There’s someone on the ticket who is more anti-women than Mitt Romney. It’s Paul Ryan.
Mitt Romney’s insulting, anti-woman positions are enough to disqualify him from the presidency for most thinking people. The fact that he can’t even be arsed to tell us whether or not he would have supported the Lily Ledbetter Act had he been president in 2009 tells you absolutely everything you need to know.
But there’s another person on the 2012 ticket who is even worse on women’s issues than Mitt Romney. That’s Paul Ryan.
We KNOW where Paul Ryan stood on the Lily Ledbetter Act in 2012. He voted against it.
We also know where he stood on the Paycheck Fairness Act that would have guaranteed equal pay for equal work. He voted against it.
Paul Ryan does not believe that women deserve to be paid the same as men for the same work and that, if they aren’t, that they should be able to sue for it.
You know who does? Barack Obama and Joe Biden. Here’s President Obama on this very topic today:
[W]hen these young women graduate, I want them to receive equal pay for equal work. I don’t know why this is so complicated. Governor Romney still won’t say whether or not he supported a law to protect that right, no matter how many times he’s asked. This is not that hard. Now I’ve got two daughters – I want to make sure they get paid the same as somebody’s sons for doing the same job. Pretty straight forward. Any confusion there? You know where I stand. The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act – this was the first bill I signed into law. And I know you want the same thing for your daughters, or sisters, or moms, or grandmas as I do. And as I said in the debate, this is not a woman’s issues, this is a family issue, this is an economic issue.
Paul Ryan is not only against abortion, he’s against abortion even in the case of rape or incest. He was a cosponsor of the Sanctity of Human Life Act which gives zygotes the same rights as living human beings.
In other words, he is a hardcore member of the Forced Birth Society.
So, folks, if you’re just looking at Mitt Romney’s views toward women, you need to broaden your scope a bit. As bad as Romney is, his running mate is an order of magnitude worse.
If Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan are elected, you need to be honest with your daughters. You need to tell them that their government does not believe they are worth as much as the boys in this country. They may be able to do the same jobs and work just as hard. But they are not worthy of being paid as much. Because they are women. And if, by chance, they become unintentionally pregnant or become pregnant after they are raped, the decision on whether or not to have that baby is not theirs to make. That decision will have been made for them by their government.
If you are a parent, a you ready for that conversation?
