THE WOMANKIND WEB WANDERINGS - 3/18/2012
History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again.
- Maya Angelou
Johnny Brekeen, a truck driver who helped gather signatures to put proposition 26 on the ballot, steps out of his truck after handing out pamphlets at the University of Southern Mississippi campus during pre-game tailgating festivities, in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, October 22, 2011. Photo: William Widmer / The New York Times)
Five Right-Wing Violations Against Women That We Must Crush
Saturday 17 March 2012 by:
Sarah Seltzer, AlterNet | Op-Ed
Rush may look like a buffoon in the PR war, and women may be fighting back, but the war on women continues, and we're losing rights by the minute.
Don't be fooled by the Limbaugh backlash. It's true that progressives and women's groups are fighting back with unprecedented vigor, and the campaigns against Komen, against Rush Limbaugh's sexist smears, against the Blunt Amendment, show that women can organize quickly and powerfully over social media. And yes, it remains crucial that the nasty sexism and racism emitting from the shock jock is finally getting its deserved public airing.
But extremist politicians haven't gotten the message yet: the policies that mirror and feed from Limbaugh's smears still exist, and may in fact be worsening. The GOP War on Women is in full throttle over a year since it kicked off, taking its toll in particular on the state level where recent data shows that all the posturing has dramatically changed living conditions for women--and not for the better.
Here are five ways the GOP are continuing their onslaught on women's rights that are crying out for the kind of intense pushback that we now know women's and reproductive justice advocates are capable of:
1-Women are losing ground--fast--on abortion rights in states that were previously neutral. On Thursday morning, the Guttmacher Institute released some shocking data--although it's less shocking for those of us who have been following the war on women. What it revealed? The record number of abortion restirctions passed in 2011 has meant a massive shift for women in terms of which states were supportive of reproductive rights and which were overtly "hostile:
As a result, the number of both supportive and middle-ground states shrank considerably, while the number of hostile states ballooned. In 2000, 19 states were middle-ground and only 13 were hostile. By 2011, when states enacted a record-breaking number of new abortion restrictions (see box), that picture had shifted dramatically: 26 states were hostile to abortion rights, and the number of middle-ground states had cut in half, to nine.
These states are deemed hostile if they have four or more of a combination of restrictions, including late-term bans, parental notification provisions, mandatory ultrasounds, cuts to family planning funds, restrictions on insurance both public and private, waiting periods and counseling, and Targeted Regulation of Abortion providers. The definition makes sense: stack several of these restrictions together, and you have states that are pre-Roe in essence. Imagine you're a woman of moderate means trying to get an abortion. If your insurance coverage is restricted so you have to pay out of pocket, and you have to make two trips and miss two days of work to get the procedure done, speak to a counselor and be subjected to an ultrasound, you may not be able to exercise your right at all.
As Guttmacher notes:
The implications of this shift are enormous. In 2000, the country was almost evenly divided, with nearly a third of American women of reproductive age living in states solidly hostile to abortion rights, slightly more than a third in states supportive of abortion rights and close to a third in middle-ground states. By 2011, however, more than half of women of reproductive age lived in hostile states. This growth came largely at the expense of the states in the middle, and the women who live in them; in 2011, only one in 10 American women of reproductive age lived in a middle-ground state.
Now, some of this shifting ground has to do with the fact that in these now-hostile states, Tea-Party and conservative legislatures have taken over. In other words, the sharp political divide in our country has actually had a dire effect on women's health access on the ground. And they just keep coming. Some of the proposed laws don't even fit into the Guttmacher categories due to their extreme absurdity, such as Utah's "don't say sex" bill--which would forbid mentioning sex-related topics in schools--and Kansas's "let doctors lie" bill which would protect doctors who don't tell pregnant women information that might lead to an abortion.
And mandatory ultrasound bill's like Texas's, which just went into effect, are already beginning to devastate women.
2-The assault on birth control isn't over, and some want to deny women the right to use it at all. AlterNet readers were among the many who were outraged by a new bill advancing along in Arizona that would essentially allow employers to sniff through the personal history of female employees:
The Senate Judiciary Committee voted 6-2 Monday to endorse a controversial bill that would allow Arizona employers the right to deny health insurance coverage for contraceptives based on religious objections.
