All about Margaret Sanger…let the discussion rest here

MoonHowler

I am asking that any discussion of Margaret Sanger stay on this thread.  There are serious issues in our community and none of them have one damn thing to do with Margaret Sanger.

I think it is important to note that all historical figures must be evaluated in their own place and time.  Additionally, the language changes over time.  Let’s start with Thomas Jefferson, one of my favorite historical figures.

I grew up in the shadow of Thomas Jefferson, in Charlottesville, Virginia.  I lived in a house off of Rugby Road less than three blocks from Mr. Jefferson’s University.  In Charlottesville, everything is Jefferson.  He is our hometown hero.  He, Jack Joutte and Paul Goodloe McIntire are the three most mentioned town heroes.   Jefferson’s influence is certainly national in scope.  He is the author of the Declaration of Independence, Revolution visionary, one of the most prominent thinkers of his time, inventor, statesman, diplomat, first secretary of state and president  for two terms.

Read More

Supreme Court: men still making rules for women-folk

MoonHowler

hobby 2
Huffingtonpost.com:

The owners of a chain of stores called Hobby Lobby don’t like Obamacare. In particular, they really don’t like the part that requires insurance companies to cover contraceptives. Normally, people who don’t like a law petition the government to change that law. That’s how a nation of laws works.

But these men are Christians. The Supreme Court ruled Monday that Christian business owners are special. Their deeply held religious belief that some particular form of contraception is immoral carries more weight than the force of law, five conservative Christian justices ruled. The court — in a fairly bald admission that its ruling is incoherent — added that no general amnesty from other laws should be assumed to be the result of its ruling and that its reasoning was strictly limited to women’s contraception. Such a limitation raises legitimate questions about the rather perverted and obsessive minds of the five men who made the ruling, but it also carries little legal weight. Precedent is precedent, whether the precedent-setters say so or not.
Read More

Supremes strike down clinic buffer zones in Massachusetts

MoonHowler

Washingtonpost.com:

The Supreme Court on Thursday unanimously struck down protest-free buffer zones around abortion clinics in Massachusetts as an unconstitutional infringement on free speech.

But Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.’s ruling was a narrow one, pointing out that other states and cities had found less-intrusive ways to both protect women entering clinics and accommodate the First Amendment rights of those opposed to abortion.

Massachusetts asserts “undeniably significant interests in maintaining public safety on [its] streets and sidewalks, as well as in preserving access to adjacent healthcare facilities,” Roberts wrote. “But here the commonwealth has pursued those interests by the extreme step of closing a substantial portion of a traditional public forum to all speakers.”
Read More

Fairfax County Comfort Women Memorial sparks Japanese protest

MoonHowler

comfort women

The new Comfort Memorial located in Fairfax near the Fairfax County Government Center has sparked a spate of protest from the Japanese Embassy.  the Embassy accuses Fairfax of trying to ignite bad feelings between Koreans and Japanese residents.  According to the Washington Post:

Anchored by butterfly-shaped benches, the new Comfort Women Memorial Peace Garden in Fairfax County honors women forced into prostitution by Japan during World War II — a chapter of the global conflict that has long fueled tensions between South Korea and Japan.
Read More

Jill Abramson: War on Women? more unequal pay

MoonHowler

Washingtonpost.com:

The New York Times abruptly replaced its executive editor, Jill Abramson, on Wednesday, ending what had been a sometimes stormy 32-month tenure by the first woman to lead the prestigious newspaper in its 163-year history.

The Times said Abramson will be succeeded by her top deputy, Dean Baquet, the managing editor.

Abramson, who worked in Washington for the Wall Street Journal and later was the Times’s Washington bureau chief, apparently was fired by Arthur Sulzberger Jr., the chairman of the New York Times Co. and publisher of the paper.

In remarks to the newspaper’s journalists disclosing the management change, Sulzberger never explicitly said Abramson, 60, had been terminated. But he made no effort to suggest that she was leaving of her own accord. He said he chose “to appoint a new leader for our newsroom because I believe that new leadership will improve some aspects of the management of the newsroom.”
Read More

McAuliffe: investigates TRAP laws

MoonHowler

There is a new sheriff in town and his name is Terry McAuliffe.  From NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia:

 Gov. McAuliffe has just ordered a review of dangerous targeted regulations on Virginia’s women’s health centers! These burdensome regulations (also known as TRAP regulations) were designed to close the vast majority of  abortion providers – and were enacted only after former Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli bullied the Board of Health. It is past time that these TRAP regulations get the evidence-based review they deserve – and Gov. McAuliffe has taken the first step!

