Alaska News

Republicans escalate war on women

When I've jumped the gun, I apologize for the bullet. So let me say I'm sorry.

Last May I was very critical of Rep. Carl Gatto of Palmer. Rep. Gatto proposed House Bill 88. It said our state courts couldn't apply a foreign law, Sharia law specifically, if it would violate an individual's constitutional rights.

As of May 2011, when Rep. Gatto introduced his bill, he couldn't actually name any examples of a foreign religion trying to trump the law of Alaska. Nevertheless, he was "concerned about cultures that are vastly different from European immigrants, who come here and prefer to maintain their specific laws from their previous countries."

Yes, those Muslim Alaskans are a pretty big problem, composing as they do less than 1 percent of our population and having then not yet broken ground on their first mosque. Leave it to that old bird dog Rep. Gatto to spot the threat of foreign religions bossing around our American or Alaska courts.

Personally I don't know whom to root for: the burqas seem to be losing to the cassocks. The Catholic Church, based in Italy, as you know, is a foreign religion imported to America by immigrants, and it's pushing hard to impose itself on the country.

Gatto! To the parapets!

The war on women in America has been upgraded to holy war. Call it the va-jihad.

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Republican candidates are racing to out-"pro-life" one another while bleating for war on Iran. Long passed is the conversation about legal abortion. Now the front-runner, Rick Santorum, has doubled down on birth control. He says it's harmful to our society.

His adviser and principal financial backer, Foster Friess, says, "Back in my days they used Bayer aspirin for contraceptives. The gals put it between their knees and it wasn't that costly." (Apparently he forgot the condom vending machines in the men's rooms.)

No, this is not a bad comedy sketch -- although it is a joke -- and it's not the only lunacy from the current crop of GOP presidential candidates and supporters.

Virginia passed a law requiring any woman seeking an abortion to undergo a trans-vaginal ultrasound. It's every bit as invasive as it sounds. That's right, liberty-lovin' GOP legislators mandating medical procedures and requiring patients to pay. Talk about the government sticking its nose where it doesn't belong ...

Alaska's Senate minority leader, John Coghill of North Pole, has introduced a similar bill. He says, "If people understood a little bit more about what's going on in the womb, they might reconsider (an abortion)."

I'm pretty sure women know what being pregnant means, Dr. Coghill. Sens. Charlie Huggins, Cathy Giessel and Fred Dyson have all signed in support.

You can't trust a woman with a choice, but somehow you know she'll be a good mother?

Oklahoma legislators passed a bill giving full legal rights to fertilized eggs.

The U.S. House of Representatives held a hearing on birth control this week, but women weren't allowed to testify.

A New Hampshire senator declared that birth control pills cause prostate cancer in men. "The women take the pill, it's in their body ... the men are picking it up."

Think about that for a minute. (Obviously the senator didn't.)

A huge majority of American Catholic women, as well as women of all faiths, have used birth control. The Republican Party seems determined to drag all of us back decades, if not centuries, by politicizing access to family planning.

All of this in a cynical, political effort to gin up a fake war on religious freedom to arouse voters uninspired by the GOP field -- and in the process launch an actual war on women.

It turns out that the real reason we need "small government" is so it will fit inside a uterus.

Clearly, contraception is the major crisis facing America -- now that the economy is humming along, there are jobs for everyone, health care costs are falling, test scores are skyrocketing, the troops are safe at home and the world is at peace.

Shannyn Moore can be heard weekdays from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. and 5 to 9 p.m. on KOAN 1020 AM and 95.5 FM radio. Her weekly TV show can be seen Saturdays and Sundays at 3 p.m. on KYUR Channel 13.

SHANNYN MOORE

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Shannyn Moore

Shannyn Moore is a radio broadcaster.

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