Seems like a good time, first day of GOP convention to write this…
First, the good news is that many GOP men and women are voting for Obama this year and
Chart: Why Republicans don’t want to say their platform has no exemptions for rape, incest or the life of the mother.
Republican Women for Obama
“A life-long Republican, voted for John McCain, and supported Mitt Romney as the most realistic candidate in the primaries. However, as both a Republican and more importantly an American, I did not share Rush Limbaugh’s view expressed in January 2009: “I disagree fervently with the people on our side of the aisle who have caved and who say, ‘Well, I hope he succeeds’… I hope he fails.” Nor do I agree with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell who in October of 2010 was asked what “the job” of Republicans in Congress was. McConnell answered, “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.” We were in the middle of the greatest economic crisis since the 1930′s and my party has as its main goal trying to make sure the president fails — even if the country fails right along with him. What has happened to my Republican party, this is not a sporting event, we all either win or lose together.
Seems like Romney is even losing credibility from right-wingers as well. Interesting to see that even as he tries to tow the party line there are still people within his own party who do not believe him.
http://voice4america.com/articles/2012/08/27/meet-mitt-romney-right-wing-parrot.html
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/08/23/1123567/-I-abandoned-the-Republican-Party
A survey last week showed Romney lagging by 13% with women voters in six key battleground states. Obama was beating Romney by 52% to 39% and about half of women voters said they were less likely to vote for Romney since he chose Ryan.
If you are a woman , MAKE a video about YOUR OWN BODY and post @: www.Facebook.com/ThisIsMyBody
The #GOP do not even have a basic understanding of human reproduction. You really want to trust them with bombs?
The Bad
How many rich white racists, rapists, fact and granny haters does it take to fool GOP voters?
http://front.moveon.org/how-34-states-are-adding-to-a-rape-victims-nightmare/
The Obama Plan
Medicare is still solvent until 2024. Obama’s plan thanks to Obamacare increases benefits and eliminates the donut hole for out of pocket expenses for seniors completely by 2020 (source). That means by 2020 – seniors will pay NOTHING in out of pocket expenses by 2020. Obama’s plan does not require increasing the retirement age.
The Romney/Ryan Plan
Medicare would be insolvent in 2016. Romney would cut benefits by raising the retirement age. Romney’s repeal of Obamacare would mean seniors would continue to pay money out of pocket due to a gap in coverage in the Medicare program. In 2022 – out of pocket expenses for seniors would balloon to $12,500 a year (source). They would turn the Medicare Guarantee into a voucher plan increasing out of pocket expenses every single year by maintaining benefit increases at rates lower than the rate of inflation … thus equaling a tremendous rate cut.
Read more:
“Last week, Paul Ryan gave an interview in which, defending his position that there should be no excuses for abortion, he referred to rape as a “method of conception.”
“Wow, right? Talk about a benign euphemism. Rape –RAPE! – is now a “method of conception.” You know, like love-making, just without the love.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-slansky-/paul-ryan-said-something-_b_1832377.html
As a Congressman, Ryan has voted over 50 times against a women’s right to choose.
Ryan supported the “Protect Life Act,” which would have allowed hospitals to refuse to provide a woman emergency abortion care, even if her life is on the line. Democrats dubbed it the “Let Women Die Act.”
Paul Ryan voted against the Lily Ledbetter fair pay act, which would give women equal pay as men doing the same job.
http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2012/08/paul-ryan-cosponsored-all-most-extreme-anti-abortion-bills
This clip with Lisa Edelstein from ‘House’ puts what’s at risk for women in crystal clear perspective.
“Abolishing a woman’s right to abortion is one way to keep women from competing for the jobs and boardroom seats that have historically been occupied by men. Re-instituting a pro life society is code for, “Get these women out of my way — now and in the future.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jill-shaw-ruddock/why-abortion-is-taking-a-_b_1831535.html
http://www.religionnews.com/blogs/omid-safi/yes-the-republican-party-does-hate-women
The truth about the pro-life stance, which is now the platform of the GOP, is that it is anti-life and anti-choice…
“In truth the majority of you are anti-choice. You have no desire to preserve life, you merely want to control the bodies of women. I tell you now, stop it! You anti-choicers need to get over yourselves and stop trying to dictate the personal lives of other consenting adults. I demand that you get out of my private life, especially my uterus; it’s mine and your personal beliefs are not welcome in it. It is my life and my choice, in the end it is I who will have to live with the consequences of my actions; so unless you plan on helping me, and the millions of other women whose bodies you want to control, to raise the child that will result from the fetuses you want to force us carry, be it now or at some future date, then go away and leave our bodies alone.
“To the anti-choicers out there who are men, I have this to say: It is so easy for you, you who has never and will never be faced with the full responsibility of pregnancy, to act as if you have the right answers. You do not, nor will you ever, know what it is truly like to carry a developing life inside of you and to have to face all of the fear, uncertainty, and (for those of us who choose to become mothers) hope that comes with it. You are free to impregnate and leave, but it is the woman who must, by sheer force of biology, carry the full burden of pregnancy with her.”
