Marco Rubio does not care if the Zika virus might give your baby birth defects, no abortions. You know, cause God.

Courtesy of Politico:

Sen. Marco Rubio said Saturday that he doesn’t believe a pregnant woman infected with the Zika virus should have the right to an abortion — even if she had reason to believe the child would be born with severe microcephaly. 

"I understand a lot of people disagree with my view – but I believe that all human life is worthy of protection of our laws. And when you present it in the context of Zika or any prenatal condition, it’s a difficult question and a hard one," Rubio told POLITICO. 

"But if I’m going to err, I’m going to err on the side of life."

For those who don't know people with microcephaly are often referred to as "pinheads" and they have a whole slew of challenges related to the condition such as developmental delays, hearing loss, vision problems, difficulty feeding, and seizures, to name a few.

That is of course if they survive, which those with a severe form of microcephany often do not.

The costs of caring for a child with these problems can be astronomical and typically parents require support from the state and federal governments. (Programs by the way that Rubio and his party are constantly trying to strip of their funding.)

No woman should be asked to carry a child to term if they are diagnosed with this birth defect, nor should any family be burdened with raising such a child unless they have chosen to do so.

Once again I work in the system and deal with children with similar challenges, and I would say that there are really only a very small population of the people out there who are equipped to deal with the problems and obstacles that present themselves when raising a child with such severe special needs.

Perhaps Marco Rubio and his wife would be willing to adopt few of the children born with mircocephany and he can show everybody how it is done.

But we know that will never happen. Don't we?

House Republicans forced to pull bill banning abortions after 20 weeks because female members are acting all girly about it.

Republican House member Renee "Wait, what does this bill say?" Ellmers.

Courtesy of Politico:  

House Republicans had to make late-night, last-minute changes to a piece of legislation that they thought would pass easily. 

This time, the disagreement was over rape and abortion.  

Republican leadership late Wednesday evening had to completely drop its plans to pass a bill that bans abortions after 20 weeks, and is reverting to old legislation that prohibits taxpayer funding of abortions. 

The evening switch comes after a revolt from a large swath of female members of Congress, who were concerned about language that said rape victims would not be able to get abortions unless they reported the incident to authorities. 

The new legislation doesn’t stand a chance to become law, but House Republican leadership wants to have some sort of pro-life bill on the floor Thursday when the anti-abortion March for Life comes to Washington. 

Can you believe these women are refusing to support a law which victimizes women when they are at their most vulnerable?

And they call themselves Republicans!

For the record most clinics and doctors do not perform abortions after 20 weeks unless there are significant medical reasons for doing so. And currently only about 1% of abortions are performed after this time period.

And what makes the 20 week cutoff so unreasonable? Here's why: 

Why do some women wait so long? The answer is that comprehensive fetal testing, such as anatomical sonograms and ultrasounds of the heart, are typically performed just before 20 weeks of gestation. Such scans are critical for uncovering major birth defects, such as anencephaly (severe brain malformations), major heart defects, missing organs and limbs, and other severe birth defects. Fetal development is a complex process that often goes awry. Roughly 2 percent of all pregnancies are complicated by a major birth defect, and of those about 0.5 percent have a chromosomal defect, such as an extra or missing segment of normal DNA. Birth defects are a leading cause of infant mortality, and in many cases of severe birth defects, no medical treatment can salvage a fetus’s life or result in any measure of normal future health.

In other words this law would force women to give birth to babies only to watch them die in the hospital or within the first year of their life, force them to birth a child whose medical bills will bankrupt them before the child says their first word, or birth a child who will never have a normal life and may suffer incredible trauma throughout.

You know Republicans are always bitching about the government intruding on free choice, and yet here they want the government to have control over a woman's uterus and to demand they give birth to a child they may be unable or unfit to care for.

Oh I forgot, they're only women.

Texas Democratic gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis writes about terminating pregnancy in new memoir. I am torn between "How brave of her" an Oh shit!"

Courtesy of ABC News:  

Texas Democratic gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis reveals in a new campaign memoir that she terminated two pregnancies for medical reasons in the 1990s, including one where the fetus had developed a severe brain abnormality. 

Davis writes in "Forgetting to be Afraid" that she had an abortion after an exam revealed that the brain of the fetus had developed in complete separation on the right and left sides. The Associated Press purchased an early copy of the book, which hits stores Tuesday. 

The memoir also describes ending an earlier ectopic pregnancy, in which an embryo implants outside the uterus. Davis disclosed the terminated pregnancies for the first time since her nearly 13-hour filibuster last year over a tough new Texas abortion law. 

Both pregnancies happened before Davis, a state senator from Fort Worth, began her political career and after she was already a mother to two young girls. 

She writes that the ectopic pregnancy happened in 1994. Terminating the pregnancy was considered medically necessary. Such pregnancies generally aren't considered viable, meaning the fetus can't survive, and the mother's life could be in danger. But Davis wrote that in Texas, it's "technically considered an abortion, and doctors have to report it as such." 

Davis said she and her former husband, Jeff, wound up expecting another child in 1996 after they decided to stop taking birth-control measures. During her second trimester, Davis said she took a blood test that could determine chromosomal or neural defects, which doctors first told her didn't warrant concern. After a later exam revealed the brain defect, Davis said she sought opinions from multiple doctors, who told her the baby would be deaf, blind and in a permanent vegetative state if she survived delivery. 

