Celebrating Women’s History Month: The GOP’s war on women shifts into high gear

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Did you know that March is Women's History Month?

The GOP decided to celebrate Women's History Month by shifting its war on women into high gear this week, and take women back to the dark ages when women were chattel property of their husbands or families, second class citizens who do not possess full constitutional rights and liberties, and their uterus is the property of the state — their sex lives and reproductive health subject to stringent government regulation by men in government and religious institutions. We have moved one step closer to the dystopian world of The Handmaid's Tale. (h/t graphic Daily Kos).

Earlier this week the main anti-abortion bill of the Christian Taliban aka Center for Arizona Policy (CAP), which did not have enough votes to get out of the committee to which it was assigned in the House, was pasted into an unrelated bill on the Attorney Gneneral's Office  in a "strike everything amendment" by CAP's point man woman Rep. Kimberly Yee (R-Phoenix) in the Senate Judiciary Committee and — surprise! — the bill passed the committee and moves to the full Senate. Sweeping abortion bill advancing in Senate – Arizona Capitol Times (subscription required):

[Forced birth] lawmakers were able to get a sweeping abortion measure through a Senate committee Monday, despite the measure being held in the House nearly two weeks ago.

HB2036, sponsored by Rep. Kimberly Yee, would ban abortions after 20 weeks of gestation except in the case of a medical emergency to the mother and impose new requirements for informed consent laws, parental consent, and requirements for abortion clinics.

* * *

To revive the measure, Yee and the influential [forced birth] group, Center for Arizona Policy, brought it back as a strike-everything amendment to one of Yee’s bills scheduled for a hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Judiciary Committee Chairman Ron Gould, R-Lake Havasu City, told the Arizona Capitol Times that the intention was to get around Ash in order to keep the bill moving.

The strategy worked.

* * *

The version introduced in the Senate Judiciary Committee included few changes from the House version. The only significant difference was the penalty: Under the version Yee originally introduced, a doctor could be charged with a Class 5 felony. The Senate striker only imposes a Class 1 misdemeanor.

In the House, the criminal charges were stripped by an amendment, leaving only the charge of unprofessional conduct and revocation or suspension of the physician’s license.

On Thursday, the Christian Taliban and its allies in the Tea-Publican House passed Arizona's own version of the "Blunt Amendment," which was narrowly defeated by the U.S. Senate yesterday. Any employer could opt out of birth control under Ariz. bill:

The state House voted Thursday to allow any employer to refuse to provide contraceptive coverage based on its religious beliefs.

[The Arizona legislation allows any corporation or business – even one without a stated religious purpose – to opt out based on a declared religious objection.]

[The legislation also includes language that would allow insurance companies themselves to claim a religious exemption.

Deborah Sheasby, an attorney with the Center for Arizona Policy, said that was inserted in the wake of a "compromise" President Obama offered when his first contraceptive plan drew fire.]

Thursday's 39-18 vote came over objections from lawmakers who said the existing exemption for churches is sufficient. That included Rep. Lela Alston, D-Phoenix, who said that as a woman, mother and grandmother, she was "appalled" at the legislation.

"You men have no business lecturing the women of Arizona about the use of birth control and whether or not it is a crime," she said. Alston said while HB 2625 deals only with who pays for the drugs, she said letting any employer opt out is "blatantly unconstitutional."

Rep. John Kavanagh, R-Fountain Hills, explained that he wants to impose his religious beliefs on everyone else, including people of other religious faiths or no religious faith, and violate their individual liberty of conscience this way: "When it involves killing a fertilized egg, it is killing a human being."

Then don't use that form of contraception. No one is forcing you to do anything against your religious beliefs. Nor do you have any right to impose your religious beliefs by force of law on anyone else who does not share your religious beliefs.

Under the U.S. Constitution religious liberty belongs to individuals to exercise their individual liberty of conscience. It does not belong to an employer, typically the legal fiction of a corporation or a partnership. The U.S. Constitution nowhere recognizes these fictional entities. The rights and liberties afforded under the Bill of Rights are possessed by all Americans who are equal under the law. No individual enjoys rights superior to another.

What this legislation does is to create a class of "persons," employers and insurance companies (which includes the legal fictions of corporations and partnerships) that possess rights superior to all other classes of persons, i.e., individual employees. It would permit an employer or insurance company to impose its religious beliefs or moral objections on all others (would this be by a vote of the board of directors? Or put to a vote of all the shareholders?) This was never contemplated under the Bill of Rights and is unconstitutional. It is a backdoor establishment of religious dogma as an exception to civil law, and thus violates the First Amendment.

This is what is really at stake here, not the religious liberty of religious institutions (that have always been exempt under the law) as the right-wing noise machine and the echo chamber of the "lamestream media" falsely report.

It is a radical extremist position not supported by the vast majority of Americans. "According to the latest tracking poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation, when asked "[i]n general do you support or oppose the new federal requirement that private health insurance plans cover the cost of birth control," 63 percent said they support it."  Fox Still Won't Acknowledge That Americans Support Insurance Coverage For Contraception | Media Matters for America:

Kaiser's finding is in line with previous polls finding broad support for a requirement that insurance provides contraception coverage. A majority of Catholics also agree with the Obama administration's contraception regulation. Faith leaders also agree with the regulation and so do the very organizations the right claims will be harmed by the policy: Catholic hospitals, Catholic Charities, and Catholic universities.

The titular leader of the modern-day Tea-Publican Party is the drug-adled hate monger Rush Limbaugh, a racist and misogynist demagogue who pollutes the airwaves of the nation with his vitriolic bile.

Limbaugh declared yesterday that women who use birth control and want contraception covered by their insurance company (as it has been for many years) to be "sluts" and "prostitutes" who want to be paid to have sex. Limbaugh's Misogynistic Attack On Georgetown Law Student Continues With Increased Vitriol | Media Matters for America. In exchange for paying for your contraception, this sexual deviant wants you to repay him by sending him videos of you having sex. Seriously. This vile pig actually said this.

Limbaugh is abusing Sandra Fluke, a Georgetown University Law School student who testified before Congress recently about the problems caused when women lack access to contraception. Fluke is representative of "Virtually all women (more than 99%) aged 15–44 who have ever had sexual intercourse have used at least one contraceptive method." Facts on Contraceptive Use in the United States. This includes 98% of Catholic women who use contraception despite the religious dictates of the Catholic Church. 98% of Catholic Women Have Used Contraception the Church Opposes – National – The Atlantic Wire.

The titular leader of the modern-day Tea-Publican Party, Rush Limbaugh, has defined virtually all women, "The 99%," as "sluts" and "prostitutes" because they use contraception. This is what the modern-day Tea-Publican Party has devolved into and how they view women.

This is war. You have to fight, or you will lose your rights. A bipartisan group of women in Virginia has formed a new political action committee to recruit and support candidates to defeat elected officials who back the ultrasound and so-called personhood bills. Women’s Strike Force: "Our bipartisan group will work to support and elect candidates who will bring respect for women back to an arena of civil discourse and put a stop to the legislative attacks on women." It's time for a similar group here in Arizona, and every state.