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December 01, 2014 11:20 AM UTC

For If It Prosper, None Dare Call It a "War on Women"

  • 16 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

waronwomen

AP via the Denver Post, a familiar 2015 Colorado legislative battleground already taking shape:

Democrats who credit a drop in teen pregnancy to expanding access to long-acting birth control such as intrauterine devices have to persuade Republicans to use state money for contraceptives…

The Colorado Family Planning Initiative has provided low-income women access to birth control like IUDs and hormone implants for free or low cost at 68 clinics in the state. But state officials say $5 million is needed to continue the program.

The problem, of course, is that Democrats no longer have full control of the Colorado General Assembly. And that means the decision of whether to continue a program credited with reducing the rate of teen pregnancy in Colorado by 40%, in addition to reducing the number of abortions, is at least partly in the hands of Assistant Senate Majority Leader-elect Kevin Lundberg.

"We are talking about the most critical issue of protecting life or abortion," said Sen. Kevin Lundberg, a Republican from Berthoud who will chair the Health and Human Services Committee. Lundberg said he doesn't oppose the use of condoms or pills. But he said IUDs are "abortifacients," meaning they cause abortions.

"That is not medically correct," countered Dr. Larry Wolk, the state's chief medical officer and the director of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment… [Pols emphasis]

The thing is, we already know it's not medically correct, we just dealt with the incorrect assertion that interuterine devices (IUDs) are "abortifacients" when failed GOP gubernatorial candidate Bob Beauprez said as much during a debate against Gov. John Hickenlooper this year. Beauprez was drilled by reproductive health experts for claiming IUDs are "aborifacient" after Hickenlooper cited this same program a successful policy. Other Republican candidates, like U.S. Senate candidate Cory Gardner desperately trying to convince undecided voters that the whole idea of banning birth control is "crazy," watched in horror as Beauprez at least morally validated the idea of doing just that.

Perhaps the biggest triumph of the 2014 elections in Colorado for Republicans was successfully "gumming to death" the issue of reproductive choice, which had cost them dearly in previous years as Colorado's electorate rejected abortion bans over and over. Led by Cory Gardner's deliberate campaign to "muddy up" the issue enough to blunt Democratic attacks, the GOP's insistence that the "war on women" is fake eventually suckered enough pundits, reporters, and editorial boards to sway conventional wisdom–at least through November 4th.

But as we'll all learn again next month, the "war on women" simply takes a break during election years.

Comments

16 thoughts on “For If It Prosper, None Dare Call It a “War on Women”

  1. It isn't a war on women.  And this is where Mark Udall's message went so terribly awry.  This ia an economic assault on the middle and lower classes.  it's an assault on the liberty of families of all income levels, to plan child birth and rearing and to support the born.  Yes it directly impacts women, but it also impacts the men, children, parents, and others in their lives.

    We need to stop focusing so narrowly on the (real and terrible) assault on the agency of women in this society and broaden the argument to include not only the impact on their bodies but what this sort of idiocy means for all aspects of society.

     

    1. +100 Exactamente, Pcat. Margaret Sanger and Emma Goldman would understand about the economic impacts of being denied access to birth control. 

      Families across all political and religious persuasions certainly get it. Catholics, Jews, Protestants, atheists, all use contraception in roughly the same proportions, because it is a quality of life and economic necessity. 

      Kevin Lundberg is a dunce – but he is being used to deny birth controlin the service of controlling the options and upward mobility of the working and middle class populations. 

    2. That was the problem with abortion prior to 1973.  Wealthy women could always travel to places where they could go for a "procedure" that was safe and legal.  The poor simply carried the pregnancy to term or used a coat hanger.

    3. You live in a sad, angry world. I'm glad America isn't as bad as you make it sound.

      ISIS and Boko Haram wage wars on women. Republicans don't. This election proved your talking points are out of gas.

      1. I'm sure Republicans are just looking out for women by blocking equal pay bills, by resisting renewal of domestic violence bills, by insisting that it's okay to exclude medicines that can be used for birth control from insurance (even when they can be prescribed for non-birth control purposes), and by ensuring that it's difficult for women in Texas to vote because their voter registrations and driver's licenses are by law different…

        There's nothing obviously discriminatory about those things – I mean, we're just overreacting I'm sure…

  2. They believe this stuff. Belief doesn't need corroborating data. Belief doesn't need those pesky "facts". 

    And this applies to not only Republican belief about God, but Republican belief about economics, immigrants, gays, thugs, reproduction, climate science, white privilege, etc……..

    This is why the current Republican party cannot be dealt with rationally nor should they be negotiated with in search of some awesome bipartisan consensus solution. As one of the last rational national R's said: Naht….gonna……happen.

  3. Right on target. All of these issues are people's issues. When Dems try to divide them into issues specifically for women, African Americans, Hispanics, students, environmentalists, low income families, middle income families  etc. they allow righties to say Dems  are divisive, that they just want to set us against each other against the successful and against poor little white men.  The fact is job creation, a sensible solution to the problem of the long term undocumented immigrants who contribute to our economy and their children, access to birth control, to choice in family planning nd health decisions,  to affordable education ,to affordable healthcare, to a living wage,  to a healthy environment, to safe food and water,to protections from Wall Street sharks, to protection from police abuse, abuse of our rights, abuse of our privacy, to a new energy economy, free from the boom and bust cycles of the fossil energy economy, to equal marriage rights,and on and on are the issues that affect us all, both inside and outside our separate Americans boxes. Dem supporters are a coalition of many disparate and overlapping groups that together comprise the overwhelming majority and the majority of all Americans want so many of the things that reflect Democratic policy, according to polls. The Dem message should be one geared toward the truth that we're all in this together. We may come from different cultural and socio-economic backgrounds and face different combinations of challenges more common among this group or that but we can all move forward and benefit together.

    1. That's all true, AND Republican are misogynistic assholes who want to contol women's bodies. Just because Udall flubbed that message doesn't make it less true. We can't focus group every message into something everyone will agree with, at some level we have to call a spade a spade.

      1. I also agree that there was nothing wrong with that aspect of Udall's message except that it came across as the only thing he had much to say about and it's far from the only thing voters, all of them, including women, care about. So all lying Corey had to say to low info voter on the subject was.. hey, I'm not here to pass personhood either. And just look how grumpy and mean that guy looks all the time. Look at me. I'm smiling and saying I'll work to end the gridlock in congress. And, trust me, ladies, I'm not out to outlaw birth control. That's all you're average voter was ever going to know about the two candidates. 

        So much for Udall's centerpiece message. I'm a strongly pro-choice woman and Democrat and even I was sick of hearing it and longing to hear him talking about something, anything, else. It's not like there weren't plenty of other issues to choose from, all of which Democrats are on the public's good side of according to polls.

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