A glimmer of sanity in America

Could it be that Americans have already had enough of the Tea Party?

In Ohio, voters smacked around Governor and former Fox News-bot John Kasich, who came to office last year in a wave of Tea Party rage, only to overplay his hand and decide to strip unions of their collective bargaining rights. It seems that Ohioans are still cognizant enough of what unions did for their manufacturing-oriented states in the days before outsourcing and at least for a day, realized that "I Want You To Get Screwed As Badly As We In The Private Sector Have Been" really isn't a formula for a thriving middle class. That almost 40% of Ohio voters still believe that "I Got Mine And Fuck You" is a good governing philosophy is disturbing, but a 20% smackdown of this dictatorial governor is a good thing. Of course the Ohio Legistature is going to try to sneak this thing through piece-by-piece through legislation next year, so continued vigilance is important.

In Mississippi, voters weren't quite ready to decide that women of reproductive age are nothing but incubators, defeating the state's "Personhood Amendment", which would have amended that state's constitution to declare every fertilized egg a person (making every menstrual period a suspected homicide, since up to 2/3 of fertilized eggs never implant). ABC's "The Note" frames this as "Liberals Victorious", as if no one thinks women have any function in our society except the Occupy Wall Street crowd, even though the linked article is written by a woman.

Of course this battle isn't over. Personhood USA, the group behind this insanity, has gained enough signatures to put this travesty on the ballot in six states next year, and is working on all fifty states. Of course this group lies in its web site (to which I refuse to link), claiming that Amendment 26 wouldn't have given rights to fertilized eggs, but it is right there on the Mississippi Secretary of State's site that it did, in fact, define personhood as starting with a fertilized egg.

This is not going to go away. Personhood USA is framing its agenda using the verbiage of the civil rights movement, that change happens slowly. The fertilized egg issue is only part of what this movement is about. Les Riley, head of the Mississippi chapter is also chairman of that state's theocratic Mississippi Constitution party. Mississippi may be able to exhale for at least a little while, but we are going to be fighting this battle in perpetuity.

I remember when abortion was illegal, and high school girls who became pregnant were sent to "stay with grandma for a while". I remember even after Roe, girls in my dorm making deals with the fates, just please let them not be pregnant. Of course in those days, you could also go to free clinics in college towns were you could obtain contraceptives for free. Now we have people bombing Planned Parenthood. The anti-abortion crazies were always around, but they used to leave birth control alone. Then one day they started with trying to repeal Roe, and when that didn't work, some of the smarter political minds around them realized that Roe's existence made useful idiots out of the fetophiles, and they started working on the state level. But it's only in the last decade years that the fetophiles have completely gone off the rails, and that's what their plans to eliminate birth control and declare fertilized eggs to be people with rights that supersede that of their hosts. (I wonder what would happen to a woman with cancer who is pregnant. Would she have to forego chemotherapy if it might hurt a fertilized egg? And since chemotherapy usually takes place over a series of months, and birth control would be redefined as murder, wouldn't potentially every reproductive age cancer patient be a potential murderer?)

It's OK to exhale today. But after today, it's time to get back to work. Because these people are not about Teh Baybeezzzzzz. They view the fact that our economy is being systematically destroyed for the benefit of a very few as something that can somehow be healed if we just put woman back under the thumb of white Christian men where these people feel we belong.

Saturday Big Blue Smurf Blogging: What They Said

Today's honoree: Ramona, who writes about Women and Children and the Choices we Make.

Money quote:

The feminist movement and Roe v. Wade, if they hadn't ever done anything else, can be credited with changing the prevailing perception that there were no choices for a person in a woman's body. The fact that the works for conceiving were built into them no longer meant that women would be forced to conceive.

That is the underlying wisdom of freedom of choice and it's what the Supreme Court saw as a constitutional right.

If, since Roe v. Wade, every child born in this country was afforded the kinds of protections necessary to ensure health and happiness, safety and well-being, the argument that a fetus must be saved at all costs might hold water.

Thoughtcrime

And people said I was being overly dramatic when I started saying that women would soon have to send their used tampons to the government for inspection to determine if they had allowed fertilized eggs to not implant. Soon, abortion will be a crime. CONSIDERING abortion will also be a crime. In Iowa, it already is:

Life can't get much worse for Christine Taylor. Last month, after an upsetting phone conversation with her estranged husband, Ms. Taylor became light-headed and fell down a flight of stairs in her home. Paramedics rushed to the scene and ultimately declared her healthy. However, since she was pregnant with her third child at the time, Taylor thought it would be best to be seen at the local ER to make sure her fetus was unharmed.

That's when things got really bad and really crazy. Alone, distraught, and frightened, Taylor confided in the nurse treating her that she hadn't always been sure she'd wanted this baby, now that she was single and unemployed. She'd considered both adoption and abortion before ultimately deciding to keep the child. The nurse then summoned a doctor, who questioned her further about her thoughts on ending the pregnancy. Next thing Taylor knew, she was being arrested for attempted feticide. Apparently the nurse and doctor thought that Taylor threw herself down the stairs on purpose.

According to Iowa state law, attempted feticide is an trying "to intentionally terminate a human pregnancy, with the knowledge and voluntary consent of the pregnant person, after the end of the second trimester of the pregnancy." At least 37 states have similar laws. Taylor spent two days in jail before being released. That's right, a pregnant woman was jailed for admitting to thinking about an abortion at some point early in her pregnancy and then having the audacity to fall down some stairs a couple of months later. Please tell me you find this as horrifying as I do.

(via)

Great minds think alike

Jill Filipovic writers over at RH Reality Check:

Dear Rep. Franklin,

I applaud your efforts to support the rights of zygote citizens of Georgia by criminalizing miscarriages and investigating every instance of fetal death as a potential crime. The bill you are trying to pass is clear that the Georgia State Assembly knows that life begins at the moment of conception, and that any fertilized egg that dies is a human death that we should all grieve. I couldn't agree more, and I would like to help.

