Thursday, February 9, 2012

Politicizing Women's Health

 Contraception, ACA, Religion and the ACORNification of Planned Parenthood
...modern women being told by Republicans that they’re not qualified to talk about their own sexual health, are dressed like “whores” and probably need birth control because they’re so slutty. And this is just in one day.     --How The GOP Went Back To The 1950s In Just One Day | TPM2012 (2/17/2012) 
Last week, Freshman Senator Roy Blunt (R-MO) filed legislation to allow any employer, religiously affiliated or not, to refuse to cover any essential or preventive health service, not just contraceptives, based on the "religious belief or moral conviction" of the employer. ... Our own Senator Scott Brown (R-MA) has signed on as a co-sponsor of the Blunt legislation. Brown spokesperson John Donnelly has confirmed to the Washington Postthat the Senator supports the Blunt legislation. So this is not an academic matter for Massachusetts voters. The Blunt proposal goes well beyond contraception and freedom of religiously affiliated institutions. "[M]oral conviction"...is in no way defined in the legislative language. So any employer could stop offering any medical service otherwise required by law to be provided to workers by invoking "moral conviction."
-  Republican Over-Reach on Contraception - Health Stew - Boston.com (2/14/2012) -
(see also: Re: "Conscience clause": USAprogressive: No, Scott Brown The Blunt Amendment IS Not Like Kennedy's Bill (2/17/2012) http://bit.ly/xW6a58)
Just for the record, on the day that the Senate voted 51-48 to defeat the heinous Blunt Amendment (yay!) SUPPORTED BY SCOTT BROWN--Poll: Most Americans Support Contraception Rule - Kaiser Health News (3/1/2012)

Just FYI, GOP is now claiming that the health care controversy was manufactured by Democrats just to sink the republicans. Crazy sauce.  Read up for context and links that show you otherwise:: It's Always A Conspiracy: Contraception Edition | Media Matters for America  (2/2012)

THE AFFORDABLE CARE ACT - CONTRACEPTION COVERAGE
REPUBLICANS
Being super extreme on abortion restrictions is not a winning electoral strategy in America (Maddow breaks down the examples--even Mississippi--see 4:18( (THIS IS ALL ABOUT pinning Romney down on MORMON!: see 6:33)

