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Stories tagged with “Missouri”

NEWS FLASH

Missouri Spends $1,100 In Tax-Payer Dollars To Guard Limbaugh Bust | The Missouri House “spent more than $1,100 in taxpayer money on a security camera to keep watch over a new bronze bust of conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh.” The small-government conservative talk show-host was inducted into the Hall of Famous Missourians during a closed-door ceremony last week. He joined the ranks of “President Harry Truman, Walt Disney and former Cardinals baseball star Stan Musial.”

Health

Missouri Legislature Approves Bill Allowing Employers To Deny Access To Birth Control

By Amanda Peterson Beadle on May 21, 2012 at 9:15 am

Missouri legislators passed a bill Friday that allows employers or health insurance providers to stop offering coverage for contraception, abortion, or sterilization if doing so violates their religious or moral convictions. The bill now goes to Gov. Jay Nixon (D), who has not said whether he supports the legislation.

The measure mirrors a federal restriction proposed by Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) that has not progressed in Congress and is designed to push back against the Obama administration’s rule requiring contraception coverage to be included in insurance plans at no additional cost.

While some Democrats opposed the anti-contraception bill, it passed the Senate 28-6 and the House 105-33:

The bill states that no employer or health plan provider can be compelled to provide coverage _ or be penalized for refusing to cover _ abortion, contraception or sterilization if those items run contrary to their religious or moral convictions. The bill also gives the state attorney general grounds to sue other governmental officials or entities that infringe on the rights granted in the legislation.

“This bill is about religious freedom and moral convictions,” said Rep. Sandy Crawford, R-Buffalo. “This is about sending a message to the federal government that we don’t like things rammed down our throat.”

But state Rep. Stacey Newman (D) said the bill endangering women’s access to health care was more of an attack on “women’s reproductive choices” than a message to the federal government. “This is wrong and I dare you to go home and talk to your daughters … and say, ‘Look, what we’re going to say is that your employers’ religious beliefs matter more than your own,’” Newman told colleagues.

In 2006, 53 percent of pregnancies in Missouri were unintended, 61 percent of which resulted in live births and 25 percent resulted in induced abortions. According to the Guttmacher Institute, 65 percent of births that were unintended were publicly funded, compared to 50 percent of all births and 37 percent of intended pregnancies.

Related Posts

Health

Missouri House Passes A Bill Allowing Medical Professionals To Deny Women’s Access To Contraception

By Guest Blogger on May 17, 2012 at 12:30 pm

The Missouri House passed a “conscience bill” yesterday to allow health care workers to deny health care to women. Under the law, medical professionals cannot be fired or discriminated against for refusing to provide contraception or perform abortions if it conflicted with their personal views, while employers do not have to cover contraception.

But as opponents of the measure point out, there is more at stake than religious convictions for doctors or pharmacists:

Most of the opposition in the House came from Democratic lawmakers representing districts near St. Louis and Kansas City who argued the legislation would inhibit access to health care for some Missourians. Several opponents said it seemed the measure was aimed particularly at birth control.

Rep. Stacey Newman, D-St. Louis, said the medical procedures at issue in the legislation would affect women most directly. Speaking with a male opponent of the measure, Newman said, “You will be putting your stamp on what you think I should be doing and also deciding if your religious beliefs will supersede my religious beliefs and my moral convictions.”

This bill now goes to the state Senate for consideration before the Missouri legislative session ends on Friday.

Missouri is not the only state to consider this kind of bill. On Tuesday, Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback (R) signed a similar bill allowing pharmacists to refuse to fill a prescription that they think could be used to induce an abortion. Opponents claim the law is broad enough that it could allow pharmacists to deny birth control or emergency contraception, or even procedures like chemotherapy if they would put a pregnancy at risk.

Update

The St. Louis Beacon reports that House and Senate leaders appear to have agreed on a compromise bill, which passed the Senate 29-5 today. Some of the provisions in the House bill have been stripped, including one which would have allowed pharmacies to decline to stock a drug or medical device, but employers could still opt out of providing insurance coverage for abortion or contraception. The House is also expected to pass the compromise bill and send it to Gov. Jay Nixon (D), who is raising some objections to parts of the bill, according to the Beacon.

-Zachary Bernstein

NEWS FLASH

Missouri School Board Member Condemns ‘Self-Destructive’ Homosexual Behaviors | Butler County Republican Party co-chair Hardy Billington is running for reelection to the Poplar Bluff school board. Today he published a newspaper ad supporting the proposed “Don’t Say Gay” bill in which he calls homosexuality behavior “self-destructive,” a health risk comparable to smoking that people should be steered away from. He believes “homosexuals need our tough love”:

(HT: Joe.My.God.)

Election

GOP Senate Candidate Defends Tea Party Activist Who Made ‘Kill’ Claire McCaskill Comment

By Alex Seitz-Wald on May 10, 2012 at 4:19 pm

Missouri Senate Candidate Sarah Steelman

Republican Senate candidate Sarah Steelman defended today a Tea Party activist’s call to “kill the Claire Bear” — a reference to Sen. Claire McCaskill (R-MO), whom Steelman is running against. Steelman has been under fire this week from Democrats for not denouncing the remark, which came at a Tea Party rally last week that Steelman attended.

