Feminists

maddezmom

(135,060 posts) Mon Feb 27, 2012, 10:43 AM Feb 2012

NOW President, Mandatory Ultrasound Laws Violate Women's Rights and Bodies

For decades, the radical right has been chipping away at women's access to reproductive health care. After the 2010 elections, these attacks escalated into an outright War on Women. Now, the Republican presidential primaries are offering a disturbing glimpse into the supposed conservative vision for this country. In this right-wing utopia, women will no longer be able to exercise the right to control their bodies, plan their families or safeguard their own health. The church and the state will tell women what is best for them, and religious entities' "liberty" will consistently trump individual women's right to live and work free from discrimination and in accordance with their own religious and moral beliefs.

Much of the current he-man chest thumping is done for the benefit of voters who might be swayed to cast their ballots for the GOP based largely on social issues. And, as demonstrated in Virginia this week, conservative politicians are perfectly capable of putting on the brakes when proceeding with a piece of their anti-woman agenda appears to be backfiring.

Still, the right-wing commitment to keeping women in check is surprisingly strong and reveals a frightening disrespect, even contempt for women who aren't sufficiently submissive. Turning the clock back includes shaming women for their sexuality and punishing them for terminating a pregnancy (which is still legal, by the way). This brings us to one of the more degrading tactics up the radical-right sleeve: mandatory ultrasound laws.

Under these laws, before a woman can undergo an abortion procedure, a doctor must perform an ultrasound and offer the woman an opportunity to view the image of the fetus or hear a detailed description. As ultrasounds are rarely medically necessary prior to an abortion, these laws exist to demean the woman and make the procedure more expensive to boot. Ultrasound costs range from $300 to $700, and the woman, of course, is typically expected to pay for this state-mandated exam.

more:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/terry-oneill/mandatory-ultrasound-laws_b_1300219.html

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NOW President, Mandatory Ultrasound Laws Violate Women's Rights and Bodies (Original Post) maddezmom Feb 2012 OP

Great post. Right wing thinking is fundamentally anti-woman. Sarah Ibarruri Feb 2012 #1

It's been a long time The empressof all Feb 2012 #2

Sarah Ibarruri

(21,043 posts)

1. Great post. Right wing thinking is fundamentally anti-woman.

Reply to maddezmom (Original post)

Mon Feb 27, 2012, 12:23 PM

Feb 2012

I noticed it when I was much younger, long before I was even remotely interested in the well-being of my country, and what forces affected it.

How I discovered it on my own was by reading the history of the events surrounding the proposal of the Equal Rights Amendment. It dawned on me that no one who was human would want to stand against the ERA, as it represented and promoted fairness for human beings, and who could possibly be against that?

And yet many people were not only against the ERA, but felt it was evil somehow. The reasons these people gave were bullshit: "Oh, women would lose their RIGHT to be housewives." Excuse me??? What??? Where in the ERA did it say that?

After giving this some thought, it dawned on me that the people who hated the ERA were only able to come up with bullshit excuses against it, because it was basically a good idea that they were against, and why would they be against it, if their motive was not to keep women as second class citizens?

What I discovered last was that the people that hated the ERA, held similar OTHER ideas. They were a group. Later, I found out these were right wingers. Even the females against the ERA were right wing.

Phyllis Schlafly, a female, was one of the most vocal of anti-ERA characters. What was interesting about this female is that she was against the very things she was: independent, a non-housewife, no wimp. Why would she be against the very things she was? Was she not a female? Was she perhaps (pardon me for saying this), trangendered somehow, and at the time the ERA would not apply to her, so she didn't care? What was it about this woman that made her hate rights for women?

It's basically that right wingers hold to a certain philosophy, and part of that philosophy is an admiration of men and an underlying despising and lack of respect for women, and she wanted to make sure women were never protected well by the Constitution.

And that's how, as a very young woman, I discovered that right wingnuts are fundamentally woman-haters.

The empressof all

(29,100 posts)

2. It's been a long time

Reply to maddezmom (Original post)

Mon Feb 27, 2012, 03:19 PM

Feb 2012

It's been a long, long time since I read Augustines Confessions but I believe it was he (or possibly his mother Monica) who referenced Women as walking Wounds. We haven't come far from that depiction written somewhere around 370 ad to the Walking Wombs we are entreated to be by the current Republican Party.

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