The Democrats are reaching out to the lifers with legislation designed to ease burdens on pregnant women:
Rep. Lincoln Davis (D-TN) unveiled the Pregnant Women Support Act at a press conference Wednesday on Capitol Hill. The bill is in the spirit of the “95-10 Abortion Reduction Initiative” proposed by some Congressional Democrats and Democrats for Life of America last year as a way of reducing 95% of abortions within 10 years.
Davis revealed that his bill includes 14 provisions calling for expanding coverage to pregnant women and unborn children through Medicaid and state-sponsored children’s insurance programs. The bill also seeks to make obtaining health care coverage easier for pregnant women by removing pregnancy from health insurance companies’ “pre-existing condition” lists. Davis’ proposal also calls for adoption tax credits, grants for low-income parents studying in college, increased funding for domestic violence programs, and free home visits by registered nurses for new mothers.
“This initiative provides the kind of support, information, and options that should be readily available to pregnant women in any society that truly believes in the sanctity of life. Congress can and should act immediately to implement this 95-10 initiative,” Davis told reporters.
Davis added that his bill was “legislation America has been waiting for” and maintained “pro-choice or pro-life this is legislation we can all support.”
I like the bill, but you know who won’t? Most “pro-lifers.”
Without high abortion rates, the anti-choice right won’t be able to continue fetishizing their mutilated fetus pics. People who want fewer abortions don’t form rugby scrums around birth control at the pharmacy counter and tell women that Plan B rips the wings off unborn angels.
If anti-choicers cared about women and babies, CPCs wouldn’t kick a woman to the curb the minute the baby’s born. This kind of legislation would be totally unnecessary because pro-lifers would already offer these services to women in need.
Unbeknownst to the Democrats, most people who hate abortion don’t want to help women. They want to punish women for daring to take ownership of their vaginas. Fucking for fun is reserved for men, and it’s only fun for men if it involves conquering/pseudo-raping a woman who’s reluctant to open her legs. No means yes because no is much hotter than yes to this crowd. Yes also implies that you’re being asked, not taken, and that gets us back to that sticky ownership issue.
The threat of motherhood’s burdens is supposed to keep a virgin in line until a man is ready to use her to produce his heir. But how threatening is motherhood if you can get health insurance and education grants? And how is a child supposed to know that s/he a horrible bastard outcast if mommy got a college degree and thus a paying job despite being an autonomous whore?
Worse, this bill expects the state to ease the burden of motherhood. That means anti-choicer tax dollars will go right into the pockets of uppity women everywhere. You might as well paint nipples on the Statue of Liberty and declare July 4th National Slut Day.
Bless their hearts, the Democrats just don’t understand what they’re up against. And just once I’d like to see them reach out like this to the LGBT community or environmentalists instead of jittery bed-wetters or anti-choicers. God forbid they try to speak for those without a government voice instead of competing for those for whom the Rethugs have already spoken.
They might think that this is reaching out to anti-choicers, and if they do, they’re deluding themselves. However, this tactic is extremely good at exposing anti-choicers as the liars they are. I think for Hillary Clinton, at least, it’s more about exposing the liars instead of reaching out to people that won’t vote for her anyway. I think that’s a critical step to take, because a whole lotta people only see the baby-loving mask and not the woman-hating heart underneath.
The vast majority of people I’ve spoken to who switched from anti- to pro-choice caught the clue train when exposed to the argument that the 95-10 legislation is based on, which is that if you genuinely think something is murder, you will be open to government means of prevention, not just punishment. The cognitive dissonance created by pointing out that anti-choice policies lead to more abortions tends to wake a lot of fence-sitters up.
The game player in me loves the 95-10 solution because what it really is is an attempt to use this fact that anti-choicers cannot be caught openly advocating for that which will cause more abortions to silence opposition to what is really a social welfare package. And one that’s sorely needed, no less. Now a vote against this package (which fits pro-choice principles because it allows women who want to choose the baby to have that choice) can be characterized as a vote to increase the abortion rate. Again, hardcore anti-choicers won’t care if their politician votes to increase the abortion rate, but fence-sitters will be appalled at the hypocrisy. Excellent tactics.
I worry about the backlash, of course. Democrats should steer clear of saying abortion is bad, because abortion is very good if you need it. They should stay on message that this is about choice, and equipping women who want children to be able to make that choice and not be forced by poverty to have abortions. That’s the best way to put this that will allow them to frame anti-choicers as hypocrites while not betraying core values.
Ahh but you’re forgetting that vast right wing conspiracy is vast, rightwing, and a conspiracy – expect con-libs to start whining about how A) pregnant women can already get support for pre-natal care through the fake PP clinic’s amazing Ultrasound machines and church support and B) how black women should have their genitals covered in chicken wire to stop them fucking (or some variation on that basic theme).
When the wingers get backed into a corner they start lying and spluttering furiously – and that’s when you need vertebrates to start challenging that bullshit and press them.
So while the idea is good, and I hate to be El Buzzkill (because I hope for the sake of fuck that Hillary and the liberal dems follow through) but I’m not going to expect too hard that the liberal dems will follow through – it just goes against all precedents.
I like the bill, but you know who won’t? Most “pro-lifers.”
Of course not. The bill won’t provide sex for lonely misogynist assholes, so what good is it?
junk, the bill doesn’t have to provide sex for the “lonely misogynist assholes”. That what their hands are for…
DUH!…
Mike, their hands aren’t whores. What are you trying to say?
Masturbation. Apparently lame attempt at a joke on my part.
Sometimes you’re the windshield, sometimes you’re the bug…
Heh. I got it. Maybe I’m too good at sounding offended.
Besides, their hands aren’t whores anyway, since they’re having sex with them.
I thought your hands are only classed as official whores if they have sex with more than 4 people in their entire life time?
Sorry, RM. Your hands have had at least 1 homosexual experience, which also qualifies them as a slut/whore.
My hands are their own grandpa.
Your hands have had at least 1 homosexual experience, which also qualifies them as a slut/whore.
And since they won’t talk about it, it also makes them Republicans.
“If thy hand offends thee, slice it off”…
I love you guys.
Ditto
My hands are lesbians.
Then I totally want to see your hands making out.
Well, I’ll be more precise…they’re more like patriarcho-bisexuals. They only get together when there’s also a cock in the room.
(Well, just mine. I think the analogy is starting to break down.)
Do they wrestle in hand cream?
I’m sure they even interlace their fingers sometimes.
[...] The developers of this ideology usually don’t believe in the sanctity of womb angels; their motives are usually much more sinister, as I discussed yesterday. But many of their misguided acoloytes do, and they can be really vocal about it. [...]
I really think that this will just bring back the “Democrats are encouraging unmarried women to breed” argument. After all, it’s only married women who are supposed to be fruitful. The rest of us are S.O.L.
If only married women are supposed to breed, why can only married women get birth control pills at many US pharmacies?
MY hands are having sex even as I type comments.
This goes a long way to explaining my continual spelling mistakes.