GOP War On Women Continues To Rage In The States

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Oregon Is The Only State Left That Hasn’t Imposed Any Restrictions On Abortion

Oregon Is The Only State Left That Hasn’t Imposed Any Restrictions On Abortion: Despite the fact that Roe v. Wade first legalized abortion four decades go, anti-choice lawmakers have successfully chipped away at abortion rights on a state level. Wonkblog’s Sarah Kliff flagged a helpful visual, compiled by Remapping the Debate, to illustrate the recent flood of anti-abortion laws across the country (click to enlarge, or click here [...]/p

The New Anti-Choice Legislation To Watch: ‘Fetal Heartbeat’ Bills Banning Nearly All Abortions

The New Anti-Choice Legislation To Watch: ‘Fetal Heartbeat’ Bills Banning Nearly All Abortions: 2011 and 2012 were both record-breaking years for new abortion restrictions, and abortion opponents are aren’t showing signs of letting up this year. The “personhood” movement to endow zygotes with the full rights of U.S. citizens, effectively outlawing all abortions and even some forms of contraception, has largely been a failure — but that doesn’t [...]/p

Republicans Learn How To Hide Their Views On Women

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Fischer Cites Todd Akin in Making the Case that the GOP is not 'the Stupid Party' | Right Wing Watch

Fischer Cites Todd Akin in Making the Case that the GOP is not 'the Stupid Party' | Right Wing Watch
"Fischer recognized that sometimes conservatives might "misspeak" on occasion, as Todd Akin did with his infamous "legitimate rape" remark ... but that just proves Fischer's point because Akin was "completely accurate about that," thus demonstrating that "our ideas are not stupid and the people who advocate them are not stupid":"

Insane Legislator Says Not to Worry, Rape Victims Who Want An Abortion: We Won't Charge You With Felony Tampering With Evidence, Just Your Doctor | Common Dreams

Insane Legislator Says Not to Worry, Rape Victims Who Want An Abortion: We Won't Charge You With Felony Tampering With Evidence, Just Your Doctor | Common Dreams
"After much uproar, New Mexico attorney, Right to Life board member and GOP Rep. Cathrynn Brown is walking back as fast as she can from her proposed bill to charge rape survivors with "tampering with evidence" - a felony carrying a possible three-year prison sentence - if they choose to abort a rapist's fetus. No no, Brown says: It was "an error - I missed that one" to suggest the bill would prosecute victims of rape, who she wants to "protect." Actually Brown, whose Facebook page sports an iconic photo of a gun resting on a Bible in front of the Constitution,  just wants to hammer those who might help the victim - ie: doctors or nurses "facilitating" an abortion for her. Let them go to jail for "intent to destroy evidence of the crime." Wanna see a crime? This person in a position of power. Alas, she isn't alone. More travesties in many states here."

South Dakota Bill Would Exclude Weekends And Holidays From 72-Hour Abortion Waiting Period

South Dakota Bill Would Exclude Weekends And Holidays From 72-Hour Abortion Waiting Period: South Dakota Republicans aren’t satisfied with imposing one of the nation’s longest waiting periods for women seeking abortions. As RH Reality Check reports, the state legislature will also consider a bill that would adopt a “business hours only” definition for its waiting period: while women wait the state-mandated three days before getting an abortion, weekends [...]/p

Arkansas Republicans Would Jail Doctors Who Perform Abortions After Just Six Weeks Of Pregnancy

Arkansas Republicans Would Jail Doctors Who Perform Abortions After Just Six Weeks Of Pregnancy: A proposed abortion bill introduced in Arkansas this week would ban all abortion services after a fetal heartbeat is detected — which can occur as early as six weeks, before some women even realize they’re pregnant — and charge doctors who perform abortions after that arbitrary cut-off with a Class D felony, punishable by up [...]/p

