You may have caught my diary last week about John MacGovern, the Republican candidate for U.S. Senate who is so anti-choice that he even favors forcing a woman to carry her rapist's baby to term.
Obviously he has no chance against Bernie Sanders, which is a good thing, but I just learned something very troubling.
It turns out that MacGovern's campaign manager, Paul Dame, is running against Democrats Tim Jerman and Linda Waite-Simpson for the House seat for the Chittenden 8-2 (Essex Junction).
Does Dame share the extreme anti-choice position that his Senate candidate is pushing?
There's a candidates' forum this afternoon at 3:30 at the Brownell Public Library. If you're going it might be a good idea to ask Mr. Dame if he supports the extreme views of Mr. MacGovern, and if he doesn't, why he's trying to get him elected to the U.S. Senate.
The common rejoinder in Vermont to pointing out anti-woman, anti-choice stances on abortion is to suggest that anti-abortion bills will not come up in the legislature, so holding such opinions does not matter in public discourse.
The point here is that such stances show how these men (and it’s nearly always men) regard women as not-quite-full citizens who are not to be allowed medical privacy rights.
[Aside: Imagine if men could be charged with murder every time they masturbate to ejaculation (a biblical possibility, see Genesis 38:3-10: Onan was killed by God’s will because he spilled his seed on the ground).]
And there are frequent attempts to chip away at women’s right to medical privacy in choosing whether to bear a child. Parental notification was one such, not so long ago. Current attempts in other states involve declarations of fetal “personhood,” imposition of additional penalties for assaults on women who are pregnant, or stringent regulations aimed squarely at reducing the number of medical offices that provide abortions.
Every healthcare bill or vote that comes up – and there will be many over the next few years – is an opportunity for extremists to try to impose their religious values on the rest of us. How many times this year have you heard Republican candidates in federal and state election contests say that their first priority in healthcare is making sure there will be no public funding for any services provided by Planned Parenthood?
The continuing and crucial question: Is this a person you want in the legislature making decisions about healthcare for women?
NanuqFC
Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction. ~ Blaise Pascal