You know what sucks? "Pro-life" Democrats. Sure, we "have" to support them in order to win and keep conservative seats. And we're a Big Tent, after all. There's room enough in the party for everyone, including those who actively fight against the principles of the party platform that clearly spell out we are a pro-choice party. Self-described "pro-lifers" already have control of one of the major political parties. And no, in the current hyper-crazy climate, they don't really tolerate pro-choicers. Just ask Arlen Specter.
But we are supposed to make room for these bastards, even if it means they feel free to take, say, health care reform hostage. Even if they run against the party's clearly stated platform.
Cue Sen. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania:
Election season is just barely underway, but Senator Robert P. Casey, Jr. (D-PA) is taking no chances. He's already using your body as election collateral to position himself as... a "conservative pro-life Democrat."
This week, when the world was aflurry with talk of debt ceilings, financial collapse and 9.2 percent unemployment, Senator Casey found time to introduce at least two bills seeking to further restrict women's access to safe, legal abortion. Just for good measure.
One of these, S.1488, seeks to codify the Hyde Amendment, which currently exists as an amendment to annual appropriations bills and forbids federal funding of abortion care for women in need, except in cases of pregnancy resulting from rape or incest, and where the life of the pregnant woman is in danger. S.1488 was introduced on Tuesday, August 2nd, and has been referred to the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP).
The second bill, S.1489, also introduced on August 2nd, is yet another conscience clause bill, purporting to "prohibit the discrimination and retaliation against individuals and health care entities that refuse to recommend, refer for, provide coverage for, pay for, provide, perform, assist, or participate in abortions." Conscience clauses abound in both federal and state law and are constantly being expanded to include the refusal even to refer women at risk of death from a pregnancy to a provider who can help her. Apparently, Senator Casey feels we need at least one more. It has also been referred to the Senate HELP committee.
So in order to shore up his anti-choice street cred, Casey wants to make permanent the annually renewed Hyde Amendment that denies health care to low-income women. And he wants to protect the delicate flowers in the health care profession who think their bizarre interpretation of the Bible should trump their obligation to do their jobs and provide health care to women.
And this guy is a Democrat?
Of course, as the election heats up, we'll be reminded, ad nauseum, that we must vote for Democrats in order to keep women's reproductive rights safe. But is that really true, when the Democratic Party also wants us to embrace staunchly anti-choice candidates like Casey? It's bad enough they get the royal treatment in the Republican Party; do we really need to roll out the welcome mat outside our big blue tent too?
So here's the question for you: Should the Democratic Party support anti-women politicians like Casey? Or is it time to make our tent just a little smaller?
Rant over. Let's take a look at this week's atrocities and victories below the fold.
Ugly stuff first:
- Bill O'Reilly really hates when women get health care:
O’REILLY: Now the federal government is ordering the health insurance companies to pay for all breast feeding stuff, all female birth control stuff, all preventative measures for doctors for ladies that go in. What do you think that’s gonna do? That’s going to inhibit hiring even more!
KUCINICH: Frankly, we ought to be very concerned about women’s health care.
O’REILLY: I am concerned, but they’re not going to expand and hire if they have to pay higher health care premiums for workers! Businesses aren’t going to do it…You can’t have both. You can’t have a welfare state and a robust capitalist system.
Yeah, if women get health care, it'll destroy the whole economy! Sheesh. You know what, Bill? Fuck you. No, seriously, fuck you.
- Another
lone wolf terrorist attack on a women's health clinic. It's the second attack in as many weeks on a women's health care clinic.
- Speaking of terrorists:
In 1991, thousands of protesters descended on the Wichita, Kansas, clinic of late-term abortion provider George Tiller, blocking his doors and those of two other local clinics and lying in the streets. Some 2,700 protesters were arrested over six weeks, and Tiller was forced to close his doors for a week. The protesters called it the "Summer of Mercy."
Now, 20 years later, anti-abortion activists believe that God is "issuing a similar historic call." Tiller is dead—he was murdered by an anti-abortion extremist in May 2009—and the clinic that was the focus of the protests two decades ago is now closed. So the "Summer of Mercy 2.0" is taking place here in Germantown, Maryland, where onetime Tiller assistant LeRoy Carhart provides late-term abortions at his clinic in a brown-sided, teal-trimmed suburban office park.
- But hey, these terrorists are only there because they care soooooooo much about pregnant women. Like the president of the terrorist organization Operation Rescue, Troy Newman, who is such a classy guy:
Here's a scene from Germantown, Maryland, where hundreds of clinic defenders have been gathering to peacefully protect the clinic where Dr. LeRoy Carhart will provide care to women in need of late abortions. Troy Newman, President of Operation Rescue, calls a pregnant woman, "bitch."
And now for some good news:
- The silver lining in the Summer of
Mercy Terrorism is that recruitment is down.
- San Francisco is cracking down on those bogus crisis pregnancy centers that lie to women in order to scare them out of obtaining a legal medical procedure.
- Excellent:
A half-century after the advent of the pill, the Obama administration on Monday ushered in a change in women's health care potentially as transformative: coverage of birth control as prevention, with no copays.
- Last week, a federal judge threw out a lawsuit to block stem cell research. A loss for the fundies; a win for the rest of us.
- Senators are pressuring Saudi Arabia to lift its ban on women drivers.
- And finally, a new form of birth control that is 100 percent effective: