The Dominionist's Dream Candidate

Jan 3rd, 2011

Rick Santorum spoke with ABC's Jake Tapper today and declared that the states should be allowed to ban all birth control. I hate to say it, but this might make it even more likely that he wins tonight's Iowa caucus circus.



Igor Volsky writes:

"Santorum has long opposed the Supreme Court’s 1965 ruling “that invalidated a Connecticut law banning contraception” and has also pledged to completely defund federal funding for contraception if elected president. As he told CaffeinatedThoughts.com editor Shane Vander Hart in October, “One of the things I will talk about, that no president has talked about before, is I think the dangers of contraception in this country,” the former Pennsylvania senator explained. “It’s not okay. It’s a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be.” EMPHASIS OURS

But an overwhelming majority of Americans — virtually all women (more than 99 percent ) aged 15–44 have used at least one contraceptive method — rely on contraceptives to prevent unintended pregnancies and limit the spread of sexually-transmitted diseases. In fact, the Guttmacher Institute estimates that contraceptive services provided at publicly funded clinicshelped prevent almost two million unintended pregnancies. Without funding from Medicaid and Title X, “abortions occurring in the United States would be nearly two-thirds higher among women overall and among teens; the number of unintended pregnancies among poor women would nearly double.”

The sound you hear might more of those Bachmann voters running over to Santorum's camp.

The GOP War On Reproductive Rights, cont...

Nov 1, 2011

It just never ends. Since the election of the 112th Congress and its corresponding Dominionist ascension, every month has represented another series of attacks on women's freedom. Mother Jones reports:

"The "personhood" amendment on the Mississippi ballot on November 8 doesn't just ban all abortions—an issue that my colleague Tim Murphy has covered quite well. It would also likely outlaw several types of birth control and possibly make all forms of hormonal contraception illegal in the state."

The GOP War On Reproductive Rights, cont...

Feb 9th, 2011

As the article excerpt that follows notes, the Republicans have not been pursuing "jobs, jobs, jobs" with nearly the focus or passion as they have been exhibiting while shrieking "ban abortion! ban abortion!  ban abortion!" 

Brian Beutler reports for TPM:

"The House GOP continues to place its heaviest emphasis on fighting abortion rights, and they've taken a lot of heat for it. Progressives, Democrats, pro-choice groups, and others have spared little criticism, but they've focused most heavily on three distinct lines: the fact that Republicans are ignoring job-creation as a priority; the fact that one of their pieces of legislation would allow hospitals to refuse to perform an abortion on a dying woman; and the fact that, until recently at least, the GOP wanted to limit tax-payer support for abortion to exclude incidences of non-forcible rape.

Here's another one: The GOP's plan to ban tax-payer money from funding abortions includes giant tax hikes for businesses.

More specifically, it would eliminate tax incentives on employer-provided health care benefits if those benefits cover abortion as a medical procedure." 

Pardon my brief indulgence in using Speaker Boehner's language, but this sounds pretty "job-crushing" to me.