The Republican War on Women: The War in West Virginia, a New Degree of Intrusion

This is the twenty-third in a series of articles on the subjects of women, abortion rights and the Republican Party. 

Republicans continue to say they don’t have to change their core principles, they only have to change the language they use to get their message out.  One perception they want to alter is the idea that they are running a “war on women”.  Looking at the news over the past few years, I’d say the Republican Party has a long way to go on this subject.

• Senator Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky): “Talk about a manufactured issue.  There is no issue.” 
•  RNC Chairman Reince Priebus:  “It’s a fiction.”

The West Virginia Front

the facts and commentary:  The West Virginia House of Delegates passed a new anti-abortion bill this week making abortion illegal after 20 weeks.  

This seems to be the new Republican threshold of choice.  A fact that is lost in their Party's headlong rush to ban abortions after the 20th week is that 99% of abortions performed in this country are already performed within that time period.  According to the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, (you know, people actually licensed to practice medicine), the remaining 1% are performed because of  "rare, severe fetal abnormalities and real threats to a woman's health" that are not detectable until later in a pregnancy. 

The obvious question here is, if the Republican Party believes their abortion restrictions as necessary to protect women's health, what makes the 1%, those specific women who medical doctors identify as vulnerable, less worthy of their conservative aegis? 

But West Virginia Republicans have added a new wrinkle in their eagerness to join the We-Want-a-20-Week-Ban-Too club.  They want to make a woman's medical records--ALL her medical records--one step short of public. Their new law requires that, for each abortion performed, a report be filed with the West Virginia Division of Health that must include the age, the race, the method of abortion and a "unique medical record identifying number to enable matching the report to the patient's medical records."  

WHAT?  Republicans in the state of West Virginia want some minimum wage clerk to have access to a woman's complete medical records?  To what purpose?  What happens to that information after it is recorded?  And what possible right does anyone--ANYONE--who is not that woman's medical care provider have to view her medical records?

This is the same Party that criticizes the ACA for "intruding into the doctor/patient relationship." Apparently, Republicans in West Virginia believe that, if the patient has a vagina, intrusion is not only permissible, it should be a requirement.

 The Republican War on Women is "fiction?"

WHAT YOU DO SPEAKS SO LOUDLY

THAT I CANNOT HEAR WHAT YOU SAY.