Category: Abortion
Jimmy Olson Endorses Women Being Carrying Rapists Babies to Term
My bad, it wasn’t Jimmy Olson, it was Republican Ohio Senate candidate Josh Mandel who agreed with Richard Mourdock that rape victims should be forced to carry their children to term:
While national Republicans have done their best to shore up Indiana Senate nominee Richard Mourdock after his statements on rape, conception and God’s will, many Republicans in tight Senate races have backed away from Mourdock’s comments, trying to keep the negative headlines that have followed Mourdock’s statements out of their races.
But the Republican nominee for Senate in Ohio, Josh Mandel, has taken a very different approach. He’s given Mourdock a big ol’ bear hug. Ahead of Thursday’s debate between Mandel and incumbent Democrat Sherrod Brown, Democrats say they plan to make Mourdock a big topic on stage.
“I would bet it will,” Brown spokesperson Sadie Weiner told TPM when asked whether Mandel’s handling of Mourdock will come up in the debate.
Mandel is unafraid to embrace Mourdock, despite the controversy surrounding him.
Seriously, he does look like my image of Jimmy Olson ……… or Ted Bundy.
God Bless The Onion
I Misspoke—What I Meant To Say Is ‘I Am Dumb As Dog Sh%$ And I Am A Terrible Human Being’
By Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO) August 20, 2012
As a politician, I often find myself in situations where, unfortunately, I express a certain thought or idea poorly, or find my words taken out of context. Indeed, that is what happened this weekend. Upon reviewing the impromptu remarks I made Sunday afternoon, I can now see that I used the wrong words in the wrong way. I would now like to set the record straight with the American people and clear up some confusion about what it was I intended to convey.
You see, what I said was, “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.” But what I meant to say was, “I am a worthless, moronic sack of sh%$ and an utterly irredeemable human being who needs to shut up and go away forever.”
(%$ mine)
They owe me a screen cleaner.
There are Really Evil People in Kansas
Case in point, most of the members of the Kansas State Board of Healing Arts, who are attempting to strip a doctor’s license for not forcing a 10 year old girl with mental health issues to carry her uncle’s baby to term:
The Kansas State Board of Healing Arts, the governing body that regulates the practice of medicine in the state, stripped the medical license of a woman who refused to force a mentally-ill 10 year old to give birth.
As Robin Marty reports, Dr. Ann Neuhaus became the target of domestic terror group Operation Rescue after her colleague, Dr. George Tiller, was murdered. Neuhaus assisted Tiller by providing second opinions for mental health exceptions for late-term abortions.
Operation Rescue filed a negligence complaint against Neuhaus alleging that her exams were not thorough enough to support her medical conclusions and her follow-up care was inadequate because she did not recommend counseling or hospitalization after each procedure.
Neuhaus offered a rebuttal of her own. “To even claim that isn’t medically necessary qualifies as gross incompetence,” said Neuhaus. “Someone’s 10 years old, and they were raped by their uncle and they understand that they’ve got a baby growing in their stomach and they don’t want that. You’re going to send this girl for a brain scan and some blood work and put her in a hospital?”
Seriously, these are deeply evil religious zealots, and they are way closer to terrorists who intend to strike in the United States than most of the threats that the FBI manufactures.
I’m not hoping for drone strikes against these folks, but it’s clear that there are more direct links to terrorism with Operation Rescue than there is with, for example, the now shuttered Holy Land Foundation.
How About a Coat Hanger Vasectomy for Him?
Repulsive!
After having passed a bill that would effectively outlaw abortion clinics in the United States, Mississippi State Representative Bubba Carpenter is crowing about the return of coat hanger abortions to his state:
“It’s going to be challenged, of course, in the Supreme Court and all — but literally, we stopped abortion in the state of Mississippi, legally, without having to– Roe vs. Wade. So we’ve done that. I was proud of it. The governor signed it into law. And of course, there you have the other side. They’re like, ‘Well, the poor pitiful women that can’t afford to go out of state are just going to start doing them at home with a coat hanger.’ That’s what we’ve heard over and over and over.
“But hey, you have to have moral values. You have to start somewhere, and that’s what we’ve decided to do. This became law and the governor signed it, and I think for one time, we were first in the nation in the state of Mississippi.”
These people are deeply evil.
Trying to find common ground with them makes nor more sense than trying to find common ground with the late and unlamented Osama bin Laden.
They need to be run out of the body politic.
The Pedophile Protection Society Goes After Girl Scouts
Well what do you know, in their latest attempt to distract people from their actions protecting child predators, they have put the the Girl Scouts in their cross hairs.
