tagged w/ Pro-Choice
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CNN...
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February 5th, 2012
05:33 PM ET
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Crossing the plains and kicking up dirt, a new Mormon pioneer
PART ONE…
By Jessica Ravitz, CNN
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San Diego (CNN) – At a 1950s-style house nestled in a peaceful neighborhood nicknamed “Hanukkah Hill,” a smiling Buddha on the porch greets visitors – his arms raised as if to say all are welcome.
Affixed to the doorpost is a mezuzah, a decorative case holding blessings for a Jewish home. Inside, on the family’s refrigerator, hangs a magnet from the Feminist Mormon Housewives blog that says, “Jesus loves us. Who cares what you think?”
In the kitchen stands Joanna Brooks, an accidental, unofficial and admittedly unauthorized source for all things Mormon. She’s making “funeral potatoes,” a classic Mormon casserole, and heaped on the counter are the ingredients: a not-so-healthy dose of cheese, butter, sour cream, hash browns and chicken soup. Her Jewish husband strolls by, takes a look at what’s cooking, and grimaces. Bespectacled and freckled 6-year-old Rosa, standing atop a chair, proudly announces, “I’m Jewish and Mormon!”
The home and life Brooks has created is the product of a complicated journey.
She cannot separate The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from her identity any more than she can leave cheese out of funeral potatoes. But like her persecuted ancestors who braved the unforgiving plains to reach the promised land of what is now Utah, Brooks, 40, fights for her faith.
The battle has, at times, left her feeling beaten.
As a young feminist activist, she saw her beloved church excommunicate her intellectual heroes. She’s felt outrage and soul-crushing grief while watching her church mobilize against same-sex marriages. For about 10 years, she walked away.
But today a vintage postcard of a Mormon missionary boarding a plane sits on her desk to inspire. It reads, in part, “Dare to be different.”
She believes there’s room in the LDS Church for loving criticism and candid talk, that Latter-day Saints like her can not just belong but also serve – without fear of being cast out into the wilderness.
She’s staking her claim to Mormonism, writing about it for Religion Dispatches, debunking myths in national papers, speaking up on podcasts, radio shows and from stages, and offering advice in her column and blog, Ask Mormon Girl. She recently self-published her memoir, “The Book of Mormon Girl: Stories from an American Faith” and writes regularly for Feminist Mormon Housewives. Politico has named her, or specifically her Twitter account, one of the “50 Politicos to Watch.” All this while being an award-winning scholar, a published poet and, oh yeah, a department chair and professor of English and comparative literature at San Diego State University.
[Click the audio player for a Q&A with Joanna Brooks from CNN Radio's John Lisk ]
Amid Mitt Romney’s presidential bid, the “I’m a Mormon” ad campaign and the smash-hit Broadway musical “Book of Mormon,” this Obama supporter has emerged as a refreshing voice for media, hungry for frank discussion about her faith.
Her goal? To be her authentic self and humanize a tradition and people she couldn't love more.
“I just refuse to be ashamed of being Mormon,” she says. “Don’t talk about us like we’re not in the room.”
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CONTINUED…
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February 5th, 2012
05:33 PM ET
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Crossing the plains and... more
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If you’ve been paying attention at all, you have become painfully and acutely aware that the Republican Party is no longer a political party, but a bona fide religious cult, whose members are now dictated to by a group of radical theocrats that probably have the Founding Fathers turning in their graves once every five seconds.
http://veracitystew.com/2011/10/15/gop-priority-1-control-of-your-uterus/If you’ve been paying attention at all, you have become painfully and acutely... more
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HB 358 would exempt any hospital that opposes abortion from performing emergency procedures, and would also abolish the requirement of arranging transport to another hospital, leaving women completely helpless and without care....In other words, left to die.
http://veracitystew.com/2011/10/13/gops-let-women-die-act-is-debated-in-congress/HB 358 would exempt any hospital that opposes abortion from performing emergency... more
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After failing to de-fund Planned Parenthood in February, now the GOP is leading a House probe to see if the organization has used public funds for abortion services.
The investigation is an abuse of government resources. Planned Parenthood is regularly audited by the Department of Health and Human Services, and has consistently been found to be in compliance with federal law. 97% of the health care provider's services are non-abortion related, and include things like screening for cancer and STD tests. House Democrats wrote a letter to the Republican leading the investigation calling it "unwarranted" and "designed to harass and shut down an organization simply because Republicans disagree with the work that it does."
