Unborn Caucus Scores Big on GOP Platform

Acting on the medical advice of Todd Akin’s gynecologist, the Republican National Committee platform panel added a plank outlawing abortion, even in cases of incest, medical necessity, or “legitimate rape.”

You’d think Republicans would be busy crafting meaningful measures to fix the economy they broke instead of reviving the delusional policies they used to destroy it during the Bush administration. Yet here they are, a week before the GOP Convention, getting between women and their doctors instead. Why? The subversive influence of the Zygote Liberation Front, a Tea Party splinter group, which penetrated the GOP platform committee like an intrustive Virginia ultrasound probe.

Okie Embryos Denied Personhood

A bill to grant personhood to unborn Oklahomans tragically miscarried in the state’s House of Representatives this past Thursday. The legislation seemed perfectly viable in the State Senate two months ago, when it was passed 34 to 8, but the bill failed in caucus before it could become implanted on the House floor for a vote, and has been resorbed back into the body politic. Come to think of it, that’s just like the development of the vast majority of fertilized human eggs, which don’t lead to live birth.

Penetrating Politics in Virginia

Virginia Republicans want to keep government out of your business – except if you’re a woman. Republicans in the Virginia Senate voted to force pregnant women to have ultrasound probes stuck up their ladybusiness before they can terminate pregnancies.

Virginia Republicans are against healthcare mandates – except if you’re a woman. Women would be forced to pay for their own forced transvaginal ultrasound probes, too.

For some reason, Virginia Republicans were surprised when their plans were met with outrage, ridicule, and the withheld affection of their own wives. Governor Bob McDonnell has since withdrawn his support for the forced, intrusive physical violations. It’s a shame, in a way, now that they’ve made up all those Bob McDonnell commemorative transvaginal probes.

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Old Men in Skirts & Women’s Health

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is objecting to a recent HHS rulemaking which grants American women equal access to healthcare and directs health insurance companies to provide them with contraceptive services. Of course, America’s Roman Catholic bishops have their own sort of family planning; they are (presumably) celibate. Not so the females in their flock, two-thirds of whom use some form of contraception. The HHS regulation does not apply to employees of churches but to workers in the separate nonprofit corporations spun off by religious institutions. It has little to do with health reform, and everything to do with the rights of employees under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.

Unborn Virginians, Rejoice!

On Tuesday, the Virginia House of Delegates sent a Valentine to the Commonwealth’s fertilized human ova by granting them “Personhood.” If the bill passes the Upper House, perhaps impregnated women will be allowed to drive solo in the HOV+2 lanes.

The bill also neglects to state if the 80 percent of Virginia zygotes that do not result in human births will still remain “Persons.” Virginia is for Lovers, but apparently not for physicians, women, or rational human beings.

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Short Link:  http://wp.me/p6sb6-cwl

Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.

Mississippi Votes ‘No’ on Unborn Personhood

In a stunning blow to the new-born Zygote Civil Rights movement, voters in Mississippi prevented conception of a new state law granting “personhood” and the rights and responsibilities thereof to fertilized human eggs, without regard to the citizenship status or age of the host mother’s ovaries and uterus. This sudden outbreak of good sense is surprising after the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision granting “personhood” to corporations, allowing them the free speech to purchase all the votes they can buy.

The Story of Mother’s Day

This is a tale of love, obsession, madness, candy, and carnations.
It is the story of Mother’s Day.

The holiday was passionately promoted by single-minded spinster Anna Jarvis (1864-1948), described by Michael Farquhar as “… a woman of fierce loyalty and tireless enterprise and a total raving lunatic.”

Miss Jarvis worshipped her mother’s memory, and no wonder. Her mother, Ann Maria Reeves Jarvis (1832 – 1905), was truly a saint. Daughter of a clergyman, Ann Maria Reeves married merchant and minister Granville E. Jarvis and gave birth to 11 children, only four of whom survived into adulthood.  In 1851, Mrs. Jarvis, a Sunday School teacher, founded Mothers Day Work Clubs in West Virginia. These met in local churches, but were no parish sewing circles.  The clubs dealt with health care, disability, infant mortality, poverty, employment, worker safety, food safety, and sanitation issues. Mrs. Jarvis’ brother, James E. Reeves, MD, a public health authority, was a club lecturer and supporter.

Happy Hour Health Risk

Sobering news for the ladies: a study of over a million women found that just one alcoholic drink a day increases your risk of cancer.  Wine, beer, or liquor, the risk is the same. The more drinks, the greater the risk.

Results of the British study will be published next week in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, but here is a tasting menu (acidic, bitter; hints of pharynx, esophageal, larynx, rectum, breast, and liver tumors):

 ”Study Links Alcohol, Cancer Risk in Women,” PBS Online News Hour

“A Drink a Day Raises Women’s Risk of Cancer, Study Indicates,” Rob Stein, Washington Post

Do-Nothing Mayor Palin

Alec MacGillis made a great point about the fabled executive experience of Sarah Palin in Sunday’s Washington Post: ” … Palin’s mayoralty was … defined by what it did not include.”

While mayor of Wasilla, Alaska (pop.5500), Sarah Palin did not deal with:

Health Care — responsibility of the State of Alaska Department of Health and Social Services

Social Services — responsibility of the State of Alaska Department of Health and Social Services

Education — responsibility of the Matanuska Susitna Borough School District

Environment — responsibility of Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation

Firefighting and EMS– responsibility of Matanuska-Susitna Borough (regional government)

Miss Congeniality Rocks GOP Convention

Sarah Louise Heath Palin, Governor of all 670 000 Alaskans, energized the Republican Base at the Republican Convention last night, causing a brief shortage of blood pressure medication in the St. Paul area. As Vice President, Governor Palin said, she will employ the same administrative skills she used as Mayor of Wasilla, AK (population then: 5500). That means she and John McCain will hire a City Administrator to do their jobs so they can spend their time trying to ban books in public libraries and and keep Sex Ed out of classrooms.

In her prepared remarks, Governor Palin chastised “Community Organizers” and their failed, unAmerican methods of “Self-Help” and “Citizen-Involvement.” Thanks to the efforts of Mayor Palin (and suburban sprawl from nearby Anchorage), Wasilla today is a thriving metropolis of beautiful big box stores and spacious parking lots. The population has grown to nearly 8,000, as Sarah Palin is an ardent proponent of Abstinence-Only Sex Education.