Is Paul Ryan Bad For Women?
This columnist believes Mitt Romney's selection of Ryan will force social issues to take center stage.
Mitt Romney handed Barack Obama a potentially winning new slogan for his campaign for re-election in November: ‘Paul Ryan is Bad for Women.’
As much as Romney would prefer the upcoming election to be a referendum on Obama’s financial policy, his selection of Paul Ryan as his partner on the GOP ticket will probably force social issues to take center stage. Romney has worked hard to avoid discussing his mixed record on topics like women’s reproductive rights and health care reform, but Ryan’s entry into the campaign trail may render that impossible.
Ryan may also erode any lasting sliver of hope Romney had of winning back the support of conservative single women who have felt alienated by the Republican Party. Ryan has been a prominent figure in the recent “war on women,” voting to defund Planned Parenthood four times and vocally supporting overturning Roe v. Wade, seeking to make abortion illegal even in cases of rape and incest.
Ryan also co-sponsored the federal Sanctity of Human Life Act, which sought to give a fertilized embryo all the “legal and constitution attributes and privileges of personhood.” This is in spite of the fact that personhood amendments have been thus far unpopular on state ballots and would make certain forms of birth control and in vitro fertilization treatments illegal. Ryan also supported the Protect Life Act, nicknamed the ‘Let Women Die Act’ by Democrats, that would have allowed hospitals to deny women emergency abortion care, even in a life-or-death situation for the mother.
In 2009, Ryan voted against the relatively uncontroversial Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which passed without his support and grants women protection from being denied equal pay for equal work. This is not to mention Ryan’s consistent lack of support for LGBT rights, his record on immigration, and his much lauded budget plan that would slash safety net programs and dismantle Medicare as we know it.
The full impact of Romney’s selection of Paul Ryan as his running mate will not be known until the election in November. But as the race heats up in the next two months, it seems Ryan’s deeply conservative stances on social issues may do more harm than good.
What do you think? Let us know in the comments section below.
News Man
11:25 am on Friday, August 24, 2012
Bad For Women-GOP and Himself.
Thank you Ella Dawson (author) for your nicely done topic.
Oh yeah and he is bad for the guys too.
John Q.
12:42 pm on Friday, August 24, 2012
"Reproductive Rights" LOL why can't you call it what it is.......... "Abortion Rights". The right to terminiate the life of a fetus. At least we could have some truth in advertising here.
June
12:09 pm on Saturday, August 25, 2012
Reproductive rights includes birth control, not just abortion. Ryan's views are totally regressive, therefore totally unacceptable.
John Santaella
8:53 am on Sunday, August 26, 2012
You're narrow mindedness shows. Abortion is but one portion of reproductive rights. Are you willing to provide health care for those who make it through the birth canal or do rights end at birth?
John Q.
12:43 pm on Friday, August 24, 2012
ELLA DAWSON....
Ella is a Greenwich High graduate class of 2010 and a member of the Wesleyan University class of 2014, majoring in Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. In 2009 she attended the Iowa Young Writer's Studio and self-published a novel called 'The Rules of Hooking up.' She is a women's health clinic volunteer, a radio DJ with WESU Middletown 88.1FM and a recovering Thespian Director from Greenwich High. Her hobbies include pontificating about college hookup culture, pointing out White privilege, and writing feminist erotica.
John Santaella
8:55 am on Sunday, August 26, 2012
A thespian? Did you say thespian? Oh, the horror. Heaven forbid that anyone have different views than yours.
Mike G
7:31 pm on Saturday, September 1, 2012
John Q., Since you frequently share your opinion with the reading audience, why not post your full name, background, political leanings, etc.?
LW, jr.
12:47 pm on Friday, August 24, 2012
@ John Q. - if "Ella Dawson" is the opposition, Paul Ryan is choosing his enemies wisely! Regarding Ella, I'll quote another GOP VP candidate's malapropism: "a wasted mind is a terrible thing"
Moist Cake
2:34 pm on Friday, August 24, 2012
Conservatives only care about the fetus, once your born.... your on your own..... until military age, then they care again! These are the same nut jobs who believe that god (an invisible figure similar to zombies, trolls under bridges and peter pan) actually wrote that marriage is a sacrament and testament to god and that it only constitutes between a man and woman. Yawn...
Keep in mind that "terminating the life of a fetus" is an undefined term. Where does termination begin and end for a fetus? When life is created, the egg in a woman's body? Well if that's the case then every woman would be a serial killer and a man would be guilty of genocide. The standard conservative could care less about the life of a person, they just want to control women plain and simple and this is a easy way to do it. Call it like it is.
