War on Women

But there is no War on Women!! War on Women is a rallying cry used by Democrats and related groups to highlight Republican agenda-driven laws directly targeting women's rights including women's access to abortion, birth control, and health care; women's access to social and legal remedies for violence in the home, crimes like rape; and inequality in the work place. Starting in 2010 (coinciding with significant Tea Party gains in the House of Representatives) US federal, state and local bills limiting women's rights became commonplace.

Lowlights

 * In 2011, US states attempted to pass over 1,000 bills that would limit access to abortion. These include laws to redefine abortion clinics as ambulatory surgical units (requiring extensive renovations to comply with safety issues), personhood laws, ultrasound requirements, total bans for abortions after 20 weeks, etc.  Of those attempts, 135 bills had been enacted.  In one year alone.


 * Paul Ryan introduced a bill to redefine rape as "forcible rape" for any bill that involved funding. Had it passed, it would have meant that federal funds which currently can be used for abortions that are the result of rape and incest could not be used for incest, date rape, or other "non-forcible" rape.


 * In 2012, Missouri Senate Candidate Todd Akin made infamous remarks that a woman could shut their uterus down during rape. This led to him losing the election.


 * In August 2012 while the Senate passed a resolution to renew the Republican-controlled House had a version that omitted those protections. They refused a Senate measure because, according to them, it raised revenues for provisions not covered in the House's version (according to the Constitution, bills that raise revenue must originate in the House). What are those provisions? Protect gay and lesbian persons, illegal immigrants who are victims of domestic violence, and women on Reservations. The disagreement between the two versions have thus stymied reauthorization. This act has been renewed bilaterally for the last 18 years without hitch.


 * The Republican party, in an attempt to discredit and even destroy Obama, attacked Obamacare using women's health as the pawn. They declared that it was against religious freedom to be required to provide birth control to women via the insurance religious institutions or religious individuals provided for their companies.  In discussing the issue of birth control, an all-male panel of religious experts were among the few people to testify in front of the house committee.  Women were not permitted to address their views that such access was medically necessary, and no one testified about the legal permissibility.


 * The Republican party shot down the Paycheck Fairness Act in 2014. Some argued that women make choices that push them to make less than men while some like Senator of Tennessee Lamar Alexander worried that shrinking the wage gap would somehow hurt men.


 * In the 2016 Presidential primaries, several GOP candidates have proposed defunding Planned Parenthood, and Senator Ted Cruz even threatened a government shutdown over the issue.


 * In 2018, there has been an unearthed radio segment from 2014 where Minnesotan Republican congressman Jason Lewis has called people who want insurance coverage for birth control "very sexually active" and that women who vote based on access to birth control as having "no cognitive function whatsoever". This echoes pro-Republican Rush Limbaugh's Sandra Fluke affair, discussed earlier, where he disparaged Sandra Fluke and, as with Lewis, made assumptions about his opponent's sex life despite her case being nothing about sex (birth control to treat polycystic ovarian syndrome).


 * In 2019, the so-called pro-life Republicans in Ohio had attempted to pass not one, but two anti-abortion bills on ectopic pregnancies. The first tried to limit insurance coverage for abortions, but included an exception for implantation from an ectopic pregnancy. Shocked doctors said successful reimplantations were impossible. The next bill turned out even harsher and forced doctors to reimplant pregnancies or else they could face murder charges. Shocked doctors still said successful reimplantations were impossible.


 * In 2020, a proposed inclusion of feminine hygiene products during an annual sales tax break in Tennessee had some male Republican lawmakers, such as Senator Joey Hensley, concerned that women will be abusing that time to get excessive amounts of those products. Why single out those from other items that get a tax break? We don't know.
 * In 2022, Roe v. Wade was overturned. Many states banned abortion in the days, and in some cases, hours after the ruling. Self-explanatory inclusion in this list.