Republican presidential candidate Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) proposed a bill on Thursday that would force women in the early stages of pregnancy to have a physically invasive and medically unnecessary ultrasound procedure before they can legally consent to having an abortion.
The “Heartbeat Informed Consent Act” requires doctors to make the fetal heartbeat visible and audible to the woman prior to the abortion procedure and to describe the ultrasound image to her in detail, even if she prefers not to hear about it. If the woman is between four and five weeks pregnant, the doctor has to perform a “transvaginal ultrasound” in order to hear the heartbeat, which involves a probe and can be physically uncomfortable for the woman.
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What can I say? I thought republicans believed in small government, not very large, invasive, and unconstitutional sounding government? I thought they believed in rights? I’m confused. Just kidding, I’m not confused. This is completely consistent with the Republicans. You know, those dystopian, xenophobic, Christian fundamentalist, patriarchal, ethonocentric, corporate pawns who externally defend patriotism, liberty, freedom, justice and equality. (For all?)
CNN’s Jack Cafferty:
Forget about the separation of church and state… there’s reason to believe that religion might have a whole new meaning for the next occupant of the White House.
The Daily Beast reports that two of the Republican candidates for president - Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry - are “deeply associated” with a theocratic strain of Christian fundamentalism that’s called Dominionism.
For those of you who haven’t heard of it before, and I was one who hadn’t - stand by cause this is “out there.”
The Daily Beast writes how Dominionists believe that Christians have a God-given right to rule all earthly institutions. Dominionism finds its roots in a small fringe sect called Christian Reconstructionism. People who advocate replacing U.S. law with the laws of the Old Testament, including the death penalty for homosexuality and abortion. swell.
Bachmann appeared in a documentary for one of these groups called “truth in action ministries.” Also, she often praises or cites different religious leaders connected to such beliefs.
As for Perry, there’s a group called “the new apostolic reformation” that sees him as their ticket to power. They talk about “taking dominion over American society” and hope that Perry can claim the so-called “mountain” of government. This group was also involved in Perry’s prayer vigil in Houston a couple of weeks ago.
Critics suggest the Daily Beast’s examples show so-called Dominionist groups attaching to the candidates.
And the website Newsbusters - which claims to expose liberal media bias - says that the Daily Beast “went a few more steps off the deep end” by publishing this piece.
We’ve reached out to both campaigns for a response but haven’t heard anything back yet.
I tried to find video of this Cafferty segment without success - the only one’s I found were Newsbusters and other right wing bloggers and it appears that they omitted any real discussion of what dominionism is. Maybe Cafferty didn’t discuss it in detail as some of the comments to the blog post indicate readers were also having to look up “dominionism.” Anyone catch it live?
Regardless, I am glad that this alarming aspect of Perry and Bachmann is getting wider exposure. Lots of moderates watch CNN.
