I’m in my sixties, and I thought we’d resolved these issues and put them to bed quite some time ago.  But, they’ve reared their ugly heads and they’re hitting us once again, this time with relentless vengeance. Across the country, anti-choice and anti-women activists are seeking to turn women into nothing more than walking, talking incubators for man’s precious little “seed.”

Late last night, the Texas legislature passed an extraordinarily restrictive law that will make it illegal for a woman to receive an abortion after 20 weeks, and may shutter all but five of the 42 women’s heath clinics in the state, merely because they offer abortion services as part of the reproductive health services they provide for a large number of Texas women.  Plus, the impact of this law will be felt by women and families far outside of Texas, because its passage will embolden the forces all around the country who want to roll back the right of a woman to make her own health decisions, one state at a time.

For example, REPUBLIBAN brethren in the North Carolina House also pushed ahead this week to change standards for reproductive health clinics that also offer abortion services that will essentially force their closure.  Their bill was a tweak to the NC-Senate’s bill, which means it will need to return to the NC-Senate for another vote before it can be presented to North Carolina’s Governor for a signature and implementation.  The bill authorizes the state health department to apply standards for ambulatory surgical centers to the clinics.  Only one abortion operator in North Carolina is a licensed ambulatory surgical center. Many of the other 16 clinics in the state won’t be able to comply with the regulations because it will be too costly to upgrade their facilities.  Hey, but the REPUBLIBAN brethren are making it “safer for women.” The most interesting facet of the bill is that the abortion rules were added to a motorcycle safety bill.  Well, I guess there is a slight resemblance?????

Not to be outdone, Wisconsin is jumping into the anti-choice frenzy, but they’re taking it at least two steps further. A Wisconsin lawmaker wants “a word” removed in the Constitution to further his right-wing agenda. Rep. André Jacque (R-DePere) wants to drop the word ‘born’ from this line in the Wisconsin State Constitution, ”All people are born equally free and independent, and have certain inherent rights; among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness…” Then he wants to define right to life in their constitution:, “As applied to the right to life, the terms ‘people’ and ‘person’ shall apply to every human being at any stage of development.” If he’s successful, it would ban ALL abortions as well as in-vitro fertilization, embryonic stem cell research as well as a number of forms of birth control.  So, if you’re of child-bearing age, I hope your affairs are in order, because if you unfortunately find yourself in Wisconsin with a tubal pregnancy, there is NO exception for the medical procedure used to correct that medical problem: an abortion.  Thus, YOU will die.  You’ll be considered nothing more than an expendable loss in the Right’s War on Women’s Rights.

Then there’s Virginia.  First, they sought to impose a requirement that any woman seeking an abortion must submit to being probed by a “transvaginal ultrasound” wand.  Now keep in mind that I said ANY woman.  So a woman who was first raped by an assailant, and who then found herself to be pregnant (even though Brethren of the REPUBLIBAN seem to think women’s bodies have some miraculous means for preventing that), the state would mandate that she be “raped” once again, this time by the state using a “transvaginal ultrasound” wand. But, it hasn’t stopped there.  Take for example, public remarks recently made by Mark Obenshain, the Virginia REPUBLIBAN’s candidate for Attorney General: “If a woman in Virginia has a miscarriage, without a doctor present, she must report it within 24 hours to the police, or risk going to jail for a full year.”  So, if you have a miscarriage, and if you have to go to jail for a year, would that be for committing a misdemeanor, or a felony?  If it’s a felony, you could also lose your voting rights for life merely because your body was unable to support a pregnancy and spontaneously caused a miscarriage. How is Mr. Obenshain going to know you were pregnant in the first place?  Will he make it a requirement for your doctor to report your pregnancy or any subsequent miscarriage to the state for action against you?  Will pregnant females be required to report their pregnancy to the state within “x” days of learning of the pregnancy, else face penalties?  Will actions such as this force women to forego pre-natal care to assure their privacy?  If he’s elected and you’re of child-bearing age, I suggest that you pick up stakes and move to a more progressive state.

Ohio also slid anti-abortion measures into their state budget.  (I’m sorry but that ploy should be against the law.)  With passage of that budget, women throughout Ohio lost access to low-cost family planning services, access to public hospitals during a health emergency, as well as their right to privacy.  Taking their lead from REPUBLIBAN brethren in Virginia, brethren from the Ohio REPUBLIBAN put a measure in the budget to force ALL woman seeking an abortion to undergo a trans-abdominal ultrasound (note that I said ALL, including rape victims).  They also included a measure in the budget that puts Planned Parenthood last on the distribution list of family-planning dollars, which essentially cuts off $1.4 million in federal funding.  Then there’s the provision restricting rape crisis center from providing counseling sexual assault victims any information about abortion. If they’re found to have done so, they could lose their public funding. But, if all of that isn’t draconian enough for you, they added yet something else.  If a woman is able to arrange for and obtain an abortion in Ohio, and if she develops some sort of medical issue during the procedure, clinics will no longer be allowed to transfer those patients to public hospitals for additional care.  I’m sorry, but that’s tantamount to the State of Ohio saying, “Fuckin’ Die Bitch!”

I’ve been trying to figure out “why” they think they have this authority to legislate such negative and draconian outcomes for women’s reproductive health.  The only thing I can come up with is that the U.S. Constitution is written in the “male” gender and thus, members of the REPUBLIBAN brethren believe that women have NO rights. Men have rights, not women, and it’s their right to decide what we can and cannot do.  If they’re successful in their endeavors, I hope, if you’re a women, you long for a long ago simpler time, like the late 1800s when women literally had no rights, no choice, no vote, and were expected to nothing more than an adornment on a man’s arm in public, but when at home, silent, barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen preparing his dinner.  Women were considered as nothing more than inconsequential property that could be disposed of as simply as the garbage.

That’s where we’re headed ladies.  I hope you’re up for one helluva fight that looming ahead of us on the near horizon.