In this episode, we take a deep dive into the abortion issue because the US Supreme Court is looking at a Mississippi law that ignores established science and bans abortion at 15 weeks. We look at the history of abortion rights in this country and why the Christian Nationalist’s argument that a fetus is a child is factually wrong.
Tag: women’s rights
The religious right is at it again. This time, Republicans in Tennessee passed a measure allowing for the construction of a monument to the unborn “victims of abortion.”
What they should be calling it is a monument to the systematic oppression of women by a society that is still run unduly in large part by religious fanatics.
The Republican-led Tennessee House of Representatives already passed a bill, and the Tennessee State Senate added an amendment, sending the legislation back to the house before it went on to Republican Governor Bill Haslam. The proposal would raise private funds to erect what the Tennessee legislature is calling the “Tennessee Monument to Unborn Children, In Memory of the Victims of Abortion: Babies, Women and Men.”
Ohio has some of the most ridiculous and onerous abortion ‘regulations’ in the country. One of these ‘regulations’ requires a ‘transfer agreement’ between a hospital and a clinic under the guise of ‘patient safety’. ProMedica, a large private hospital group in the Toledo area is saying it won’t sign a transfer agreement with Toledo’s only abortion clinic because it doesn’t want to take sides in the abortion debate. By refusing to enter into an agreement ProMedica is in fact taking a side and it isn’t supporting women’s health.
Here is a brief explanation of Ohio abortion “regulations”:
One of the conservative talking points in opposition to same-sex marriage is that the courts shouldn’t redefine marriage. They claim it has always been between a man and a woman. The problem is marriage has been redefined before, several times. A recent redefinition even contradicts some religious conservative beliefs.
Not only did the recent Burwell v. Hobby Lobby US Supreme Court Decision give corporations religious rights that only individuals had under the 1st amendment, but the decision confirmed the religious have extra-consitutional rights. It’s all because of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act that was passed in 1993.
Dave Niose, from the American Humanist Association, explains:
Here in the US, we take for granted that the worse thing expected by speaking out against the religious right is name calling, verbal threats, and maybe some vandalism. It’s easy for us to imagine not risking our life just for speaking out because it rarely happens. Malala Yousufzai, a Pakistani girl who spoke out against the Taliban when they closed her school in 2009, was shot in the head by the Taliban in an attempt to assassinate her.