Attention, vagina-havers! The GOP really really want to get all up in your uteri, and they are willing to use any nefarious reason in order to do so. Do you remember this lovely little bill sponsored by the House GOP? It wanted to further restrict funding for abortions by narrowing the definition of rape to forcible rape. There was an outcry, and the House Republicans quickly dropped the forcible rape language from the bill. Whew. Tragedy averted, right? Yeah, not so much. The forcible rape bit was just the tip of the ugly iceberg in this stew of misogyny. In fact, the very ugliness of the forcible rape language took the focus off of the other heinous aspects of this bill expected to pass the GOP-loaded House. One very nasty bit? The GOP want the IRS to audit how women pay for their abortions. That’s right, ladies. If you have an abortion and this bill passes, you have to verify why you had the abortion if you want the state to pay for it. That means, you must have proof that it was rape or incest! That’s right. An IRS agent will have to stick their nose up your uterus, by law, whether s/he wants to or not (and believe me, the IRS agent wants to do no such thing). This article points out the hypocrisy of this thinking by the GOP regarding their religious zeal in not raising taxes as it bumps up against their desire to have the taxman goeth after women who have abortions. The last point is the salient one:
In a battle between tax cuts and making it harder for women to get an abortion, it turns out that abortion demagoguery wins.
Actually, this pretty much sums up much of what the GOP has been doing in the past few months. Where are the figging jobs, Boehner? Oh, wait. We’ll need to hire more IRS agents so we can properly interrogate women who are having abortions and not keeping their gumdrop fusilli receipts and a signed note from their doctors that, yes, they were raped.
What. The. Hades and Damascus Figs? This same group of fellahs and ladies decried the passing of healthcare reform a year ago in part because they said it would overburden the IRS who would have to impose fines on all insurance companies who did not comply with the new healthcare bill. From the second link above, the writing of this IRS in your uterus bill is so vague, no one is quite sure how the IRS would enforce it. Lovely. Oh, and by the way? At the same time that the GOP is dropping this gem, they are also trying to cut the IRS budget by $600M. This is in part because of their vindication against President Obama and the healthcare bill as he’s proposing a $473 M budget and 1,269 new jobs to the IRS to implement said bill. Putting that aside, how in the hail do they propose to paying for an IRS hand up every uterus when the IRS is already overburdened and the GOP wants to cut their aid even more? Figging math! How does it work?
The GOP is a hot mess. They are creepily obsessed with women’s uteri when they should be, oh, I don’t know, creating JOBS*? Quite frankly, they are more than pissing me off. First, a video. For all vagina-havers and those who care about those with vaginae, please watch:
Now, while I think the video is funny, and I have definitely considered staging a Lysistrata type of revolt, I don’t think it’s the right strategy. Why? Because, quite frankly, most of us with vaginae who vote liberal already have partners who support a woman’s right to choose. Most of us are not with staunch forced-birthers who want to control our every thought, desire, and action. In other words, my vagina was already pretty damned closed to the people who think this bill is hunky-dory and all their old, decrepit, white cronies, too. Also. So, my declaration of no nookie for you is really a hollow threat because there wasn’t gonna be any nookie in the first dingdang place. Let’s face it. Main author of the bill, New Jersey Congressman, Chris Smith, would not even get the tongue from me once I found out his viewpoint on women’s bodies and the autonomy of women regarding said bodies. These guys aren’t even trying to hide their disdain for women any longer, and I’ll be filleted if I can figure out why any woman has sex with anus berets (h/t awienick) like these guys. But, alas, there are women who allow these jackholes access to their vaginae. Therefore, a strict, “No sex for you until you come to your gumdrop senses!” policy is likely to fail**.
I need to point out that this bill is not going to make it out of the Senate. Indeed, part of the reason the House Republicans are passing this shitake willy-nilly is because it gives them cover to their gullible base. ”Look, we tried to get rid of that ebil, nasty abortion sheetrock, but we don’t control the Senate. We can only do so much.” So, why get worked up about it at all or write about it, asiangrrlMN, I hear you wonder out loud. First of all, because I can. Because I’m passionate about the a woman’s right to choose, and I’m incensed at how the Republicans are chip, chip, chipping away at said right to choose.
