NPR host Dee Dee Bridgewater recounts her own experience with illegal abortion

Women don’t abort because of some sort of whim. They abort because they feel they have no other choice. The fact that they’d risk their lives to do it should be proof enough of that.

[via ThinkProgress]

Women Are Winning the War on Women

[via Truth Has a Liberal Bias]

‘As sex-discriminatory as legislation can get’: how social conservatives see the VAWA

National Memo:

Both sides do it.

This platitude is one of the most destructive myths in politics. But when it comes to the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), which was drafted in 1994 by then-senator Joe Biden and signed into law by President Bill Clinton, the “both sides do it” canard becomes especially disgusting — and not just because the House GOP alone is responsible for letting the law lapse for the first time in over a decade and a half.

Writing in Townhall, longtime anti-feminist activist Phyllis Schlafly says that VAWA is “as sex-discriminatory as legislation can get.” Why? Because it isn’t designed to protect men. Schlafly argues that domestic violence is a problem that affects men and women equally: “A Centers for Disease Control survey found that half of all partner violence was mutual, and 282 scholarly studies reported that women are as physically aggressive, or more aggressive, than men.”

According to the Centers for Disease Control, women are more three times more likely to be killed, stalked or raped by an intimate partner than men. Arguing that women often start domestic violence doesn’t just ignore the obvious inherent physical difference between men and women, it echoes an excuse often used by abusers themselves.

“Half of all partner violence was mutual” isn’t extremely surprising. If someone’s beating on me, I’m going to hit back. But in Schlafy’s world, this means that the woman was either beating up on the man or asking for what she got. I’d think I wouldn’t have to point out that this is a sick worldview, but apparently I do. Schlafly’s always been bizarrely anti-woman, but this is just above and beyond.

And it was Eric Cantor who blocked the VAWA in the House, because of  “provisions to extend protections to Native American women and undocumented women, as well as lesbian, bisexual and transgender women.” I guess some women are deserving of being slapped around more than other whiter and straighter women. After all, it’s the Violence Against Women Act, not the Violence Against All Women Act. Gotta watch out for that government overreach, you know.

After losing the female vote by a landslide in 2012, Republicans continue to wage their War on Women. If Republicans think women aren’t watching and keeping score here, they’re completely unable to learn from the past.

GOP OKs Violence Against Women

Jeff Parker, Cagle Cartoons, Florida Today and the Fort Myers News-Press.

Historic number of women sworn in as Senators

ABC News:

Today the Senate will make history, swearing in a record-breaking 20 female senators — four Republicans and 16 Democrats — in office.

[…]

“I can’t tell you the joy that I feel in my heart to look at these 20 gifted and talented women from two different parties, different zip codes to fill this room,” Sen. Barbara Mikulksi, D-Md., said while surrounded by the group of women senators. “In all of American history only 16 women had served. Now there are 20 of us.”

Meanwhile, in Crazytown:

The Hill:

A conservative women’s group sees an historic number of women being sworn into the Senate on Thursday as a negative development.

Independent Women’s Forum Executive Director Sabrina Schaeffer said in a statement that the increase in women, because they are mostly Democratic women, will be harmful for government.

“While a lot is being made about the record number of women joining the Senate, the reality is the majority of these women are Democrats – 16 of the 20 – and as a result we are likely to see higher taxes, bigger government, and less freedom,” she said.

Ever think there might be a reason why 16 of the 20 are Democrats? Keep waging that War on Women, conservatives. It’s working out so well for you.

Griper Blade: Pro-Lifers Discover Reality

The right has been stringing their voters along for decades with the wedge issue of abortion. Few Republican candidates get their campaigns off the ground without taking a position as close to the right pole of the issue as they can get away with. Even John McCain, who didn't seem comfortable with the issue, described himself as "proudly pro-life" and expressed a desire to overturn Roe v. Wade. In the final presidential debate, McCain treated the question of a woman's health as an excuse to get an abortion. "That's the extreme pro-abortion position, quote, 'health,'" McCain said, making air quotes with his fingers.

But the thing is, Republican candidates have talked a good game on abortion. While Bush claimed to want to foster a "culture of life" in America, he got right to work creating a culture of death. We absolutely needed go to war and kill people and, if you wanted to stop killing people, it would be an insult to those who had died. If we quit after it became clear the Iraq war was pointless, Bush argued, the dead would have "died in vain." Not only did we have to spread death and misery around the world, but we then had to worship that portion of the dead who were American. The glorious culture of life was only mentioned when throwing a bone to the anti-abortion folks, mostly through actions that wouldn't reduce the number of abortions performed in any way -- a ban on funding embryonic stem cell research, for example. The ban didn't stop a single fetus from being aborted. Not one...

[CLICK TO READ FULL POST]

Griper Blade: Romanian Roulette

Abortion is often cast as a matter of life and death. But this idea of life beginning at the point of conception -- a purely philosophical view -- brings us to impasses over other issues like stem cell research. In his first veto of stem cell legislation -- at that point, his only veto -- President Bush said, "...we must also remember that embryonic stem cells come from human embryos that are destroyed for their cells. Each of these human embryos is a unique human life with inherent dignity and matchless value."

People like myself wondered how Bush could get all bent out of shape over human life that was entirely theoretical, while blowing the crap out of real, non-theoretical human life in Iraq. Consistency has never been his strong point. But this was just one example of how the hypothesis that life begins at conception could be taken to absurd extremes.

When we talk about abortion as a matter of life and death, somehow we've become convinced that there's only one life involved -- the hypothetical unborn one. But there's another, actual life involved -- one that no one argues doesn't actually exist -- that of the woman...

[CLICK TO READ FULL POST]

Study Finds Gender Gap Alive and Well in Income

This isn't good. The gender gap adversely affects women right out of the gate.

Reuters:

A dramatic pay gap emerges between women and men in America the year after they graduate from college and widens over the ensuing decade, according to research released on Monday.

One year out of college, women working full time earn 80 percent of what men earn, according to the study by the American Association of University Women Educational Foundation, based in Washington D.C.

Ten years later, women earn 69 percent as much as men earn, it said.

Even as the study accounted for such factors as the number of hours worked, occupations or parenthood, the gap persisted, researchers said.

"If a woman and a man make the same choices, will they receive the same pay?" the study asked. "The answer is no.

"These unexplained gaps are evidence of discrimination, which remains a serious problem for women in the work force."

The story goes on to point out that the 10 best-paid executives in the US are all male.