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In almost no time at all, Republican super-majorities have demolished reproductive healthcare in nearly half the states in our country. A vote for Democrats is a vote to ensure that Pennsylvania will not join their ranks.

Here are just a few resources which reveal the devastating scope of Republican attacks on women's reproductive freedoms.

Episode 792 of This American Life chronicles the day-to-day agonies of one OB-GYN doctor in Idaho coping with abortion restrictions so severe as to threaten the lives of pregnant women in desperate need of medical care. Will she give up and leave the state she loves? And if so, would anyone be found to take her place?
A law in Wisconsin, passed in 1849 and suddenly valid since the overturn of Roe, has resulted in uncertainty about whether certain procedures, including those to end an ectopic pregnancy, are legal. The resulting chaos puts women's lives at risk.
Medical abortion, the safest and most common way to terminate a pregnancy, has been banned in Wyoming, although a judge has temporarily halted the ban. Meantime, a case in Texas opens the possibility that medical abortion will be banned nationwide.
In South Carolina, some Republican lawmakers want to impose the death penalty for women who terminate a pregnancy.
NPR reports that states with the strongest abortion bans have the weakest maternal supports.

The Center for Reproductive Rights publishes an interactive map which tracks abortion restrictions and protections state-by-state.

Clearly, abortion bans are less about protecting children than about controlling women.

Newtown Democrats reject the premise underlying all of these bans on abortion, articulated in 2020 by Idaho State Senator Todd Lakey, that the life of the mother "weighs less... than the life of the child." Women have the right to control their own bodies, and to take measures to save their own lives. Living under severe abortion restrictions, women become little more than expendable breeding stock.

Newtown Democrats pledge to defend the right to safe, legal abortion in the state of Pennsylvania.

This article was edited to expand the original content.

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Link: https://newtowndemocrats.org/blog/The-Stuff-of-Nightmares-GOP-Strongholds-in-PostRoe-America-6/

March 28, 2023
Fitzpatrick Lashes Out at Local Activist Group

His response to a challenge from activists came just days before a vote to enable book bans and to censor teachers.

In response to an event held by Indivisible Bucks County at Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick’s Langhorne office, Fitzpatrick stated, through a spokesperson, that “Indivisible is the QAnon of the Left.”

As a local reporter has noted, QAnon is a collection of far-right conspiracy theorists “which believes opponents eat babies,” among other bizarre and dangerous falsehoods.

In contrast, as Newtown Democrats and Indivisible member Kierstyn Zolfo points out, Indivisible “is doing the hard work of holding our Republican Congressman accountable.” Brian Fitzpatrick does not like being held accountable.

“Fitzpatrick is one of 18 Republicans in 2022 who won in a district carried by Joe Biden in 2020. Like the other members of this group – Indivisible calls them ‘The Unrepresentatives’ – Fitzpatrick wants to fly below the radar,” Zolfo explains. “That’s because the Unrepresentatives have politics that don’t really align with their districts. So instead of fighting for their constituents, they follow a different sort of playbook to get reelected: take loads of cash from right-wing megadonors, vote how these donors want, and hope their constituents don’t find out about it.”

In one such vote, Fitzpatrick sided last week with fellow Republicans in favor of H.R. 5, the Parents’ Bill of Rights Act, a federal companion piece to right-wing school boards banning books and censoring teachers. Local Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon (D-PA-05) has called the Parents’ Bill of Rights a “right-wing straight jacket.” Of Philadelphia ring-county representatives, only Fitzpatrick voted “yes.”

There is nothing “bipartisan” or “independent” about Moms for Liberty, the national group backing H.R. 5. Fitzpatrick is on their side. He has remained silent while Moms for Liberty has torn Central Bucks School District asunder.

During the Trump administration, Fitzpatrick voted in favor of tax cuts for billionaires and against impeachment, twice. He voted for Trump in the 2020 general election. More recently, Fitzpatrick aggressively whipped for House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. In return, McCarthy is working hard to raise funds for Fitzpatrick’s 2024 re-election campaign.

We deserve better. Says Zolfo: “Unrepresentatives like Fitzpatrick know if voters get a whiff of what they are actually doing in Congress, they will lose their seats because – despite all of their efforts to portray themselves as common sense moderates – they cast vote after vote for MAGA policies. At the end of the day, Brian Fitzpatrick’s voting record is not too far from Marjorie Taylor Greene’s. The main difference is she’s loud about it, whereas he wants to keep it really quiet.”

The Indivisible event at Fitzpatrick’s office, held on Saint Patrick’s Day, was part of a years-long effort to call attention to Fitzpatrick’s voting record and to his unwillingness to publicly answer constituents’ questions in an unscripted town hall. “We spoke about the issues that matter most to us, and we made it clear that Fitzpatrick doesn’t represent our community,” said Zolfo.

Indivisible does not “seek to drive wedges in our community,” as Brian Fitzpatrick’s office claims. Perhaps Fitzpatrick is worried about the wedge his voting record would drive between him and his moderate constituents.