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Anti-Choice ‘Onslaught’: GOP-Led State Legislatures Debate 300 Bills to Restrict Abortion Access (video)

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Signs940-sig-sm72by Pamela Powers Hannley

Words like “onslaught,” “unprecedented,” “extremist,” “dangerous,” “unconstitutional,” “medically unnecessary,” “unscientific,” and “draconian” have been used to describe the Republican Party’s nationwide push to limit women’s healthcare, stop women from choosing to have safe, legal abortions, and close abortion clinics through over-regulation. In the first six months of this year, states have passed 106 provisions related to reproductive health, including 43 that specifically restrict abortion access.

In recent weeks, high-profile, anti-choice legislation in Texas, Ohio, North Carolina,  Wisconsin, and North Dakota has made the news.  Thanks to a one-woman filibuster by Texas State Senator Wendy Davis and hundreds of pro-choice protesters watching in the Legislative chambers, Texas is the only Republican-controlled state government in that list that didn’t pass and sign into law anti-choice legislation this spring. (Of course, Texas Governor Rick Perry– vowing to end abortion in Texas altogether– has called for another special session of the Republican-dominated State Legislature to fix that, and Democrats have little hope they will be able to stop the legislation a second time.)

These Republican-led states join others like Arizona and Virginia who passed anti-choice legislation in recent years. Nationwide, 13 states now have highly restrictive laws limiting women’s reproductive healthcare and access to legal abortions, resulting in half of American women of reproductive age living in states that are outwardly hostile to their health. Nationwide, 300 anti-choice bills are being debated. In addition, US Senator Marco Rubio and Arizona Congressman Trent Franks have introduced anti-choice bills in the Senate and House of Representatives; a ban on abortions after 20 weeks has already passed the Republican-controlled House. More details about the extent of this battle after the jump.

Perry & Kasich: War on Women Heats Up in Texas & Ohio

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Texas-obby Pamela Powers Hanley

Teapublican Legislatures in Texas and Ohio have been working diligently in recent weeks on sexist laws aimed at the suppression of women.

Last week Texas State Senator Wendy Davisbecame a nationwide feminist hero when she single-handedly filibustered and stopped anti-choice, anti-woman legislation that would have banned abortions after 20 weeks and effectively close all but 5 abortion clinics in the state of Texas.

In response to Davis and the thousands of pro-choice protesters who flooded Austin yesterday, Governor Rick Perry vowed to ban abortions in the state of Texas and called another special session. The sole purpose of this new 30-day session is to pass the same anti-choice bill that failed last week, thanks to Davis and cheering pro-choice protesters inside the Legislative chamber.

Meanwhile in Ohio, another Teapublican Governor, John Kasich– surrounded by other old white men– quietly signed  one of the most draconian, anti-choice, anti-woman bills in the country this week. The Ohio legislation requires women seeking abortions to have a vaginal ultrasound (even if the woman doesn’t want one), defunds Planned Parenthood, requires stricter controls on abortion clinics which will cause some of them to close, and redefines pregnancy to begin at fertilization. (If some of this anti-woman nonsense sounds familiar, it’s because Arizona and other Teapubican states passed similar legislation in recent years.)

Perry and other anti-abortion zealots paint this fight as a religious war to protect the unborn. This is hogwash. The War on Women’s reproductive rights is a war of suppression. More on this and proposed laws to regulate sperm donors after the jump.

Ohio Tea-Publicans restrict women’s reproductive health care

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

While all eyes were on Texas last week and the people's filibuster led by state Sen. Wendy Davis, Tea-Publicans in Ohio demonstrated how to get things done in the dark while no one is paying much attention. Like cockroaches.

Former FAUX News host and Governor of Ohio, John Kasich, signed into law an appropriations bill this week that contains some of the most onerous and restrictive anti-women's reproductive health measures in the country. I fail to see how these substantive legislative measures are germain to an appropriations bill — perhaps this is grounds for a legal challenge — but that is how Tea-Publicans roll in Ohio. Surrounded By Men, Ohio Governor Signs Stringent Abortion Restrictions Into Law:

Flanked by a group of other male officials, Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) signed a contentious two-year budget bill
into law on Sunday evening. The governor vetoed 22 amendments to HB 59
before approving it, but he left intact several provisions that will severely limit women’s reproductive access.