Arizona House Bill 2625, authored by Majority Whip Debbie Lesko, R-Glendale, would permit employers to ask their employees for proof of medical prescription if they seek contraceptives for non-reproductive purposes, such as hormone control or acne treatment.
This provision wouldn't just intrude on women's privacy, writes Corey Robin, but open them up to blatant discrimination:
Notice the second provision of the Arizona legislation: employers will now have the right to question their employees about what they plan to do with their birth-control prescriptions. Not only is this a violation of the right to privacy -- again, not a right our Constitution currently recognizes in the workplace -- but it obviously can give employers the necessary information they need to fire an employee. If a women admits to using contraception in order to not get pregnant, there’s nothing in the Constitution to stop an anti-birth control employer from firing her.
Meanwhile, the Conference of Catholic Bishops, despite the PR loss that might have been occasioned by the all-male birth control panel, has duly voted to redouble their attacks on birth control -- or in their words, their defense of "religious freedom."
3-The Violence Against Women Act is under threat in the Senate. Once Joe Biden's precious piece of legislation that has been reauthorized easily over repeated years, the Violence Against Women or VAWA act has suddenly become contentious yet again this year because of new protections aimed at LGBT citizens, Native Americans, and immigrants. Even though the bill has actually had the good effect of increasing domestic violence reporting, some members of the GOP appear ready to throw women under the buss in their effort to exclude other disadvantaged groups from its helpful reach. As its primary sponsor Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont told HuffPo's Amanda Terkel, "You cannot say that we will seek to stop domestic violence, but only for certain people. It just boggles the mind. It goes against everything I ever knew as a prosecutor, but it also goes against everything I know as a human being."
4-Abortion doctors and pregnant women are being targeted. This is one of the most disturbing but important fronts of the war on women--the criminilization of pregnant women and the targeting of abortion doctors. In Kansas, for instance, Dr. Mila Means, the doctor who wanted to open up a practice in Dr. Tiller's place has been prevented by relentless threats and harassment. In Indiana, a pregnant woman who tried to commit suicide and lost her baby has been imprisoned for over a year now.
5-We're defending ground we shouldn't be defending. When absurd bills like the ones described above in Arizona, Utah, and Kansas are defeated, it feels like a victory. But in fact, progressives are just playing defense. The right wing has always been good at pushing for the most extreme measures so that anything else seems like a compromise. Lose mandatory vaginal ultrasounds, keep mandatory abdominal ultrasounds. Lose a ban on saying sex, keep abstinence education. And as the statistics from Guttmacher show, even with a continual pushback from feminists, these laws are still coming through piece by piece, and some members of the mainstream media are following for the "religious freedom" framing that is the latest canny re-dubbing from the playbook that brought us "Right to Work" states for union-busting and "pro-life" for anti-women policies.
As Gloria Feldt told Irin Carmon at Salon this week, advocates for reproductive rights need to talk freedom, too, by advancing the "Freedom of Choice" act, a bill that would forbid discrimination against women based on their "reproductive status." Instead of just reacting to the volley of misogyny, we need to keep advancing our own agenda of equality. The pushback against Komen, against Limbaugh, against the Blunt Amendment should just be the beginning.
The Senate Judiciary Committee voted 6-2 Monday to endorse a controversial bill that would allow Arizona employers the right to deny health insurance coverage for contraceptives based on religious objections.
Arizona House Bill 2625, authored by Majority Whip Debbie Lesko, R-Glendale, would permit employers to ask their employees for proof of medical prescription if they seek contraceptives for non-reproductive purposes, such as hormone control or acne treatment.
This provision wouldn't just intrude on women's privacy, writes Corey Robin, but open them up to blatant discrimination:
Notice the second provision of the Arizona legislation: employers will now have the right to question their employees about what they plan to do with their birth-control prescriptions. Not only is this a violation of the right to privacy -- again, not a right our Constitution currently recognizes in the workplace -- but it obviously can give employers the necessary information they need to fire an employee. If a women admits to using contraception in order to not get pregnant, there’s nothing in the Constitution to stop an anti-birth control employer from firing her.
Meanwhile, the Conference of Catholic Bishops, despite the PR loss that might have been occasioned by the all-male birth control panel, has duly voted to redouble their attacks on birth control -- or in their words, their defense of "religious freedom."
