Developments across the country

No elections in Vermont today, but there are a couple of important ones elsewhere.

In Ohio, voters have overwhelmingly voted to throw out the anti-union law that right-wing governor John Kasich pushed through the legislature this year. You may recall that this is the race that Mitt Romney got his fingers burned in recently because of jumping into the fight without clearly picking a side. Another profile in courage for the Mittster, but more importantly, the voters of Ohio have come out to support the rights of public sector workers.

In Mississippi voters have rejected a constitutional amendment that would have counted zygotes and embryos as complete human beings from the moment of conception, immediately outlawing all abortions and some forms of birth control, while at the same time forcing pregnant women to pay double admission to the movies and allowing them to drive in the car pool lane. This was considered a risk to pass, particularly since both gubernatorial candidates supported it.

In Maine the voters have approved a proposal for same-day voter registration, even though the Republicans used scare tactics against it, including ads claiming that the measure was supported by "the gays".

And on a more personal note, in the town I grew up in, voters in Glen Rock, New Jersey stayed true to a pattern established back in 1896, rejecting a Democratic candidate with new ideas for mayor in favor of the Republican establishment. The candidate was my brother Mark, running for the same office that our father ran unsuccessfully for forty-five years ago. Consistency isn't always a good thing, but the family tradition of working for Democratic ideals remains strong. Congratulations on the effort, Mark!

Where are the jobs, Boehner?

When he became Speaker of the House, John Boehner promised that his focus would be on creating jobs, no matter what.

Yesterday we saw another illustration of his commitment to that jobs focus.

Under the Protect Life Act, which passed the House 251 to 172 Thursday night, no health insurance policy that offers abortion coverage could be purchased with federal money made available through the new health care law. Current federal law prohibits plans in the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program from covering abortion. The new bill would apply the same rule to plans in the newly created health exchanges, which are subsidized with federal government tax credits.

The legislation has almost no chance of being brought to the Senate floor, and President Obama is certain to veto it should it ever pass both chambers. The House has brought a few bills aimed at limiting abortion access to the floor since Republicans took control in January.

That's right, when faced with the choice between taking some action that would actually help people, or once again grabbing the opportunity to show how much the Republicans want to make women suffer for the crime of having sex, he again came down on the anti-woman side of the fence.

Makes you wonder, doesn't it? Where are the jobs, Boehner?

Small government, Republican style.

Don't you love the way Republicans claim to be committed to small government?

For years they've decided that there is one small segment of society who isn't entitled to privacy: women.

Things have gotten worse in recent years. We have seen an unprecedented wave of anti-choice, anti-woman legislative proposals.

Legislatures in more than 30 states are weighing — and in some cases passing — many fast-moving bills to restrict abortion rights in a blitz that could prompt the Supreme Court to revisit the issue.

Along with bills prohibiting abortion outright, or in certain circumstances, they're also pushing bills that go to the heart of the doctor-patient relationship, limiting where abortions can be performed, telling doctors what they have to say to their patients, and the like.

I think it's important to keep straight in our minds what these bills are. To say they are anti-abortion bills oversimplifies it, and it really plays into the other side's hands because abortion is more controversial among the general public than other choice related topics.

The Supreme Court has recognized in its precedents that the questions of choice, contraception, and procreation are decidedly based on our constitutional right to privacy.

You would think that a political party that pretends to a commitment to individual autonomy and limited government would be against these laws that restrict the doctor-patient relationship, wouldn't you? After all, not only do they impinge on the personal autonomy of the person, the interfere with what is, at least in part, an economic transaction between the doctor (vendor) and patient (customer).

But no.

Here's the latest. I don't ordinarily link to Fox News, but they're kind of the source for this stuff.

With a stroke of the governor's pen, Florida is positioned to become the first state in the nation to prohibit physicians from asking patients if they have guns in their homes, a move some doctors say will interfere with health care.

That's right, a coalition of gun nuts and small government Republicans have decided that those private conversations between doctors and patients are just a little, well, too private, and the way to fix that is for the government to reach its hand into every doctor's office in the state, and tell those doctors what they are and are not allowed to talk to their patients about.

So let me get this straight. We need to have small government because it's un-American to have government interfering with people's private lives and individual economic transactions.

Except that if protecting privacy rights means protecting women's rights, well, then, privacy rights go out the window and so does small government.

Or if privacy rights interfere with someone's paranoid fantasies of big, scary government, well, there again, we can't stand up to those paranoid fantasies so the privacy rights get chucked aside.

Thanks, Republicans. Stay consistent.

Another round in the war against women

From Talking Points Memo:

AUSTIN, Tex (Reuters) - Women seeking an abortion would have to first get an ultrasound under a measure approved on Thursday by the Texas House of Representatives.

The proposal, the first significant bill considered by the House this year, was designated by Republican Governor Rick Perry as an emergency priority. A similar measure has already been approved by the state Senate.

What the Catholic Church teaches

You've probably heard the phrase "primacy of conscience" used to describe the central premise of Catholic morality.

