Constitutional Law, Politics, Society

Idaho Passes Strict Anti-Abortion Measure After Sponsor Invokes “Hand of God”

The Idaho House just passed a sweeping anti-abortion bill that grants no exceptions for rape, incest, severe fetal abnormality or the mental or psychological health of the mother. As if to avoid any question of the religious basis for the measure, the sponsor state Rep. Brent Crane, R-Nampa, explained to the House that this was God’s will.

Senate Bill 1165 bans abortion after 20 weeks on grounds of fetal pain. Crane invoked the “hand of the Almighty” and “His ways are higher than our ways. He has the ability to take difficult, tragic, horrific circumstances and then turn them into wonderful examples.” The measure passed on a 54-14 vote and now heads to the governor’s desk.

These measures have proven costly to the state. In the 1990s, the legislator passed an anti-abortion law and “spent nearly three-quarters of a million dollars” unsuccessfully defending the law.

Here is the information on Crane from the House website:

Born 07/02/1974 in Nampa ID; graduated in 1992 from Nampa Christian High School, received a B.A. in Political Science with emphasis in Public Administration from Boise State University 2005; Protestant; Vice President of Crane Alarm Service; family: wife Rochenda, son Keaton and daughter Riley.

Source: Spokesman

216 thoughts on “Idaho Passes Strict Anti-Abortion Measure After Sponsor Invokes “Hand of God””

  1. Jim,

    It’s just Thursday … ya gotta learn to pace yourself. whack …

  2. “… Senate Bill 1165 bans abortion after 20 weeks on grounds of fetal pain. Crane invoked the “hand of the Almighty” …”

    Ho-hum, another crazy Christian enlisted in the Republican War Against Women army. Whack-A-Mole time … again … I wonder if his tie glows in the dark …

  5. anon nurse,

    I’m never on the blog to catch you … just sayin’ “hello”.

  7. This is a trend that has been documented many times, in many cultures. When things go badly in a society, and they are going very badly, in a patriarchy, women are likely to have more controls placed over our bodies than even before. The US is no exception.

    I propose that every person be on a registry for kidney transplant and bone marrow donation. When a match comes up, they must have the procedure done no exceptions, thus saving lives and money. If they die during the procedure it is because that was god’s will. There will be no exceptions to this law. While god only allows one kidney donation, he allows multiple bone marrow donations throughout one’s life. This anti-abortion rampage is about saving lives right? So about those wars….

  8. 32 rafflaw

    At least Ryan is talking about medicare. Dems wouldn’t touch that issue with a 10 foot pole even though they know that our country can’t sustain itself without those cuts.

  9. Stamford,
    Great link to the Krugman piece. He nailed Mr. Ryan and his corporate take over of Medicare to the wall and took no prisoners. It is one more example of the Teapublicans being controlled by corporate interests. For Mr. Ryan’s sake, if his budget is passed, I hope he can steal enough money from the poor and middle class before he retires, or he will be suffering under his “savings” budget.

  10. SL:

    What makes it funny,everyone on the right when asked about Ryans plan since he announced it,all have said in so many ways but meaning the same thing”its a start” WHAT??????

  12. God din’t create abortion Man did! Therefore it is man’s job to end it! Great going.

  13. tomdarch,

    Since you mentioned unicorns …

    Krugman Exposes GOP Ryan’s Unicorn Budget, Catches Heritage Burying Number

    By: Scarecrow Wednesday April 6, 2011 8:26 pm

    [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNJ5VrVPx6g&w=640&h=390]

    Paul Krugman spent Wednesday combing through the details of Tea-GOP genius Paul Ryan’s budget and in a series of blog posts utterly destroyed the Ryan budget’s phony math, implausible assumptions and unicorn forecasts. Kudos to MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow for picking this up.

    Krugman once called Ryan a “flim flam” man, a virtual con artist, and yesterday, he proved it. Let us count the ways.

    1. Beginning Tuesday with “Groundhog Day,” Krugman warned of a giant bait-and-switch in which the claimed goal of reducing the deficit would provide cover for what in fact would be a proposal not merely to privatize Medicare (or Social Security) but to do so in a way that actually increased costs, if not to government, then for beneficiaries. He’s was right.

    As we’ve been saying all along [see here, here, and here], Ryan’s Medicare mandate plus vouchers would lower government costs only by shifting even more uncontrolled costs to seniors, disabled and poor people, eventually forcing them to forego treatment for which they could not afford insurance.

