To Hell With Them!

(Cartoon by Joel Pett, published 7/1/14 in the Lexington Herald-Leader and featured at McClatchy DC.  Click on image to see the full beauty of this 'toon and hustle on back.)

Well, the Supreme Court of the United States has issued its decision in the Hobby Lobby case and made it clear that our owners' "religious beliefs" trump women's rights and health.  I'm not surprised, but that doesn't mean I am not thoroughly disgusted.  I think that Joel Pett's cartoon captures the issue nicely, if more politely than I would have been.

What angers me is that what it boils down to is that the religious beliefs of the majority of justices are being imposed upon the entire nation, which is a slippery slope no matter how you look at it.  I'm all for accommodating sincerely held religious beliefs, but a more rational, not to mention more equitable way of handling it is to allow the holders of those beliefs to apply it to themselves.  If you don't like abortion, don't get one.  If you think blood transfusions are evil, don't have one.  And (sigh) if immunizations are against your religion, don't get them.

I think, however, that there is more in play than deeply held religious beliefs.  Again, Pett's pictorial comment nails it.  There's some serious misogyny in play here, and an op-ed piece in the L.A. Times suggests yet another problem with the decision.

From that L.A. Times op-ed:

The specious reasoning in Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr.'s majority opinion could embolden employers to assert a "religious" right to deny other health benefits to their employees — from immunization to blood transfusions to psychotherapy — or to discriminate in other ways. And by stretching the meaning of a law intended to protect individuals, the decision threatens to fracture what has been a bipartisan support for reasonable accommodation of religious beliefs.

Under regulations designed to implement the healthcare law, companies that provide health insurance for their employees must offer, without a co-pay, certain kinds of preventive care, including contraceptives for women. Hobby Lobby, a chain of craft stores, and two other family-owned businesses claimed that the regulations required them to cover forms of contraception that the owners regarded as equivalent to abortion and thus offensive to their faith.   [Emphasis added]

While the holding is limited to closely held companies, the impact is going to be wide-spread.  And those "deeply held" religious beliefs run contrary to other individual's deeply held beliefs.  More importantly, it provides for the government to step in, whether by executive fiat, legislative action, or Supreme Court holdings to impose other regulations which favor one religion over another. This is probably causing Thomas Jefferson and other early patriots to spin in their graves.

Of course, the fact that Hobby Lobby is going to save all sorts of money in medical benefits didn't enter into the equation at all.  Nope.  No reason to think the rest of our owners aren't chuckling and waiting to make some more moves.  Not a chance.

I look at the current make-up of the Supreme Court and wonder if Harry Reid and his caucus are happy they kept their powder dry when those last confirmation hearings were held. 

Like I said:  to hell with all of them.

Drawing On A New Hobby

(Cartoon by Rogers published 12/3/13 in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and found here.  Click on image to enlarge.)

The War on Women continues apace.  The latest battle is at the Supreme Court as arguments were heard on the issue of whether an employer of a non-religious corporation could refuse to include contraceptives in the health insurance provided employees.  The owners of these businesses, I'm embarrassed to say, are some of my co-religionists who are still into the punishing the Eve in all of us.  They claim (but I don't think they really believe this) that the contraceptives are a form of abortion, and therefor evil and against their deeply held religious beliefs.

Further, they argue, the requirement that contraceptives be included in the health insurance under the ACA is an intrusion by the federal government into their religion.

I'm not buying the arguments, nor is the editorial board of the Los Angeles Times.  In the editorial published 3/25/14, the board also pointed out the danger that the employers might not have noticed in making those arguments.

From that editorial:

American law has traditionally bent over backward to accommodate individuals forced to choose between obeying the law and complying with their beliefs. If that privilege is pushed too far, public support for accommodating religious objections could erode.

Two principal issues will be argued Tuesday: Can a for-profit business claim a religious exemption from the mandate under the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act? And does the requirement that employers provide contraceptive coverage impose a "substantial burden" on their exercise of religion? Under the law, such a burden is permissible only in pursuit of a compelling government interest and only if the law is narrowly tailored.

The first question is easily answered. It isn't just, as a federal appeals court in Philadelphia pithily put it, that businesses "do not pray, worship, observe sacraments or take other religiously-motivated actions." It is that business corporations are legal entities distinct from the individuals who create them. As the Obama administration persuasively argues, the owners of Hobby Lobby aren't entitled to an exemption for their businesses "based on their individual religious beliefs."

But even if moneymaking corporations were to be viewed as religious believers, the Affordable Care Act's contraceptive mandate isn't a substantial burden on their exercise of religion. The mandate doesn't require an employer to do anything more than make it possible for a female employee to decide for herself whether to use contraceptives.   [Emphasis added]

The arguments made on behalf of the employer relied heavily on the First Amendment freedom of religion clause.  The freedom of religion rights of the female employees apparently don't matter.  And, of course, their right to choose didn't come up, even with the Roe v Wade still being the law (at least for the time being).  Once again, given the current make-up of the Court, it will be a close decision, with Justice Kennedy probably being the swing vote. 

We certainly do live in interesting times.

Damnit.

No Surprise Here

(Cartoon by Lee Judge, published in the Kansas City Star and featured at McClatchy DC.  Click on image to enlarge.)

File this away in the "nothing changes" drawer. 

The GOP still doesn't get it.  For all its talk about reaching out to minorities and women, the Republican leadership continues to dig itself deeper into the hole of wealthy old white guys.

From the Seattle P.I.:

Sixteen members of the Republican National Committee want the GOP to repudiate a “strategy of silence” on the abortion issue and speak out forcefully against Democrats “deceptive ‘war on women’ tactics.”

