In a statement, FDA Administrator Margaret A. Hamburg said she had decided the medication could be used safely by girls and women of all ages. But she added that Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius had rejected the move. –Washington Post
Then came poor women in Washington, D.C.First it was Bart Stupak.
Now it’s Pres. Obama putting politics before science, while making Kathleen Sebelius the first H.H.S. secretary ever to overrule the F.D.A.
Mr. Obama didn’t get the message in 2010,when women split with Republicans, after winning their vote by 13 points in 2008. Now Pres. Obama has given progressive women a real reason not to vote for him, because he’s confirmed for the third time that what’s important to a majority of women in the Democratic Party isn’t important to him.
Obama’s continual war on our reproductive freedoms sends a message to organizations like Planned Parenthood, a group that’s been feckless since Pres. Obama came into office, with NARAL not much better. But they’ve got their own funding to worry about, which isn’t coming from the right, so what difference does it make if a poor or young woman has to pay more to get a doctor to prescribe medication that’s been approved by the F.D.A. as safe for women of all ages to be available over the counter? This hurts women in the 99%, upping the ante on their reproductive choices. More from the Post:
“We are outraged that this administration has let politics trump science,” said Kirsten Moore of the Reproductive Health Technologies Project, a Washington-based advocacy group. “There is no rationale for this move. This is unprecedented as evidenced by the commissioner’s own letter. Unbelievable.”
Susan F. Wood of George Washington University, who resigned from the FDA in 2005 because of delays in relaxing restrictions on Plan B, said she was “beyond stunned” by the decision.
“There is no rationale that can justify HHS reaching in and overturning the FDA on the decision about this safe and effective contraception,” Wood said. “I never thought I’d see this happen again.”
I’ve referred before to the chapter in my book, The Hillary Effect, that’s titled “Is Freedom Just for Men?” It’s detailed, taking on the right, including Sarah Palin, who trumpets “freedom,” just not for women, and also Michele Bachmann and the “baby Palins,” among others, including Leader Pelosi, for allowing the Catholic bishops into the conversation when health care legislation was being debated, as well as Pres. Obama for emboldening and then capitulating to the Bart Stupak contingent, which ended up codifying the Hyde Amendment into law (previously it was a budget item, voted on yearly). You may also remember this past April, when Obama caved to Speaker Boehner, this time again screwing poor women, doubling down in D.C. Hey, why not? They don’t vote, right? From Colbert King, as a refresher:
The budget deal that averted a federal government shutdown delivered a below-the-belt blow to local self-determination. Congress used the budget negotiations to attach riders that prevent locally raised tax dollars from being used for reproductive services for low-income District women. Another provision forced a federally funded school-voucher program on the city.
If that weren’t galling enough, President Obama threw the city under the bus and bought the deal, telling GOP House Speaker John Boehner, “John, I will give you D.C. abortion. I’m not happy about that.” Boo-hoo. Like hell.
That Pres. Obama has hit women again isn’t surprising. Pres. Obama is afraid Republicans will use his support for reproductive freedoms against him in the general election campaign. The right is anti-science, so Obama wants to prove he can be, too, when it’s convenient and the constituency being hit is also being squeezed, because Republicans would do worse. Never mind that this mentality is what inspires Pres. Obama and other Democrats like him to believe they’ve got nothing to lose, because women won’t dare bolt the Democratic Party.
So, get ready for Obama fans to tell you that it’s the correct decision, because young women under the age of consent don’t have rights, unless their parents say so, while the Bill O’Reilly contingent applaud Obama, as will conservatives and some independents, which is exactly what the White House wants to hear.
Obama and his fans will ignore how his decision impacts a healthy majority of the female population, especially women in rural areas and poor women, as well as others in the 99% hit hard by bad economic times, women who have lost their insurance. They’ll say it’s important to support Obama, because Republicans are worse.