Why Lily Ledbetter Wasn’t Enough: The Facts About The Persistent Pay Gap

Why Lily Ledbetter Wasn’t Enough: The Facts About The Persistent Pay Gap: Four years ago today, President Obama signed his first bill into law: the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, meant to address the pay gap between men and women. Ledbetter famously worked years without knowing that she was being paid less than her male co-workers for doing similar work. The Supreme Court threw out a case [...]/p

Texas Legislature Wants To Reward Companies That Deny Employees Contraception

Texas Legislature Wants To Reward Companies That Deny Employees Contraception: A bill recently introduced in the Texas state house aims to reward employees who violate Obamacare, offering subsidies to any company that uses religious objection as an excuse for denying its employees copay-free contraception. House Bill 649, introduced by state Rep. Jonathan Stickland (R), was apparently inspired by the controversy over craft chain store Hobby [...]/p

Wisconsin’s Abortion Restrictions Deny Women The Right To Terminate A Pregnancy In Privacy

Wisconsin’s Abortion Restrictions Deny Women The Right To Terminate A Pregnancy In Privacy: When anti-choice lawmakers in Wisconsin imposed unnecessary restrictions on medication-induced abortions, they claimed they wanted to make sure the procedure was safe. But now that women in the state can’t access the abortion pill to terminate a pregnancy within the first trimester, they’re being forced to delay the procedure until they can receive a more [...]/p

Boehner Promises to Make Ending Abortion a National Priority

Boehner Promises to Make Ending Abortion a National Priority
"However, if Mr. Boehner wants to continue to push the Republican party into irrelevance, that's okay by me. As long as he doesn't waist precious time that should be devoted to real issues that concern the majority of Americans today."

One Million Moms For Gun Control: Origins Of A Movement | Alternet

One Million Moms For Gun Control: Origins Of A Movement | Alternet
"How these women, despite facing fierce odds, are coming together to fight gun violence."

America Is A Liberal Country (just look at polling on major issues)

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Republican Wants to Send Rape Victims to Prison for Having Abortions | Alternet

Republican Wants to Send Rape Victims to Prison for Having Abortions | Alternet
"And the GOP wonders why it fails to attract more women."

Catholic hospital chain beats malpractice suit by saying fetuses aren’t people

Catholic hospital chain beats malpractice suit by saying fetuses aren’t people (via Raw Story )

A chain of Catholic Hospitals has beaten a malpractice lawsuit by saying that fetuses are not equivalent to human lives. According to the Colorado Independent, in the death of a 31-year-old woman carrying twin fetuses, Catholic Health Initiatives’ attorneys argued that in cases of wrongful death,…

Virginia GOP Advances New Rules To Help Republican Presidential Candidates

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Crazy -- Republican Lawmaker Wants to Jail Rape Victims for Ending Pregnancies | Alternet

Crazy -- Republican Lawmaker Wants to Jail Rape Victims for Ending Pregnancies | Alternet
"Apparently it took a female Republican to come up with the most vicious way to punish women who had the audacity to get themselves raped."

The Longest War is the One Against Women | Common Dreams

The Longest War is the One Against Women | Common Dreams
"We have far more than 87,000 rapes in this country every year, but each of them is invariably portrayed as an isolated incident.  We have dots so close they’re splatters melting into a stain, but hardly anyone connects them, or names that stain. In India they did. They said that this is a civil rights issue, it’s a human rights issue, it’s everyone’s problem, it’s not isolated, and it’s never going to be acceptable again. It has to change. It’s your job to change it, and mine, and ours."

NM Bill Would Require Rape Victims To Stay Pregnant For 'Evidence'

NM Bill Would Require Rape Victims To Stay Pregnant For 'Evidence'
"This is the latest salvo fired in the Republican war on women. Fortunately for the people of New Mexico, the state legislature is controlled by the Democrats. But this is a perfect example of the sorts of things those creative Republicans dream up if you let down your guard down, or trust them for even a minute with the reins of government"

GOP Version2013: Battling Not Just Democrats but Democracy | Common Dreams

GOP Version2013: Battling Not Just Democrats but Democracy | Common Dreams
"So President Obama would have won by 5 million votes, carried the majority of states and swept the battlegrounds. But Romney would have been inaugurated as the nation’s forty-fifth president.
That’s not democracy. But that is the point of the Priebus plan."

