View Full Version : The Assault on Womens Sexual and Reproductive Rights
In other threads, information on radical changes to the sexual and reproductive rights of women in the USA have surfaced.
According to the Guttmacher Institute (http://www.guttmacher.org/about/) :
States Enact Record Number of Abortion Restrictions in 2011
January 5, 2012
By almost any measure, issues related to reproductive health and rights at the state level received unprecedented attention in 2011. In the 50 states combined, legislators introduced more than 1,100 reproductive health and rights-related provisions, a sharp increase from the 950 introduced in 2010. By year’s end, 135 of these provisions had been enacted in 36 states, an increase from the 89 enacted in 2010 and the 77 enacted in 2009. (Note: This analysis refers to reproductive health and rights-related “provisions,” rather than bills or laws, since bills introduced and eventually enacted in the states contain multiple relevant provisions.)
Fully 68% of these new provisions—92 in 24 states—-restrict access to abortion services, a striking increase from last year, when 26% of new provisions restricted abortion. The 92 new abortion restrictions enacted in 2011 shattered the previous record of 34 adopted in 2005.
http://www.guttmacher.org/graphics/2012/01/03/restrictions2012.gif
Abortion Restrictions Took Many Forms
Bans. The most high-profile state-level abortion debate of 2011 took place in Mississippi, where voters rejected the ballot initiative that would have legally defined a human embryo as a person “from the moment of fertilization,” setting the stage to ban all abortions and, potentially, most hormonal contraceptive methods in the state. Meanwhile, five states (AL, ID, IN, KS and OK) enacted provisions to ban abortion at or beyond 20 weeks’ gestation, based on the spurious assertion that a fetus can feel pain at that point. These five states join Nebraska, which adopted a ban on abortions after 20 weeks in 2010 (see State Policies on Later Abortions). A similar limitation was vetoed by Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton (D).
Waiting Periods. Three states adopted waiting period requirements for a woman seeking an abortion. In the most egregious of the waiting-period provisions, a new South Dakota law would have required a woman to obtain pre-abortion counseling in person at the abortion facility at least 72 hours prior to the procedure; it would also have required her to visit a state-approved crisis pregnancy center during that 72-hour interval. The law was quickly enjoined in federal district court and is not in effect. A new provision in Texas requires that women who live less than 100 miles from an abortion provider obtain counseling in person at the facility at least 24 hours in advance. Finally, new provisions in North Carolina require counseling at least 24 hours prior to the procedure. With the addition of new requirements in Texas and North Carolina, 26 states mandate that a woman seeking an abortion must wait a prescribed period of time between the counseling and the procedure (see Counseling and Waiting Periods for Abortion).
Ultrasound. Five states adopted provisions mandating that a woman obtain an ultrasound prior to having an abortion. The two most stringent provisions were adopted in North Carolina and Texas and were immediately enjoined by federal district courts. Both of these restrictions would have required the provider to show and describe the image to the woman. The other three new provisions (in AZ, FL and KS), all of which are in effect, require the abortion provider to offer the woman the opportunity to view the image or listen to a verbal description of it. These new restrictions bring to six the number of states that mandate the performance of an ultrasound prior to an abortion (see Requirements for Ultrasound).
Insurance Coverage. Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Utah adopted provisions prohibiting all insurance policies in the state from covering abortion except in cases of life endangerment; they all permit individuals to purchase additional coverage at their own expense. These new restrictions bring to eight the number of states limiting abortion coverage in all private insurance plans (see Restricting Insurance Coverage of Abortion).
These four provisions also apply to coverage purchased through the insurance exchanges that will be established as part of the implementation of health care reform. Five additional states (FL, ID, IN, OH and VA) adopted requirements that apply only to coverage purchased on the exchange. The addition of these nine states brings to 16 the number of states restricting abortion coverage available through state insurance exchanges.
Clinic Regulations. Four states enacted provisions directing the state department of health to issue regulations governing facilities and physicians’ offices that provide abortion services. A new provision in Virginia requires a facility providing at least five abortions per month to meet the requirements for a hospital in the state. New requirements in Kansas, Pennsylvania and Utah direct the health agency to develop standards for abortion providers, including requirements for staffing, physical plant, equipment and emergency supplies; supporters of the measures made it clear that the goal was to set standards that would be difficult, if not impossible, for abortion providers to meet. Enforcement of the proposed Kansas regulations has been enjoined by a state court.
Medication Abortion. In 2011, states for the first time moved to limit provision of medication abortion by prohibiting the use of telemedicine. Seven states (AZ, KS, NE, ND, OK, SD and TN) adopted provisions requiring that the physician prescribing the medication be in the same room as the patient (see Medication Abortion).
Family Planning Under Pressure
Family planning services and providers were especially hard-pressed in 2011, facing significant cuts to funding levels, as well as attempts to disqualify some providers for funding because of their association with abortion. Considering the historic fiscal crises facing many states, it is significant that family planning escaped major reductions in nine (CO, CT, DE, IL, KS, MA, ME, NY and PA)of the 18 states where the budget has a specific line-item for family planning. The story, however, was different in the remaining nine states. In six (FL, GA, MI, MN, WA and WI), family planning programs sustained deep cuts, although generally in line with decreases adopted for other health programs. In the other three states, however, the cuts to family planning funding were disproportionate to those to other health programs: Montana eliminated the family planning line item, and New Hampshire and Texas cut funding by 57% and 66%, respectively.
Indiana, Colorado, Ohio, North Carolina Texas and Wisconsin, meanwhile, moved to disqualify or otherwise bar certain types of providers from the receipt of family planning funds. New Hampshire decided not to renew its contract through which the Planned Parenthood affiliate in the state received Title X funds.
Given the difficult fiscal and political climate in states in 2011, it is especially noteworthy that Maryland, Washington and Ohio took steps to expand Medicaid eligibility for family planning. With these changes, 24 states have expanded eligibility for family planning under Medicaid based solely on income; seven have utilized the new authority under health care reform (see Medicaid Family Planning Eligibility Expansions).
Abstinence-Only Education Is Back
Unlike in recent years when states had moved to expand access to comprehensive, medically accurate sex education, the only relevant measures enacted in 2011 expanded abstinence education. Mississippi, which had long mandated abstinence education, adopted provisions that make it more difficult for a school district to include other subjects, such as contraception, in order to offer a more comprehensive curriculum. A district will now need to get specific permission to do so from the state department of education. A new requirement enacted in North Dakota mandates that the health education provided in the state include information on the benefits of abstinence “until and within marriage.” Including North Dakota, 37 states now mandate abstinence education (see Sex and HIV Education).
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ARIZONA: In January, the state agreed not to enforce a provision that prohibits citizens from claiming a tax credit for donations to any organization that “provides, pays for, promotes, provides coverage of or provides referrals for abortions.” The state’s move is in line with a U.S. District Court judge’s decision to block the tax credit provision from going into effect on the grounds that the law violates constitutionally protected free speech rights.
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TEXAS: In January, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a decision by a U.S. District Court judge that blocked enforcement of the state’s newly enacted ultrasound requirements, which require an abortion provider or a certified technician to perform an ultrasound prior to an abortion. The woman is offered the option of viewing the image and listening to the fetal heartbeat, and must listen to a detailed verbal description of the image unless she was raped, has a court order waiving parental consent or is ending the pregnancy because of a fetal abnormality. The panel held that the required provisions do not constitute forced speech, which is a violation of the First Amendment. The panel also overruled the District Court’s decision to block a provision that requires abortion counseling to be conducted by the abortion provider on the grounds that the language was unconstitutionally vague. (In early February, a U.S. District Court judge allowed the law to go into effect.)
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NEW HAMPSHIRE: In January, the House passed a measure that would establish a four-tiered priority system for the allocation of family planning funds that excludes family planning clinics from eligibility. Under this system, public health organizations would have the highest priority, followed by nonpublic hospitals, federally qualified health centers, rural health clinics and finally, private medical organizations that focus on primary health services. The bill would also prohibit allocating funds to organizations that perform elective abortions or run facilities that perform elective abortions. The bill is awaiting action in the Senate
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NEW HAMPSHIRE: In January, the House passed a measure that would consider a fetus at 24 weeks “of gestation” as a victim of homicide. The bill would not permit prosecution in cases of medical treatment provided with the consent of the woman or her guardian. The bill is awaiting action in the Senate
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Guttmacher provides monthly updates on new developments Here (http://www.guttmacher.org/statecenter/updates/index.html#FOCA)
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There is so much information to wade thru. Feel free to add on as you see things. I am hoping we can find some stuff on what is being done to fight back and by whom.
From NARAL Pro-Choice America's web site, things you can do to stand up for access to abortion, birth control and sex education:
Take Action (http://www.prochoiceamerica.org/get-involved/take-action.html)
Thanks for the informative link Liam!
http://www.prochoiceamerica.org/assets/images/social-media/2011-who-decides-infographic.jpg
California
In California, anti-choice forces are collecting signatures for ballot measures that would impose a dangerous parental-involvement mandate and mandatory 48-hour delay on young women who seek abortion care. These measures jeopardize the health and safety of young women who, for fear of violence or in cases of incest, cannot turn to their parents. In addition, anti-choice advocates have proposed a "personhood" measure on the ballot, which would ban abortion.
Florida
Voters in Florida will vote on an amendment that would eliminate protections in Florida's constitution that guarantee women the right to privacy. Anti-choice advocates also have initiated a campaign to place a "personhood" measure on the ballot, which would ban abortion and could even ban common forms of birth control.
Massachusetts I live here. Why have I not heard this?
In Massachusetts, anti-choice groups are pushing for a voter referendum that would ban insurance coverage of abortion care.
Montana
In 2012, Montana voters will face a parental-involvement measure. It would jeopardize the health and safety of young women who, for fear of violence or in cases of incest, cannot turn to their parents. In addition, anti-choice groups are collecting signatures to place a "personhood" measure on the ballot. This measure would outlaw abortion and could even ban common forms of birth control.
Nevada
Anti-choice advocates have initiated a campaign to place a "personhood" measure on the ballot, which could ban abortion and even common forms of birth control. The measure's backers are collecting the signatures needed to qualify it for the ballot.
Ohio
Anti-choice advocates in Ohio have initiated a campaign to place a "personhood" measure on the ballot. It would ban abortion and could even make some common forms of birth control illegal. The deadline for submitting the Ohio petition's signatures is July 6, 2012.
Oregon
Anti-choice advocates in Oregon have initiated a campaign to place a "personhood" measure on the ballot, with the intention to ban abortion.
http://www.prochoiceamerica.org/government-and-you/state-governments/
By Stephanie Snyder / Cronkite News Service | Friday, February 17, 2012 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Election 2012
WASHINGTON - A House committee Thursday approved a bill to ban abortions based on the gender or race of the child, a practice that Rep. Trent Franks, R-Ariz, called one of the greatest threats to civil rights in the country.(Trent Franks has called Obama "an enemy of humanity". He supports Gingrich. And I'm pretty comfortable saying he doesnt give a crap about civil rights.)
"The effort of this bill here is to simply say that we cannot discriminate against unborn children subjected to abortion," said Franks, the sponsor of the bill. "Somehow it seemed like we could come together on that." But opponents questioned whether race- or sex-selection abortions are actually happening, and they said the bill would do the opposite of what its supporters claim, by making it harder for poor and minority women to get health care.
"The African American and Hispanic communities are underserved when it comes to prenatal care, maternal and child health care services," said Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., at a hearing on the bill last week. "By every measure, our community is medically underserved and 3541 (the bill) is only reinforcing it."
Thursday’s House Judiciary Committee vote followed a week of jockeying on the Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act, with Democrats trying with little success to amend the measure. The final vote split along party lines, with 20 Republicans voting for it and 13 Democrats voting against.
The bill would make it illegal to knowingly perform sex- or race-selection abortions or to coerce a woman to undergo such a procedure. It also sets civil and criminal penalties for the action and requires that doctors and nurses report known or suspected cases of selection abortions, among other provisions.
Opponents charged that the bill would be almost impossible to enforce, and they accused Franks of using its discrimination claims merely as a vehicle for an anti-abortion agenda. Franks said the issue of race and gender discrimination in abortions is real - but he agreed with critics that he has an anti-abortion agenda and the bill is part of that.
"If Planned Parenthood and the abortion clinics continue to serve the underserved like they’ve been doing, then pretty soon there won’t be any underserved to serve," Franks said at one of the earlier hearings on the bill.
The committee met three times, with Democrats offering amendments to do everything from delaying its effective date, addressing employment discrimination against pregnant women and creating an "Office of Pregnant Women," among others.
Ultimately, the only successful amendment was one to strip the names "Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass" from the title of the bill.
"This is an insult to the memory of two giants in our history," Rep. Mel Watts, D-N.C., said last week. "To try to drag them down into some current-day debate about whether abortion or life begins at conception or viability, when that wasn’t even an issue when they were around, is just an abomination in my opinion." By Thursday, most of the debate was over and the bill was approved in less than two hours of batting back amendments.
Douglas Johnson, federal legislative director for the National Right to Life Committee, said he was not surprised by Democrats’ repeated amendment attempts.
"Opponents of the bill wanted to talk about everything but the actual practice of sex-selection abortions in the United States," he said.
Johnson said when similar legislation was introduced in the early 1980s, "there was a lot of pooh-poohing that this was even happening in the United States." But Pennsylvania and Illinois have since banned sex-selection abortions and Arizona outlaws both race- and sex-selection abortions, which has increased awareness.
"It’s getting pretty difficult for people to deny it’s going on," Johnson said. He claimed that is particularly true among some ethnic groups where it is culturally desirable to want a boy instead of a girl.
"I don’t think anyone, including Mr. Franks, is holding out for this to be a cure-all," Johnson said. "But (the bill would) make it less common rather than make it more prevalent."
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THE PRENATAL NONDISCRIMINATION ACT
The House Judiciary Committee has given preliminary approval to HR 3541, an abortion-restriction measure that would:
- Make it a crime to knowingly perform abortions based on the sex or race of the fetus.
- Make it a crime to coerce a woman into undergoing such a procedure.
- Make it a crime to solicit or accept funds to perform a selection abortion.
- Make it a crime to transport a woman across national or state lines for the procedure.
- Allow a woman to sue anyone who engages in such activity.
- Allow a father to sue anyone engaged in such activity.
- Allow the maternal grandparents to sue anyone who performed the procedure on their minor daughter.
- Impose penalties of up to five years in prison and a fine.
- Require medical professionals to report known or suspected cases, or face charges.
- Exempt a mother who undergoes such a procedure from criminal or civil charges.
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/us_politics/view.bg?articleid=1404319
Despite overwhelming public support for birth control, anti-birth control lawmakers aren't backing down. They are determined to give employers the power to deny women coverage for contraception — and they don't want to hear from women or from anyone who disagrees with them.
These legislators included five male religious leaders in the opening panel of the House hearing on the birth control coverage requirement — and not a single woman. In fact, they turned away a young woman from Georgetown University who had been invited by Democrats on the committee to testify about the role birth control plays in women's health.
Write Congress via Planned Parenthood (http://https://secure.ppaction.org/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=14158&s_src=BCAccess_0212_c3_web)
Medusa
02-18-2012, 11:49 PM
I need to find the article where Virginia is proposing that women wanting an abortion will have to undergo a transvaginal ultrasound before having the abortion procedure.
So basically, the state gets to rape women with a device before they can have an abortion.
Corkey
02-18-2012, 11:50 PM
I need to find the article where Virginia is proposing that women wanting an abortion will have to undergo a transvaginal ultrasound before having the abortion procedure.
So basically, the state gets to rape women with a device before they can have an abortion.
It's in the breaking news thread.
Feb 18, 2012 8:00am
Virginia is set to add itself to a list of seven states that require woman to get an ultrasound before receiving an abortion.
Kristi Hamrick, a spokeswoman for American’s United for Life, said that the issue surrounding the Virginia bill is not “some kind of political phenomenon,” but instead “about a life-saving test.”
“Ultrasounds are the gold standard in medical care for pregnant woman,” Hamrick said. “Woman have died from abortion-inducing drugs, when there is an ectopic pregnancy, for example. It is vital to protect woman’s health, and ultrasounds are absolutely vital for protecting woman’s health, for determining how far along is the pregnancy.”
Amy Bryant, an OB/GYN at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill who offers abortions as part of her practice, said, however, that, “there is no absolute medical necessity for this,” and the determination to do an abortion, “should be at the physician’s discretion.”
“Physicians that do abortions are fully medically trained and know when it’s indicated to do an ultrasound or not, and do it accordingly,” Bryant said. “And sometimes, women present for abortion having had an ultrasound elsewhere. Requiring them to have this specific kind of ultrasound prior to an abortion can be stressing, can be unnecessary… and, in my opinion, should not be mandated in such a way that it might not be medically necessary for a particular patient.”
Hamrick, however, said, “determining what is sound medical care, is absolutely of interest to states,” adding that state oversight, “happens in a number of other settings, not just this one.”
The law would require a woman, without her consent, to receive an ultrasound and give her ”an opportunity to view the ultrasound image of her fetus prior to the abortion,” an option she can decline.
Many women receive abortion very early in their pregnancies, which would mean that, in some cases, a trans-vaginal ultrasound would be required.
Bryant described it as an invasive procedure, where a probe goes inside the vagina to see the pregnancy, adding that, “every woman who has had an abortion thinks long and hard about the decision she’s making and does not need [a] state-mandated, coercive procedure to try and help dissuade her from having an abortion.”
But proponents of the bill such as Hamrick argue, “This is important to protect women’s health.”
“Tell me the type of situation when a woman would say, ‘I want to risk my life’,” she said.
The cost for the procedure could be left to the woman, because insurance would be unlikely to cover it. It can range in price, averaging a few hundred dollars.
The bill, which passed the Virginia Senate two weeks ago, will be voted on by the state house on Monday and is expected to fully pass because an equivalent bill was introduced and passed in the house just this week.
In a prepared statement, Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, a Republican, told ABC News he supports “the concept that a woman should have all of the information possible before she makes a decision about terminating a pregnancy” and will, therefore, sign the bill into law.
Opponents of the measure argue that would be a mistake.
“They are taking us back generations,” Virginia state Sen. Janet Howell said. “Virginia has been known as a moderate state, a pro-business state, and now we are turning dramatically backwards. Nobody can say these are moderate views and I think it’s going to be discouraging to woman and families who want to move to Virginia for business purposes.”
Howell introduced an amendment to the bill that failed which would have required men to receive a digital rectal exam and cardiac stress test before they would be able to be prescribed erectile dysfunction medications such as Viagra and Cialis.
“I was fed up with the way woman’s rights were being trampled in Virginia,” Howell said. “We didn’t have the votes to stop the bill, so I thought I’d use satire and bring a little gender equity to the situation.”
State senators Jill Vogel and Ralph K. Smith, sponsors of the bill, could not be reached for comment by ABC News.
Another bill that passed the Virginia house but not yet made its way to Senate would provide rights to “unborn children at every stage of development,” thereby effectively making certain kinds of contraception illegal, as well as abortion.
“The General Assembly is dangerously close to making Virginia the first state in the country to grant personhood rights to fertilized eggs,” said Tarina Keene of NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia.
Gov. McDonnell, a socially conservative Roman Catholic, has taken no position on the personhood bill, said his spokesman, J. Tucker Martin.
Del. Joseph Morrissey, the state house Democrats’ sharp-tongued point man, was twice rebuked by house Speaker Bill Howell for calling the GOP majority hypocritical in advancing the abortion bills while contending the state has no business urging young girls to be vaccinated against a virus that can later cause cervical cancer.
According to the Guttmacher Institute, there are currently seven states that require an ultrasound prior to an abortion – Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas.
In Texas, a U.S. federal judge recently upheld a part of the law that would also require providers to describe and/or show a woman images of her fetus and require her to listen to the fetal heartbeat. The same law currently exists in North Carolina and Oklahoma, but is not being enforced.
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/02/virginia-likely-to-require-ultrasound-for-abortion/
Ok I did not see this type of rationale coming.
Virginia used concerned for the health and well being of the women involved.
The US House Judiciary Committee is using protection of civil rights of women and POC.
Hm. Interesting.
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I cannot find anything on what professional health care organizations are doing yet. The AMA had an article about how Planned Parenthood has filed suit in a number of states as has the Center for Reproductive Rights. Two of the three doctors who perform abortions in Kansas have filed suit as well.
Published: 02.11.12| Updated: 02.14.12
Rallied by the approval last fall of a state law banning so-called "partial birth" abortion, Michigan abortion opponents are pushing for more in 2012 — from a "Choose Life" fundraising license plate to a ban on abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy.
Those proposals are among a number that could gain traction in a state Legislature where nearly two-thirds of the lawmakers have been endorsed by Right to Life of Michigan.
"We have a strong contingent of pro-life legislators seated right now in both chambers," said Ed Rivet, legislative director for the state's Right to Life organization. "There are more bills introduced that we have an interest in than we've ever had before."
Pro-abortion rights groups say the measures are part of a national attempt to chip away at Roe v. Wade, the federal court decision that makes abortion legal.
"We see a lot of these bills session after session after session," said Sarah Scranton of Planned Parenthood Advocates of Michigan. "This time around we are seeing them move more than we have in the past, which certainly worries us."
Scranton said lawmakers should focus on measures to help prevent unintended pregnancies instead.
The anti-abortion proposals' success will hinge on how the Republican-led Legislature and GOP Gov. Rick Snyder balance social issues with their stated top priorities — the state budget and improving the state's jobs climate.
Spokespeople for Senate Majority Leader Randy Richardville and House Speaker Jase Bolger each said there's time for lawmakers to debate some social issues while staying focused on economic issues. Snyder also is geared toward economy-related measures, but governor's spokeswoman Sara Wurfel said he will evaluate abortion-related bills as they move through the legislative process.
Snyder in October signed a state-level ban on a late-term abortion procedure opponents call "partial birth" abortion. Critics said the state-level ban was not needed because the procedure already is banned in federal law. But supporters of the state ban say it's necessary in case the federal law changes and to make it easier to prosecute potential cases in Michigan.
Now many lawmakers say they're prepared to take up more anti-abortion proposals.
"I sense a lot of interest in getting this done," said Rep. Eileen Kowall, a Republican from Oakland County's White Lake Township and sponsor of the proposal that would prohibit abortions after 20 weeks, with an exemption for when the mother's life is at risk. "This is one small measure to do the right thing towards human decency."
Kowall's legislation, modeled after laws approved in a handful of other states the past two years, is based on the premise that a fetus can feel pain at 20 weeks. Opponents dispute that claim and also say the proposals are a departure from Roe v. Wade, which lets states limit abortions in cases where there's a viable chance the fetus could survive outside of the womb. That's generally considered to be 22 and 24 weeks.
A measure pending in the Senate would tie into federal health reforms that call on states to set up health insurance exchanges for individuals and small businesses to buy health coverage. The Michigan measure would prohibit a health plan offered through the exchange from covering elective abortions. It's not yet known if Michigan will set up such an exchange, because some lawmakers — particularly in the House — are waiting to see what happens with legal challenges opposing the federal health plan.
The Senate has approved bills dealing with the handling of fetal remains that result from an abortion. The bills are pending in the House.
Other bills are aimed at screening before an abortion to make sure a pregnant woman isn't being forced or coerced to have the abortion against her will. Separate bills are aimed at requiring that a woman seeking an abortion is told she has an option to view an active ultrasound image and hear the fetus' heartbeat before having the procedure. Opponents call that a particularly intrusive proposal and an example of government trying to get involved in personal decisions.
"They are trying to find every possible avenue to frustrate women and to frustrate providers that are in a position of dealing with this difficult choice and this difficult time in their lives," said Rep. Jeff Irwin, a Democrat from Ann Arbor.
A bill that would create a "Choose Life" license plate is awaiting a vote in the Senate after winning unanimous, bipartisan approval in the Senate Transportation Committee. The plate, similar to those approved in many other states, would raise money for abortion prevention projects.
The plates have run into legal challenges in some states, notably North Carolina, where a federal judge late last year issued a preliminary injunction blocking the state from distributing them. The order came after the American Civil Liberties Union sued, saying the plates violate the First Amendment because there's no specialty plate for supporters of abortion rights.
http://www.plannedparenthood.org/about-us/newsroom/local-press-releases/anti-abortion-proposals-await-votes-michigan-detroit-free-press-38801.htm
Ok I did not see this type of rationale coming.
Virginia used concerned for the health and well being of the women involved.
Well apparently the U.S. Supreme Court did in 1973 because they clearly stated in the Roe vs. Wade decision that the state is not allowed to promote its interests until the second trimester and even then only in regards to the health of the mother.
FOR THE STAGE PRIOR TO APPROXIMATELY THE END OF THE FIRST TRIMESTER, THE ABORTION DECISION AND ITS EFFECTUATION MUST BE LEFT TO THE MEDICAL JUDGMENT OF THE PREGNANT WOMAN'S ATTENDING PHYSICIAN. The state has no right to interfere in this at all, in any way, with the exception of making sure the physician is licensed in the particular state where the abortion is to take place. The decision of the woman's physician as to what is necessary is final. So the state can take its concern for the health and well-being of the women involved and save it for the second trimester, where they have already shown their deep concern for the health of women when they banned the IDX procedure.
Since the number of abortions performed in the 2nd and 3rd trimesters are relatively miniscule and the debate over late-term and the banned IDX procedure (politically not medically named partial-birth abortions) has to do with abortions performed for emergency medical reasons, not elective abortions, it is increasingly frustrating for anti choice people. They have banned a procedure but since the abortion itself is medically necessary the only thing they have done is to force the woman into having a more difficult procedure. It is clear to the anti choice faction that the only way to stop a woman's right to choose is to eliminate first trimester abortions. These are where the abortions of choice exist. However they are at the moment protected by the Supreme Court, albeit not by the Supreme Court in its present configuration.
So anti choice people have found a plethora of ways to make exercising one's constitutionally protected right to a first trimester abortion a very difficult thing to do.
According to the N.Y. Times in 2004 "Immediately after taking office, Bush eliminated U.S. funding to any international family planning organization that provided abortion counseling or services -- even if they did so with private funds. The lengthening string of anti-choice executive orders, regulations, legal briefs, legislative maneuvers, and key appointments emanating from his administration suggests that undermining the reproductive freedom essential to women's health, privacy and equality is a major preoccupation of his administration - second only, perhaps, to the war on terrorism."
And the anti women sentiment of his administration lives on in a very busy republican controlled House. If they should regain control of the senate it will be very bad for the reproductive rights of women. Worse case scenario, and I'm talking Armageddon here, if they should control the White House as well it will be like living in a time warp.
This may not be the time to challenge the constitutional legality of the laws being passed by various states because it is a very right leaning supreme court, however, there may not be a better time. It is possible that the republicans in the very near future will control the house, the senate, the white house and the supreme court. The only option at that point will be to emigrate.
I posted this on the breaking news thread yesterday, but I think it belongs here.
To My Mother
Saturday 18 February 2012
by: William Rivers Pitt, Truthout | Op-Ed
Dear Mom:
First of all, I want to wish you a happy birthday, and tell you how much I love you. For as long as I can remember, it has been you and me, in the world and for the world, even when that world has been against us. You taught me everything I know that is worth knowing. You are the strongest, smartest, bravest, most moral person I have ever known. You are woman, and boy howdy, have I heard you roar.
I grew up watching you pursue your career in a working world dominated by powerful men, and I remember all the times they tried to break you with their misogyny and sexism and belittling attitudes...and I remember you bulldozing them right out of the road: blade down, eyes flashing, talent ablaze and strength overpowering. That was you, is you, will always be you.
I know you pride yourself on being up on current events - it must be in the genes - but I wanted to make sure you are fully up to speed on what The Bastards have been up to lately, because they have been busy in a way I have never actually seen before in my life. Every part of what has been happening in American politics of late is entirely familiar, the stuff of old nightmares, but I have never experienced such a barrage of unrestrained hatred, filth and nonsense to compare with this. It's as if The Bastards took 100 years worth of anti-woman sentiment, condensed it into a dense nugget of hate-crack, and hit the pipe. Hard.
The only way to do this right is just to show you. The best place to start is
Democratic Women Boycott House Contraception Hearing After Republicans Prevent Women From Testifying (http://www.truth-out.org/democratic-women-boycott-house-contraception-hearing-after-republicans-prevent-women-testifying/1329)
This morning, Democrats tore into House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) for preventing women from testifying before a hearing examining the Obama administration's new regulation requiring employers and insurers to provide contraception coverage to their employees. Republicans oppose the administration's rule and have sponsored legislation that would allow employers to limit the availability of birth control to women.
Ranking committee member Elijah Cummings (D-MD) had asked Issa to include a female witness at the hearing, but the Chairman refused, arguing that "As the hearing is not about reproductive rights and contraception but instead about the Administration's actions as they relate to freedom of religion and conscience, he believes that Ms. Fluke is not an appropriate witness."
And so Cummings, along with the Democratic women on the panel, took their request to the hearing room, demanding that Issa consider the testimony of a female college student. But the California congressman insisted that the hearing should focus on the rules' alleged infringement on "religious liberty," not contraception coverage, and denied the request. Reps. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) and Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) walked out of the hearing in protest of his decision, citing frustration over the fact that the first panel of witnesses consisted only of male religious leaders against the rule. Holmes Norton said she will not return, calling Issa's chairmanship an "autocratic regime."
A photograph of the witness table at this hearing has gone viral.
http://m.static.newsvine.com/servista/imagesizer?file=steve-benenA45B81DB-A1E8-D1F3-BCAE-257535198072.jpg&width=600
You will note the utter and complete lack of women. As for Rep. Issa's decision to bar that one female witness from testifying, her name is Sandra Fluke, and this is what she would have said, had she been allowed to speak. (Tremendously awful and controversial stuff, as you'll see)
The Testimony Chairman Issa Doesn't Want You to Hear - YouTube
The GOP's sudden deranged desire to ban contraception in all its forms would usually be enough to occupy one's attention, but there has been a hell of a lot more going on this week. For example, a republican Senator from Iowa named Chuck Grassley has blocked the reauthorization of a bill protecting women from domestic violence (http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/02/15/425816/grassley-takes-straight-domestic-violence-victims-hostage-to-lash-out-at-gay-victims-and-immigrants/?mobile=nc) because he doesn't want fags, immigrants and Indians to enjoy the protections offered by the law. My apologies for the vile language I just used, but I'm channeling Chuck here, and I'd bet my wallet, watch, warrant and word that "fags, immigrants and Indians" is exactly how they talked about this within the inner sanctum of his Senate offices.
Chuck Grassley hates gay people, people from elsewhere, and people who have always been here so much that he has blocked a bill that protects women from getting beaten and stomped by their husbands, partners or boyfriends. God bless America.
Don't think this kind of idiocy is restricted to Washington DC. Virginia is all set to pass a pair of anti-abortion bills that will require women to be subjected to what is called a "trans-vaginal ultrasound," but only if the "egg-is-a-person" bill doesn't pass first.
The GOP-dominated Oklahoma state senate just passed Bill 1433 (http://www.addictinginfo.org/2012/02/16/oklahoma-senate-passes-personhood-act-effectively-banning-all-abortions/)
The bill would define life as beginning at conception, effectively banning all abortions and many forms of contraception. The bill would also ban women from getting an abortion if they are raped because there are no exceptions in it. The bill would also prohibit women from obtaining life saving abortions from their doctors if the pregnancy threatens their lives. The language of the bill is so broad and encompassing that a woman may be forced to die in a hospital because her doctors would be powerless to save her.
In-vitro fertilization could be defined as mass murder since the process involves placing many fertilized eggs into a woman to increase the chances of her getting pregnant, because some, or all, of the zygotes could die. This will essentially prevent doctors from performing the procedure altogether, meaning many women will lose their last hope of having a child.
But wait, there's more (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/15/rush-limbaugh-abortion-contraception-pregnancy_n_1277547.html?ref=fb&src=sp&comm_ref=false#sb=404846,b=facebook)
(Rush) Limbaugh was indignant about the hype around the issue. "Why is contraception so important that it must be paid for by somebody else?" he demanded to know. He asked why contraceptives are "a must-have" in comparison to toothpaste, hotel rooms or a car. "Why are so many people afraid of birth?" he wondered.
Limbaugh then asked why the Democratic Party would want to limit pregnancies, arguing that it makes money from abortions. He alleged that Planned Parenthood is part of "a money-laundering operation for the Democrat party" and that the organization "is rolling in dough" from providing abortion services. "So why would the Democrat party want to make sure that there aren't any pregnancies?" he challenged.
"Could it be that Democrats fear kids?" he wondered. "I mean, they are aborting their own people. The vast majority of people having abortions are Democrat voters."
But really...really...here is the bull-moose, brass-bound, gold-medal-winner of this whole madhouse eruption. This wasn't posted on some obscure far-right whack-ass blog...*this* aired on MSNB-fa chrissake-C on Thursday afternoon: (http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/02/santorum-backer-friess-gals-used-to-put-aspirin-between-their-knees-for-contraception.php?ref=fpnewsfeed)
This whole contraception debate is just so new-fangled, says billionaire investor and mega-funder to the super PAC supporting former Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA) for President, Foster Friess.
In a simpler time, there were other ways to deal with female sexual desire. "Back in my day, they used Bayer Aspirin for contraceptives. The gals put it between their knees and it wasn't that costly," he said Thursday on MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell Reports, setting the host back for moment.
The general conversation was about Santorum's past statements about contraception, who once said that it was "harmful to women."
The thing is, Mom, I get the sense that a few different influences have been unleashed within the ranks of the Right as far as all this goes. See, when the allies of Planned Parenthood stomped a mudhole in the Komen Foundation for messing with cancer screening, it caused a massive reaction within the ranks of the penis-firsters. How dare those abortionists tell us what for? WHAAARGARBLE!!!
That's part of it, but I think there's some deep-seated racism involved here, too. These people want to ban contraception because they want white people to breed prolifically, so as to overcome what they see as an onslaught by the Brown Ones against All That Is Right And True In America. After all, one of those shady, shaded dudes already sits in the White House, and he doesn't even have a proper birth certificate, right? Right?
Or something.
Beyond that is some nascent Taliban-esqe hatred of women that goes back to the Old Testament, something that is rooted in a deep-seated sense of insecurity these people feel that drives them to try to subjugate half the voting population in an election year. For the record, I have seen plenty of stupidity in my time, but this latest upheaval absolutely takes the cake.
I think they might be desperate...desperate to try and steer the national discourse away from the economic issues they can't possibly win on, and towards the social warfare they have deployed with so much success over the years. Choosing birth control as the battlefield, however, strikes me as a tactical error so great as to put Hitler's decision to open a second front in deep shade.
It could also be simple ignorance. After all, a fair portion of these knuckleheads don't believe in dinosaurs because they aren't mentioned in the Bible, don't believe in science generally, and have come to believe that the best thing for America is to revert to some "Leave It To Beaver" fantasy about gender roles in society.
You and I know better, don't we, Mom? You went to work when I was knee-high to a grasshopper, and carved a swath through your chosen profession by dint of your superior skills and intellect...but you left a lot of pieces of yourself on that battlefield, because too many men thought you were getting above your place, ahead of yourself, and tried to kick you back down to where they thought you belonged. You won - you always do - but it cost you dearly. I remember. I will never, ever forget.
I have to admit to being stunned, in shock with all this, because of all the things I ever expected to deal with, take on and overcome, it never occurred to me that fighting the war you already won all over again would be something I would have to contend with in this brave year of 2012...but here we are. Part of me wants to lay back and let these dunderheads crash around in a frothing fury, wants to let them destroy themselves...but no.
No.
Now is the time to rise up, point at this mess, and say in a voice too loud to ignore, "This is why these people are not to be trusted with power. This is why they must go."
You fought this war and won it, Mom. The Bastards want to try and re-take the battlefield. I will not let it happen, and I am not alone.
I love you with all of my heart, Mom.
Don't worry. We got this.
Your loving son,
William
Santorum: Prenatal testing is to ‘encourage abortions’
Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum on Sunday suggested that “Obamacare” required free prenatal testing coverage because President Barack Obama wanted to see more disabled babies aborted.
The former Pennsylvania senators had told supporters on Saturday that the Affordable Care Act just created the requirement “because free prenatal testing ends up in more abortions and therefore less care that has to be done because we cull the ranks of the disabled in our society.”
“You sound like you’re saying the purpose of prenatal care is to cause to have people to have abortions, to get more abortions in this country,” CBS host Bob Schieffer told Santorum on Sunday. “I think any number of people would say that’s not the purpose at all.”
“That’s simply not true,” Santorum replied. “The bottom line is that a lot of prenatal tests are done to identify deformities in utero, and the customary procedure is to encourage abortions.”
“And in fact, prenatal testing, particularly amniocentesis — I’m not talking about general prenatal care,” he added. “We’re talking about specifically prenatal testing, and specifically amniocentesis, which is a procedure that actually creates a risk of having a miscarriage when you have it, and is done for the purposes of identifying maladies in the womb. And which in many cases — in fact, most cases physicians recommend — particularly if there’s a problem — recommend abortion.”
Santorum said that he had personal experience with the issue because his daughter, Isabella, was diagnosed with a fatal chromosomal disorder called Trisomy 18 shortly after her birth.
“I know you also had another child that was stillborn,” Schieffer noted. “Didn’t you want to know?”
“My child was not stillborn!” Santorum objected. “My child was born alive! He lived two hours. And by the way, prenatal testing was — we had a sonogram done there and they detected a problem. And, yes, the doctor said, ‘You should consider an abortion.’ This is typical, Bob. This is what goes on in medical rooms around the country.”
He continued: “And, yes, prenatal testing, amniocentesis does result, more often than not, in abortions. That is a fact.”
“Do you not want any kind of prenatal testing?” Schieffer wondered. “I mean, would we just turn our back on science?”
“Look, people have the right to do it,” Santorum admitted. “But to have the government force people to provide it free just has to me — is a bit loaded. … I think the president has a very bad record on the issue of abortion and children who are disabled, who are in the womb, and I think this is simply a continuation of that idea.”
Contrary to Santorum’s assertion, the Department of Human Services Office on Women’s Health says that “medical checkups and screening tests help keep you and your baby healthy during pregnancy.”
He talks about 3 minutes on the environment then prenatal testing.
6qNklfEnCCk#t=194s
Why Patriarchal Men Are Utterly Petrified of Birth Control -- And Why We'll Still Be Fighting About it 100 Years From Now
What's happening in Congress this week, as Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) bars any women from testifying at his so-called "religious freedom" hearings, is so familiar and expected that it hardly counts as news. The only thing surprising about it is the year: didn't we all honestly think that by 2012, contraception would be a non-issue, and Congress wouldn't make the mistake of leaving women out of conversations like this one?
Yes, we did. And the fact that we were wrong about that points to a deeper trend at work, one that needs a bit of long-term historical context put around it so we can really understand what's going on. Let me explain.
When people look back on the 20th century from the vantage point of 500 years on, they will remember the 1900s for three big things.
One was the integrated circuit, and (more importantly) the Internet and the information revolution that it made possible. When our descendants look back, they're likely to see this as an all-levels, all-sectors disruption on the scale of the printing press -- but even more all-encompassing. (Google "the Singularity" for scenarios on just how dramatic this might be.)
The second was the moon landing, a first-time-ever milestone in human history that our galaxy-trotting grandkids five centuries on may well view about the same way we see Magellan’s first daring circumnavigation of the globe.
But the third one is the silent one, the one that I've never seen come up on anybody’s list of Innovations That Changed The World, but matters perhaps more deeply than any of the more obvious things that usually come to mind. And that’s the mass availability of nearly 100% effective contraception. Far from being a mere 500-year event, we may have to go back to the invention of the wheel or the discovery of fire to find something that’s so completely disruptive to the way humans have lived for the entire duration of our remembered history.
Until the condom, the diaphragm, the Pill, the IUD, and all the subsequent variants of hormonal fertility control came along, anatomy really was destiny — and all of the world’s societies were organized around that central fact. Women were born to bear children; they had no other life options. With a few rebellious or well-born exceptions (and a few outlier cultures that somehow found their way to a more equal footing), the vast majority of women who’ve ever lived on this planet were tied to home, dependent on men, and subject to all kinds of religious and cultural restrictions designed to guarantee that they bore the right kids to the right man at the right time — even if that meant effectively jailing them at home.
Our biology reduced us to a kind of chattel, subject to strictures that owed more to property law than the more rights-based laws that applied to men. Becoming literate or mastering a trade or participating in public life wasn’t unheard-of; but unlike the men, the world’s women have always had to fit those extras in around their primary duty to their children and husband — and have usually paid a very stiff price if it was thought that those duties were being neglected.
Men, in return, thrived. The ego candy they feasted on by virtue of automatically outranking half the world’s population was only the start of it. They got full economic and social control over our bodies, our labor, our affections, and our futures. They got to make the rules, name the gods we would worship, and dictate the terms we would live under. In most cultures, they had the right to sex on demand within the marriage, and also to break their marriage vows with impunity — a luxury that would get women banished or killed. As long as pregnancy remained the defining fact of our lives, they got to run the whole show. The world was their party, and they had a fabulous time.
Thousands of generations of men and women have lived under some variant of this order — some variations more benevolent, some more brutal, but all similar enough in form and intention — in all times and places, going back to where our memory of time ends. Look at it this way, and you get a striking perspective on just how world-changing it was when, within the span of just a few short decades in the middle of the 20th century, all of that suddenly ended. For the first time in human history, new technologies made fertility a conscious choice for an ever-growing number of the planet’s females. And that, in turn, changed everything else.
With that one essential choice came the possibility, for the first time, to make a vast range of other choices for ourselves that were simply never within reach before. We could choose to delay childbearing and limit the number of children we raise; and that, in turn, freed up time and energy to explore the world beyond the home. We could refuse to marry or have babies at all, and pursue our other passions instead. Contraception was the single necessary key that opened the door to the whole new universe of activities that had always been zealously monopolized by the men — education, the trades, the arts, government, travel, spiritual and cultural leadership, and even (eventually) war making.
That one fact, that one technological shift, is now rocking the foundations of every culture on the planet — and will keep rocking it for a very long time to come. It is, over time, bringing a louder and prouder female voice into the running of the world’s affairs at every level, creating new conversations and new priorities in areas where the men long ago thought things were settled and understood. It's bending our understanding of what sex is about, and when and with whom we can have it -- a wrinkle that created new frontiers for gay folk as well. It may well prove to the be the one breakthrough most responsible for the survival of the human race, and the future viability of the planet.
But perhaps most critically for us right now: mass-produced, affordable, reliable contraception has shredded the ages-old social contracts between men and women, and is forcing us all (willing or not) into wholesale re-negotiations on a raft of new ones.
And, frankly, while some men have embraced this new order— perhaps seeing in it the potential to open up some interesting new choices for them, too — a global majority is increasingly confused, enraged, and terrified by it. They never wanted to be at this table in the first place, and they’re furious to even find themselves being forced to have this conversation at all.
It was never meant to happen. It never should have happened. And they’re doing their damndest to put a stop to it all, right now, and make it go away.
It’s this rage that’s driving the Catholic bishops into a frenzied donnybrook fight against contraception — despite the very real possibility that this fight could, in the end, damage their church even more fatally than the molestation scandal did. As the keepers of a 2000-year-old enterprise — one of the oldest continuously-operating organizations on the planet, in fact — they take the very long view. And they understand, better than most of us, just how unprecedented this development is in the grand sweep of history, and the serious threat it poses to everything their church has stood for going back to antiquity. (Including, very much, the more recent doctrine of papal infallability.)
That same frantic panic over the loss of the ancient bargain also lies that the core of the worldwide rash of fundamentalist religions. Modern industrial economies have undermined the authority of men both in the public sphere and in the private realms; and since they're limited in how far they can challenge it in the external world, they've turned women's bodies into the symbolic battlefield on which their anxieties over this play out. Drill down to the very deepest center of any of these movements, and you'll find men who are experiencing this change as a kind of personal annihilation, a loss of masculine identity so deep that they are literally interpreting it as the end of the world. (The first rule of understanding apocalyptic movements is this: If someone tells you the world is ending, believe them. Because for them, it probably is.)
They are, above everything else, desperate to get their women back under firm control. And in their minds, things will not be right again until they’re assured that the girls are locked up even more tightly, so they will never, ever get away like that again.
If you’re a woman of childbearing age in the US, you’ve had access to effective contraception your entire fertile life; and odds are good that your mother and grandmother did, too. If you're a heterosexual man of almost any age, odds are good that you also enjoy a lifetime of opportunities for sexual openness and variety that your grandfathers probably couldn't have imagined -- also thanks entirely to good contraception. From our individual personal perspectives, it feels like we’ve had this right, and this technology, forever. We take it so completely for granted that we simply cannot imagine that it could ever go away. It leads to a sweet complacency: birth control is something that’s always been there for us, and we’re rather stunned that anybody could possibly find it controversial enough to pick a fight over.
But if we’re wise, we’ll keep our eyes on the long game, because you can bet that those angry men are, too. The hard fact is this: We’re only 50 years into a revolution that may ultimately take two or three centuries to completely work its way through the world’s many cultures and religions. (To put this in perspective: it was 300 years from Gutenberg’s printing press to the scientific and intellectual re-alignments of the Enlightenment, and to the French and American revolutions that that liberating technology ultimately made possible. These things can take a loooong time to work all the way out.) Our grandchildren and great-grandchildren will, in all likelihood, still be working out the details of these new gender agreements a century from now; and it may be a century after that before their grandkids can truly start taking any of this for granted.
That sounds daunting, though I don’t mean it to be. What I do want is for those of us, male and female, whose lives have been transformed for the better in this new post-Pill order to think in longer terms. Male privilege has been with us for — how long? Ten thousand years? A hundred thousand? Contraception, in the mere blink of an eye in historical terms, toppled the core rationale that justified that entire system. And now, every aspect of human society is frantically racing to catch up with that stunning fact. Everything will have to change in response to this — families, business, religion, politics, economics…everything.
We're in this catch-up process for the long haul. In the meantime, we shouldn’t be surprised to be confronted by large groups of well-organized men (and their female flunkies, who are legion) marshaling their vast resources to get every last one of Pandora’s frolicking contraception-fueled demons back into the box. And we need to accept and prepare for the likelihood that much of the history of this century, when it’s finally written, will be the story of our children’s ongoing struggles against the organized powers that intend to seize back the means of our liberation, and turn back the clock to the way things used to be.
What we’ve learned these past few weeks is: the fight for contraception is not only not over — it hasn’t even really started yet.
The Abortion Wars: The Real People Behind the Restrictions
by Carole Joffe
The last ten days or so we have seen Republicans, and their religious allies, wage a war against contraception—and bungle it badly. With poll after poll showing that a majority of Americans support contraceptive coverage in health reform, and with the 98 percent figure (of American women who have ever used contraception in the context of heterosexual sex) endlessly repeated in the media, the Republicans nonetheless push ahead with this attack, providing a welcome gift to the Obama reelection campaign and much material to political artists and comics. I have lost count of the number of parodies that have been inspired by that now gone viral picture of five male clerics testifying at the Congressional hearing called by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA). A picture that of course immediately brings to mind another image of a similar tone deaf moment on the part of social conservatives, the nine men surrounding President George W. Bush as he became the first president to sign a ban on a particular technique of performing abortion, in the case of so-called “partial birth abortion.” It’s no wonder that the term “patriarchy” has made a comeback in the blogs!
The well-publicized refusal of Issa to permit the testimony of a female witness put forward by the Democrats, Sandra Fluke, a Georgetown law student planning to speak to the health consequences of denied contraception at Catholic universities, only added to the disastrous p.r. of that event. And the “aspirin between her knees” remark of Rick Santorum’s major funder later that day didn’t help either.
But while the media is momentarily fixated on the second big story this month of a losing fight against family planning (remember the Susan G. Komen Fund fiasco?), less attention has been paid to a related war that is not going well at all. The assault on abortion that has resulted from the 2010 elections--the Republican takeover of Congress and many statehouses and governorships--has arguably produced the most serious threat to abortion access since the Roe decision in 1973. What we mainly have heard about this situation are the statistics, the unprecedented number of abortion restrictions introduced and eventually passed in state legislatures at a time when one might assume politicians’ focus would be on the economy.
But there are real people behind the numbers and details of the restrictions. And the enormous toll that the abortion wars take on individual women seeking the procedure and the providers who try to help them are insufficiently appreciated by the general public. Consider the case of Jennie McCormick, a destitute Idaho woman, a single mother of three, who, facing an unwanted pregnancy and unable to travel several hours to the nearest abortion clinic, ordered abortion medication over the Internet, and is now facing criminal charges. She has also been stigmatized in her own community to a degree to which the fictional Hester Prynne of The Scarlet Letter fame could relate. Here is a description of her daily life, as described in a British newspaper:
When Jennie Linn McCormack walks the streets of Pocatello, the town in southern Idaho where she was born, raised, and still lives, she attempts to disguise her face by covering it with a thick woollen scarf. It doesn't really work. In the supermarket, people stop and point. At fast-food outlets, they hiss "it's her"! In the local church, that supposed bastion of forgiveness, fire-and-brimstone preachers devote entire sermons to accusing her of mortal sin…."I feel like my life is over," Ms McCormack says. "I now stay home all the time. I have no friends. I can't work. I don't want to take my kids out in public. People can be really mean about what has happened."….
Consider as well the case of Amy Hagstrom Miller, who directs a number of abortion clinics in Texas, under the name of Whole Woman’s Health. Being an abortion provider in red-state Texas is always challenging, but especially in the past year. Hagstrom Miller has had to contend with implementing the state’s new sonogram law, which requires that women come to an abortion clinic at least 24 hours before their scheduled abortion, and receive a sonogram from the same physician who will perform their abortion. Additionally, the physician must give the patient a detailed description of her fetus’ development. The state has made it very clear to abortion facilities that it will enforce the law through inspections and will revoke the licenses of those doctors not in compliance.
It is not the fact of sonograms per se that is causing headaches for Hagstrom Miller. Rather it is the way the law is written. Patients at her facilities routinely receive sonograms. But the ultrasound used to be performed by a trained technician, the ultrasound was done abdominally and not through the more intrusive vaginal probe, and patients not have to make two separate visits.
So now Hagstrom Miller has to contend with the frustrations of many of her patients, who typically have to take additional time off work and pay for extra childcare. She also has to deal with the scheduling nightmare of making sure the same physician who performs the ultrasound is available to perform that patient’s abortion. Hagstrom Miller is convinced that this new rule achieves nothing more than putting more obstacles in the way of both provider and patient, and has not achieved its stated objective of changing women’s minds. “It’s had no effect whatsoever on our abortion census.”
But coping with the sonogram law is not the only thing that preoccupies Hagstrom Miller. For the past year, her clinics have been subject to an unrelenting campaign of harassment by the notorious anti-abortion group, Operation Rescue. To give just one example, her facilities have been subject to no less than 13 surprise investigations by various state agencies, including the state health department, the Texas Commission on Environmental Equality, the state Pharmacy Board, and seven of the physicians associated with Whole Woman’s Health were formally investigated. All these investigations were triggered by “citizen complaints” made to various bureaucracies. Among the “citizens” making such complaints is Cheryl Sullinger, the OR operative whose name was found in the car of Scott Roeder, who assassinated Dr. George Tiller in May 2009, and who herself has spent time in jail for her anti-abortion activity.
To give a flavor of what Whole Woman’s Health has had to put up with as a result of Operation Rescue’s campaign, one of the complaints alleged that aborted fetuses were discarded in clinic dumpsters. So clinics’ staff and visitors were subjected to the bizarre sight of public health nurses in Hazmat suits pawing through dumpsters, routinely opening and photographing the content of every bag, on order of the state health department--and finding nothing incriminating.
