FOCUS | GOP's Extreme Attacks on a Woman's Right to Choose

Intro: "2011 marked a banner year in the Republican war on woman's health. Close to 1,000 anti-abortion bills sped through state legislatures as the GOP-led House led a 'comprehensive and radical assault' on a federal level. But in surveying their arsenal this year, 10 bills stood out as particularly perturbing and far-reaching efforts to stymie women's access to abortion services, birth control, and vital health services like breast cancer screenings."

Newt Gingrich speaks to supporters in Columbia, SC, 12/23/11. (photo: Richard Ellis/Getty Images)

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+25 # BradFromSalem 2011-12-29 12:22

I gotta ask. Are these kids who would have been aborted because their mother was incapable of caring for them due to financial, physical, or mental issues fully funded? If not then these births go against the promise made by Republicans to fully fund every piece of legislation.

What kind of rabbit's hole do they down into at night? I bet every one of those scumbags have either gotten a girl pregnant who later aborted the kid, because she was afraid it would be a devil child or had an abortion herself.

They really don't care about abortions one way or the other. It is votes they are after, and they believe that people are stupid enough that by making abortions illegal, then people will stop having sex. Right.

+10 # Erdajean 2011-12-29 15:37

Can't help wondering how many back-alley Coat Hanger Clubs, maybe even a cartel of same, are owned by GOP politicians? I mean, follow the money, you know. When there's no other way, knitting needle technology could well cost more than that soul-shaming ultrasound they keep peddling as "law."
Also, the more kids that are born into hopeless poverty, and the more poor and ignorant they are raised, the more willing they'll be to work for stale breadcrumbs and chicken bones from Newt and his friends -- if they live to be five years old.
Here again, Follow The Money.

+11 # jon 2011-12-29 16:44

"They really don't care about abortions one way or the other. It is votes they are after"

This is pandering on the most elemental level. It is all about controlling the women, and for the sexually insecure fundamentalist male, there aren't many bigger issues in life, with the possible exceptions of the immediate availability of air, and water - food is arguable.

+43 # artful 2011-12-29 12:48

It's been clear for some time now. Republicans have morphed into the Christian Taliban.

+8 # John Locke 2011-12-29 17:16

Artful, Yes its the fundamental Christian right, the extreme Bochman idocracy, they are as nutty as fruit cakes....they want to control the use of a woman's body and they don't have that right, the politicians are pandering to them and thats all it is. Its time to get religion out of politics, We are not a christian nation!, we are a nation with religious choices, and many of the founding fathers were actually athiest and Agnostics...

+2 # ABen 2011-12-30 15:07

Well said "artful!"

+23 # angelfish 2011-12-29 13:56

It's is WAY passed time for getting "religion" of ANY kind out of our Political conversation. We have SEEN what it has done in other cultures. See Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Egypt, ad infinitum! It is these REPRESSED and Ignorant men who want to DICTATE to women how to live in this World. They, unfortunately, are stuck in the Dark Ages, back in the day, when "The Church" COMMANDED" that the Sun Revolved around the Earth! I imagine that SOME still believe that fallacy! Simply Decreeing something does NOT make it so! WAKE UP! All you simple minded, sexually frustrated and repressed ReTHUGs who claim to want smaller Government intrusion into peoples lives, UNLESS, of course, the people happen to be Women! We OUTNUMBER you! Most of us will not stand for the heel of your boots on our necks ANY longer! Despite the Travesty that is being foisted on Millions of women in Africa, the Middle East and elsewhere, this is ONE sleeping Giant that has awakened with a roar and will NOT be disregarded anymore! Be warned. Women of the World! Stand, Support your sisters and FIGHT this TERRIBLE injustice against Women Everywhere!

+6 # John Locke 2011-12-29 17:19

Angelfish:
you have allies in men also, I for one support your views and am aware what is going on around the world, it is as you say, way passed time to get religion out of politics and stay with the tenents of our constitution, or rather whats left of it...

+1 # angelfish 2011-12-30 11:58

Quoting John Locke:

Angelfish:
you have allies in men also, I for one support your views and am aware what is going on around the world, it is as you say, way passed time to get religion out of politics and stay with the tenents of our constitution, or rather whats left of it...

Thank you, John Locke, I know there are a great many men in this World who support women in ALL of their endeavors, sadly, it's the THUGS and their ilk who manage to cause all the damage and garner ALL the publicity. Innocent, helpless Woman of this World have few advocates, hopefully, this will soon change.