New Mexico Bill Would Imprison Rape Victims Who Receive Abortions

New Mexico Bill Would Imprison Rape Victims Who Receive Abortions: Should a recently introduced bill in New Mexico become law, rape victims will be required to carry their pregnancies to term during their sexual assault trials or face charges of “tampering with evidence.” Under HB 206, if a woman ended her pregnancy after being raped, both she and her doctor would be charged with a [...]/p

Pundit: Planned Parenthood Like Hitler

Pundit: Planned Parenthood Like Hitler
"For the first time since the groundbreaking Roe v. Wade ruling in 1973, a majority of Americans want abortion to stay legal—and seven in 10 respondents oppose overturning the case. According to an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released Tuesday, the intense rhetoric about abortion and rape by Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock and the debate over contraception have caused attitudes to shift toward abortion. Fifty-four percent of adults said abortion should be legal in all or most cases, and a combined 44 percent said it should be illegal with no exceptions. And 70 percent said Roe v. Wade should not be overturned—with 57 percent backing that sentiment strongly."

Virginia GOP Shameless In Drive To Rig Elections In Their Favor

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From Dwindling Abortion Rights to Intrusive Drug Tests: Are Pregnant Women Second Class Citizens? | Alternet

From Dwindling Abortion Rights to Intrusive Drug Tests: Are Pregnant Women Second Class Citizens? | Alternet
"40 years after Roe v. Wade, we've failed to protect pregnant women's rights."

How Some States Are Rolling Back The Clock To A Time Before Roe v. Wade

How Some States Are Rolling Back The Clock To A Time Before Roe v. Wade: Before the 1973 Supreme Court decision that guaranteed women’s right to legal abortion services — a decision that was handed down 40 years ago this Tuesday — reproductive freedom was sharply divided along racial and socioeconomic lines. And by slowly chipping away at women’s abortion rights at a state level, some deeply conservative states aren’t [...]/p

House Republican Leader Blames Gun Violence On ‘Welfare Moms’

House Republican Leader Blames Gun Violence On ‘Welfare Moms’: Rep. James Lankford (R-OK), the fifth-ranking House Republican, laid the blame for gun violence at the feet of an unusual suspect: the children of “welfare moms” who commit fraud. In a meeting with constituents earlier this month in Oklahoma City, a woman asked the GOP congressman what he was doing to combat all the children [...]/p

Record Support as Roe v. Wade Turns 40 | Common Dreams

Record Support as Roe v. Wade Turns 40 | Common Dreams
"The NBC/Wall Street Journal poll found that seven out of 10 Americans support the Jan. 22, 1973 decision that declared women have a constitutional right to abortions, the highest number since the poll began tracking it in 1989.
Despite the clear and overwhelming support, anti-abortion advocates have been on the attack. Seizing on the results of the 2010 election when Republicans picked up roughly 675 legislative seats, the anti-choice movement has implemented a furious piecemeal strategy attacking women's rights at the state level.

A similar Pew survey found that a record 54 percent of Americans think abortion should be always legal or legal most of the time."

By The Numbers: Abortion Rights On The 40th Anniversary Of Roe v. Wade

By The Numbers: Abortion Rights On The 40th Anniversary Of Roe v. Wade: Tuesday is the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court decision that ensures legal access to abortion services. But four decades after Roe gave women the freedom to make their own reproductive choices, the reality for women in the U.S. isn’t so clear cut — even though more Americans now support legal [...]/p

After 40 Years With Roe v. Wade, Here’s How Republicans Are Successfully Chipping Away At Abortion Rights