The probe is part of a broader right-wing assault on health care and reproductive rights. Please sign the petition below to remind our Reps that Planned Parenthood makes health care more accessible, and that this probe is unnecessary and wasteful, especially when so many Americans need jobs.
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/oppose-republican-attack-on-planned-parenthood/After failing to de-fund Planned Parenthood in February, now the GOP is leading a... more
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Enter whack-job of the day, Janet Porter, who is hard at work making sure Ohio’s Heartbeat Bill passes the state legislature and becomes the most restrictive law against women’s rights on the books. The law would prohibit a woman from having an abortion once the heartbeat of a fetus can be detected, which can be as soon as 18 days after conception.
http://veracitystew.com/2011/09/28/janet-porters-heartbeat-bill-god-can-bless-us-now-video/Enter whack-job of the day, Janet Porter, who is hard at work making sure Ohio’s... more
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The last few debates for the GOP have produced some memorable moments and helped define the Republican base "personality." It seems pretty clear to most which way their hot air blows. But some independent voters might be a tad confused. Not to worry. I have created a video to help them listen "correctly" to their message.
http://veracitystew.com/2011/09/26/watch-the-gop-vagina-rules-video/The last few debates for the GOP have produced some memorable moments and helped... more
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Succinctly and without a pejorative connotation, a fiscal conservative doesn't support subsidizing the cost of living for people who do not make enough at their current job(s) or do not work.
But by supporting legislation that limits women's access to, or information on pregnancy options and opposing government payments to an insurance group that covers the medical procedure of abortion, more children are being forced into that demographic. Herein lies the fiscal obligation of a pro-life vote: demanding unwanted children into this world means you're fiscally responsible for aspects of raising those children.
Personal beliefs on a woman's right to choose, the moment that life starts and the fight for the unborn child are not being debated here. Fiscal conservatives voting pro life should take a long look at your family and religious values vs. fiscal beliefs and ask if they are at odds with each other. Evaluate the long term costs of raising a child to maturity: financial, societal and emotional. Part of poverty is a societal cycle of children requiring the community to raise them.
Truly pro life is truly concerned with the life of the child. Accepting responsibility from child to functional adult, the first 18-25 years, is easily done by supporting appropriate socialist programs and public education legislation.
When fiscal conservatives take pro-life votes they demand that children be born to financially and/or emotionally unprepared parents. Conservatives then should also advocate for more social workers, school employees and an increase in government spending. The repercussions of this conservative social belief should lead to a long-term fiscal commitment.Succinctly and without a pejorative connotation, a fiscal conservative doesn't... more
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At the Stand Up for Women's Health Rally today in Washington, DC, Planned Parenthood will join with Senate and House leaders, celebrities, and activists and allies from all over the country to tell Congress that women's health is non-negotiable.
You don't have to be there in person to be a part of this movement — add your message of support now and it will be displayed online and at the rally.
ADD YOUR MESSAGE: http://www.rallyforwomenshealth.com/?rc=rally4healthppole1
The legislative assault on Planned Parenthood over the past two months has been worse than anything I've ever seen. Anti-choice lawmakers are dangerously close to cutting off millions of women from birth control, cancer screening, HIV testing, and other lifesaving care.
It's been a long, grueling fight to protect women's health, now let's show legislators, the media, and the whole nation how determined we are to protect Planned Parenthood and the women, men, and teens who rely on us. Make a statement — we'll make sure Congress gets the message.At the Stand Up for Women's Health Rally today in Washington, DC, Planned... more
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Got raped? THE GOP WANTS TO RAPE YOU AGAIN. Sign NARAL petition & tell Boehner No Rape Audit http://bit.ly/gV4XBz
"H.R.3 – the bill that is moving at lightning speed through Congress – could subject survivors of rape and incest who choose abortion care to audits by the Internal Revenue Service. If passed, women could be forced to describe the horrifying experience of being sexually assaulted to an IRS agent.
Anti-choice politicians in Congress are working furiously to make it as difficult as possible for any woman – under any circumstance – to access abortion care.
On top of abortion audits for sexual-assault survivors, H.R.3 would essentially end insurance coverage of abortion in the new health system. That means if your private insurance covers abortion now, you could lose it.
Tell Speaker Boehner that the War on Women must end."
https://secure.prochoiceamerica.org/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=4737Got raped? THE GOP WANTS TO RAPE YOU AGAIN. Sign NARAL petition & tell Boehner No... more
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The Republican attack on Planned Parenthood, in the form of the House zeroing out funding for the organization in the continuing resolution on the federal budget, seemingly came out of nowhere. For decades, the kinds of services provided with federal dollars by Planned Parenthood—-contraception, STD testing and treatment, cancer screening—-had been assumed non-controversial by the Beltway media. The reproductive rights debate was framed mainly as a fight over bodily autonomy versus fetal life, between secular humanists and religious folks who believed fertilized eggs had souls.
