This afternoon, with three onerous anti-abortion bills on the agenda, the Ohio House of Representatives voted 54-43 for the most extreme one: the so-called "heartbeat bill" which effectively bans all abortions. (It says abortion is illegal once a fetal heartbeat can be detected by any means, which can be as soon as a couple of weeks — long before many women even know they are pregnant). The bill now goes to the Senate which is likely to pass it and then to Governor John Kasich, who is certain to sign it.
Let this be a wake-up call to any of you folks out there who are STILL saying, "Oh, they'll never do it. It's too lucrative a fundraiser. It's too good a rallying call for the troops." Listen up: Ohio is most likely about to do it.
Of course, it will go through court challenges, most likely all the way to the Supreme Court, costing the taxpayers of Ohio millions of dollars more than Kasich's "cut spending" administration has already squandered needlessly. And who knows anymore what will happen there?
The force behind this bill is a woman named Janet Folger Porter, who has a group called Faith2Action. She is a dominionist theocrat so extreme she got herself thrown off a Christian broadcasting network. She has said her goal is to bring all the institutions of American society — government, education, business, media, etc — under the rule of Old Testament Biblical law in order to prepare for the return of Jesus Christ. This isn't about "unborn child," kids, or as today's House agenda called them, "unborn humans." It is plain and simply about turning women into chattel.
One more thing: who do you think Janet Folger Porter wants to see in the White House? There's only one candidate who is as much of a fanatical true-believer as Porter herself — and that is Michele Bachmann. So those of you who are admiring her smooth performance and praising Bachmann's intelligence and giving her a pass because "Oh, she's no danger," please stop and think what you are lending credibility to. She's a danger. And she's perfect for this gang because she's a woman — shiny object! sexy! new! — and diverts attention from what this gang has in store for women who are not privileged. Stop admiring the surface and examine the content. Because after President Backmann appoints one more Supreme Court justice, women's rights are dead for a century.