While Republicans continue to refute the idea that they are waging a war on women, Sen. Barbara Boxer of California argued today on msnbc that the proof is in the voting.
“Women are the intended victim of their legislation… It’s a direct attack on women,” she told Thomas Roberts. The Democratic senator noted the House Republicans’ recent watering down of the Violence Against Women Act, targeting of Planned Parenthood, and their reluctance to consider the Paycheck Fairness Act, which Democrats want to bring back to a vote.
Two years ago a Republican filibuster prevented the Senate from passing the Paycheck Fairness Act.
“The Republicans are showing America who they are,” Boxer said.
A New York Times Sunday editorial agreed, arguing that Republicans in Washington, and across the country, are attacking women’s rights in four arenas: abortion, health care access, equal pay, and domestic violence.
Meanwhile, two more state-level propositions are taking aim at weakening women’s access to abortion and contraceptives.
New Hampshire is considering legislation that would require women to wait 24 hours before having an abortion and allowing employers to exclude contraceptives from health care plans if they have a religious objection.
Congress is also considering a law that would ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy in Washington, D.C., despite the fact that only a small percentage – 1%, according to this doctor – occur after the first-trimester milestone of 13 weeks.
Those are just two in the latest of a series of local proposals, some of which have passed, in states including Arizona, Texas, Virginia, and Pennsylvania that have considered various legislative ways to restrict access to abortion - a right granted to women by the Supreme Court nearly four decades ago.
Last year alone, 92 anti-abortion provisions were passed by legislators in 24 states, according to the Guttmacher Institute. Six states banned abortions after 20 weeks in 2011: Nebraska, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Alabama.