When I asked Hagstrom Miller to reflect on her dual difficulties with both the new state sonogram law and the actions of Operation Rescue, she responded:
“This past year has been one of the most difficult of my career in abortion care. It is almost surreal to be constantly challenged for the very thing we have been recognized for doing well…The very state agencies that have licensed us have to take the word of people who have a stated goal of closing abortion facilities by any means necessary. Even when, time and time again, we are cleared of the accusations, they (opponents) are successful in that they have tied up our time, spirits, money and energy and distracted us from the good work we could be doing with women and families in our communities.”
Unlike Jennie McCormick, the young Idaho women mentioned above, Hagstrom Miller is not isolated and without resources. Indeed, she is a cherished member of the closeknit national community of abortion providers, and operates daily in a world of loving family and friends. But the situation of both of them reveal one of the greatest challenges facing the reproductive freedom movement: how to connect for the public the two reproductive wars currently being waged—the contraceptive one that that thus far seems a slam dunk victory, and the abortion one that we are losing, and about which the public is no doubt weary.
In the real world, these two issues of contraception and abortion exist on the same continuum. The use of both are affirmations of the belief in nonprocreative sex. At Whole Women’s Health, and at most other abortion providing facilities, patients are provided with birth control information and services. It is reasonable to assume that Ms. McCormack, only marginally employed, did not have access to reliable contraception. This connectedness of birth control and abortion is of course a major reason that social conservatives oppose the former. And it is a key reason why the 98 percent-ers should more vigorously support the latter.
Tick, thank for posting both of these very pertinent articles. Both show how we need to look at how to define the problem so we have a clear understanding of the bigger picture and how it is manifesting itself i.e. keeping an eye on the forest while looking at individual trees.
They also helped to clarify a few things. In Texas, where one of the more offensive new laws was enacted, the new hoops have not interfered in women accessing and getting services. It has created hardship but hasnt affected the overall numbers.
It is also clear, the doctor doing the abortion is required to do the transvaginal ultrasound, not a tech. And, the only issues from one clinics perspective is a scheduling one.
There also doesnt seem to be a consent issue rearing its head yet either.
It is also a relief to see something, in print, from someone else, that brings us back to the bigger picture....revisiting the patriarchy.
It's not always comfortable, it is controversial, it is divisive but it is imperative.
Sometimes I think we, as women, feel we won the war, and all that was left was to work out the finer points of a new way of coexisting. We became complacent i.e "marked by self-satisfaction especially when accompanied by unawareness of actual dangers or deficiencies."
In 1776, Abigail Adams wrote to her husband John, "In the new code of laws, remember the ladies and do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the husbands."1 John Adams replied, "I cannot but laugh. Depend upon it, we know better than to repeal our masculine systems."2
We have been fighting ever since. 1848, Seneca Falls, the push for the ERA started. It is 2012 and there is still reluctance in this country to pass a law that says simply - Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.
Simple concept. Multitude of implications. See history of ERA. (http://www.equalrightsamendment.org/era.htm)
Funny how history keeps repeating itself.
Feb 20, 2012
Several hundred people this morning descended on the state Capitol for a women's rights rally to protest what they consider encroachments on abortion rights.
The House of Delegates was to vote today on a measure that would require ultrasounds of women about to undergo an abortion, but the bill went by for the day at the request of the patron, Del. Kathy J. Byron, R-Campbell.
Del. L. Kaye Kory has just delivered a scathing floor speech criticizing the legislation.
After last week approving its own version of the legislation, the House is expected approve the measure, sending it to Gov. Bob McDonnell's desk.
Opponents vehemently object to what they see as an invasive mandate, noting that early in a pregnancy, a trans-vaginal ultrasound may be the only method available to doctors.
The hundreds of protesters locked arms and silently lined the sidewalks and streets of Capitol Square. A state police helicopter circled and troopers joined Capitol police in monitoring the event. It will conclude at a 2 p.m. rally, which organizers say is expected to bring more than 1,000 people to the Bell Tower.
The protest also targets a contentious "personhood" bill passed by the House last week that would define life as beginning at conception.
---------------------------
Update
With hundreds protesting outside the Capitol, the House of Delegates delayed multiple contentious bills that appeared poised for final passage today.
The chamber pushed back votes on a measure that would require an ultrasound of all women considering an abortion as well as adoption- and gun-related legislation.
All three were Senate bills, meaning House passage would ensure that they go to Gov. Bob McDonnell’s desk. The House has already passed similar versions of each.
Senate Bill 484, sponsored by Sen. Jill Holtzman Vogel, R-Fauquier, would require an ultrasound of every female seeking an abortion and the opportunity to view the image of her fetus prior to the procedure.
Opponents have decried the legislation as wildly invasive, noting that early in a woman’s pregnancy, the only method of ultrasound available to doctors would be trans-vaginal.
In a floor speech, Del. L. Kaye Kory, D-Fairfax, said it would require women to “submit to involuntary vaginal penetration.”
Added Kory: “This body is mounting an assault on the freedom and liberty of women in the commonwealth of Virginia.”
Senate Bill 349, sponsored by Sen. Jeff McWaters, R-Virginia Beach, would allow private adoption agencies to deny placement services to children and prospective parents who don't share their beliefs.
Opponents claim the bill targets same-sex couples.
Senate Bill 4, sponsored by Sen. Richard H. Stuart, R-Stafford, would codify a version of the state’s “castle doctrine,” allowing homeowners to use any degree of force, even lethal, against intruders without threat of criminal charges.
Del. C. Todd Gilbert, R-Shenandoah, said the bills being carried over for the day had nothing to do with the crowds amassing outside.
Gilbert said the ultrasound vote was delayed because members were “trying to coordinate some things,” but added that he was not aware of any proposed changes to the legislation.
http://www2.timesdispatch.com/news/news/2012/feb/20/5/hundreds-at-capitol-for-womens-rights-rally-ar-1702583/
Del. C. Todd Gilbert, R-Shenandoah, said the bills being carried over for the day had nothing to do with the crowds amassing outside.
Well of course it didn't. What people want is of no interest to the house of representatives. It's not like they are there to represent the people or anything.
http://emilyslist.org/splash/speakout/splash01/
When the GOP held a Congressional hearing on birth control, only men testified. We can change who has the power over our health and our lives by electing more women. Join EMILY's List today to stand up to the GOP and change the way that Washington works.
The mission is simple, really: EMILY’s List is dedicated to electing pro-choice Democratic women to office.
www.emilyslist.org
Five Big Facts on Birth Control Not Discussed Nearly Enough by Men in the Mainstream Media
by Erin Matson, National Organization for Women
Undoubtedly, you have heard: The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops want to take birth control coverage away from all women under the Affordable Care Act.
Unfortunately, you probably heard about that from men. Think Progress released research last week showing that the major cable networks invited nearly twice as many men as women to discuss the fight for contraceptive coverage.
When women aren't called upon to discuss the realities of our lives, we are left with men discussing the contents of our medicine cabinets as if they were "culture wars" or "assaults on religious freedom." (For the record: Women's bodies are not cultural commodities, and any meaningful freedom of religion requires freedom from an imposed religion.)
So here are five big facts on birth control not nearly enough discussed by men in the mainstream media:
1. Contraception is basic health care. Virtually all women use birth control at some point in their lives, and that includes 98 percent of Catholic women. A majority supports contraceptive coverage, including a majority of Catholic hospital employees.
2. This "controversy" has awfully strange timing. 28 states already provide for coverage of contraceptives.
3. Churches already have an out. 335,000 religious institutions, including Catholic churches, may refuse to provide contraceptive coverage under the Affordable Care Act.
4. Contraceptive coverage makes a difference for women. One of three women say they struggle to afford birth control.
5. This is sex discrimination. More than a decade ago the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ruled that an employer's failure to cover contraceptives is a violation of the Pregnancy Discrimination Act.
Late last week, President Obama announced a compromise that allows religiously affiliated institutions to not pay for contraceptive coverage, while still ensuring that every woman gets equal access to this basic medical care(private insurance companies will pay).
Yet the bishops continue to attack, revealing their true aims: It's not about Catholic dollars and "religious freedom," it's about refusing all women coverage for birth control. It's up to women to speak the truth about our health and lives.
The High Costs of Birth Control: A Major Barrier to Access
by Jessica Arons, Center for American Progress and Center for American Progress Action Fund
Many people seem to think birth control is affordable, but high costs are one of the primary barriers to contraceptive access. It is for this reason that the Obama administration recently followed the recommendation of the Institute of Medicine to ensure that birth control will be covered as a preventive service with no cost-sharing beginning August 1, 2012.
Although three-quarters of American women of childbearing age have private insurance, they still have had to pay a significant portion of contraceptive costs on their own.
-A recent study shows that women with private insurance paid about 50 percent of the total costs for oral contraceptives, even though the typical out-of-pocket cost of noncontraceptive drugs is only 33 percent.
-In some cases oral contraceptives approach 29 percent of out-of-pocket spending on health care for women with private insurance.
-Women of reproductive age spend 68 percent more on out-of-pocket health care costs than do men, in part because of contraceptive costs.
High costs have forced many women to stop or delay using their preferred method, while others have chosen to depend on less effective methods that are the most affordable.
-Surveys show that nearly one in four women with household incomes of less than $75,000 have put off a doctor’s visit for birth control to save money in the past year.
-Twenty-nine percent of women report that they have tried to save money by using their method inconsistently.
-More than half of young adult women say they have not used their method as directed because it was cost-prohibitive.
Women are struggling to pay for birth control at a time when they need it most.
-Nearly half of women ages 18–34 with household incomes less than $75,000 report they need to delay or limit their childbearing because of economic hardships they’ve experienced in recent years.
-The average income for working adults ages 18–34 is $27,458.
So how much does birth control cost exactly? This chart lays it all out.*
http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/files/imagecache/Full-Column/2012-02-19-costs-of-bith-control.jpg
According to the Richmond Times Dispatch (http://www2.timesdispatch.com/news/virginia-politics/2012/feb/21/tdmain01-in-national-spotlight-ultrasound-bill-lik-ar-1703425/) the bill should be voted on today.
The article contained some curious info:
"Del. Kathy J. Byron, R-Campbell, who sponsored the House's version of the bill, said numerous misconceptions about the bill are circulating, which is driving the negative attention surrounding it.
She said that both Planned Parenthood and federal abortion guidelines recommend the ultrasound as best practice to determine gestational age.
"The only way that they can determine the age of the fetus at an early age is by performing a trans-vaginal ultrasound, and they're already doing this procedure as a common procedure at Planned Parenthood," Byron said.
Byron said that providing a precise age builds on the state's existing informed consent law and helps ensure the safety of the woman.
"It's all well within our goal of making fully informed medical decisions," added Del. C. Todd Gilbert, R-Shenandoah.
Of course I went to the Virginia PP web site (http://http://www.plannedparenthood.org/health-center/centerDetails.asp?f=3976&a=91740&v=details#!service=abortion) and this is what I found :
An abortion consultation appointment is required before the procedure can be scheduled. Please call any of our three offices to set up an abortion consultation appointment.
The following will be completed at the consultation appointment:
urine pregnancy test vaginal ultrasound pelvic exam discussion of the risks, benefits, alternatives, and a step-by-step review of what to expect during and after the procedure discussion of post abortion birth control options
So now I am confused. Is the legislature just legalizing what is already being done? Is PP giving mixed signals as to what the support vs what they actually do? Do different PP clinics have the ability to set different standards of care? If so, who sets the policies?
Puzzle it is. Must delve deeper.
Corrected link for Virginia PP or just one of their clinics. Not sure.
Virginia PP (http://www.plannedparenthood.org/health-center/centerDetails.asp?f=3976&a=91740&v=details#!service=abortion)
Boston might require abdominal but rarely transvaginal.
"The only way that they can determine the age of the fetus at an early age is by performing a trans-vaginal ultrasound, and they're already doing this procedure as a common procedure at Planned Parenthood," Byron said.
Just for the record if it's that early an age it's not a fetus it's an embryo. I think fetal development starts around 10 weeks. But anyway, what I found at the Planned Parenthood site was
Before the abortion procedure, you will need to
discuss your options
talk about your medical history
have laboratory tests
have a physical exam — which may include an ultrasound
read and sign papers
So I guess it's a possibility that an ultrasound may be needed. But it is not a given.
Laws Mandating Ultrasound Before Abortion Threaten Physician & Patient Rights
Margaret Polaneczky, MD
Part of me just shrugs my shoulders at the new laws being promulgated by state legislatures that require ultrasound prior to performing an abortion.
After all, in most practices, getting an ultrasound before doing an abortion is pretty much routine already. Doctors who do abortions don’t want to be surprised by an unexpectedly advanced gestational age, a uterine anomaly, an erroneous diagnosis or an ectopic pregnancy. Since most Ob-Gyns have an ultrasound machine in their office, the sono is fast and easy to do. Those docs who don’t have their own sono machines will refer out. And higher volume providers may employ a radiologist or sonographer to do the sonos in their practices.
So if we’re all doing ultrasounds anyway, what’s the big deal?
This is not about abortion – It’s about the practice of medicine and the rights of patients
The big deal is that patient and physician rights are being violated by legislators with an agenda that has nothing to do with the public health and everything to do with restricting access to a legal medical procedure.
We are not talking about a doctor ordering a radiologic test. We are talking about state legislators mandating that a patient undergo a medical procedure without her consent.
It’s not only invasion of privacy, and the physician-patient contract, it’s assault on the patient. It’s mandating that “as a component of informed consent”, a woman undergo a procedure without her consent. (Amendments that require the woman to consent for the ultrasound were voted down.)
HC 462 – The Virginia Ultrasound Law
Abortion; informed consent. Requires that, as a component of informed consent to an abortion, to determine gestation age, every pregnant female shall undergo ultrasound imaging and be given an opportunity to view the ultrasound image of her fetus prior to the abortion. The medical professional performing the ultrasound must obtain written certification from the woman that the opportunity was offered and whether the woman availed herself of the opportunity to see the ultrasound image or hear the fetal heartbeat. A copy of the ultrasound and the written certification shall be maintained in the woman’s medical records at the facility where the abortion is to be performed. This bill incorporates HB 261.
Do you see the legal precedent being made here?
Forget for a moment that this is about abortion.
Imagine instead that there is a law requiring you to get a chest x-ray before you can be treated for pneumonia. Or mandating that as a doctor, you order an MRI and show the patient the images before treating a headache. Or forcing a male patient to undergo a rectal exam before being treated for urethritis.
We’re not talking about whether or not these are things that are happening anyway as part of the current practice of medicine. We’re talking about a law requiring them to be done as a condition of treatment. The doctor must order the test and the patient must undergo the procedure. Or the doctor is breaking the law.
This is not just about abortion. Or women’s rights. Or Planned Parenthood.
It’s about the practice of medicine and the rights of our patients. It’s about physician-patient privacy and the authority of doctors to practice medicine without the fear of breaking the law.
All physicians and patients, whether they are male or female, pro-choice or pro-life, Republican or Democrat, should be outraged. Our medical societies and our patient advocacy groups - every single one of them, whether related to reproductive care or not – should be fighting these laws, and engaging physicians and patients everywhere to fight back. Publicly and vocally.
With the passage of Virginia HB 462, eight states now have laws mandating that a woman have an ultrasound prior to an abortion.
How soon before it’s your state? Or your specialty? Or your practice? Or your body?
On a chilly winter day earlier this month, 120 college presidents--mostly of Protestant schools--from around the country met in Washington for an annual meeting sponsored by the Council of Christian Colleges and Universities, a group that represents 136 American schools and more than 400,000 students. One topic kept coming up in the discussions: How to combat President Barack Obama's proposed mandate for religious employers to provide health insurance that offers free contraception, a decision that would affect all of their institutions--and could violate some of their deepest-held beliefs.
During the conference, 25 of the presidents held a separate policy meeting to discuss the proposed directive, which was first established in the Affordable Care Act in 2010 and was upheld this year by the Department of Health and Human Services. The mandate, later softened by the Obama administration, would have required non-church religious institutions like schools and hospitals to offer health insurance plans that include free access to contraceptives and abortifacient drugs. Many of these presidents made trips to the offices of their representatives to urge them to fight against the decision.
Much of the news coverage of the battle over the contraception mandate focused on the outcry from the Catholic Church, but employers affiliated with Protestant denominations--especially religious colleges who offer insurance plans to students--waged an equally outspoken crusade against the decision. A coalition of more than 60 faith-based groups co-signed a letter to President Obama in December urging him to broaden exemptions to the mandate, and the council's president, Paul Corts, twice sent letters to the administration urging them to reconsider.
After the Obama administration first announced the mandate, colleges associated with Protestant churches and schools founded as expressly Christian institutions fought for exemptions, warning that the mandate could force them to deny health insurance to students who rely on the school's health care plans.
These critics say that many of the students who attend the schools are unmarried, so covering even preventive products would violate their religious teachings. Similarly, because some within the faith consider drugs like Plan B and Ella--which reduce the chance of pregnancy when taken after intercourse--to be abortion-inducing, the mandate caused problems even for coverage of married students and employees.
"You'd be teaching your students one thing and then providing services that you're teaching are wrong," Shapri LoMaglio, the director of government relations and executive programs at the council, told Yahoo News.
To quell concerns like these, Obama announced on Feb. 10 an "accommodation" for religious employers that would allow those employed by religious institutions to obtain free contraception as part of their employer health insurance, but said that the insurance companies would be required to pay for it, not the religious institutions.
In a statement after Obama's announcement, Paul Corts, the council's president, expressed skepticism that the accommodation plan would resolve the issue.
"Without seeing the final rule it is impossible to tell from the President's general statement if our specific religious liberty issues have been addressed," Corts said. "Therefore, we remain unaware of whether the religious exemption will encompass our schools and their student plans and eliminate all of the violations of conscience issues. We are anxious to get the details and will continue to work with the Administration to try to ensure that the religious liberty of our institutions is protected."
While the Obama administration was still considering how to apply the health care law's mandate to religious groups, several presidents from Protestant colleges sent letters to their representatives and posted them on Regulations.gov, a government site that gathers public comments on rules before they are implemented. Of the schools in the Council of Christian Colleges and Universities, at least 12 submitted comments urging the administration to expand the mandate or eliminate it all together. If churches were exempt, they argued, why aren't institutions that base their bylaws on the same faith-based principles?
"The Department of Health and Human Services hardly seems like the appropriate place for such a determination to be made," wrote Mark Benedetto, the president of the University of Sioux Falls in South Dakota, a school founded by Baptists in 1872. "I am concerned that the regulations as written will violate the conscience of our institution as it relates to the health care plan that we offer to our students--the exemption is for employer plans, as written it does not appear to also include the student plans. Not only would this force our institution to violate our religious convictions by offering emergency contraceptives to our students, it would put us in the awkward position of offering a health care plan to our employees that is consistent with their religious convictions while offering another to our students that violates their religious convictions."
Some schools have already made the decision to revoke insurance to students not covered by their parents. A spokesman from Colorado Christian University, an interdenominational school in Denver that has filed a lawsuit opposing the rule, said students will be forced to seek insurance options elsewhere if the administration does not change course.
"This plan will not be offered in the future if it must be compliant with the administration's mandate thereby forcing American citizens to either compromise their beliefs or go without," said Ron Benton, the school's assistant vice president for administrative services.
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/not-just-catholic-controversy-protestant-colleges-threaten-drop-232819956.html
(Reuters) - Can a state require a pharmacy to stock and dispense emergency contraception - even when the owner considers the drug immoral?
That's the question at the heart of a long-running legal battle in Washington state, expected to be decided Wednesday with a ruling from U.S. District Court in Seattle.
It's the latest twist in a contentious national debate over the role of conscience in the workplace.
In recent weeks, the debate has been dominated by religious groups fighting to overturn a federal mandate that most health insurance plans provide free birth control. But the battle extends far beyond insurance regulations.
Asserting conscientious objections, nurses in New Jersey have said they would not check the vital signs of patients recovering from abortions. Infertility specialists in California would not perform artificial insemination on a lesbian. An ambulance driver in Illinois declined to transport a patient to an abortion clinic.
In the Washington case, a family-owned pharmacy in Olympia declined to stock emergency contraception, which can prevent pregnancy if taken within 72 hours of unprotected sex. Co-owner Kevin Stormans says he considers the drug equivalent to an abortion, because it can prevent implantation of a fertilized egg. His two pharmacists agree.
Their decision to keep the drug off their shelves came under fire in 2007, when the state Board of Pharmacy enacted a rule requiring pharmacies to stock and dispense all time-sensitive medications in demand in their community. In the case of the Olympia pharmacy, that includes emergency contraception, said Tim Church, a state Department of Health spokesman. The pharmacy's owner and employees filed suit to block the mandate.
"All our family wants ... is to serve our customers in keeping with our deepest values," Stormans said in a statement issued by his attorneys.
The state argues that it has a compelling interest in protecting the right of patients to legal medication
The conscience debate has implications for a vast number of patients. A 2007 New England Journal of Medicine study found that 14 percent of doctors do not believe they are obligated to tell patients about possible treatments that they personally consider morally objectionable. Nearly 30 percent of physicians said they had no obligation to refer patients to another provider for treatments they wouldn't offer themselves. A more recent study, published last week in the Journal of Medical Ethics, echoed the finding on referrals.
And abortion and contraception aren't the only medical services at issue. Physicians also may object to following directives from terminally ill patients to remove feeding tubes or ventilators, said Kathryn Tucker, director of legal affairs for Compassion & Choices, an advocacy group that backs physician-assisted suicide.
A FAMILIAR DIVIDE
The arguments for and against expanded conscience rights fracture along familiar lines.
Religious liberty advocates argue that protecting an individual's right to heed his conscience is a core American value. They advocate broad laws that would shield most anyone in the health-care field from doing any work he or she deems objectionable, even if it's several steps removed from the actual act of terminating a pregnancy or supplying emergency contraception.
Under this view, a translator could refuse to convey family-planning information to a patient; a custodian could refuse to clean the operating room after an abortion; a billing clerk could refuse to process insurance claims for birth-control pills.
Conscience is, by definition, a highly individual value set; neither an employer or the state should "get to define the conscience" of an individual worker, said Matt Bowman, an attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund, a conservative non-profit law firm focused on religious liberty.
Bowman recently represented a dozen nurses who sued a New Jersey hospital over a requirement that they tend to abortion patients before and after surgery.
One of those nurses, Fe Esperanza Racpan-Vinoya, said even a routine blood pressure check would be abhorrent to her if the patient was in for an abortion. "Absolutely," she said, "there's a big difference" between a patient in for an abortion and one in for an appendectomy.
The hospital, University of Medicine & Dentistry of New Jersey, settled the case in late December. It pledged to hire new staff so nurses with objections wouldn't have to help with abortion patients, except in emergencies.
RETAINING PEOPLE OF FAITH
Religious liberty advocates say they worry that narrowing conscience rights will drive people of faith out of medical professions. "The government cannot single out people with conscientious objections ... and seek to exclude them from the public square," said Eric Kniffin, legal counsel for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which represents the pharmacy in the Washington case.
But women's groups and other patient advocates argue that expansive opt-out clauses create workplace chaos and risk patient harm. They worry about rural patients, where there may be just one pharmacist or gynecologist within 100 miles.
"It leads to one group of people imposing their religious belief on the public health of everyone else, and that's just unacceptable," said Susan Berke Fogel, an attorney with the National Health Law Program, which advocates for family planning access.
Paige Gerson, a dietician in the Kansas City suburbs, experienced the sting of a doctor citing conscience objections several years ago, when she called her gynecologist early one Saturday seeking an emergency contraceptive. The doctor on call declined to prescribe it or refer Gerson to another doctor.
"I was in disbelief," Gerson said. "I absolutely felt she was judging me." She drove into the city to get help from Planned Parenthood.
COURT RULINGS VARY
Case law on conscience rights is a confusing patchwork.
Federal law offers clear protections for doctors and nurses who don't want to participate in abortions.
Nearly every state has similar "conscience clause" laws in place for abortion. A number go further still -- 17 states allow health-care providers to refuse to sterilize patients on moral or religious grounds, and 13 states permit providers to refuse to prescribe or dispense contraceptives, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a family planning research group.
The broadest conscience protection of all is in Mississippi, where state law allows nearly anyone connected with health-care service to refuse to participate in nearly any procedure.
State and federal courts, however, have signaled a wariness to extend such broad protections.
Letting citizens freely opt out of civil laws by citing their religious beliefs would effectively "permit every citizen to become a law unto himself," Justice Antonin Scalia warned in a 1990 decision curtailing the rights of workers to claim religious freedom exemptions.
In 2008, the California Supreme Court cited that ruling in deciding that infertility doctors were wrong to deny a lesbian artificial insemination on religious grounds. Their denial ran afoul of a California law barring discrimination based on sexual orientation, the court found.
On the other hand, some courts have signaled strong support for religious freedom protections.
A state court in Illinois last spring overturned a regulation, similar to the Washington rule, that required pharmacies to carry and dispense emergency contraception.
And late last month, the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati ruled in favor of a graduate student studying for a counseling degree who said she couldn't counsel clients on same-sex relationships because of her religious belief that such relationships were wrong. The university expelled her, citing intolerance; she sued, claiming religious discrimination. The appeals court said she should get a trial.
"A reasonable jury could conclude that professors ejected her from the counseling program because of hostility toward her speech and faith," the court wrote. "Tolerance is a two-way street."
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/debate-over-conscience-workplace-intensifies-231341506.html
Here is the link to the article in Post #15. I somehow neglected to post it.
http://www.alternet.org/story/154144/why_patriarchal_men_are_utterly_petrified_of_birth _control_--_and_why_we%27ll_still_be_fighting_about_it_100_ye ars_from_now?page=entire
It seems to me the personhood bills are the ones to watch out for and, at the moment, there are two poised to become law in the next couple of days in Oklahoma and Virginia. If states start to pass laws determining life begins at the moment of conception it won’t matter if they have passed a law requiring women to fly to the moon for a piece of green cheese to present to her physician two hours before her abortion, because abortion will be illegal. And the outlawing of contraception won’t be long in following.
UPDATE 2:45 P.M.:
Gov. Bob McDonnell this afternoon said he opposes requiring Virginia women to undergo a mandatory transvaginal ultrasound before having an abortion.
Having reviewed the current proposal: "I believe there is no need to direct by statute that further invasive ultrasound procedures be done," the governor said in a statement.
"Mandating an invasive procedure in order to give informed consent is not a proper role for the state. No person should be directed to undergo an invasive procedure by the state, without their consent, as a precondition to another medical procedure."
McDonnell said he has recommended to the General Assembly a series of amendments to the bill "to explicitly state that no woman in Virginia will have to undergo a transvaginal ultrasound involuntarily."
"I am asking the General Assembly to state in this legislation that only a transabdominal, or external, ultrasound will be required to satisfy the requirements to determine gestational age," McDonnell says in the statement. "Should a doctor determine that another form of ultrasound may be necessary to provide the necessary images and information that will be an issue for the doctor and the patient. The government will have no role in that medical decision," it reads.
McDonnell has tempered his earlier support for the ultrasound measure.
In late January, he said on a radio show that "to be able to have that information before making what most people would say is a very important, serious, life-changing decision I think is appropriate."
More recently, however, McDonnell has been less decisive, with his spokesman telling the Times-Dispatch on Saturday that "if the bill passes he will review it, in its final form, at that time." This morning, McDonnell refused to answer questions about it after a news conference on an unrelated matter. He would only tell reporters that he's concerned about the budget as he walked away.
House Republicans now have before them a substitute to the ultrasound mandate measure that would allow women to reject the procedure if it must be done vaginally.
Under the substitute proposed by Del. David B. Albo, R-Fairfax, women would still be required to have an ultrasound before an abortion to determine the gestational age, but women subject to a transvaginal procedure would be able to decline.
Oftentimes, the procedure must be performed that way, versus on the abdomen, early in a pregnancy.
The woman would still have an opportunity to view the image and receive a printed copy.
The chamber has not yet started to debate the bill.
(This has been a breaking news update.)
http://www2.timesdispatch.com/news/virginia-politics/2012/feb/22/3/daily-show-latest-to-lampoon-va-ultrasound-bill-ar-1707568/
When a Country Cracks Down on Contraception: Grim Lessons from the Philippines
Read more: http://globalspin.blogs.time.com/2012/02/21/when-a-country-cracks-down-on-contraception-grim-lessons-from-the-philippines/#ixzz1n9Yi4IoQ
Corkey
02-22-2012, 05:17 PM
I don't mean to sound alarmist, there is going to be, if this personhood amendment crap passes, infanticide the likes we haven't seen since before RvW. How on earth can they call themselves pro-life.
Sparkle
02-22-2012, 05:20 PM
this is all so deeply disturbing in an "A Handmaid's Tale" way, ...except more so because it is our reality. :|
TACOMA, Washington (Reuters) - A federal judge declared on Wednesday that a Washington state rule requiring pharmacists to dispense emergency contraceptives against their religious beliefs is unconstitutional.
In a decision with national implications for the role of personal morality in the workplace, U.S. District Judge Ronald Leighton also imposed an injunction blocking enforcement of the regulation.
Leighton said he struck down the state rule because it trampled on pharmacists' right to "conscientious objection."
The ruling only applies to Washington state but is sure to reverberate nationally, as it comes in the midst of a roiling political debate about a new federal regulation mandating that all health insurance plans - even those sponsored by religious employers - provide free birth control.
Several religiously affiliated universities have sued to block that insurance regulation. Their arguments are similar to those that prevailed in the pharmacy case - namely, that the government has no right to compel individuals to violate their sincerely held religious beliefs.
Washington Governor Chris Gregoire, a Democrat who had pushed for the pharmacy mandate, said the judge's ruling left her concerned that some women will be denied timely access to emergency contraception, which can prevent pregnancy if taken within a few days of unprotected sex.
Gregoire said she saw "strong arguments" for an appeal of the ruling, though she said no decision had been made.
The lawsuit was brought by a drugstore owner in Olympia, Washington, and two of his pharmacists, all of whom shared the religious conviction that emergency contraceptives are tantamount to abortion because they can block a fertilized egg from implanting in the womb.
They refused to stock or dispense the medication, often referred to as the "morning-after pill" or by the brand name Plan B, and sued to block the regulation.
"I'm just thrilled that the court ruled to protect our constitutional right of conscience," one of the pharmacists, Margo Thelen, said in a statement issued through her attorneys at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty.
The case stems from a rule adopted by the Washington State Pharmacy Board in 2007 requiring pharmacies to stock and dispense most medications, including Plan B, for which there is a demonstrated community need.
In his 48-page opinion, Leighton noted that Washington permitted pharmacy owners to decide against stocking certain medications for any number of "secular reasons" - because they are expensive, for example, or inconvenient to dispense, or because they simply don't fit into the store's business plan. Yet the rule did not allow pharmacists to assert a religious reason for keeping certain drugs off their shelves.
"A pharmacy is permitted to refuse to stock oxycodone because it fears robbery, but the same pharmacy cannot refuse to stock Plan B because it objects on religious grounds," the judge wrote. "Why are these reasons treated differently under the rules?"
TIMELY ACCESS
The judge also accused the state of enforcing the mandate selectively, noting that regulators had not opened cases against the many Catholic-affiliated pharmacies in the state that also refuse to dispense Plan B.
He suggested that a more logical way to ensure access to the contraceptive - while respecting religious conscience - would be to require pharmacists to refer patients to another drugstore that would fill the prescription if they declined to do it themselves.
The governor, however, has suggested that referrals would hinder timely access to the medication in rural areas, where there might be just one pharmacy for many miles.
Rene Tomisser, senior counsel for the state Attorney General, vehemently disputed the judge's assertion that the regulation was being applied selectively or that it targeted Christian pharmacists in particular.
"From the earliest years of our republic, that a rule that is neutral and general has to be complied with by everyone, even if it affects someone's religious beliefs," he said. He said the Washington rule was intended to ensure women's access to an important and time-sensitive medication and that it was applied evenly to all pharmacies.
Leighton concluded in his opinion that the rules in question "are not neutral," adding: "They are designed instead to force religious objectors to dispense Plan B, and they sought to do so despite the fact that refusals to deliver for all sorts of secular reasons were permitted."
Tomisser acknowledged that the state had not investigated or disciplined Catholic pharmacies for non-compliance, but said that was because they had received no complaints from consumers about those businesses. He, like the governor, said the state would consider an appeal.
While Leighton's injunction technically applies only to the plaintiffs, Becket Fund lawyer Luke Goodrich said that as a practical matter, the state would now find it more difficult to enforce the regulation against other pharmacists.
Last spring, a state judge in Illinois struck down a similar law requiring pharmacies to dispense emergency contraception.
A handful of other states, including California, New Jersey and Wisconsin, have laws requiring pharmacies to fill all valid prescriptions, but loopholes allow pharmacists with moral objections to refer the patient to another drugstore.
Six states explicitly allow pharmacists to refuse to dispense contraceptives, and several more have broad right-to-conscience laws that provide some protection to pharmacists as well as to other healthcare professionals.
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/judge-strikes-down-law-mandating-sale-013210965.html
At the request of the Gov, after he consulted with doctors and lawyers, the House bill was changed to mandate abdominal ultrasounds, but giving women, requiring a transvaginal one to determine gestational age, the right to opt out of the procedure. The House passed it yesterday. The Senate is to vote on it today.
I'm sure the testimony from womens rights activitists, the parodies on this issue showing Virginia in a foolish light, and the lack of public support also helped.
The "personhood" bill is also supposed to make its way to the floor today.
Immediately following a Senate committee’s advancement of two abortion-related bills, about 300 people gathered along 9th Street at the state Capitol to decry the measures and rally for women’s rights.
At first, the group, mostly women, gathered on the western side of the street, facing off with a handful of anti-abortion protesters opposite them.
While the hundreds of protesters chanted “Our bodies, our lives” and held a variety of signs, some reading “Stop the War on Virginia Women,” the pro-lifers shouted back, holding posters of fetuses.
Eventually, women’s rights rally moved across the street and protesters stood shoulder-to-shoulder along the sidewalk leading from the General Assembly building to the Capitol, cheering Democratic legislators as they made their way to caucus meetings.
Del. Robert G. Marshall, R-Prince William, sponsor of House Bill 1, the contentious “personhood” measure that would define life as beginning at conception, decided to bypass the gauntlet after being jeered when his bill cleared committee earlier in the morning.
“Even Christ avoided stonings,” he said.
Marshall’s bill advanced to the Senate floor on an 8-7 vote after being amended to specify that that the bill would not prohibit the use of contraception.
“I’m pleased. This is a very simple proposition,” he said of the bill’s advancement, adding that the amendment was fine with him. “If it helps people understand it better, OK.”
Katherine Greenier, director of the Women’s Rights Project with the ACLU of Virginia and one of the rally’s organizers, said she was disturbed by the measure moving forward despite weeks of public denouncement.
“This bill would lay the legal foundation to ban abortion and contraception in the event of a Supreme Court reversal [of Roe v. Wade],” she said, adding that there were “numerous other concerns” with the legislation.
Marshall called claims that the bill would prevent women from undergoing in vitro fertilization “completely disingenuine.”
Another bill, House Bill 462, sponsored by Del. Kathy J. Byron, R-Campbell, was amended in the committee to weaken the measure, which originally proposed requiring ultrasounds, including vaginal, for all women about to undergo an abortion.
Under pressure from Gov. Bob McDonnell and the public, the bill was altered in committee to only require abdominal ultrasounds and offer vaginal probes early in a pregnancy.
“The amendment is nonsensical,” Greenier said. “We’re now mandating that a doctor perform a test on a woman, whether she consents or not, that is medically unnecessary. I can’t think of a bigger intrusion into the doctor-patient relationship.”
The staunchly pro-life Marshall said he was disappointed that the ultrasound bill had been altered.
“I think it was a reaction to this screaming out here,” he said, adding, “The women were already undergoing the transvaginal ultrasounds. This is nothing new.”
Asked if he felt like his Republican colleagues were succumbing to public pressure, Marshall said he could only answer for himself.
“I don’t back down from this one,” he said. “There’s no reason to.”
Senate Democratic Leader Richard L. Saslaw, D-Fairfax, emerged from the gauntlet to cheers and applause. Asked if the amendments to the two bills made them more palatable to Democrats, he responded: “Hell, no.”
He added: “Republicans are really screwing this place up.”
http://virginiapolitics.tumblr.com/post/18138097707/following-advancement-of-abortion-measures-protest-at
---------------------------------------------------
Senators and most others in attendance were aware of the national attention on the measure and late-night comedy ridicule of the "personhood" bill and other abortion-related measures.
"We are a laughingstock of the world because of things like this," said Sen. Mamie E. Locke, D-Hampton, who opposed the bill. "The individual rights of women are being challenged continuously," she said, calling the issue of a woman's pregnancy a matter between "them, their family and their doctor and their God."
A number of speakers -- including a physician and a mother who has gone through multiple in vitro fertilization procedures -- were concerned that the proposed legislation was not precise enough to safeguard the procedure and provide for all the ramifications of how fertilized eggs would be handled.
Still others wondered whether forms of birth control that prevent fertilization of an egg, or implantation of a fertilized egg in a uterus could become criminal acts.
Proponents of the measure, however seemed ready for this concern. Sen. Stephen D. Newman, R-Lynchburg, proposed an amendment that specified that nothing in the law could be interpreted as "opposing the use of lawful contraception."
The amendment passed on a party-line vote, and a few minutes later, the committee voted to report the bill.
http://www2.timesdispatch.com/news/virginia-news/2012/feb/23/1/crowd-packs-senate-health-committee-room-ar-1710295/
RICHMOND, Va. --
UPDATE:
In a stunning turn of events, the Virginia Senate has voted 24-14 to scuttle a bill that would have given fertilized eggs the same legal rights as people.
Sen. Richard L. Saslaw, D-Fairfax, proposed that House Bill 1, which had passed the Senate Education and Health Committee earlier today on an 8-7 party line vote, be sent back to the committee and carried over to the 2013 legislative session for further discussion and deliberation.
Then Sen. Thomas K. Norment Jr., R-James City, the Republican leader of the Senate, rose to support the motion, saying that the issues raised by the bill are more complex and far-reaching than previously thought and merit further study.
The vote effectively kills the bill for the year.
http://www2.timesdispatch.com/news/virginia-politics/2012/feb/23/1/crowd-packs-senate-health-committee-room-ar-1710295/
-----------------------------
Wow this is good news....I think.....for now anyway.
MsTinkerbelly
02-24-2012, 11:04 AM
Virginia lawmakers halt anti-abortion 'personhood' bill State Senate votes to send measure back to committee until 2013
PORTSMOUTH, Virginia — Virginia lawmakers on Thursday shelved until next year a measure ultimately aimed at outlawing abortion by granting individual rights to an embryo from the moment of conception.
..The state Senate voted 24-14 to send the so-called "personhood" bill back to a committee to be taken up again in 2013.
The move effectively killed the bill for this year.
Va. lawmakers scale back controversial abortion bill
Last week, the Republican-controlled House of Delegates voted 66-32 in favor of defining the word person under state law to include unborn children "from the moment of conception until birth at every stage of biological development."
Republican Delegate Bob Marshall, an abortion rights opponent who introduced the legislation, said the 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion in the United States would not have been rendered if Texas state law had regarded the unborn as a person "in the full sense."
"So this is a first step, a necessary step, but it's not sufficient to directly challenge Roe," Marshall said in a phone interview.
A spokesman for Republican Governor Bob McDonnell said the governor would review the measure if the Senate sent it to his desk but did not give any insight into whether McDonnell would sign it into law.
Advertise | AdChoicesAdvertise | AdChoicesAdvertise | AdChoices.
Virginia's approach differs from failed attempts to define a fertilized egg as a legal person in Colorado in 2008 and 2010, and in Mississippi in 2011 where voters rejected the measure.
Virginia's effort avoids involving a constitutional amendment like those states, instead seeking changes throughout the legal code, said Elizabeth Nash, public policy associate at the Washington-based Guttmacher Institute, which studies reproductive health issues.
But she said the intent was the same, with the measure ultimately aimed at banning abortion, contraception and infertility treatment.
"Should this bill become law, it could have a far-reaching impact on women's access to health care," Nash said. "No state, as yet, has adopted anything like this."
Marshall said the measure did not have the authority to ban birth control or infertility treatment.
"Let's just say that the imaginations of the opponents are fertile, but their arguments are sterile," he said.
Ted Miller, a spokesman for abortion rights supporter NARAL Pro-Choice America, said state Republicans pushing the Virginia measure had hoodwinked voters after campaigning on the economy and jobs before last autumn's general election, when the Republican Party gained seats in the General Assembly.
"That agenda is out of touch with the values and priorities of Virginians, as well as Americans across the country," Miller said.
Similar legislation failed last year in the Virginia Senate, which was then controlled by Democrats.
Copyright 2012 Thomson Reuters
LINCOLN, Neb.—Seven states asked a federal judge Thursday to block an Obama administration mandate that requires birth control coverage for employees of religious-affiliated hospitals, schools and outreach programs.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court of Nebraska, alleges that the new rule violates the First Amendment rights of groups that object to the use of contraceptives.
It marks the first legal challenge filed by states.
The rule, announced as part of the federal health care law, has come under fire from religious groups that object to the use of contraceptives, sterilization and abortion-inducing drugs. In response to the criticism, Obama administration officials have said they will shift the requirement from the employers to health insurers themselves.
The lawsuit was filed by attorneys general from Nebraska, Florida, Michigan, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Texas. Three Nebraska-based groups -- Catholic Social Services, Pius X Catholic High School and the Catholic Mutual Relief Society of America -- are also plaintiffs in the lawsuit.
Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning, a Republican who is running for U.S. Senate, said the administration's regulation "forces of millions of Americans to choose between following religious convictions and complying with federal law.
"We will not stand idly by while out constitutionally guaranteed liberties are discarded by an administration that has sworn to uphold them," he said.
The lawsuit alleges that the rule will effectively force religious employers and organizations to drop health insurance coverage, which will raise enrollment in state Medicaid programs and increase patient numbers at state-subsidized hospitals and medical centers.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is named as a defendant. A phone message left with the agency on Thursday wasn't immediately returned.
The contentious issue has pushed social issues to the forefront in a presidential election year that has been dominated by the economy. Issues such as abortion, contraception and requirements of President Barack Obama's health care law have the potential to galvanize the Republicans' conservative base, which is critical to voter turnout in the presidential and congressional races.
The new policy has angered some religious groups, including the Roman Catholic Church, who say the requirement would force them to violate their stances against contraception. It has also drawn a sharp response from congressional Republicans.
Obama administration officials have said they don't want to abridge anyone's religious freedom, but want to give women access to important preventive care. Supporters of the rule, including the ACLU and women's advocacy groups, say the measure is about female health.
Republican lawmakers in a handful of states have seized on the contentious issue, presenting bills that would allow insurance companies to ignore the federal rules. Measures in Idaho, Missouri and Arizona would expand the exemptions to secular insurers or businesses that object to covering contraception, abortion or sterilization.
Officials have said the Obama administration's ruling was carefully considered, after reviewing more than 200,000 comments from interested parties and the public. The one-year extension, they said, responds to concerns raised by religious employers about making adjustments.
Administration officials stress that individual decisions about whether to use birth control, and what kind, remain in the hands of women and their doctors.
Toughy
02-24-2012, 03:51 PM
It amazes me...well no it doesn't....this issue of contraception and insurance has been dealt with by the states for a long time...
about half of the states require contraception be covered with no exemption for religious groups and that was never a problem until Obama made it part of health care reform.
interesting article:
http://www.guttmacher.org/statecenter/spibs/spib_ICC.pdf
I thought this article was an interesting reminder of how we live in what was meant to be a republic - electing a body of people to debate the big issues and find reasonable compromises in order to do well by the whole. It is also a reminder that because there are so many of us with so many ideas and preferences and beliefs, it helps to be mindful that we might not always get what we want for the reasons we want it, but hopefully we get what we can live with.
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There was lots of excitable talk last week about birth control, with President Obama dialing back his initial plan for mandating contraceptive coverage to exempt employers who object to such coverage on religious grounds. In those cases, the health-insurance provider, rather than the employer, will be on the hook to pay for the services. Tellingly, health-insurance companies seem quite happy with this compromise, knowing, as they do, that paying for contraceptives is a lot less costly than paying for pregnancies and neonatal care.
Despite the support of a healthy majority of Americans of all faiths, Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich inexplicably described the compromise as “even worse” than the original plan. Gingrich’s opponent Rick Santorum scoffed at the need for contraception coverage, calling birth control a “minor expense.” Foster Friess, a major Santorum donor, suggested that “gals” might want to hold aspirin between their knees as a birth-control device.
With this hysteria at a fever pitch, it’s easy to forget a few simple truths. Taxpayers spend more than $11 billion each year (in 2001 dollars) on costs associated with unintended pregnancy. It’s a conservative figure that only includes public insurance costs and not the larger financial burden of bringing unwanted children into the world.
An estimated half of all pregnancies in the U.S. are unintended according to an analysis by researchers at the Guttmacher Institute and published in the journal Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health, and of those unplanned pregnancies, a further half end in abortion. That’s an awful lot of unwanted children and fetuses. By age 45, more than 40% of all American women will have had at least one abortion, a rate almost twice that of Western Europe. A comprehensive study by the World Health Organization confirmed that abortion rates in countries that prohibit or restrict legal abortion are no different than abortion rates in countries with liberal abortion laws; the only reliable way to reduce abortion is through the provision of affordable, accessible contraception. To cap off last week’s debate came the news that there has been a surge in births outside marriage, the fastest growth being among white women in their twenties with some college education. More than half of births to women under 30 now occur outside of marriage. Is this really a time to try to limit contraception? What about the reckoning of the reality of human lives?
People who cry moral indignation about government-mandated contraception coverage appear unwilling to concede that the exercise of their deeply held convictions might infringe on the rights of millions of people who are burdened by unplanned pregnancy or want to reduce abortion or would like to see their tax dollars committed to a different purpose.
Why should an employer’s right to reject birth-control coverage trump a society’s collective imperative to reduce unintended pregnancy? Should employers be allowed to withhold a polio vaccine or cataract surgery or safe working conditions on similar “moral” grounds?
We all enjoy the multifold benefits of a plural society, but the social contract requires that we must occasionally stomach government policies that offend and outrage us. Most Americans choose to live with this trade-off because, on balance, the benefits of being part of a civil society far outweigh the costs. We are assured a level of comfort and safety, for example, that is unheard of in much of the world. We travel on relatively safe roads and airplanes; we rarely get sick from our drinking water. We can call the fire department in an emergency and hire publicly educated employees; we undergo surgery and cancer treatments developed from taxpayer-funded medical research. Our armies are voluntary. We can worship where and with whom we want. Our legal disputes are solved by the state, not an irate neighbor with a pitchfork.
Americans generally understand that their world doesn’t collapse when they are forced to live with decisions and values with which they disagree. It seems people are quite willing to be flexible on most matters, except in an election year and where sex is involved.
The cost of living in a democracy is tolerating moral judgments we don’t always like. For those who object, there’s a clear alternative. Protesting the Mexican-American War in the 1840s, Henry David Thoreau withheld his taxes with the understanding that he would have to go to jail for his principles. In reality, he only served one night in jail, but he was willing to pay the price for his convictions. Martin Luther King Jr. and Nelson Mandela paid a much higher price for theirs.
Let’s see what our society would look like if we all had the luxury of imposing our unfettered will. At a minimum, the Catholic bishops and employers resisting contraceptive coverage should be willing to pay for the care of all those unwanted children. Or perhaps they’d be willing to spend some time in jail in protest. At my taxpaying expense, of course.
Read more: http://ideas.time.com/2012/02/20/what-got-lost-in-the-debate-about-birth-control/#ixzz1nPJmUYmG
By Amanda Peterson Beadle on Feb 27, 2012 at 10:33 am
When a woman in Alabama seeks an abortion procedure, she already has to sign that her doctor has performed an ultrasound and that she either viewed the ultrasound image or rejected seeing it. But state Sen. Clay Scofield (R) is pushing SB 12, a bill in the Alabama legislature that would mandate the physician “to perform an ultrasound, provide verbal explanation of the ultrasound, and display the images to the pregnant woman before performing an abortion.” The physician could also require the woman to submit to a transvaginal ultrasound — “in which a probe is inserted into the vagina, and then moved around until an ultrasound image is produced” — if she or he determines it necessary.
A Senate committee voted 4-1 on Friday to approve the measure, and the state Senate is expected to vote on it early this week. Even though studies have proven that viewing an ultrasound does not lead women to not have abortions, the bill’s sponsor says he hopes it will:
Scofield said he hopes that, if signed into law, his bill will stop some abortions. Though the bill states a woman can look away from the ultrasound image, Scofield wants her to see it.
“So she sees that this is not just a clump of cells as she is told,” he said. “She will see the shape of the infant. And hopefully, she will choose to keep the child.”
The bill wouldn’t require an ultrasound if an abortion is necessary to save a woman’s life, but it does not allow the victims of sexual assault to opt out of viewing the ultrasound.
Last week, Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell backed away from supporting the same measure after almost 1,000 women protested the measure and national media mocked the extreme bill. He explained that he backtracked after the state’s attorney general told him that “these kinds of mandatory invasive requirements might run afoul of Fourth Amendment law.” The Virginia House and a Senate committee have passed the ultrasound bill with substitute language from the governor that would not require women to receive a transvaginal ultrasound.
Update
State Sen. Linda Coleman (D), the sole vote against the bill in committee, told RH Reality Check that it is “a state-sanctioned rape bill.” “You can’t tell me forcing a probe into a woman’s vagina against her consent is anything but rape,” Coleman said.
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2012/02/27/432790/alabama-ultrasound-abortion-bill/?mobile=nc#
A Democratic lawmaker in Georgia is responding to a Republican-backed effort to prevent women from receiving abortions 20 weeks after fertilization with a tongue-in-cheek measure that seeks to limit men’s health care choices: legislation that “would limit vasectomies only to men who will die or suffer dangerous health problems without one.” “Thousands of children are deprived of birth in this state every year because of the lack of state regulation over vasectomies,” said Rep. Yasmin Neal (D) explained. “It is patently unfair that men can avoid unwanted fatherhood by presuming that their judgment over such matters is more valid than the judgment of the General Assembly, while women’s ability to decide is constantly up for debate throughout the United States.”
The anti-abortion bill (HB 954), offered by Rep. Doug McKillip (R), “would effectively outlaw abortion 20 weeks after an egg is fertilized, the point where the lawmaker said fetuses can feel pain,” but would allow for exceptions in cases where a pregnancy threatens the life or health of the women. The bill also does not include exemptions for rape or incest and stipulates that doctors “performing abortions without the justifications the bill requires would be subject to a prison sentence of one to 10 years.”
Fourteen states have imposed prohibitions on abortions after a certain number of weeks, generally 24, and 6 of these states ban abortion at 20 weeks on the grounds that the fetus can feel pain at that point in gestation — a claim disputed by doctors:
Doctors’ groups and other experts testified during a committee hearing that establishing a 20-week rule could force prospective parents to make a decision on ending pregnancies before having all the information available from genetic tests that can reveal whether a fetus has severe physical problems.
“People could be making decisions on information that is not definitive,” said Dan Wiesman, a certified genetic counselor at Emory Healthcare.
