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June 02, 2015 02:36 PM UTC

Cory Gardner To Prove 2014 Abortion Attacks Were All True

  • 12 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols
Sen. Cory Gardner.
Sen. Cory Gardner.

Anti-abortion news site LifeNews.com reports on the movement of the 20-week abortion ban bill, which passed the U.S. House in mid-May, to the GOP-controlled Senate:

The lead Senate sponsor of the pro-life bill that bans abortions from after 20-weeks of pregnancy up to the day of birth will introduce the legislation next week. Last month, the House of Representatives voted 242-184 for the Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act.

Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who is the lead sponsor of the pro-life measure in the Senate, has announced that he will introduce the measure next week. In a new letter to members of the Senate, released to LifeNews.com, the National Right to Life Committee is urging members of the Senate to sign on to the legislation as cosponsors.

“The operative language of the proposal that Senator Graham intends to introduce is the same as the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act as approved by the House of Representatives on May 13 (H.R. 36, as revised by the Franks Substitute Amendment),” NRLC says in its letter. “Like earlier versions of the legislation, the House-passed bill extends general protection to unborn children who are at least 20 weeks beyond fertilization (which is equivalent to 22 weeks of pregnancy — about the start of the sixth month).”

National Right to Life says there is an abundance of scientific evidence showing unborn babies feel pain in the latter stages of pregnancy and the pro-life group says the Senate ha an obligation to protect them from excruciating abortions…

The experts say that, all other arguments for or against abortion notwithstanding, there’s just no solid evidence to back up the claim that fetuses “feel pain” when a woman’s pregnancy reaches 20 weeks. Factcheck.org dug into this claim in detail after the passage of this legislation in the House last month:

Research on the topic has centered around the stages of brain and nervous system development, and what is known regarding the processing of pain in the brain. We reviewed the literature and spoke with several experts, and we conclude that a firm starting point for pain in the developing fetus is essentially impossible to pin down, and that definitive claims regarding pain perception at 20 weeks are unfounded. [Pols emphasis]

Once you accept that the 20-week cutoff in this legislation is arbitrary, the only justification for the bill beyond the usual rote arguments against abortion falls apart. What this represents is another attempt by Republicans to restrict abortion rights–period. Media talking heads who just got done convincing voters that there is no “war on women” against reproductive rights by the Republican Party have nothing to say when asked about this renewed effort, except maybe to sheepishly note that President Barack Obama is certain to veto the legislation if it reaches his desk.

who_wont_get_fooled_againBut with a presidential election looming next year, what kind of comfort is that to women? Not much. One of the GOP’s foremost slicksters on the issue of abortion, Sen. Cory Gardner, is all but certain to vote for this abortion ban bill. How will local Republican operative Laura Carno, as one example, react to that–after assuring Colorado voters last year:

Democrats seem intent on making this election about choice. What else explains the barrage of ads in the Colorado U.S. Senate race with the false narrative that a woman’s right to get a legal abortion is in jeopardy?

…[A] deafening barrage of political commercials is now telling women their reproductive rights are in danger. Let’s be clear: They aren’t. [Pols emphasis]

Not to mention the Denver Post’s endorsement of Gardner, which proclaimed unequivocally:

Gardner’s election would pose no threat to abortion rights. [Pols emphasis]

Well folks, as soon as Gardner votes for this legislation, these lies are all laid bare for the voters of Colorado to see. At the very least, that should make it harder for GOP apologists in the media to tell Colorado voters that what they can see with their own eyes in the records and statements of Republican candidates for office isn’t so. By running away from his anti-abortion past during the campaign, and then voting for this abortion ban bill within months of taking office, Cory Gardner may well destroy the ability of fellow Republicans in Colorado to replicate his success in the future.

At the very least, it will be hard to fool them again.

