Barefoot, Pregnant, And In The Kitchen

That is where Republicans want women to be.

Is the GOP Setting Itself Up for a War on Women II?
A crowded Republican primary means the candidates are moving to the right, especially on reproductive rights. That may hurt them in 2016
Cosmopolitan
By Jill Filipovic
July 30, 2015

As the presidential primaries approach, the biggest battleground may not be Iowa or New Hampshire, but women's bodies and reproductive rights. Republican presidential candidates are taking loud and aggressive anti-abortion positions, and that's giving some women's rights advocates flashbacks to four years ago. Those advocates are hoping the GOP will repeat the disastrous course it took in the last presidential election, when its candidates combined a series of restrictive reproductive health policies with female-unfriendly rhetorical flubs that quickly went viral. Women's groups and Democrats were quick to call that the "war on women"; now, they say, the "war on women II" may be just around the electoral corner. Republican strategists, though, say the war on women rhetoric is stale, and if Democrats overplay their hand, they might turn off female voters. But both sides agree: They're more prepared than ever to battle for women's votes.
[…]
While Republicans toned down the rhetoric for the 2014 midterms, reproductive rights advocates say the GOP's actual policy positions may be even more aggressive than they were four years ago. That might get them a primary win in Iowa, but it could hurt Republican candidates in a general election – both because it fires up the Democratic base, and because the GOP candidates' words could come back to haunt them with more moderate voters. Even as abortion is a divisive political issue, with the Republican Party platform saying the procedure should be outlawed, 80 percent of the American public believes abortion should be legal at least in some circumstances.

But the Republicans don’t seem to be getting the message with there attack on women’s health issues. Their latest attack on Planned Parenthood is a case in point. First, federal funding cannot be used for abortions and second, abortion make up only 3 percent of Planned Parenthood cases.

Harry Reid is way off on claim that 30% of women rely only on Planned Parenthood for health care
Political Fact Check
By Louis Jacobson
July 31st, 2015

During Senate floor debate on July 30, 2015, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., urged lawmakers to focus on consequences for women who rely on Planned Parenthood for health care beyond abortions if the federal funding is cut off.

Planned Parenthood "is the health care backbone for American women during their lives," Reid said. "In fact, it's the only health care that a significant number of women get. About 30 percent of women, that's their health care."
[…]
According to the most recent Planned Parenthood annual report, the organization saw 2.7 million patients in 2013, completing 10.6 million separate procedures. The biggest categories of procedures were sexually transmitted infection tests (3.7 million), reversible contraception (2.1 million), emergency contraception kits (1.4 million), pregnancy tests (1.1 million), and HIV tests (704,000). (For the record, the group disclosed that it performed 327,653 abortions during that period, or about 3 percent of all procedures.)

Senator Warren (D – MA) made a passionate speech on the Senator about the Republican’s efforts to defund Planned Parenthood, Vanity Fair reported,

With talks swirling through Washington that the Senate G.O.P. will push a proposal to defund Planned Parenthood—and that they would attempt to shut down the government in order to do so—Massachusetts senator and progressive voice Elizabeth Warren delivered a blistering speech on the Senate floor on Tuesday to her colleagues.

“Do you have any idea what year it is?” she asked. “Did you fall down, hit your head, and think you woke up in the 1950s? Or the 1890s? Should we call for a doctor? Because I simply cannot believe that in the year 2015, the United States Senate would be spending its time trying to defund women’s health-care centers.

“On second thought, maybe I shouldn’t be surprised,” she added. “The Republicans have had a plan for years to strip away women’s rights to make choices over our own bodies.” 

And then presidential candidate Jeb Bush said this about women’s health…

Bush told a group of Evangelical Christians that he would strip the vital health organization of federal funding if he becomes president and said we spend too much money on women’s health services:

“The next president should defund Planned Parenthood,” he said. “The argument against this is, well women’s health issues, you’re attacking, it’s a war on women, and you’re attacking women’s health issues. You could take dollar for dollar, although I’m not sure we need a half a billion dollars for women’s health issues, but if you took dollar for dollar there are many extraordinary fine organizations, community health organizations, that exist to provide quality care for women on wide variety of health issues. But abortion should not be funded by the government, any government, in my mind.”

First of all, $500 million per year in a nation with 165 million women really isn’t much, not when you consider the specialized health needs that women required. Secondly, Planned Parenthood services more five million men and women a year. They provide quality reproductive healthcare and education to millions of people who might not otherwise have access to it. Only 3 percent of their services are abortion related, with the vast majority of it going towards contraceptives, STI treatment screenings and a host of other services.

As Senator Warren said, the Republicans think we are still in the era of “Father Knows Best” and are using women’s health care as a fundraiser.