A fan blog of no relevance to anything but what's of interest to me.
the state of Kansas has hired an expensive team of private attorneys — the same attorneys who represent the billionaire Koch brothers — to defend the state against Planned Parenthood in court.
Kansas Hires Koch Brothers’ Attorneys To Defend Against Planned Parenthood (via standupforwomen)
Oh my.
(via keepyourboehneroutofmyuterus)
Assholes. Where does the state get the money to pay them? Your tax dollars at work, people.
drst:
Holly Morgan, director of media relations and communications for Planned Parenthood in Dallas, said their McKinney health center located on Eldorado Parkway was “attacked” between 10 and 11 p.m. Tuesday with an incendiary device.
The person or persons involved in the attack threw a Molotov cocktail, consisting of diesel fuel in a glass bottle with a lit rag, at the building. Morgan said the device did not penetrate the front of the clinic but did cause some serious damage.
Worth mentioning is that this clinic did not provide abortions or any form of surgical procedure. It is strictly a preventative care office. But the rhetoric against Planned Parenthood has gotten so vile, the terrorists on the right are not going to distinguish between clinics that do and do not offer abortion services. They’re just going to attack every building with PP’s name on it, and if people die in the process, oh well. Disgusting.
Ugh!
(Source: stephherold)
Democrats Seek Permanent Repeal of Global Gag Rule; GOP Seeks to Enshrine it in Law
Yesterday, Congresswoman Nita Lowey introduced the Global Democracy Promotion Act of 2011, a bill that would permanently repeal the Global Gag Rule (GGR), a policy that has been applied and revoked via executive order at each change in the White House, beginning with Ronald Reagan and leading most recently to repeal by President Obama in 2009.
The GGR prohibits international health care providers from receiving U.S. international assistance for family planning if those organizations use other (non-US) funding to provide abortion counseling, referrals, or services, or seek to change laws regarding abortion care in countries in which abortion is a leading cause of death among women ages 15 to 49. Access to contraception and to family planning counseling and information helps [people] and their partners to plan the number and spacing of children they want to have and to avoid unintended pregnancies that lead to abortion. As such, by denying U.S. international assistance to groups that also provide safe, legal abortion, the GGR actually increases the number of abortions, rather than reducing them.
These facts notwithstanding, as we reported last week, House Republicans are seeking to enshrine the gag rule into law. First, the included it in the 2012 State Department Authorization bill which passed out of committee las week. This week, apparently not wanting to leave any doubt about their desire and intentions to undermine women’s health and rights to self-determination, House leadership also included language in the House FY2012 appropriations bill that would make the GGR permanent law. And just to be sure, leadership also included in that bill a ban on U.S. support for the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and cuts to international family planning assistance. The bottom line of all these policies if passed would mean less support for family planning and more constraints on evidence-based programs, at a time when 215 million women worldwide want to plan their families but have no access to contraception, a set of conditions that again, will not reduce the number of abortions. This bill is expected to be marked up in committee today.
The GDPA would do the opposite, by ensuring under U.S. law that U.S.-funded international family planning programs would be free to deliver services based on public health and medical evidence and in a manner that promotes the basic health and rights of women. In countries where complications of unsafe and illegal abortions are leading killers of women ages 15 to 49, it is irresponsible to say the least to force medical practitioners to remain silent about these issues.
Fox’s anti-birth control “expert,” Family PAC Federal Vice President Sandy Rios, however, found her own reasons to lambast the policy as “ridiculous.”
Here’s my favorite of the many unbelievable things she said:
“Why in the world would you encourage your daughters, and your granddaughters, and whoever else comes behind you to have unrestricted, unlimited sex anytime, anywhere and that, somehow if you prevent pregnancy, that somehow you’ve helped them. I would submit to you that uncontrolled sexual behavior is what is harming our girls, not our lack of birth control — which by the way they don’t seem interested in taking anyway. Having a baby is not the worst thing. I think having multiple sex partners without any kind of restraint or responsibility is much more damning, why would you support that?”
To that I reply:
“Have you had an orgasm? Don’t you wish for every person in your life to experience that as much and as often as they want?”
AND “Have you had to raise a child when you were 16 or when you weren’t financially stable or when you were with an abusive man or when you just plain didn’t wanna?”
I am personally convinced that no one on FOX News had ever had an orgasm in their lives.
This shit doesn’t happen in a void. It happens in a toxic cultural mix of endemic misogyny, hostility for choice and consent, violent rhetoric, and a political climate in which even ostensible defenders of reproductive choice talk about abortion in dishonest and unhelpful and clueless ways; that is, when they’re not being totally silent on the issue.
We are without serious allies.
Stand up and support Dr. Carhart! We do. It’s the Summer of Choice.
MY BODY is NOT Your Battleground.
I do not think that I can add enough emphasis on, “MY BODY.”
The last time a Republican fought for my rights, I was a fetus
I wish the language was more inclusive, especially because this was posted on Feministing (where being inclusive in the reproductive rights movement has been the subject of multiple posts including these two amazing ones: here and here).
Otherwise, this is badass.
[PS - I should say there is a transcript at the Feministing link]
