Rebecca Warner's Blog, page 4

January 24, 2015

Abortion is Safer Than Penicillin

Republicans claim falsely that abortion is a dangerous medical procedure for women. But the following facts presented by David A. Grimes, Author, Every Third Woman in America: How Legal Abortion Transformed Our Nation and former Chief of the Abortion Surveillance Branch at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) tell the true story: (Huffington Post)


“Because of difficulty in accessing abortion care, desperate women are once again attempting self-abortion.


Before Roe v. Wade in 1973, an estimated 200,000 to 1.2 million illegal abortions occurred annually in the U.S. The carnage was terrible. Incomplete abortion was a leading cause of admission to gynecology wards across America. In the year when I was born, more than 700 women died this way. Around the world today, unsafe abortion kills an estimated 47,000 women each year. After the legalization of abortion in the U.S., the risk of death promptly fell to less than that from an injection of penicillin.


The scientific foundation for safe, legal abortion is incontrovertible. Within two years of Roe v. Wade, the Institute of Medicine had concluded that legal abortion improved the health of women. All major medical and public health organizations today affirm the health benefits of legal abortion; these include the World Health Organization, American Public Health Organization, American Medical Association, American Medical Women’s Association, American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, American Academy of Pediatrics, American Psychological Association, and American Psychiatric Association.”


Yet the strangling regulations that states like Texas and Mississippi have put on abortion clinics–such as requiring the physician who performs abortions to affiliate with a hospital within 30 miles, and that all abortions take place in ambulatory surgical centers–are passed with the arrogant expectation that people are naïve enough to believe it is for women’s safety. Sadly, in great part, their expectation is met.


Last month I had a conversation with a politically-conservative man, a man who is highly educated and is one of the most brilliant attorneys I have ever known. While discussing my book, MORAL INFIDELITY, which has fact-based medical data about abortions in its pages, I mentioned that Texas had only six abortion clinics and Mississippi only one, due to this draconian legislation. He asked, “But isn’t that for a woman’s safety?” It was hard for me to fathom that such an intelligent person could be so clueless; and if he were that clueless, just how many of those who are not as educated or well-read or informed as he hold that same erroneous belief?


When I told him that women are 40 times more likely each year to die of a colonoscopy than an abortion, he was stunned. But then the brainy part of him kicked in and he said, “Yes, because of sepsis.”


Another medical fact worth noting: Women are 14 times more likely to die from childbirth than from an abortion.


We need to have these two simple statistics at the ready to impart to people like my friend who parrot the Republicans’ (and FOX News’) lies about the dangers of abortions.


I have whittled my argument against such ignorance down to this succinct phrase:


“It is a medical fact that women are 40 times more likely to die of a colonoscopy, and 14 times more likely to die from childbirth, than from an abortion.”


Even the most avid anti-abortionists have jaw-dropping moments when they hear this.


And I must say, it feels pretty darn good to trump ignorance with facts. I freaking love medical facts.

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Published on January 24, 2015 15:04

January 22, 2015

22 Female House Republicans Derail Vote on the “Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act”

Today, January 22, 2015, is the 42nd anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v Wade, and the 41st anniversary of the March for Life in Washington, D.C.


House Republican leaders were scheduled to vote today on a controversial anti-abortion measure to coincide with this annual gathering of anti-abortion advocates, but had to scrap today’s anticipated vote because they couldn’t round up enough support.


And we can credit 22 Republican women in the House of Representatives for derailing it.


The “Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act,” is a bill banning so-called “late-term abortions,” which are those—according to the bill—involving procedures for women who are beyond 20 weeks into their pregnancy.


It is accepted medical fact that fetal brain structures necessary for conscious experience of pain do not develop until 29-30 weeks, and the conscious processing of sounds is only made possible after the 26th week. This was the medical data that led to the 28-week provision in Roe. So the bill named the “Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act” is inaccurate in its title and its assumptions.


But House GOP women didn’t protest the 20-week limit; they protested language in the bill that requires those women who seek an exception to the ban, because they were raped, to back up their claim with a police report. A similar measure has passed the House in 2013, but this time some female members—including some who voted for it last time—are pushing for that requirement to be stripped out.


Did these female legislators rebel because they are women sympathetic to rape victims, or because they are politicians chasing the vote? After all, this group of female House Republicans pointed out the vote could threaten the Party’s efforts to reach out to women and young people. If that is the case, why aren’t they upset with the entirety of the bill?