Why the Girl scouts, because it’s not like they are going to f%$# them, that’s the boy scouts:
The sometimes tense relationship between the Catholic Church and the Girl Scouts appears to be moving toward a resolution, as the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has asked scout leaders to clarify programs and material that some religious conservatives think promote contraception and abortion.
Potentially at stake is whether troops can continue meeting in Catholic churches, and whether many Catholic girls, who make up a quarter of the nation’s 3 million Girl Scouts, will continue in scouting as the organization marks its 100th year.
In a letter dated March 28, the head of the bishops committee that has been looking into concerns about the Girl Scouts said he wanted to identify and address all remaining questions. The letter was written by Kevin C. Rhoades, bishop of Fort Wayne, who was a leading critic of the University of Notre Dame when it awarded President Obama an honorary degree in 2009.
The Associated Press reported on the letter Thursday, referring to it as an “official inquiry.”
The Girl Scouts??? Seriously?!?!?!? The US Confrence of Bishops has gone off the f%$#ing deep end.
Headline of the Day
Knit Your Congressman a Vagina
Just go read it.
I Am Stunned
Moveon.org has finally put out an ad that doesn’t suck!
Imagine that!
Seriously. The typical Moveon ad seems to preach to the choir, and not do so particularly well.
This is actually a decent piece of agitprop.
Morons.
So, Gary Trudeau storyline for this week involves old white men in Texas torturing women who need abortions.
Editors who are not now, and were probably never were, journalists, have pulled the strip for this week.
The Portland Oregonian, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, the St. Paul Pioneer Press, among others, though the Athens Georgian Banner-Herald takes for their reason:
Given that the Georgia General Assembly is considering an abortion bill — House Bill 954, sponsored by Rep. Doug McKillip, R-Athens, which would prohibit abortions after the 20th week of pregnancy — I made a unilateral decision not to publish the “Doonesbury” strips intended for publication this week. Quite simply, I thought there was a real possibility that readers might confuse the topic of this week’s “Doonesbury” with Georgia’s proposed abortion legislation, and I didn’t want to add any confusion to the ongoing concerns, pro and con, about House Bill 954.
So you are afraid that people looking at the old white guys in Texas going all Handmaiden’s Tale on women might somehow be conflated with old white guys in Georgia going all Handmaiden’s Tale on women.
In any case, as a result of the censorship by these cowards, his strip is getting gallons of ink.
I’ll be following it this week, that’s for sure.
BTW, according to Romenesko, on Thursday, we see the line, “By the authority invested in me by the GOP base, I thee rape.”
Too Extreme For Pat Buchanan????? Seriously!?!?!?!
You know, when Pat Buchanan is telling you that you are being too radical, you have a problem:
But it seems that some Republicans think their party has gone too far. Yesterday, Virginia legislators backed away from a “personhood” measure and the state’s conservative governor removed his support for an extreme ultrasound bill. Even Pat Buchanan, a leader on social issues within the party and a former GOP presidential candidate, this morning warned that Republicans like Rick Santorum are overreaching in their opposition to contraception.
On C-SPAN’s Washington Journal, Buchanan described the debate over contraception as “beyond the political realm”:
I think if you get down into where [Santorum’s] been discussing it on the merits and demerits of contraception…that’s a moral issue. […] We talked about that in college endlessly, but I think you move into an area where people don’t understand yet and where it’s beyond the political realm. And I think that’s where Santorum has gone and gotten himself. He’s gotten himself tied up in some of these arguments, and I don’t think he’s handled them with clarity.
(emphasis original)
Yes, that is Pat “It probably sounded better in the original German” Buchanan saying that this culture war sh%$ is a bit over the top.
We live in strange times.
The Aliens are in Retreat
It was Jon Stewart that Killed the Beast
So the space the aliens* more commonly known as the Virginia Republican Party, following extensive coverage, or no small amount of ridicule, have started to walk back from the bill requiring that women be probed in genitals if they want an abortion:
Virginia governor Bob McDonnell has performed a U-turn on a controversial bill which would have forced women seeking first trimester abortions to undergo an invasive transvaginal ultrasound.
McDonnell had previously said he would sign the bill if it was passed by the general assembly. But faced with growing opposition, McDonnell released a statement on Wednesday minutes before the bill was debated in the House, in which he said that, after discussions with lawyers, physicians and legal experts, amendments were needed to “address various medical and legal issues which have arisen.”
Critics had pointed out that the bill, if passed in its original form, would have obliged doctors to carry out a procedure that risked breaking a state sex crime statute known as object sexual penetration.
