Draft of new executive order seems designed to protect religious people from progress.

Courtesy of The Nation: 

A leaked copy of a draft executive order titled “Establishing a Government-Wide Initiative to Respect Religious Freedom,” obtained by The Investigative Fund and The Nation, reveals sweeping plans by the Trump administration to legalize discrimination. 

The four-page draft order, a copy of which is currently circulating among federal staff and advocacy organizations, construes religious organizations so broadly that it covers “any organization, including closely held for-profit corporations,” and protects “religious freedom” in every walk of life: “when providing social services, education, or healthcare; earning a living, seeking a job, or employing others; receiving government grants or contracts; or otherwise participating in the marketplace, the public square, or interfacing with Federal, State or local governments.” 

The draft order seeks to create wholesale exemptions for people and organizations who claim religious or moral objections to same-sex marriage, premarital sex, abortion, and trans identity, and it seeks to curtail women’s access to contraception and abortion through the Affordable Care Act.

Language in the draft document specifically protects the tax-exempt status of any organization that “believes, speaks, or acts (or declines to act) in accordance with the belief that marriage is or should be recognized as the union of one man and one woman, sexual relations are properly reserved for such a marriage, male and female and their equivalents refer to an individual’s immutable biological sex as objectively determined by anatomy, physiology, or genetics at or before birth, and that human life begins at conception and merits protection at all stages of life.”

In other words this order would repeal much of the progress made by the Obama administration, and once again allow Christian business owners to discriminate based on sexuality, gender, and lifestyle.

That would mean these fundamentalist Christians, Jews, and even Muslims, could use this order to deny adequate healthcare to women, kick gay students out of their private schools, and refuse to rent to any person, or persons, whose lifestyle they believed conflicted with their faith in some way.

It should be noted that this is still in a draft form, so it is by no means official. 

However based on everything that we have seen since Trump took office I have a high level of certainty that a lot of what is in this draft will find its way to the final executive order.

Congratulations America, this is your president.

Same response to everything.

You know when I first saw this cartoon I thought it was mildly humorous, but then I started thinking that it was also completely accurate.

Doanld Trump really does refer to women's looks or  their weight just about every time he is confronted with an uncomfortable truth.

That is why he brought up Rosie O'Donnell when Hillary started talking about Miss Venezuela during the debate.

The guy is a pig.

Florida Christians launch ballot initiative that would classify abortion as first degree murder.

Courtesy of Christian News Wire:

The political committee Abolish Abortion Florida (AAFL) has launched a ballot initiative to amend the state's constitution to punish abortion as capital murder. Under the proposed amendment, anyone who performs or procures an abortion would be charged with first degree, pre-meditated murder. "Abortion" would include any abortifacient drug or device that can kill an embryo by preventing implantation, as well as the intentional destruction of unwanted IVF embryos. The amendment would define life as beginning at fertilization rather than "conception," and declares that "abortion deprives an innocent human being of the inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." 

According to AAFL, the idea is not only to collect enough signatures to get the measure onto the 2018 ballot, but also to encourage legislators to begin putting forward legislation to abolish abortion instead of merely regulating it. Per AAFL: "The Supreme Court cannot make murder legal. Pro-life politicians have passed incremental regulations for decades, but it's time to abolish abortion by recognizing it for what it is – cold-blooded murder – and prosecuting it accordingly."

This law could literally see a woman who took a morning after pill arrested and charged with murder. And then if convicted she could face the death penalty.

So much for being pro-life.

This is what happens when religion decides morality and puts laws on the books. 

(H/T to The Friendly Atheist.)

Phyllis Schlafly has died. I know what song is playing in your head, and that's not nice.

Courtesy of NBC News:  

Cultural conservative activist and icon Phyllis Schlafly died Monday at her home in St. Louis, according to a spokesman for the Eagle Forum political group she founded. 

She was 92. 

Schlafly rose to prominence and influence among conservative Republicans beginning in the early 1960s through her focus on promoting conservative family values, namely her opposition to feminism and abortion rights.

In fact Schlafly was opposed not only to equal rights for women and their right to choose, she was also against marriage equality and immigration reform.

She believed that a woman's primary role in life was as a wife and mother, and that all other things such as employment, education, and self actualization were secondary.

Essentially Schlafly opposed every human rights advance in the last four decades, and of course she used Christianity and the Bible as her excuse for doing so. 

That might lead one to ask, in this age of enlightenment who could possibly still respect this repellent human being?

