Marina Baldasaro: Husband Lied to Senate Committee

In a letter to the editor published in the Concord Monitor, Marina Baldasaro accused her husband, GOP Rep. AL Baldasaro, of lying when he testified before a Senate committee:

The Monitor reported that at a Senate committee hearing my ex-husband, Rep. Al Baldasaro, “testified about the ‘mental torture’ men experience when a woman aborts a baby, as his wife did before she met him.”

This is false. I would like him to apologize in writing to me — not only as a human being but as a wife for over 24 years who dedicated her life for his career and also as the mother of our three grown children. This is an outrage. I have to constantly read in papers his comments concerning me or our marriage. The constant lies I read are a disgrace.

Her husband’s testimony came before the Senate Health and Human Services Committee in support of House Bill 1659, which would have mandated a 24-hour waiting period before an abortion.

Rep. Al Baldasaro, R-Londonderry, said men like him have to deal with the “mental torture” from women such as his wife who had an abortion before they were together.

“This is to make sure women have a right to know what to expect,” Baldasaro said of the waiting period.

“You show up. You are on the table It’s like a meat market.”

ICYMI: Most Read Posts for April, 2012

Miscellany Blue had more traffic in April than any month since I began publishing it almost two years ago. Hugs and kisses to everyone who stopped by for a visit. In case you missed them the first time around, here are the posts that drew the most interest from readers last month.

N.H. Senate Kills Reproductive Health Bills
Senate Vote: “A Turning Tide in War on N.H. Women”

The top two most read posts involved the state Senate’s rejection of four bills passed by the House that would have defunded Planned Parenthood and restricted access to contraception and abortion services.

Odds Improving for Kelly Ayotte V.P. Selection?

There was much interest — mostly from out of state — in speculation that New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte might be named Mitt Romney’s vice presidential running mate.

GOP House Rep: Defective & Retarded “Just Words”

Readers were outraged when GOP state House Rep. Jason Antosz defended use of the word “defective” to describe mentally disabled rape victims.

N.H. Senate Kills Reproductive Health Bills

Today, the state Senate killed four House-passed bills, preserving funding for comprehensive preventive care for women and rejecting government interference in reproductive health services, including access to contraception and abortion.

House Bill 228

The Senate tabled, and effectively killed, HB 228 by a 17 - 6 vote. The bill would have eliminated funding for Planned Parenthood of Northern New England, impacting more than 16,000 Granite State men, women and teens who receive health care from Planned Parenthood each year.

House Bill 1546

By a vote of 19 – 4, the Senate sent HB 1546 to interim study. The legislation would have allowed employers to exclude birth control from prescription drug coverage, reversing regulations that have been in effect in the state without objection for nearly 12 years.

House Bill 1659

By a narrow 12-11 vote, the Senate defeated HB 1659, which would have made it more difficult for women to access abortion care by mandating a 24-hour waiting period.

House Bill 1660

HB 1660, which would have prohibited abortions at or after 20-weeks gestation, was sent to interim study by a 15 - 8 vote. The vote effectively kills the legislation.

Reactions

“New Hampshire has a 40 year bipartisan history of supporting publicly-funded family planning services and working to reduce abortion by ensuring access to birth control and preventive care, rather than by government imposed restrictions. The actions of the NH Senate today continue this tradition and bring to a halt the comprehensive anti-women’s health agenda that was pushed by Speaker Bill O’Brien and NH House leadership.”
— Jennifer Frizzell, Planned Parenthood of Northern New England

“Today’s votes are a clear rejection of the foolish crusade Speaker O’Brien has led this legislative session to restrict women’s reproductive healthcare. … This legislative session has been marred by attacks on women’s health and privacy, but today’s votes signify a return to the Granite State’s long, proud tradition of trusting women to make their own personal, private healthcare decisions in consultation with their doctors, family, and clergy.”
— Elizabeth Hagar, NARAL Pro-Choice New Hampshire

“My Reproductive Health Is Up for Debate”

Today, the Senate is scheduled to vote on bills that would defund Planned Parenthood, allow employers to exclude birth control from prescription drug coverage and require a 24-hour waiting period for women seeking an abortion. Writing in the Concord Monitor, Marianne M. Jones places the legislation in historical context:

I am reminded of all the women who have stood up over the past 100 years for these rights. It was my grandmother’s fight in the early 1900s that won my right to vote. My mother’s fight in the 1950s and 1960s won the right for me to own property, earn equal wages and have equal access to employment opportunities. In the early 1970s, my sister won my right to higher education, the right to be a scholar-athlete, and the right to legally and safely control my reproductive and sexual health.

