Justifying Abortion

Let me begin by saying, none of your business.  We need to remember this.  Our right to a medical procedure is nobody's business.  And yet because we are constantly under attack for the freedom to decide to have an abortion, we have found it necessary to tell private, personal stories and to attempt to provide a justification for those decisions that are palatable to religious radicals in this country that are no better than the Taliban.

Here's another point:  we allowed the insurance industry to increase premiums on those who smoke.  At some point, we will allow them to increase premiums on the obese.  With DNA testing, it will become possible to increase premiums for those who are high-risk for genetic factors.  Forcing women to pay a rider for abortion coverage is really another component of the country's intolerance and willingness to let industry profit from it.  Which does not excuse or minimize this new attack; I am merely saying we should step back and look at the atmosphere that allows it to happen.

Under the heading of, "I Can't Believe They Can Do This," Michigan Right to Life gathered sufficient numbers of signatures on a petition to require women to pay for an insurance rider on any insurance policy, even those held privately, if they want abortion services to be covered.  So, once again, the voice of the fanatic holds sway over individual rights.   Of course, this did require that the Michigan legislature do the group's bidding.

Most of us are not fighting for reproductive freedoms because we are not wrong.  We are engaging in the freedom that we take for granted in a democracy.  We have fought hard for equality, and assume it is our due.  But just as if we were a country under attack, our attacker has no justification, only the desire to control us.  They have not ever needed to prove that they are right, only that they are more powerful.  And that they have, because they are louder and they don't give up.  Ever.

And this has been going on for a very long time.

So we need to fight back, and as ferociously as they fight, and as though we are a country at war defending our liberty.

And there are others that should be joining the fight, for a variety of reasons.

Men should be interested in defending the right to reproductive privacy and equality, because after abortion comes birth control, already under attack.  A woman who does not have reproductive freedom makes the entire family structure more vulnerable, emotionally and economically.

Employers should want to assure that women are in control of their reproductive health, for the stability of the workplace.

The insurance industry certainly must know that it makes sense financially to cover birth control and abortion.

And finally, as a community we should all recognize that those who are seeking to prevent women from determining their reproductive paths are by no means pro-life.  In fact, they oppose funding better health care and nutrition for pregnant women and children.  The women most affected will be the poor, but it will also be the middle class who in 2014 will be struggling to provide the best for their families.  The additional costs for preventive care, and even more the  burden of being forced to carry a pregnancy, can be enough to push that woman or that family over the brink into undue emotional stress, and financial hardship.  It can end the possibility of college, even high school, and put an end to a promising career and hope for the future.

And here's something else.  A woman who is able to make her own reproductive decisions is more likely later to have wanted, healthy and happy children.

God did not create a world in which a woman has an abortion and is then banned from having children.  That's the case whether the abortion is the result of a rape, a medical complication, or an error in judgment.  Those who seek to punish women for their sexuality would have us believe that abortions reduce the numbers of children.  In fact, being able to wait until a woman feels ready to have a child is something that many of us might consider a blessing.  That God may have given us the option of ending a pregnancy because this is not about punishment but about growth.  And there are a lot of women who have had that opportunity, and wonderful, wanted children were the result.

I am one of them.  Not that it's anybody's business.

So instead of wondering why the anti-abortion, anti-life, anti-freedom people are attacking us, I think we need to see the attacks as irrational acts committed by tyrants, and do what we need to do to control our bodies and our lives.

Across the Aisle

I heard that State Senator Vincent Sheheen made an appearance at SC Pride yesterday.  Not surprisingly it has not been widely reported, especially by the Sheheen camp.  Sheheen made news earlier this month by reaching across the aisle to Governor Haley in his support of the ban on gay marriage.  The public outcry apparently stunned Sheheen, who wants more than anything to be governor, to the point of making the appearance at the Gay Pride event.

The problem with Senator Sheheen as I see it is that his values lie on the other side of the aisle, but his political affiliation is with us Democrats.

While Sheheen unabashedly seeks support from women's groups, unions, and gay rights groups, he wants to do it without making it too public, and without having to compromise his lack of support for same.

