abortion

Pro-Choice Advocates Fight Back in Wis, NC, & Texas

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by Pamela Powers Hannley Pro-choice advocates are fighting the Republican Party's anti-woman laws in Wisconsin, North Carolina, and Texas. In Wisconsin, a federal judge has issued a temporary restraining order to block enforcement of the anti-abortion legislation signed in secret by Governor Scott Walker on July 5. From the Huffington Post… U.S. District Judge William Conley … Read more

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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.

Martha McSally: The anti-feminist (video)

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Even feminists own recipe boxes.
Even feminists own recipe boxes.

Republican Congressional candidate Col. Martha McSally says she has been “fighting for women’s rights and women’s equality [her] whole life.”

McSally is well known as the first woman combat pilot and the Air Force officer who fought against a government rule requiring US service women to wear Arab garb when they leave the base. Does this make her a champion for women’s rights?

Let’s look beyond these headlines to answer that question. More on McSally’s stances on choice, women’s health, equal pay, and the War on Women.

Choice

Although McSally bristles when called a “cookie cutter” Republican candidate, her stances on women’s issues are in lock-step with Congressional War on Women stalwarts like Republican Vice Presidential candidate Paul Ryan and fellow Arizonan Jeff Flake, who is running on the Republican ticket for US Senate against Dr. Richard Carmona.

McSally’s website says she believes in “the sanctity of every human life”. This right-wing code for saying that she agrees with the Republican Party’s anti-abortion platform. Ironically, small-government McSally believes that the government should dictate when American women have children. Not supporting a woman’s right to make decisions governing her own body is a deal breaker for many women.

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Abortion: What happens when a ‘pro-choice’ blogger debates a ‘pro-life’ protester? (video)

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by Pamela Powers Hannley

With the Republican Congress and the state legislatures (including Arizona's) passing anti-woman laws that ranged from the absurd to the vindictive, I can't understand why any woman in the US would vote Republican in this election. 

The impressive War on Women backlash may be one reason why most campaigning Republicans–except Todd "legitimate rape" Akin–are trying to forget anti-woman maddess that swept through their party in the spring. (After all, they don't want to lose all of the women's vote.)

None the less, the War on Women and the assault on women's reproductive rights continue– at least in the religious right wing of the Republican Party.

The Democratic Party's platform includes strong pro-choice language. Consequently, at the recent Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, a small band of anti-abortion protesters demonstrated in front of the convention center daily. Mostly, the demonstrators were old white men (surprise, surprise), but on one particular day a handful of young women joined them (to lend some credibility?).

You might say that "the devil made me do it," but with video rolling, I engaged one of the protesters in a heated, street-level debate about abortion, choice, access to contraception, sex education, "legitimate rape", fetus personhood, the morning after pill, and forcing underage girls to have a rapist's baby. 

Surprisingly, we found some consensus. We both believe…

– Abortion is a very difficult choice.

– Abortion should be a last resort, not a routine birth control method.

– Rape is rape, and there's no such thing as protection from pregnancy when a woman is raped.

– Abstinence only education is "unrealistic." Contraception and sex education should be provided to young girls in order to prevent unwanted pregnancy. She didn't want the contraception to be free, but she was somewhat more enlightened and reasonable than most Congressmen. 

– Vaginal ultrasound should be an option, if the woman wants one. (On the tape, she seems incredulous when I tell her about some of the legislation that has passed.)

Of course, the big differences between us were that:

– I believe every woman should have the right to choose, and she wants the government to dictate what citizens do;

– She believes that a fetus is a person from the moment of contraception, and I don't. She also believes that "right to life" doesn't apply to "criminals". (So, the death penalty is OK, but not abortion.) 

What I came away with is that much of the anti-woman legislation passed by Arizona and other states is too extreme even for a deeply religious woman who is vehemently opposed to abortion.

Watch the video after the jump.