The resolution will be taken up this week at the RNC’s winter meeting, which coincides with the 41st anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark Roe vs. Wade” decision that legalized abortion.

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

The core of the resolution reads:

“RESOLVED: The Republican National Committee will support Republican pro-life candidates who fight back against Democrats’ deceptive ‘war on women’ rhetoric by pointing out the extreme positions on abortion held by Democratic opponents.”
“RESOLVED: The Republican National Committee will not support the strategy of Republican pro-life candidates who stay silent in the face of such deceptive rhetoric.”
In short, no soft-pedaling of the party position.

Now, if there were only some real Democrats out on the hustings for the 2014 election ...

Texas Fun

(Editorial cartoon by Jack Ohman and published 7/4/13 in the Sacramento Bee.)

It is, to put it in charitable terms, silly season in Texas.  The governor, Rick Perry, has called the state legislature back into a special session so that it can get an anti-abortion law passed.  Because he has announced that he won't be running for another term as governor, I can only assume he wants this law to burnish his credentials for running for president 2016.

From the Los Angeles Times:

The Texas House of Representatives on Tuesday opened up a new round of debate on a restrictive abortion bill, legislation that has galvanized activists on both sides of the issue statewide and nationally in recent weeks.  

House Bill 2 would ban abortion after 20 weeks, require doctors performing the procedure to have hospital admitting privileges within 30 miles, require abortions to be performed in ambulatory surgical centers and regulate abortion-inducing drugs, among other restrictions. 

The measure failed in regular session late last month after Sen. Wendy Davis led a headline-making 13-hour filibuster to derail a Republican vote. But Gov. Rick Perry immediately pledged that the Legislature would pass the restrictions during a 30-day special session, which began July 1.   [Emphasis added]

But wait!  There's more.

Yesterday, the legislators ruled that no tampons would be allowed into the legislative chambers.  Now this is kind of weird because concealed weapons can be brought into the chambers.  I guess some of the legislators are afraid of feminine hygiene products.  Needless to say, hilarity ensued as the eyes of the country were upon the legislature.  Eventually the state senate backed down on that ridiculous ruling.  I think the sound of an entire nation laughing got heard.

I would love to see a picture of Sen. Davis or her supporters wearing a hat with tampons dangling from it a la the Tea Party ladies.

Some Rights Are Less Important

(Editorial cartoon by Joel Pett published 1/23/13 by the Lexington Herald Leader and featured at McClatchy DC.  Click on image to enlarge and then kindly return.)

Forty years after Roe v Wade and a woman's right to abortion is still under attack.  The right to privacy, upon which the decision hinged, is simply not as important to many as the right to own and flaunt military type semi-automatic rifles.  We really have not yet come a long way, baby.

From a Los Angeles Times editorial:

Unlike many landmark Supreme Court cases that have become accepted parts of our culture — such as Brown vs. Board of Education, which declared school segregation unconstitutional, or Loving vs. Virginia, which overturned state bans on interracial marriage — Roe did not lead to a clear national consensus on abortion.

A recent Pew Research Center survey found that although most Americans support the court's decision, 29% said they would like to see Roe overturned. Nearly half of Americans say they believe abortion is morally wrong. Those positions have changed little in recent decades.

Sadly, the Roe decision remains under attack in many quarters from politicians, conservative religious groups and others. Fueled by their belief that abortion is murder, they are intent on taking away or substantially curtailing the right to choose, even though the Supreme Court has correctly concluded that abortion is a private matter.

Today, most states have some kind of law that affects access to abortion. ...

In some cases, state restrictions have been declared unconstitutional by courts as violations of Roe vs. Wade. But even where they have not, they often seem to be efforts to drive a wedge into the debate or to make it increasingly onerous to get an abortion, particularly for low-income women.   [Emphasis added]

The editorial details the forms of those attacks on the right to abortion, most coming from state legislatures, which include not just time delays but also invasive procedures including sonograms, a further invasion of a woman's body.  And, even more horrifying, one national party would not allow for any exceptions such as incest, rape, the health of the woman.  Women are just not as important as that cluster of fetal cells and certainly not as important as men's right to have instruments of death.

This makes me crazy.

Mittology

(Editorial cartoon by Jim Morin / Miami Herald (October 26, 2012) and featured at McClatchy DC.  Click on image to enlarge and then be kind enough to return.)

Nancy Pelosi has come up with one of the best neologisms of this election season.  She introduced it while appearing on "The Daily Show."

Nancy Pelosi, the House minority leader, appeared on “The Daily Show”  on Sunday and coined a new term for Mitt Romney’s shifting political positions – “Mittology” – as she campaigns for Democratic congressional candidates and President Obama. ...

But Pelosi’s sharpest zinger was aimed at Romney’s shifting positions, particularly on abortion rights, as both presidential candidates court women voters in the increasingly tight race for the White House.

“The president calls it Romnesia, I have my own, what I call Mittology,” Pelosi said.

Since then, of course, we've had another GOP candidate chime in on abortion, once again when conception occurs as a result of rape.  This time it was  Richard Mourdoch, the Indiana GOP Senate candidate, a man Mitt Romney has endorsed.

Indiana Republican Senate candidate Richard Mourdock said Tuesday when a woman becomes pregnant during a rape, "that's something God intended."

Mourdock, who's been locked in one of the country's most watched Senate races, was asked during the final minutes of a debate with Democratic challenger Rep. Joe Donnelly whether abortion should be allowed in cases of rape or incest.