Pardon me but my rage is showing.

It would be a simple matter even for a proud Catholic like Sheheen to support women's reproductive privacy and freedom.  Even Pope Francis, who has to deal with the ultra-conservative archbishops who elected him, has figured out a work-around to the Church's obsession with contraception and abortion.

With Pope Francis, his own Church's leader, as the model, now is the time for Senator Sheheen to take a stand that sets him apart from the rabid Christian republicans, like Senator Lee Bright, who would bring back the Inquisition (for women only) which looks a bit like his fantasy of Sharia Law.

In other words, women's reproductive choices should be as private as are those of men.  They should be as fully covered as those of men (When was the last time you heard an argument that vasectomies should not be covered by our state health plan?).  Women's health care -- the promotion of discriminatory practices against women -- has no place in the legislature.

Abortion and contraception are private matters, to be addressed by the woman, her doctor, her family, her church, and not by government.  God did not appoint lawmakers to make God's rules.  In fact, there's that whole "render unto Caesar" idea that pretty much means the state should stay out of God's business, and God will do the same for the state.

Meanwhile, the state's business is to see that those who choose to have children are not made to suffer needlessly.  In other words, health care, education, a living wage, those are the issues that need to be addressed by government, not what goes on in the doctor's office, or in one's church.

We need to suggest this to Senator Sheheen, to insist in fact that he listen to us -- and to the Pope -- and stop obsessing about women's reproductive parts.  We need to let him know, on Facebook, on Twitter, by email and in person, that church and government, his religion and his role as a public servant, are separate entities.  We need to call and write to the media.  We need to light up this issue, while there is a chance that a Democratic candidate might listen.

Expert Opinion

These days, when the men in Congress invite the men in the Church to testify on how better they can help women see the light, some of us are starting to notice.  Some of us are beginning to remember, as though awakening from a deep slumber, that it wasn't always like this.  But before it wasn't like this, it was.

What I mean is that many of us grew up in a Mad Men world, where being thin and pretty were requirements not only for being a stewardess but for answering phones in an office.  In that world, we kept things tidy and never made a fuss.  We were mostly homemakers, and when we made ripples, folks, we were unceremoniously squashed.

I remember as a psychology student learning about the high rates of women in psychiatric hospitals diagnosed with depression, and the new miracle drugs, like Valium, that would get them back on the track to being happy.  Because without a happy wife, how could the husband go out and conquer the world?

Fortunately, that was my mother's generation, and in the fifties there was enough social security -- the kind you get from having a roof over your head with an affordable mortgage and knowing you were going to college -- to have the guts to begin to question your world.

Who were men to tell us what made us happy?  Or that our job was to keep them happy?  We knew we were smart and starting to realize we were as smart (maybe smarter) than the boys that were going to college and getting better jobs than us.

We made waves.  And it felt good.  And for awhile, the men in charge listened.  And then more women were in charge.

But not enough.

The men were persistent; they know war.  We women knew how to work hard, and we also knew guilt.  We tried to do it all, and that left us vulnerable, too busy doing it all and trying to get it right to fight battles we thought we had already won.

Men let women be midwives when it wasn't worth their time, but when it became a career they began to fight to take it away from us.

They let us be managers as long as our lower wages could make their profits greater.  And as long as women were taking care of the children, they weren't as likely to rise too high, or rise up to fight.

And as long as we were the ones that had babies, we were still going to be under their thumbs.

This is why so much energy is being focused on women's reproductive freedom.  In a Congress that daily fights to deny women food stamps and health care the issue is certainly not the value of life.  It is, however, about power and money.

Good education can give a girl hope for a good future.  Access to contraception can free a young adult from worry, and allow her to control her present and her future.  Availability of safe abortions mean security for women and their families.

The crazies of the religious right are merely pawns of the power brokers.  They are used daily in front of the offices of abortion providers, and they are used at the polls on election day.  Groups with warm and fuzzy names like the Family Research Council are about as anti-family as you can get; they scorn poor women for having too many babies at the same time as they cut off her education and access to birth control.

