Pro-Choice Maryland

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan launched a broad assault on President Barack Obama in a speech to social conservatives on Friday, accusing him of pandering to extremists on abortion and emboldening U.S. enemies in the Middle East.

The Wisconsin congressman told the Values Voters Summit, an annual gathering of religious and conservative activists, that Obama had led a "reckless expansion of federal power" and waged economic class warfare.

Declaring himself "a values voter, too," Ryan mocked Democrats for their convention fight over the mention of God in the platform and questioned claims by Obama that "we're all in this together."

"How hollow it sounds coming from a politician who has never once lifted a hand to defend the most helpless and innocent of all human beings, the child waiting to be born," Ryan said.

"Giving up any further pretense of moderation on this issue, and in complete disregard of millions of pro-life Democrats, President Obama has chosen to pander to the most extreme elements of his party," he said.
Of course Obama would choose to support those who favor reproductive rights Mr. Ryan. Didn't you miss the memo that supporting abortion, contraception, and sex ed are part of the Democrat plat form? However, considering there's only two parties to choose from in the US (that count, unfortunately), the pro-life Democrats are shit out of luck like the republicans are in your party that are pro-choice and will be until the US drops the two partied system.

Also, I'm glad he supports "the extremists" of his party regarding abortion because at least I know Obama doesn't want a woman to die if she suffers a complication during pregnancy....unlike you, Mr. Ryan. And you say you want to protect those before they are born? Well, good luck if you support a bill that will allow a woman to die...taking the fetus along with it. Who's pro-life now? Certainly not you or any one that is against abortion to save a woman's life as well as contraception.
Cross posted to we_r_the_middle

I originally got this from here, who they got the original article from National Catholic Reporter...an independent resource.

Nicholas P. Cafardi is a civil and canon lawyer as well as a professor, including the former dean, at Duquesne University School of Law in Pittsburgh. Here's a snippet of what he said in the article:
For example, Obama's Affordable Care Act does not pay for abortions. In Massachusetts, Romney's health care law does. Obama favors, and included in the Affordable Care Act, $250 million of support for vulnerable pregnant women and alternatives to abortion. This support will make abortions much less likely, since most abortions are economic. Romney, on the other hand, has endorsed Wisconsin Republican Paul Ryan's budget, which will cut hundreds of millions of dollars out of the federal plans that support poor women. The undoubted effect: The number of abortions in the United States will increase. On these facts, Obama is much more pro-life than Romney. (yes, you read that right)

( More reasons why he thinks Obama is more pro-life than Romney )

From PP:
The Obama administration has issued final rules guaranteeing women coverage for birth control with no co-pays. Your boss, your insurer, or your college shouldn't be able to stop you from getting coverage. But it's not official yet -- you have until JUNE 19 to tell the Dept. of Health and Human Services that you support coverage for all

The Oklahoma Supreme Court unanimously vetoed a ballot measure that would have given embryos full personhood rights on Monday, ruling it "clearly unconstitutional" because it would block a woman's legal right to have an abortion.

The personhood measure would give embryos the same legal rights as people from the moment of fertilization, which opponents say would ban abortion and complicate the legality of in vitro fertilization and many forms of birth control. Enacting such a law would violate the U.S. Supreme Court's 1992 decision in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which allows states to pass some abortion restrictions but prevents them from overturning the constitutional right to end a pregnancy.

"The mandate of Casey is as binding on this Court today as it was twenty years ago," the Oklahoma Supreme Court wrote in its decision. "Initiative Petition No. 395 conflicts with Casey and is void on its face and it is hereby ordered stricken."
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( In Minnesota )
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( In Texas )

Considering all this happened yesterday, I wondered if the politicans and justices of America got a wake up call from all the "Unite against the War on Women" protests that happened this past weekend that women's reproductive rights shouldn't be messed with.

