American Taliban: Washington’s Evil Cult of Authoritarian Theocrats

Roman Catholic theocratic fascist William Barr; a self-confessed enemy of America's Constitution

As the nation lurches closer towards being ruled by a tyrannical dictator with unwavering support from the Republican Party, the American people are ignoring an even greater threat to their waning secular democracy – rule by tyrannical theocrats. 

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The rise of theocrats in powerful positions of authority is particularly disconcerting because not only was America created as a secular nation with a secular Constitution, but because the theocrats running the federal government represent a very small minority of the population. And now Trump has given that vicious minority what they elected him to do in the first place; another radical Christian extremist, William Barr, in a powerful federal government position. 

J. Beauregard Sessions was a legitimate threat to America’s secular government as Trump’s attorney general, but his theocratic aspirations paled in comparison to Trump’s latest theocratic cabinet member – a conservative Catholic malcontent who is unlikely to ever defend the U.S. Constitution because it is a secular document. It is noteworthy that Sessions only stated that, according to his mind, the separation of church and state in the Constitution is a concept that is unconstitutional. However, his replacement ardently believes that America’s government is duty-bound to enforce god’s laws because there is no place for secularism. 

In a 1995 essay, Barr expressed the extremist Christian view that “American government should not be secular;” secularism is an abomination in Barr’s theocratic mind despite the law of the land is unmistakably secular. Furthermore, Barr contends America’s government is supposed to be imposing “a transcendent moral order with objective standards of right and wrong that flows from God’s eternal law;” eternal law best dictated by the Vatican and taught in public schools at taxpayer’s expense.

It is true that as attorney general William Barr will defend Trump’s criminality and corruption; it is one of the only reasons Trump nominated him. However, the real danger to the nation is Barr’s belief that the government’s primary function should be defending and enforcing his god’s moral edicts while ardently opposing any legislative branch effort to make secular laws according to the secular Constitution.

As noted by Michael Stone a couple of weeks ago, in addition to the racism and misogyny one expects from a radical conservative Christian, “Barr is also a bigot when it comes to non-religious people and others who respect the separation of church and state.” 

Barr epitomizes the typical extremist religious fanatic by blaming everything from crime to divorce to sexually transmitted diseases on what he alleges is “the federal government’s non-stop attacks on traditional religious values.” In fact, he joins no small number of Republican evangelical extremists who demand that taxpayers fund religious instruction, specifically Catholic religious instruction, in public schools. Barr, as a matter of fact, has called for the United States government to subsidize Catholic education and categorically called for federal legislation to promote Vatican edicts to “restrain sexual immorality;” an explicit reference to his religion’s ban on homosexuality, extramarital sex, and “artificial” birth control. Don’t believe it? 

In an address to “The Governor’s Conference on Juvenile Crime, Drugs and Gangs,” Barr condemned the idea of adhering to the U.S. Constitution’s mandated separation of church and state in the public education system. The theocrat said: 

“This moral lobotomy of public schools has been based on extremist notions of separation of church and state or on theories of moral relativism which reject the notion that there are standards of rights or wrong to which the community can demand adherence.” 

Barr also penned an article in The Catholic Lawyer where he complained vehemently about what he asserted was “the rise of secularism;” something he claims is anathema to a nation he believes should be ruled by theocrats. Barr attempted to give an answer to “the challenge of representing Catholic institutions as authorities” on what is considered right and wrong, or morally acceptable in a secular nation. In discussing what Barr termed was “The Breakdown of Traditional Morality,” the new attorney general complained thus:

“We live in an increasingly militant, secular age…  As part of this philosophy, we see a growing hostility toward religion, particularly Catholicism. This form of bigotry has always been fashionable in the United States. There are, today, even greater efforts to marginalize or ‘ghettoize’ orthodox religion…” 

Barr is also a bigot when it comes to people who respect the Constitution’s separation of church and state in providing equal rights for all Americans whether theocrats agree or not. Barr’s belief that government is bound to enforce Vatican dictates is what drives his assertion that, for example, equal rights laws demanding that colleges treat homosexual groups like any other student group is inherently wrong.  

He claims treating LGBTQ people like everyone else is detrimental because: 

“[Equality] dissolves any form of moral consensus in society. There can be no consensus based on moral views in the country, only enforced neutrality.” 

It is noteworthy that what Barr considers “enforced neutrality” is what most Americans understand is the U.S. Constitution’s guarantee of equal rights for all Americans. If this country was not plagued with religious extremists, bigots, misogynists, and hate-driven conservatives there would never be a need to “enforce neutrality,” or protect all Americans’ equal rights guaranteed according to secular law. There is no such thing as equality in Barr’s theocratic mind and the idea of the government not enforcing the privilege and superiority the religious right has enjoyed for too long is abominable, and now he wields federal government authority to right that abomination.  

It is too bad that Barr’s religious mind incites him to believe the federal government’s job is enforcing his religion’s concept of “morality,” and that the purposely-conceived “secular” law of the land is “militant” and “hostile toward religion, particularly Catholicism.” If any American believes Barr will defend the Constitution, or equal rights, or freedom from religious imposition, they are deluded beyond belief. As the religious right’s attorney general, Barr will be the de facto enforcement arm of the evangelical extremists and aid in implementing all of the horrors a theocratic dictatorship entails – beginning with an increased government assault on women.

For an idea of how an avowed anti-choice theocrat leading the Justice Department will be the enforcement arm of the evangelical extremist cult, consider Trump’s latest evangelical edict forbidding medical professionals from giving women medical options the religious right and Vatican oppose.