As I'm sure you know, more than 50% of fertilized eggs --Georgia citizens! -- naturally don't implant, and are flushed out of the body during menstruation. I am personally concerned that my own murdering woman-body may have flushed out some human beings, and I may have flushed them down the toilet without knowing that I was disposing of Georgia citizens in such an undignified way. This must be remedied. I would like to be sure that I am not killing any more Georgia citizens -- and that if I am, they are able to receive a proper funeral and not a burial at sea, and that our state police can dedicate valuable time and resources to investigating their deaths.

To that end, I attach a picture of my latest used tampon. I am preserving this tampon, as well as all of my other tampons, pads, feminine hygiene products and soiled panties from my current menstrual cycle, so that the Georgia State Police can come collect them as evidence. I would also be happy to drop the specimens off at your office, should you want to examine them yourself.

Please let me know if I can make an appointment to give you these items. Or, since I appreciate that you are a very busy man, please let me know when the police will be by my home to collect them, as my next cycle is rapidly approaching and they are starting to smell. I cannot keep them in my refrigerator for much longer.

Thanks for all the work you do to further the pro-life cause.

Funny....disgusting...and I said it first -- in 2005, 2006, and last Saturday.

I call dibs.

Thursday Anthony Weiner Blogging

Because we are going to post videos of His Awesomeness in action whenever we find them:

(via ABL)

Another of the dirty sluts that Mike Pence and Chris Smith believe should be punished for their unchastity

Here's another woman for whom Mike Pence and Chris Smith think THEY should have the power to make decisions:

Thanks to Mike Stark, whom if he didn't exist we would have to invent him. Go. Read.

UPDATE: Here's Jamie, another woman that Mike Pence and Chris Smith would rather see die than have an abortion of a much-wanted fetus that had no chance of survival anyway:

Republican men can be said to be domestic abusers too

If controlling behavior and wanting to see women powerless and pregnant is the mark of the abuser, then every last Republican male who has decided that forced childbearing is their first priority is a domestic (i.e. within the U.S.) abuser.

And another hallmark of the domestic abuser is sabotaging birth control:

Men who abuse women physically and emotionally may also sabotage their partners’ birth control, pressuring them to become pregnant against their will, new reports suggest.

Several small studies have described this kind of coercion among low-income teenagers and young adults with a history of violence by intimate partners. Now, a report being released Tuesday by the federally financed National Domestic Violence Hotline says 1 in 4 women who agreed to answer questions after calling the hot line said a partner had pressured them to become pregnant, told them not to use contraceptives, or forced them to have unprotected sex.

The report was based on answers from more than 3,000 women, but it was not a research study, those involved said.

“It was very eye-opening,” said Lisa James, director of health at the Family Violence Prevention Fund in San Francisco, which worked with the hot line on the report. “There were stories about men refusing to wear a condom, forcing sex without a condom, poking holes in condoms, flushing birth control pills down the toilet.

“There were lots of stories about hiding the birth control pills — that she kept ‘losing’ her birth control pills, until she realized that he was hiding them,” Ms. James added.

One respondent described having to hide in the bathroom to take her pill. Another said that when she got her period recently, her partner was “furious.”

The hot line’s report did not include a comparison group and did not gather information about the participants, who were questioned anonymously; nor was it published in a peer-reviewed journal. It was based on answers to four questions posed to 3,169 women around the country who contacted the domestic violence hot line between Aug. 16 and Sept. 26, 2010, who were not in immediate danger and who agreed to participate. About 6,800 callers refused to answer the questions.

Of those who did respond, about a quarter said yes to one or more of these three questions: “Has your partner or ex ever told you not to use any birth control?” “Has your partner or ex-partner ever tried to force or pressure you to become pregnant?” “Has your partner or ex ever made you have sex without a condom so that you would get pregnant?”

One in six answered yes to the question “Has your partner or ex-partner ever taken off the condom during sex so that you would get pregnant?”

The questions were devised by Dr. Elizabeth Miller, an assistant professor of pediatrics at the School of Medicine at the University of California, Davis, whose earlier papers on reproductive coercion prompted interest in the subject.

“It’s really important to recognize reproductive coercion as another mechanism for control in an unhealthy relationship,” Dr. Miller said. At the same time, she added, younger women and girls dating older men may be confused by the pressure to become pregnant.

“If you can put yourself in the shoes of a 15-year-old dating an 18- or 19-year-old man, which is not an unusual scenario, and he says to her, ‘We’re going to make beautiful babies together,’ that’s pretty seductive.”

Now remember, until there was a sizable enough outcry, Republican men wanted to remove this kind of statutory rape from the bans on federal funding of abortion, instead forcing fifteen-year-olds to bear the children of the men who exploited them. And as for sabotaging birth control, well, Republicans fit that description too:

Republicans are looking to wipe out funding for Title X, a 40-year-old family planning program.

The cut would be a hard hit against Planned Parenthood, which received $16.9 million of Title X funding in 2009. By law, the funds must be spent on health care such as contraceptives, pelvic exams, and safer-sex counseling, and cannot be spent on abortion services.

The cuts are part of the continuing resolution, a Republican spending proposal released Wednesday.

Started in 1970 by President Richard Nixon, Title X is the only source of federal funds dedicated solely to family planning and reproductive health. Some 5 million women and men received services through 4,500 community-based clinics in 2008, according to the Department of Health & Human Services.

The House Appropriations Committee said in a Wednesday press release that it would cut $327 million from the family planning program. That would effectively wipe out the program’s budget: for fiscal 2011, Title X was authorized at $327 million and appropriated $317 million.