At an event for National Women’s Health Week this morning, Gov. McAuliffe announced that his administration is:

  • Instructing Virginia’s Board of Health to conduct an immediate review of the medically-irrelevant, burdensome, targeted regulations on abortion providers that they approved last year under pressure from Governor Bob McDonnell and Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli
  • Making five appointments to fill seats on the Board of Health
  • Approving Planned Parenthood health centers to participate in a cost-reduced medication purchasing program that will enable them to provide affordable care to more Virginians

It’s about time to put an end to laws that do not make women’s health safer.  The purpose of TRAP laws is to weave a web of regulations around abortion providers so that abortion simply becomes too expensive and too inaccessible.  Good for Terry McAuliffe.  He is doing what I voted for him to do.  Of course this fight isn’t over.  Not by a long shot!  But it has started and that is what is important.  Also, last I heard, there is a lawsuit filed by Rosemary and Wayne Codding.  Hopefully that will blast a few people out of the water.  I simply cannot stand disingenuous concern.  The Virginia TRAP laws are based on ignorance.

Enshrining radical feminism?

MoonHowler

Is Michele Bachmann getting stranger and dumber?    An ideological shrine to abortion?  Give me a break.

HR863  sounds like a bill to pass.  It authorizes a study on how to move forward with the women’s museum initiative.  Why shouldn’t there be a museum dedicated to the accomplishments of women in this country?  According to rawstory.com:

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) on Wednesday opposed the National Women’s History Museum by connecting it to “eugenics” and same-sex marriage.

During a House debate on whether or not Congress should appoint a commission to study how to move forward with building the National Women’s History Museum, Bachmann stood up and urged her colleagues to vote against the measure.

“I rise today in opposition to this bill because I believe ultimately this museum — that will be built on the National Mall on federal land — will enshrine the radical feminist movement that stands against the pro-life movement, the pro-family movement and the pro-traditional marriage movement,” she announced.

 

Read More

Don’t lean in: Lean back, get married, have some kids….

MoonHowler

Washingtonpost.com:

Dana Milbank

Opinion Writer

Conservatives to women: Lean back

The conservative minds of the Heritage Foundation have found a way for Republicans to shrink the gender gap: They need to persuade more women to get their MRS degrees.

The advocacy group held a gathering of women of the right Monday afternoon to mark the final day of Women’s History Month — and the consensus was that women ought to go back in history. If Facebook executive Sheryl Sandberg’s mantra is “lean in,” these women were proposing that women lean back: get married, take care of kids and let men earn the wages.

“We’re gathered to celebrate Women’s History Month but I don’t celebrate Women’s History Month,” announced writer Mona Charen, one of the panelists. “It doesn’t interest me whether a person who happens to share my chromosomes sits in the Oval Office. It doesn’t interest me how many women members of the Senate there are.”

Read More

Supreme Court: Collision of rights?

MoonHowler

boss supreme

 

Washingtonpost.com:

The Supreme Court on Tuesday prepared to hear a second challenge to President Obama’s Affordable Care Act, this time to decide whether employers must provide their workers with insurance coverage for contraceptives even if the owners say it would violate their religious principles.

What is likely to be the signature ruling of the court’s term presents the justices with complicated questions about religious freedom and equality for female workers. It could have long-term implications for what other legal requirements companies could decline because of religious convictions. And it asks a question the court has never confronted: whether the Constitution or the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) that protects an individual’s exercise of religion extends to secular, for-profit corporations and their owners.

Read More

Private school issues clarion call to swarm City Hall Chambers tonight

MoonHowler

 

Nooo, we aren’t singling out abortion clinics for special treatment.  Noooooo, we aren’t blurring the lines between church and state.  Found on the front page of  Sentinel, a weekly newsletter from Elizabeth Anne Seton School for parents and students:

Citizen Time

On Monday, March 10th at some time after 5:30 pm in City Hall Council Chambers, the Manassas City Council will vote on Marc Aveni’s proposal to require new medical facilities (to include abortion clinics) come before Council and the public before locating in the City. Your prayers, attendance and possible speaking during citizen time in favor of this effort are needed again.

I suppose that once again there will be a sideshow over at City Chambers where everyone will be strutting out their most pious behavior. Marc Aveni is getting himself some free advertisement for his cause.  (Will I get a thank you note for providing some coverage for him?)  I don’t think those of us in the County can pick up City channels so we will miss the show but I expect it will be a rendition of Brother Love’s traveling Salvation Show of Neil Diamond Fame.