    2. In the 2022 Medicare Crisis, Krugman echoes Matt Yglesia’s point that Ryan’s Medicare mandate and voucher system sets up an unstable, indefensible discriminatory system for seniors. Starting in 2022, those already over 65 would continue receiving traditional full Medicare benefits (and have the choice of getting the equivalent from private insurers via Medicare Advantage) but those just reaching 65 from then on would receive only private insurance that, year after year, covered less and less of the costs and care as older retirees. Ryan assumes the “savings” from this discriminatory treatment would be accepted by the disadvantaged group and that Congress would ignore the unfairness.

    3. In Ryan the Ridiculous, Krugman examined Ryan’s economic assumptions on which his revenue and savings projections depend. Ryan’s budget crunchers are the right-wing Heritage Foundation. They assumed that despite major new tax cuts for wealthy Americans and corporations, federal revenues would, presumably via the hilarious Laffer curve (aka what G.H.W. Bush called “voodoo economics”), still dramatically rise. How? Because unemployment would virtually disappear: by 2020, it would fall from near 9 percent to less about 2.8 percent, a level not seen in the last sixty years when lots of men were fighting in Korea. Right.

    4. A few hours later, Krugman sent out a Memory Hole Alert, after he caught Heritage trying to scrub the implausible 2.8 unemployment assumption from its website. But Paul had the before and after screen shots. Whoops.

    5. Next, Krugman noticed Paul Ryan’s Multiple Unicorns. In addition to noting the large difference between the reality-based CBO unemployment projections and Heritage’s projections, Krugman picked up on Dean Baker’s calculations showing that to sustain the same health care they’d get under Medicare today, future seniors under RyanCare would have to spend most of their income on rising private health insurance premiums.

    Worse, Krugman notes that Ryan’s budget savings from Medicare/Medicaid that result from shifting costs to seniors and the poor/disabled would be squandered in providing more tax cuts for the rich and corporations. So the claimed debt reduction could only come from slashing everything else, but not explaining how:

    Ryan is assuming that everything aside from health and SS can be squeezed from 12 percent of GDP now to 3 1/2 percent of GDP. . . . And how is this supposed to be accomplished? Not explained.

    This isn’t a serious proposal; it’s a strange combination of cruelty and insanely wishful thinking.

    6. In a Housing Unicorn, Too! Krugman scours the Ryan/Heritage accounting to discover that the assumed Tea-GOP economic growth will be driven by . . . wait for it: another housing boom as robust as we had in 2006 at the height of the housing bubble! And since government debt would presumably be shrinking, the only way to finance that massive boom would be to have today’s snake-bitten consumers eagerly take on massive mortgage debts again. Next.

    7. In Where the Spending Cuts Go, Krugman provides bar charts to show that “a large part — roughly half — of the spending cuts are going, not to deficit reduction, but to finance those tax cuts” for the wealthy. So there may be hidden cuts or tax increases on the middle class to account for the rest of Ryan’s claimed debt reductions. Paul concludes:

    . . . the bottom line is obvious: this is not the budget of a deficit hawk. It’s the budget of a deficit exploiter, someone who is trying to use fears of red ink to push through a political agenda that includes major losses of revenue.

    Or as Ryan himself admitted: “This is not a budget, it’s a cause.”

    8. Finally, in the Puzzle of Gullibility, Krugman takes the media to task for swallowing complete nonsense, including these Beltway myths:

    Paul Ryan is an honest, deeply serious thinker who really cares about the deficit.

    The Ryan plan sets a new standard of seriousness.

    Yep. The Tea-GOP’s budget genius, the man conservative pundits hope will become President and the current President says has good ideas, the man who keeps lecturing everyone else about avoiding demagoguery and acting like grownups, that man is a complete charlatan. That’s why Krugman calls Paul Ryan, “Flim flam Man.”

    http://my.firedoglake.com/scarecrow/2011/04/06/krugman-exposes-gop-ryans-unicorn-budget-catches-heritage-burying-number/

  14. I wonder if Mikey’s ass is burnt to a crisp … liar, liar …

    Wednesday, Apr 6, 2011 18:07 ET

    Mike Pence backs more abortions

    If the GOP cuts Planned Parenthood funding, the abortion rate will jump, especially for poor women Video
    By Joan Walsh

    Rep. Mike Pence vowed to continue his jihad against Planned Parenthood Wednesday morning, telling Willie Geist on “Morning Joe” that he’s willing to reject any budget compromise, and shut down the federal government, if that’s what it takes to defund the women’s healthcare services provider.

