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Republican Says New Abortion Restrictions Insult Women’s Intelligence, Hurt GOP

[This post discusses an essay on A Way to Go, whose owner, Stan Adelstein, pays me to advertise his product. I'd be blogging this essay even if Stan weren't paying me money.]

Senate Bill 171 was killed in committee yesterday, largely because of false claims by the Big Ag lobby that the sensible effort to make wanton animal cruelty a felony was coming from out-of-state activists.

Funny, the out-of-state activism of New Jersey lawyer Harold Cassidy has never stopped the South Dakota Legislature from passing the abortion restrictions he writes and lobbies for around the country.

House Bill 1237, this year's mean-spirited attempt to degrade and punish women even more for exercising their constitutional right to bodily autonomy, and the sneakier HB 1236, taking away one more bit of legal recourse women might have for being denied an abortion, may have Cassidy's fingerprints on them. But South Dakota Republican John Tsitrian says HB 1237 is absurd:

The absurdity built into this bill is the implication that women can’t think on weekends and holidays–the reality, of course, is to add another hurdle along the way for women who seek to terminate their unwanted pregnancies. The simple political math is that when you add the absurdity to the problem, your sum is all about the reason that the GOP has lost a substantial share of the female vote [John Tsitrian, "News Flash: SD Women Can Think on Weekends," A Way to Go, 2013.02.12].

Tsitrian plays Bobby Jindal and urges the SDGOP to stop being the stupid party... and the mean party... and the hypocritical party:

Unhappily for the GOP, bills like South Dakota’s HB 1237 are easily lifted from news wires and disseminated by national media and used as yet another example of Republican antipathy to women. I know that many well-educated, young, single professional women are uniformly rolling their eyes at the news of this pending legislation, and it only reinforces a built-in disgust with what they perceive to be condescending and demeaning Republican attitudes toward women. Given that the GOP’s roots go down to the bedrock principles of self-reliance and freedom from government intrusion into our personal lives, bills like HB 1237 are a rejection of what Republicanism is all about [Tsitrian, 2013.02.12].

Tsitrian is no Democratic infiltrator: he brands President Obama a "quasi-socialist." He urges his party to drop HB 1237 not just because it's bad legislation, but also because he wants Republicans to gain ground with women voters and win more elections.

But as long as uneducated twerps like Rep. Jon Hansen (R-25/Dell Rapids) try to control my wife's body, that's not going to happen.

Rep. Hansen brings his HB 1237 and HB 1236 to House Judiciary on Friday, February 15, at 10:00 a.m. Contact those committee members (11 of the 13 are Republicans; 9 of the 13 are men), send them Tsitrian's article, and tell them to kill these bills, if not for the sake of women, then for the sake of the GOP.

Name Chair/Vice
Erickson, Christine
Feinstein, Marc
Gibson, Peggy
Gosch, Brian Chair
Hajek, Anne
Hansen, Jon Vice Chair
Hoffman, Charles
Johns, Timothy
Killer, Kevin
Kopp, Don
Magstadt, Melissa
Stevens, Mike
Wink, Dean

12 Comments

  1. owen reitzel 2013.02.13

    I'm headed to Pierre on Friday. I've never seen the legislature in action before so I was going to watch. I might have to go to this hearing and listen.

  2. amanda 2013.02.13

    I will be there testifying against it.

  3. Rorschach 2013.02.13

    The party running our state government for the past 34 years is completely out of ideas. The state is spinning its wheels. Whenever a new GOP administration comes in they just shuffle the chairs around a bit and all of the same bureaucrats stick around collecting a paycheck. The few talented ones usually move up then leave for the private sector leaving the less talented behind.

    Looking forward to 2015 when Governor Herseth Sandlin will sever the career bureucrats' ass roots from their government chairs and send them forth kicking and screaming to the private sector. Those chairs can then be sterilized and filled with talented people having new ideas to move SD forward. It has been 42 years now since Gov. Kneip came in and did the same thing. The state is ripe for a party change in the Governor's office.

  4. Steve Sibson 2013.02.13

    "The simple political math is that when you add the absurdity to the problem, your sum is all about the reason that the GOP has lost a substantial share of the female vote"

    You might want to try that debate point on the female legislators who are on the bill, including the prime on the Senate side of the chamber.

    Sad that the communists use a democracy to vote away due process rights by those who have been indoctrinated in the schools with their (I am banned from using the correct label by teh owner of this blog) propaganda, who are now voters. Sad that they would use "fear" tactics to scare women into thinking the pro-life movement is dangerous to women. Just like you use "fear" tactics to say guns are evil and we need to ban them, again disregarding constitutional rights found in a "Constitutional Republic" versus the communist "democracy" that we heard Dictator Obama mention last night.

  5. larry kurtz 2013.02.13

    thank you for helping us kill the GOP, sib: it's almost over.

  6. Steve Sibson 2013.02.13

    "thank you for helping us kill the GOP, sib: it's almost over."

    thank you for helping kill the Constitutional Republic, Larry: it's almost over.

  7. larry kurtz 2013.02.13

    a daily regimen of yoga and cannabis helps me to have the patience to watch you christians off yourselves one by one, sib then we'll heal the constitutional republic so we can add more states to the union.

  8. caheidelberger Post author | 2013.02.13

    Amanda! Go get 'em! Owen, buy that gal some lunch!

  9. caheidelberger Post author | 2013.02.13

    R, could candidate Herseth Sandlin bring some more Dem legislators on her coattails to stop the abortion legislation madness?

  10. caheidelberger Post author | 2013.02.13

    Steve, the point about support among women is statistical. You can find women in every state who support giving up their equal citizenship and submitting their bodies to the service of the state (what? did someone say communism? tyranny?). But Tsitrian is right: over time, over large populations, GOP anti-women's-rights policies will lose them elections, and pretty Kristi Noems and misguided Betty Olsons, Melissa Magstadts, Jackie Slys, and Phyllis Heinemans (that's four female sponsors out of 20 total) won't stop the broader political trend that Tsitrian sees keeping my man Obama and future pols of similar bent in power.

  11. Rorschach 2013.02.13

    Cory,

    Candidate Herseth Sandlin would generate real excitement in SD. She would bring in more Democratic legislators in 2014, but still more in 2016. Governor Kneip ushered in (and out) a Democratic majority, but that followed his initial election. I'm not predicting a Democratic legislative majority for Governor Herseth Sandlin. But she should have a working majority in the legislature between Democrats and pragmatic Republicans (based upon public support for reasonable policies). And she has just the right approach to make that happen. In 2014, the Governor's race is the right race for her. That's where she can make the greatest difference for SD.

  12. Bill Dithmer 2013.02.13

    I was just over to one of Gordon H as in how can I get out of my taxes, Howie's blogs. There his guest crap spouter Big Wheel Bobby Ellis had something all women should know about. Its the possible senate run by the one and only sooth sayer and rape analyzer bad Bill Napoli. You remember him don't ya.

    BILL NAPOLI: A real-life description to me would be a rape victim, brutally raped, savaged. The girl was a virgin. She was religious. She planned on saving her virginity until she was married. She was brutalized and raped, sodomized as bad as you can possibly make it, and is impregnated. I mean, that girl could be so messed up, physically and psychologically, that carrying that child could very well threaten her life.

    You talk about disturbing I almost lost my turkey sanny. If the republican party has to choose between Mike I'll do anything I can to keep the insurance money coming in Rounds, and Bill its only rape if you are the right religion Napoli, it should be an interesting campaign.

    Where the hell are all the good republicans that used to live here?

    The Blindman

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