3-The Violence Against Women Act is under threat in the Senate. Once Joe Biden's precious piece of legislation that has been reauthorized easily over repeated years, the Violence Against Women or VAWA act has suddenly become contentious yet again this year because of new protections aimed at LGBT citizens, Native Americans, and immigrants. Even though the bill has actually had the good effect of increasing domestic violence reporting, some members of the GOP appear ready to throw women under the buss in their effort to exclude other disadvantaged groups from its helpful reach. As its primary sponsor Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont told HuffPo's Amanda Terkel, "You cannot say that we will seek to stop domestic violence, but only for certain people. It just boggles the mind. It goes against everything I ever knew as a prosecutor, but it also goes against everything I know as a human being."
4-Abortion doctors and pregnant women are being targeted. This is one of the most disturbing but important fronts of the war on women--the criminilization of pregnant women and the targeting of abortion doctors. In Kansas, for instance, Dr. Mila Means, the doctor who wanted to open up a practice in Dr. Tiller's place has been prevented by relentless threats and harassment. In Indiana, a pregnant woman who tried to commit suicide and lost her baby has been imprisoned for over a year now.
5-We're defending ground we shouldn't be defending. When absurd bills like the ones described above in Arizona, Utah, and Kansas are defeated, it feels like a victory. But in fact, progressives are just playing defense. The right wing has always been good at pushing for the most extreme measures so that anything else seems like a compromise. Lose mandatory vaginal ultrasounds, keep mandatory abdominal ultrasounds. Lose a ban on saying sex, keep abstinence education. And as the statistics from Guttmacher show, even with a continual pushback from feminists, these laws are still coming through piece by piece, and some members of the mainstream media are following for the "religious freedom" framing that is the latest canny re-dubbing from the playbook that brought us "Right to Work" states for union-busting and "pro-life" for anti-women policies.
As Gloria Feldt told Irin Carmon at Salon this week, advocates for reproductive rights need to talk freedom, too, by advancing the "Freedom of Choice" act, a bill that would forbid discrimination against women based on their "reproductive status." Instead of just reacting to the volley of misogyny, we need to keep advancing our own agenda of equality. The pushback against Komen, against Limbaugh, against the Blunt Amendment should just be the beginning.
IMHO: Where is Brett Favre when you need him? Seriously, though, the organizers for the April 28, 2012 Women's March on Jackson, Mississippi should be contacting Favre and his wife, Deanna. I doubt she is happy with the current political war on Women's Rights and would be more than happy to help fight this war if asked.
GOOD NIGHT SONGS
THE LION SLEEPS TONIGHT
JUST ONE LOOK
OUR DAY WILL COME (1963)
THE LEADER OF THE PACK
TEARS ON MY PILLOW
About
Since the GOP is an expert on women's health and reproductive rights--email, call or mail the RNC a letter asking them to book your next OB-GYN visit.
Description
Due for a pap smear? Email, Mail or Call the RNC today!
Republican National Committee
310 First Street, SE
Washington, DC 20003
info@gop.com
p 202.863.8500 | f 202.863.8820
Since the GOP is an expert on women's health and reproductive rights--email, call or mail the RNC a letter asking them to book your next OB-GYN visit.
Description
Due for a pap smear? Email, Mail or Call the RNC today!
Republican National Committee
310 First Street, SE
Washington, DC 20003
info@gop.com
p 202.863.8500 | f 202.863.8820
GOOD NIGHT, ALL
COMING TOMORROW -
AN OPEN LETTER TO GEORGE CLOONEY
COMING TOMORROW -
AN OPEN LETTER TO GEORGE CLOONEY
A "MAXINE" RANT AND RAVE
TOO BAD! YOU ALREADY DID!
posted by Leah Ward 3/18/12 on Facebook:
IMPORTANT STATE MARCH INFORMATION. LONG BUT PLEASE, PLEASE READ IF YOU'RE INTERESTED AT ALL IN THE APRIL 28, 2012 MARCH IN YOUR STATE:
WHO is spreading the word of the April March in their community to the people who don't have computers? I've been begging for a flyer with room to add local contact information for weeks. I still haven't seen one.
Who is attending this March? All the women on Facebook? All the women on the state organizing pages? I've been asking women IN my community if they're going to the March in April for weeks now. The answer I've been getting EVERY time I ask is:
"WHAT MARCH?"
I just went to the wearewomenmarch.net web site and, as had been the case every other time I've gone there, NOTHING IS HAPPENING!
