A new Gallup poll has right-wing imbeciles predictably crowing with delight, but that’s because they stop reading at the attention-grabbing headline instead of reading the entire article.
According to Gallup, only 41% of Americans identify themselves as pro-choice. What Gallup buries in its findings is that 52% believe that abortion should be legal under some circumstances (a pro-choice position), 25% believe abortion should be legal in all circumstances (also a pro-choice position), and only 20% believe that abortion should be illegal in all circumstances. In other words: While only 41% call themselves pro-choice, 77% hold pro-choice voices.
The legal documents are complicated — one suit, from Notre Dame, comes in at 57 pages. But the thing to know is this: Everything hinges on how courts interpret a law called the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, or RFRA.
43 Catholic Institutions File 12 Separate Lawsuits Against Obama’s Birth Control Rule
Since they’ve decided to stick their nose into politics and have clearly coordinated this political campaign, every one of these religious institutions should be stripped of their tax exempt status by the IRS.
Republicans are poised to make the 69 page bill the most restrictive anti-abortion law in the nation.
Kansas House Passes Most Dangerous Sweeping Anti-Abortion Law In The Nation
(Via Digby.)
Planned Parenthood is considering a legal challenge to this action.
The Obama campaign is fighting back against the GOP’s war on women… and predictably, the GOP is having one giant tantrum over it.
Arizona is on the verge of joining eight other states that have banned the use of public dollars for Planned Parenthood.
The Senate on Tuesday approved a bill that would bar the state or any local government from using public money to support an organization that includes abortions among its services.
Although House Bill 2800 does not mention Planned Parenthood by name, it’s clear the organization is the target.
Governor Jan Brewer Signs Arizona’s Extreme New Abortion Law
Life starts earliest in Arizona, which now defines gestational age as beginning on the first day of a woman’s last period, rather than at fertilization. In practice, that means the state has banned abortions after about 18 weeks (20 weeks from the last menstruation) except in the case of medical emergencies. While that provision has been much discussed, abortions after that point account for only about 1 percent of the procedures currently performed.
The stipulation likely to be most widely felt is what experts are calling an effective shutdown of medication abortions. These nonsurgical abortions are usually performed within the first nine weeks of pregnancy, and account for between 17 and 20 percent of all abortions, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive-rights advocacy group. While women often take the pills at clinics and in their homes, the bill now mandates that a medical provider must have hospital privileges within 30 miles of where the procedure takes place. Many times clinics or homes are not within 30 miles of hospitals, and the distance prevents providers from other cities or even states from caring for women, says Elizabeth Nash of the Guttmacher Institute…
While it becomes the seventh state to pass such legislation in the past two years, many Arizonans believe theirs is the most restrictive and sinister because of the degree to which it will legislate health care, thwart evidence-based medicine, and shame women.
Ariz. lawmakers receive knitted uterus as protest
Critics of an Arizona proposal to limit birth control coverage have given a personalized gift to more than a dozen state lawmakers — a fuzzy, knitted uterus with googly eyes.
The packages were delivered Thursday, each in a clear plastic bag labeled with a legislator’s name and containing a letter from a woman opposing the measure.
The bill has been at the center of a political fight.
The Mississippi state Senate passed a bill on Wednesday to impose new regulations on facilities providing abortions that supporters of the state’s only abortion clinic said could force it to close.
The measure, which previously passed in the state House of Representatives, would requires physicians performing abortions to have admitting privileges at a local hospital and be board certified or eligible in obstetrics and gynecology.
Mississippi’s only abortion provider, Jackson Women’s Health Organization, said before the vote that it could face closure if the bill becomes law. The clinic’s owner, Diane Derzis, has said she would challenge the law in court if it is signed by Republican Governor Phil Bryant.
Mississippi bill may force state’s only abortion clinic to close
Another day, another Republican-controlled legislature engaging in right-wing social engineering using TRAP laws in lieu of tackling actual problems.
Mitt Romney is not doing well with women voters. A new USA TODAY/Gallup poll shows that President Obama is faring much better than Mitt Romney in the swing states that will likely decide the next President of the United States – and women are part of the reason why. Of women under 50 years old, only 30 percent support Romney, while over 60 percent back the President.
The lack of support is mutual. Romney’s record on women’s health is hardly strong, and women voters, especially the young voters who tend to be pro-choice and pro-contraception, are likely responding to Romney’s affront on these issues. But it hasn’t always been this way. Over the course of his 2008 and 2012 campaigns for the presidency, Romney has moved significantly to the right on almost all women’s health issues. He calls it “evolving,” but, to many women, the “etch a sketch” candidate is just leaving them behind.
Need proof? Here are Mitt Romney’s top five attacks on women’s health…