After 40 Years With Roe v. Wade, Here’s How Republicans Are Successfully Chipping Away At Abortion Rights: Tuesday marks the 40th anniversary of the landmark Roe v. Wade decision, which guaranteed women’s constitutional right to legal abortion services. But even though Roe has been in place for four decades, women’s reproductive rights aren’t safe. In fact, over the past two years, anti-choice legislators passed an overwhelming 135 new abortion restrictions in 30 [...]/p

How To Make Good On Obama’s Inauguration Call To Close The Gender Pay Gap

How To Make Good On Obama’s Inauguration Call To Close The Gender Pay Gap: During his inaugural speech yesterday, President Obama criticized the gender pay gap, which results in women making 77 cents for every $1 earned by men. “Our journey is not complete until our wives, our mothers, and daughters can earn a living equal to their efforts,” he said. The gender pay gap has barely budged over [...]/p

Roe Turns 40 | Alternet

Roe Turns 40 | Alternet
"Forty years ago today, the Supreme Court issued a ruling in the case of Roe v Wade(and in a less heralded decision, Doe v Bolton, which struck down Georgia's highly restrictive aboriton law). The 7-2 decision established that the right to privacy under the due process clause of the 14th Amendment extended to a woman's choice to terminate a pregnancy, but that the right also had to be balanced against states' legitimate interest in regulating the procedure."

President Barack Obama's 2nd Inaugural Address, Prepared Remarks | Alternet

President Barack Obama's 2nd Inaugural Address, Prepared Remarks | Alternet
"The full text of the president's prepared remarks."

VA Senate GOPers Save Their Vaginal Rape Bill For Jesus

VA Senate GOPers Save Their Vaginal Rape Bill For Jesus
"I suppose this is that "new" moderate Republican party I keep reading about. They say it's all the rage, but apparently hasn't made its way into the heart of old Virginny. Instead, we get small government -- small enough to fit into a pregnant woman's vagina!"

America's Big Political Fight: Will We Grapple with Reality or Fully Detach and Live in Fantasyland? | Alternet

America's Big Political Fight: Will We Grapple with Reality or Fully Detach and Live in Fantasyland? | Alternet
"The real struggle confronting the United States is not between the Right and the Left in any traditional sense, but between those who believe in reality and those who are entranced by unreality. It is a battle that is testing whether fact-based people have the same determination to fight for their real-world view as those who operate in a fact-free space do in defending their illusions."

University Of North Carolina Allegedly Pressured Dean To Underreport Incidents Of Sexual Assault On Campus

University Of North Carolina Allegedly Pressured Dean To Underreport Incidents Of Sexual Assault On Campus: The University of North Carolina’s administration may have pressured Melinda Manning, the former assistant dean of students, to underreport cases of sexual assault on UNC’s campus in 2011. Manning, three current students, and one former student filed a compliant this week alleging the university has violated federal law by mishandling sexual assault incidents — and [...]/p

Criminalizing Pregnancy: As Roe v. Wade Turns 40, Study Finds Forced Interventions on Pregnant Women

Criminalizing Pregnancy: As Roe v. Wade Turns 40, Study Finds Forced Interventions on Pregnant Women
"The new study comes on the eve of the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court decision on the right to abortion — a right that has been under siege ever since."

U.S. Soccer Star Stands Up For Collective Bargaining

U.S. Soccer Star Stands Up For Collective Bargaining: A new U.S. women’s soccer league will be launching this year, hoping to capitalize on the popularity of the game following the U.S. women’s national team’s 2012 Olympic gold medal. And one of the stars of that medal run — striker Alex Morgan — wants to make sure that the players in the new league [...]/p

Rush’s latest abortion idiocy

Rush’s latest abortion idiocy
"After a rousing bit of back and forth with a caller on gun control (“If you have gun control laws, the law-abiding will be the only people that don’t have guns!“), Limbaugh launched into a new theory about how to ban abortion in the United States.

By suggesting doctors perform them with guns."