State lawmakers passed the amended bill on Wednesday afternoon. It now explicitly states that no woman will have to undergo a transvaginal ultrasound involuntarily. Instead, it requires women seeking an abortion to have an external, transabdominal ultrasound.
The changes also include having a doctor ask the woman if she wants to see an image from the ultrasound rather than requiring a copy to be attached to her medical file.
The upside is that they are retreating because their ideas on this are completely toxic.
What I fear is that they will keep coming back to this, and in a few years, it will be considered a legitimate area of dispute, as opposed to the rantings of bat-sh%$ insane Taliban wannabees.
*Basically we know that aliens conduct involuntary probes of their captives, and so do the Republicans in Virginia, QED Virginia Republicans are space aliens.
This is Not a Joke
Matt Bors has a great cartoon, and this first frame is a sample.
The rest is a fictional forecast of the future, but is certainly an accurate portrayal of how Republicans see A Handmaiden’s Tale as a blue print for the future.
Virginia Republicans Are Aliens
I don’t mean foreigners, I mean malevolent creatures from another world.
Think about it. The only time you hear about involuntary probes, it is because of alien abductions.
Virginia republicans want to mandate involuntary vaginal probes for women:
Inserting something into the vagina of an unwilling woman is a violation in every sense of the word. But not to a majority of Virginia’s Senate.
This week, the Senate passed a bill, largely along party lines, that would require a woman seeking an abortion to undergo an ultrasound and wait as long as a day for the procedure.
The ultrasound requirement may evoke images of the abdominal sonograms standard in most pregnancies, fuzzy black and white pictures conjured by a wand passed across a woman’s stomach.
But those ultrasounds are ordinarily done fairly late in pregnancy. In the beginning, particularly the first weeks, an abdominal ultrasound may not be sensitive enough to detect anything.
That’s why doctors in many cases use a transvaginal ultrasound. In plainspeak, they insert a condom-covered probe into a woman’s vagina to obtain an image.
In order to satisfy the goals of the legislation – which includes a requirement that a doctor determine the gestational age of the pregnancy- a transvaginal ultrasound may be the only reliable course.
The bill, among the most invasive ever passed in Virginia, is the result of frustration by lawmakers opposed to abortion. Unsuccessful in making abortion illegal and unwilling to be frank about their goals, they have tried by technicality and obfuscation to make it harder for a woman to terminate a pregnancy.
Every so often, I hold the delusion that Republicans cannot get any more contemptible.
They always manage to disabuse me of this.
So, the Pedophile Protection Bureau Wants Contraception Coverage Banned
So, the Conference of Catholic Bishops, or more accurately the guy they hired to represent their position, has admitted that they want to ban coverage for all forms of contraception for everyone:
“There has been a lot of talk in the last couple days about compromise, but it sounds to us like a way to turn down the heat, to placate people without doing anything in particular,” [Conference general council Anthony] Picarello said. “We’re not going to do anything until this is fixed.”
That means removing the provision from the health care law altogether, he said, not simply changing it for Catholic employers and their insurers. He cited the problem that would create for “good Catholic business people who can’t in good conscience cooperate with this.”“If I quit this job and opened a Taco Bell, I’d be covered by the mandate,” Picarello said.
They want to pull all coverage for contraception for everyone, and so we should take it seriously when they they say want to ban all contraception.
At least the Taliban does not find f%$#ing little boys to be a moral imperative.
I Guess She Could Not Handel the Pressure
Yes, the right wing hack hired by Komen as their VP for public policy, Karen Handel, has>called it quits, or as Erin Gloria Ryan so clearly states, Noted Liar Karen Handel Defensively Resigns From Komen, with a self-indulgent letter of resignation where she denies it being about politics.
I’d say, “Cry me a river,” but the letter was more like “Water Music”.*
The thing is, the folks at Komen knew that she was a right wing political hack. Not only had she campaigned for governor on defunding Planned Parenthood before Komen hired her, but she also has a long history of voter suppression and civil rights violations so bad that the Bush Justice Department called her out.
She was clearly a right wing political hack, and Komen chose to let Ari Fleischer pimp her for a cushy office job, and they knew what she was.
There are lots of better breast cancer charities out there.
Even ignoring politics, the corporate pink-washing Komen does for companies probably contribute to higher cancer rates (KFC? Seriously?) should look elsewhere.
When you add in their politics, any woman who gives them money is like a chicken donating to Colonel Sanders, because they are a a petri dish for right wing zealots who think that the problem with the world is that, “women [are] not being properly punished for having unapproved sex.”
