racist propaganda of that horrid ad…from the viewpoint of a black woman.

9 Reasons to Hate Anti-Abortion Billboards That Target Black Women – COLORLINES

One of my favorite aunts—the one who taught me about Maat, whole foods and natural haircare—bristles when I tell her I hate something. I’ll say, “I hate the last four episodes of ‘The Game.’” She’ll tsk, “Words are powerful. Hate takes too much energy.”

I’m going to have to disappoint my aunt today. Because I am still feeling some serious hatred about the racist anti-abortion billboards Jamilah King covered yesterday. I’m so pissed, I had to write a list:

1. I hate Life Always, the faux-pious anti-choice group behind thatsabortion.com and the racist billboard, which has “The most dangerous place for an African American is in the womb” looming above the image of a 6-year-old black girl named Anissa Fraser.

2. I hate how Anissa’s mother dressed her baby in pink ruffles, put a bow on her pretty, kinky twist-out and took her down to a modeling agency for the ultimate picture day, only to see her daughter’s image used for racist propaganda.

3. I hate how I’m toying with the idea of explaining why the billboard is racist propaganda.

4. I hate how thatsabortion.com directs black women to seemingly innocuous pregnancy centers that withhold information and hinder choice. I also hate how the site twists CDC mortality data: From so-called fact sheet: “Twice as many African Americans have died from abortion than the combined tolls of violent crime, cancer, heart disease, accidents and AIDS.”

5. I hate how Stephen Broden, a black Texas pastor and Life Always board member linked the billboard to Black History Month in the group’s press release.

6. I hate that Lamar Advertising, the company paid to erect the billboard, took the Soho one down last night, but I’ve heard about at least one in L.A. (If you’ve seen it, please share the address in the comments!)

7. I hate how Lamar claims they removed the Soho billboard because workers at the Mexican restaurant below feared for their safety—not because SisterSong and the Trust Black Women Partnership made serious noise, Brooklyn city councilwoman Letitia James initiated a change.org petition, city council speaker Christine Quinn condemned it, NYC public advocate Bill de Blasio called for its immediate removal, and Al Sharpton was plotting a press conference.

8. I hate how groups like Life Dynamics (blackgenocide.com), The Radiance Foundation (toomanyaborted.com), and the aforementioned Life Always tell black women who make the complicated, difficult, highly personal choice to end a pregnancy that they’re committing genocide. Genocide is the deliberate, systematic destruction of a racial, political or cultural group. People like Christopher Columbus (yeah, I said it), King Leopold II, Adolf Hitler, Pol Pot and Raphael Trujillo committed genocide.

9. I hate how this whole mess is the flip side of the breeder, Welfare Queen and Jezebel stereotypes.

But honey, one thing I love: How black women across the political and religious spectrum have been speaking out about the billboard and connecting it to the overall attack on women’s reproductive freedom. These billboards might have been a stab at humiliating sisters who have had abortions, but based on the conversations I’ve had and those crackling across the Internets, that ish didn’t work. Like veteran marketer and author Thembisa Mshaka wrote, “Thatsabortion.com billboards are an ad FAIL.”

And more on the mother who was appalled to see her little girl used in this disgusting way to target hate and violent attitudes toward women.

Controversial Abortion Billboard Removed, But Not Before Irate Mom Speaks Out – TIME NewsFeed

Apparently the loud protests over a Manhattan billboard put up by anti-abortion activists were enough to get it taken down after only two days. But the frustration doesn’t end there, because a mother whose child was depicted in the ad is angry.

The ad, purchased by Texas-based Life Always, spurred controversy due to its message that “the most dangerous place for an African American is in the womb.” People on both sides of the abortion debate deemed it offensive and demanded that it be removed.

What the hell is wrong with these damn Republicans? As Dak pointed out they are moving toward branding the Republican  narrative into a full outright attack on the poorer citizens of the country, woman and their freedom of choice, and they have the audacity to bitch about progressive attitudes toward “Big Government.”