Trump and Pence issued a gag order banning the term “abortion” as a woman’s option to carrying an unwanted pregnancy to term. The order will certainly face lawsuits, but instead of defending a medical professional’s ability to practice medicine, or exercise their freedom of speech, the theocratic-led DOJ will defend the religious right’s assault on women and medical professionals’ free speech because such speech is opposed by evangelicals. Trump’s latest theocratic edict was, by the way, a direct result of the evangelical right’s strict adherence to Vatican dictates banning women’s bodily autonomy and self-determination regarding reproduction. 

There is no good outcome going forward with an avowed theocrat serving as the nation’s top law enforcement official. This is particularly true since Barr has made no secret that he considers the secular government “militant” and “bigoted” for  not promoting “god’s eternal laws” of right and wrong. The very inconvenient truth for Americans is that long after Trump and Barr are out of power, the theocratic authorities will continue unimpeded because Trump has dutifully created a hard-line conservative judiciary specifically to ensure that America as a secular nation is, for all intents and purposes, coming to an end after resisting theocracy for over two centuries.

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It Turns Out Christians Have More Abortions Than Any Other Religious Group In America

It Turns Out Christians Have More Abortions Than Any Other Religious Group In America

A survey by a Christian research group suggests 70 percent of women who’ve had an abortion identify as Christian.

Via Kristina Marusic

Less than a week after evangelical Christian Robert Dear killed three people and wounded nine others with a semiautomatic weapon at a Planned Parenthood in Colorado Springs — ostensibly to protest killing, which he believed was taking place at that clinic — a Christian research group has released the findings of a national survey containing a startling revelation: 70 percent of women who have abortions in the U.S. are Christians, and 23 percent of those women identify as Evangelical Christians.

The survey was conducted by the LifeWay group in partnership with the pregnancy center support organization Care Net, which also runs “the nation’s only real-time call center providing pregnancy decision coaching” with hopes that those who call in will be “transformed by the gospel of Jesus Christ and empowered to choose life.”

LifeWay Research

The survey, which polled 1,038 women who’d had abortions from across the U.S., found that almost 40% of those women were attending a Christian church once a month or more at the time of their abortion, but that a majority of the women who attended church regularly kept their abortion a secret from their church community, mostly out of fear of being judged or condemned. Almost half of the women agreed that “pastors’ teachings on forgiveness don’t seem to apply to terminated pregnancies,” and 54 percent agreed that churches “over-simplify decisions about pregnancy options.”

Even sadder? Sixty-four percent of the women agreed that “Church members are more likely to gossip about a woman considering an abortion than help her understand her options.”

Disturbingly, there’s also anecdotal evidence to suggest that Christians who have received abortions are among the most vocal opponents of abortion rights (à la Pennsatucky on “Orange Is The New Black”). Abstinence-Preaching Bristol Palin Is Pregnant Again — MTV’s ‘Braless’ Asks What Went Wrong

In her recent memoir “My Life On The Road,” journalist and activist Gloria Steinem writes, “When I visit clinics, I’ve learned to ask the staff if they have ever seen an [anti-abortion] picketer come in, have an abortion, and go back to picketing again. From Atlanta to Wichita, the answer is yes. Yet because staff members see the woman’s suffering and guard her right to privacy, they don’t blow the whistle.”

Steinem says that when she initially expressed disbelief over these stories, a clinic staff member explained to her “that women in such anti-abortion groups are more likely to be deprived of birth control and so to need an abortion. Then they feel guilty — and picket even more.”

From every angle — from the horrific actions taken by Dear to the large numbers of Christian women secretly seeking abortions — it’s clear that the current strategy of Christian anti-choicers is doing far more harm than good. Perhaps it’s time they consider taking a new approach.

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Two Anti-Abortion Picketers Just Lost Their High Court Challenge

Two Anti-Abortion Picketers Just Lost Their High Court Challenge

“A woman’s decision whether or not to abort her pregnancy is not a political decision.”

Gina Rushton

BuzzFeed News Reporter, Australia

Two anti-abortion campaigners convicted for breaching safe-access zones outside abortion clinics have lost their High Court appeal.

Lawyers for Victorian woman Kathy Clubb and Queensland man Graham Preston argued the zones, which were established to protect patients and staff from harassment and intimidation, infringed on their right to freedom of political communication.

In the decision handed down in the High Court on Wednesday morning, all seven judges agreed the appeal should be dismissed, but some gave different reasons for the ruling.

“A woman’s decision whether or not to abort her pregnancy is not a political decision,” Justice Geoffrey Nettle wrote.

“It is an apolitical, personal decision informed by medical considerations, personal circumstances and personal religious and ethical beliefs, qualitatively different from a political decision as to whether abortion law should be amended.

“For the same reason, a communication directed to persuading a woman as to whether or not to abort her pregnancy is not a political communication but a communication concerning an entirely personal matter.”

The Chief Justice of Australia Susan Kiefel, Justice Virginia Bell and Justice Patrick Keane agreed that the safe-access zones legislation is “suitable” as it has a “rational connection to its purpose”.

“Those wishing to say what they want about abortions have an unimpeded ability to do so outside the radius of the safe access zones,” they wrote.

“The 150m radius of the safe access zones serves merely to restrict their ability to do so in the presence of a captive audience of pregnant women seeking terminations and those involved in advising and assisting them.

“A measure that seeks to ensure that women seeking a safe termination are not driven to less safe procedures by being subjected to shaming behaviour or by the fear of the loss of privacy is a rational response to a serious public health issue.”

Preston is from Queensland but was convicted and fined $3,000 in 2016 for breaching the Tasmanian safe-access zone laws in 2014 and 2015.

Clubb became the first person in Victoria to be charged under laws passed in 2015 that make it illegal to protest within 150 metres of an abortion clinic.

