As y’all know, I’ve been resorting to any hyperbole (and sadly, not that hyperbolic at that) to highlight the fact that the phrase “the war on women” describes a conflict in which, you know, women actually die.
I’ve done so here in two posts about Indiana — led by former VSP presidential favorite Mitch Daniels — and the attempt there to defund Planned Parenthood for the sin of providing a legal medical procedure with dollars that have never passed through the Indiana revenue collection agency’s hands.
Now I’m happy to report that Indiana’s attempt to nullify federal law and procedure (and kill women) has been blocked, at least for now:
The state of Indiana is not allowed to cut off most of Planned Parenthood’s state and federal public funding solely because the organization also provides abortions, a federal judge said Friday in blocking part of the state’s tough new abortion law.
U.S. District Judge Tanya Walton Pratt granted Planned Parenthood of Indiana’s request for preliminary injunction on the state’s move to defund the organization. Her ruling sides with federal officials who said states cannot disqualify Medicaid providers merely because they also offer abortions or restrict Medicaid recipients’ freedom to choose their health care provider.
Of course, such setbacks do not deter those bent on depriving Indiana’s women of their access to health care (and, in some cases, life):
Indiana attorney general’s office spokesman Bryan Corbin said the state likely will appeal.
But for now at least, we are reminded (a) why the rule of law matters and (b) why federalism matters. In this instance, it saves lives.
Image: Claude Monet, Camille Monet on her deathbed, 1879
JCT
Hmmmm, how long will it be before some douche suggests that the *woman* judge should have recused herself?
Thank goodness, though.
The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik
Again: The GOP only wants to shrink government small enough to fit into the American Woman’s uterus.
Gex
@1 You beat me to it. If the Prop 8 ruling should be vacated because the judge was gay, surely the same holds here.
We all know that only straight men, preferably white ones, are qualified to make these important decisions.
In both cases, that’s probably be what they get when they appeal.
beltane
I find it hard enough to understand why the Republicans think women are like b*tches in a puppy mill, there to be bred to death and then left to die, but what I can’t understand is why so many Republican women demand these policies. Do they think Jeebus will send them a bouquet of flowers in wingnut heaven if they accept being treated like sows in this life?
I guess conservative women hate themselves just as much as they hate everyone else.
jane from hell
I still can’t understand puppy mills.
Elliecat
They mostly hate other women. They almost always manage to pull the privilege out for themselves. In this case, they will get what health care they need. They will be able to get abortions if they need them. This doesn’t apply to them if they don’t want it to.
It’s just like all the anti-feminists of my youth. Phyllis Schafly would rail on about how women should be staying home with their children instead of having careers. If it was pointed out that she had a career and was not home with her children, well that was different! There were reasons it was okay for her but not for you or me or any other woman who wasn’t her.
ETA: change always to almost always—sometimes they get screwed by the policies they support. Then some of them break out and see some sense, while some just kind of shrivel up and take it.
Roger Moore
@beltane:
If I had to guess, it would be a mix of reasons. Some of them are cynical and think the rules will only apply to others in practice. Some of them are religious nuts who have been taught since childhood that they deserve to be treated like shit. Some of them are assholes who think younger women should be forced to experience the same degradation they suffered themselves. Some of them presumably vote Republican out of tribal loyalty because the Democrats are the party of nasty minorities and gays and stuff.
karen marie
Abortion is not just a legal medical procedure, it is a legitimate medical procedure.
It is as legitimate as any other life-saving surgery. Why are we even having this debate?
Roger Moore
@karen marie:
Because Republican voters are troglodytes on the issue and Republican politicians are either willing to indulge their paleolithic impulses or are troglodytes themselves.
karen marie
Elliecat – June 24, 2011 | 11:09 pm · Link
Not true. Only true if it is an abortion for family-planning purposes. They are employing a scorched earth policy with a goal of preventing doctors from being trained in the procedure. As I said above, abortion is a legitimate medical procedure which, in many cases, is necessary to save the life of the woman. “Conservative” women who back this effort, or their daughters or friends, will be just as dead as those who oppose it when they find themselves faced with a medical need which they have ensured cannot be met.
@Roger Moore: Well, yeah. Rhetorical, etc.
gnomedad
@Elliecat:
I read somewhere that Schlafly would start her talks by thanking her husband for permission to be there. “Pissing off liberals” goes way back.
opie_jeanne
@ 13. gnomedad
Back when I didn’t know I was a liberal that made me roll my eyes.
quaker in a basement
Image: Claude Monet, Camille Monet on her deathbed, 1879
The woman is dying and her hubby says, “I know! I’ll paint her!”
Artists is funny people.
Triassic Sands
Basic rules of jurisprudential human resources —
No judge with a womb should be allowed to rule in any cases that affect women (or men).
But it’s OK for people with penises to rule on everything. The penis, as long as it has been present since birth, endows its owner with mystical powers of wisdom. Medical science does not yet fully understand exactly how the penis makes people so clearly superior to people with wombs, but like supply side economics and healing through prayer, the intellectual power of the almighty penis has been proven time and time again. Besides, it’s stated clearly in the world’s foremost scientific reference work — the Holy Bible — that the penis trumps the womb every time. Hail the almighty penis.
