[Vision2020] The GOP’s vagina monologue

[Art Deco]

------------------------------
   The GOP’s vagina monologue By Dana
Milbank<http://www.washingtonpost.com/dana-milbank/2011/02/24/ABhhJwI_page.html>,
Published: March 2

When will Republicans stop their vagina
monologue<http://www.randomhouse.com/features/ensler/vm/>
?

March is federally recognized as Women’s History Month, and Republicans
have been celebrating the occasion in a most unusual style: with a burst of
interest in women’s private parts.

On Thursday, the Senate took up an amendment proposed by Sen. Roy Blunt
(R-Mo.)<http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/birth-control-exemption-bill-the-blunt-amendment-killed-in-senate/2012/03/01/gIQA4tXjkR_story.html>that
would allow employers to deny women birth-control coverage if the
employer found contraception morally objectionable.

About 100 miles south of Washington on that same day, Virginia legislators
passed a measure requiring a woman to be offered an ultrasound
image<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/virginia-politics/post/virginia-house-gives-final-approval-to-ultrasound-bill/2012/03/01/gIQAJY4HlR_blog.html>of
her fetus before aborting it. The legislation, which opponents say
could
also require some women who have miscarriages to be offered ultrasonic
images of their dead fetuses, is the successor of a bill that would have
required women to undergo an invasive “transvaginal ultrasound.”

Still on Thursday, the industrious Virginia House of Delegates also
approved legislation bestowing rights on people, including a father, to
bring a lawsuit over the death of the fetus.

On Wednesday, conservative radio host Rush
Limbaugh<http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/georgetown-president-defends-student-blasts-limbaugh/2012/03/02/gIQAnE20mR_story.html>,
a powerful influence among Republican lawmakers, described as a “slut” the
law-school student invited by House Democrats to testify in support of
birth control. “It makes her a prostitute,” Limbaugh said of the woman,
blocked last month by House Republicans from testifying on what became an
all-male panel. “She wants to be paid to have sex.”

On Tuesday, Oklahomans held a protest at the state capitol to oppose a
bill, passed by the state Senate and now being taken up by the House, that
would bestow “personhood”<http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/to-residents-of-another-washington-their-cherished-values-are-under-assault/2012/03/01/gIQAsbhXlR_story.html>on
fetuses — one of many such efforts across the nation. Democrat Judy
McIntyre <http://newsok.com/article/3653186>, one of just four women in the
48-member state Senate, was so upset that, according to the Oklahoman
newspaper, she held a protest sign proclaiming: “If I wanted the government
in my womb, I’d [expletive] a senator.”

Democrats think they have a political winner in the Republicans’
fascination with reproduction at a time when economic production is what
voters have in mind. The party is raising money with a petition against the
“Republican War on Women <http://www.dccc.org/pages/waronwomen>,” and 11
Democratic women running for the U.S. Senate are using the occasion to
launch a fundraising tour.

They are attempting to tie together everything from last year’s effort to
defund Planned Parenthood to the proposed repeal of Obamacare (which
expanded coverage of mammography and birth control). And Obama campaign
strategists tell me they are confident that the two leading Republican
presidential candidates, a Mormon and a devout Catholic, will have
difficulty beating the rap that the party is obsessed with reproduction.

Evidence that the Republicans realize they’re in a pickle: Mitt Romney
spontaneously flip-flopped on his initial opposition to the Blunt
amendment, which would also provide employers with a moral opt-out from
other elements of Obamacare. Romney first
said<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/election-2012/post/romney-camp-says-candidate-supports-blunt-amendment-on-contraceptive-coverage/2012/02/29/gIQAEyo4iR_blog.html>that
“questions about contraception within a relationship between a man and
a woman, husband and wife, I’m not going there.” But he quickly reversed
himself in favor of the amendment, aligning himself with Rick Santorum, who
has voiced doubts about the constitutional protections for birth control.

More evidence: After championing the Blunt amendment, Republican leaders
backed away from their demands for a vote on the provision. And Sen. Marco
Rubio (R-Fla.), an early proponent of the amendment after hearing about the
issue during a Catholic Mass, disappeared from the debate. So Majority
Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) wound up forcing a vote on the provision,
which was narrowly defeated Thursday afternoon.

“Today, the Senate will vote on an extreme, ideological amendment to the
bipartisan transportation bill,” Reid said, kicking off Thursday’s debate.
“This amendment takes aim at women’s access to health care.”

The Republican Senate leader, Mitch McConnell (Ky.), made no mention of
birth control in his reply, countering that “it is not within the power of
the federal government to tell anybody what to believe, or to punish them
for practicing those beliefs.”

Most other Republicans followed McConnell’s lead in avoiding mention of
contraception. Sen. Orrin G. Hatch
<http://republican.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/floor-updates?ID=9d22b03a-24cf-4537-8fa2-1730b0ffedff-27k>(Utah),
however, said the provision in the health-care law requiring preventive
medical coverage for women is “questionable policy,” and he accused the
administration of “deferring to its feminist allies” by mandating
contraceptive coverage.

After the amendment went down to defeat, its sponsor gave a General
MacArthur. “I’m confident this issue is not over,” Blunt said. “It won’t be
over until the administration figures out how to accommodate people’s
religious views as it relates to these new mandates.”

The monologue will continue.

* danamilbank at washpost.com<http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/republicans-do-remember-that-women-vote-right/2012/03/02/gIQAGGVJnR_print.html>
*




-- 
Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)
art.deco.studios at gmail.com
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