She was found guilty in Oct. 2017 of one charge of prohibited behaviour within a safe-access zone for allegedly approaching a couple outside East Melbourne Fertility Control Clinic and trying to hand them pamphlets. She was fined $5,000.

The mother of 13 appealed her case to the High Court alongside Preston’s, where her lawyers argued that safe-access zones violate the Australian Constitution’s implied freedom of political communication.

Clubb’s case is one of many “strategic cases” assisted by an Australian Christian Lobby (ACL) initiative, the Human Rights Law Alliance — a team of Christian lawyers who fight to protect “religious freedom and fundamental rights in the courts of Australia”.

The ACL has campaigned in multiple states against decriminalising abortion and against introducing safe-access zones.

In their written submissions, Clubb’s lawyers argued the debate over abortion is political and that “political communications about abortions are often at their most effective when they are engaged in at the place at which abortions are provided”.

“It is no different in that respect to a communication on the ethics of animal rights, gay marriage, euthanasia or discrimination — once a mind is changed on the ethics, the politics will often follow.”

Three of the High Court judges on Wednesday summarised that there was no restriction “at all” on political communications outside of safe-access zones and no discrimination “between pro-abortion and anti-abortion communications”.

“The purpose of the prohibition justifies a limitation on the exercise of free expression within that limited area,” the joint judgement read.

“And the justification of the prohibition draws support from the very constitutional values that underpin the implied freedom.”

Preston and Clubb spoke to reporters outside the court.

“It is a very sad day,” Preston said, while holding a plastic foetal doll.

Clubb said it was a “terrible decision”.

“It is not enough that so many babies have been killed but now free speech has been killed as well,” she said.

‘Death sentence for women’: Alabama proposes law to make abortion punishable by up to 99 years in prison

Bill would even criminalise performing abortions in cases of rape and incest

Via:- Maya Oppenheim Women’s Correspondent @mayaoppenheim

The Independent US

Alabama is proposing a law that would make carrying out an abortion at any stage of the pregnancy punishable by 10 to 99 years in jail.

The strict abortion ban, which has been branded a “death sentence for women”, would even criminalise performing abortions in cases of rape and incest.

The legislation, which Alabama politicians introduced on Tuesday, would only allow abortions in instances where there is “a serious health risk to the unborn child’s mother”.

The bill also equates legalised abortion to some of history’s gravest atrocities – likening having your pregnancy terminated to the Nazi campaign of extermination that led to the mass murders of Jews and others during the Holocaust.

The legislation says: “More than 50 million babies have been aborted in the United States since the Roe decision in 1973, more than three times the number who were killed in German death camps, Chinese purges, Stalin’s gulags, Cambodian killing fields, and the Rwandan genocide combined.”

The bill, which has more than 60 co-sponsors in the 105-member Alabama house of representatives, means a doctor would be hit with a Class A felony if they were to perform an abortion. It would ban all abortions, even those using prescription drugs, as soon as a woman is “known to be pregnant”. 

“It simply criminalises abortion,” Terri Collins, a Republican representative who is the bill’s sponsor. “Hopefully, it takes it all the way to the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v Wade.”

Pressed about pushing a measure that obviously conflicts with Supreme Court decisions, Ms Collins said the “whole point is to get the courts to relook at this issue”.

She said: “I think people are seeing a possibility that the Supreme Court might have a more conservative-leaning balance”.

Alarm bells have been raised that Roe v Wade – the landmark Supreme Court decision that legalised abortion nationwide in 1973 – could be overturned or radically undermined with new conservative justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh. 

Staci Fox, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Southeast, called it a “death sentence for women across this state”.

She said: “These bans are blatantly unconstitutional and lawmakers know it – they just don’t care. Alabamians are just pawns in this political game to challenge access to safe, legal abortion nationally.”

Alabama is the latest Republican-leaning state to try to pass a strict abortion ban as conservatives take aim at Roe v Wade. Abortion opponents in other states have been emboldened to attempt to provoke new legal battles that could spark Supreme Court justices to revisit the key case.

The Alabama bill comes after Kentucky and Mississippi approved bans on abortion once a foetal heartbeat is detected, which happens as soon as the sixth week of pregnancy. At six weeks, many women do not yet know they are pregnant. 

Other states, including Georgia and South Carolina, could pass similar bans.

Georgia’s governor is contemplating whether to sign a law banning abortion once a foetal heartbeat is detected. More than 50 Hollywood actors, including Alyssa Milano, Alec Baldwin and Amy Schumer, sent a letter threatening to pull business out of Georgia, a focal point for TV and film production, if the ban is enacted.

A South Carolina House subcommittee passed a similar heartbeat bill on Tuesday.

Critics argue the Republicans are unnecessarily launching legal battles that will prove to be expensive and futile – with taxpayers potentially footing the bill.

Rights organisations have accused the Trump administration of attacking women’s reproductive rights by reinstating the global gag rule, which blocks federal funding for non-governmental organisations that provide abortion counselling or referrals.

Campaigners have also criticised the government for appointing anti-abortion rights activists to key posts in federal departments that handle women’s health, and striving to cut Title X funding to health providers that carry out abortions or make abortion referrals. 

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The Christian lobby is now trying to convince women that abortion causes breast cancer

The Christian lobby is now trying to convince women that abortion causes breast cancer

 Jane Gilmore

Two years ago, Eric Abetz was laughed off The Project for alluding to studies from the 1950s that linked abortion and breast cancer. Despite widespread condemnation, some myths never die, and this one is back, courtesy of the Australian Christian Lobby.

Last week the ACL sent out an email inviting people to attend a Melbourne screening of Hush, a documentary described as “a pro-woman perspective on the abortion debate”.

The ACL describes controversial anti-abortion documentary ‘Hush’ as “a pro-woman perspective on the abortion debate”.

