Florida Dems shut down state House

[Tx4obama]

Source: Politico

Democrats in the Florida House rebuffed Republican attempts to pass a stringent anti-abortion law by shutting down the chamber’s business today.

The measure in question is an ultrasound requirement—similar to the one passed by Oklahoma on Tuesday—that would require an ultrasound on a woman prior to abortion, within the woman’s view, and with a description of the fetus’ development. It would go even further than the Oklahoma law in requiring that the woman also pay for her ultrasound.

The Florida measure came on the heels of some of the most aggressive anti-abortion legislation states have seen in recent years, including the bill in Oklahoma and an abortion ban in Nebraska.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0410/36574.html

[givemebackmycountry]

1. Last gasp from these fuckers...

I live here and I see it every day.
The PEOPLE who live here and work here are sick of this BS.
Yeah, I know that in Florida there are pockets of Jesus above all types, BUT...
It ain't statewide and the people of Florida ain't going to react well to this.
Good for the Dem's.

How do you think this shit would play in Miami?

[Dr.Phool]

2. Not pockets of Jesus.

This is Jesusland. And these ignorant fools control most of the state. Sadly.

[Arkana]

3. What do they hope to do--shame potential abortion patients?

Why don't they just wave a cross in their faces and shriek "THE POWER OF CHRIST COMPELS YOU!"?

[Igel]

8. No.

Same tactic as showing pictures of fetus.

My wife was pro-choice--still is--but after seeing an ultrasound of pre-born Igeling said she could never have an abortion. She's also less pro-choice than before. Roe v Wade guidelines? Sure. But not much more.

[No Elephants]

11. I came down on the side of "I'm pro-choice,

but my personal choice, only for myself, is no abortions for me."

I hope your wife comes to that as well.

Regardless of when anyone thinks life begins, we all know for cerain that the life of the pregnant woman (or girl) has begun. I cannot choose for her between her life and her well being and those of the fetus she carries. I leave that to her and her family and her doctor. I have no right to do otherwise.

Being pro-choice is by no means as easy for me as being, say pro free speech, even for neo Nazis. I often have to think anew each time the issue arises. But I know that these folk will go further and further and further, until they are back to pre-Griswold v. Connecticut days, when a doctor risked arrest for even discussing birth control with a married couple. And that will end with lots of women, usually very young, dying from illegal abortions.

[dixiegrrrrl]

17. Darling, I am and have been pro-choice

since before Roe vs Wade
and I would never have an abortion either.
But MY decision has nothing to do with YOUR right to a decision, is how I looked at it.

That and the fact that men made all the women's health laws back then..still do, it seems like.

[SocialistLez]

15. Yep. It's to shame them.

I don't care what anyone says. They are trying to shame these women.

I am pro-choice all the way. Wave all the pictures, videos, pamphlets, etc. you want in my face, I'm still going to be as pro-choice as ever.

[movonne]

4. that is all they have to do?? meanwhile the oil slick could be heading

their way

[unabelladonna]

5. this is why i vote democrat

isn't it interesting that republicans are against big government except when it involves the most personal decision a woman can make? disgusting.
thank goodness for some sanity here in florida.

[No Elephants]

12. "Small government" is one of those Republican myths. (Almost everything they say is a myth.)

They have no problem with the size of our military--unless maybe a Democratic President dispatches some troops on a humanitarian mission.

They have no problem with the FCC keeping sexual content out of radio and TV--and they are not too crazy about it at newsstands, either, but that pesky First Amendment does not get them much further than requiring a plain wrapper obscure the magazine cover. (Magazines depicting killing--noooo problem, though.)

They don't want government monitoring our families' food and medicines, but they want government putting crosses and Christmas trees on public property and arresting doctors who perform abortions.

So, they don't want small government. They want very big government that imposes their agenda on everyone else.

I always note that "Republicans want government so small it fits in my TV or my uterus."

[aquart]

6. Why don't we call this crap what it really is: pro-prostitution legislation

It is an attempt by middle-aged men to ensure a steady supply of desperate young non-virgins with no education and no decent opportunities except to sell themselves to support their babies.

It forces pregnant girls to go out of state, away from friends, family, and any support, into the hands of strangers...some of whom will see unscrupulous profit in it.

In Manhattan, one of our streets used to be called the Minnesota Strip for the fine young girls whose "shame" drove them from home into a dreadful existence. What will we call it now? The Oklahoma Way? The Florida Coast?

[No Elephants]

13. And then, there are the near-suicidal do it yourself abortions, or unsafe, illegal abortions.

Women with money, however, could always travel to get a safe abortion. So, again, not so much pro-fetus, as anti-poor women (and girls).

[aquart]

14. Well, of course not.

But it isn't anti-poor women, not at all. It's pro-prostitution. They can make money, yes, indeedy. They just have to be desperate enough.

Think of it as legislative market making. How does a legislature manufacture a product in such heavy demand that it requires constant replenishment of young, nubile girls? It makes sure they are desperate and rejected. It guarantees that social services fail them. That's the real point of all of it.

[Shallah Kali]

18. There are also the 'Christian' crisis pregnancy centers who will give the kid to more deserving fami

:nuke:

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090914/joyce/single

Shotgun Adoption
By Kathryn Joyce

This article appeared in the September 14, 2009 edition of The Nation.
August 26, 2009


Carol Jordan, a 32-year-old pharmacy technician, was living in Greenville, South Carolina, in 1999 when she became pregnant. She'd already decided against abortion, but she was struggling financially and her boyfriend was unsupportive. Looking through the Yellow Pages for help, she spotted an ad under "crisis pregnancies" for Bethany Christian Services. Within hours of calling, Jordan (who asked to be identified with a pseudonym) was invited to Bethany's local office to discuss free housing and medical care.

