The Virginia GOP and False "Pro-Life" Values

The following is a cross post of my May, 2015, column in VEER Magazine which looks at the dishonesty of the Virginia Republican Party and Christofascists supporters who make a great show of claiming that they are "pro-life" yet continue policies that make it clear that for the most part, once a child is born and leaves the womb, they really don't give a damn about that child as it grows up - especially if it has mental or developmental disabilities.  And that doesn't factor in those dying prematurely due to lack of affordable health care.  Some of the data in the column is most damning.  Here is the column:

VIRGINIA'S SHAMEFULL RESPONSE TO THOSE WITH INTELLECTUAL AND DEVELOPMENTAL DISABILITIES 

In August of last year, we lost my husband's father, a retired Baptist minister, the last of our surviving parents, four months to the day after the date of our marriage in Washington, D.C., where he co-officiated at our wedding.   While one expects to navigate through grieving and issues of settling an estate, selling the deceased parent's home and similar travails - my husband is the executor and trustee of the estate - nothing had prepared us for what would prove to be the biggest challenge: finding community services and housing and appropriate supervision for my husband's adopted special needs brother who was adopted many years ago by my husband's late parents who realistically had no idea what they were getting themselves and now us into.  Now age 43, their adopted son - a fetal alcohol syndrome child - through no fault of his own suffers from intellectual and developmental disabilities and will never be a fully functioning adult.  

As a result, the husband and I have found ourselves being thrust into dealing with the Byzantine bureaucracies of the local Community Services Board, local Department of Social Services and the Virginia Department of Behavioral Health & Developmental Services (“DBHDS”) and witnessing the disturbing manner in which Virginia treats those with intellectual and developmental disabilities. The lack of accountability and seeming near indifference on the part of some personnel encountered has been both disturbing and maddening.  However, the more we have learned, the more it has become apparent that there is a systemic problem with the manner in which Virginia deals with intellectual and developmental disabilities.  Indeed, it is much akin the shocking deficiencies in Virginia's inadequate mental health care services that were brought into sharp focus by the tragic wounding of Senator Creigh Deeds and the suicide death of his son.  Pushing paper and playing a shell game to hide the reality that there is nowhere near enough state funding or enough available facilities is not meeting anyone's needs, especially those in desperate need of community based services. 

Depending on the income ranking one chooses, the Commonwealth of Virginia ranks either 5th in the nation in per capita income or 7th in median per capita income.  In short, in relative terms nationwide, Virginia is a wealthy state. But in terms of its spending on the needs of those suffering from intellectual and developmental disabilities, Virginia ranks 49th in the county.  That's right, second to last.  Only Mississippi spends less on those with intellectual and developmental disabilities.  Stated another way, even Alabama and Arkansas - ranked 45th and 49th, respectively - spend more per capita on those with intellectual and developmental disabilities than Virginia spends.  This circumstance is nothing short of a disgrace.  Making the situation even more outrageous - or hypocritical depending upon one's political view - is the fact that Virginia is currently controlled by a General Assembly dominated by the Republican Party.  The GOP elected officials and sycophants incessantly blather about being "pro-life," protecting the unborn, etc., with the result that Republican members of the General Assembly seek to restrict all abortions (which will yield yet more children with disabilities).  

Sadly, the concern of the Republicans and their constituents who demand never ending tax cuts and their far right religious supporters for the unborn seemingly evaporates the moment those unborn children pass from their mothers' wombs.  These "god fearing folk" oppose Medicaid expansion, oppose government programs for the poor and unfortunate, and care nothing if those children suffer from intellectual and developmental disabilities.   Historically, their solution has to been to lock away such individuals in institutions where they lack socialization and optimization of their potential.  Even then, the spaces available came nowhere near meeting the demand for services.  

