When are women going to rise up to defend their constitutional rights and liberties? Is it already too late?

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Two related stories today in which the Christian Taliban has scored successes in reducing women to second class citizens who are property of the state by depriving them of their constitutional rights and liberties.

Here in Arizona, Planned Parenthood has decided not to appeal from a Court of Appeals decision regarding severwe restrictions placed on women's access to safe and legal medical abortions. Limits on abortion take effect in Arizona:

Planned Parenthood of Arizona will not appeal a state-court ruling denying its request to halt parts of a 2009 abortion law from going into effect, saying it needs to focus its resources right now on its core mission of health care.

As a result, the new provisions began Monday. They include:

– Requiring a woman seeking an abortion to meet in person with a doctor 24 hours before the scheduled abortion.

– Allowing only physicians to perform first-trimester surgical abortions.

– Requiring that parental consent for minors seeking an abortion be notarized.

– Allowing health-care workers, including pharmacists, to decline to provide information or access to abortion, emergency contraception or birth control based on their personal beliefs.

Planned Parenthood of Arizona's president and CEO, Bryan Howard, said there were two reasons for the decision not to appeal: Financial and resource challenges demand that the organization focus on health care, and the court's ruling indicated that the chances of success in this particular case were not strong.

"We need to focus on patients right now, not politicians," Howard said. "We're a health-care provider, not a law firm."

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"We have to begin making some priority decisions," Howard said. "These are not good times for health-care providers. We're not awash in resources."

He said those resources can't be spared right now on a case that may not prevail, particularly when Planned Parenthood of Arizona will move forward on a similar case challenging the 2011 provisions.

Both cases argue that private health-care decisions are protected under Article 2, Section 8 of the Arizona Constitution, which states, "No person shall be disturbed in his private affairs, or his home invaded, without authority of law."

The group also believes the state Constitution protects against singling out pregnancy-related health issues and regulating them differently from other health-care issues.

"If we have a good outcome with the 2011 case, that provides two conflicting cases to take up to the Arizona Supreme Court," Howard said. "One piece that didn't go our way and one piece that did."

The Christian Taliban policy group the Center for Arizona Policy wrote most of the abortion laws passed in recent years. It's leader Cathi Herrod said she was surprised to hear that Planned Parenthood would not appeal. "It's a good day for women in Arizona. Lives will be saved as a result of Planned Parenthood's decision, both the lives of preborn children and their mothers," she said.

Actually, women are going to die from self-induced abortions or from botched abortions by unqualified persons because women no longer have access to safe and legal abortions. Of course, CAP's goal is forced births. Their concern with human life "begins at conception and ends at birth." Once you're here, baby, you're on your own!

Where will CAP model legislation turn next? The state of Mississippi may hold a clue. Fundamentalists in MS Pulling Out All The Stops to Outlaw Birth Control | Crooks and Liars:

Don't kid yourself that this is "just" Mississippi. The Christian right is going after birth control in every state:

Mississippi voters will be allowed to decide on a ballot measure that defines "personhood" from the moment of fertilization, the Mississippi Supreme Court ruled last week. The measure could potentially outlaw abortions, birth control, in vitro fertilization and stem cell research across the state.

Measure 26, which will bypass the legislature and go straight to a popular ballot vote, redefines the term "person" as it appears throughout Mississippi's Bill of Rights to include "all human beings from the moment of fertilization, cloning or the functional equivalent thereof." The American Civil Liberties Union of Mississippi, Planned Parenthood and the Center for Reproductive Rights filed a lawsuit against the proposal earlier this year, not based on its content or constitutionality, but because Mississippi state law says a ballot initiative cannot be used to change the Bill of Rights.

The Mississippi Supreme Court rejected the lawsuit in a 7-2 ruling, saying that it had no power to review any ballot initiative before the actual vote takes place. 

Let's look at some of the interesting legal ramifications. If you go through in vitro fertilization, and it doesn't work, you'd have to report that as a death. Same thing would go for very early miscarriages. How do we know you didn't try to abort your pregnancy? Women would have to prove they didn't murder their blastocyst/zygote/embryo/fetus.

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And if people get illegal abortions, as people will when you make them impossible to get, that means the woman and her doctor can be charged with homicide. Of course, having a drink or a smoke during pregnancy is contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Geez, I just thought of something else — if you have sex while you're pregnant, is that child sexual abuse?

The mind reels at the possibilities!

I am constantly amazed by the passivity, if not the invisibility, of once powerful organizations that claimed to represent women's rights. Where are they "NOW"? Why are women not taking to the streets in mass protest marches to defend their constitutional rights and liberties? Have women accepted being reduced to second class citizens who are property of the state? When are women going to rise up to defend their constitutional rights and liberties? Is it already too late?