(Guttmacher Institute)
Well, that sucked.
At Womenarewatching.org, a Planned Parenthood Action Fund, Vanessa V. writes:
As people were asking for a better economy, our political leaders managed to not only prioritize making it ridiculously difficult for women in this country to get health care — and let's not mince words — but also to launch an unprecedented level of attacks on women's health care. It's a stark indicator not only of where these legislators' priorities lie, but what's truly at stake in the upcoming elections.
As the above graph shows, attacks on women's health more than doubled last year, as legislators at the federal and state level seemed to devote their every waking moment to inventing ever more absurd and burdensome obstacles to safe, affordable and accessible health care.
For example:
- Legislators in Iowa, Nebraska and South Dakota attempted to legalize the murder of abortion providers.
- House Republicans, including former presidential hopeful Michele Bachmann, threatened to shut down the whole damned government unless Planned Parenthood was defunded.
- They also tried to redefine rape in order to stop pregnant 13-year-old girls from "exploiting" the "rape loophole."
- Forced birthers in Ohio wanted a fetus to "testify" as a "legislative witness" in support of the Heartbeat Bill that would ban all abortions once a heartbeat can be medically detected.
Those proposed bills did not make it onto the books. But if you think that's reason to celebrate, guess again. As Meteor Blades discussed last week:
[W]e now know that there was 50 percent more such legislation enacted in 2011 than in 2010, and 75 percent more than in 2009. That amounts to 135 provisions enacted in 36 states during 2011 relating to reproductive health or rights. These include 89 provisions restricting abortion, 50 more than in 2005, the previous record year for such legislation.
Not all of this legislation will survive. These laws are typically so extreme (and, oh yeah, unconstitutional) that they are overturned, in part or in full, by the courts. But even when a lower court suspends enforcement, the ultimate outcome is not always good. Last year, for example, Texas Gov. Rick Perry designated an anti-abortion bill as "emergency" legislation so that it could be fast-tracked and enacted immediately. The bill required all women seeking abortions to first undergo a completely unnecessary vaginal sonogram, during which time, doctors were required to provide medically inaccurate descriptions of the fetus. The District Court ruled that the law was not only unconstitutional, but also particularly burdensome for rape victims.
But this week:
A three-judge panel of the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals followed up on its decision this week to lift a temporary injunction imposed by a lower-court judge, who ruled the law violated the First Amendment rights of doctors and patients.
Which means:
Texas can begin immediately enforcing a new state law that requires doctors to perform a sonogram before an abortion and show the image to the patient [...]
The new law mandates that at least 24 hours before performing an abortion, doctors show the woman the sonogram image, play the fetal heartbeat aloud and describe the fetus' features.
This law, like so many others, was passed under the guise of "informed consent"—meaning that proponents claim they are merely trying to ensure that women have all the information they need to make an informed decision about whether to proceed with an abortion. But as Sarah Morice-Brubaker at Religion Dispatches wrote:
One of the most infuriating aspects of this law (and believe me, it’s a crowded field) is that its proponents dress it up as “informed consent,” when it precisely undoes informed consent. Undergoing a transvaginal ultrasound is not the same as being informed of your diagnosis and the medical risks of a treatment or procedure. A transvaginal ultrasound is a procedure (duh!)—one usually used to diagnose potential problems with a pregnancy in the presence of certain symptoms. Except in Texas, where it’s also used to treat the malady of not being as opposed to abortion as some people wish you would be. Which is different from the way things typically work.
So far, 2012 is off to a hell of a start, isn't it? And because this is, after all, an election year, it's a fair bet that we'll see a slew of new anti-woman legislation introduced as anti-choice politicians exploit women's health care to score points with their extremist base.
As Meteor Blades said:
The bottom line: The foes of reproductive freedom never rest. Supporters can't afford to either.
This week’s good, bad and ugly below the fold.
- This is going to make you sick:
A Muslim woman is suing the University of Bridgeport, alleging that the school failed to investigate her claims that a fellow student sexually harassed her and instead retaliated by reporting her to the FBI based on a false claim that she was a terrorist.
Balayla Ahmad filed the federal lawsuit Tuesday saying that she was sexually harassed by a male student for months in 2009 and that university officials showed "deliberate indifference" to her repeated complaints. She said college officials recklessly disseminated false accusations by the harasser that they had good reason to believe were unreliable and threatened her with arrest by the FBI.
