Last Call For The GOP Goal

Joe Sonka reminds us that there is a difference between the two political parties, and that is the stated goal of the GOP is to end all abortion in America by criminalizing it.

The National Right to Life Commission (NRLC) held their national convention in Louisville this weekend at the Galt House, rallying supporters to their cause of ending legal abortion in America. Their featured speaker Saturday morning, Sen. Mitch McConnell, told a slightly more than half-full conference room that “the tide is turning” on the issue, and he would help the anti-abortion advocates win their fight. 

“I’m not sure when it first occurred to me that we are winning this debate, but there’s no question that we are,” said McConnell. “The signs are everywhere, and you have played a huge role in that.” 

One of those signs came two days later, when a 5-4 Supreme Court decision ruled in favor of the craft store Hobby Lobby, who argued that they should be exempt from an Affordable Care Act mandate that they must provide their employees coverage for four types of birth control the company considers “abortion,” because this violates Hobby Lobby’s religious freedom. Despite no legal or scientific basis for that claim, the court ruled that “closely held” private companies — which make up 90 percent of American companies — are exempt from this mandate if they claim it goes against their religious beliefs, granting such companies the same religious rights as persons. 

With the current makeup of Congress and the Supreme Court, Roe v. Wade does not appear in eminent danger, but abortion opponents openly celebrated the Hobby Lobby ruling as an advancement for their larger cause of chipping away at women’s reproductive rights. At last weekend’s convention in Louisville, McConnell urged attendees to help elect him majority leader of the Senate this fall so he can push through legislation banning abortions past 20 weeks of pregnancy, which has already passed the House. 

Two Republican congressmen from Kentucky, Representatives Andy Barr and Brett Guthrie, who also spoke Saturday morning, are co-sponsors of legislation that would not only ban all abortion in America — with no exemptions for rape, incest and health of the mother — but could go further than the Hobby Lobby decision, banning many forms of birth control.

And that's really the point for the American Taliban here.  If you take away reproductive health care choices, then women will have to remain celibate or have to be punished for being sluts, and that will magically fix everything that's wrong with America.  It's laughable, or would be, if it again wasn't the stated goal of one of the major political parties in this country and the position of tens of millions of their voters.

So yes, when people ask me how I can support Alison Lundergan Grimes when she's "just as bad as Mitch", I remind them exactly why that's not the case.