Republicans were already eyeing the Title X program as ripe for attacks. Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.) has introduced separate legislation that would strip Planned Parenthood of its Title X funding.

But while his legislation bar abortion providers from participating in Title X, the Republicans’ continuing resolution would wipe it out entirely.

More misogyny from Republican males

I'm not sure if I should be glad that I'm still shocked, because it means that I haven't completely sunk into a morass of utter cynicism and hopelessness. But even back before abortion was legal, men who would force women into childbearing weren't so open about their fear and loathing of women -- to the point of articulating that women are simply expendable vessels to be disposed of at will if it means "saving" even an unviable fetus:

The controversy over "forcible rape" may be over, but now there's a new Republican-sponsored abortion bill in the House that pro-choice folks say may be worse: this time around, the new language would allow hospitals to let a pregnant woman die rather than perform the abortion that would save her life.

The bill, known currently as H.R. 358 or the "Protect Life Act," would amend the 2010 health care reform law that would modify the way Obamacare deals with abortion coverage. Much of its language is modeled on the so-called Stupak Amendment, an anti-abortion provision pro-life Democrats attempted to insert into the reform law during the health care debate last year. But critics say a new language inserted into the bill just this week would go far beyond Stupak, allowing hospitals that receive federal funds but are opposed to abortions to turn away women in need of emergency pregnancy termination to save their lives.

The sponsor of H.R. 358, Rep. Joe Pitts (R-PA) is a vocal member of the House's anti-abortion wing. A member of the bipartisan Pro-Life Caucus and a co-sponsor of H.R 3 -- the bill that added "forcible rape" to the lexicon this week -- Pitts is no stranger to the abortion debate. But pro-choice advocates say his new law goes farther than any other bill has in encroaching on the rights of women to obtain an abortion when their health is at stake. They say the bill is giant leap away from accepted law, and one they haven't heard many in the pro-life community openly discuss before.

Pitts' response to the complaints from pro-choice groups? Nothing to see here.

"Since the 1970s, existing law affirmed the right to refuse involvement in abortion in all circumstances," a spokesperson for Pitts told TPM.

"The Protect Life Act simply extends these provisions to the new law by inserting a provision that mirrors Hyde-Weldon," the spokesperson added, referring to current federal law banning spending on abortion and allowing anti-abortion doctors to refrain from performing them while still receiving federal funds. "In other words, this bill is only preserving the same rights that medical professionals have had for decades."

A bit of backstory: currently, all hospitals in America that receive Medicare or Medicaid funding are bound by a 1986 law known as EMTALA to provide emergency care to all comers, regardless of their ability to pay or other factors. Hospitals do not have to provide free care to everyone that arrives at their doorstep under EMTALA -- but they do have to stabilize them and provide them with emergency care without factoring in their ability to pay for it or not. If a hospital can't provide the care a patient needs, it is required to transfer that patient to a hospital that can, and the receiving hospital is required to accept that patient.

In the case of an anti-abortion hospital with a patient requiring an emergency abortion, ETMALA would require that hospital to perform it or transfer the patient to someone who can. (The nature of how that procedure works exactly is up in the air, with the ACLU calling on the federal government to state clearly that unwillingness to perform an abortion doesn't qualify as inability under EMTALA. That argument is ongoing, and the government has yet to weigh in.)

Pitts' new bill would free hospitals from any abortion requirement under EMTALA, meaning that medical providers who aren't willing to terminate pregnancies wouldn't have to -- nor would they have to facilitate a transfer.

The hospital could literally do nothing at all, pro-choice critics of Pitts' bill say.

"This is really out there," Donna Crane, policy director at NARAL Pro-Choice America told TPM. "I haven't seen this before."

Last month job creation was at an anemic 36,000. There is snow in Texas, there are floods and category 5 cyclones in Australia. Arctic ice is thinner than ever before. The Middle East is exploding. One in eight Americans needs food stamps to put food on the table. But all that Republican men care about is that the Evil Daughters of Eve be "punished" by forced continuation of pregnancies that will end up killing them -- so that they can deliver hopelessly deformed babies with no chance of survival. It's not about the babies. It's not about human life and it never was. Because these men do not see women as human. I've asked in the past at what point in the minds of these people when women cease to be human and become mere vessels. We now have our answer: It's always.

UPDATE: Best quote on this comes from, of all people, Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs:

According to the “pro-life” GOP, an unborn fetus is a person — but a woman is not.

And there's more, from LGF and elsewhere:

Arkansas Anti-Choicers Reject Abortion Restriction Bill Because it Includes Exceptions for Rape and Incest

South Dakota Seeks to Force Women into Crisis Pregnancy Centers

Kansas House panel considers new abortion limits

And New Jerseyans who didn't think Chris Christie was going to shove his own religious beliefs into your homes, guess again: Abortion rights, in peril in New Jersey

Heh. If the Democrats had the slightest idea how to frame things, they'd call this bill the Human Sacrifice Encouragement Act of 2011.

Around the blogroll and elsewhere: Sex-Obsessed Republicans Longing for the Dark Ages edition

Because when politicians and writers on the right starts talking about sex, they're telling you an awful lot about themselves.

Amanda on Maggie Gallagher's strange world in which legal abortion leads to anal sex and how the world was much better when women would grit their teeth, lie back, and think of England. And extra bonus points for this rant about Rush Limbaugh's view that advising people to eat fruits and vegetables is a Kenyan Socialist Communist Fascist plot by four-eyed aliens named Gallaxhar.

Melissa, whom I've knocked on more than one occasion for an ever-expanding definition of rape that turns every woman into someone who was victimized at some point, makes a very valid point about how Chris Smith and the Republican House of Representatives want to give men a roadmap as to how to avoid a rape rap and as a bonus, force women to carry their children.

