Tag: right to choose
LOL Of The Week: Rand Paul Wants Government Out Of Your Cellphone And In Your Womb

LOL Of The Week: Rand Paul Wants Government Out Of Your Cellphone And In Your Womb

You have to give Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) credit for recognizing Republicans should be embarrassed by their stand on a woman’s right to choose.

While promoting his Life at Conception Act last year, Paul told CNN that “there are thousands of exceptions” to his bill, which would make all abortions and some forms of birth control illegal. His chief of staff later clarified that the “thousands of exceptions” the senator was referring to were individual cases where the life of the mother might be threatened. So there was one exception, really. And no other exceptions, even in cases of rape or incest.

Now, as the 2016 campaign begins, Paul wants Republicans to hide their obsession with social issues.

“I think that the Republican Party, in order to get bigger, will have to agree to disagree on social issues,” he said. He went on to reference “traditional marriage” as an issue young people may feel “festooned” by — using that slang the kids dig so much these days. But in the subtext of words, Republicans heard hints of the so-called “truce” former Indiana governor Mitch Daniels once called for, in favor of focusing on economic issues in the aftermath of the financial crisis.

Daniels’ plea for a truce came before birth control suddenly became a presidential election issue and it seemed as if Republicans wanted to refight battles many thought were settled in the early 1960s.

Even though Rand Paul’s truce didn’t explicitly mention abortion, it sounds a lot like what CNN’s S.E. Cupp recently said:

We, of course, want to make abortion illegal. We can’t be afraid to talk about that, but I think politically right now it’s probably more beneficial for our candidates to say, ‘Look, I’m not going to Washington to overturn decades-old legislation. I’m going to fight to keep abortion safe and rare.’ That’s how we get pro-life candidates elected and in positions of power to actually do something about abortion, to roll it back.

Why would it be to Paul’s advantage to not talk about reproductive rights?

The senator is currently in the process of trying to sell the world on the idea that he can appeal to voters who have refused to consider the GOP in the past, by focusing on privacy and the NSA.

“So my goal in being here is to say that, ‘look, maybe I’m the Republican that can attract votes even at Berkeley,” he said, sitting in Philz Coffee after a recent speech at UC Berkeley.

Paul was speaking to a reporter from the Daily Caller, a publication that recently had to apologize for sexist comments from a reporter with an impressive history of being sexist.

LOL.

Republicans have tolerated much of Paul’s anti-national security state rhetoric because at the present time it’s conveniently anti-Obama. But the mere suggestion that he wants the GOP to chill on the “abortionyay” is just not cool, man.

John Hayward made a passionate argument against Paul’s perceived “unilateral disarmament” in the culture war in The Federalist, noting:

The unspoken premise behind expansions of the central State is that we cannot trust one another – we must be forced to provide the correct answers in a growing list of social questions.  As we accept more political control over every element of our lives, we are transformed by our rising comfort level with the proposition that wise and just central planners should dictate our attitudes, and dissent from their judgment is intolerable.

Double LOL. How can the government have more control of your life than when it directly polices your womb?

Paul seems to have the sense of how the right’s “anti-statist” rantings reek of hypocrisy when their stance on reproductive rights comes into play.

The GOP’s unrelenting stand against a woman’s right to choose invites a debate about how and when a women loses control over her own body. This is a debate science cannot settle, a debate that reveals that when Hobby Lobby wants to ban birth control coverage for its employees, it’s doing so by arguing that certain birth control methods cause abortion. So where do the restrictions on women’s rights end if the right wing gets its way?

Most Americans don’t want to find out.

Only about 20 percent of America agrees with Rand Paul’s stand that abortion should be illegal, even in the cases of rape and incest. But that’s not the reason this Tea Party hero won’t ever be president. That was the stand of George W. Bush and it’s what the GOP says in its platform, which doesn’t even make exceptions for cases where the life of the mother is threatened.

