veronica_rich | More anti-woman batshit fuckery

More anti-woman batshit fuckery

I have a friend who tries very hard to get me to be reasonable about the GOP, who means well and tries to convince me that people are not their parties and that being a particular party member does not indicate what kind of person one is. She may be right - after all, there are Democrats who agree with the measure the GOP initially proposed to redefine what it means to be raped in this country - but considering I see more Republicans behind bullshit such as this, I really have a difficult time remaining objective.

(Incidentally, I wrote to my Congressman about H.R. 3, explaining that "forcible rape" has always been tough to define under law - that's why it hasn't been thus far - and that rape victims already have a hard time proving their allegations even with visible bruises and injuries sometimes. I got a canned reply that was politely phrased but might as well have said "I don't care. Eat shit and die, woman.")

Their newest shiny anti-woman proposal (phrasing courtesy of Daily Kos, I can't take credit - it's also called it the "Let Women Die Bill," which admittedly has more zing) is H.R. 358, a measure pushing to make it legal for doctors to let pregnant women die rather than administering an abortion or referring them to a doctor who has no moral objections to performing one. Frankly, I don't know many physicians who would refuse to perform an abortion to save a dying woman - it's just part of their oath and their mindset to NOT let the more viable patient die - but all it would take is one.

I am getting really tired of living in a nation ruled by mythology (not to mention romanticism and unrealistic expectations of parenthood and gender roles). We're no better than ancient people who cowered every time lightning struck, that they had angered Zeus or offended Thor in some manner.

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I don't have much comment except I'm fucking sickened. And actually surprised, even if I shouldn't be. :/

I'm just tired as a woman of having to worry about this idiocy on a regular basis. Believe me, I'm not charged fewer taxes for being female or given a free ride on breaking any other laws because I'm a woman.

Most of the internet media I sift through for fun is American. What can I say, you guys are noisy!

And fascinating.

I can only say I'm stunned and mortified by this. Sometimes I wonder if Australia is bad, given certain situations but when I do my homework... no, we're not. We're a giant twenty million strong family of truly modern proportions, you don't have to be related to us for us to fight with you over a beer about slight nuances of opinion or drag your ass out of a burning fire and give you a beer and a blanky and a hug, mostly so six months down the track when we're all good again we can argue with each other another day.

Rape and abortion aren't talked about in the media here all that often because the law is simple: you were raped if you said no, at any point, and were forced against your will and it has impacted negatively on your life. If you want an abortion it must be proved that a termination is in the best interests of the mother, emotional, physical, whatever, if she says she can't have a child then its not in her best interest to continue with the pregnancy and a termination is up to her discretion - to an extent. After 18 weeks I believe that the fetus is recognised as 'human pending birth' as in, whatever happens to it, it is protected by the law and recognised to exist. A case not so long ago involved a pregnant woman in a car accident who lost her 25 week pregnancy and the driver responsible for the crash was charged with manslaughter for the fetus's death. All this was decided politely and quietly a long time ago by our pollies and when we see a big stink in America we get a few pro-life/pro-choice mumblings but that's about it, so when I read this, I'm mortified. Australia's population is exceeded by LA's, how many women will this affect? Its ridiculously unfair that you have such loud shiny ways to send great messages and then once the curtain comes down "no abortion for you, murderer, Jesus rules or we hate you and P.S. - WE will decide if you were raped, not you."

Don't be quiet about it. I'm ruthless when I want answers and happily ruin the lunch/day/career of people not listening to me when I find them in the wrong. This is wrong. Its not just women vs. the power of the world, its anyone who needs to make a tough choice or going through a horrific time when their choices were taken needing protection, and no one should have to wait until that day. Isn't the motto legal, safe and rare? The law should be saying that to the people who's lives it guards.

Shame on you, politians, open your eyes. Everyone is different. Stop putting lumps of people in little boxes and making laws to keep them out, people are people, their very personal lives are none of your damn business, just serve and protect them no matter who they make themselves, man or woman, children and adults, each individual should have the same rights and choices. Drop all this same sex discrimination and support the PEOPLE. Stop taking choices from women about their future and their bodies. And for f**k's sake, don't you DARE tell ANYONE who has been abused, attacked or had their choices stolen from them what YOU think their situation should be classed as. If you're not out there preventing the problems then shut the f**k up and let us decide for ourselves how to deal with them when WE are the victims and make DAMN SURE resources are available. Yeah, it costs money, so like I said... abortion should be legal safe and rare, rape should be rare, illegal and unforgivable and marriage should be a choice between two people how they live their lives if they're going to do it together.

And seriously, religion should be the most silent part of the argument, below lifestyle. If you're religious, bloody good on you, we all need a hobby so, in you're own time mate, but bring it anywhere near the law and you'll have the damn book you're waving about crammed up your ass.

At this rate, you can call it rape and try to abort it back out but no bastard is going to be allowed to help you.

Oh yeah, we know, its wrong. Problem? FIX IT THEN.

Sigh. Politicians should have to face a tribunal every five years and justify their right to exist, votes or no - its not a popularity contest, its a job.

They face one more often than that. It's called a vote. And unfortunately, it IS a popularity contest. And making people afraid of the other side gets you votes.

The religious right has republicans in their pocket because politics isn't about doing what's right; it's about surviving, and the Christian right vote helps them survive.

PRECISELY

I can't say much to this except I think the ancient Chinese used to stand their politicians up against a wall after 12 years in office and kill them, supposedly because it takes about that amount of time for even a good person to start to be corrupted by the power of the office. It's not a bad idea, if I didn't have a problem with casual murder. Damn personal ethics.

