The most recent jobs report got a nice spin from the media,
who seemed quite excited that 195,000 jobs were created in June. This was
presented as a “solid improvement” in the job market. That this didn’t change
the unemployment rate of 7.6% was mentioned as an afterthought. Meanwhile,
there are over 11 million Americans still out of work, and 37% of those folks
are among the long-term unemployed. If we add the number of folks who are
underemployed (working part time because they can’t find full time work) the
numbers increase to being 22 million. The folks at Planet Money track what they
call the broader unemployment rate, which includes the underemployed. That
number is about 14%.
These numbers should be of concern. A consumer-based economy
is never going to recover if 14% of the population is unable to spend money.
Congress has shown their deep concern for jobs and the economy by recently
voting for the 37th time to repeal the Affordable Care Act. These 37
votes have cost US taxpayers over $53.8 million. The Congressional Budget
Office reports that the repeal would add $109 billion to the deficit over the
next decade. This is a Congress that is on track to be the most do-nothing
Congress in US history, passing fewer bills than any thus far.
What are states across the nation doing in response to the
huge numbers of unemployed and underemployed? Well, duh – they’re doing what
logic dictates. They’re passing restrictive abortion laws.
Texas just passed a law that dramatically restricts abortions,
and outlaws them outright after 20 weeks. The forced birth crowd would have us
believe that women get bored with being pregnant, or find it inconvenient, and
decide at 5 months pregnant that it’s time to just have an abortion. The
reality is that fewer than 2% of abortions occur at this point in a pregnancy.
The late term abortion is an agonizing choice, made for health reasons, no
matter what the forced gestation crowd tries to tell us. Texas has just sent
women a message: “we’d rather let you die.”
Texas is sending out all kinds of messages. Their unemployment rate is 6.5%.
The poverty rate in Texas is 18.5% and the child poverty rate is a whopping
25.7%. Texas has the highest number of uninsured children in the nation. That
deep concern for the fetus ends at the moment of birth. Pew Research finds that only 38% of
Texans want to make abortion laws stricter. It’s certainly not the will or the
work of the people that’s being done by the Texas legislature.
Ohio has a 7% unemployment rate. The poverty rate is 16.4%,
and the child poverty rate is 24%. Ohio’s response? They’ve just passed an
abortion bill that forces women to have ultrasounds, and cuts funding for
family planning. Rape crisis centers risk losing public funds if they mention
abortion. That kind of flagrant limitation of free speech would never, ever be
applied to any other law. Governor Kasich signed it on a Sunday night.
Arkansas passed a law (currently blocked by a judge) in May
that prevents abortions after 12 weeks. Arkansas has a 7.3% unemployment rate,
a 19.5% poverty rate, and a child poverty rate of 28%. It seems those numbers
are such a source of pride for the state that they’re desperate to expand them
by forcing women to incubate.
Last week in Wisconsin, Scott Walker secretly signed a bill
that makes ultrasounds mandatory for women seeking an abortion. If this is a
good, necessary thing, why was it done in secret? Wisconsin, by the way, has a
7% unemployment rate, 13 % poverty rate, and an 18% rate of child poverty.
Clearly mandatory ultrasounds are the key to changing all that.
Mississippi, Alabama, and Kansas all have court cases
pending on restrictive abortion laws. Alabama has a 9.8% unemployment rate, a
19% poverty rate, and 28% of Alabama’s children live in poverty. Mississippi
has a 10.5% unemployment rate, a 22.6% poverty rate, and 32% of the state’s
children live in poverty. One can only conclude that those numbers are a source
of pride, since they’re working so hard to perpetuate them. As for Kansas, their unemployment rate is 5.7% (it’s on the
rise), the poverty rate is 13.8%, and the child poverty rate is 19%.
One wonders why, at a time of economic turmoil, the response
is to invalidate women’s rights and create more poverty. There’s no interest on
the national or state level in job creation – just uterine regulation. The
uterus must be the deadliest weapon on the planet, since the desire to regulate
it is unparalleled.
North Carolina has tried to graft restrictive abortion
language to other bills in recent weeks. One concerned banning Sharia law (the
irony!) and the pending bill concerns motorcycle safety. The language to
restrict abortion was added in secret to the bills, by Republicans in the
legislature. That they have to resort to secrecy and trickery to attempt to
pass these kinds of bills tells us all we need to know. This isn’t the people’s
business that’s being conducted – it’s throwing red, divisive meat into the
public sphere in an effort to distract voters from the things they really
should be mad about. Like the utter failure to do anything that will create
jobs – especially jobs that pay a decent wage. Forcing women to serve as
involuntary incubators isn’t going to rebuild the nation’s economy.
© 2013 sbruce
published as a biweekly column in the Conway Daily Sun newspaper
1 comment:
It's pretty disgusting what is being allowed to happen. TeaRethugs care absolutely NOTHING for living breathing human beings. They feign to care ONLY for the fetus and once it's born, cast it and its mother off into the wilderness for the wolves to feed on. This may be because collectively, the GOP has the brain of a fetus. Perhaps also because collectively they have all read only one book which was A Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood and decided that this was the world they wished to create and live in. It's staggering to realize that here in the greatest country in the whole world, THIS is now where we are at. Poor poor frightened white men. And their great leader Mr. Coke/Kotch/Koch however he prefers to disguise his German name, has just announced that families with an income of $34 plus thousand a year are in the 1% is proof positive of delusion.
Post a Comment