"I could feel her little body tremble violently, as if someone were applying an electric shock to her, and I knew then what I needed to do," Davis writes. "She was suffering."

Holy crap! Not just one, but two abortions!

Well after reading the descriptions of the problems facing these two unborn children, it seems to me that almost any woman would have made the same choice that Davis did.

However considering that she is running for Governor of a state that has all but criminalized abortion, and the fact that the Right has already labeled her "Abortion Barbie," I ma wondering how this will play out during the campaign. 

Well one thing is fro damn sure, the woman has guts!

I mean she has to know that this will be played up by the Republicans as if she ran down a toddler on the street, not that she made an incredibly personal and heartbreaking choice for herself, the unborn child, and her family.

After all she could have taken the cowards way out and attempted to Wite-Out the whole thing.

Pregnant with a fetus that has no brain function? Have it anyway! Yet another Republican Teabagger demonstrates their lack of respect for women.

"Wait! That's where babies come from? No stork involved? Well Gollee!"

Courtesy of Think Progress:  

At 21 weeks, Zink’s doctors discovered that her fetus had no brain function. That type of fetal abnormality was impossible to detect earlier in her pregnancy. “If this bill had been passed before my pregnancy, I would have had to carry to term and give birth to a baby whom the doctors concurred had no chance of a life and would have experienced near-constant pain,” Zink explained. 

“If he had survived the pregnancy — which was not certain — he might never have left the hospital. My daughter’s life, too, would have been irrevocably hurt by an almost always-absent parent.” In order to justify his support for H.R. 1797, Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) suggested that Zink should have given birth to her son anyway, regardless of the pain that may have caused her family. The congressman told a story about a different couple who decided to give birth to a fetus with different types of disabilities — suggesting that Zink should have made the same choice for her son, instead of deciding to “rip him apart”: 

GOHMERT: Ms. Zink, having my great sympathy and empathy both. I still come back wondering, shouldn’t we wait, like that couple did, and see if the child can survive before we decide to rip him apart? So. These are ethical issues, they’re moral issues, they’re difficult issues, and the parents should certainly be consulted. But it just seems like, it’s a more educated decision if the child is in front of you to make those decisions.

Yes by all means ladies. Carry a severely damaged child, with no hope of durvival, to full term. Pay the enormous medial bill that will surely accompany that birth. Watch the infant qrite with pain for days while you decide how long to let it suffer. And then, after your other child has met and bonded with the baby. decide to end its life so as to have the MAXIMUM negative effect possible on you and your family.

Personally I just think Louie Gohmert feels a certain kinship to yet another creature with no traceable brain function, and cannot stand to contemplate what would have occurred if HIS mother had been given the choices that Mrs. Zink was offered.   

Do these politicians have to fail an IQ test before they are considered a worthy representative of the state or something? Because I gotta tell ya, that's what it looks like from here.

Iraqi birth defects, as a direct result of our bombing, is higher than in Hiroshima. Also the result of our bombing.

Courtesy of Dispatches from the Underclass:  

The United States may be finished dropping bombs on Iraq, but Iraqi bodies will be dealing with the consequences for generations to come in the form of birth defects, mysterious illnesses and skyrocketing cancer rates. 

Al Jazeera’s Dahr Jamail reports that contamination from U.S. weapons, particularly Depleted Uranium (DU) munitions, has led to an Iraqi health crisis of epic proportions. “[C]hildren being born with two heads, children born with only one eye, multiple tumours, disfiguring facial and body deformities, and complex nervous system problems,” are just some of the congenital birth defects being linked to military-related pollution. 

In certain Iraqi cities, the health consequences are significantly worse than those seen in the aftermath of the atomic bombing of Japan at the end of WWII. 

The highest rates are in the city of Fallujah, which underwent two massive US bombing campaigns in 2004. Though the U.S. initially denied it, officials later admitted using white phosphorous. In addition, U.S. and British forces unleashed an estimated 2,000 tons of depleted uranium ammunitions in populated Iraqi cities in 2003. 

DU, a chemically toxic heavy metal produced in nuclear waste, is used in weapons due to its ability to pierce through armor. That’s why the US and UK were among a handful of nations (France and Israel) who in December refused to sign an international agreement to limit its use, insisting DU is not harmful, science be damned. Meanwhile, the Pentagon’s refusal to release details about where DU munitions were fired has made it difficult to clean up. 

Today, 14.7 percent of Fallujah’s babies are born with a birth defect, 14 times the documented rate in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Fallujah’s babies have also experienced heart defects 13 times the European rate and nervous system defects 33 times that of Europe. That comes on top of a 12-fold rise in childhood cancer rates since 2004. Furthermore, the male-to-female birth ratio is now 86 boys for every 100 girls, indicating genetic damage that affects males more than females.

I almost think I need to type this post in ALL CAPITAL LETTERS to adequately express my anger and my shame. 

We did this to these people. And we did on the basis of a lie.

I hear the apologists right now talking about how great it is that we "saved" these people suffering under the regime of Saddam Hussein.

Well under this fold you can see for yourself how "saved" they are! (Warning very graphic and troubling images.)