Just how bad are things in Virginia?  In 2010, the Civil Rights Division of United States Department of Justice "("DOJ") launched an investigation that found that Virginia violated the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) by failing to serve individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities in integrated settings appropriate to their needs, and failing to provide adequate community services and supports.  The Department of Justice filed suit against Virginia in while anti-abortion warrior Ken Cuccinelli was Attorney General of Virginia.  Ultimately, Virginia entered into a settlement agreement with the Department of Justice upon the advice of Mr. Cuccinelli's office in an effort to reach a settlement without subjecting the Commonwealth to an extremely costly and lengthy court battle with the federal government. (See Civil Action N0O: 3:12cv059-JAG in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Richmond Division) The settlement agreement resolves DOJ’s investigation of Virginia’s training centers and community programs and the Commonwealth’s compliance with the ADA and Olmstead with respect to individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities provided that Virginia complies with the mandated improvements set forth in the settlement agreement.

Since Virginia has proven that it cannot be trusted to act in the best interests of those with intellectual and developmental disabilities, an Independent Reviewer files a report with the Court that evaluates Virginia's compliance with the settlement agreement and the progress or lack thereof being made.  The most recent report was filed in December, 2014, and found that despite progress "Despite these efforts, however, the Commonwealth continues to be significantly behind schedule. There have been repeated delays in complying with certain obligations, including elements critical to an effective community based services system that is truly responsive to individuals with ID/DD."

What does this mean for every day Virginians?  From my conversations with agencies familiar with the situation faced by those waiting for Medicaid waivers that will allow them to receive much needed housing and/or grants to allow them to remain in their own homes or the homes of family caregivers, the situation is grim.  Here are some of the statistics:

According to the most recent data from DBHDS, there are 7,948 people waiting for the Intellectual Disability (“ID”) Waiver (4,851 individuals are on the urgent list and 3,097 are on the non-urgent list) and 1,902 waiting for the Developmental Disability (“DD”) Waiver. Between June 2014 and April 2015, 903 people were added to the ID waiting list, and 447 added to the DD waiting list.  Despite this growing need, only 365 slots were funded during this last general assembly session for this fiscal year (Jul 2015-Jun 2016); this was the minimum required by the DOJ settlement agreement referenced above.

According to 2013 data that was released last month in the State of the States that compares data nationwide:

- --Virginia is ranked 29th in family support spending.

--- Virginia is ranked 50th in family caregivers receiving I/DD state agency support.  There are an estimated 98,828 care giving families of people with I/DD in Virginia; in 2013, only 325 of these families received state agency support (i.e., 0.3%).

As bad as these statistics are, I suspect that they likely mask the true number of individuals in need of services because the existing bureaucracy discourages those in need and/or their families from seeking services.  The husband's experience in dealing with the local community services board and office of social services has been one of bureaucracy at its worst: indifferent on the part of many of the staff and/or non-responsive staff and unrelenting passing the buck.  The more I have learned, the more I believe that their ultimate ploy is to avoid admitting that there simply is no state funding.  People with developmental and intellectual disabilities simply do not matter in Virginia.  It is far past time that our state legislators correct this situation – particularly those who talk disingenuously about supporting “family values” and being pro-life.

Judge Refuses to Drop Order Allowing Morning-After Pill Over the Counter Sales Sales

In what seems to me to be one of Barack Obama's dumber moves, his administration is a appealing a judicial ruling to allow that would allow the sale of the "morning after pill" over the counter to women of all ages.  If one truly wants fewer abortions - as both Obama and even the fetus lovers/child haters of the far claim to want - making the morning after pill as widely available as possible should be a no brainer.  For the far right, of course the argument is that such sales would encourage promiscuity and never mind that there would be fewer abortions.  But WTF is Obama's excuse?  He certainly won't win any far right votes and, worse yet, no scientific data supports restricting the sales and thereby almost guaranteeing more unwanted pregnancies and more abortions.  The judge in the case rightly has no patience with the Obama administration's pathetic arguments for restrictions and has made his impatience clear.  Here are highlights from the New York Times:

A federal judge on Friday stepped up his criticism of the Obama administration, accusing the Justice Department of making “frivolous” and “silly” arguments in its attempt to delay making the morning-after emergency contraceptive pill available to women and girls of all ages without a prescription. 

Judge Edward R. Korman of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York ordered last month that the drug be made widely available and said that raw politics — not scientific evidence — was behind efforts by Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services, to block easier distribution to young girls. 