Paul won’t be president because he doesn’t think the cruel budgets of Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) cut enough. He would privatize Social Security and Medicare, raising the retirement ages for both. And Paul wouldn’t phase in this rapid revision of America’s social contract as Ryan proposed. Given his druthers, Rand Paul would end Social Security and Medicare as we know them — today.

“Fiscal conservatives might applaud Rand Paul when he talks about getting Afghan president Hamid Karzai off of welfare, but they’ll scream if he comes within five miles of their Social Security checks,” Politico Magazine‘s Kevin D. Williamson wrote in a new column entitled, “Ready for Rand? Americans hate Rand Paul’s libertarianism. They just don’t know it yet.”

Paul’s rhetoric about the NSA does have true resonance for young people, especially the young men who loved the drug legalization stance Paul’s father — former congressman Ron Paul — took in his two campaigns for president. (Don’t tell them that the senator recently supported a bill calling for the arrest of marijuana smokers in Colorado and Washington because he’ll even be against states’ rights if Obama is for them.)

“Your rights, especially your right to privacy, are under assault,” Paul said at UC Berkeley.

And for everyone in the audience with a cellphone, the NSA’s near limitless power to capture and keep data with minuscule oversight from a court made up entirely of judges appointed by John Roberts should provoke anxiety.

But for young women, the assault on their right to privacy isn’t theoretical.  It’s happening now. Nearly 90 percent of counties in the United States have no abortion provider. More restrictions on the right to choose have been passed in the last three years than in the decade before.

Paul doesn’t just support the right of a woman’s employer to deny her birth control coverage, he literally wants to overturn Roe v. Wade, which would allow states to immediately criminalize not just abortion, but likely some methods of birth control as well.

All the young dudes may like Paul’s lawsuit against the NSA — being led by anti-abortion extremist Ken Cuccinelli.

But a brief conversation with the females in their life may reveal that Rand Paul’s version of freedom would take the government out of their cellphones and put it in women’s wombs.

Photo: jbouie via Flickr

Is This The Creepiest Thing A Republican Has Ever Said About Abortion?

Is This The Creepiest Thing A Republican Has Ever Said About Abortion?

In the latest example of the GOP’s “outreach” problem, Virginia state senator Steve Martin has ignited controversy by referring to pregnant women as “hosts” for fetuses.

Martin, who has an unapologetically anti-choice voting record, made his startling comments in a Facebook post replying to a Valentine’s Day message from the Virginia Pro-Choice Coalition.

You can count on me to never get in the way of you “preventing an unintentional pregnancy.” I’m not actually sure what that means, because if it’s “unintentional” you must have been trying to prevent it. And, I don’t expect to be in the room or will I do anything to prevent you from obtaining a contraceptive. However, once a child does exist in your womb, I’m not going to assume a right to kill it just because the child’s host (some refer to them as mothers) doesn’t want it to remain alive.

The other Steve Martin is a lot funnier.

Martin’s comments went viral on Monday after being reported by the Huffington Post, leading the fifth-term state senator to defend himself to the website.

“I don’t see how anyone could have taken it the wrong way,” Martin said. “It was me playing their argument back to them. Obviously I consider pregnant women to be mothers.”

As a general rule in politics, when you’re defending the fact that you don’t view women as hosts for parasitic fetuses, you’re probably losing.

The Huffington Post further reports that Martin edited the wording of the Facebook post on Monday afternoon, changing his description of the woman from “host” to “bearer of the child.”

While Martin’s comments are likely to creep out voters in Virginia and beyond, they may receive a better reception within the Virginia GOP. In fact, Martin seems right in the mainstream of the party of Ken Cuccinelli, E.W. Jackson, and Dick Black.

Coincidentally, Democrats have won five consecutive statewide elections in Virginia, and currently hold every statewide elected office for the first time since 1969.

Screenshot: YouTube

5 Ways The GOP Is ‘Celebrating’ The Roe v. Wade Anniversary

pro life

Forty-one years after the Supreme Court nationally legalized abortion in the landmark Roe v. Wade case, a woman’s right to choose is as hotly contested as ever.

