Senator Blumenthal "Gets It"

BLUMENTHAL DELIVERS FLOOR SPEECH ON ANTI-ABORTION LEGISLATION
PASSED YESTERDAY BY HOUSE

Video of Blumenthal’s floor speech is here.
 

(Washington, DC) – Today, U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) delivered a floor speech on an anti-abortion bill passed yesterday by the House of Representatives. The bill – H.R. 1797 – would prohibit all abortions beyond 20 weeks with very limited exceptions.

I come to the floor today to discuss H.R. 1797. A number of my colleagues, Senators Murray and Boxer, have been here this morning to talk about the bill passed yesterday in the House of Representatives that would prohibit all abortions beyond 20 weeks with very, very limited exceptions. This topic is critically important to the women of Connecticut and our country, and the bill is yet another example, lamentably and regrettably, another example of legislation that feigns concern for women's health when actually it would endanger the lives and well-being of women across this great country.

The bill would take decisions regarding health care away from women and their doctors and would force the doctors to decide between incurring criminal penalties and helping their patients. That choice is unacceptable –professionally and morally. The decision to have an abortion is a serious decision that a woman should make in consultation with her doctor. When those decisions are made later in a pregnancy, they are most often the result of serious health risks to the mother or the discovery that the fetus is not viable.

Political interference is abhorrent and unacceptable in these personal and private decisions, and it violates the constitutional right of privacy. The other scenario in which a woman may seek an abortion later in a pregnancy is due to an inability to access such services earlier – whether due to financial restrictions or lack of access to health care or other extenuating circumstances.  In fact, 58 percent of abortion patients say they would have preferred to have an abortion earlier. Low-income women were more than twice as likely than their wealthier counterparts to be delayed because of financial limitation and difficulty in making arrangements. As politicians, we should not be placing additional restrictions on women in these circumstances.

The House bill blatantly ignores constitutional protections that are vitally necessary to protect the health of women as decided in Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey because these kinds of restrictions place limitations that interfere with constitutional rights and have no place in these personal and very private decisions. The limited exceptions in this bill would require a woman to report a rape or incest to law enforcement or a specific government agency when she is seeking much-needed health care services. Those restrictions affect women when they have been the victims of a crime or face serious health risks and will have no effect on reducing abortions.

That's their purported purpose, to reduce abortions, but that purpose will be in no way served by these restrictions. Victims of incest or rape may be too young or too fearful of retaliation to report to a law enforcement agency. Why create a needless, lawless obstacle to vital health care? We should be working to ensure that women have the ability to access safe and affordable contraception so there are fewer unintended pregnancies in this country. And yet supporters of this bill would also restrict access to contraception and they're the ones who have tried to make it more difficult to get access to the information and services necessary to prevent unintended pregnancies.

We need to do more. Our nation needs to do better to ensure that women have access to preventive and maternal health care so they can be prepared to face the responsibility of pregnancy and parenthood. This bill would do very little, if anything, to actually help women to protect their health care and the health care of their families and so I urge my colleagues to reject any consideration of this ill-intended, and I hope also ill-fated, measure that endangers women's health across the country. I urge my colleagues to focus on the real priorities that face this Congress – job creation and economic recovery, for example – and stop this attack on women's health.

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ICYMI: Shockingly Good Editorial on Reproductive Rights

With other people writing terrific articles, letters to the editor, and (shocking!) editors themselves writing decent editorials, I hardly need to write anything myself. I can just watch, rinse, and repeat.

Ladies and Gents --  I proudly reprint the following Editorial from the Hartford Courant on January 23, 2013:

Abortion Opponents Still Working To Turn Back Clock -   
Roe v. Wade at 40

The Roe vs. Wade decision that the Supreme Court handed down 40 years ago this week gave American women a right that most then did not have: The right to make reproductive medical decisions for themselves. That single right is critical to the ability of a woman of child-bearing age to determine the course of her own life. Roe was a sound decision in 1973 and remains so today.

But consider this paradox: With the passage of time, more and more Americans — 63 percent in a Pew poll, and 70 percent in an NBC/Wall Street Journal survey — believe that the decision should remain law and not be overturned. Yet states are passing ever-increasing restrictions on women's abortion rights.

In the last two years, states passed 135 restrictions on when and how women can obtain an abortion. In four states, there is just one clinic where women can obtain an abortion — the Dakotas, Mississippi and Arkansas. Twenty-six states impose waiting periods and eight states restrict abortion coverage available even in private insurance. Other restrictions include forcing women to listen to ideological statements on the alleged greater risk of depression, suicide or cancer from having an abortion, assertions that scientific studies soundly contradict.

