The Ohio House recently voted to strip Planned Parenthood of $1.3 million in funding and, sent the bill to Ohio Gov. John Kasich to sign into law.
On Sunday, John Kasich he did just that - signed a bill to defund Planned Parenthood in Ohio. He has Conservative support:
Asked if signing this bill will help with Kasich's conservative credentials, Senate President Keith Faber, R-Celina, said ‘he has a long track record of being pro-life.’"
But he did draw condemnation from..... well Democrats, but also women. And there was more context from the Psychological slip-of-the-tongue realm.
Speaking about his early days running for office in the Ohio Legislature, Kasich also referred to women "who left their kitchens" to help him.
Recalling the roots of his early days of campaigning, while at a town hall at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, he rhetorically asked "How did I get elected?” His answer may be shrouded in memory of when America was Great - "Nobody was -- I didn't have anybody for me. We just got an army of people, who, and many women, who left their kitchens to go out and go door to door and to put yard signs up for me. All the way back, when, you know, things were different." and a question from a town hall attendee who brought up his comment about “kitchens.”
Yes it was different then. Neither of these played well with the many women who have more to do than kitchen work and appreciate Planned Parenthood.
Women are aware of the bigger picture as brought to life in Jill Lepore's (Harvard College Professor) Feb. 1 New Yorker article called “Baby Doe.”
It starts out like a punch in the gut:
'Last June, a woman walking her dog on Deer Island, in Boston Harbor, came across a black plastic garbage bag on the beach. Inside was a very little girl, dead. The woman called for help and collapsed in tears. Police searched the island; divers searched the water; a medical examiner collected the body. The little girl had dark eyes and pale skin and long brown hair. She weighed thirty pounds. She was wearing white-and-black polka-dot pants. She was wrapped in a zebra-striped fleece blanket. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children said that no child matching her description had been reported missing. “Someone has to know who this child is,” an official there said. But for a very long time no one did.'
Child abuse, child neglect, child death, and the cradle-to-prison pipeline driven by poverty are all ingredients in this US reality. And especially in the US, where short of refugees, a larger percentage of people are living in poverty than in any of the developed countries of western Europe.
But here we have Kasich and the various Republican funders, ultraconservatives, Tea Partyers and 1 percenters who remain dedicated to defund Planned Parenthood in a political year that wants to Make America Great Again. What's Great about limiting access to contraception, or clamping down on a women’s rights of conscience?
Some consider Kasich a moderate. This suggests a frightening accomodation to the rightward drift. Or is propelled by ignorance and anger?
It's just too far Right to be right.
For more see
JILL LEPORE's Birthright: What’s next for Planned Parenthood?
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