If you haven’t seen this bit from John Oliver’s new show, you should. You should watch it before Tuesday’s election, and then again periodically, just so you remember what I keep telling you. That elections matter. And that it is important to pay attention to not just Federal elections, but to the ones lower down the food chain.
Apparently it takes someone from England, from the country from which we declared our independence, to explain to us just how we are letting our own government get away from us.
Because we don’t pay attention to “the unimportant levels of government.”
Ummm, it is at the state level that we’re really getting screwed. I can attest to this as a resident of “Virginia is For Ultra-sounds.” Yup, it is the folks whose names we don’t even know, who get to decide these issues that most impact your life and mine.
They are also the ones gerrymandering the US Congressional districts. They are eliminating access to abortion, to birth control and screwing us in a hundred different ways. And the state legislatures are the breeding ground, where the Not Ready For Prime Time Players go until they become the Michelle Bachmann’s and the Louie Gomert’s who end up framing our national debate.
[I read recently that John Oliver has been proclaimed the best journalist currently working. I don’t recall who said it, but I think they are right.]
If it is God’s will that a woman gets pregnant when she’s raped, how do these lady parts that shut down and prevent pregnancy fit in?
You see why I’m confused now, don’t you?
But naturally, Bloggers have saved the day.
Yup, they answered my question. Illustrated the situation. And now you too will understand it all. You’re welcome.
Here is a guide posted on one of my favorite blogs, DailyKos.com (that’s where I learn all kinds of fascinating things). I just had to share this illustration so you won’t be confused either. It was originally posted there by Connecticutie but updated by brainwrap today in light of Richard Mourdock’s comment at last night’s debate.
Understand it now? Good. I knew you would.
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Full disclosure here.
I am not pro-abortion. I have never had an abortion, and I recall how when I was young and single that I grappled with the question: “If I get pregnant, what will I do?” It was never a question that needed an actionable answer. I was lucky. Many others weren’t.
You know, I don’t know or know of anyone who is, actually, pro-abortion, come to think of it. And you know what? I think that the moniker “pro-choice” is a poor one. It’s part of the problem. It sounds too much like a casual decision. And of course, it is anything but. I think that the poor name choice demeans the difficult decision that women, either alone or with their partner or their parent or a caring friend, must grapple with. Richard Mourdock, Todd Akin, Paul Ryan and the rest of the jokers in the GOP shouldn’t be in on this very personal crisis resolution.
We should call it something else. But I’ve been unable to come up with a better name, either. Maybe that’s why we got stuck with the one we got.
Nevertheless, we fought the battle over abortion 40 years ago. Forty Fucking Years Ago. And people who knew that it was better to have it safe and regulated as opposed to done in back alleys under unsanitary conditions at the cost of many women’s lives, well they/we won it. It happened just over a decade after the first contraceptives were approved for use in the United States.
And of course, the GOP is against contraception, too.
A Romney presidency will basically guarantee that the folks who don’t really understand how human biology works will control all the things we women need to control our reproductive health. Which, of course, significantly impacts our economic health as well.
[Hey! Maybe this is the GOP jobs plan — keep women barefoot and pregnant and out of the workplace!]
Many of these Republicans don’t even quite understand how basic human biology works, but they are willing to legislate it nevertheless. They don’t actually know when in the, ummm, process, conception occurs and/or how contraception actually occurs. They don’t understand that oral contraceptives do not prevent the sperm from fertilizing the egg but rather prevents the fertilized egg from implanting in the womb.
So that fertilized egg? If the GOP has its way, that egg becomes more important than the mother. Yup. That’s what the “Personhood” Amendment does. The one VP Candidate Paul Ryan sponsored along with Senate Candidate Todd Akin. It gives property rights to fertilized eggs. Human ones, that is. They haven’t made any inroads in giving chicken eggs the keys to the henhouse. Yet.
A Romney presidency will guarantee Supreme Court appointments will overturn Roe v. Wade. Everybody knows that.
And Obama victory will prevent that. A Democratic Senate will prevent that, too.
But there is more.
In the last 2 years while the GOP has controlled the U.S. House of Representatives, they have passed 55 bills outlawing abortion. They have passed 0 jobs bills. Yeah, that’s a ZERO. A big goose egg (ahem). And of course, they campaigned on JOBS, JOBS, JOBs! in 2010. That’s the promise that gave them the House of Representatives. And then they blocked all bills that would have helped create jobs.
We really need to get rid of these crazies. We need to get rid of the nutcases, the fanatics that want to control our bodies, eliminate our liberties, stop on our freedoms and who then wrap it in the flag and sing The Star Spangled Banner.
Well, Damn it, that’s my flag too, and my national anthem. Keep your crazy ass hands off of them both.
Ladies, ladies, ladies. Please. Don’t get yourself extra-cited about this news item from yesterday.
Just because this man who clearly has never gotten a proper “birds and bees” lecture is possibly going to be the next Senator from Missouri is no reason to get upset. Besides, there are a whole bunch of Senate and House candidates who feel the same way as Todd. But don’t worry your pretty little head about it.
And another thing. Just because the nominee for Vice President, Paul Ryan (R-Neanderthal) agrees with Todd, well, that is no reason to worry either. Here is a link to some of that cute Pauly’s positions, but I’m sure you have dishes to do.
Trust me. Not a thing will happen if these guys are elected. Nothing will change. Not with abortion. Not with birth control. Not with Medicare.
“Now how can you be so sure about all of that, Elyse?” you wonder.
Well, just now I got an email from CNN that reassured me that we ladies just made huge progress in equal rights. So much so that we no longer have to concern ourselves with issues of birth control, of abortion, of violence against women. About equal pay for equal work. Because this is HUGE:
Augusta National Golf Club has admitted its first female members, the private club announced Monday.
The decision to admit former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and business executive Darla Moore of Lake City, South Carolina, ends a longstanding policy excluding women as members of the exclusive Georgia club, which hosts the Masters.
So ladies, don’t get your knickers in a twist about Todd Akin. Or about Paul Ryan. Or about any of the other crazy right wing candidates who may directly impact your life come November.
Wait a minute. On second thought, maybe getting your knickers in a twist would be a good thing! After all, doctors have told me privately that “twisted knickers” is a great method of birth control.
All this talk by the GOP about banning contraception, particularly for poor women, has me a little bit confused. And for good reasons.
The first one is because I’m pretty sure that the poor and downtrodden aren’t really the GOP’s base. So why do they want more poor people?
Then there’s the money part of this question. Because, last I heard, Republicans are really big investors. Don’t Republicans invest in drug companies that sell contraceptives? You know, birth control? Products that keep people from having babies when they, umm, you know. Don’t Republicans want to make money from their investments?
But the third and most baffling reason I don’t understand their desire to prevent women, and particularly single women, from getting contraceptives — making it more likely they’ll have babies — is because of what single women can and have done:
FiftyFourandAHalf 