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Health

Columnist Mocks Utah’s Abortion Waiting Period: Why Not A 72-Hour Wait Before Having Sex?

By Amanda Peterson Beadle on May 8, 2012 at 10:37 am

Utah’s new law requiring a woman to wait 72 hours before having an abortion goes into effect today, forcing women to put off the procedure for three whole days. A similar law in South Dakota was struck down before it went into effect, but in Utah, Planned Parenthood officials said they will see how the new law affects women before they take legal action.

State Rep. Steve Eliason (R), who sponsored the bill, said the bill would give “women the chance to think about the ramifications of that decision,” but critics claim it will only make it more difficult for women, particularly those who live in rural areas, to access abortion services. “Women make good decisions and think about their decisions and the legislature telling them how long they need to think about their decision — it’s insulting,” said Karrie Galloway, CEO of Utah’s Planned Parenthood Association.

But why stop at only requiring a waiting period for abortions? Robert Kirby, a columnist for The Salt Lake Tribune, satirically questions why there’s not a waiting period before having sex or getting drunk:

Why shouldn’t you have to wait 72 hours before getting drunk or high? Lots of really bad decisions get made when you’re hammered, so it’s only fair that you sign a letter of intent, then sit in a room for three days before being served. [...]

If waiting 72 hours before resolving an unwanted pregnancy is a good idea, why not a 72-hour wait before getting pregnant on purpose? Given issues of overpopulation and increasing poverty, it’s only fair to the rest of us that you go through a cooling-off period.

Forcing women to sit on their medical discussion for a specified period of time puts the government between a woman and her doctor. Abortion is a safe, legal procedure, and women are fully capable of making their own medical choices without being forced to consider the “ramifications” for 72 hours. Similar to laws that force women to have an ultrasound before an abortion procedure, requiring women to wait only puts up additional hurdles that make it more difficult for them to access abortion care.

NEWS FLASH

Utah Community Rallies Against Bullying After Teen’s Suicide | Over 100 people gathered in Ogden, Utah yesterday to rally against anti-LGBT bullying and to hold a candlelight vigil for the community’s recent loss. Many people who spoke at the forum described themselves as “married, straight, and Mormon” but committed to loving family members and neighbors who might be gay. The Utah Pride Center announced the creation of an anti-bullying hotline for youth, parents, and teachers seeking assistance, especially considering the state has no anti-bullying laws in place. Watch a local news report on the forum and vigil:

Justice

Did A U.S. Senate Candidate Tell The John Birch Society He Wants To Eliminate All Senate Elections?

By Ian Millhiser on Apr 27, 2012 at 4:30 pm

The John Birch Society is best known for touting conspiracy theories about how the United Nations is plotting to eliminate everything from paved roads to the game of golf, so all of their claims need to be taken with quite a few grains of salt. Nevertheless, their official magazine contains a very plausible report about Tea Party U.S. Senate candidate Dan Liljenquist (R-UT) that raises serious questions about his judgement if it is true. According to this report, Liljenquist told them they he will work to repeal the Constitution’s guarantee that voters — and not state lawmakers — get to elect United States senators:

[I]n a surprising answer to a question, Liljenquist informed The New American that he supports the repeal of the 17th Amendment. Regarding , [sic] Liljenquist explained his opposition to tthe [sic] popular election of the U.S. Senate that was effected by the ratification of the 17th Amendment to the Constitution:

“There is a disconnect between the state legislatures and the state delegations in Washington, D.C.” “I commit that if I ever lose the support of the Utah State Legislature, I will come home and not return to Washington,” he continued.

If this report is accurate, it is disturbing not just because of its content, but because Liljenquist decided to talk to this extremist group in the first place. Moreover, Liljenquist, has a well documented history of attacking the Seventeenth Amendment’s promise of democracy, so it is reasonably likely that the Birchers are telling the truth here.

At a campaign event in Morgan County, Utah, Liljenquist lamented the fact that, as a state lawmaker, the Seventeenth Amendment prevented him from imposing his will on his primary opponent Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT):

Liljenquist also talked about Senator Hatch. He said, “As a state legislator it has been very disappointing. We have almost no working relationship with our Senior Senator…It was supposed to be that the senate would represent the state and work with the legislature to make sure state’s rights were protected. Last year we passed a bill and we said, ‘Hey, we know that the seventeenth amendment is in place, we can’t tell you what to do, but come and consult with us, come and speak with us.’ Mike Lee said I understand that’s my role and Orrin Hatch said I don’t report to you.

