The War on Constitutional Rights

Posted: July 11, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: abortion rights, War on Women, Women's Healthcare | Tags: , , , | 24 Comments

We’ve already seen many many ways that states are trying to restrict constitutionally-granted rights like voting. Many states are trying to restrict the rights of women and the GLBT community.  Access to abortion rights suffered severe blows under any state suffering from Republican Majority Rule.  A recent report showed that 39 states enacted restrictions on a woman’s constitutional right to abortion.

Here are some examples of the kinds of assaults that women have had to endure as Republican majorities try to force them further into second class citizenship.

– Waiting periods: So far this year, states have considered requiring counseling and extending waiting periods for women seeking an abortion. In April, Utah enacted the most extreme waiting period law by requiring women to wait a full 72 hours between obtaining counseling and having the procedure. Twenty-five other states have waiting period laws that generally require the woman to wait 24 hours.

– Fetal heartbeat: Oklahoma and Louisiana adopted measures that attempt to use the fetal heartbeat to dissuade women from seeking an abortion. The Oklahoma law requires health providers to offer women the opportunity to hear the fetal heartbeat if they are after eight weeks’ postfertilization. In Louisiana, health providers must make the heartbeat audible, often necessitating a transvaginal ultrasound.

– Mental health: Arizona and South Dakota passed laws requiring counseling on the unsubstantiated negative mental health consequences of abortion. Nine states now require the counseling. The myth that there is a causal link between abortion and mental health issues has been largely debunked by mental health professionals.

– Public pressure helps: Only 30 percent of abortion restrictions passed by one chamber have actually been enacted so far this year, a significantly lower rate than the proportion signed into law at this point in 2011. Public pushback against the transvaginal ultrasound law in Virginia likely squashed momentum for similar provisions in Alabama, Idaho, and Pennsylvania. In addition, last November’s defeat of the Mississippi personhood amendment probably helped thwart efforts for similar laws elsewhere in the country.

This really does look like a war on Women and their health. It will take years to unravel the damage that Bobby Jindal has done in Louisiana in just a few short years.

A year ago, 2011 was record-breaking in terms of attacks on reproductive health. While this year is set to have fewer restrictions on the books, 2012′s figures are still higher than any year prior to 2011. As was the case last year, issues related to abortion and family planning funding were lightning rod issues in a few state legislatures. In fact, 14 of the new restrictions have been enacted in just three states — Arizona, Louisiana, and South Dakota — three of the most hostile to reproductive health.

No wonder my Ob/gyn daughter is trying to move to the safety of a blue state where the state government doesn’t try to influence what she can and cannot do as a doctor.  Here’s the 19 worst states to live for women who would prefer the states stay out of their VAGINAS!

MORE Laser-Like Focus on VAGINA

Posted: June 18, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: just because, Vagina | Tags: , , , , , | 16 Comments

Face the Nation did not get any details on Willard’s policies on tax cuts, spending cuts, or immigration.  That’s probably because he’s enjoined the Republicans in their laser-like focus on American women’s VAGINAS. Willard held up Rick Santorum as the perfect example of some one to consider a role model. You can listen to the speech here.  Here’s some of the saccharine poured on the frothy one.

“Familes are an important source of strength for the nation,” Romney told the crowd. “Rick Santorum is fond of reminding us of the study that was carried out by the Brookings Institution where they looked at the qualities that were the best predictors of happiness and in this case financial wherewithal.”

Romney ticked off the familiar points from Santorum’s reading of the study easily recalled by anyone who followed Santorum’s primary campaign. The chance at poverty is lessened dramatically, Romney said, if people have “had the chance to be married,” graduated from high school and “whether they ever, one time, took a job.”

“If they did those three things, the likelihood of them falling into poverty was only two percent,” Romney said.

Between the current two candidates running for president, Romney is the one who favors limiting the number of marriages — he remains opposed to same sex marriage following President Obama come out in favor to the practice. Yet promoting marriage took a big role in Romney’s FFC speech.

“I hope to be able to talk to young people and tell them how important it is to get married before they have children because the opportunity for a mom and a dad to help guide the course of a child gives them such tremendous advantage in their lives going forward,” he said.

This, again, is lifted lock, stock and barrel from Santorum’s campaign messaging.

“You strengthen the home, you strengthen the economy,” Santorum said in the run up to the Iowa Caucuses, which he narrowly won. “I know people said, ‘Oh, just talk about the economic issues.’ You don’t talk about the family, you don’t talk about strong marriages and mothers and fathers helping to raise children, you can’t have a strong economy. At least over the long term.”

Okay, so let’s get back to the VAGINA dialogues and obsession with American Women’s VAGINAS.  Here’s Romney on the phone with forced-abortion advocate Ralph Reed–why didn’t he go to jail with Abrahmoff?– back in January.

Romney: I think he is detached from reality when he says that he wants to ‘reclaim American values.’ There has been in my view an assault on American values since the beginning of his administration. Clearly from the beginning the assault on life with his abandonment of the Mexico City Policy and with the Vice President being sent to China and saying we understand the one-child policy there and of course the abuses associated with that policy are alarming and disturbing, and then on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade just a couple of days ago he said that the wonderful thing about Roe v. Wade is that it provides an equal opportunity for girls to equal boys, meaning that they don’t have to have a child anymore, if they become pregnant they can get rid of the child and therefore have an equal opportunity. The disregard for the sanctity of human life is absolutely appalling.