The concept of “fetal pain” is widely panned by many in the medical field, with the Journal of the American Medical Association determining that “pain perception probably does not function before the third trimester.” So discredited is the concept of fetal pain that even a Kansas Republican slammed the “false research,” adding “I would be embarrassed to be a state that bases its laws on untruths.”
Under current Georgia law, women can have abortions until 26 weeks after fertilization. Beyond that point, the procedure can only be performed “if three physicians agree that the woman needs it for medical reasons that can include mental health issues.”
“The Republican attack on women’s reproductive rights is unconscionable. What is more deplorable is the hypocrisy of HB 954’s author,” House Democratic Leader Stacey Abrams (D) said. “If we follow his logic, we believe it is the obligation of this General Assembly to assert an equally invasive state interest in the reproductive habits of men and substitute the will of the government over the will of adult men.”
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2012/02/22/429964/democratic-lawmaker-responds-to-fetal-pain-bill-with-measure-limiting-vasectomies/
Changing course after an unwelcome national uproar, the Virginia Senate adopted a revised bill on Tuesday that still requires doctors to perform an ultrasound on women before they have an abortion, but also says that women cannot be forced to have an invasive vaginal ultrasound.
Gov. Bob McDonnell demanded the revisions last week, and their acceptance on Tuesday all but assured the state’s adoption of the ultrasound requirement. The original bill set off protests from women’s groups and others. Some critics called it “state rape,” and the plan was mocked on television comedy shows.
The furor has already had an effect in other states considering ultrasound mandates, including Alabama and Idaho, with lawmakers seeking to avoid accusations that they are subjecting women to an unwanted, invasive procedure.
In Virginia, the weakened version passed the Republican-led House last week but faced a battle in the Senate, which is evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats. On Tuesday the bill narrowly passed, 21 to 19, with further amendments that will require it to go back to the House for final approval. The Senate vote came after a bitter debate in which Democrats pleaded with the body not to adopt a bill that they said remained — even with the changes — demeaning to women and insulting to doctors.
Senator Ralph Northam, a Democrat and the only physician in the Senate, called it “a tremendous assault on women’s health care and a tremendous insult to physicians.”
The governor, an anti-abortion Republican who is said to have national political aspirations, is expected to sign the bill into law. Virginia would become the eighth state to require that women have ultrasounds before abortions and also be “offered” descriptions of the fetus. Anti-abortion advocates hope these mandates will persuade some women not to go through with an abortion, but many doctors and advocates for abortion rights describe them as an intrusive violation of doctor-patient relations.
In Alabama, the sponsor of a bill to strengthen an existing ultrasound requirement said on Monday that he would seek a revision softening the bill. The existing bill mandates that the screen must face the pregnant woman and requires use of the scanning method that provides the clearest image — which would mean vaginal ultrasounds in most cases.
The choice of scanning techniques should “be the choice of the mother,” the sponsor, Senator Clay Scofield, a Republican, said in a television interview on Monday in Huntsville. “If she does not want a vaginal transducer she does not have to have it.”
In Idaho, senators introducing a similar ultrasound bill added language on Monday requiring use of “whichever method the physician and patient agree is best under the circumstances.”
The choice is between vaginal ultrasounds, which involve placing a probe inside the body, or the more familiar abdominal procedure, done externally. Through most of the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, medical experts say, only the invasive procedure can provide a clear image of the tiny fetus or an audible record of the heartbeat, and most abortions occur within this period.
As a result, the bills under active consideration in several states, including Pennsylvania and Mississippi, require detailed fetal images that would in practice require many patients to have vaginal ultrasounds.
Such a requirement has been in effect since early this month in Texas with little of the outcry seen in Virginia. Similar laws adopted in Oklahoma and North Carolina are now blocked by federal court order until their constitutionality is determined.
In Alabama, the Virginia furor fanned new controversy over a proposal in the Legislature, prompting a swift reaction from voters and the author of the bill, which is called the “Right to Know and See Act.”
Even if it is amended to offer a choice of probes, the bill would contain some of the country’s strongest pre-abortion mandates.
It would require the ultrasound screen to face the woman while the doctor narrates the images, although the law states that it should not be “construed to prevent a pregnant woman from averting her eyes,” the bill reads. Doctors who do not follow the prescribed routines could face felony charges and could be sued by the potential father and grandparents.
“I do need to make sure that we leave that up to the women’s choice,” Mr. Scofield said of the scanning method. “But I do think it is very important that these women are given as much information as possible before they make this difficult decision.”
Dr. Pippa Abston, a pediatrician in Huntsville, objected to what she said were unnecessary roadblocks to a legal procedure. “As a physician I don’t like the idea that they are going to micromanage my medical practice,” she said.
In Mississippi, a bill working its way through committee requires an ultrasound that provides an image of high quality, which cannot be achieved with abdominal procedures in the initial months of pregnancy. The woman must be offered a chance to see the image and hear the fetal heartbeat. She cannot avoid hearing a description of the sonogram unless, among other things, she is a victim of sexual assault or incest or the fetus is medically compromised.
The Pennsylvania legislature is considering a law with some of the country’s strongest provisions. It would require vaginal probes in many cases, display of the scanning screen to the patient and a printout of the image for inclusion in the patient’s medical records. It would also impose a 24-hour waiting period between ultrasound and abortion that critics say would be a burden for some women.
Labeled the Women’s Right to Know Act, the bill is opposed by the Pennsylvania Medical Society and other medical groups. But it has been approved by a House committee and its sponsors hope for passage this year.
Kathy L. Rapp, a Republican representative and the main sponsor, said that the concerns about requiring vaginal ultrasounds were exaggerated because most clinics perform the procedures before abortions anyway.
She said that she did not have plans for revision in light of the Virginia experience but that if Gov. Tom Corbett, a Republican, were to ask for changes, “just as the Virginia legislature heard from their governor, that would be a consideration.”
“But at this point the governor has not communicated any concerns regarding the bill,” she said.
Before the Virginia Senate passed the bill on Tuesday it was amended to say that victims of rape or incest, if they reported the crime, would not be required to have an ultrasound before an abortion. The bill must return to the House for final approval, which is expected, and then will go to the governor for signing.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/29/us/virginia-senate-passes-revised-ultrasound-bill.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1
In a win for Democrats, the Senate voted Thursday to table an amendment permitting employers and insurers to opt out of provisions in President Obama's health care proposal on moral or religious grounds.
The Senate voted 51-48 to kill the amendment, which was offered by Senate Republican Minority Leader Roy Blunt of Missouri as an add-on to the transportation funding bill. Blunt and fellow Republicans cast the amendment as a fight to protect First Amendment rights (which include the freedom of religion.) Prior to the vote, Blunt argued that the language should be deemed noncontroversial by his colleagues, stating on the Senate floor that every member of the Senate, barring some of the most recently elected members, "have voted for bills that have this language in them."
But Democrats said the amendment would limit access to contraception and infringe on women's rights at a time when Congress needs to focus on the economy and employment. "These aren't the issues we should be debating right now," Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet said on the Senate floor.
Following Thursday's vote, Blunt accused Democrats of playing politics with the issue.
"I am truly disappointed by the partisanship that has been injected into this debate on religious freedoms," Blunt said in a statement. "Instead of working to pass a bipartisan measure that has been part of our law for almost 40 years, this debate has been burdened by outlandish and divisive efforts to misinform and frighten Americans."
Blunt added that he will continue to fight this issue.
The future of Thursday's amendment in the closely-divided Senate hung on decisions from a handful of Senate centrists. Retiring Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine voted with the majority of Democrats to table the amendment, while three centrist Democrats-- Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Ben Nelson of Nebraska-- crossed party lines to vote with Republicans in favor of the amendment.
The president recently proposed a mandate requiring all employers to offer health insurance that fully covers contraception, including institutions such as colleges and business connected to Catholic churches, for example, that may oppose contraception on religious grounds. The proposal sparked significant controversy, angering those who viewed the proposal as an attack on religious liberties as well as many Catholic bishops and other religious groups.
In response, the president announced an "accommodation" for institutions that object to the mandate, putting the onus on health insurers instead of employers to provide full coverage for contraception and other women's health services.
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/senate-rejects-rollback-president-birth-control-policy-165939260.html
The Strange, Fascinating History of the Vibrator
The sex toy has its roots in the prude Victorian era -- but its history tells us a lot about the current attack upon women’s sexuality. (http://www.alternet.org/sex/154489/the_strange%2C_fascinating_history_of_the_vibrator/?page=entire)
Actual women—instead of phony gynecological issues—pervaded the last election. Hillary Clinton, Sarah Palin, Elizabeth Edwards, Michelle Obama, Katie Couric and even Tina Fey can each credibly be said to have changed the outcome of the 2008 presidential election, as Rebecca Traister documented in her rollicking chronicle of that race, Big Girls Don't Cry: The Election That Changed Everything for American Women.
And those were just the women at the podiums. In Traister's account, each campaign hired women aplenty on the understanding that they could help their candidates, in one way or another, to attract voters. Got that? Women didn't come around to discuss obscure lady matters, but to help campaigns win votes.
Yet this time around, genuine women have disappeared, in favor of sex talk smuggled under the rubric of "values." The conversation recalls nothing so much as the days when the nightly news shows couldn't stop running pseudo-health segments that featured male reporters fondling silicon breast implants. They'd cluck over their hazards and fondle away at the translucent synthetic protoplasms. Today's fondlers of ultrasound wands seem no less prurient.
It's time we sidelined the fine points of obstetrics from public discourse in an election year. Just as girlie magazines are marketed to male readers, public discourse that features women's body parts should be clearly labeled—as Playboy used to be—"Entertainment for Men."
Transvaginal probes? Entertainment for Men. Interstate abortions? Entertainment for Men.
Single-sex entertainment is just fine, as far as it goes. But "transvaginal" anything and "interstate abortions"—no matter what side you're on—don't count as social issues. This stuff is arcana, and the rhetoric associated with these topics is third-order porn, and an occasion for (mostly) male commentators, politicians and satirists—and I mean you lefties too, Jon Stewart and Garry Trudeau!—to perseverate on gynecology in a weird O.C.D. way.
It's creepy.
Really, the zeal with which male politicians of all stripes make politics sexual is disconcerting. Last week Barack Obama placed a personal call to console Sandra Fluke, asking the law student and advocate of birth-control subsidies if she were "OK" in the days since Rush Limbaugh incoherently deemed her platform akin to sexual promiscuity. Limbaugh had likened Fluke to people who are paid for sex, and likened taxpayers to her pimps, or some bunk like that; Obama aimed to redeem a 30-year-old woman by comparing her to his daughters, ages 10 and 13, who evidently need his protection from bad men who use bad words.
Didn't this seem strange? It drove what should have been a non-erotic conversation—about health and money!—back into the key of sexual melodrama, with Dudley Do-Right Obama saving Maiden Fluke from Rake Rush.
The way Rick Perry, Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney wax gynecological is weirder still. And, come on, Ron Paul is an actual gynecologist. They all get right into it, gunning to destroy Planned Parenthood and casually discussing "rape and incest"—limit-case exceptions to an abortion ban that doesn't exist—as if these far-fetched scenarios served any polemical purpose except to name-check sexual trauma.
Fortunately, women treat these fake-clinical spiels as neither appalling nor exciting, like Playboy itself. Maybe that's because those of us who have annual physicals don't cherish the notion of rehearsing the particulars of the ultrasound—or the speculum, for that matter. The topic's cashed even for humor.
Nor do women seem to be engaged in the psychedelic philosophical seminar, led by master logician Limbaugh, of whether employer-provided birth control is tantamount to whoredom. Instead, according to a Bloomberg poll published Wednesday, some 77 percent of women don't believe that birth control is a fit subject for any kind of political debate. Is birth control a talking point for sluts and prostitutes? Or for good patriotic women in public life? Neither! As a political topic, it's a non-starter.
It's no surprise that Terry O'Neill, of the National Organization of Women, wants politicians to "get out and stay out of women's wombs," but she should retire her incendiary anatomical language, too. It's just not what voters care about. Exit polls in the primaries suggest that Republican women tune out when male candidates start yapping about uteruses and cervices. As Kate Phillips and Allison Kopicki put it Tuesday in the New York Times, "All of the talk about birth control and abortion laws seems to have had little effect on the ways women are voting for the two leading Republican candidates, Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum."
New idea: no more examining-table politics—not transvaginal, transtesticular, or any other kind. Four years ago, with the exception of a brief discussion of Sarah Palin's reproductive decisions, the campaigns steered clear of fake-clinical gibberish. Perhaps we're less eager to talk gynecological smack when there are real women around.
http://news.yahoo.com/this-campaign-needs-more-women-and-less-gynecology.html
deedarino
03-15-2012, 07:48 PM
It is unending....
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/15/texas-loses-entire-womens_n_1349431.html?ref=fb&src=sp&comm_ref=false#access_token=AAAAACuIpepUBAGg7AbKa9 LMMHvxtv7MZCQqBnWZC7eq2fWY4wiwAunjh9inTMCelYS0GsOC FlbK8HQF7gRW1Pnd4DEkbQqhye0IKNWdQZDZD&expires_in=6519
Wow. I understand the position DHHS is in and I get where Perry's misguided ethics are leading him.
It just irks me that women, in particular poor women without other options, are being put in the middle of this pissing contest.
There is something very unethical about womens health being held hostage by men in positions of power.
It is unending....
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/15/texas-loses-entire-womens_n_1349431.html?ref=fb&src=sp&comm_ref=false#access_token=AAAAACuIpepUBAGg7AbKa9 LMMHvxtv7MZCQqBnWZC7eq2fWY4wiwAunjh9inTMCelYS0GsOC FlbK8HQF7gRW1Pnd4DEkbQqhye0IKNWdQZDZD&expires_in=6519
Arizona legislators have advanced an unprecedented bill that would require women who wish to have their contraception covered by their health insurance plans to prove to their employers that they are taking it to treat medical conditions. The bill also makes it easier for Arizona employers to fire a woman for using birth control to prevent pregnancy despite the employer's moral objection.
Under current law, health plans in Arizona that cover other prescription medications must also cover contraception. House Bill 2625, which the state House of Representatives passed earlier this month and the Senate Judiciary Committee endorsed on Monday, repeals that law and allows any employer to refuse to cover contraception that will be used "for contraceptive, abortifacient, abortion or sterilization purposes." If a woman wants the cost of her contraception covered, she has to "submit a claim" to her employer providing evidence of a medical condition, such as endometriosis or polycystic ovarian syndrome, that can be treated with birth control.
Moreover, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, the law would give Arizona employers the green light to fire a woman upon finding out that she took birth control for the purpose of preventing pregnancy.
"The bill goes beyond guaranteeing a person's rights to express and practice their faith," Anjali Abraham, a lobbyist for the ACLU, told the Senate panel, "and instead lets employers prioritize their beliefs over the beliefs, the interests, the needs of their employees, in this case, particularly, female employees."
The sponsor of the bill told the committee that it is intended to protect the First Amendment right to religious liberty.
"I believe we live in America," said Majority Whip Debbie Lesko (R-Glendale), who sponsored the bill. "We don’t live in the Soviet Union. So, government should not be telling the organizations or mom-and-pop employers to do something against their moral beliefs."
Lesko's bill resembles recent efforts on the federal level to repeal the Obama administration's contraception mandate, which requires most employers to cover contraception with no co-pay for their employees. Obama's rule has a broad religious exemption that allows faith-based organizations to opt out of covering birth control and shifts the burden of coverage over to the insurer in those cases. But many conservatives, including Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), are not satisfied with the exemption and believe all employers should be able to opt out of covering any kind of health service to which they morally object.
Lesko's bill is different from the controversial amendment Blunt proposed, in that it differentiates between birth control used for medical reasons and birth control used to prevent pregnancy. If the new law goes into effect, it will force female employees who can't afford to pay full price for birth control to share private, sometimes embarrassing medical information with her employer in order to get her prescription covered.
Lisa Love, a Glendale, Ariz., resident, testified before the committee about her polycystic ovarian syndrome in order to make a point about how private and personal the issue can be.
"I wouldn’t mind showing my employer my medical records," she said, "but there are ten women behind me that would be ashamed to do so."
The bill now moves to the state Senate for a full vote.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/14/arizona-birth-control-bill-contraception-medical-reasons_n_1344557.html?ref=mostpopular
Mitt Romney is doubling down on his commitment to defund Planned Parenthood, telling a reporter in Missouri that he would "get rid of" the country's best-known reproductive health care provider if he were elected president.
In an outdoor interview with Ann Rubin of KSDK.com, Romney offered a few suggestions on how he would cut the deficit.
"Of course you get rid of Obamacare, that's the easy one, but there are others," he said. "Planned Parenthood, we're going to get rid of that."
Planned Parenthood responded to Romney's comments on Tuesday, characterizing them as dangerous and out of step with what Americans want.
“When Mitt Romney says he wants to ‘get rid’ of Planned Parenthood, he means getting rid of the preventive health care that three million people a year rely on for cancer screenings, birth control, and other preventive care," said Dawn Laguens, Vice President for Planned Parenthood Action Fund, in a written statement. “Mitt Romney simply can’t be trusted when it comes to women’s health."
Romney campaign strategist Eric Fehrnstrom downplayed the comments on CNN Tuesday night, saying the former Massachusetts governor was talking about cutting federal funding only.
"It would not be getting rid of the organization," Fehrnstrom said. "We're going to have to make some tough decisions about spending. The test that Mitt Romney will apply is, is this program so worthwhile and valuable that we'll borrow money from China to [fund] it?"
Romney has said repeatedly he wants to cut federal funding to Planned Parenthood because the organization provides abortion services.
In February, he weighed in on the Susan G. Komen controversy, saying he agreed with their now-reversed decision to cut Planned Parenthood's funding for breast-cancer screenings.
Romney faces an uphill battle convincing conservatives of his anti-abortion stance. His path from pro-choice to anti-abortion has been heavily reported by the media and emphasized by his GOP competitors.
In 2002, he sought Planned Parenthood of Massachusetts' endorsement during his campaign for governor, and continued to support abortion rights until 2005, when he publicly came out as anti-abortion.
Romney is a piece of work. He instituted Romneycare in Massachusetts. It was the prototype Obama used for Obamacare. Of course Obama did it to help the people. Romney did it to increase revenues to health care providers and institutions.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/13/mitt-romney-planned-parenthood_n_1343450.html?ref=mostpopular
deedarino
03-15-2012, 08:49 PM
I am holding out hope that come voting day, the US will show them how very wrong they are.
I am traditionally naive.
deedarino
03-16-2012, 08:29 PM
IfjAMRgpoug
deedarino
03-21-2012, 05:43 PM
Lauren Zuniga, To the Oklahoma Lawmakers: a poem
s9QI4v9Jehs
10 Reasons The Rest Of The World Thinks The U.S. Is Nuts (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/soraya-chemaly/womens-reproductive-rights_b_1345214.html)
10 Reasons The Rest Of The World Thinks The U.S. Is Nuts (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/soraya-chemaly/womens-reproductive-rights_b_1345214.html)
The irony here is how much time, effort and resources we expend trying to convert others to our ways of being and living. We want to be the champion of human rights for the world while we systematically screw our own.
Perhaps the new American motto should be...do as we say, not as we do!
Anyone else wondering what men in power will do to this country when synthetic sperm is invented?
Novelafemme
03-24-2012, 09:24 AM
http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/article/2012/03/23/wisconsin-lawmaker-you-are-being-beaten-just-remember-things-you-love-about-your
It's getting crazy around here!
http://wearwhite4womensrights.tumblr.com/
http://static.tumblr.com/llxozga/J0hm15mhg/logo.jpg
By Nick Valencia, CNN
updated 6:52 PM EDT, Wed March 28, 2012
(CNN) -- An Oklahoma County judge has overruled a state law requiring women seeking abortions to have an ultrasound of the fetus before the abortion, according to court documents
District Judge Brian Dixon's clerk confirmed the decision Wednesday, saying the judge ruled that the law was "unconstitutional and unenforceable."
The decision overrules an Oklahoma state statute passed in 2010 that would have forced women seeking an abortion to see a sonogram of the fetus and have the fetus described in detail.
Enforcement of the statute was halted in May 2010, shortly after it passed, by a temporary injunction, but Wednesday's ruling makes that injunction permanent and restrains law enforcement from enforcing the act.
It was not clear whether there were instances of the law being enforced in the time between its passage and the imposition of the temporary injunction.
Moments ago, the Center for Reproductive Rights filed a pre-election challenge to the Oklahoma “personhood” ballot initiative.
The intention of this initiative is to ban all abortions, but it would go much further by:
- Outlawing many forms of birth control—including IUDs, emergency contraception, and even some forms of the Pill.
- Putting doctors and women at risk of criminal prosecution for doing nothing more than engaging in routine OB-GYN care.
- Potentially halting many forms of infertility treatment—including IVF.
- Opening women to potential criminal prosecution for suffering miscarriages.
Six brave women and men have stepped forward as plaintiffs to help us fight this initiative—stand in solidarity with them by sending a letter of support today.
http://org2.democracyinaction.org/o/5971/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=10167
Famed "fratire" writer Tucker Max attempted to donate half a million dollars to the cash-strapped organization, but was denied. Why? Because sometimes a check isn't just a check.
You’d think that any organization facing financial issues would be thrilled to accept a hefty donation. For Planned Parenthood, for example, a check for $500,000 could go a long way in helping women get access to health care. Except, perhaps, when the name on the check is Tucker Max.
For those who are unfamiliar with Max, he’s the author of the books I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell and Sloppy Seconds: The Tucker Max Leftovers, which chronicle his supposedly real-life escapades of drunken debauchery and sexual conquests. Though the books have earned him a fortune and a huge fan following, they’ve also (unsurprisingly) earned him a reputation as a cad.
But in a recent Forbes profile, Max claimed he had changed his ways and he wasn’t the callous miscreant he once depicted. And what better way to drive home the image of a reformed bad boy than a huge donation to a women’s organization? Tucker could be a hero for a female cause! Well, that’s how Max’s brand strategist Ryan Holiday, who suggested the Planned Parenthood donation, thought such a move would be perceived. (For his part, Max originally came to Holiday looking for a way to relieve a “huge tax burden” and “promote [his] new book at the same time.” Helping women wasn’t mentioned as a top priority.)
Except for one small problem: Planned Parenthood wasn’t up for the deal. After some reported initial excitement and a scheduled meeting with Max, the organization informed him that they wouldn’t be able to take his donation as they were “concerned about the perception of [his] writing.”
Cue the backlash. Holiday took to Forbes once more to slam the organization for turning down the money and ignoring Max’s “good intentions.” And Max, taking umbrage for being refused, wrote on his blog that Planned Parenthood denied him because they “were worried more about other people’s perceptions of the donation than helping women.”
The fact that Max and Holiday can’t recognize why Planned Parenthood would turn down the donation suggests they don’t know much about the organization in the first place. (If, in fact, their “outrage” isn’t a mere publicity stunt.)
First of all, it’s doubtful that Max is doing this solely out of a genuine desire to help women. Again, his strategist has said that the idea originated because Max wanted a tax refund and some good press. There’s nothing wrong with that, of course, but it’s worth mentioning that Max has previously made disparaging remarks about the organization on his Twitter feed (though the tweets have since been deleted). That’s not a deal-breaker, because not every person who’s donated to charity did it purely out of the goodness of their hearts. It’s still suspicious, though, especially when compounded with the fact that, in exchange for his donation, Max wanted a clinic named after him because he found the idea “funny”.
Offensive as that might be, it doesn’t get to the heart of Planned Parenthood’s rejection of the check. Neither does Max’s suggestion that the group refused the money because of what Max calls “elitism” that led them to believe “that a CLOSED clinic is better than one with [Max's] name on it.” It’s quite obvious that Planned Parenthood simply weighed the pros and cons. The organization wasn’t choosing between one closed clinic and a Tucker Max clinic. It was choosing between no clinics and a Tucker Max clinic.
While Holiday writes that the donation would have been a case of “a win-win-win-win situation. Cut a check, keep a clinic open,” it quite obviously wasn’t that simple for the beleaguered organization. As Jill Filipovic points out at Feministe, “There are entire organizations and large numbers of politicians who have made it their mission to destroy Planned Parenthood. PP can’t afford to take unnecessary risks. Unnecessary risks can mean that the organization ceases to exist. That impedes their mission a hell of a lot more than not having an additional $500,000.”
For an organization that is constantly under attack from a right-wing base with a heavy religious following, accepted support from a man whose reputation is so incompatible with both Planned Parenthood and the GOP’s supposed values is nothing if not a political liability. Remember, this is the man who wants his name on a health clinic that provides abortions, among other services, because it would be funny. Associating themselves with Max would have all but guarantee that Planned Parenthood would face political backlash of some sort. It may be sad that an organization dedicated to providing women’s health services has to turn down a hefty donation in order to play political ball, but that’s the type of game that’s currently being played in the U.S.
And while Max seems to be taking this quite personally — he says he’s over the incident which happened last August, though both he and Holiday are only now writing about it — in reality, PP isn’t anti-Tucker. They’re pro-Planned Parenthood, and are making moves in their own self-interest as an organization. You’d think of all people, Tucker Max would at least understand that.
Read more: http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/04/05/planned-parenthood-turned-down-a-500000-donation-and-it-was-a-smart-move/#ixzz1rFE3wb3t
Dear Doug Morris, CEO of Sony Music Entertainment:
As an activist supporting the NARAL Pro-Choice America Foundation, I would like to register my concerns about the film "October Baby" which is being distributed by Provident Films, a subsidiary of Sony Music Entertainment. I am deeply troubled by the connection between "October Baby" and anti-choice organizations that deceive women. Most importantly, it's disconcerting that your marketing team promotes this film as a coming-of-age story without a political agenda. Moviegoers shouldn't be deceived in this way, especially if proceeds of the film are going to groups that mislead women.
Jon Erwin, the co-writer and producer of "October Baby," told The New York Times that he "didn't see [the movie] as a political issue." However, last fall, the directors held advance screenings of the film to build support for a ballot measure in Mississippi that would have banned abortion and many common forms of birth control. Given this link, it is disingenuous for the filmmaker to claim there is no political motivation related to the movie.
In addition to this political activity, the makers are giving 10 percent of the film's proceeds to a fund benefiting anti-choice "crisis pregnancy centers" (CPCs). Anti-choice groups created CPCs to look like comprehensive health clinics, but many do not provide women with accurate pregnancy-related information. Investigations by NARAL Pro-Choice America's state affiliates have revealed again and again that many CPCs intentionally misinform and mislead women. In fact, some CPCs subject women seeking objective health-care information to lectures and force them to watch anti-abortion films, slide shows, and photographs. Some even refuse to provide information about or referrals for birth control. For example, a CPC in Virginia falsely told a woman that, "Abortion increases your risk of breast cancer by 100%" [Crisis Pregnancy Centers Revealed, NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia Foundation].
It is profoundly concerning that a subsidiary of Sony Music Entertainment would be associated with funding organizations that deliberately mislead women as it markets "October Baby." Moviegoers deserve to know where their ticket money is going and to get the facts about the movie's affiliation with the anti-choice movement.
As you can see, this subject is complex. I urge you to meet with Nancy Keenan, president of the NARAL Pro-Choice America Foundation, to review additional examples of why CPCs are dangerous to women.
--------
To sign the letter of support, visit the NARAL website: http://www.prochoiceamerica.org/index.html
SilverStoneFemme
04-10-2012, 03:02 PM
A photograph of the witness table at this hearing has gone viral.
http://m.static.newsvine.com/servista/imagesizer?file=steve-benenA45B81DB-A1E8-D1F3-BCAE-257535198072.jpg&width=600
You will note the utter and complete lack of women.
How in the hell can one convene a panel of people on contraception and not have a single woman in attendence? That fact alone should tell you how insidious the men's influence has become concerning women's uteruses. Or is it uteri? Doesn't matter, they can NOT contol our reproductive system. Didn't we fight this fight already in the 70s and 80s with the Woman's Movement?
(Rush) Limbaugh was indignant about the hype around the issue. "Why is contraception so important that it must be paid for by somebody else?" he demanded to know. He asked why contraceptives are "a must-have" in comparison to toothpaste, hotel rooms or a car. "Why are so many people afraid of birth?" he wondered.
Let Rush get pregnant ONE time AND give birth and he would be screaming for birth control.
".....but I think there's some deep-seated racism involved here, too. These people want to ban contraception because they want white people to breed prolifically, so as to overcome what they see as an onslaught by the Brown Ones against All That Is Right And True In America. After all, one of those shady, shaded dudes already sits in the White House, and he doesn't even have a proper birth certificate, right? Right?
Or something.
I have been thinking this exact thought, back in the recesses of my mind, for some years now. Certainly since the 90s. It's good to read that someone else also has these thoughts and isn't as afraid to voice them as I am. It's good to think I'm not the "paranoid" kook I thought I was.
I mean, who would actually think the right-wingers would really be against the Pro-Choice folx because of some screwy ideology that not allowing women to gain access to abortions would increase the white population? And that not allowing women to gain access to birth control would increase the population of white people? Is it really that simple?
Well, if it quacks like a duck....
I have to admit to being stunned, in shock with all this, because of all the things I ever expected to deal with, take on and overcome, it never occurred to me that fighting the war you already won all over again would be something I would have to contend with in this brave year of 2012...but here we are. Part of me wants to lay back and let these dunderheads crash around in a frothing fury, wants to let them destroy themselves...but no.
No.
Now is the time to rise up, point at this mess, and say in a voice too loud to ignore, "This is why these people are not to be trusted with power. This is why they must go."
You fought this war and won it, Mom. The Bastards want to try and re-take the battlefield. I will not let it happen, and I am not alone.
I was voting during the Woman's Movement of the 70s and the 80s and we defeated all this male-influenced nonsense over birth control and pro-choice at that time and we'll defeat them again.
However, history isn't always a sign of how things will go the next round. We women must, as a voting block, go to the polls with the viewpoint of stopping this madness just as we did back during the Women's movement. We must not get complacent as I guess the Republibans are going to try and shove the tenets of the right wing down our female throats over and over, again and again.
Many, many battles have been won on this front but I guess the war will go on.
.
.
AUSTIN, Texas—Eight Planned Parenthood organizations sued Texas on Wednesday for excluding them from participating in a program that provides contraception and check-ups to women, saying the new rule violates their constitutional rights to freedom of speech and association.
The groups, none of which provide abortions, contend in the federal lawsuit that a new state law banning organizations affiliated with abortion providers from participating in the Women's Health Program has nothing to do with providing medical care and is simply intended to silence individuals or groups who support abortion rights. Texas law already requires that groups receiving federal or state funding be legally and financially separate from clinics that perform abortions.
"The government cannot condition your participation in the health services on giving up your free speech," said Pete Shenkken, the plaintiffs' attorney, citing U.S. Supreme Court precedent.
The federal government has also cut funding to Texas over the issue, saying it violated federal law. It says the state law passed by conservative Republicans and signed by Gov. Rick Perry last year denies women the right to choose their health care providers.
The Department of Health and Human Services, which enforces the rule, issued a statement saying it believes the state was within its rights to pass the new law. Last month, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott sued the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services for cutting off funding for the Women's Health program because of the new affiliate rule.
"Federal law gives states the right and responsibility to establish criteria for Medicaid providers, so we're on firm legal ground," the statement said. "We'll continue to work with the Attorney General's Office to fully enforce state law and continue federal funding for the Women's Health Program."
Republican lawmakers made it clear during last year's legislative session that their aim was to shut down as many Planned Parenthood groups as possible. The new law says that a health care provider that shares a name, common ownership or a franchise agreement with any organization that provides elective abortions will be excluded from the program, regardless of whether the provider meets all medical standards.
Shenkken said the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the Constitution prevent states from punishing groups for their political views or associations by excluding them from programs in which they are otherwise qualified to participate.
The Planned Parenthood groups have asked the federal court in Austin to block the state from enforcing the law before April 30, when the clinics would lose funding.
Patricio Gonzalez, CEO of Planned Parenthood of Hidalgo County, said his organization currently cares for 6,500 women and would have to shut down two or three of its four clinics if the rule is enforced. South Texas is home to some of the poorest women in the nation.
"We are the largest health care provider for women in our region," he said. "We know there aren't any other providers in the region that can absorb 6,500 women as of May 1."
The Department of Health and Human Services has said it will try to recruit additional health care providers to make up for those lost under the new rule.
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2012/04/11/planned_parenthood_sues_texas_over_exclusion/?rss_id=Boston.com+--+Latest+news
MsDemeanor
04-11-2012, 09:30 PM
None of this surprises me and all of this pisses me off. This shit is exactly why I am hating religion more and more each day.
PHOENIX (Reuters) - Arizona Republican Governor Jan Brewer signed into law on Thursday a controversial bill that bans most abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy, giving Republicans a win in ongoing national efforts to impose greater restrictions on abortion.
The measure, which state lawmakers gave a final nod to on Tuesday, would bar healthcare professionals from performing abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy, except in the case of a medical emergency. Only a small number of these abortions are performed in the state.
"This legislation is consistent with my strong track record of supporting common sense measures to protect the health of women and safeguard our most vulnerable population - the unborn," Brewer said in a statement.
"Knowing that abortions become riskier the later they are performed in pregnancy, it only makes sense to prohibit these procedures past 20 weeks," she added.
With Brewer's signature, Arizona joins six other states that have put similar late-term abortion bans in place in the past two years based on hotly debated medical research suggesting that a fetus feels pain starting at 20 weeks of gestation.
Georgia lawmakers approved a similar bill in March that now awaits the signature of Republican Governor Nathan Deal.
Cathi Herrod, president of the conservative Center for Arizona Policy, said the passage of the law, was a "momentous victory for pro-life advocates."
"Abortion not only ends the life of a preborn child, but it also seriously endangers the health and safety of women," she said.
'EXTREME ASSAULT ON REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS'
Opponents of Arizona's new law, which will take effect this summer, said it set a "dangerous new standard for hostility to women, doctors and reproductive rights."
"To call this an extreme assault on reproductive rights would be a massive understatement. In its cruelty and its callous disregard for women's lives, it is downright appalling," said Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights.
The U.S. Supreme Court legalized abortions nationwide in 1973 but allowed states to ban the procedure after the time when the fetus could potentially survive outside the womb, except where a woman's health was at risk.
Late-term abortions will still be allowed in Arizona in situations where continuing a pregnancy risks death or would "create serious risk of substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function." This is to be determined by a physician's "good faith clinical judgment."
The law also requires a woman to have an ultrasound at least 24 hours prior to having an abortion, instead of the one hour previously mandated under state law.
State officials are also required to create a website that details such items as the risks of the procedure and shows pictures of the fetus in various stages.
Bryan Howard, president and CEO at Planned Parenthood Arizona, said the law was part of a "harmful" nationwide drive by conservatives to curb not only abortions but other services affecting women's health.
"We're seeing the hubris overreach in states across the country, not just in the regulation of abortion but in mainstream Planned Parenthood services like birth control and cancer screening," he said.
http://news.yahoo.com/arizona-governor-signs-law-banning-most-term-abortions-013515428.html
STARKVILLE, Mississippi (Reuters) - Mississippi's only abortion clinic could be forced out of business under legislation signed into law on Monday by the state governor.
The new law, which takes effect July 1, requires all physicians associated with abortion-providing facilities to be board-certified or eligible for that certification in obstetrics and gynecology, and to have staff with admitting privileges at a local hospital.
"I believe that all human life is precious, and as governor, I will work to ensure that the lives of the born and unborn are protected in Mississippi," Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant said in a statement.
Diane Derzis, the owner of Jackson Women's Health Organization, the state's only abortion-providing clinic, has said the law could shut down her business.
Just one of the three physicians who provide abortions at her clinic has admitting privileges, which allow doctors to refer patients to a specific hospital if further treatment is needed.
Derzis said area hospitals are reluctant to grant admitting privileges to physicians who perform abortions.
Derzis owns clinics that provide abortions in three other states and has said previously that she would fight the law in court. She could not be reached for comment on Monday.
Mississippi already has some of the strictest abortion laws in the United States, and anti-abortion groups have historically praised the state for those laws.
However in November, state voters rejected a constitutional "personhood" amendment that would have defined life at the moment eggs are fertilized.
So-called personhood measures also died earlier this year in the Mississippi legislature, though proponents say they will continue advocating for them.
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/mississippi-law-may-shut-sole-abortion-clinic-010808169.html
Massachusetts FY 2013 BudgetSpeaker Robert DeLeo (D-Winthrop) and Budget Chairman Brian Dempsey (D-Haverhill) unveiled the proposed fiscal year 2013 House Ways and Means budget on Wednesday April 11, 2012. NARAL Pro-Choice Massachusetts is committed to promoting access to the full range of reproductive health services, which is made possible through important state-funded public health programs. While we are grateful that teen pregnancy prevention retained its funding in this difficult fiscal climate, we are seeking additional funds for other important services.
The war on women that we have seen on the federal level, and in other states, is alive in Massachusetts as well. Representative Jim Lyons (R-Andover) has filed several amendments to the FY13 budget that would entirely strip funding for the important programs we advocate for. There is more information about the programs this tea party backed legislator seeks to disassemble below.
Tell your legislator that funding for family planning and other preventative health line items are critical to women's reproductive health!
Family Planning (Department of Public Health Line Item 4513-1000):
The House budget recommends that family planning programs be funded at $4.56 million. These critical safety net programs provide reproductive health care to lower-income women, men, and adolescents. Services include contraceptive counseling, HIV counseling and testing, medical and gynecological examinations, testing and treatment for sexually transmitted infections, and screenings and follow-ups for breast and cervical cancer. Funding for family planning is recognized to be a cost-effective program, saving approximately $3.75 for every $1 spent. The attacks on family planning continue to harm women’s reproductive health, and we are grateful to our legislature for realizing the overwhelming benefits of this program. We are proud to support amendment 786 by Rep. Paul Schmid (D-Westport) that would increase funding for family planning to $6.2 million. We also urge legislators to reject amendment 575, an extreme proposal by Rep. Jim Lyons (R-Andover) that would gut funding for these critical services.
Teen Pregnancy Prevention (Department of Public Health Line Item 4530-9000):
This line item is funded at nearly $2.4 million in the proposed budget, a small increase from fiscal year 2012. We applaud the House for continuing to invest in these programs to help young people avoid unintended pregnancies, which can have a devastating impact on a teenager’s family and future. The 9% reduction in the number of teen births in Massachusetts in 2008 saved the Commonwealth $16 million in costs associated with health care and public assistance programs. One in four (26%) teens who have dropped out of school – including one-third (33%) of girls who left school – cite teen parenthood as a leading reason they did so. We also urge legislators to reject amendment 584, another extreme proposal by Rep. Jim Lyons (R-Andover) that would gut funding for this effective program.
HIV/AIDS Prevention (Department of Public Health Line Item 4512-0103),:
Funded at $31.56 million, HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment programs provide critical services for infected Massachusetts residents. Viral hepatitis prevention receives funding from this line item as well. This funding level represents a significant cut of $500,000 from FY12. Between 2000 and 2010 Massachusetts reduced new HIV diagnoses by 54% resulting in health care cost savings of over $2 billion. Cuts to this program would be a step backward at a time when the Commonwealth is looking to curb health care costs. We are proud to support amendment 628 by Rep. Carl Sciortino (D-Medford) that would increase funding for HIV/AIDS prevention to $33.35 million.
MassHealth Operations (Line Items 4000-1602 & 4000-1604):
MassHealth is the insurance program for low-to-medium income residents of the Commonwealth. Line item 4000-1602 provides MassHealth field operations and customer service and is funded at $500,000 - a decrease of $1.5 million from the Governor’s budget. Line item 4000-1604 would provide systems improvements to implement the Affordable Care Act and payment reform and is funded at $500,000, a decrease of $2.4 million from the Governor’s budget. Together, these funds provide the operations budget for this critical program, which ensures low–income women access to reproductive the health services they need – including reproductive health care. We are proud to support amendments 729 and 732 by Rep. Kevin Aguiar (D-Fall River) to bring these line items to $2 million and $3.13 million respectively.
The budget proposed by the House takes an important first step toward completing the Commonwealth’s budget for FY13. It is important that our state representatives and state senators support funding for these programs in their budget. Tell your legislator that funding for family planning and other preventative health line items are critical to women's reproductive health!
Okiebug61
04-20-2012, 06:26 AM
Oklahoma "personhood" bill fails in Legislature
http://news.yahoo.com/oklahoma-personhood-bill-fails-legislature-012913037.html
Okiebug61
04-20-2012, 07:58 AM
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2012/04/19/ohio-gop-moving-to-defund-planned-parenthood-by-memorial-day/
Toughy
04-21-2012, 01:26 PM
Some might say this article belongs in a different thread, however I think there is a correlation.
http://start.toshiba.com/news/recommended/read.php?vaid=a02ccfb4e6e0a33fba7bb2e3c9fb36be
Most US States Are Ignoring The World's Fastest Growing Criminal Enterprise
Eric Goldschein
February 3, 2012
Business Insider
Human trafficking is the fastest growing criminal enterprise in the world—but you wouldn't know it based on the laws in most U.S. states.
By CIA estimates, there are 45,000-50,000 victims of sex slavery and trafficking each year in the U.S. alone.
City and state involvement are seen as critical in stopping the crime, around half of which is organized by local pimps, according to a study several years ago by the Justice Department.
Yet despite a call to action by the Department of Defense, and President Obama naming January "National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month," most states remain woefully behind in their response to the problem. <snip>
and this outlines state laws:
http://www.sharedhope.org/WhatWeDo/BringJustice/PolicyRecommendations/ProtectedInnocenceInitiative.aspx#nv
“‘Arrest Grandma’ Act Would Insert Government into Difficult Family Decisions”
We all know families that have experienced difficult situations.
When a young woman faces an unintended pregnancy, she will have to make one of the most difficult and personal decisions of her life. Fortunately, the majority of young women do turn to their parents for support during these tough times.
But what about young women who aren’t able to turn to their parents? Some teens come from homes where there’s abuse or violence.
It’s important that a young woman in this situation be able to turn to another responsible adult for support—say, a loving grandparent, close aunt, or trusted clergy member.
The last thing anyone—whether pro-choice or not—should want is a young woman being forced to make this decision alone, with no support at all. Above all, our communities’ first priority should be to keep our teens safe, not isolated and scared.
That’s why a bill moving through the U.S. House of Representatives is so deeply troubling.
The bill’s backers call it the Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act (CIANA). We call it the “Arrest Grandma” Act because of what it would do.
The “Arrest Grandma” Act would make it a federal crime for anyone other than a parent—such as a loving grandmother, aunt, or clergy member—to accompany a young woman to another state for abortion care. It also would force doctors to learn and enforce 9 other states’ parental-involvement laws—under the threat of fines and prison sentences.
Is it really the role of government to inject itself into difficult family situations? I don’t think so.
Last month, the Very Rev. Dr. Katherine Hancock Ragsdale spoke out against the bill in a House committee hearing.
She told the story of one young woman who came from a home where she feared abuse and was pregnant as the result of rape. The young woman chose to seek abortion care, but was unable to turn to her parents for support. Rev. Ragsdale was there to offer counsel and support so that she would not have to face her decision alone.
Under the “Arrest Grandma” Act, young women in similar situations could find themselves unable to turn to any trusted adult.
“Please don’t outlaw the very help we want our children to have,” Rev. Ragsdale pleaded.
We all care about young women’s wellbeing and safety. Think of your daughters, sisters, friends, or neighbors. If a young woman in your life was desperate for your help, you wouldn’t turn her away.
Government has no business forcing itself into difficult family decisions. Threatening caring grandmothers and clergy members with jail time does nothing to help young women in dire situations. It only puts their health and safety in further danger. And that’s exactly what the “Arrest Grandma” Act would do.
Our elected representatives should stop pushing this dangerous bill. Please contact your lawmakers and urge them to oppose this bill.
http://blog.latinovations.com/2012/04/20/guest-blogger-series-nancy-keenan-arrest-grandma-act-would-insert-government-into-difficult-family-decisions/
Apocalipstic
04-24-2012, 03:05 PM
Is is frightening how quickly the rights of women are being eroded.
It makes me relieved not to have a uterus. :|
CONCORD, N.H.—Activist Ellen Kolb remembers epic losses in the New Hampshire House over the past three decades in trying to win limits on abortions for adults, but this year she has not one, but five major reasons to celebrate.
This year for the first time, the New Hampshire chamber -- known for its staunch defense of abortion rights over the decades -- has passed bills that would ban abortions after 20 weeks, ban so- called "partial-birth" abortions, and require a 24-hour waiting period for abortions. Lawmakers also banned government funding to any health provider performing elective abortions and allowed employers to not provide contraceptive coverage such as the morning-after pill, considered by some to be chemical abortion because it ends a possible pregnancy.
The House also has passed bills to study how to collect abortion statistics and to give judges more time to rule in cases where pregnant minors don't want to notify their parents before getting an abortion. Another bill would include the death of a fetus in the murder statutes.
Kolb, legislative affairs director of Cornerstone Action, says while persistence
paid off, she doesn't expect all the bills to survive the Senate or a possible gubernatorial veto. Most of the bills did not pass the House with enough support to ensure a veto override.
The voting balance could shift in the next election just as it shifted in her favor in 2010.
"If it is something very close in votes, it is something that can go back and forth," she said.
New Hampshire's House has thwarted dozens of efforts to pass similar legislation since Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion. New Hampshire had no laws regulating abortion on its books from 1997 to 2003 after abortion rights supporters succeeded in repealing three 1848 criminal abortion laws under then-Gov. Jeanne Shaheen, a Democrat, and a more moderate Republican Legislature. The state has consistently had agency rules in place banning most publicly funded abortions for poor women.
The one exception made by the House over the years was enactment -- under a Republican governor and Legislature -- of a parental notification law for minors in 2003. The measure was never implemented and was later repealed by Democrats.
Republicans overrode Democratic Gov. John Lynch's veto of a similar notification law last year and it took effect in January. Lynch, who supports abortion rights, has not said if he would veto the latest bills.
Kolb remembers the first time the Legislature passed a bill to repeal the 1848 criminal abortion laws under former Republican Gov. Judd Gregg, who had been unclear on his position. Gregg vetoed bills to repeal the laws in 1989, 1990 and 1992.
"That was a shock to me," Kolb said.
Gregg also vetoed legislation in 1990 to allow abortions after the Roe v. Wade decision. That fight was so emotional that one of the sponsors was told she no longer was welcome at the church where she was baptized and married.
The vetoes did not stop a prominent Republican state representative and member of the National Abortion Rights Action League's national board from endorsing Gregg's re-election over a pro-abortion rights Democrat.
Laura Thibault, interim executive director of the local NARAL Pro-Choice America group, believes women's rights were not as threatened then as they are now. She said what has happened this year caught many by surprise.
"I think for a lot of people, the issue of reproductive rights is one they think is safe," she said.
At a Senate hearing Thursday on four of the bills, 83-year-old former state Rep. Hilda Sokol pleaded with senators not to return to a time of back-alley abortions.
"After 50 years of having had the right to make decisions about having children, I'm disturbed at the backlash," she said.
Abortion-rights activists credit Republican House Speaker William O'Brien with the turnaround in the House by helping elect enough conservative Republicans opposed to abortion. Usually a speaker only votes to change the outcome of a bill, but O'Brien has voted for abortion bills from the speaker's podium. His efforts also led to passage of the bill to block funding to hospitals and other health providers offering elective abortions despite a House committee's recommendation that it be killed.
O'Brien, who calls abortion repugnant, declined a request for an interview on the issue.
"This group of Republicans ran on jobs and the economy and as we have seen on their focus on a social agenda, they really swindled the voters. I think there are some people out there happy with it but that is a small group," said House Democratic Leader Terie Norelli, a former NARAL board member.
Andy Smith, director of the University of New Hampshire Survey Center, said state polls have shown for years that New Hampshire has consistently supported abortion rights. While Smith believes pocketbook issues will be the issue voters look to in making candidate decisions in November, Democrats could use the House's action to fire up supporters.
Abortion-rights activists hope to capitalize on rising anger among women who feel their rights are being threatened, said Jennifer Frizzell, senior policy adviser for Planned Parenthood of Northern New England. Her organization has gotten perhaps 5,000 calls from people offering to help over the past six months, she said.
"I think women up and down the ballot will determine the outcome of the election (in 2012)," she said.
At Thursday's hearing, Sokol, part of a new group called Seniors Defending Women's Health, gave the Senate committee a petition signed by 100 people opposing the bills.
And Lisa Gerrish, a consultant from Bow, says she felt tricked by the House over how it presented the bills as improvements to women's health instead of limiting their rights. She has begun working against their passage instead of just complaining and said it's time for women to be angry "and let people
know."
Kolb says her side is ready and remains committed to keep fighting for a society where abortion is unthinkable.
"This is not going away anytime soon," she said.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/new_hampshire/articles/2012/04/15/nh_house_ends_opposition_to_limit_adult_abortions/?page=full
It could be the latest front in the so-called war on women.
On Tuesday, the Tennessee state senate passed legislation that extends murder and assault laws to cover the early stages of pregnancy: before six weeks, when the fetus is still technically considered an embryo. Supporters say the measure is to ensure that additional charges can be brought against someone who harms a pregnant woman.
But some worry that the law lays a legal foundation that could, if extended to its logical conclusion, eventually be used to ban abortion — and, as highlighted in the New York Times Magazine this week, would considerably limit the rights of women in the process.
Criminal charges are now being brought against women in Alabama for “chemical endangerment of a child” which has been utilized to penalize mothers who use drugs during their pregnancy and has a mandatory sentence of 10 years to life (if the baby dies). Since the 2006 enactment of the statute, 60 new mothers in the state have been prosecuted. But now, groups like Planned Parenthood, the A.C.L.U. and the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists are taking an interest in whether the law sets a dangerous precedent.
Originally enacted to protect children from meth labs, the law prohibits a “responsible person” from:
“exposing a child to an environment in which he or she…knowingly, recklessly or intentionally causes or permits a child to be exposed to, to ingest or inhale, or to have contact with a controlled substance, chemical substance or drug paraphernalia.”
But using the law to target pregnant women for drug use is criminalizing a health concern, an issue that was also argued this week before British legislators by comedian Russell Brand.
As Dr. Deborah Frank, a pediatrician and director of Boston Medical Center’s Grow Clinic for Children, said to the Times magazine, “to simplify a complex medical and psychological issue into a criminal issue is really just like using a hammer to play the piano.” The law could scare pregnant drug users away from getting treatment for their addiction and perhaps push them to have abortions, rather than receive severe legal punishment for their use.
Although the chemical-endangerment law seems unique to Alabama, the law would lend considerable support to the “fetal personhood” argument. Keith Mason, founder of Personhood USA, which seeks to establish a fetus’s right to live as equal to that of the mother’s, told the Times that personhood is the “rallying point” for the anti-abortion movement because it is the “crux of the issue.” Attempts to define fetuses as persons have failed in any state in which they have been introduced, but Mason believes the chemical-endangerment law, and laws like it, could get the anti-abortion movement where it wants to go.
But Emma Ketteringham, the director of legal advocacy at the National Advocates for Pregnant Women, said that applying the chemical-endangerment law to pregnant women violates constitutional guarantees of liberty, privacy, equality, due process and freedom from cruel and unusual punishment. “It starts with the use of an illegal drug, but what happens as a consequence of that precedent is that everything a women does whiles she’s pregnant becomes subject to state regulation,” she said, adding that the chemical-endangerment law is essentially a “personhood measure in disguise.”
“We can value the unborn as a matter of religion, ethics, or experience,” Lynn Paltrow, executive director of the National Advocates for Pregnant Women, told the Times. “But we can’t do that as a matter of law, and still value pregnant women.”