Hush has been lauded by anti-abortion and religious groups around the world for its allegedly “balanced” reporting of thoroughly debunked myths – that abortion causes breast cancer, infertility and mental illness.

Perpetuating dangerous and disproved claims about serious medical issues is a definition of “a pro women perspective” I haven’t heard of before, but to be fair, there are many issues pushed out by the ACL that I find difficult to comprehend.

A still from the pseudo-documentary ‘Hush’.  Photo: Hush

Hush props up the allegation of “balance” by claiming the director, Punam Kumar Gill, is pro-choice. Despite this, there are 28 people featured in the film discussing the alleged dangers of abortion, and only two who assert it is a safe procedure.

Whether or not Gill really is pro-choice is irrelevant in the face of the claims made by the documentary, which gives significant weight to assertions by Christian anti-abortion researchers while ignoring overwhelming evidence from the medical profession that there is no reliable link between abortion and breast cancer.

It’s very much akin to the work of anti-vaxers, who cling desperately to risible claims by quack scientists, in the face of irrefutable evidence that they are wrong, because their feelings trump facts.

The film has been described as “a prototype of pseudoscience” by Dr David Grimes, who says he “advised the director in writing in September of 2014 of the poor credentials and discredited science of several anti-abortion activists interviewed for the film.

“She was apparently undeterred in conjuring up a conspiracy,” he says.

The documentary’s website lists a bibliography of the so-called “science” behind the breast cancer claims. The first article shows a possible small increase in the number of young women with breast cancer, but does not posit any possible causes. The second article was eviscerated by Discover Magazine in 2003, which utterly debunked the premise, methodology, results and conclusions of the study. And pointed out that – as Phyllis Wingo, chief of the cancer surveillance branch for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said – even if you accepted their flawed suppositions, “a relative risk of 1.3 – compared with the relative risk of 20 associated with smoking and lung cancer – is usually considered too weak to draw definite conclusions”.

The third link supporting the ludicrous notion that there is a link between abortion and breast cancer was written by Patrick Carroll, an insurance expert with no medical training, who works for the Pension And Population Research Institute, an obscure institution with a single-page website linking only to Carroll’s three papers on breast cancer and abortion.

These studies were used to prove a link that has been investigated and rejected by the National Cancer Institute, the Cancer Council of Australia, the American Cancer Society, and the Australian Medical Association, among many others.

Dr Tony Bartone, Vice-President of the Australian Medical Association, said the assertion is irresponsible. “There is no evidence that abortion is in any way linked to the development or onset of breast cancer.

“A patient suffering from breast cancer has enormous challenges to deal with, and they certainly don’t need this kind of misinformation adding to their already overwhelming worries,” he said.

“Also, patients making informed decisions about terminations do not need to be subjected to this kind of misinformation, which can only create significant and unnecessary further stress when they already have so many  concerns to deal with.”

What’s worse, the screening for which the Australian Christian Lobby was issuing invitations is a fundraiser for Women’s Forum Australia, “an independent women’s think-tank” founded by Melinda Tankard Reist, which claims to advocate for “women’s health and wellbeing”.

Of their 10 published news items, three were anti-abortion, six were about adoption (with a focus against same-sex parents adopting) and one was advocating against surrogacy. Their two events are the Hush screening and a Pregnancy Support Awards for services that persuade women against abortion.

Tankard Reist has long resisted publicly declaring any link to faith-based organisations, but the links between her, the organisations she’s founded, and right-wing Christian groups are difficult to ignore.

While faith is certainly a personal matter that no private individual should ever be obliged to disclose, it is relevant to public advocacy. Women’s Forum Australia has every right to argue against abortion if they choose to, but peddling dangerous misinformation under the guise of “balance” and “science”, and hiding a faith-based agenda behind an alleged concern for women’s health, demands some investigation and response.

ACL’s invitation to the event was forwarded to Fairfax Media and came directly from Dan Flynn, the Victorian Director of ACL. Kristan Dooley, the contact provided on the event information, confirmed to Fairfax Media that the event is a fundraiser for Women’s Forum Australia.

The ACL is very clear on its purpose, as stated on its website it is “seeking to bring a Christian influence to politics”. If the ACL is promoting a fundraiser, it would be unlikely to do so without some faith-based or ideological alignment with the beneficiaries.

Pseudoscience and discredited conspiracy theories do nothing for the anti-abortion cause. Using such things to raise funds for further advocacy is egregiously unethical.

If these are the best arguments they can make for an ideological crusade against a legal medical procedure that saves women’s lives, they desperately need to rethink their strategy.

And in the meantime, Australian women can rest assured that if they require an abortion, the procedure is safe, legal (in most states) and entirely a matter for each individual to decide.

 

Via:- http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/news-and-views/opinion/the-christian-lobby-is-now-trying-to-convince-women-that-abortion-causes-breast-cancer-20161018-gs535e.html

 

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Why Does Texas Hate Women?

Why Does Texas Hate Women?

By mario piperni

Now that a federal appeals court has reinstated most of Texas’ Draconian abortion law, Hillary’s statement defending reproductive rights and family planning takes on an even greater significance. One third of abortion clinics in Texas will shut down immediately, forcing women seeking abortions to travel hours to seek proper medical care. Gov. Rick Perry has stated on a number of occasions that the clear goal is to abolish abortion in Texas.

In her 2009 statement, Hillary spoke of witnessing suffering in third world hospital waiting rooms where women were “fighting for their lives against botched abortions” and where “denial of family planning consigns women to lives of oppression and hardship.” Why would anyone believe that the same would not apply to Texas or any other state where the goal has been to abolish abortion and defund Planned Parenthood? Why would anti-choice organizations who profess to care about women’s health, go out and push for legislation which history and empirical data shows does the exact opposite. Reducing women’s health choices seriously endangers women’s lives.

