Is Republican-Controlled Indiana A Safe Place For Women To Live?

Indiana’s popular 21st Century Scholars program started two decades ago and gives a full college tuition scholarship to low-income middle school students who promise to abstain from drugs, stay out of criminal trouble and receive acceptable grades. Needless to say, Indiana Republicans, who control both houses of the state legislature and the governor's mansion, would like to start the process of dismantling it. The GOP would also like to limit a long-standing practice of guaranteeing full college scholarships to children of disabled military veterans. Republican extremists love stirring up class war against poor people and the disadvantaged this way; it's in their DNA. But nothing excites them as much as their never-ending jihad against women. Perhaps you heard about a state legislator screaming last week that you couldn't make an exception for rape in an anti-abortion bill because women are liars. That was in Indiana. Meet Eric Turner (R-Cicero). "I just want you to think about this, in my view, giant loophole that could be created where someone who could-- now I want to be careful, I don't want to disparage in any way someone who's gone through the experience of a rape, or incest," he said, disparagingly, "but someone who is desirous of an abortion could simply say that they've been raped or there's incest." Yes, that's an elected politician calling into question the honesty and motives of 50% of his constituency. That's Indiana, where paternalism and public policy go together like a horse and carriage. (Four Republican women-- Wendy McNamara of Mount Vernon, Phyllis Pond of New Haven, Kathy Heuer of Columbia City and Rebecca Kubacki of Syracuse-- were among 7 Republicans to split with Turner and GOP anti-Choice fanatics on this.)

Aside from requiring women who've been raped or who are victims of incest to give birth to their offender's child, the bill has a number of requirements that push a pro-life agenda, sometimes in defiance of medical data. Among them:

--Women seeking a first-trimester abortion must be advised that they may face increased risk of breast cancer after the abortion, and that giving birth protects women from breast cancer.

--Women seeking abortions must be advised that "physical life begins when a human ovum is fertilized by a human sperm."

--Abortion patients are advised that "medical evidence shows that a fetus can feel pain at or before 20 weeks."

--Before an abortion, the woman must view an ultrasound unless she certifies, in writing, in advance, that she does not wish to do so.

...[T]hough the bill requires health providers to advise women that their risk of breast cancer would increase after an abortion, the studies suggesting this link have been discredited and the American Cancer Society says that "induced abortion is not linked to an increase in breast cancer risk." The age at which a fetus can feel pain is also disputed: the studies which do say fetuses can feel pain often put the age closer to 29 or 30 weeks.

Despite this, the bill may be headed for the Governor's desk. HB 1210 may fulfill Rep. Eric Turner's goal of making Indiana "one of the most pro-life states in America."

Conservatives fear and hate women; they always have. Last week Shaun Mullen put it into context over that The Moderate Voice

The dust-up in the Hoosier State comes hard on the heels of legislation in the House introduced by Representative Chris Smith of New Jersey that could accurately be called The Defense of Rape Law.

The bill would make permanent the 35-year-old Hyde Amendment, which prohibits health-care programs like Medicaid from covering abortions except in cases of rape, incest and danger to the mother’s life. It also would prohibit employers and self-insured Americans from using tax breaks to buy private health insurance that covers abortion.

Where H.R. 3 goes-- or rather went-- completely off the rails was in redefining what constitutes forcible rape, and allowing an exemption to the law only in the case of incest involving minors. Women who were forced to have sex against their wishes and became pregnant were screwed. Women who were drugged before sex and became pregnant were screwed. Women whose health was in danger and became pregnant were screwed. Women who were mentally retarded and became pregnant were screwed.

The forcible rape definition has been somewhat watered down, but the bill is alive and kicking. So is H.R. 1, the first piece of legislation introduced in the new Republican-majority House. It would repeal the Affordable Care Act, which among other things prohibits insurance companies from charging women more because of their gender and prohibits them from denying insurance coverage because of a pre-existing condition such as a Caesarean section or because a woman is a victim of domestic violence.

Meanwhile, initiatives to punish rape victims are making their way through legislatures in Texas and Ohio, while a bill in the South Dakota legislature as introduced would consider murdering an abortion provider to be a justifiable homicide. It was later tabled.

It is my own belief that women and not government, let alone hair-on-fire Christian zealots, are in charge of their own bodies, something that I understood early on because of a mother who, while not exactly a women’s libber, believed in equality between the sexes. That belief became deeply rooted through decades of social, personal and sometimes intimate relationships with women who have come from the proverbial All Walks of Life, wherever that is.

I understand that there are people whose faiths consider having an abortion, let alone engaging in non-marital and extra-marital sex, to be sinful. Then there are faiths who pile on further by considering women to be second-rate creatures whose place is in the home.

But I also understand that the further up the Republican food chain one goes, there is less support for draconian measures like those being pushed in the House and in conservative state capitals. This is because pols with a national perspective-- including those who would like to reclaim the White House sooner rather than later-- understand that many women, including those all-important independent women, are less likely to vote for candidates representing a party that openly declares its hatred for them.

Finally, a little perspective: Republicans want no controls on banksters and other lenders who visit miseries on middle-class and poor American families through predatory lending practices. I can only imagine that an accidental-- and because of tough economic circumstances-- unwanted pregnancy may pale in comparison to having your family home foreclosed, yet today’s Republican Party will go to obscene ends to deny a woman an abortion while doing nothing whatsoever to save her family home.