Scott over at World-o-Crap channels his inner Driftglass and demolishes this lunatic article bemoaning The Descent of Women. Because we all know that women had it so much better when they could have their heads cut off for not delivering sons on cue.

Evan McMorris-Santoro at TPM shows that with Democrats like this, who needs Republicans? Perhaps Daniel Lipinski ought to actually read the bills he co-sponsors.

Sady at Tiger Beatdown: "Instead of maintaining that rape is always rape, that there’s no such thing as a “minor” or “excusable” rape, the GOP is putting forth a bill that says some rapes are so very minor and excusable as not to warrant consideration."

Taking a stroll down memory lane over to I Blame the Patriarchy, back to Bill Napoli's musings about the kind of virtuous, untouched, pure virgin he might allow to have an abortion if raped. Think about it. Chris Smith is even more nutty than Bill Napoli. And so is the current Speaker of the House.

AK Muckraker with examples of what kinds of sexual assault would now be redefined as essentially consensual. One wonders what the impact would be on prosecutions of people who use date rape drugs and then assault unconscious women. If rape is redefined for the purpose of funding of abortions, why not redefine it for the legal system as well?

RMuse at Politics USA wonders: just who are the ones imposing tyranny and stealing liberty here, when the House is starting to resemble the Westboro Baptist Church?

Was this a real enough rape to satisfy Chris Smith, Daniel Lipinksi, and John Boehner?

Dennis G. at Balloon Juice makes special note of how this bill protects child predators, which makes me wonder just what kind of secrets Rep. Chris Smith and others who support this travesty are hiding. After all, when Republicans start ranting about the morality and sexual practices of others, they're telling you a great deal about themselves.

And where ARE those jobs, anyway, Mr. Boehner?

First stop should be James O'Keefe's residence

Because his fingerprints, along with those of his mentor Andrew Breitbart, are all over this:

Planned Parenthood, a perennial protest target because of its role in providing abortions, has notified the FBI that at least 12 of its health centers were visited recently by a man purporting to be a sex trafficker but who may instead be part of an attempted ruse to entrap clinic employees.

In each case, according to Planned Parenthood, the man sought to speak privately with a clinic employee and then requested information about health services for sex workers, including some who he said were minors and in the U.S. illegally.

Planned Parenthood's vice president for communications, Stuart Schear, said the organization has requested an FBI probe of the man's claims and has already fielded some initial FBI inquiries. However, Schear said Planned Parenthood's own investigation indicates that the man has links with Live Action, an anti-abortion group that has conducted previous undercover projects aimed at discrediting the nation's leading abortion provider.

Lila Rose, Live Action's founder and president, described Planned Parenthood's assertion as "very interesting." She declined to confirm or deny that the clinic visits were part of a Live Action operation, but did indicate in a telephone interview that an undercover videotape project of some sort was in the works.

"The story that speaks loudest will be in the evidence," she said. "I can't comment until we release the visual evidence."

The visits were made between Jan. 11 and Jan. 15 to health centers in Virginia, Indiana, New York, New Jersey, Washington, D.C., and Arizona. Among them was a clinic in Tucson, Ariz., which Planned Parenthood said was visited on the 15th, a week after the shooting rampage in that city that critically injured Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.

Last week, Planned Parenthood Federation of America president Cecile Richards wrote to Attorney General Eric Holder summarizing the visits and requesting an FBI investigation. If the man's assertions were true, she wrote, they would indicate possible violations of federal laws dealing with interstate sex trafficking of minors.

However, Richards said the visits could be part of a hoax resembling some past actions by anti-abortion activists.

"Once inside, these people have recorded `undercover' videos of their conversations with our clinic staff and then selectively and maliciously edited the videos," she wrote. "This may be happening once again. If so, this kind of activity should be firmly condemned."

Ross Douthat wants a "Handmaid's Tale" world

For those who haven't read A Handmaid's Tale (or seen the movie), it takes place in the United States after the government is overthrown and replaced with theocrats. Not so far-fetched, eh? In this world, fertile women are captured and become the property of infertile couples, particularly of the men in such couples, for the sole purpose of conceiving children for them. The story is told from the viewpoint of one such woman, Offred (because such women are only recognized by to whom they belong, in this case "of Fred"). A fuller symopsis is offered at the novel's Wikipedia entry.

In the movie, Offred is portrayed heartbreakingly (doubly so now) by the late Natasha Richardson, and the couple by a creepy Robert Duvall and equally creepy Faye Dunaway, who keeps a lovely upper-class home and spends her days clipping lovely flowers in her garden. The movie provides a somewhat more upbeat conclusion than the book, but the story still resonates with women like me who are old enough to remember when girls in junior high and high school would "go to visit grandma for a while" after putting on some weight and then come back slimmer and usually quieter and sadder. These girls didn't have abortions. These girls were sent away to have their babies out of sight of their parents' friends and of their classmates, and to hand those babies off to strangers. Because before Roe v. Wade, that's what young girls did who became pregnant and whose parents didn't know any doctors who would perform a then-illegal abortion.

Access to abortion has become more limited in the last decade, as American terrorists continue to kill doctors who perform them and state legislatures continue to enact laws to restrict access. A meme persists on the so-called "pro-life" right (which cares little or nothing about babies who are born, unless they are white and handed off to affluent white families) that teenaged girls AND adult women decide to have an abortion as easily as they decide to get their nails done or get a latte at Starbucks.