But this report-the-rape provision circles back to the “legitimate rape” issue, which is continually morphing as it is used in different contexts. The meaning in this case is, if there isn’t a police report made following the rape, it isn’t a legitimate rape.


It is a known fact that many rapes go unreported. A Justice Department report from December, 2014, estimates that 80% of campus rapes go unreported. The National Research Council in 2013 reported that same number of rapes in the general population—80 percent—go unreported.


There are many reasons rape goes unreported, but the most common is that rape is most often committed by someone known to the victim. In fact, it is estimated that 90% of rapes are committed by known assailants, and only 10% by strangers. So why are these rapes not reported? Studies show that there is the fear of not being believed; that there is a sense of shame or self-blame; that there are mixed feelings about getting the perpetrator ‘into trouble’.


So when Republicans require women who seek an exception to the ban because they were raped to back up their claim with a police report, they are forcing women to do something that, for their own personal reasons, they likely would have chosen not to do.


While we can wish all rapes were reported and prosecuted, it is not realistic to think that women will start reporting those rapes so that they can have “proof” in the form of a police report, just in case they anticipate having an abortion after the 20-week period.


It’s an ill-conceived provision, and while it might seem logical that rape victims who choose to have an abortion would do so within 20 weeks, it is not up to us or Republican legislators to expect it.


In Roe v Wade, viability was defined as “potentially able to live outside the mother’s womb, albeit with artificial aid. Viability is usually placed at about seven months (28 weeks) but may occur earlier, even at 24 weeks.” When the Supreme Court ruled in 1973, the then-current medical technology suggested that viability could occur as early as 24 weeks. Advances over the past three decades have allowed fetuses that are a few weeks less than 24 weeks old to survive outside the mother’s womb. These scientific achievements, while life-saving for premature babies, have made the determination of being “viable” somewhat more complicated. (Wikipedia)


But if rape victims, or any other women, decide to wait until the now legal 28 weeks for an abortion, they are not breaking the law. Some states have lowered that viability number to 24 weeks, some 22 weeks, and now the targeted viability term up for a House vote is 20 weeks.


We can’t know why a woman would decide to wait 28 weeks to obtain an abortion. We do know that severe deformities such as hydrocephalus can take that long, or longer, to be diagnosed. We do know that women’s circumstances can change through divorce, economic devastation, the need to become a caretaker to an ill parent…myriad reasons. Having a baby under such circumstances could be exceptionally difficult. Whatever the reasons, we must maintain that it is a woman’s legal right to do so, and it is her choice.


Whether you are a pro-choice advocate or not, it is currently the law that the safe, legal medical procedure known as abortion is available to women without restriction for up to 28 weeks. It’s the viability issue that is being tested.


For now, the target is 20 weeks, but North Dakota has approved a six-week abortion ban. Six weeks! Getting the 28 weeks lowered to 20 weeks is just the start of the Republican mission to, as they have boasted, “ban abortion outright.” This is plain to see.


As Hillary Clinton said: “I have met thousands and thousands of pro-choice men and women. I have never met anyone who is pro-abortion.” Being pro-choice is not being pro-abortion. But choice must remain available to women, and the current viability terms of up to 28 weeks is the law for scientific, medical reasons.

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Published on January 22, 2015 11:25

December 18, 2014

“Legitimate Rape” is an oxymoron

The term “legitimate rape” was advanced by Missouri Rep. Todd Akin’s assertion that there is such a thing. His quote: “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”


It is impossible to reconcile those two contradictory words, legitimate rape, appearing in conjunction.


The definition of legitimate is: Conforming to the law or to rules.


If rape is against the law, how can it be legitimate under any guise?


Now this term is being used again by Missouri Republican lawmaker Rick Brattin, who is pushing a bill that would allow a man who gets a woman pregnant to stop her from having an abortion. The measure would force a woman who wants an abortion to obtain written permission from the father first—unless she was the victim of “legitimate rape.” 


Perhaps part of the problem in the escalating use of this ill-conceived terminology lies in how the legal system can’t seem to agree on what constitutes rape, and who is responsible for it.


Legal definitions have been confusing. It took until 2013 for the FBI to change its 1929 definition of rape from “the carnal knowledge of a female, forcibly and against her will” to the new version: “Penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim.”


Blame the Victim: She made me do it.


“Rape is the only crime in which we turn the lens onto the survivor, the victim, and not onto the perpetrator,” said Bobbie Villareal, executive director of the Dallas Rape Crisis Center. “When someone gets shot, we don’t ever ask them, why didn’t you get away from that bullet?”