"I struggled with it myself for a long time, but I came to realize that life is that gift from God. And, I think, even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen," Mourdock said.

 Mitt didn't withdraw his endorsement;  he merely stated that he disagreed with Mourdock on the issue.  Bad theology, bad politics, but good Mittology.

At this point, the GOP regulars are probably tearing their hair out, as Jim Morin's cartoon suggests.  The election is close and women voters are key to the outcome.   Still, it's hard to feel too bad for Republicans.  The "pro-life" stance is, once again, a key part of the Republican platform.  Did they think nobody would notice?

What we are seeing is the members of the white daddy party continuing to exert their patriarchal authority over all women.  For some superb analyses of the issues I would urge you to read the posts from Echidne and Hecate, two women who have nailed it much better than I could.  Go read them both.  You'll soon see what I mean.

Another Skrmish In The War Against Women

(Editorial cartoon by Joel Pett / Lexington Herald-Leader (October 22, 2012) and featured at McClatchy DC.  Click on image to enlarge and then be good enough to return.)

As the campaign season draws to a close and many races still remain too close to call, things have gotten downright wacky.  Nowhere is that more evident than in the attempt to woo women voters, usually with hilarious results.  Romney managed to give Democrats a viral meme with his "binder" comments at the last debate. 

At the same time, however, Republican candidates continue their war against women.  Todd Akin has moved on from his misbegotten comments on "actual" rape to chide his opponent for not being ladylike and likening her to a dog (and you know where that is going).  The latest entry comes from Rep. Joe Walsh of Illinois who has some rather peculiar views on abortion.

“There’s no such exception as life of the mother,” Walsh said, according to this report from Bloomberg News. “And as far as health of the mother, same thing, with advances in science and technology. Health of the mother has become a tool for abortions any time, under any reason.”

Within hours, women’s heath advocates — and physicians — attacked his remarks. ...

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) fired its own salvo, calling the congressman’s comments “inaccurate” in a widely distributed response.

“Abortions are necessary in a number of circumstances to save the life of a woman or to preserve her health,” the doctors’ organization said. The group reported that more than 600 women die every year from pregnancy and childbirth-related causes and that “many more would die each year if they did not have access to abortion.” ...

Dr. David Grimes, a clinical professor in obstetrics and gynecology at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine in Chapel Hill who has provided abortions for four decades and formerly led a department that studied abortion safety at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, described some potentially life-threatening circumstances.

In his practice, he said, he’s often cared for women who are newly diagnosed with breast cancer or leukemia whose oncologists refuse to administer treatment until the pregnancy is over. Type 1 diabetes can be severely aggravated by pregnancy, and an abortion may be necessary to save a patient’s eyes or kidney function. And in some severe cases of pre-eclampsia, the liver can begin to die — and the only treatment is ending the pregnancy.   [Emphasis added]

The general consensus of physicians who actually treat women during pregnancy is that legislators like Walsh should just shut-the-fuck-up when it comes to telling doctors how to treat their patients and stick to issues they have at least rudimentary knowledge of.

But it's not just the abortion issue.  The war continues on several fronts:  the right to contraception, and the right to have that contraception covered by health insurance the way Viagra is covered; the right to equal pay without restriction; the right to maternity leave with continuing health coverage; the right to assistance for child care and child feeding for single mothers and poor families.

Here we are in the 21st Century and women are still not considered as important as corporations and the Pentagon.  I guess I shouldn't be surprised, but I reserve the right to be appalled and, yes, depressed.  We are still a long way from the scenario envisioned by Joel Pett and his cartoon.

Meanwhile ...

So, because of the debacle of the 2010 election in which the GOP lost essentially every state-wide election, both of the major parties are pretty much ignoring California.  The presidential candidates come into the state only to raise money.  Being used simply as a super-sized ATM machine is, I suppose, disrespectful, but it has its upside.  We are not being barraged by television commercials and robo-calls.

And so the state has gone its merry way, doing things that lots of countries (not to mention states) wish they could.  This is not to say that my state doesn't have problems.  It does.  Major problems.  We still have unemployment in the double digits and the state budget continues to hemorrhage red ink.  Education at all levels is being gutted, as are programs which protect the vulnerable.  Still, there is some good news in California.

Gov. Jerry Brown on Saturday signed 25 health-related bills, including controversial legislation that extends for two years a study program that allows non-surgical abortions to be performed by a limited number of nurse practitioners, certified nurse-midwives and physician assistants.

Sen. Christine Kehoe (D-San Diego) introduced SB 623 to expand access to abortion for women, especially in rural areas where physicians are not as available. ...

Brown also signed legislation that would improve breast cancer detection and give women easier access to birth control.

SB 1538 mandates that women who go in for screenings be informed if they have dense breast tissue and how that may affect the results of their mammogram and their risk of cancer. It also encourages women to speak with their physicians about whether additional screenings might be warranted. ...

Earlier in the day, Brown was in South Los Angeles to sign legislation that allows registered nurses to give out hormonal contraceptives to women under a standardized procedure.

That law "also allows RNs to dispense drugs and devices upon an order by a certified nurse-midwife, a nurse practitioner or a physician assistant while functioning within specified clinic settings," the governor's office said. ...

Brown signed the bill Saturday morning at Planned Parenthood's local headquarters and cast the event as a reaffirmation of "every woman's basic constitutional rights."   [Emphasis added]

There are lots of reasons I enjoy living in California.  These are just a few of them, but they are important ones.

Because We Need Daddy's Help

(Editorial cartoon by Kevin Siers / Charlotte Observer (August 24, 2012) and featured at McClatchy DC. Click on image to enlarge and then return.)

