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John Oliver on family leave

Rachel Maddow on recent spate of anti-choice legislation

Republicans crawling all over themselves to cheer proposed federal abortion ban

37 new abortion laws this year alone

Wisconsin tries to ban abortions after 20 weeks

Tennessee onslaught on abortion rights

Good news in Virginia

So many offensive Holocaust comparisons. So many.

Transcript

On this episode of Reality Cast, Kathryn Joyce will explain the fight over Marshallese adoptions in Arkansas. The House votes to ban abortions after 20 weeks and state-level assaults on reproductive rights continue.

John Oliver insisted on using blind hiring practices for his writing staff, leading to the hiring of more women writers than is typical for comedy shows. The choices of topics they cover has really reflected this wise move. For instance, Mother’s Day meant that Oliver eviscerated the U.S.’s pathetic family leave protections.

• Oliver *

Congress may be horribly anti-feminist right now, but man, comedy has really taken a turn for the ladies.

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So what do you think is the biggest problem facing our country these days? Civil liberty violations? The continued use of drones despite the fact that they are known to kill civilians? Income inequality? Campaign finance reform? Well, last Monday, Rachel Maddow convincingly argued that, for Republicans, all these issues pale in comparison to their biggest concern, which is that women continue to have sex without getting permission from the religious right. As the New York Times reported, so far this year, state legislatures have passed a whopping 37 new abortion regulations, bringing the total over the past four years to over 200 new laws trying to punish women for having sex by making abortion a more miserable experience, if you can get one at all. And make no mistake, this is about sex, as evidenced by the fact that Colorado Republicans just voted to have a higher abortion rate by terminating a program giving IUDs to low-income women and teen girls. But this single-minded obsession is not limited to the state legislatures. House Republicans have tweaked the bill banning abortions after 20 weeks, to make it less overtly hateful to rape victims, and are bringing it back.

• abortion 1 *

The waiting period gives the game away. The excuse for this ban is that fetuses at 20 weeks are developed enough to feel pain. That’s not true, of course, but that’s the excuse. But if they really were worried about that, why would they start delaying and putting off the abortions so that the fetuses have time to develop even more?

The good news is that this bill is a go-nowhere bill. Even if it does get to the president’s desk, which it won’t because the Senate won’t allow it, President Obama would veto it. The bad news is that this bill is basically a huge gesture to indicate to the religious right that they still wholly own the Republican Party. Which is why every presidential candidate is crawling over himself to wax poetic about the beauty of forced childbirth.

• abortion 2 *

Humane and compassionate to make a woman who has been told she is going to be gravely injured if she has this baby to go ahead and do it anyway? Pro-woman to make rape victims endure a two-day waiting period that only exists to make them feel like they’re bad and have done something wrong by being raped? Common sense to override a doctor’s medical judgment with the religious, anti-science blathering of a bunch of misogynists? The political posturing of all this becomes even more grotesque when you realize the vote was scheduled on the anniversary of the day Kermit Gosnell was convicted for murder. The implication is that a law like this would somehow have prevented what Gosnell did, which was things like terminating very late pregnancies or outright killing babies. But that is simply untrue. May I remind you that Gosnell was convicted and is in jail. Which means, for any slow-witted anti-choicers in the audience, that there were already laws in place banning people from doing what he did. Passing more laws won’t stop people who are breaking laws that already exist. There’s some common sense for you.

But while this particular vote was mainly symbolic, there are material considerations in play here. As Maddow explained on her show, reproductive rights have become the number one most partisan issue in the country. By which I mean that you can accurately predict where a politician stands on the issue by party affiliation more than any other issue.

• abortion 3 *

As a member of the press, I can tell you, one reason is that journalists, editors, and audiences are burned out on this issue. Relentless, non-stop abortion abortion abortion talk is driving people a little nuts. If you cover this story, you get accused, constantly, of being obsessed with abortion. I know I do. But we’re not the ones with an obsession. Conservatives are. I wish I never had to write about this issue again. I wish that abortion was considered no more controversial than getting a cavity drilled. I wish contraception were no harder to get than aspirin. I wish the Republican Party wasn’t completely controlled by people who cannot stop looking for vindictive ways to punish women for having sex. But here we are. And I promise that as long as they are obsessed, I will call them out for their obsession.

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Interview

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It’s the state legislative season which means that it’s nearly impossible to keep up with all the anti-choice legislation that’s pouring out of Republican-controlled state legislatures around the country. Like, really, really hard. As the New York Times reports, there are 37 new anti-abortion laws just this year alone and more are coming all the time. While the House voted on a go-nowhere bill to ban abortions after 20 weeks, state legislatures have been far more successful at restricting access by making those bills into law. Here’s a round-up of some of the uglier attacks on women’s rights in recent days.

• states 1 *

I am so frigging exhausted of debunking this lie, which I suppose is why they repeat it so often. Conservatives really have figured out that they can just keep telling the same lie over and over again, and reality-based people will just give up, too worn out to keep doing this dance until the end of time. But let’s be utterly clear: There is zero evidence that fetuses feel pain at 20 weeks. There is substantial, irrefutable evidence that their nervous system is not developed enough for that to be possible. Saying that fetuses can feel pain at 20 weeks is the equivalent of saying that handless embryos can play pattycake. It’s just a weak excuse to pretend that they have some kind of new argument when they don’t. It’s the same old “sex is bad, women need to be punished” nonsense. With 20 week bans, it’s particularly sadistic, because women needing those abortions disproportionately have serious medical or personal issues.

Tennessee is having a veritable feeding frenzy of anti-choice activity, after a ballot measure was passed amending the constitution exempting women seeking abortion from the privacy protections afforded all other people in the state. Already the governor has signed a bill requiring abortion clinics, even ones that just dispense the pill, to meet ambulatory surgical center requirements that are medically unnecessary but expensive enough to shut down a significant number of clinics. Now he’s moving onto a bill that targets women, to make abortion a hassle and to shame them.

• states 2 *

Indiana also quietly passed another abortion regulation aimed at shutting down clinics. It’s all very depressing, but there’s one state where things are actually getting better. Pro-choice Democrats absolutely swept Virginia’s midterm elections, and the effects have been great for women.

• states 3 *

Those building codes were put into place by anti-contraception, religious right fanatic Ken Cuccinelli after Republicans hit roadblocks trying to pass them through legislature. But now it’s been undone and, for now, safe and legal abortion clinics in Virginia are safe.

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And now for the Wisdom of Wingnuts, gay-marriage panic edition. With most political watchers feeling positive that the Supreme Court is going to legalize gay marriage, many conservatives are running away from the issue and pretending that they weren’t raging about it just a few years ago. But some diehards, like Mat Staver, will hang on until the bitter end.

• Staver *

Yep, first you have to treat a gay couple with the same basic decency and respect you treat straight couples with. Then, concentration camps! The logic is sound, if you don’t think about it for even a moment.