A perfect example of this was carried out in a Montana rape case. Ignoring the revised FBI definition of rape, Montana District Judge G. Todd Baugh proclaimed a 14-year-old victim, a girl who had not given consent, “older than her chronological age” and “probably as much in control of the situation as the defendant.” Judge Baugh gave her rapist, Stacey Rambold–who admitted raping the girl–just 30 days in prison after suggesting the victim also shared responsibility for her rape. Rambold was a 47-year-old business teacher. The victim was one of his students. The girl committed suicide before the case went to trial.


Then there is the very recent case of  the Pennsylvania attorney general’s office blaming a former state prison clerk for her own rape, in response to a federal lawsuit the woman filed. Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane argues that there could have been “contributory negligence” at play, a legal term for cases when both the plaintiff and the defendant share some blame in what happened.


The AG’s office asserted that the victim “acted in a manner which in whole or in part contributed” to the assault. This is because she did not lock the doors separating her office from the cell block. But the clerk’s offices were actually moved from part of the prison that was off limits to inmates to a less secure location before the rape and there were no locked doors between the offices and the cell blocks. And this is her fault?


Additionally, the victim allegedly complained twice to her boss, about a week before the attack, that she felt uncomfortable and unsafe with inmate Omar Best coming into her office. Though told by her boss that Best would no longer be allowed to enter her office, Best did enter her office on the pretense of emptying the trash, then choked her unconscious and raped her for 27 minutes. Best had been convicted three times previously of sex-related crimes, and then been transferred from a different state prison for assaulting a female assistant there.


And knowing all of this, the AG’s office in Pennsylvania is saying that the victim shares equal blame with her rapist.


We might expect this in a country like India, where rapists are rarely punished and women have long been held responsible for inviting rape. Mullah and police officers often express the opinion that girls are mainly responsible for getting raped, as they provoke men by wearing revealing outfits and roaming outside at night.


But in America? Hard to believe, but yes, this mentality is disturbingly prevalent. A 14-year-old girl looks older than her chronological age, and therefore invites rape. A typist in a prison didn’t lock a door that had no lock on it, and she is as responsible for her rape as her rapist.


America actually seems almost reluctant to call someone a rapist, perhaps because of the perception that women often accuse men unfairly. Actually, research has shown that only 4.9% of rape accusations are false. False accusations are wrong and damaging, but that doesn’t mean the 95.1% of rape accusations that are not false should be viewed as “iffy.”


When evidence is overwhelming, as in the prison case, and when a rapist admits to the rape, as in the Montana case, then there should be no aversion from any quarter in calling a rapist a rapist. And there should be no hesitancy in administering fitting punishment under the law.


I read something years ago that left a strong impression . Someone said (and I’m paraphrasing) If a person holds up a $100 bill in Central Park, and someone takes it from him, it’s still robbery, it’s still a crime. By the same token, if a woman wears a provocative short skirt and gets raped, it is still rape, it is still a crime.


Perhaps better judgment could be used in both of these cases, but bad judgment is not against the law. Rape is, and blame should be laser-directed at the perpetrator, and never at the victim.

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Published on December 18, 2014 10:50

“LEGITIMATE RAPE” is an oxymoron

The term “legitimate rape” was advanced by Missouri Rep. Todd Akin’s assertion that there is such a thing. His quote: “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”


It is impossible to reconcile those two contradictory words, legitimate rape, appearing in conjunction.


The definition of legitimate is: Conforming to the law or to rules.


If rape is against the law, how can it be legitimate under any guise?


Now this term is being used again by Missouri Republican lawmaker Rick Brattin, who is pushing a bill that would allow a man who gets a woman pregnant to stop her from having an abortion. The measure would force a woman who wants an abortion to obtain written permission from the father first—unless she was the victim of “legitimate rape.” 


Perhaps part of the problem in the escalating use of this ill-conceived terminology lies in how the legal system can’t seem to agree on what constitutes rape, and who is responsible for it.


Legal definitions have been confusing. It took until 2013 for the FBI to change its 1929 definition of rape from “the carnal knowledge of a female, forcibly and against her will” to the new version: “Penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim.”


BLAME THE VICTIM: She made me do it.


“Rape is the only crime in which we turn the lens onto the survivor, the victim, and not onto the perpetrator,” said Bobbie Villareal, executive director of the Dallas Rape Crisis Center. “When someone gets shot, we don’t ever ask them, why didn’t you get away from that bullet?”


A perfect example of this was carried out in a Montana rape case. Ignoring the revised FBI definition of rape, Montana District Judge G. Todd Baugh proclaimed a 14-year-old victim, a girl who had not given consent, “older than her chronological age” and “probably as much in control of the situation as the defendant.” Judge Baugh gave her rapist, Stacey Rambold–who admitted raping the girl–just 30 days in prison after suggesting the victim also shared responsibility for her rape. Rambold was a 47-year-old business teacher. The victim was one of his students. The girl committed suicide before the case went to trial.


Then there is the very recent case of  the Pennsylvania attorney general’s office blaming a former state prison clerk for her own rape, in response to a federal lawsuit the woman filed. Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane argues that there could have been “contributory negligence” at play, a legal term for cases when both the plaintiff and the defendant share some blame in what happened.


The AG’s office asserted that the victim “acted in a manner which in whole or in part contributed” to the assault. This is because she did not lock the doors separating her office from the cell block. But the clerk’s offices were actually moved from part of the prison that was off limits to inmates to a less secure location before the rape and there were no locked doors between the offices and the cell blocks. And this is her fault?


Additionally, the victim allegedly complained twice to her boss, about a week before the attack, that she felt uncomfortable and unsafe with inmate Omar Best coming into her office. Though told by her boss that Best would no longer be allowed to enter her office, Best did enter her office on the pretense of emptying the trash, then choked her unconscious and raped her for 27 minutes. Best had been convicted three times previously of sex-related crimes, and then been transferred from a different state prison for assaulting a female assistant there.


And knowing all of this, the AG’s office in Pennsylvania is saying that the victim shares equal blame with her rapist.


We might expect this in a country like India, where rapists are rarely punished and women have long been held responsible for inviting rape. Mullah and police officers often express the opinion that girls are mainly responsible for getting raped, as they provoke men by wearing revealing outfits and roaming outside at night.


But in America? Hard to believe, but yes, this mentality is disturbingly prevalent. A 14-year-old girl looks older than her chronological age, and therefore invites rape. A typist in a prison didn’t lock a door that had no lock on it, and she is as responsible for her rape as her rapist.


America actually seems almost reluctant to call someone a rapist, perhaps because of the perception that women often accuse men unfairly. Actually, research has shown that only 4.9% of rape accusations are false. False accusations are wrong and damaging, but that doesn’t mean the 95.1% of rape accusations that are not false should be viewed as “iffy.”


When evidence is overwhelming, as in the prison case, and when a rapist admits to the rape, as in the Montana case, then there should be no aversion from any quarter in calling a rapist a rapist. And there should be no hesitancy in administering fitting punishment under the law.


I read something years ago that left a strong impression . Someone said (and I’m paraphrasing) If a person holds up a $100 bill in Central Park, and someone takes it from him, it’s still robbery, it’s still a crime. By the same token, if a woman wears a provocative short skirt and gets raped, it is still rape, it is still a crime.


Perhaps better judgment could be used in both of these cases, but bad judgment is not against the law. Rape is, and blame should be laser-directed at the perpetrator, and never at the victim.

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Published on December 18, 2014 10:50

November 26, 2014

WANT EQUALITY? TIE AN APRON ON THAT MAN!

With Thanksgiving and Christmas upon us, online recipes abound. Directions for cooking the perfect turkey and accompanying side dishes are served up in abundance.


And they make me feel like saying, “Oh, stuff it!”


When you visualize holiday dinners, do you see harried and flustered men in the kitchen, wearing aprons, sweating while basting a twenty-pound turkey, or measuring vanilla into the pumpkin pie mixture?


When you visualize holiday dinners, do you see women ensconced in front of a TV, enjoying a cocktail and snacks while cheering on their football team, while waiting to hear those gratifying words “Dinner is ready!”


No, of course you don’t, because that wouldn’t be traditional, would it?


Well, as a long-time feminist, I say…to heck with tradition!


I rebelled against the little-woman-as-the-cook stereotyping decades ago, and I can only say my life has been the better for it. I never learned to cook as a teenager, because my mother had a strange but delightful philosophy about teaching me and my sisters to cook: “You’ll have to do it when you get married, so I don’t want you to have to do it now.”


The need to cook was avoided throughout college because of a generous meal plan and the survival skills of my college boyfriend. He had his own apartment with a kitchen, and there was never a question of my entering that domain for anything other than what could be foraged or sipped. I don’t remember specifically what he cooked, but there were a lot of noodles around. I was easy to please.