Mitt Romney spent the last few days campaigning in Ohio before the GOP convention. One of his main goals was obviously to reach out to women, to reassure them that the whole notion of a Republican War Against Women was an Obama fabrication. He handled the issue in typical Romney fashion.

Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney declared Saturday that "women need our help" as he promised to promote women-led businesses should he defeat President Barack Obama in November's election. ...

"Just a word to the women entrepreneurs out there, if we become president and vice president, we want to speak to you, we want to help you," Romney said with running mate Paul Ryan at his side during an outdoor rally that drew an estimated 5,000 people to the Columbus area. "Women in this country are more likely to start businesses than men. Women need our help." [Emphasis added]

So there, Barack Obama! Mitt is too going to look out for women's interests, because they need help, help only a man can give them.

Notice how it's not all women who would get protected by this manly man, just the entrepreneurs. He, a very successful businessMAN will help them. The rest of us? Eh, not so much.

Evidence of that came as he took on the issue of women's reproductive rights.

Addressing contraceptives, Romney said he and other Republicans “of course … recognize that people should have a right to use contraceptives. There’s absolutely no validity whatsoever to the Obama effort to try and bring that up.”

Romney has, however, vowed to end federal funding of Planned Parenthood, which, along with other services, provides contraceptives to those who cannot otherwise afford them. ...

On abortion, Romney said: “That is something where men and women have alternative views on that, or different views. We look at an issue like that with great seriousness and sobriety and recognize that different people have reached different conclusions,” Romney continued. “But it’s not just men who think one way, women also in many cases are pro-life. There are two lives at stake: the child — the unborn child and the mom — and I care for both of them.” [Emphasis added]

I guess we needn't bother our pretty little heads over such issues. Big Daddy Mitt will handle them, just like his party has in adopting a plank in its platform which would not allow abortions for any reasons, including rape, incest, or the health of the woman.

Since I doubt Mitt carries any change, someone really ought to loan him a quarter so that he can buy a clue.

Now, If *I* Ruled the GOP

(Editorial cartoon by Kevin Siers / The Charlotte Observer (August 22, 2012) and featured at McClatchy DC. Click on image to enlarge and then be kind enough to return.)

The GOP seems to have lost control, something which really surprises me, especially when it comes to Congressman Akin's campaign in Missouri against incumbent Claire McCaskill. Yes, Akin's remarks about the female body's ability to block conception in the case of "legitimate" rape was off the wall, so far off the wall that the media (print, television, internet) exploded. But, the damage control exercised by the GOP regulars was just as off the wall. They demanded that Akin withdraw as a candidate, allowing the party to replace him.

Now,me, I would have taken him aside and told him "Dude, you fucked up. Just apologize by saying you misspoke and that what you really meant was that abortion in cases of rape adds another wrong to the already horrible situation."

But no, instead, the entire apparatus came down on Akin, demanding he go away. He refused. I mean, what does he have to lose? At his age, this is his last hurrah, especially since there was no way short of a write-in campaign to get on the ballot for his congressional seat. Apparently the party was unwilling to front the costs for that.

The stance has to have pissed off the Tea Party which voted for him in the primary, along with other Republicans who liked him better than the other two candidates. Their votes mean nothing to the party?

Additionally, the party leaders not only demanded he withdraw, the funders also withdrew their support: no more Karl Rove and Koch Brothers millions for ads. They pulled the trigger too quickly, in my opinion. Sure, the Democrats were going to make hay with the comments, noting that this member of a House science committee was spouting this nonsense, and noting that Akin and VP-designate Ryan co-sponsored a bill limiting abortion to cases of "forcible rape." But it would have died down after a week or so, especially if campaign ads focused on Akin's position of deficit spending and the economy.

Instead, the ad money is gone (at least for the time being -- I have no doubt that at this point the Roves and Kochs of the party are busy inventing a new SuperPac and/or 501(c)4 group to funnel money back into the campaign), and Claire McCaskill, who really was vulnerable has a shot at keeping her job while Akin tries to raise funds as a new Don Quixote.

And even worse, the platform committee has decided on a plank which forbids abortion in all cases. Now the Dems have the hypocrisy two-by-four to wield, which Kevin Siers has graphically displayed.

But, hey! I'm not a Republican. I'll let them arrange their own destruction.

The only thing is that regardless of the outcome of this particular election, the rest of us won't win much if anything.

The Scarlet Letter

(Editorial cartoon by Tom Toles and published 8/21/2012 by the Washington Post. Click on image to enlarge and then please hustle your fanny back here.)

I'm still fuzzy-brained from the allergy meds, but that hasn't stopped me from continuing to re-read Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel The Scarlet Letter. I am reading this now as part of my drive to re-read novels from my past, but also because I wanted to consider the historical underpinnings in American (and, for that matter, world) history when it comes to misogyny. Needless to say, not much has changed in the 160-some years since the novel's publication. Many men still want to control the lives, the bodies, and the destinies of women.

As some of you may recall from your high school English class, the novel takes place in 17th Century Salem, Massachusetts at a time when the Puritans still ruled in New England. The heroine, Hester Prynne, has been condemned by the authorities for being an adulteress and bearing an illegitimate child. Her punishment is public shaming, including having to wear a scarlet "A" on her clothing for the rest of her days. Complicating her life further, she refuses to name her partner in this "crime", who, it turns out, is her pastor.