Read more: http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/04/26/drug-addiction-personhood-and-the-war-on-women/#ixzz1tDGH7sWl
Toughy
04-26-2012, 11:22 PM
I thought Roe v Wade was very clear. During the first 20 weeks abortion is a right.....period. The states cannot make abortion in the first 20 weeks illegal.
Has menopause ruined my brain for real????
I thought Roe v Wade was very clear. During the first 20 weeks abortion is a right.....period. The states cannot make abortion in the first 20 weeks illegal.
Has menopause ruined my brain for real????
Roe vs Wade is very clear about the first 20 weeks.
This is not stopping the GOP agenda to circumvent it and undermine it using whatever means might work.
Let's hope women will harness their voting power in the upcoming election and stop the nonsense.
Your brain is fine. It is the uterus they seem to have a problem with. :)
Corkey
04-30-2012, 03:10 PM
http://newsok.com/article/3671166
Sanity at last.
PHOENIX (Reuters) - Arizona Governor Jan Brewer on Friday signed into law a bill banning abortion providers like Planned Parenthood from receiving money through the state, her office said in a statement.
The Republican-backed Whole Woman's Health Funding Priority Act cuts off funding for family planning and health services delivered by Planned Parenthood clinics and other organizations offering abortions.
"By signing this measure into law I stand with the majority of Americans who oppose the use of taxpayer funds for abortion," Brewer said in a statement.
Arizona joins six other states with similar laws, officials said. But three of those states -- Indiana, Kansas and North Carolina -- are facing legal challenges.
Arizona does not provide tax dollars for abortion, but backers said the law is needed to make sure that no indirect monies are funneled to organizations like Planned Parenthood that provide abortion and other health services. There were no estimates of how much money is involved.
But officials at Planned Parenthood Arizona, the state's largest abortion provider, said the law means that thousands of women in the state may now go without life-saving cancer screenings, birth control and basic health care.
"We are most concerned about the women and men who could be forced to go without health care as a result of this bill," Bryan Howard, Planned Parenthood Arizona's president and CEO, said in a prepared statement.
"We remain committed to providing Arizona communities with the professional, nonjudgmental and confidential health care they have relied on for 78 years," Howard said.
The anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony List called the bill a "major victory" in its fight to bar funding of abortion providers.
"Abortion-centered businesses like Planned Parenthood do not need or deserve taxpayer dollars," Marilyn Musgrave, vice president of government affairs for the organization, said in a written statement.
While Planned Parenthood suffered a setback in Arizona, it won a temporary battle in court on Friday with Texas. A federal appeals court ruled that the organization could participate in a health program for low-income women in Texas, despite a new state rule there that bans affiliates of abortion providers.
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/arizona-bans-funding-planned-parenthood-abortion-fight-032512974.html
Reader
05-05-2012, 05:47 AM
Rachel Maddow covers this topic almost every night on her show.
http://maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com/
http://www.rachelmaddow.com/
Rachel Maddow is the host of “The Rachel Maddow Show” which airs on MSNBC at 9:00 pm Eastern, Monday through Friday, and is rebroadcast at midnight Eastern.
From The Center For Reproductive Rights today:
Moments ago, we received the thrilling news that Oklahoma’s law banning medication abortion—a safe, non-surgical option used by more than 1.4 million U.S. women—has been permanently blocked.
Judge Donald Worthington’s decision is groundbreaking. He ruled that the bill’s restrictions are “so completely at odds with the standard that governs the practice of medicine that [the bill] can serve no purpose other than to prevent women from obtaining abortions and to punish and discriminate against those women who do.”
Judge Worthington’s words send a clear message to our opponents:
Reproductive choice is a fundamental right under the Oklahoma Constitution.
Today’s ruling is simply unprecedented. For the first time ever, a court recognized that the Oklahoma Constitution protects a woman’s right to abortion. This ruling reaffirms that the Legislature can’t use women’s health to advance a radical anti-choice agenda.
The court made it clear what you and I already know: This law was never about protecting women. It was about banning safe and effective methods of terminating a pregnancy, and making it impossible for women to exercise the full range of their constitutionally protected rights.
Our victory today sends a strong message to anti-choice legislators in Oklahoma—and all across the country—that their disingenuous tactics for restricting access to abortion will not stand.
Anti-choice organizations have targeted Oklahoma as a testing ground for their most extreme tactics—and we’ve been beating back one after another. Just last month, the Center defeated the state’s attempt at a so-called “personhood” ballot initiative that would have given every fertilized egg the full legal rights of a person.
Even with these triumphs, we know that anti-choice zealots won’t stop attacking our rights. We remain vigilant and ready to fight back—but today’s victory is ours to celebrate.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) responded Thursday to a question about Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) not being able to testify at a hearing about restrictions on abortions in D.C., saying that "it's wrong."
Norton asked to testify in front of a hearing of the House Subcommittee on the Constitution which is considering legislation that would ban abortions after the 20th week of pregnancy in the District.
The Subcommittee, which is chaired by notoriously anti-abortion Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.), denied her request to testify at the 4 p.m. hearing. Norton said she will offer written testimony instead.
"We have a member of Congress who wants to come in and talk about her district, I can't even imagine a situation where someone else would be denied that opportunity and I think it's wrong," Pelosi said. "And I think it's not civil and if we don't raise the level of civility around here it just further alienates the public."
Pelosi continued:
"What are they afraid of? The facts? The impact on the District of Columbia? The persuasiveness of the Congresswoman to represent her people? ... They have prevented her from having a vote on the floor, now they don't want her to have a voice in a committee on a subject of concern to her district, I think it's wrong."
Norton said she will hold a 2:30 p.m. press conference, where she will be joined by Professor Christy Zink, a District resident who had an abortion at 21 weeks after doctors found severe brain abnormalities in the fetus; Mayor Vincent Gray; Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), Ranking Member of the House Subcommittee on the Constitution; and National Abortion Federation President Vicki Saporta.
Norton provided the written testimony she will present below:
What matters in the submission of this testimony is what H.R. 3803 and this subcommittee are attempting to do to the citizens I represent, and, therefore, I submit this testimony as part of my responsibility to them, and ask that it be included in the record of today’s hearing. However, my constituents would also count on me to note for the record the subcommittee’s callous disregard of long-standing congressional courtesy in denying my request to testify, in addition to the invited witnesses, particularly considering that the subject matter under consideration affects only my district. Unlike every member of this subcommittee, I am elected by, and am accountable to, the residents of the District of Columbia.
This is the second time in the 112th Congress that the majority has focused exclusively on my district while denying my request to testify. How very easy it is for the majority to gang up on the District of Columbia after supporting the continuing denial of its tax-paying citizens to representation in the House and Senate. How irresistible it has been to pick on the District of Columbia and its citizens with not one but two bills that the majority dares not try to apply to all citizens of the United States. The lack of courage of the majority’s convictions is breathtaking. Common courtesy and the congressional tradition of comity and respect demand that the Member elected to speak for the only Americans affected by a bill be allowed to speak for them, regardless of other witnesses who may speak to the underlying issue. Last year, I was denied to speak on H.R. 3, a bill that would permanently prohibit only one jurisdiction, the District of Columbia, from spending its local funds on abortions for low-income women. Today it is H.R. 3803, which would bar the women of only one district, the District of Columbia, from having abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy. Fortunately, the majority has not yet found a way to completely silence our residents. I thank the minority for inviting Professor Christy Zink, who has agreed to speak for us, as few others could, as a mother whose tragic experience compelled an abortion after 20 weeks into her pregnancy.
Some are debating whether Republicans have been engaging in a “war on women” in our country. What is not debatable is the Republican fixation on the women of the District of Columbia. The Republican majority, which was elected on a promise of jobs and devolving power to state and local governments, brought the federal government (and with it, the District of Columbia government) to within an hour of shutting down in April 2011, and relented only after it succeeded in re-imposing an undemocratic rider on a spending bill that prohibits the District of Columbia from spending its own local funds on abortions for low-income women. Although the abortion rider remains in place today, it has not satisfied the apparently insatiable hunger of Republicans to expand the reach of the federal government into local affairs. Today, they are moving from interfering with the decisions of low-income women in the District of Columbia, to attacking every woman in the District of Columbia.
H.R. 3803 is unprincipled twice over. It is the first bill ever introduced in Congress that would deny constitutional rights to the citizens of only one jurisdiction in the United States, and it is the first bill ever introduced in Congress that would ban abortions after twenty weeks of pregnancy. Republicans claim that the bill does not usurp local authority because Congress has jurisdiction over the District of Columbia. However, that argument has been unavailing for 39 years, since Congress gave up that power over the District of Columbia, except for a small number of enumerated exceptions, with passage of the Home Rule Act of 1973. The right to reproductive choice was not among those exceptions.
The supporters of H.R. 3803 surely know that it is unconstitutional on two counts. The bill violates the reproductive rights spelled out in Roe v. Wade, as well as the 14th Amendment right to equal treatment under the law by intentionally discriminating against women who live in the nation’s capital. D.C. residents are used to Members piling on, but we will never hesitate to fight back, especially when Members have the audacity to try to place our citizens outside the protections of the U.S. Constitution, as H.R. 3803 does. As the Supreme Court said in Callan v. Wilson, “There is nothing in the history of the Constitution or of the original amendments to justify the assertion that the people of th[e] District [of Columbia] may be lawfully deprived of the benefit of any of the constitutional guarantees of life, liberty, and property.”
Why, then, a hearing today on a bill that violates the right to reproductive freedom, equal protection, and federalism all at once? The answers are inescapable. Republicans do not dare take on the women of this country who have voting Members of the House and Senate with a post-20-week ban on abortions. Instead, the majority has chosen a cheap and cynical way to make its ideological point during an election year. With last year’s civil disobedience, D.C. residents and officials showed that we will never accept second-class treatment of our city. Today we want this subcommittee to know that we will never accept second-class treatment of our citizens, either.
http://www.nbcwashington.com/blogs/first-read-dmv/Norton-Testimony-Denied-at-DC-Abortion-Hearing-151895255.html
Measure 3 will add the following to the North Dakota Constitution:
Government may not burden a person's or religious organization's religious liberty. The right to act or refuse to act in a manner motivated by a sincerely held religious belief may not be burdened unless the government proves it has a compelling governmental interest in infringing the specific act or refusal to act and has used the least restrictive means to further that interest. A burden includes indirect burdens such as withholding benefits, assessing penalties, or an exclusion from programs or access to facilities.
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The North Dakota Women’s Network serves as a catalyst for improving the lives of women. Our organization passed a resolution to stand against Measure 3 for the core reasons our mission implies.
The language of the measure will create loopholes due to the lack of protection for individuals’ civil rights.
What does this mean? It means people who break a law or discriminate against another person have a protected defense and that the state must prove (in court) otherwise.
If Measure 3 passes, it could allow a person to take advantage and use personal religious beliefs to claim the right to break important laws that are meant to protect all of us, like laws against abuse and discrimination.
For example, an employer could use religious beliefs to fire a pregnant woman because she is unmarried.
Let’s think this through. We now have a single mother unemployed and struggling to care for the welfare of her family. Her employer would have a protected defense for his action and a judge would have to determine otherwise.
Supporters of Measure 3 claim that concerns about abuse and discrimination aren’t warranted because the government has a compelling interest to protect victims in those situations. However, Measure 3 would mean the government would have to prove its case each and every time someone takes advantage of the law — giving those people the upper hand while taxpayers foot the bill for endless litigation. Most importantly, it would delay the state’s ability to protect women and children.
Measure 3 is worded very differently than laws in other states intended to protect religious freedom; it’s like comparing apples to oranges.
The truth is, Measure 3 could lead to endless litigation and serious, even harmful, consequences for North Dakotans.
Read more: http://bismarcktribune.com/news/opinion/mailbag/measure-would-create-loopholes/article_895758f0-9fda-11e1-b861-0019bb2963f4.html#ixzz1veUDjxHx
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As we head into the election season, there are many daunting initiatives coming our way in many states. One election that is speeding our way is in North Dakota on June 12th, and one particularly frightening Measure being voted on in the state is the Religious Liberty Restoration Amendment.
Although religious freedom is already thoroughly covered in our United States Constitution, the Catholic Conference and North Dakota Family Alliance has proposed a vague and extreme measure to be added to the state constitution.
The North Dakota Catholic Conference, the lobbying arm of the state’s Catholic bishops, led a petition drive that collected signatures to put the plan before the voters. Also spearheading this measure is the North Dakota Family Alliance, the state’s leading Religious Right group and local affiliate of the James Dobson-founded Focus on the Family.
Measure Three states that a person has “the right to act or refuse to act in a manner motivated by a sincerely held religious belief” and includes “indirect burdens such as withholding benefits, assessing penalties, or an exclusion from programs or access to facilities.”
If this state constitutional amendment were to pass, it could have far reaching and possibly unintended consequences. Last week North Dakotans against Measure Three launched its website and new campaign to fight this harmful measure. On the new website, they give three reasons to vote against Measure 3:
1. Measure Three is not needed. Religious rights and freedom were the foundation of the United States Constitution and is protected by the First Amendment. Measure Three would put individuals’ beliefs above the common good of all North Dakotans.
2. Measure Three would waste resources. It is so poorly written and vague that it will open the door to endless legal problems and litigation, clogging the courts and costing tax payers money.
3. Measure Three would mean unintended consequences. If anyone can claim religious liberty, what is to stop those who will take advantage of such an Amendment to the extreme in matters such as domestic violence if their religion requires a man disciplining his wife? Other potential consequences of this Measure are vast, but could include circumstances such as denying numerous forms of healthcare and services and discriminating against individuals and groups.
Of course, women’s rights advocates including Feminist Majority Foundation worry about the effects of such an Amendment on women and young people. The first services that may be denied to North Dakota women and girls based on “religious liberty” could be reproductive health care and family planning. In a sparsely populated state like North Dakota, where would a student turn if their local pharmacies and health centers refuse to provide birth control or Plan B?
So what can you do?
Feminist Majority Foundation will be working with our student groups in North Dakota to get the word out on campuses. We need all the help we can get to alert voters of the harmful consequences of Measure Three and get them out to vote. If you are from North Dakota or know folks interested in working to defeat Measure Three, please contact me at sshanks@feminist.org so we can connect you with those working on the ground. If you are not in the state, TELL EVERYONE WHO KNOWS ANYONE WHO KNOWS ANYONE in North Dakota about the Measure, and get them out to vote! We will have more volunteer opportunities and updates as the elections approach, but make sure you are getting the word out! We must stop an amendment that may result in taking away women’s rights.
http://feministcampus.org/blog/index.php/2012/05/08/vote-against-north-dakota-measure-3-on-june-12th/
The percent of Americans who identify as "pro-choice" regarding legalized abortion is at a new low of 41 percent, according to a newly released Gallup poll. The figure is one percent lower than the previous all-time low registered by Gallup, which was in May 2009.
The decline appears to fall along party lines, with the percent of Republicans identifying as "pro-choice" decreasing from 28 percent last May, to 22 percent in this most recent poll. Democrats remain somewhat consistent, around 60 percent identify as pro-choice.
Pro-choice and pro-life was the language used in the Gallup poll questionnaire.
Potentially troubling for Democrats heading into the fall is the drop among voters who are registered as Independents identifying as "pro-choice." The survey found 41 percent of Independents identified as "pro-choice," while 47 percent identified as "pro-life," marking only the second time since 2001 that the number of "pro-life" Independents has outweighed the number of "pro-choice" Independents.
The reason for the shift in numbers is unclear, but the potential political implications may not actually be that great.
When polled on the question of legality, 52 percent of Americans said they believe that abortion should be legal "in certain circumstances." That number remains consistent with polling from May 2011.
Gallup found that 25 percent believe that abortion should be legal "in all cases," while 20 percent believe it should be illegal "in all cases." Those numbers are also consistent with polling from the same time last year.
http://news.yahoo.com/pro-choice-americans-record-low-poll-finds-162145636--abc-news-politics.html
The U.S. House of Representatives will vote Wednesday on a bill seeking to penalize abortionists who knowingly help women carry out gender-selective abortions.
If signed into law, H.R. 3541, the Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act (PRENDA) would send to prison for up to five years anyone who performs a gender-selective abortion, coerces a woman to have one, solicits or accepts funds to perform one, or transports a woman across state lines for that purpose.
Because the bill was fast-tracked through a procedural maneuver last Friday, it will need support from two-thirds of the House, rather than a simple majority, to pass.
“We know that sex-selective abortions are taking place around the world, and that we are missing more than 163 million women as a result,” said Father Shenan J. Boquet, president of the pro-life advocacy group Human Life International. “Those in the pro-abortion movement want us to pretend that gendercide isn’t an issue in the West, but a recent study by the Canadian Medical Association Journal suggests that sex-selective abortions are indeed taking place in North America.”
Rep. Trent Franks, R-Ariz., is sponsoring the bill. At a hearing he chaired last December, Population Research Institute President Steven. W. Mosher testified that gender-selective abortions are shockingly common in the U.S., particularly among Southeast Asian and Indian communities. He cited a study conducted by an Asian-Indian doctor, who found 89 percent of the women she interviewed had aborted girls at least once.
“These women told … how they were the victims of family violence; how their husbands or in-laws had shoved them around, kicked them in the abdomen, or denied them food, water, rest in an attempt to make them miscarry the girls they were carrying,” Mosher testified. “Even the women who were carrying boys told of their guilt over past sex-selection abortions, and the feeling of being unable to ‘save’ their daughters.”
Though it is traditional for some cultures to value boys over girls, advances in medical technology have allowed gender to be determined earlier than ever before. That technology, in turn, is playing a role in the number of gender-selective abortions being performed in the U.S.
http://www.citizenlink.com/2012/05/29/prenatal-nondiscrimination-act-coming-up-for-vote-on-wednesday/
deedarino
05-29-2012, 05:46 PM
No offense Kobi...but damn I hate seeing this thread come up. It just means that some other stupid shit is happening against women. :mad:
No offense Kobi...but damn I hate seeing this thread come up. It just means that some other stupid shit is happening against women. :mad:
LOL. I understand the feeling. Never ending stream of shit it seems. And, tho the message is the same, the methodology is interesting.
But, it is an election year. Hopefully, people will use their votes to send a message back to those who are creating and perpetuating this war on women.
:)
interesting that the link doesn't work. not surprised.
couldnt do it... go to prochoiceamerica.org
go to get involved tab
drop down menu click on take action
you can tell congress how to vote
The so-called “Prenatal Non-Discrimination Act,” introduced last year by Rep. Trent Franks and sponsored by 98 members of the House, pretends to care about sex discrimination and gender inequity.
The proposed law would profile women based on race, place barriers between women and the reproductive health services they need, and force doctors to question the motives of their patients.
The lawmakers behind this bill have consistently opposed laws intended to protect women from violence and discrimination, such as the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, the Paycheck Fairness Act, and the Global Sexual and Reproductive Health Act. They are the same people gunning for Planned Parenthood’s funding and allowing women with life-threatening pregnancies to suffer and die rather than allow a doctor to provide abortion care.
Still time to let your Rep know how you feel about this.
The House voted today to reject a measure that would have banned sex-selection abortions in the United States, pitting Republicans and Democrats in a showdown over a woman's right to choose, which opponents contended was "intended to chip away at woman's right to obtain safe, legal medical care."
The measure, known as the Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act (PRENDA), was defeated 246-178. Under suspension of the House rules to permit consideration of the bill more quickly, approval of the measure was subject to a two-thirds majority, and with 414 members voting Republicans fell 30 votes short of passage.
The bill was perceived by Democrats as political maneuver to coax liberal lawmakers into supporting the bill or face the prospect of an onslaught of campaign advertisements this fall highlighting a lawmaker's vote to support sex-selection abortions.
Still, only 20 Democrats took the bait and broke from their party to vote with the majority of Republicans. Seven GOPers opposed the measure.
The House debated the bill Wednesday, but a vote was postponed until Thursday afternoon.
After the plight of blind Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng captured international headlines this month, Republicans had hoped to capitalize on the momentum of that awareness to ensure that sex-selection abortions are not legal in the United States.
Many nations with staunchly pro-choice/pro-abortion rights laws and protections nevertheless ban sex-selection abortions. Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, Finland and the Netherlands all have laws banning sex-selection abortions.
Earlier this week, a pro-life group released an undercover video purportedly showing a Planned Parenthood counselor in Texas assisting a woman seeking a sex-selection abortion. Gendercide, the practice of killing baby girls or terminating pregnancies solely because the fetus is female, is estimated to have produced a "gender imbalance" of more than 100 million girls around the world.
"For most of us, Mr. Speaker, 'it's a girl' is cause for enormous joy, happiness and celebration," Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., said on the House floor Wednesday. "But in many countries including our own, it could be a death sentence. Today the three most dangerous words in China and India are, 'It's a girl.' We can't let that happen here."
http://news.yahoo.com/house-rejects-ban-sex-selection-abortions-202308339--abc-news-politics.html
Tomorrow, the Ma House of Representatives will begin debating HB 4127 - An Act Improving the Quality of Health Care and Reducing Costs through Increased Transparency, Efficiency, and Innovation. Amendment 32 is vital to protecting access to reproductive health as we reform payment and delivery systems.
For many women, reproductive-health providers are access points to appropriate primary and specialty care. For this reason, access to reproductive-health services is necessary to improve women's overall health as we move into new ways of delivering care. I urge you to support amendment 32, which requires that these health-care entities include women's reproductive-health services.
Amendment #32: Filed by Rep. Martha "Marty" Walz, this amendment specifies that new health-care entities be requires to offer reproductive-health services as part of their primary-care services.
Let your opinion be known today.
Truly Scrumptious
06-06-2012, 04:25 PM
The War on Women by the Ridiculous Numbers
By Erin Gloria Ryan
Jun 6, 2012 3:50 PM
Over the last year and a half or so, conservative lawmakers have been feverishly at work enacting laws designed to shove the whole government into your vagina, since it's for damn sure not going to be looking over your boss's shoulder to make sure he's not screwing you over. Here's a run-down of the War on Women, in convenient digestible bits that hopefully won't interfere with that pregnancy you're working on.
1,100
Total number of reproductive rights-related laws introduced by state lawmakers in 2011.
604
Number of abortion and reproductive rights-related provisions introduced at the state level as of June 1.
8.2%
The US unemployment rate.
0
Number of jobs created by wasting time debating hundreds of reproductive rights-restricting laws.
408,425
Number of children who were in the US foster care system at the end of 2010.
96,772
Number of those children with caseworkers who said they were waiting to be adopted.
4,230
Number of adoptable foster children who would not have stadium seats if you tried to put all of them into the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California.
25
United States' ranking on Save the Children's list of best countries for mothers.
0
Number of podium pounding speeches given by "pro-life" Congressional leaders on how embarrassing it is that the US has the fourth highest maternal mortality rate of any industrialized nation.
Between $2 and $6
Amount of taxpayer money saved for every $1 spent on birth control.
$11 billion
Cost of unplanned pregnancies to the US taxpayer — per year.
$11.2 billion
Amount Broadway musicals contribute to New York City's economy per year.
$3.71 billion
Facebook's net revenues in 2011.
12 zillion
(Est.) Number of extremely irritating, almost Broadway musical-level overwrought debates Americans have gotten into about contraception on Facebook.
$270,000
Estimated cost of raising a child from birth to age 17 in the US.
$10,784
Average amount of additional income an American woman would earn annually if she were a man.
$431,360
Amount of money an American woman can expect to be stiffed out of during the duration of her working career.
$16,704
Amount a woman can expect to spend on birth control pills that cost $48 per month, if she takes them for the duration of her fertile years.
99%
Percentage of sexually active American women who will use birth control in their lifetimes.
Between $5,000 and $20,000
Average cost of childbirth in the US.
142
Number of advertisers who fled Rush Limbaugh's radio show after he called activist Sandra Fluke a "slut" and sarcastically suggested she perform in internet porn videos in exchange for taxpayer subsidized birth control.
142
Number of seconds a non-masochist can listen to Rush Limbaugh talk in that voice of his before they want to hire a man with meaty forearms to temporarily disable their sense of hearing.
72
Number of hours the state of South Dakota proposes women wait between receiving an ultrasound and having a legal medical procedure. That's 3 days.
72
Approximate number of hours that Christians believe elapsed between when Jesus was buried and when he rose from the dead.
0
Number of things Jesus said about abortion or zygotes.
47
Number of Senators who voted against the Paycheck Fairness Act.
0
Number of Republicans who voted in favor of the Paycheck Fairness Act
445
Number of elected legislators currently serving in the House or Senate who are men, out of 538 total.
55%
Proportion of immigrants to the US who are female.
3.5
Times more likely a Native American woman is to be victimized by domestic violence than a white woman.
221
Number of House Republicans who voted in favor of a version of the Violence Against Women Act that stripped protections for undocumented immigrant, Native, and LGBT women.
0
Difference in human-ness between an undocumented immigrant, a Native American woman, an LGBT woman and a straight white American woman with a passport.
http://jezebel.com/war-on-women/
The War on Women by the Ridiculous Numbers
By Erin Gloria Ryan
Jun 6, 2012 3:50 PM
Over the last year and a half or so, conservative lawmakers have been feverishly at work enacting laws designed to shove the whole government into your vagina, since it's for damn sure not going to be looking over your boss's shoulder to make sure he's not screwing you over. Here's a run-down of the War on Women, in convenient digestible bits that hopefully won't interfere with that pregnancy you're working on.
1,100
Total number of reproductive rights-related laws introduced by state lawmakers in 2011.
604
Number of abortion and reproductive rights-related provisions introduced at the state level as of June 1.
8.2%
The US unemployment rate.
0
Number of jobs created by wasting time debating hundreds of reproductive rights-restricting laws.
408,425
Number of children who were in the US foster care system at the end of 2010.
96,772
Number of those children with caseworkers who said they were waiting to be adopted.
4,230
Number of adoptable foster children who would not have stadium seats if you tried to put all of them into the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California.
25
United States' ranking on Save the Children's list of best countries for mothers.
0
Number of podium pounding speeches given by "pro-life" Congressional leaders on how embarrassing it is that the US has the fourth highest maternal mortality rate of any industrialized nation.
Between $2 and $6
Amount of taxpayer money saved for every $1 spent on birth control.
$11 billion
Cost of unplanned pregnancies to the US taxpayer — per year.
$11.2 billion
Amount Broadway musicals contribute to New York City's economy per year.
$3.71 billion
Facebook's net revenues in 2011.
12 zillion
(Est.) Number of extremely irritating, almost Broadway musical-level overwrought debates Americans have gotten into about contraception on Facebook.
$270,000
Estimated cost of raising a child from birth to age 17 in the US.
$10,784
Average amount of additional income an American woman would earn annually if she were a man.
$431,360
Amount of money an American woman can expect to be stiffed out of during the duration of her working career.
$16,704
Amount a woman can expect to spend on birth control pills that cost $48 per month, if she takes them for the duration of her fertile years.
99%
Percentage of sexually active American women who will use birth control in their lifetimes.
Between $5,000 and $20,000
Average cost of childbirth in the US.
142
Number of advertisers who fled Rush Limbaugh's radio show after he called activist Sandra Fluke a "slut" and sarcastically suggested she perform in internet porn videos in exchange for taxpayer subsidized birth control.
142
Number of seconds a non-masochist can listen to Rush Limbaugh talk in that voice of his before they want to hire a man with meaty forearms to temporarily disable their sense of hearing.
72
Number of hours the state of South Dakota proposes women wait between receiving an ultrasound and having a legal medical procedure. That's 3 days.
72
Approximate number of hours that Christians believe elapsed between when Jesus was buried and when he rose from the dead.
0
Number of things Jesus said about abortion or zygotes.
47
Number of Senators who voted against the Paycheck Fairness Act.
0
Number of Republicans who voted in favor of the Paycheck Fairness Act
445
Number of elected legislators currently serving in the House or Senate who are men, out of 538 total.
55%
Proportion of immigrants to the US who are female.
3.5
Times more likely a Native American woman is to be victimized by domestic violence than a white woman.
221
Number of House Republicans who voted in favor of a version of the Violence Against Women Act that stripped protections for undocumented immigrant, Native, and LGBT women.
0
Difference in human-ness between an undocumented immigrant, a Native American woman, an LGBT woman and a straight white American woman with a passport.
http://jezebel.com/war-on-women/
55
Likely percentage of people in the US who can be counted on to vote against their own self-interest.
*Anya*
06-07-2012, 11:28 AM
This is enough to make a woman cry, no less a feminist.
Sadly, it only received 4 reps.
Reminded me of this and it is quoted:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Ain't I A Woman by Sojourner Truth Women's Convention, Akron, Ohio, 1851
Well, children, where there is so much racket there must be something out of kilter. I think that 'twixt the negroes of the South and the women at the North, all talking about rights, the white men will be in a fix pretty soon. But what's all this here talking about?
That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain't I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man - when I could get it - and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain't I a woman?
Then they talk about this thing in the head; what's this they call it? [member of audience whispers, "intellect"] That's it, honey. What's that got to do with women's rights or negroes' rights? If my cup won't hold but a pint, and yours holds a quart, wouldn't you be mean not to let me have my little half measure full?
Then that little man in black there, he says women can't have as much rights as men, 'cause Christ wasn't a woman! Where did your Christ come from? Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him.
If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back , and get it right side up again! And now they is asking to do it, the men better let them.
Obliged to you for hearing me, and now old Sojourner ain't got nothing more to say."
The War on Women by the Ridiculous Numbers
By Erin Gloria Ryan
Jun 6, 2012 3:50 PM
Over the last year and a half or so, conservative lawmakers have been feverishly at work enacting laws designed to shove the whole government into your vagina, since it's for damn sure not going to be looking over your boss's shoulder to make sure he's not screwing you over. Here's a run-down of the War on Women, in convenient digestible bits that hopefully won't interfere with that pregnancy you're working on.
1,100
Total number of reproductive rights-related laws introduced by state lawmakers in 2011.
604
Number of abortion and reproductive rights-related provisions introduced at the state level as of June 1.
8.2%
The US unemployment rate.
0
Number of jobs created by wasting time debating hundreds of reproductive rights-restricting laws.
408,425
Number of children who were in the US foster care system at the end of 2010.
96,772
Number of those children with caseworkers who said they were waiting to be adopted.
4,230
Number of adoptable foster children who would not have stadium seats if you tried to put all of them into the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California.
25
United States' ranking on Save the Children's list of best countries for mothers.
0
Number of podium pounding speeches given by "pro-life" Congressional leaders on how embarrassing it is that the US has the fourth highest maternal mortality rate of any industrialized nation.
Between $2 and $6
Amount of taxpayer money saved for every $1 spent on birth control.
$11 billion
Cost of unplanned pregnancies to the US taxpayer — per year.
$11.2 billion
Amount Broadway musicals contribute to New York City's economy per year.
$3.71 billion
Facebook's net revenues in 2011.
12 zillion
(Est.) Number of extremely irritating, almost Broadway musical-level overwrought debates Americans have gotten into about contraception on Facebook.
$270,000
Estimated cost of raising a child from birth to age 17 in the US.
$10,784
Average amount of additional income an American woman would earn annually if she were a man.
$431,360
Amount of money an American woman can expect to be stiffed out of during the duration of her working career.
$16,704
Amount a woman can expect to spend on birth control pills that cost $48 per month, if she takes them for the duration of her fertile years.
99%
Percentage of sexually active American women who will use birth control in their lifetimes.
Between $5,000 and $20,000
Average cost of childbirth in the US.
142
Number of advertisers who fled Rush Limbaugh's radio show after he called activist Sandra Fluke a "slut" and sarcastically suggested she perform in internet porn videos in exchange for taxpayer subsidized birth control.
142
Number of seconds a non-masochist can listen to Rush Limbaugh talk in that voice of his before they want to hire a man with meaty forearms to temporarily disable their sense of hearing.
72
Number of hours the state of South Dakota proposes women wait between receiving an ultrasound and having a legal medical procedure. That's 3 days.
72
Approximate number of hours that Christians believe elapsed between when Jesus was buried and when he rose from the dead.
0
Number of things Jesus said about abortion or zygotes.
47
Number of Senators who voted against the Paycheck Fairness Act.
0
Number of Republicans who voted in favor of the Paycheck Fairness Act
445
Number of elected legislators currently serving in the House or Senate who are men, out of 538 total.
55%
Proportion of immigrants to the US who are female.
3.5
Times more likely a Native American woman is to be victimized by domestic violence than a white woman.
221
Number of House Republicans who voted in favor of a version of the Violence Against Women Act that stripped protections for undocumented immigrant, Native, and LGBT women.
0
Difference in human-ness between an undocumented immigrant, a Native American woman, an LGBT woman and a straight white American woman with a passport.
http://jezebel.com/war-on-women/
This is enough to make a woman cry, no less a feminist.
Sadly, it only received 4 reps.
Reminded me of this and it is quoted:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Ain't I A Woman by Sojourner Truth Women's Convention, Akron, Ohio, 1851
Well, children, where there is so much racket there must be something out of kilter. I think that 'twixt the negroes of the South and the women at the North, all talking about rights, the white men will be in a fix pretty soon. But what's all this here talking about?
That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain't I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man - when I could get it - and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain't I a woman?
Then they talk about this thing in the head; what's this they call it? [member of audience whispers, "intellect"] That's it, honey. What's that got to do with women's rights or negroes' rights? If my cup won't hold but a pint, and yours holds a quart, wouldn't you be mean not to let me have my little half measure full?
Then that little man in black there, he says women can't have as much rights as men, 'cause Christ wasn't a woman! Where did your Christ come from? Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him.
If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back , and get it right side up again! And now they is asking to do it, the men better let them.
Obliged to you for hearing me, and now old Sojourner ain't got nothing more to say."
Thank you for posting this.
Measure 3 will add the following to the North Dakota Constitution:
Government may not burden a person's or religious organization's religious liberty. The right to act or refuse to act in a manner motivated by a sincerely held religious belief may not be burdened unless the government proves it has a compelling governmental interest in infringing the specific act or refusal to act and has used the least restrictive means to further that interest. A burden includes indirect burdens such as withholding benefits, assessing penalties, or an exclusion from programs or access to facilities.
----
The North Dakota Women’s Network serves as a catalyst for improving the lives of women. Our organization passed a resolution to stand against Measure 3 for the core reasons our mission implies.
The language of the measure will create loopholes due to the lack of protection for individuals’ civil rights.
What does this mean? It means people who break a law or discriminate against another person have a protected defense and that the state must prove (in court) otherwise.
If Measure 3 passes, it could allow a person to take advantage and use personal religious beliefs to claim the right to break important laws that are meant to protect all of us, like laws against abuse and discrimination.
For example, an employer could use religious beliefs to fire a pregnant woman because she is unmarried.
Let’s think this through. We now have a single mother unemployed and struggling to care for the welfare of her family. Her employer would have a protected defense for his action and a judge would have to determine otherwise.
Supporters of Measure 3 claim that concerns about abuse and discrimination aren’t warranted because the government has a compelling interest to protect victims in those situations. However, Measure 3 would mean the government would have to prove its case each and every time someone takes advantage of the law — giving those people the upper hand while taxpayers foot the bill for endless litigation. Most importantly, it would delay the state’s ability to protect women and children.
Measure 3 is worded very differently than laws in other states intended to protect religious freedom; it’s like comparing apples to oranges.
The truth is, Measure 3 could lead to endless litigation and serious, even harmful, consequences for North Dakotans.
Read more: http://bismarcktribune.com/news/opinion/mailbag/measure-would-create-loopholes/article_895758f0-9fda-11e1-b861-0019bb2963f4.html#ixzz1veUDjxHx
-------------
As we head into the election season, there are many daunting initiatives coming our way in many states. One election that is speeding our way is in North Dakota on June 12th, and one particularly frightening Measure being voted on in the state is the Religious Liberty Restoration Amendment.
Although religious freedom is already thoroughly covered in our United States Constitution, the Catholic Conference and North Dakota Family Alliance has proposed a vague and extreme measure to be added to the state constitution.
The North Dakota Catholic Conference, the lobbying arm of the state’s Catholic bishops, led a petition drive that collected signatures to put the plan before the voters. Also spearheading this measure is the North Dakota Family Alliance, the state’s leading Religious Right group and local affiliate of the James Dobson-founded Focus on the Family.
Measure Three states that a person has “the right to act or refuse to act in a manner motivated by a sincerely held religious belief” and includes “indirect burdens such as withholding benefits, assessing penalties, or an exclusion from programs or access to facilities.”
If this state constitutional amendment were to pass, it could have far reaching and possibly unintended consequences. Last week North Dakotans against Measure Three launched its website and new campaign to fight this harmful measure. On the new website, they give three reasons to vote against Measure 3:
1. Measure Three is not needed. Religious rights and freedom were the foundation of the United States Constitution and is protected by the First Amendment. Measure Three would put individuals’ beliefs above the common good of all North Dakotans.
2. Measure Three would waste resources. It is so poorly written and vague that it will open the door to endless legal problems and litigation, clogging the courts and costing tax payers money.
3. Measure Three would mean unintended consequences. If anyone can claim religious liberty, what is to stop those who will take advantage of such an Amendment to the extreme in matters such as domestic violence if their religion requires a man disciplining his wife? Other potential consequences of this Measure are vast, but could include circumstances such as denying numerous forms of healthcare and services and discriminating against individuals and groups.
Of course, women’s rights advocates including Feminist Majority Foundation worry about the effects of such an Amendment on women and young people. The first services that may be denied to North Dakota women and girls based on “religious liberty” could be reproductive health care and family planning. In a sparsely populated state like North Dakota, where would a student turn if their local pharmacies and health centers refuse to provide birth control or Plan B?
So what can you do?
Feminist Majority Foundation will be working with our student groups in North Dakota to get the word out on campuses. We need all the help we can get to alert voters of the harmful consequences of Measure Three and get them out to vote. If you are from North Dakota or know folks interested in working to defeat Measure Three, please contact me at sshanks@feminist.org so we can connect you with those working on the ground. If you are not in the state, TELL EVERYONE WHO KNOWS ANYONE WHO KNOWS ANYONE in North Dakota about the Measure, and get them out to vote! We will have more volunteer opportunities and updates as the elections approach, but make sure you are getting the word out! We must stop an amendment that may result in taking away women’s rights.
http://feministcampus.org/blog/index.php/2012/05/08/vote-against-north-dakota-measure-3-on-june-12th/
According to NARAL - North Dakota voters defeated Measure 3, the anti-choice ballot initiative. What an amazing win!
North Dakota voters understood that freedom of religion is already protected in the U.S. Constitution. North Dakotans understood that this measure was dangerous. For example, it could have allowed a man to claim that domestic-violence and child-abuse laws don’t apply to him because his religion tells him he has the right to discipline his wife and children as he sees fit.
As we celebrate this victory, we cannot forget that Measure 3 is part of a much larger and dangerous strategy to take away women’s rights.
Remember the all-male panel that railed against birth control? The groups and politicians behind that panel also backed Measure 3. They’re pouring in millions of dollars to enact their extreme agenda to take away key rights and choices from women.
Remember, an attack on a woman’s right to choose in one state is an attack on a woman’s right to choose everywhere.
After Saying ‘Vagina,’ a Woman Legislator is Banned From Speaking on House Floor....
Two women representatives were indefinitely barred from speaking during Michigan House debates yesterday by Majority Floor Leader Jim Stamas during one debate about a highly contentious omnibus abortion bill.
One of the offenders, State Representative Barb Byrum (D), was barred for shouting at the presiding officer after he refused to give her the floor, despite her repeated requests to speak. The other barred representative, Lisa Brown (D), suspects that she is being punished for using the word “vagina.” At the end of an impassioned speech against the measure in question—which, among other provisions, bans all abortions after 20 weeks, without exceptions for rape, incest or the health of the mother—Brown said “I’m flattered that you’re all so interested in my vagina, but ‘no’ means ‘no.’” (See the video above for full remarks and reactions.)
Stamas hasn’t said what specifically offended him — only that the women did not maintain decorum on the floor — but Brown and her supporters argue that the majority leader was put off by her use of an “anatomically correct word.”
“Apparently, “vagina” is another v-word that Must Not Be Named. Like Voldemort,” Brown told Jezebel.com’s Gloria Erin Ryan.
Michigan Radio reports that “this is the first time in memory that lawmakers have been formally barred from participating in floor debates.”
Read more: http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/06/15/watch-after-saying-vagina-a-woman-legislator-is-banned-from-speaking-on-house-floor/#ixzz1xwoKkpaf
From NARAL:
The men featured at the all-male panel attacking birth control are back. Starting Thursday for two weeks, the anti-choice United States Conference on Catholic Bishops (USCCB) is organizing nationwide rallies as part of its “Fortnight for Freedom.”
There’s no question what the bishops hope to achieve with these rallies: pressure Congress to back down on requiring insurance companies to cover contraception without a copay.
During the “Fortnight for Freedom,” the bishops could send tens if not hundreds of thousands of messages to Congress. But that’s not the only way they are targeting birth control.
*They already organized more than 100 demonstrations across the country, featuring extreme anti-choice speakers like Rep. Michele Bachmann.
*The bishops have championed a flurry of lawsuits challenging the contraceptive-coverage policy from religiously affiliated institutions.
*The USCCB’s North Dakota affiliate backed Measure 3, a ballot initiative that, under the guise of religious freedom, would have allowed employers who oppose contraception to deny such coverage to their employees. Fortunately, North Dakota voters rejected Measure 3 by a wide margin last week.
These next two weeks will be critical. We can’t allow the bishops to mobilize without a challenge – but it’s going to take our massive people power to counter their millions of dollars.
---------
Time to keep in touch with your Congresspeople and make your views known.
Now, if you really want to get sick....read the following article which calls the HHS mandate one more momentous step in the "repaganization of the West".
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Preparing for a Fortnight for Freedom: A Short History Lesson
The American bishops have declared a “Fortnight for Freedom,” running the 14 days from June 21 (the Vigil of the Feast of Saints John Fisher and Thomas More) to July 4, Independence Day. “Culminating on Independence Day,” the bishops explain, “this special period of prayer, study, catechesis, and public action would emphasize both our Christian and American heritage of liberty. Dioceses and parishes around the country could choose a date in that period for special events that would constitute a great national campaign of teaching and witness for religious liberty.”
Well said. In that same spirit, here is a little history lesson to help prepare us for a Fortnight for Freedom.
First, current history. The Fortnight for Freedom was declared because President Obama is trying to force Catholic institutions, through a Health and Human Services mandate, to provide contraception, abortifacients, and sterilization through their insurance coverage.
And now for a little ancient history to put current events into the widest possible context. To truly see what’s at stake with Obama’s HHS mandate, you must go all the way back to ancient Rome, to the pagan empire into which Christianity was born.
We might think of contraception as something new, a modern thing, just as we think abortion was rare before Roe v. Wade. But that is historically as inaccurate as one could possibly get. The truth is this: contraception, abortion, and infanticide were widely practiced and entirely acceptable in all ancient cultures, including Rome. The acceptability was the result of attitudes toward sexuality. “In antiquity,” historian John Riddle notes, “the evidence suggests, sexual restraint was largely ignored; pagan religion normally did not attempt to regulate sexual activity. Free males could do almost anything sexually, even if they had to resort to slaves, with no moral or societal consequences to themselves.”
Elevating the goal of sexual satisfaction meant that babies were often considered unwanted side effects. Most ancient pagans saw nothing wrong with stopping babies from happening, and used a variety of contraceptive and abortifacient concoctions, ingested or applied, to accomplish this—everything from pomegranate peels, giant fennel, acacia gum, crushed juniper berries, cabbage flowers, date palm, rue, and myrrh, to crocodile dung. If all that failed, they had back-up plans to induce something like a modern-day abortion (hot baths, vigorous exercise, horseback riding, carrying heavy loads, bleeding, punching the stomach, more poisons). The final back-up was infanticide, usually by exposure.
The earliest Christians rejected the whole spectrum, from contraception to infanticide—and this is obviously an essential point for understanding the historical importance of the current standoff between Obama’s HHS and the Catholic bishops. We find their explicit rejection in the Didache, the first-century AD catechetical manual used in the house churches and directed at converts coming, not through Judaism, but from among the pagans.
Pagan converts were confronted with a list of commands in the Didache, including, “You will not have illicit sex” (ou porneuseis) and, “You will not murder offspring by means of abortion [and] you will not kill one having been born [i.e., infanticide].” The list also includes, “You will not make potions” (ou pharmakeuseis), a prohibition against the wide-scale use among pagans of potions intended as contraceptives and abortifacients.
St. Paul’s list of sins of the flesh in Galatians 5:19-20 is very interesting in this regard. The list begins with fornication or illicit sex (porneia), impurity, sensuality or lewdness, and idolatry, and then lists what is often translated as sorcery (pharmakeia). Sorcery and potion-making went together in the ancient world, and we cannot exclude the possibility that St. Paul (given the duplication of pharmakeia in the Didache) was intending to include makers of contraceptives and abortifacients.
Such prohibitions would have been more familiar to Jews than Roman pagans, but even the Jews, it seems, were not dead-set against the use of contraception. According to John Riddle, “While there is no mention of intentional abortion [via abortifacients] or contraception in the Old Testament, both practices are in the Talmud, Tosefta, and Mishnah.” More accurately, “rabbinic opinion was divided,” and even those that affirmed the use of contraception and abortifacients did so only under restricted conditions.
As with the command against adultery, the Christians intensified the Jewish prohibitions, and condemned all use of contraceptives and abortifacients, thereby setting themselves at the most complete odds with the accepted Roman pagan sexual practices. That is a very important point to make in regard to the HHS mandate: it means that Christianity alone is the historical cause of the moral prohibition against contraceptives and abortifacients.
But history attests not just this single, early prohibition. Following the lead of the Didache, we find contraception and abortion condemned by a string of eminent early churchmen: Athenagoras (c. 133-190), Clement (c. 150-215), Marcus Minucius Felix (c. 150-270), Jerome (c. 347-420), and John Chrysostom (347-407).
This condemnation continued as pagan Rome crumbled and Christendom emerged from its ruins. Bishop Caesarius of Arles condemned contraception and abortifacients in the early sixth century AD, and Abbot Regino, writing from Lorraine about 830 AD, asserted that if someone does something to stop childbearing, such as ingesting some potion so that no generation or conception can take place, “let it be held as homicide.” Ivo, bishop of Chartres from 1090 to 1115, brought these prohibitions against contraception, abortifacients, and abortion together, and his account was taken up by Peter Lombard in his Sentences (c. 1096-1164), which in turn was incorporated by Gratian in the 12th century into the Church’s canon law. Canon law formed the Church’s unified, authoritative approach to these issues, and this allowed church moral doctrine to influence and define the civil law of the West.
There is no other historical source for the laws against abortion that were struck down with a single blow by Roe v. Wade in 1972, and no other source for the laws against contraception that were struck down with Griswold v. Connecticut in 1965. And finally, there is no other source of the current antagonism created by the HHS mandate, demanding that that the Church violate its two-millennium-old condemnation of contraceptives and abortifacients.
When we put the HHS mandate into the larger historical framework, we realize something quite ominous about what’s really at stake. The HHS mandate is just one more momentous battle in the long struggle between Christians and pagans. For we in the West have been, for some time, undergoing what could quite accurately be called “repaganization.”
Repaganization? Yes. Over the last two centuries, our culture has become increasingly secularized. The Christian-based understanding of sexual purity that for so long had formed Western society has been largely abandoned by a kind of secular hedonism, with quite predictable effects. The release of sexual desire from Christian-based moral restrictions in the 19th and 20th century led immediately to the desire for contraception, abortion, and, as we’re seeing more and more, infanticide. As a result, Christians now find themselves in much the same situation as they were in ancient, pagan Rome: surrounded by an antagonistic, sexually-saturated pagan culture, demanding contraceptives, abortifacients, direct abortion, and infanticide to remove the unwanted “side-effects” of sexual libertinism. Our secularism looks suspiciously like ancient paganism.
The HHS mandate is a throwing down of the gauntlet by the new pagans. At issue is whether the enormous moral influence of Christianity, and Christianity itself, will be erased from history—that is, whether the seamless spectrum of “reproductive rights” cherished in ancient, pagan Rome will be re-imposed by the secular state.
The HHS mandate is not like Roe v Wade, which used raw judicial power to demand full access to the abortion-infanticide aspect of the pagan spectrum for those who desire it. It is not like Griswold, which used just as raw judicial power to remove the Christian hold on law, so that contraception would be freely available for those who desired it. It is the imperial state demanding that the Catholic Church must pick up the dagger and turn it against itself, and act against its own moral law, just as the ancient, pagan emperors demanded that, in order to save their lives, Christians must curse Christ, throw the Scriptures in the fire, and offer ritual sacrifice to the divinized emperor and the Roman gods.
With the HHS mandate, the secular state is moving from, “Christians, do what you like among yourselves, but don’t impose your moral views on us,” to, “Christians, you must now do what we like—or else.”
http://www.catholicworldreport.com/Item/1433/preparing_for_a_fortnight_for_freedom_a_short_hist ory_lesson.aspx
Quick way to tell your senators and house representatives not to block
abortion access for raped, female, soldiers who fight for our democracy...
democracy? equality and justice for all?
http://www.credoaction.com/
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/06/shaheen-amendment-military-rape-abortion
Stop the House from blocking abortion access for raped soldiers.
This is shocking, even for our U.S. Congress.
If a female employee of the U.S. State Department is raped while serving abroad in Afghanistan, her federal health plan will pay for an abortion should she become pregnant. However if a woman serving abroad as a member of the U.S. military is raped, her military health plan will NOT provide for an abortion if she becomes pregnant as a result of that violent and reprehensible act.
According to a recent report from Mother Jones,1 the Pentagon has an even more drastic policy on access to abortion than the Hyde Amendment which bans the use of federal funds for abortion care unless a woman has been the victim of rape, incest or she could literally die unless she her pregnancy is terminated.
This disparity is so unsettling that the Senate Armed Services Committee recently passed a proposal that would fix this loophole in federal law on a rare bipartisan vote. But the extremists in Congress will almost certainly strip this proposal from the National Defense Authorization Act when it comes up for a vote in the House. The only way we can hope to stop it is with massive public pushback.
Tell Republicans and anti-choice Democrats in the House: Don't block abortion access for raped soldiers
According to Kate Sheppard's report in Mother Jones,2 there are 200,000 women serving on active duty in our military and in 2011 alone there were 471 reported instances of rape. But with the Pentagon itself estimating that only 13.5% of rapes are officially reported, that means around 3,500 service members are raped per year.
Women who are serving on military bases abroad can't simply go to their local Planned Parenthood should they seek an abortion after finding themselves pregnant as a result of rape. And if there hasn't been a formal finding of rape, a rape survivor in the military can't even pay to have the procedure done in the medical facility on base. Many women serving in our armed forces are stationed in foreign countries where safe abortion care is not easily obtained outside our military bases. And it may not be possible or affordable for a raped woman soldier to travel to the United States in order to receive the care she needs. Our policies need to be reformed to ensure that women in the military who have been raped have access to the medical care they need.
As Senator Jean Shaheen who introduced the proposal change to this heinous policy explained to Mother Jones, "Most of the women affected here are enlisted women who are making about $18,000 a year. They're young, they don't have access to a lot of resources. Many of them are overseas."
Tell Republicans and anti-choice Democrats in the House: Don't block abortion access for raped soldiers.