But our "representatives" in Congress look to these anti-life groups as "experts" when they are looking to force their way on women.  And while the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops may be momentarily busy tap-dancing around the actual Christian values of their new Pope, they will still make time to restate their control over women.

Let's start questioning -- loudly -- the "expert opinions" that have nothing to do with science, nothing to do with life, and nothing to do with women.  When you see a group convene, whether it be the state legislature or a hospital board or the Heritage Foundation, count heads and note how many women there are.  And then make sure to note how many women are testifying about women's issues.

Coming Out from the Shadows

In an amazing wedding announcement in the New York Times, the couple describes their decision when they had just begun dating to have an abortion, because the time and circumstances were not right.  They went on to have a son and are now celebrating their marriage.

This is such an important news story, because it is about women coming out from the shadows.  It is about refusing to accept blame and hatred for a responsible decision.  It is about letting others see just who we are.

When African-Americans risked their lives to desegregate schools and businesses, they were able to debunk all the nasty myths that had existed because they had been forced to live hidden away.

When gay and lesbian men and women took the courageous step of coming out, and then began to celebrate their existence, those who had denigrated their sexual identity were forced to recognize that these people are in fact their friends, family, co-workers, neighbors.

And as women come forward and tell their stories, and make their abortion decision just another page in their lives, those who have demonized us will no longer have power over us.

Because those who have chosen to terminate a pregnancy are us:  our daughters, our mothers, our friends and co-workers, our neighbors.

It is easy to demonize someone you don't have to face, and for whom there is no name.  This is the time to stand up to the bullies and let them know we are not ashamed of who we are and how we have lived our lives.

Both Sides of Eric Cantor's Mouth

Eric Cantor is suddenly concerned about who's in the doctor's office with us:

"The doctor's office is the last place anyone would want to find the IRS."

I believe his concern stems from the fact that, particularly for women, the doctor's office has been getting crowded.

For decades we have had to make room for all the representatives of private insurance companies; in the heyday of managed care, there were all kinds of folk, from nurses to administrators, and even occasionally a doctor.

But Eric Cantor's proud contribution to the "manning" of the doctor's office has been all his votes to criminalize abortion.  He has voted every which way to limit a woman's rights when she is in her doctor's office, from forcing her to watch a sonogram to controlling how many weeks to who pays for the visit to where she can go.

And all these bills, should they become law, require personnel.  More enforcement personnel, in fact, than it would take to stand arm-in-arm guarding the Mexican border.

So I would like to take this opportunity to put Mr. Cantor's mind to rest (and I do believe a little rest would be good for such a panicky little man).

Only an idiot would think that the IRS is going to be involved in medical decisions.  The IRS would have lots less to do with medical decisions than does the insurance industry, to which Cantor would like to return all control by repealing the Affordable Care Act.

Obviously, this is another "keyword" mind game.  The IRS has become the fall guy for, well, everything, but it started with the "scandal" that right-wing groups were having applications for tax-exempt status denied.  In fact, political groups on both sides were being denied, as they should have been.  But Democrats being Democrats, instead of saying, "Yeah, what of it?" they cowered and allowed "IRS" to become yet another bad word eliciting knee-jerk rage like Benghazi.

I would like to hear Eric Cantor's defense of those votes which would place law enforcement solidly in the doctor's office with American women, and then he can explain why he thinks one more guy would make a difference in there.

The Battle for Forced Pregnancy

Our own pompous ass, Senator Lindsey Graham, is scared out of his boots.  So it's not enough for him to brag on what a good shot he is, he has taken his fight against a potential Tea Party challenger -- that must be you, Lee Bright -- to another battle front.  He has come out with barrels blazing against... pregnant women.

I admit, in South Carolina it's a cheap shot.  But it is also true that the man has shown in the past year that there is no depth to which he will not stoop to win re-election.

