This blog is dedicated to progressive and liberal thought. It also discusses new technology, how technology affects privacy and developments in Russia, China, Eastern Europe and the Middle East. Rightardia fully supports the rights of workers to organize, the feminist movement, and all Americans regardless or ethnicity, sex or gender.It uses humor, satire and parody to expose conservative thought for what it truly is: BS! Rightardia contributes to the DNC, DCCC, DSCC and MoveOn.Org.
Judging from comments made recently by prominent Republicans, the GOP has got a serious problem with women. Until they get over their issues, women have got a serious problem with the GOP.
Directed by Laura Dawn for MoveOn.org Produced by Daron Murphy & David Ambrose of ART NOT WAR co-produced by Corrie Barker for MoveOn.org Associate Producer: Aaron Kinsley-Brooks for ART NOT WAR Original Music & Sound Design by Daron Murphy for ART NOT WAR
See more at http://www.zinasaunders.com Witness the mandatory ultrasound law that passed the Virginia state legislature last week and only awaits the (promised) signature of Gov. McDonnell.
This law would force every woman seeking an abortion, without her consent, to undergo an ultrasound. Since the majority of abortions are performed in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, this will mean that they will be subjected to vaginal penetration with an ultrasound probe, against their will. This is equivalent to enforcing state-sponsored rape, in an effort to manipulate (and punish!) women seeking abortions.
There was another outburst in the House during the health care vote last night.
Randy Neugebauer (R-Tex.) identified himself as the member of congress who shouted "baby killer" during Rep. Bart Stupak's (D-Mich.) speech on the floor of the House of Representatives Sunday night.
House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) acknowledged Neugebauer's apology on Monday. Rep. Clyburn suggested that the Texas Republican should apologize to the full House in the well.
Rep. Bart Stupak gave an excellent speech during the debate on the second bill that was sponsored by the GOP and designed to torpedo the health care reconciliation.
Stupak showed he understood the the health care bill and Obama executive order would protect both the rights of unborn and the born.
Certainly, the health care bill will protect the most vulnerable Americans: children and seniors.
Rightardia is glad a compromise was reached that unlinked health care to the abortion issue.
The US has the highest abortion rate in the industrial world and our archaic health care system is partly responsible for this grim statistic.
The poorest americans have the highest abortion rates.
Finer and Henshaw suggest that these disparities may also be partly explained by differences in insurance coverage: Poor women are twice as likely as women overall to lack health insurance, and spending under Title X, the only federal source of funding dedicated to family planning services for low-income women, declined between 1994 and 2001 after controlling for inflation.
“Given the enormous personal and social burdens of unintended pregnancies, it is unfortunate that some sources of public financial support and services for family planning are actually being cut back,” said Finer. “Our study makes it clear that we need to be doing more, not less, to provide women—particularly the most disadvantaged women—with the information and services they need to plan their families."
I was shocked when I heard the Rev. Carlton Veazey call a women's right to abortion God-given.
And I was confused.
Whatever could make the Rev. Veazey think God would favor selfish, fornicating women over pure innocent babies? If he's right, we can throw out the House and Senate compromises over abortion and get right on with providing health care for people who need it. Everybody wants to be on God's side. Right?
I must admit that it's hard to see evidence for the reverend's claim. When God kicked Eve and Adam out of the Garden of Eden, he flung a whole fistful of curses at women.
They would love and cling to men (which has turned out to be a doozy of a curse even for God, who's a really fine curser). They would be dominated by men (another good one). And then, oh yeah, right, they would bear children in pain. Curses, domination and pain. So where is this guy coming from? I couldn't get it out of my mind.
I found out that the Rev. Veazey is CEO and president of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice. Then I found out that he is a National Baptist minister. The mystery deepened. Rabbis and Episcopal priests are the usual suspects when such pronouncements are made.
Then I learned that the reverend is a long-time fighter for civil rights. He considers reproductive rights a matter of justice.
God-given, civil rights, justice. Those labels are not often heard in connection with women's reproductive rights, especially from Baptist ministers.