Earlier this month, Liljenquist also claimed that there need to be term limits on Senators to help counteract the effect of the Seventeenth Amendment. And Liljenquist’s past digs on the Seventeenth Amendment are also part of a larger record of hostility to the Constitution. Indeed, a centerpiece of Liljenquist’s campaign against Hatch is Liljenquist’s belief that Hatch should not have voted to provide health care to children because Liljenquist believes a national program to heal children is unconstitutional. Indeed, his proposal for senatorial term limits is also unconstitutional.

Liljenquist also would not be the first prominent conservative to embrace the ludicrous idea that Americans should not be able to elect their own senators. Justice Scalia once slammed the Seventeenth Amendment, as has Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) and Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX).

Liljenquist’s campaign did not return a request to confirm or deny the John Birch Society’s claim that he wants to make his own senate election unconstitutional. Nevertheless, in light of Liljenquist’s long pattern of hostility towards the Constitution, and his record of strange statements expressing suspicion about the Seventeenth Amendment itself, it seems reasonably likely that the Birchers’ reporting is accurate.

NEWS FLASH

Northern Utah Rocked By Gay Teen Suicide | Communities in northern Utah are reeling from the suicide of a gay teen, the latest in a rash of suicides across the country. Earlier this week, Alex Smith, 18, was speaking at a community panel in Ogden, UT, about the harassment his boyfriend, Jack Reese, had experienced in school, not knowing that Jack had already taken his own life. Ogden OUTreach will be holding a community panel and discussion on May 1 where local educators, parents, and youth will speak out on behalf of LGBT teens, including members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. A candlelight vigil in remembrance of Jack Reese will follow at the conclusion of the panel.

NEWS FLASH

Utah Governor Vetoes Abstinence-Only Sex Ed Bill | On Friday, Utah Gov. Gary Herbert (R) vetoed the proposed abstinence-only sex education bill, which would have made all sex ed classes “opt-in” instead of “opt-out” and prohibited any discussions of contraception or homosexuality. Explaining that he found the current sex ed provisions sufficient, he explained he could not sign a bill “that deprives parents of their choice.” Passing such a law would have made Utah the first state to specifically ban instruction about contraception and would have also contributed to anti-gay school climates as demonstrated by Anoka-Hennepin School District’s failed “neutrality” policy in Minnesota. Over 40,000 individuals had signed a SignOn.org petition urging Herbert’s veto of the bill and 58 percent of poll respondents supported the teaching of contraception.

Related Posts

LGBT

Utah Legislator Defends Abstinence-Only Bill: ‘Homosexuality Does Not Relate To Sexuality’

By Zack Ford on Mar 14, 2012 at 10:22 am

Utah State Rep. Bill Wright (R) (Photo Credit: Al Hartmann, The Salt Lake Tribute)

Utah Gov. Gary R. Herbert (R) has not taken action yet on the recently passed abstinence-only/”don’t say gay” bill, but its proponents continue to defend it, even though it doesn’t enjoy popular support. Among other things, the bill prohibits “instruction in, or the advocacy of” homosexuality, but its sponsor, State Rep. Bill Wright (R), explained that homosexuality has “nothing to do with health,” except when it comes to abstaining from it:

WRIGHT: That has nothing to do with health. Homosexuality does not relate to sexuality. It’s a whole different thing… I can write the curriculum really simply. If you’re homosexual you have a high degree of [contracting] some STD. What else do you need to know? What else do I need to teach?

There are many answers to Wright’s question, but the most obvious lesson many young people need to hear is simply that “homosexuality is normal.” The entire goal of sex education is helping kids learn about their own bodies, the changes they’re experiencing, and how to make responsible decisions now that they’re being flooded with hormones. Wright wants an entire group of students — who are already stigmatized for what makes them different — to be deprived of the vital affirmation they need and deserve. If he honestly believes that “homosexuality does not relate to sexuality,” perhaps he’s not the best authority to be dictating sexuality curriculum.

Related Posts

Health

Even Utah Thinks GOP’s Abstinence-Only Efforts Going Too Far

By Josh Israel on Mar 13, 2012 at 10:00 am

Gov. Gary R. Herbert (R-UT)

Gov. Gary R. Herbert (R-UT)

In recent years, Utah has earned a reputation for being one of the reddest states in the country. Indeed, less than 35 percent of 2008 voters in the Beehive State cast their ballots for the Obama-Biden ticket. But a new poll by Brigham Young University shows even Utahans are not backing the growing “abstinence-only” push by the right-wing.

