Even though at America’s founding the Constitution’s framers
pretended they believed in equal rights, they certainly did not include
women in that group. It is curious that since the Founders were
definitely not evangelical adherents by any stretch, they embraced the
ideology that a woman was subservient to a man and it is a mindset that
persists to this day; particularly among evangelicals, Republicans, and
the catholic cult. Subsequently, that triad of anti-women evil has
been relatively successful in controlling women, and when possible
hurting them, by prohibiting them from making their own healthcare
choices; now there is research to prove it.
In the frantic race to see which Republican state can impose the
harshest laws prohibiting a legal medical procedure, abortion, Texas
evangelicals have enacted some of the harshest anti-women’s health
measures in the nation. Now, a brand-spanking new
report
conducted and released by the Texas Policy Evaluation Project, a noted
research group out of the University of Texas, Austin, the state’s
anti-abortion laws are hurting women and prohibiting from making their
own reproductive health choices which is, after all, the goal of
evangelical Republicans.
The researchers tracked Texas’ reproductive health policy over the past four years and discovered that the dastardly
law, HB2, that imposes harsh restrictions on abortion clinics and providers anti-choice evangelicals claim improves patient safety
cut the number of abortion providers from 48 to 18. Now, there only nine surgical centers remain to perform later abortions.
Forcing women’s health clinics to shut down not only restricts access
to providers, but the few remaining are forced to turn women away or
making them wait a month or more for a procedure. For the evangelical
tyrants using their religious beliefs to control women’s choice, the
Texas law is a raging success story; not so much for women hoping that
in 21st Century American they just might have the right to decide when
they give birth.
Evangelicals
claim
they hate later-term abortions, but as wait time to get an abortion
increases, the proportion of abortions performed in the second trimester
increases. To punctuate the intended harm on women these anti-choice
religious laws create, later surgical abortions, although safe, are “
associated with a higher risk of complications and are significantly more costly to women than an earlier medical abortion.”
But that is one of the intended “consequences” of these religious laws,
whether it is through greater expense or increased health risks,
evangelicals will make women pay for not subjugating themselves to
religious control and think twice before having “
consequence-free sex;” something both evangelicals and the catholic cult forbids.
The
researchers have been collecting data since HB2, considered one of the
harshest anti-abortion measures nationwide, and one of the lead
researchers was irritated that the evangelical Republicans lied and
produced junk science to make their junk law. Daniel Grossman is,
besides the lead researcher on the study, a professor of obstetrics and
gynecology at U.C. San Francisco and he said, “
It was so
frustrating to hear legislators behind these bills saying things
completely not based on fact. We saw, on the ground, how women were
adversely affected by these laws, and knew it was important to document.”
Professor Grossman said it is not uncommon for state-level empirical
data on abortion clinics to be released years after a bill is debated,
and eventually implemented giving lawmakers nothing whatsoever to “
lean on during the initial fight,” and he is hopeful the Texas Policy Evaluation Project can fill this gap. “
We
saw such a delay in needed data collection. Meanwhile, all these laws
are being passed in quick succession without real data to challenge them.”
Women’s health advocates did
file suit
against the provisions of HB2, but Grossman knew the state would not
provide them with empirical data to mount a proper legal defense against
the religious laws. “
So instead, we stepped in,” Grossman said.
“We visited each abortion provider and collected the data needed to stand up for them.”
Instead of suing the state of Texas for legislating
according to evangelicals’ religion, the women’s health advocates are
challenging the ridiculous
requirement
that all abortion facilities make costly renovations to bring their
building codes in line with surgery centers. The research team found
that only 22 percent of all abortions in Texas were being provided by
surgical centers and warned that if evangelicals prevail in court, those
clinics will be responsible for conducting abortions for the entire
state. Grossman said that “
It was difficult seeing these women late into pregnancy who really didn’t want to be. They were so angry at the state for making the decision for them. I can only hope we won’t be seeing more bills taking away these rights.”
This assault on a legal medical procedure, and the ability of women
to make their own reproductive healthcare choices is not unique to Texas
or evangelicals who embraced “anti-choice” as a cause célèbre on the advice
of the United States coven of catholic bastards. This week the
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed suit against the powerful catholic hospital conglomerate, Trinity Health, for refusing to provide “
appropriate emergency care to women suffering pregnancy complications, including miscarriages.” Refusing to save women’s lives is part and parcel of
USCCB’s
“Ethical and Religious Directives for catholic Healthcare Services that
“prohibits its medical facilities from terminating pregnancies even if
such care is urgently needed to protect a woman’s health or life.”
An attorney for the ACLU, Alexa Kolbi-Molinas said, “
For many
women experiencing pregnancy complications, even when the pregnancy
isn’t viable, abortion is the standard of care necessary, or they can
develop infections, become septic or experience hemorrhaging.” They can even die, but protecting the woman’s life is not part of the religious “anti-choice” cabal’s mindset.
The catholics have been buying up hospitals, clinics, and merging with others and then
enforcing the vatican’s 1968 humanae vitae
edicts without regard for the health of the woman or a healthcare
providers’ mandate to give medical care. Women’s health advocates
documented emergency rooms and physicians in Trinity Health system
typically sending women in distress home instead of offering standard
procedures such as tubal ligation, or removal of a dead or unviable
fetus. A Washington state healthcare advocate said “
Women are told,
‘There’s nothing we can do for your miscarriage, go home,’ and many
women believe they are getting medical advice; but in fact they are
getting religious advice.”
According to the ACLU lawsuit, by refusing to preform emergency
services to protect the health of a woman the Catholic-owned hospitals
are violating the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act
requiring healthcare providers “
to provide such medical treatment of
the condition as may be necessary to assure, with reasonable medical
probability, that no deterioration of the condition is likely to occur
during transfer of the patient from a facility.” In other words,
medical providers are required, by law, to provide the care women need
and not send them searching for life-saving care elsewhere when they are
already in an emergency room and in a medical emergency.
The only encouraging thing in the ACLU lawsuit, and something missing
from every other response to attacks on women’s reproductive rights, is
the remark that women are getting “
religious advice;” not
medical advice. No-one in their right mind believes for a minute any of
these vile Republican attacks on women’s healthcare, or Planned
Parenthood for that matter, are anything other than imposing religious
control over American women. It is a fundamental part of evangelical and catholic
dogmata that men have purview over every aspect of a
woman’s life, and these hateful attacks are, if nothing else, all about
controlling women and keeping them in subjection to, in this case,
religious Republican men.
The religio-wingnuts and the USCCB cannot countenance that they lack
the authority to single-handedly criminalize and abolish abortion,
Planned Parenthood, or contraceptive use. Their alternative is pledging
undying electoral support to Republicans who will do their bidding by
passing harsh restrictions on women’s healthcare providers unless they
give out religious advice in lieu of medical advice. Subsequently, not
only are women being denied their constitutional rights, they are being
harmed because religious advice cannot save a woman in a medical
emergency, but then again, saving women was never the goal, controlling
them is like it is the 16th, not the 21st Century.
Tennessee’s “fiscal conservatives” tried to save money by screwing the poor — and guess how that turned out?
The Republican obsession with drug testing American citizens has
reached a brand new low, and this time the targets are senior citizens
who use Medicare ...
As House Republicans squabble over the leadership of their party in
Congress, even Fox News can’t pretend that the Republican cabal isn’t in complete
chaos.
Unbeknownst to the general public, but an
easy trivia answer for any wingnut packing a pocket Constitution,
the Speaker of the House does not have to be an elected member of the
House of Representatives.
Just a few days ago, O’Reilly one-upped the Republican cabal’s
usual style of poor-shaming by flat-out saying that childhood hunger
in...
Leave
it to Fox News hack Monica Crowley to come up with a conspiracy
theory as a way to “defend” Carson’s remarks about the Umpqua
Community College shooting. Right before she fear mongered about the
Muslim "invasion" in Europe.
The rampant racism, religious bigotry, and Islamophobic hysteria of
Fox fans exploded after the network aired a particularly disgusting
segment about Muslims living in Dearborn, Michigan. 
When they can’t use the “inner city” and “black on black crime”
talking points because every red state rube that shoots his buddy over a
beer is also listed, their whole game will go up in flames.
Sorry, but no, you CAN’T risk everyone else’s lives because you know a
guy whose brother’s cousin’s neighborhood’s aunt’s daughter got autism
from a vaccine.
Clearly, Bristol Palin is just jealous that there are 10 year-old girls out there who are far more responsible than she is. 
It's been an amazing two weeks. The forces of lunatic fringe wingnut nihilism
pushed Boehner into an unexpected early retirement,
and there's a good chance they also played a role in McCarthy's equally shocking demise as Boehner's heir apparent. To say the House is an ungovernable tire-fire is an extreme understatement.
Since there appears to be no significant House figure willing to run
for Speaker, there's a massive push to cajole and pressure Paul Ryan
into running. It seems crystal clear that he really, really doesn't want
the job. But that doesn't mean he won't end up agreeing to take it. But
here's the thing. People are starting to seriously moot the idea of
Boehner remaining on in a caretaker role through the 2016 election. He
doesn't need 218 votes. He's already Speaker. He doesn't need anything.