So why then an attack funding STD treatment and contraception? Why, all of a sudden, do you have politicians like Rep. Steve King railing against Planned Parenthood not because of fetal life—-after all, depriving women of contraception access will likely increase the abortion rate—-but because Planned Parenthood is “invested in promiscuity”? Why do you have a conservative figurehead like Sean Hannity arguing not that abortion is wrong because it’s taking a life, but because teenage girls shouldn’t be making out in the back seats of cars in the first place? Why is Gov. Scott Walker not only attacking collective bargaining rights in the state of Wisconsin, but trying to eliminate contraception coverage (but not erectile dysfunction medication) on the grounds of “morality”?
The dusty old argument that female sexuality is a subversive force that needs to be strictly controlled isn’t as dead as we thought. The mainstream conservative movement is bringing it out of hibernation, and this time with a twist: now they’re arguing that women need to have their rights taken from them for their own good.
In the decades prior to Griswold v. Connecticutand Roe v. Wade—the Supreme Court decisions that legalized contraception and abortion, respectively—the arguments for restrictions on women’s reproductive rights barely needed explanation. Millennia of male dominance, from the mythology of Eve to the The Seven Year Itch, held that female sexuality so threatened the bonds of society that controlling it took precedence over allowing women rights. But after these groundbreaking Supreme Court decisions established women’s right to privacy, opponents of reproductive rights were forced to switch gears.
Enter the fetus. Striking a pose of concern for “fetal rights” allowed the anti-choice movement to attack at least one tool women use to claim ownership over their own sexuality, and sadly, anti-choicers made dramatic inroads against abortion rights hiding behind the fetus. But claims about fetal life don’t produce a clear path to arguing against access to contraception and medical care for STDs. Not that conservatives haven’t tried. The fringe of the anti-choice movement has attacked (at times, with mild success) contraception access with claims that hormonal contraception is a form of abortion, but this kind of argument is stalled because of the scientific and common sense evidence against it.
Returning to arguments that paint female sexuality as a corrosive force that must be controlled by restricting women’s rights has been a steady desire in the anti-choice movement. But how, when the public sees the sadism in that argument for what it is? The answer that conservatives have happened upon is to argue that women need to be denied their rights for their own good.
For years now, arguing against women’s rights for women’s supposed wellbeing has been worked with surprising success on the already contentious field of abortion. Arguments that women are victims of their own freedom have been successfully wielded to restrict women’s access to abortion. In various states, legislators have passed mandatory waiting periods and ultrasound laws by arguing that they need to protect women from their own rash decisions. Even the Supreme Court engaged with the paternalistic argument, banning a certain later-term abortion procedure because, as Justice Kennedy explained in the majority decision, women might later regret the decision.
After years of using paternalism against abortion rights, Republicans have taken twinning the majority in the House as the signal to expand the “restrict women’s rights for their own good” arguments to contraception. The initial target is Planned Parenthood, but it will likely not be the last.
Fringe anti-choicers have been trying out arguments that contraception is bad for women for years now in their own circles. The gist of it is that the widespread availability of contraception has lured naïve women into thinking they can have sex whenever they want, and the result has been nothing but misery for women: serial abortions, abandonment by men, depression and loneliness. Men, the argument goes, are no longer forced into marriage with women who withhold sex or get pregnant to trap men. And apparently women need begrudgingly formed marriages to be happy.
In support of defunding Planned Parenthood, you’re seeing this “contraception begets sex begets misery for women” argument repeated in far more mainstream channels than you would have even a few months ago. National Review editor Kathryn Lopez attacked Planned Parenthood on the grounds that access to contraception had killed romance and laid waste to women’s chances at marriage. (How she explains the profits of the wedding industry in an era when people have supposedly stopped marrying is beyond me.)
Ross Douthat took Lopez’s argument and gussied it up with tortured statistics, while making essentially the same argument in the New York Times. Male commitment is the necessary ingredient for female happiness, he argued, and Planned Parenthood inhibits women from this goal by allowing sexually active single women the same access as the monogamous. Women should want to lose their access to affordable contraception, he insinuated, as it would turn them from cat-owning spinsters into girlfriends and maybe even wives.