In hearing the phrase one would naturally think that the Catholic Church teaches people of faith that they should examine their faith and their conscience, and that by doing so they will be able to perceive the basis for correct action. In other words, this would appear to be a very modern, tolerant, view.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Newman and the Drama of True and False Conscience
By Cardinal George Pell

Cardinal John Newman's view of conscience is far from that usually held by those who speak of "primacy of conscience" today. Newman believes a good Catholic conscience can never accept a position of dissent against central Church teaching. Moral truth is the key to conscience, and this is very difficult to deny coherently.

In other words, when the Catholic Church talks about the primacy of conscience, it means what any other dictatorial regime means: do and think as you are told.

The news today provides an example of the fundamental morality of the Catholic Church's teaching.

Last November, a 27-year-old woman was admitted to St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix. She was 11 weeks pregnant with her fifth child, and she was gravely ill. According to a hospital document, she had "right heart failure," and her doctors told her that if she continued with the pregnancy, her risk of mortality was "close to 100 percent."

To any decent, rational person, the choice is clear: do what is necessary to preserve the life of this young woman so she can go on living and caring for her four children. This is exactly what Sister Margaret McBride, a hospital administrator, said to do.

Great news: the woman received an abortion, and she survived.

If you're a bishop, though, this doesn't sound like good news. When Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted heard about the abortion, he declared that McBride was automatically excommunicated — the most serious penalty the church can levy.

That's right: excommunicated for the crime of saving the life of a young mother.

In case you're wondering about how Catholic morality works, and whether it is, as it appears, merely a twisted parody of actual moral reasoning, just take a guess at how many priests who raped children, or bishops who protected the child rapists, have been excommunicated.

If your guess is zero, you would be correct.

You can listen to the NPR story, and you'll hear a Catholic apologist bleat on about how he doesn't see how one thing has anything to do with the other, and maybe, just maybe, you'll be persuaded.

Or, you might be someone who desperately clings to some shred of an idea that there is any hint of morality left in the Catholic Church, and you might conclude that you were wrong, and it's just as corrupt as the rest of us have been saying.

Good news from Kansas

Domestic terrorist guilty of Murder One in cold-blooded murder of abortion doctor.

Rights? What are you talking about?

Last week I posted a link to a debate about whether the Catholic Church is a force for good in the world. To me it's not a close call, but possibly the strongest argument in favor of the Catholic Church is the work it does for social justice: opposing war and the death penalty, supporting orphaned children, feeding the hungry, and the like. Why, they're so committed to social justice that they're pushing the health care reform bill in Congress, right?

Yes, with a big "but". They have supported health care legislation, but as we now know, they were willing to pull the plug on the whole thing without the Stupak amendment: no abortion for anyone who gets subsidized health insurance or health insurance through the public option or purchased through the insurance exchanges. And if the Congress wouldn't knuckle under to the bishops, no health care for anybody.

Now, an analysis by the George Washington University School of Public Health predicts that if the Stupak amendment becomes law it will affect not only women who receive insurance under the new law, but it will lead all insurance companies to drop abortion coverage.


"Under national health reform, millions of women, including women who are covered by small employers (as employees or spouses or dependents of employees) as well as those who are currently uninsured, will receive their coverage through health insurance exchanges. By barring the sale of subsidized products that cover medically indicated abortions as part of a broader package of benefits, the Amendment can be expected to cause the industry to re-design its offerings in order to avoid violating the legal restrictions on abortion applicable to exchange products that receive subsidies," said Professor Sara Rosenbaum, JD, lead author and Chair of the Department of Health Policy. "The Amendment also can be expected to chill efforts to develop supplemental coverage for medically indicated abortions, because it appears to prohibit the joint administration of both a basic and supplemental product," Rosenbaum noted.

Jeffry Toobin has an editorial about this issue in this week's New Yorker, and he has it exactly right. In a point that is often overlooked, he points out that the right to abortion is not simply a question of health care. "But, as Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg observed not long ago, abortion rights “center on a woman’s autonomy to determine her life’s course, and thus to enjoy equal citizenship stature.” Every diminishment of that right diminishes women. With stakes of such magnitude, it is wise to weigh carefully the difference between compromise and surrender."

Who else is supporting rights for women? Cosmopolitan. Yes, the "17 Tricks to Keep Your Man Begging for More" Cosmopolitan. In their current online version they are providing a link to a petition to support abortion rights for all women.

Don't think you're going to need an abortion, or don't think you're going to be relying on subsidized insurance? It still affects you, so sign the petition and push your legislators to get on board with this. The game is now in the Senate. 35% of all women are likely to need an abortion at some point in their lives. This issue is of vital importance for everyone.

A new look at Nixon

There is a new dump of Nixon tapes out and, as always, they provide more information into Nixon's true character. We haven't had the chance to review everything, but here's one that again emphasizes his racism, a characteristic that permeated his career.

Nixon is heard on a muffled tape recording telling his special counsel that abortion is necessary in some cases - including instances of multiracial pregnancy.

Speaking to Charles Colson after the January 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion, the president said: "I admit, there are times when abortions are necessary, I know that." He gave "a black and a white" as an example.

"Or rape," Colson offered. "Or rape," Nixon agreed.

There's more to know, but in the face of the nostalgia that has seized some people for Nixon after the true evil enacted by Reagan and Bush, it's useful to be reminded of what an evil son of a bitch Nixon was.