What is wrong with these people and why do they hate women so?

___

Related articles

• Mario Piperni and Texas Women (seniorsforademocraticsociety.wordpress.com)
• Why Does Texas Hate Women? (mariopiperni.com)
• Anti-abortion extremists urge kidnapping of women on way to clinic (richarddawkins.net)
• Anti-Abortion Christian Activist Urges False Imprisonment Of Women Seeking Abortions (burntorangereport.com)
• Anti-abortion extremists urge kidnapping of women on way to clinic (secularnewsdaily.com)
• Planned Parenthood Takes Texas Abortion Fight to Supremes (bloomberg.com)
• Texas women turned away at abortion clinics after court ruling – Reuters (reuters.com)
• Texas abortion clinics stay open following ruling (boston.com)
• Fed judge: Texas abortion limits unconstitutional (newsday.com)

The Religious Right Is a Fraud — There’s Nothing Christian About Michele Bachmann’s Values

By Elizabeth Stoker  and Matt Bruenig

The Religious Right Is a Fraud — There’s Nothing Christian About Michele Bachmann’s Values

   Last week, the nation’s capital was host to Value Voters 2013 Summit, a three-day political conference for predominantly religious conservatives. Among the smattering of social and economic issues at hand, the overall tenor of the Summit focused on eliminating Obamacare, expanding the tangible presence of Christianity through the public arena and military and preventing the proliferation of easily available birth control and abortion. In speeches, lunches and breakout sessions, American’s Christian Right worked out strategies to bring the values of the federal government in line with their preferred Christian ethical dictates, using democracy as their chief tool.

It isn’t unusual for Christians living in democracies to use the vote to express their ethics, and to shape government to do the same. That the moral and ethical preferences of a given society should inform government is a foundational principle of democracy, after all. And American values voters are far from the first Christians to undertake the project of bringing their government’s policies in line with Christian ethics: European Christian parties have aimed to do the same for decades. But between American Christian voters and their European counterparts, a curious departure opens up: while European Christians generally see the anti-poverty mission of Christianity as worthy of political action, the American Christian Right inexplicably cordons off economics from the realm of Christian influence.

By all means, the American Christian Right is willing to leverage government authority to carry out a variety of Christian ethical projects, especially within the arena of family life. Michele Bachmann would make abortion illegal, and Rick Santorum has stated on multiple occasions that he supports laws against homosexual intercourse. But Christian politicians in the United States curtail their interest in making the gospel actionable when it comes to welfare. While the government should see to the moral uprightness of marriage, sex and family, the Value Voters 2013 Summit was notably bereft of talks on living wages, labor rights or basic incomes.

The notable exclusion of poverty from the Christian agenda would doubtlessly puzzle European Christians, whose support of Christian ethical approaches to family life have always been paired with a deep and vigorous concern for the poor. And, unlike their American counterparts, European Christians haven’t been willing to leave poverty up to individual charity or the market to handle. Quite the contrary: Just as public morality is an arena fit for intervention by a Christian-informed government, so too is welfare. Consider the British Christian People’s Alliance 2010 election manifesto, a document intended to explain the imminently Christian party’s policy goals:

“The Christian Peoples Alliance believes that Britain will return to economic prosperity when government chooses instead to put human relationships in right order. This requires power, income and wealth to be redistributed and for greater equality to be achieved. These are deeply spiritual convictions and reflect a Biblical pattern of priorities…By the end of the next Parliament, the CPA will establish the reduction of inequality as a national target, so that the ratios of the incomes of the top 20 per cent are reduced to no more than five and a half times the incomes of the bottom 20 per cent.”

The CPA election manifesto goes on to explain that their aversion to inequality arises from a uniquely Christian concern for the health of human relationships, which suffer under the weight of massive social inequality. Their position on inequality is hardly an anomaly among European Christian parties. In fact, the European Christian Political Movement (ECPM), a confederation of Christian parties from different European nations operating within the European Union, states very similar goals in its own programme:

“Social justice is a fundamental Biblical teaching and Christian-democrat notion. Social justice demands an equal regard for all. That implies a special concern for the needs of the poor, refugees, those who suffer and the powerless. It requires us to oppose exploitation and deprivation. It requires also that appropriate resources and opportunities are available. In this way, we meet the basic requirements of all and each person is able to take part in the life of the community.”

Toward that end, the European Christian Political Foundation, which is the official think tank of the ECPM, recently commissioned a publication entitled ‘After Capitalism’, which is summarized thus:

“‘After Capitalism’ seeks to rethink the foundations of a market economy and argues that the Bible’s central theme of relationships is the key to rebuilding a system that promotes economic well-being, financial stability and social cohesion.”

It is notable that the multitude of parties that make up the EPCM are not necessarily leftist or wholly liberal parties. They do not generally align themselves with openly socialist parties in their home countries, though their policies toward welfare and equality would likely be branded as such by American Christians. And so the question remains: If European Christians feel the anti-poverty mission of Christianity is as worthy of political action as the ethical values relating to family life, why doesn’t the American Christian Right feel the same?

Economic policy seems a strange place to wall off consideration of Christian ethics, but when it comes to policies that would expand welfare programs or extend particular benefits to the poor, the American Christian Right recoils, and tends to fall back on the rhetoric of personal accountability and individual liberty in matters of charity. But as European Christian parties have shown, limiting economic justice to the arena of charity is a politicalchoice. If the government has a moral role — which the American Christian Right certainly believes it does — then why shouldn’t it participate in the same forms of care individual Christians are obligated to?

