Republican women say ‘War No More,’ but the men keep shooting their mouths off – The Washington Post

Republican women say ‘War No More,’ but the men keep shooting their mouths off – The Washington Post By Dana Milbank Opinion writer March 16 at 8:44 PM

Earlier this year, House Republicans caused an uproar when, in one of the first acts of the new Congress, they attempted to pass an antiabortion bill that would grant exceptions to a rape victim only if she reported the assault to police. Republican women rebelled, and GOP leaders pulled the bill. In the weeks since then, Republican officeholders across the land have been demonstrating that if there isn’t a Republican war on women, there are a lot of loose cannons. In recent weeks, Republican state legislators have described a pregnant woman as “the child’s host” rather than a mother (in Virginia), called women a “lesser cut of meat” (South Carolina), likened Planned Parenthood to the Islamic State terror group (South Dakota), proposed legislation outlawing yoga pants (Montana) and suggested that it is not rape when a man has sex with an unconscious woman if he is in a relationship with her (Utah). …

Alas for the GOP, the gender gap preceded Senate candidate Todd Akin, and the comments have continued since then: the Idaho legislator who asked last month whether a gynecological exam on a woman could be conducted by having her swallow a camera; the New Hampshire legislator who said a Democratic congresswoman would lose because she’s “ugly as sin”; another New Hampshire legislator who argued that men make more than women because “they don’t mind working nights and weekends” or “overtime or outdoors”; the Arizona GOP official who said women on Medicaid should be sterilized; and the New Mexico congressman who endorsed this biblical view: “The wife is to voluntarily submit, just as the husband is to lovingly lead and sacrifice.”

At the same time, Republicans have taken up hundreds of bills in state legislatures restricting abortion, and Democrats have sought to highlight Republican opposition in Congress to the Violence Against Women Act, the Paycheck Fairness Act and other bills.

Republican women say ‘War No More,’ but the men keep shooting their mouths off – The Washington Post

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