A handful of Republicans in the Senate realized that protecting rape survivors is not a partisan issue and joined Democrats to pass this bill out of committee and work to provide relief to women in our armed services. But their colleagues in the House will not join them in helping to pass this much needed bill unless we force them to take action. We need to tell Republicans as well as anti-choice Democrats in the House (including the so-called Stupak Democrats who voted against women's reproductive health in the Affordable Care Act)3 that we cannot let this policy stand.
CREDO is a staunch supporter of a woman's right to choose and we will continue to work for the repeal of the Hyde Amendment. But until then, even in our polarized Congress which is packed with anti-choice zealots, there are some lines that Republicans and anti-choice Democrats should be very afraid to cross. This is one of them. We cannot stand by and let women serving in the U.S. military be subjected to a stricter standard for abortion access than the already horribly restrictive Hyde Amendment.
This is one we can win if enough of us speak out. Thank you for taking action.
1 House GOP Blocking Abortion Access for Raped Soldiers, Mother Jones, June 13, 2012.
2ibid.
3Many Previously Pro-Choice Dems Voted for Stupak Amendment, FiveThirtyEight.com, November 9, 2009
From the Center for Reproductive Rights today:
In three days, Mississippi becomes the first state in the country with no abortion clinic.
We just got word that the Mississippi Department of Health is forcing Jackson Women's Health Organization, the last remaining abortion clinic in the state, to immediately comply with a ridiculous new law requiring doctors to have admitting privileges at local hospitals.
To date, none of the highly qualified doctors who regularly provide abortions at the clinic have been granted those privileges.
This unreasonable law puts women's lives in danger and deprives them of their constitutionally-protected right to decide whether and when to carry a pregnancy to term.
Right now, thousands of women travel from all corners of the state, and beyond, to reach the clinic. If Jackson Women's Health Organization has to shut down, you and I know that women won't stop seeking abortions. Instead, they'll be forced to travel out of state to the nearest clinic or they'll turn to unsafe options putting their health and even their lives at risk.
But the lawmakers responsible for this callous law don't care about women or the resulting hardships. In fact, State Representative Sam Mims, the sponsor of the law, was quoted by the New York Times saying, "If this abortion clinic is closed, I think it's a great day for Mississippi." Gov. Phil Bryant similarly said, "If [the law] closes that clinic, then so be it."
The Center stands with the women of Mississippi and refuses to return to the dark days of back alley abortions.
What's happening in Mississippi is an injustice. The Center for Reproductive Rights is fighting back because women have a fundamental right to make decisions about their health and futures.
Okiebug61
06-27-2012, 05:45 PM
http://democrats.senate.gov/pdfs/fair-paycheck-act/Mississippi%20-%20Fair%20Paycheck%20Act.pdf
We as women need to stand up for women and stop the crap that is happening. It's sickening to see these things happening.
We are women here us roar!
From the Center for Reproductive Rights:
The news out of Washington today is excellent for women across the United States.
The Supreme Court's decision to uphold the Affordable Care Act is a victory for all Americans—securing constitutional protection for the greatest step forward for women's reproductive health in decades.
The preventive benefits advanced under the law represent vital progress toward the fulfillment of a fundamental right to affordable reproductive health care for all women. By broadening access to affordable care, the law reinforces every woman's right to make her own decisions about her family, her future, and her reproductive health.
President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law two years ago and initiated a set of rules that vastly expand women's access to copay-free preventive health care—including contraception, cancer screenings, HIV testing, well-woman visits, prenatal and post-partum care and counseling, and other essential services.
The act also bars the denial of coverage for preexisting conditions—including those unique to women, such as pregnancy.
Not surprisingly, the opponents of reproductive rights are furious about today's decision. The anti-choice group Americans United for Life just launched an alert rallying their supporters to "sustain the attack against tax-payer funded abortion." They've created the "Federal Abortion-Mandate Opt-Out Act"—which eight states have already used to block insurance plans currently covering abortion from receiving federal funding in their state exchanges.
We will continue to fight back hard against their attacks, and we will continue our work with those who support this advancement for women's health to ensure robust and far-reaching access to affordable, essential health care for all American women.
There's still a long road ahead of us, but today we have won a landmark victory that will set the stage for the still greater progress we are working tirelessly to secure.
JACKSON, Miss.—A federal judge on Sunday temporarily blocked enforcement of a Mississippi law that could shut down the only abortion clinic in the state.
U.S. District Judge Daniel P. Jordan in Jackson issued a temporary restraining order the day the new law took effect.
He set a July 11 hearing to determine whether to block the law for a longer time.
"Though the debate over abortion continues, there exists legal precedent the court must follow," Jordan wrote.
The law requires anyone performing abortions at the state's only clinic to be an OB-GYN with privileges to admit patients to a local hospital. Such privileges can be difficult to obtain, and the clinic contends the mandate is designed to put it out of business. A clinic spokeswoman, Betty Thompson, has said the two physicians who do abortions there are OB-GYNs who travel from other states.
The clinic, Jackson Women's Health Organization, filed a lawsuit seeking to block the law. The suit says the admitting privileges requirement is not medically necessary and is designed to put the clinic out of business.
If Jackson Women's Health Organization closes, Mississippi would be the only state without an abortion clinic.
When Republican Gov. Phil Bryant signed the law, House Bill 1390, he said he wants Mississippi to be "abortion-free."
"Gov. Bryant believes HB 1390 is an important step in strengthening abortion regulations and protecting the health and safety of women," Bryant spokesman Mick Bullock said in a statement Sunday night. "The federal judge's decision is disappointing, and Gov. Bryant plans to work with state leaders to ensure this legislation properly takes effect as soon as possible."
In the order, Jordan wrote: "Plaintiffs have offered evidence -- including quotes from significant legislative and executive officers -- that the Act's purpose is to eliminate abortions in Mississippi. They likewise submitted evidence that no safety or health concerns motivated its passage. This evidence has not yet been rebutted."
Jordan also wrote that Jackson Women's Health Organization is "the only regular provider of abortions in Mississippi, and as of the Act's effective date, JWHO cannot comply with its requirements."
The Center for Reproductive Rights, based in New York, helped file the lawsuit for the Mississippi clinic. The center's president and CEO, Nancy Northup, said in statement Sunday: "Today's decision reaffirms the fundamental constitutional rights of women in Mississippi and ensures the Jackson Women's Health Organization can continue providing the critical reproductive health care that they have offered to women for the last 17 years.
"The opponents of reproductive rights in the Mississippi legislature have made no secret of their intent to make legal abortion virtually disappear in the state of Mississippi," Northup said. "Their hostility toward women, reproductive health care providers, and the rights of both would unquestionably put the lives and health of countless women at risk of grave harm."
Republican Rep. Sam Mims of McComb, who sponsored the new law, said it is designed to protect the health of every woman who has an abortion.
"We know for a fact that this is a serious procedure," Mims said in an interview Sunday. "Women can have complications."
Mississippi physicians who perform fewer than 10 abortions a month can avoid having their offices regulated as an abortion clinic, and thus avoid restrictions in the new law. The Health Department said it doesn't have a record of how many physicians perform fewer than 10 abortions a month. Clinic operators say almost all the abortions in the state are done in their building.
The clinic says if it closes, most women would have to go out of state to terminate a pregnancy -- something that could create financial problems for people in one of the poorest states in the nation. From Jackson, it's about a 200-mile drive to clinics in New Orleans; Mobile, Ala.; or Memphis, Tenn.
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2012/07/01/us_judge_temporarily_blocks_miss_abortion_law/?rss_id=Boston.com+--+Latest+news
AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - Planned Parenthood sued the state of Arizona on Monday in an effort to overturn a law that blocks funding for its health clinics because the organization also performs abortions.
The law, signed by Governor Jan Brewer in May, is part of a national campaign against Planned Parenthood orchestrated by conservative Republican lawmakers who oppose abortions. In the past two years, 13 states have taken steps to eliminate funding for Planned Parenthood, and the organization has filed lawsuits in six of them, including Arizona.
Planned Parenthood says abortions account for only 3 percent of its services, which include cancer screening and birth control.
"It is wrong for the state to tell Arizonans who they can and cannot see for their healthcare. The men and women of this state have the right to see the healthcare provider they deem is best for them," said Bryan Howard, president and chief executive officer of Planned Parenthood Arizona.
The group, whose legal team for the case includes the American Civil Liberties Union, filed the suit in U.S. District Court in Arizona, according to Planned Parenthood.
"Governor Brewer is confident in the constitutionality of this law and confident it will be upheld by the court," Brewer spokesman Matthew Benson said.
Planned Parenthood has won injunctions in five states -- Indiana, Kansas, North Carolina, Tennessee and Texas -- arguing that it is being punished for providing constitutionally protected services and that women's access to preventive healthcare is being blocked.
The lawsuit challenging the Arizona law is the latest salvo in trench warfare between conservative Republicans and Planned Parenthood across the country.
"We're in court and in legislatures in almost every state in the country," said Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Action Fund. "It has just gotten crazy. This is what I hear from women -- Republican women, independent women all over the country: They cannot believe that the Republican Party leadership is on a crusade to end birth-control access in America."
A DIFFERENT ERA
The issue of reproductive rights was not always a partisan one, as the history of Planned Parenthood in Arizona shows. Peggy Goldwater, the wife of conservative icon Barry Goldwater, the U.S. senator and 1964 Republican presidential nominee, was a co-founder of Phoenix's Planned Parenthood in the 1930s.
Some years later, when Peggy's college-age daughter Joanne became pregnant before she was ready to have a family, it was Barry Goldwater who arranged an abortion, Joanne Goldwater said.
In those days before the Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling made abortion legal, Joanne Goldwater had to stand on a street corner waiting for a van to take her to a remote house, where the procedure was done on a table, she said.
"I will absolutely never forget that as long as I live," Joanne Goldwater said. "That night was just imprinted in my mind. I wouldn't want any young person to have to go through it. It was a traumatic experience for me."
Joanne Goldwater's daughter CC Goldwater, a political independent, has continued the family tradition and serves as a trustee of Planned Parenthood in Arizona.
"To see the funding be taken away -- it's just ignorance; it's unbelievable," said Barry Goldwater's granddaughter.
A FACTOR IN NOVEMBER?
Activists have recently broadened their focus beyond restricting access to abortion to cutting funds for family planning. They say it is not right to force taxpayers to send money to Planned Parenthood because it is impossible to separate its family planning services from the abortions it provides.
"Legislators want to enact policies that protect taxpayers from subsidizing the abortion industry," said Elizabeth Graham, director of Texas Right to Life. "They've sent a clear message to Planned Parenthood or any other agency that provides abortion: Stop doing abortion, and you can have all the health-care dollars you want."
Planned Parenthood oversees a network of nearly 800 clinics offering birth control, gynecological exams and care for sexually transmitted diseases. It gets almost half its revenue, $488 million in 2010, from government grants and reimbursements for services to low-income women. It is the nation's largest provider of abortions, but it says only about 12 percent of Planned Parenthood patients receive abortions.
Last year, Republicans unsuccessfully tried to end federal funding for Planned Parenthood, and presumptive Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has vowed to "get rid" of Planned Parenthood.
The issue has not been prominent in the presidential election campaign, but Mark Jones, chairman of the political science department at Rice University in Houston, said that could change in the run-up to November.
Romney is fighting an uphill battle to win the votes of white women, and if Planned Parenthood and others succeed in persuading women that abortion rights are threatened, he said, some voters could turn out who otherwise would not vote.
"He's much better off if economic issues are highlighted rather than social issues," Jones said.
Planned Parenthood and its supporters say the latest assault threatens to leave low-income people without access to cancer screenings and birth control. It is fighting back by raising money, beefing up its legal team and campaigning against state and federal candidates such as Romney.
STATE-BY-STATE STRATEGY
The Arizona law challenged by Planned Parenthood on Monday could mean that almost 3,000 Medicaid patients receiving birth control and other preventive care at Planned Parenthood will no longer be eligible, said Howard of Planned Parenthood Arizona, who is a Republican. The law is scheduled to take effect August 2.
The lawsuit comes less than a week after the Center for Reproductive Rights and the American Civil Liberties Union in Phoenix filed a lawsuit challenging another Arizona law that bans most abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy. The 20-week limit is based on controversial research suggesting a fetus feels pain by that stage of development.
Abortion opponents have long wanted to target Planned Parenthood, but until recently it was not politically feasible, said Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B. Anthony List, a Washington, D.C., group that works to elect anti-abortion candidates.
"No one wanted to be perceived as being against family planning," said Dannenfelser, who said her group co-wrote model state legislation that was the basis for the Arizona law. "Any effort to defund (Planned Parenthood) was doomed to fail."
That changed in 2010, after anti-abortion Republicans swept federal and state elections. Richards said Planned Parenthood's state and federal battles stem from a proposal by U.S. Representative Mike Pence, an Indiana Republican who last year spearheaded an unsuccessful effort to strip funding for Planned Parenthood from the federal budget. Pence is the Republican nominee for governor of Indiana in the November election.
Pence's proposal followed the release of videos by an anti-abortion group that showed Planned Parenthood workers agreeing to help underage prostitutes get abortions. Planned Parenthood has said the videos were deceptively edited but that it would retain its staff.
Pence's campaign made it politically acceptable to attack Planned Parenthood, Dannenfelser said.
"There was a low rumbling that got louder. There was a tipping point, and now there is great momentum," she said.
There is momentum on Planned Parenthood's side, too.
In the past year it has gained more than 1.5 million supporters, financial and otherwise, Richards said.
At the end of May, Planned Parenthood Action Fund announced its endorsement of Obama and said it would spend more than $1.4 million on an anti-Romney ad campaign.
"We're going to make sure every woman in America knows where candidates stand," Richards said. "What we have seen consistently is that when a politician says they're going to get rid of Planned Parenthood, women don't support them."
During the 2010 election, Planned Parenthood political and advocacy organizations spent more than $900,000 on federal elections, mostly through ads benefiting Democrats, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
Anti-abortion groups vow to keep the pressure on Planned Parenthood by scouring state budgets to identify and try to eliminate tax dollars for the group.
"We're making sure that we've found all the money, and we'll take it away if there's any left," said Texas Right to Life director Graham.
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/abortion-battle-planned-parenthood-sues-arizona-003707537.html
Corkey
07-17-2012, 05:20 PM
Win!................
http://jezebel.com/5926838/judge-dismisses-giant-whiny-lawsuit-claiming-obamacare-violates-religious-freedom
*Anya*
07-17-2012, 06:52 PM
Win!................
http://jezebel.com/5926838/judge-dismisses-giant-whiny-lawsuit-claiming-obamacare-violates-religious-freedom
They flipping make my head spin around!
Religious freedom my ass. A Nixon appointee no less! Tricky Dicky was good for something!
How about separation of church and state?? It does not appear to exist any more to me but this is indeed a win Corkey. Thanks for posting it.
Sadly, I am grateful for each little legal crumb women get these days.
From NARAL today:
Anti-choice House leadership unveiled its FY’13 Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education appropriations bill.
Under the chairmanship of anti-choice Rep. Denny Rehberg (R-MT), the bill would eliminate programs that help millions of Americans get contraception and other basic health care. How does the bill do it?
This bill includes a long list of anti-choice attacks on women's reproductive health. Taken together, this legislation is highly dangerous to Americans' reproductive health.
* Eliminates Title X Family-Planning Program. Title X (ten) is the nation's cornerstone family-planning program for low-income women. Currently, this program receives $297 million. The House bill recommends zero dollars.
* Attacks Planned Parenthood. This bill tries yet again to disqualify Planned Parenthood from receiving any federal funds. For many women, Title X clinics provide the only basic health care that they receive; if enacted, the provision would devastate the nation's family-planning network and leave many women without access to medical care. Thankfully, such attempts have been resoundingly defeated.
* Cuts Affordable Care Act Funding. This bill forbids any funds in the legislation from being used to implement the Affordable Care Act.
* Funds Failed "Abstinence-Only" Programs. This bill cuts funding for teen-pregnancy-prevention initiatives and redirects those funds into failed "abstinence-only" programs.
* Blocks Access to Critical Health Services. The bill would allow any health plan or employer nationwide to refuse to provide any benefit required under the Affordable Care Act. Among other effects, this provision would essentially gut the administration's contraceptive-coverage policy, similar to the Blunt amendment that failed in the Senate in March.
* Refusal Laws Expanded. The bill includes the bulk of the text of H.R.361, which would have the effect of broadening the organizations that are allowed to refuse abortion care and, specifically, training to include hospitals, HMOs, and insurance companies. This provision also would make permanent the Federal Refusal Clause.
These policies are way out of touch with our nation's values and priorities, and they put women's health in jeopardy.
Time to check in with your rep and let them know how you feel about this.
PHOENIX (Reuters) - A federal judge refused on Monday to block an Arizona law banning most abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy, saying it does not impose a "substantial obstacle" to the procedure, and cleared the way for the statute to take effect on Thursday.
The ruling marked a stinging legal defeat for abortion-rights advocates who cited the Arizona law as the most extreme example of late-term abortion prohibitions enacted in more than half a dozen states, and they vowed to immediately appeal the decision.
U.S. District Judge James Teilborg ruled that the measure, passed by the Republican-controlled state legislature and signed into law in April by Republican Governor Jan Brewer, was consistent with the standards that federal courts have set on limits to late-term abortions.
The statute was challenged this month by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Reproductive Rights in a lawsuit believed to be the first court case of its kind against late-term abortion bans, attorneys for the plaintiffs said.
Under the Arizona law, physicians found in violation of the ban would face a misdemeanor criminal charge and possible suspension or revocation of their licenses.
Teilborg said Arizona's law "does not impose a substantial obstacle" to abortions generally and that Arizona had the right to enact such a measure.
The Arizona statute bars doctors from performing abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy except in the case of a medical emergency, a circumstance critics say is defined more narrowly than exemptions permitted by other states with similar laws.
The Arizona ban provides an exemption only in cases in which an "immediate" abortion is required to avert death or risk of "substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function."
Late-term bans elsewhere, by comparison, generally allow an abortion when the mother's life or health would otherwise be in jeopardy, abortion-rights advocates say.
The judge denied a request by the plaintiffs for a court injunction blocking the law's implementation and threw out the case on its merits.
The opponents of the law said they would file an emergency appeal with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco in a last-ditch bid to keep the ban from being implemented.
"This law forces a sick, pregnant woman to wait until she is on the brink of disaster before her doctor can provide her medically appropriate care," said Dan Pochoda, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union in Arizona.
Brewer said in a statement that she was pleased that the court ruling would allow "common sense restrictions" to be put on the state's books.
"I recognize that the issue of abortion remains a controversial one. With the Mother's Health and Safety Act, I'm hopeful most Arizonans can find common ground," she said.
The suit was thought to mark the first court test brought by physicians against similar abortion restrictions that have surfaced in a growing number of states since Republicans gained greater statehouse clout in the November 2010 elections, according to the ACLU and the Center for Reproductive Rights.
Although late-term abortions remain relatively rare, six states have put laws into effect in the past two years banning them, based on hotly debated medical research suggesting that a fetus feels pain starting at 20 weeks of gestation. North Carolina enacted its own such ban decades ago.
Arizona and two other states - Georgia and Louisiana - have enacted similar bans that have not yet taken effect, the Center for Reproductive Rights said.
The U.S. Supreme Court legalized abortion in 1973 but allowed states to place restrictions on the procedure from the time when a fetus could potentially survive outside the womb, except when a woman's health was at risk.
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/judge-clears-arizona-term-abortion-ban-effect-015339507.html
From NARAL:
Just this morning, Mitt Romney announced his choice for his vice presidential running mate: Anti-choice extremist Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI).
Anti-choice forces are thrilled with Ryan, and it's no wonder why:
During his time in the U.S. House of Representatives, Ryan cast 59 votes on abortion and other reproductive rights issues. He voted anti-choice each and every time.
Ryan repeatedly voted for and cosponsored the Federal Abortion Ban, a law that criminalizes some abortion services, endangers women's health, and carries a two-year prison sentence for doctors.
Ryan is outspoken about his anti-choice beliefs:
"I'm as pro-life as a person gets. You're not going to have a truce. Judges are going to come up. Issues come up, they're unavoidable, and I'm never going to not vote pro-life."
Corkey
08-11-2012, 10:33 PM
I'm never going to not vote democratic. Stalemate!
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A new Tennessee law requiring abortion doctors to have admitting privileges at local hospitals is being blamed for the closure of a longtime Tennessee abortion provider.
An executive director of the Abortion Care Network confirmed to The Tennessean (http://tnne.ws/S1m8aL ) that the Volunteer Women's Medical Center in Knoxville recently closed its doors.
The clinic had been operating for 38 years.
Executive Director Deb Walsh posted a public letter on the Abortion Care Network website saying the clinic was unable to keep operating in part due to the "Life Defense Act," which requires abortion physicians to obtain admitting privileges at area hospitals.
Walsh said while working on legal remedies, the clinic was unable to pay its bills because it could not see patients.
She said one of the clinics physicians had successfully obtained privileges, but recently died.
http://news.yahoo.com/tenn-abortion-clinic-closes-citing-state-law-222702779.html?_esi=1
Obama On Todd Akin: 'Rape Is Rape'
(http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/20/obama-todd-akin-rape_n_1812140.html)
In a surprise news conference Monday, President Barack Obama addressed the controversy surrounding a remark by Rep. Todd Akin (R-Mo.) that women who suffer "legitimate rape" rarely get pregnant.
"The views expressed were offensive," said Obama. "Rape is rape. And the idea that we should be parsing and qualifying and slicing what types of rape we are talking about doesn't make sense to the American people and certainly doesn't make sense to me. So what I think these comments do underscore is why we shouldn't have a bunch of politicians, a majority of whom are men, making health care decisions on behalf of women."
The comments are the most high profile in a series of rebukes from both Democrats and Republicans. Earlier in the day, presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney also condemned Akin, who is running to unseat Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.).
Obama did not call on Akin to leave the race, as some Republicans have done. "He was nominated by the Republicans in Missouri," he said, "I will let them sort that out." He did, however, use the opportunity to contrast his approach toward women's health care with that of the GOP.
"Although these particular comments have led Governor Romney and other Republicans to distance themselves, I think the underlying notion that we should be making decisions on behalf of women for their health care decisions, or qualifying forcible rape versus non-forcible rape, I think those are broader issues," Obama said. "And that is a significant difference in approach between me and the other party."
UofMfan
08-20-2012, 01:57 PM
Unfortunately the GOP machinery has been at work and it looks like Akin is going to "pull out" of the race. I say unfortunate because he had pretty much guaranteed a win for the Democratic candidate.
Now, it is stories like this one that make me shake my head and wonder how any woman could possibly vote GOP and reconcile that choice.
Reports: Akin Advisers Make Preparations For Withdrawal Tomorrow (http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/reports-akin-advisors-make-preparations-for-withdrawal-tomorrow)
David Axelrod: Todd Akin's Comments Are 'Inconvenient' For Romney-Ryan, 'Not Inconsistent' (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/20/david-axelrod-todd-akin_n_1811693.html)
/snip
He predicted that the public would find the remarks even more distasteful once it became widely known that Romney's running mate, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), teamed up with Akin on strict anti-abortion measures.
"When you look at who Akin's partner was on all the anti-choice legislation, it was Paul Ryan," said Axelrod. "When you look at the legislation that would limit a women's right to choose, even for victims of rape and incest, that is the Akin-Ryan position. And frankly, by endorsing personhood amendments ... Romney has gone there too. This is the prevailing position of the Republican Party."
"I think they find Todd Akin's comment terribly inconvenient," Axelrod said. "It is very inopportune. But they are certainly not inconsistent, when Ryan joined with him and tried to limit the definition of rape to forcible rape. What does that mean? They are trying to run away from what has been their own position and yet, while Akin's proposition was particularly egregious and outrageous, on the underlining principle of whether you are going to limit a woman's right to choose, and how rape victims are dealt with and how they would approach this issue, they are very much in line with him."
Obama for America spokeswoman Lis Smith released the following statement:
“While Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan are working overtime to distance themselves from Rep. Todd Akin’s comments on rape, they are contradicting their own records. Mr. Romney supports the Human Life Amendment, which would ban abortion in all instances, even in the case of rape and incest. In fact, that amendment is a central part of the Republican Party’s platform that is being voted on tomorrow. And, as a Republican leader in the House, Mr. Ryan worked with Mr. Akin to try to pass laws that would ban abortion in all cases, and even narrow the definition of ‘rape.’ Every day, women across America grapple with difficult and intensely personal health decisions—decisions that should ultimately be between a woman and her doctor. These decisions are not made any easier when Mr. Romney and Mr. Ryan treat women’s health as a matter of partisan politics.”
Now, it is stories like this one that make me shake my head and wonder how any woman could possibly vote GOP and reconcile that choice.
For real. I don't get it either.
Novelafemme
08-20-2012, 02:07 PM
Unfortunately the GOP machinery has been at work and it looks like Akin is going to "pull out" of the race. I say unfortunate because he had pretty much guaranteed a win for the Democratic candidate.
Now, it is stories like this one that make me shake my head and wonder how any woman could possibly vote GOP and reconcile that choice.
Reports: Akin Advisers Make Preparations For Withdrawal Tomorrow (http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/reports-akin-advisors-make-preparations-for-withdrawal-tomorrow)
So completely horrifying. And yet, not at all surprising. More confirmation of what we already know to be the tenor of all manner of brutality towards women.
Unfortunately the GOP machinery has been at work and it looks like Akin is going to "pull out" of the race. I say unfortunate because he had pretty much guaranteed a win for the Democratic candidate.
Now, it is stories like this one that make me shake my head and wonder how any woman could possibly vote GOP and reconcile that choice.
Reports: Akin Advisers Make Preparations For Withdrawal Tomorrow (http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/reports-akin-advisors-make-preparations-for-withdrawal-tomorrow)
It is unfortunate tho not unexpected that internalized misogny and sexism runs deep in the women in the USA. We are force fed it from birth.
AN OPEN LETTER TO REP. AKIN FROM A WOMAN WHO GOT PREGNANT FROM RAPE (http://www.xojane.com/it-happened-to-me/dear-representative-todd-akin-i-got-pregnant-from-rape)
http://twitter.com/#!/search?q=LegitimateRape
as some articles and this tweet point out:
Another disturbing facet of the #legitimaterape argument is the implied converse; if you DO get pregnant, you must've actually wanted it.
Virginia VS Vaginas
http://vimeo.com/47825539
Chris Matthews is doing a piece on Akin right now on MSNBC.
I just keep getting more enraged as the day moves on...:blink:
Anyway, NARAL (http://www.naral.org/)has a lot of good Take Action strategies on their home page if you feel inclined to stop this war on women's bodies.
http://www.naral.org/
The former Arkansas governor and onetime GOP presidential contender suggested a couple of cases in which he suggested that rapes, though “horrible tragedies,” had produced admirable human beings.
“Ethel Waters, for example, was the result of a forcible rape,” Huckabee said of the late American gospel singer. One-time presidential candidate Huckabee added: “I used to work for James Robison back in the 1970s, he leads a large Christian organization. He, himself, was the result of a forcible rape. And so I know it happens, and yet even from those horrible, horrible tragedies of rape, which are inexcusable and indefensible, life has come and sometimes, you know, those people are able to do extraordinary things.”
Huckabee to Akin: 'Horrible' rapes created some extraordinary people (http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-huckabee-horrible-rapes-created-some-extraordinary-people-20120820,0,7976008.story)
The former Arkansas governor and onetime GOP presidential contender suggested a couple of cases in which he suggested that rapes, though “horrible tragedies,” had produced admirable human beings.
“Ethel Waters, for example, was the result of a forcible rape,” Huckabee said of the late American gospel singer. One-time presidential candidate Huckabee added: “I used to work for James Robison back in the 1970s, he leads a large Christian organization. He, himself, was the result of a forcible rape. And so I know it happens, and yet even from those horrible, horrible tragedies of rape, which are inexcusable and indefensible, life has come and sometimes, you know, those people are able to do extraordinary things.”
Huckabee to Akin: 'Horrible' rapes created some extraordinary people (http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-huckabee-horrible-rapes-created-some-extraordinary-people-20120820,0,7976008.story)
Rape is rape.
Seems to me, masculine persons have this need to add an adjective to rape and other violence against women to explain or justify their behavior and the consequences of it. It is deeply rooted in the patriarchy, and the sexism and misogyny it breeds.
Anyone remember the Clayton Williams campaign gem...."Bad weather is like rape. If it's inevitable, just relax and enjoy it".
Or, the controversy stemming from a rape back in 1993 when the victim convinced the rapist to use a condom? "The case had attracted widespread publicity when the first grand jury investigating the assault refused to indict Mr. Valdez because some jurors felt the use of condoms provided by the victim may have suggested her complicity in the encounter. The defendant maintained that use of condoms during the Sept. 16 sexual assault implied the woman's consent." http://www.nytimes.com/1993/05/15/us/rapist-who-agreed-to-use-condom-gets-40-years.html
Rape is rape.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/ns/msnbc_tv-rachel_maddow_show/#48732520
Thought for today:
Exactly when did the word "misspoke" become the euphemism for my ism is showing?
UofMfan
08-22-2012, 11:01 AM
Please watch and share!
ejYoV_UzGFk
AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - A U.S. appeals court ruled on Tuesday that Texas can cut off funding to affiliates of Planned Parenthood for a state women's health program because the network of clinics provides abortions.
The decision is a blow to Planned Parenthood, which is the nation's largest abortion provider and has been under attack from conservatives across the country. Some conservatives oppose any state government money going to support abortions.
Planned Parenthood denies the money to some of its affiliated clinics supports abortions and said it was for cancer screenings, birth control, and well-woman examinations, which focus on health histories and reproductive healthcare.
Texas is the most populous of a number of states with Republican majorities that have mounted a campaign to cut off funding to Planned Parenthood. A group of Planned Parenthood clinics earlier this year filed a federal lawsuit to stop Texas from cutting off the funding.
The ruling on Tuesday reversed a lower court decision that had temporarily allowed Planned Parenthood to continue receiving funding from the Texas program.
After the appeals court decision was announced, Texas said it would immediately stop providing money to Planned Parenthood under the Women's Health Program, which provides services to poor women.
"We appreciate the court's ruling and will move to enforce state law banning abortion providers and affiliates from the Women's Health Program as quickly as possible," Texas Health and Human Services Commission spokeswoman Stephanie Goodman said.
Planned Parenthood said that the decision puts the health of some 52,000 Texas women in jeopardy. The state program covers more than 100,000 women and Planned Parenthood has said the eight clinics suing Texas stand to lose $13 million a year.
"We are evaluating every possible option to protect women's health in Texas," Planned Parenthood Action Fund president Cecile Richards said in a statement.
The dispute erupted after Texas said that it would enforce a law that had been on the books for several years barring funding for abortion providers and affiliates.
The battle has also pitted Republican-dominated Texas state government against the administration of Democratic President Barack Obama because 90 percent of the funding for the Texas health program comes from the federal government.
The Obama administration has said it will not renew federal funding for the Texas program because the state was violating federal law by restricting the freedom to choose health providers.
But Texas Governor Rick Perry, a Republican, said in a statement on Tuesday that the state would continue to run the program despite the federal government decision not to renew funding Texas.
http://news.yahoo.com/appeals-court-rules-texas-cut-off-planned-parenthood-011645750.html?_esi=1
The comments of Todd Akin are bringing scrutiny, goosed by Democrats and the Obama campaign, to the views on social issues of the GOP ticket.
Yesterday we saw the Obama campaign blast out an email from women’s health care activist Sandra Fluke referring to “Akin, Romney and Ryan”; over a Paul Ryan rally in Pennsylvania yesterday, Moveon.org flew a banner referring to “Romney, Ryan and Akin” being bad for women; and when the Republican party reaffirmed its anti-abortion plank yesterday, making no menion of exceptions for cases of rape or incest, the Obama campaign repeatedly referred to it as the “Akin Amendment.”
This morning brings the latest example — attention to that “forcible rape” language in legislation co-sponsored by Akin, Ryan (and 225 other members of the House). The legislation, the “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act,” restricted the exceptions to “an act of forcible rape or, if a minor, an act of incest” for federally-funded abortions. That language was changed.
In an interview to air this morning in Pittsburgh on KDKA,Ryan refused to even engage in a discussion of what “forcible” rape — as opposed to other kinds, such as statutory rape — meant.
Ryan said that Akin’s “statements were outrageous, over the pail. I don’t know anybody who would agree with that. Rape is rape period, end of story.”
KDKA Political Editor Jon Delano asked: “Should abortions to be available to women who are raped?”
Ryan opposes abortions in all cases except for when the life of the mother is at stake, which is different from Mitt Romney’s position — Romney would also carve out exceptions for rape and incest.
“I’m proud of my pro-life record,” Ryan said. “And I stand by my pro-life record in Congress. It’s something I’m proud of. But Mitt Romney is the top of the ticket and Mitt Romney will be president and he will set the policy of the Romney administration.”
“You sponsored legislation that has the language ‘forcible rape,’” Delano noted. “What is forcible rape as opposed…”
“Rape is rape,” Ryan interrupted. “Rape is rape, period. End of story.”
“So that forcible rape language meant nothing to you at the time?” Delano asked.
“Rape is rape and there’s no splitting hairs over rape,” Ryan said.
Ryan scoffed at Obama campaign suggestions that he and Romney would restrict access to birth control. “Nobody is proposing to deny birth control to anybody,” he aid, arguing that voters are not “going to take the bait of all these distractions that the President is trying to throw at them.”
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/08/ryan-refuses-to-explain-forcible-rape-as-dems-attempt-more-akin-izing-of-the-gop-ticket/#
Kind of amusing to see Paul Ryans, moment by moment, political development as his record, his words, and his behavior comes back to bite him in the butt. Notice how many times he mentions how "proud he is of his pro-life agenda". Im not even gonna mention pro-life might be a euphemism for anti-woman.
----------------
In Flight Between Roanoke, Va., and Raleigh, N.C. - Although Paul Ryan has taken the position that all abortions, even in the case of rape and incest, should be outlawed, the Wisconsin congressman supports Mitt Romney's softer position now that he shares the GOP presidential ticket because it's a "good step in the right direction," he said today.
Romney believes abortion should be legal in cases of abortion or incest, or when the mother's life is in danger. Ryan's previous position only extended exceptions to protecting the mother's life.
"Look, I'm proud of my record," Ryan said at a brief news conference on his plane. "I'm proud of my record. Mitt Romney is going to be president and the president sets policy. His policy is exceptions for rape, incest and life of the mother. I'm comfortable with it because it's a good step in the right direction."
He wouldn't say he regretted abortion legislation he co-sponsored with Rep. Todd Akin of Missouri, explaining that he is "proud of my pro-life record I have."
"That bill passed, I think, by 251 votes," Ryan said. "It was bipartisan. I think HR-3 is the one you are talking about. I think we had 251 votes, 16 Democrats, I am proud of my pro-life record I have."
The legislation was co-sponsored by Akin and Ryan and also 225 other members of the House. The measure would have ensured no federal funds even indirectly supported abortions performed nationwide.
An earlier version of the measure had sought to redefine rape for purposes of exemption of the funding ban under the Hyde Amendment, drawing sharp criticism from women's rights groups and Democrats. The language would have allowed for subsidized abortions only in cases of "forcible rape," and limited exempt cases of incest to only those involving minors, although that provision was dropped from the bill.
Meanwhile, Ryan called Akin earlier in the week to try to persuade him to get out of the Missouri Senate race after his controversial comments about rape and abortions. Ryan said he wanted to keep their conversation "between us."
"But I agree with Roy and Jack Danforth [the former U.S. senator] and the rest of the people from the Missouri delegation, current and former, that he should have dropped out of the race," Ryan said. "But he is not, he is going to run his campaign and we are going to run ours."
He said he has "no plans" to talk to Akin again.
Obama campaign spokeswoman Lis Smith today said that as a "Republican leader in the House, Paul Ryan worked with Todd Akin to try to narrow the definition of rape and outlaw abortion even for rape victims. He may hope that American women never learn about this record, but they deserve an answer to why he wanted to redefine rape and remove protections for rape victims."
http://news.yahoo.com/paul-ryan-softens-anti-abortion-stance-good-step-171207381--abc-news-politics.html
Nomad
08-22-2012, 01:07 PM
Todd Akin - Member of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology - Doesnt Know Where Babies Come From? (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/22/opinion/dowd-just-think-no.html?src=me&ref=general)
Todd Akin - Member of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology - Doesnt Know Where Babies Come From? (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/22/opinion/dowd-just-think-no.html?src=me&ref=general)
"In asserting that women have the superpower to repel rape sperm, Akin ratcheted up the old chauvinist argument that gals who wear miniskirts and high-heels are “asking” for rape; now women who don’t have the presence of mind to conjure up a tubal spasm, a drone hormone, a magic spermicidal secretion or mere willpower to block conception during rape are “asking” for a baby."
:|
It is the delineation of the strategy being used that is so amazing and scary about this article.
-----------------------------------
From transvaginal ultrasounds to attacks on Planned Parenthood, Americans United for Life is targeting reproductive rights one state at a time.
AUL's mission is to end all abortions in the United States. Founded in 1971 by a Unitarian minister from Harvard Divinity School, AUL first focused on reversing Roe v. Wade flat out, but in the 1990s it turned its attention to rolling back reproductive rights incrementally at the state level.
Lately, it's been chipping away at abortion access at an ever-faster pace. Its team of lawyers has written dozens of model bills, which are collected in a playbook, Defending Life, and delivered to every state and federal legislator.
All told, 92 anti-abortion restrictions were passed throughout the country last year, an all-time record; AUL can claim credit for 24 new laws. So far in 2012, 17* laws promoted by AUL or based on its model legislation have been passed. Invasive vaginal ultrasounds in Virginia? That was AUL's bill. Trying to shut down all the abortion clinics in Kansas? That was AUL, too.
"Our model legislation enables legislators to easily introduce bills without needing to research and write the bills themselves," AUL's website boasts. The organization's foes see it as the pro-life equivalent of the American Legislative Exchange Council, the corporate legislation mill. "It's troubling when you see the same bill language introduced in 27 states that you know came out of an anti-abortion think tank in Washington instead of coming from the concerns of the sponsor or that particular state," says Jordan Goldberg, a lawyer at the Center for Reproductive Rights, which is trying to block AUL-backed laws in Arizona, Kansas, and Texas
Yoest says her focus is on a "post-Roe nation" in which states will again be the sole arbiters of when, where, and whether women can get abortions. "The real question is what do the states do," she says. "And so in a sense, we're leapfrogging over [Roe]." She believes AUL's growing body of state laws will set precedents with the potential to eventually change federal abortion law. As she explained to National Catholic Register, "We don't make frontal attacks. Never attack where the enemy is strongest."
The Supreme Court opened a critical avenue in its 1992 Planned Parenthood v. Casey decision, which upheld Roe while giving states greater leeway to regulate abortions. Echoing AUL's women-centered approach, the group's bills often cite the court's finding that the government "has legitimate interests from the outset of pregnancy in protecting the health of the woman." Its Women's Ultrasound Right to Know Act clearly aims to prevent women from terminating pregnancies. But its framing—that a woman deserves to know what's inside her body and must give her "informed consent"—centers on the mother rather than the fetus. A controversial version of this prefab legislation was introduced in Virginia this spring. Only after abortion rights supporters pointed out that it could effectively require doctors to stick a wand in pregnant women's vaginas did its Republican sponsors amend it to require abdominal ultrasounds.
Then there's AUL's bill for banning abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy—often performed when tests that can only be done at this stage reveal severe birth defects. Though bans on late-term abortions are often pitched on the medically dubious premise that a fetus can feel pain at 20 weeks, AUL's model bill, the Women's Health Defense Act, emphasizes the potential harm to women, citing the health risks as well as potential "emotional complications" such as depression and anxiety. Arizona passed a version of the bill earlier this year; AUL consulted on a similar law passed in Georgia.
Another AUL bill, the Women's Health Protection Act, places tight restrictions on the physical offices in which abortions are performed, asserting that abortions are "distinct from other routine medical services" due to their potential health and psychological effects. The version of the law that passed in Kansas in April 2011 was so onerous (it even mandated specific room temperatures at clinics) that it threatened to shut down every abortion provider in the state. (A court has blocked it.)
When I ask Yoest about her favorite model bills, she promptly mentions telemed abortions. In 2010, AUL first proposed banning such abortions, wherein a physician prescribes the drug RU-486 via a video connection. Since then, eight states have passed laws prohibiting doctors from remotely administering RU-486; never mind that there were no clinics actually doing this in those states at the time (PDF). "This is Planned Parenthood's new business model, because they're having such a hard time finding doctors to do abortion, for all kinds of good reasons," Yoest says.
Indeed, AUL's greatest success may be its push to take down America's largest abortion provider. In July 2011, AUL released "The Case for Investigating Planned Parenthood," a 174-page report detailing dozens of alleged abuses, ranging from poor patient care to the misuse of federal funds. Two months later, the House Energy and Commerce Committee started looking into Planned Parenthood's "compliance with federal restrictions on the funding of abortion." A spokesman for Rep. Cliff Stearns, the Florida Republican heading the investigation, confirmed that the AUL report was a contributing factor in the decision to launch the probe. (AUL's legislative arm gives Stearns a 100 percent pro-life vote rating.) Stearns' investigation, in turn, inspired Susan G. Komen for the Cure to cut funding for breast cancer screenings at Planned Parenthood clinics.
Komen reversed its decision amid public outcry, but the cumulative impact of AUL's efforts has abortion rights advocates worried. In 2000, the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive-health research nonprofit, rated 13 states as "hostile" to reproductive rights; in 2011, it gave 26 states that designation. "We're seeing states that go in and make their laws worse, and we're seeing states that are adopting more extreme, more onerous, and more creative laws," says Elizabeth Nash, Guttmacher's state issues manager. By putting up more hurdles for women who want abortions and the doctors who provide them, "at some point, someone will cry uncle."
But making abortions all but impossible is only half the battle. Ultimately, AUL would like to see the Supreme Court legally enshrine its restrictions—all in the name of protecting women. "It's really, really critical that we start establishing this in the legislative record," Yoest tells me. "Repeatedly, the Supreme Court has turned away from the threat that abortion poses for the baby, because the Supreme Court has said repeatedly they're concerned about the woman. So we basically want to say to the court, 'We share your concern for women. You need to look at the fact that abortion itself harms women.'"
http://www.motherjones.com/files/images/knockedup_630.jpg
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/08/americans-united-for-life-anti-abortion-transvaginal-ultrasound
lusciouskiwi
08-22-2012, 02:09 PM
This whole thing scares me, like "The Handmaid's Tale" scared me. It's seriously creepy and I'm sure there are idiots in other countries following what's happening really closely.
Todd Akin - Member of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology - Doesnt Know Where Babies Come From? (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/22/opinion/dowd-just-think-no.html?src=me&ref=general)
That was a great article by Maureen Dowd. Love her. Thanks for sharing.
Also, some fantastic readers' comments.
Martina
08-22-2012, 05:58 PM
Loved it. Thanks for posting the link. OMG I didn't know he was on the House Committee on Science and stuff. Lord. *chuckling*
My favorite quote from the article:
Paul Ryan, who teamed up with Akin in the House to sponsor harsh anti-abortion bills, may look young and hip and new generation, with his iPod full of heavy metal jams and his cute kids. But he’s just a fresh face on a Taliban creed — the evermore antediluvian, anti-women, anti-immigrant, anti-gay conservative core. Amiable in khakis and polo shirts, Ryan is the perfect modern leader to rally medieval Republicans who believe that Adam and Eve cavorted with dinosaurs.
Martina
08-22-2012, 07:11 PM
http://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/523231_460450320655985_1961213737_n.jpg
*Anya*
08-22-2012, 09:42 PM
http://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/523231_460450320655985_1961213737_n.jpg
I'll go a step further. You have a vagina? No?
Shut the Fuck Up.
Toughy
08-22-2012, 09:51 PM
don't have the link...........heard it on some femi-nazi liberal radio talk show
Apparently Aiken said on some Fox show during his various explanations and so-called apology that sometimes women lie and say they were raped when they were not....that's what he meant by 'forcible' and also 'legitimate'....
Corkey
08-22-2012, 10:03 PM
don't have the link...........heard it on some femi-nazi liberal radio talk show
Apparently Aiken said on some Fox show during his various explanations and so-called apology that sometimes women lie and say they were raped when they were not....that's what he meant by 'forcible' and also 'legitimate'....
You're quite correct, it was on Hannity, saw it at the gym today.
Licious
08-22-2012, 10:53 PM
Really good to see this thread posted. Assault on women and their rights, in any form, going back to the dark ages in any sense, is not acceptable, and is a sign of a greater problem. Glad everyone is discussing this.
AtLast
08-22-2012, 10:58 PM
Feels like the Phyllis Shaffley days are on us again.
Martina
08-24-2012, 07:22 PM
http://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/523586_4073038957752_1862083033_n.jpg
The states are not free, under the guise of protecting maternal health or potential life, to intimidate women into continuing pregnancies. ~Justice Harry A. Blackmun, Roe v. Wade, 22 January 1973
And yet, this is exactly what the GOP has been doing.
always2late
08-24-2012, 08:11 PM
ENOUGH!! I have HAD it with these fucking assholes and their "definitions" of rape! Rape is "another method of conception"??? Fuck you and the horse you rode in on you lying, backward, teabilly, douchebag!! ANY woman who votes for these fucking idiots is a self-loathing moron!! (excuse my language..I am furious and have lost ALL my filters when it comes to these pathetic excuses for human beings!)
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/08/24/ryan-on-abortion-exceptions-rape-is-just-another-method-of-conception/
*Anya*
08-24-2012, 09:22 PM
I feel like I have fallen down a rabbit hole and the clock has been turned back to the 1950's.
I just can't believe my eyes and ears anymore. It is like insanity overload and I just want to turn it off.
Where is the outrage of the women that would have to deal with an unplanned pregnancy or a pregnancy as a result of rape? Are they truly that apathetic?
Oh god for the marches and political activism today, of the 60's and 70's! I just do not get all of this.
Do I still live in America?
Maybe I am dreaming.
Can someone wake me up please, because it is actually a nightmare.
Rep. Steve King, one of the most staunchly conservative members of the House, was one of the few Republicans who did not strongly condemn Rep. Todd Akin Monday for his remarks regarding pregnancy and rape. King also signaled why — he might agree with parts of Akin’s assertion.
Transcript:
REPORTER: You support the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act that would provide federal funding for abortions to a person that has been forcefully raped. But what if someone isn’t forcibly raped and for example, a 12-year-old who gets pregnant? Should she have to bring this baby to term?
KING: Well I just haven’t heard of that being a circumstance that’s been brought to me in any personal way and I’d be open to hearing discussion about that subject matter. Generally speaking it’s this: that there millions of abortions in this country every year. Millions of them are paid for at least in part by taxpayers. I think it’s immoral for us to compel conscientious objecting taxpayers to fund abortion through the federal government, or any other government for that matter. So that’s my stand. And if there are exceptions there, then bring me those exceptions let’s talk about it. In the meantime it’s wrong for us to compel pro-life people to pay taxes to fund abortion.
King’s office said he had been taken out of context.
“What he was saying was, he personally does not know a girl who was raped,” Brittany Lesser, a spokesperson for King said. “He never says, ‘I’ve never heard of that.’ There’s a fine line between ‘I’ve never heard of that’ and ‘I don’t know personally anybody who’s been raped. There’s a difference. There is a difference.”
Lesser said “of course” King is aware that girls have been impregnated by statutory rape or incest, and said King supports people who have not been forcibly raped receiving federal abortion coverage under a rape exemption. “That’s a given for anybody who understands pro-life legislation,” Lesser said.
Check out the raw as well as the broadcast version.
http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/08/steve-king-statutory-rape.php
------------------
So, if you were "raped forcibly", he doesnt want you to have access to federal funds to pay for an abortion.
Yet, he is ok with abortion funds for statutory rape and incest.
So, he is pro-life except when it involves pedophilia.
:praying:
Abolition of a woman's right to abortion, when and if she wants it, amounts to compulsory maternity: a form of rape by the State. ~Edward Abbey
Corkey
08-24-2012, 10:27 PM
Rep. Steve King, one of the most staunchly conservative members of the House, was one of the few Republicans who did not strongly condemn Rep. Todd Akin Monday for his remarks regarding pregnancy and rape. King also signaled why — he might agree with parts of Akin’s assertion.
Transcript:
REPORTER: You support the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act that would provide federal funding for abortions to a person that has been forcefully raped. But what if someone isn’t forcibly raped and for example, a 12-year-old who gets pregnant? Should she have to bring this baby to term?
KING: Well I just haven’t heard of that being a circumstance that’s been brought to me in any personal way and I’d be open to hearing discussion about that subject matter. Generally speaking it’s this: that there millions of abortions in this country every year. Millions of them are paid for at least in part by taxpayers. I think it’s immoral for us to compel conscientious objecting taxpayers to fund abortion through the federal government, or any other government for that matter. So that’s my stand. And if there are exceptions there, then bring me those exceptions let’s talk about it. In the meantime it’s wrong for us to compel pro-life people to pay taxes to fund abortion.
King’s office said he had been taken out of context.
“What he was saying was, he personally does not know a girl who was raped,” Brittany Lesser, a spokesperson for King said. “He never says, ‘I’ve never heard of that.’ There’s a fine line between ‘I’ve never heard of that’ and ‘I don’t know personally anybody who’s been raped. There’s a difference. There is a difference.”
Lesser said “of course” King is aware that girls have been impregnated by statutory rape or incest, and said King supports people who have not been forcibly raped receiving federal abortion coverage under a rape exemption. “That’s a given for anybody who understands pro-life legislation,” Lesser said.
Check out the raw as well as the broadcast version.
http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/08/steve-king-statutory-rape.php
------------------
So, if you were "raped forcibly", he doesnt want you to have access to federal funds to pay for an abortion.
Yet, he is ok with abortion funds for statutory rape and incest.
So, he is pro-life except when it involves pedophilia.
:praying:
Sometimes I just want to slap the stupid out them:slapfight::explode:
always2late
08-25-2012, 01:43 AM
I feel like I have fallen down a rabbit hole and the clock has been turned back to the 1950's.
I just can't believe my eyes and ears anymore. It is like insanity overload and I just want to turn it off.
Where is the outrage of the women that would have to deal with an unplanned pregnancy or a pregnancy as a result of rape? Are they truly that apathetic?
Oh god for the marches and political activism today, of the 60's and 70's! I just do not get all of this.
Do I still live in America?
Maybe I am dreaming.
Can someone wake me up please, because it is actually a nightmare.
There is outrage. There are protests, and marches, and grassroots activism...all of which is being virtually IGNORED by the media outlets! That is the part of all this that I don't understand, that is the part that perplexes and confuses me probably about as much as it does you. I can understand Fox "News" ignoring the efforts of women to counteract this insanity...but every other major network?? There was a march in Washington, DC on August 18. Did you hear about it? I'm guessing that you probably didn't...and I'm not saying that to sound snarky. I'm just amazed that there is basically a media blackout regarding the women protesting against this insanity.
There is outrage. There are protests, and marches, and grassroots activism...all of which is being virtually IGNORED by the media outlets! That is the part of all this that I don't understand, that is the part that perplexes and confuses me probably about as much as it does you. I can understand Fox "News" ignoring the efforts of women to counteract this insanity...but every other major network?? There was a march in Washington, DC on August 18. Did you hear about it? I'm guessing that you probably didn't...and I'm not saying that to sound snarky. I'm just amazed that there is basically a media blackout regarding the women protesting against this insanity.