It is hard to imagine fundamental male reproductive decisions being the subject of the same level of legislative debate, harassment, patronizing lectures and legal restrictions as women routinely endure. That, unfortunately, shows no sign of changing. What will help lower the incidence of abortion even more is the expansion of the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, as it makes contraception available without cost sharing. That is all to the good.

Meanwhile, opponents of Roe will continue to attempt to chip away at women's right to an abortion. The majority that supports Roe could use the opposition's tenacity and not, even on this 40th anniversary, take the current right for granted.

Time is our Most Precious Thing

How are you going to spend your time over the next 2 months?
 

• Taking care of your family's health and home and well being.Cooking, Cleaning, Feeding, Washing, Driving.
• Working at your job and not pissing anyone off.
• Helping Pro-Choice candidates get elected.

Nancy Keenan, President of NARAL Pro-Choice Connecticut, was introduced at the first meeting of the Women's Caucus by a young woman who is the first Latina President of the College Democrats. Keenan looked over the crowd at the Women's Caucus and noted all the grey hair in the audience. Hey, she said, The Menopausal Militia!

She noted that these are the women who marched, argued, wrote, and worked for women's reproductive rights - not just for themselves but also for their daughters, nieces, granddaughters and all the women who come after us.

"In the next 63 days we need to Connect the Personal to the Political"

• Reach out to neighbors -  Door to Door & Vote by Vote
• Post on Twitter
• Share on Facebook
• You need to take them to the polls.

Women need to show up at the polls!

Silent Protest Speaks Volumes

Women protest anti-abortion bills in Va. by locking arms, standing mute outside state Capitol

By Associated Press, Updated: Monday, February 20, 4:46 PM

RICHMOND, Va. — Hundreds of women have locked arms and stood mute outside the Virginia State Capitol to protest a wave of anti-abortion legislation coursing through the 2012 General Assembly.

Capitol and state police officers, there to ensure order, estimated the crowd to be more than 1,000 people — mostly women. The crowd formed a human cordon through which legislators walked before Monday’s floor sessions of the Republican-controlled legislature.

The group was protesting bills that would cut off state aid to poor women seeking abortions, define embryos as humans and criminalize their destruction, and require “transvaginal” ultrasounds of women seeking abortions. In the procedure, a wand-like device is inserted and used to send out sound waves.

None of the protesters carried posters. Few spoke, even when spoken to. Richmond resident Molly Vick wore a shirt that read, “Say no to state mandated rape.”

 The AP doesn't want this re-posted but I just gotta.

Roe vs. Wade anniversary: 39 Years of Safe, Legal abortions

NARAL Pro-Choice has suggested that this, the 7th anniversary of Blog for Choice day, be used to answer the question:

 What will you do to help elect
pro-choice candidates in 2012?

My answer is: I do this every day.  Please note that the Connecticut candidates listed on the right side of this site are pro-choice:

• Senatorial candidate Congressman Chris Murphy
• Congressional candidate Speaker of the House Chris Donovan
• Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro

as well as one of our Senators:

• Richard Blumenthal 

and our other Congresspeople, The 3 Js:

• John Larson
• Joe Courtney, and 
• Jim Himes.

Connecticut's leadership is 100% pro-choice:

• Governor Dannel Malloy
• Lt Governor Nancy Wyman
• Attorney General George Jepsen
• Comptroller Kevin Lembo
• Treasurer Denise Nappier, and 
• Secretary of the State Denise Merrill.
  
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Regarding the 2012 Presidential Election, click on the names of Republican Presidential candidates below for NARAL Pro-Choice America's analysis of each current candidate:

Newt Gingrich is running for president as an anti-choice candidate,
Willard "Mitt" Romney is running for president as an anti-choice candidate,
Rick (don't "Google" his name) Santorum is anti-choice and inappropriately made his children cradle a deceased fetus.
Ron Paul is not a Libertarian. He is anti-choice.
Marginalized Candidate Buddy Roemer is anti-choice.

As for Barack Obama: He supports a Woman's Right to Choose. He supports legal abortions.

_____________________________________________________

I was 20 years old when we declared Freedom from risk of death, maiming and prison as the unintended consequence of an unplanned pregnancy. Let all 20 year old girls consider that for a minute.

Please donate to NARAL Pro-choice Connecticut to ensure we can work to have only pro-choice congresspeople and ensure a predominantly pro-choice legislature.

Video Explanation for the Previously Mis-Informed