House GOP Bans Abortions After 20 Weeks, Unemployment Rate Somehow Unaffected

To the complete surprise of no Wonketeers anywhere, the House of Representatives yesterday passed their bill aimed atalienating women everywhereoutlawing abortions after 20 weeks. The effort, nothing more than an empty gesture to throw red meat to anti-choice whackadoos, has been a calamitous clusterfuck of epic proportions from start to finish. But before we review just how awful the Republicans have been, let’s see the final score, via TPM :

House Republicans passed legislation to ban abortions nationwide after 20 weeks of pregnancy.

The final vote was 228-196; six Democrats and six Republicans crossed party lines.

The Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act carves out exemptions to protect the life of the mother, and for cases of rape and incest as long as the crimes have been reported. It won’t go any further because Democrats control the Senate and White House. But it is invigorating both sides of a culture war that has deeply divided the country for generations.

War on Women part 532, here we come! Because fucking with women’s rights worked out so well for the GOP in 2012, eh, President Romney?

The shitshow began when Rep. Trent Franks (R – always ‘R’, people) did his best (worst?) Todd Akin impression. Our own Kaili summed it up best :

[H]e went full-on Todd Akin , and jumped on the magic ladyparts theory bandwagon, dumbsplaining that “the incidence of rape resulting in pregnancy are very low.” (Yes, that would be another time-honored tradition among Republicans of saying JAW-DROPPINGLY STUPID SHIT about rape.)

Apparently neither Todd Akin nor Trent Franks realized that 1) they are giant piles of stoopid, or 2) they are pulling from “science” that is not only dead wrong, but perpetrated by actual, literal Nazis. And even their non-Nazi attempts at "science" are, of course, just plain bogus. 

After Trent Franks' comments ruffled some vaginas (and not in the good way), the GOP hopped into action and added language to the bill to carve out an exception for rape and incest… but only if the woman reported such actions to the police. Because we all know that sexual assaults and rapes are reported to the police 100% of the time, and this is certainly not an undue burden placed upon women. Hahahaha, like the GOP cares about women. HAVE YOU BEEN READING THIS POST AT ALL??!?

Because Rep. Franks is too fucking stupid to open his talking hole in front of real people, the GOP totally backbenched him in favor of allowing vagina-revoked Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) manage the bill on the House floor. (This is pretty embarrassing for Rep. Franks, but he is a tool so fuck that guy.) This is the same Rep. Blackburn that voted against the Violence Against Women Act, against the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, and against the Paycheck Fairness Act. Don’t worry, women – she has your back. And by “has your back,” we mean that she has a knife stuck deep into it.

As if things couldn’t get worse for the GOP, they also decided to let their members speak in front of cameras about womyns and vaginas and fetuses, because they have learned absolutely no lessons from Todd Akin, Trent Franks, or other dumbass men who spoke about these things.

During this time came perhaps the greatest single moment in GOP abortion talk ever recorded in all time:  Rep. Michael Burgess (TX – because even fuckups are bigger in Texas) noted that some male fetuses put their hands between their legs and have solo happy time, spank the fetal monkey, make fetal socks sticky, and other such awesome visuals. Because Rep. Burgess is opposed to fetus masturbatus interruptus, there should be no abortions. Science! Except he is also a giant pile of stoopid and completely wrong. But on the up side, this led to the most awesome slogan that Our Grand Editrix hopes to see on a bumper sticker during her world tour : “If the fetus whacks it, you can’t extract it!” Get on that, people!

So there you have it. After all this drama and more stoopid bombs dropped than during a Sarah Palin interview, the House of Representatives finally shoved this giant piece of ratshit through the House of Representatives. So should you ladies (and gents that love ladies, and ladies that love ladies, and gents who platonically love ladies but are good people and care about womyn’s rights) be worried? Well, yes, because for crissakes there are lots of stupid assholes in the House of Representatives trying to legislate your ladyparts! Call and yell at them for being stupid (or thank those who were good)!

But all this babble and wordiness would have to pass the Senate before it could become law. Thankfully, Harry Reid and Co. won’t let that happen, so this exercise is really just empty gesture theater. Folks just want to rile up the base, send out fundraising emails to get money from suckers that think they are actually doing something, use said monies to get Congresscritters re-elected to continue to argle bargle about this issue. Ain’t democracy grand?

Time for that third Irish coffee.

[ TPM ]