Funny you should ask.

Courtesy of the Facebook page for the president of the Wasilla chapter of the self loathing club for women:

She Went Down Swinging! - Phyllis Schlafly. 

May she rest in peace. 

Iconic. Heroic. No one can fill her sensible high heeled shoes. She opened my eyes to the rights and wrongs in worldly government back in my college days as she spoke about the Reagan era and all that Reagan's pro-America efforts were doing for our great country. Many of us owe our political awakening to Phyllis Schlafly. 

Our friend is now in the arms of her Lord, rooting for all of us - and expecting us! - to do the right thing.

- Sarah Palin

Of course Palin was a huge fan, how could she not be?

New Jersey Republican posts on Facebook that he wants a Daily Beast reporter to be raped by Syrians. Well, he seems nice.

This man who wants me to be raped today was a Republican candidate for office in NJ https://t.co/NgxtjOTaJ9 pic.twitter.com/H31Q5VmXVc

— Olivia Nuzzi (@Olivianuzzi) September 5, 2016

Courtesy of Raw Story:Mike Krawitz, a New Jersey Republican who is running for a spot on the West Deptford Township Committee this fall, told Daily Beast reporter Olivia Nuzzi on Facebook that he hopes she gets raped by a Syrian refugee.

What got Krawitz so worked up you ask?

Apparently this:

And by the way, this is what he was responding to: pic.twitter.com/AqV5OcTdtl

— Olivia Nuzzi (@Olivianuzzi) September 5, 2016

Yes as it turns out Krawitz is a YUGE Donald Trump fan.

From his Facebook page:

A hateful misogynistic Trump supporter?

Yeah you could have knocked me over with a feather as well.

Hillary Clinton is tearing Donald Trump a new asshole with these ads.

It's Women's Equality Day. Donald Trump can't say he treats women with respect https://t.co/Rq8TFnXNev

— The Briefing (@TheBriefing2016) August 26, 2016

Damn Clinton has now called him a danger to America, a racist, a bad influence on our school children, and now a misogynist.

And the best part is that every one of them is true.

I can hardly wait for the next ones which will probably say he has a tiny penis and gets winded while taking off his socks.

And yes, those will be true as well.

Well I think this seems more than fair.

Courtesy of Time: 

A Kentucky lawmaker has introduced a bill that would require men who are seeking erectile dysfunction drugs like Viagra to be married, to get a note of consent from their wives, and to swear on the Bible to remain faithful. 

The legislation, penned by Democratic Rep. Mary Lou Marzian, is a symbolic attempt to prove a point about the government’s role in private medical decisions, she told Reuters on Monday. It has little chance of becoming law. 

It comes after Republican Gov. Matt Bevin signed an informed consent law that requires women to consult with a doctor before having an abortion. 

“My point is to illustrate how intrusive and ridiculous it is for elected officials to be inserting themselves into private and personal medical decisions,” Marzian, 61, told the news agency. “We need to stop it, we need to allow women and men to make their own decisions with their doctor and their family.”

"Swear on the Bible to remain faithful." 

Well we know there is probably not a "family values" politician in the country willing to take that pledge, don't we.

Ted Cruz is starting a super wing-nutty anti-abortion group. Apparently he does not feel enough people hate him yet.

"Agh! I told you don't hold up a mirror to my face! It's terrifying!"

Courtesy of Mother Jones:

 During a campaign stop in Des Moines, Iowa, on Wednesday, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz said he's created an anti-abortion group that will "champion every child, born and unborn." The Pro-Lifers for Cruz coalition already has more than 17,000 members, according to a press release, and will be chaired by Tony Perkins, the anti-LGBT president of the Family Research Council who recently said same-sex marriage is responsible for "havoc in our homes and blood in our streets." Florida Sen. Marco Rubio has also created a committee, but Cruz has cornered some of the more extreme members of the anti-abortion movement. Also heading up the coalition are 11 anti-abortion co-chairs "representing virtually every perspective on the pro-life spectrum." 

One of those perspectives is that of Troy Newman, the president of Operation Rescue and a board member of the Center for Medical Progress, the group behind the debunked Planned Parenthood videos, whose founder David Daleiden was recently indicted for alleged crimes in connection to the videos. In his announcement on Wednesday, Cruz called Newman's group "one of the leading pro-life Christian activist organizations in the nation."

This Troy Newman guy is so divorced from reality that he once said this about women's health clinics in California:

"Is it no wonder that California is experiencing the worst drought in history when it is the largest child-killer in all of the United States?"