    Of course I am. I think the American people have begun to learn that the largest abortion provider in the country is also the largest recipient of federal funding under Title X. They want to see that come to an end. I think there’s a broad consensus in this country, regardless of where you stand on the subject of abortion; there’s a broad consensus for decades now opposing public funding of abortion and abortion providers… We’re going to dig-in, we’re going to fight for the principle that taxpayers should not have to subsidize the largest abortion provider in the country, namely Planned Parenthood of America.

    Pence is lying, and he knows it. Not a dime of government funding goes to Planned Parenthood to provide abortions. The group has a separate organization, with separate staff in separate buildings, all with private funds, to provide abortion services. Federal funding pays for a broad range of women’s healthcare, from breast and cervical cancer screenings, STD testing and contraception. Last year Planned Parenthood, which provided family planning and other healthcare services to 2.5 million women, performed over a million cervical cancer screenings and more than 800,000 breast exams. Six in 10 clients say it’s their main source of healthcare.

    A 2009 Guttmacher Institute report found that the nation’s abortion rate would be two-thirds higher — and the rate for poor women would be twice as high — without federally funded family planning services, most of which go to Planned Parenthood’s network. Former President Clinton, who tends to stay out of culture war messes, made note of that contradiction in a statement supporting Planned Parenthood today.

    The assault on Planned Parenthood is unjustified. It is penny-wise and pound foolish. The law strictly and clearly prohibits the use of federal funds for abortion services. The Republicans’ elimination of funding for Planned Parenthood, will in the end cost more than it saves by ending the ability of millions of American women to receive family planning services, breast and cervical cancer screenings and preventative healthcare at cost-efficient Planned Parenthood centers. And the denial of simple birth control and family planning services may well increase both the number of unintended pregnancies and abortions in our country.

    Clinton is right; we shouldn’t hesitate to point out that what Pence and his GOP friends are doing is encouraging abortion.

    The GOP-led House already passed Pence’s bill, and the entire parade of likely 2012 contenders supports it, too. But 41 senators led by Barbara Boxer, including independents Joe Lieberman and Bernie Sanders but no Republicans, say they will filibuster any attempt to cut Planned Parenthood’s funding. Moderate Republicans like Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski and Scott Brown have expressed reservations about defunding Planned Parenthood completely, but haven’t committed to a filibuster to stop it.

    We must be clear: Planned Parenthood is frequently the only women’s healthcare provider in some cities and rural areas. Blogger Andrea Grimes detailed her search for an alternative to Planned Parenthood around Dallas after a local right-wing legislator assured her there were plenty of clinics to fill the void. Grimes is an uninsured freelancer who needs regular cervical screenings. In days of searching she found one nonprofit provider who might have an appointment sometime in May — if she called back in three weeks. Everywhere else she was referred was either booked, didn’t provide those services, or didn’t answer their phones. Later she learned that the local public hospital provided care to uninsured women, but only if they had an ongoing medical relationship there; in its web of clinics, there were three who could see Grimes, two sometime in May, one in July. (Planned Parenthood could give her an appointment the same day.)

    On “Hardball” today, Melissa Harris-Perry explained that in the event of a government shutdown, this lets the GOP scapegoat women, particularly feminists and poor women. It’s also about making the lives of poor and working people as miserable as possible. Chris Matthews couldn’t understand why people who oppose abortion couldn’t come together behind funding family planning services instead.

    Joan Walsh is Salon’s editor at large.

    http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/joan_walsh/

  15. Stamford,
    Both good choices!
    Swarthmore,
    I just saw that article about the reasons the Teapublicans have for shutting down the government. The good news is that it will come back to bite them in the backside.

  17. Good! Once we hurry up and settle abortion, gay marriage and all the other minor social wedge issues, then we can get to doing the work that the Christan God really cares about: Rampant, cruel and absurd bigotry against left handed people!

    America was founded on a rock-solid base of traditions! It’s a sign that we’re all headed to hell in a rocket-powered handbasket that we have forsaken the great American tradition of discriminating against the left-handed!

    Once we can fully harness the force of all levels of government in America to doing God’s will by torturing those who make the obviously wrong left handed lifestyle choice, then there will be no more hurricanes or earth quakes and Paul Ryan’s unicorns on rainbows budget with a 2% unemployment rate and negligible taxes on the super wealthy will actually work!

  18. And it’s these same religious fanatics who bitch about Sharia law………………

  19. rafflaw,

    Lol – you watched The Meaning of Life … I watched The Holy Grail …

  20. Stamford,
    The meaning of life was just on TV last night and I had to watch the Every Sperm is Sacred scenes! Hilarious, but with a bite.

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