*OK, that’s it for the Handel puns.
But They Still Suck
So the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure has sort of backed down:
The Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation announced Friday that it would revise a new policy that barred the organization from funding Planned Parenthood, a move that had thrust the breast cancer foundation into a national controversy.
Komen apologized “to the American public for recent decisions that cast doubt upon our commitment to our mission of saving women’s lives.”
The foundation said that Planned Parenthood would now be eligible to apply for grants. It did not, however, address other reasons Komen has cited for why it might choose not to approve such grants.
“Our original desire was to fulfill our fiduciary duty to our donors by not funding grant applications made by organizations under investigation,” a Friday statement said. “We will amend the criteria to make clear that disqualifying investigations must be criminal and conclusive in nature and not political. That is what is right and fair.”
“We will continue to fund existing grants, including those of Planned Parenthood, and preserve their eligibility to apply for future grants, while maintaining the ability of our affiliates to make funding decisions that meet the needs of their communities,” the statement continues.
What they are saying that they aren’t cancelling current grants, which they never said they would, and Planned Parenthood can apply for grants next year, but there are “no promises”.
There may be grants to Planned Parenthood next year, but they will eventually cut them off, assuming that these folks aren’t (hopefully) a dead corporatist charity walking.
Btw, in the, “It sucks when an angel pees down the barrel of your rifle,” department, a documentary, called “Pink Ribbons, Inc.,” is hitting theaters in Canada, and film festivals in the United States as I am typing this.
The film alleges that Komen is “Pink Washing” companies that are suspected of exposing the population to carcinogens that might cause breast cancer, among other things.
Boycott the Susan G Komen Foundation
You’ve probably heard how the Komen foundation created trumped up reasons to defund Planned Parenthood.
What we also know now is that their senior management is a vipers den of ‘Phant political operatives, (their founder and CEO is a former Bush appointee) and failed right wing candidates, and (only a Wiki away) that they have aggressively harassed other non-profits in an attempt to prevent them from using the term “for the cure”.
What you may not know is that their top top public-health official resigned in protest over the decision, and that the board overruled the professional staff who recommended against defunding PP.
And finally, we have a report that they aggressively lobbied against the Breast & Cervical Cancer Prevention & Treatment Act because they wanted the money to go through them, they lobbied against single payer in Obamacare, and fought to neuter the Breast Cancer & Environmental Research Act, and they appear to be attempting to use this as a wedge in order to create a Republican political opening.
That, and the fact that Republicans want women to be punished for having sex, so they oppose birth control and things like the HPV vaccine.
I’m with what Atrios says:
Just echoing what tbogg had already said, but what Komen has done is made it ok to point out that they kind of suck. And they kind of sucked before all this, but not many people ever want to rain on the pink paradise parade. They managed to associate their brand with a cause, and to criticize the brand was to criticize the cause.
Now we all get to say: you suck hard.
I don’t think that they realize is just how much scrutiny they will be getting as an organization now that they will no longer be seen as synonymous with the fight against breast cancer.
[on edit]
Well, now that their original explanation, that they cut off any organization under an official (trumped up in the case of PP) investigation, because they are continuing to give to Penn State, home of the pedophile friendly athletic department, which is under a legitimate investigation, they have a new alibi.
Props to Obama
He told the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops to go Cheney themselves, and he approved a rule that requires employers to cover birth control in their insurance under almost all circumstances:
Today, in a huge victory for women’s health, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced that most employers will be required to cover contraception in their health plans, along with other preventive services, with no cost-sharing such as co-pays or deductibles. This means that after years of trying to get birth control covered to the same extent that health plans cover Viagra, our country will finally have nearly universal coverage of contraception.
Opponents of contraception had lobbied hard for a broad exemption that would have allowed any religiously-affiliated employer to opt out of providing such coverage. Fortunately, the Obama administration rejected that push and decided to maintain the narrow religious exemption that it initially proposed. Only houses of worship and other religious nonprofits that primarily employ and serve people of the same faith will be exempt. Religiously-affiliated employers who do not qualify for the exemption and are not currently offering contraceptive coverage may apply for transitional relief for a one-year period to give them time to determine how to comply with the rule.
Twenty-eight states already require employers, including most religiously affiliated institutions, to cover contraception in their health plans. The only change is that now they must cover the full cost.
I’m truly shocked.
I expected them to split the baby yet again, and cave to the anti-abortion zealots.
I’m not sure if this is an outbreak of good policy making, or if it’s just because it’s an elections year, but I’ll take it.