I’m sitting at my desk in 2012, thinking of these historic advances with the expectation that no one would think of turning the clock back on my right to vote, my right to own property, get an education and work for equal pay.

But there is an effort to turn the clock back on my reproductive health and my right to privacy with my health care providers. I can vote, I can buy a house, and I can work in an executive position, but my reproductive health is up for debate.

This attack on the rights of women and girls, concludes Jones, is an attack on basic human rights.

Senate Committee: Split Decision on Reproductive Health

NARAL reports the state Senate Health and Human Services Committee voted today on the four reproductive health bills with mixed results.

The committee voted 3-2 to approve House Bill 228, which would prohibit the use of public funds for any organization performing abortions. A committee amendment limits the scope to Planned Parenthood of Northern New England by exempting hospitals from the bill’s requirements. PPNNE’s Jennifer Frizzell condemned the vote:

“For many New Hampshire women, Planned Parenthood is the only affordable option for health care. Today’s actions would take away access to cost-effective, essential preventive services such as cancer screenings, breast exams, access to birth control and information and health counseling.”

In more hopeful news, the committee voted 3-2 to recommend killing House Bill 1659, which would institute a 24-hour waiting period for women seeking an abortion. The committee also voted to effectively kill House Bill 1660, which would ban abortions after 20 weeks, by sending it to to Interim Study.

House Bill 1679, which would ban late-term abortions, was approved with a 4-1 vote.

Today’s Appalling Anti-Abortion Testimony

Annmarie Timmins covered today’s Senate Health and Human Services Committee hearings for the Concord Monitor. Her tweets describe the testimony from House Representatives in support of the anti-abortion bills.

The “Right to Know” Medical Quackery

There is no better example of the extreme ideology of the House GOP majority than the bill that mandates a woman receiving an abortion must first receive anti-abortion information masquerading as science.

Among its many onerous requirements, House Bill 1659 requires that she receive “medically-accurate information” stating that abortion is associated with an “increased risk of breast cancer.”

Medically accurate information describing an association between abortion and an increased risk of breast cancer is an oxymoron. It doesn’t exist. The National Cancer Institute, American Cancer Society and The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists all agree: There is no relationship between abortion and an increased risk of breast cancer. Period.

National Cancer Institute:

This report summarizes the epidemiologic, clinical and animal studies findings related to early reproductive events and breast cancer risk, and each finding is given a Strength of Evidence Rating.

• Induced abortion is not associated with an increase in breast cancer risk. (Strength of Evidence Rating: Well established)

American Cancer Society:

The issue of abortion generates passionate viewpoints in many people. Breast cancer is the most common cancer, and it is the second leading cancer killer in women. Still, the public is not well-served by false alarms. At this time, the scientific evidence does not support the notion that abortion of any kind raises the risk of breast cancer or any other type of cancer.

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists:

Early studies of the relationship between prior induced abortion and breast cancer risk were methodologically flawed. More rigorous recent studies demonstrate no causal relationship between induced abortion and a subsequent increase in breast cancer risk.

The bill attempts to justify this false assertion with a long paragraph describing what it now labels a “theory” beginning with the statement, “It is scientifically undisputed that full-term pregnancy reduces a woman’s lifetime risk of breast cancer.” This is also untrue. The National Cancer Institute reported the evidence is “well established” that an early age full-term birth is related to a lifetime decrease in breast cancer risk, but a woman who has her first full-term birth around age 30 has approximately the same risk as a woman who never gives birth.

Clearly this bill has nothing to do with science — or with a woman’s “psychological and physical well-being” as it claims. Its purpose is to create barriers and hardships to prevent women from receiving what is, after all, a legally-protected medical procedure. It is more evidence of the GOP’s utter disregard and disrespect for women.

189 lawmakers initially voted for HB 1659. The final House vote is scheduled for tomorrow.