Most disturbingly, the supposed feminist Democrat of Fox News, Kirsten Powers, argued in the Daily Beast that contraception doesn’t even prevent abortion. Her unique twist on the argument that women’s rights hurt women was not that rights deprive women of husbands so much as depriving them of babies, by tricking them into not reproducing. The basic argument is the same: women are too stupid to know what they want, and so the government will have to take away contraception for their own good.
Even if Planned Parenthood survives this attempt to strip it of its federal subsidies, the anti-choice movement has gained a significant amount of rhetorical ground in the past few months. Arguments that women can’t be trusted with contraception were resigned to fringe blogs decorated with fetal guts in the past, but now the very same radical anti-sex arguments are being bandied around in the Daily Beast and the New York Times. The mainstream assumption that contraception isn’t controversial has been challenged. Next time contraception access gets threatened—-likely when the HHS tries to make birth control mandatory coverage under health care reform—-these arguments will be trotted out. Next time, they won’t seem quite as radical.
Source: http://www.alternet.org/rights/150168/female_sexuality_still_terrifying_to_conservative_lawmakersThe Republican attack on Planned Parenthood, in the form of the House zeroing out... more
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In a move critics have attacked as a "circus" for the media, a nine-week-old fetus is set to "testify" in favor of a bill in Ohio that would outlaw abortions as soon as doctors can detect the first heatbeat.
Janet (Folger) Porter, President of Faith2Action, claimed that the fetus will be the "youngest ever to testify."
"For the first time in a committee hearing, legislators will be able to see and hear the beating heart of a baby in the womb -- just like the ones the Heartbeat Bill will protect," she said in a statement.
"When passed, the Heartbeat Bill will insure that once that heartbeat is detected, the baby is protected," Porter added.
The fetus will presented to the committee live via an ultrasound from the expectant mother.
Supporters of abortion rights indicated they were concerned about the idea.
"I think it's a stunt that trivializes women's health," Kellie Copeland, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Ohio, told The Cleveland Plain Dealer.
"It's obvious this committee is a lot more interested in making headlines than in giving women better access to health care or doing something to bring jobs to this state or trying to fix the state's budget mess."
"Instead, what Ohioans are getting is an absolute circus in the House health committee," she added.
Republicans appeared to have enough votes to pass the bill, The Plain Dealer noted.
If enacted, it would be the most restrictive abortion law in the country.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/03/02/in-pro-life-circus-fetus-called-to-testify-before-ohio-lawmakers/In a move critics have attacked as a "circus" for the media, a nine-week-old... more
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South Dakota's proposed "justified homicide bill" has been withdrawn for the time being, but don't be surprised if it returns like cow flop on a South Dakota rancher's boots.South Dakota's proposed "justified homicide bill" has been withdrawn... more
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We see a woman clad in "Mad Men"-era finery, slowly walking from the camera down a long hallway. A voice familiar to fans of "House" narrates. "Only decades ago, women suffered through horrifying back alley abortions, or they used dangerous methods when they had no other recourse. So when the Republican Party launched an all-out assault on women's health, pushing bills to limit women's access to vital services, we had to ask," she continues, as the image cuts between the woman opening a closet containing a single wire hanger and the distressed face of actress Lisa Edelstein: "Why is the GOP trying to send women back to the back alley?"
It's a powerful spot from MoveOn, one that couldn't be more timely, what with the GOP's recent tactics to rebrand rape so only women who've really been raped-raped would have access to abortion, or make it OK to kill abortion doctors. But what makes it all the more intriguing is the presence of a popular television actress, one who in fact plays a doctor. While celebrity culture doesn't lack for political points of view -- that's what the godless, liberal-controlled media that Glenn Beck is trying to save you from is all about, folks -- abortion is still such a wildly divisive, taboo topic that television and its actors generally bust out the 10-foot poles when it's broached. It's one thing for Hollywood to be riddled with joyous baby bumps -- isn't it great about Natalie Portman/Kate Hudson/Jane Krakowski! -- it's another to come forward in such a public way to support safe and legal choice. There are occasional exceptions, like Jack Black, Ed Harris and Amy Madigan's pro-choice spot for Barack Obama three years ago. But Edelstein's is not some cheerful get out the vote message. It's a stark and harrowing reminder that restricting access to abortion does not make abortion go away. It only pushes women to desperate, unsafe options that jeopardize their health and their lives. So why are so few actors and actresses willing to come forward and say the same? Sticking up for women's health, as Edelstein has, should not, in 2011, still be a controversial move.