This segment from an MTV program which aired December 28 would give lie to that notion in a sane world:

No Easy Decision - MTV Shows

But we do not live in a sane world. The Handmaid's Tale is a work of fiction. But in the insane world in which we live, Ross Douchebag at the New York Times feels free to articulate the notion right out of that novel that young women with unwanted pregnancies have a moral obligation to carry their babies to term so that affluent, infertile women can have children to raise:

In every era, there’s been a tragic contrast between the burden of unwanted pregnancies and the burden of infertility. But this gap used to be bridged by adoption far more frequently than it is today. Prior to 1973, 20 percent of births to white, unmarried women (and 9 percent of unwed births over all) led to an adoption. Today, just 1 percent of babies born to unwed mothers are adopted, and would-be adoptive parents face a waiting list that has lengthened beyond reason.

Or as TBogg so succinctly says:

Shorter Ross Douthat:

Poor uneducated pregnant women should waste not so that upper middle-class women will want not.

I wonder if I'm the only one who finds it creepy that so many adult conservative males are so utterly obsessed with the reproductive functioning and the sex lives of teenagers.

UPDATE: Because Douchebag's utopian vision of a Nation of Breeders is so mindbogglingly fucked-up, here's more from:

• Amanda
  
• Melissa (despite her irritating habit of insisting that everything come with a "trigger warning", as if all feminists were fragile flowers who might be pushed off the deep end at the slightest provocation)
  
• Jill (no, the other one)
  

(more as I find them)

John Boehner's staff consorts with terrorists

If the Obama Administration thinks John Boehner is a guy they can work with, one wonders how long it's going to take for them to throw reproductive self-determination under the bus along with everything else that's already there (and now this):

When it comes to the GOP agenda, future House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) always looks for constructive input. On Wall Street Reform, Boehner was quick to consult corporate lobbyists on how to defeat it. On the GOP “Pledge to America,” he made sure to invite “senior Republican lobbyists” and “more than 20 trade representatives” to offer their advice, while summarily ignoring that of the public. Now, apparently seeking to flesh out the GOP’s social agenda, Boehner has invited another influential voice to the table: the far right Christian activist Randall Terry.

As the founder of the extremist, pro-life group Operation Rescue, Terry turned rabid fanaticism into a high-profile career. Known for his outlandish antics and incendiary rhetoric, Terry earns the scorn of most respectable lawmakers. But, according to an email alert obtained by Right Wing Watch, Terry’s extremism has now secured him a spot in Beohner’s inner circle. Meeting with Boehner’s staff, Terry apparently demanded the GOP “hasten the end of legalized child killing in America” and that “unless the Republicans do something concrete to save babies from murder, then they are collaborators with child killers, and we must treat them as such”:

We must demand that Republicans who won the House of Representatives hasten the end of legalized child killing in America. Their victory could be a strong step forward for the babies, but it also might be yet another set back after 50,000,000 dead babies.

We must not delude ourselves!…We already see pro-life fundraising letters and petitions heralding this GOP victory as an automatic victory for the babies’ lives. This is simply not true![...]

When the Republicans are in power, pro-life groups and leaders become way too “polite.” We lose our edge; we don’t hold them accountable; we settle for trite phrases and broken promises as long as they will meet with us for 10 minutes, and we can take our picture with them, or they come to one of our meetings and receive some useless award.

I beg you to carefully consider my words; look at this situation with prophetic insight. Unless the Republicans do something concrete to save babies from murder, then they are collaborators with child killers, and we must treat them as such.

Here is Part I of "The Assassination of Dr. Tiller", a film about the terrorists in this country who target doctors:

The rest can be seen starting here.

This is terrorism -- terrorism that involves white "Christian" males; the very kind of white Christian males being touted as "the real America" by the Republican Party. By consorting with Randall Terry, and condoning his staff consorting with Randall Terry, John Boehner is signaling that he endorses this kind of terrorism.

Dear Wussy-Ass Democrats: THIS is how you do it

Any questions?

Trig Palin as political prop

Regina over at Palingates has an interesting post comparing Sarah Palin's handling of her role as parent to a Down's Syndrome child to those of other parents of Down's Syndrome children who don't use their children as political props, and for whom their children are a reason to become involved with organizations that provide assistance and support for parents who want their children to live normal lives, as opposed to being props for a parent's political grievances:

Let's continue to look at the contrasts between Sarah and other parents with children with DS. Catherine pointed out to me that actor John C McGinley, who plays one of the doctors in the series Scrubs, is the father of another Max, who also has Down syndrome. John was just as overwhelmed as any other parent when he learned that Max had DS. Did he say Max is an adorable miracle and stop at that? No. He and his wife tried to learn everything they could about the condition, joined groups, used his fame to promote events to raise money and awareness about DS; John C. gave numerous interviews and wrote articles where he pulled no punches regarding the irresponsible use of the word "retard."

John C. is committed to building awareness and acceptance of people with Down syndrome. In 2002, he joined the National Down Syndrome Society as the National Buddy Walk Spokesman, providing significant national visibility for the program. He served as the 2005/2006 national spokesperson for the Society's annual Buddy Walks, advocacy walks that take place in hundreds of cities across the United States and Canada.

A simple google search will return results pointing to countless blogs written by parents of children with special needs. I had a quick look at some of them and noticed that they share a few things: Networking, supporting special needs organizations, supporting other parents, asking readers to pray for a particular child going through a bad patch. They all celebrate their children and are proud to share their achievements and landmarks with their readers. They share resources, united in their quest to make their children's lives richer and the path a bit smoother.

A bunch of unknown people do their best for their children and hope to raise awareness about their conditions, share what they know with others, giving tips and linking to helpful organizations. These parents want to make a contribution and make a difference in any way they can. Some of the contributors to Palingates, like StephiLou, tXdAd and others generously shared their experiences in the comments section. We learned from them and our little community was enriched, we became more aware in the process.