From PP:
After weeks of debate and an enormous outcry from Planned Parenthood supporters nationwide, the Senate rejected the Blunt Amendment, a measure that would have allowed any employer to deny women who work for them insurance coverage for birth control. The message is clear: birth control is basic health care, and your medical decisions should be between you and your doctor.

This is a huge victory for women's health, and your senators were an important part of that victory. Please, take a moment right now to thank your senators for voting to defend access to affordable birth control.

For people that live outside of Maryland, you can go here to see how your senators voted for and send them a message of thanks or outrage.

Last week, the nation was appalled that Republicans held a hearing on women’s access to birth control coverage that included a panel with five men and no women.

Now, they’ve gone a step further.

In a last-minute move, House Republicans have apparently changed their own rules to deny televised testimony from Sandra Fluke, the Georgetown law student that Republicans refused to let testify last week.

Will you immediately sign our petition calling on Speaker Boehner, Majority Leader Cantor, and House Administration Committee Chairman Dan Lungren to reverse their disgraceful decision to deny Sandra the right to have her testimony televised?

It is unacceptable that Republicans would once again deny women the right to publicly testify about women’s health care. It is up to all of us to speak out against this shameful censorship.

Add your name to the petition

From NOW:
Send a message to your Congress members today, urging them to vote down any effort to restrict contraceptive coverage in health care.

Background:
Continuing Attacks on Birth Control - The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and other extremists are expanding their campaign against women's reproductive rights by going all out to restrict birth control. They are not content with the Obama administration's extraordinary accommodations to religiously affiliated organizations -- namely, churches have carte blanche to keep birth control out of their health plans, while for other religious employers the cost of birth control coverage is absorbed entirely by the insurer. Now the bishops and their allies in Congress want all employers to be able to strip birth control from their health plans. That this is happening in a volatile election year is no accident.

( More )

This information needs to be conveyed to your senators in order to defeat these attacks on birth control.

PORTSMOUTH, Virginia (Reuters) - Virginia lawmakers took a step toward outlawing abortion on Tuesday by approving "personhood" legislation that grants individual rights to an embryo from the moment of conception.

The Republican-controlled House of Delegates voted 66-32 in favor of defining the word person under state law to include unborn children "from the moment of conception until birth at every stage of biological development."

The measure now heads to the Senate, which is evenly split between Republicans and Democrats but with Republican Lieutenant Governor Bill Bolling wielding the tie-breaking vote.

Republican Delegate Bob Marshall, an abortion opponent who introduced the legislation, said the 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion in the United States would not have been rendered if Texas state law had regarded the unborn as a person "in the full sense."

"So this is a first step, a necessary step, but it's not sufficient to directly challenge Roe," Marshall said in a phone interview.

Virginia's approach differs from failed attempts to define a fertilized egg as a legal person in Colorado in 2008 and 2010 and in Mississippi in 2011.

Virginia's effort avoids involving a constitutional amendment like those states, instead seeking changes throughout the legal code, said Elizabeth Nash, public policy associate at the Washington-based Guttmacher Institute, which studies reproductive health issues.

But she said the intent is the same, with the measure ultimately aimed at banning abortion, contraception and infertility treatment.

Pro-choice Virginians...you have my sympathy.

( But, I have more! )

From NOW:
UPDATE (Feb. 7, 2012): Oh, no! Senior Obama adviser David Axelrod went on television Tuesday morning and suggested the president may cave to the Catholic bishops on birth control after all.

This comes after the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops intensified its lobbying and media spin campaign following the Department of Health and Human Services' recent decision against expanding a so-called conscience or refusal clause. Expanding the refusal clause would have allowed religiously affiliated employers to evade a key provision of the Affordable Care Act by refusing to offer their workers health care plans that cover birth control.

President Obama needs to hear from you right away, even if you wrote him before the decision was released -- tell him not to cave to the bishops! New polling shows a strong majority of voters think that women employed by Catholic hospitals and universities should have the same rights to contraceptive coverage as other women, and a majority of Catholics agree with this sentiment.

Please send the president a message AGAIN!