Thank you for this info. I didnt know about this. Apparently word was spread via social networks. I really have to learn how to use facebook.
The event was sponsored by We Are Women (http://www.wearewoman.us/) Interesting reading.
There is another event on the 26th called Womens Equality Day sponsored by WORD (http://www.defendwomensrights.org/) (Women Organized to Resist and Defend).
The mass media doesnt broadcast this stuff anymore. God forbid we, the people, might see civil unrest and other stuff threatening to the status quo.
always2late
08-25-2012, 10:14 AM
I'm going to attach some links to some great organizations.
http://www.waronwomen.com/RockTheSlutVote/
http://www.unitewomen.org/
http://feminist.org/
The above also have Facebook pages that you can link to through their websites. I also want to mention an organization called "Vagistan" which doesn't have a website as of yet, but does have a Facebook page and a Twitter account. There are also the organizations that everyone has heard of (or at least I hope they have): NARAL, NOW, League of Women Voters, etc.. that post daily on Facebook.
Licious
08-25-2012, 09:58 PM
Rep. Steve King, one of the most staunchly conservative members of the House, was one of the few Republicans who did not strongly condemn Rep. Todd Akin Monday for his remarks regarding pregnancy and rape. King also signaled why — he might agree with parts of Akin’s assertion.
Transcript:
REPORTER: You support the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act that would provide federal funding for abortions to a person that has been forcefully raped. But what if someone isn’t forcibly raped and for example, a 12-year-old who gets pregnant? Should she have to bring this baby to term?
KING: Well I just haven’t heard of that being a circumstance that’s been brought to me in any personal way and I’d be open to hearing discussion about that subject matter. Generally speaking it’s this: that there millions of abortions in this country every year. Millions of them are paid for at least in part by taxpayers. I think it’s immoral for us to compel conscientious objecting taxpayers to fund abortion through the federal government, or any other government for that matter. So that’s my stand. And if there are exceptions there, then bring me those exceptions let’s talk about it. In the meantime it’s wrong for us to compel pro-life people to pay taxes to fund abortion.
King’s office said he had been taken out of context.
“What he was saying was, he personally does not know a girl who was raped,” Brittany Lesser, a spokesperson for King said. “He never says, ‘I’ve never heard of that.’ There’s a fine line between ‘I’ve never heard of that’ and ‘I don’t know personally anybody who’s been raped. There’s a difference. There is a difference.”
Lesser said “of course” King is aware that girls have been impregnated by statutory rape or incest, and said King supports people who have not been forcibly raped receiving federal abortion coverage under a rape exemption. “That’s a given for anybody who understands pro-life legislation,” Lesser said.
Check out the raw as well as the broadcast version.
http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/08/steve-king-statutory-rape.php
------------------
So, if you were "raped forcibly", he doesnt want you to have access to federal funds to pay for an abortion.
Yet, he is ok with abortion funds for statutory rape and incest.
So, he is pro-life except when it involves pedophilia.
:praying:
The things these crazy tea party politicians say. It's insane.
I mean am I the only one who notices this? I feel like I am taking crazy pills here! *last line is from Zoolander, yes*
From NARAL:
For years, the opponents of women’s reproductive rights have floated some dangerously misguided ideas about the female body and reproduction.
Lately it’s become clear that their junk science, wishful thinking, and outright propaganda have been taken up by all manner of anti-choice politicians nationwide.
One of the main sources of this harmful misinformation is Dr. Jack Willke, former president of the National Right to Life Committee, often described as the godfather of the anti-choice movement. Just take a look at what he says about pregnancy from rape:
"To get and stay pregnant a woman's body must produce a very sophisticated mix of hormones. Hormone production is controlled by a part of the brain that is easily influenced by emotions. There's no greater emotional trauma … than an assault rape. This can radically upset her possibility of ovulation, fertilization, implantation and even nurturing of a pregnancy."
Dr. Willke, is a medical doctor. But he has been preaching dangerous propaganda to the anti-choice movement for decades about rape survivors “defenses” against becoming pregnant. Earlier this week he told the New York Times that “sperm, if deposited in [a rape survivor’s] vagina, are less likely to be able to fertilize. The tubes are spastic.”
Nomad
08-28-2012, 10:23 AM
?v=Anc_gP2_QeI&feature=share
DENVER—The nation's only pending ballot measure to ban abortion in all circumstances has failed to advance to voters in Colorado.
Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler announced Wednesday that backers of the divisive "personhood" amendment fell about 3,900 valid signatures short of the some 86,000 needed.
The rejection was a major setback for abortion foes in the home state of Personhood USA, which said the Colorado proposal was the only measure pending for ballots this fall. Other initiatives are aimed for future years but not this fall, Personhood USA spokeswoman Jennifer Mason said Wednesday.
Personhood proposals go farther than other proposed abortion bans because they would give fertilized embryos all the rights of a born human. They would ban embryonic stem-cell research and some fertility treatments.
The measures haven't been backed by other abortion opponents or the Catholic church.
Personhood proposals were overwhelmingly rejected by Colorado voters in 2010 and 2008. Similar measures have been rejected by voters in Mississippi and by several state legislatures.
Colorado has a relatively low threshold for petitioning measures onto ballots, making it a hotbed for proposed citizen initiatives. The rejection of the personhood measure leaves only one citizen initiative on ballots: a proposal to buck federal law and legalize marijuana without a doctor's recommendation for adults over 21.
Personhood USA vowed to fight the Colorado rejection in court. The group argues some of the signatures were improperly rejected, including some on which a notary public changed a date.
"We are going to be filing to have those ballot signatures recounted, and we are confident personhood will be on ballots this fall," Mason said.
Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains, which campaigned against the two earlier personhood proposals and was raising money to do it again this year, lauded the rejection. Spokeswoman Monica McCafferty said support for the idea is eroding.
"This year they're not even getting people to sign on to the concept," she said. "Hopefully that signals that Coloradans understand the concept, that they don't like the outcome of what this would mean."
The political implications of Colorado's personhood decision were immediately apparent. Democrats say the unpopular measure has helped motivate female voters, and they immediately scrambled to connect Republicans to the measure even though it's not on ballots.
A Democratic suburban Denver congressman being challenged by well-funded Republican Joe Coors reminded voters that Coors once gave money to personhood backers.
"Regardless of this initiative appearing on the ballot, this doesn't change Joe Coors' extreme views and past funding and support for efforts to restrict a woman's ability to make her own medical decisions," read a statement from the spokeswoman for Rep. Ed Perlmutter.
Coors volleyed back with a statement that voters are more interested in talking about the economy. He distanced himself from the abortion measure.
"Joe's stated that he wouldn't endorse personhood, and it's clear Colorado voters have already spoken on this issue -- twice now," said his spokeswoman, Michelle Yi.
A Democratic strategist who worked to fight the previous Colorado personhood measures said Democrats will still campaign on abortion this year, even without a personhood proposal on ballots. She pointed out that Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan opposes abortion in all cases and sponsored a federal version of a personhood measure.
"What began as a fringe issue in Colorado in 2008 has become a mainstream issue for the Republican Party in 2012," Laura Chapin said. "When you've got Paul Ryan on the ticket, I would say yes, this is going to be a major issue in the campaign for women voters."
The head of Colorado's Democratic party put out a statement Wednesday saying Ryan and other Republicans still have an "extreme agenda" aimed at ending abortion rights.
Mason insisted personhood ballot proposals draw social conservatives to the polls as much as they draw abortion-rights supporters. She said the rejection of Colorado's personhood amendment could hurt Mitt Romney, because some social conservatives find him too moderate and may stay home without personhood on ballots.
The presidential campaigns did not immediately return calls seeking comment on the Colorado personhood decision.
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2012/08/29/abortion_ban_backers_fail_to_make_colorado_ballot/?rss_id=Boston.com+--+Latest+news
Massachusetts’ leading pro-life group says it is supporting Republican U.S. Sen. Scott Brown, while Brown is trying to distance himself from the anti-abortion wing of his party.
Since the firestorm around Missouri Rep. Todd Akin's comments about rape and abortion, Brown has been emphasizing his pro-choice credentials. Here’s his wife, Gail Huff, at a recent campaign stop:
Scott is pro-choice. Has been forever. He’s always been very, very clear about his pro-choice view. Like he said, he has two young daughters, 24 and 21 years old. He understands more than anyone that women have a right to make their own decisions,” she said.
So it must have been awkward when Massachusetts Citizens for Life decided to throw its support behind Brown.
Anne Fox, the group's president, said Brown's voting record was more in line with her organization's views. “What he has voted on so far, yes, it’s been pro-life. So we would prefer to see our people vote with Scott Brown,” she said.
Megan Amundson of NARAL Pro-Choice, on the other side of the issue, saw some irony in the situation: “This is the one thing that Massachusetts Citizens for Life and NARAL Pro Choice of Massachusetts do agree on — is that Scott Brown may call himself pro-choice, but in reality he voted pro-choice only 1 in 5 times.”
In the past, Brown’s votes have angered both sides of the abortion debate. In 2007, he voted to create a 35-foot buffer zone to keep protesters away from abortion clinics. But he also co-sponsored a bill that would require women to wait 24 hours before getting an abortion and be provided with pictures and information on the development of their fetus.
Brown isn’t rejecting Massachusetts Citizens for Life's support. But on the campaign trail, he maintains he’s a moderate pro-choice Republican.
http://www.wgbhnews.org/post/pro-life-group-endorses-scott-brown-who-says-hes-pro-choice
---------------------------------
Missouri Rep. Todd Akin is still campaigning — and his controversial comments about rape are continuing to impact the high-profile U.S. Senate race in Massachusetts.
On Aug. 21, Sen. Scott Brown sent a letter to the chairman of the Republican National Committee, asking him to drop the anti-abortion plank in the party platform.
Peter Blute, the deputy chairman of the Massachusetts Republican Party, said sending the letter was a brave move. "I think it’s very rare that a senator stands up and speaks against a plank in his own party’s platform."
But Megan Amundson, the executive vice president of NARAL Pro Choice, said the letter didn't go far enough.
“The letter doesn’t do anything. He’s been very clear the letter is all he’s willing to do. That’s he’s not willing to go to the convention to speak about for this or fight for this, that’s he’s not willingly to actively stand up for women’s rights,” she said.
Brown said on Aug. 22 that he wouldn’t be taking the abortion fight to the GOP convention in Tampa this weekend.
“I’m going down Thursday as I’ve always planned before this came up," he said. "They know my position. It’s up to others to join forces. The Olympia Snowes and Collinses need to join forces.”
In the past, other big-name Massachusetts Republicans did more than write letters about abortion. In 1992, then-Gov. Bill Weld delivered a strong pro-choice speech at the Republican Convention in Houston. He tried to launch a floor fight but didn’t have enough votes.
Brown’s challenger Elizabeth Warren has capitalized on this issue. All this week she’s been hammering Brown on abortion, contraception and equal pay.
http://www.wgbhnews.org/post/scott-browns-position-abortion-too-far-not-far-enough
Romney on Meet The Press today:
On the divisive social issue of abortion, Romney said it "would be my preference" that the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling legalizing it be overturned by any justices who he would appoint to the U.S. Supreme Court if vacancies come up.
"Well, there are a number of things I think that need to be said about preserving and protecting the life of the unborn child. And I recognize there are two lives involved: the mom and the unborn child," Romney said.
"And I believe that people of good conscience have chosen different paths in this regard. But I am pro-life and will intend, if I'm president of the United States, to encourage pro-life policies," he added.
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/romney-says-keep-parts-obama-healthcare-law-155146420.html
from NARAL:
Remember the demeaning “transvaginal probe law?”
Well, now Virginia’s Governor Bob McDonnell is backing outrageous new regulations for abortion providers that are impractical, serve absolutely NO medical purpose—and ultimately threaten to close clinics down or force them to rebuild from the ground up.
This Friday, the Virginia Board of Health is being asked to vote on the regulations for a second time—even though the panel already rejected these rules because they were unrealistic and medically unnecessary. The Governor and the rest of the executive branch are acting like the past never happened though, and continue to try to strong-arm the board into advancing these regulations.
Among other things, the regulations would force existing reproductive health care facilities to meet architectural standards designed for new hospitals. This makes no medical or logical sense at all, and it would require providers in the state to undergo massive construction or renovations. Hospitals aren’t even required to meet standards this tough.
Virginia abortion providers have been safely caring for women for decades. But it’s clear that Gov. McDonnell and others are less concerned with women’s health than with imposing harsh rules aimed at shutting clinics down.
RICHMOND, Virginia (Reuters) - The Virginia state health board voted on Friday to require existing abortion clinics to meet stricter hospital building codes, a move clinic supporters say could force facilities to make expensive changes or close.
The board in June had exempted existing abortion clinics from meeting the building code rules for new hospitals that can require modifications such as wider hallways and additional parking. It voted 13 to 2 on Friday to reverse that decision.
Virginia Attorney General Kenneth Cuccinelli, a Republican known for his conservative social views, had argued against that earlier decision, saying the health board did not have the authority to challenge the intent of a 2011 law that treats abortion clinics as hospitals.
Abortion-rights supporters, who had packed the hearing room, stood and chanted "shame, shame, shame" as the vote was read and security officers escorted them from the room.
"I'm exhausted because I've been going to these meetings for over a year," said Shelley Abrams, director of A Capital Women's Health, a Richmond abortion clinic. "We've complied with every rule except these architectural requirements."
Anti-abortion activists said the board's decision would protect women who choose to get an abortion.
"I'm against it, but if you're going to do it, it should be safe," Williamsburg resident Jerry Moran said. "Safety of women should be the primary objective."
The board typically has exempted existing medical facilities from new construction codes approved by state lawmakers, limiting them to additions, renovations and new building.
More than half of the clinics have submitted plans to comply with the state codes.
"It is unprecedented to force existing health centers to comply with building regulations intended for new construction, and the board acted well within its authority in voting to amend these regulations in June," said Tarina Keene, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia.
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/virginia-tightens-building-codes-existing-abortion-clinics-025257592.html
(Reuters) - A U.S. appeals court on Tuesday blocked the prosecution of an Idaho woman who aborted her pregnancy by taking pills instead of traveling to a clinic or hospital as required by state law.
Jennie Linn McCormack, an unmarried mother of three, was charged by Bannock County prosecutors last year after she ingested medication to induce an abortion. The drugs were approved for use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and prescribed over the Internet, according to the opinion from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Idaho requires that abortions be performed during the first trimester in a hospital, doctor's office or clinic. No licensed healthcare providers offered the procedure near where McCormack lived in southeastern Idaho, the opinion said.
The criminal case against McCormack was dismissed, and she filed a lawsuit claiming Idaho's abortion law is unconstitutional. An Idaho federal judge issued an injunction saying the law can't be enforced.
In its ruling on Tuesday, the 9th Circuit largely agreed. Criminal abortion statutes traditionally apply to individuals such as doctors, who perform unhealthy abortions that threaten women's safety, the unanimous three-judge panel said.
Those laws shouldn't apply to pregnant women themselves, according to the opinion.
"There can be no doubt," the court said, "that requiring women to explore the intricacies of state abortion statutes to ensure that they and their provider act within the Idaho abortion statute framework, results in an 'undue burden' on a woman seeking an abortion of a nonviable fetus."
At this point in the litigation, however, the injunction should only apply to McCormack, and not women generally, the court said. McCormack may ultimately get a judgment that strikes down the law entirely, the 9th Circuit said.
Bannock County prosecutors and McCormack's attorney could not immediately be reached for comment.
The case in the 9th Circuit is Jennie Linn McCormack vs. Mark Hiedeman, 11-36010.
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/u-court-says-woman-cant-charged-inducing-abortion-185233875.html?_esi=1
Republican Congressman Joe Walsh of Illinois said after his Thursday debate against Democratic rival Tammy Duckworth that abortions are never necessary to save a pregnant woman's life, because modern technology has eliminated the risks of childbearing.
Walsh was defending his position that abortion should be outlawed with no exceptions, which is also the Republican Party's official stance on the issue.
"With modern technology and science, you can't find one instance" of a pregnant woman's life being at risk, he told reporters after the debate. "There is no such exception as life of the mother, and as far as health of the mother, same thing." He added that "advances in science and technology" meant that abortion is never necessary for the health of a mother.
Walsh, a freshman Congressman, is currently trailing Duckworth, a veteran of the Iraq War, in the polls.
In August, Republican Senate candidate and sitting Congressman from Missouri Todd Akin told a reporter that he didn't support exceptions for abortion for rape because women's bodies have a mechanism to prevent pregnancy in the case of a "legitimate rape." Mitt Romney and many national Republican politicians quickly distanced themselves from Akin and his comment. Romney has said he supports abortion exceptions in the cases of rape and the mother's health.
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/congressman-says-abortions-never-necessary-save-life-mother-175130900--election.html
-----------------------------------
Kobi wants to thump this guy in the forehead and suggest he consider being amongst the first in line for a retroactive abortion.
A video of a 2008 speech Akin delivered on the House floor is being recirculated online.
In that address, Akin equated abortion providers to terrorists and suggested that it was "common practice" for them to be "giving abortions to women who are not actually pregnant."
Akin's comments were made on Jan. 22, 2008, as anti-abortion lawmakers spoke on the House floor on the anniversary of the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that women had a legal right to abortion.
During that speech, Akin described abortion as "un-American" because it runs contrary to the fundamental right to life described in the Declaration of Independence. Akin said he believed Americans would someday view the current era of legalized abortion in the same way they now view the era of legalized slavery — as inherently wrong. He referenced the nation's fight against terrorists, adding: "We have terrorists in our own culture called abortionists."
"You find that along with the culture of death go all kinds of other lawbreaking — the not following good sanitary procedures, giving abortions to women who are not actually pregnant, cheating on taxes, all these kinds of things, the misuse of anesthetic so that people die or almost die," Akin said in the 2008 speech. "All of these things are common practice."
http://news.yahoo.com/more-akin-abortion-remarks-stir-criticism-172151699.html
------------------------------
Kobi puts this guy in the retroactive abortion line as well.
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-TC6CpdWVzYo/UJqFBc58DEI/AAAAAAAB9l8/Y7RCeEv0qpc/s400/AbortionLosers.jpg
Angeltoes
11-07-2012, 12:35 PM
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-TC6CpdWVzYo/UJqFBc58DEI/AAAAAAAB9l8/Y7RCeEv0qpc/s400/AbortionLosers.jpg
Love this^^^ :cheer:
Greyson
11-14-2012, 02:15 PM
I just came upon this site, www.makers.com. Go take a look. You will find a site all about women who have made a difference in this world. The women come from all walks of life.
Anyway, I was not sure where to post the link to this video and I thought, "Go see what threads Kobi has initiated." I was not disappointed. When you have time, go take a look at all the interesting threads Kobi has started.
Now, here is the link about Sarah Weddington.
http://www.makers.com/sarah-weddington-0
Greyson
11-14-2012, 11:38 PM
www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2012/11/14/the_turnaway_study_what_happens_to_women_who_are_d enied_abortions.html?wpisrc=newsletter_jcr:content
Greyson
11-16-2012, 09:50 PM
Pro-Life TN U.S. Congressman "Double Standard" aka "I'm Special."
Republican U.S. Rep. Scott DesJarlais of Tennessee testified during divorce proceedings that he and his former wife made a "mutual" decision for her to have two abortions, according to divorce transcripts released Thursday.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/15/scott-desjarlais-abortion_n_2139110.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular
Thanks to Team Rape, Most Americans Consider Themselves Pro-Choice Again
Katie J.M. Baker (http://jezebel.com/5961192/thanks-to-team-rape-most-americans-consider-themselves-pro+choice-again?commented=true)
Just six months ago, a Gallup poll found that the number of people who call themselves "pro-choice" was only 41%, a record low. Many conservatives gleefully championed the study as evidence that scores of youngins were becoming radically invested in the anti-abortion movement, while others thought the poll was more indicative of the problems with the terms "pro-choice" and "pro-life," since few non-psychopaths are actually ANTI-life (which is why it's so frustrating that anti-choicers get away with using that moniker), and most people surveyed didn't actually want to overturn Roe v. Wade, even if they felt more comfortable identifying with the pro-life camp.
Not that it's a competition (JK, it is), but more recent polls show that the Personhood brigade was counting its embryos before they hatched: the latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of "Likely U.S. Voters" shows that 54% describe themselves as pro-choice on the issue of abortion, while 38% say they are pro-life.
But how did the lefties manage to brainwash so many people in such a short amount of time?? Was it part of some slut-vote strategy?
Nope. Another CNN poll found that the number of people who think abortion should be legal under any circumstances jumped from around 25% — where it had been stuck, more or less, since 2006 — to a whopping 35% at the end of August 2012. Remember what happened in August? Todd Akin said pregnancy from rape was "really rare" because "if it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down." Just weeks later, other polls showed that more people supported the idea that abortion should be "generally available" than they had in over 15 years.
As it turns out, when people are forced to think a little harder about the meaning of "pro-life" — thanks to politicians like Akin and Richard "God luvs rape!" Mourdock, among many, many others — most don't actually identify with the pro-life platform. How odd!
Hot Air believes pro-choice support will "level off" in the post-election weeks to come, but that the numbers are "proof positive that Republicans lost more than just Senate seats when they said what they said. People who claimed that two inadvertently did damage to their own socially conservative cause weren't kidding."
Sure, pro-choice support might temper down in the polls now that Akin and a few of his rape-apologist cronies are out of office. But, since that clearly doesn't accurately reflect the number of people who actually support the legal right to reproductive choice, the most important takeaway here for pro-choicers should be to seriously strategize about how to stop letting anti-abortion advocates call themselves pro-life.
OKLAHOMA CITY (Reuters) - A federal judge on Monday rejected Planned Parenthood's bid to stop Oklahoma from ending its contract with the women's health organization to provide food vouchers and counseling to poor mothers in the Tulsa area.
U.S. District Judge Stephen Friot of the Western District of Oklahoma ruled that Planned Parenthood failed to prove its contract with the state's department of health was terminated for political reasons related to the group's support of abortion rights. The state contract ends on January 1.
The judge said Planned Parenthood's performance shortfalls - mostly drops in caseload - did not themselves seem to be problems that could lead to a cut in ties.
"But a routine, solvable problem can become a justifiable basis for strong action when it is compounded by persistent unresponsiveness in addressing the challenge," Friot wrote in his decision.
Losing the contract will force Planned Parenthood to close one of its three clinics in Tulsa, according to Penny Dickey, the organization's chief operating officer.
State officials have said other clinics can absorb the Planned Parenthood caseload in the Tulsa area when the contract ends.
Planned Parenthood does not perform abortions in Oklahoma, but it does refer women to clinics where abortions are carried out. It also dispenses the so-called "morning after" pill, which abortion opponents decry as abortion-inducing drugs.
State health officials have said politics played no part in ending an 18-year relationship with Planned Parenthood to help provide services under the federal Women, Infant and Children's (WIC) program. It provides prenatal and postnatal counseling for mothers and food vouchers for children aged 5 and younger.
State officials say half the newborns in Oklahoma are enrolled in the WIC program.
At a preliminary injunction hearing last week, Oklahoma Health Commissioner Terry Cline, a defendant in the lawsuit, denied the move was made due to political pressure from anti-abortion forces in the state legislature. A bill there formally to prohibit the state from contracting with Planned Parenthood failed.
Cline and others cited poor performance by the Planned Parenthood clinics as the only reason for cutting ties with the group.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor on Wednesday denied a request to block part of the federal health care law that requires employee health-care plans to provide insurance coverage for the morning-after pill and similar emergency contraception pills.
Hobby Lobby Stores and a sister company, Mardel Inc., sued the government, claiming the mandate violates the religious beliefs of its owners.
In an opinion, Sotomayor said the stores fail to satisfy the demanding legal standard for blocking the requirement on an emergency basis. She said the companies may continue their challenge to the regulations in the lower courts.
Company officials say they must decide whether to violate their faith or face a daily $1.3 million fine beginning Jan. 1 if they ignore the law.
Attorneys for the government have said the drugs do not cause abortions and that the U.S. has a compelling interest in mandating insurance coverage for them.
In ruling against the companies last month, U.S. District Judge Joe Heaton said churches and other religious organizations have been granted constitutional protection from the birth-control provisions but that "Hobby Lobby and Mardel are not religious organizations."
http://news.yahoo.com/justice-refuses-block-morning-pill-230847527.html
AUSTIN, Texas, Jan 11 (Reuters) - A Texas judge on Friday denied a Planned Parenthood request to be allowed to offer health services to low-income women through a state program.
Texas now excludes abortion providers and affiliates from the program and Planned Parenthood has been fighting to become a provider again.
State District Judge Stephen Yelenosky, who issued a temporary ruling in favor of Planned Parenthood in November, said on Friday it was unlikely Planned Parenthood would succeed at trial.
The state program now known as the Texas Women's Health Program provides family planning services and preventive health care to about 115,000 women. It does not provide abortions.
The federal government had provided 90 percent of the program's $40 million annual budget, but stopped funding at the end of 2012 because it objected to the state's decision to enforce a law already on the books that bars funding for abortion providers and affiliates.
On Jan. 1, Texas launched a nearly identical program funded by only state dollars so it could exclude Planned Parenthood, the program's largest provider. Planned Parenthood says it served nearly half the women in what was until Dec. 31 a Medicaid program.
The battle in Texas is one of several between Planned Parenthood, the nation's largest abortion provider, and states ruled by Republicans that are trying to exclude it from state programs.
http://newsandinsight.thomsonreuters.com/Legal/News/2013/01_-_January/Judge_keeps_Planned_Parenthood_out_of_Texas_progra m/
(Reuters) - Most Americans remain opposed to overturning the controversial Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade, which 40 years ago legalized abortion at least in the first three months of pregnancy, according to a poll released Wednesday.
The poll by the Pew Research Center found that 63 percent of Americans believe that Roe v. Wade should not be overturned, compared to 29 percent who believe it should be. These opinions have changed little from surveys conducted in 2003 and 1992, Pew reported.
Michael Dimock, director of the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, said it is uncommon to see so little change in attitudes on a controversial issue.
He noted that opinions on issues such as gay marriage sometimes have a sharp generational divide, with younger people more likely to favor it, so national feelings change over time.
But the abortion issue shows only modest generational differences.
Those most likely to favor upholding Roe v. Wade at 69 percent are the "baby boomers" aged 50-64, who were children or young adults when the case was decided on January 22, 1973. This group was followed by those 18-29 years old, who favored upholding the decision by 68 percent.
Those 65 and older were most likely to favor overturning the decision, at 36 percent.
The poll also found that 53 percent of the U.S. public say the issue of abortion is not that important compared to other issues - the first time that number has been over 50 percent. Dimock said this may reflect Americans' current preoccupation with issues such as the national debt and gun control.
There are still wide religious differences over whether to overturn Roe v. Wade and the morality of abortion, the poll found. White evangelical Protestants are the only religious group in which a majority - 54 percent - favors overturning the decision.
Large percentages of white mainline Protestants (76 percent), black Protestants (65 percent) and white Catholics (63 percent) say the ruling should not be overturned.
Among the religiously unaffiliated, 82 percent oppose overturning Roe v. Wade.
About half of Republicans agreed the decision should not be overturned, by 48 to 46 percent. Most Democrats favor upholding the decision, by 74 percent.
The poll showed no gender gap in opinions about the decision, with nearly identical percentages of women and men opposing a reversal.
The results also show that 47 percent of Americans say they personally believe it is morally wrong to have an abortion. These opinions have changed only modestly in recent years, the survey found.
Not surprisingly, younger people are less likely to know what Roe v. Wade was about. While most respondents over 30 knew Roe v. Wade dealt with abortion, only 44 percent of those under 30 knew this, the poll found. The question over whether the decision should be overturned was asked after it was defined to respondents.
The poll was based on interviews with a national sample of 1,502 adults, aged 18 or over, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2.9 percentage points.
http://news.yahoo.com/roe-v-wade-turns-40-most-oppose-reversing-171445029.html
North Dakota has only one abortion clinic and has been rated the worst state in the country for women, but the State Senate passed two bills on Thursday will make it even more difficult for women in the state to access abortion care.
North Dakota lawmakers passed a Personhood Constitutional Amendment initiative on Thursday that would amend the state's constitution to give legal rights and protections to human embryos. If the ballot initiative passes the House, North Dakota voters will decide on it during the 2014 elections.
The Senate also passed a bill on Thursday that could shut down the North Dakota's one abortion clinic, the Red River Women’s Clinic in Fargo, by requiring abortion doctors to have admitting privileges at a local hospital. A similar law in Mississippi is currently threatening to close the only clinic in that state because the hospitals near the Jackson clinic are all refusing the applications of doctors who perform abortions.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/07/north-dakota-personhood_n_2640380.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular
femmeInterrupted
02-12-2013, 03:23 PM
I thought this part of the article was dead on:
"... if the debate continues to be confined to abortion and treated as a political game, we'll never get to the heart of the matter.
We need a national dialogue that moves beyond a continual tallying of who's scoring what political points or who's winning the political fight. We need to engage in careful, thoughtful, substantive discussions about the services necessary for women's well-being throughout their lives: comprehensive sex education in our schools, domestic violence resources, affordable and reliable contraception, fertility treatments, affordable child care, safe pregnancy and maternal health care, and yes, abortion services."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nancy-northup/fight-womens-productive-rights_b_2491011.html
femmeInterrupted
02-12-2013, 03:51 PM
http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2013/02/11/the-pope-pregnant-children-and-violence-against-girls-and-women/
femmeInterrupted
02-18-2013, 07:23 PM
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femmeInterrupted
02-23-2013, 12:56 PM
WTF
"I agree with Rep. Todd, I think that it will truly limit abortions that are done in Alabama, and I'm pleased with that," said Rep. Terri Collins, R-Decatur.
http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2013/02/21/sweeping-trap-law-passes-alabama-house-in-the-name-of-womens-rights/
http://blog.al.com/wire/2013/02/house_passes_abortion-safety_b.html
femmeInterrupted
02-26-2013, 04:43 PM
Some more not so happy tidbits:
Currently, there are at least 8 states who are trying to pass these theocracy dictatorship bills.
These bills are the single greatest threat to Roe v. Wade.
These bills are metaphoric nuclear strikes against Women's Rights.
Please help stop this.
Protests, marches, petitions, and political contacting to focus as much of their efforts on this specific front in opposing the War Against Women.
https://fbcdn-sphotos-g-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-prn1/164472_533577720016363_1648806618_n.jpg
http://exposingreligionblog.tumblr.com/post/18058117012
Hospital in North Dakota Says Abortion Care So Safe It Does Not Meet Criteria for Admitting Privileges - See more at:
http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2013/02/26/hospital-in-north-dakota-says-abortion-care-so-safe-it-does-not-meet-criteria-for-admitting-privileges/
LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas (Reuters) - Arkansas joined seven other U.S. states on Thursday in banning most abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy as the Republican-controlled state Senate voted to override a veto of the legislation by Democratic Governor Mike Beebe.
Senators voted 19 to 14 on party lines to override Beebe's veto, following a 53 to 28 vote by the Republican-controlled state House on Wednesday. In Arkansas, lawmakers can override a veto by a simple majority vote.
The law provides exceptions only in cases of rape, incest or to save a mother's life. It does not include an exemption for any lethal fetal disorders.
Late-term abortions remain relatively rare. Most of the recent state laws banning most abortions after 20 weeks are based on controversial medical research suggesting that a fetus feels pain starting at 20 weeks of gestation.
Arkansas senators also voted 26 to 8 on Thursday to approve a ban on most abortions once a fetal heartbeat can be detected by a standard ultrasound, or about 12 weeks of pregnancy.
The bill, which now goes to Beebe, includes exceptions for rape, incest, the life of the mother and fetal conditions. Doctors who violate the prohibition would have their licenses revoked by the state Medical Board.
The chief executive of Planned Parenthood of the Heartland, Jill June, said the so-called "heartbeat" bill would be the most stringent restriction on abortion in the country.
"It's disheartening that our lawmakers are knowingly passing an unconstitutional abortion ban for the sake of politics," June said of the Senate's votes on Thursday.
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/arkansas-house-overrides-veto-term-abortion-ban-023203257.html
femmeInterrupted
03-01-2013, 03:39 PM
http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2013/03/01/challenges-in-the-trans-vaginal-ultrasound-debate/
Dear Friend,
There's an urgent new threat to birth control coverage, and all of us have to speak out right away before it gets any traction.
This time, 11 prominent right-wing members of Congress have filed a legal brief in support of Hobby Lobby--the major craft retail chain that is suing the Obama Administration over the requirement that health insurers cover birth control.1 Hobby Lobby's conservative CEO and these members of Congress apparently don't think women can make their own health care decisions--that somehow a woman's boss at work should be the one telling her what to do.
In the past year, conservatives have tried to gut birth control coverage time and time again.2 Even after getting walloped by the women's vote at the ballot box in November, they kept trying.3 But they've failed every time, so now they're trying a new route—the courts. And this strategy might just be the scariest they've tried yet because if they win, it will set an incredibly bad precedent for women's health care and reproductive choice.4 Imagine: a legal decision that says your boss gets to make decisions about your health care, not you. That's scary.
That's why we've partnered with our friends at EMILY's List to send them a message: just stop. Birth control is a personal, medical decision, and it's not up to politicians or employers to dictate how women use it. Republicans need to stop trying to block women's access. If UltraViolet members and EMILY's List members speak out together, they'll hear us loud and clear.
[/URL]
Hobby Lobby is a major crafts retailer in the United States and employs thousands of women across 14 states.5 US companies can't flout the law just because they don't like it. Big corporations and small businesses are run by all sorts of people in our country, many religious, many not. Allowing company management to impose their beliefs on employees is just plain un-American.
If the court sides with them and finds that an employer can choose which type of birth control is available to their employees, it would set a dangerous precedent for other cases and give extremists another opening to attack women's rights and access to health care.6
And now, 11 prominent members of Congress have given this lawsuit greater credibility and asked the courts to set a dangerous precedent for all women. But we know that politicians care about their next election more than virtually anything else, and if we can show them this is a loser with women voters, we can get them to drop their attacks on birth control--and stop them from gaining traction. The more of us that speak out, the louder our voices will be. UltraViolet and EMILY's List members together will hold these politicians accountable make sure they know that if they mess with women, we will fight back and we will win. Please join us in this important campaign.
Sign the petition. (http://act.weareultraviolet.org/go/526?t=3&akid=333.479904.qKZT88)
Thanks for speaking out.
Nita, Shaunna, Kat, and Karin, the UltraViolet team
[URL]http://act.weareultraviolet.org/sign/birthcontrol/?akid=333.479904.qKZT88&rd=1&t=3
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/25/hobby-lobby-obamacare_n_2759780.html
http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2013/01/11/hobby-lobbys-1-3-million-obamacare-loophole/
Sickening. But viagra is covered by health care and now...the "low T".
Arkansas has passed the most restrictive abortion law in the United States – a near-ban on the procedure from the 12th week of pregnancy onward.
The state has vetoed the Democratic Governor twice in the last week over two separate bills on abortion. The first one banned most abortions starting in the 20th week of pregnancy. That bill took effect immediately after the final override vote, whereas the 12-week ban would not take effect until this summer.
Abortion rights proponents have already said they will sue to block the 12-week ban from taking effect.
So far, other recent attempts to similarly restrict abortion in other states have fallen short. A so-called fetal pain law banning abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy was struck down on Wednesday night by a federal judge in Idaho.
The law was based on disputed beliefs held by some physicians and others that the foetus is able to feel pain at 20 weeks and therefore deserves protection from abortions.
In Mississippi, voters rejected a so-called "personhood amendment" at the polls. In Ohio, a similar measure was defeated in the legislature, but they represent a growing trend in conservative states to chip away at abortion rights under the US Supreme Court's landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that legalised abortion until a foetus could viably survive outside the womb. A foetus is generally considered viable at 22 to 24 weeks.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/9915584/Arkansas-passes-most-restrictive-abortion-law-in-US.html
AmazonWoman1
03-08-2013, 02:41 PM
There once was an idiot named Nicolae Ceaușescu who ran Romania for a time & had the genius idea to force pregnancies to term.This was covered somewhat in a movie called 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days.There were some serious consequences to this ill advised idea.These same unwanted children rose up to overthrow his regime & murder him.If you force women to be unwilling parents it may lead to a high rate of personality disordered people like sociopaths & psychotics.These same people may prove to be your undoing at a later time.So the more ignorant they get the bigger the eventual backlash may be.The pendulum tends to swing back in response to outright bigotry & hatred so we all can hope people start firing these politicians in droves.I know my incumbent of like 20 years just got fired*S*
The movie is available on Netflix streaming
femmeInterrupted
03-11-2013, 01:39 PM
Politicians abuse negative stereotypes about those who seek abortion to push their anti-choice legislation
https://fbcdn-sphotos-e-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/556707_10151465371371738_774088592_n.jpg
femmeInterrupted
03-12-2013, 09:24 AM
http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2013/03/11/how-abortion-restrictions-always-assume-that-women-are-bad-people/
BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — As oil-rich North Dakota moves toward outlawing most abortions, it's in a better position than most states for what could be a long and costly court battle over its restrictions.
Lawmakers on Friday sent the Republican governor two anti-abortion bills, one banning the procedure as early as six weeks into a pregnancy and another prohibiting women from having the procedure because a fetus has a genetic defect, such as Down syndrome. They would be the most restrictive abortion laws in the U.S
Abortion-rights activists have promised a legal battle over the measures if they become law. But supporters of the bills say their goal is to challenge the U.S. Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that legalized abortion up until a fetus is considered viable, usually at 22 to 24 weeks
Gov. Jack Dalrymple hasn't said anything to indicate he would veto the measures, and the bills have enough support in each chamber for the Republican-controlled Legislature to override him. The Senate overwhelmingly approved the bills Friday, and the House passed them last month. The votes were largely on party lines, with Republicans supporting the measures and Democrats opposing them.
The state's only abortion clinic is in Fargo, and abortion-rights advocates say the measures are meant to shut it down. They urged Dalrymple to veto the bills.
The American Civil Liberties Union called the measures "extreme" and noted that many women don't realize they are pregnant until after six weeks.
Outside of Fargo, the nearest abortion clinics are four hours to the south in Sioux Falls, S.D., and four hours to the southeast in Minneapolis.
North Dakota is one of several states with Republican-controlled Legislatures and GOP governors that is looking at abortion restrictions. Arkansas passed a 12-week ban earlier this month that prohibits most abortions when a fetal heartbeat can be detected using an abdominal ultrasound. That ban is scheduled to take effect 90 days after the Arkansas Legislature adjourns.
A fetal heartbeat can generally be detected earlier in a pregnancy using a vaginal ultrasound, but Arkansas lawmakers balked at requiring women seeking abortions to have the more invasive imaging technique.
North Dakota's measure doesn't specify how a fetal heartbeat would be detected. Doctors performing an abortion after a heartbeat is detected could face a felony charge punishable by up to five years in prison and a $5,000 fine. Women having an abortion would not face charges.
The genetic abnormalities bill also bans abortion based on gender selection. Pennsylvania, Arizona and Oklahoma already have such laws, according to the Guttmacher Institute, which tracks abortion restrictions across the U.S. North Dakota would be the first state to ban abortions based on a genetic defect, according to the institute.
Sen. Margaret Sitte, a Republican from Bismarck, said the bill is meant to ban the destruction of life based on "an arbitrary society standard of being good enough." Some test results pointing to abnormalities are incorrect, she said, and doctors can perform surgeries even before a baby is born to correct some genetic conditions.
http://news.yahoo.com/north-dakota-funds-fight-over-abortion-070224321.html
femmeInterrupted
03-19-2013, 02:14 PM
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/03/north-dakota-passes-restrictive-abortion-laws-88966.html
The Kansas House of Representatives has taken the next step in passing HB 2253, a massive 70-page omnibus bill that codifies anti-choice lies and talking points and financially and politically isolates reproductive health clinics, abortion providers, and their volunteers in the state. The bill represents the state legislature’s latest attempt to pass a multipurpose, anti-choice platform, which includes modifying the state tax code, defunding Planned Parenthood, and socially ostracizing abortion providers and their colleagues. Unlike last year’s version, this year’s version of the bill appears likely to pass both chambers of the legislature.
Proposed by State Rep. Lance Kinzer (R-Olathe), the omnibus bill presents anti-choice lies as science and revamps the state’s tax code to eliminate “taxpayer funding of abortion,” despite the protests of individuals in the medical community who consider the legislation politically motivated propaganda. Leading the charge against the bill at a recent hearing was State Rep. Barbara Bollier (R-Mission Hills), a former medical professional who tried to negate the bad science in the bill with amendments addressing claims that a fetus feels pain at 22 weeks and that abortion causes breast cancer. Meanwhile, Kinzer testified that there are “conflicting” studies about abortion causing breast cancer, and “where there is doubt or conflicting studies, the Legislature has the authority to decide what information should be distributed by law,” according to the Topeka Capital Journal. If upheld, this would set a chilling precedent, essentially dividing the country into states where science is respected and states where anti-choice “science” rules.
The house also opposed an amendment to a ban on abortions after 22 weeks. When asked to consider allowing exceptions to the state’s blanket 22-week abortion ban—loopholes that would allow a rape or incest survivor to obtain a safe abortion without leaving the state—lawmakers said absolutely not. A Kansas City Star editorial called the rejection of the amendment “a shocking lack of empathy for women.” The editorial goes on to say, “In testimony to the triumph of zealotry, the house voted 92-31 for the abortion restrictions. We hope the Senate will show some compassion for young women facing the anguish of an unwanted, late-term pregnancy.”
“Representative Lance Kinzer and Governor Brownback have reached a new low with the passage and certain signature of House Bill 2253,” Elise Higgins, state co-coordinator for Kansas NOW told RH Reality Check via email. “This 70-page bill has 40 provisions, ranging from restrictions on who can work in schools and 12 new taxes on abortion to a lie connecting abortion to breast cancer. HB 2253 would be harmful on its own, but on top of 20 other abortion regulations in Kansas, it’s devastating. Worst of all is the Kansas house’s overwhelming rejection of an amendment that would have exempted pregnancies resulting from rape and incest from anti-abortion statutes. Kansas government is without compassion or common sense, and women and their families will suffer for it.”
- See more at: http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2013/03/21/anti-choice-kansas-omnibus-bill-passes-house-with-all-amendments-rejected/#sthash.OS0JanI1.dpuf
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The main stream media seems to be in a bit of a tizzy over Susan B. Anthony List (and Ken Cuccinelli for Governor fan) president Marjorie Dannenfelser comparing abortion to slavery during a recent CPAC speech. “[T]here’s a point when you become culpable in the killing of other people, because of what the government is making you do. And that is one of those tipping point moments. It happened in slavery when slaves had to be returned to their masters. When we… when our hands are bloodied by this, it becomes a whole ‘nother thing,” Dannenfelser said, according to progressive blog Blue Virginia, leading the Washington Post to later report on the incident, then the Richmond Times Dispatch to run its own story with tape of Cuccinelli using similar terms himself at an event last June.
Maybe this language is somehow new to those who don’t pay much attention to the abortion issue. For those who do spend any time listening, this is rhetoric we’ve heard over and over again. We’ve heard the repeated claims that just like the zygote, the slave was once not considered a person either. We’ve been told that somehow controlling what happens inside our own bodies is akin to “owning” a human being as property. We’ve had charts like these pasted to our facebook pages. We’ve seen the “abortion abolitionists” touting their merchandize and drop cards, or been emailed or tweeted at by the person swearing he or she is the next “William Wilberforce” prepared to bring about true equality—at least, for the fertilized eggs and embryos.
This idea that forcing women and girls to remain pregnant and give birth against their will is somehow analogous to freeing slaves from bondage may be news to you, but we’ve been hearing all about it for years. So, welcome to our world, mainstream media and every day people. Yes, those anti-choice activists are just as extreme as we’ve been telling you they are.
- See more at: http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2013/03/22/media-shocked-to-hear-anti-choice-activists-compare-abortion-to-slavery/#sthash.CVIa4UWC.dpuf
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Really? Is Marjorie Dannenfelser unaware that women were once deemed the property of males and on par of goats and pigs? Is she aware of the atrocities we were subjected to as pieces of property? Does she have a clue about the history and current statics on rape, domestic violence, and the ritualistic mutilating and killing of women?
The lack of logic in these asinine arguments make me freakin nuts.
BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — Gov. Jack Dalrymple signed legislation Tuesday that that would make North Dakota the nation's most restrictive state on abortion rights, banning the procedure if a fetal heartbeat can be detected — something that can happen as early as six weeks into a pregnancy.
The Republican governor also signed into law another measure that would makes North Dakota the first to ban abortions based on genetic defects such as Down syndrome, and a measure that requires a doctor who performs abortions to be a physician with hospital-admitting privileges.
The measures, which would take effect Aug. 1, are fueled in part by an attempt to close the state's sole abortion clinic in Fargo. Dalrymple, in a statement, said the so-called fetal heartbeat bill is a direct challenge to the U.S. Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that legalized abortion up until a fetus is considered viable, usually at 22 to 24 weeks.
"Although the likelihood of this measure surviving a court challenge remains in question, this bill is nevertheless a legitimate attempt by a state legislature to discover the boundaries of Roe v. Wade," Dalrymple said. "Because the U.S. Supreme Court has allowed state restrictions on the performing of abortions and because the Supreme Court has never considered this precise restriction ... the constitutionality of this measure is an open question."
Abortion-rights advocates have promised a legal fight that they say will be long, costly and unwinnable for the state.
Dalrymple's statement said the Legislature "should appropriate dollars for a litigation fund" before the session ends in early May.
Arkansas passed a 12-week ban earlier this month that prohibits most abortions when a fetal heartbeat can be detected using an abdominal ultrasound. That ban is scheduled to take effect 90 days after the Arkansas Legislature adjourns.
A fetal heartbeat can generally be detected earlier in a pregnancy using a vaginal ultrasound, but Arkansas lawmakers balked at requiring women seeking abortions to have the more invasive imaging technique.
North Dakota's legislation doesn't specify how a fetal heartbeat would be detected. Doctors performing an abortion after a heartbeat is detected could face a felony charge punishable by up to five years in prison and a $5,000 fine. Women having an abortion would not face charges.
The legislation to ban abortions based on genetic defects also would ban abortion based on gender selection. The Guttmacher Institute, which tracks abortion laws throughout the country, says Pennsylvania, Arizona and Oklahoma also have laws outlawing abortion based on gender selection.
The Republican-led North Dakota Legislature has endorsed a spate of anti-abortion Legislation this year. North Dakota lawmakers moved last week to outlaw abortion in the state by passing a resolution defining life as starting at conception, essentially banning abortion in the state. The measure is likely to come before voters in November 2014.
Representatives also endorsed another anti-abortion bills last week that is awaiting Dalrymple's signature. It would ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy based on the disputed premise that fetuses feel pain at that point.
Dalrymple said the measure requiring abortion doctors to have hospital-admitting privileges also likely will be challenged in court.
"Nevertheless, it is a legitimate and new question for the courts regarding a precise restriction on doctors who perform abortions," he said.
always2late
03-27-2013, 01:04 AM
https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/5270_10151362088281275_250105440_n.jpg
femmeInterrupted
03-27-2013, 10:09 AM
https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/5270_10151362088281275_250105440_n.jpg
The Frustration of this can't be described. Having worked with police and even other mainstream service providers, it's truly shocking how this attitude of victim blaming and misogyny/judgement, and the pervasive myths about sexual violence still play out on the every day-- thanks for sharing this-- will share with some colleagues of mine.
Fuck the patriarchy.
KANSAS CITY, Kansas (Reuters) - Kansas is set to enact one of the most restrictive abortion laws in the nation which defines life as beginning "at fertilization" and imposes a host of new regulations.
The Kansas House of Representatives passed the bill 90-30 on Friday night, a few hours after the Senate backed it on a 28-10 vote. Strongly anti-abortion Republican Governor Sam Brownback is expected to sign it into law. Republicans hold strong majorities in both houses.
In addition to the provision specifying when life begins, the bill prevents employees of abortion clinics from providing sex education in schools, bans tax credits for abortion services and requires clinics to give details to women about fetal development and abortion health risks. It also bans abortions based solely on the gender of the fetus.
The Kansas bill comes on the heels of anti-abortion measures passing in states across the country, including one in Arkansas banning abortions in the 12th week of pregnancy and a law in North Dakota that sets the limit at six weeks.
The Kansas language stating that life begins "at fertilization" is modeled on a 1989 ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court, said Kathy Ostrowski, legislative director of Kansans for Life, anti-abortion group.
Ostrowski said the language protects the rights of the unborn in probate and other legal matters.
If the bill is signed into law, Kansas will become the eighth state declaring that life begins at fertilization, said Elizabeth Nash, state issues manager of the pro-choice Guttmacher Institute, which researches abortion-related laws nationwide.
While it would not supplant Kansas law banning most abortions after the 22nd week of pregnancy, it does set the state up to more swiftly outlaw all abortions should the U.S. Supreme Court revisit its 1973 ruling making abortion legal, Nash said.
"It's a statement of intent and it's a pretty strong statement," Nash said. "Should the U.S. Supreme Court overturn Roe v. Wade or should the court come to some different conclusion, the state legislature would be ready, willing and able to ban abortions."
States that already have such language are Missouri, Kentucky, Arkansas, Illinois, Louisiana, North Dakota and Ohio, Nash said.
The Kansas bill prohibits use of public funds, tax preferences or tax credits for abortion services. It prevents state-provided public health-care services from being used in any manner to carry out abortions, according to a summary.
Taking away tax benefits would amount to 12 tax increases for abortion providers, women and their families, said Elise Higgins, Kansas coordinator for the National Organization for Women. Even abortions to save a mother's life would not be a deductible cost, she said.
Higgins also criticized the bill's requirement that women be told of possible connection between abortion and later risk of breast cancer. "It's an obvious intrusion into the doctor-patient relationship by making them get this inaccurate information," Higgins said.
Ostrowski said the bill merely requires that patients be referred to online and other material about abortion and breast cancer. It does not steer them to misinformation, she said.
The bill bars school districts from letting abortion providers offer, sponsor or furnish course materials or instruction on human sexuality or on sexually transmitted diseases. Higgins said that creates an unfair stigma for employees of abortion providers.
Another portion of the new law would prevent women from deciding on an abortion solely because of the gender of the fetus. It is unclear how many women terminate pregnancies for that reason.
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/kansas-senate-passes-abortion-restrictions-014146445.html
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....bangs head on desk....
femmeInterrupted
04-21-2013, 09:51 AM
This is infuriating. Victim blaming bullshit.
http://samuel-warde.com/2012/11/american-misogyny-peaks-as12-year-old-sex-abuse-victim-is-blamed/
"We have heard a lot this year about the so-called “War On Women”. Conservatives on the one hand want to say there is no war, liberals strongly state the opposite.
Personally, I find it incredible that anyone c0uld deny such a war exists with all the recent legislation regarding women’s reproductive healthcare services, comments by bloviating ignoramuses such as Rush Limbaugh, Richard Mourdock and Todd Akins. Hell there is even a website now showing how many days it has been since a Republican mentioned “rape” while campaigning.
The official Republican National Committee Platform presents the harshest take on women’s issues in decades and their candidate for president, Mitt Romney, refuses to say where he stands on women’s pay – even after repeated questions regarding the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.
In the midst of this misogynistic frenzy, one recent news items stands out from all the rest when last week in California, the Moraga School District, alleged that a 12 year old girl, who suffered prolonged sexual abuse spanning years at the hands of two middle school teachers was “careless,” “negligent” and “was herself responsible for the acts and damages of which she claims”.