May 20, 2013 Dear Friends, First and foremost, tax dollars should not be used to fund abortions.   As a strong supporter of the right to life I have again cosponsored Senator Roger Wicker’s (R-Mississippi) legislation, S. 946 the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act, to establish a consistent, government-wide prohibition on abortion funding.   This important legislation would make the following policies permanent:   ·         The Hyde Amendment, which prohibits funding for elective abortion coverage through any program funded through the annual Labor, Health and Human Services Appropriations Act; ·         The Helms Amendment, which prohibits funding for abortion as a method of family planning overseas, ·         The Smith FEHBP Amendment, which prohibits funding for elective abortion coverage for federal employees; ·         The Dornan Amendment, which prohibits use of congressionally appropriated funds for abortion in the District of Columbia; and ·         other policies, such as the restrictions on elective abortion funding through Federal prisons.   The House of Representatives passed the bill 251-175 in the 112th Congress, but the legislation was not allowed for a vote in the Democrat-controlled Senate.   The legislation currently has 22 cosponsors in the Senate.  I am hopeful the Senate will take up and force a vote on this important legislation to the pro-life cause. Sincerely,  Lindsey O. GrahamUnited States Senator  To contact me, please click here to visit my website. Please do not respond to this email, the mailbox is unattended. To unsubscribe at any time, please click here.

 You might think that, after all his time in the Senate, he would be secure enough to continue to maintain his facade of reasonableness.  But, like Mark Sanford, I believe Graham knows that there is no sweeter deal than working for the federal government.  And no price is too great to pay to keep that job.  And these days, there is no easier target than women and children.

So while these jackasses continue to pass bills that reinforce the fact that pregnant women are vulnerable and easily controlled, prenatal care will continue to suffer, infant mortality will continue to be shameful, and the future of children born to poverty will continue to be grim.

I sent an email to Lindsey in response to his proud newsletter:

I was 21 when I was fortunate to have legal and safe abortion available to me.  I am now 62 and I am appalled that you believe God has chosen you to control the reproductive choices of my daughter.

Shame on you.

Join me in letting misogynists like Lindsey Graham know that we are out here, we vote, and we are not ashamed.

Parent v. President

A few days ago, Penny pointed out that seemingly minutes after President Obama forcefully pledged his support to Planned Parenthood and women's rights, he opposed removing age limits for above-the-counter purchase of the "morning-after" pill.

As a parent who was damned overprotective of my daughter I understand fully.  Rather than have her sit through sex ed classes that I doubted were going to be open and accurate, I opted out.  I talked to my daughter, and sometimes she was furious that I was so involved, but she also talked to me.  And I am assuming that the Obama's are such parents.

But that is not always the case.  And sadly, children get pregnant.  And horrifically, there are times when the parents are the last people in which that child can confide.

We are a nation that refuses to deal with the difficult problems, the ones that would actually improved our lives, make the world safer for our children and grandchildren.  Our legislators do a lot of grandstanding and bloviating about their moral values.  But when it comes to doing the right thing, they lately almost always do the thing that fuels their power and greed instead.

Personhood amendments abuse women by forcing them to maintain a pregnancy to term, while funds that would improve the life expectancy of infants are cruelly cut.  Civil rights for those who are not Christian are violated in the name of public safety while the right to own a gun and carry it anywhere is religiously protected.

Our children are increasingly less likely to feel secure, to have parents who have the time to spend with them when they are needed.  They are less likely to be educated in a school where there are adequate numbers of teachers and counselors who know them.  They are less likely to receive adequate sex education, and in some cases receive misinformation.

For those parents who are unable to be the parents their children trust and confide in, whether right or wrong, we need to be brutally honest about their children's -- our children's -- safety.  We need to admit that children that are -- well, children -- are having sex, and we need to admit that access to Plan B is necessary.  And then we need to keep slogging ahead to try to make a world where our children will not need Plan B or abortions.  Which is, after all, the hard part of all this.

And we need our President to do the right thing, even though it is the hard thing.

Fear and Loathing

As I've talked among women about the insanity that is called Congress and its anti-abortion, anti-birth control antics, the question has come up, "Why do they hate us?"

I hadn't been able to find an answer; in fact, it seemed that "hate" was too strong a word.  It just didn't fit.  And I think the reason "hate" doesn't fit is because it is tempered considerably with denial.

