Republican policy in action

[Grim Reaper]

Governor Walker of Wisconsin has recently signed a series of laws into action. One dealing with equal pay law and another couple dealing with abortion and sex education.

First one up (equal pay law) makes it more difficult for victims of discrimination to sue their employers. It also erases punitive damages when they do get to sue.

Second up, removes most coverage for abortion through the health care exchanges created by the federal health care reform law. Women who can still get an abortion have to undergo a physical exam and consult with the doctor alone.

Finally, a new sex education bill that requires schools to promote abstinence as the only sure way to prevent pregnancy and STDs. It also allows teachers to completely ignore mentioning contraceptives.

So there's the real Republican plan in action. Make it harder for minorities to get paid equally. Make it harder for women to get abortions. And make sure the schools produce uneducated youths who are more likely to become pregnant.

[Gob]

Do your states have a race on, the winner being the first to get to third world country status?

[dales]

As a matter of fact, Gob

[rubato]

"...

Finally, a new sex education bill that requires schools to promote abstinence as the only sure way to prevent pregnancy and STDs. It also allows teachers to completely ignore mentioning contraceptives.

So there's the real Republican plan in action. Make it harder for minorities to get paid equally. Make it harder for women to get abortions. And make sure the schools produce uneducated youths who are more likely to become pregnant.

It's one thing to promote abstinence-only when it is merely the foolish idea of someone with no insight into effective social policy; it is another altogether to continue to promote it after it has been proven not to reduce teen pregnancy.

The latter is solely the province of the scientific illiterate.

yrs,
rubato

[Grim Reaper]

Arizona's decided to get back in the news, a new bill up for vote would define the life of a fetus as beginning up to two weeks before conception. This bill has already passed the Senate, and is expected to pass when the House votes on it.

[Gob]

Fuck me, do we have to save our used tissues now?

[Grim Reaper]

The bill is trying to match up with how OB/GYNs measure pregnancies, but making it a law is just silly.

The main purpose of the bill is to restrict most abortions to 20 weeks instead of the current restriction that allows abortions nearly to birth.

It would also prevent families from suing doctors for malpractice for lying about the health of their potential child.

[dgs49]

Remember Roe v. Wade? That decision that Liberals are so horrified will be overturned by mean republicans as part of their "War Against Women"?

RvW basically said (if you read through the many pages of bullshit) that there was a right to get an abortion during the first trimester, the state could regulate abortions during the second trimester, and after the end of the second trimester (i.e. the time of viability), forget about it.

Anyone care to go back there?

One might also point out that prior to RvW, the issue was left up to the states, so that technically, if it were overturned, that would again be the case.

Horrifying, isn't it?

[rubato]

The bill is trying to match up with how OB/GYNs measure pregnancies, but making it a law is just silly.

The main purpose of the bill is to restrict most abortions to 20 weeks instead of the current restriction that allows abortions nearly to birth.
... "

Current law makes almost all abortions illegal after the end of the 2nd trimester.

yrs,
rubato

[Grim Reaper]

And now Tennessee has made it even more difficult for teachers to discuss anything outside of abstinence-only education.

[rubato]

The volume of idiocy which is the product of the conservative mind is completely astonishing, like watching an elephant have a really thorough evacuation.*

WOW!

Requiring that the one method which is known by empirical tests run over more than a decade to be the LEAST effective in reducing teen pregnancy is the only method used.

yrs,
rubato

*As a young rubato in grade school some benefactor paid to have an elephant come and give us rides around the playing fields. After this, the elephant Mahout (or whatever you call him) lectured us briefly concerning features of the elephants biology and physiology while the elephant very impressively demonstrated still others. I think he was saying something, the visuals drowned everything else out of memory. The largest and steamingest pile I've ever seen and the only one deserving of comparison to ab-only education.

[BoSoxGal]

I think that this recent ramped up insanity over contraception and abortion is a knee jerk reaction of racists to the changing demographics of this country.

[Lord Jim]

It seems to me that a racist, (at least a white racist) with that concern would be a big proponent of contraception and abortion, since minority groups in the US have higher birth rates than whites....

Presumably if they were more readily available, these higher birth rates would decline...

[BoSoxGal]

Reducing access to contraception and abortion will significantly curtail the trend of white middle class women engaging in higher education and the professions, to the detriment of reproduction.

Look at the reproductive rates among white Americans v. other ethnic groups.

That's the theory.

[Lord Jim]

Look at the reproductive rates among white Americans v. other ethnic groups.

I already did.

Which is why I said this:

minority groups in the US have higher birth rates than whites....

It seems logical to me that if you make contraception and/or abortion (or anything for that matter) more expensive or more difficult to obtain, that those towards the higher socio-economic and educational end of the spectrum, ( like "white middle class women engaging in higher education and the professions") are more likely to have the resources and knowledge to still be able to obtain it than those at the lower end of those criteria.

Because of this, it seems to me that by making access to these services more difficult, you would wind up with a higher percentage of minority births, which would be the opposite of what a white racist would want.

(Of course I suppose it's also possible that the average racist might not have thought it out that thoroughly.)

[BoSoxGal]

Yes; and, based on my own albeit highly anecdotal experience of 15 years working with impoverished minority populations, even when the Pill can be obtained readily for free and abortion reasonably available and often financed by private charity funds available through most clinics providing them, these resources still aren't utilized.

I think that most of the right wing nutjobs behind these policy proposals recognize that there isn't much to be done about the birth rate among undesirables, but that to maintain any semblance of the 'white culture' they believe to be fundamental to the country's success, they must address the declining birth rate amongst Caucasians.

[Grim Reaper]

Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

I'd say it's more a refusal to admit a mistake than racism.

[BoSoxGal]

Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

I'd say it's more a refusal to admit a mistake than racism.

Care to elaborate?

[Scooter]

I'd say it's the result of a mindset that says that women who have sex outside of marriage are sluts who should not have the ability to avoid the consequences of their wanton behaviour.

[Lord Jim]

I'm inclined to agree with Scooter.