My first apartment post-college had a kitchen, of course, but it was never utilized. Working full time and going to graduate school at night left little time to even contemplate cooking. There were always salad ingredients and a few frosty pot pies around, and that was wholly sufficient.


Post-college, through nine years of dating, I never cooked a meal for a man. I think many were stumped, but if the subject were ever broached, I simply said, “I don’t cook—at least not in the kitchen.” Really clever diversion, that.


One boyfriend was a gourmet cook, and it was through him I learned to appreciate what went into putting an exquisite meal together. I admired the process from the safe vantage of his living room, it’s true, but I admired it nonetheless.


That same boyfriend once joined my family for Thanksgiving. While my two married sisters and my mother prepared the holiday meal, I drank a Bloody Mary, munched peanuts and watched my beloved Dolphins football team with the guys.


A female-voiced entreaty came from the kitchen, calling my name and enlisting my help with the time-and-labor-intensive dinner preparations. I was annoyed. Why, I asked myself, do I have to do it?  The only difference I could see among those of us in front of the TV was that I had pronounced mammary glands. Moreover, my gourmet-cooking boyfriend was in the house. Too, as I recall, it was a crucial third-and-ten situation for the Dolphins. I reluctantly ambled into the kitchen and did what I could to avoid any real cooking. I arranged food on platters, pretending to be useful but staying far away from simmering pots and steaming fowl.


But it was on that Thanksgiving Day that my disinterest in cooking morphed into an aversion. After hours and hours of preparation, everyone was seated, the prayer was said, and the men piled their plates high and ooohed and aaahed—for all of ten minutes. And then they stood up, mumbled inadequate words of appreciation, and dashed out for the second half of the game.


And I, I who would have been just as happy with a turkey pot pie and another Bloody Mary, was one of the little women who would be responsible for cleaning up all those dishes and pots and pans. Everything was wrong with that picture.


Over the following thirty-five years from that fateful day, advancement of women’s rights and the tenants of feminism surged into our collective psyche. For all the battles women have won, the battle of who wears the apron in the family, especially when it comes to preparing holiday meals, hasn’t even begun. There may be minor skirmishes, but women still wield the gravy ladle.


I’m thinking that this holiday season, and for years to come, women should teach men the true meaning of equality by letting them venture into their territory; i.e., the kitchen. Especially on holidays. Women should proffer their aprons and their time-honored recipes to men, and let them experience the joy of preparing a delicious holiday meal for their wives, mothers, and children.


Picture it: There he stands in the kitchen, swathed in an apron, sweat glistening on his brow as he stirs one pot after another, his forearms disappearing inside the turkey as he pulls out the gizzard and innards. Quite a picture, isn’t it?


Somehow, I don’t think any words he might utter would be as blasé as, “Oh, stuff it!”

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Published on November 26, 2014 14:32

November 12, 2014

NEW SENATE SENTRIES WILL KILL ABORTION RIGHTS

Abortion Rights are about to go down the proverbial toilet, and here’s why: Every Republican who was elected to the Senate last week is anti-abortion.


Meet the new anti-abortion extremists:


But first, the definition of extreme: (of a person or their opinions) advocating severe or drastic measures; far from moderate, especially politically.

Synonyms: radical, immoderate, fanatical, revolutionary, rebel, subversive, militant.


CORY GARDNER – COLORADO – A U.S. House Representative, now Senator-elect, who beat incumbent Mark Udall. Gardner voted for H.R.1797, the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act. The purpose of the bill was to ban abortions that would take place 20 or more weeks after fertilization (currently a minimum of 24 weeks under Roe v Wade.) He also co-sponsored H.R. 1091, known formally as Life at Concept Act, and informally as a personhood bill. The personhood bill says, “‘human person’ and ‘human being’ include each and every member of the species homo sapiens at all stages of life, including the moment of fertilization, cloning, or other moment at which an individual member of the human species comes into being.”


In other words, fertilized egg = person; ergo, abortion = murder.


TOM COTTON – ARKANSAS –Currently a U.S. House Representative, now Senator-elect. Also voted for HR1797, and also cosponsored H.R. 1091. His extreme views include personhood of the fertilized egg, which would prohibit the morning-after pill; opposition to the violence against women act; religious opt-outs for insurance coverage of family planning, and opposition to health and welfare programs of immense importance to women.