Wombed/Unpenised = incompetent
Unwombed/Penised = competent
Special note: Women who try to get around this necessary rule by sneakily having their wombs removed (for whatever reason) are still to be considered incompetent.
Further, sneakily having a penis surgically attached will not convert a heretofore wombed being into an unwombed being for the purposes of staffing our courts. Once a womb, always a womb. There is no womb for error on these matters.
It’s time people got these simple rules down. C’mon, JCT, you and Gex can’t be that slow. Clearly, when Michele Bachmann is prezdint [sic] she will use the bully pulpit to teach the Amurkin [sic] people these simple lessons. In fact, when Bachmann is finished with the Oval Office, no one will doubt that a woman should ever be allowed to hold a position of power or responsibility. Through sheer force of will and towering lunacy she will hammer this message into the brains of Amurkins once and for all. It goes without saying that Bachmann is on a mission from God to teach her flock (the Amurkin people) that women are silly beings without the intelligence or sense to be anything more than ABMs — Automatic Baby Machines. Insert penis. Withdraw baby. Repeat. Do you want a printed receipt?
ppcli
I wonder if any of the lawyer/commentators familiar with the rules here could weigh in on this decision. My sense from just a sketchy view of things is that the law here is pretty clear-cut. The federal rules that govern what the states can do with the Medicaid money the Feds hand it say pretty straightforwardly and unambiguously that Indiana may not refuse to give PP any money for the reason Indiana cites. Indiana may, of course, refuse to take Medicaid money at all, but that isn’t going to happen. Even Alito couldn’t rule for Indiana on this one.
Am I right about this?
Mnemosyne
@ Triassic Sands
I can’t explain why, but that reminded me of my new favorite movie trailer of all time.
MikeJ
Hahahahaha!
You think the law will stand in the way of any desired outcome?
Triassic Sands
Mnemosyne…thanks a lot. I watched your new all-time favorite movie trailer and now I am completely, horribly, irrevocably insane.
Watching that thing on LSD or shrooms would be extremely dangerous for one’s mental health. Instead of just being insane, I’d probably be criminally insane.
Zardoz. Have you ever seen the entire movie? I think the 3 minute trailer did a pretty good job of showing that the film itself isn’t very good. Unfortunately, that’s not what trailers are supposed to do, is it?
However, I can see why it is your new favorite trailer; it’s a work of art and quite a hoot. If I had to guess, I’d guess that the person who made the trailer for Zardoz, did so right after watching the trailer for Zardoz, which was created by a person who had just finished watching the trailer for Zardoz, which was made by…
The Infinite Loop of Insanity — responsible for many of humanity’s greatest achievements.
Question: I missed the disappearance of the “Reply” buttons. I was gone a couple of days and when I returned the “Reply” buttons were gone. Did you get your @Triassic Sands link by typing in the HTML manually or is there a new way to reply to a specific commenter that I missed?
Jebediah
Triassic Sands @ 16:
Well, then, I want my money back, cuz my wisdom-attachment doesn’t seem to be making me very wisdom-y.
Mnemosyne
@ Triassic Sands
I did the link (mostly) manually — the little blue “Link” next to people’s names still works, so I click on that, copy the link, and then cut and paste.
Thanks to my new favorite trailer, I have now also discovered the Shitcase Cinema channel on YouTube and have spent far more time watching reviews of bad movies than anyone probably should. If you hated “Zardoz,” I think you’ll love his review of it.
Brian S
@quaker in a basement: There’s a poem by MIller Williams titled “Let me tell you” which ends something like “when your father lies in the last light / and your mother cries for him / take notes somewhere inside. / He will forgive you / if the line you found / was a good one. / It does not have to be worth the dying.”
In short, you’re right. We’re weird people.
Steeplejack
@Triassic Sands:
You gotta roll your own for the time being.
Replace NUMBER with the (database) number of the comment (visible when you mouse over the Link button). Replace PERSON’S NAME with, er, the person’s name.
This comment is number 2646089, for example, so you would do this:
debbie
This may not be the thread for this, but it is about Clarence Thomas and women:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=119342291487803¬if_t=event_invite
El Tiburon
Not hyperbole if it’s true. Women and children are going to die because of Republican policies. Period.
Southern Beale
Tennessee has already done this, already defunded Planned Parenthood. No one pays attention to this, I don’t know why. Everything that rang alarm bells in Wisconsin and Indiana, the Tennessee Teatard legislature has done.
One thing we did in Nashville, is demand the funds that the state took from Planned Parenthood be given to the public health department so those non-abortion services such as STD testing, cancer screenings, etc. would still get done.
So in effect what we have is the Republicans deciding that a government health agency is better at providing a healthcare service than a private organization.
Let that one sink in for a moment, if you will.
lllphd
late and slightly OT (unless you count this as falling under ‘crazy GOP actions, state edition’), but this report just came out that prosser attacked a fellow justice in her office about 10 days ago by putting his hands around her neck. the police were called (link to the wsj article referenced in the thinkprogress piece), as was a judicial commission, and no one is talking on the record.
this could get very interesting if justice ann walsh bradley decides to press charges.
all the more reason to put some more money into the WI fund here – good on all of ya for that.
trixie larue
It’s not that the republicans actually want small government. They just want small-minded government, in every sense, aspect, or means by which they can control those they want to control. It’s not anti-business, or overly regulatory. I think they would claim it’s good business sense somehow.