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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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Rachel Maddow tore into Mississippi Republicans and their Gov. Phil Bryant, who claim to be "small government" conservatives, for using government regulations to shut down the state's last abortion clinic, regardless of the fact that it's supposed to still be legal in the United States. They all claim to hate those pesky regulations, unless it means using them to target women's reproductive health for ideological reasons.

As she noted, unless something changes, come January, they will have succeeded in essentially making abortion illegal in their state: Mississippi’s Only Abortion Clinic Could Be Forced To Close In January:

Jackson Women’s Health Organization — the only abortion clinic in the entire state of Mississippi — has been fighting to remain open after Republican legislators, aiming to force the clinic to close, passed a restrictive regulation requiring its doctors to secure hospital admitting privileges. A Bush-appointed federal judge temporarily blocked the measure in July to give the clinic’s doctors more time to apply for privileges at area hospitals, but that order expires in early January. And so far, all seven hospitals in the area have denied privileges to the doctors.

The Center for Reproductive Rights filed a motion Wednesday asking a judge to stop the law from being implemented — and forcing the clinic to stop providing abortion care — before January 6, 2013. If it closes, women in Mississippi will no longer have access to abortion in the state: [...]

Hospitals reportedly denied privileges to clinic doctors because the fact that they provide abortion services “is inconsistent with this Hospital’s policies and practices as concerns abortion and, in particular, elective abortions.” Mississippi has the highest teen pregnancy rate in the nation, as well as the lowest abortion rate.

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From this Wednesday evening's The Tonight Show, President Obama went after Indiana Senate candidate Richard Mourdock and his comments about conception from rape being "God's will."

Obama tells Leno: 'Rape is rape':

Asked by host Jay Leno about Mourdock's comments, in which the Indiana state treasurer said during a debate Tuesday evening that "even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape that it is something God intended to happen," the president said "rape is rape."

"I don't know how these, come up with these ideas ... rape is rape. It is a crime," the president said. "These various distinctions about rape ... don't make any sense to me."

Mourdock, an Evangelical Christian, says abortion should only be legal when necessary to prevent the death of the mother. He argues it should be illegal in cases of rape and incest. Many who share his faith believe God chooses when conception occurs and that abortion is equivalent to murder.

In a press conference Wednesday, Mourdock accused Democrats of twisting the meaning of his comments.

"I would be less than faithful to my faith if I said anything other than life is precious. I think it is a gift from God. I don't think God would ever want anyone harmed, sexually abused, or raped. I think it's wrong when someone wants to take what I said and twist it," Mourdock said.

The Obama campaign aggressively criticized Mourdock's comments throughout the day Wednesday, and sent an email to female supporters in the evening linking Mourdock to Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

"Not surprisingly, Romney is still standing by his endorsement and is refusing to ask that [an ad featuring Mourdock and Romney] be pulled down," deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter wrote in the email. "It's a grim reminder of something he's trying desperately to hide in the final weeks of this election: Romney has campaigned as a severe conservative, supports severely conservative candidates, and would be a severely conservative president -- especially on issues important to women."

The Romney campaign on Wednesday said that the presidential nominee disagreed with Mourdock's comments, but would not ask the Senate candidate to take down an ad featuring Romney.

President Obama also reminded the viewers just what's at stake this election with a couple of Supreme Court nominations potentially in the balance and that keeping organizations like Planned Parenthood funded and allowing women to control their own reproductive rights are not just health issues, but economic and family issues as well.

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From this Wednesday evening's Democratic National Convention, activist Sandra Fluke laid out the stark choices we face when it comes to women's reproductive rights in the upcoming election.

Some of you may remember that earlier this year, Republicans shut me out of a hearing on contraception. In fact, on that panel, they didn't hear from a single woman, even though they were debating an issue that affects nearly every woman. Because it happened in Congress, people noticed. But it happens all the time. Many women are shut out and silenced. So while I'm honored to be standing at this podium, it easily could have been any one of you. I'm here because I spoke out, and this November, each of us must do the same.

During this campaign, we've heard about the two profoundly different futures that could await women—and how one of those futures looks like an offensive, obsolete relic of our past. Warnings of that future are not distractions. They're not imagined. That future could be real.

