At the September 16 Republican presidential debate, Carly Fiorina proved that she has an imagination as disturbing as her method of improving Hewlett-Packard during her tenure, which consisted
laying off 30,000 workers and selling banned
printers to Iran. Apparently, she watched a video created by that scary place in her mind and then challenged President Obama and Hillary Clinton to view it as well.
Watch a fully formed fetus on the table, its heart beating, its legs kicking, while someone says we have to keep it alive to harvest its brain.
CNN has decided that this claim was "
true, but misleading." Perhaps they have access to Fiorina's imagination, though it's not a place I would personally care to visit.
No one else has seen these images in the doctored CMP tapes, which is probably why CNN considers them misleading. If misleading is a synonym for fiction, that is.
But hyperbole, lies, and inflammatory language are the stock and trade of those who wish to strip women of the right to control their own lives and to return them to second class status. Especially if they are poor.
Keep reading for more.
On the same day that Carly Fiorina shared her visions with the nation, long-time forced-birther Rep. Chris Smith, a New Jersey Republican, introduced a bill titled H.R.3515- To amend title 18, United States Code, to prohibit dismemberment abortions, and for other purposes.
See how neatly that ties into Carly Fiorina's nightmare? "Dismemberment abortions" has no more reality than a "partial-birth abortion." There is no such thing. But to ban the medical procedure known as a D&E, dilation and evacuation, makes it clear that this is a medical procedure, something that should be discussed between a doctor and her patient without governmental interference. The procedure is often used following a miscarriage as well as for second-trimester abortions. But the term "dismemberment abortions" appeals to those who like to wave pictures of bloody fetuses in front of abortion clinics.
As Tara Culp-Ressler wrote for Think Progress:
While that bill won’t necessarily go anywhere while Democrats maintain control of the White House, its introduction represents the next step in a larger effort to outlaw a specific medical procedure, enshrine junk science into law, and potentially provoke a Supreme Court challenge.
The forced-birthers don't expect this legislation to pass, and they know that even if it did, President Obama would veto it. However, it does serve to move that Overton window just a little bit farther to the right, and in so doing, prepares the way for later efforts and makes it easier for more states to join
Kansas in passing their own bills.
There is also a bill that would ban almost all abortions after 20 weeks that has been fast tracked in the Senate, allowing it to skip the committee step and go straight to the floor for debate and vote. Named the "Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act," this bill also attempts to force junk science into law.
A 2005 study, "Timing of steps and reasons for delays in obtaining abortions in the United States," found that a lack of money accounted for much of the delay, as time was consumed in raising funds for the abortion.
Fifty-eight percent of women reported that they would have liked to have had the abortion earlier. The most common reasons for delay were that it took a long time to make arrangements (59%), to decide (39%) and to find out about the pregnancy (36%). Poor women were about twice as likely to be delayed by difficulties in making arrangements.
Conclusions: Financial limitations and lack of knowledge about pregnancy may make it more difficult for some women to obtain early abortion.
...
A variety of measures in our study suggest that women who are financially disadvantaged also have difficulty obtaining early abortions. Lower-income women typically take more time to confirm a suspected pregnancy, which could relate to the cost of a home pregnancy test and the difficulty in getting a test from a clinic or a doctor. They also typically take several more days between deciding to have an abortion and actually doing so than their higher-income counterparts. In addition, the need to take time to make arrangements is the most common reason for delay for the sample as a whole, and low-income women are more likely to have this problem. Similarly, women who had second-trimester abortions were more likely to have concerns about cost or about raising money.
This study was done in 2005, and it is unlikely that the financial burden of abortion on women in poverty has gotten any lighter since then.
Meanwhile, the committee investigations of possible illegal activity by Planned Parenthood continue in both houses of Congress, even though every investigation launched by the states, as well as a letter from the Department Of Health And Human Services, indicate there was no wrongdoing by Planned Parenthood.
The Guttmacher Institute was approached by the Congressional Budget Office in regards to the services provided by Planned Parenthood, and included the following in its response:
Planned Parenthood health centers serve a considerable proportion of all clients obtaining contraceptive care from safety-net family planning health centers.
- Nationally, 36% of the 6.7 million women receiving contraceptive care from safety-net family planning health centers in 2010 were served at Planned Parenthood centers.
- In 18 states, Planned Parenthood health centers serve more than 40% of women obtaining contraceptive care from a safety-net family planning health center.
- In 11 of those 18 states, Planned Parenthood serves more than half the women
obtaining contraceptive care from a safety-net health center.
Planned Parenthood health centers are located in 491 U.S. counties, and in about one in
five counties where there is some type of safety-net family planning center. A majority of
all women who need publicly supported contraceptive services live in these counties.
See the pattern?
The first step is to eliminate the ability of poor women to obtain contraception. Defund the strongest organization that helps these women obtain not just contraception, but cancer screenings as well.
Then make sure that the ensuing pregnancy is impossible to terminate—if not financially, then legally. According to the Guttmacher Institute, 89 percent of all abortions occur in the first trimester of a pregnancy. But that statistic is from 2010. Since then, Republican-controlled states have moved to make abortion more expensive, more time-consuming, and more difficult to obtain. What should have been an age with universal access to inexpensive medical abortions via telemedicine has become a growing dark age for women who are poor and living in states run by Republicans.
These women need a Democrat in the White House in 2017.