Tagged: anti-choice

Posted: February 12, 2013 at 7:32 am

A New Low

TEA Partier has new theory of the Constitution

by Cowgirl

Most TEA Partiers claim to hold the Constitution sacred. But a Montana TEA Party legislator is now arguing that constitutionality is not relevant. Popular sentiment, he says, is all that matters.

Rep. Gerald Bennett (R-Libby) has introduced a bill which he acknowledges is unconstitutional. The bill would strip young women of their privacy rights and force them to seek parental consent before terminating a pregnancy. But Bennett believes that popular will is with him, and that

“The will of the people should never be held subservient to their own constitution.”

Continue reading →

Posted: October 3, 2012 at 7:41 am

Rick Hill Measuring Drapes?

From whispers I’ve heard, it sounds likely that Rick Hill has already enlisted Scott Mendenhall to run his transition operation, in the event Hill wins the election.

Mendenhall is a right-winger from Clancy, and served several terms in the legislature before being termed out a few years ago. If the rumor is true, then Hill has chosen, as his chief advisor to begin a potential Hill administration, a man who believes that a woman who is raped and impregnated should be required by law to give birth to the rapist’s child.

And Hill shares this belief, by the way, even if the anti-choice Helena IR hasn’t given it much coverage (and don’t hold your breath). So it shouldn’t surprise anyone that he would enlist an anti-abortion zealot to begin assembling a gubernatorial administration, moot though that assignment may be.

Mendenhall has long been the darling of the religious right and is a fiery speaker at anti-choice events. He says that conservative Christians must fight against “the extreme liberal left,” which he claims seeks to “undermine traditional family values.” He also claims that women’s constitutional right to medical privacy is a “direct violation” of why America was founded. Mendenhall was an early endorser of the constitutional amendment banning gay marriage in Montana.

Mendenhall and his wife own an ultrasound business in Helena and Butte. During the last session, Mendenhall sent his wife to testify in favor of a bill which would force women to undergo vaginal probe ultrasounds before they were allowed to terminate the pregnancy.

The last time, by the way, that Rick Hill was involved in a transition was in 2001, when he led Judy Martz’s transition policy team for economic development.

Posted: August 9, 2012 at 5:24 pm

Credibility Problems Plague TEA Party

Montana’s top opponent of the women’s medical privacy and the Affordable Healthcare Act, Tea Partier Annie Bukacek, appears to have delivered false testimony before the Montana Legislature.

On January 21, 2011, Bukacek testified before the state Senate Public Health Committee in favor of SB-161, a bill to nullify federal health care laws, and cited “statistics from a 2010 Investor’s Business Daily article based on a survey by the United Nations International Health Organization.” She then read a list of statistics that supposedly indicate how people in countries with universal health care are dying at a greater rate than Americans. Here’s a copy of her written testimony, and here’s a video clip.

The supposed study she cites is a fraud. It does not even exist, actually, nor does the organization she cites. In fact, this non-existent study is one that right wing activists have been citing across America, in hearings, in articles, on websites. It’s become an internet meme. But it’s a big canard, according to the Center for Public Integrity. There is neither a study nor even a group called the UNIHO.

Sadly, Ms. Bukacek is a licensed physician in the state of Montana, albeit with a religious twist–her clinic, which closed down, was called “Hosanna Healthcare.” She was also investigated for Medicaid fraud, but she claims it was because she prayed with patients.

She also penned a guest editorial in the June 14 edition of the Flathead Daily Interlake (see page 4 of this PDF) extolling the dangers of vaccination, a favorite topic among black helicopter conspiracy theorists.

Ms. Bukacek’s anti-vaccination claims prompted a rebuke from a far right Republican who sits on the Flathead City-County Health Board, Dr. P. David Myerowitz, who moved to Columbia Falls after retiring from a professorship in surgery at a major university in Ohio. Dr. Myerowitz called Bukacek’s assertions “disturbing,” as well as “misguided, inaccurate and dangerous.” (You can download a PDF of his response here, see page 8.)

In general, you ascribe very little credibility to any data offered up by the Tea Party. It’s usually nonsense.