Hey, the Greeks came up with the Hippocratic oath. Cut them some slack, wouldja? :P

True, but I'm sure it was the imperialistic thieving Romans who came closer to trying to make it all a religious format. ;-) (Actually, I don't know how badly people were punished for not believing mythology or laws that came from it back then.)

Well, you're preaching to THIS choir. I am in a perpetual state of nausea these days as I cannot escape the tributes to Ronald Reagan. And if this is the ultimate evidence of why I abhor the Republican party I don't know what is. Fortunately, Salon is running nearly daily articles refuting the whitewashing of Reagan's terms as governor and president. He wasn't an evil man so much as a stupid man. And I mean someone with the I.Q. of a brick. But like George Bush, he was the puppet of some very smart men. Now he is the torch bearer for all that is Republican these days. A man who closed the mental hospitals here in California, ignored AIDS, supported Ollie North's machinations in Central America, I could go on but I won't.

I think that the Republicans are being foolish politically. They are pandering to the super rightwing of their party in response to Obama shifting to the center. They are alienating their centrist base with these proposals. Hey, you know what? Most people are finding out that they like not getting bumped from their medical plans for pre-existing conditions. Most people like being able to keep their kids on their medical plans. Small businesses find that because of the tax break they can offer their employees medical insurance. Which means they keep people and have happier employees. WAKE UP, ASSHOLES!

Ah, Ollie North. I first realized that conservative America had gone off the rails when North was invited to speak at a major Baptist church and hailed as a "Hero" -- when what he was considered a hero for was standing up to the "Libruls" in Congress (boo hiss Congressional Democrats we hates them) and bald-faced lying. Sure he got in trouble for that but he was lying for the greater (political) good.
Hearing about that, I couldn't help but think that the Scriptures the church so reveres lists "all liars" as being among the eternally condemned. [churchlady] Isn't that special? [/]
Voted for Reagan in 84 as it was in my own self-interest (was in the Army at the time) but haven't been on good terms with the GOP since.

What is so fascinating (and horrifying) is that they truly believe their own press. I mean, here you have someone who in most people's eyes is a criminal, and yet he runs for the Senate with the expectation that he will win. I understand he was shocked when he lost. It's like Henry Kissinger being unable to travel to certain countries because he is considered a WAR CRIMINAL. It's this sense that the rules don't apply to them. That Dick Cheney can play fast and loose with the Constitution because it doesn't apply to the President. I wonder how he feels now that he's not pulling the strings of the presidencey. Is he so cavalier about the abuse from the Oval Office now that he doesn't have a puppet in there? Inquiring minds want to know.

"I think that the Republicans are being foolish politically. They are pandering to the super rightwing of their party in response to Obama shifting to the center. They are alienating their centrist base with these proposals.

- Ohhh yes, the RINO (Republican In Name Only) concept. Since when did the Republican Party become a bleepin' country club? Oh yes, Ms. Palin. She was the one who popularized that, wasn't she? *is disgusted*

Reagan himself was pretty well brain-damaged by the time he was in office, what with the Alzheimer's setting in. His advisors did a great deal of the damage (notice how a Bush and a Rumsfeld and Cheney has been behind most of our nation's bad decisions for the last 40 years?), though, in his name. Did you see where Reagan's son was pointing out that Palin, who was praising Ronnie-baby to the heavens, has little in common with his father fiscally or otherwise? It was pretty entertaining. It's like Worse and Worser, and the GOP has no sane choices.

Long post that LJ just ate up. Sigh. Anyway, you know you're preaching to the choir. I will say that I think that they are committing political suicide because Obama is moving even more firmly to the center. As the rightwing end of the Republican party controls the agenda, they are only pushing the moderate voter into the Democratic camp. They foolishing think that their sweep in November was related to people's dislike of the Democratic agenda. It was not. It was related to jobs.

A stupid, scary, heartless, and stridently misogynistic world is implied in these measures. It makes me think that one day Margaret Atwood's "A Handmaiden's Tale" will read like historical fiction.

It's never gotten quite that bad, but it annoys me that our country's lawmaking system is constantly flirting with such blatant misogyny and general hate of anything different. This shouldn't even be up for discussion, IMO.

Yeah, I just reposted a very well-written screed from

xinef's account, with the intro slightly edited, in my own LJ. (It's apparently originally from

suricattus.)

It says pretty much everything I'd say, only better, so I'm letting it speak for me.

I did get around to reading that; in fact, it was linked to more than a couple of times by people on my f-list. As I told someone above, I'm just sick of our law system even considering these kinds of measures. I'm tired as a woman of having to CONSTANTLY FUCKING WORRY that my rights are being abridged, when men don't have to curry unreasonable worry about their reproductive rights.

If Republicans can call the Health Care Reform bill "Job Killing" in the repeal measure title, they can officially call the new proposal the "Let Women Die Bill" -- probably more honest than that "job-klling" bit.

Not only more honest, but frankly, we have too many women in this country who would go along with it in betrayal of their fellow sisters.

I don't know if it's active "betrayal" so much as the self-centered or naive notion that they will never have to face such a difficult choice, so therefore no one else needs it either. Daughter raped? Couldn't happen. Second-trimester going so wrong that unless the fetus is extracted it could kill the mother? Myth -- (right?)
Not being a woman, I don't know for sure, but it's hard to believe that this degree of cruelty is so common.

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