My days of studying Freud are long gone, and there is a lot of derision for the man, but I believe he was brilliant in conceiving the battles within our minds.  So let me get a little faux-Freudian with this.

The most powerful object in an infant's life of course is its mother.  For a girl child, I think there tends to be more overt intimacy, and later, more overt battles for independence.  For a boy, I believe issues of dependency are far more insidious.

So, unlike with girls, a boy's anger is nearly certain to get convoluted.  Until, as an adult, you have rage that cannot be named.  That denial of rage becomes a need to protect that gets twisted all around to the most destructive forms of control imaginable.  I'm not talking about the obvious overt rage that comes in the form of rape and spousal abuse.  What I'm talking about is something I'm thinking of as "legislative rape."

It's amazing, but maybe not really, that as women become more powerful in business and politics, the push to confine us has become so much greater.  And indirect.  Of course a woman is entitled to the same job as a man, but she doesn't need a law saying she's entitled to the same pay.  And if she wants to work, then she needs to be a man and take responsibility for caring for her children -- she certainly has no right to expect the State to take care of her children for her.

And then there is the ever more abrasive and abusive anti-abortion movement.  I'm not talking about the whackos out there with there placards trying to intimidate women when they are at their most vulnerable.  I'm talking about the whackos elected into the 112th Congress on a "jobs, jobs, jobs" platform, who introduced 44 bills on abortion.  I'm talking about our own South Carolina legislators, who proudly -- and yearly -- introduced "personhood" bills and continue to try to put a monument to "unborn children" out on the State House grounds, which would have it in good company with the Confederate flag.

While these legislators look out for the interest of the "preborn" against us stupid and selfish women, they are also cutting funding to welfare, food stamps, education and health care.  And let us not forget that while they are stamping out abortion, they are also working hard to ban birth control.

That, my friends, is where the rage is evident.  This is not a case of wanting to help a woman through a hard time in bringing a baby into the world.  This is a pure and simple case of punishment.  Punishment for leading a man into sin.  God punishes the woman by getting her pregnant, and folks like SC Senator Lee Bright are going to make damned sure she pays the price.  For the rest of her life.

There is just not enough of calling things by their rightful name.  Men in power acting like they are protecting babies when they are in fact punishing women (and of course the eventual children).  Calling their motivation Christianity rather than "loathing."  And let's once and for all rebrand that "personhood" bill and call it by it's true name:  enforced pregnancy.

Out of the Shadows

I was listening to a panel discuss the difference between public support of gay marriage and women's right to abortion.  It was only in the 90's that the vast majority of Americans polled thought gay marriage should be illegal.  Now those figures are reversed.

Yet the abortion debate continues to be controlled by religious radicals who accuse women who choose to end their pregnancies of murder.  Our own South Carolina is one of those morally backwards states that continue to glut their legislatures with bills for "personhood" or that seek to prevent or punish the medical professionals who would perform that procedure.

What's the difference?

The difference is that the gay community is no longer in the shadows.  In fact, people who are LGBT have become part of a wider community, in their families, their towns, their workplaces.  They were there before, but hidden and shamed.  The difference is that now we know who they are, and they are us.

I discovered here in 2013 that I am not alone in the fact that I have had an abortion.  As I talked to friends and we told our stories of ourselves or friends or family members I became aware of what was missing from our abortion stance:  it was us.

We continue to hide in fear and shame, women who have had abortions, while we defend the "right to choose."  Choose what???  We are even afraid to say "choose to terminate a pregnancy" much less the dreaded word "abortion."  The ammunition this fear gives our rageful opponents is the right to paint us as evil.  We are the whores, the sinners, the murderers.

And we are painted as such because nobody knows who we are.

Like persons who are LGBT and have stepped forward to become part of the larger community, we women who have had abortions need to be unafraid and unashamed.  We need to let people know that those that they hate and condemn are their friends, neighbors, mothers and daughters.

It is easier to put an evil face to a nameless woman.  So if you are tired of hearing yourself described as a sinner or a killer, speak up.  Write letters to your members of Congress or the Statehouse, or letters to the editor.  If that is too large a step to take just yet, tell a friend or a family member.

