As the mother of a teenager daughter I’m always keeping my eye on family planning issues, so Colorado’s Amendment 62 caught my attention.
Personhood Colorado’s website acknowledges that Amendment 62 would ban all abortions, without exceptions for rape, incest or to save a mother’s life. It also would ban stem cell research and birth control other than “barrier methods.”
“It reaches into birth control, it reaches into fertility treatments,” Richards said. “The legal turmoil this could create is so immense. I think that’s just the purpose of this amendment . . . to go far beyond choice; it’s to take away women’s right to family planning.”
Remember the days when Republicans said they were against abortion, except in cases of rape, incest or to save the life of the mother? Good times. Now they are perfectly okay telling a woman who was raped that she has to have her rapist’s baby. They’re fine with telling a woman she has to have her uncle’s, brother’s or father’s baby. And they have no hesitation telling a woman that she has to die to have a baby.
Here’s the thing. I don’t believe for a second that these “pro-lifers” care about the baby. It’s not as if they give a damn once the baby is born. They don’t seem the least bit upset over the number of children living in poverty. They scream about school taxes, welfare moms, and anchor babies.
No… there cause has nothing to do with the sanctity of human life, and everything to do with controlling women. Don’t believe me? Then ask yourself this: If it takes two people to create a pregnancy why is the man missing in Amendment 62 – and every other “pro-life” platform?
Basically, these conservatives seem to think that it’s the woman’s responsibility to keep a man’s sexual urges in line. Bluntly put (and we’ve all heard this) she needs to keep her legs shut. If she ends up with an unwanted pregnancy, well… that’s her fault. After all, boys will be boys. And if she has to die bringing this child in the world… that’s the price she’ll have to pay for being a slut.
And that’s really what this boils down to. Madonna vs whore. In these “pro-lifers'” minds a saintly woman would die before aborting her child; She’d bear the cross of having her rapist’s or father’s baby. A saintly women would suffer, or even die, in silence.
A whore is a women seeking to get away with murder, or, more truthfully, getting away with having and enjoying sex.
The scary thing about this extreme position is that it’s gaining ground among Republicans.
Dianne Edmondson of the Republican National Coalition (RNC) for Life told The Huffington Post that there are absolutely more candidates this election cycle opposing abortion without exceptions. Each election cycle, her political action committee, founded by Phyllis Schlafly, submits questionnaires to GOP House candidates about their positions on choice issues and then endorses candidates who advocate a strict no-abortion platform. “I know that we have many more candidates responding to us this year than we did in the last election cycle — probably about three times as many — and I’d say at least half of them do meet that criteria,” she said. “The rest are pro-life to one extent or another.”
RNC for Life has endorsed 63 House candidates who are “pro-life without discrimination” and heading into the general election. Edmondson pointed to Bill Flores (TX-17), Stephen Broden (TX-30), Rocky Raczkowski (MI-9) and Sandy Adams (FL-24) as especially exciting candidates to watch. Incumbents endorsed by RNC for Life include Michele Bachmann (MN-6), Jean Schmidt (OH-2) and Duncan Hunter (CA-52).
The candidates getting the most attention, however, are on the Senate side: Sharron Angle (Nev.), Ken Buck (Colo.), Roy Blunt (Mo.), Joe Miller (Alaska), Christine O’Donnell (Del.) and Rand Paul (Ky.). All of them oppose abortion even in cases of rape and incest.
Even several high-profile gubernatorial candidates such as Carl Paladino (N.Y.), Bill Brady (Ill.) and Nathan Deal (Ga.) hold these views.
63 House candidates who are pro-life without discrimination? 63 three candidate who are perfectly okay with forcing a woman to have a baby resulting from rape and incest… and in some cases, forcing her to have a baby even if she dies. That’s a really big number.
As the mother of a teenage daughter (who just got her first boyfriend and turned her father’s hair gray overnight!) this is unthinkable. My daughter’s life matters in its own right, and it frightens me to think that she could be forced to have a child – even forced to die.
Still on the fence about voting for less than perfect, pro-choice Democrats? Shame on you.