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.

Lawmakers in six conservative states have banned abortion after 20 weeks, including Georgia and Arizona which approved the bans this year.

Most women’s rights and LGBT equality organizations are opposing the GOP’s version of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), which removes the protections for marginalized communities from the Senate’s version of the bill.

But at least one group is coming to the GOP’s defense. The National Coalition for Men (NCFM) has released a statement arguing that the Republican alternative will “ensure more of the abused are better served” and provide protections for the “true victims” of domestic violence — heterosexual men:

Those opposing H.R. 4970 loudly assert that VAWA serves all people, which is absurd on its face given the name of the Act. Opposing versions, by omission and lack of specificity generally exclude men, particularly heterosexual men, regardless of specious arguments to the contrary.

We cannot adequately address violence related issues by excluding half of the population, allowing precious resources to be squandered for ideological purposes, empowering false accusers at the expense of the true victims, and letting malfeasance and maladministration to run unchecked without holding applicable administrators accountable.

Their accusation is hard to take seriously. The Senate version of VAWA “builds on the efforts of previous reauthorizations to better address the needs of male victims of domestic and sexual violence” and, by prohibiting VAWA-funded programs from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation (gay men) and increasing the number of visas offered to undocumented victims of domestic violence (so-called “U Visas”), it does more to help abused men than the House alternative.

But the NCFM’s long history of advancing misogynistic causes suggests that it’s not interested in addressing actual domestic violence. For instance, the group sued a strip club in California for offering free admission to women during Ladies’ Night, threatened to sue the organizers of a cycling festival for including a “Ladies Activities Day” that was intended to promote the involvement of women and girls in cycling (because women would have been admitted for free) and essentially criticized Rihanna for fighting back against Chris Brown’s abuse.

Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback (R) signed a bill yesterday that will allow pharmacists in the state to refuse to fill a prescription they think could be used to induce abortion. But since the “conscience” measure says they cannot be required to provide a drug or devise that they think “may result in the termination of a pregnancy” — but does not define which drug in particular — the law’s opponents say it could allow a pharmacist to interfere with a woman’s health care by refusing to distribute birth control or emergency contraception.

Women who already have difficulty obtaining contraception may face additional hurdles, according to Julie Burkhart, founder of an abortion-rights group in Wichita, Kansas:

Burkhart said the law could create a hardship for women in small towns with a sole pharmacist who may refuse to fill certain prescriptions. In larger cities, women will have to make sure they go to a cooperative pharmacist, she added.

“Women should not have to go armed with a lot of research when looking for a physician or pharmacist in the community,” Burkhart said.

No pharmacist could be fired for refusing to fill such prescriptions, and doctors can refuse to refer patients to pharmacists who would fill a birth control prescription. Additionally, the Associated Press had reported that the law could “allow a doctor to refuse to provide chemotherapy to a pregnant cancer patient because it might end her pregnancy.”

Brownback’s office justified his signing by saying the bill “gives more legal protection to Kansas health care providers who refuse to participate in abortions” based on their conscience. Kansas already had a law that allowed medical professionals to refuse to assist in abortion procedures.

While Kansas lawmakers failed to pass a sweeping anti-abortion bill that would have required doctors to give false information to their patients, the expanded “conscience” law is just one of several laws recently approved in the state that undermine women’s health and well being.

Rep. Steve King (R-IA), the same congressman who thinks states have a right to ban contraception, has revived an anti-abortion bill that is destined to die in the Senate. King has reintroduced his bill to “prohibit federal tele-health grants from going to clinics and doctors who use video-conferencing technology to prescribe the abortion medication mifepristone, also known as RU-486.” So far, the bill has 47 co-sponsors.

The Senate killed the same proposal in October after the House passed it as part of an agriculture bill, so it is likely the same thing will happen again.

When he introduced the measure on Thursday, King said his proposal was about stopping Planned Parenthood from providing what he has called “robo-Skype abortions“:

King said these “telemedicine abortions” help Planned Parenthood save costs by getting the same result as a surgical abortion, but “without the overhead costs.” But King said evidence is mounting that the morning-after pill, RU-486, is dangerous to women.

“Eight percent of women who take the abortion drug known as RU-486 require surgical intervention to complete their abortion,” he said. “This new practice leaves those women at grave risk and should never be supported with taxpayer dollars.”

The problem is that King’s view of telemedicine abortion services as a way to lower overhead costs is completely inaccurate. For one, Planned Parenthood officials have confirmed that abortion medication is a very small part of the telemedicine services the organization offers.

And studies have shown that medication abortions with a doctor connected by teleconference is safe, and it expands health care options for rural women who otherwise would find it difficult to terminate their pregnancies. And as states like Wisconsin block these procedures, researchers have found that there is no reason to restrict medication abortion services via telemedicine. Once again, King is using scare tactics to push for unnecessary policies that would hurt women’s access to health care.