Tuesday, May 8, 2012

8 May 2012 Cattle and chattel drive time in Kansas



Kansas House Passes Most Dangerous Sweeping Anti-Abortion Law In the Nation
May 7, 2012

            “In March, Addictinginfo reported on a dangerous anti-abortion bill being considered by the Republican dominated Kansas House of Representatives. We are now horrified to report that the Kansas House has passed that bill and it now goes to the Senate.
            “Republicans are poised to make the 69 page bill the most restrictive anti-abortion law in the nation. Among the provisions include:
            “ A sales tax on all abortions. Even rape victims would have to pay the tax, which could be as high as 6.3%. Despite their objections to millionaires paying more taxes, Republicans feel it’s okay to tax women for making a personal decision about their own bodies. This makes abortion more expensive…
            “ A personhood measure that would define life as beginning at conception, which would almost certainly make abortion equivalent to murder and outlaw all abortion in the state of Kansas. Many forms of contraception could also be banned.
            “ A measure that significantly limits abortions in the third trimester.
            “ A provision that bans women from claiming abortion insurance coverage and services on their taxes.
            “Doctors are hereby ordered to tell women that abortion causes breast cancer, which is a damned lie.
            “ Doctors are also shielded from lawsuits if they withhold critical health information from pregnant women that could cause them to decide to have an abortion. In other words, they don’t have to tell women about the health of the fetus they carry and don’t have to tell women about any problems with the pregnancy.
            “Such measures would make it nearly impossible for women to get an abortion in the state of Kansas. They would severely restrict a woman’s right to make her own health decisions. And the bill forces women to submit to the will of men…”
          Read the excerpts above and tell me that you can, in any manner, find a single bit of justification for the actions of Kansas legislators.  Realizing, perhaps, that the women of the state are no longer intimidated by religion-based lies about eternal damnation to prevent women planning when, and whether or not to reproduce; this gang of old white men now use lies about acquiring cancer to terrify Kansas women into allowing men to control their reproductive choices.
          I lived in Kansas for a while.  I lived for another period in SW Missouri, just about 20 miles from Kansas.  In both instances, I found Kansas to be interesting places to live with good school systems, good healthcare and culturally forward-looking with a noticeable commitment to the quality of life for all its citizens. 
          Well, there was that “dry state” idiocy that we all worked around by visiting state-run liquor stores and joining “private clubs in order to obtain reciprocity and the opportunity to buy liquor by the drink along with food.  
          However, I moved to Kansas from Arkansas.  Most places would have seemed culturally forward-looking.  In the second instance, life in SW Missouri is such that it makes even the Boy Scouts seem interested in equality and culturally progressive.  I like Kansas in those days. 
          Well, I haven’t changed all that much politically or culturally.  Therefore, something must have really happened to Kansas.  Kansas was a free state, opposed to whites owning black slaves.  Kansas citizens fought a long and bloody war, mostly with neighboring Missouri in order to abolish slavery.  Kansas was a prime factor in the desegregation of schools and other facilities and institutions. 
          Somewhere along the way to abolishing chattel slavery Kansas elected some leaders who have decided that the freedom matter applies only to males.   It appears that we may yet be fighting another long and bloody war to free women from repressive religious intrusion into their lives.  Kansas is an appropriate place to begin the 2nd American civil war.   2012 is as good a year to start as any.  

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