In fact, Republicans are prepared to make abortion rights a central issue in the 2014 congressional elections. Rather than downplay the subject, Republican strategists are urging candidates to be outspoken about their pro-life stance during campaigns.

The Republican National Committee is spearheading this renewed emphasis on social issues, with a “Resolution on Republican Pro-Life Strategy” that reads:

The Republican National Committee urges all Republican pro-life candidates, consultants, and other national Republican Political Action Committees to reject a strategy of silence on the abortion issue when candidates are attacked with ‘war on women’ rhetoric.

Ellen Barrosse, an RNC committeewoman, defended the resolution, claiming recent candidates like Virginia gubernatorial nominee Ken Cuccinelli and presidential nominee Mitt Romney suffered after being attacked by their Democratic opponents for waging a “war on women.”

“Not responding has not worked well for us. It’s a conversation the party has to have,” Barrosse told CNN.

Here are five ways Republicans are ending their “silence” on their anti-choice position.

Running Extreme Anti-Choice Candidates 

Ken Cuccinelli V Gov Race

Whether or not Ken Cuccinelli actually suffered for remaining “silent” on women’s health issues is certainly debatable. In the wake of a government shutdown, a scandal that would eventually lead to the indictment of Virginia’s then-governor (and close Cuccinelli ally) Bob McDonnell, and an ailing U.S. economy, abortion became a central issue to many Virginia voters in the 2013 gubernatorial election.

It was an issue Cuccinelli purposefully brought to the foreground of the race. And it appears to have backfired.

Despite Cuccinelli’s loss, his campaign platform may now be the norm among Republican candidates. One has to look no further then current Texas Senate candidate Steve Stockman or current Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal for further evidence of the GOP’s far-right stance on a woman’s right to choose.

Rep. Stockman is particularly outspoken on his stance against abortion. He’s made a few very public and incendiary statements about the procedure. Last April, Stockman announced his new campaign bumpersticker slogan: “If babies had guns, they wouldn’t be aborted.” He also clarified his position on abortion and the Affordable Care Act in April, saying: “Will abortion be the only medical procedure not wait-listed and rationed under Obamacare?”

Jindal proved his allegiance to the anti-choice crowd by signing a ban on abortions of 20 weeks. State initiatives that limit abortion have become a common tactic by Republicans wanting to limit Roe.

Photo: Gage Skidmore via Flickr

Painting Abortion As A Tax And Spend Issue 

Obamacare Protest

GOP politicians seem to be catching on that talk about “legitimate rape” and children born of incest does not play well to the average female voter. Their response? Pander to Republican voters’ other faith-driven political issue: Economics.

In a useful political move, House Republicans will make passing a “No Taxpayer Funding For Abortion Act” a priority this year, effectively tying their anti-choice stance to the Affordable Care Act, an issue they want at the center of debate during the midterm elections.

Despite the fact that the Affordable Care Act does not allocate public funds for abortion, the fiscal conservative message used by Republicans may matter in states like Oregon. “We don’t make this a pro-life thing,” said Jeff Jimerson, who is organizing a petition drive in Oregon, which would outlaw the use of state funds to pay for any abortion except if the mother is in serious medical danger. “This is a pro-taxpayer thing. There are a lot of libertarians in Oregon, people who don’t really care what you do, just don’t make me pay for it.”

Photo: Fibonacci Blue via Flickr

State Initiatives That Limit Abortion

Rick Perry

A nuanced shift in how Republicans frame the abortion issue is certainly not the only attack they’ve launched on abortion rights in the U.S. In fact, more state abortion restrictions were passed in the past three years than in the entire previous decade. In 2013 alone, 22 states enacted 70 different abortion restrictions. According to a Guttmacher Institute report, this makes 2013 second only to 2011 in the number of restrictions passed by states in a single year.

It’s hard to keep track of all the states that have passed restrictive abortion laws in recent years. Restrictions on the state level, while occasionally blocked by the courts, may well be the single greatest threat to Roe.

