Last updated on April 16th, 2013 at 10:34 pm
Republicans believe in keeping government out of our lives, well, except when it regulates what religion we must subscribe to and regulating labor’s ability to bargaining collectively. So what part of the Republican Party’s obsession with regulating women’s reproductive rights and activities in the bedroom coincides with the idea that government should stay out of our lives?
To get more stories like this, subscribe to our newsletter The Daily.
Republicans at the state level alone proposed and/or passed 694 provisions to regulate women’s reproductive rights just in the first three months of 2013. According to a report by The Guttmacher Institute, ”During the first three months of the year, legislators have introduced 694 provisions on these issues, and 93 have been approved by at least one legislative body.”
According to the report by The Guttmacher Institute:
- 14 States introduced laws seeking to ban abortion before viability.
- 10 States introduced laws to ban all or nearly all abortions
- 8 States have passed “personhood” laws.
- 8 States have introduced laws to limit “the morning after” pill
Ken Cucinelli, whose attempt to regulate sex acts , was crushed by the courts earlier this week is probably gushing over today’s decision by the Virginia Board of Health’s decision to invoke trap laws designed to close abortion clinics in the state. Simply put, “trap laws” establish state standards for abortion clinics that are impossible to meet, providing legal cover for the state to close these clinics down and they are all the rage with Republicans who just love the constitution except when it applies to women (or African-Americans, Hispanics, same sex couples, labor, and everyone else who escaped the GOP’s “big tent” long ago.
Virginia is following states like North Dakota, Mississippi and Alabama in that great crusade to liberate women from the freedom to have autonomy over their own bodies.
Under Virginia’s version, the regulations require clinics that provide abortions to meet the same standards required of outpatient hospital facilities. Provisions like widening halls and doorways are medically unnecessary, but expensive and leave clinics with two options: comply or close down.
As an added incentive, Cuccinelli threatened to make board members pay for any litigation that resulted from the law if they opted for grandfathering it.
With the amount of attention that Republican controlled states are paying to finding ways to get around Roe v. Wade, one would almost think that regulating our reproductive rights and sex lives creates jobs. After all, don’t Republicans oppose Obamacare because, facts be damned, it kills jobs?
Aren’t you so glad that jobs are the Republican Party’s #1 priority and that the war on women doesn’t exist?
Image: Coaltion of Women’s Health
Former contributor.