Please note that I refer to parents of children with special needs simply as parents of children with special needs. They don't like to define themselves or their babies by their diagnoses. Sarah Palin, on the other hand, wears Down syndrome as a badge, using Trig and his condition to serve her own skewed agenda. That's why I refer to her as a "DS mom." She likes to point out that she "chose" to have Trig, knowing he was going to be born with Down syndrome. So did many other parents. The big difference is that they saw the child first and the condition was secondary in their choices. Some other parents were not aware of DS before the birth of their babies, but again, they fell in love with their babies, not their diagnoses. They see themselves as parents and don't feel special because their children are a bit different.

[snip]

Sarah Palin is the most famous "DS mom" in the country. But apart from parading Trig all over the place in inappropriate attire, spouting some soundbites in her speeches and giving a token donation to NADS, she has done absolutely nothing for children with special needs and their families. She uses her Facebook page to attack people and not much else. There are so many avenues open to her if she really wanted to support families raising children with special needs... What's stopping her from creating a Facebook group dedicated to sharing stories about Trig, how he's making progress thanks to early intervention programs, giving links to resources, having a forum where other parents could tell their stories, talk about their triumphs and their struggles?

If she would put a fraction of the energy she uses to attack people (in a very aggressive manner) into promoting a group dedicated to children with special needs instead, she could make a greater impact than all the little known blogs put together.

But Sarah Palin is not about the positive. She's not for solutions or anything constructive.

Today Ramesh Ponnuru has an op-ed piece in the New York Times about the rise of so-called "pro-life" women in politics this year. Sarah Palin is of course the poster child for these women, but the piece also cites California Senate candidate Carly Fiorina, who has decided that no woman should have the right to reproductive self-determination because she is infertile. Sarah Palin, whose motivations in putting baby Trig in danger of infection by flying from Texas to Alaska after her water broke are suspect, not only would disallow other women from choosing differently than she did (though her actions make me wonder if said flight wasn't an attempt at late-term self-induced abortion), but refuses to use her considerable political clout to advocate for Americans with Down's Syndrome, instead making Trig's situation all about HER. If the narcissism of Sarah Palin and Carly Fiorina is what pro-life is all about, pro-choice women in politics ought to be able to make the case that narcissism is no basis for allowing the government to take away women's freedom -- the "F" word to which these women give only lip service.

In case you thought the so-called pro-life movement was about life and not about patriarchy

Pam found this little tidbit -- this batshit crazy Ohio state legislator wants any woman seeking an abortion to have a man's permission. No exceptions:

ed by Rep. John Adams, a group of state legislators have submitted a bill that would give fathers of unborn children a final say in whether or not an abortion can take place.

It's a measure that, supporters say, would finally give fathers a choice.

"This is important because there are always two parents and fathers should have a say in the birth or the destruction of that child," said Adams, a Republican from Sidney. "I didn't bring it up to draw attention to myself or to be controversial. In most cases, when a child is born the father has financial responsibility for that child, so he should have a say."

As written, the bill would ban women from seeking an abortion without written consent from the father of the fetus. In cases where the identity of the father is unknown, women would be required to submit a list of possible fathers. The physician would be forced to conduct a paternity test from the provided list and then seek paternal permission to abort.

Claiming to not know the father's identity is not a viable excuse, according to the proposed legislation. Simply put: no father means no abortion.

"I'm really pleased that this has been proposed for one reason - it draws attention to the fact that many men are concerned and care for their unborn children," said Denise Mackura, the director of the Ohio Right to Life Society. "You have no idea how many men call telling me about their girlfriends who plan to abort, asking what they can do to help her. They do want to help and they should have a voice."

With the proposal, men would be guaranteed that voice under penalty of law. First time violators would by tried for abortion fraud, a first degree misdemeanor. The same would be the case for men who falsely claim to be fathers and for medical workers who knowingly perform an abortion without paternal consent.

In addition, women would be required to present a police report in order to prove a pregnancy is the result of rape or incest.

If you're pregnant and your husband is abusive, too fucking bad for you.

If you're twelve and pregnant by your father and he wants you to have the baby, too fucking bad for you.

If you were raped and you couldn't bring yourself to deal with the humiliation of reporting it, too fucking bad for you.

If your husband decided to go fuck his mistress in Argentina and you don't know where he is or when he'll be back or how to get in touch with him, too fucking bad for you.

Because if you're a woman of reproductive age in this country, as far as these legislators (and many in Washington, I'd wager) are concerned, a man OWNS you. Whether he's your husband, your boyfriend, your father, a guy at a party who slipped a roofie into your drink, or a stranger on the street, it doesn't matter. If you're pregnant, he owns you.

Why is anyone still taking these people seriously?

The issue isn't whether this insanity will be passed, because it won't. But it IS indicative of the true mindset behind many of those who profess to be "pro-life". The only life that matters to them is the potential life that may be keeping a woman subjugated to a man, no matter what her relationship to that man may be; even if it's a stranger in a dark alley, a pedophile father, or a guy with date rape drugs at a party.

And before you point out that the article is from 2007, the legislation has just been reintroduced.

Is anyone actually surprised by this?

The legacy of abstinence education:

Teenage pregnancies and syphilis have risen sharply among a generation of American school girls who were urged to avoid sex before marriage under George Bush's evangelically-driven education policy, according to a new report by the US's major public health body.

In a report that will surprise few of Bush's critics on the issue, the Centres for Disease Control says years of falling rates of teenage pregnancies and sexually transmitted disease infections under previous administrations were reversed or stalled in the Bush years. According to the CDC, birth rates among teenagers aged 15 or older had been in decline since 1991 but are up sharply in more than half of American states since 2005. The study also revealed that the number of teenage females with syphilis has risen by nearly half after a significant decrease while a two-decade fall in the gonorrhea infection rate is being reversed. The number of Aids cases in adolescent boys has nearly doubled.

