General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsHow bad is that NC abortion law that they suddenly tacked onto the Sharia Law? That bad.
How underhanded, dishonest and plain old sneaky was the process? About as underhanded, dishonest and plain old sneak as you could possibly get.
Here's an actual headline. Kudos to that headline writer and editor:
Senate tacks sweeping abortion legislation onto Sharia law bill
So here's what the bastards did: Without warning, in committee, they introduced these measures as an omnibus bill. The Committee was supposed to meet at 10 am. They postponed it until 5:30. In the room, at that time, were lobbyists from the Christian Action League, the Family Policy Council and the NC Values Coalition who had all had advance notice of the bill and its contents. And you know damned well, that unlike actual elected democrats, they had input into crafting this monstrosity.
<snip>
CONSCIENCE PROTECTION: Any health care provider, not just doctors and nurses, would be allowed to opt out of providing abortion-related services.
ABORTION FUNDING LIMITS: The bill would prohibit health plans offered on the federal health care exchanges from offering abortion coverage. It would also prohibit state funds from being spent for abortions, except to save the life of the mother or in cases of rape or incest.
It would also prohibit city and county health plans from offering abortion coverage more extensive than the coverage offered to state employees. The State Health Plan does not cover abortions, except in cases of rape or incest or to save the life of the mother.
SEX-SELECTIVE ABORTIONS: The measure prohibits doctors from performing an abortion if they know the woman seeking it is doing so because of the gender of the baby.
DOCTORS: Doctors would be required to remain in the room for the entire abortion procedure, whether surgical or medical (chemically induced).
<snip>
http://www.wral.com/senate-tacks-sweeping-abortion-legislation-onto-sharia-law-bill/12621503/
There's more and it's bad.
TRAP provisions, which these are, are the hardest to challenge successfully in court.
Even the Republican Governor reprimanded the Repubs- though naturally his scolding contained a backhanded slap at dems:
The North Carolina state Senate quickly voted Wednesday to pass a package of anti-abortion amendments attached to a bill that would ban Sharia law, despite Republican Gov. Pat McCrory's concern that the Senate had unfairly rushed the amendments on Tuesday night.
"When the Democrats were in power, this is the way they did business," McCrory said in a statement on House Bill 695. "It was not right then and it is not right now. Regardless of what party is in charge or what important issue is being discussed, the process must be appropriate and thorough."
On Tuesday night, Republican state senators had quietly attached a number of severe abortion restrictions to a bill that would ban the recognition of Sharia law in North Carolina family courts. The amendments would prevent state health insurance exchanges under the Affordable Care Act from offering policies that cover abortion, restrict doctors' ability to administer abortion-inducing medication, and impose new regulations on abortion clinics that opponents say would shut down all but one clinic in the state.
<snip>
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/03/north-carolina-abortion_n_3541251.html
I've said it repeatedly, I'll say it again: We are being walloped in the war to retain abortion rights. People here inevitably tell me I'm wrong. I'm not. And the proof is that millions and millions of women no longer have access.
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newfie11
(8,159 posts)People that can afford to go to another state for an abortion will (politicians families).
So that leaves folks who can least afford another child to raise left.
Then they want to cut back on food stamps, etc.
This is crazy 
How can people be so cruel and say they are such good Christians!
cali
(114,904 posts)sinking like stones.
Morales plane? gobs of posts and opinions?
Zimmerman trial? endless threads
duck get new foot? dozens of posts
Abortion threads? Unless they're about Wendy's filibuster, forget it.
theHandpuppet
(19,964 posts)Couldn't have said it better myself. I've been on the verge of blowing a gasket.
cali
(114,904 posts)as you and others have said, it's a life and death issue.
jmowreader
(50,559 posts)Sharia is an Arabic word meaning religious law.
Abortion bans are religious law.
Soooooo...this bill banning Sharia law actually implements it in North Carolina.
handmade34
(22,756 posts)
MadrasT
(7,237 posts)as being impossible to process when I read the OP
RandiFan1290
(6,235 posts)A nice mushy, milktoast, wimpy, solution.
newfie11
(8,159 posts)As usual
kentauros
(29,414 posts)there aren't enough Dems in office to offer up any solution!
I suspect that once there are enough in office, your prediction will not pan out. What we'll see instead are Democrats fired up to kick some GOP/Sharia ass!
yardwork
(61,622 posts)Many of our few remaining Democrats in the state legislature are strong and steadfast. There's just too few of them. There are no compromises with the Koch fended extremists who took over our state.