An an hour and a half ago I posted the following on their site:
"THIS IS ABSOLUTELY RIDICULOUS! I post, nobody listens or responds. Does ANYBODY in the state of California have a poster with room to add LOCAL contact information? WE HAVE TO GET THE WORD OUT! APRIL 28TH IS JUST 5 WEEKS AWAY. When are we going to spread the word of this march beyond this web site, beyond Facebook, beyond the computer in general and GO OUT IN THE STREET AND TELL WOMEN THE MARCH IS HAPPENING ON APRIL 28, 2012?
When are we going to start handing out flyers that women can actually take home and hang on their refrigerator and maybe start planning how to get themselves and their friends to Sacramento? Maybe they will postpone plans they were already making for that week-end in April and instead make new plans to March on their State Capitol. This is my last attempt at trying to work with this site on organizing for the March. If nobody responds, I’m going to concentrate on my own organization and web pages at http://thewomankindparty.com/womankind-web-wanderings.html.
And by the way, for the donations being asked for on your home page for the man who works on the wearewomenmarch site: he simply paid I-CANN the yearly fee of $15.00 for the domain name, which anyone who gets their own domain has to do, and probably around $10.00 a month for web hosting. That’s what I pay for my domain and web hosting. I pay out of my own pocket even though I'm a low-income senior and I NEVER ASK FOR MONEY on my website and I never will. Our money could be going to feed hungry children, for animal shelters, for the homeless. But the guy working on that site sure doesn’t need MY money or yours, for that matter.
BTW, WHERE are the donations being asked for with a PayPal link actually going? How are they being used?
Have YOU read anything in your local newspaper about the March? Have YOU heard any mention of it on your local news? Have YOU seen any flyers around YOUR town about the March and giving you information on who you can contact locally for more information?
In Sisterhood,
Blue"
P. S. I went back to http://www.wearewomenmarch.net/groups/california-we-are-women-march/ about 20 minutes ago to see if I'd received any responses while walking my dog. Again, nothing. Including the above post. So I posted them again immediately with the following post:
I see you're watching enough to cut my comments before too many people read them. Oh, well, they're being posted at http://thewomankindparty.com/womankind-web-wanderings.html and Facebook. They're being read there so go ahead and cut my comments all you want.
Now I'm going back to their page every 5 minutes or so to see if my last comment is still there.
IMHO: I do believe there is something politically shady going on at wearewomenmarch.net, something perhaps connected with the D.C. March sometime in September? I'm filling pages and pages and pages of TheBigMarch2012.doc with copies of postings, of important announcements, of comments from other women, of my thoughts and opinions and spinning of conspiracies Enough for a book for my granddaughters' to publish posthumously and maybe, just maybe will have an inheritance from me after all.
I NEED A SONG!
I NEED A LAUGH!
So I googled my twin sister, Maxine.
END OF NOON UPDATE - BACK AT FIVE
The Illinois House is considering legislation that would coerce a woman seeking abortion into receiving an invasive transvaginal ultrasound. Fierce opposition is what helped change a similar bill in Virginia, and fierce opposition is what is needed here. Tell your legislator: vote NO on HB 4085!
Don't let Illinois violate women! Just weeks after a similar bill in Virginia was altered in the face of a national outcry, the Illinois House of Representatives is now considering a bill that would coerce women into undergoing an invasive and medically unnecessary procedure known as a transvaginal ultrasound as a part of "informed consent" before having an abortion.1 At their own expense.
If this legislation -- offensively named the "Ultrasound Opportunity Act" -- passes, any woman who refuses to take the state up on this invasive ultrasound "opportunity" has to do so in writing, on a state-provided form that would then be collected and stored by the state. And the state would require clinics and physicians to track and report the number of women who refuse to be violated by the state before having an abortion.2
Fierce opposition is what helped change this bill in Virginia, and fierce opposition is what is needed here. Write your Illinois state legislator today, and tell him or her to vote NO on HB 4085.
This anti-woman bill has already passed the Illinois House Agriculture Committee. Yes, you read that right -- the Agriculture committee, because apparently the supporters of this legislation are so regressive in their thinking that they think they can treat women like cattle. A vote could happen in the full House as early as next week, so we only have a short window of time to flood the House with the message that HB 4085 must be defeated.