64 Percent Of Republicans Are Birthers, Poll Finds

64 Percent Of Republicans Are Birthers, Poll Finds: For the last five years, a small pocket of professional conspiracy theorists have carved out a corner of the internet for the express purpose of advancing the theory that President Obama was not born in the United States, his birth certificate is a forgery, and that therefore he is not eligible to serve as president [...]/p

What Happened to the Violence Against Women Act? | Common Dreams

What Happened to the Violence Against Women Act? | Common Dreams
"Thanks to the extremism of House Republicans, the Violence Against Women Act expired this month after 18 years of saving women’s lives."

Most Religious Groups Don’t Want To Overturn Roe v. Wade

Most Religious Groups Don’t Want To Overturn Roe v. Wade: As the 40th anniversary of the landmark Roe v. Wade decision approaches, new polling finds that — despite the GOP’s best efforts to use religion as a wedge in the abortion rights debate — most religious groups don’t actually support overturning the court decision. The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life finds that a [...]/p

Most Of The Americans Born After The Roe v. Wade Decision Don’t Know It’s About Abortion

Most Of The Americans Born After The Roe v. Wade Decision Don’t Know It’s About Abortion: Next week marks the 40 year anniversary of the landmark Roe v. Wade decision, which guarantees women the constitutional right to safe and legal abortion services. However, as the nation moves further away from past decades when women weren’t assured that reproductive freedom, fewer numbers of Americans can identify what Roe means — particularly the [...]/p

Why The U.S. Is Falling Behind When It Comes To Women In The Workforce

Why The U.S. Is Falling Behind When It Comes To Women In The Workforce: At Forbes, Bryce Covert highlights a new report showing that women’s participation in the U.S. workforce has essentially stagnated since 1990, allowing many developed countries to pass America by: In 1990, women’s participation rate in the labor force was 74 percent, ranking us at number six among 22 developed countries. But in the two intervening [...]/p

GOP Seeks To Rig Presidential Race On Model Of Congressional Gerrymandering

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The GOP's Boldest Election-Rigging Move Yet

The GOP's Boldest Election-Rigging Move Yet
"But most shocking of all, the latest endorser of this election-rigging scheme is none other than the top Republican Party official himself, RNC Chair Reince Preibus. In an interview with the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Priebus said, “I think it’s something that a lot of states that have been consistently blue that are fully controlled red out to be looking at.” 

What all this adds up to is this: Republicans are really going to try to do this. Over the next few years, they really are going to try to rig the next election."

Pennsylvania House Republicans Introduce Bill To Rig The 2016 Presidential Election

Pennsylvania House Republicans Introduce Bill To Rig The 2016 Presidential Election: Earlier this week, Republican National Committee Chair Reince Priebus endorsed a Republican plan to rig the next presidential election to make it nearly impossible for the Democratic candidate to win the White House, no matter who the American people vote for. The election-rigging plan, which would allocate electoral votes by congressional district rather than by [...]/p

Anti-Choice Group Hosts Training Program To Teach Republicans How To Talk About Rape

Anti-Choice Group Hosts Training Program To Teach Republicans How To Talk About Rape: Last year, Republicans likely lost two U.S. Senate seats because their candidates claimed “legitimate rape” is a form of contraception and that pregnancies resulting from rape are a “gift from God.” Last week, Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-GA) again demonstrated the GOP’s frequent willingness to belittle rape by claiming that former Rep. Todd Akin’s (R-MO) legitimate [...]/p

A déjà vu Congress targets reproductive rights, again

A déjà vu Congress targets reproductive rights, again
"Last year, Republicans spouted off on women lying about rape and our bodies shutting down pregnancy. Republican state legislators contemplated draconian abortion restrictions, and the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives kicked off the legislative session by trying to defund Planned Parenthood.

This year, only a few days into 2013, a Republican has spouted off about women lying about rape and our bodies shutting down pregnancy. States are at it again, and the House has kicked off the legislative session by trying to defund Planned Parenthood.

Happy new year, everyone: The  GOP soul-searching is over, and Republicans are back to square one on reproductive rights."

