Showing posts with label wisconsin abortion law. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wisconsin abortion law. Show all posts

Dec 12, 2013

Judge Posner Ripped Wisconsin DoJ Atty on GOP Anti-abortion Law

Richard A. Posner rips GOP's anti-choice
law, enjoined in Wisconsin in August
Heading into the new year, we can be thankful that the judiciary may become reinvigorated as a Constitutional check on malicious, bigoted underground movements, arising now in the Republican Party in states across the nation

Press reports on the December 3, 2013 oral arguments on Wisconsin GOP's anti-abortion law reveal a hostile Judge Richard Posner immediately interrupting Wisconsin's assistant attorney general Daniel Lennington with long questions that could only be characterized as hostile, cutting and brilliant.

This is the Richard Posner that everyone besides the Tea Party and Scott Walker want—pull up a chair, a hot cup of coffee and listen to Posner and his two colleagues on the panel, David F. Hamilton and Daniel A. Manion.

You can hear attorney Lennington getting hammered (mostly by Posner and Hamilton) at the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. Enter 13-2726, for Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin v. J.B. Van Hollen.

Wisconsin's anti-abortion law, Act 37, passed with unanimous GOP support and unanimous Democratic opposition, was enjoined in August 2013 by U.S. District Judge William Conley.

No one believes Wisconsin Act 37 is anything but an anti-abortion law intended to create barriers to a woman's choice, even if Scott Walker and the Republican Party pretend otherwise.

Reports Michael Tarm:
At times appearing exasperated, Posner repeatedly interrupted Lennington, asking why lawmakers — if it's true they saw the law as primarily a public health measure and not an anti-abortion bill — focused on abortion clinics and not other outpatient clinics, such as those performing laparoscopic surgeries.

'Why did they start with abortion clinics? Because it begins with the letter 'A'?' Posner asked.
"Wisconsin (is) one of several states where hospital admitting privileges are required for abortion providers," reports the New York Times, all states with strongly anti-choice GOP governors such as Scott Walker.

Jul 9, 2013

Republicans to Women: Your Bodies, Our Choice

Not so fast says federal Judge, blocking GOP law.

Scott Walker and his "savior" say they know better than women what they should do with their own bodies, health and lives.

Here we are in the 21st century and a major American political party - composed mostly of religious, white men - is still telling women what's best for them.

The forces of fanaticism and ignorance do remain forever busy.

Jul 6, 2013

Wisconsin GOP's Anti-women Bill Secretly Signed in Private Ceremony on July 4th Weekend

Scott Walker: This is my decision
Update: Worth noting is the fact Scott Walker says running for governor in 2010, and not running in 2006 are choices divinely inspired. "I wasn’t trusting and obeying my Savior. That morning Christ said to me through that devotion, 'This is what you’re going to do. Look at me. Find that point on the horizon, and you’re going to be just fine.'" He added: "God had a plan further down the road. Little did I know I just had to trust in Christ and obey what he calls me to do and that was going to work out." (Rothschild. March 7, 2011; The Progressive Magazine)

Maybe the "Savior" is privy to Scott Walker's decisions, but he keeps them secret from the people of Wisconsin.

In a stealthy move craven by even by the standards of Scott Walker, Walker signed one of the country's most restrictive anti-women, anti-choice bills into law on July 5th in a private ceremony when most Wisconsin citizens were celebrating an extended Independence Day weekend.

Were Wisconsin women consulted? Have Wisconsin women given their consent to these forced ultrasounds, closures of planned parenthood clinics, and onerous restrictions on women's doctors, as prescribed by the GOP legislation?

No.

Wisconsin Act 37 was rushed through in nine days and signed in private to prevent women from speaking out on what the male Republican Wisconsin leadership have decided is necessary for women.

Women's views were deemed not germane to this act of law.

That is the whole point of these bills, similar to other anti-women bills passed in states where Republicans have either gerrymandered districts to keep power or are located in the southern United States.

The objective of anti-women bills is that women should not legally possess consent of their bodies; women should legally have no right to be consulted because the Republican Party knows better than women and women's doctors on matters of women's bodies and women's health.

If that sounds very creepy and bordering on pathological; it is precisely because these Republicans are pathological and very creepy, though they have decided to tone down the GOP's rape-is-not-so-bad-talk now because they have discovered that rape does not play well politically.

Misogyny is a pathology and a very dangerous illness when dedicated misogynists are in public office.

Republicans can never win the abortion battle on persuasion, so coercion and misdirection are their chosen tactics.

Call me an optimist, but I believe with a mobilized American public, the assaults of the misogynists, the Republicans, will be beaten back.

But this war on women is disgraceful.

Planned Parenthood and Affiliated Medical Services have filed a lawsuit on behalf of women [Case N.: 13-CV-465] seeking an injunction (a court direction stopping the law from taking effect) on numerous Constitutional grounds.

The suit notes "The Act rushed through the Wisconsin Legislature, passing less than 10 days after its introduction on June 4, 2013. The Act, moreover, takes immediate effect on July 8, 2013, even though there is no way for Plaintiffs to obtain the necessary privileges (or even attempt them) so quickly, in violation of their due process rights under the Fourteenth Amendment. Moreover, by making their ability to provide abortions contingent on their physicians' obtaining admitting privileges at local hospitals, the Act unconstitutionally delegates standardless and unreviewable authority to private parties - the hospital - also in violation of Plaintiffs' due process rights."

The suit was filed on July 5.

An injunction is likely as the plain text of Act 37 does comprise an undue burden on women deciding health decisions that are unpopular with the Republican Party.

Jul 5, 2013

Scott Walker Signs Anti-Women Law; GOP Didn't Run, Debate Misogynistic Crusade

By Daily Kos

Coward! Scott Walker signed his shiny new anti-abortion laws today, on a holiday weekend. The bills were rammed through the legislature in nine days from the time of introduction to passage - record speed for any proposed measure in order to keep public reaction to a minimum.