Yes because a lack of precipitation and women controlling their own reproductive organs are so clearly intertwined.

Let's just add this to the growing list of reasons that Ted Cruz must NEVER be allowed to gain any real political power.

UN sends three women to assess gender equality in America. They don't find any.

Courtesy of HuffPo:  

A delegation of human rights experts from Poland, the United Kingdom and Costa Rica spent 10 days this month touring the United States so they can prepare a report on the nation's overall treatment of women. The three women, who lead a United Nations working group on discrimination against women, visited Alabama, Texas and Oregon to evaluate a wide range of U.S. policies and attitudes, as well as school, health and prison systems. 

The delegates were appalled by the lack of gender equality in America. They found the U.S. to be lagging far behind international human rights standards in a number of areas, including its 23 percent gender pay gap, maternity leave, affordable child care and the treatment of female migrants in detention centers. 

The most telling moment of the trip, the women told reporters on Friday, was when they visited an abortion clinic in Alabama and experienced the hostile political climate around women's reproductive rights. 

"We were harassed. There were two vigilante men waiting to insult us," said Frances Raday, the delegate from the U.K. The men repeatedly shouted, "You're murdering children!" at them as soon as they neared the clinic, even though Raday said they are clearly past childbearing age. 

"It's a kind of terrorism," added Eleonora Zielinska, the delegate from Poland. "To us, it was shocking."

This is an older article, but it was new to me so I thought it might be new to most of you as well. 

Besides the attacks on reproductive rights the three women were appalled to learn that America does not guarantee maternity leave, and that a woman was eleven times more likely to be killed by gun violence than in other high income countries.

In short they did not find "American exceptionalism," but instead found a country that treats its women like second class citizens. If they're lucky.

If there is no "war on women" that would only be because women felt they had lost and were no longer fighting back.

But somehow I doubt that is true.

Over 100,000 women in Texas have turned to the do it yourself method for ending a pregnancy. With clinics closing all over the state just imagine how that number will increase.

Courtesy of Think Progress:  

New research paints a bleak picture of what could be in store for U.S. women if the Supreme Court upholds an abortion law that makes it more difficult for health clinics to remain open. 

Somewhere between 100,000 and 240,000 women of reproductive age living in Texas have tried to end their pregnancy entirely on their own, without any medical assistance, according to a group of policy researchers. Most of these women either used home remedies, like herbs or vitamins, or went across the border to Mexico to buy misoprostol, the drug used in U.S. clinics to terminate a pregnancy. 

The Texas Policy Evaluation Project (TxPEP) — a research group based at the University of Texas that’s been tracking the state’s reproductive health policy over the past four years — released this information to illustrate the detrimental impact a recent slew of abortion clinics closures has had on its population. 

“As clinic-based care becomes harder to access in Texas, we can expect more women to feel that they have no other option and take matters into their own hands,” said Daniel Grossman, a TxPEP co-investigator and Professor in Reproductive Sciences at the University of California, San Francisco.

"We're protecting the sanctity of human life" they say.

Well what about the lives of thousands of women which are now at risk due to their archaic attitudes toward reproduction rights?

Is the "sanctity" of their lives not worth protecting?

Supreme Court to hear most consequential abortion case in over a decade.

Courtesy of HuffPo:

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case that could further narrow a woman's right to obtain an abortion. 

The dispute, which the justices added to their docket on Friday, is the first abortion challenge the court will hear since 2007. But at stake is a far more consequential precedent, established in 1992 -- the last time the court reaffirmed the landmark Roe v. Wade. 

The case, Whole Woman's Health v. Cole, arises from a lawsuit filed in Texas seeking to block a law that, if fully implemented, would shut down at least nine of the 19 remaining abortion clinics in the state. 

Among other provisions, the law -- called HB2 -- requires doctors at all abortion clinics to possess admitting privileges at nearby hospitals and for the clinics to meet the standards of ambulatory surgical centers. The cost of meeting the building and equipment requirements can run from a hundred thousand to several million dollars, which many clinics cannot afford.

Every time I see an abortion case come before the Supreme Court I start to get nervous. Very, very nervous.

And this time is no different.

The conservatives have been chipping away at the protections afforded by Roe vs Wade for decades now with the intention of getting a case before SCOTUS that would nullify the decision and once again turn women back into the baby factories that they believe is their god given destiny.

