maybe we should ask Missouri to leave the Union

[donsu]

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/editorialcommentary/story/ACE40548AD280F6C86256FEE003657D8?OpenDocument


ABORTION: Ignorance and silence


NO PUBLIC MONEY can be used to fund abortions in Missouri. But a bill approved last week by the Missouri Senate would deny state aid to hospitals, clinics or counselors who so much as mention the word "abortion."

The bill sends state government snooping into places where women have a reasonable expectation of privacy. It sets an impossible-to-monitor standard for what doctors and other health care providers can and cannot say, which intrudes on their obligation to provide essential information about safe, legal medical options for their patients. And it creates cumbersome audit requirements that will add to health care costs and require a larger state bureaucracy.

Hospitals, clinics, rape crisis lines and domestic violence counselors would be audited every three years to make sure they don't mention abortion or answer patients' questions about how to obtain it. Those affiliated with abortion providers would face annual audits.

The bill is sponsored by state Sen. John Loudon, R-Ballwin, who insists that it's designed to "enhance safety." In fact, it's designed to keep women - especially poor women - from finding out about their right to safe, legal abortion.

-snip-
---------------------------


or maybe we could send Loudon off planet

or maybe the women of Missouri could raise such a stink that John would shut up and mind his own business

[evlbstrd]

1. OK, but you have to pay my relocation costs.

[donsu]

3. are you going to raise a stink about this?

nt

[evlbstrd]

9. I am.

Living in Missouri just sucks more than ever.

[katmondoo]

2. OK so when are women going to start speaking out?

There seems to be such a silence as women are being smashed down to a pulp from these right wingers. As long as there is silence there will be no end to these misogynist rulers.

[MadHound]

4. Oh this is nothing, really

This isn't going to be acted on this legislative session, it is far too late to get it through. This is simply grandstanding for the RW fundies back home in Balwin(of which my aunt and uncle are members of). And it won't be brought up next year because of the election season.

Besides, if you kick Missouri out of the Union for this piece of stupidity, then you're going to have to kick out a whole lot of other states for doing things equally as stupid.

[efhmc]

5. The place has been sort of wacko since they came into the union

as half free and half slave. (Mom from there and her gparents were on opposite during the war and boy was that a mess.) There are plenty of straight minded folks there. It is just the loudness and the pushiness of the rw that causes the problems.

[KamaAina]

6. Maybe? I vote "Definitely".

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/local/11504588.htm

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. - Hundreds of angry advocates for the disabled descended on the state Capitol Wednesday, with a few temporarily chaining themselves to a House chamber door to protest cuts to Missouri's Medicaid health care program for the poor.

The protest occurred a day after Gov. Matt Blunt signed legislation authorizing tighter eligibility standards and reduced benefits for the Medicaid program. It also coincided with Senate passage Wednesday of a budget that would implement many of those cuts.

Blunt has proposed to eliminate Medicaid coverage for about 100,000 of Missouri's 1 million Medicaid recipients. The cuts primarily would affect low-income parents, seniors and the disabled.

Participants in the annual Disability Rights Day marched around the Capitol carrying signs with slogans such as "Am I Gov. Blunt's Waste?" They then moved inside, where eight activists chained their wheelchairs to a door of the third-floor House chamber.

Note that Matt Blunt's Dad is Congressman Roy Blunt (R-Circling Around Tom DeLay Like a Buzzard). I fear that this presages draconian Medicaid cuts all over, keeping in mind Mo.'s historic role as a bellwether state.

So, as far as I'm concerned, they're out. All we need is to build a really long bridge between Kansas City, Kan., and East St. Louis, and to find homes for the Cardinals and Royals (the AAA Montreal team that Jackie Robinson played for was called the Royals). :-)

Missourians, if you have a good and sufficient reason why you should be allowed to stay, you know what to do: Show Me! :-)

[KamaAina]

10. I change my vote to "Immediately, if not sooner"!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/po/lesbiansuesmissouritobefosterparent

The American Civil Liberties Union has challenged the decision of a Missouri administrative judge who rejected a Kansas City lesbian couple as foster parents, even while finding the pair "exceptionally qualified."

Lisa Johnston, who is represented by the ACLU, and her partner, Dawn Roginski, passed a comprehensive home evaluation and were almost finished with their training sessions when they were dismissed from the foster program. They appealed to an administrative judge, who last March backed up the decision by the Department of Social Services. The ACLU, in turn, contested the judge's decision in a petition filed April 8 with the Jackson County Circuit Court. The state must reply by Monday.

According to ACLU spokesman Paul Cates, the state of Missouri has an unwritten policy that effectively bars gay and lesbian couples from participating in the foster care system as parents. It's difficult to attack a policy that is not enshrined in law, but now that it's been upheld by an administrative judge, the time is right to force the state to produce an explanation.

On paper, Johnston and Roginski are well-suited for taking in one of the 2,000 children now looking for homes in the state. Johnson, 40, works for Head Start and has a degree in human development and family from the University of Kansas, with an emphasis on child development. Her partner, also 40, has a master's in counseling from St. Mary's University, and a second master's in divinity from Luther Seminary. Roginski is a chaplain at a treatment facility for troubled teens.

Three strikes and you're out, Missouri! Maybe we can take in Puerto Rico -- or D.C. -- so as to avoid the hassle and expense of going back to the 49-star flag that was in use the year before Hawai'i joined the Union.

Catchy slogan: "Missouri is the new Florida".

[AllegroRondo]

7. And the latest on the State Medicare funding

the state senate has approved funding for optometry exams, but not for corrective lenses.

they approved funding for electric wheelchairs, but not for wheelchair batteries.

[donsu]

8. and they probably smirked while they approved it

nt

[karlrschneider]

11. Jeezus. My sis lives in Ballwin, & a Dem like me, I'll make sure she's

up to speed on this. :grr: :eyes: