@Heterochromatic

I’ve thought hard about how I should reply to you. My first reaction was to ask how much experience you have had with discrimination but I realised that was both dishonest and counter-productive.

So instead I will just lay out some of what I have seen happen over the past two decades, with a distinct accelaration the later you get in that time frame.

I have witnessed a steady erosion of women’s right to have an abortion. Initially opposition was primarily from fringe fanatic terrorists (who attacked abortion clinics, doctors and nurses and who tried to physically prevent women from entering a clinic). Today one state after another tries to restrict or outright prohibit abortions. Through legal means, through condescending and paternalistic requirements (like forcing a woman to listen to two doctors spaced out over one or more weeks telling her she does not really want an abortion as if she is unable to make up her own mind), and recently by attempting to force her to undergo a traumatising invasive procedure that served no other purpose than to make an already painful decision so unpleasant that some women would give up entirely.

I have witnessed a decline in women’s access to specialised health care, ignoring that women have different and additional needs due to their physiology and the fact that they risk their life every time they have a baby (a small risk nowadays but a real one still).

I have seen the debate over women’s rights and especially about women’s reproductive health growing more and more paternalistic, with most of the discussion being BY men, ABOUT women. With the current new low being that all male panel explaining in condescending tones to women why they would not want to use anti-conceptives.

The republican campaign has certainly magnified issues, but many of the things it brought up were not issues at all two decades back (or even one), outside of a small ultra conservative fraction of the voters. And not only were these issues being brought up and discussed as eminently reasonable by both the right AND the left leaning media, when one of the more rabid pundits crossed a line none of the candidates spoke up and called them out on it. Leaving an impression that they actually agreed with what was said but were unwilling to say that openly (for fear of getting those silly women all riled up about another erosion to their right of being considered a human being with rights and desires of her own).
So just as two decades ago the attack on our right to abortion (and self determination regarding having children) was done by extremists but has become an every day occurence that is considered eminently reasonable, we are now seeing extremists assaulting our right to determine if and when we have sex and with whom. And even have openly questioned our right to higher education (because we will be married and have children and no need for that expensive college degree anyway while we stay at home and be an attachment to our husband).

So, yes, seeing that trend I am a bit worried where it might lead if I extrapolate it another two decades.

I guess the speaker of the House thinks that all woman are in perfect health. Some women are very healthy and do not need preventative health care, I happen to be one of the few having no women problems and I have reached the age of 72 but I probably am not the average woman.

Maybe a few of us have very good genes but preventative health care is really necessary.  If I was not taking blood pressure medication I could develop heart problems so I take preventative medicine.

Boner on the other hand has the best health care of all even better than most working people.

They are called the “Stafford” student loans because
the legislation that created the program was
sponsored by Republican Bob Stafford of Vermont back
in the 70’s.  Most of the best environmental
legislation passed in the 70’s and 80’s had
Stafford’s name on it also, including the EPA’s
Superfund for toxic waste clean up.  Republicans
today would throw Stafford out of the party if he
didn’t leave on his own.  He’d be considered some
kind of Marxist-Leninist freak.  He’d be to the left
of all the democrats in the senate today.

Suck up to one bunch of voters on the head by screwing
another bunch - brilliant, just brilliant.Great
thinking orange man. How blessed we are, how fortunate
in being served by such genius!

This is so cynical and twisted -it truely makes me sick pitting students against women’s health rights-have they no shame

@Berniem

While I agree with your analysis in general it is in issues like this that the last vestiges show through of social concern which once defined the democrat party.

I thoroughly hate the ‘war on’ phrase and the mindset that speaks from it (that all disagreement is a manichean violent conflict). So I will just say that every time the republican party manages to find new depths of cynicism, machiavelism and Newspeak. It shouldn’t surprise me but it does, because I keep thinking that they have a morality, hidden deep down and atrophying for sure, that will make them believe there are some groups of people they can not throw under a bus for their own selfish goals.

And I really stand by my belief that American women should see the way the wind is blowing and flee the country while they still have any rights and humanity left. Because it is clear that in the utopian Republikanistan women have no rights to health care, nor to anti-conceptives or education. And apparently their right to vote is under threat as well seeing how the republican party keeps alienating them and soon can only win an election if they block their vote entirely. How long before women lose the right to hold property, or to leave the house without a male escort (while wearing a black tablecloth with two tiny eye holes cut into it?). I guess it is in keeping with how the republican party, by way of the tea party, idolises the 1810s, where only white men of means had the right to vote and everybody else was either a slave, a woman (a wholy owned subsidiary of her father or husband, a.k.a. slave) or poor (wage slaves) and as such considered too unstable or incapable of making rational decisions.