Wondering About Women Supporting Pence/Trump Ticket: Giving Up Your Rights?

 

Mike Pence, the governor of Indiana, is Donald Trump's choice for Vice President. He is reported to be an ultra conservative, anti-Planned Parenthood crusader who has signed into law every anti-abortion bill that has landed on his desk

In March Pence signed into law a bill that expanded Indiana's restrictive laws. He said then, "By enacting the legislation, we take an important step in protecting the unborn, while still providing an exception for the life of the mother. I sign this legislation with a prayer that God would continue to bless these precious children, mothers and families.”

The law prohibited women from having an abortion due to fetal abnormalities, did not allow for donation of fetal tissue obtained from an abortion and required doctors that perform abortions to have admitting privileges at a hospital.

And, perhaps most drastic, he new law also mandated that the remains of an aborted fetus be interred or cremated. This requirement also applied to miscarriages -- even early in a pregnancy when the fetus is the size of a pea.

(Ariana Eunjung Cha. “Mike Pence has made no secret about his views on abortion. Will this help or hurt Trump?” The Washington Post. July 15, 2016.)

Many of the most conservative Indiana lawmakers thought HB 1337 went too far. “Today is a perfect example of a bunch of middle-aged guys sitting in this room making decisions about what we think is best for women,” said state Representative Sean Eberhart, a self-described “pro-life as they come” Republican.

(Prachi Gupta. “Indiana Passes Anti-Abortion Bill So Egregious That Even Anti-Choice Republicans Are Outraged.” Cosmopolitan. March 10, 2016.)

This caused women to call the Republican governor’s office and inform his staff about their menstrual cycles. They've posted the conversations on the “Periods for Pence” Facebook page, which has over 34,000 likes.

"I would certainly hate for any of my fellow Hoosier women to be at risk of penalty if they do not 'properly dispose' of this or report it. Just to cover our bases, perhaps we should make sure to contact Governor Pence's office to report our periods," the anonymous founder of the page wrote.

(Associated Press. “Women calling Indiana Gov. Pence to describe periods, in abortion law protest.” Fox News. April 08, 2016.)

A court in Indiana has stopped the law from taking effect, after the Supreme Court ruled that similar restrictions on abortion in Texas were overly burdensome to women seeking access to the procedure.

If you are a woman, you may want to think long and hard about supporting Mike Pence's beliefs and protecting your rights. In 1999, when Pence was a radio talk show host, he wrote an editorial that criticized the Disney movie Mulan for giving young girls the idea that they can serve combat roles alongside men. In his editorial, Pence said ...

“Many young women find many young men to be attractive sexually. Put them together, in close quarters, for long periods of time, and things will get interesting. Just like they eventually did for young Mulan.”

And, if you a woman in the LGBTQ community, Pence may be your worst enemy. In the past, he has supported conversion therapy for gays.

In 2006, as head of the Republican Study Committee, a group of the 100 most-conservative House members, Pence rose in support of a constitutional amendment that would have defined marriage as between a man and a woman. Citing a Harvard researcher, Pence said in his speech, “societal collapse was always brought about following an advent of the deterioration of marriage and family.”

Pence also called being gay a choice and said keeping gays from marrying was not discrimination, but an enforcement of “God’s idea.”

In addition, Pence voted against The Employment Non-Discrimination Act in 2007. The act would have banned discrimination against people based on sexual orientation. He later said the law “wages war on freedom and religion in the workplace.”

And, Pence favored the longtime military policy of not letting soldiers openly identify as gay. In 2010, Pence told CNN he did not want to see the military become “a backdrop for social experimentation.” The policy ended in 2011.

Naturally, Pence opposed President Obama’s recent directive to schools to allow students to use the bathroom of the gender with which they identify.

Governor Pence did recently approve changes by lawmakers to a controversial state law on religious freedom, essentially conceding defeat to a concerted alliance of liberal interest groups and large corporations over gay rights. Still, he believed the law wasn't necessary. And, still, no Indiana state law explicitly bars businesses from discriminating against gay customers.

(Will Drabold. “Here’s What Mike Pence Said on LGBT Issues Over the Years.”  

Time. July 15, 2016.)

 

Freelance journalist, writer/editor, adjunct professor and artist-in-residence Jennifer Sabin recently wrote ...

“Mike Pence likes to say on a regular basis, 'I'm a Christian, a conservative and a Republican... in that order.'

“According to The New York Times, Mike Pence gave himself to Jesus when he was a college student. As Jonathan Mahler and Dirk Johnson write, “His evangelical Christianity is now the driving force behind his political agenda, whether he is working to deny funds to Planned Parenthood or to make it legal for religious conservatives to refuse to serve gay couples.”

(Jennifer Sabin. “Mike Pence Could Be Your Worst Nightmare.” The Huffington Post. July 21, 2016.)

One must wonder how the Trump/Pence ticket advances women's rights. You must remember Donald Trump said women who undergo abortions should be punished if the procedure is made illegal. And, after all, Trump’s misogynistic shot at Fox News host Megyn Kelly was not an isolated incident -- he his a long history of offensive comments about women. He claims to “love women” and yet his mouth speaks otherwise. For example, consider these Trump utterances ...

* In 2012, he tweeted that Arianna Huffington “is unattractive both inside and out. I fully understand why her former husband left her for a man—he made a good decision.”

* On Celebrity Apprentice: All-Stars in 2013, he contemplated the “pretty picture” of former Playboy Playmate Brande Roderick “dropping to your knees.”

* He once called an opposing counsel in a deposition “disgusting” for wanting to break to pump milk for her 3-month-old daughter.

* In his book, How to Get Rich, he wrote: “All of the women on The Apprentice flirted with me—consciously or unconsciously. That’s to be expected.”

* In a 1991 Esquire interview, he said: “You know, it doesn’t really matter what [the media] write as long as you’ve got a young and beautiful piece of [expletive].”

* And most famously, in a 2006 feud involving Miss USA, he called Rosie O’Donnell an “animal,” an “extremely unattractive person,” and a “slob.”

(Nina Easton. “The history of Donald Trump's insults to women. Fortune. August 09, 2015.)

If you are a women who has fallen into the Trump camp (And, by the way, most tell me they do so simply because they believe the Republican propaganda about Hillary Clinton – her “lies.”), you may want to consider your life under a President Trump and a Vice-President Pence. Denying the first woman president could be fraught with risk.

I'll close with a quote from a New York Times article by Michael Barbaro and Megan Twoheymay about Donald Trump's private exchanges with women ...

“The New York Times interviewed dozens of women who had worked with or for Mr. Trump over the past four decades, in the worlds of real estate, modeling and pageants; women who had dated him or interacted with him socially; and women and men who had closely observed his conduct since his adolescence. In all, more than 50 interviews were conducted over the course of six weeks.

“Their accounts … reveal unwelcome romantic advances, unending commentary on the female form, a shrewd reliance on ambitious women, and unsettling workplace conduct, according to the interviews, as well as court records and written recollections. The interactions occurred in his offices at Trump Tower, at his homes, at construction sites and backstage at beauty pageants. They appeared to be fleeting, unimportant moments to him, but they left lasting impressions on the women who experienced them.”

(Michael Barbaro and Megan Twoheymay. “Crossing the Line: How Donald Trump
Behaved With Women in Private.” The New York Times. May 14, 2016.)

Ladies, you can do your own research about these candidates. I have done mine.