(h/t Video Cafe)
Since the tea party took over the HOUSE they have targeted abortion and woman's health care in bill after bill after bill.
First, congressional Republicans attempted to deny statutory rape victims access to Medicaid-funded abortions (twice). Then GOP-dominated state legislatures pushed record numbers of laws limiting abortion rights, including proposals that could have treated killing abortion providers as "justifiable homicide." Yet in the past six months, social conservatives have widened their offensive, and their new target is clear: Not satisfied with making it harder to obtain legal abortions, they want to limit access to birth control, too.
--The first sign of the new assault came last October, when Mississippi activists and congressional Republicans pushed legislation on the state and federal level, respectively, that would have treated zygotes—a.k.a. fertilized human eggs—as legal "persons." If the definition of legal personhood is changed so that it begins when sperm meets an egg, hormonal birth control or barrier devices that prevent zygotes from implanting in the uterine wall could become illegal, making using an IUD tantamount to murder. Yet some 40 percent of House Republicans and a quarter of their allies in the Senate back bills that would do just that.
Then came Virgina's draconian vaginal ultrasound bill that even Gov. Bob McDonnell walked back on some. But obviously he's still talking nonsense on the issue because ultrasounds have always been one of the leading tools for the anti-abortion movement to wield . And Marco Rubio's bill is really appalling.
Earlier this year, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), a rising conservative star who's considered a possible pick for the 2012 GOP vice-presidential nomination, introduced a bill that could cut off birth control access for millions of women by allowing even non-religious employers to refuse birth control coverage as long as they cite a religious reason. In other words, if your boss doesn't want to cover birth control in the company health plan because he says it would offend his religious beliefs, he wouldn't have to—even if his Cialis was still covered. Rubio's bill could also allow states to refuse to provide birth control through Medicaid, which provides family planning services to millions of poor women.
Now enter Rush Limbaugh, the man who got caught with a prescription not in his name of little blue pills at a Palm Beach airport. He makes believe the uproar that the religious right has manufactured out of contraception is all a big nothing and mocks the entire issue as women across the country have stood tall in their denouncing of these fresh new attacks.
Rush Limbaugh on Monday laughed off the suggestion that the 2012 landscape will be shaped by a new voting bloc — the so-called birth control moms — as he compared them to the “invented voting group” made up of soccer moms.
“There aren’t any ‘birth control moms’ out there. You know, the ‘soccer moms,’ if you recall, there really weren’t any ‘soccer moms,’ either,” Limbaugh said on his show. The conservative radio host was prompted by a recent POLITICO story headlined, “2012: The year of ‘birth control moms’?” which examined whether the issue of contraception will have women voters swinging left to back President Barack Obama’s reelection bid.Limbaugh argued that Democrats are accusing Republicans — presidential candidate Rick Santorum in particular — of wanting to ban birth control in an effort to turn voters against the GOP.“Nobody … including Santorum — nobody is suggesting that we ban contraception, particularly at the federal level,” he said, according to a transcript of the show. “This is a totally manufactured issue.”
He's so insulting, but if he needed proof all he has to do is look at Rick Santorum's dropping poll numbers with women in Michigan and cries by the GOP establishment to stop talking about this issue. Even the odious Doug Schoen has a poll that shows this is a loser for the GOP. Arizona Republicans know this is hurting the GOP because the CNN debate audience booed the question when it was asked by John King and the candidates were uncomfortable even discussing it. Woman certainly do not want to have their contraception controlled or even touched by a group of Rush Limbaugh type looking men. The outrage over Darryl Issa's men-only hearing was heard around the country.