Bethany, it turned out, did not simply specialize in counseling pregnant women. It is the nation's largest adoption agency, with more than eighty-five offices in fifteen countries.

When Jordan arrived, a counselor began asking whether she'd considered adoption and talking about the poverty rates of single mothers. Over five counseling sessions, she convinced Jordan that adoption was a win-win situation: Jordan wouldn't "have death on her hands," her bills would be paid and the baby would go to a family of her choosing in an open adoption. She suggested Jordan move into one of Bethany's "shepherding family" homes, away from the influence of family and friends.

Crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs), the nonprofit pregnancy-testing facilities set up by antiabortion groups to dissuade women from having abortions, have become fixtures of the antiabortion landscape, buttressed by an estimated $60 million in federal abstinence and marriage-promotion funds. The National Abortion Federation estimates that as many as 4,000 CPCs operate in the United States, often using deceptive tactics like posing as abortion providers and showing women graphic antiabortion films. While there is growing awareness of how CPCs hinder abortion access, the centers have a broader agenda that is less well known: they seek not only to induce women to "choose life" but to choose adoption, either by offering adoption services themselves, as in Bethany's case, or by referring women to Christian adoption agencies. Far more than other adoption agencies, conservative Christian agencies demonstrate a pattern and history of coercing women to relinquish their children.

Bethany guided Jordan through the Medicaid application process and in April moved her in with home-schooling parents outside Myrtle Beach. There, according to Jordan, the family referred to her as one of the agency's "birth mothers"--a term adoption agencies use for relinquishing mothers that many adoption reform advocates reject--although she hadn't yet agreed to adoption. "I felt like a walking uterus for the agency," says Jordan.

Jordan was isolated in the shepherding family's house; her only social contact was with the agency, which called her a "saint" for continuing her pregnancy but asked her to consider "what's best for the baby." "They come on really prolife: look at the baby, look at its heartbeat, don't kill it. Then, once you say you won't kill it, they ask, What can you give it? You have nothing to offer, but here's a family that goes on a cruise every year."

Jordan was given scrapbooks full of letters and photos from hopeful adoptive parents hoping to stand out among the estimated 150 couples for every available baby. Today the "birthmother letters" are on Bethany's website: 500 couples who pay $14,500 to $25,500 for a domestic infant adoption, vying for mothers' attention with profuse praise of their "selflessness" and descriptions of the lifestyle they can offer.

Jordan selected a couple, and when she went into labor, they attended the birth, along with her counselor and shepherding mother. The next day, the counselor said that fully open adoptions weren't legal in South Carolina, so Jordan wouldn't receive identifying information on the adoptive parents. Jordan cried all day and didn't think she could relinquish the baby. She called her shepherding parents and asked if she could bring the baby home. They refused, chastising Jordan sharply. The counselor told the couple Jordan was having second thoughts and brought them, sobbing, into her recovery room. The counselor warned Jordan that if she persisted, she'd end up homeless and lose the baby anyway.

"My options were to leave the hospital walking, with no money," says Jordan. "Or here's a couple with Pottery Barn furniture. You sacrifice yourself, not knowing it will leave an impact on you and your child for life."

The next morning, Jordan was rushed through signing relinquishment papers by a busy, on-duty nurse serving as notary public. As soon as she'd signed, the couple left with the baby, and Jordan was taken home without being discharged. The shepherding family was celebrating and asked why Jordan wouldn't stop crying. Five days later, she used her last $50 to buy a Greyhound ticket to Greenville, where she struggled for weeks to reach a Bethany post-adoption counselor as her milk came in and she rapidly lost more than fifty pounds in her grief.

When Jordan called Bethany's statewide headquarters one night, her shepherding mother answered, responding coldly to Jordan's lament. "You're the one who spread your legs and got pregnant out of wedlock," she told Jordan. "You have no right to grieve for this baby."

More at the link:
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090914/joyce/single

[Lint Head]

7. We are witnessing an attempted take over of Theocratic Fascists.

You have to look no further than the Religious Right. This is their agenda. It's all over Facebook. They make no bones about it.
We must be vigilant and speak up every time this ignorance raises it's ugly head. I know I will. I refuse to stay silent in the face of this garbage. From the super market to the gas station to local weekend and family get together I will not be a coward and will verbally humiliate any religious bigot that opens their mouth.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fam5wRXcoQE

[SoapBox]

9. Sick!

...sh*t!

I am SO tired of these GOPeers/RushTurdLican'ts/TeaScumTraitorBaggers, needing to be in control of a woman's reproductive organs.

Get out of her crotch! Get out of her bedroom! Leave her alone!

I hate these perverts.

[smuglysmiling]

10. It seems...

the church people cannot persuade people with their rhetoric so they turn to using the force of the government via their right-wing cronies to get their way.

[SocialistLez]

16. Eh...

It's more like the church people are sending in the right-wing crazies into government to make decisions for the rest of the sane population.

[harun]

19. I don't feel it is the sincere "church people". If they were comfortable with their

own actions they wouldn't care so much about the choices of others.

[wordpix]

20. the same "get the government out of our lives" people are in our uterus-es

:puke: