Dear Women

Dear women of America,

Do you really, truly hate Obama more than you love your own freedom, your own body, your own right to be treated as an equal human being? If you vote for Romney, that’s what you’re telling me.

CNN released a poll this morning that showed Obama’s support among women dropped 5 percent over the last two months from 49 to 44 percent, while Romney’s went up from 43 to 46 percent. Obviously this is just one poll, and the margin of difference is within the survey’s sampling error, but Romney should legitimately have 0 percent support among women if we’re being honest with ourselves.

The current Republican party, the puppeteer behind Romney, is the single greatest threat to women’s rights in the past 80+ years.

I’ve mentioned this number before, and I’ll bring it up again: Since January of this year, over 900 (that’s NINE HUNDRED) bills have been introduced nationwide that in some way seek to limit women’s access to birth control, health care, abortion rights and equal pay.

They want to roll back our rights to biblical levels, because their god (and their ignorant religious leadership) is telling them to do so. Women haven’t faced this much blatant and open misogyny from the Republican Party since well before our right to vote was recognized.

Here are highlights of some of the anti-women legislation that has gained traction and/or passed into law across the country:

• Arizona’s newest 20-week abortion ban begins counting pregnancy from a woman’s last menstrual period (up to two weeks before she is *actually* pregnant) rather than fetal age, women facing serious fetal abnormalities later term (you know, when they can be detected) have 0 – 24 hours to make a decision about terminating the pregnancy. Later term abortions need to be protected. They also support the right to religiously-based discrimination – because that always works out well. Employers in Arizona can now deny women birth control coverage for religious reasons. Because favoring the religious beliefs of one group over another isn’t a violation of the Constitution or anything.
• On May 17, Congress will vote on a measure to ban 20-week abortions in the District of Columbia. Fortunately, since we have no representation in the Senate and one non-voting delegate in the House, this asshat gets to decide on taking our rights away for us.
• Continuing the glorious Republican tradition of making things RE-illegal (Michele Bachmann’s ban on gay marriages, NC’s amendment 1, etc.), Florida’s Ballot Initiative 6, up for vote in 2012, would roll back a woman’s right to privacy to “end public funding of abortions” (…which was taken care of 3 DECADES ago).
• Georgia passed the infamous “women as livestock” law based on the completely-false-only-supported-by-not-even-God-because-it’s-definitely-not-in-the-Bible notion that fetuses can feel pain at 20 weeks. Because if farmers have to “deliver calves, dead or alive” why shouldn’t broodmare-women have to do the same? This bill provides NO exclusions for rape, incest, or a woman’s emotional or mental condition. Suck it up, bitch, and birth that dead baby.
• Kansas is waiting on their Senate for the “refusal clause” bill, which would allow doctors to LIE to women about birth defects and withhold cancer treatments for mothers in the interest of saving the fetus.
• Mississippi signed into law a bill that will in all likelihood put the last remaining abortion provider in the state out of business. Their reasoning? The clinic doesn’t have admitting privileges at a hospital. The reason they don’t have those privileges? Because they don’t refer enough cases to qualify. The clinic is literally being punished for not jeopardizing the lives of enough women. Pro-life enough for you?
• Missouri started all the shit with the Blunt Amendment, which would allow employers to play Russian Roulette with women's health care options. Despite the fact that the Supreme Court case Unemployment Division v. Smith already decided that religious beliefs do not preclude you from following an otherwise-legitimate law, these people really think their religious beliefs entitle them to completely ignore the 14th amendment. 
• On June 12, North Dakota will vote on a measure that gives employers the right to deny women birth control coverage for “religious reasons.” You know what’s not a choice? Ovarian cancer. You know what is a choice? Your ignorant religious beliefs. If they can deny us medical care for religious reasons, why can’t they deny us the right to vote for religious reasons? Oh right, they’re working on it.
• South Carolina passed a bill barring private insurers (yes, private) from covering abortions. How’s that for small government?
• South Dakota enacted a law requiring doctors to lie to women about the non-existent link between abortions and mental health issues. Fortunately, if you’re a Republican, scientific studies proving that there is no definite link between mental health issues and abortion can just be completely ignored.
• In Texas, Gov. Perry decided to exercise his states’ rights, y’all, to deny access to health care (not abortion services, just birth control, cancer screenings, etc. but really, let’s not split hairs…) for low-income women. I’ll say this again and again and again – NO FEDERAL MONEY IS USED TO FUND ABORTIONS – but Perry defunded the non-abortion-providing part of Planned Parenthood because he doesn’t like people who like things that he doesn’t like. So there.
• Utah just passed into law a 72 hour waiting period for abortions – the longest in the country. Because women are too stupid to a) know what an abortion is and b) make up their mind about it. Fortunately, we have the state to send us back to our rooms where we can sit and think about what dirty, immoral whores we are for wanting to access our Constitutional rights.
• Virginia managed to pass their medically-unnecessary pre-abortion ultrasound requirement, though those poor, idiotic ladies were thrown a bone and can “choose” not to have a transvaginal ultrasound. Does it bother anyone else that the state can run medical tests on us without our consent? Anyone? Bueller?
• Wisconsin rolled back their equal pay act, even though women currently earn 77 cents on the dollar to men. They also attempted to pass a bill recognizing "single parenthood" as a contributing factor of child abuse. Not too surprising, since they’re the home of Rep. Pridemore, who thinks women should just close their eyes and remember the good times while their husbands are beating them. Because nothing says family values than domestic violence and rape. 

In addition to this state-by-state fuckery, Congress has still not reauthorized the expired Violence Against Women Act, because Republicans truly believe that lesbian and transgendered women and Native American women are not the same as other women, and are not deserving of equal protection under the law.

And just for the fun of it, go ahead and re-read about the fact that Republicans want nothing to do with living children, and the fact that they want hungry school kids to pay for more tax breaks for the rich.

Is your not-quite-PC-even-if-you-shout-“economic issues!”-hatred-of-Obama still worth more than everything we stand to lose? Please, please consider the issues – particularly the ones most important to all women everywhere – before casting your vote this November. Because if the Republicans get their way, you may lose that right, too.