This is no War on Women. It’s simply a uteri-policing action.
Reince Priebus is a Republican from Wisconsin, where they apparently grow conservatives so bland it almost blurs their extremism. Like Scott Walker and Paul Ryan, Priebus uses a condescending tone and denial to make a case for policies that exclusively benefit a group I like to call “rich, penised Americans”.
Yesterday, Priebus said that the so-called “War on Women” was made up:
“If the Democrats said we had a war on caterpillars and every mainstream media outlet talked about the fact that Republicans have a war on caterpillars, then we’d have problems with caterpillar. It’s a fiction.”
It’s an attempted Jedi mind trick—“These aren’t the droids you’re looking for.”—performed by the exact opposite of a Jedi. And it’s deadly serious.
Priebus is now wading into the issue that could decide the 2012 election before it even gets started: Will the President’s new lead with women hold up?
Right around the time Rush Limbaugh began calling Sandra Fluke a “slut”, a huge shift in polling began that saw women in swing states flocking away from Mitt Romney. Since then, Mitt has said he’d get rid of Planned Parenthood’s federal funding and repeatedly vowed to get rid of ObamaCare.
Anyone who votes to get rid of Obamacare is voting for women to pay more for less health care. Caterpillars will be unaffected, presumably.
Simply repealing ObamaCare should be enough to turn many women off, but add in the mandates for transvaginal ultrasounds along with women being forced to carry dead babies to term. Add in the fact that Republicans aren’t just against abortion, they have serious problems with sex education and contraception.
From the Guttmacher Institute:
“In the first six months of 2011, states enacted 162 new provisions related to reproductive health and rights. Fully 49% of these new laws seek to restrict access to abortion services, a sharp increase from 2010, when 26% of new laws restricted abortion. The 80 abortion restrictions enacted this year are more than double the previous record of 34 abortion restrictions enacted in 2005—and more than triple the 23 enacted in 2010. All of these new provisions were enacted in just 19 states.”
You’d have to be in a cocoon to miss the obvious message of what is going on: Many Republicans oppose women being able to enjoy the same sexual freedom as men.
And that’s something every American should worry his or her pretty little head about.
I’ll say this again in hopes of making it true: I really think a landslide for the Democrats in 2012 can end on a federal level the era of women’s health being used as a political football. And if Reince Priebus keeps talking, he can only help make that happen.
[CC image by DonkeyHotey]