This bill is nothing more than another attempt by anti-woman extremists in the states to make it harder for women to access abortion services. If this bill successfully passes the Illinois legislature, other states will be encouraged to begin to introduce equally reactionary bills. We can't let this legislation pass and set off a chain reaction around the U.S.
Tell your Illinois state legislator: vote NO on HB 4085.
1. " Illinois Anti-Abortion Bills Approved By State Agriculture Committee Over Pro-Choice Groups' Protests ," Joseph Erbentraut, HuffingtonPost.com, 2/24/12.
2. Illinois Criminal Sexual Assault Act, Illinois Criminal Code, 720 ILCS 5/12-12, et seq., Illinois Coalition Against Sexual Assault.
3. Full text of Illinois HB 4085
Don't let Illinois violate women! Just weeks after a similar bill in Virginia was altered in the face of a national outcry, the Illinois House of Representatives is now considering a bill that would coerce women into undergoing an invasive and medically unnecessary procedure known as a transvaginal ultrasound as a part of "informed consent" before having an abortion.1 At their own expense.
If this legislation -- offensively named the "Ultrasound Opportunity Act" -- passes, any woman who refuses to take the state up on this invasive ultrasound "opportunity" has to do so in writing, on a state-provided form that would then be collected and stored by the state. And the state would require clinics and physicians to track and report the number of women who refuse to be violated by the state before having an abortion.2
Fierce opposition is what helped change this bill in Virginia, and fierce opposition is what is needed here. Write your Illinois state legislator today, and tell him or her to vote NO on HB 4085.
This anti-woman bill has already passed the Illinois House Agriculture Committee. Yes, you read that right -- the Agriculture committee, because apparently the supporters of this legislation are so regressive in their thinking that they think they can treat women like cattle. A vote could happen in the full House as early as next week, so we only have a short window of time to flood the House with the message that HB 4085 must be defeated.
This bill is nothing more than another attempt by anti-woman extremists in the states to make it harder for women to access abortion services. If this bill successfully passes the Illinois legislature, other states will be encouraged to begin to introduce equally reactionary bills. We can't let this legislation pass and set off a chain reaction around the U.S.
Tell your Illinois state legislator: vote NO on HB 4085.
1. " Illinois Anti-Abortion Bills Approved By State Agriculture Committee Over Pro-Choice Groups' Protests ," Joseph Erbentraut, HuffingtonPost.com, 2/24/12.
2. Illinois Criminal Sexual Assault Act, Illinois Criminal Code, 720 ILCS 5/12-12, et seq., Illinois Coalition Against Sexual Assault.
3. Full text of Illinois HB 4085
David Evans updated his Facebook status:
CHAPTER 1:
When I looked at the clock on my night table the last time it was after 2 a.m. I opened my eyes, it was completely dark, and I couldn't see the clock and was aware of the complete silence. The ambient noises likes the crickets and the occasional automobile sounds were missing. I reached for the lamp to turn it on, I could not find it. I could not locate the night stand either, the bed was not under me, and I felt as though I were in a void.
And then a voice addressed me, “David”.
Me: "Who are you and why are you here?" In my bones and being I knew who the voice belonged to. "Why didn't you send someone else to process me? Isn't that the way it's done?"
God "David, people usually address me a little more formally the first time.:
Me: "How do you like to be addressed?"
God: "However you prefer David. Why do you ask?"
Me: "I assume that I just died and now it appears from what I recall as a child that it is time for me to be processed or more precisely it is time for me to be judged. You do know that I am an atheist don't you? Mister ah, I missed your name."
God: "I did not tell you my name David,but I know you already know who am."
Me: "You are going to tell me that you are God, aren't you? Well, I do not necessary believe I am talking with God, are you going to tell me that you are God?"
God "No, David, I am not going to tell you I am God. I am going to allow you to reach a conclusion on your own and in your own time."
Me: "What if I don't? What if I do not believe you are God, how do you handle such things? I might not even be dead, this might just be a dream."
God: "Time will tell.""
IMHO: I know, I know! St. Patrick's Day was here and now is gone. But I AM Irish and I celebrated it properly. I'm still trying to catch up to the day and a half that is now simply a blur in my memory. But I do vaguely remember Maxine saying something like this to me during lunch.
HAVE A GREAT SUNDAY MORNING, EVERYONE! I'LL BE BACK AT NOON WITH NEW CONTENT.