Conservatives, with their disregard and vitriol, have virtually willed third-year Georgetown Law School student Sandra Fluke into national fame. Yesterday, she used her national platform to speak with Melissa and our audience about the rampant politicization of women and their reproductive rights by, well, the Right.
She expressed her cautious support for Friday's White House announcement that, according to the New York Times, would guarantee their federal mandate for health insurance coverage of contraceptives would apply to the many Roman Catholic hospitals, universities and social service agencies that insure themselves. Also guaranteed, per the report: access to free coverage of contraceptives for women working for and studying at the university.
I say "cautious support" because this announcement, while a defense of their controversial federal mandate, was also a compromise. Fluke, on yesterday's show:
I am concerned that some universities and employers will take the opportunity of the one-year potential delay to continue to not adequately provide for their students' and their employees' health needs. So that's really what I'm focusing on as a next step...this kind of a delay is not something a university has to do, and their university should hear from them if they don't want a delay.
Melissa, Fluke and our in-studio guests also discussed the recent spate of mandatory-sonogram laws -- including an incredible act of what Esther Armah and Allison Kilkenny properly recognized as citizen journalism: the recent Texas Observer cover story about a mother's painful quest to end her second pregnancy after a major birth defect was discovered. Again, I recommend reading the article, and watching the full segment below.
For the past 18 years, the Violence Against Women Act has been extended through Congress problem-free. However this time around, conservatives are threatening the outcome of the re-authorization - that provides protection for women's health and safety - due to oppositions to new additions to the bill. Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke, who has been at the epicenter of much of the recent women's health debate, joins the Melissa Harris-Perry Show to discuss why the act is such a hot-button topic.
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YES Women of the Left will fight back against Republicans who want to control them. Too bad the men of the Left didn't do it sooner.
MSNBC news
MSNBC news did a story on government out of control. It was a series of short segments of government wrongs against the citizen. The segment I saw was a family having their land taken by the EPA on government made wetland issues. The key part of the entire program had to be the statement “The government wins with their finical, mental and physical ways by attrition”. The stories were about government wrongs against individuals one at a time using wrongfully achieved public support to cripple and doom the family. “What are we fighting for next stop is Vietnam” is a common saying while waiting for the next offensive to start to protect and defend our Constitution. Stopping the medical care for disabled US Military Veterans is OK because the news media does on qualify it as a story worth telling. We have a great form of government that the Checks and Balances to protect the individual are out of control in a negative way.
In the newspaper this morning was a story of a mental health clinic started by a family that had an aunt and two children walk into traffic on the busy highway one summer night. PTSD and TBI are two of my four service-connected disabilities three being combat related. Untreated PTSD and TBI even though I write letters everyday about it as our Government the VA stops my medical care to stop my freedom of speech. The government wins because they fix my medical file to please inspection to demonstrate to the public I am nuts. Public communication is censored, as the editors believe my words are a danger to the public so under safety issues silence aids government wrongs. Suicide while in one of my flashbacks is a more common event each time but until I am successful the government cannot say, “We should have seen it coming”. One by One US Military Veteran’s are lost by a system that the Checks and Balances through lack of communication of the individual aids government wrongs. The government is here to serve the people not master them. Known untreated mental health issues who are to blame?
Do innocent people have to die because untreated PTSD and TBI drove me to believe something that was not? Maybe the pains from my broken back going untreated or the confusion of limited hearing will offend others to believe my response was wrong and a danger. MSNBC could do an entire story on US Military Veterans neglected by government wrongs if they could see past the wasteful government proper ganger of new programs. It is the citizens that give up or just love the USA so much are willing to let life pass rather than fight any more to go on. I am not one of them. I came back to a society that I should not have. I owe the US Military that gave their lives for us not to let it be in VAIN.
Everyone in government reads my letters including VA personal. I describe my medical conditions like my right arm losing control every so often. Just like the landowners and the Aunt and two children government wins by attrition They do not care that I am a 100% disabled US Military Veteran only what more can they do to dominate society? The newspaper will censor this response for the danger it is?
Peter Macdonald Sgt USMC Semper Fi
465 Packers falls Rd Lee NH 03824 603-781-3839
Ms. HarrisPerry,
I notice all too often hosts do not use the terms "Pro-choice" and "Anti-choice" when speaking on abortion issues, you included. The term "Pro-life" is a term that is meant to imply that if one is not "Pro-life" then one must be "Anti-life." This is a deliberate attempt to denigrate women who have abortions, and has nothing to do with a woman's choice.
If you do not wish to correct your guests when they use this derogatory falsehood, perhaps you would at least use the terms "Anti" and "Pro-choice" yourself.
Thank you from a great grandmother who resents being referred to as being against life.