Julie's Web Journal

This is the first time in memory that I did not vote for a single Republican candidate.

Usually I can find a moderate Republican somewhere on the ballot, but this year it seemed a fruitless task.  The anti-woman, anti-science agendas seem to have taken hold of the Grand Old Party and refuse to let go. Abraham Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt are spinning in their graves.

How can I, in good conscience, vote for a party that openly tolerates people who insist that women secrete special fluids that block pregnancy in the case of "legitimate rape" (whatever the heck that means), compare women to pigs and cows, call slavery "a blessing," or think a child conceived in rape is a "gift from God," something is wrong.

Here's the thing: I don't think abortion should be used as birth control. But let me ask you: What if the baby you planned for, the baby you wanted, died in the womb? Would you carry it to term, particularly at a cost to your health or life? Of course not. 

What if your son got pregnant partway through the football season? Is it his fault for letting that woman sweet talk him into letting her have her way? Did she lie about using protection? Did she threaten to tell the rest of the team that your son is a virgin and frigid to boot? Of course, that's not going to happen. But if a teenage girl gets pregnant, it's her fault that she spread her legs.

Why is it perfectly fine for a woman to make 75% or so of what a man makes for the same work? Is it because she's a mother? Tell that to the widow or the woman whose husband abandoned her for next year's model and refuses to pay child support. 

Men, what if the gold standard for a prostate exam involved sticking a wand as far up your nether regions as it would go, with no anesthesia? (I'm aware that type of sonogram is necessary in some diagnostic procedures, but that's not the first test.) What if you had to get your testicles squeezed every year in a machine that left your nuts aching for the rest of the day? What if you needed a prostate exam, were unemployed, and the only clinic on the public transit lines had a bunch of anti-abortion protesters out front? If you were unemployed and on Medicaid, your prostate exam would be covered. If you were unemployed and on Medicaid, your wife's birth control would not be covered. What is wrong with that picture?

Why does "pro life" stop at the birth canal?

The far right loony wing of the GOP sees nothing wrong with any of the above. I can no longer in good conscience vote for a party that condones those attitudes.