No principled reason can be given for the distinction the Christian Right draws between harnessing the state to pursue social objectives and harnessing it to pursue economic objectives. It is a uniquely American distinction as far as Christian politicking goes. What the distinction reveals is that so-called values voters are just a particular flavor of right-wing political culture, one that opts for Christian language and rhetoric when communicating its message. But in that case, it is their freestanding political commitments that inform their Christianity, not the other way around.

The answer to this riddle is therefore not so mysterious. Although nominally interested in harnessing the state to pursue Christian social objectives, the American Christian Right is not detached from the culture it has developed within. Their politics is not one that is Christian in origin; rather, it originates from the same place all other right-wing politics originates, but mobilizes Christian rhetoric and meanings post-hoc to justify its goals.

 

Related articles

• The religious right is a fraud: Nothing Christian about Michele Bachmann’s values (salon.com)
• The Religious Right Is a Fraud — There’s Nothing Christian About Michele Bachmann’s Values (alternet.org)
• Norway’s School (richarddawkins.net)

Anti-Choicers Admit They Want to Imprison Women for Abortion

Iowa Anti-Choicers Admit They Want to Imprison Women for Abortion

by Amanda Marcotte

Rep. Rob Bacon of Iowa

A little over a month into 2013, and one thing is absolutely certain: Anti-choice legislators aren’t going to let the damage that their war on women did to their fellow conservative politicians’ electoral prospects slow them down from competing with each other to show who can concoct the most vile schemes to undermine women’s rights. Now Iowa Republicans are flexing their muscles, trying to show that they hate the ladies even more than the forced-transvaginal-ultrasound folks in Michigan, Texas, and Virginia, or the women-can’t-think-on-weekends-and-holidays nuts in South Dakota.

Nine state representatives in Iowa have introduced a bill that would define killing a fertilized egg as “murder”.

707.1 Murder defined.

1. A person who kills another person with malice aforethought either express or implied commits murder.

2. “Person”, when referring to the victim of a murder, means an individual human being, without regard to age of development, from the moment of conception, when a zygote is formed, until natural death.

Murder includes killing another person through any means that terminates the life of the other person including but not limited to the use of abortion-inducing drugs. For the purposes of this section, “abortion-inducing drug” means a medicine, drug, or any other substance prescribed or dispensed with the intent of terminating the clinically diagnosable pregnancy of a woman, with knowledge that the drug will with reasonable likelihood cause the termination of the pregnancy. “Abortion-inducing drug” includes the off-label use of drugs known to have abortion-inducing properties, which are prescribed specifically with the intent of causing an abortion, but does not include drugs that may be known to cause an abortion, but which are prescribed for other medical indications.

The point of this bill is, simply put, to throw women in jail for “murder” for deliberately ending pregnancies—and quite possibly for trying to prevent them, as many anti-choicers continue to insist, despite the evidence against them, that the pill and emergency contraception work by “killing” fertilized eggs. (They work by suppressing ovulation and preventing fertilization.) The language of this is quite expansive. They’re not only counting women who reach out to legal providers for abortion as “murderers,” but also women who go online and buy drugs for this purpose. The broadness of this suggests that they may even try to snag women for “murder” for taking common rue, a herbal medication women use to kick start their period (and potentially end an unwanted pregnancy) if they’re late.

This is a dramatic shift in the traditional anti-choice approach to discussing the issue of how to handle women who seek abortion. While I personally have no doubt that many to most anti-choicers fully intend and have always intended to get to a place where women are being jailed for abortion, the official stance of anti-choice legislators and activists is generally to deny believing that nearly a third of American women should go to jail for “murder.” Maintaining the illusion of disinterest in punishing women for abortion with jail is so important that after Rep. Cathrynn Brown of New Mexico was caught proposing jail for rape victims who get abortion, she rewrote the bill specifically to avoid the accusation.

Claiming they don’t believe that women who get abortions are murderers even while calling abortion “murder” has been a huge part of the anti-choice movement for years. (See discussions about it from 2006, 2007, and 2010, for instance. There’s also this fun video that makes the rounds periodically that demonstrates how inane this little dance really is.) This giant failure of logic stems from a couple of things, but mainly because it’s well-understood that anti-choicers don’t actually think abortion is murder, and just want to punish women for sex. And jail time for sex is just going to strike most people as inhumane in the extreme. So they’ve split the difference and said they intend to jail doctors but not women—a position, that while illogical in its rationale at least made them seem slightly less malevolent towards women.

So what’s changed that some anti-choicers, in Iowa at least, are coming out and not only admitting they want a third of women to go to jail for abortion, but are aggressively pushing for it? A huge chunk of it is the result of the overall shift rightward amongst conservatives in the past few years, a shift that is increasing extremism on many fronts, such as more overt racism and, as we’ve seen in recent weeks, an absolutist stance against gun control that resists even the most common sense measures.

But it’s probably also partially a reaction to the changing landscape of abortion. The growing popularity of medication abortion plus an abundance of illegal pharmacies selling all manner of drugs online and the increasing restrictions on legal abortion have created a situation where everyone believes—even though hard evidence is elusive—that more women are taking matters into their own hands when it comes to abortion. As Ada Calhoun of the New Republic explained:

Online, however, these drugs are readily available, often via suspicious-sounding sites that make claims like: “The Affordable Abortion Pill Will Safely, Quickly Terminate Your Undeveloped Fetus In The Privacy Of Your Home, Save You Time And Hundreds Of Dollars. It Is 100% Clinically Safe, Very Effective And The Most Affordable Abortion Pill You Will Get Your Hands On For Now!!!”