STEVE DAINES – MONTANA – Also a Republican member of the U.S. House, elected in 2012, now the Senator-elect for Montana. Ditto on supporting the above bills. In his first days as a Congressman, Daines co-sponsored legislation to defund Planned Parenthood and other organizations that receive federal funding and provide contraceptive services. He worked to overturn Roe v. Wade, and called for a constitutional amendment to outlaw abortion even for cases of rape or incest.


Daines is extreme. Extremely extreme.


TOM TILLIS – NORTH CAROLINA – Currently the Republican Speaker of the NC House of Representatives. Beat pro-choice incumbent Kay Hagan and is now Senator-elect for North Carolina.

Tillis opposes safe and legal abortion, and believes states have the right to restrict access to birth control. He supports personhood initiatives, and supported NC state efforts that blocked Planned Parenthood from receiving funding. In 2011, he championed the medically unnecessary, mandatory ultrasound bill alongside extreme anti-women’s health groups. Under his leadership as Speaker of the House, the NC legislature passed a number of measures, including:


Ethan’s Law, recognizing unborn children as victims of violent crime;


Prohibition of NC taxpayer dollars from being used to pay for abortion or to pay for insurance coverage of abortion;


Health &Safety Law, of which one provision is opting NC out of abortion coverage in the ACA, and another is prohibiting abortions from being covered in city and county health care plans.


And now Tillis will carpetbag his extreme anti-abortion agenda to Washington.


MARION MICHAEL “MIKE” ROUNDS – SOUTH DAKOTA – Served as Governor of South Dakota from 2003-2011, now Senator-elect to Congress. On February 22, 2006, the SD state legislature passed an act banning all medical abortions except those necessary to save the mother’s life. Rounds signed the act on March 6, 2006, and it was to have taken effect on July 1, 2006. It did not take effect because of a court challenge, and was later repealed by voters (in this deeply-red state) on November 7, 2006. ROUNDS doubled down, and on November 26, 2006, signed into law the nation’s most sweeping state abortion ban, an intentional provocation meant to set up a direct legal challenge to Roe v. Wade.


Now he has a chance to wield his anti-abortion club in the Republican-majority U.S. Senate.


SHELLY MOORE CAPITO – WEST VIRGINIA – Another U.S. House Representative who will be taking her place in the Senate. Capito also voted for H.R.1797, Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act. But based on analysis of multiple outside rankings, Capito is a more moderate-right-of-center Republican Party vote. She may break with the Republican Party line more than her fellow members, but that break from Party line is unlikely to happen on any issue regarding abortion.


JONI ERNST – IOWA – Republican member of the Iowa State Senate, now the Senator-elect for Iowa. In April 2013, Ernst joined 20 other Iowa state senators in sponsoring personhood legislation. Fortunately, it did not even come to a vote in the Democratic-controlled Iowa Senate. Had it passed, the measure would have amended the state Constitution to legally define someone as a “person” at conception. Iowa state senate Democrats earlier had defeated an amendment that would have banned Medicaid-funded abortions, even in the case of rape, incest or fetal deformity. At a Republican Senator primary debate last May, she said if a personhood bill passes (in Congress) she thinks abortion providers “should be punished.”


DAN SULLIVAN – ALASKA – Today, November 12, 2014, Republican Dan Sullivan was declared the winner of Alaska’s U.S. Senate race, defeating first-term incumbent Democrat Mark Begich and adding to GOP’s U.S. Senate sweep. Sullivan most recently served as Alaska’s Attorney General, then as its natural resources commissioner. Throughout his campaign for Alaska’s U.S. Senate seat, Sullivan was so slippery on women’s health issues, dodging questions left and right, that he earned himself the honor of his very own hashtag: #SlipperySullivan. His stance, however, was clearly stated on his campaign website: “Life begins at conception and we must fight to protect the lives of the unborn.”


So there you have it, folks. Eight incoming Republican U.S. Senators, all of whom oppose a woman’s right to choose; Republicans Senators who support a personhood amendment to the Constitution of the United States; Senators who would punish abortion providers, cut funding for any organization that provides abortion or abortion counseling, and—at their most extreme—jail women who miscarry because they are murderers. These particular laws have been floated under the titles “Criminal Miscarriage” and “Prenatal Murder.”


And if that is not the very definition of extreme, then I honestly can’t say what is.

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Published on November 12, 2014 08:07

October 30, 2014

MORAL INFIDELITY FEATURED ON DIGITAL BOOK TODAY

What is the Top 100 Best Free Kindle Books List?