Then I saw the link. Of course.
What if God didn't despise women? What if he trusted and loved women so much that he gave them the greatest power of all, one that he might very well have kept for himself alone?
He could have given men the ability to bear children. They're stronger, better able to protect themselves and children. He favored men in all sorts of other ways. But in this one way, God favored women.
God also gave women secret signs that a pregnancy has begun. He could have given more visible signs. A nose wart. Sudden baldness. Blue skin. He could have set matters up so that decisions about this new life would be made in public forums.
We've reached a point where health-care reform threatens to leave access to abortion in worse shape than it is right now. The Stupak Amendment, added to the health-care bill in last-minute negotiations this weekend, goes beyond the existent ban on federal funding of abortion. By prohibiting anyone receiving federal health-insurance subsidies from buying plans that cover abortion, it's almost certain to compel many plans to drop abortion coverage for everyone.
Almost all progressives have realized that passing health-insurance reform was going to require some bitter compromises. But it's both maddening and heartbreaking that a pro-choice president and a Democratic Congress are poised to give the anti-abortion movement its biggest legislative victory since 2003's Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act.
Right now, most employer-based health insurance plans cover abortion. The reason for this is depressingly mercenary -- it's cheaper for insurance companies to pay for a termination than for prenatal care and delivery. Motives aside, though, this coverage is crucial, given that abortion is among the country's most common medical procedures. Congressman Bart Stupak's amendment threatens it even for women who buy insurance themselves or get insurance from their employers.
The Congressional Budget Office estimates that if health-care reform passes, by 2019, 21 million people will buy insurance on health-insurance exchanges. About 80 percent of that number will have some sort of subsidy from the federal government, and so any plan that wants its business can't offer abortion.
To be sold on the exchanges, a plan offering abortion coverage "would have to explicitly be marketed for people who aren't eligible for subsidies," says Adam Sonfield, senior public policy associate at the Guttmacher Institute. "We're looking into whether that's even legal. We're not sure it is -- it sounds very much like discrimination on the basis of income."
Nor does this just affect individuals purchasing insurance. The exchanges will offer coverage to small businesses as well, and they're intended to expand to larger and larger businesses as time goes on. Thus the Stupak Amendment means that the more successful health insurance reform is, the more women will lose access to abortion coverage.
The amendment's supporters and apologists are downplaying its scope by noting that, according to the Guttmacher Institute, only 13 percent of abortions are currently billed to health insurance.But that's misleading, because it doesn't include women who file for reimbursement after seeking an abortion from an out-of-network provider -- and, as Sonfield points out, most providers are out of network.
Wednesday night on the House floor, Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-Minn.) said the latest Democratic health care bill would allow school officials to take girls out for an abortion during the day. The girls would then be sent home on the school bus that night with their parents being "never the wiser."
In a speech last Friday night to a gathering of Catholic conservatives at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, an American archbishop now heading the Vatican version of the church's Supreme Court said that politicians who support gay marriage or abortion rights cannot receive sacraments without publicly repenting their ways:
"It is not possible to be a practicing Catholic and to conduct oneself in this manner," said Archbishop Raymond L. Burke, whom the pope transferred to Rome in 2008 after Burke's checkered tenure as archbishop of St. Louis.
"Neither Holy Communion nor funeral rites should be administered to such politicians," Burke said. "To deny these is not a judgment of the soul, but a recognition of the scandal and its effects."
The remarks come from an account of the 50-minute speech by Deal Hudson, director of InsideCatholic.com, a conservative Web site that hosted the Sept. 18 annual gala for some 200 supporters.
Cardinal Sean O'Malley earlier this month rejected the denial of sacraments "in the strongest terms," as he wrote in a blog post:
"We will stop the practice of abortion by changing the law, and we will be successful in changing the law if we change people's hearts. We will not change hearts by turning away from people in their time of need and when they are experiencing grief and loss," O'Malley wrote.
"At times, even in the Church, zeal can lead people to issue harsh judgments and impute the worst motives to one another. These attitudes and practices do irreparable damage to the communion of the Church."