In recent weeks, the state legislature passed HB 363, a bill to prohibit Utah schools from teaching students about contraceptives and to permit school districts to skip sex education entirely. The bill passed easily in the Republican-dominated state legislature (the GOP has 22 of 29 seats in the state senate and 58 of the 75 seats in the state house). Republican Gov. Gary R. Herbert has not yet said whether he will sign the bill.

Utahans, according to the BYU poll, would prefer that he veto the measure. Of those surveyed, 58 percent said they believe “”Public schools in Utah should teach about the use of contraceptives.” Only 30 percent said they should not. Only among those identifying as “strong Republicans” was there widespread (68 percent) opposition to the idea.

Chris Karpowitz, a political science professor at the university, told the Salt Lake Tribune:

The thing that was interesting to us was such a strong majority believed public schools should teach about contraceptives… Utah is a fairly conservative place, and you might have assumed that this would have gone in the other direction.

I think it means the governor has a tough decision to make, and he has to decide whether he’s going to side with the strongest Republicans who seem to have the most opposition to this — and that’s an important group for any Republican governor in the state of Utah — or is he going to side with the larger majority that seems to support this.

Hebert’s quandary is a microcosm of the challenge the Republican Party faces nationally: appeal to a narrow but vocal base that wants to pursue a culture war against contraception and women or focus on the real struggles of working families.

Related Posts

Climate Progress

Utah And Arizona Throw Out U.S. Constitution In Right-Wing Attack On Public Lands

By Public Lands Team on Mar 12, 2012 at 4:42 pm

By Tom Kenworthy, Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress Action Fund.

It’s an election year, so a hardy perennial is sprouting again in western legislatures: the idea that states can, and should, take over millions of acres of federally managed land. As always, these proposals are unconstitutional and doomed to failure, but not before state politicians harvest a bumper crop of right wing outrage to feed their campaigns’ rhetorical war chests.

In Arizona, the state Senate last week overwhelmingly approved a bill that somehow requires the U.S. to extinguish all title to public lands in the state and transfer title to Arizona.

In Utah, a couple of days before Arizona made itself look foolish, the state legislature adopted a similar measure and set up a process for suing if the U.S. doesn’t capitulate by the end of 2014 to its demand for control of about 30 million acres owned by all Americans and managed on their behalf by the Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service. The legislation excludes national parks, designated wilderness areas and most national monuments.

In a state where education is chronically underfunded, the legislature has also authorized the attorney general to spend $3 million on the legal battle, a fight the legislature’s own attorney has said will likely fail. The legislation also flies in the face of public opinion in a region where 9 out of 10 respondents to a recent poll say that public lands are a key economic driver and are important to their quality of life.

John Leshy, a noted legal scholar on federal lands law who served as Interior Department solicitor during the Clinton administration, neatly summed up expert opinion on the phony issue:

Legally, it’s a ridiculous claim. It would be thrown out in federal court in five seconds. This is all about cranky, symbolic politics.”

The simple facts of the matter are that Utah relinquished any claim to those federal lands when it became a state, and under the Constitution only Congress can authorize their disposal.

The Salt Lake Tribune, an outpost of sanity in a state that seems increasingly taken over by the zany right, called the entire exercise an “embarrassing snipe hunt”:

Chance of success: Absolutely zero. Chance of motivating the far-right base of the Republican Party, the part that actually votes in the upcoming precinct caucuses and county and state conventions: Appallingly high.

Ever since the Sagebrush Rebellion of a generation ago, right wing politicians in the thrall of mining, energy, timber and livestock interests have kept alive the fantasy of a mass takeover of federal western lands.  Not surprisingly, these delusions flourish in election years.

Republicans running for their party’s presidential nomination, including Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum and Ron Paul, have been pandering to backers of this hopeless and wrongheaded cause. Romney said in Nevada he doesn’t know what the purpose is of federal land. Santorum said in Idaho the public estate should be sold to the private sector or taken over by the states. Paul in Nevada said he flat out opposes federal land ownership.

Timothy Egan, an elegant and perceptive chronicler of western life and history, shined a bright light of reason on those nutty ideas. In a New York Times piece last week he reminded the GOP that it was one of their own, Theodore Roosevelt, who saved so much of the public estate for future generations who, unlike the current crop of candidates, revere those landscapes.