“There was nothing violent about what he said…no one perceived it as a threat,” Steeleman told KZRG in Joplin. No one, that is, except for the FBI, which reportedly interviewed the activist who made the comment, Scott Boston, and the Capitol Police, which assigned McCaskill extra protection. Boston later said he did not intend the comment to be a threat.

Steelman, did say that the “kill” comment was a poor choice of words and “a bad joke,” but dismissed the controversy and defended Boston:

STEELMAN: Are we just we just going to abandon all common sense in this country and anytime anybody says anything, the government is just going to come down and send FBI agents to knock on your door? Are we going to have thought and speech police? [...]

This is part of the problem in Washington…and people jump on somebody like Scott Boston, an individual, and they can put the whole force of the federal government on this guy.

The liberal research organization American Bridge recorded the interview:

Steeleman was at the rally with her son, who applauded Boston’s comment. Steelman’s Republican primary opponent John Brunner issued a strong rebuke of Boston’s comment, saying, “This type of rhetoric is unconscionable and I reject this kind of politics.” “Comments like these have no place in this U.S. Senate campaign, or any other campaign in this country, because they don’t represent American values,” the Republican said.

Election

VIDEO: GOP Candidate’s Son Applauds ‘Kill’ Claire McCaskill Line

By Alex Seitz-Wald on May 9, 2012 at 12:05 pm

Sam Steelman

Yesterday, we noted that Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) is getting beefed up security after a Tea Party activist said “we have to kill the Claire Bear” last week at a Tea Party rally in which Sarah Steelman, McCaskill’s GOP challenger, was present.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that the comment was met with “mild applause” from the audience, including, according to a video provided to ThinkProgress by the liberal research group American Bridge, Steelman’s son, Sam. Sam Steelman also serves as his mother’s “deputy [campaign] manager” and acts as a “campaign spokesman.”

In the tracking video, Sam, chatting with his mother, can be clearly seen applauding after activist Scott Boston says, “We have to kill the Claire Bear ladies and gentlemen.” Watch it:

The Missouri Democratic Party hit Steelman for not immediately denouncing Boston’s comments, and the video suggests she heard it. Later, Steelman told the Huffington Post, “I may disagree with the words Mr. Boston chose in his statement, but I understand his frustration and I emphatically support his right to express his views.”

Update

Fellow GOP Senate candidate John Brunner, who will face off against Steelman in the August Republican primary, strongly condemned Boston’s comments: “This type of rhetoric is unconscionable and I reject this kind of politics,” Brunner said in a statement. “Comments like these have no place in this U.S. Senate campaign, or any other campaign in this country, because they don’t represent American values.”

NEWS FLASH

Missouri Gay Republican Comes Out Against ‘Don’t Say Gay’ Bill | Missouri state Rep. Zach Wyatt (R) has come out as gay to his Republican colleagues to urge them to abandon their support for a “Don’t Say Gay” bill. Wyatt expressed concern that “students need to feel safe when they go to school,” pointing out that the legislation could curb anti-bullying efforts and limit opportunities for students to advocate for themselves through gay-straight alliances. According to PROMO, Missouri’s LGBT advocacy organization, Wyatt’s disclosure officially makes him the only out, gay Republican holding state office in the United States. Read Wyatt’s courageous letter and watch a local news report on some of his comments:

LGBT

‘Don’t Say Gay’ Bill Sponsor Complains That His Bill Is Misunderstood

By Igor Volsky on Apr 27, 2012 at 11:03 am

Rep. Steve Cookson (R)

Missouri Rep. Steve Cookson (R) — the sponsor of the state’s “Don’t Say Gay Bill” — is complaining that his legislation to prohibit discussion of sexual orientation outside of health class is being misconstrued as an attack on gay people and insists that he is merely seeking to shift the discussion of sexuality from the classroom to the family. In an interview with a local CBS affiliate, Cookson reveals that he has received death threats and hateful email concerning the legislation:

COOKSON: I just think those are better left outside of the curriculum…I want to bring families back into education, and for those that don’t have that support, we’ll deal with those…. We need to keep the focus on [math and science] for the student body, and not on other things that can be distracting.

Watch it:

But as Mark Jones, the political director for the Missouri National Education Association explained, banning discussions of gay people — who exist in the schools whether Cookson likes it or not — would only “further ostracize children who are exploring their sexual orientation.” “This would really tie the teacher’s hands when they go to help children when they are being bullied because of their sexual orientation,” he said and noted that since students spend numerous hours a day with teachers, educators need the freedom to discuss any problems they encounter.

The American Academy of Pediatrics has also condemned Cookson’s bill as “clearly harmful to the best interests of the children of Missouri.” “All children and teenagers need to feel safe in their schools, and HB 2051 takes that assurance away from them.”

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