On Friday, he denied the request by government lawyers to suspend his ruling while they appeal. In the process, he lashed out again at Ms. Sebelius in unusually harsh terms, questioning her credibility and integrity. 

“If a stay is granted, it will allow the bad-faith, politically motivated decision of Secretary Sebelius, who lacks any medical or scientific expertise, to prevail — thus justifiably undermining the public’s confidence in the drug approval process,” Judge Korman wrote. 

The issue of how broadly to distribute the morning-after pill is a politically charged one that puts President Obama’s administration at the center of a clash involving some women’s rights groups, conservative opponents of abortion and defenders of scientific integrity. 

In Friday’s ruling, Judge Korman said that the government’s appeal of his order was nothing more than an attempt to “vindicate the improper conduct of the secretary.”

The judge repeatedly accused the government of operating in bad faith and said the process of denying broad distribution of the drug had been “corrupted by political interference” for years. He said he did not believe that ordering Ms. Sebelius or the F.D.A. to re-examine their decisions would make any difference.

He also rejected the government’s argument that women might be confused about the drug’s availability if it was made available to everyone without a prescription and then later restricted because the government won its appeal. 

Judge Korman called that argument “largely an insult to the intelligence of women.” 

America has the highest unwanted teen pregnancy rate in the developed world for one reason:  for too long ignorance and religious idiocy has prevented safe and effective preventive methods from being widely available.  The far right's "abstinence only" sex education has proved to be disastrously ineffective and it is time that science and modernity prevail.  If the Christofascists don't like the drug, then don't buy it.  It's that simple.  Once again they want to force their sick, misguided beliefs on everyone.

Catholic Hospital Wrongful Death Defense: Fetuses Are Not People

The disingenuousness of the Roman Catholic Church and its controlled institutions seems to know few bounds.  For instance, the Catholic Church vehemently opposes abortion claiming that life begins at conception and that nothing justifies an abortion that would end that unborn life.  From the moment of conception, an embryo and fetus are "people" - except apparently when that argument is inconvenient and might lead to a monetary pay out.  Faced with a wrongful death lawsuit involving a woman and her unborn twins, St. Thomas More Hospital's legal defense to the portion of the lawsuit involving the death of the twins - which has been successful so far - is that the twins were fetuses and not people, and that, therefore, this can't legally be viewed as a wrongful-death situation.  Maddow Blog looks at this amazing case of hypocrisy.  Here are highlights:

First up from the God Machine this week is a terribly sad story about a woman named Lori Stodghill, who's brought a lawsuit against a Catholic hospital, which has taken an unexpected legal/political turn.

On New Year's Day 2006, Stodghill, aged 31, was seven-months pregnant with twins, when she started to feel ill. She went to the emergency room at St. Thomas More hospital in Canon City, Colorado, and suffered a massive heart attack. Stodghill's obstetrician, Dr. Pelham Staples, who was on call for emergencies that night at the hospital, never answered a page, and an hour after arriving, Stodghill died and the twins did not survive.

Jeremy Stodghill, Lori's husband, filed a wrongful-death lawsuit, arguing that the doctor should have answered the page, should have instructed hospital staff to perform an emergency C-section, and could have tried to save the twins. And as Amanda Marcotte noted, that's where the story takes a politically charged turn.

The hospital's defense, so far successful, is to claim that because the twins were fetuses and not people, this can't legally be viewed as a wrongful-death situation.

Of course, the problem is that the hospital is run by Catholic Health Initiatives—Catholic, as in that religion whose leadership routinely claims that not only are fetuses people, but so are embryos, zygotes, and fertilized eggs. That claim is used to turn women into sacrificial lambs for the faith, denying them not just elective abortions but telling them that it's not OK to terminate pregnancies where there's no chance of producing a live baby. Women who go to Catholic hospitals in these situations have been denied procedures to save their fertility or even their lives. But, as this lawsuit shows, the passionate belief that anything post-fertilization is a "person" evaporates the second it stops being useful as a way to oppress women (and the second it starts possibly costing the Catholic hospital money).