The CDC says that southern states, where there is often the greatest emphasis on abstinence and religion, tend to have the highest rates of teenage pregnancy and STDs.

Is this actually a surprise to anyone? What IS a surprise is that anyone (I'm talking to YOU, Mr. President) is still buying into the notion that those who profess their faith loudly and often, and seek a larger role for religion in the public space, when the hypocrisy of those who profess Christianity the loudest has become so manifest of late.

And remember -- these people whose 10-to-14-year-olds are becoming pregnant (read more of the article for that one) are the ones who want to see abortion and contraceptive services barred from coverage under any form of health care reform.

When the terrorists win and the law doesn't care

Rachel Maddow, on the permanent closing of Dr. George Tiller's clinic:

Scott Roeder is a terrorist, and yet no conservatives are talking about waterboarding him to find out when the next attack, the one he insists is coming, is going to take place. Scott Roeder is a terrorist, and not one Republican has expressed concern about having a terrorist housed within our borders. Scott Roeder is a terrorist, with ties to Operation Rescue, and not one Republican is advocating that people even peripherally associated with Operation Rescue be sent to Guantanamo Bay. Scott Roeder is a terrorist, whose targets are women and the doctors who provide medical services to them. And no one in government seems to care. Because after all, it's only women. And what is women's health care when compared to the right of men with issues about their masculinity and women who made choices they may regret and therefore want to make sure no other woman has the choice they had to intimidate medical providers out of business, to the point of murdering them.

Monday Big Blue Smurf Blogging: What They Said

Today's honoree: Melissa, who writes a letter to President Obama.

Money quote:

This was a terrorist act, one in an ongoing campaign against Dr. Tiller, who was one target among many in a bigger campaign against women and the people who provide abortion services and safe havens for them—but no one in our government will call it terrorism. There are, in fact, a lot of things that don't get called terrorism in this country, but few of them approach the breadth of the long-term, flagrant campaign of intimidation, harassment, exhorted violence, attempted violence, actual violence, and murder of abortion providers and abortion-seeking women.

Still, our government is unwilling to call this orchestrated, overt, unapologetic campaign against women and their healthcare providers terrorism, even as increasing numbers of doctors say offering the legal service to their patients is not worth the risk—the very definition of effective terrorism. Even as physician champions of women's right to choose are murdered in cold blood. Even as "pro-life" groups openly celebrate his death and take the position that he deserved it.

[snip]

Your statement, upon hearing of Dr. Tiller's death, was that you are "shocked" and "outraged," that you believe: "However profound our differences as Americans over difficult issues such as abortion, they cannot be resolved by heinous acts of violence." Mr. President, if you had been paying the slightest bit of attention to the realities of the front line of the fight to protect women's bodily autonomy, you would not be shocked. This wasn't even the first attempt on Dr. Tiller's life; it was the merely the first successful one.

I'm angry because you have been admonishing pro-choice advocates to respect the views of anti-choice activists, despite the fact there is very good reason not to afford a modicum of respect for a viewpoint that would force women to relinquish control over their own bodies to the state. I'm angry because you don't seem to get that both sides of this "debate" aren't equal, and it's not just because one side contains mainstream organizations who tacitly encourage the murder of doctors.

It is time to go to the mat to preserve women's right to reproductive self-determination

Gloria Feldt has a passionate plea at Salon to stop assuaging our outrage at the murder of Dr. George Tiller with candlelight vigils:

I am done with candlelight vigils.

It is good and necessary that people gather together at a candlelight vigil to honor the memory of Dr. George Tiller, murdered in cold blood today at his Lutheran church by an assailant believed to be Montana “Freeman” Scott Roeder. Tiller was a compassionate and courageous doctor who provided abortion services to women in some of the most distressing circumstances imaginable, when their pregnancies had gone horribly, tragically wrong. He provided services when no one else would, and he was stubborn enough to fight against everyone who tried to stop him. So it is right that people express their grief in public ceremonies.

But I myself am done with candlelight vigils. I have participated in too many of them, from 1993 with the murder of Dr. David Gunn in Pensacola through the seven doctors, patient escorts and staff murdered over the horrifying five-year period thereafter. I can never forget the day before New Year's Eve in 1994. I was, at the time, CEO of Planned Parenthood in Arizona, talking on the phone to Pensacola patient escort June Barrett -- who had been wounded when her husband and the clinic’s Dr. John Britton were murdered by anti-abortion zealot Rev. Paul Hill -- when I received another urgent call from a friend whose granddaughter worked in Planned Parenthood’s Brookline clinic. The young woman had just witnessed the murder of two co-workers by John Salvi.

Each time, we held vigils all over the country. We wept and we pledged to continue our work. Which we did, increasingly, in isolation. We were the ones who had been wronged, and yet we were labeled controversial, to be shunned rather than supported. The murders were only the tip of the iceberg, among over 6000 cases of violence, vandalism, stalking, bombings, arson, invasions and other serious harassment. 

[snip]

When it comes to decrying Tiller’s unspeakable murder, I want to hear it from Congress. I want to hear it from clergy, the medical profession, the media and civic leaders: "This kind of violation will not be tolerated. Period." I want to see leaders and people at the grassroots joining hands together in support of those who provide women with reproductive health services, including abortion. I want them to put the yellow armband on, to assume Tiller’s name as so many took on the Obama’s middle name, Hussein, when he was disparaged during the election. Doctors have a special responsibility. David Toub M.D, MBA, who provided abortions when he was a practicing physician in Philadelphia, told me, "This could have been any of us who provide or provided abortion services. I'm just as annoyed by some of my own colleagues and the American Medical Association who marginalized us and even looked down at anyone involved in providing abortion."

The silence overall from leaders so far has been deafening, as attorney and longtime Arizona volunteer for reproductive rights causes Leon Silver pointed out. And if our leaders remain silent, I can tell you with perfect assurance what will happen next. There will be more violence.

For the last twenty years, we've watched as those in a position to make policy began to get "squishy" on abortion rights. We've watched our party become increasingly willing to throw women's rights to control our own bodies under the bus in an effort to include those whose stated concern for "THE BAYBEEEEZZZZZ" is belied by their own behavior. Yes, there are people of good conscience who oppose abortion but support efforts to support women making the decision not to abort -- including financial ones.

But for the most part (including the troll who commented on an earlier post here yesterday), scratch the surface of a fetophile and you'll find a misogynist -- someone who feels that the dirty sluts who can't keep their legs closed deserve to be punished. When you look at who it is who kills these doctors, it's the very same teabaggers who have been praised by right-wing television and radio hosts as American patriots. It is not considered patriotic on the right to murder those providing health care services to women.

There have always been abortions. There will always be abortions. Most of us who believe that there should be NO point in a woman's life in which she ceases to be a human being and becomes nothing but a vessel for a fetus have never had an abortion. I have never had an abortion. I wanted to make sure that this choice I support wholeheartedly is one I never had to make. I was both responsible and lucky -- responsible because I was dogged about contraceptive use, and lucky because in my case, the method I chose, which statistically has a higher failure rate than others, never failed.

"I don't like the idea of abortion used as birth control," we hear people say. Yes, there are women who have repeated abortions. But anyone who thinks that abortion is something that women choose blithely is clearly a) not a woman; or b) has never had a cold speculum shoved into him/her. I had a punch biopsy once, and that was quite enough pulling stuff out of my nether quarters, thank you very much. The very notion that there are millions of women in this country who decide to have a late-term abortino to fit into a prom dress, or who decide that it's such a nice day, let's go get our nails done, have a nice lunch, and then get an abortion, is preposterous on the face of it.

So why do we give these people any credence at all?

It's time to start digging beneath the surface of these people and reveal them for the frightened little weasels that they are. Women have sex. Women enjoy sex. This is a GOOD thing. Once we accept that, then we can open the door to teaching girls about the conscientious use of contraception without the added baggage of having to be "swept away" so that having sex doesn'tmake her a slut. If we want to reduce the incidence of abortion, we need to be teaching women not the madonna/whore dichotomy, but how to make affirmative decisions as to what is right for them at the appropriate times of life. An empowered, confident woman is one who makes smart choices. An empowered, confident woman won't feel unable to insist on condom use. An empowered, confident woman also has better ability to protect herself from disease.

We also need to make contraception more available, especially to low-income women, and not just send them home with pills or devices, but also teach them how to say yes -- or no -- and listen to their own hearts and minds instead of messages from men or churches or even traditions that are no longer relevant to life today. Over the last few decades, contraceptive choices have become fewer rather than more. Try getting a diaphragm these days without having to wait a week for the local Rite-Aid to get the damn thing.

And it's time to stop being squishy about this. I'm not happy about President Obama's statement yesterday, though I realize that it's about as good as we're going to get from him. But the issue isn't simply one of deploring the violence directed against abortion providers. It's time to stop demonizing women who choose abortions and the doctors who perform them. If you want to stop abortions, then support efforts to make contraception universally available, effective, and affordable, and support efforts to help women make independent sexual decisions for themselves. But those who paint their anti-abortion rhetoric with undertones of fear and loathing of women and our sexuality can just shut the fuck up. We don't want to hear you anymore. Guys like Scott Roeder have taken away any credibility you ever had.

How predictable they are

There is now a suspect in custody in connection with the murder of Dr. George Tiller. And he's everything one would expect him to be. From Hunter over at the Great Orange Satan:

Several news sources are now reporting the name of the suspect in the murder of Dr. George Tiller. According to KWCH-TV:

Deputy Chief Tom Stolz w/ Wichita Police Dept. says Dr. Tiller died of a single gunshot wound. The Associated Press says the man detained in the Kansas City area is 51-year-old Scott Roeder of Merriam, Kansas, according to Law Enforcement authorities in the area. Roeder has not been formally charged with the killing at this time. Police say he was arrested without incident after a traffic stop.

Via diarist FreeStateDem, Militia Watchdog previously reported of Roeder:

July 7, [1997], Kansas: Scott Roeder is sentenced to sixteen months in state prison for parole violations following a 1996 conviction for having bomb components in his car trunk. Roeder, a sovereign citizen and tax protester, violated his parole by not filing tax returns or providing his social security number to his employer.

He was also an active member of Operation Rescue; in 2007 a "Scott Roeder" posted this on the Operation Rescue website (which has been down throughout the day, probably more as a result of increased traffic than any sense of collective shame):

[May 19th, 2007 at 4:34 pm] Bleass everyone for attending and praying in May to bring justice to Tiller and the closing of his death camp. Sometime soon, would it be feasible to organize as many people as possible to attend Tillers church (inside, not just outside) to have much more of a presence and possibly ask questions of the Pastor, Deacons, Elders and members while there? Doesn’t seem like it would hurt anything but bring more attention to Tiller.

The Lawrence Journal-World and News relays that Kansas City station KMBC reported a post-it note with a phone number for Operation Rescue in his car at the time of his arrest.

So a bombmaker, tax protester, member of the "sovereignity" movement, anti-abortion zealot and Operation Rescue member: the arrested suspect manages to fit every stereotype of right-wing militia teabagger.

And more on this pendejo here.

And every qualification to be a good right-wing Republican. Ladies and Gentlemen, Scott Roeder is the new face of the new right-wing Republican Party. Hey, Republicans, this is you. Do you like what you see? If not, then take your fucking party back. Because it is no longer just a party of psychopaths and torturers. It is now a party of cold-blooded murderers.