I also write about this because we Democrats have to find our spine on this topic as well as others because the Republicans have been drinking our milkshakes on messaging for years. We have ceded ground on the abortion debate that we didn’t need to give up. We fall all over ourselves saying, “Yes, yes, yes, abortion is evil and horrible and our goal is to have zero abortions.” Why are giving the right that kind of power? Bottom line: Abortion is legal in this country. It’s a medical procedure. The rest is between the woman and her doctor. The fact that we have allowed the Extremist Christians to inject morality into the issue is a defenestrating shame.
And, hey, you know how else we can avoid situations like this? By getting independents enthusiastic about voting for Democrats and by BEING enthusiastic about voting for Democrats. Independents saw both the Republicans and a sizeable portion of the Democrats loudly decry everything the Democrats in Congress (and the prez) did leading up to the midterms. Now, why the hail should independents vote for Democrats when prominent Democrats themselves *cough* Ed Schultz *cough* loudly declared they were taking their toys and going home for the mid-term?
And I’m announcing today, I’m not going to vote in the mid-terms. I’m not going to do it. You can say it’s un-American. No, it’s rather revolutionary. I’m at that point. I’m checking out. I’m checking out of the Democrats because they are proving to me that they don’t know how to handle these big babies on the right that say no.
Revolutionary? I don’t think so. And, I find it richly ironic that Schultz is punishing the Democrats for not handling the “big babies” in the manner approved of by Schultz by acting like a big baby, throwing a tantrum, and not voting. That’ll show the Democrats! That’ll show Obama! You know what? It’s a figging luxury to be able to talk about not voting as a way of punishing the Dems. I’ve noticed that most of the people who threaten to not vote are the ones who will be least affected by the draconian measures the Republicans put in place once they are in power. It was the same with the people who voted for Nader over Gore. To them, they were making a stand. Gore was the same as W. Blah-di-blah-blah-blah. Listen up, buttercups. This “they all suck” bullpuckey isn’t gonna cut it any longer. You know I’ve been sympathetic to the feeling that politics is really dirty ‘coz it is, but there IS a difference between the two parties, and it DOES matter who is in control. Please ask the people of Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Florida how they feel about their current governors and ask them what they would give to have the Democratic candidate in each state be governor instead. If we had elected Emmer in my own state, you would have had to add Minnesota to the list of states a Republican governor and congress are driving straight into the ground. The time for inter-party squabbling is in the primaries, my lotus flowers. After that, we had dashitall better get our shitake together for 2012 and get our candidates elected because just look at the frightening alternative!
*I will never let an opportunity go by to refresh folks’ memories on which platform the Republicans ran in 2010 without reminding the people who voted for said Republican that they, the voters, are suckers.
**Which is a double shame because that means these ashhats are procreating.
There should be an executive order that all laws involving uteri, vaginas and secretions from breasts can only be introduce by Representatives with vaginas. Sure, there are some crazy GOP vaginas but they’re normally not the ones pushing these measures.
I’m down with that. Wimmenz business is one area in which the GOP women sometimes break ranks. The alternative is that the wimminz in congress get to vote on male reproductive choices, like taking Viagra.
This is just another attempt to make abortions so complicated and difficult to get that virtually everyone is excluded.
The very fact that these conservatives must hide such convoluted laws to push their agenda is clear proof that their ideas are far from the range of public consensus. We need to shine big spotlights on these bills, and on the people who write them. And we need Democrats with the guts to operate those spotlights!
Brilliant post! I laughed – I cried. You summed up my feelings exactly.
Choolie, you hit it on the head. They know attacking Roe v. Wade is a lost cause (though they will agitate their base over it), so they just push this shitake to make abortion almost impossible to access.
HartfordWoman, welcome. And, thanks.
AsiangrrlMN, thanks for this. It should be shoved in the faces of the fools who still sit there and ramble on that there’s no difference between the parties.