Determining how many American women have had home abortions is exceedingly difficult: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention does not track illegal abortions. There is no blood test for drugs like Cytotec, and so such an abortion is indistinguishable from a natural miscarriage, even to a doctor. However, the proliferation of online dispensers suggests a rising demand. There are thousands of websites selling Cytotec for as little as $45 to $75 (compared with $300 to $800 for a legal medicated abortion in a clinic). Some claim to offer the harder-to-come-by Mifeprex, but may in fact be peddling Cytotec, or aspirin, or nothing at all. (Possible sources for the drugs include Mexico, where Cytotec is available over the counter, or even the United States, since it’s also prescribed here as an ulcer medication.)

The traditional anti-choice stance of blaming the provider while pretending the patient is a mindless baby machine and not a choice-making person is harder to maintain in the face of women acting as their own providers. It’s common for anti-choicers to paint an image of an abortion patient as a woman who simply hasn’t thought about it—this also helps justify waiting periods to “think” it over—and who is a victim of greedy doctors and evil feminists who are somehow tricking women (who they clearly imagine are very, very stupid) into getting abortions. But even anti-choicers with the most active imaginations have to struggle with explaining how a woman can fire up a computer, search around for black market abortion-inducing drugs, and order them without being capable of making a decision and therefore being held accountable to the laws regarding that decision.

So this is where we’re at: Iowan anti-choicers admitting they want to throw women in jail for abortion. It’s an unpopular stance precisely because it lays bare the misogyny of the anti-choice movement. Instead of dithering around with more waiting periods and humiliating mandatory ultrasounds, I sort of hope more anti-choicers start demanding jail time for a third of American women. That sort of thing can offer clarity for people who had any doubt left that the anti-choice movement is, indeed, nothing but a war on women.

Related articles

• New Republican Idea: Punishing Rape Victims With Jail Time (rawstory.com)
• Iowa Lawmaker Seeks to Define Abortion as Murder (politicalwire.com)
• Five Facts To Remember As Anti-Choice Activists Launch Attacks Against ‘Webcam Abortions’ (thinkprogress.org)
• Iowa bill introduced by nine Republicans would jail raped women for ‘murder’ of single-cell zygotes (freakoutnation.com)
• Iowa bill would jail raped women for ‘murder’ of single-cell zygotes (rawstory.com)
• Iowa Republican introduces bill to define abortion as murder just ’cause (dailykos.com)
• Iowa bill would jail raped women for ‘murder’ of single-cell zygotes | The Raw Story (richarddawkins.net)
• Rush Limbaugh Incites Violence Against Women Seeking Abortion (rawstory.com)
• Roe v Wade at 40: what American women owe to abortion rights | Jill Filipovic (guardian.co.uk)

Suit Reveals Ties Among Radical Abortion Opponents

Suit Reveals Ties Among Radical Abortion Opponents

This combination of undated file photos shows Scott Roeder, left, and Angel Dillard. (AP Photo)

By ROXANA HEGEMAN Associated Press 

A lawsuit against a Kansas woman who publicly proclaimed her admiration for the man who gunned down one of the country’s few late-term abortion providers is revealing the unwavering support a small group of radical anti-abortion activists has for the imprisoned killer despite an ongoing federal investigation into the 2009 slaying.

Though no federal indictments have been handed down by a grand jury investigating whether Dr. George Tiller’s death was connected to a broader case involving extreme anti-abortion activists, the lawsuit against Angel Dillard is one indication the Justice Department is taking a more heavy handed approach to perceived threats to abortion providers. In addition to alleging Dillard, of Valley Center, sent a threatening letter in 2011 to another Wichita doctor who was training to offer abortions, the lawsuit also highlights Dillard’s relationship with Scott Roeder, the man convicted of fatally shooting Tiller at the physician’s church.

When Roeder opened fire on Tiller, he propelled himself to icon status among abortion opponent extremists — a status that hasn’t wavered since he was sentenced to life in prison. A leader in the Army of God, which supports violence against abortion doctors, notes Roeder gets more correspondence than other imprisoned anti-abortion activists.

Hailed by militant anti-abortion forces as a “prisoner of Christ,” Roeder has been spreading his radical views from a Kansas prison. Other extremists have gravitated to Roeder, visiting him in prison, sending him money and offering legal advice, court documents show.

Abortion rights supporters fear a disturbing pattern whereby imprisoned abortion opponents inspire others to commit further acts of violence against abortion providers and clinics. But radical anti-abortion activists contend the government is trying to suppress “serious opposition” to abortion by targeting Dillard.

“We are always concerned when extremists are getting together and spreading hate and encouraging others to engage in criminal activity,” said Vicki Saporta, executive director of the National Abortion Federation, the professional association representing abortion providers.

A federal grand jury began investigating in 2010 whether Tiller’s murder was connected to a larger case involving radical anti-abortion activists. Though no public charges have been filed, a spokeswoman for the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, Dena Iverson, said the investigation is still open.

The lawsuit against Dillard was filed in April 2011 under a federal law aimed at protecting access to reproductive services. It seeks a court order keeping her from coming within 250 feet of the doctor, along with damages of $5,000 and a civil penalty of $15,000. The case is scheduled for trial in October.

Dillard had been under government scrutiny even before she mailed the letter to the Wichita doctor, and the FBI had interviewed her several times after she first wrote Roeder in prison.

“I think they just wanted to check us out and make sure that we weren’t nuts who were planning to pick up where they think Roeder left off,” Dillard told The Associated Press in 2009, adding that she and her husband had no plans to “do anything of violence to anyone” and wanted to minister to Roeder. Dillard also said she admired Roeder and developed a friendship with him.

Dillard is now claiming “ministerial privilege” in refusing to answer the government’s questions about that relationship. Her attorney, Donald McKinney, argued his client’s religious ministry is protected by the First Amendment. But defense filings in her case made public jail records detailing more than a dozen visits and deposits totaling $373 she made to Roeder’s inmate fund between April 2010 and March 2012. Those documents showed contributions from others.

