Ryan's Record Against Women Is Much Worse Than You Even Imagined-- But So Are Many Democrats The DCCC Is Pushing

Sandra Fluke has been right on in warning voters-- women and the men who like women-- that a Ryan and Romney administration would be catastrophic for the lives on women on all sorts of levels. She honed in on Ryan's congressional voting record this week:

• Ryan voted for a bill referred to as the “Let Women Die Bill” because it proposed to allow hospitals to refuse a woman emergency abortion care, even if her life was in immediate danger. Currently, a federally funded hospital is required to provide at least enough care for a patient to be stabilized so that she doesn’t die and can be transferred to another hospital. The bill Ryan voted for meant that hospitals wouldn’t even have had to do that.

• Ryan co-sponsored a federal personhood bill. That bill declared a fertilized egg that hasn’t even resulted in a pregnancy to be the equivalent of a living person, with all of the rights of federal law. As a result, aspects of in vitro fertilization procedures and some forms of contraception would be criminalized, as would operations to save a woman’s life in the case of dangerous ectopic pregnancies that cannot be carried to term.

• Ryan repeatedly over several years voted against bills to ensure women equal pay for equal work, even voting against the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. 

• Ryan voted to cut off Title X family planning programs that ensure impoverished and low-wage women affordable access to contraception as well as mammograms and cancer-screenings.

• Ryan’s budget attacks on Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, and a broad range of social services (including child care, Head Start, job training, Pell Grants, housing and energy assistance) would disproportionately harm women’s economic wellbeing. That’s because the majority of beneficiaries of these programs are women, due to their longer life spans and greater likelihood of being impoverished.

• Ryan repeatedly voted over several years to end all funding for Planned Parenthood’s non-abortion services. Like Susan G. Komen’s defunding, voting to cut off funding of Planned Parenthood would rob women of access to breast cancer screenings, cervical cancer screenings, and the other life-saving services Planned Parenthood provides. By law, federal funding of Planned Parenthood already excludes all abortions except in cases of rape, incest, or when a woman’s life is in danger.

• Ryan co-sponsored a bill that would deny many rape victims on Medicaid access to abortion. That bill proposed to cut off access through federally-funded programs for victims who were drugged or threatened, some victims of incest, and victims of statutory rape.

• Ryan voted repeatedly to prevent our female military service-members from using their own private money to pay for abortion at a military hospital. He also voted for legislation to allow bans on abortion coverage in the new state health-insurance exchanges, even for women paying with their own money.

If you find all of that unbelievable-- and dangerous-- you’re not alone. But that’s the problem. If voters assume no one could be that bad, and don’t learn the truth about Ryan’s record, Romney/Ryan will have the opportunity to put their vision for women’s health and economic security into action. That’s why we have to spread the word. By November, Ryan’s record shouldn’t be unbelieved, or unknown.

I agree-- 100%. But neither should the very similar records of other anti-women candidates who hide behind their blue t-shirts. You see, the danger to women doesn't only come from right-wing Republicans like Paul Ryan and the mess that Mitt Romney has turned himself into. Right-wing Democrats have records that are also pretty revolting. And what makes it even more revolting is that Steve Israel singles the very worst, most anti-Choice Democratic candidates out for special attention. He adds them to his Red-to-Blue program and showers them with millions of dollars in campaign funds-- while starving candidate who stand with women against Ryan and his policies. Let's start by taking a look at some of the Blue Dogs and other ConservaDems that Israel is pushing to get elected and what kind of records they have on Choice:

• Nick Lampson (Blue Dog-TX)- Rated 30% by NARAL, indicating a pro-life voting record

• Gary McDowell (Blue Dog-MI)- NARAL rates the first Democrat to get a TV ad from the DCCC this year as anti-Choice

• Brendan Mullen (Blue Dog-IN)- NARAL rates him anti-Choice

• Sal Pace (Blue Dog-CO)- NARAL rates him as "mixed" on Choice. Blue America rates him as unacceptable.

• Hayden Rogers (Blue Dog-NC)- Hasn't held office before but is extremely conservative and assumed in NC-11 to be anti-Choice

• Charlie Wilson (Blue Dog-OH)- NARAL rates him as anti-Choice. He was defeated in 2010, in part, because pro-Choice Democrats refused to go to the polls and vote for him, even against a far worse Republican. That's because Wilson's voting record on Choice (25% in 2009) was abysmal. So, of course, Steve Israel recruited him again.

• Steve Pestka (MI)- A former state legislator who doesn't even believe in an exception for rape or incest, he has an ugly anti-Choice voting record and, like Ryan, voted against funding for Planned Parenthood.

• Eric Stewart (TN)- A state senator with a 100% anti-Choice voting record.

And then there's Israel's accursed Front-Line List, which is where most of the money the DCCC collects goes. These are generally the incumbents whose positions are so unpopular with grassroots voters that they can't get any support and need the DCCC to step in for them. Many are anti-Choice voters. All of these Conservatives voted for, among other things, the hideous Stupak-Pitts amendment in 2009.

• John Barrow (Blue Dog-GA)

• Ben Chandler (Blue Dog-KY)

• Mark Critz (PA)- Wasn't in Congress at the time, but he's been an anti-Choice fanatic at every opportunity since he got in.

• Jim Matheson (Blue Dog-UT)

• Mike McIntyre (Blue Dog-NC)