St. Thomas More hospital is now facing criticism from the right for maintaining malleable principles. "There's a difference between being legal and being right," Southern Baptist ethicist Richard Land said. "Either a fetus is a person or it's not." Local Roman Catholic Bishops have promised to review the case.

In this meantime, the Catholic hospital and its lawyers maintain that the twins were not yet people, and so far, courts have agreed -- a state district court and an appeals court have sided with the hospital. The case is currently pending at the Colorado Supreme Court.

This blog seeks to expose hypocrisy and few institutions provide such a never ending stream of hypocrisy as does the Roman Catholic Church and the bitter old men in dresses in the Vatican and bishopric around the world.  And as we all know all too well, ruthless control over the lives of others and money are the only true God of the Catholic Church hierarchy. 

Romney Invested in Firm That Disposed of Aborted Fetuses

Romney is doing his best to claim that he's the presidential candidate who knows how to create jobs - including jobs that involve disposing of aborted fetuses.  Or so reports Mother Jones based on government documents (the documents also indicate that Romney left Bain Capital far latter than he has claimed).  One can only wonder how this news will play out among the Kool-Aid drinking Christianist element of the GOP base.  Personally, the more I read about Romney, I suspect that he'd invest in a whore house if he thought it would make him a buck.  Yes, he might use a front entity to do so, but one need only follow the money to its source.  Likewise, Romney will fire any number of individuals regardless of the consequences to the families of those suddenly finding themselves unemployed.  I hate to say it, but the man is a money grubbing liar.  Here are highlights:

Earlier this year, Mitt Romney nearly landed in a politically perilous controversy when the Huffington Post reported that in 1999 the GOP presidential candidate had been part of an investment group that invested $75 million in Stericycle, a medical-waste disposal firm that has been attacked by anti-abortion groups for disposing aborted fetuses collected from family planning clinics.  .  .  . But Bain Capital, the private equity firm Romney founded, tamped down the controversy. The company said Romney left the firm in February 1999 to run the troubled 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City and likely had nothing to with the deal.

But documents filed by Bain and Stericycle with the Securities and Exchange Commission—and obtained by Mother Jones—list Romney as an active participant in the investment. And this deal helped Stericycle, a company with a poor safety record, grow, while yielding tens of millions of dollars in profits for Romney and his partners. The documents—one of which was signed by Romney—also contradict the official account of Romney's exit from Bain.

The Stericycle deal—the abortion connection aside—is relevant because of questions regarding the timing of Romney's departure from the private equity firm he founded. Responding to a recent Washington Post story reporting that Bain-acquired companies outsourced jobs, the Romney campaign insisted that Romney exited Bain in February 1999, a month or more before Bain took over two of the companies named in the Post's article. The SEC documents undercut that defense, indicating that Romney still played a role in Bain investments until at least the end of 1999.

The SEC filing lists assorted Bain-related entities that were part of the deal, including Bain Capital (BCI), Bain Capital Partners VI (BCP VI), Sankaty High Yield Asset Investors (a Bermuda-based Bain affiliate), and Brookside Capital Investors (a Bain offshoot). And it notes that Romney was the "sole shareholder, Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President of BCI, BCP VI Inc., Brookside Inc. and Sankaty Ltd."

Another SEC document filed November 30, 1999, by Stericycle also names Romney as an individual who holds "voting and dispositive power" with respect to the stock owned by Bain. If Romney had fully retired from the private equity firm he founded, why would he be the only Bain executive named as the person in control of this large amount of Stericycle stock?

It was not until six years later that anti-abortion activists would target Stericycle for collecting medical waste at abortion clinics. This campaign has compared Stericycle to German firms that provided assistance to the Nazis during the Holocaust.

All of this undermines Bain's contention that Romney, though he maintained an ownership interest in the firm and its funds, had nothing to do with the firm's activities after February 1999. The Stericycle deal may raise red flags for anti-abortion activists. But it also raises questions about the true timing of Romney's departure from Bain and casts doubt on claims by the company and the Romney campaign that he had nothing to do with Bain business after February 1999.