The fact of the matter is conservatives love to believe values that are just made up like these divine ideas that they are infatuated with. Anyone who has a pair of eyes should look around and see what a divine planet we actually live on, war, suffering, poverty, disease, starvation and filth inhabits most corners of the earth.
Please, if this is a the work of a divine figure, I am not impressed. Oh and conservatives..... unless your a white male earning above 200k a year they don't want you and could care less about you. I don't necessarily like Obama, but there is no way I am voting for Romney. Ill take the lesser of two evils.
Freedomfaithandliberty
10:32 pm on Saturday, August 25, 2012
"The standard conservative could care less about the life of a person, they just want to control women plain and simple..."
You're a terribly ignorant and simple individual. Hopefully you are in no position to influence the life of anybody else.
John Q.
3:01 pm on Friday, August 24, 2012
"terminating the life of a fetus" is an undefined term??????
Really?
John Margroff
2:45 pm on Saturday, August 25, 2012
Paul Ryan will put self respnosiblity back where it belongs - on the individual. With the exception or rape, birth reproductive rights should not be a political issue, but an individuals rights and preferance We do need to get the government out of all peoples lives.
John Santaella
8:58 am on Sunday, August 26, 2012
I absolutely agree that government should stay out of peoples lives. No more tax breaks for the rich.
Freedomfaithandliberty
10:39 pm on Saturday, August 25, 2012
'...recent "war on women"'. You as well Ella, are a terribly ignorant and simple individual. How many Republican men are at war with their mothers, wives or their daughters? Mitt Romeny seems to have a genuine affection for his wife and Paul Ryan for his wife and mother - which is significantly different for the liberal bastion of Hollywood. November 6th can't come soon enough.
John Santaella
9:00 am on Sunday, August 26, 2012
Romney and Ryan may care about their wives and mothers just not your wife or mother
Freedomfaithandliberty
3:38 pm on Sunday, August 26, 2012
So seriously John... They care about the women in their lives but want to go to war with all other women. You too are a terribly ignorant and simple individual.
Please do not vote this November. It's folks like you who are permitting Barack Obama to drive this country over a cliff.
John Santaella
5:22 pm on Monday, August 27, 2012
Really Betty Rubble? Do you have documentation that Barack Hussein Obama has created more debt than all other Presidents combined? The fact you use his middle name tells me where you're coming from.
You've imbibed from the FOX fountain and are drunk with talking points but no evidence.
You're still in the Stone Age, no?
John Santaella
4:03 pm on Sunday, August 26, 2012
No, Freedomfaithandliberty, they want to do war with women and men both, they are equal opportunity MIC dominated individuals. Romney is a draft dodger. Ryan too young, the draft was over when he came of age. It's people such as yourself who don't have any sense of argument or compromise; it's your way or the highway. and you dare say it's people like me who are driving this country over a cliff. We have two illegal, unnecessary wars with no way to pay for them and it's Obama who is driving this country over a cliff? How out of touch with reality are you? Go look up the word ''ignorant''
Betty Rubble
11:38 pm on Sunday, August 26, 2012
Barack Hussein Obama has been in office for almost four years. Why are we still in two illegal, unnecessary wars with no way to pay for them? Barack Hussein Obama has created more debt for this nation than all other Presidents combined, so it certainly seems as if he has no problem throwing money around. You also state that Romney and Ryan want to do war with women and men both...
Once again, please do not vote this November as you will do futher harm to this wonderful country.
Tee Smyth
11:57 am on Monday, August 27, 2012
Oh, Betty Rubble. Your post just reeks of Fox News Talking Points. Tell us how YOU really feel.
News Man
4:58 pm on Sunday, August 26, 2012
Click here for one of 11 Most Memorable Political Convention Speeches. I remember (and some others). Click here and travel the site.
http://www.usnews.com/opinion/slideshows/the-11-most-memorable-political-convention-speeches/2
Which one do you remember, Male or Ladies?
News Man
10:26 am on Monday, August 27, 2012
Looking forward to "Social Issues" dominating the Republican convention this year.
The GOP has painted itself into a corner and are stuck there with no place to go. It will take more than a hurricane to help them out this time around.
JFK's speech the, "New Frontier" at the 1960 Demorcrate convention can never be match by the GOP this year by its self interest. What do you think?
John Santaella
5:23 pm on Monday, August 27, 2012
We got suckered with ''Compassionate Conservatism" Never Again!!!
Bill Porterfield
1:07 pm on Friday, August 31, 2012
if government should have nothing to do with whether a woman chooses to have her child or not, then why do women get to have the government go after men for money when they choose to have the kid??? As Tim Allen said, "men have two choices in life - work or prison."