In that America, your new president could be a man who stands by when a public figure tries to silence a private citizen with hateful slurs. Who won't stand up to the slurs, or to any of the extreme, bigoted voices in his own party. It would be an America in which you have a new vice president who co-sponsored a bill that would allow pregnant women to die preventable deaths in our emergency rooms. An America in which states humiliate women by forcing us to endure invasive ultrasounds we don't want and our doctors say we don't need. An America in which access to birth control is controlled by people who will never use it; in which politicians redefine rape so survivors are victimized all over again; in which someone decides which domestic violence victims deserve help, and which don't. We know what this America would look like. In a few short months, it's the America we could be. But it's not the America we should be. It's not who we are.

We've also seen another future we could choose. First of all, we'd have the right to choose. It's an America in which no one can charge us more than men for the exact same health insurance; in which no one can deny us affordable access to the cancer screenings that could save our lives; in which we decide when to start our families. An America in which our president, when he hears a young woman has been verbally attacked, thinks of his daughters—not his delegates or donors—and stands with all women. And strangers come together, reach out and lift her up. And then, instead of trying to silence her, you invite me here—and give me a microphone—to amplify our voice. That's the difference.

Over the last six months, I've seen what these two futures look like. And six months from now, we'll all be living in one, or the other. But only one. A country where our president either has our back or turns his back; a country that honors our foremothers by moving us forward, or one that forces our generation to re-fight the battles they already won; a country where we mean it when we talk about personal freedom, or one where that freedom doesn't apply to our bodies and our voices.

We talk often about choice. Well, ladies and gentlemen, it's time to choose.

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Regardless of the right's continued attacks and insults against activist Sandra Fluke, I for one and happy to see such an articulate and smart young woman speaking out for women and their issues at this year's Democratic National Convention.

As MSNBC's Ed Schultz, who caught up with Fluke on the Monday evening before the convention pointed out, the Republican National Convention wasn't exactly a big hit and didn't move the needle for Republicans with women, or with anyone else for that matter, and he asked Fluke what she thought of their event.

Fluke is exactly right that women don't care about who gets put on the podium at these events. They care about the policies. We didn't hear anything mentioned at the Republican convention about women's health care, equal pay, reproductive rights, or violence against women. We got a vice presidential candidate with an absolutely horrid voting record in that regard and who wants to do things like change the definition of rape. And from the speakers, lots of empty platitudes about how much they love women, but not much else or much evidence to support that assertion when you take a good look at their policies and their platform.

I think we can say that Fluke's presence, among others who will speak as well, proves Bill Kristol's theory wrong that Democrats aren't going to focus on social issues during the rest of this presidential campaign. Schultz gave Fluke a chance to respond to Bill O'Reilly disgusting remarks that the convention was going to drop condoms from the ceiling when Fluke spoke and as usual, she kept it polite and classy with her response. I can't say the same for O'Reilly. He seems to have the maturity of about a 12 year old boy.

From this Monday evening's The Rachel Maddow Show, Rachel reminds us that Rep. Todd Akin is just the latest in a long line of Republicans who have been arguing about rape victims rights. What used to be considered the fringe of the party has now been mainstreamed. And that goes right up the presidential ticket with Romney's running mate Paul Ryan.

As Rachel pointed out, Ryan was right there with Akin with everything from sponsoring these personhood bills, to outlawing in vitro fertilization and many forms of birth control to redefining the definition of rape. And now the party is trying to throw Akin under the bus before the rest of the country starts paying attention to just how extreme Ryan and his positions are. Sorry guys, but the cat's out of the bag.

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U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia says that the pivotal decision which reversed a law that prohibited women from using contraception is not supported under his interpretation of the Constitution.

During an interview on Sunday, Fox News host Chris Wallace asked Scalia why he believed that it is a "lie" that women have a Constitutional right to abortion.

"Nobody ever thought that the America people voted to prohibit limitations on abortions," the 76-year-old conservative justice explained. "There's nothing in the Constitution that says that."

"What about the right to privacy that the court found in 1965?" Wallace pressed.

"There's no right to privacy in the Constitution -- no generalized right to privacy," Scalia insisted.

"Well, in the Griswold case, the court said there was," Wallace pointed out.

"Yeah, it did," Scalia agreed. "And that was wrong."

Under the principle of originalism, the Constitution "simple doesn't cover" abortion," he added. "Which means it's left to -- it's left to democratic choice as most things are, even important things like abortion."