Oklahoma Supreme Court Strikes Down Proposed GOP Backed Embryo Amendment

While I suspect that the members of the Oklahoma Supreme Court are hardly what one would call flaming liberals, I also suspect that nonetheless there will be hyperventilating about "activist judges" who oppose "the will of the people."  Or at least the people who live in some bizarre alternate universe where protecting embryos is a highest priority while taking care of the living - particularly if they're gay - doesn't rate very highly. Politico looks at this defeat for the batshit crazy Christianists and their political whore Republican allies.  It speaks volumes that the GOP and Christianist forces in Virginia still seek passage of a similarly unconstitutional measure in this state.  Here are some highlights:

The Oklahoma Supreme Court on Monday halted an effort to grant “personhood” rights to human embryos, saying the measure is unconstitutional.

The state’s highest court ruled unanimously that a proposed amendment to the Oklahoma Constitution that would define a fertilized human egg as a person violates a 1992 U.S. Supreme Court decision involving a Pennsylvania case and “is clearly unconstitutional.” Supporters of the personhood amendment are trying to gather enough signatures to put it before Oklahoma voters on the November ballot.

Opponents contend the measure would ban abortions without exception and interfere with a woman’s right to use certain forms of contraception and medical procedures, such as in vitro fertilization.

The American Civil Liberties Union and the New York-based Center for Reproductive Rights filed a protest with the state Supreme Court on behalf of several Oklahoma doctors and residents. They asked the court to stop the group Personhood Oklahoma from gathering signatures.

The nine-member court determined the initiative petition “is void on its face” and struck it down.

“The only course available to this court is to follow what the United States Supreme Court, the final arbiter of the United States Constitution, has decreed,” the court said.

The ruling is the latest setback for abortion opponents who have been pursuing personhood measures in several states. In December, a judge in Nevada ruled that a personhood initiative petition was vague and could not be circulated for signatures to qualify for the 2012 ballot. Similar personhood proposals were defeated last year in Mississippi and Colorado.

The backers of the signature drive have said their goal is to set up a legal challenge to the landmark Roe v. Wade decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1973 that gave women a legal right to abortion.

Opponents argued that the proposed amendment “would confer rights on a fertilized egg that trump the rights of each woman to determine whether and when to conceive and whether to carry a pregnancy to term.”

Court documents filed by opponents noted the state Supreme Court rejected an attempt to use the initiative petition process to ban abortion in 1992, ruling that the process could not be used to curtail rights secured to women by the U.S. Constitution.

Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, said the Oklahoma Constitution specifically prohibits amendments that are “repugnant to the Constitution of the United States.”

Ryan Kiesel, executive director of the ACLU’s Oklahoma chapter and a former Democratic lawmaker, said the court’s decision Monday supports the notion that a woman and her family, “and not the government,” should be making decisions on reproductive health care.

The Selective Morality of Christianists

I am frequently stunned by the mind set of Christianists who have blindly acted as cheer leaders for the Bush/Cheney regime even thought it is increasingly obvious to anyone with more than a borderline retarded IQ that Bush and Cheney are guilty of war crimes under the standards applied after World War II. The fact that Bush claimed to be an "born again" Christian and that his regime pushed an anti-abortion and anti-gay agenda apparently trumped any other moral considerations. But then again, in my opinion, the Christianist care NOTHING about what is done to innocent non-Christians who can be slaughtered indiscriminately without one pip out of the Christianist leadership. These folks are morally bankrupt and are anything but true Christians. Rick Warren is a case in point as highlighted by Andrew Sullivan:

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Rick Warren, Torture And Bush. Warren says he believes that the Bush administration engaged in torture, as is now indisputable. But in his many conversations with the president, he never brought it up:

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BELIEFNET- Did you ever talk to President Bush to try to convince him to change his policy?
WARREN - No. No.

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BELIEFNET- Why not?
WARREN -- Never got the chance. I just didn't.

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But he managed to discuss abortion with Obama, and, so far as I know, Obama has never aborted any fetus. But Bush has authorized the torture - even to death - of many, many prisoners. Warren says that Bush would have had to have brought the subject up to earn his moral censure. But even now, Warren refuses to say that the president is guilty of a moral failure.