Star Spangled Staggers

US politics from outside the beltway

Michigan Democrat barred from state legislature for saying "vagina"

"And finally, Mr. Speaker, I'm flattered that you're all so interested my vagina, but 'no' means 'no.'"

By Alex Hern Published 15 June 2012 10:45

The American state of Michigan is currently debating a law which would impose heavy new regulations on abortion providers and ban all abortions after 20 weeks. Speaking out against the law on Wednesday, Democratic representative Lisa Brown sought to highlight the hypocrisy of propounding religious arguments against abortion by pointing out that her Jewish faith allows abortions which save a mother's life to occur at any stage in a pregnancy. Brown told the State House of Representatives:

I have not asked you to adopt and adhere to my religious beliefs. Why are you asking me to adopt yours?

She followed up with a snappy sign-off:

And finally, Mr. Speaker, I'm flattered that you're all so interested my vagina, but 'no' means 'no.'

When Brown returned to the House on Thursday, she was told by State Republicans that she would not be allowed to speak about the next bill under consideration, on school employee retirement. Republican representative Mike Callton told the Detroit News:

What she said was offensive. It was so offensive, I don't even want to say it in front of women. I would not say that in mixed company.

A spokesperson for the state Republican party confirmed that they had decided that Brown's comments "violated the decorum of the house".

Michigan already has fairly harsh abortion restrictions. Public funding is only available in cases of "life endangerment, rape or incest", and a woman must receive state-directed counseling that includes information explicitly designed to discourage her from having an abortion, then wait 24 hours, before she can have one.

Naturally, twitter leapt on the news. #vagina started trending shortly after the story broke, with people sharing alternate words Brown could use to get around the ban, and, naturally, that evolved into the trending topic #vaginamovielines. For some reason.

Brown wasn't the only Democrat banned from the House for speaking out. Representative Barb Bryum was also censured for "causing a disturbance" on Wednesday when "she wasn't allowed to introduce an amendment to the abortion regulations bill banning men from getting a vasectomy unless the sterilization procedure was necessary to save a man's life."

Bryum told the Detroid News:

If we truly want to make sure children are born, we would regulate vasectomies.

Magnificent trolling, there.

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26 comments

Sat, 2012-07-07 18:55 — ThorsteinGreville

It is little wonder the number of women who die from Ovarian and Uterus Cancer are staggering. If we cannot get timely testing how in the world will we EVER expect to get treatment? It is bad enough studies on the female reproductive organs only began less than twenty years ago...but why are we being REFUSED the very tests which, if done early enough could save our very lives? http://www.squidoo.com/best-color-laser-printer-reviews

Sun, 2012-06-17 15:19 — Erin Hindes (not verified)

Thank goodness someone wants to start vagina monologues. Although the lawmakers are at best going about it the wrong way. In other words, why do you want to look and probe? I Just want someone to biopsy my vagina and have now been turned down, refused a diagnoses by three different doctors. It is little wonder the number of women who die from Ovarian and Uterus Cancer are staggering. If we cannot get timely testing how in the world will we EVER expect to get treatment? It is bad enough studies on the female reproductive organs only began less than twenty years ago...but why are we being REFUSED the very tests which, if done early enough could save our very lives? Now I have growths not only on my ovaries but on my Kidney's and still the doctors refuse to biopsy to find out if they are malignant or beguine.
If someone can kindly give me the name and number of Doctor who performs these I would be ever so grateful!

Sun, 2012-06-17 18:02 — McMac

I don't know what country your in, but in the UK, by every measure there is more money spent of female cancers. Women also have a lower death rate than men, and have a better life expectancy once diagnosed.

The myth is that woman are hard done by in this area and even more resources should be channeled to female specific cancer, the truth is probably somewhere in the opposite direction.

Sun, 2012-06-17 15:18 — Erin Hindes (not verified)

Sat, 2012-06-16 17:05 — John Cheese (not verified)

Jank-arse is the type of person who personifies liberal-elite- arrogant, socialist & well-opinionated on all matters. He's lost his connection with humaness & mercy. Disagree with him with solid facts and he quickly runs away from the debate & labels you an extremist, an ill-intentioned maniacal loon. He does not have much informational ground to stand on- but very emotionally demands allegiance to the collective thought or else. With the global library at our Internet-stained fingertips, this bully protocol gets more childish every day. The elit0-educational facists must now demonize & de-humanize those who intelligently argue against them- which is keeping with their laboratory-clinical worldview in terms of the multi-millions of lost "pre-humans" so callously discarded in clinic dumpsters (or worse) globally every day. I can imagine nothing colder or more monstrous, & world history shows the darkest black hole where that Mengele-inspired conscienceness leads us. The US has more restrictive legal protection for buried giant sea-turtle eggs than the "baby humans". May people never be intimidated in silence or compliance by the likes of psuedo elites such as Jank-ass or of his souless world-view. Lord have mercy.