Let’s think about this one for a minute. A school district, a branch of civic government is saying that a young girl – 12 to 13 years old – is herself responsible for prolonged acts of sexual abuse by 2 of its teachers?
And their response? What about their response?
They did for whatever idiotic reason feel compelled to issue a response, as if anything they could ever write or say could justify their intent.
In their statement they wrote: “We certainly empathize with Ms. Cunnane and did not intend to cause her further distress in filing our formal Answer to her Complaint. However, this is a significant case that could have serious consequences for our school district. She is demanding several million dollars in damages. As a result, at this point in the proceedings we have an obligation not to waive any potential legal lines of defense. … Ms. Cunnane and the media have seized on only one of the nine potential areas and over-exaggerated its importance.”
Now how in the hell does one “empathize” with what essentially amounts to the unprovoked rape of a child? [And for those of you fond of splitting hairs - I write unprovoked because there is no way anyone can reasonably state that a 12 year old child can provoke a sexual act.]
And what about the talk of serious consequences to the school district and millions of dollars in potential damages? What about the serious consequences to a 12 year old child, who as it turns out foolishly thought she was safe at school in the care of teachers? What about the damages to her spirit and body?
And with all due respect, what the hell is this talk about their claim the victim “seized on only one of the nine potential areas and over-exaggerated its importance”? WTF?!?
Are these people serious?
And what about the victim, Ms. Cunnane?
“It’s hard to see that I’m ‘seizing on’ something,” she told KTUV, “because this is my life.” She told the KTUV reporter that she felt the school district response tells rape victims everywhere that they are the ones to blame.
“It felt like I got punched in the stomach, and I stood up and thought about how young I was when I was 12 to 13 years old at the school,” said Cunnane. “For them to use words like ‘negligent’ and ‘responsible’ just broke my heart.”
As reported by the Oakland Tribune, the school district’s attorney stated that the language used in their response was “appropriate” and “necessary” for a civil case with significant ramifications and went on to note that “every potential defense” must be raised in such legal filings, “since failure to do so results in a waiver of the defense.”"It is imperative that all possible defenses be raised at this point in time. As more facts become known, the district will then reassess its defenses”.Ms. Cunnane’s attorney and noted youth law expert, Paul Llewellyn noted: “That (the) defendants would go so far as to blame a child victim of sexual abuse rather than admit or even examine their own wrongdoing is offensive and appalling”.
Again, as reported by the Oakland Tribune “Cunnane was sexually abused by two Moraga middle school teachers in the 1990s, one of them over a four-year period. She sued the district, retired Joaquin Moraga Intermediate School principal Bill Walters, retired assistant principal Paul Simonin and retired superintendent John Cooley in Contra Costa Superior Court, saying they repeatedly ignored allegations of abuse, allowing her and other students to be victimized. The lawsuit alleges negligence, fraudulent concealment, conspiracy to commit fraud and intentional infliction of emotional distress, and cites an investigation by this newspaper as revealing for the first time the district’s knowledge of the alleged abuse.
Former Joaquin Moraga P.E. teacher Julie Correa pleaded guilty to rape and sexual battery against Cunnane over a four-year period beginning in 1996, when Cunnane was an eighth-grader. Cunnane said Correa groomed her after she confided in her that Joaquin Moraga science teacher Daniel Witters had molested her. Witters committed suicide shortly after a group of girls came forward with allegations in 1996, and police stopped investigating him criminally after that.”
femmeInterrupted
04-21-2013, 10:20 AM
I've been going through a massive feminist crisis lately. My own politics and a belief in non-violence is being tested, as I ponder the gendered nature of forgiveness. Instead, I am thinking about UNforgiveness and IRreconciliation.
I am starting to think about forms of resistance and what those may mean to our women's communities. I see tiny pockets of women globally, literally picking up sticks and resisting. And when I see how many of our girls and women are chewed up and crunched alive in the jaws of gender oppression, I feel less and less like 'nurturing' and 'teaching' and 'talking' and more and more like creating change through some serious ass kicking. Seriously.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/21/world/asia/reports-of-rape-of-5-year-old-in-india-set-off-furor.html?hp&_r=0
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2013/04/21/world/india/india-articleLarge.jpg
NEW DELHI — Hundreds of demonstrators besieged New Delhi’s police headquarters on Saturday to protest the kidnapping, rape and torture of a 5-year-old girl last week.
The injured girl was moved Friday evening to New Delhi’s finest public hospital on a gurney covered with stuffed toys, and by Saturday she was alert and in stable condition, according to doctors there. She was being given fluids and intravenous antibiotics to fight a blood infection, the doctors said, and further operations will have to wait until the infection has abated.
Meanwhile, the police arrested a 22-year-old garment worker early Saturday morning in Bihar, said Rajan Bhagat, a Delhi police spokesman. The police identified the suspect as Manoj, who, like many Indians, uses only one name. He had recently married and was tracked down with the help of cellphone records in the town where his in-laws live, according to Indian news reports.
The suspect had an apartment in New Delhi in the same building as the girl, whom he is accused of abducting, raping and torturing last Sunday night. The Times of India reported that he told the police he fled his apartment shortly thereafter because he believed that the girl had died. The girl’s parents discovered her on Wednesday in the man’s apartment.
“This is the first time I have seen such barbarism,” R. K. Bansal, medical superintendent of Swami Dayanand Hospital, said Friday in a televised interview. “There were injuries on her lips, cheeks, arms and anus area. Her neck had bruise marks suggesting that attempts were made to strangle her.”
He said a bottle almost eight inches long and pieces of candle had been inserted “into her private parts.”
In December, a woman was gang-raped and tortured and her companion beaten in a case that shocked the nation and led to weeks of spontaneous protests by Indians demanding better security for women. That case led to changes in the country’s rape laws, but horrific sexual assaults continue to be reported around India with regularity. Whether women are less safe in India than in other emerging countries is uncertain, but rape and police competence have become burning political issues.
On Saturday, demonstrators sought to reawaken the outrage that convulsed India in December, but the day’s protests were far smaller and seemed less spontaneous.
Anger at the authorities began to build after the parents of the 5-year-old said that the police had failed to take their complaint seriously, failed to carry out an adequate search and then offered them 2,000 rupees — about $37 — if they would keep quiet about the case. Then on Friday, television news channels showed a large mustachioed police officer slapping a small female protester in the face.
The government’s concerns about the case ratcheted up so quickly on Friday night that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh expressed regrets about the episode. And on Saturday, the president of the Indian National Congress Party, Sonia Gandhi — whose house was also the site of protests on Saturday — released a statement condemning the rape and saying that “action and not words are required to ensure that such incidents never happen again.”
Two police officers, including the lead investigator on the case and the one seen slapping the protester, were suspended. The lead investigator is being investigated after being accused of trying to bribe the child’s family to remain silent, said Mr. Bhagat, the police spokesman.
The quick arrest of the suspect may do little to calm the anger surrounding the case since fairly quick police work also led to the arrests of five suspects in the December rape case. Such rapid resolutions are not the norm in India, where highly politicized police forces and a backlogged and inefficient judiciary often mean that cases remain unresolved for years.
Hari Kumar contributed reporting.
femmeInterrupted
04-22-2013, 09:56 AM
https://fbcdn-sphotos-c-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/6744_487198041347000_318039683_n.jpg
femmeInterrupted
04-25-2013, 12:52 PM
http://www.womenundersiegeproject.org/blog/entry/now-in-their-80s-and-90s-aging-wwii-sex-slaves-havent-forgotten#.UXkrk0ZlRcg.twitter
http://www.womenundersiegeproject.org/page/-/images/blog/comfortwomen.jpg
By Michele Lent Hirsch/Associate Editor — March 29, 2013
It’s a euphemism we still haven’t shaken. “Comfort women” refers to the women and girls—usually foreign, from countries like Korea, the Philippines, and China—forced by the Japanese military to do sex work mainly during World War II.
Armed groups from various countries have done this too, although perhaps without the euphemism, choosing a group of individuals to use for repeated sexualized violence. Then combatants and high-up generals rape them. Again and again.
Euphemisms, and terminology in general, are tricky in the context of war. As I wrote in November 2012, “ethnic cleansing” is a phrase that may, at this point, successfully connote Hitlerian violence, but it’s been up for debate.
“Comfort women,” however, sounds cozy where it should be horrifying. It sounds like the archetypal mother who holds her infant on a cold night, quilt tucked in neatly and the radiator on.
It sounds like the opposite of the brutal enslavement and sexualized torture of a young woman.
That brutality is what photographer Ahn Sehong’s new exhibit, featured on The New York Times’ “Lens” blog, aims to capture. Sehong’s show, currently on display at the Korea Press Center Gallery in New Jersey, zooms in on the faces and daily lives of a handful of the estimated 200,000 women held as sex slaves during the war.
Sehong shows the faces of 80- and 90-year-olds, their faded maps of home, and the poor conditions they live in 70 years later. Only three of the women he photographed are still alive.
At one point, these elderly women were young and living in Korea, then held captive by the Japanese army in China. After the war, the Times explains, they were stranded there.
When Sehong first visited them, hoping to document their memories, “most lived in hovels, often in the same dusty rural towns where they had endured the war,” he said.
Each of Sehong’s subjects has a grueling story. One, Bae Sam-yeop was just 13 when a “high-ranking” Japanese officer raped her, she says.
Yet for a long time now, politicians have had trouble acknowledging the violence.
Just before the end of 2012, the Times reported that Japan’s new government might be “revising” an official apology given nearly two decades earlier to the victims of sexual slavery.
And in May last year, Japanese diplomats visited a small monument honoring these women in New Jersey and asked to have it removed.
The photographer is pairing his project with activism, hoping to raise aid for the aging survivors.
But even his images have been controversial: Sehong had to battle in court last year in order to display them at a Nikon gallery in Tokyo.
The company tried to cancel his show after receiving complaints.
For the survivors still holding on to a poor daily existence in China, Sehong’s efforts may matter more than politics.
Of the women he’s documented, Sehong said, “We couldn’t take care of them after the war. But now we have money and power to help them.”
As far back as their suffering during World War II may be, these women are still struggling to scratch out a living now, Sehong said in a local news story. And regardless off what term we use to describe the violence perpetrated long ago against them, they continue to be burdened by their memories.
“Their broken hearts are not in the past,” Sehong said.
President Barack Obama on Friday defended Planned Parenthood—the largest source of reproductive health care for women, as well as an abortion provider—against its opponents, and warned critics that the organization remains steadfast.
"Planned Parenthood is not going anywhere," Obama told the 1,000 people at the group's annual national conference in Washington. "It’s not going anywhere today. It’s not going anywhere tomorrow." He is the first president to address Planned Parenthood.
The organization has long been a target of abortion opponents, who in recent years have fought to cut off its federal funding—despite the fact that that money, by law, is not applicable toward abortions. (Abortions make up an estimated 3 percent of the organization's budget.)
The president on Friday lauded Planned Parenthood's work “providing quality health care to women all across America."
Obama added, "We are truly grateful to you.”
He noted that 1 in 5 women in America have sought services from Planned Parenthood, which is the primary source for health care for many women. When politicians attempt to turn it into "a punching bag," Obama said, they are shutting out women who need health care and communities that may need health care services the most.
"When it comes to a women's health, no politician should get to decide what's best for you," Obama said. "The only person who should get to make decisions about your health is you."
Obama used his appearance to champion his health care law, which he said promotes many of the same principles as Planned Parenthood. Obama said his law supports health care for women by allowing young women, for example, to be covered by their parents' health care insurance plans, and by preventing women with pre-existing conditions from being denied coverage.
The president did not say the word "abortion" during his remarks, but did reference a woman's "right to choose."
Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus recently targeted the organization with a scathing op-ed for conservative news site Red State accusing Planned Parenthood and Democrats of supporting infanticide. Priebus wrote that testimony from a Planned Parenthood lobbyist in Florida indicated the organization supports the killing of infants.
Planned Parenthood later released a statement on the lobbyist's testimony, saying, "As a trusted health care provider, Planned Parenthood strongly condemns any physician who does not follow the law or endangers a woman's or child's health. And while HB 1129 addresses a situation that is extremely unlikely and highly unusual, if the scenario presented by the legislation should happen, of course a Planned Parenthood doctor would provide appropriate care to both the woman and the infant."
The president's appearance at the conference comes at a time when infanticide has been in the national news due to the murder trial of former abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell. Gosnell, of Philadelphia, is charged with murder in the death of a woman in 2009 during an abortion procedure and in the deaths of four babies.
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/obama-address-planned-parenthood-145150867.html
Welcome to a pro-life world (http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2013/04/30/welcome-to-a-pro-life-world/)
By Jill on April 30, 2013
In El Salvador, a young mother pseudonymously called Beatriz is pregnant and dying. She has lupus and is facing renal failure; the fetus she’s pregnant with is anencephalic, meaning it has no brain and will not survive once born. If she dies, she will leave behind a husband and their toddler. With each passing day, she gets sicker and sicker, and the chances of death increase. She needed a termination weeks ago; more delays could pose significant hardships, as the probability increases that she will have to be on dialysis for the rest of her life — not a reasonable possibility for a poor woman living in rural El Salvador. But because El Salvador outlaws abortion under any circumstance, Beatriz cannot terminate the pregnancy that’s killing her.
This is what a “pro-life” world looks like. And indeed, even in this extreme case, religious and pro-life groups in El Salvador oppose allowing Beatriz to terminate:
The Archbishop of San Salvador José Luis Escobar, said, “it is my understanding that the mother of the child is not in an intensive care situation… For me, it is the baby in utero that is in more danger because there is a movement to terminate its life. Only God knows how long this baby that they want to kill will live.”
Anti-choice groups in the U.S. who are currently raising hell about late-term abortions supposedly killing babies are notably silent on this case, where pro-life laws are slowly killing a woman.
You can sign the petition at RH Reality Check (http://action.rhrealitycheck.org/page/s/save-beatriz-life)to encourage the government to move quickly and save Beatriz’s life.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration's decision to appeal a court order lifting age limits on purchasers of the morning-after pill set off a storm of criticism from reproductive rights groups, who denounced it as politically motivated and a step backward for women's health.
"We are profoundly disappointed. This appeal takes away the promise of all women having timely access to emergency contraception," Susannah Baruch, Interim President & CEO of the Reproductive Health Technologies Project, said in a statement late Wednesday.
"It is especially troubling in light of the Food and Drug Administration's move yesterday to continue age restrictions and ID requirements, despite a court order to make emergency contraception accessible for women of all ages. Both announcements, particularly in tandem, highlight the administration's corner-cutting on women's health," Baruch said. "It's a sad day for women's health when politics prevails."
The FDA on Tuesday had lowered the age at which people can buy the Plan B One-Step morning-after pill without a prescription to 15 — younger than the current limit of 17 — and decided that the pill could be sold on drugstore shelves near the condoms, instead of locked behind pharmacy counters. It appeared to be a stab at compromise that just made both sides angrier.
After the appeal was announced late Wednesday, Terry O'Neill, president of the National Organization for Women, said, "The prevention of unwanted pregnancy, particularly in adolescents, should not be obstructed by politicians." She called it a "step backwards for women's health."
Last week, O'Neill noted, President Barack Obama was applauded when he addressed members of Planned Parenthood and spoke of the organization's "core principle" that women should be allowed to make their own decisions about their health.
"President Obama should practice what he preaches," O'Neill said.
In appealing the ruling Wednesday, the administration recommitted itself to a position Obama took during his re-election campaign that younger teens shouldn't have unabated access to emergency contraceptives, despite the insistence by physicians groups and much of his Democratic base that the pill should be readily available.
The Justice Department's appeal responded to an order by U.S. District Judge Edward Korman in New York that would allow girls and women of any age to buy not only Plan B but its cheaper generic competition as easily as they can buy aspirin. Korman gave the FDA 30 days to comply, and the Monday deadline was approaching fast.
In its filing, the Justice Department said that Korman exceeded his authority and that his decision should be suspended while that appeal is under way, meaning only Plan B One-Step would appear on drugstore shelves until the case is finally settled. If Korman's order isn't suspended during the appeals process, the result would be "substantial market confusion, harming FDA's and the public's interest" as drugstores receive conflicting orders about who's allowed to buy what, the Justice Department concluded.
Reluctant to get drawn into a messy second-term spat over social issues, White House officials insisted Wednesday that both the FDA and the Justice Department were acting independently of the White House in deciding how to proceed. But the decision to appeal was certain to irk abortion-rights advocates who say they can't understand why a Democratic president is siding with social conservatives in favor of limiting women's reproductive choices.
Current and former White House aides said Obama's approach to the issue has been heavily influenced by his experience as the father of two school-age daughters. Obama and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius have also questioned whether there's enough data available to show the morning-after pill is safe and appropriate for younger girls, even though physicians groups insist that it is.
Rather than take matters into his own hands, the Justice Department argued to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that Korman should have ordered the FDA to reconsider its options for regulating emergency contraception. The court cannot overturn the rules and processes that federal agencies must follow "by instead mandating a particular substantive outcome," the appeal states.
The FDA actually had been poised to lift all age limits and let Plan B sell over the counter in late 2011, when Sebelius overruled her own scientists. Sebelius said some girls as young as 11 were physically capable of bearing children but shouldn't be able to buy the pregnancy-preventing pill on their own.
Sebelius' move was unprecedented, and Korman had blasted it as election-year politics — meaning he was overruling not just a government agency but a Cabinet secretary.
More than a year later, neither side in the contraception debate was happy with the FDA's surprise twist, which many perceived as an attempt to find a palatable middle ground between imposing an age limit of 17 and imposing no limit at all.
Any over-the-counter access marks a long-awaited change, but it's not enough, said Dr. Cora Breuner of the American Academy of Pediatrics, which supports nonprescription sale of the morning-after pill for all ages.
"We still have the major issue, which is our teen pregnancy rate is still too high," Breuner said.
Even though few young girls likely would use Plan B, which costs about $50 for a single pill, "we know that it is safe for those under 15," she said.
Most 17- to 19-year-olds are sexually active, and 30 percent of 15- and 16-year-olds have had sex, according to a study published last month by the journal Pediatrics. Sex is much rarer among younger teens. Likewise, older teens have a higher pregnancy rate, but that study also counted more than 110,000 pregnancies among 15- and 16-year-olds in 2008 alone.
Social conservatives were outraged by the FDA's move to lower the age limits for Plan B — as well as the possibility that Korman's ruling might take effect and lift age restrictions altogether.
"This decision undermines the right of parents to make important health decisions for their young daughters," said Anna Higgins of the Family Research Council.
If a woman already is pregnant, the morning-after pill has no effect. It prevents ovulation or fertilization of an egg. According to the medical definition, pregnancy doesn't begin until a fertilized egg implants itself into the wall of the uterus. Still, some critics say Plan B is the equivalent of an abortion pill because it may also be able to prevent a fertilized egg from attaching to the uterus, a contention that many scientists — and Korman, in his ruling — said has been discredited.
http://news.yahoo.com/womens-groups-decry-appeal-morning-pill-071825445.html
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Was trying to find the words to comment on this but all I can come up with is....huh?
BOSTON — Boston Cardinal Sean O'Malley said Friday that he won't attend Boston College's graduation because the Jesuit school's commencement speaker, Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny, supports legislation to permit abortion.
The bill allows abortion if a doctor authorizes it to save a women's life. Opponents say the bill would lead to widespread abortion by also allowing it if a woman threatens suicide.
In a statement Friday, O'Malley said abortion is "a crime against humanity" and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has asked Catholic institutions not to honor officials who promote it. Kenny is set to receive an honorary degree from BC at the May 20 commencement.
O'Malley said that since Boston College hasn't withdrawn its invitation, and Kenny hasn't declined it, "I shall not attend the graduation."
"It is my ardent hope that Boston College will work to redress the confusion, disappointment and harm caused by not adhering to the bishops' directives," he said.
Boston College spokesman Jack Dunn said the school respects O'Malley and regrets he won't attend graduation. "However, we look forward to our commencement and to Prime Minister Kenny's remarks," he said in a statement.
Dunn said Kenny was invited to BC because of his country's historically close relationship with the college and
that the school "supports the church's commitment to the life of the unborn."
Kenny has said the bill affirms, rather than weakens, Ireland's general prohibition against abortion.
"Our aim is to protect the lives of women and their unborn babies by clarifying the circumstances in which doctors can intervene where a woman's life is at risk," he said in a May 1 speech.
An email requesting comment was sent to Kenny's office in Dublin on Friday and a voicemail requesting comment was left with an Irish Consulate-General in the U.S. Neither was immediately returned.
Ireland has the toughest abortion restrictions in Europe under an 1861 law that makes it a crime punishable by life in prison.
In 1992, its Supreme Court ruled abortion should be legal only if doctors determine it's needed to save the woman's life. But voters rejected two referendums, in 1992 and 2002, to allow abortion to stop a physical threat to
a woman's life, not including suicide.
The latest bill is being debated following last year's death of Savita Halappanavar, who was 17 weeks pregnant when she was hospitalized at the start of a protracted miscarriage. She died of massive organ failure after doctors refused her request for an abortion.
The bill permits a single doctor to authorize an abortion if the woman's life is in immediate danger, requires two doctors' approval if a pregnancy poses a potentially lethal risk and mandates three doctors' approval if the woman is threatening suicide.
O'Malley said the Irish bishops have concluded the bill "represents a dramatic and morally unacceptable change to Irish law."
Last year, another Catholic college in Massachusetts was involved in a similar controversy after the Bishop of
Worcester (Mass.) pressured Anna Maria College in Paxton to rescind an invitation to U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy's widow, Victoria Reggie Kennedy, to deliver its commencement address. Bishop Robert McManus objected to Kennedy's public support for abortion rights and gay marriage.
Kennedy later accepted the Boston College School of Law's invitation to give the keynote address at commencement.
http://www.capecodonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130510/NEWS11/130519963/-1/NEWS
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Hoping my alma mater doesn't cave in to the bishop.
CHICAGO (AP) — One of the most liberal members of the U.S. Supreme Court, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg could be expected to give a rousing defense of Roe v. Wade in reflecting on the landmark vote 40 years after it established a nationwide right to abortion.
Instead, Ginsburg told an audience Saturday at the University of Chicago Law School that while she supports a woman's right to choose, she feels the ruling by her predecessors on the court was too sweeping and gave abortion opponents a symbol to target. Ever since, she said, the momentum has been on the other side, with anger over Roe fueling a state-by-state campaign that has placed more restrictions on abortion.
"That was my concern, that the court had given opponents of access to abortion a target to aim at relentlessly," she told a crowd of students. "... My criticism of Roe is that it seemed to have stopped the momentum that was on the side of change."
The ruling is also a disappointment to a degree, Ginsburg said, because it was not argued in weighty terms of advancing women's rights. Rather, the Roe opinion, written by Justice Harry Blackmun, centered on the right to privacy and asserted that it extended to a woman's decision on whether to end a pregnancy.
Four decades later, abortion is one of the most polarizing issues in American life, and anti-abortion activists have pushed legislation at the state level in an effort to scale back the 1973 decision.
Ginsburg would have rather seen the justices make a narrower decision that struck down only the Texas law that brought the matter before the court. That law allowed abortions only to save a mother's life.
A more restrained judgment would have sent a message while allowing momentum to build at a time when a number of states were expanding abortion rights, she said. She added that it might also have denied opponents the argument that abortion rights resulted from an undemocratic process in the decision by "unelected old men."
Ginsburg told the students she prefers what she termed "judicial restraint" and argued that such an approach can be more effective than expansive, aggressive decisions.
"The court can put its stamp of approval on the side of change and let that change develop in the political process," she said.
A similar dynamic is playing out over gay marriage and the speculation over how the Supreme Court might act on that issue.
The court decided in December to take up cases on California's constitutional ban on gay marriage and a federal law that denies to gay Americans who are legally married the favorable tax treatment and a range of health and pension benefits otherwise available to married couples.
Among the questions now is whether the justices will set a nationwide rule that could lead to the overturning of laws in more than three dozen states that currently do not allow same-sex marriage. Even some supporters of gay marriage fear that a broad ruling could put the court ahead of the nation on a hot-button social issue and provoke a backlash similar to the one that has fueled the anti-abortion movement in the years following Roe.
The court could also decide to uphold California's ban — an outcome that would not affect the District of Columbia and the 11 states that allow gay marriage.
Ginsburg did not address the pending gay marriage cases.
Asked about the continuing challenges to abortion rights, Ginsburg said that in her view Roe's legacy will ultimately hold up.
"It's not going to matter that much," she said. "Take the worst-case scenario ... suppose the decision were overruled; you would have a number of states that will never go back to the way it was."
http://news.yahoo.com/ginsburg-says-roe-gave-abortion-opponents-target-004044065.html
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femmeInterrupted
05-20-2013, 09:01 AM
Men Create the Demand; Women Are the Supply
Lecture on Sexual Exploitation
Queen Sofia Center, Valencia, Spain
November 2000
Donna M. Hughes
University of Rhode Island
Control and Abuse of Women and Girls’ Sexuality
The control and abuse of women and girls’ sexuality creates and maintains women’s oppression all over the world. Men hold the important decision making positions in all social, political and religious institutions that organize and control society. Through this institutional power, men construct culture, pass laws, and enact policies that serve their interests and give themselves the power to control women and children in public and private spheres. Men’s definition and control of female sexuality constructs and regulates women and girls’ sexual activity. Voluntary, as well as involuntary, violations of society’s man-made rules mark women as tainted and immoral, and bring dishonor to the family.
Repression and Exploitation--Complementary Forms of Control and Abuse
Repression and exploitation are different, but complementary, forms of control and abuse of female sexuality. Women and girls’ sexuality is repressed by strict control on sexual activity through such customs as placing a premium on girls’ virginity, basing family honor on the sexual control of daughters and wives, exacting severe punishment for adultery, preventing equal access to divorce, and segregating girls and women from boys and men.
Patriarchal religions, which mold most of the cultures of the world, subordinate women and girls to men. Fundamentalist movements, whether Christian, Jewish, Hindu or Islamic, advocate the repression of women and girls’ sexuality. Women and girls’ interaction with men and boys is closely monitored and restricted and their bodies and hair covered in a way deemed to be modest. For example, under the influence of Islamic fundamentalism, women are required to wear full body coverings, such as chadors and burqas. Punishment for sexual misconduct can be severe, as in Iran, where women can be legally stoned to death.
The other form of control and abuse of women’s sexuality is exploitation, in which women and girls are used for men’s sexual gratification or profit. Women and children are sexually exploited when they are subjected to incest, rape, sexual harassment, battering, bride trafficking, pornography, and prostitution.
In private, all forms of sexual exploitation exist all over the world. The public sexual exploitation of women and children is more varied; in some places it is actively suppressed, while elsewhere it is legalized or regulated.
The repression and exploitation of women and girls’ sexuality often occur simultaneously. For example, in Iran under fundamentalist rule, women’s activities in the public are segregated from men and full body coverings are required. At the same time, fundamentalists worsened sexual exploitation by lowering the age of marriage for girls from 18 to 9, and renewing the practice of temporary marriage, in which a man can marry a woman for as short a period as one hour, allowing a state sanctioned form of prostitution.
Men often use the repression and exploitation of women and girls to represent their political victories and power. For example, with the rise of Islamic fundamentalism, victory over Western influence is measured by the level of repression imposed on women, as happened in Iran and Afghanistan. In other cases, victories over state control and censorship are celebrated by availability of pornography, as happened in the Soviet Union during perestroika, or the United Arab Emirates when the Internet is used to access pornography.
femmeInterrupted
05-20-2013, 09:02 AM
Prostitution and Trafficking for Sexual Exploitation
Prostitution is not the world’s oldest profession, as is commonly said, although it is probably one of the world’s oldest forms of men’s violence against women and girls. It seems old because men’s sexual exploitation of women and children is ancient and defended as a part of men’s natures that they have to have sex, even if it is purchased, forced or with a child. Prostitution is not natural or inevitable; it is abuse and exploitation of women and girls that results from structural inequality between women and men on a world scale. Prostitution commodifies women and girls and markets their bodies for whatever acts men have sexualized and want to buy. Rarely are adult men treated this way.
The majority of girls enter prostitution before they have reached the age of consent. Each year for the past decade, the average age of girls in prostitution has declined, especially in Asia and Africa where men have created a demand for young girls, assuming they are free of HIV. Girls are sold into prostitution by relatives. Pimps recruit them after they run away from home. They enter prostitution after enduring incest, abuse and rape by acquaintances, which accommodates them to violence and exploitation until eventually they think this is their role in life.
Poverty, desperation to support family members, and drug addictions compel women into prostitution. When the social infrastructure collapses as a result of war, famine, and economic crisis women turn to prostitution as a last resort.
No matter how women and girls get into prostitution, it is difficult to get out. Pimps and brothel owners use violence, threats, and addictions to drugs and alcohol to control the woman, sometimes keeping them in slavery-like conditions. Often women can leave prostitution only after they are used-up, become ill, and no longer make money for the pimps. Women in prostitution are further burdened with a stigmatized identity that is impossible to escape, unless their pasts are kept a secret.
There is no dignity in prostitution. Many of the acts of prostitution, including those that are photographed in the making of pornography, are intended to degrade, humiliate and express domination over women. They are acts of misogyny, not respect or affection, and have nothing to do with love or intimacy. Women don’t emerge from sexual exploitation into positions of power, respect or admiration. They remain powerless as individuals and an underclass as a group.
Most laws aimed at suppressing prostitution are based on the sexually repressive doctrines of patriarchal religions that view prostitution as immoral activity, with women being the most immoral participants. In this view, men give in to the temptation offered by immoral women. Men have traditionally condemned prostitution in public, while ensuring its continuation in private. Where prostitution is illegal, it is usually the women who are punished; pimps, traffickers, and men who buy women in prostitution are seldom punished. Being bought, sold and enslaved in prostitution is a condition for which women and children can be arrested, imprisoned, deported, and sometimes executed.
Trafficking is the practice that delivers women and children into sexual exploitation. The number of women trafficked for this purpose is unknown, although conservative estimates put the number in the millions. Women do not voluntarily put themselves in situations where they are exploited, beaten, raped and enslaved. Women do not traffic themselves. Criminals who recruit, buy and sell women and girls are the crucial intermediaries for delivering women into prostitution. Traffickers supply the necessary elements for travel, such as money, documents, and connections in other countries. Traffickers are paid a sum of money for each woman and girl they deliver to a brothel or pimp. They use force, coercion, seduction, deception, and any other techniques that are effective in controlling the women and girls they are trading.
Criminals traffic women and girls within borders, from rural areas to cities, and from town to town on circuits to provide new faces and bodies to men who want variety. They traffic them to large sex industry centers for men’s nightlife entertainment, to migrant labor camps for men’s hometown comfort, and to immigrant communities to provide sex for men who want women from their own nationality. They traffic them to rural areas for farmers who want wives, and to the US, Australia and Western Europe for men who want non-feminist wives.
Global Sexual Exploitation--Supply and Demand Markets
Prostitution and trafficking in women and children are global phenomena. They occur all over the world and the activities are carried out transnationally. There is a global culture of sexual exploitation in which women’s bodies are used to market consumer products and where women and girls themselves are products to be consumed. Currently, the global sex industry is estimated to make US$52 billion dollars a year. To keep the sex industry in business, women are trafficked to, from and through every region in the world. The value of this global trade in women as commodities for sex industries is estimated to be between seven and twelve billion dollars annually.
The global sexual exploitation of women and girls is a supply and demand market. Men create the demand and women are the supply.[1] Cities and countries where men’s demand for women in prostitution is legalized or tolerated are the receiving sites, while countries and areas where traffickers easily recruit women are the sending regions.
Sending countries or regions are characterized by poverty, unemployment, war, and political and economic instability. These conditions facilitate the activity of traffickers who target regions where recruiting victims is easy. In sending countries, such as Vietnam, the rise of consumerism has led families to accept loans for material goods from traffickers in exchange for the of use their daughters. In many parts of Asia, daughters are culturally bound to repay their families for their up bringing, and a daughter in the sex industry is sometimes the main financial support for families in impoverished areas. Women and girls become vulnerable to traffickers as a result of family pressure, poverty, family violence, and community conflicts. Traffickers procure women and girls when their families say, “Go,” or when women say to themselves, “Anything is better than this.”
In receiving countries or sites where men’s demand for women and girls in prostitution exceeds the supply in the local area, women and girls must be recruited and imported. Sex industries use up women, physically and emotionally, necessitating fresh supplies of women, which keeps the trafficking of women so profitable.
Criminals and organized crime groups have always been the organizers and moneymakers of the sex industry. In the United States, they were the founders and controllers of the pornography industry for decades. Sex industries contribute to secondary illegal activity, such as money laundering, which is needed to convert illegal cash into useable funds. The criminal networks that traffic women are fully transnational. Some are composed of a few loosely connected individuals, while others are highly organized crime syndicates, such as the Mafia, the Yakuza, Triads and “Russian” crime groups.
The Internet has become a site for the global sexual exploitation of women and children. In the past five years, sex industries have been the leaders in opening up the Internet for business. The Internet is almost without regulation because its international reach has made local and national laws and standards either obsolete or unenforceable. In addition, governments, such as the United States, decided on a “hands-off” policy to allow the sex industry almost unfettered operation on the Internet. With new types of technology, pornographers have introduced new ways to exploit and abuse women. With the techniques of videoconferencing, live sex shows are broadcast in which men dictate the performances of the women.
In 1999, the revenue from pornography and live sex shows on the Internet was US$1 billion dollars and comprised 69 percent of the Internet content sales. Pornographers in the United States garnered a majority of the money. By the year 2003, these sales are predicted to triple and generate half the revenue of online content sales.
Intense competition on the Internet has led pornographers to attract buyers with more extreme images, such as bondage, torture, bestiality and child pornography, leading to increased violence against women and children as more degrading and violent images, videos and live performances are made and marketed. Last year, an American in Phnom Penh, Cambodia set up a live video chat site to broadcast the pay-per-view rape and torture of women.
The Harm of Sexual Exploitation – From the Individual to the State
Global sexual exploitation is a human rights crisis for women and girls. It is also a crisis for democracy and the security of nations. The harm of sexual exploitation extends from the individual to the state.
The rape-like sex acts of prostitution cause harm to women and girls’ bodies and minds. Women contract sexually transmitted and other infectious diseases, such as tuberculosis. They suffer from post-traumatic stress, depression and anxiety. Under these conditions women make the best choices they can. Rarely do these choices approach true consent. With few options, women comply in hope that eventually they will earn enough money to buy their way out of debt bondage or find a way to escape. When escape is not possible, they use drugs and alcohol to numb themselves from the emotional distress and assaults to their dignity and bodily integrity. Most women and girls emerge from prostitution ill, traumatized, and as poor as when they entered. For increasing numbers of women and girls, prostitution is a death sentence when they contract HIV. In some regions, more than fifty percent of prostituted women have HIV/AIDS.
The sex industry targets and consumes young women, usually under age 25. When a state permits prostitution or trafficking to flourish a certain portion of each generation of young women will be lost. Some might argue that prostitution is the work of women, a way of making a living unique to their gender, but in fact, prostitution is the position the dominant class puts the subordinate class into, in order to use them as they desire. Prostitution creates an underclass of women whose purpose is to sexually serve men. It is a degraded status, everywhere. No form of sexual exploitation leads to the liberation or empowerment of women, or enhances the rights or status of women.
Prostitution and trafficking are extreme forms of gender discrimination and exist as a result of the powerlessness of women as a class. Sexual exploitation is more than an act; it is a systematic way to abuse and control women that socializes and coerces women and girls until they comply, take ownership of their own subordinate status, and say, “I choose this.”
Prostitution and trafficking restrict women’s freedom and citizenship rights. If women are treated as commodities, they are consigned to second-class citizenship. No state can be a true democracy, if half of its citizens can potentially be treated as commodities.
In addition to harming the individual and creating an underclass of women, trafficking and prostitution operate through criminal activity and corruption that threaten the stability and security of nations. Due to relatively low risk and high profits, the trade in women is increasingly replacing the trade in drugs and arms as the preferred activity of transnational criminal networks. When officials are bribed or collaborate, they use their authority to protect criminals and profit from the sexual exploitation of women. As the influence of criminal networks on law enforcement and governments deepens, the corruption goes beyond occasionally ignoring illegal activity to providing protection by blocking legislation that would hinder the activities of the traffickers and pimps. As corruption and collaboration increase, the line between the state and the criminal networks starts to blur. This merging of criminal networks and government has occurred in many of the former Soviet republics, which are the major suppliers of women to the brothels of Europe. Reports from the Netherlands, Germany and Australia, indicate that legalized prostitution does not solve these problems, but leads to increased prostitution, trafficking and organized crime.
Resistance to Sexual Exploitation
If women and girls are to live in this world with dignity and equality, their bodies and emotions must belong to them alone. They cannot be commodities to be bought and sold. The sexual exploitation of women is justified or condemned by so many different perspectives and ideologies it is difficult to get people to see and understand the harm to women, individually and as a class.
There is a double battle to be fought against the abuse and control of women and girls’ sexuality. The first is against the repression of women and girls’ sexuality; the second is against the exploitation of women and girls’ sexuality. In the case of prostitution, the challenge is to end the discrimination for being in prostitution, while at the same time, ending the oppression of being used in prostitution. To do this we need to decriminalize prostitution for women, so the state is no longer punishing women for being exploited and abused. We need services that assist victims who are suffering from trauma, poor health, and physical injuries. States need to provide assistance to women and girls in the form of shelters, hotlines and advocates.
At the same time, we have to oppose the legalization and regulation of prostitution and trafficking, which allow women to be exploited and abused under state determined conditions, and the decriminalization of pimping, trafficking and buying women in prostitution. We must focus more attention on the legitimacy of the demand by men to sexually exploit women and girls. We have to hold the criminals and perpetrators accountable for the harm they do.
In addition to ending the harm to women and girls, successful opposition to sexual exploitation offers countries of the world a breakthrough for global justice and democracy. Successful prosecutions of individuals and criminal networks that traffic and pimp women will eliminate a signification portion of transnational organized crime and corruption that are destabilizing governments all over the world.
[1] This dynamic is the case for heterosexual prostitution. Exceptions are gay prostitution, men’s sexual abuse of boys, the occasional sexual abuse of children by women and the almost non-existent prostitution of men by women.
femmeInterrupted
05-23-2013, 02:27 PM
Or..."What's Wrong with this Picture?"
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/23/abortion-bill-house-men_n_3325864.html
An all-male panel of House lawmakers considered a bill on Thursday that would ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy across the United States, without exceptions for rape, incest or health of the mother.
The House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, led by the bill's sponsor, Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.), has no female members.
A photo of the all-male cast:
http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1153637/original.jpg
Franks said that he hopes President Barack Obama will stand up for fetuses in the same way he stands up for the nation's poor and sick. "He is their president and they need him so badly," Franks said.
Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) fired back, "I hope, as my colleagues express such concern for fetuses today, that they will also show concern for women's health."
femmeInterrupted
05-29-2013, 02:07 PM
http://media-cache-is0.pinimg.com/736x/88/c9/50/88c950873fa906c90740f1aa0c89fdf0.jpg
"Just more proof that the anti-abortion movement has nothing to do with being pro-life and everything to do with punishing women."
Absolutely. Nothing "pro-life" about the deep misogyny and shame based 'morality' inherent in assuming a position like the one above.
http://media-cache-ec4.pinimg.com/550x/84/22/e3/8422e3476c2c25042434364b0c465b7b.jpg
femmeInterrupted
06-05-2013, 03:15 PM
http://www.scienceandsensibility.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/breastfeeding-baby.jpg
It’s Finally on the Radar and It Affects Breastfeeding
http://www.scienceandsensibility.org/?p=6821
Allison W
06-05-2013, 05:09 PM
It’s Finally on the Radar and It Affects Breastfeeding
http://www.scienceandsensibility.org/?p=6821
That link isn't going anywhere for me. Just a heads-up.
femmeInterrupted
06-05-2013, 05:39 PM
That link isn't going anywhere for me. Just a heads-up.
i *think* the Science & Sensibility site is down...i can't link to it either from any source. Thanks for the heads up Allison :)
DALLAS (AP) — Susan G. Komen for the Cure is canceling half of its 3-day charity races next year because of a drop in participation levels, a spokeswoman for the Dallas-based breast cancer organization said Wednesday.
The announcement comes about a year and a half after Komen experienced intense backlash after news became public of its decision to stop giving grants to Planned Parenthood for breast screenings. The funding was restored days later, though it didn't quell the controversy.
Komen said its 3-day races will not return next year to Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Phoenix, San Francisco, Tampa Bay and Washington D.C. Seven other races will still be held next year in Atlanta, the Dallas-Fort Worth area, Michigan, Philadelphia, San Diego, Seattle and in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area.
Participation in the 3-day events has declined 37 percent over the last four years, according to the group. Participants must raise at least $2,300 to walk 60 miles over three days, and due to the amount of money that must be raised, 60 percent of participants only take part in the event once, Komen spokeswoman Andrea Rader said.
Rader said the decline came in the wake of the economic downturn, but noted that the drop was "a little more dramatic" last year following the Planned Parenthood controversy in late January. She declined to give specific figures for each year, but said other contributing factors for the last year were the economy and competition from other events.
She said the "vast majority" of people have moved on from the controversy.
"There are some folks who will never be back and we know that, and we hope that they will support breast cancer charities because the work's important," she said.
Komen said no other events are being cut back. Among them are about 140 Races for the Cure events each year.
Rader said that while last year, as a "general rule," the organization saw a participation dip in Race for the Cure events, it noticed more people started coming back toward the end of the year.
http://news.yahoo.com/komen-cuts-half-3-day-races-cites-low-165421673.html
peachy
06-06-2013, 03:06 AM
http://www.scienceandsensibility.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/breastfeeding-baby.jpg
It’s Finally on the Radar and It Affects Breastfeeding
http://www.scienceandsensibility.org/?p=6821
Modern Western childbirth methods makes for a dreadful experience for too many women and babies. The repercussions can seriously affect a baby's physical and psychological health for decades. I would love to see radical changes in this area. Thanks for highlighting.
pxo
NEW YORK (AP) — The federal government on Monday told a judge it will reverse course and take steps to comply with his order to allow girls of any age to buy emergency contraception without prescriptions.
The decision ends a years-long fight between President Barack Obama's administration, which had argued that age limits for the morning-after pill are common sense, and women's rights groups, which insisted the drug should be made as freely available as aspirin.
The Department of Justice, in the latest development in the complex back-and-forth over access to the drug, notified U.S. District Judge Edward Korman it will submit a plan for compliance. If he approves it, the department will drop its appeal of his April ruling.
According to the department's letter to the judge, the Food and Drug Administration has told the maker of the pills to submit a new drug application with proposed labeling that would permit it to be sold "without a prescription and without age or point-of-sale prescriptions." The FDA said that once it receives the application it "intends to approve it promptly."
Last week, an appeals court dealt the government a setback by saying it would immediately permit unrestricted sales of the two-pill version of the emergency contraception until the appeal was decided. That order was met with praise from advocates for girls' and women's rights and with scorn from social conservatives and other opponents, who argue the drug's availability takes away the rights of parents of girls who could get it without their permission.
Advocates for girls' and women's rights said Monday the federal government's decision to comply with the judge's ruling could be a move forward for "reproductive justice" if the FDA acts quickly and puts emergency contraception over the counter without restriction.
Annie Tummino, lead plaintiff in a lawsuit over unrestricted access to the morning-after pill and coordinator of the National Women's Liberation, said women and girls should have "the absolute right to control our bodies without having to ask a doctor or a pharmacist for permission."
"It's about time that the administration stopped opposing women having access to safe and effective birth control," she said in an emailed statement.
Planned Parenthood Federation of America president Cecile Richards, in a statement, called the government's decision to drop the appeal "a huge breakthrough for access to birth control and a historic moment for women's health and equity."
But opponents of easy access to the morning-after pill, such as the anti-abortion Family Research Council, criticized the government for not sticking with its decision to appeal.
"We're very concerned and disappointed at the same time because what we see here is the government caving to political pressure instead of putting first the health and safety of girls (and) parental rights," said Anna Higgins, director of the council's Center for Human Dignity.
The government had appealed the judge's underlying April 5 ruling, which ordered emergency contraceptives based on the hormone levonorgestrel be made available without a prescription, over the counter and without point-of-sale or age restrictions.
It had asked the judge to suspend the effect of that ruling until the appeals court could decide the case. But the judge declined, saying the government's decision to restrict sales of the morning-after pill was "politically motivated, scientifically unjustified and contrary to agency precedent." He also said there was no basis to deny the request to make the drugs widely available.
The government had argued that "substantial market confusion" could result if the judge's ruling were enforced while appeals were pending, only to be later overturned.
The morning-after pill contains a higher dose of the female hormone progestin than is in regular birth control pills. Taking it within 72 hours of rape, condom failure or just forgetting regular contraception can cut the chances of pregnancy by up to 89 percent, but it works best within the first 24 hours. If a girl or woman already is pregnant, the pill, which prevents ovulation or fertilization of an egg, has no effect.
The FDA was preparing in 2011 to allow over-the-counter sales of the morning-after pill with no limits when Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius overruled her own scientists in an unprecedented move.
The FDA announced in late April that Plan B One-Step, the newer version of emergency contraception, the same drug but combined into one pill instead of two, could be sold without a prescription to those age 15 or older. Its maker, Teva Women's Health, plans to begin those sales soon. Sales had previously been limited to those who were at least 17.
The judge later ridiculed the FDA changes, saying they established "nonsensical rules" that favored sales of the Plan B One-Step morning-after pill and were made "to sugarcoat" the government's appeal.
He also said they placed a disproportionate burden on blacks and the poor by requiring a prescription for less expensive generic versions of the drug bought by those under age 17 and by requiring those age 17 or over to show proof-of-age identification at pharmacies. He cited studies showing that blacks with low incomes are less likely than other people to have government-issued IDs.
The decision marks a sharp reversal for Obama and his administration. His previous decision to appeal set off a storm of criticism from girls' and women's rights groups, who denounced it as politically motivated and a step backward for their health. Abortion rights advocates who had counted Obama as among their supporters angrily questioned why a Democratic president had sided with social conservatives in favor of limiting women's health care choices.
Reluctant to get drawn into a messy second-term spat over social issues, White House officials have argued that the FDA and the Department of Justice were acting independently of the White House in deciding how to proceed. That approach continued Monday, with the White House referring all questions about the decision to Health and Human Services.
Still, Obama has made clear in the past that he feels strongly about the limits, and he said in 2011 he supported Sebelius' decision to impose them despite the advice of her scientists.
"As the father of two daughters, I think it is important for us to make sure that we apply some common sense to various rules when it comes to over-the-counter medicine," Obama said then.
http://news.yahoo.com/feds-girls-morning-pill-access-025550538.html
Allison W
06-11-2013, 01:06 AM
The DoJ stops fighting the morning-after pill
About fucking time. What the hell was Obama thinking in the first place, here?
A controversial abortion ban passes a House committee, while a Republican raises eyebrows with a startling comment about rape.
Republicans on Wednesday handed Democrats more ammunition to declare that the GOP's War on Women, a focal point in last year's elections, is back.
The Republican-controlled House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday approved a bill by a 20-12 vote that would outlaw all abortions — including those resulting from rape and incest — after 20 weeks. The current federal and Supreme Court-mandated threshold is 24 weeks.
Even before the bill's passage, Democrats were outraged over comments made by Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.), the bill's author. Franks defended the decision to exclude exceptions for rape by saying, "The incidence of rape resulting in pregnancy are very low."
To some, the remark echoed the "legitimate rape" comment made by failed Senate candidate Todd Akin (R-Mo.) last year. Akin's claim that women's bodies could magically detect "legitimate rape" and had a way of "shutting that whole thing down" to prevent pregnancy likely cost Republicans an easy Senate seat. It also spurred a Democratic campaign accusing Republicans of outright hostility toward women's interests.
Democrats on Wednesday immediately seized on Franks' comment.
"The idea that the Republican men on this committee think they can tell the women of America they have to carry to term the product of a rape is outrageous," said Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.)
Unlike Akin, however, Franks may have managed to steer clear of crazy town.
"Simply stating that the number of abortions in the case of rape is low (in relation to the total number of abortions) is not the same thing as Todd Akin's crazy, unscientific claim that women can't get pregnant from 'legitimate rape,'" The Weekly Standard's John McCormack wrote.
New York Magazine's liberal columnist Jonathan Chait agreed, noting that Franks did not say the "rate" of rape-induced pregnancy was low, but rather that the number of actual pregnancies as a result of rape are. Plus, he said, Franks "was not relying on pseudoscientific nuttery about the lady-parts shutting down pregnancy in the case of rape."
Franks may have a statistical case to support his comment, too. According to the Rape Abuse & Incest National Network, the pregnancy rate from rape is roughly five percent.
Still, Franks' remarks came off as tone deaf, especially since they followed other questionable comments about women that Republican lawmakers and pundits have made over the past few months.
As Congress debated how to handle the military's sexual assault epidemic, Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) suggested the problem was an unavoidable result of "the hormone level created by nature." Former Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.) went further, accusing women of bringing the problem on themselves by joining the military in the first place.
And last month, following a Pew Research report that found women were the sole or primary source of income in 40 percent of American households, Red State's Erick Erickson said that men were the "dominant" sex, and that women should accept their "complementary" role in society. After receiving plenty of scathing responses, Erickson needled his opponents even more, saying "feminist and emo lefties have their panties in a wad."
It's no surprise that Democrats are quietly stockpiling all those remarks, part of a new offensive against the GOP. The Republican Party may not want a War on Women, but Democrats will make sure they get one.
http://theweek.com/article/index/245534/the-war-on-women-is-back
http://d1o2xrel38nv1n.cloudfront.net/files/2013/06/2013_06_GunsVsAbortion.png
http://www.syrlinus.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/2012-election-slavery.jpg
US Supreme Court has agreed to consider a challenge to the Massachusetts abortion clinic buffer zone law.
The Supreme Court issued an order today granting a writ of certiorari to the petitioners, who are objecting to the law that keeps abortion protesters a set distance away from abortion clinics.
The high court’s action comes after a federal appeals court in January upheld the law, saying it protected the rights of patients while, at the same time, allowing others to express their opinions.
The US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit said in its ruling, “Few subjects have proven more controversial in modern times than the issue of abortion. ... The nation is sharply divided about the morality of the practice and its place in a caring society. But the right of the state to take reasonable steps to ensure the safe passage of persons wishing to enter health care facilities cannot seriously be questioned.
“The Massachusetts statute at issue here is a content-neutral, narrowly tailored time-place-manner regulation that protects the rights of prospective patients and clinic employees without offending the First Amendment rights of others,” said the opinion, written by Judge Bruce M. Selya, who heard the case, along with two other judges.
The appeals court ruling affirmed a decision by US District Judge Joseph L. Tauro in February 2012.
The law creates a 35-foot fixed buffer zone around the driveways and entrances of clinics. The lawsuit, Eleanor McCullen et al v. Martha Coakley et al, was brought by seven people who say they regularly engaged in antiabortion counseling outside the three clinics.
The challenge to the law was the latest in a series. “This case does not come to us as a stranger,” the appeals court said, leading off its decision.
The court twice upheld an earlier version of the law, in 2001 and 2004. After the Legislature revised the law in 2007, the appeals court upheld it again in 2009. More challenges were launched in Tauro’s court. Tauro rejected them, but the plaintiffs appealed.
