First They Came for Women's Rights

If you think this isn't important in the larger scheme of our crisis, you need to re-read The Handmaid's Tale. The freakazoid motherfuckers are building the Republic of Gilead right before our eyes.

Digby:

Chippin' away at it --- yet another assault on women's rights

I'm told that even talking about this constitutes a hissy fit by dumb women playing useful idiots for Barack Obama (or in my case a hack trying to misdirect liberals away from their real enemies in the Democratic Party --- or something.) But I think I'll mention it anyway:

Anti-choice Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) just filed an anti-choice amendment to a bill related to agriculture, transportation, housing, and other programs. The DeMint amendment could bar discussion of abortion over the Internet and through videoconferencing, even if a woman’s health is at risk and if this kind of communication with her doctor is her best option to receive care.

Under this amendment, women would need a separate, segregated Internet just for talking about abortion care with their doctors.

I looked around and couldn't figure out from the various blog posts and articles about this what was really going on. Banning using the internet to talk about abortion? And then I searched the "pro-life" sites:

Sen. Jim DeMint, a South Carolina Republican, is offering an amendment to legislation in the U.S. Senate that could receive a vote as early as today or tomorrow to ensure taxpayer funds are not used to pay for the dangerous RU 486 abortion drug under a telemedicine grant section.

The amendment is similar to the one Congressman Steve King, an Iowa Republican, introduced in the House this summer that the lower chamber approved on a bipartisan 240-176 vote. The amendment prevents any funds within the legislation from being spent on the abortion drug RU-486 “for any purpose,” including use in “telemed abortions.”

Telemed, or webcam, abortions are those in which a woman gets the abortion drug only after a webcam conversation with the abortion practitioner, who may be out of state. The woman is denied the in-person consultation with a physician that the Food and Drug Administration recommends, especially due to the dangerous nature of the drug as it has killed dozens of women worldwide and injured 2,200 alone as of April 2011 FDA figures. The consultation helps determine whether or not the woman may suffer from an ectopic pregnancy — as usage of the abortion drug RU 486 in such instances is life-threatening.

SNIP

“This amendment must be passed in order to ensure that no taxpayer dollars are going to build facilities or set up computer networks designed to facilitate these gruesome, and dangerous procedures over the Internet,” the lawmaker concluded.

What will they think of next?

Now, Steve King is one of the most embarrassing politicians in the world. You expect him to propose the most cockamamie nonsense the right wing can come up with. But Jim DeMint slipping his ridiculous nonsense into unrelated bills is an escalation of the crazy.

I have no idea if this will survive in the Senate. Perhaps it's just another one of those idle gestures to the "pro-life" constituency that never go anywhere. But one thing I've learned from the reactionary fanatics over the years is that their persistence often pays off. It's as if they just keep annoying everyone until they give in in exasperation. Don't bet on this one not passing at some point.

It's ridiculous on its face --- Ru486 is safe and this concern trolling about it being "dangerous" and "gruesome" is just typical dishonest forced-childbirth propaganda. But it's also exactly the kind of issue that lefties who call women useful idiots and liberals who say this sort of thing is unimportant compared to the issues they care about will refuse to defend. And little by little the anti-choicers win. Not that that's important or anything.

It's a feminist myth that men have it easy when women are subjugated. Cultures that deny women full reproductive rights are economically and democratically stunted. It's no coincidence that attacks on female autonomy over the last 30 years have risen in tandem with attacks on labor rights, middle-class incomes and a living wage. None of those fit in the lords-and-serfs world repugs are building.