OK, I Didn’t Expect This in Maryland
But two doctors have been charged with fetal homicide for late term abortions:
Two doctors who Maryland authorities say botched an abortion last year in Elkton have been indicted on murder charges — in what appears to be the first use of the state’s fetal homicide law involving a medical professional performing surgery.“We’re in uncharted territory,” Cecil County State’s Attorney Edward D.E. Rollins said Friday. He declined to comment further because the indictment remains sealed until the suspects are arraigned in Maryland. They were arrested Wednesday in New Jersey and in Utah.Dr. Steven Chase Brigham, 55, of Voorhees, N.J., faces five counts of first-degree murder, five counts of second-degree murder and one count of conspiracy to commit murder. Dr. Nicola Irene Riley, 46, of Salt Lake City faces one count each of first- and second-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder.Authorities would not describe the indictment in detail. A statement from Elkton police says some of the charges relate to an abortion that went awry 16 months ago. Detectives investigating that case — in which a teenager had to be rushed to a hospital and survived — said they found nearly three dozen late-term aborted fetuses in a freezer in Brigham’s Elkton clinic.Maryland is one of 38 states with a fetal homicide law. But unlike many, Maryland does not define when it is too late to perform an abortion. Under the law, enacted in 2005, it is illegal to abort a fetus deemed viable, or showing signs of healthy development.
In case you are wondering, Edward D.E. Rollins is a Republican, and this is fairly clearly a case where they are trying to use this as another wedge against Roe v. Wade to the Supreme Court.
What is interesting here is that they aren’t charging the mothers in the conspiracy charges, when, if there is a conspiracy, they are clearly co-conspirators.
Prosecutors love conspiracy charges. They are easier to prosecute, and they are a remarkably effective tool for turn witnesses, but we aren’t seeing its use here, because this is all about an anti-choice political agenda.
I expect to see this before the Supreme Court in the next 2-3 years.
Another Core Democratic Party Value Betrayed
This one isn’t a surprise. Barack Obama has a long tradition of ambivalence to women’s reproductive rights.
He’s been uninterested in women’s issues since his days in the Illinois legislature.
Most recently, we have the ruling by HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius overruling the FDA’s decision to make the Plan B morning after pill an over the counter medication.
Let’s be clear here. This is the first time ever that an HHS Secretary has overruled the FDA.
And Obama is fine with this:
President Obama, who took office pledging to put science ahead of politics, averted a skirmish with conservatives in the nation’s culture wars on Thursday by endorsing his health secretary’s decision to block over-the-counter sales of an after-sex contraceptive pill to girls under age 17.
The administration action inevitably raised questions about whether politics was trump in this instance — especially from disappointed supporters in the scientific and women’s rights communities. Mr. Obama, who had criticized how his predecessor made decisions on issues like contraceptives, sought to dispel that idea in remarks to White House reporters.
“I did not get involved in the process,” he quickly asserted.
Yes, while Barack Obama is getting his faux populist cred on for the upcoming election, he had nothing to do with this decision.
In the control freak factory that is the Obama administration, the idea that this decision was not thoroughly vetted by both the policy and political wonks is simply not believeable.
In fact, if the head of HHS made this decision without passing it up the chain, it justify their firing.
Mr. Obama said the decision was made by his secretary of health and human services, Kathleen Sebelius. On Wednesday, in a rare move, she overruled the Food and Drug Administration, which had recommended that the morning-after pill Plan B One-Step is safe and should be sold without a prescription to people under 17, just as it is now to those who are 17 and older.
“I will say this, as the father of two daughters: I think it is important for us to make sure that we apply some common sense to various rules when it comes to over-the-counter medicine,” Mr. Obama said.
“And as I understand it, the reason Kathleen made this decision was she could not be confident that a 10-year-old or an 11-year-old going into a drugstore should be able — alongside bubble gum or batteries — be able to buy a medication that potentially, if not used properly, could end up having an adverse effect. And I think most parents would probably feel the same way.”
Bullsh%$.
This is just too dangerous, but acetaminophen, which causes, “over 56,000 injuries, 2,500 hospitalizations, and an estimated 450 deaths per year,” kids can buy that at the drug store.
And of course the whole, “Using his daughters as political human shield thing,” is contemptible.
First, he is putting a barrier in that will likely force some girls to ask their rapist’s permission, second, even a couple of hour delay to get a prescription makes the drug less effective, and third, it’s a couple of orders of magnitude (at least) safer than pregnancy.
Once again, I am glad that I don’t live in a swing state, so I don’t have to vote for this hypocritical ratf%$#.
Yeah, not primarying him was such a good thing.