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Republican state senators in Wisconsin on Wednesday silenced Democratic lawmakers while passing a bill requiring women to undergo an ultrasound procedure before being able to receive an abortion.

Wednesday's Senate session began with state Sen. Kathleen Vinehout (D) reading letters from several constituents who opposed the bill.

"The idea of -- quote -- small government is in direct conflict with big government Republicans sticking their nose my vagina," one voter named Suzanne wrote. "How can we get the conservatives -- mostly men -- to quit blaming women, many times girls, solely for unwanted pregnancies?"

A second letter pointed out that the bill's provision excluding rape and incest would not be effective because only 16 percent of rapes were reported to police.

Vinehout said that she had been touched by the letters because she had also been a victim of sexual assault at the age of 15.

"And if we truly want to make abortion rare, Mr. President, why are we defunding Planned Parenthood?" the Alma Democrat asked.

Republican state Sen. Mary Lazich, who sponsored the legislation, however, encouraged her fellow lawmakers to ignore "the theatrics surrounding" Vinehout's presentation and then launched into an impassioned speech of her own.

"If you have a loved one that's thinking about terminating their pregnancy, for crying out loud, you want them to have full information, you want them to have an ultrasound, you want them to know what's going on in that womb and what they're doing, and that they're not going to be able to change that for the rest of their life!" she exclaimed. "They make that decision, it's over! It's over in a few minutes. And then later on they can live with the fact that they terminated their pregnancy and it was the best thing for them or they killed their child and they made a horrific decision and they regret it and they wish they never would have done it!"

Following Lazich's remarks, Democrats tried to continue debate but Senate President Mike Ellis (R) called for a vote.

"It's non-debatable! Call the roll!" he shouted. "You're out of order!"

"You're out of order!" someone on the Senate floor shouted back.

"You're interrupting a roll call! Sit down! Right now!" Ellis yelled, repeatedly banging his gavel in anger.

"I understand you're afraid of this debate," Minority Leader Chris Larson (D) reportedly said, but his microphone was cut off, according to The Associated Press.

In the end, the bill passed 17 to 15 along party lines. It was immediately referred to the state Assembly, and Gov. Scott Walker (R) has said that he will sign it into law.

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Republican state Rep. Ann Clemmer on Wednesday explained that Arkansas lawmakers were "not eliminating choice at all" by overriding Democratic Gov. Mike Beebe's veto of a ban on abortions after the 12th week of pregnancy.

"I really believe that we are not eliminating choice at all," Clemmer told KUAR. "We're just saying after 12 weeks, the choice is over. You have a choice for the first 12 weeks. That's almost three months. We're talking the second trimester here -- we're talking about second trimester abortions."

Benton also insisted to the public radio station that her bill, which is the most restrictive abortion ban in the nation, would not jeopardize women's health.

"I don't think that having an abortion aids a woman's health," she said. "I don't know under what circumstances having an abortion aids a woman's health because this bill deals with women who have serious health issues, this bill deals with babies who have lethal fetal disorders and it deals with rape and incest."

The Arkansas House on Wednesday overrode Beebe's veto by a vote of 56 to 33. The state Senate have voted to override it just one day earlier.

Before the vote, Clemmer argued that Republicans should support the abortion ban because state law declared "a 12-week-old baby in utero a person … [whose] life is to be protected not only from a third party, but from a mother herself."

A federal judge on Wednesday found for the first time that a 20-week abortion ban in Idaho was unconstitutional because it put "an absolute obstacle" the the path of women seeking abortions.

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As Rachel Maddow noted in her segment above, it looks like Indiana Gov. Mike Pence may be set to follow in Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell's shoes and take over the title of Governor Ultrasound if he ends up supporting this bill that just passed his state's Senate.

Indiana Bill Would Force Women To Undergo Two Transvaginal Probes To Take A Pill (UPDATED):

A medication abortion pill, officially known as RU-486, is the earliest available abortion option for a woman. A patient could be as little as one week pregnant and take the pill to terminate. But despite the incredibly early stage at which the pill is administered, a new bill proposed in the Indiana State Senate would require women to undergo a transvaginal ultrasound before they are permitted to simply swallow the medication.