Republican Congressman Backs Akin’s ‘Legitimate Rape’ Comments: ‘He’s Partly Right’

Republican Congressman Backs Akin’s ‘Legitimate Rape’ Comments: ‘He’s Partly Right’: Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-GA) defended former Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO)’s claim that women who are victims of a “legitimate rape” can’t get pregnant. Speaking to the Marrietta Daily Journal, Gingrey, a doctor who is co-chair of the GOP’s Doctor Caucus, stuck by Akin’s distinction between “legitimate” and “illegitimate rapes”: And in Missouri, Todd Akin … [...]/p

Hobby Lobby Manipulating Employees’ Health Care Plans To Deny Them Access To Birth Control

Hobby Lobby Manipulating Employees’ Health Care Plans To Deny Them Access To Birth Control: The craft store Hobby Lobby has been embroiled in a legal fight against Obamacare’s contraception mandate since September, when the chain’s conservative evangelical owners first sued for the right to deny their employees access to affordable contraceptives. Even though a federal judge ruled last month that Hobby Lobby must follow federal law and provide birth [...]/p

Mississippi Governor: ‘My Goal Of Course Is To Shut Down’ The State’s Last Abortion Clinic

Mississippi Governor: ‘My Goal Of Course Is To Shut Down’ The State’s Last Abortion Clinic: Today marks the deadline for Mississippi’s sole remaining abortion clinic, the Jackson Women’s Health Organization, to comply with the restrictive, unnecessary restrictions that the state’s Republican legislators imposed last summer. The new regulations require the clinic’s doctors to secure hospital admitting privileges, but all seven hospitals in the surrounding area have so far denied them. [...]/p

Paul Ryan’s Still Carrying Todd Akin’s Mantle, Will Co-Sponsor New Fetal ‘Personhood’ Bill

Paul Ryan’s Still Carrying Todd Akin’s Mantle, Will Co-Sponsor New Fetal ‘Personhood’ Bill: Long before Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) convinced most of the House Republican caucus to vote to phase out Medicare, and long before former Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO) ended his political career by claiming “legitimate rape” is a form of contraception, the two men were partners in pushing anti-woman legislation. Ryan and Akin were original co-sponsors [...]/p

Rep. Paul Ryan Co-Sponsors Fetal Rights Bill -- Again!

Rep. Paul Ryan Co-Sponsors Fetal Rights Bill -- Again!
"This bill is so far out there that Oklahoma called it unconstitutional and a non-starter. You'd have to be a committed pro-life zealot to continue on this path and Paul Ryan really stepped up big in that area."

Pat Robertson Outrage: "Hard-Nosed," "Awful Looking" Women Are Ruining Marriages! | Alternet

Pat Robertson Outrage: "Hard-Nosed," "Awful Looking" Women Are Ruining Marriages! | Alternet
"Radical Christian televangelist Pat Robertson with one of his most offensive statements of all time."

Oklahoma Clinic Forced To Close After State Officials Stripped Funding From Planned Parenthood

Oklahoma Clinic Forced To Close After State Officials Stripped Funding From Planned Parenthood: A Tulsa-area Planned Parenthood clinic will be forced to close its doors at the end of this month because it can no longer afford to maintain operations after state officials slashed its budget. In October, the Oklahoma State Department of Health decided to cut off federal funding for Planned Parenthood by ending its contract with [...]/p

Why We Can't Shop Our Way to a Better Economy: Stacy Mitchell

Stacy Mitchell is a researcher and writer at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR), a national nonprofit organization that challenges corporate consolidation of the economy and champions policies to nurture community-scaled enterprise. Stacy directs two ILSR initiatives on independent business and community banking. Her analysis has helped inspire many grassroots campaigns and provided empirical support for changes to local and state policy. Stacy's articles have appeared in Business Week, The Nation, Grist, Utne Reader, Sojourners, and many daily newspapers. Her book, Big-Box Swindle: The True Cost of Mega-Retailers and the Fight for America's Independent Businesses, was named one of the top ten business books of 2007 by Booklist. In 2006, she helped launch the Portland Independent Business & Community Alliance, which has a membership today of over 400 local businesses and runs Portland's popular "buy local" campaign.