Because the only way we can fight and win this ugly war is if we are armed with the truth.

Where Ever Your Conscience May Take You

Lindsey Graham may not care much about gun deaths, but he proudly calls himself a "pro-life Senator."  Where he takes his stand is right smack inside of a woman's body, where he can celebrate all his religious freedoms.

I made the mistake of adding my name to an email petition regarding a woman's right to contraceptive access and the providers' obligation to, well, do their jobs.  I try to avoid this because what happens is I get back, by snail mail, on the taxpayer's dime (more like a dollar given the classy stationery and the cost of stamps), a form letter carefully tailored to say, "I don't agree, I am right, but please always feel free to contact me."

Often I don't bother to open the letter; I can tell you what they all say.  But I had just gotten the same old from Nikki Haley, on even more expensive letterhead, and I thought I'd start a collection.

So what we are struggling against these days, is no longer just the right to terminate an unwanted pregnancy (or, as Lindsey might say, "Kill an unborn baby").  These days we are watching our President attempt to move us back to the 20th century, back before President W invented (probably has his science advisers invent) the "conscience clause."

This is one of those right-wing freedoms that started off with the Catholic church, those bastions of morality, all men, who believe that a woman's job is to submit to her husband.  Having no wife, and supposing not to have sex, the Pope and his underlings have nonetheless become the go-to guys when our Congressional leaders need testimony on women's reproductive systems.

Now I think the issue of whether or not an unmarried man should have any say in what happens to a woman, reproductively speaking, is absurd, but let's not dwell on that.

More important is the fact that religious groups enjoy (and I do mean enjoy) tax exempt status and despite their wealth are considered non-profit organizations.  As such they freeload off taxpayers, are allowed to receive government grants, and then dictate terms that fly right in the face of the Constitution.

Remember the Constitution?  All those right-wingers carry a copy of it on their person, I think to protect them from stray bullets when they are out wielding their weapons around town.

I believe that the louder someone talks about "freedom" these days, the more likely they are to dismiss the concept of "equality."  And this is what is wrong with the Catholic church, small businesses, pharmacists, the US Congress AND legislatures like that of our very own state of South Carolina.

You don't get to move the line.  If we've got a law --  if the Supremes have said abortion is legal -- you don't get to decide you don't want to do it.  If you provide insurance coverage, you don't get to decide you don't agree with a certain procedure.  If you operate a pharmacy, you are obligated to do your job, which is not to make moral judgments.

Imagine where this "conscience" silliness can lead.  In fact, you don't have to imagine from whence it came.

A hotel manager could decide his morals were compromised by allowing a couple of mixed race to have a room.

An obstetrician may refuse to care for a pregnant and unmarried teen.

A restaurateur would be free to turn away a gay couple.

And here's one that hasn't happened yet:  a pharmacist could decide not to prescribe erectile dysfunction drugs.

Which might, in fact, be a good thing.  Because on a religious level, one could say that if God wanted a man to have sex he'd have given him that erection.  And for another matter, the day this happens we will have a whole new ballgame.

Reinventing the Sandwich

I got my back up a bit with "this younger generation" yesterday.  It was during Up With Chris Hayes, and the panel discussion was about women's issues, and the current fight for women's reproductive rights.  Gloria Steinem, my hero, was there, and Marlo Thomas, representing my generation, and after a brief interview, they were joined by a couple of youngsters, the ever-self-referential Melissa Harris-Perry, and Serita Gupta.

This discussion was extremely important because in fact we continue to fight the battles over Roe v. Wade, even to the point of fighting for the right to birth control.

What caused me to growl at the panelists was when Gupta referred to herself as a member of the "sandwich generation," and then explained that these are the women who are now responsible for the care of their elderly parents and their young children.

Excu-use me, but when I was too young to recall, my own mother was taking care of her elderly parents, my grandmother a wheelchair bound stroke victim, and a three-year-old me and one-year-old younger sister.

Gloria, in response to that sandwich business, reminded us all that back in her day, women were home, and not considered to be "working."  The care was free, because the women in the household were the unpaid invisible workers.