North Dakota Republican governor Jack Dalrymple, for example, signed a bill that criminalizes abortion after a fetal heartbeat is detected. The law is widely considered the most restrictive abortion measure on the books.

Other initiatives introduced on a state level include a bill in Texas that shuttered a third of reproductive health clinics and multiple bills in Oklahoma that sought to ban medical abortion.

Photo: Gage Skidmore via Flickr

Busing GOPers To The March For Life 

March for life

Wednesday, Jan. 22 was a busy day for Washington’s Republican elite. The Republican National Committee’s winter meeting and the March for Life, the annual anti-choice demonstration on the National Mall, were both held on the same day.

But members of the RNC didn’t need to worry: The Republican Party provided free shuttle buses from the march to the RNC’s winter meeting. They also delayed the meeting for a few hours, to ensure members had enough time to attend both.

“We thought it only fitting for our members to attend the march,” said RNC chairman Reince Priebus.

AFP Photo/Mandel Ngan

War Against Planned Parenthood

plannedparenthood

Funding for Planned Parenthood has played an integral in role in recent budget debates and the backlash over the Affordable Care Act. The idea that taxpayer money could be used to pay for abortions is a hot-button issue for conservatives in Congress (despite the fact that federal law prohibits Planned Parenthood from using the money it receives from the government on abortions).

But the GOP’s assault on the organization in an effort to restrict abortions is misplaced. In fact, as the above graph shows, the vast majority of aid that Planned Parenthood provides is STD testing and treatment, contraception, and cancer screening. Just 3 percent of its budget is spent on abortion services.

Undeterred, the GOP has recently called for the Government Accountability Office to investigate how Planned Parenthood spends its government dollars, in an effort to strip all its government funding.

Rep. Diane Black (R-TN) offered straight talk about defunding Planned Parenthood in a press conference when she joined with other Republicans in calling for the investigation. Rep. Black said: “My hope is that through greater transparency and accountability we can successfully mobilize the support needed to defund abortion providers — once and for all.”

Congress At Work: Politicians Fighting About Abortion, Again

The United States is dealing with a major jobs crisis, the EU is teetering on the verge of collapse, and Americans are so frustrated with the financial sector that they’re willing to protest outside for a month or more, but Congress is busy debating whether or not to limit women’s access to abortion.

On Thursday, the House of Representatives approved the Protect Life Act, or H.R. 358, which would change the new health care law to prohibit federal funding from going toward health plans that cover abortion services and would also prevent funding from being withheld from institutions that oppose abortions. The bill includes an exception for abortions performed because of rape, incest, or a grave risk to the mother’s health, but it nonetheless limits abortion access in other cases.

The House approved the rule for the Protect Life Act in a 248-173 vote, taking a step toward passing the bill and opening up hours of debate. The general debate that followed was essentially a series of politicians using the opportunity to discuss why they are pro-choice or pro-life, rather than why they support the specific act in question. Some representatives did discuss the implications of the bill — including that a pregnant woman could potentially be denied appropriate treatment if she needs an emergency abortion — but such considerations clearly could not sway obstinate pro-life politicians. The act passed 251-172, with the vast majority of Republicans voting in favor and the vast majority of Democrats opposing it, unsurprisingly.

Even though the bill passed the House, it has a negligible chance of passing the Senate, and President Obama has already threatened to veto the bill if it reaches the White House. Given this information, Congress is essentially wasting time discussing abortion instead of focusing on more pressing issues. If nothing else, however, the bill is a reminder of what is at stake during elections, since politicians tend to vote on party lines on the abortion issue.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi criticized the proposal, telling reporters before the vote Thursday, “Under this bill, when the Republicans vote for this bill today, they will be voting to say that women can die on the floor of health care providers. … It’s just appalling. I can’t even describe to you the logic of what they are doing today.”

Of course, not understanding the logic of the House GOP is a common theme this session.