EDITORIAL
Republicans
Versus Reproductive Rights
Published:
January 8, 2012
“In
Iowa, the Republican presidential contenders tried to outdo one another in
attacking reproductive rights as they sought the support of caucusgoers from
the religious right. In New Hampshire, where voters are less socially
conservative, the candidates have focused more on economic issues.
“But the message
from Iowa was crystal clear: Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, Ron Paul, Jon Huntsman
Jr., Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry all stand ready to restrict a woman’s right
to make her own childbearing decisions and deny essential health care to
millions of women…
“…This fall, the Republican nominee probably will
not be trumpeting this extreme agenda in trying to appeal to moderate women
voters, a key constituency in the general election. But voters should not be
fooled. The assault on women’s reproductive health is a central part of the
Republican agenda. It is not too early for Democrats to point that out.
Supreme Court case tests FCC’s power to police TV indecency
Robert Barnes,
They
are handy shortcuts — there are additional ones for violent and sexual content
— as the nonprofit group’s headphone-wearing analysts monitor every network
prime-time entertainment broadcast for offensive language, bleeped profanity,
flashes of nudity, threesomes and gore.
Cassi Creek: Despite
their current failure to overturn Roe v. Wade, the teavangelists and the GOP functionaries
will retrench and reorganize in order to find some means of rolling the
cultural calendar back to the days when women had no reliable or safe means of
contraception, and no access at all to safe, legal abortion. The cultural crusaders are determined to
shove their evangelical/fundamentalist worldview onto the rest of the
populace. They want desperately to
overturn the 1st Amendment as it prohibits the establishment of a
state religion. The Congress is sufficiently
in thrall to the evangelical corporations that masquerade as non-profit,
non-political entities to allow them to sculpt legislation and then have it
pushed through as laws that bring us closer and closer to a theocracy.
Listening to
the GOP candidates it is clear that, given their way, they will return American
women to the breeding stock that they were when the nation was settled. We’d have been much better off if European
religions had remained in Europe.
Notice, too,
the long-running attempt to control what is said and shown on public broadcast
bands. Someone should remind the GOP and
its minions, the Parents’ television Council that not all of us are
parents. I prefer to watch television
that is not Disneyfied and swept clean of reality. If the program I happen to be viewing offends
me in some manner, I change the channel or turn the TV off. Even more unusual, I may actually pick up a
book and read. I’d suggest that to the
parents and agents who have filed over 1.4 million complaints with the FCC; but
I suspect their homes are devoid of literature.
They’ve they’ve pretty much burned or banned all the books other than
the King James bible. If they haven’t
rest assured, they intend to.
Sancte Leibowtiz ...
-Saint Leibowitz, pray for me
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