Ryan/Romney Bad For Women's Rights

Since Willard Mitt Romney flip-flopped on a number of women's rights issues (especially allowing women to control their own bodies) to please his right-wing base, he has not been doing well among women. Polls show a large majority of women prefer President Obama over Romney. Evidently, that is just fine with the Republican candidate, because in picking Paul Ryan to be his running mate, he has picked one of the GOP leaders in their ongoing "war on women".

While Ryan parts ways with his catholic faith on some issues (like caring for the poor and needy, and protecting the elderly), he is fully on board with keeping women as second-class citizens. He may talk about small government, but he definitely wants a government big enough to interfere in the lives and personal choices of all American women. If you doubt this, here are five things Think Progress says you need to know about Paul Ryan:

1. Ryan co-sponsored a “personhood” amendment that would give legal rights to a fetus starting at conception. Ryan joined 62 other Republicans in co-sponsoring the Sanctity of Human Life Act, an anti-abortion measure declaring that a fertilized egg “shall have all the legal and constitutional attributes and privileges of personhood.” This would outlaw abortion, some forms of contraception and in-vitro fertilization.

2. Ryan supports banning all abortions, even in cases of rape and incest. In addition to his support of the personhood amendment, Ryan won his congressional seat in 1998 by emphasizing his opposition to all abortions without exceptions. But this puts him at odds with Mitt Romney, who has said he would allow exceptions in cases or rape and incest.

3. Ryan voted to ban abortion coverage from being included in the state health insurance exchanges. The Stupak amendment that Ryan backed would have prevented women from purchasing plans that cover abortion services through the exchanges set up under Obamacare — even when using their own funds.

4. Ryan compared Roe v. Wade to the Dred Scott Supreme Court decision. “Twice in the past the U.S. Supreme Court—charged with being the guardian of rights—has failed so drastically in making this crucial determination that it ‘disqualified’ a whole category of human beings, with profoundly tragic results,” Ryan wrote in 2010. After the 1857 case, Dred Scott v. Sandford, “the second time the Court failed in a case regarding the definition of “human” was in Roe v. Wade in 1973,” he added.

5. Ryan has supported defunding Planned Parenthood. In 2011, hevoted for an amendment that would block Planned Parenthood and the health care organization’s affiliates from receiving any funds in a 2011 continuing appropriations bill.

Romney was already in trouble with women. Picking Ryan does nothing to cure those troubles. There is absolutely no reason for a sane woman to vote for Ryan/Romney (or any man who loves the women in his life).