Indiana’s effort follows a sweeping national trend to mandate the medically unnecessary and invasive procedure as a way to create barriers to abortion access. And theirs goes a step further, by also forcing clinics that administer the pill to meet all of the same requirements as a surgical abortion clinic: [...]

UPDATE: Indiana’s bill is actually twice as invasive as most forced ultrasound bills, the Huffington Post reports. The version that advanced out of a Senate committee today would require women to undergo two transvaginal probes — before and after taking the abortion pill. There’s no medically necessary reason to require an ultrasound after an abortion procedure, since women can simply take a blood test to see whether their hormone levels have returned to normal to verify that they are no longer pregnant.

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A Republican lawmaker in Alabama says that he wants to pursue a so-called "personhood" bill outlawing abortion rights for women because the Bible proves that a fetus "is life inside of a mother," but he's not sure if "aborted babies" are going to Heaven or Hell.

In a recent interview with the Times-Journal, state Sen. Shadrack McGill lamented that "you can be charged up to $250,000 for destroying an eagle egg, but you can destroy babies in the womb?"

McGill explained that his interpretation of Psalm 22 made it clear that life began at fertilization.

"Just based on the Scripture alone, the Psalm that talks about God knowing us before he placed us in our mother’s womb, is enough for me to know that that is a life inside of a mother," he said.

"So my question concerning aborted babies is, where do they go, heaven or hell?"

State Sen. Phil Williams (R), who has sponsored "personhood" bills during the last two legislative sessions, recently told The Anniston Star that he was reluctant to bring it up again.

Past bills had reportedly failed because many worried that they would have given rights to embyros created in fertility clinics, effectively banning in-vitro fertilization as well as some forms of contraception.

"I sympathize with the folks who have had to go the expensive route of the in-vitro process, and thank God for that knowledge that the doctors possess," McGill opined to the Times-Journal. "My understanding of that process is they fertilize 10 eggs in a petri dish. Basically they take three of the strongest and insert those into the womb, into the mother, and pray for the best."

"If the mother conceives, then what do you do with the seven remaining fertilized eggs?" he pointed out, adding that he had suggested that Williams reword the bill to include only "fertilization inside the mother’s womb."

"And I never had peace about that," McGill admitted. “That’s what we tried and that failed.”

The Republican lawmaker hoped that future legislation would force doctors to implant all fertilized eggs in the potential mother.

“That union between the sperm and the egg is where life begins, and maybe where God places his spirit inside that child, so to speak,” McGill insisted. “Therefore, I would hope that the legislation that we push in the future would state that all the eggs fertilized need to be placed in the mother’s womb.”

(h/t: Salon, RH Reality Check)

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Conservative columnist Ann Coulter says that if newspapers are going to publish the names of people who have gun permits then they should also publish the names of women who had abortions because "mothers might want to know what other women on their street might be willing to murder a child."

New York newspaper The Journal News earlier this week said that it would hire armed guards after receiving threats -- including an envelope of "suspicious white powder" -- that could have been retaliation for publishing the names of gun permit holders in Westchester and Rockland counties. The newspaper has defended its decision by insisting that readers had a right to know who owned guns in their area in light of the recent mass shooting in Newtown, Connecticut.

Fox News host Sean Hannity, however, told Coulter that the situation was "really dangerous" because criminal who wanted to "rape, rob and steal" could find out which residents did not own guns.

"This is a wake up call to New York state," Coulter agreed. "To make these a public record has got to be changed."

"Why aren't we getting the names of recently paroled criminals?" she wondered. "People with gun permits, by definition, do not have criminal records. Why can't we get the criminal records?"

Coulter continued: "Why can't we get a record of women who have had abortions? They get money from Planned Parenthood, they get money from Medicare, from Medicaid. Much of this is tax subsidies. I think mothers might want to know what other women on their street might be willing to murder a child."

The conservative columnist went on to call for the names of people living in rent-controlled apartments and the names of "rich liberals" who had bodyguards with guns.

"They will not release the names of people who have been convicted of crimes, they will not be doing anything about manifestly crazy people. No, no, no. We have to let Billy Bob walk the streets of Manhattan, defecate in the street. You have the ACLU defending crazy people. All of these shoot ups, these precious protections for obviously mentally disturbed individuals. There is certainly no effort to reduce single motherhood, something that is also a contributing factor in many of these cases."