Abortion in America: Here Are the Facts, 40 Years After Roe | Alternet

Abortion in America: Here Are the Facts, 40 Years After Roe | Alternet
"Numbers and realities don't always reflect the rhetoric."

Chris Hedges on the Fiscal Cliff ‘Ruse’ - Truthdig

Chris Hedges on the Fiscal Cliff ‘Ruse’ - Truthdig
"And what exactly is taking place is not a pretty picture, according to Hedges. The Truthdig columnist says the fiscal cliff is really “a massive debt peonage by the 1 percent” that is meant to enslave everyone and everything from citizens and states all the way up to the federal government." 

After Forcing Women To Drop Their Doctors, Texas Gives Them A Faulty List Of Replacements

After Forcing Women To Drop Their Doctors, Texas Gives Them A Faulty List Of Replacements: When Texas intentionally dismantled its women’s health program by refusing to fund Planned Parenthood — the largest women’s health group in the country — the state was essentially telling poor women they would need to find new doctors. Thousands of Texan women are now searching for a new provider, but the state is doing a [...]/p

37 Congressional Republicans Opposed Sandy Relief After Supporting Disaster Aid For Home States

37 Congressional Republicans Opposed Sandy Relief After Supporting Disaster Aid For Home States: While the first vote provided just $9 billion in funds — compared to the $60 billion total requested — 67 Republicans still voted against even this bare-bones package. The majority of those Representatives had, however, supported emergency aid efforts following disasters in their own states.

Republican Lawmakers To Kick Off New Year By Limiting Women’s Reproductive Health

Republican Lawmakers To Kick Off New Year By Limiting Women’s Reproductive Health: State lawmakers will reconvene to kick off their new sessions this week, and Republican legislators are already gearing up for the new abortion restrictions they hope to introduce this year. 2012 was a banner year for attacks on reproductive freedom — according to the Guttmacher Institute, 19 states passed 42 different abortion restrictions last year, [...]/p

Blocking VAWA, The GOP Keeps Up the War on Women | The Nation

Blocking VAWA, The GOP Keeps Up the War on Women | The Nation
"Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the Democratic co-sponsor of the Senate bill, said Congress’s failure to act simply means more people suffering. “I still have nightmares from the domestic violence crime scenes I saw as a prosecutor in Vermont,” he said in a statement in December. “The thought that our inaction could lead to more such scenes is tragic"."

112th Congress: Worst Congress Ever

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2012: The Second-Worst Year for Abortion Rights Since Roe | Alternet

2012: The Second-Worst Year for Abortion Rights Since Roe | Alternet
"Think the so-called "War on Women" (really a war on everyone, since family planning, abortion, birth control, and cancer screenings are good for everyone, regardless of gender) is over? Think again, sadly. The reality is that in the state capitols, the steady drive to make it nearly impossible for women to obtain abortions is continuing."

New Year, New Abortion Restrictions

New Year, New Abortion Restrictions
"In Virginia, Governor Bob McDonnell's is trying to avoid a repeat of the transvaginal ultrasound fiasco by certifying the state's latest anti-abortion regulations under the radar."

California Appeals Court Tosses Rape Conviction Because The Woman Was Unmarried

California Appeals Court Tosses Rape Conviction Because The Woman Was Unmarried: A California appeals court, relying on an outdated statute that prohibits someone from pretending to be someone’s husband but not their boyfriend in order to obtain sex, overturned a man’s conviction for rape because the woman he had sex with was unmarried. Under California law, rape occurs when a woman consents to sex “under the [...]/p

Anti-Choice Agenda Resumes Absent National Attention

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The Final Failure of a Failed Congress

The Final Failure of a Failed Congress
"The sun will rise on Thursday morning to shine down upon the end of the 112th Congress, the single most useless do-nothing  assembly of fools and failures in modern American political history. Boehner and his crew of cretins in the House majority are almost singlehandedly responsible for the anemic economic recovery to date, entirely because they decided to sit on their hands rather than do anything - anything! - that might come within a country mile of helping President Obama win re-election.