It is no coincidence that this case is coming before the Supreme Court before this election.

That is because the conservatives know that once President Hillary takes office she will nominate justices that will laugh this kind of shit right out of court.

Texas doctor's ultrasound consent form goes viral.

The above letter comes to us via our friends at Boing Boing.

Here is what is says:  

The Texas legislature, in its infinite wisdom, believes that neither you nor I are intelligent enough to carry on a conversation about how you might make an informed decision about how best to handle your current pregnancy. To be sure that they and their ideologues are part of our doctor patient relationship, they have mandated that you be forced to see and hear the ultrasound of your pregnancy, as well as be given a detailed description of the pregnancy's development to this stage. By inserting themselves into our conversation, they have almost certainly violated our first amendment rights to free speech and intruded into the time-honored relationship you and I share at this critical time in our lives. It is, however, the current state law in Texas. 

Most patients seeking a pregnancy termination are already anguished enough with the struggle to find the right answer for their lives and situation, without having others, ignorant of the situation, coerce them under the false guise of "providing more useful information". It has always been my practice to fully inform my patients of everything they need and want to know. As long as I am your physician, I will continue to provide that information and honor the sacred responsibility you've entrusted to me. 

Now that, my friends, is a good doctor!

However Texas is clearly not a good state for women who want to exercise control over their own bodies.

Hillary Clinton lays some truth on the Republican party and they do NOT like it.

"Oh I'm sorry. Was that one just a little TOO accurate?"

Courtesy of Buzzfeed:  

During a speech in Cleveland Thursday, Hillary Clinton compared her Republican challengers’ views on women to those of terrorist groups. 

“Marco Rubio brags about wanting to deny victims of rape and incest access to health care, to abortion. Jeb Bush says Planned Parenthood shouldn’t get a penny. Your governor right here in Ohio banned state funding for some rape crisis centers because they sometimes refer women to other health facilities that do provide abortions,” Clinton said. 

“I would like these Republican candidates to look a mom in the eye who caught her breast cancer early because she was able to get a screening for cancer. Or the teenager who didn’t get pregnant because she had access to contraception. Or anyone who’s ever been protected by an HIV test. 

“Now, extreme views about women, we expect that from some of the terrorist groups, we expect that from people who don’t want to live in the modern world, but it’s a little hard to take from Republicans who want to be the president of the United States, yet they espouse out of date, out of touch policies. They are dead wrong for 21st century America. We are going forward, we are not going back.”

Now THAT is what I'm talking about!

And do you know how we know that Hillary hit the Republicans where it hurts?

By their response:  

Republican front-runner Donald Trump, no stranger to blunt remarks, disparaged Clinton's comment Friday morning. 

"Her last statement on terrorists was a disgusting statement, by the way," Trump told MSNBC's "Morning Joe." 

Fellow Republican candidate Carly Fiorina slammed the comments as "outrageous," "over the line" and "typical" of Clinton and Democrats in an interview on "Fox News" on Friday. 

"What it tells us is that Hillary Clinton has no qualms about continuing to try and wage this supposed 'war on women' card as she runs for president," Fiorina said. "We ought to expect this." 

Bush said in a Tweet that the remarks were a sign of Clinton's misplaced priorities. 

".@HillaryClinton compares pro-life Americans to terrorists, but defends despicable PP treatment of unborn? Her priorities are totally wrong," Bush tweeted. 

Republicans were quick to pounce on Clinton's comments and called for her to apologize. 

"For Hillary Clinton to equate her political opponents to terrorists is a new low for her flailing campaign," said Allison Moore, press secretary for the Republican National Committee. "She should apologize immediately for her inflammatory rhetoric." 

"Hillary Clinton just said a significant portion of Americans are the same as 'terrorist groups' simply because they disagree with her," added Amelia Chassé, press secretary for America Rising PAC, an anti-Clinton opposition research group. "That is outrageous, even for a desperate politician slipping in the polls. It's the clearest sign yet that Sec. Clinton will say or do anything to win."

This may be my favorite thing that Hillary has said so far in her campaign. And I want her to say more of it, because she is fucking right!

One of the reasons that Hillary is somebody that many Democrats want to see as their nominee in 2016, is that she knows how to get into a scrum with these Republicans and throw a couple of elbows.

Let's face it they are already coming after her from every direction, but this shows that Hillary can draw blood just as easily with the added benefit of the fact that HER jabs are right on target.

After all who among us has not already recognized the similarities between the Republican attitude toward women and the attitude of the Jihadists in the Middle East?