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy 
BLUNT AMENDMENT
THE RELIGION EXCEPTION
POLITICAL MANEUVERINGS: ANALYSIS
  • Obama Punks the GOP on Contraception - Obama riled up Republicans on contraception, and then delivers a knock-out punch. Slate (2/10/2012)
  • The American Prospect - Birth Control Chess (2/10/2012) 
  • Reason vs. hysteria in the birth control debate - Contraception - Salon.com (2/9/2012)
  • Birth control may now be wedge issue against GOP - The Plum Line - The Washington Post (2/10/2012)
  • GOPers Only Enraged By Birth Control Rule When Obama’s Pushing It | TPMDC (2/16/2012) -- 
    • As governor of Massachusetts, he presided over the same policy critics are now assailing President Obama for: obliging most employers to provide health insurance that includes birth control for their female employees, even if the employer belongs to a religion that opposes those services. Indeed, because of the White House’s compromise, which would allow religious nonprofits to opt out of paying the insurer for those services and demand that the insurer offer them to the female employee directly, Romney’s law was arguably even stronger.// On Wednesday more than two-dozen Republican lawmakers ran into this issue head-on. At a press conference, they fulminated against President Obama’s egregious violation of religious freedom. But none of them would rule out supporting a presidential candidate who had enacted a virtually identical mandate.
Resurrecting Abortion Restrictions
PEOPLE ACTUALLY USE CONTRACEPTION
THE HISTORY, COSTS, SHORTCOMINGS OF WOMEN'S HEALTHCARE
  • Texas Axes Health Programs for Women | Mother Jones (2/24/2012) -- the administration of Texas Gov. Rick Perry enacted a new rule banning state funds from going to any health center at all affiliated with anyone who offers abortions. The measure would effectively end the Women’s Health Program in the state, because federal law prohibits states from discriminating against specific providers in the allocation of Medicaid
  • Gutttmacher Letter - Contraceptive Use - NYTimes.com (2/24/2012)  
    • Ross Douthat (“The ‘Safe, Legal, Rare’ Illusion,” column, Feb. 19) cherry-picks a Guttmacher Institute survey finding — that only a small proportion of abortion patients gave cost as a reason for not using contraception — to support his unwarranted generalization that cost is not a barrier to contraceptive use.
WHAT IS PLANNED PARENTHOOD REALLY?
THE KOMEN / PLANNED PARENTHOOD CONTROVERSY
  •  What We Learned From Planned Parenthood | The Nation (2/2012) 
    • In 2010, when the right-wing echo chamber succeeded in destroying ACORN—a group Bill Moyers described as “more devoted to helping poor people become their own best champions” than any group he’d ever covered as a journalist—Senator Bernie Sanders offered this warning: “These same forces drummed Van Jones out of the White House. The rightwing echo chamber is now two-for-two, and no one should have any illusions that it won’t be back.”
  • Gail Collins, Behind the Abortion Wars (= war on contraception), Apr 2011 
Pinking Cancer
  • The Marketing of Breast Cancer || AlterNet (2002!) http://bit.ly/Awu5YR
  • I Will Not Be Pinkwashed: Komen's Race Is For Money, Not Cure | | AlterNet (2/4/2012)
  • Killing me Softly with Yoplait: How the Susan G. Komen Foundation Puts Dollars Before Cures | The Puffington Host (2/2012) -- 
    • The Susan G. Komen Foundation is an enormous entity that rakes in over $200M per year through donations and their “Race for the Cure”. The sheer size of this charity makes it tough for smaller charities to compete. Because they are so large and have made breast cancer such a ubiquitous cause, many lesser-known cancers hardly receive any research funding. While you can chalk that up to the tough luck byproduct of capitalism in America, this next bit of truth really stings. The Susan G. Komen Foundation sues other charities for using the words “for the cure” in their names. That’s right, they consider the words “for the cure” to be “their brand” and in an effort to protect “their brand” they budget millions of dollars in legal fees to elbow out smaller charities for using those three little words. Not what you had in mind when you gave your friend $20 for doing a breast cancer race? Me either.
  • Blue Mass Group | “Pink ribbon = Anti-abortion?” Komen’s commercialism, right-wing tilt under scrutiny (2/3/2012)   
Komen's Political Slip is Showing
Reactions to Komen's Decision
  • "Do you see politics on my chest?" - The Most HeroicResponse To The Susan G. Komen Foundation You Will Ever See | MoveOn.Org (2/2012) 
  • Good essay!: Margery Eagan - Un-Planned controversy - BostonHerald.com (2/5/2012) 
  • A Painful Betrayal - NYTimes.com (2/2012) - 
    • To try to justify its move, the foundation cited a new policy against making grants to groups under federal or state investigation — in Planned Parenthood’s case, an inquiry into how it spends its taxpayer money by Representative Cliff Stearns, a Republican of Florida. That is just a flimsy fig leaf. -- Mr. Stearns’s “investigation” is nothing more than a political witch hunt, stirred up by Republican leaders and by a right-wing antichoice group, Americans United for Life, which now displays the pink ribbon on its Web site as part of a fund-raising campaign for Komen. The inquiry is part of the Republican campaign to stigmatize Planned Parenthood and end financial support for its invaluable network of clinics. Abortions make up only about 3 percent of its work, but most of this crowd also objects to its leading role in providing access to contraceptives.
  • Reviving Feminists
  • University group ends Komen collaboration after Planned Parenthood decision - The Washington Post  (2/2/12) 
TICK TOCK OF THE CONTROVERSY
RIGHT WING REACTS TO KOMEN REVERSAL
  • After Reversal: RW Backlash
    • James Taranto - Komen Get It - The Abortion Protection Racket - Plus the NYT contemns Religious Liberty - WSJ.com (2/2/2012)
Pimp and a Ho walk into a Planned Parenthood
Maddow on the culture wars, abortion

Big Government / Libertarians and Abortion

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