Massachusetts began moving toward a buffer zone law after the slayings of two clinic workers in Brookline in 1994 shocked the nation. John C. Salvi III, a 22-year-old abortion opponent, shot two clinic workers to death and wounded several others. Salvi later committed suicide in prison while serving two life sentences.
http://www.boston.com/metrodesk/2013/06/24/supreme-court-agrees-hear-challenge-mass-abortion-clinic-buffer-zone-law/qVp1ohnOIzgjroYmbEWnzJ/story.html
AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - The Republican-controlled Texas House of Representatives approved on Monday sweeping restrictions on abortions, including a ban on most after 20 weeks of pregnancy and stricter standards for abortion clinics.
If the bill becomes law, Texas could become the 13th state to pass a 20-week ban and would have some of the toughest abortion restrictions in the country.
Supporters says the bill is needed to protect women's health and to keep fetuses from feeling pain. Opponents say it will cause nearly all the state's abortion clinics to close or be completely rebuilt.
"Sadly, too often today the back-alley abortion is the abortion clinic because the standards for providers and the facilities are too lax or substandard," the measure's House sponsor, Representative Jodie Laubenberg, told colleagues early Monday. "This bill will assure that women are given the highest standard of healthcare."
State Representative Senfronia Thompson, a Democrat, waved a coat hanger on the floor of the House, warning that such objects would be used to perform abortions if the measure became law.
"There are going to be more people ending up in the hospital DOA (dead on arrival) for trying to do the abortions themselves," Thompson said during the debate.
The vote was 95-34, mostly along party lines. The House gave the measure preliminary approval earlier on Monday by a vote of 97-33. The measure now returns to the Senate, which has passed a version of the bill that does not include a 20-week ban.
Republicans are racing to send the measure to Governor Rick Perry, who supports restricting abortion, before the current special legislative session ends on Tuesday.
The U.S. Supreme Court legalized abortion nationwide in 1973, but conservative states have enacted laws in recent years that seek to place restrictions on the procedure, especially on abortions performed late in pregnancy.
Twelve states have passed 20-week bans, including two states where the bans take effect later this year, according to the Center for Reproductive Rights. Courts have blocked the bans in three of the 12 states - Arizona, Georgia and Idaho.
Earlier this month, the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill banning abortions 20 weeks after fertilization. The measure is extremely unlikely to become law because Democrats control the U.S. Senate and the White House.
Similar to the federal measure, the 20-week provision of the Texas proposal is based on controversial medical research that suggests a fetus starts to feel pain at that point.
The Texas proposal would allow exemptions for abortions to save a woman's life and in cases of severe fetal abnormalities.
Thompson unsuccessfully proposed an exemption for victims of rape and incest.
Planned Parenthood said the stricter requirements for abortion facilities would reduce the number of clinics in Texas to five from the present 42.
http://news.yahoo.com/texas-house-representatives-passes-sweeping-abortion-restrictions-150751075.html
Texas senator Wendy Davis filibusters against abortion bill (http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57590966/texas-senator-wendy-davis-filibusters-against-abortion-bill/)
AUSTIN, TEXAS Wearing pink tennis shoes to prepare for nearly 13 consecutive hours of standing, a Democratic Texas state senator on Tuesday began a one-woman filibuster to block a GOP-led effort that would impose stringent new abortion restrictions across the nation's second-most populous state.
Sen. Wendy Davis, 50, of Fort Worth began the filibuster at 11:18 a.m. CDT Tuesday and passed the nine-hour mark in her countdown to midnight -- the deadline for the end of the 30-day special session.
Before Davis began speaking, her chair was removed. CBSDFW.com reports that Davis must speak continuously -- and stay on topic -- the entire time. She is not allowed to lean against something for support. And she will not be able to stop or take a break, not even for meals or the restroom, during the entire 13-hour ordeal.
Davis offered some insight to her plans Monday night on Twitter:
If signed into law, the measures would close almost every abortion clinic in Texas, a state 773 miles wide and 790 miles long with 26 million people. A woman living along the Mexico border or in West Texas would have to drive hundreds of miles to obtain an abortion if the law passes.
In her opening remarks, Davis said she was "rising on the floor today to humbly give voice to thousands of Texans" and called Republican efforts to pass the bill a "raw abuse of power."
Democrats chose Davis to lead the effort because of her background as a woman who had her first child as a teenager and went on to graduate from Harvard Law School.
In the hallway outside the Senate chamber, hundreds of women stood in line, waiting for people in the gallery to give up their seats. Women's rights supporters wore orange T-shirts to show their support for Davis, and Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst reminded those in the gallery that interrupting the proceedings could results in 48 hours in jail.
Davis tried to stay comfortable and sharp by shifting her weight from hip to hip and slowly walking around her desk while reading notes from a large binder on her desk. When a male protester stood in the Senate gallery and shouted, "Abortion is genocide," Davis continued talking uninterrupted as the man was removed by security.
Sen. Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth, speaks as she begins a filibuster in an effort to kill an abortion bill, June 25, 2013, in Austin, Texas. / AP PHOTO/ERIC GAY
If the filibuster succeeds, it could also take down other measures. A proposal to fund major transportation projects as well as a bill to have Texas more closely conform with a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision banning mandatory sentences of life in prison without parole for offenders younger than 18 might not get votes. Current state law only allows a life sentence without parole for 17-year-olds convicted of capital murder.
Twice in the first six hours, anti-abortion lawmakers questioned Davis about the bill, presenting their arguments that it would protect women or that abortions were wrong. Davis answered their questions but did not give up control of the floor.
"This is really about women's health," said Sen. Bob Deuell, who introduced a requirement that all abortions take place in surgical centers. "Sometimes bad things can happen."
Davis questioned then why vasectomies and colonoscopies aren't also required to take place in such clinics. "Because I've been unable to have a simple question answered to help me understand how this would lead to better care for women, I must question the underlying motive for doing so."
Davis read testimony from women and doctors who would be impacted by the changes, but who were denied the opportunity to speak in a Republican-controlled committee. During one heart-wrenching story describing a woman's difficult pregnancy, Davis choked up several times and wiped tears.
The bill would ban abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy and force many clinics that perform the procedure to upgrade their facilities and be classified as ambulatory surgical centers. Also, doctors would be required to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles -- a tall order in rural communities.
"If this passes, abortion would be virtually banned in the state of Texas, and many women could be forced to resort to dangerous and unsafe measures," said Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Action Fund and daughter of the late former Texas governor Ann Richards.
CBS News correspondent Manuel Bojorquez reports many clinics would be forced to shut down because they wouldn't be able to afford the changes required by the law. Amy Hagstrom Miller, CEO of Whole Woman's Health, said it would cost up to $2 million for each of her clinics to be upgraded to hospital-style operating rooms.
"I'd have to knock down the wall between this room and another room, I'd have to add airflow systems, I'd have to get oxygen piped in through walls instead of tank in here," she explained in one of her centers.
Sen. Dan Patrick, R-Houston, said the Democrats never should have been allowed to put Republicans "in a box" and complained that many in the Senate GOP were "flying by the seat of their pants."
But the bill's bogging down began with Republican Gov. Rick Perry, who summoned lawmakers back to work immediately after the regular legislative session ended May 27 but didn't add abortion to the special session to-do list until late in the process. The Legislature can only take up issues at the governor's direction.
Then, House Democrats succeeded in stalling nearly all night Sunday, keeping the bill from reaching the Senate until 11 a.m. Monday.
Debate in that chamber included lawmakers waving coat-hangers on the floor and claiming the new rules are so draconian that women are going to be forced to head to Mexico to have abortions.
At one point, the bill's sponsor, Republican Rep. Jodie Laubenberg of Spring, errantly suggested that emergency room rape kits could be used to terminate pregnancies.
=================
Texas Senator Wendy Davis is standing on the Senate floor RIGHT NOW filibustering conservative attempts to pass some of the most restrictive abortion laws in the country.
Tell Wendy you stand with her in fighting for women's health care and reproductive rights - now and in the months to come. We will send her your messages of support. (https://secure3.convio.net/pn/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=3883)
Sen. Wendy Davis Filibuster Live Stream: Watch The Texas Senator Try To Defeat Abortion Bill (http://www.ibtimes.com/sen-wendy-davis-filibuster-live-stream-watch-texas-senator-try-defeat-abortion-bill-1322501)
2Q8Hr0O20LY
The news is reporting Wendy Davis didn't make thru all the hoops Texas required for her filibuster to hold off voting on the abortion bill.
But, now there is controversy as to when the vote was actually taken. The official record originally had the vote taken after midnight. It was then changed to before midnight.
http://news.yahoo.com/dispute-texas-over-restrictive-abortion-bill-070453921.html
DapperButch
06-26-2013, 05:43 AM
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/26/texas-abortion-bill_n_3501005.html?icid=maing-grid7%7Chtmlws-main-bb%7Cdl1%7Csec1_lnk3%26pLid%3D336067
Yee Haw! :fastdraq:
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Gov. Rick Perry on Wednesday called a second special session of the Texas Legislature to pass widespread abortion restrictions across the nation's second-largest state, after the first attempt by Republicans died overnight following a marathon one-woman filibuster.
Perry ordered lawmakers to meet again on July 1 to act on the abortion proposals, as well as separate bills that would boost highway funding and deal with a juvenile justice issue. The sweeping abortion rules would close nearly all the state's abortion clinics and impose other widespread restrictions.
Perry can call as many 30-day extra sessions as he likes, but lawmakers can only take up those issues he assigns.
The debate over abortion restrictions led to the most chaotic day in the Texas Legislature in modern history, starting with a marathon filibuster and ending with a down-to-the wire, frenetic vote marked by questions about whether Republicans tried to break chamber rules and jam the measure through.
Democrats put their hopes of thwarting the bill in the hands of Wendy Davis, a state senator clad in pink running shoes, for a daylong attempt to talk the bill to death. Over the duration of the speech, Davis became a social media star, even becoming the subject of a tweet from President Obama for her efforts.
But just before midnight, Republicans claimed she strayed off topic and got help with a back brace — two things that are against filibuster rules — and cut her off.
That cleared the way for a vote.
But when Republican Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst shouted into the microphone, trying to call the final votes, nobody seemed to hear him. Some 400 supporters jammed into the gallery had taken their feet with a deafening roar, drowning out his voice. It was, as some claimed, a "people's filibuster" — an attempt by protesters to finish what Davis had started more than 11 hours earlier.
"Get them out!" Republican Sen. Donna Campbell shouted to a security guard. "... I want them out of here!"
As the crowd clapped and shouted "shame, shame, shame," Dewhurst gathered Republican lawmakers around Secretary of the Senate Patsy Spaw to register their votes. Democrats ran forward, holding up their cellphones, which showed it was past midnight.
But Dewhurst and other Republicans insisted the first vote was cast before midnight by the Legislature's clock and that the bill had passed.
By the time decorum was restored and the 19-10 vote in favor of the measure was recorded, the clock read 12:03 a.m. Confusion took over: The Republicans had passed the bill, but did it count? Were the votes tallied in time?
Reporters checked the Senate's official website and saw the vote registered on Wednesday, after the deadline. But a short time later, the website was updated to show the vote on Tuesday. Sen. Chuy Hinojosa produced two official printouts of the vote, each showing a different day for the same vote.
After protests from angry Democrats, senators met privately with Dewhurst for more than an hour. Eventually, he returned to the then-empty Senate chamber and declared that while the bill had passed, he didn't have time to sign it, so it wasn't approved. In return for declaring the measure dead, Democrats promised not to question the date of the vote any further.
While altering a public record is illegal, stopping the clock to allow for a vote or changing the journal before it is published are long traditions in the Texas Legislature and unlikely to lead to a prosecution.
The bill would have banned abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy and forced many clinics that perform the procedure to upgrade their facilities and be classified as ambulatory surgical centers. Also, doctors would be required to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles — a tall order in rural communities.
The law's provision that abortions be performed at surgical centers means only five of Texas' 42 abortion clinics would remain in operation in a state 773 miles wide and 790 miles long with 26 million people. A woman living along the Mexico border or in West Texas would have to drive hundreds of miles to obtain an abortion.
Conservatives and anti-abortion campaigners joined Dewhurst in condemning the "unruly mob" for violating the Senate's decorum by screaming obscenities at Republican backers of the bill.
Texas Democrats, though, see an opportunity to capitalize just months after setting up a grassroots organization called "Battleground Texas" with a $36 million cash infusion. And they circled around Davis — the teen mom turned Harvard Law School grad whose Twitter followers rocketed from 1,200 to 83,000 in just 24 hours.
"As Sen. Wendy Davis most powerfully emphasized, Democrats are not afraid of a fight," said Gilberto Hinojosa, Texas Democratic Party chairman. "Last night was a turning point in that story of Texas."
http://news.yahoo.com/texas-gov-calls-2nd-special-session-abortion-211507600.html
Greyson
06-26-2013, 08:29 PM
IMO, she is an outstanding example of an elected official. The Republicans say "grandstanding." I say intelligent woman with conviction. Side note, I just saw the National Planned Parenthood president, Cecila Richards on Rachel Maddow's news broadcast. Ms. Richards is the daughter of the late Governor Ann Richards. Ann Richards another extraordinary woman and leader.
__________________________________________________ _________
Texas. State Sen. Wendy Davis is all the rage in the Democratic party for her fights over abortion rights and education funding. Republicans aren't so sold on her grandstanding.
CONFLICT WITH REPUBLICANS
Tuesday's filibuster was not Davis' first. In 2011, she led a shorter filibuster that prevented the Texas state legislature from passing a budget that removed $4 billion from public schools.
Davis' 2011 filibuster drew the ire of Texas Republicans, who were forced to meet for a special session. She was dropped from the Texas Senate Committee on Education by Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst (R) following the filibuster. Gov. Rick Perry called Davis a "show horse" after the incident.
Davis became the 12th Democratic member of the Texas State Senate in 2008. That electoral victory and her re-election in 2012 prevented Senate Republicans from establishing a filibuster-proof majority.
In 2011, Republicans engineered a redistricting plan that attempted to shift Davis into a more conservative district. After a battle in federal courts, attorneys for the state announced in late May that they would drop their effort to redraw Davis' district's boundaries, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported.
HARDSCRABBLE BEGINNINGS
Davis was raised by a single mother with a sixth-grade education and began working at the age of 14 to support her mother and three siblings.
She worked at an Orange Julius and sold subscriptions to the Star-Telegram, according to the New York Times.
Living in a trailer park at the age of 19, Davis was already a divorced single mother. Despite her predicament, she went on to complete high school, junior college and an undergraduate degree at Texas Christian University, where she graduated first in her class.
Davis was the first person in her family to graduate from college. She went on to receive her law degree from Harvard. She then remarried and had a second daughter. Davis divorced again in 2003.
Read More:
http://news.msn.com/us/who-is-texas-state-sen-wendy-davis
KANSAS CITY (Reuters) - A Kansas judge on Friday issued a temporary injunction on two parts of the state's new anti-abortion law, while upholding the majority of far-reaching measure that goes into effect Monday.
Shawnee County District Judge Rebecca Crotty struck down a part of the law that forbids a waiver of the required 24-hour waiting period to be granted based on the woman's mental health.
Crotty also struck down a part of the law requiring abortion providers on their websites to vouch for the accuracy and independence of the state's health department material on abortions.
Crotty ruled that forcing abortion providers to attest to material would be an infringement on free speech.
Kansas is one of a handful of states, primarily in the country's south and midsection, to have passed or enacted laws restricting abortion recently. Some of the measures appeared designed to stand as challenges to Roe v. Wade, the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision that made abortion legal.
Crotty refused to issue an injunction on the rest of the measure, which was signed into law by Republican Governor Sam Brownback in April.
The law defines life as beginning at fertilization, blocks tax credits for abortion services, bars employees of abortion clinics from providing sex education in schools and bans abortions based solely on the gender of the fetus.
Crotty's injunction will stay in effect, pending future hearings, said Teresa Woody, the lawyer for doctors Herbert Hodes and Traci Nauser, who brought the lawsuit.
Kansas is one of seven states to have laws that say life begins at fertilization, according to the anti-abortion Guttmacher Institute, which researches abortion-related laws nationwide.
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/kansas-judge-blocks-portions-states-abortion-law-040248614.html
Nearly every single House Republican voted last week to increase government spending and push the nation further into debt — all to limit abortion access for some women.
The official budget scorekeeper of Congress says the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, which would ban abortions after 20 weeks, would increase Medicaid costs by as much as $400 million.
The bill from Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.), received a lot of media attention and angered some House Republicans, who had no idea why the party was voting on abortion restrictions when it is trying to make inroads with female voters. Six Democrats joined 222 House Republicans to pass the bill.
The Congressional Budget Office, which judges the budgetary impact of all legislation, says “Depending on the number of additional births under H.R. 1797, such Medicaid costs could range from about $75 million over the next 10 years to more than $400 million over that period.”
CBO officially estimates that the bill increases federal deficits by $75 million between 2014 and 2018, and $225 million between 2014 and 2023.
CBO’s cost estimate is based on this: “about three-quarters of the abortions that would occur 20 weeks or more after fertilization under current law would instead occur earlier, and the remaining one-quarter would not occur so those pregnancies would be taken to term.
“Because the costs of about 40 percent of all births are paid for by the Medicaid program, CBO estimates that federal spending for Medicaid will rise to the extent that enacting H.R. 1797 results in additional births and deliveries relative to current law,” CBO added. “In addition, some of those children would themselves qualify for Medicaid and possibly for other federal programs as well.”
Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/06/abortion-bill-deficit-93574.html#ixzz2XisCbthj
---------------------------------
Another of those "huh?" moments.
Ohio has three new abortion-restricting laws on the books now that Governor John Kasich has signed the new state budget without vetoing any of the abortion measures attached to it.
Kaisich also continued the trend of keeping the visuals of abortion legislation 100 percent men.
Keep in mind that there are actually two big anti-abortion legislative efforts going on in Ohio this month. HB 200, the bill that will, among other things, require doctors to give patients disputed scientific "facts" about abortion, is still making its way through the state's legislature. The budget measures signed today pertain to funding provided to family planning services (effectively prioritizing anti-abortion pregnancy centers over Planned Parenthood for federal funding), and bans surgical facilities that perform abortions from partnering with public hospitals for transfer agreements. The Cleveland Plain Dealer explains the practical effects of the latter:
Surgical facilities in the state are required to have a transfer agreements with a hospital, Ribbins said, adding that barring Planned Parenthood from drafting agreements with public hospitals would force the health care provider to seek agreements with private hospitals, which are often affiliated with religious groups that oppose abortion."
A last-minute provision added to the bill will require doctors to listen for, and if detected, inform patients of, a "fetal heartbeat." The bill doesn't specify the method used to detect the heartbeat, but this could possibly mean that doctors will perform external ultrasounds.
The new measures could cause the closure of some clinics and family planning centers that provide abortions. At the very least, they'll make it a lot harder for women in the state to receive any of the services offered by those providers.
While the three abortion measures in the budget went untouched, the governor did veto 22 measures from the budget, including provisions pertaining to Medicaid, the sales tax, and Spider Monkeys.
http://news.yahoo.com/meet-ohios-three-anti-abortion-laws-030520731.html
Reuters) - Stricter rules for abortion clinics were approved by the North Carolina Senate on Wednesday, adding that state to the ranks of a growing number nationwide seeking to tighten regulations.
The bill passed the Republican-majority state Senate on Wednesday on a vote of 29-12. Supporters maintain the bill is designed to protect the safety of women who seek an abortion, while opponents argue it could shut down all but one of the state's clinics.
The package of anti-abortion amendments was attached to an unrelated bill that would ban sharia, Islamic law in the state.
The amendments would require abortion clinics in the state to meet the same safety standards as ambulatory surgery centers, limit healthcare coverage for abortion and that a doctor be present when women take the RU-486 pill to induce abortion.
The move comes as lawmakers in Texas and Ohio have pushed hard for abortion limits in the past week, angering supporters of abortion rights. The tightened standards for abortion clinics are being considered in five states, and are already on the books in nine more, according to abortion rights advocates.
"A fuse has been lit that is burning across this country. Women have been shut down, shut out and told to shut up, but we demand to be heard," said Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Action Fund. "These attacks on women's health are dangerous and deeply unpopular, and that's why politicians are trying to sneak them in with special sessions, midnight votes, hearings without witnesses and other underhanded tactics."
The North Carolina House of Representatives has already passed the sharia bill without the last-minute abortion provisions, which were added by state senators without public notice in a late-day committee hearing and put to a preliminary vote on the Senate floor in Raleigh on Tuesday night.
The bill now goes back to the House for approval of the changes. If the bill is not approved, it may be sent to a conference committee to decide whether the abortion restrictions stay in the bill before it goes to the governor.
The hasty action was decried not only by supporters of abortion rights, but by the state's Republican governor.
The nine states that require abortion clinics to meet the same safety standards as ambulatory surgery centers for all abortions are Alabama, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Virginia, according to the National Abortion Rights Action League.
Twenty-five states have passed less stringent variations of those laws, NARAL said, including some that require later-term abortions to be performed in a hospital.
RALEIGH, North Carolina (Reuters) - North Carolina's "Moral Monday" protesters, now in their tenth week, objected to a bill that could limit abortion access - the latest move to counter a conservative shift by the state's first Republican-led government in more than a century.
The rally at the state capitol in Raleigh on Monday night was one of the largest since the protests began this spring, drawing about 2,000 people, including 64 protesters who refused to leave the legislative chambers and were arrested.
The protests have gained momentum since a few dozen people first rallied against the political shift to the right in a state that Barack Obama won in the 2008 presidential election but lost in 2012. Some 700 people have been arrested in acts of civil disobedience over issues ranging from natural gas drilling to school vouchers to voting rights.
Republican legislators have largely stayed mum in the midst of the protests, though some state officials have grumbled about the cost of the arrests and the impact on the state.
"I'm fielding calls every day, ‘What the heck's going on (over) there?'" the state's Commerce Secretary Sharon Decker told a crowd of reporters Monday. "The current environment makes it very challenging to market North Carolina."
This week, the protest zeroed in on a bill passed last week by the North Carolina state Senate requiring abortion clinics to conform to the same safety standards as ambulatory surgery centers, a regulation currently met by only one of the state's five clinics.
Opponents say it will limit access to safe abortions. Supporters of the measure say the higher standards will make abortion safer.
Governor Pat McCrory, a Republican, criticized senators for pushing the regulations through without a public hearing.
The state House of Representatives has scheduled a public hearing on the proposed regulations for Tuesday.
The bill makes North Carolina the latest state to consider abortion restrictions. The issue has dominated politics in Texas in recent days, after Democratic state Senator Wendy Davis spent 11 hours on the senate floor in an effort to stall the measure.
On Monday, a U.S. federal judge temporarily blocked a part of a new Wisconsin law, signed on Friday by Republican Governor Scott Walker, that opponents say will close two of the four abortion clinics in the state if enforced.
Cecil Bothwell, a city councilman from Asheville, North Carolina, made the four-hour bus ride to Raleigh with about 100 of his constituents. He said state lawmakers want to have it both ways when it comes to the state's role in health care.
"It amazes me that they claim they don't want government intervening in health care issues, yet they want to tell women what to do with their bodies," Bothwell said.
Melissa Reed, a vice president of Planned Parenthood Health Systems, brought a petition with 10,000 signatures opposing the measure.
Like many at Monday's protest, Tanya Glover, 34, who lives in Harnett County, a rural area outside of Raleigh, wore pink.
As she lined up with her father to be arrested, she said the legislature's lean education budget will slash services for her special needs child.
"This state has gone to hell and it's hurting my family," said Glover.
CHICAGO (Reuters) - A parent must be notified 48 hours before a girl under the age of 18 gets an abortion in Illinois, the state Supreme Court ruled on Thursday, culminating nearly two decades of legal wrangling over the issue.
A state law passed in 1995 required doctors who performed abortions to notify parents 48 hours before the procedure unless there was a medical emergency.
In 1996, a federal judge stopped enforcement of the law because no rules had been adopted that allowed a girl to seek permission from the courts to undergo an abortion without notifying her parents. It has been the subject of legal sparring ever since.
The earliest the court's ruling can be enforced is 21 days, according to Paul Linton, an attorney representing the Thomas More Society, an anti-abortion organization that has been involved in the case.
Planned Parenthood of Illinois, which opposed the parental notice law, said it was disappointed by the decision. The organization provides health counseling and services including abortion.
"Planned Parenthood of Illinois is committed to doing everything we can to make this new process as easy as possible for teens," the group said.
The law does not require parental consent.
The Illinois court decision is the latest in a series of state measures imposed in recent years restricting the right to abortion approved by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1973.
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/illinois-high-court-endorses-notice-parent-teen-abortion-154929844.html
https://lh3.ggpht.com/-BAeLe76Ea2o/UatMmmhxmaI/AAAAAAAAFok/7m16FAOCTHM/s1600/teabagger+ot+taliban.jpg
Medusa
07-11-2013, 07:51 PM
I stayed up really late the night Senator Davis did her filibuster and hundreds of people gathered both in the rotunda and outside the capitol. There was some dude doing a live stream from inside the rotunda and you could hear and see lots of chaos and determination happening.
I was literally biting my hand to keep from shrieking as Jackhammer lay next to me. I was just sure they were going to try to steal the vote. And they did try, it seems.
The one thing that struck me is that the demonstrators outside were described as "an unruly mob" rather than citizens who were protesting. If that doesn't lend itself to the Republican mindset that "I can do whatever the fuck I want regardless of what the citizens actually want", then I don't know what does.
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — The Texas Senate passed sweeping new abortion restrictions late Friday, sending them to Republican Gov. Rick Perry to sign into law after weeks of protests and rallies that drew thousands of people to the Capitol and made the state the focus of the national abortion debate.
Republicans used their large majority in the Texas Legislature to pass the bill nearly three weeks after a filibuster by Democratic Sen. Wendy Davis and an outburst by abortion-rights activists in the Senate gallery disrupted a deadline vote June 25.
Called back for a new special session by Perry, lawmakers took up the bill again as thousands of supporters and opponents held rallies and jammed the Capitol to testify at public hearings. As the Senate took its final vote, protesters in the hallway outside the chamber chanted, "Shame! Shame! Shame!"
Democrats have called the GOP proposal unnecessary and unconstitutional. Republicans said the measure was about protecting women and unborn children.
House Bill 2 would require doctors to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals, allow abortions only in surgical centers, limit where and when women may take abortion-inducing pills and ban abortions after 20 weeks.
Abortion-rights supporters say the bill will close all but five abortion clinics in Texas, leaving large areas of the vast state without abortion services. Only five out of 42 existing abortion clinics meet the requirements to be a surgical center, and clinic owners say they can't afford to upgrade or relocate.
http://news.yahoo.com/texas-senate-passes-abortion-restrictions-050032557.html
*Anya*
07-13-2013, 07:43 AM
Women Denied Abortions More Likely to Wind Up on Welfare, study shows
In the United States, women are, in theory, legally equal to men. It was a long road traveled by many waves of feminists, but women steadily gained legal recognition as people having the right to vote and to receive equal education and employment opportunities. Now, one of the most contentious issues on the women’s rights scene is, you got it, abortion.
A new study shows that women who are denied abortions are more likely to be unemployed, on welfare, and in abusive relationships than their counterparts who did receive the abortions they petitioned for. The preliminary results of the “Turnaway Study” throw light on the importance of pro-choice legislation in continuing to promote women’s equality in the United States.
The researchers of the “Turnaway Study” have conducted over 2,800 interviews with women who sought abortions between 2008 and 2010. Some received the desired procedure with more or less difficulty, and some were turned away because they had been pregnant for longer than the abortion clinics’ limits for the procedure. The most common reason for seeking an abortion was economic: women felt that they simply did not have enough money to support a child. 76% of the women who had to carry an unwanted baby to term were on welfare two years later, as opposed to only 44% of women who had abortions. Furthermore, 7% of the women turned away from clinics were in abusive relationships at the times of their interviews, as opposed to only 3% of their counterparts. The interviews indicated that this was a result of women without children having more freedom to leave abusive partners.
Freedom is the key word here. It’s the principle, the fundamental human right, on which the United States is supposed to operate.
While the women in this particular study were not allowed to have abortions because they were outside of the time limit for the procedure, pro-life advocates would deny any woman from having an abortion. The result of this approach if we follow the trends laid out by the “Turnaway Study” would be a female population with decreased socioeconomic freedom. Laws requiring employers to provide equal employment opportunities to woman are useless if the women cannot apply for jobs because they must care for children borne of unwanted pregnancies.
Furthermore, pro-life policies would force more women onto welfare, a favorite target of disdain by the same group of politicians who support the banning of abortion. These policymakers criticize those Americans who are dependent on welfare while supporting policies that reduce women’s ability to choose a better economic option, that is, to abort an unwanted pregnancy.
The final, and perhaps most concerning, piece of this puzzle are the statistics on relationship abuse revealed by the “Turnaway Study.” Domestic violence is one of the least reported crimes in the country, with only 33% of those involved in abusive relationships ever telling anyone. Since women carrying unwanted babies to term also carried increased economic burdens, it’s not surprising that they would choose the relative economic security of a relationship, even an abusive relationship, in order to support their children. If denying a woman an abortion forces her into the prison of domestic violence, then we should count this as just another reason to defend Roe v. Wade with tooth and nail.
After all, pro-choice legislation is not pro-abortion legislation: It is pro-freedom legislation. It supports a woman’s, a person’s, right to choose the path of her life, to pursue opportunities on an equal basis with any other person. So if she chooses not to have a child because she is financially unable to support that baby, then she should be allowed to make that call. She should not have her freedom stripped from her and be condemned to a life of poverty and violence.
http://www.policymic.com/articles/19112/women-denied-abortions-are-more-likely-to-end-up-on-welfare-study-finds
KANSAS CITY, Missouri (Reuters) - A doctor will have to be present for any drug-induced abortion in Missouri starting on August 28 because Governor Jay Nixon on Friday allowed a measure passed by the state legislature to become law without his signature.
Nixon, a Democrat, said he decided not to sign the law and made no further comment.
The law applies to the so-called "abortion pill," RU-486 or any other abortion inducing chemical.
Missouri will be the 11th state to require doctors be present for administration of the drug, which is allowed up to about nine weeks of pregnancy, said Elizabeth Nash, state issues manager for the Guttmacher Institute, a pro-choice research group.
The law is on hold in Wisconsin and North Dakota due to litigation, she said.
The measure is the latest of a wave of small restrictions on abortion approved by conservative states where opposition to the procedure is strong.
Abortion opponents favor the law in part because it eliminates telemedicine in which a doctor at a different location can observe a patient taking the medication. Abortion rights advocates said the law is unfair to rural residents who live far from an abortion provider and need telemedicine to get early-term abortions, Nash said.
According to the Guttmacher Institute, Missouri with the new law joins Alabama, Arizona, Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Mississippi, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Dakota and Tennessee.
http://news.yahoo.com/doctor-must-present-drug-induced-abortion-missouri-222457010.html
*Anya*
07-14-2013, 08:07 AM
Pill Available in Mexico Is a Texas Option
By ERIK ECKHOLM
McALLEN, Tex. — At the Whole Woman’s Health center here, a young woman predicted what others would do if the state’s stringent new abortion bill approved late Friday forces clinics like this one to close: cross the border to Mexico to seek an “abortion pill.”
“This law will lead a lot more women to try self-abortion,” said Jackie F., a 24-year-old food server and student who was in the health center last week for a follow-up medical examination after getting a legal abortion.
The woman, who requested that her last name not be used to avoid stigma, was referring to a drug that can induce miscarriages and is openly available in Mexico and covertly at some flea markets in Texas.
In Nuevo Progreso, only yards past the Mexican border, pharmacists respond to requests for a pill to “bring back a woman’s period” by offering the drug, misoprostol, at discount prices: generic at $35 for a box of 28 pills, or the branded Cytotec for $175.
When asked how women should use the pills, some of the pharmacists said they did not know and others recommended wildly different regimes that doctors say could be unsafe.
“The women see it as “a pill to make my period come,’” said Andrea Ferrigno, a vice president of Whole Woman’s Health, which runs a network of abortion clinics. “Often in their minds, it’s not abortion.”
On Friday, the Texas Senate gave final passage to one of the strictest anti-abortion measures in the country, legislation championed by Gov. Rick Perry, who rallied the Republican-controlled Legislature after a Democratic filibuster last month blocked the bill and intensified already passionate resistance by abortion-rights supporters.
The law would ban most abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy and hold abortion clinics to the same standards as hospital-style surgical centers, among other requirements.
If the new law survives legal challenges, both Whole Woman’s Health in McAllen and the only other abortion clinic in the Rio Grande Valley, in nearby Harlingen, which together perform more than 3,500 abortions a year, will have to shut down, their owners say.
The greatest impact is likely to be among low-income women, who will be less able to make the needed two trips to the nearest clinic that meets the new surgical-center standards, in San Antonio, four hours north.
In the United States, legal medication abortions involve the use, in the first nine weeks of pregnancy, of misoprostol together with a steroid that breaks down the uterine lining. The success rate is more than 95 percent. In addition to requiring many clinics to close, the new Texas law would curb such medication abortions by requiring that the drugs be administered at surgery centers and at what doctors call an outdated dosage.
Misoprostol taken alone is less effective, but the drug is more readily available because it is prescribed to prevent gastric ulcers.
But health experts worry about its unmonitored use.
Lacking health insurance or fearing the stigma of being seen at an abortion clinic, thousands of Texas residents every year are already making covert use of this pill or trying other methods to induce abortions on their own.
When used properly in the early weeks of pregnancy, misoprostol, which causes uterine contractions and cervical dilation, induces a miscarriage about 85 percent of the time, according to Dr. Grossman. But many women receive incorrect advice on dosage and, especially later in pregnancy, the drug can cause serious bleeding or a partial abortion, he said.
The looming limits on legal abortion follow deep cuts in state support for family planning. Planned Parenthood clinics here in Hidalgo County do not perform abortions, but in 2010 provided subsidized contraception to 23,000 men and women at eight centers; as financing dried up, four of them have been closed. This year, the group will serve only 12,000 clients, and other organizations have not taken up the slack, said Patricio Gonzales, chief executive of the Hidalgo County chapter of Planned Parenthood.
Lucy Felix, a community educator here with the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health, said that many of the women she works with do not have legal residency and cannot drive north in Texas through Border Patrol checkpoints or even cross the southern border to buy the pill directly for fear that they may not be able to return to their families in Texas.
“The only option left for many women will be to go get those pills at a flea market,” Ms. Felix said. “Some of them will end up in the E.R.”
The two abortion clinics in the Rio Grande Valley say that the cost of meeting ambulatory surgical center standards would be prohibitive. They also doubt that they could find nearby hospitals that would grant admitting privileges to the abortion doctors, another element of the new law.
In a tour of the Whole Woman’s Health clinic here, Ms. Ferrigno noted some of the design and equipment requirements in the new law that would force the clinic to shut down. The clinic, part of a chain in Texas and other states, performs about 1,900 abortions a year using doctors that fly in from other states.
The clinic, like most in Texas, performs abortions only through the first 15 weeks of pregnancy, using medications or a suction method that takes 10 to 15 minutes and involves no incisions. The center uses donations to offer subsidies to many women, Ms. Ferrigno said.
The suite does not have the wide hallways required of a surgery center to facilitate the movement of stretchers in an emergency.
With plush recliners, a Georgia O’Keeffe flower print on the wall and herbal tea, the center’s recovery room resembles a small first-class lounge.
Ambulatory surgery centers, in contrast, must have large, hospital-style recovery rooms, with medical equipment on the walls. Patients must rest on gurneys, separated by ceiling-mounted curtains. The herbal tea would not be allowed.
To enter the McAllen clinic, women must cross a gantlet of protesters. Florine deLeon, 72, was out front last week with her husband, both of them fingering rosary beads.
“We’re praying for all the babies,” she said. If pregnancies are unwanted, she said, the crisis pregnancy center down the street could set up an adoption.
■
PUBLISHED JULY 13, 2013
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/14/us/in-mexican-pill-a-texas-option-for-an-abortion.html
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Texas Gov. Rick Perry signed sweeping new abortion restrictions on Thursday that could shutter most of the clinics in the state.
The new law bans abortions after the 20th week of pregnancy and dictates when abortion-inducing drugs can be taken. But it also requires abortion clinic doctors to have hospital admitting privileges and restricts abortions to surgical centers. Only five of Texas' 42 abortion clinics currently meet the new requirements.
The law will take effect in October and clinics will have a year to upgrade their facilities or shutdown. Perry said the new law "builds upon our commitment to protecting life in the state of Texas."
Federal judges have blocked enforcement of similar measures in other states, questioning their constitutionality. Opponents are expected to file similar suits in Texas now that Perry has signed the law.
Allison W
07-19-2013, 04:01 PM
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id
By Cherie Howie
5:30 AM Sunday Jul 14, 2013
A young woman was refused the birth control pill because she had not yet done her "reproductive job".
Melissa Pont, 23, said her family practitioner, Dr Joseph Lee, would not renew her pill prescription, instead lecturing her on a baby's right to live and on using the rhythm method, an unreliable family planning technique that involves having sex only at certain times of the month.
The Women's Health Action Trust said it has a "simmering issue" with GPs who will not prescribe contraceptives.
"Contraception is a basic health right for women," said senior policy analyst George Parker. "That should take precedence over a doctor's personal beliefs."
The NZ Medical Association said doctors can refuse treatment in non-emergency situations if their beliefs prohibit it - but they are required to refer the patient to another doctor.
Lee was initially reluctant to do that, Pont said, and she was concerned other women in her situation might not have had the confidence to argue back.
"I felt like my decision to not have children yet was being judged. That's a decision me and my fiance made," she said.
"We're young and we just bought a house and who is he to say whether we should have children or not?"
Lee, a doctor at Wairau Community Clinic in Blenheim, stood by his views and actions. "I don't want to interfere with the process of producing life," the Catholic father-of-two told the Herald on Sunday.
Lee also does not prescribe condoms, and encourages patients as young as 16 to use the rhythm method.
Teen pregnancy might be a girl's "destiny", he said, and it was certainly not as bad as same- sex marriage.
The only circumstances in which he would prescribe the contraceptive pill would be if a woman wanted space between pregnancies, or had at least four children.
"I think they've already done their reproductive job".
He acknowledged natural birth control was "not very reliable".
"That's the best thing about it. You can't choose it, you just have to be committed to it."
Family Planning national nursing adviser Rose Stewart said doctors should remember they were gatekeepers for a service, she said, and a woman's conscience was as important as theirs.
Medical Council guidelines say personal beliefs should not affect the advice or treatment offered, and should not be expressed in a way that exploits a patient's vulnerability or is likely to cause them distress.
Wairau Community Clinic lead GP Scott Cameron said a pamphlet at reception warned that some doctors did not prescribe birth control, and staff tried to screen patients. He would consider installing a sign.
The clinic is run by the Marlborough Public Health Organisation. Chief executive Beth Pester said Lee's choice not to prescribe was "his ethical choice", but she was concerned he discussed natural birth control with patients as young as 16, and would talk to him about that.
CLEVELAND (Reuters) - The American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio sued the state over including abortion-related provisions in its budget, in what abortion rights activists charged was an effort to quietly restrict women's access to clinics.
The ACLU said Ohio unconstitutionally approved three restrictions along with the state budget in June, including one that bars public hospitals from having patient transfer agreements with clinics, which were unrelated to budget issues.
Ohio, which has a Republican-controlled legislature and Republican governor, has become known among abortion rights supporters as a testing ground for restrictions, as conservatives have pushed a number of new proposed abortion provisions on the state level over the past three years.
"(The amendments were) highly controversial social legislation that were snuck into a must-pass budget bill in the eleventh hour without public debate or input," said ACLU cooperating attorney Jessie Hill.
At least two of the three abortion restrictions, one requiring that patients receive details about fetal heartbeat before they undergo an abortion and the transfer agreement ban, have nothing to do with the budget, the ACLU said.
Michael Gonidakis, president of Ohio Right to Life, called the lawsuit "a legal stunt by the ACLU that will end up costing the Ohio taxpayers."
Gonidakis is a member of the Ohio State Medical Board and a defendant in the lawsuit.
Abortion rights advocates have expressed concern that Ohio's transfer agreement law, which was threatening to close Toledo's only abortion clinic, could be replicated elsewhere, as eight other states require abortion clinics to have transfer agreements.
One of the Ohio budget amendments bars abortion clinics from making agreements to move women needing emergency care to public hospitals. This amendment is threatening closure of Capital Care in Toledo, because its transfer agreement with a public hospital expired in July and, under the new law, the clinic cannot renew it.
The other Ohio amendments require clinics to present patients with evidence of a fetal heartbeat before performing abortions and create a "parenting and pregnancy" program to give state money to private groups that are forbidden to discuss abortion services, the ACLU said.
The ACLU said the first two amendments have nothing to do with budget appropriations - while the third creates and funds a new government program, something it said requires stand-alone legislation.
The lawsuit also names Governor John R. Kasich, a Republican who signed the budget bill, the state of Ohio, and Theodore Wymyslo, director of the Ohio Department of Health.
Spokesmen for Kasich and the health department said they had no comment on the litigation.
The ACLU of Ohio filed the lawsuit in Cuyahoga County court on behalf of a Cleveland clinic that provides contraception and abortion services.
http://news.yahoo.com/aclu-sues-ohio-state-officials-over-abortion-restrictions-150610737--business.html
http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/1951cb6dbep2mjpg/ku-xlarge.jpg
Appeals Court Allows Unconstitutional Texas Abortion Restrictions to Take Effect While Legal Challenge Proceeds
AUSTIN - A federal appeals court ruled today that part of a Texas anti-abortion law that was struck down Monday by a district court will be allowed to take effect while legal challenges proceed. The provisions will cause at least one-third of the state's licensed health centers that currently provide abortion to stop offering the service immediately.
The law was initially challenged by more than a dozen women's health care providers represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Texas, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the Center for Reproductive Rights, and the law firm of George Brothers Kincaid & Horton. The district court ruled Monday that a provision that requires doctors to have admitting privileges at a local hospital is not rationally related to ensuring patient safety, and that the requirement would place a substantial obstacle in the path of women seeking abortion. Following the state's emergency request, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled today that the provisions can take effect while the case moves forward.
"We will continue to fight to preserve access to abortion services in Texas," said Brigitte Amiri, senior staff attorney with the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project. "This law is unconscionable. As the district court found, it does not further patient safety, and it will shut down many clinics across the state."
"The result of this ruling is not academic," said Terri Burke, executive director of the ACLU of Texas. "Women in many parts of the state will lose access to care they count on because clinics will close. If the State of Texas cares about women's health and safety, as it claims, it should take steps to reduce the need for abortion rather than closing clinics in already underserved parts of the state."
For more information on this case, please visit: www.aclu.org/reproductive-freedom/planned-parenthood-v-abbott
https://www.aclu.org/reproductive-freedom/appeals-court-allows-unconstitutional-texas-abortion-restrictions-take-effect
Stealth Attack: What You Need to Know About the New Abortion Laws
The ACLU has enlisted the help of comic artist Jen Sorensen to help illustrate (literally) the coordinated, national efforts that anti-abortion groups are waging across the country to outlaw women's health clinics and block access to abortion care. Jen uses sharp wit and humor to reveal the tactics our opponents are using to undermine our private and personal decisions.
Ultimately these attacks are no laughing matter. During the 2013 state legislative session over 300 anti-abortion restrictions were introduced. From motorcycle vaginas to claims that "women don't get pregnant that often from rape," we have seen some politicians and their political allies go to ridiculous lengths to push through anti-choice measures. These politicians MUST think we are stupid if they think we want politicians playing doctor.
Check out Sorensen's illustrations:
https://www.aclu.org/reproductive-freedom-womens-rights/stealth-attack-what-you-need-know-about-new-abortion-laws
Behind the right’s crazy crusade to make women pay more for health insurance
Equalizing premiums for men and women is common sense -- unless you’re opposed to women’s freedom
In a sane world, when Rep. Renee Ellmers asked rhetorically last week “Has a man ever delivered a baby?” she would have been arguing not against, but for the Affordable Care Act’s requirement that men and women pay the same insurance premiums. After all, the special physical burdens borne solely by women to ensure the life and health of the next generation obviously benefit both genders, right? Healthy men today can thank their mothers for eating well and getting good prenatal care; likewise fathers are grateful to the mothers of their children for the same. (Michael Hiltzik runs down the case for sharing those costs publicly here.)
But no, Ellmers asked that question of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius in order to rail against the ACA’s equal premium requirement. She thought it was a clever “gotcha” moment, designed to show the craziness of requiring all insurance policies to cover maternity care and contraception without a co-pay. (The doofuses at Breitbart agreed, declaring “Ellmers brings her A game.”) Amazingly, Ellmers chairs the House GOP’s “women’s policy committee” – so how could she be so tone-deaf in attacking the way the ACA helps that increasingly elusive GOP constituency, female voters?
Because the right-wing base of the modern Republican Party is dedicated to restoring men as the head of the household, and the nuclear, husband-headed family as the principle social unit. From Rick Santorum railing against contraception and preaching the nuclear family as the answer to poverty in last year’s GOP presidential primary, to Rafael Cruz Sr. telling an audience that “God commands us men to teach your wife, to teach your children—to be the spiritual leader of your family,” today’s right-wing Republicans are increasingly comfortable with open displays of old-time crackpot patriarchy. This week Sen. Ted Cruz Jr. courts the right-wing preachers of the South Carolina Renewal Project, which is thought to be a key stop on his way to the GOP nomination in that early-primary state.
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Let’s face it: The only way charging women more for health insurance and healthcare makes sense is if they have a partner who either shares that burden or shoulders it entirely. As in … a husband. Then it’s clear that the male of the species is doing his part to keep the species healthy and reproducing itself. A woman who doesn’t have a husband to play that role? Well, there shouldn’t be women like that – and certainly if there are, they shouldn’t be having children anyway, or even having sex, so they don’t need maternity care or contraception.
That’s the only way I can explain the GOP’s willingness to openly endorse an enormous transfer of wealth from women back to men by not only advocating the repeal of the ACA but specifically railing against its equal-premium provisions. But don’t worry, gals: You’ll get that wealth back once you get yourself a man!
I got a glimpse of this mind-set from an otherwise open-minded Republican, former RNC chair Michael Steele, last year, when he argued against the ACA’s contraception without a co-pay provision on “Hardball.” As Steele told me:
The problem is that you have effectively absolved the male of any responsibility in the relationship with this woman, whether it’s a sexual nature or beyond that. It’s not just about giving women access to contraception. It’s about the responsible behavior that goes with that access. It’s nice for Barack Obama to tell women, ‘I got your back. Here, have a pill.’ Men have a responsibility here … It’s this other piece that doesn’t get talked about in terms of the responsibility of fathers, or potential fathers, in this relationship.
I tried to reassure Steele that men could continue to be responsible to the women in their lives, even if they got contraception without a co-pay, but he wasn’t having it. I saw the uneasiness with female autonomy that’s at the heart of modern Republicanism, even if Steele himself handles that anxiety better than folks on the far right.
Article in entirety:
http://www.salon.com/2013/11/05/behind_the_right%E2%80%99s_crazy_crusade_to_make_w omen_pay_more_for_health_insurance/
Supreme Court allows Texas abortion restrictions to remain in place
The Supreme Court divided down partisan lines today when it ruled that Texas can continue to enforce strict abortion restrictions that prevent nearly a third of the state’s clinics from operating.
The court rejected the arguments by Planned Parenthood and several affiliated clinics that claimed that the strictures place an “undue burden” on women’s ability to procure an abortion.
“In just the few short days since the injunction was lifted,” lawyers for these groups wrote to the court, “over one-third of the facilities providing abortions in Texas have been forced to stop providing that care and others have been forced to drastically reduce the number of patients to whom they are able to provide care. Already, appointments are being canceled and women seeking abortions are being turned away.”
Justice Scalia, writing in support of the order, agreed with lower court judges who claimed that the restrictions do not outlaw the procedure, they merely make women drive a greater distance to obtain one.
In a statement, Texas Governor Rick Perry praised the decision. “This is good news both for the unborn and for the women of Texas, who are now better protected from shoddy abortion providers operating in dangerous conditions,” he said. “As always, Texas will continue doing everything we can to protect the culture of life in our state.”
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/11/20/supreme-court-allows-texas-abortion-restrictions-to-remain-in-place/
Michigan women will have to purchase a separate rider if they want their health insurance to pay for an abortion, after the state's Legislature on Wednesday banned most public and private plans from covering abortion as a medical procedure.
Women must buy the rider before they become pregnant in order to have abortion coverage, once the law goes into effect in March. Women who become pregnant through rape or incest must already have the rider in place for an abortion to be covered, leading some opponents to dub the riders, "rape insurance."
But currently, insurance abortion riders don't actually exist in Michigan, the law's opponents say.
"There are no riders in Michigan that we are aware of," Lori Lamerand, CEO of Planned Parenthood of Mid and South Michigan, told The Huffington Post. "There are some riders available for some procedures, but there are certainly no riders for abortions here."
Elizabeth Nash is the state issues manager at the Guttmacher Institute, a nationally recognized nonprofit reproductive health institute. "The riders don't exist," she told The Huffington Post. "There's no cost information. The riders just don't exist."
Michigan is the ninth state to restrict public and private insurance plans from covering abortions, Nash told The Huffington Post. Only two of those states have providers with abortion riders available for purchase. Dave Waymire, PR consultant for the Michigan Association of Health Plans, also told The Huffington Post that the group does not know which insurance companies currently provide or would offer abortion riders in the future, and how they would be priced.
There were about 23,000 reported abortions in Michigan in 2012, according to the Associated Press. Less than 4 percent were paid for by insurance. Women enrolled in Medicaid must pay out of pocket for abortions, except when their lives are at risk, or if they are victims of rape or incest.
According to a study published in the scientific journal Women's Health Issues, a typical first-trimester abortion costs around $500. Most women incurred ancillary expenses for transportation, lost wages and child-care costs, making the abortion more expensive. According to the study, 14 percent of women put off paying rent; another 16 percent delayed buying food in order to pay for the procedure.
Those costs can skyrocket in the second or third trimester to as much as $10,000, especially if the procedure is done in the hospital, Lamerand told The Huffington Post. Those procedures won't be covered by insurance in Michigan either.
"An early trimester procedure is one thing, but if you consider a family that had to abort a child due to a medical issue -- at a time when a family would be experiencing an incredible tragedy, we will just be adding insult to injury," she said.
After Gov. Rick Snyder (R) vetoed a similar bill in 2012, saying it wasn't "appropriate to tell a woman who becomes pregnant due to rape that she needed to select elective insurance coverage," Right to Life Michigan mounted a challenge, gathering 300,000 signatures on a petition (4 percent of the state's population). That forced the bill back to the Republican-controlled Legislature, which approved it Tuesday night; it does not need the governor's signature. Had legislators vetoed the bill, it would have been subject to a statewide vote in 2014.
Opponents of the legislation, like Senate Minority Leader Gretchen Whitmer (D-East Lansing), who called the law "misogynistic" and "extreme" in a powerful floor speech Tuesday night about her own rape, may have some recourse. The Detroit Free Press reported that the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups are discussing a coalition to mount another abortion petition drive -- this time to repeal the new law.
But Lamerand was extremely cautious about mounting a petition drive, given the resources needed to get the measure on the statewide ballot. A successful ballot initiative could cost $3 million, she said.
"That would take an extreme amount of resources to mount, and those resources may be better utilized to help women who are now not going to be able to afford their procedure," she said.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/12/abortion-rider_n_4433040.html
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