Donald Trump defends Planned Parenthood in interview with Sean Hannity. Yeah, that's right.

Courtesy of HuffPo:  

While many Republican presidential candidates continue to bash Planned Parenthood for controversial videos revealing its work on aborted fetal tissue research, frontrunner Donald Trump has decided zig where his rivals have zagged. 

In an interview with Fox News' Sean Hannity on Tuesday night, Trump mounted a defense of the women's health provider, noting "they do good things that aren't having to do with abortion." 

"Let's say there is two Planned Parenthoods in a way," Trump said. "You have it as an abortion clinic. Now that's actually a fairly small part of what they do, but it's a brutal part and I'm totally against it and I wouldn't do that." 

Trump reiterated on Fox that he opposes abortion, but thinks Planned Parenthood's other services ought to be given a second look. 

"There are many ways to do that, because I'm totally against the abortion aspect, but I've had many women, I've had many Republican conservative women come up and say Planned Parenthood serves a good function other than the one aspect," he said. "We have to help women."

(Just to be clear Planned Parenthood does NOT use federal money to fund abortions.)

Man I can hardly wait to read Sarah Palin's blistering Facebook screed against Donald Trump for THESE remarks.



Yep, still waiting.




Are those crickets I hear? 

P.S. While you're waiting here is a video from Funny or Die that reveals the "real" problems with Planned Parenthood.

Oklahoma Republican chairman claims that his state can ignore Roe vs Wade Supreme Court decision.

Courtesy of Think Progress: 

“The federal courts don’t have the authority to make us kill babies,” according to Oklahoma Republican Party Chairman Randy Brogdon. “Are the Supreme Court justices going to come down to Oklahoma and make us stop?” 

Brogdon, a former state senator who once called for Oklahoma to form its own militia separate from that National Guard — and who previously cast doubt upon the Pledge of Allegiance because he objects to the line “one nation, indivisible” — offered his interpretation of the Supreme Court’s lawful authority on Friday. One day earlier, he signed a fundraising email making a similar pitch. “As Chairman of the Oklahoma Republican Party, I call on the Governor and legislators to completely end the practice of abortion in Oklahoma,” Brogdon wrote in that email, adding that the state should “[s]hut Planned Parenthood down immediately for their illegal actions, and prosecute the abortion doctors who violate their oath to ‘do no harm.'”

Okay folks this shit is getting way past out of control.

These conservative assholes are not going to stop until all women are forced off of birth control, and reduced to breeding stock that Christian men can purchase at their local Hobby Lobby craft store.

If you are a woman and do not get out and vote for every progressive candidate running for election in your area, you are quite literally helping to roll back 100 years of progress that women have made in this country.

In 1995 book Jeb Bush suggested that public shaming and ridicule were good ways to keep women from having babies out of wedlock.

Courtesy of HuffPo: 

Public shaming would be an effective way to regulate the “irresponsible behavior” of unwed mothers, misbehaving teenagers and welfare recipients, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) argued in his 1995 book Profiles in Character. 

In a chapter called "The Restoration of Shame,” the likely 2016 presidential candidate made the case that restoring the art of public humiliation could help prevent pregnancies “out of wedlock.” 

"One of the reasons more young women are giving birth out of wedlock and more young men are walking away from their paternal obligations is that there is no longer a stigma attached to this behavior, no reason to feel shame. Many of these young women and young men look around and see their friends engaged in the same irresponsible conduct. Their parents and neighbors have become ineffective at attaching some sense of ridicule to this behavior. There was a time when neighbors and communities would frown on out of wedlock births and when public condemnation was enough of a stimulus for one to be careful." 

Bush points to Nathaniel Hawthorne's 1850 novel The Scarlet Letter, in which the main character is forced to wear a large red "A" for "adulterer" on her clothes to punish her for having an extramarital affair that produced a child, as an early model for his worldview. "Infamous shotgun weddings and Nathaniel Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter are reminders that public condemnation of irresponsible sexual behavior has strong historical roots,” Bush wrote.

Well good to know that if we elect Jeb Bush to the White House that he will try to bring back the public shaming of women.

And seriously how does a guy like this have the nerve to write a book with the title "Profiles in Character?"

Seriously fuck this guy and everything he stands for!

Congressman whose own wife had two abortions, and who pressured a mistress to do the same, voted to ban abortions for other women who are not sleeping with him.