Le Taz Hot
(22,271 posts)(if it ever does), pro-choice individuals in NC will have to mobilize and organize to ensure women have access to abortion services should they choose to do so. One way is to arrange FREE rides to the few clinics that still provide these services, even if it's in a neighboring state. All the while mobilizing to get these bozos out of office. I don't know about NC demographics but I'm finding it hard to believe that the entire state is bat-shit anti-choice fundy crazy. That said, I'm encouraged by the number of protesters regularly showing up to protest these actions.
cali
(114,904 posts)Le Taz Hot
(22,271 posts)Women are still going to need access to abortion services and until something can be done about the legislative part of it, pro-choice people need to get ACTIVE and ensure women who are in need of those services can get them. I just try to think what I would do if I lived in a state such as Texas or North Carolina or any of the other states currently engaging in the war on women.
korak
(77 posts)Engendered by the fundie churches and just plain redneckism.
Not much can be done about it.
nolabear
(41,984 posts)Let me tell you, there was absolutely no warning, no info to the populace about this scurrilous, cowardly, after hours bullshit. Yesterday when word got out people started showing up in pretty impressive numbers at the Capitol. At least a few, all women that I saw, were arrested for such heinous crimes as holding up signs and verbally protesting.
I don't know what today will be like (I'm now in Florida but will be back there in a few days) but there are some angry, gobsmacked Southern women down here.
cali
(114,904 posts)yeah, I gathered this was done secretly and just sprung on dems.
LiberalEsto
(22,845 posts)The way they are going, it won't be long before they make it legal to stone women to death for trying to get an abortion.
cali
(114,904 posts)
malaise
(269,022 posts)no different
dsc
(52,162 posts)He said, unambiguously that he would support no new restrictions on abortion during the campaign. we have to see if he is a man of his word or not.
jmowreader
(50,559 posts)Pat McCrory was believed to be a moderate upon election but has taken a hard-right stance since then.
yardwork
(61,622 posts)
Initech
(100,079 posts)
cali
(114,904 posts)Tierra_y_Libertad
(50,414 posts)DLevine
(1,788 posts)
felix_numinous
(5,198 posts)now? Wow these people badly want to live in the dark ages.
Repug attacks on Women's reproductive rights are succeeding, in state after state. They never lose a fight that they don't later come back to try to win again. Civil rights, human rights, voting rights, labor rights, Social Security. They lost, then come back when the heat dies down, and pick the fight again.
When they 'won' elections for control of the Federal government, the focus of power was at the federal level. State level Dems didn't make big advances for their base against l'il bush and the repug congress's federal power. Now that we won the federal level, they're trying to show us all the power rests in the state level. A big part of repug strategy is to always be on the attack. That way, we're always defending, not getting anything done for our side, and watching gains get eliminated by these repug nazi zealots.
They're violating the Constitution of the United States here. Article IV, Section 2; Article VI; and especially Amendment X of the Bill of Rights, because the law of the land federally says that Women have reproductive rights. (I'll type them in if anyone doesn't have a Constitution copy handy and requests the text.) So several possible attacks against the minority Repug party's attempted State power grabs or 'nullification' efforts:
1) By Federal Executive Branch interpretation, Federal Military Base medical facilities, including VA hospitals, should be used in the red states to provide women citizens facilities to exercise their federally guaranteed right to reproductive medical treatment, or to satisfy the 'admitting privilege' requirements needed to allow existing Women's health facilities to stay open.
2)We won the Federal Gov elections, they won some of the State gov elections, in those red states we won the most densely-populated Local gov elections. So the Federal gov demands that the blue local govs ignore the red state demands to ignore federal law, and the Federal gov supports the blue jurisdictions in ignoring the red state MINORITY's legal efforts to subvert federal law. This won't help women stuck in the low population red areas, but will help where a good portion of the population is centered.
3)Re-purpose Federal personnel currently engaged in enforcing Federal law against blue state medical marijuahna facilities. Instead of wasting resources enforcing one federal law against blue states, shift them to enforce more important federal law in red states. Stop shutting down medical dispensaries in blue states, start keeping open medical facilities in red states. Ensuring reproductive civil rights is far more important as an issue than attacking the ability of cancer or Alzheimer's sufferers to access some plant that reduces their suffering.
We won power democratically. Let's act like it.
