How Romney Would Treat Women

As the father of two smart, capable and wonderful daughters I have real concerns about today's misogynistic Republican Party views women.  Even more, so I worry about the course women's rights and equal pay for equal work would take under a Romney/Ryan administration.   With no daughters of his own, the already empathy free Romney truly has no clue or motivation that we fathers- at least those of not subscribing to the keep them barefoot and pregnant mentality of some evangelical denominations -  have for our daughters.  Nicholas Kristof makes the point in the New York Times that it is not just women who need to be worried about what a Medieval like Romney/Ryan administration would likely usher in for the female half of the nation's population.  He also correctly points out that if the GOP really wanted to reduce abortions rather than inflict far right Christianists views on all, it would support family planning and contraception initiatives, both of which are anathema to the Christofascists.  Here are some column highlights:

IN this year’s campaign furor over a supposed “war on women,” involving birth control and abortion, the assumption is that the audience worrying about these issues is just women.   Give us a little credit. We men aren’t mercenaries caring only for Y chromosomes. We have wives and daughters, mothers and sisters, and we have a pretty intimate stake in contraception as well.  

When it comes to women’s health, men as well as women need to pay attention. Just as civil rights wasn’t just a “black issue,” women’s rights and reproductive health shouldn’t be reduced to a “women’s issue.”  .  .  .  .  [W]hatever we call it, something real is going on here at home that would mark a major setback for American women — and the men who love them. 

On these issues, Mitt Romney is no moderate. On the contrary, he is considerably more extreme than President George W. Bush was. He insists, for example, on cutting off money for cancer screenings conducted by Planned Parenthood. 

The most toxic issue is abortion, and what matters most for that is Supreme Court appointments. The oldest justice is Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a 79-year-old liberal, and if she were replaced by a younger Antonin Scalia, the balance might shift on many issues, including abortion.  One result might be the overturning of Roe v. Wade, which for nearly four decades has guaranteed abortion rights. If it is overturned, abortion will be left to the states — and in Mississippi or Kansas, women might end up being arrested for obtaining abortions. 

Romney’s campaign Web site takes a hard line. It says that life begins at conception, and it gives no hint of exceptions in which he would permit abortion. The Republican Party platform likewise offers no exceptions. Romney says now that his policy is to oppose abortion with three exceptions: rape, incest and when the life of the mother is at stake. 

Romney has also endorsed a “personhood” initiative treating a fertilized egg as a legal person. That could lead to murder charges for an abortion, even to save the life of a mother.   In effect, Romney seems to have jumped on board a Republican bandwagon to tighten access to abortion across the board. 

If politicians want to reduce the number of abortions, they should promote family planning and comprehensive sex education. After all, about half of all pregnancies in the United States are unintended, according to the Guttmacher Institute, which conducts research on reproductive health.

Romney has boasted that he would cut off all money for Planned Parenthood — even though federal assistance for the organization has nothing to do with abortions. It pays for such things as screenings to reduce breast cancer and cervical cancer. 

Romney’s suspicion of contraception goes way back. As governor of Massachusetts, he vetoed a bill that would have given women who were raped access to emergency contraception. 

Yet Romney seems determined to curb access to contraceptives. His campaign Web site says he would “eliminate Title X family planning funding,” a program created in large part by two Republicans, George H. W. Bush and Richard Nixon. 

So when you hear people scoff that there’s no real difference between Obama and Romney, don’t believe them.  And it’s not just women who should be offended at the prospect of a major step backward. It’s all of us. 

The worse part of the GOP/Christianist hypocrisy, however, is that once a fetus is born, they basically cease giving a damn about it.  They seek to reduce health care availability for children and seek to slash programs that aid children born to poor families.  Once again, I wind the words "HYPOCRITES and LIARS" on my lips.