This is the twenty-sixth 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 Battle in North Carolina
the facts and commentary: Abortion opponents in North
Elizabeth Nash, of the Guttmacher Institute, a think tank that closely follows abortion issues, said, "We hear abortion opponents argue that they want to protect women's health. The last thing in the world you want to do, then, is restrict opportunities to provide training for safe abortion."
Opponents of the law, (and, not incidentally, those with actual medical degrees), have said that curtailing this training will threaten the type of safe emergency care a woman would receive after suffering a miscarriage since "miscarriage management" procedures are no different from abortion procedures.
In their rush to create as many roadblocks as possible between a woman and her legal right to a safe abortion, these Republican dominated legislators have overlooked a vital need for abortion training in aspects of a woman's health that go beyond the emergency care noted by Elizabeth Nash.
Doctors frequently use a common surgical procedure known as a D&C, a procedure not unlike an abortion, to diagnose and/or treat conditions like uterine polyps, fibroid tumors, endometriosis, and uterine cancer. If North Carolina's doctors are not permitted to train in abortion procedures, how "safe" are women going to be when faced with one of these conditions? Would any of these legislators want their wives, daughters, sisters, to under go what, though common is still a surgical procedure, at the hands of a doctor with no training or experience? I have to assume that North Carolina has some female legislators. Would they want this for themselves?These rabid legislators seem completely unaware that "accreditation bodies for OB-GYN programs stipulate that abortion training must be included in residency education, except among religiously-affiliated schools with moral objections to the procedure." UNC, home to one of the top five OB-GYN residency programs in the country, would lose its accreditation if this bill is passed and all because North Carolina's lawmakers can't think beyond the moment.
Dr. David Grimes, a faculty member at UNC may have said it best: "Some religious groups are also opposed to blood transfusions. So should the state legislature in North Carolina pass a law that would close down the blood bank at the university hospital?"
The Battle in Tennessee
This week, the Tennessee House of Representatives debated a bill that would inflict a mandatory in-person counseling session followed by a 48 hour waiting period on any woman wanting an abortion in the state of Tennessee.
Supporters of the bill contend that it is meant to ensure women are making "informed decisions."
Because a woman hasn't already thought long and hard about this before making an appointment? How condescending and paternalistic can you get?
Minority Leader Craig Fitzhugh (D) proposed an amendment that would at least exempt women who became pregnant through rape or incest.
Representative Sheila Butt (R)--she of the "We need an NAAWP (National Association for the Advancement of White People) brouhaha a few weeks ago--asked that the amendment be tabled because, in her assessment Mr. Fitzhugh's amendment was simply a political ploy because rape and incest are "not verifiable."
Ms. Butt's exact words were: "This amend appears political because we understand that in most instances this is not verifiable. Let's make sure that these women have the information and understanding to act. Madame Speaker, I move this amendment to the table."
Ms. Butt calls the amendment "political?" I guess we're supposed to believe that the hundreds of abortion restrictions proposed by Republican lawmakers and passed by Republican led states have nothing--absolutely nothing--to do with playing to the conservative Republican political base.
"We understand (rape and incest) is not verifiable?!!" Who is "we?" Did "we" ask a medical doctor if they can recognize the physical and emotional trauma a rape or incest victim has suffered? And pity poor Ms. Butts, who apparently is so busy being a woman for Christ (you have to see her website) that she is totally unaware that incest can be verified with a simple mouth swab and DNA test.
"Let's make sure these women have the information and understanding to act." When did Ms. Butt become every Tenneessee woman's new mommy? What makes her think she, as a woman, is capable of making informed decisions on her own, but the rest of Tennessee women are not? Her condescension is nauseating; and hiding behind a claim of helping women in order to shove her own personal religious beliefs down the throat of every person in Tennessee born with a vagina is infuriating.Representative Sherry Jones (D)--who I assume is one of the women Ms. Butts believes incapable of making an informed medical decision on her own--called Ms. Butt's comments "dangerous and insulting."
Following the removal of Mr. Fitzhugh's amendment, the bill passed by a vote of 79-18. Governor Bill Haslam (R) has said he intends to sign the bill when it reaches his desk.
The Republican War on Women is "fiction?"
WHAT YOU DO SPEAKS SO LOUDLY
THAT I CANNOT HEAR WHAT YOU SAY.
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