What Does Republican Rule Look Like? For Women?

Yesterday, the Alabama House went for the big enchilada-- overturning Roe v Wade. The state House has 77 Republicans and just 28 Democrats. (The state Senate has 27 Republicans and 8 Democrats.) The executive branch is also controlled by the GOP. There are no checks; there are no balances. A state in which just a third of the people voted for Clinton and in which only 41% went along with the 2018 congressional correction-- has made the big move many red states want to make. AP reported that Alabama's House "voted overwhelmingly Tuesday to outlaw almost all abortions in the state as conservatives took aim at the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion nationwide." After the Democrats walked out of the chamber, there were just 3 votes against a bill that would make it a felony to perform an abortion at any stage in a woman’s pregnancy, with no regard for rape or incest.

Anti-Choice fanatics inside and outside Alabama gladly admit the bill is intentionally designed to conflict with Roe v. Wade, hoping to spark court cases that will give a conservative Supreme Court the opportunity to relitigate and throw out Roe v Wade, the ultimate strategy of half the Republican Party. (The ultimate startegy of the other half of the Republican Party is to throw out the New Deal.)

“The heart of this bill is to confront a decision that was made by the courts in 1973 that said the baby in a womb is not a person,” said Republican Rep. Terri Collins of Decatur.

Republicans in the chamber applauded after the bill was approved after more than two hours of sometimes emotional debate. Collins acknowledged that such a ban would likely be struck down by lower courts, but she said the aim is eventually to get to the Supreme Court.

Without the numbers to stop the bill, Democrats walked off the House floor ahead of the vote, calling the proposal both extreme and fiscally irresponsible. They said the ban would cost the state money for a potentially expensive legal fight that could be spent on other needs.

Rep. Louise Alexander, a Democrat, said the choice to give birth to a child should be left up to a woman, and the decision should not be made on the floor of the Alabama Legislature.

“You don’t know why I may want to have an abortion. It may be because of my health. It may be because of many reasons. Until all of you in this room walk in a woman’s shoes, y’all don’t know,” Alexander said.

Emboldened by new conservatives on the Supreme Court, abortion opponents in several states are seeking to incite new legal fights in the hopes of challenging Roe v. Wade. The Alabama bill comes on the heels of several states considering or approving bans on abortion once a fetal heartbeat is detected, which occurs in about the sixth week of pregnancy.

The Alabama bill attempts to go farther by banning abortion at any stage of pregnancy.

House Republicans voted down Democrats’ attempt to amend the bill to add an exemption for rape and incest. Representatives voted 72-26 to table the proposed amendment.

“They would not even allow an exception for rape and incest... What does that say to the women in this state,” House Minority Leader Anthony Daniels.

Collins argued that adding exemptions would weaken the intent of the bill as a vehicle to challenge Roe. She said if states regain the ability to decide abortion access, Alabama lawmakers could come back and decide what exemptions to allow.

...Rep. Rolanda Hollis, a Birmingham Democrat, read a poem that criticized Republicans’ embrace of gun rights but not abortion rights, and later referred to the state as “Ala-Backwards.”

Once the Gov. Kay Ivey signs the bill, all abortions would be classified as Class A felonies in the state. A doctor caught performing an abortion in Alabama would face up to 99 years in prison. This might be a good time to remind you which members of the Supreme Court are eager to strike down Roe v Wade-- and which Democrats made their rise to the Court possible.

• Clarence Thomas
Joe Biden, as Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, rigged the hearings to guarantee Thomas would be confirmed. 11 Democrats voted to confirm: Dixon (IL), Exon (NE), Hollings (SC), Fowler (GA), Nunn (GA), Breaux (LA), Johnston (LA), Boren (OK), Shelby (AL; he's now a Republican), DeConcini (AZ), Robb (VA)

• John Roberts
22 Democrats voted to confirm him, including 4 still serving: Lincoln (AR), Pryor (AR), Salazar (CO), Dodd (CT), Lieberman (CT), Carper (DE), Nelson (FL), Landrieu (LA), Levin (MI), Baucus (MT), Nelson (NE), Bingaman (NM), Conrad (ND), Dorgan (ND), Wyden (OR), Johnson (SD), Leahy (VT), Murray (WA), Bryrd (WV), Rockefeller (WV), Feingold (WI), Kohl (WI)

• Sammy Alito
25 Democrats voted to break the filibuster, allowing Alito to be confirmed: Akaka (HI), Baucus (MT), Bayh (IN), Bingaman (NM), Byrd (WV), Cantell (WA), Carper (DE), Conrad (ND), Dorgan (ND), Inouye (HI), Johnson (SD), Kohl (WI), Landrieu (LA), Lieberman (CT), Lincoln (AR), Nelson (FL), Nelson (NE), Pryor (AR), Rockefeller (WV), Salazar (CO)

• Neil Gorsuch
3 Democrats voted to break the filibuster, allowing Gorsuch to be confirmed: Manchin (WV), Heitkamp (ND), Donnelly (IN)

• Brett Kavanaugh
The only Democrat voting with the GOP to break the filibuster that allowed Kavanaugh to be confirmed was Joe Manchin of West Virginia.

You don't see progressive Democrats on those lists of who sold us out of the years. You see crooked conservative careerists backed by the party establishment. Most of them are gone from politics today, although one is trying to reinvent himself and is attempting to slip into the Oval Office. Be careful. The right-to-choice wouldn't be in danger if Joe Biden had done his job as chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Eva Putzova is a Flagstaff progressive battling a faux Democratic incumbent for Arizona's largest congressional district. He's a former Republican legislator who switched to be an independent and then, when the opportunity to slither into Congress came up, he re-registered as a Democrat. That's virtually the only Democratic thing Tom O'Halleran has ever done. He has one of the most anti-progressive voting records in Congress and has earned a solid "F" for his two terms of bad votes. This afternoon, Eva told us that her "grandmother died from a botched abortion. It was 1946 in a post-war Europe. She took my two-year old mother, her daughter, and walked 15 miles to a nearby village to get the procedure done. She never came back and my mom grew up without ever knowing her mother. Is this really what we want for American women in the 21st century? And let's be clear-- this is way more than a women's issue. This is a matter of social, economic, and racial justice. I will fight in Congress for all women-- regardless of their ability to pay or travel-- to have access to the full spectrum of reproductive healthcare services." Who you want to trust to fight for all women's right to choice, Eva or the "ex"-Republican backed by a craven and incredibly corrupt DCCC? Please consider helping Eva by clicking on the Blue America primary a Blue Dog thermometer on the right.