"Liberals won't let us go after the criminals," she added. "No, they specifically try to harm people who by definition do not have criminal records so that their guns can be stolen by criminals!"

Two Kansas abortion clinics in 2009 asked the state Supreme Court to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Attorney General Phill Kline after Fox News host Bill O'Reilly said that he had obtained the names of women who had abortions in the state.

Advocates say that leaking patients records violates the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), which requires that medical providers get permission before disclosing medical history.

(h/t: Mediaite)

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The first and only 2012 vice presidential debate was historic in that both Vice President Joe Biden and Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan were both Catholics, but the two men could not have been more different on the issue of reproductive rights for women.

"My faith informs me about how to take care of the vulnerable, about how to make sure people have a chance in life," Ryan explained. "You want to ask why I'm pro-life? It's not simply because of my Catholic faith. That's a factor, of course. But it's also because of reason and science."

The Republican candidate told a story about seeing the ultrasound for his first child to drive the point home.

"We saw that heartbeat. A little baby was in the shape of bean. And to this day, we have nicknamed our first-born child, Liza, bean," he recalled. "The policy of a Romney administration will be to oppose abortion with the exceptions of incest and life of the mother."

Biden, on the other hand, said that his religion had informed his "social doctrine," but he only accepted the church's abortion prohibitions in his personal life.

"But I refuse to impose it on equally devout Christians and Muslims and Jews," he said. "I just refuse to impose that on others, like my friend here, the congressman. I do not believe that we have a right to tell other people -- women -- that they can't control their body. It's a decision between them and their doctor in my view."

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Former President Bill Clinton literally jumped up and down on Tuesday while jabbing Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney for appearing to move to the center after months of campaigning as a "severe conservative."

During a campaign appearance for President Barack Obama in Las Vegas, Clinton noted that he had a different reaction to last week's debate, which many thought that Romney had won.

"I thought, 'Wow, here's old moderate Mitt. Where ya been, boy? I missed ya all these last two years,'" the former president quipped.

"Now, the problem with this deal is the deal was made by severe conservative Mitt," Clinton continued. "That was how he described himself for two whole years, until three or four days before the debate -- they all got together and said, 'Hey, man, this ship is sinking faster than the Titanic... so just show up with a sunny face and say, I didn't say all that stuff I said in the last two years. You gonna believe me or your lying eyes here? Come on.'"

"And if I had been the president, I might have said, 'I hate to get in the way of this, I miss you,'" he added.

In an interview with the Des Moines Register on Tuesday, Romney continued softening his positions, claiming that he had no intentions to restrict abortion rights.

"There’s no legislation with regards to abortion that I’m familiar with that would become part of my agenda," he told the paper's editorial board.

Romney's website, however, promises that the former Massachusetts governor would appoint Supreme Court justices to reverse Rov. v. Wade and eliminate all federal funding for Planned Parenthood. In 2007, Romney said that he would be "delighted" to sign a bill banning all abortions nationwide because it would be "terrific."

(h/t: The Daily Beast)

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In a campaign speech that appeared to be a throwback to the 2008 presidential election, Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan said on Tuesday that he was "happy to be clinging to my guns and my religion," and even gave a shout out to "Joe the Plumber."

Ryan told supporters in Carnegie, Pennsylvania that "every now and then President [Barack] Obama sort of drops his veil."

"Remember back in 2008, remember the guy 'Joe the Plumber,' remember when [Obama] said, we want to spread the wealth around?" the Wisconsin congressman recalled, referring to Samuel Wurzelbacher, who was made into a conservative celebrity by GOP candidates John McCain and Sarah Palin. "It's this belief that the economy is some fixed pie, that there's only so much money in America -- it's fixed -- and that the job of the government is to redistribute the slices of the pie. That's not true."

"Remember this other time, where [Obama] was caught on video saying, people like to cling to their guns and their religion?" Ryan continued. "Hey, I'm a Catholic deer hunter! I am happy to be clinging to my guns and my religion."

"The idea of America is essentially this: Our rights, they come from nature and God, not from government."

Ryan's remarks about guns and religion seemed to echo a 2008 campaign speech where Palin attacked Obama over the suggestion that economic conditions cause people to become "bitter" and "cling to guns or religion."