Posted: August 2, 2012 at 7:45 am

This is Embarrassing

Which Montana Republican strategist decided it was a good idea to make a woman caught in a Medicaid fraud probe the public face of the conservative health care message?

Former GOP legislator Joe Balyeat says he has “a group of doctors” who are “rallying” in support of a “free-market” health care system, the Ravalli Republic reports.

Yet only one doctor was mentioned in the article on the rally, which appears to have had more reporters in attendance than actual rallyers based on the coverage it got. Sen. Balyeat insisted that:

“the new coalition has 12 to 15 members.

“We are going to try to involve other health care professionals,” Balyeat said. “Right now, it’s almost exclusively doctors.”

Right…perhaps he means “exclusively” the one doctor quoted, and that one has quite the history.

Annie Bukacek is the leader the movement which has failed three times to collect even half of the signatures needed to get an abortion ban on the ballot. The reason it didn’t qualify is because Montanans simply don’t want this garbage in our Constitution. That the signature gathering was found to be pushed largely by out-of state interests could not have helped. The proposal was so extreme that even Montana’s in-state anti-choice groups refused to get involved.

Posted: February 24, 2012 at 7:19 am

What You Won’t Read in the Gazette about the Arrested Anti-Choice Activist

The man that the Gazette paints as a hapless local minister arrested for tresspassing is actually the national leader of the hardline anti-choice group called “Personhood USA.”

The Billings Gazette calls Calvin Zastrow, “a Billings resident and minister for the Assemblies of God.” But, a quick Google search of the man (what an amazing tool, Google) reveals a much different picture.

Cal Zastrow co-founded Personhood USA, the out-of-state group pushing initiatives to ban abortion and some forms of birth control in several states. He is the group’s national leader and spokesperson. He lists a DC phone number and calls himself “America’s premier trainer” for the anti-choice initiative and petition process. Zastrow boasts that he works today with Operation Rescue. The group has been linked to the bombing of women’s clinics, not to mention clinic blockades and invasions, arson, bombing and arson threats, death threats, chemical attacks, stalking, physical violence and gunfire.

It turns out the Billings arrest isn’t his first rodeo. Zastrow has made a career of getting arrested and openly brags about his various arrests and sentences across the U.S. (Getting arrested is part of his strategy for getting in the press. We can see it’s working.) This isn’t even Zastrow’s first arrest in Billings–he worked up a similar scheme when he visited the state over a decade ago.

Cal Zastrow encourages people to get young people involved in the anti-choice movement, “because they have less to lose by getting arrested.” He thinks his arrests make him a martyr. He thinks getting arrested allows him to compare himself to Martin Luther King Jr.

Get this:

Cal’s incarceration for loving his neighbor is in the tradition of men like John Bunyan, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Alan Keyes, and Martin Luther King Jr. His longest jail sentence, of 90 days in the Saginaw County Jail, Michigan, leads Cal to conclude that going to jail isn’t as bad as being dismembered by Planned Parenthood.

Sure, he’s been to Montana before. Zastrow was the national big-wig brought in to kick off the new, more extreme, Constitution Party of MT. The MT group broke off from the National Constitution Party for being “too liberal.” Zastrow told the splinter group that the problem isn’t political parties:

Instead, Cal says the problem is “demons from hell manifested as lies,” because a “law that lets women murder unborn children is hell.”

The absolute ban on abortion and some forms of birth control that Zastrow is pushing recently failed in Mississippi. In fact, it’s failed in every state that Zastrow’s group has attempted the ballot initiative.

Among all Montana’s anti-abortion activist groups (Montana Catholic Conference, the Montana Family Foundation, the Eagle Forum, the Concerned Women of America, and the Right To Life of Montana not one is supporting the so-called “Personhood Amendment.”

Posted: December 6, 2011 at 8:59 pm

The Economy’s Stumbling Block(head)

Montana TEA Party Congressman Dennis Rehberg is the stumbling block that is threatening to sink another budget and risk a government shutdown–putting the entire U.S. economy on uncertain ground.