+16 # Regina 2011-12-29 14:32

What's next -- defining life as occurring the moment a couple heads for the bedroom? These ghouls are lethally stupid -- what they fulminate on the legislative floor is their abysmal ignorance of biology. Hell, who needs science when you can bleat religion?

+2 # Dion Giles 2011-12-29 21:14

Wonder when the freaks will get to banning people from passing strangers of the other sex on the street and not racing into a hotel for unprotected copulation? Surely an egg and a sperm prevented, no matter how, from meeting must be a potential new life that needs to be protected by law.

+22 # Ray Kondrasuk 2011-12-29 14:51

Forced ultrasounds?

Amusing.

"... forcing doctors to use “the most advanced ultrasound equipment available” to get the most “distinct” image of the fetus possible..."

The GOP pushes the latest high-tech readouts here, then disavows the same technology that so clearly shows global warming.

Hypocrisy, anyone?

+20 # Barbara K 2011-12-29 15:10

How is it that the government gets to decide what we do with our bodies? Our bodies belong to us, not to them. They just don't have the right to make decisions that are our decisions about our bodies. These lunatics are not Pro-life, they are Pro-Pregnancy. They just want to keep women pregnant. They don't give a crap about the children born. Won't let them have insurance or help them with the basics of life when they were born of parents who couldn't afford to give birth. It just not be something that the government should have any say in. Not their business.

NEVER VOTE REPUBLICAN !!

our future is at stake

+5 # John Locke 2011-12-29 17:26

Barbara, you forgot to mention that they want to force these births, but don't want to provide health care, or even a guarantee of education...it seems to me that this is more economic than anything, the more people and the fewer jobs the less they need to pay workers, it seems the republicans and democrats that have joined them really want to take us back to the dark ages...or at least pre 1900 with an arcaic economic viewpoint...pay enough to enable couples to reproduce the next generation of laborors...

+13 # BLBreck 2011-12-29 15:27

Small, less intrusive government, my uterus! I, of course, agree with others here on the blatant hypocrisy of the far right Republicans and religious maniacs. I'd like to see some bills introduced for laws on penises and testicles that limit funding for medical care and Viagra (which is covered by lots of insurance companies!) just to hear them howl about the "god given" right of their male superiority! How about some laws for castration if you get a woman pregnant against her will or for that "forcible rape" or if your method of birth control fails (which it does!)?

I'd like to see a bill for women's "personhood," introduced. because it is obvious (in more ways than this) that women are not considered full citizens with full rights to self-determinat ion or the pursuit of happiness and our own well-being.

Vote these cretins out in 2012!

+6 # wwway 2011-12-29 17:14

Republicans have been blatantly telling women how much they hate them for more than 40 years now. Not one piece of legislation has been proposed to hold men accountable. NOT ONE!
Wake up sisters. The only reason why advancements aren't permanent is because you aren't resolute, unified or diligent. Look, Anita Bryant was the spokesperson who campaigned against the Equal Rights Amendment and you girls fell for it. The ERA was never ratified so there's been a full out war against you.
Just listen to Rick Santorum's solution to poverty today. Promote Marriage.In 1999 GWBush's economics advisor, Lindsay, blamed single women for the houseing shortage. Come on folks, don't you hear the blatant assult on women from the Republican party?
People get the government they deserve.

+5 # CCB5er34 2011-12-29 18:08

This is outrageous and disgusting, and where are all the pro-choice people? They have for too long made the appeal in the mildest terms possible. This is a womans life and choice, and any womans life trumps a fetus. Too polite for too long and the other side got the momentum. They should get pictures of women laying on the bloody floor from illegal abortions and show them on posters! I call it the cult of the Fetus! It makes me sick!

+7 # Billy Bob 2011-12-29 21:58

Of course this is the same GOP that wants to "get government off our backs".

+4 # Robyn 2011-12-30 04:58

After reading this, it makes me wonder just what the hell is wrong with Republicans.

+9 # mwd870 2011-12-30 06:20

There has been a lot of talk lately about the Republican attack on women's rights. Morality, especially a one-sided version of morality, cannot and should not be legislated. A Christian taliban is a good description of what Republicans are trying to do. Personal decisions are the right of the individual. They are not going to win this one.

I can't think of one good reason for anyone to vote Republican in 2012.

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