Read More

Behind the scenes at Moonhowlings: When the story becomes the story

MoonHowler

Yesterday’s story actually became the story.  Most of our contributors know that there is a certain decorum around here and nearly everyone goes along with it without question.  I think all of our ‘in moderations’ have even been turned loose and that we all agree that the rules around here really aren’t so bad.  Hell, we even let people cuss and more than a few people last week used a socially inappropriate word or two without having to sit in the naughty chair.

One of the major rules here is about county employees.  I went back through the thread and its comments just to make sure that *I* had adhered to our own rules.  I think I did.  I think I urged others to do the same.  We also encourage people to be respectful of each other as much as is humanly possible during political debate.  That extends to name calling.

Read More

Huckabee’s brand of slut-shaming

MoonHowler

When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging!  Mike Huckabee apparently has never heard that wise old adage.  Huckabee needs to put down the shovel and stop digging.

politico.com:

Former Gov. Mike Huckabee on Friday defended recent comments he made about  women’s libidos, saying “it was just a colorful expression” about something  that’s wholesome and God-given.

“My point was, not that I believe this, but I said the Democrats act as if  women are only concerned about these reproductive issues,” Huckabee said on Fox  News’s “Cavuto.

Huckabee last month came under fire when he slammed Democrats for accusing the  GOP of waging a war on women.

“If the Democrats want to insult the women of America by making them believe  that they are helpless without ‘Uncle Sugar’ coming in and providing for them a  prescription each month for birth control because they cannot control their  libido or reproductive system without the help of the government, so be it,” he  said at a luncheon address to the Republican National  Committee’s winter meeting in Washington.

Read More

Guttmacher Institute Report: Abortion rate at lowest point since 1973

MoonHowler

Washingtonpost.com
:

The abortion rate in the United States dropped to its lowest point since the Supreme Court legalized the procedure in all 50 states, according to a study suggesting that new, long-acting contraceptive methods are having a significant impact in reducing unwanted pregnancies.

There were fewer than 17 abortions for every 1,000 women in 2011, the latest year for which figures were available, according a paper published Monday from the Guttmacher Institute, a pro-abortion-rights think tank. That is down 13 percent from 2008 and a little higher than the rate in 1973, when the Supreme Court handed down its landmark Roe v. Wade decision.

The study did not examine the reasons for the drop. But the authors suggested that one factor was greater reliance on new kinds of birth control, including intra-uterine devices such as Mirena, which can last for years and are not susceptible to user error like daily pills or condoms.

Read More

Judge rules pregnant brain dead woman must have life support removed

MoonHowler

New York Times:

FORT WORTH — A Texas judge ruled on Friday that a Fort Worth hospital must remove the life support of a pregnant brain-dead woman, siding with the husband and family in a case that has drawn national attention.

The judge, R. H. Wallace Jr. of State District Court in Tarrant County, ordered John Peter Smith Hospital to pronounce the woman, Marlise Muñoz, dead, and remove her from life support by 5 p.m. on Monday.

Ms. Muñoz, 33, has been on life support since Nov. 26, when she collapsed on her kitchen floor from what appeared to be a blood clot in her lung. She was 14 weeks pregnant. Ms. Muñoz’s husband, Erick Muñoz, 26, as well as her mother and father, said they were told by the hospital that she was brain-dead. They said they had asked the doctors to remove her from respirators, as Ms. Muñoz had urged them to do if she was ever in that situation.

Doctors refused, citing a state law that prevents them from withdrawing or withholding “life-sustaining treatment” from a pregnant patient, and her husband filed suit asking a judge to order the doctors to remove her from the machines.

Mr. Muñoz’s lawyer argued Friday that keeping her on life support would set a dangerous precedent in future cases of pregnant brain-dead women.

Read More

Huckabee and “Uncle Sugar,” whoever he is….

MoonHowler

I thought Mike Huckabee was smarter than this.  Obviously, he ignores the figurative speech about War on Women.  He would be ok if we didn’t have the slut-shame attempt aimed at Sandra Fluke, aspirin remarks coming from GOP high donors, and countless bills aimed at defunding Planned Parenthood and other centers that receive Title X funding.  He would be ok if there weren’t efforts to deny birth control to women going around every corner.  He would be OK if literally hundreds of new laws weren’t passed in state legislatures by Republican politicians that restrict reproductive rights, via any hook or crook they could think of.

Read More