"And there must be something about San Francisco and [Obama]," Palin told a crowd in Ohio. "Because it’s like I heard on Fox News today, it’s like a truth serum, where when he’s there he seems to be more candid. Remember it was there that he talking about, there you go, the bitter clingers. The cling-ons, all of us, I guess, hanging on to religion and guns."

Ryan's focus on social issues comes at a time when he is taking heat for his connections to Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO), who recently apologized for the suggestion that women could not get pregnant from "legitimate" rape. Both men had co-sponsored a bill that critics say would have redefined rape by allowing only victims of so-called “forcible rape” to qualify for federally funded abortions.

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Mitt Romney's senior campaign adviser, Eric Fehrnstrom, on Sunday said that social issues important to women, like contraception coverage and abortion rights, were "shiny objects" that were being used to distract voters.

David Plouffe, one of President Barack Obama's top aides, last week told New York Magazine that Democrats needed to be clear about what a Romney presidency would mean for women's rights and other social issues.

"Potentially abortion will be criminalized," Plouffe said."Women will be denied contraceptive services. He’s far right on immigration. He supports efforts to amend the Constitution to ban gay marriage."

On Sunday, Fehrnstrom insisted that the Obama campaign strategy was not going to work.

"Mitt Romney is pro-life," the senior adviser admitted to ABC's George Stephanopoulos. "He'll govern as a pro-life president, but you're going to see the Democrats use all sorts of shiny objects to distract people's attention from the Obama performance on the economy. This is not a social issue election."

Obama Deputy Campaign Manager Stephanie Cutter noted that Romney had promoted his social policies throughout the primary season.

"If it's not a social issue election then why did Mitt Romney just spend the last year campaigning on social issues?" she wondered. "These are his positions that he's taken. Whether it's giving bosses control over whether female employees can get contraception, being for the so-called personhood amendment that would ban all forms of abortion or telling the American people that he'll get back to them on whether he supports Lilly Ledbetter [Fair Pay Act] -- which is an economic issue and it should be a no-brainer, but the governor couldn't even bring himself to be for that."

"I think that getting rid of Planned Parenthood or a number of other social issues that the governor injected into the campaign -- I think that women don't like that intrusion," she added. "What Mitt Romney is really saying that he's going to do is he's going to use government to intrude into their lives. And I think that they resent that."

While Romney still leads Romney 51-40 among female voters, the GOP hopeful has rebounded by 13 points since early May, according to an ABC News/Washinton Post poll released last week.

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It appears the House Republicans, this time lead by Arizona Rep. Trent Franks are about to give us a sort of a rerun of the Sandra Fluke debacle, only this time the woman they're refusing to allow to testify before a Congressional hearing is D.C.'s only elected representative, Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton:

Trent Franks Blocks D.C. Representative From Testifying About Proposed D.C. Abortion Ban:

Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) wants to restrict abortions in the District of Columbia, but he refuses to allow D.C.’s delegate from testifying on behalf of the city’s residents during a hearing about his proposal. Franks’ “fetal pain” bill would ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy in D.C. even though there is no scientific proof that a fetus can feel pain at that point and a fetus is not viable.

Del. Eleanor Norton (D), D.C.’s only elected represetative, asked Franks last week if she could testify about the bill at an upcoming Thursday hearing. Franks denied her request, which Norton said breaks tradition of allowing members of Congress to testify about a bill that affects their constituents. Similarly, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) prevented women from testifying on a panel about contraception back in February.

Norton told the Huffington Post that her constituents are “up in arms” about the proposed abortion ban:

“This is the first bill in history that attempts to take the residents of the District of Columbia outside of the protection of the Constitution,” she continued. “The right to have an abortion until viability is a mandated right under Roe v. Wade. I think it takes a lot of nerve to single out the constituents of another member’s district for discriminatory treatment, and we deeply resent it.” [...]

D.C. is an easy target for anti-abortion bills, Norton said, because it doesn’t have any elected officials who can vote in Congress.

“Why wouldn’t they put this bill in for the entire country if they feel so deeply about it?”

In December, House Republicans forced a ban on funding for abortion services in D.C. to avoid a government shutdown and even prevented the city from using local taxes to pay for abortion care, reinstating a 13-year ban on abortion funding in D.C. that President Obama overturned in 2009.

Del. Norton spoke to MSNBC's Rachel Maddow about the upcoming hearing in the video clip above.