The ongoing support for Roeder also is apparent in the appeal of his murder conviction. Seven abortion opponents who asked in 2010 and 2011 to file friend-of-the-court briefs were spurned without comment by the Kansas Supreme Court. Other activists are now writing legal briefs for Roeder to file himself, arguing Tiller’s death was necessary to defend the unborn. No oral arguments are scheduled in his appeal.

The Rev. Don Spitz of Virginia, who runs the Army of God website, which supports violence against abortion providers and clinics, is helping Roeder with correspondence.

Roeder likes to “debate” with people who write and often asks Spitz to mail them a militant anti-abortion book written by Paul Hill, a Florida man who was executed for murdering an abortion provider in 1994, Spitz said. Roeder also asks him to send them the book written by the Rev. Michael Bray, an Ohio activist and author of “A Time to Kill,” which defends using lethal force to protect the unborn.

Saporta said those offering Roeder legal help doesn’t concern her, “in that I don’t think any appeal is going to be successful, but nothing good happens when these people get together and reminisce and figure out how to target other providers,” noting Roeder had visited a woman who shot and wounded Tiller in 1993 and was later convicted in a series of abortion clinic arsons and bombings.

Roeder’s appeals attorney did not return a message for comment. Roeder declined comment from prison after the AP refused to guarantee everything he said would be printed verbatim.

Bray — who has spent four years in prison in connection with the destruction of abortion clinics in the Washington, D.C., area — attended Roeder’s trial. He still writes and visits Roeder in prison. One day last year, Bray and Dillard visited Roeder on the same day. Bray and another person were already ministering to Roeder when Dillard arrived, McKinney said, adding his client has not had any other contact with Bray other than meeting him at Roeder’s trial.

“Those who resisted seriously with force are shunned,” Bray said in a phone interview. “They are immediately dragged into jail or fined very weightily — fewer and fewer people are willing to stand in support because of the great oppression of those who do.”

 

Related articles

• Suit reveals ties among radical abortion opponents (miamiherald.com)
• Suit Reveals Ties Among Radical Abortion Opponents (kake.com)
• Suit reveals ties among radical abortion opponents (seattletimes.com)
• Suit reveals ties among radical abortion opponents (heraldonline.com)
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Abortion More Common Where It’s Illegal: Where Are Rates Highest?

Abortion more common where it’s illegal: Where are rates highest?

 

istockphoto

(CBS/AP) Abortion rates are highest where the procedure is illegal, according to a new study. The study also found nearly half of all abortions worldwide are unsafe, with the vast majority of unsafe abortions occurring in developing countries.

PICTURES – Abortion around the world: Where are rates highest?

As for the overall global abortion rate, it remained virtually unchanged from 2003 to 2008, at about 28 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15 to 4 –  a total of about 43.8 million abortions – the study found. The rate had previously been dropping since 1995.

The new global abortion study – that’s published in the Jan. 19 issue of The Lancet – is from the U.S.-based Guttmacher Institute and the World Health Organization. Researchers found a link between higher abortion rates and regions with more restrictive legislation, such as in Latin America and Africa. They also found that 95 to 97 percent of abortions in those regions were unsafe.

Experts couldn’t say whether more liberal laws led to fewer procedures, but said good access to birth control in those countries resulted in fewer unwanted pregnancies.

About 47,000 women died from unsafe abortions in 2008, and another 8.5 million women had serious medical complications. Almost all unsafe abortions were in developing countries, where family planning and contraceptive programs have mostly levelled off.

“An abortion is actually a very simple and safe procedure,” Gilda Sedgh, study author and senior researcher at the Guttmacher Institute, said. “All of these deaths and complications are easily avoidable.”

The proportion of unsafe abortions rose from 44 percent in 1995 to 49 percent in 2008, researchers found. Sedgh acknowledged it was difficult to get an accurate number for unsafe abortions in particular and described their estimates as modest.

They used sources including official statistics, national surveys, and hospital records. To account for unreported abortions, they made adjustments and relied on information from other kinds of studies, expert assessments, and surveys of women.

The authors defined unsafe abortion as any procedure done by people lacking needed skills or in places that don’t meet minimal medical standards. Sedgh said some women in Africa resort to using broken soda bottles or taking strong doses of medicines or herbal drugs to induce abortions.

“It is precisely where abortion is illegal that it must become safer,” wrote Beverly Winikoff and Wendy R. Sheldon of the Gynuity Health Projects in New York, in an accompanying commentary.

Experts said increasing birth control options for women in poor countries, like providing long-acting implants, would make a big difference.

“Wherever we have made better contraception available in the countries where we work, hundreds of women will walk hours to get it,” said Dana Hovig, CEO of Marie Stopes International, a family planning organization. He was not connected to the study.

Which regions of the world have the highest abortion rates? Keep clicking to find out:

19 Photos

Abortion around the world: Where are rates highest?

Related articles

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• 40 years after Roe v. Wade, what new research tells us about abortion and women’s health (scienceblogs.com)
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• Most Poor Women Would’ve Gotten Earlier Abortions, But Needed Time to Raise Money for the Costly Procedure (jezebel.com)
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• CHARTS: How Roe v. Wade changed abortion rights (washingtonpost.com)

Christian Conservative Magazine WORLD | Abortion Illegal in South Korea, But Abortion Rates are “double the U.S. rate.”

The Christian conservative magazine WORLD notes that while abortion is illegal in South Korea, abortion rates there are “double the U.S. rate.” As we’ve said before, abortion rates tend to be higher in countries where it is criminalized.

Jean Chung/The International Herald Tribune/Redux

SOUTHERN LIVING: A 29-year-old who has decided to keep her baby is seen at the Duri Home, a center for unwed mothers in Seoul.

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