Quote of the Day: Govt Small Enough to Fit into a Uterus

It’s clear that the NH legislature feels that women are silly girlies who need their help in making medical decisions, though it’s hard to square it with their constant assertion of “less government interference” in our lives. Their goal would seem to be to shrink government small enough to drown in a bathtub and fit neatly into a uterus. If women are so stupid that we can’t make our own medical decisions, how can you trust us with these lives you pretend to be so desperate to protect?

— susan the bruce, on the New Hampshire House passage of House Bill 1659, which would mandate a 24-hour waiting period and would require doctors to give women misinformation before performing an abortion.

Mr. Privileged White Male Executive Council Members

Today we salute you, Mr. Privileged White Male Executive Council Members (Mr. Privileged WhiteMaleExecutiveCouncil Memmmmbeerrs!). Because of you, 15,000 NH women are attempting to pull themselves out from underneath that bus you so carelessly threw them under (Man, it’s dirty under this busssss). You don’t have vaginas, but that’s not stopping you from making decisions about our bodies. When STD, cancer, and pregnancies rates go sky high, don’t blame us (babies everywheerree!).

And so, Mr. Privileged White Male Executive Council Members, this vid’s for YOU:

Quote of the Day: Collateral Damage

“And if dogma trumps pragmatism and neither side budges, Indiana’s most vulnerable citizens could end up paying the price as the collateral damage of a partisan battle.”

— Judge Tanya Walton Pratt of the Federal District Court in Indianapolis, on Indiana’s attempt to cut off money for Planned Parenthood clinics.

Executive Councilor Tries to Rewrite History

Yesterday, Dean Barker documented the Executive Council’s rejection of a two-year $1.8 million Planned Parenthood contract to provide health care services for New Hampshire women.

Steve Trombley, Planned Parenthood of Northern New England CEO, said he will continue to pursue the contract including the possibility of a legal challenge.

“We obviously don’t believe this is a settled issue at this point,” he said. “We intend to challenge this at every level we can possibly challenge it.”

Beyond asking the council to rehear its request, Trombley said the organization is looking into filing a lawsuit.

The likelihood of a court battle (and Planned Parenthood win) may have just increased. In a similar case, a federal judge ruled Friday that Indiana cannot cut off funding for Planned Parenthood clinics.

Indiana is not allowed to cut off Planned Parenthood’s public funding for general health services solely because the organization also provides abortions, a federal judge said Friday in blocking parts of the state’s tough new abortion law.

This may explain why Executive Councilor St. Hilare told Kevin Landrigan that his vote rejecting the contract had nothing to do with the fact that Planned Parenthood performs abortions.

St. Hilare said it wasn’t abortion rights that moved him to turn down the pact. Instead, it was the $250,000 salary for the executive director and the fact that the group isn’t based in New Hampshire.

But soon after the vote, St. Hilare told Dan Gorenstein that was precisely why he voted again the contract.

“Actually funding an agency that performs the actual event is something that I would object to, and I have objected to. That’s why I voted against it.”

The so-called ‘event’ is abortions.

Hilaire and two of the other councilors rejected the $1.8 million dollar federal and state contract because they oppose taxpayer money supporting organizations that provide abortions.

You can listen here:

The NH GOP Assault on Women’s Health (cont.)

This week, the five Republicans on the state Executive Council voted 3-2 to reject a $1.8 million, two-year contract with Planned Parenthood to provide women’s health services. Councilor Dan St. Hilaire, the deciding vote, cited the fact that the organization provides abortions as the reason he voted against the contract.

Last year in New Hampshire, Planned Parenthood saw more than 15,000 patients and provided:

• 6,112 breast exams
• 5,548 cervical cancer screenings
• 18,858 tests for sexually transmitted infections
• 13,242 contraceptive care consultations

No taxpayer funds are used for abortions, which make up just 3% of Planned Parenthood’s services and are covered either by health insurance or patient payment.

Federal courts in Texas and Missouri have ruled that it is unconstitutional to deny funding to health care providers because they perform abortions. Planned Parenthood his investigating the possibility of filing a lawsuit against the state.

Update: A federal court has ruled that Indiana cannot cut off Planned Parenthood funding solely because the organization also provides abortions.