In its 1965 Griswold v. Connecticut decision, the court found that Connecticut could not prohibit the use of contraception because people have a "right to marital privacy."

From NetrootsNationVideo and their channel on You Tube:

Darcy Burner gives a keynote at the Friday mid day plenary, "2012 and the War on (and for) Women" Netroots Nation 2012 in Providence, Rhode Island.

Here's more from their recap on KOS: Recap: 2012 and the War on (and for) Women.

Our sister site, Occupy America, is offering livestreaming from Netroots Nation.

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As our friends over at Raw Story noted this weekend, Rachel Maddow took the House Republicans to task for continuing to pretend that they care about job creation in America, when apparently all they're willing to vote on is one abortion restricting bill after another to drum up their base for the next election.

Maddow blasts GOP for talking about jobs while legislating against women:

In an unusually blunt and plain-spoken segment on Friday night’s “The Rachel Maddow Show,” host Rachel Maddow tore into Republicans for claiming that they care about jobs numbers when all they actually do on Capitol Hill is try to pass more and more laws restricting abortion, even when they know those bills are doomed to fail.

Thursday saw the release of disappointing jobs numbers, which has been a blow to the Obama administration. Republicans seized on the news and responded with a PR blitz, criticizing President Barack Obama and his economic policies.

A closer look at the numbers, however, shows that the jobs being lost are government and other public sector jobs, losses that are coming about as a result of Republican austerity programs and budget cuts. The very drop in jobs numbers that the GOP is decrying is a result of its own policies, said Maddow.

And yet, for all their talk about jobs, their only consistent legislative focus has been anti-abortion legislation.

As they noted in their post, Republicans knew the legislation would likely fail, but they wanted to make Democrats vote on it anyway. Maddow wrapped her commentary with this:

This bill, Republican leadership conceded, would probably fail as well, but, said Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ), “I think we’re doing the right thing strategically” by forcing Democrats to vote against it.

“So, we know it will fail,” said Maddow, “but we like making Democrats vote on abortion anyway. It just feels good. Also, it passes the time! Jobs, jobs, jobs!”

Continue reading »

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As we already discussed here, Republicans in the House forced a vote on their ridiculous gender-based abortion bill this week. Chris Matthews invited Rep. Cliff Stearns on his show, who defended the bill on the basis that Europe and Asia supported such measures. After being hammered by Matthews on why they're always going after the doctors instead of the women who have abortions, he got Stearns to admit that he'd like to see women face criminal charges for having abortions.

GOP Congressman: Women Who Undergo Abortions Should Face Criminal Charges:

Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL) unwilling admitted to MSNBC’s Chris Matthews on Friday afternoon that he believed women who receive abortions should face criminal charges. “I think the punishment should certainly be very serious,” he said. “It should be more than a civil case. It should be something very serious”:

MATTHEWS: So it should be a criminal matter for the woman as well as the doctor?

STEARNS: I think so. You are killing an embryo and in some cases you are killing an embryo that is four or five months into gestation.

As Rep. Donna Edwards pointed out earlier in the interview, this is just another attempt by Republicans to roll back women's reproductive rights and it's asking doctors to be mind readers. One issue that wasn't discussed here is the fact that most abortions are preformed well before anyone can determine the sex of a fetus and that it's ridiculous to pretend that there's some sort of wide spread problem with women waiting around to find out what the gender of their child might be before having an abortion. As Edwards noted during the interview as well, it's a solution for a problem that doesn't exist here.

No one is forcing women to have abortions for population control in the United States and Matthews alluded to that earlier in the interview when he reminded Stearns that China is not a country that is anti-abortion.

As the post from Think Progress noted, here's how Matthews responded to Stearns' assertion that they have this rule in Europe and Asia, and asking why we can't do the same in the United States:

But Matthews responded succinctly, saying, “it’s always amazing when you guys on the right want to import the values of other countries. Any time we do it, any time a liberal tries to do it, you say they’re bringing foreign values into this country.”

I'll be happy to see Congressmen like Stearns keep talking this way, because even in areas of the country where you have the majority of voters against abortion, they don't want to be throwing women in jail for it. He's a reminder of just how extreme the Republican Party has become on this issue. Normally you never get them to admit something like this on camera.