Ohio GOP legislators lose their minds — again

You can probably guess that the GOP-controlled state House of Representatives did not spend today discussing how to put people back to work, or how to prevent harmful cuts to education, or how to insure appropriate oversight of tax dollars or ... well, anything that matters to the average Ohioan.

Nope, they spent the day pointlessly parading their seemingly constantly escalating hatred and contempt for women. They held hearing on HCR 35, a resolution sponsored by Republicans Barbara Sears and Peter Stautberg that would "rescind [the] federal rule requiring employee health insurance to include contraception."

WTF.

Once again, as with Issue 3 last November, they cannot legally rescind a federal rule, so this is merely a showboating display of their bottomless meanness and hypocrisy. It's truly jaw-dropping how, only months after unleashing some of the most extreme anti-abortion legislation we've seen in a generation, they're now fighting on every front to take access to contraception away from as many women as possible. They are making it crystal clear that the crocodile tears they cry for "unborn children" are nothing but cynical theater, and that animosity toward woman and not their deep concern for children drives their attempts to strip women of control of their bodies and their lives. These people should be given an electric shock every time they use their favorite catchwords, "liberty" and "freedom." They are working overtime to assure that more than half the people in this country have neither.

NARAL Pro-Choice Ohio's Kellie Copeland was in Columbus today testifying against this atrocity. She says,

It is outrageous that both Speaker Bill Batchelder and his Health Committee Chairman Lynn Watchmann cut off debate in their rush to pass a resolution attacking contraceptive coverage without a copay for millions of Ohio women. Contraception is basic health care and has been used by 99 percent of women (including 98 percent of Catholic women). Something this serious deserved a full debate. Ohio women and their families are outraged by this shocking intrusion into their private medical decisions.

"Outrageous" barely begins to describe it. Any legislator who had a genuine concern about abortion would be begging the federal government to find more ways to give more women access to contraception to prevent unwanted pregnancies. But these politicians are revealing — both with initiatives like this and their callous disregard for whether born children are adequately feed, housed and educated — that abortion for them is nothing more than a club to beat women into submission.

What's most astonishing is that, given that contraception is more widely supported than just about anything the legislature could take up, these neanderthals are ready, willing and eager to gratuitously push something that is — or should be — political poison. Do they really believe people share their opinion on this? Or do they just not care, so steeped are they in zeal to punish and oppress women?

This legislature shames the state of Ohio. Everyone who voted for this noxious resolution should resign and be replaced by someone who will focus on improving the economic status of working people.