Tag: abortion - Page 3 - Secular Left

May 10, 2018

Tennessee OKs Monument in Honor of Unborn Children

The religious right is at it again. This time, Republicans in Tennessee passed a measure allowing for the construction of a monument to the unborn “victims of abortion.”

What they should be calling it is a monument to the systematic oppression of women by a society that is still run unduly in large part by religious fanatics.

The Republican-led Tennessee House of Representatives already passed a bill, and the Tennessee State Senate added an amendment, sending the legislation back to the house before it went on to Republican Governor Bill Haslam. The proposal would raise private funds to erect what the Tennessee legislature is calling the “Tennessee Monument to Unborn Children, In Memory of the Victims of Abortion: Babies, Women and Men.”

Read the post

October 1, 2015

Toledo’s ProMedica Health Picks Politics Over Women’s Health

Sign at the ProMedica protest on Wednesday

Ohio has some of the most ridiculous and onerous abortion ‘regulations’ in the country. One of these ‘regulations’ requires a ‘transfer agreement’ between a hospital and a clinic under the guise of ‘patient safety’. ProMedica, a large private hospital group in the Toledo area is saying it won’t sign a transfer agreement with Toledo’s only abortion clinic because it doesn’t want to take sides in the abortion debate. By refusing to enter into an agreement ProMedica is in fact taking a side and it isn’t supporting women’s health.

Here is a brief explanation of Ohio abortion “regulations”:

Read the post

April 24, 2015

If Right-Wing Christianity Is On The Decline, Why Am I Not Seeing It In My State House?

Crowd protesting Indiana’s bad religious freedom bill March 2015

We are on the cusp of probably seeing same-sex marriage bans joining school mandated prayer in the dust bin of history. The road from DC is looking like an end to religious privilege. The war has instead moved to the state houses around the country where the right-wing is doing all it can to deny basic human dignity and worth by forcing Christianity on the residents of their states.

In a Salon article, Evan McMurry, from AlterNet, detailed at least four areas the right-wing religious conservatives are flexing what muscles they have left:

Read the post

July 4, 2014

Hobby Lobby Decision Created Special Religious Rights

Not only did the recent Burwell v. Hobby Lobby US Supreme Court Decision give corporations religious rights that only individuals had under the 1st amendment, but the decision confirmed the religious have extra-consitutional rights. It’s all because of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act that was passed in 1993.

Dave Niose, from the American Humanist Association, explains:

Read the post

January 30, 2014

Great Time At The Ohio Secular Summit

image of the Secular Summit 2.0 Welcome Sign that greeted participants

Secular Summit 2.0 Welcome Sign Greeted Participants

On January 28th, a bitterly cold Tuesday morning, approximately 20 people gathered for the second annual Secular Summit in the Museum Gallery in the Ohio Statehouse in downtown Columbus. The summit was organized and hosted by the Center for Inquiry Northeast Ohio (CFI NE Ohio) but included people from the various secular groups in Ohio. In the morning we had several speakers, some training in lobbying, and then the afternoon was when participants visited their Representatives and Senators to introduce themselves and the issues of importance to seculars in the state. The extreme cold couldn’t keep us from talking to the legislature, most of whom have completely opposite views.

The Secular Summit was held in the Museum Gallery on the ground floor of the Ohio State House.

Read the post

August 17, 2013

Heartbeat Bill Returns In Ohio

Quiverfull proponents Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar as props at the heartbeat bill press conference

In 2012, anti-choice groups got a heartbeat bill introduced in the Ohio legislature in an attempt to make abortion technically illegal. The bill was passed in the Ohio House but died in the Senate. This week the heartbeat bill was reintroduced by the same man who introduced it in 2012, Republican state Rep. Lynn Wachtmann of Napoleon. This time they used the celebrity Quiverfull proponents The Duggar Family as props at the press conference. Even after Ohio just enacted some of the most restrictive regulations on abortion in the country, the forced-birth people are back again for more restrictions.

Read the post