The right’s argument is that it encourages early promiscuity and encourages men to prey on young girls. Men who victimize young girls don’t give two hoots about the Morning After pill or contraception, they’ll do it anyway. Teenage girls in today’s society are not the same as they were during the June Cleaver era, sexualized at younger ages than ever before. Preparedness and access to all SAFE and F.D.A. approved medicines is the only way we will prevent unwanted pregnancies.
Modern women would be better off if Mr. Obama would go back to voting “present.”
I wonder how Pres. Obama would like it if progressive women did that next November?
Taylor Marsh is the author of the new e-book, The Hillary Effect – Politics, Sexism and the Destiny of Loss, the view from a recovering partisan, chosen by Barnes and Noble as one of 4 books in the launch of “NOOK First” Featured Authors Selection. Marsh is a veteran political analyst and commentator. She has reported from the White House, been profiled in the Washington Post, The New Republic, and has been seen on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal, CNN, MSNBC, Al Jazeera English and Al Jazeera Arabic, as well as on radio across the dial and on satellite, including the BBC. Marsh lives in the Washington, D.C. area. This column is cross posted from her new-media blog.
When Democrats congregate, some lawmakers are going to argue “why are we cannibalizing ourselves,” said a senior Democratic aide. “Plus, he’s not going anywhere, so we just look like a bunch of idiots.” – Democrats worry Anthony Weiner will hurt agenda
A bunch of idiots gets it exactly right.
When a leader targets one of her own she needs to hit him; on Rep. Anthony Weiner, Democratic minority leader Pelosi (and DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz) missed by a mile. It’s not Debbie Wasserman Shultz’s place to tell Mr. Weiner to focus on his “well being” or his family. Pelosi and Wasserman Schultz played female moralists instead of remembering their job is as political party leaders, something the men don’t forget.
As I wrote this weekend, if Democrats want a real disaster all they have to do is serve up an ethics investigation, with the results landing in the heat of the 2012 presidential race. Hoyer gets it, even as he clearly hopes Weiner will take one for the team who can’t force him to do anything.
Still, several House leaders — Minority Whip Steny Hoyer of Maryland, Assistant Democratic Leader Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, Democratic Caucus Chairman John Larson of Connecticut and Vice Chairman Xavier Becerra of California — pointedly did not join the choreographed team push. None of them has directly called for Weiner to resign, though Hoyer did say Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation” that he hopes “he would make that judgment.” – Politico
If Democratic leaders were smart, they are not, they would instead muster some discipline and a united front saying that Anthony Weiner’s personal challenges won’t keep seniors from losing Medicare. Weiner’s got a long journey to rehabilitate himself, but the Democrats job remains the same: We’re focused on the most important job we have and that’s standing up for protecting people from the Republican and Paul Ryan’s budget scheme, which threatens the safety net Americans have had since F.D.R.
It’s predictable Republicans will run ads using Weiner, but Democrats can answer those ads with the GOP’s greatest scandal hits, perhaps starting with Newt Gingrich and Rudy Giuliani or maybe Tom Delay, even David Vitter or Mark Foley. There are innumerable options.
As for messaging, the Democratic message for 2010 under Tim Kaine was a historic disaster. Pres. Obama didn’t help, because all he could muster was compromise and capitulation on economic message that further blew out the budget and has his 2012 road looking rougher than it has before, though certainly not impossible to traverse.
Whatever problems Democrats have with messaging aren’t Anthony Weiner’s fault, however infuriating he is as a distraction, though he’s an easy scapegoat.
The Democratic problem is that in the Obama era they can’t figure out what’s worth fighting for and won’t make a case for the Democratic alternative for all things Republican.
Say what you will about Anthony Weiner he never had that problem. As one of the most prominent grandstanding politicians for Democratic ideals, though his Middle East stance is appalling, Weiner knew there was no mileage in parroting Republican economic talking points or selling out people on health care, both of which got Democrats in the ditch they’re in today long before Weiner went wild on Twitter.