Courtesy of the Times Free Press:  

The Tennessee Republican congressman who supported his ex-wife's decision to get two abortions was among those who voted in favor of a ban on most late-term abortions. 

Republican U.S. Rep. Scott DesJarlais, a Jasper physician, was one of 242 House members who voted Wednesday to pass the bill, which forbids most abortions starting with the 20th week of pregnancy. 

"Congressman DesJarlais was proud to vote in favor of this legislation," said his spokesman Robert Jameson, who added that DesJarlais has maintained a "100 percent pro-life voting record" during his five years in Congress and "has always advocated for pro-life values." 

DesJarlais' support of his ex-wife's abortions, which occurred before their 1995 marriage, was revealed after his 2012 re-election to Congress in a divorce trial transcript. The transcript also showed the physician had engaged in multiple affairs with patients, and pressured one of them to get an abortion after she told him she was pregnant. The outcome of that pregnancy is unknown.

First off I cannot even imagine how Uncle Fester there got so many women to do the nasty with him.  Do the women in Tennessee really have such low standards?

And secondly, as we have mentioned here time and time again, typically a woman seeking an abortion at 20 weeks is doing so because of complications found during the ultrasound. Which is supposed to be performed between the 18th and 20th week of pregnancy.

But hey what's a couple of dead or deformed babies being born when you can pander to the anti-abortion crowd?

Besides it appears that this POS already got rid of all of the babies that might have complicated HIS life.

By the way John Boehner called this "the most pro-life legislation to ever come before this body."

So don't you worry your pretty heads ladies, the old white guys in the Congress are going to make all of the decisions about what you can and cannot do with your reproductive organs for you. 

Isn't that nice of them?

But don't worry, President Obama will veto the snot out of this if it ever reaches his desk.

Florida preacher brags about "male leadership" sign. "It's a man's world."

Courtesy of Raw Story:

During a March 29 sermon about leadership, which was recently highlighted by the Friendly Atheist blog and the Bad Preachers YouTube account, Pastor Bill Lytell of the Gospel Baptist Church told his congregation he was proud to have a “male leadership” sign outside the church because “this is a man’s world.” 

Lytell said that after a 9-year-old boy found a gun in the church’s bathroom last month, he was happy that a local media outlet filmed the “male leadership” sign during its coverage of the incident. 

“And that’s going to go out throughout the whole country. Do you know what we’d have had to pay to do something like that?” he remarked. “That was probably a hundred thousand dollar gift. I’m not going to thank the person that left the weapon, however.” 

“Don’t you be ashamed you go to a church with male leadership,” Lytell said. “Every church that’s right with God oughta have a sign: ‘Male Leadership.’ Because that’s the only kind of leadership, both from Adam all the way to the last part of the Bible. It’s all been male. This is a man’s world!”

And that folks is why, according to the Fundamentalists, women cannot be expected to control their own reproductive organs.

After all, they're just womenfolk. 

Federal judge rules Wisconsin abortion restrictions unconstitutional.

Courtesy of the AP:  

A federal judge on Friday struck down a Wisconsin law requiring doctors performing abortions to get hospital admitting privileges, ruling that any benefits to women's health from the requirement are "substantially outweighed" by restricting women's access to abortion. 

U.S. District Judge William Conley, who earlier had put the law on hold, ruled that the 2013 law is unconstitutional. He issued a permanent injunction blocking its enforcement. 

Planned Parenthood and Affiliated Medical Services had sued the state, arguing the requirement will force AMS's Milwaukee clinic to close because its doctors can't get admitting privileges. 

The groups argued that would amount to restricting access to abortions in Wisconsin. State attorneys contended the mandate would ensure continuity of care for women hospitalized with abortion complications. 

In his ruling, Conley wrote that the "marginal benefit to women's health" by requiring hospital admitting privileges "is substantially outweighed by the burden this requirement will have on women's health outcomes due to restricted access to abortions in Wisconsin." 

"While the court agrees with the State that sometimes it is necessary to reduce access to insure safety, this is decidedly not one of those instances," Conley wrote. "In particular, the State has failed to meet its burden of demonstrating through credible evidence a link between the admitting privileges requirement and a legitimate health interest."

Well this is great news, though it is only one victory against an unprecedented number of attacks on abortion rights by conservatives since  2010.

The fact that today we have to continue to defend the right of women to have control over their own reproductive systems forty years after Roe vs Wade is unconscionable.

And yet the Republicans continue to deny that there is a war against women.