They sat on a variety of jobs bills. They killed a minimum wage increase. They killed the Buffett Rule, which would have set an infinitesimal tax on millionaires, a bill supported by a huge majority of Americans. Along the way, they killed a bill to provide more transparency in campaign financing. They killed a bill to protect the rights of the disabled because, somehow, they decided it would lead to a takeover of America by the United Nations...and, in one last vile act, they failed to vote on the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act that was approved in the Senate by a 2-1 margin back in April."

House GOP Fails to Act on Violence Against Women | Common Dreams

House GOP Fails to Act on Violence Against Women | Common Dreams
"Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), the Democratic point person on VAWA, condemned the House leadership in astatement calling the failure to take up and pass the Senate's "bipartisan and inclusive" VAWA bill "inexcusable"."

2012 Saw The Second Highest Number Of New Abortion Restrictions

2012 Saw The Second Highest Number Of New Abortion Restrictions: According to the Guttmacher Institute’s annual report on state-level abortion legislation, anti-choice lawmakers enacted the second highest number of new abortion restrictions in 2012 since the organization began tracking the annual data in 1985. This past year, 19 states passed 42 different provisions intended to restrict women’s access to abortion services — second only to [...]/p

2012 was a banner year for anti abortion laws

2012 was a banner year for antiabortion laws
"According to a policy review released by the Guttmacher Institute, 2012 saw the second-highest number of abortion restrictions ever enacted. The ranking comes as little surprise in a year when politicians like Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock became household names, and one of the House’s staunchest antiabortion members got second billing on the Republican presidential ticket.

During the year, 19 states enacted 43 provisions to restrict access to abortion services, whether mandating invasive ultrasounds, blocking health insurance coverage, shuttering women’s health clinics or limiting access to the morning-after pill and contraception. The record for most restrictions was set in 2011 with 92.

The worst offenders? Arizona ranked No. 1, enacting seven antiabortion restrictions, and Kansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, South Dakota and Wisconsin followed close behind with at least three restrictions each."

Unlike The U.S., Most Countries Offer Birth Control Pills Over The Counter

Unlike The U.S., Most Countries Offer Birth Control Pills Over The Counter: A new study from reproductive health researchers in Oakland, CA finds that the majority of countries ease women’s access to reproductive health services by making birth control pills available over the counter. The United States is one of 45 countries that still require women to obtain a prescription for oral contraceptives. The lead researcher of [...]/p

Virginia Governor Quietly Certifies Restrictive Abortion Clinic Regulations

Virginia Governor Quietly Certifies Restrictive Abortion Clinic Regulations: On the Friday between the Christmas and New Year’s holidays, Gov. Bob McDonnell (R-VA) quietly approved new, stringent regulations intended to target abortion clinics. Virginia’s Board of Health adopted the new anti-abortion rules in September, and the governor’s certification is the next step toward making the regulations permanent — and potentially forcing many of the [...]/p

12 Unbelievably Awful Things Fox News Did This Year | Alternet

12 Unbelievably Awful Things Fox News Did This Year | Alternet
"2012 was a dismal year for Fox News. The PR arm of the GOP failed to fulfill its prime directive: advancing the interests of Mitt Romney and the Republican Party. It spent much of the year constructing an alternative reality that left millions of its flock in shock when President Obama won an overwhelming reelection. It refused to accept the facts on the ground and denigrated polls (even its own) when the results conflicted with the fictional narrative it was peddling. And perhaps most painful of all, Fox surrendered its ratings lead to MSNBC. Two-thirds of its primetime lineup (Hannity and Van Susteren) dropped to second place behind the competition on MSNBC (Maddow and O’Donnell). However, Fox’s travails did not occur for lack of effort. It was clearly operating at the top of its capacity to distort and deceive. In the process it unleashed some of the most feverishly biased reporting, even for Fox News. "