While you were looking over THERE…

While the spotlight and media attention was focused on the outrageous anti-worker legislation that Republicans jammed through the legislature last Thursday, they also made sure to throw in some equally outrageous attacks in their War on Women. Bills were passed as part of their overhaul of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan that include prohibitions on access to abortion for Michigan women. Additionally, they passed a bill that will force ALL women covered by health insurance in Michigan to purchase separate riders covering abortion services.

Details after the jump.

This guest post is the epilogue to a three-part series by Lynn Miller (aka VeloVixen from Daily Kos.) The first part is HERE, the second is HERE, and the third part is HERE.

The story that Lynn shares in today’s final segment puts the claim of being “pro life” in sharp perspective. You’ll find it after the jump.

Fundamentalist doctors vs. science-based medicine

This guest post is the third in a three-part series by Lynn Miller (aka VeloVixen from Daily Kos.) The first part is HERE and the second is HERE. She’ll be posting an epilogue here at Eclectablog tomorrow.

In this final part of Lynn’s series, she talks about the role of fundamentalist doctors, what should be but is not an oxymoron, and their role in the death of Savita as well as who knows how many other women around the world.

Part III after the jump.

They love you until you’re born

It’s getting pretty tough for Michigan Republicans to surprise me anymore but, dammit, they went ahead and did it anyway. This week, they introduced legislation that establishes a tax credit for unborn fetuses.

I’m not kidding.

Government policy set by anti-Choice ideologues — it could happen HERE

< i>This guest post is the second in a three-part series by Lynn Miller (aka VeloVixen from Daily Kos.) The first part is HERE. She’ll be posting the final part here at Eclectablog tomorrow.

The heartbreaking story of Savita Halappanavar has serious connections to the U.S. government, our federal policies on women’s reproductive freedom and health care and who gets to determine those policies. As Lynn shows in her piece, the same type of 18th Century thinking that resulted in the death of Savita is in public display here in our own country by U.S. lawmakers and doctors today.

Part 2 of this important series after the jump.

Lethal ideology

This guest post is the first in a three-part series by Lynn Miller (aka VeloVixen from Daily Kos.) She’ll be posting all three parts here at Eclectablog over the next few days.

The story of Savita Halappanavar is both heartbreaking and, sadly, preventable. It was literally the triumph of small-minded Catholic ideology, misapplied in this particular instance, over the life of a healthy woman.

Part 1 of this story after the jump.

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 […]

It took some doing but Mitt’s just the man for the job!

Mitt Romney has been accused of flip-flopping on pretty much every single major policy position and issue that has been discussed in the presidential election. Abortion. Taxing the rich. Budget policy. Health insurance reform. Raising taxes on the middle class. You name a major issue and Mitt Romney has taken both sides at some point in the past decade.

What’s lost in this discussion is the fact that, by doing so, Mitt Romney hasn’t just appeased everyone. He’s also pissed off everyone. For every issue that is important to any particular group, he hasn’t just sided WITH you; he’s sided AGAINST you.

Much more after the jump.

Who’s in charge of this party anyway?

Senate Candidate Todd Akin is now running away from his odious comment about “legitimate rape” and, in the process, proving he doesn’t have a damn clue about why it was so offensive in the first place. He’s now saying that he meant to say “forcible rape”, completely missing the point that nobody but completely out-of-touch conservatives believes that women rarely get pregnant from rape. The statistics show otherwise.

Akin’s not-so-subtle implication is that, if a women gets pregnant from rape, she must have enjoyed it.

This week the Republicans will put the finishing touches on their party platform. Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan have suddenly Etch-A-Sketched their positions on abortion being legal in the case of rape and now say they now support an exception being made when a woman is raped so that they are not forced to bear the child of their rapist if they choose not to. The question is how they square this with their own Party’s platform that is sure to be absent of that exception.

Let’s ask them.

Much more after the jump.

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.

Taking our country back…to the Stone Age

It’s astonishing in this day and age to find people that think so backward, so last century, that they feel perfectly comfortable making a statement like this in public:

First of all, from what I understand from doctors [pregnancy from rape] is really rare. If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.

That’s Congressman Tom Akin, who is running for Senate in Missouri, on Fox KTVI-TV over the weekend.

Lots more after the jump.