Community Forum on Keeping Children Safe and Healthy
Posted by AzBlueMeanie: Press release from the Children's Action Alliance:
COVID-19 & Healthcare
GOP’s War on Women: Tea-Publican House passes the ‘Rape Audit Bill’
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
Just hours before a joint session of Congress for President Obama's State of the Union Address last night, the Tea-Publican House voted on one of its top legislative priorities for this year: HR 7, which they misleadingly label the “No Taxpayer Funding For Abortion Act” (the Hyde Amendment has banned federal funds for abortions since 1976), and that opponents call the "Rape Audit Bill," for justifiable reason.
As I explained in a post earlier this year, House Republicans Are Pushing A Bill That Would Force The IRS To Audit Rape Victims:
In addition to preventing low-income women from using their Medicaid coverage to access abortion, the “No Taxpayer Funding For Abortion Act,” or HR 7, could also have dramatic implications for the tax code and the private insurance market. One of its most controversial provisions could actually require the Internal Revenue Service to conduct audits of rape victims.
Why? Because HR 7 eliminates medical-expense deductions for abortion care, essentially raising taxes on the women who opt to have an abortion. Like many abortion restrictions, this provision includes an exemption for victims of rape and incest, as well as women who encounter life-threatening complications from their pregnancies. But in order to enforce those exceptions, the IRS would have to verify that the women who are claiming a medical-expense deduction for an abortion fall into one of those three categories, to ensure they’re not committing tax fraud.
Essentially, that would empower the government agency to have the final say over what “counts” as a sexual assault or a life-threatening situation. And that, in turn, would force victims to prove their case.
“Imagine having to recount a sexual assault — a horrifyingly painful, personal experience — to a tax collector,” NARAL Pro-Choice America says in an action alert to its members to encourage them to mobilize against HR 7. “An anti-choice bill in Congress would do just that. It could force sexual assault survivors who access abortion care to prove the assault occurred.”
The House vote was 227 to 188, mainly along party lines. Final Vote. Six Democrats voted yes, only one Republican voted no, and another voted present. There were 15 members of Congress not voting.
SCOTUS keeps injunction in place in Little Sisters until the 10th Circuit rules on the merits
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor issued a temporary injunction on New Years' Eve in the case of Little Sisters of the Poor v. Sebelius, to an objection by an order of Catholic nuns who minister to the elderly that they do not want to sign EBSA Form 700 claiming an exemption for a religious organization, which would allow their employee health insurance provider to provide contraception coverage under the ACA "contraception mandate" to their employees.
The Little Sisters' health plan administrator, Christian Brothers Employee Benefit Trust, also objected to the “contraceptive mandate” and said it would not incorporate it in the Little Sisters plan. Federal law exempts “church plans” from the ACA mandate, so there will be no contraception coverage in the health care plan.
The Little Sisters are objecting to completing paperwork.
The theory goes that even filing the EBSA Form 700 would make the Little Sisters a part of the scheme, and thus draw them into support for abortions or abortion-related services. (Somehow they equate contraception with abortion; not all contraception is an aborticide). It is an absolutist extreme position.
It is an extreme position not shared by American Catholics. Most American Catholics don’t consider birth control to be a threat to their religious belief. In fact, 82 percent of Catholics say contraception is “morally acceptable,” according to a Gallup poll from May 2012. Catholic support for birth control is a mere 8 points below the 90 percent of non-Catholic Americans who have no moral objections to birth control.
As usual, wingnuts don’t realize everyone else has the internet too
Gaslighting is a form of mental abuse in which false information is presented with the intent of making a victim doubt his or her own memory, perception and sanity.[1] Instances may range simply from the denial by an abuser that previous abusive incidents ever occurred, up to the staging of bizarre events by the abuser with the intention of disorienting the victim.
The term "gaslighting" comes from the play Gas Light and its film adaptations. The term is now also used in clinical and research literature.
CAP’s latest assault on the constitutional right of privacy in health care decisions of Arizona women
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
On the opening day of the Arizona Legislature this year, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Arizona's appeal from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals striking down the legislature's 20-week abortion ban as unconstitutional. The source of this anti-choice bill, Mullah Cathi Herrod and her Christian Taliban at the Center for Arizona Policy (CAP), vowed to retaliate against Arizona women. Arizona cannot enforce abortion ban, Supreme Court rules:
Herrod signaled that her organization, which has been at the forefront of pushing lawmakers here to enact more restrictions on abortion, is not done yet.
"We are already taking the next steps to protect women and their pre-born children from the dangerous and deadly practices of the abortion industry," she said, promising details in the coming days.
One of CAP's foot soldiers in the Arizona Legislature, Rep. Debbie Lesko (R-Peoria), is the sponsor of HB 2284 (.pdf) which would, among other provisions, allow for the Christian Taliban to make unannounced "inspections" of abortion clinics to harass and intimidate abortion service providers and their patients. The Arizona Capitol Times (subscription required) reports, Anti-abortion bill would permit unannounced inspections of clinics:
A Peoria lawmaker has introduced an anti-abortion bill that would allow health inspectors to examine clinics unannounced. The bill also would make it a crime to circumvent the state’s parental consent law.
The bill, HB 2284, introduced Thursday by Rep. Debbie Lesko, also requires abortion clinics to report whether an infant survived a procedure and what steps doctors took to save it.