The rest of us need our public land. The West is defined by new, fast-growing cities surrounded by the mountains, mesas, forests, sandstone spires and various shared settings. There is no other place in the world where urban and wild coexist over such a huge area. If you are poor, you can feel rich just minutes from the city, in your estate that is a national forest. If you ski in the high Sierra, or raft a runaway river in Utah, you are most likely doing it on land whose only deed of title is held by all citizens.

 

Economy

Dick Armey’s FreedomWorks Super PAC Blasts Orrin Hatch For Debt Limit Increases Armey Voted For

By Josh Israel on Mar 8, 2012 at 5:55 pm

FreedomWorks for America's anti-Hatch publication

FreedomWorks for America's anti-Hatch publication

FreedomWorks for America, the super PAC for former Rep. Dick Armey’s (R-TX) FreedomWorks USA, just released new radio and TV ads urging the defeat of longtime Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT). The spots are the latest in a series of attacks by the group against the six-term senator, who is facing a challenge from the right in this year’s renomination process.

The new commercials note that Hatch “voted 16 times” to raise the debt limit, allowing for $7.5 trillion of the national debt. Both ads say that it’s “time to retire” the man who “wracked up half of our nation’s debt.” Watch the spots:

The group helpfully documents these 16 votes in a report available on its website. The list includes 16 votes from between February 1981 and September 2007.

Prior to joining FreedomWorks in 2003, chairman Dick Armey served nine terms in Congress. Six of those debt-limit votes took place between the time Armey was elected to the House in 1984 and his retirement at the beginning of 2003. Armey voted for at least five of those six:

  • $179.9 billion in December 1985 (House roll call #454, 99th Congress)
  • $448 billion in September 1987 (House roll call #330, 100th Congress)
  • $600 billion in March 1996 (House roll call #102, 104th Congress)
  • $450 billion in July 1997 (House roll call #241, 105th Congress)
  • $450 billion in June 2002 (House roll call #279, 107th Congress)

    • Before the 2002 debt limit increase (which passed by a 215 to 214 margin — making Armey the deciding vote, arguably), Armey gave an impassioned floor speech urging colleagues to “do what is good for America” and back the bill.

    And like Hatch, Armey helped run up the debt that necessitated those increases. In 2001, Armey helped push through a $1.35-trillion tax cut and in 2010, he urged Congress to renew this and other Bush-era tax cuts. He even argued that the 2001 tax cut wasn’t big enough. Hatch also voted for both the original tax cuts and the 2010 extension.

    Put another way, FreedomWorks for America has invested about $500,000 into attacking Hatch for having a record that is not very different from Armey’s own.

    Economy

    Why Is Utah Paying Goldman Sachs Tens Of Millions Of Dollars?

    By Pat Garofalo on Mar 7, 2012 at 5:50 pm

    Goldman Sachs is one of the U.S.’s most profitable companies, making, in the last three years, profits of $13.9 billion, $8.5 billion, and $4.4 billion, even as the country grappled with the effects of the Great Recession. But despite these sky-high profits, the state of Utah is still seeing fit to give the mega-bank tens of millions of dollars to create jobs:

    Goldman will receive an estimated $47.3 million from Utah over a 20-year period in the form of a 30 percent tax rebate, according to Governor’s Office of Economic Development.

    In exchange, the bank agreed to maintain at least 1,065 employees in Salt Lake City and pay them at least 150 percent of the average local county salary.

    State legislatures can’t seem to help themselves when it comes to doling out tax breaks in order to create or preserve jobs, but the history of such policy should act as a warning. For instance, Illinois doled out millions in subsidies to Sears, only to have the retailer layoff 100 workers last month. Boeing not only received a slew of tax credits from Wichita, Kansas, but had Kansas lawmakers lobby for it to receive billions in federal contracts: the company will leave Wichita at the end of 2013, costing thousands of jobs.

    And the list goes on and on. The Des Moines Register found that “15 [Iowa] companies enjoying tax credit dollars given to them by the state have defaulted on the job-creation requirements tied to those credits.” Louisiana doles out hundreds of millions in tax credits to businesses, with no clue as to whether or not they create jobs.

    As Citizens for Tax Justice noted, “the reasons for these failures should be obvious. When the economy is weak, businesses generally can’t sell as much of their product as they used to. You can throw money at them and ask them to hire more people, but ultimately it doesn’t make sense for a company to bring on more employees unless there’s some new, unmet demand that needs to be filled.” But states continue to try this failed strategy, with Utah giving a humongous investment bank millions of dollars in the hopes that it will bring some of “god’s work” to the Beehive State. (HT: Jess Kutch)

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