When Mitt Romney chose Paul Ryan as his running mate, he not only aligned himself with the extremist budget proposals put forward over the past two years by Ryan and the Republican leadership in the House of Representatives. Romney also enlisted in the "War on Women" that many Republican politicians - including Ryan - have been waging.
In 2011 Ryan co-sponsored, along with the Republican Party's now-disgraced Senate candidate in Missouri, Rep. Todd Akin, what's been called the "Redefining Rape Bill," HR 3. This legislation would have created a distinction between "forcible rape" (what Akin called "legitimate rape") and some other, undefined kind of rape. The Akin controversy in August angered many women and reminded them of anti-women Republican policies over the past two years which have included the push, in several states, to force women to undergo an invasive and medically-unneeded ultrasound if they're considering terminating a pregnancy. Republicans have also fought to allow employers to refuse to include birth control in health insurance.
When Republicans in Congress held a hearing on their anti-birth control agenda in February 2012, they refused to allow any women to appear as witnesses. Sandra Fluke, a young woman law school student whom Democrats had invited to testify, was then slandered on national radio as "a slut" and "a prostitute", for several days in a row, by Republican blowhard Rush Limbaugh. Romney failed to speak up in defense of Fluke and against Limbaugh's disgusting attack.
Over the course of his political career, Mitt Romney has held, at one time or another, just about every possible position on the issue of abortion. When Romney ran against the late Ted Kennedy for the Senate in 1994, Kennedy compared their stances on this issue: "I'm pro-choice. My opponent is multiple choice." After he left Massachusetts politics to seek the presidency, Romney became less liberal and increasingly anti-choice.
When Romney appeared on Mike Huckabee's show on the Fox News Channel in October 2011, Huckabee asked him if he would support a constitutional amendment to declare that a fertilized egg is legally a person. "Absolutely!" was Romney's reply. Under a so-called "personhood amendment" all abortions - and many forms of birth control - would be legally treated as murder, and no exceptions would be permitted for pregnancies that result from rape or incest. It's a position so extreme that when a personhood amendment was placed on the ballot in 2011 as a referendum in Mississippi, it was defeated by more than 55 percent of voters. Similar measures have failed in Virginia, Colorado, Montana, Oklahoma, Ohio and other states.
REPUBLICAN HYPOCRISY ON PREGNANCY
Before anyone buys the Republicans' argument that they're not really anti-women, just pro-unborn and "pro-life", consider the party's opposition to protecting pregnant women in the workplace. Republicans in Congress are opposed to the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA), introduced in September by two Democratic Senators, to stop employers from discriminating against and firing workers because they are pregnant.
Such legislation is badly needed. Heather Wiseman was fired by Walmart because she developed a bladder infection during her pregnancy and needed to carry a water bottle to stay hydrated. Walmart forbade her water bottle and fired her. After a near-miscarriage, Victoria Seredny's doctor told her not to lift heavy objects during her pregnancy. But her nursing-home employer ordered other workers not to help her, and fired her for refusing to lift heavy items and endanger her baby.
What these women needed were "reasonable accomodations" to do their jobs, as provided under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). But ADA does not include pregnancy as a disability, and this loophole allows employers to fire pregnant women in spite of the 1978 Pregnancy Discrimination Act, which made it illegal to fire a woman specifically because she becomes pregnant. The PWFA is designed to close this loophole and protect pregnant women, but the GOP opposes it.
It's hard to say that a politician is "pro-life" or "pro-motherhood" who opposes legislation to protect pregnant women from employer retaliation. It's more accurate to call such a policy pro-employer, anti-worker and anti-woman.
OPPOSING EQUAL PAY
But the Republican war on women goes beyond issues of women's health and reproductive decisions. Nearly every Republican in Congress voted against the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009. Republicans killed the bill when Bush was president, but it became the first law signed by President Obama. That law overturned a Supreme Court ruling that used an unfair misinterpretation of the statute of limitations to throw out the pay discrimination lawsuit of Ms. Ledbetter against her employer, Goodyear Tire & Rubber. By their opposition to this bill Republicans showed their hostility to women's equality in the workplace.
When Congress passed the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, only three Republicans in the House of Representatives and just five in the Senate voted for the bill. Congressman Paul Ryan was among those voting "no".