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12 thoughts on “Cory Gardner To Prove 2014 Abortion Attacks Were All True”

  1. There's nothing in the streets
    Looks any different to me
    And the slogans are replaced, by-the-bye
    And the parting on the left
    Are now parting on the right
    And the beards have all grown longer overnight

    I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
    Take a bow for the new revolution
    Smile and grin at the change all around
    Pick up my guitar and play
    Just like yesterday
    Then I'll get on my knees and pray
    We don't get fooled again
    Don't get fooled again
    No, no!

  2. What makes you think anyone believed Mr. Gardner or the DP editorial in the first place?  He won because of apathy, approbation, or a belief that the issue was to big for him to seriously move the current state of affairs.  When Obama vetoes this bill, none of that will change.

    Mark Udall's problem wasn't that Cory Gardner lied about his stance on women or their right to control their bodies.  Udall’s problem is that he couldn't make the case for how him being in the senate would make anything different.  He lost because he was irrelevant to the equation (perception or reality).

    1. "What makes you think anyone believed Mr. Gardner or the DP editorial in the first place?" Excellent point. All the pro-choice people knew he was really anti-choice. All the anti-choice people assumed it was wink, wink to get elected. For most people, including women, it simply wasn't their only priority and Udall didn't make much of an effort to talk about top priority economic issues. He won because team Udall was clueless. 

      1. There was also a large disinterested middle, and they're the ones who got suckered. Your desire to lay everything that went wrong in 2014 at the feet of Mark Udall leaves out some important things, and you should think it through a little more IMO.

  3. Excuse me, but 20 weeks after fertilization is the 22nd week of pregnancy?  So a woman is pregnant two weeks before the egg is fertilized?  That should scare the shit out of every self-respecting man and woman on the planet.  I've heard a lot of crazy things said by anti-choice nut cases (women who have abortions and doctors who perform them should get the death penalty anyone?) but this takes the cake.  It really is the new Republican math.  20 equals 22.  Karen Middleton and Vicki Cowart, are you listening to this crap?

    1. Let's not forget that gem about the whole system shutting down and a woman not being able to become pregnant if she is the victim of a legitimate rape.

  4. It's worse than that.  So, I'm think I'm going to have sex with my wife in two weeks, and she always gets pregnant on the first time, so since we all know that a fertilized egg is the same as a 21 year old man, I'd like to vote for my "pre-born" child actually make that all ten of them.  Jack Weil, God rest his soul, was right, they do think every sperm is sacred.

    1. It's just the usual (at least it used to be) way of measuring back to to the beginning of the cycle in which fertilization occurs, usually about two weeks in. Since many women are nowhere near clockwork regular it's part of a guess in terms of when conception actually took place. 

    2. It's also making science fit the policy, instead of policy fitting the science. Most embryologists agree that 22 weeks is when the embryo's skin develops nerve endings, and its brain begins to develop folds (to enable cognition).

      So even weighing in the "2 weeks from last period" fudge factor BC mentioned, what the GOP is doing is assuming that embryos feel pain and process it in their brains much earlier than scientists have found that they do.

      All that aside, I feel I need to point out that nobody gets a late – term abortion because of convenience or selfish reasons. Women getting post 20 week abortions tend to be poor, minority race, young, without access to health care in general, with significant "life disruptions" (rape, abuse, violence). These are the women GOP lawmakers apparently feel contempt for.

      However, these lawmakers of all political persuasions feel that its fine if living, breathing, pain-and-thought-capable children are killed in drone attacks, nuclear bombs, or are collateral damage to any other lofty patriotic / profit-making goal.

      It's all in who gets the "choice" to kill kids, you see. Women are not to be trusted with that choice, even on the smallest of scales. (a 20 week embryo is about the size and mass of an eggplant, and has about as much reasoning capability.

       

       

  5. Like B.C. said, they're actually counting from the day they can pinpoint: the first day of the last menstrual period. Without a basal thermometer (body temperature rises minutely at ovulation), most women are fuzzy about which day of a given cycle they actually ovulate. Even if they know (or say they do), doctors don't trust the information. Also, the little dot can hang around for a couple of days before one of those little tadpoles finds it. So they count from the only date they can verify.

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