Evening y’all, today’s Evening Reads will focus on the anti-woman news of the day…since the religious right, fetus fanatics have scored a win today in Indiana. This pie chart image from Shorpy.com illustrates the PLUB mentality perfectly…they are idiots and morons. You may have already seen the news that a Judge in Indiana has rejected Planned Parenthood’s request for a restraining order to halt the new law that Daniels signed yesterday. Judge rejects restraining order against Indiana abortion law – CNN.com
A controversial new Indiana law limiting access to abortion services remains in effect after a federal judge Wednesday denied a request for a restraining order from Planned Parenthood. The brief ruling from Judge Tanya Walton Pratt in Indianapolis means the law signed hours earlier by Gov. Mitch Daniels, a potential 2012 Republican presidential candidate, can continue to be enforced. The bill cuts off all government Medicaid funding to Planned Parenthood and other private abortion providers in the state. It also bans abortions after the 20th week of pregnancy, with exceptions for the life or health of the mother. […] Pratt, who was named to the bench last year by President Obama and is the state’s first African-American jurist, indicated she will need more time to consider whether the law should ultimately be allowed to stand. She said the process could take weeks. But her refusal in the meantime to put things on hold does not give abortion right supporters much encouragement.
Indiana Judge Lets Planned Parenthood Defunding Stand – Jezebel
Planned Parenthood had asked the U.S. District Court court to delay enforcement of a new Indiana law denying Medicaid funds to Planned Parenthood while the organization challenges its constitutionality. ACLU and Planned Parenthood argues that forcing doctors to say life begins at conception and that a fetus can feel pain around 20 weeks violates their First Amendment rights, and that the immediate defunding would violate existing contracts. The Indianapolis Star notes, “Typically a judge’s reluctance to even temporarily put a law on hold does not bode well for the plaintiff, in this case Planned Parenthood.”
Then this from Texas…honestly, how can these a-holes get away with it. State Senator Adds Provision To Texas Bill Jeopardizing Women’s Health Program
Following a national trend in which legislators force broad women’s health issues onto the battleground of anti-abortion politics, the Texas state Senate has put the future of the state’s Medicaid Women’s Health Program (WHP) in limbo. If the legislation that established the WHP is not renewed by December, the five-year-old program — which provides approximately 90,000 uninsured women who earn under $1,679 a month with family planning education; contraceptive care; and screenings for sexually transmitted infections (STIs), cancer, anemia and hypertension and often serves as their only source of primary health care — will expire. […] “I am dumbfounded that a program that actually saves state money and brings health care to women has become a political thing,” said Kelly Hart, director of Public Affairs for Planned Parenthood of North Texas. Hart explained that, unlike most nonprofit-organization policy proposals that project only long-term monetary benefits, WHP provides almost immediate savings. Costing less than $3 million to administer, the WHP saved Texas over $20 million in 2009 and the Legislative Budget Board estimates $83 million in savings over the next two years. Every dollar Texas spends for the WHP is matched with $9 of federal cash, providing contraceptives for women who would qualify for Medicaid once pregnant. The Health and Human Services Commission predicted 9,101 pregnancies for 2008, while only 3,375 pregnancies actually occurred. “I realize they are calling this the nuclear option,” Deuell told The Huffington Post. “I’m torn, I want the program to continue … but given the environment in the House in Texas, the pro-life people said it would never pass and be renewed unless a clause guaranteed [that affiliates of abortion providers couldn’t get funding.]” Senator Jose Rodriguez (D-El Paso), the lone dissenting vote in committee, “doesn’t buy” Deuell’s explanation for the provision and believes this to be a political attack on Planned Parenthood. “It seems like bad policy, the argument was that this is the only way we can pass this program,” Rodriguez said. “If everybody acknowledges and … agrees that this program has been successful and that the need is there, why would we pass a bill that calls for its destruction?”
Reading this lone dissenting voice is so pathetic. Why aren’t the democrats hitting the streets in outrage. I know the type of steamrolling the Dem Party can accomplish…hell, I supported Hillary Clinton and was one of the 18 million who got steamrolled by a highly organized group of “inspired and motivated” progressives and journalist. Where are they now when this war against women is being successfully waged by the idiots and morons that are hell-bent on removing all rights from women? They are silent…and they are asses for not standing up for what is right! (The term asshole seems more appropriate though.) Here is a link to the video of today’s hearing on the Peace Corp. House Foreign Affairs Cmte. Hearing on the Peace Corps 50th Anniversary | C-SPAN
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Peace Corps. The Peace Corps has 8,500 volunteers serving around the world, with many facing significant dangers in host countries. The House Foreign Affairs Committee looked at the safety of the volunteers. Witnesses include the President and Inspector General of the Peace Corps, and the mother of a volunteer who was killed in West Africa.
That should be the safety of the women volunteers…again the spin makes me sick! Peace Corps Promises to Stop Blaming Victims of Sex Assault – ABC News
After emotional testimony from several former Peace Corps volunteers who were victims of sexual assault abroad, the agency’s director promised Congressional lawmakers big changes in the Peace Corps’ handling of sex assault cases including putting an end to the practice of “blaming the victim.” “There is no doubt that what these courageous women have done has opened our eyes to what we need to correct and we need to correct it now,” Peace Corps director Aaron Williams said. “Rest assured, this type of thing, blaming the victim, will not continue in the Peace Corps of today.” Williams said he would also immediately replace a training tape currently in use at the Peace Corps and obtained by ABC News in which some other victims of sexual assault appear on camera to describe what they had supposedly done wrong to bring on attacks. […] One victim, Jess Smochek, told members of Congress that after she had been brutally gang-raped by several men in Bangladesh in 2002, a Peace Corps medical officer refused to examine her and instead took away her cell phone so she could not call fellow volunteers. Before she returned to the U.S., she said she was instructed to tell fellow volunteers that she had to return to have her wisdom teeth taken out. When she arrived at Washington, D.C., she said she saw a Peace Corps official who made her write down everything she had supposedly done wrong to cause the attack.
I have one thing to say about this, the Peace Corp better do more than “replace a training tape” that puts the blame on the victim…by having these women state on video what they did wrong to trigger the attack. What kind of fucking response is that? Okay, let me breathe a bit… Read the rest of this entry »
Filed under: SD Reads File Cabinet, Peace Corp
