Ten Reasons the Rest of the World Thinks the US is Nuts.

This was written in the Huffington Post by author Soraya L. Chemaly and I thought it was well worth sharing.  Below is an excerpt.  

This week the Georgia State Legislature debated a bill in the House that would make it necessary for some women to carry stillborn or dying fetuses until they 'naturally' go into labor. In arguing for this bill Representative Terry England described his empathy for pregnant cows and pigs in the same situation. 

I have a question for Terry England, Sam Brownback, Rick Santorum, Rick Perry and too many others: I have three daughters, two of them twins. If one of my twins had been stillborn would you have made me carry her to term, thereby endangering both the other twin and me? Or, would you have insisted that the state order a mandatory fetal extraction of the living twin fetus from my womb so that I could continue to carry the stillborn one to term and possibly die myself? 

My family is curious and since you believe my uterus is your public property, I am, too. 

The rest of the civilized world thinks this country has lost its mind. It's no wonder. Look at this list of frenzied misogyny: 

1. Making women carry still-born fetuses to full term because cows and pigs do. 

2. Consigning women to death to save a fetus. 

3. Criminalizing pregnancy and miscarriages and arresting, imprisoning and charging women who miscarry with murder, like Rennie Gibbs in Mississippi or at least 40 other similar cases in Alabama or like Bei Bei Shuai, a woman who is now imprisoned, is charged with murder after trying to commit suicide while pregnant. Pregnant women are becoming a special class subject to "special" laws that infringe on their fundamental rights. 

4. Forcing women to undergo involuntary vaginal penetration (otherwise called rape) with a condom-covered, six- to eight-inch ultrasound probe. 

5. Disabling women or sacrificing their lives by either withholding medical treatment or forcing women to undergo involuntary medical procedures. 

6. Giving zygotes "personhood" rights while systematically stripping women of their fundamental rights. 

7. Inhibiting, humiliating and punishing women for their choices to have an abortion for any reason by levying taxes specifically on abortion, including abortions sought by rape victims to end their involuntary insemination, imposing restrictive requirements like 24 hour wait periods and empowering doctors to lie to female patients about their fetuses in order to avoid prosecution. In Arizona, Kansas, Texas, Virginia, Colorado, Arkansas and other states around the country bills that make women "pay" for their choices are abounding. 

8. Allowing employers to delve into women's private lives and only pay for insurance when they agree, for religious reasons, with how she choses to use birth control. 

9. Sacrificing women's overall health and the well-being of their families in order to stop them from exercising their fundamental human right to control their own bodies and reproduction. 

10. Depriving women of their ability to earn a living and support themselves and their families. Bills, like this one in Arizona, allow employers to fire women for using contraception. Women like these are being fired for not. You presume to consign my daughters and yours to function as reproductive animals.

Like I said this is only a portion, and the rest of this impassioned plea, to be treated like human being instead of breeding livestock, is certainly one that deserves to be read in its entirety.

It must be noted that the information above is clearly more than just the case of a few under evolved lawmakers making laws in order to put women "in their place." This appears instead to be a coordinated effort to strip away a woman's equality and to allow men to once again obtain dominion over them. (Dominionism, now where have we heard THAT word before?)

However the Republicans are s-l-o-w-l-y becoming aware that their agenda has been identified and have decided that rather than change their tactics, to instead go on the attack and claim that it is actually OBAMA who is waging a war on women. (No I am NOT kidding.)

Rachel Maddow did her usual amazing job of calling the Republicans out on their transparent attempts to muddy the waters.

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Personally I think all of this is the result of the Republicans feeling that they had the wind at their back going into the 2012 election cycle. And with the help of the pitchfork and torch wielding Teabaggers, believing they no longer had to hide the social agenda that is ALWAYS lying just beneath the surface of their politics.

Let me remind you once again that the ONLY way to demonstrate that THEIR agenda is not acceptable to the American people, is to vote. If you sit this one out you may indeed wake up to an era that the Republicans seem to favor the most.

The 50's.

And by that I mean the "1850's."  Think about it.