For the past few weeks, we have witnessed the Middle East erupt as people demanded their right to govern. Here in America, we have smugly watched them fight and freely given our advice. Meanwhile in a America, there is an outright war on women. Where are the reporters, the breaking news, the 24-hour coverage? Thank goodness for Rachel Maddow, she gets it. Using facts and real people, she continues to expose the hypocrisy and attacks on women.
Monday night on her show, she had the doctor in Kansas who bravely announced she would continue to perform legal abortions and protect women. Last night, Ms. Maddow told of the wide spread threats against the doctor at her home. She faces threats and intimidation from anti-abortion groups who liken her to a murderer and call for drastic measures. Next week, Ms. Maddow is moving part of her show to Kansas so that America can see the threat to women and the war on the ground.
The war is not just in Kansas, and not just against one doctor. It is in State Houses and the US Congress. Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) introduced legislation to defund Planned Parenthood. For good measure, he also amended this bill:
“to stop funding for women’s health services, gynecological exams, access to birth control, HIV testing, private care, or infertility counseling. The Continuing Resolution proposed by House Republicans also slashes or eliminates funding for many programs crucial to women’s health; it would completely eliminate Title X domestic family planning programs, and would dramatically cut (by $758 million) the Women Infant Children (WIC) program, which provides food for low-income pregnant, breastfeeding, and non-breastfeeding postpartum women.”
So let’s analyze this: Rep. Pence speaks passionately about believing in a culture of life, but that means before birth. Once the fetus is born, becoming an individual person, that person should not have proper nutrition or support. Women who must nurture an egg into becoming a human being should not have the right medicines and food. And once these children are born, the state no longer cares about them.
If that sounds like a wacky new world, consider the new laws that Rep. Joe Pitts (R-PA) and Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) are proposing where hospitals and doctors may turn away gravely ill women who need abortions to save their lives. In this case, murder the vessel to save the fetus (which in many cases will not survive). So murder of a woman could be a new law. That is not unlike a proposed bill in South Dakota that would have potentially said that killing anyone who might harm a fetus would be justifiable homicide. Wiser heads prevailed and the bill has been shelved, for now.
No discussion of this new world reality can be had without noting that in HR 3, Rep. Smith redefined rape to a narrow phrase of “forced rape.” Now he is a lexicographer who has a new meaning of rape. Not quite sure what it is, as the very nature of the word means an unwilling sex act, nor has he offered a definition. Despite many promises and public statements following the outcry over this change, he still has not removed the offending word from the bill.
Every day a new legislator comes up a with a way to pass a law that is an end run around established law. Abortion is legal, and yet, it is not in many states. Not only are these state legislatures ignoring established law by passing heartbeat bills, ultrasound bills, fetal pain bills, permission to kill women bills, and personhood bills, but they have all become scientists, doctors and social workers who know medical facts and psychology intuitively.
This lunacy must end. We should fight to rescind the Hyde Amendment. We should assemble in Washington to show that we will not have our lives and freedoms destroyed. We should call, email, and visit our representatives in our states and Washington, DC.
The sanctity of life includes women and we must show our strength.