June 7th, 2011 marks the 45th anniversary of the landmark 1965 Supreme Court decision Griswold v. Connecticut, which legalized family planning and the right to individual privacy in family planning decisions. But nearly 50 years later, women in the United States can hardly find cause for celebration, because we are engaged in a full-on battle to maintain access to contraception. – Jodi Jacobson
There is no case that means more to modern women than Griswold v. Connecticut, at least that’s my take. The woman on the left in the picture is Estelle Griswold as she reads the news of the decision in the paper.
Jodi Jacobson has a terrific piece on Griswold‘s anniversary, drilling home the challenge women still have today in getting access to contraception. It’s something Margaret Sanger gave her life to so many years ago.
No one group is more responsible for the lack of reproductive health care, counseling and absence of full contraceptive availability than the Republican Party and their surrogates. The women of the Right who are against this basic public necessity are a disgrace.
That Speaker Pelosi and Pres. Obama helped Democrats like Rep. Stupak marginalize women’s freedoms in the health care bill was breaking faith with women who helped elect these officials. When Obama doubled down to take funding away from the women of Washington, D.C. he proved unworthy of the support we gave him in 2012.
To teach Democrats a lesson, putting a Republican in the White House would simply hurt more women. However, the economics of the times, which hits women very hard, has taken our eyes off reproductive health care to the economy. The sad truth is we’re not getting equal attention from either big party who’ll be hawking their policies for 2012 and promising the moon.
Don’t believe Obama or the Republican nominee.
Today, Republicans and some Democrats are attempting to circumvent what women (and every other American) won through this Supreme Court decision, by waging a war against female freedoms that is attempting to make us a prisoner of the states we live in.
Some day Americans will have to ask is freedom just for men? Because when you take away a woman’s right to privacy, which begins with the power to control her own body, you are making us unequal to males.
There are laws that come with Roe v. Wade that make women take responsibility in a way that puts the notion of “abortion on demand” down. That’s not what any intelligently mature female is asking. We all know we have restrictions, which I fully support.
Abortion is a legal, safe and an important reproductive health option that includes abortificients and other methods of stopping pregnancy. It is a woman’s legal right to make this decision without the interference of any bureaucrat, religious fanatic, or male legislator.
If you don’t want an abortion don’t have one.
If you get in a situation where you feel there is no other choice, don’t feel ashamed and don’t allow anyone to tell you it’s wrong, because you are the only one who knows.
It’s difficult, for some it’s tragic. For other women it’s a matter of personal survival.
Justice Earl Warren, appointed by Pres. Dwight D. Eisenhower, was a great man and the Supreme Court, the Warren Court, he presided over helped make women equal, with Justice William O. Douglas writing the majority opinion. Justice Warren followed Thomas Jefferson’s idea of the U.S. Constitution to the letter.
“I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions, but laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.” – Thomas Jefferson (engraved on one wall of the Jefferson Memorial.)
Today the Republican Party and some Democrats are trying to undo Roe v. Wade, but what they really want to obliterate from U.S. history is Griswold.
Griswold was the Executive Director of the Planned Parenthood League of Connecticut. Both she and the Medical Director for the League gave information, instruction, and other medical advice to married couples concerning birth control. Griswold and her colleague were convicted under a Connecticut law which criminalized the provision of counselling, and other medical treatment, to married persons for purposes of preventing conception. Question:
Does the Constitution protect the right of marital privacy against state restrictions on a couple’s ability to be counseled in the use of contraceptives?
Conclusion: Though the Constitution does not explicitly protect a general right to privacy, the various guarantees within the Bill of Rights create penumbras, or zones, that establish a right to privacy. Together, the First, Third, Fourth, and Ninth Amendments, create a new constitutional right, the right to privacy in marital relations. The Connecticut statute conflicts with the exercise of this right and is therefore null and void.