Something I had forgotten about the story was that Hester was already married. Her family arranged a marriage to a man who was older and physically deformed while both still lived in England. He decided to go to the New World (America) to make his fortune and she followed after him. He disappeared and was presumed lost at sea, but she no definite proof of that, so she was still married but without a husband. He, of course, turns up at the moment of the first public shaming of Hester and swears to find and punish the man who cuckolded him.

I'm more than a third of the way through the book and today I read the part where the town's leaders (all men, including a couple of religious leaders and the governor) have met to decide whether or not to take Hester's child from her so that she could be raised as a good Christian, something her mother clearly is not. The pastor (and father of the child) persuades them not to remove the child, but does so once again without revealing his true role in the matter.

The utter hypocrisy and misogyny of that culture reminds me a great deal of today's brand of Puritans, people like Todd Akin and Paul Ryan who see women only as sluts to be branded and handcuffed and put to shame in the public square. Toles' cartoon touches only one aspect of the war against women (victims of rape), but the war itself extends to women being able to control their bodies when it comes to conception and other health issues, and being able to control their destinies when it comes to careers and pay.

We really haven't come a long way, baby.

But That's Not All

(Click on image to enlarge and then come on back.)

It's pretty clear that the primary focus of coverage on Paul Ryan, the chosen running mate for Mitt Romney, has been on his economic plan which contains a provision to gut and destroy Medicare. That was pretty much the focus of David Horsey's recent column. However, Horsey also raised another set of issues (albeit obliquely) concerning Ryan in his discussion of what the Ryan selection meant for former presidential candidate Rick Santorum.

In endorsing the Romney-Ryan ticket on Saturday, Santorum described Ryan as “a full spectrum conservative” who shares not only Santorum’s fiscal ideas but his “solidly pro-life, pro-family” philosophy, as well. What happens if voters convincingly reject Ryan’s hard-line conservatism? That is the one thing that could kill his chances to become the Republican heir apparent. But if such a rejection is bad for Ryan, it would be bad for Santorum too, along with any other “full spectrum conservative.” [Emphasis added]

In other words, Ryan is not just a "dead-eyed granny killer," he's also a full-on anti-choice, anti-woman's-health warrior, as noted in this New York Times article.

Though best known as an architect of conservative fiscal policy, Representative Paul D. Ryan has also been an ardent, unwavering foe of abortion rights, has tried to cut off federal money for family planning, has opposed same-sex marriage and has championed the rights of gun owners. ...

In an interview with the conservative Weekly Standard in 2010, Mr. Ryan, an observant Roman Catholic, played down the possibility of a truce on social issues, which had been suggested by Gov. Mitch Daniels of Indiana, a Republican.

“I’m as pro-life as a person gets,” Mr. Ryan said then. “You’re not going to have a truce. Judges are going to come up. Issues come up, they’re unavoidable, and I’m never going to not vote pro-life.”

In nearly 14 years as a Republican congressman from Wisconsin, Mr. Ryan has not only voted for legislation that would cut off federal money for Planned Parenthood and the Title X family planning program, but also backed bills to establish criminal penalties for certain doctors who perform the procedure known as partial-birth abortion.

He is a co-sponsor of a bill that would define fetuses as people entitled to full legal protection, a proposal that has become the latest focus in the battles over abortion The bill declares, “The life of each human being begins with fertilization, cloning, or its functional equivalent, irrespective of sex, health, function or disability, defect, stage of biological development, or condition of dependency, at which time every human being shall have all the legal and constitutional attributes and privileges of personhood.” [Emphasis added]

It's clear that that the Romney campaign was looking for more than just a deficit reduction hawk to fill out his ticket and that he was playing to more than just the Tea Party wing of his party. Ryan provided the very mix Romney needed.

While it was refreshing to see a major newspaper point out the cultural warrior aspect, it would be even nicer to see the Obama campaign and Democrats in general paying some attention to this part of the equation. As we move closer to the conventions and to the election I hope to see some solid portrayals of Ryan as totally out of the mainstream and just wrong for this country.

There's more at stake than a "balanced" budget.

Because They Can

One of the constitutional anomalies which really annoys me is the status of Washington DC when it comes to representation. Residents of the nation's capital have no senator and only have one representative who has little actual power. For years there have been efforts to change that, but it always falls through because the Republicans want too much to sign off on the deal. As a result, we get scenarios like this playing out on a regular basis.

Rep. Trent Franks’s district in suburban Phoenix is two time zones away from Washington, a fact not lost on D.C. leaders as the Arizona Republican presided Thursday over the latest in a long series of attempts to control social issues in the nation’s capital.

At issue this time was his bill, with 193 co-sponsors, to ban all abortions in the District beyond 20 weeks, except to save the life of the mother.

Adding insult to injury, from the point of view of local officials, was that Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D), the District’s lone, nonvoting member of Congress — sitting in the front row of a subcommittee hearing room — was not allowed to speak.

Presiding over the hearing, Franks, who frequently cites the U.S. Constitution, said Congress has the authority to “exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever” in the District. He also described late-term abortions as “inhumane” and “torturous,” and he called them “the greatest human rights atrocity in the United States today.” [Emphasis added]

There are all sorts of things wrong with this picture. First of all, that Del. Holmes was not allowed to speak was a travesty. Yes, the rules mandate that the minority party gets only one speaker in a subcommittee hearing, and a resident of DC who'd had an abortion at 21 weeks testified. Still, representatives are usually allowed to speak on matters concerning their district without running afoul of the rule. Rep. Franks was not having any of that nonsense. The most he was willing to do was to allow Del. Holmes to sit on the dais with the other committee members, but only if she kept her mouth shut.