The new budget, which takes effect on Monday, includes at least five
new anti-abortion provisions. HB 59 will defund Planned Parenthood
clinics, reallocate family planning funding to right-wing “crisis pregnancy centers,”
strip funding from rape crisis centers that give their clients any
information about abortion services, impose harsh restrictions on
abortion clinics that will force many of them to shut down, and require
doctors to give women seeking abortion information about the presence of
a “fetal heartbeat.”

Taken together, the budget amendments ensure that Ohio now has some of the most stringent abortion laws in the nation.

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So how exactly does this help GOP rebranding after its War on Women?

Governor Goodhair ‘mansplains’ to Wendy Davis

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Governor Goodhair, Rick Perry of the theocratic Republic of Texas Gilead (literary reference to The Handmaid’s Tale), was none too happy about state Sen. Wendy Davis leading a people’s filibuster to defeat his anti-abortion measure. Doesn’t this little lady know that women are supposed to be subservient to their men folk and to be seen and not heard? How dare she violate the law of God (according to these religious extremists).

Read this disturbing report by Forrest Wilder in the August 2011 issue of Texas Observer, Rick Perry’s Army of God. The movement is called the New Apostolic Reformation. Believers fashion themselves modern-day prophets and apostles:

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[T]wo Texas pastors, Tom Schlueter of
Arlington and Bob Long of San Marcos, who called on Perry in the
governor’s office inside the state Capitol. Schlueter and Long both
oversee small congregations, but they are more than just pastors. They
consider themselves modern-day apostles and prophets, blessed with the
same gifts as Old Testament prophets or New Testament apostles.

The pastors told Perry
of God’s grand plan for Texas. A chain of powerful prophecies had
proclaimed that Texas was “The Prophet State,” anointed by God to lead
the United States into revival and Godly government. And the governor
would have a special role.

* * *

If they simply professed unusual beliefs,
movement leaders wouldn’t be remarkable. But what makes the New
Apostolic Reformation movement so potent is its growing fascination with
infiltrating politics and government. The new prophets and apostles
believe Christians—certain Christians—are destined to not just take
“dominion” over government, but stealthily climb to the commanding
heights of what they term the “Seven Mountains” of society, including
the media and the arts and entertainment world. They believe they’re
intended to lord over it all. As a first step, they’re leading an “army
of God” to commandeer civilian government.

In Rick Perry, they may have found their vessel. And the interest appears to be mutual.

Read more

The filibuster against tyranny in the Texas Lege succeeds!

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Texas state senator Wendy Davis achieved what many people thought was the impossible: she filibustered tyranny in the Texas Lege. The tyrants threw in the towel and gave up around 3:00 a.m. this morning. Dewhurst declares abortion bill dead, blames 'unruly mob: (paragraphs reordered):

DavisDavis’ filibuster had passed the 10-hour mark, and the Fort Worth
Democrat was still going strong, when Republicans were able to stop her
from speaking with a ruling that she had violated the Senate’s
filibuster rules for a third time. Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst’s ruling
shortly after 10 p.m. cleared the way for a simple majority of the
Republican-led body to vote to halt a filibuster that had gained
national attention, including recognition from President Barack Obama.

Dewhurst’s
ruling prompted many in the spectators’ gallery erupted in anger, with
shouts of “Shame!” giving way to sustained chants of “Let her speak!”
All business in the Senate was halted for several minutes until order
could be restored and a large group of spectators ordered to leave the
gallery.

That was nothing compared to the ruling that cut off all debate, leading to a final vote on Senate Bill 5.

State
Sen. Kirk Watson, D-Austin, had appealed the ruling, and upset
Democratic senators rose to make a series of parliamentary inquiries,
working to draw out the debate until the special session ended at
midnight.

Republicans moved to cut off debate, with Sen. Robert
Duncan, D-Lubbock, who was leading the Senate, declined to recognize
several Democrats’ calls to be recognized to speak. Pandemonium
followed.