Here’s a preview of the GOP’s OFFICIAL platform for 2012 via Think Progress:
NO ABORTION IN CASES OF RAPE OR INCEST. The proposal for a “human life amendment” passed without a hitch — and without any exceptions for rape or incest. The committee didn’t stop there; they also adopted language that would ban drugs that end pregnancy after conception, which could potentially include Plan B, the “morning after pill.”
This will make every miscarriage a potential crime. Women will be treated like birthing chambers with no rights. Want to go to work? Sorry, that might endanger the fetus. Need chemotherapy? Sorry, that might endanger the fetus. Were you raped? Too bad, God wants you to have that baby!
SALUTE TO MANDATORY ULTRASOUNDS. The GOP officially praises states’ “informed consent” laws that force women to undergo unnecessary procedures, require waiting periods and endure other measures meant to discourage them from getting an abortion. One such law receiving a “salute” was crafted by committee head McDonnell, who passed a notorious mandatory ultrasound requirement after he signed an unsuccessful bill to require an even more invasive transvaginal probe ultrasound during an abortion consultation.
Yes, it’s still legal, for now. In the meantime we will force doctors, by law, to lie to their patients, force women to undergo procedures for the express purpose of shaming them and do precisely what Republicans claim they hate: insert government between a patient and their doctor.
NO NEW TAXES, EXCEPT FOR WAR. The platform calls for a Constitutional amendment requiring a super-majority to approve any tax increase, “with exceptions for only war and national emergencies.” It would also deliberately hobble future Congresses through a cap limiting all government spending to historical average percentage of GDP — “so that future Congresses cannot balance the budget by raising taxes.”
This would cripple the government. No tax loopholes would ever be closed, leaving the rich all the wiggle room they need to steal from us. Services for the poor and middle class would be cut year after year while tax cuts for the rich would be waiting the second it looked like the budget might balance. And raising taxes for a war the neo-cons want? Not a chance. It will be “emergency spending” or some such nonsense.
Yup, I can totally see the Democratic Party adopting these regressive measures. They’re just the same as Republicans after all! No difference! Unless you’re a woman, gay, poor, old, Hispanic, black, Muslim, not rich, etc.
Don’t bother voting in November. What possible difference could it make?
This. Is. Insanity.
I think highly of ThinkProgress, but there’s one thing that reminds me of the saying, “Defend me from my friends; my enemies I can handle.” It’s when they say “The committee didn’t stop there; they also adopted language that would ban drugs that end pregnancy after conception, which could potentially include Plan B, the “morning after pill.”” It is a myth of anti-choice forces that emergency contraception (EC) such as the Morning After Pill is an “abortifacent” (the anti-choice term) which end pregnancy after conception. EC and many other forms of birth control don’t act by ending pregnancy after conception, they act by preventing conception in the first place. There was, at the very beginning, a question about whether it could act by preventing implantation of a fertilized egg (which, traditionally, most medical authorities saw as the beginning of pregnancy, not fertilization). At most, it couldn’t be ruled out 100%. Since then, overwhelming medical evidence established that EC and many other forms of birth control prevent conception. That’s why it must be taken within a very narrow time frame which makes refusal of pharmacists and doctors to provide it and to refer the woman to someone who would so devastating.
A lot of people confuse EC with medical abortion, generally the pill RU-486. RU-486 does end a pregnancy by any definition. RU-486 has been used safely in Europe for many years, but anti-choice forces waged a long and bitter (and eventually unsuccessful) battle to prevent it from receiving FDA approval here. Anti-choice forces keep trying to put hurdles in the administration of RU-486 because it can be prescribed by doctors without the woman having to go to a clinic where she’d have to run anti-choice gauntlets.
I think you’re missing the point that the right thinks it terminates a pregnancy. It won’t matter what the science says, they just “know” it’s abortion in a pill and will outlaw it accordingly.