So basically, this scumbag who couldn't take no for an answer decided that if the object of his sexual harassment didn't want to sleep with him, she must be a terrorist. And even though the school blew off her complaints of sexual harassment, it apparently took her harasser's claims seriously enough.
And it gets worse:
Ahmad asked that the university provide her with an off-site proctor for her exams, but she said the university told her in April 2009 that her sexual harassment complaint had been closed and that she was being referred to a disciplinary committee. In June, she said the university dismissed her.
Told you it would make you sick.
- More of this please: an ad campaign to stop rape directed at men.
- Advocates for Youth brings us some good news:
[F]our leading health organizations released the first-ever national standards for sexuality education in schools. Published in the Journal of School Health, the ground-breaking National Sexuality Education Standards: Core Content and Skills, K-12 provide clear, consistent, and straightforward guidance on the essential minimum, core content for sexuality education that is developmentally and age-appropriate for students in grades Kindergarten through grade 12.
This is how to reduce teen pregnancy and disease rates: real, honest, science-based sex education.
- Kickass Openly Gay Native American Woman Elected to State Legislature:
Susan Allen (not to be confused with the wife of Republican Virginia Senator George Allen) is the polar opposite of her fellow Minnesota countrywoman Michele Bachmann. She's a progressive rather than a Tea Partier, she lives in a mixed income Minneapolis neighborhood rather than a McMansion in the exurbs, and she's a lesbian rather than a lesbian-fixer. Additionally, Allen has vowed to fight for defeat of Minnesota's constitutional marriage amendment, which would effectively make same-sex marriage illegal in the state.
- Michelle Goldberg has a must-read article about Mitt Romney's problem with women.
- About that mancession:
Remember all the what-does-it-mean-what-can-be-done-about-it hand-wringing over the "mancession," the fact men had lost a much higher percentage of jobs in the recession than women? And that women were rapidly heading toward parity in numbers in the labor market? Well, it's over. In fact, it's been over for quite some time.
- American Family Association's Bryan Fischer says America is in trouble because of our "feminized public policy."
- But Bryan Fischer's got nothing on this clown:
The Southern Baptist Convention’s Robert Jeffress, a prominent endorser of Gov. Rick Perry, said in an interview with Janet Mefferd yesterday that the Social Security crisis, the Medicare crisis and the mounting federal deficit are “God’s judgment” for legalized abortion. [...]
Since Roe v. Wade, we’ve had 40 million babies aborted, murdered. Do you realize that if those children, one study I cite in the books says, if those children had been allowed to live, if they had grown up and become productive citizens, it would have added $35 trillion to our Gross National Product in the last 35 years, and there would be no Social Security crisis or Medicare crisis because those people would be paying, productive citizens into the system.
- You know what is actually good for the economy? Women's equality.
- Amanda Marcotte discusses just how "easy" it is to buy Plan B, the emergency contraception that Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius recently decided is just too darned complicated and dangerous to be sold to teenagers without a prescription.
- Check out this ridiculous story from Robin Marty:
David Hood, the former principal of Christ the King K-8 private Catholic school, was quickly put on administrative leave and then dismissed altogether after a story broke this fall regarding his intention to have students pray in front of an abortion clinic for school credit.
You can guess where this is going, right?
Hood is now finally speaking out about the firing, blaming it mostly on the newspaper for "distorting" his comments to make people believe that he would provide credit for abortion protesting.
Riiiiiiiiiiiight. His comments were distorted:
Hood said in an Oct. 11 interview he was encouraging parents to take part in anti-abortion prayer vigils outside Health Sciences Centre. He hoped to make the vigils an official school activity for both parents and students of the St. Vital kindergarten-to-Grade 8 private school as early as next September. And, Hood said, if any student took part in the vigils this school year, that could count toward their required community service.
So encouraging students (and their parents) to terrorize patients outside of a health clinic, in exchange for community service credit, is totally different from encouraging students (and their parents) to terrorize patients outside of a health clinic, in exchange for community service credit. Or something.
- If you never watched the TV show Veronica Mars, you missed out. Rowan Kaiser explains why it's so refreshing to see a show about a tough, smart, mystery-solving, ass-kicking teen-age girl.