The Assault on Womens Sexual and Reproductive Rights
 

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

Thanks for the informative link Liam!

Ballot Measures in 2012
 

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/gove...e-governments/

House committee OKs bill to outlaw abortions based on race, gender
 

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."

---

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_...icleid=1404319

Tell Congress: Stop trying to block women's access to Birth Control
 

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

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.

Virginia Likely to Require Ultrasound for Abortion - final vote on Monday. Gov will sign if passed.
 

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...-for-abortion/

Anti-abortion proposals await votes in Michigan
 

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/abo...ress-38801.htm

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

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/servist....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)
[nomedia="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCPU0Qsv9wM&feature=share"]The Testimony Chairman Issa Doesn't Want You to Hear - YouTube[/nomedia]

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 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

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

(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:
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.

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.

Silent protest outside, Virginia House puts off ultrasound vote
 

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/n...ly-ar-1702583/

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.

Please consider joining or donating to Emily's List
 

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.

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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/...th-control.jpg

Virginia Update and Strange Twist
 

corrected link
 

Corrected link for Virginia PP or just one of their clinics. Not sure.
Virginia PP

Boston might require abdominal but rarely transvaginal.

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.

Here is one doctor's opinion on what all the fuss is about.
 

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?

Not just a Catholic controversy: Protestant colleges threaten to drop student health care over contraceptive mandate
 

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/n...232819956.html

Debate over conscience in the workplace intensifies
 

(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...231341506.html

Here is the link to the article in Post #15. I somehow neglected to post it.

http://www.alternet.org/story/154144...ow?page=entire

Pesonhood Bills Herald A Dark Age For Women
 

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.

McDonnell rejects mandatory invasive ultrasound law
 

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/v...ll-ar-1707568/

When a Country Cracks Down on Contraception: Grim Lessons from the Philippines

Read more: http://globalspin.blogs.time.com/201...#ixzz1n9Yi4IoQ

this is all so deeply disturbing in an "A Handmaid's Tale" way, ...except more so because it is our reality. :|

Judge strikes down law mandating sale of emergency contraception in Washington State
 

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-strik...013210965.html

Virginia Ultrasound bill changes
 

Virginia GOP Lawmakers "Not Feeling The Love"
 

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/p...res-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/v...om-ar-1710295/

UPDATE: State Senate scuttles 'personhood' bill
 

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/v...om-ar-1710295/

-----------------------------


Wow this is good news....I think.....for now anyway.

Good news...
 

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

7 states challenge birth control coverage rule
 

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.