Second, Rep. Franks and the GOP have taken to micromanaging affairs in DC, especially on social issues, much to the dismay of the Mayor and City Council. It's the troglodytes' way of scoring points with their basest base without any harm being done to their own district.

Norton and other District leaders have clashed repeatedly with Hill Republicans over abortion, particularly over the policy that prevents the city from spending its own money to pay for abortions for low-income women.

Franks’s bill would go further. It would bar all abortions after 20 weeks, regardless of who pays. The bill is based on model legislation prepared by the National Right to Life Committee, versions of which have become law in six states. [Emphasis added]

And this time around, Franks is going to get away with it, even if the bill goes nowhere in the Senate. He got his soundbites, he got his posturing. All the District and its women got was a thorough dissing.

Just one more reason to vote in November: we need to take back the House and hold the Senate.

Post-Birth Abortion

I've put off writing this post for just about a week because I was completely flummoxed by the whole issue. A fellow Atriot threw out this link to an article in the Journal of Medical Ethics. I've read the article a dozen times and I see the logic and reasoning, but it still seems wrong from the get-go.

I'll warn you now that it's not easy reading, but it is decipherable. Essentially, the authors posit that if a baby is born with disabling conditions which would have been grounds for abortion had the mother known about them, or, if the mother's condition has changed which if the new condition had existed earlier she would have aborted the child, then the new-born could be "aborted".

Here's some of the argument:

Severe abnormalities of the fetus and risks for the physical and/or psychological health of the woman are often cited as valid reasons for abortion. Sometimes the two reasons are connected, such as when a woman claims that a disabled child would represent a risk to her mental health. However, having a child can itself be an unbearable burden for the psychological health of the woman or for her already existing children,[footnote] regardless of the condition of the fetus. This could happen in the case of a woman who loses her partner after she finds out that she is pregnant and therefore feels she will not be able to take care of the possible child by herself.

A serious philosophical problem arises when the same conditions that would have justified abortion become known after birth. In such cases, we need to assess facts in order to decide whether the same arguments that apply to killing a human fetus can also be consistently applied to killing a newborn human. ...

The moral status of an infant is equivalent to that of a fetus in the sense that both lack those properties that justify the attribution of a right to life to an individual.

Both a fetus and a newborn certainly are human beings and potential persons, but neither is a ‘person’ in the sense of ‘subject of a moral right to life’. We take ‘person’ to mean an individual who is capable of attributing to her own existence some (at least) basic value such that being deprived of this existence represents a loss to her. This means that many non-human animals and mentally retarded human individuals are persons, but that all the individuals who are not in the condition of attributing any value to their own existence are not persons. Merely being human is not in itself a reason for ascribing someone a right to life. Indeed, many humans are not considered subjects of a right to life: spare embryos where research on embryo stem cells is permitted, fetuses where abortion is permitted, criminals where capital punishment is legal.

What follows these passages is a closely reasoned argument which attempts to define just what a "person" actually is. Based on the argument, the authors conclude the following:

If a potential person, like a fetus and a newborn, does not become an actual person, like you and us, then there is neither an actual nor a future person who can be harmed, which means that there is no harm at all. So, if you ask one of us if we would have been harmed, had our parents decided to kill us when we were fetuses or newborns, our answer is ‘no’, because they would have harmed someone who does not exist (the ‘us’ whom you are asking the question), which means no one. And if no one is harmed, then no harm occurred.

I was stuck on the whole issue, especially since there really is no way at present to gauge just when consciousness and self-consciousness arises. Further, even though I saw the red-flag when the authors rejected the term "infanticide" in favor of the term "post-birth abortion", I struggled with a way to somehow rebut their arguments completely.

I am still struggling, but I did discern one concept the authors did gloss over, perhaps even ignored: the fact that while in the womb, the fetus affects the physical functioning of the woman who carries it and who must go through the potentially risky procedure of carrying and then delivering the child. In that respect a fetus is not just like a newborn. It is for that reason abortion is not the same as infanticide, no matter what fancy tag replaces the latter. It is also for that reason that I believe the mother has the right to make the decision on aborting the fetus.

That difference, however, does not resolve the issue, especially when the child is born with significant physical abnormalities which will limit the child to an extremely limited existence (days, weeks, months). That issue still needs the kind of examination this article is calling for and which is needed.

I welcome your comments.

Granny Bird Award: Komen Foundation

This edition of the Granny Bird Award, given from time to time to those who in some impair the rights or welfare of the elders, goes to the Susan G. Komen for the Cure organization for their weak-kneed yanking of grants to Planned Parenthood.

From an AP report:

The nation's leading breast-cancer charity, Susan G. Komen for the Cure, is halting its partnerships with Planned Parenthood affiliates — creating a bitter rift, linked to the abortion debate, between two iconic organizations that have assisted millions of women.

The change will mean a cutoff of hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants, mainly for breast exams.

Planned Parenthood says the move results from Komen bowing to pressure from anti-abortion activists. Komen says the key reason is that Planned Parenthood is under investigation in Congress — a probe launched by a conservative Republican who was urged to act by anti-abortion groups. [Emphasis added]

As even the anti-choice people must know, abortions comprise a very small portion of the services which Planned Parenthood provides. One of the services provided which is key to women's health is breast exams and access to mammograms to women who could not otherwise afford them. This, of course, includes elders who do not have health insurance and who do qualify for Medicare for any number of reasons, including the fact they have not yet reached age 65.