“As usual, he (Paul Ryan) struggles to even acknowledge women. Rape is just a “method of conception,” relegating women to the means of conception, instead of, you know, people whose experiences, hopes, and fears actually matter. He might as well be talking about cooking eggs. Some people scramble eggs and some people make omelets, but no matter the method of cooking, it’s still eggs! Ryan may accept that perhaps raping isn’t the preferred method of sperm delivery to the vessel, but at the end of the day, the only thing that really matters is that the sperm got delivered and that the vessel not be allowed a say in the matter.
“At least Todd Akin granted women enough agency to be considered liars. Ryan doesn’t seem to have even given that much thought to the proposition that women have minds working behind their eyeballs.
“When talking about rape, the ugliness and dehumanization of women is much more obvious to the public, but it’s important to understand that this utter unwillingness to see women as people—instead of just Easy Bake ovens that make people–is shot throughout anti-choice sentiment.
“…For anti-choicers, the fact that someone can make a baby means that making babies is what she is for. People mistake the term “objectification” to mean “looking at with lust,” but what it actually means is “reducing someone to an object to be used.” Sexual objectification is assuming that because women turn you on, they are for sex, instead of a person whose sexuality should be an expression of their agency. What anti-choicers engage in is reproductive objectification. Women are among an array of objects to be used. The refrigerator is for storing food. The bookshelf is for holding books. The woman is for making babies. You no more give her a choice in the matter than you would give your refrigerator veto power over what food it hold because it didn’t like your method of shopping.
“…Anti-choicers just simply refuse to see the evidence in front of them, instead projecting all this sentience onto embryos that don’t actually have any feelings or thoughts. The inability of the anti-choice movement to see reality is about a lot more than their misunderstanding of how human reproduction works; it’s the very foundation of their entire worldview that relegates thinking, feeling, communicating women to the status of inanimate objects.”
According to the World Health Organization, the U.S. ranks behind more than 40 other countries when it comes to maternal death rates, with 11 deaths per 100,000 pregnancies when measured in 2005. More women die in the U.S. after giving birth than die in countries including Poland, Croatia, Italy and Canada, to name a few.
http://abcnews.go.com/WN/changing-life-preventing-maternal-mortality/story?id=9914009#.UDbnaBW-amA
“Every 90 seconds, somewhere in the world, a woman dies from a pregnancy-related complication. This isn’t just a “third world” problem. The United States currently ranks 50th in the world for maternal health. It is safer to give birth in Bosnia or Kuwait than in California. But what we do here ultimately affects women everywhere. This is a matter of inequality and political will.
“…Of the estimated 210 million women who become pregnant each year, 20 million will experience life-threatening complications.
…According the report cited above, the number of women dying from pregnancy and birth related complications has been declining steadily. But not in the United States. In the United States maternal mortality rates have WORSENED (we dropped from 41st to 50th in the world.) Women here experience higher rates of maternal death than those in nearly all European countries, Canada and several countries in the Middle East and Asia. In addition, the U.S. numbers may be depressed as there are no reporting requirements for maternal deaths.
…women are uninsured, subject to gender-rated fees when they are, don’t get coverage for maternity related care anyway, have reduced access to reproductive health care options, often get little or no information about contraception in abstinence “sex ed,” have little or no family planning support, suffer from poor education, have limited access to pre-natal and post-partum care and/or are discriminated against in multi-dimensional ways that compound all of these issues.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/soraya-chemaly/no-mothers-day_b_1471831.html
Women in their 20s account for more than half of all abortions; women aged 20–24 obtain 33% of all abortions, and women aged 25–29 obtain 24%.
Nice blog CeliaSue, sorry you’re a republican. No actually that may be a good thing, who better to get through to other republican just how important this vote is and we cannot repeat the mistakes made from the administration 2000 to 2008. That’s why we are in the mess we are in today, not just us but the world economy has suffered. They should be on trail for war crimes but no one has the guts to go after a U.S. president and vice president.
how/why would you think I am a republican? bizarre. I am NOT… I have been a libertarian and now I guess consider myself progressive… I agree Bush/Cheney’s policies caused the mess we are in now and Romney/Ryan would make things a zillion times worse.
I got that from here: What has happened to my Republican party, this is not a sporting event, we all either win or lose together.
Loved your blog but based on your beginning, “A life-long Republican, voted for John McCain, and supported Mitt Romney as the most realistic candidate in the primaries. However, as both a Republican and more importantly an American,…” initially I thought you were a Republican too. I should have known that a Republican would hardly be as likely to break down her Party’s platform as you did so well. Thank you for your interesting and insightful blog. I look forward to reading more from you. I hope we women win at the polls in November. I shudder to think what will happen if we don’t.