This is our selection of the best free books available on a daily basis based upon number of reviews and rating. We sort the thousands of titles that are free on Amazon on any given day and create a list of the best books. On any given day there are thousands of free books on Amazon. The great majority of these books have between 0-5 reviews. On a day-to-day basis, usually only 20-40 books out of the thousands that become free for that day actually exceed these guidelines.

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Published on October 30, 2014 07:12

October 28, 2014

EQUAL RIGHTS AMENDMENT FALLACY

Do you think the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) is in place, and is a part of our Constitution? Do you think that women have equal rights under the Constitution? If so, you are under the same misconception as millions of other women and men. There is no Equal Rights Amendment to our Constitution. It was never ratified.


And unless we vote anti-women politicians out of office, women will never have equal rights protection under the Constitution.


Here is the crux of the ERA:


“Equality of rights under the law shall not be abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.”


This simple sentence comprised Section 1 of the EQUAL RIGHTS AMENDMENT (ERA), which was first proposed in Congress by the National Women’s Party in 1923. It was introduced in every session of Congress until it passed, reworded (below), in 1972.


“Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.”


This rewording made an even stronger statement than the original.


But passage by Congress did not mean it went into effect. Amending the Constitution is a two-step process. First Congress must propose the amendment by a two-thirds majority in both the House and Senate. After proposal, it must be ratified by three-fourths (38) of the state legislatures.


Organizations like the National Organization of Women (NOW) began a hard push for state-ratification of the ERA. 38 states needed to ratify the amendment to make it law. Public opinion polls showed strong, favorable support. 30 of the necessary 38 states ratified the amendment by 1973.


And then the momentum slowed as Phyllis Schlafly, leader of the STOP-ERA CAMPAIGN, began the movement against ERA ratification, suggesting that ratification would lead to the complete unraveling of traditional American society. Schlafly, a career woman with a law degree, nevertheless glorified the traditional roles of American women. Schlafly’s STOP-ERA Campaign gained traction, in effect slowing—and eventually killing—the required 38-state ratification of the ERA.


By 1982, the year of expiration, only 35 states had voted in favor of the ERA — three states shy of the necessary total. As a result, the ERA never became an amendment to the Constitution.


This is why women still only make 77 cents on the dollar to men. There is no law to stop employers from discriminating in pay.


There is no law to stop employers from discriminating against women’s reproductive rights. What rights had been won were diminished as a result of the HOBBY LOBBY Supreme Court decision, which stated that the 2010 Affordable Care Act can’t require certain businesses to provide free insurance coverage for birth control if they object on religious grounds.


That SCOTUS decision has, more than three decades later, re-energized interest in the ERA. Advocates are working to advance the ERA’s cause at the grass-roots level as some in Congress work to either repeal the amendment’s deadline or start over. Belief that a woman’s reproductive rights should be protected, and that no employer should have control over that issue, has been the igniting factor.


With the current makeup of Congress, there is little chance that the ERA will see the light of day.


Here is the breakdown of party/gender in the House of Representatives, where it must first pass:


 There are 435 total Representatives and Delegates: 234 Republicans, 201 Democrats


There are 79 women in the House of Representatives, 60 Democrats, 19 Republicans.


Imagine how much more could be done in regard to protecting women’s rights under the law if Democrats could regain control of the House. With 60 Democratic women in the House, and Democratic control overall, the House could effectively put the ERA at the top of its agenda and could repeal the amendment’s deadline, giving it new life.


There is so much at stake in the November, 2014 election. The word VOTE has taken on monumental significance—more than at any time in history, especially in regard to women’s rights. Women were not given the right to vote until 1920, when the 19th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified; but our votes since that time have helped reshape history.


Don’t let this privilege of effecting change through your constitutional right to vote slip away.


VOTE for every single candidate on your ballot who advocates women’s rights.


Changing the Party majority of the House, and retaining control of the Senate, is the only way to assure that laws such as the Equal Rights Amendment, and the overturning of the Hobby Lobby decision, are in our future.


“The present is a contest and the future is our reward.”

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Published on October 28, 2014 07:40

October 6, 2014

Miley and Beyoncé Advance Women’s Power

Are you offended by Miley’s skimpy outfits, outlandish sexual gestures, or her suggestive tongue action? Good! Because every time she offends, she strikes a blow for a woman’s right to offend. Miley knows that her success and power lie in being the most controversial, sexual siren she can be. Every time she’s pilloried by the media, she is advancing a woman’s right to express her sexuality in the most provocative way, and there’s not a damn thing any politician or preacher can do about it. Plenty are appalled, but her sales are up, up, up. Her album, Bangerz, sold a million copies as of May, 2014. In contrast, her 2010 album Can’t Be Tamed sold only 350,000 copies.