The Komen Foundation claims that under a newly adopted rule that forbids grants to organizations under investigation by authorities. Planned Parenthood, a favorite target of the Religious Reich, is currently being investigated by a House Committee to see if it illegally has provided abortions with federal money. Launched by Rep. Cliff Stearns, R-Fla., the investigation is just a little grandstanding by the right in its attempt to roll back women's rights. That a foundation which claims to be deeply concerned with an important health issue for women -- breast cancer -- would cave in to such a despicable ploy is both astounding and shameful.

It is also worthy of the Granny Bird Award.

Welcome To The Race, Mr. Pawlenty

Tim Pawlenty has formally announced his candidacy for the 2012 GOP nomination for President, declaring himself a serious man for serious times. In a sense he's right: he's seriously anti-women's rights. George Zornick gives us a peek at T-Paw's record as governor of Minnesota in a blog post at The Nation:

In reality, however, Pawlenty's views on a woman's right to choose are among the more extreme in the emerging GOP field. National Review dubbed Pawlenty as possibly “the strongest pro-life candidate in 2012.” Under Pawlenty, who is an evangelical Christian, Minnesota was the first state to give women bogus information on “fetal pain” in an effort to dissuade them from having an abortion. He also signed laws providing women with information about “alternatives” to abortion, which became a model for other states, and has engaged in years of direct outreach to extreme antichoice groups. [Emphasis added]

Here are some of the details from his term as governor:

Less than one year into his governorship, Pawlenty signed the Women’s Right to Know Act of 2003. The law required physicians to provide women with information about abortion alternatives at least twenty-four hours prior to the procedure, including a list of adoption centers, detailed information about fetal development, and a description of the risks associated with abortion procedures. ...

Two years later, Pawlenty signed the Unborn Child Prevention Act, making Minnesota the first state in the nation to mandate that pregnant women considering an abortion receive information about “fetal pain.”

Though the position of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists is that there is “no legitimate scientific information that supports the statement that a fetus experiences pain,” the law requires abortion doctors and referring physicians to inform pregnant women seeking an abortion that “pain-reducing medication” is available for their fetus. Women in Minnesota seeking an abortion must now sign a form either requesting or refusing pain-reducing medication for their unborn child. ...

In 2008 he named Eric Magnuson chief justice of the court. Manguson has a long record of opposing abortion rights, and once wrote an amicus brief on behalf of an antichoice group arguing that taxpayer money shouldn’t go to abortion services. ...

Beyond these substantive measures, Pawlenty has made many symbolic overtures to the antichoice movement. He declared April 2010 “Abortion Recovery/Awareness Month” in Minnesota. His proclamation noted that “many organizations in Minnesota promote policies that reinforce a culture of life and hope,” and encouraged women who had abortions to seek their help.

He also issued proclamations that darkly observed the day Roe v. Wade was decided. Speaking at an antichoice rally on the 2006 anniversary of the decision, Pawlenty said, “We have a dream today that someday soon this will not be an anniversary of sadness, but an anniversary of justice restored.”

Nice record, that, but it's one he's keeping very quiet about at present. His web site and his recently published book are very short on references to the choice issue, and with good reason. While his anti-choice stance will keep him in good standing with the fundagelicals of his party, it won't be much help with independents when the general election comes around.

Like I've said before, at least this part of the silly season has been fun. Pass the popcorn.

Meanwhile ...

The general feel-good bipartisan response to the assassination of Osama bin Laden is apparently only for the consumption of the rubes. Back in the House, the GOP has been busy undercutting women's reproductive rights during, of all things, budget considerations.

From the Los Angeles Times:

The House of Representatives on Wednesday approved a sweeping antiabortion package to further distance federal funds from the procedure by solidifying existing measures and imposing new ones. ...

The House bill would permanently place into law current policies prohibiting federal money from paying for abortions through Medicaid and some other federal programs. The policies, primarily outlined in the decades-old measure known as the Hyde Amendment, must be periodically renewed.

But the bill also goes further to eliminate what supporters say are indirect federal subsidies for abortion providers.

Under the measure, businesses that offer health insurance policies covering abortion could not recoup tax credits under the new healthcare law. In addition, individuals could not deduct the cost of an abortion when itemizing health expenses on their taxes, nor could they use a tax-exempt savings account to pay for an abortion.

Playing to their basest base as the 2012 elections loom, Republicans justify the unjustifiable with the usual tortured logic:

As Democrats sought to portray these new provisions as part of an extreme social agenda, many Republicans argued that the measure merely reflects the public's will. Rep. Christopher H. Smith (R-N.J.), the bill's sponsor and chief advocate, said he hoped the measures would limit access to abortion.

"There is no doubt whatsoever that ending all public funding for abortion saves lives," said Smith, a leading congressional abortion opponent. "When public funding and facilitation isn't available for abortion, children have a greater chance for survival."

Ah, yes: the rights of the preborn.

Of course, once those children are born, the party stalwarts lose all interest, as evidenced by the cuts to the safety nets which allow them to grow up strong and healthy with a shot at a 21st Century education. And their mothers? Well, they need to be punished for their sluttish ruttings.

Monsters.

Confounded Facts

Meghan Daum should not be allowed to do snark. She is terrible at it, as her latest column makes clear. Still, she did get things right when it comes to the recent brouhaha over Planned Parenthood.

In the ongoing rancor surrounding federal funding of Planned Parenthood, misinformation has a starring role. There have been, of course, predictable gusts of hot air from pundits like Bill O'Reilly, who asserted last month that "nobody's life is affected by Planned Parenthood," and Brian Kilmeade and Steve Doocy of "Fox & Friends," who suggested on April 9 that Planned Parenthood's non-abortion-related services were redundant because you can get your blood pressure checked and get a pap smear or a breast exam at Walgreen's. (Blood pressure, yes; the rest, uh-uh.)