The Hill is reporting on the latest efforts in Congress to pass the year’s funding bills and avoid a government shutdown. But Congressman Dennis Rehberg can’t even be counted on to sit at the negotiating table:

“One aide said Rep. Denny Rehberg (R-Mont.), the lead GOP Labor bill negotiator, is running for a Senate seat and cannot be seen as compromising with Democrats.”

Recall that he has already failed to pass the labor bill he is responsible for as a subcommittee chairman. Instead, Congressman Rehberg only managed to piece together a controversial “draft” proposal in secret.

That Rehberg is saying he can’t even be “seen” as compromising is just the beginning. Rehberg’s “draft” has numerous other problems. As The Hill reported last week, one aide said that, “The bill has so many cultural issues packed into it” that it is bogging down the whole budget.

Rehberg isn’t just larding his draft budget proposal with this crap–he’s gone culture warrior all over the place. As the head of NARAL Pro-Choice Montana explains in a guest editorial in the Missoulian:

“After the 2010 elections, the new wave of lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives pledged to focus on our country’s critical challenge: creating jobs. Instead of living up to this promise, the House has launched a War on Women, passing seven bills attacking women’s reproductive rights. In fact, the House has held the highest number of votes on choice-related issues since 2000.

…

“Rehberg also injected anti-abortion politics into an agriculture bill by supporting an amendment that could bar discussion of abortion over the Internet and through videoconferencing. This ban would apply even if a woman’s health is at risk and if this kind of communication with her doctor is her best option to receive care. Rehberg is calling for an abortion-only version of Skype. This restriction is impractical, ridiculous and, most importantly, would take away the ability of some women in rural or remote areas to discuss the full set of options with their doctor.”

If he hasn’t figured out by now that he’s supposed to be working on jobs, not some backwoods culture war (and its obvious he hasn’t) Rehberg is no use to Montana in Congress. He’s proven to be more of a hindrance than anything else.

Posted: March 19, 2011 at 4:21 pm

GUEST POST: Family services clinics do more to prevent abortion than the other side ever will

Planned Parenthood of Montana has been my primary care provider for the last thirteen years. I’ve gone to them for contraception, annual exams, cancer screenings, anxiety and depression issues, digestion problems and more.

Family planning services around the country operate on Title X funding – that funding goes toward the services I just listed. Title X funding is never used for abortion care, and yet this particular funding which provides life-saving, preventative care is exactly what conservatives and the anti-choice community are after. By their logic, if Planned Parenthood and other family planning clinics are forced to close due to the lack of Title X funding, our country will no longer be plagued by abortion.

This attack is not only at the federal level. The Montana House recently voted to remove 4.7 million in family planning funding from our state budget. This year alone, Montana’s family planning programs served 27, 731 patients. Contraceptive services provided at family clinics in Montana helped prevent 5,600 unintended pregnancies, which would likely have resulted in 2,500 unintended births and 2,300 abortions.

Getting rid of federal Title X funding and cutting family planning funding at the state level will do nothing to prevent abortions. It will prevent women from accessing affordable and sanitary services. It will create more unintended pregnancies by cutting off access to contraception. It will result in more unwanted children and many more back alley abortions.

If the anti-choice folks really want to do something about abortion – which is a completely legal medical procedure I might add – they should support Planned Parenthood and other family planning clinics around our state and nationwide. These clinics, by providing contraception and accurate medical information, do more to prevent abortion than the other side ever will.

[Special thanks to guest contributor Ashley Stevick for this post. If you are interested in being a guest contributor, email me on the tipline.]

Posted: February 28, 2011 at 12:02 pm

Fundamentalists Strengthen Ties to Shadier Movements

The fact that Chuck Baldwin was tapped to be the keynote speaker for a Flathead “Pro-life” event in Kalispell this January is one more piece of evidence of connections between Montana’s white nationalists and the Flathead area’s anti-choice crusaders. Chuck Baldwin is the new-to-the-Flathead preacher and constitution party presidential candidate whose columns are archived on VDARE.com, a racist website that regularly bashes immigrants, and who states that he believes the South was right in the Civil War (although he quickly adds that he is no racist).

The connection between race-based politics and Flathead area anti-choicers is alive and well as Cheryl Wolfe outlines on her blog in a must-read piece: GOP Manifest Destiny.