But as if to illustrate the utter cluelessness that we are dealing with regarding abortion, noted lesbian-haired healthcare expert Justin Bieber told Rolling Stone this week that "I really don't believe in abortion. It's like killing a baby?" He went on to explain that even in cases of rape, "Um. Well, I think that's really sad, but everything happens for a reason. I guess I haven't been in that position, so I wouldn't be able to judge that." Maybe everything happens for a reason when you're a 16-year-old millionaire without a uterus, but it's a little more complicated when you're, say, a pregnant 13-year-old rape victim.
There's probably not a whole lot of intersection between Bieber's Wikipedia hacking minions and those abortion-loving fans of Fox medical procedurals. Neither is terribly likely to be swayed by the opinions of the other. But Edelstein's pointed, chilling MoveOn clip, which is reportedly going to start airing soon on various cable networks, is a bold step toward bringing an issue too long considered too hot, too much of a downer, right where it belongs. Into the living rooms of American families.
http://www.salon.com/entertainment/feature/2011/02/16/lisa_edelstein_justin_bieber_abortion/index.htmlWe see a woman clad in "Mad Men"-era finery, slowly walking from the camera... more
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As members of Congress roll out a host of anti-abortion legislation, African Americans on both sides of the debate say it's time to look beyond the old concepts of pro-choice and pro-life.
Looking Beyond Life and Choice
Pro-lifers are hoping that African Americans will take up their side of the battle. According to a 2009 Pew Research Center survey (pdf), 40 percent of African Americans believe that abortion should be illegal in all or most cases. From former Republican Sen. Rick Santorum expressing amazement in January that a black man (President Barack Obama) could ever be pro-choice, to billboard campaigns that liken abortion to black genocide, African Americans are now positioned at the center of the rekindled debate.
"What baffles me is how many political progressives will look at every institution in America and say there's racism in it, but somehow when it comes to the abortion industry, racism doesn't exist," Bomberger told The Root, "even though the entire history is predicated on the horrific pseudoscience that believes only certain people are fit to live."
Bomberger is further frustrated by the pro-life movement being portrayed as consisting entirely of the white religious right. "The annual March for Life in D.C. is the most multiracial coalition that I have ever seen, with hundreds of thousands of Hispanic, black, white and Asian people. Of course, it's also the most ignored," he said. "The whole argument that white conservative people don't care about black people is so tired. What is worse: white conservative people who want to save black lives, or white liberal people who want to fund the killing of black lives?"
African Americans on the other side of the debate, meanwhile, remain unconvinced that, for example, conservative members of Congress pushing to restrict abortion have black interests in mind. "They say they're concerned about the black race but then don't support black children once they're here," says Loretta Ross, national coordinator of SisterSong, an Atlanta-based reproductive-justice group for women of color, who argues that the same conservative lawmakers ignore economic and educational inequalities.
"In our own collective history, black women know what it feels like when someone else controls our bodies and makes decisions for us," Ross continued in an interview with The Root. "We're fighting fiercely for our rights to be seen as adult human beings capable of making decisions for ourselves about these things. We know what happens when you become breeders for somebody else's cause. Even as strong as our religious feelings are, we don't play that."
Gaining Steam on Capitol Hill
Regardless of the debate among African Americans, members of Congress -- and not just Republicans -- are forging ahead with efforts to restrict funding and access for abortion. Ten House Democrats are among the 173 co-sponsors of the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act, striking a blow to the claim that abortion bills have no chance of passing the Democratic-held Senate.
http://www.theroot.com/views/beyond-same-old-abortion-debate?page=0,0As members of Congress roll out a host of anti-abortion legislation, African Americans... more
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bambuu
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12 months ago
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To paraphrase the eminently quotable Barney Frank: the Republicans want smaller government -- small enough to fit into your uterus.
When the Republicans gained a majority with a 48-seat margin in the House of Representatives, they did so with the promise that they were planning to shrink the size of government, to reduce federal spending and to repeal health care.
Good job, so far, Republicans.
You've managed to do none of that.To paraphrase the eminently quotable Barney Frank: the Republicans want smaller... more
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I have been thinking about this quite a lot. We all know that I am a women’s right’s loving liberal and I seed a lot about reproductive justice. We see some very vocal views on the vine on this issue. We also see a lot of talk about American exceptionalism. So tell me this, if you had the choice between abolishing abortion and abolishing war which one would you choose? You can’t choose both. It is one or the other. Abortion, gone for ever OR war, gone for ever. Please explain your choices.
Abolish means make illegal and prosecuted to the full forces of the law.I have been thinking about this quite a lot. We all know that I am a women’s... more
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