Then of course there’s the assault on religion. I think a lot of people were surprised that he felt that the government should be able to determine who is and who is not a minister and fortunately the Supreme Court disagreed with him on that, but now he’s gone forward and said that religious institutions, universities, hospitals and so forth, religious institutions have to provide free contraceptives to all their employees, even if that religious institution is opposed to the use of contraception, as in the case of the Catholic Church. Even in that regard, fighting to eliminate the conscience clause for health care workers who wish not to provide abortion services or contraceptives in their workplace, in their hospital for instance. It’s an assault on religion unlike anything we have seen.

There’s been an assault on marriage. I think he is very aggressively trying to pave the path to same-sex marriage. I would unlike this president defend the Defense of Marriage Act. I would also propose and promote once again an amendment to the constitution to define marriage as a relationship between a man and a woman.

You can see who Romney is courting by watching some of the videos.  There’s Glenn Beck and his war on “Glee”. Funny, how Beck spends time obsessing on liberals kissing him like he’s their daddy.  I guess incest is a Republican Family value.  (See the video below). Then, there’s the pimp dude who should be in jail because he was found guilty of breaking into Senator Mary Landrieu’s office.   All the radical right and their bag of special interest mixed nuts that were on display during the Republican presidential primary–including my two least favorite boobs Palin and Bachmann–were there.

These are the supporters in Romney’s carton of cracked eggs.

Oh, just one more time.

VAGINA!!!!

Republican Freak Out in Michigan: Don’t Say Vagina!

Posted: June 18, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: abortion rights, U.S. Politics, War on Women, Women's Healthcare, Women's Rights | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | 36 Comments

It’s been a few days since Michigan State Rep. Lisa Brown and her colleague Rep. Barb Byrum, both Democrats, were silenced by the Republican House majority for speaking out against a highly restrictive anti-abortion bill.

Republican males were so horrified by these transgressions that they punished the women by banning them from speaking on the House floor the following day–the last day of the legislative session.

A spokesman for Michigan Speaker James Bolger said in a statement that Brown would not be allowed to give her opinion on a school employee retirement bill Thursday because she had “failed to maintain the decorum of the House of Representatives.”

Republican Rep. Mike Callton added that Brown’s remark went over the line.

“What she said was offensive,” Callton told The Detroit News. “It was so offensive, I don’t even want to say it in front of women. I would not say that in mixed company.”

Brown was punished for uttering the word “vagina”:

Brown, a West Bloomfield Democrat and mother of three, said a package of abortion regulation bills would violate her Jewish religious beliefs and that abortions be be allowed in cases where it is required to save the life of the mother.

“Finally, Mr. Speaker, I’m flattered that you’re all so interested in my vagina, but ‘no’ means ‘no,'” Brown said.

Byrum offended the powers that be by trying to introduce an amendment to the bill

banning men from getting a vasectomy unless the sterilization procedure was necessary to save a man’s life.

“If we truly want to make sure children are born, we would regulate vasectomies,” Byrum told reporters Thursday.

You’d think these men would be embarrassed after turning themselves into a national laughingstock, but apparently not. The controversy continues. Today Lisa Brown will participate in a reading of The Vagina Monologues on the Capital steps in Lansing. She will be accompanied by other female legislators and a teenage actress from Howell. The play’s author, Eve Ensler is flying in for the occasion.

What is so upsetting about the word “vagina?” At the WaPo, Susan Thistlethwaite says the male fear of the female organ goes all the way back to Aristotle.

The obvious revulsion of these Michigan male legislators at the term “vagina” goes well beyond politics. If you really want to understand why some Michigan legislators find the word “vagina” disturbing and unsuitable for “mixed company,” you’ve got to go all the way back to Aristotle.

Aristotle thought women were more material (carnal) and men more rational (active). According to Aristotle, the fully developed human is male, and a woman “is as it were a deformed male” (Generation of Animals, 737a. 28). This has disposed western culture, and especially Christianity, to consider women’s bodies as profane rather than sacred, and thus by extension too offensive to talk about in public.

But wait, this isn’t the mid-fourth century BCE, the time when Aristotle wrote. It’s not even the Middle Ages. It’s the 21st century, and women will not sit still and have their bodily parts considered “disturbing,” while simultaneously being regulated without their consent.

And at Slate, Dahlia Lithwick has a suggestion for a new bill for Michigan Republicans:

The scourge of women being allowed to speak the word vagina in a legislative debate over what happens when women use their vaginas must be stopped. And if women are not capable of regulating their own word choice, the state should regulate it for them. To that end, we propose that the Michigan House promptly enact HB-5711(b)—a bill to regulate the use of the word vagina by females in mixed company.

The bill will include Part A(1)(a) providing that any women who seeks to use the word vagina in a floor debate be required to wait 72 hours after consulting with her physician before she may say it. It will also require her physician to certify in writing that said woman was not improperly coerced into saying the word vagina against her will. Section B(1)(d) provides that prior to allowing a female to say the word vagina a woman will have a mandatory visit with her physician at which he will read to her a scripted warning detailing the scientific evidence of the well-documented medical dangers inherent in saying the word vagina out loud, including the link between saying the word vagina and the risk of contracting breast cancer.

Read the rest of the bill’s language at the above link.

Will any of this affect the Republican Party’s obsession with reversing women’s rights? Probably not, but I’ll bet some of their female constituents will be paying attention.