Then there are those who deep down must surely know better but who seem to think they have ... a right to waive the facts. When Republican Sen. Jon Kyl wrongly proclaimed on the Senate floor recently that abortions constitute "well over 90% of what Planned Parenthood does," his office responded to the blowback by saying that "his remark was not intended to be a factual statement."

I must admit I was stunned at the Reich's selection of this venerable organization as a target. Planned Parenthood, for crying out loud! This group has done an ocean of good when it comes to contraception and testing for sexually transmitted diseases. As Ms. Daum points out, abortion compromises only 3% of its programs, a fact born out by all the reporting required by Title X for federal funding. Abortion may be the reason given by those trashing Planned Parenthood, but I suspect more is at work.

Meghan Daum suggests that some people are uncomfortable with the idea of planning for a child, but I think it is beyond even that. I think those people want to control sex completely, which is another way of saying that they want to control women completely. If it were merely a concern with "murdering the preborn," the Reich would go out of its way to protect the postborn rather than cut funding to WIC programs. It would go out of its way to make certain prenatal care was given to each and every pregnant woman. It would also make a massive commitment to education.

But it doesn't.

Instead, it spews lies about groups like Planned Parenthood which attempt to provide for the health and safety of women and children. It's what they do, and when caught in the lies, they issue lame excuses like Senator Kyl's.

Evil stuff, this.

Meanwhile, In Washington

I thought about filing this in the "Unsurprising News" category, but the fact that the New York Times actually called out the Republicans for their assault on women's rights made that categorization inappropriate. This time the Grey Lady got it right.

Republicans in the House of Representatives are mounting an assault on women’s health and freedom that would deny millions of women access to affordable contraception and life-saving cancer screenings and cut nutritional support for millions of newborn babies in struggling families. And this is just the beginning. ...

The egregious cuts in the House resolution include the elimination of support for Title X, the federal family planning program for low-income women that provides birth control, breast and cervical cancer screenings, and testing for H.I.V. and other sexually transmitted diseases. In the absence of Title X’s preventive care, some women would die. The Guttmacher Institute, a leading authority on reproductive health, says a rise in unintended pregnancies would result in some 400,000 more abortions a year.

Oh, House Republicans will claim that the federal government has no business supporting the killing of innocent preborn babies, but the NYT editorial notes that more is at work here than a concern for the unborn.

Beyond the familiar terrain of abortion or even contraception, House Republicans would inflict harm on low-income women trying to have children or who are already mothers.

Their continuing resolution would cut by 10 percent the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, better known as WIC, which serves 9.6 million low-income women, new mothers, and infants each month, and has been linked in studies to higher birth weight and lower infant mortality.

Unborn equals good. Born, eh, not so much. And NYT columnist Charles Blow follows up on this theme.

Republicans need to figure out where they stand on children’s welfare. They can’t be “pro-life” when the “child” is in the womb but indifferent when it’s in the world. ...

It is savagely immoral and profoundly inconsistent to insist that women endure unwanted — and in some cases dangerous — pregnancies for the sake of “unborn children,” then eliminate financing designed to prevent those children from being delivered prematurely, rendering them the most fragile and vulnerable of newborns. How is this humane? [Emphasis added]

How indeed?

House Republicans see all of this as a two-fer: they get to throw a bone to the Religious Reich, their basest base, and they get to put women, especially poor women, in their place -- the kitchen, barefoot, and pregnant.

Jesus wept.

Two Mints In One

The Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) opens its three day bash this weekend, thereby signaling the opening of the 2012 election campaign for Republicans. It's quite interesting to see who's attending and who's not.

The three-day gathering of the Conservative Political Action Committee, which begins Thursday with more than 10,000 activists expected to convene in Washington, effectively rings the opening bell for the Republican presidential nominating contest. ...

The event, which has been held every winter for nearly four decades, is seen as such a command performance this year that Haley Barbour, Mitch Daniels, Newt Gingrich, Tim Pawlenty, Ron Paul, Mitt Romney and John Thune are among those who accepted invitations. Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee have both declined, citing scheduling conflicts.

It's also interesting who's boycotting and why.

The Conservative Political Action Conference also is opening against a backdrop of controversy over whether a gay Republican group should have been allowed to help sponsor the event. The Family Research Council and the Heritage Foundation are among the organizations boycotting the conference because GOProud, the gay group, is participating.

The disagreement highlights the tensions among various conservative factions and raises questions about the balance between the social and fiscal priorities of Republicans that has already become part of the debate in early-voting states like Iowa, where the state’s precinct caucuses are scheduled to open the nominating contest next Feb. 6.

The mantra for Republicans in the current Congress is "fiscal conservatism." That's what they think got them elected and, by golly, they're going to ride with it. Still, even they must sense the tension from their basest base, so they've gotten tricksie with their latest proposals, especially in the House (which they control). Yes, it's about the fiscal policy, but it's also about the social. They've found a way to combine them.

One bill, the “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act,” would eliminate tax breaks for private employers who provide health coverage if their plans offer abortion services, and would forbid women who use a flexible spending plan to use pre-tax dollars for abortions. Those restrictions would go well beyond current law prohibiting the use of federal money for abortion services. ...

Another bill, sponsored by Mr. Pitts, addresses the health care overhaul head-on by prohibiting Americans who receive insurance through state exchanges from purchasing abortion coverage, even with their own money. ...

The GOP has decided to run hard to the right, and they're going to do so on the backs of women. Now that's a really interesting choice. The question is, what are the Democrats going to do about it?

Anything?

Bueller?