Saturday, December 29, 2012

Snyder's Abortion Signing Dispels Last of 'Moderate' Pretense

If there was any doubt after Rick Snyder's about face on anti-working family legislation, Snyder has totally thrown in his lot with the far-right fringe of Michigan Republicans.

The latest piece of evidence was Snyder's signing of a bill Friday that make it almost impossible to obtain an abortion in Michigan. The bill would impose operating room regulations on abortion clinics, require doctors to screen women for coercion, ban tele-conferencing between doctors and patients for prescribing medication abortions, and regulate the disposal of fetal remains.

Those regulations will make it much more difficult to obtain an abortion in Michigan because facilities will end of closing. But Snyder vetoed another bill that would have barred Blue Cross-Blue Shield of Michigan from offering abortion coverage in its standard health insurance plans.

So with one stroke of a pen, Snyder makes it nearly impossible to obtain an abortion in Michigan. And with another stroke of his pen, Snyder says insurance companies have to cover the procedure. And this is supposed to make sense?

Snyder may have been trying to salvage some of his "moderate" credentials by claiming that the insurance coverage bill would have penalized women who were victims of rape or incest, but that doesn't undo the damage that his signing of the other bill does.

There's no fooling anyone anymore. Snyder has shed whatever moderate trappings he put on in order to win the votes of independents in 2010. He now is strictly a puppet of the far-right wing of the Michigan Republican Party.

And people need to be reminded of it day in and day out until 2014.

No comments: