Claiming 'Freedom Of Speech,' Anti-Choice Zealots Continue To Intimidate, Threaten Patients, Medical Professionals, Staff At Women's Clinics

A great reminder... unfortunately
for Americans, she is in London

This has been going on for decades. And there are no signs I can see that the law enforcement and judicial systems are making even the least serious move to put a stop to the blatantly illegal activities of the fringe of the "pro-life" movement: they call themselves "pro-life" in much the same way Orwell wrote about a "Ministry of Truth." Please read what a practicing physician trying to provide health care to women, including poor women, has to say about the state of things.

A couple of memories from my own more active days in behalf of the local Planned Parenthood:

• One day I went to the clinic to install the latest version of some software I developed for use by Planned Parenthood. The clinic stank something awful: someone had tossed a stink-bomb through the window the night before. The smell lingered several more days.
  
  
• An incident with a local ABC TV "reporter" covering a clinic protest convinced me of how deeply dishonest the "pro-life" cabal can be: the clinic was surrounded by supporters linking arms to prevent protesters from crashing the clinic and disrupting medical services (which they had attempted before); the "reporter," himself Hispanic and I presume Catholic, rammed his camera crew straight through the protective circle, thereby letting the protesters into the building. "Reporter," my f^<kin' a$$!

I do not see any way this can end to the advantage of women and the benefit of their health. I DO see a large number of women dying as they are deprived of their one source of reproductive health care. The anti-choice zealots are the true murderers.

'Pro‑Life' Legislation? 'Pro‑Rape' Is More Like It

Robin Marty at TPM discusses changes in Michigan law that makes it almost impossible for a woman to purchase private insurance with her own money that covers abortion... even when the pregnancy results from rape... without buying a separate "rider" explicitly covering the rape exception, a rider which is, effectively, utterly unavailable.

Marty says this:

Supporters called it “The Abortion Insurance Opt-Out Act.” Opponents referred to it as the “rape insurance” bill. ...

Of course, neither name reflects reality. What this law does in fact is authorize rapists to force their victims not only to have sex with them, but also to bear their child. "The Rapist Empowerment Act"? "The Woman As Reproductive Vessel Act"? Pick a name: under any name, this bill, which has passed in eight states including Michigan, point-blank deprives a woman not only of the right to decide whether to reproduce, but also of the right to choose the father of her children. Under such a law, a rapist off the street acquires the same parental rights as a consensual sex partner. And the woman... the woman has no rights at all.

These laws are being passed in states that have petition mechanisms by which citizens can introduce and pass laws, mechanisms which can completely circumvent the fundamental protection of a governor's veto. Government by the consent of the governed mutates into a kind of mob rule available to any large enough group of extremists. If you do not see the difference between laws created by this process and laws created by the more conventional legislative process, you are not thinking clearly. Only the latter laws really reflect the consent of the governed.

No one... no one... has a right to force a woman to bear a child conceived as a result of a sexual act in which her participation was involuntary... an assault, a rape. What's next... a reinstitution of droit du seigneur?

House Passes Violence Against Women Act

A GOP-majority House passed the renewal of the Violence Against Women Act... the Democratic version, the one already passed in the Senate... by a vote of 286-138. Obama of course has announced his intention to sign it.

The reversal of the GOP position was probably their only hope of not losing their House majority in 2014: can you imagine a party going into an election in a country in which women have the franchise (though some Republicans would change that if they could), having deliberately defeated renewal of such a law?

Over a period of two decades, VAWA has markedly increased reporting of "domestic violence, sexual assault, dating violence and stalking," diminished murder by an intimate partner by 34% among women and 57% among men, and "saved taxpayers at least $12.6 billion in net averted social costs." (All numbers from NNEDV.)

Any law that saves lives and dollars in such quantity should never have been a partisan issue in the first place. And it wasn't, for most of two decades... until the GOP morphed into the crazy entity it has become in the past few years, actually since Obama's election in 2008.

One Republican could not resist a bit of "humor" regarding transvaginal ultrasounds: Rep. Sean Duffy (R-WI) said he couldn't comment on the procedure because... this is a quote... "I haven't had one." What a bastard. Wisconsin women in his district, please take note.

Are They The Same?

Wifebeater

Wife Beaters?

Every Senator who voted against renewal of the Violence Against Women Act was male. And Republican. Draw your own conclusions.

(H/T: Think Progress, via Gilberto Hinojosa, chair of Texas Democratic Party. But any photo of senators voting NO would show the same 22 sorry, despicable faces...)

People Unclear On The Concept: House GOP Continues To Reject Extension Of Violence Against Women Act

Despite losing women's votes by what Gallup says is the widest margin in history, as Sahil Kapur of TPM informs us,

...

House GOP leaders aren’t yielding to a bipartisan coalition of Senate leaders demanding they extend the protections of the Violence Against Women Act — an anti-domestic abuse bill that was first passed with broad support in 1994 but hit a brick wall of Republican opposition earlier this year.

“Nothing has changed,” a senior GOP aide told TPM. “The House has passed a bill, we are ready to move to conference, and the Speaker has announced his conferees. We are waiting on Senate Democrats to follow suit and act.”

Six months ago, Senate Democrats passed re-authorization that expanded the law’s protections to LGBT women, illegal immigrants and Native Americans. House Republicans rejected that approach, and in response passed a scaled back version that would make it more difficult for domestic violence victims in the country illegally to achieve legal status.

...

The law has been demonstrably successful in providing states with the additional resources they need to pursue and combat domestic violence. And the GOP was for it before it was against it.

Indeed, it's hard to see why any decent human being would be against it. But by now it should scarcely be surprising.

Women, please take notice: it's the GOP again. In particular, it's the GOP House, including the Tea Party, arbitrarily endangering your right to live life without being beaten by your spouse or partner. Apparently, they just don't care. They see you as chattel, as something to be used as a bargaining chip. You might start by overwhelming them with phone calls, emails, letters, brickbats, ... nah. Nix the brickbats. But give them an earful of your legitimate grievances.