Beyoncé, that beautiful woman who exudes raw sexuality while bowling us over with her tremendous talent, causes not only conservatives, but some feminists, to cringe. The criticism seems to swirl around the idea that prominently displaying her breasts and shaking her booty diminishes women. If that were all there were to Beyoncé, feminists might have a point. But I contend that Beyoncé’s success should be cheered by feminists. After all, Beyoncé has enjoyed record-breaking career success and has taken control of a multimillion-dollar empire in a male-run industry, while being outspoken about gender bias and the sacrifices women are required to make.


Let’s define feminism once again: “Advocating women’s rights on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality to men.”


In the Feburary, 2013 issue of GQ, Beyoncé is quoted as saying, “”Let’s face it, money gives men the power to run the show. It gives men the power to define value. They define what’s sexy. And men define what’s feminine. It’s ridiculous.”


So how can feminists have a problem with a woman who is looking to level the playing field, and even beat men at their own game, simply because she exhibits sexuality on a grand scale while she’s playing their game?


Miley will never be the intellectual or sophisticated equal of Beyoncé, but she is a genius in her own right. She does brand marketing better than anyone, hands down. At the 2013 VMA awards, she twerked Robin Thick and followed up on that blatantly sexual act by riding a wrecking ball like a well-endowed lover to introduce her song, “Wrecking Ball,” which is on her Bangerz album. The upshot of all of that? Despite the media’s attempt to bring her to heel through insults and shaming, Bangerz  sales  soared and the “Wrecking Ball” video won video of the year at the 2014 MTV Video Music Awards. The more outrageous her behavior, the more albums Miley sells. The more albums she sells, the more money and power she has to run her own show.


Forbes Magazine writer William Arruda had this take on Miley’s performance that night: “She was expressing her sexuality just as she was about to turn twenty-one. She was defying authority and showing her indifference to what the generation above her thought. She seemed to revel in the controversy. In other words, she was showing her fans, also entering their late teen years that she was exactly like them.”


I can only hope that Miley’s and Beyoncé’s generation of teen fans will want to express their own individuality, to shake off constraints constructed by men, to defy any authority that seeks to repress their natural talents or to demean their sexuality.


If the tide is ever going to turn, it has to surge now. If teens-becoming-women are going to claim the right to make decisions about their own bodies, they better assert themselves quickly.


And if bold and smart and hard-working and successful women like Miley and Beyoncé are mentors in that regard, I say, hoorah! With the Christian right and Republican legislators trying to shame women into giving up control of their own bodies and reproductive choices, it is more important than ever that women who command a lot of attention due to their talent and showmanship keep their independent, fiery, sexual selves front and center.


Feminists can be their own worst enemies. I know, because I am one. But I’m also proud of my sexuality and the color it brings to my life. Maybe it isn’t money or power or fame, but it is empowering, nonetheless. When a woman knows the power of her sexuality—as Miley and Beyoncé do—her self-confidence ascends, and takes her to daring heights. Feminists should be applauding Miley and Beyoncé for keeping the griddle hot even as righteous men are trying to douse the fires that make women sizzle.


I say, turn the hose on them, and support women like Miley and Beyoncé, who keep the fires of feminism stoked in their own powerful way.


 

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Published on October 06, 2014 06:49

September 22, 2014

MORAL INFIDELITY #1 In Kindle Free Books Suspense/Politics

Since Sunday afternoon, MORAL INFIDELITY has held the #1 position in the Mystery/Thriller/Suspense/Politics genre, and #6 in Women’s Fiction Mystery/Thriller/Suspense. With more than 2,000 downloads, it cracked the top 100 of free downloads by Monday morning.


31 reviews, 30 of them five-star reviews, no doubt helped drive the downloads. I’m so grateful to every reader who took the time to write those reviews.


The free download continues. Get your copy today!


POLITICS…LUST…LIES…BETRAYAL


When his mistress becomes pregnant, pro-life Florida Governor Michael Romano finds himself embroiled in a moral dilemma that threatens to shatter his marriage, his career and his reputation. His mistress wants him and his baby, and she will publicly destroy his carefully-constructed life if he doesn’t meet her demands.


Caught in the nightmarish consequences of his deceit and duplicity, Governor Romano must make choices that will test the strength of his moral fiber to its limits…But will his choices lead to his salvation, or his ruin?


 

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Published on September 22, 2014 08:02