And I do realize that just as these younger women need to be aware of the battles that came before them, we had warriors fighting before us.  Women were risking their lives so that we could vote and Hollywood was portraying the independent working woman.

And here we are, in the 21st century, our daughters taking up the charge to fight for the human rights that are their due.

Jane Crow

In spite of the majority American support for Roe v. Wade, today at it's 40th anniversary, there are ever more legislative efforts to deny women reproductive free choice.

Bill Moyers and his guests, Jessica Gonzalez-Rojas and Lynn Paltrow talked about why this is so and the consequences of this attack on women.  Paltrow has referred to this era as "the new Jane Crow," where women have lost legal rights, and in effect, personhood.  We have long seen doctors and women harassed, threatened and even murdered by radical enraged antiabortionists.  And as state legislatures continue to attempt to criminalize abortion, we are now facing increasing instances where women's legal rights are denied.  In some instances attorneys have been appointed for a fetus rather than the pregnant woman.  Women risk arrest for miscarriages suspected of being abortions.  The horror stories Paltrow tells leave us wondering how long before we are once again in the back alleys.

The why combines the simple and the complicated.  The legislators are predominantly white males; in an increasingly majority-minority country where there are fewer births of white babies than minority, abortion threatens to further decrease the white population.

And as long as women can be forced to have children they are unable to care for, they will be unable to grow as a powerful voice for change in our society.

Lica Colwell in Statehouse Reports, describes South Carolina's crisis in teen pregnancy.  The future for pregnant teens is grim, more so for their children.  Yet our legislators continue to fight for antiabortion bills rather than education, to reject federal Medicaid funding while increasing penalties for misdemeanor convictions, oppose a worker's right to a living wage.  In other words, a world in which teens see little reason to care for themselves, and ever fewer choices.

And these children, and their children, will be unlikely to learn to make informed decisions, and will be unlikely to vote for their best interests, if at all.

And isn't that just the way it has always worked out for those white men writing those antiabortion bills?

Duh-mint's Wisdom

I enjoy a good chuckle as much as the next person, and we all know that our own Jim DeMint has given us plenty in that regard.  And I can understand him being made president of the fake think-tank, Heritage Foundation.

But can't they draw the line on having him on the Meet the Press panel?  I mean, listening to Lynn Cheney on the talk shows was bad enough, but couldn't they at least make potential panel members take a quick paper-and-pencil IQ test?

Listen to him answer a question on rape and racism:

“The fact that we are losing over 3,000 unborn children a day is an important issue,” DeMint opined. “But Republicans or conservatives should not engage in a wish list about exceptions for abortion when the other side will not even agree that we have real people, real human beings. And we need to fight the battle where it should be fought. Life is important. We know from all the new technology and improved sonograms that we do have a baby.”
Raw Story (http://s.tt/1z0rh)

Jim, Jim, Jim, we knew a long, long time ago about how babies are born.  The technology doesn't tell you there's a baby in there -- it's still a fetus, honest.

If you get a chance, watch the clip.  It's worth having to listen to DeMint just to see Andrea Mitchell shake her head at the idiocy she is having to listen to.


  

Controlling Women By Controlling Doctors

Our SC Senate is already hard at work punishing women who need abortions.  S 204 was introduced yesterday, and would require physicians who perform abortions to be board certified in obstetrics and gynecology, and if performing that abortion outside of a hospital, must have privileges at a certified hospital.  This is another blow for clinics.

The further absurdity of this proposed legislation is that in South Carolina, certified midwives are allowed to deliver a child at home, and are considered qualified by DHEC to carry out life saving measures.  Yet it will take a board certified physician to perform this typically routine procedure.

Now might be a good time to contact our own anti-choice democrat Senator Vincent Sheheen, and let him know that we women (and the men who love them) are unlikely to support him for governor in 2014 if he's going to vote against women's reproductive rights.

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And on the national front, Paul Ryan has just co-sponsored a "personhood" bill that gives zygotes full human rights from the moment of conception.  How can this be worse, you might ask?  He could have been our Vice President.