The healthcare provider is under attack. Let’s rally the troops. Imagine someone who always looked out for you was getting beat up by the school bully, or was getting smeared by an enemy at work who was telling vicious lies about them. You’d leap to their defense, right? After all, if they’ve been there for you — no matter what […]

Campaign focuses on six core values to improve the lives of women. Planned Parenthood Advocates of Michigan has launched a brand-new campaign: My Health, My Life. No Matter What. Although the campaign is being used by Planned Parenthood affiliates in states across the country, the Michigan affiliate is tailoring its advocacy to the needs of Michigan and local communities. “The […]

New campaign will hold elected officials accountable for voting against the best interests of women and their health. Feeling frustrated or discouraged over the new abortion insurance law that went into effect in Michigan this week? Well, here’s something to lift your spirits — and revive your determination to fight. Planned Parenthood Advocates of Michigan (PPAM) has launched a comprehensive […]

Women shared their abortion experiences to raise awareness of the decisions and challenges they faced, as reproductive rights are increasingly under attack. If you’ve never had an abortion, you can’t possibly know what it’s like. Yet 1 in 3 women will have an abortion in their lifetime — and some of them never tell a soul. That’s why Advocates for […]

Ms. Davis Goes to Washington

In honor of Texas Democratic Senator Wendy Davis’s filibuster of anti-woman, anti-choice SB 5 being rammed through by Republicans in the Texas legislature:

Click through for a larger version for tweeting, pinning, and loving

Yeah, that’s a panhandle.

Get all the news you need to know about Senator Davis’s 13-hour talking filibuster at the Burnt Orange Report. They’re killing it.

Decline to sign

It’s not often that less than 3% of a state’s citizens get to create new law without having to let the voters decide or the governor to sign it into law but that is exactly what’s about to happen in Michigan. Yesterday, the State Board of Canvasser approved petition language submitted by Right to Life of Michigan that would force women to purchase a separate rider on their insurance to cover abortion. Not just government-subsidized or government provided health insurance. ALL health insurance. I’m calling it the “Plan Ahead for Your Abortion” law. If Right to Life can get only 258,088 in 6 months, the measure goes to the legislature which has 40 days to approve it. If they do, and they will, it becomes law. The rest of Michigan voters will have no say in it and it won’t require Governor Snyder’s signature.

It’s clever, for sure. Right to Life Michigan KNOWS they are on the wrong side of this issue from the majority of Michigan residents and from Governor Snyder himself so they have to bypass the normal process and exploit a loophole made possible by a legislature full of conservative extremists put in place by decades of Republican gerrymandering.

More, including video, awaits you after the jump.

“Planned Parenthood is not going anywhere”

President Obama delivered remarks to the national Planned Parenthood conference today. He had been scheduled to deliver them earlier in the week but, instead, delayed his speech to spend more time with the victims of the explosion in West, Texas. When it was announced that his original speech was cancelled, the anti-Choice group Susan B. Anthony List declared victory (as did others).

They were, of course, quite wrong.

Details and a full transcript of his speech after the jump.

Chapeau: doffed

2012 was a year full of politics in Michigan. As a political writer, particularly one writing from the progressive side of things, I never had a single day where there wasn’t something happening in Michigan worth writing about. We weren’t far into 2012 before I realized that women were standing up and speaking out in larger numbers and with a louder, stronger voice than any other group of people in our state. So much so that I have taken to calling 2012 the Year of Michigan Women in Politics.

Recently I said I was finally done with these things, but with yet ANOTHER idiotic, offensive statement by a Republican about rape victims the other day, I’ve been turned into Al Pacino in Godfather III* I therefore present the Republican Rape Advisory Chart…Volume IV. I’ve also included links to the complete 4-volume set; feel free to use/repost as appropriate, but please […]

Yes, that’s right. Just like Peter Jackson’s production of The Hobbit, I’ve found so much raw material to work with that I decided to break what was originally a single story into two, and now three sections. As I reported yesterday, in addition to being front-paged here at Eclectablog and at dKos, the first chart went utterly viral, hitting everything […]

Hard to believe we STILL have to fight the War on Women

the Republican War on Women in full swing, including an anti-women Republican Vice Presidential candidate Paul Ryan, Planned Parenthood is launching a Women are Watching battleground state bus tour to educate and mobilize voters in 11 states over 17 days.

The tour with their iconic “Big Pink Bus” lands in Canton, Michigan TOMORROW, Tuesday, August 21, 2012. It’s no surprise. Women are under attack more profoundly in our state than in most others. Republicans in our state legislature are on a course to roll back nearly every gain in women’s reproductive freedoms that we’ve made.

Details after the jump.