Sat, 2012-06-16 19:02 — jankaas (not verified)

Sat, 2012-06-16 00:14 — freedemocrat New Statesman (not verified)

With the US economy in its present state, including its enormous deficit, wouldn't a good policy be to abort all feutuses of Christian fundamentalists to keep the population down and the resultant child care costs to adulthood?

Sat, 2012-06-16 00:14 — freedemocrat New Statesman (not verified)

Fri, 2012-06-15 22:31 — John Cheese (not verified)

@ Linda S: I'll never think 53 million + US fetuses since '73 are trivial & you shouldn't either... abortion for birth control is flat out wrong. If you looked at the site I listed, medical reasons are shown as minimal- and gendercide is real. You should be ashamed for being so extreme on this issue. And I'm sure many women aren't told of the wonderful benefit of emotional distress of the procedure that may occur down the road. Luckily, our New York City mayor Bloomberg is concerned about us- he's banning ex-large sugary drinks- glad he's on top of things...

Fri, 2012-06-15 20:52 — Linda S (not verified)

@ John Cheese - abortion is not "killing a baby". It is a fetus which has the potential to become a baby. That is, if it has the opportunity to grow in the mothers body (be hosted) and is not subjected to a miscarriage (how a substantial number of pregnancies end) or an abortion (a medically induced version of the former), or dies in utero.

Late term abortions (what is being discussed here) are a serious procedure and not undertaken lightly. There are usually extreme circumstances to be taken into account. In my experience this can involve addiction/mental illness/brain damage, the kinds of factors that could lead to an unawareness of pregnancy for too long, when a late term abortion becomes the only option.

Reducing it to good/bad is trivializing the complexity and importance of the situation that women find themselves in.

Sat, 2012-06-16 09:50 — jankaas (not verified)

from experience John Cheese is typical of those Americans who simply don't 'do' science. depressingly there are millions and millions of them, never learned any science, or just didn't understand it. to them a foetus is not only a baby, it is in fact likely the most special human being ever born. to abort a foetus is the exact same as murdering an adult, and when feeling reckless these Yanks will then gleefully tell you that you're a Nazi for even wishing to discuss this complex nuanced topic.
there is no room for debate on scientific grounds such as you try. science is too complicated for these simpletons. go on, ask John a scientific question, and watch the subject changed or question ignored.
of course these same Americans refuse to pay for taking care of all those unwanted lives they've forced onto society, refuse to pay for the gigantic medical bills that arise rom taking care of severely ill and disabled babies who then become severely disabled/ill adults. that's someone else's problem as far as their concerned.
my advice to you is to stop trying to exchange with these shallow ender Americans, i just post a 'full stop' and watch him implode with rage. but of course by all means cary on trying to knock some sense into him. good luck!

Sat, 2012-06-16 17:06 — John Cheese (not verified)

Fri, 2012-06-15 19:05 — varis (not verified)

Still no war on women guys!

Fri, 2012-06-15 17:25 — McMac

I think she was being an obnoxious so and so, unable to debate a serious subject without making it all about her, and then making rape allusions against other members of the house. I’m sure there are plenty of online campaigns making her the victim even as I type.

Imagine what would happen to a male who stood up and told a female member “I know you just want my penis, but no means no”. He’d be out on his arse, and the world would rightly be calling him an idiot.

Fri, 2012-06-15 18:54 — sheeple (not verified)

I love how you don't even consider any of the rest of the arguments, or the fact that someone opinion and vote is completely being censored. You sir are the idiot.

Fri, 2012-06-15 21:12 — McMac

We're all idiots.

I find the two camps in the abortion debate equally worrying. Well maybe not equally, but I have concerns about both.

The Christian Right To Lifers who get so wound up in there own self righteousness that norms of behaviour and respect go out the window, need to take a long hard look at themselves. And if they where to see the light and shut-up, all the better.

But I have some concerns over the “how dare you try and tell a woman what to do” side of the debate as well. There are no branches of publicly funded medical care in the UK where the recipient DEMANDS services and receives them no questions asked. Also, abortion is a grim affair, and I’m sure some woman will be damaged by it in some way. Not all woman are the powerful intelligent super-beings some of the feminist campaigners would have us believe, and perhaps counselling before abortion is appropriate, and not a denial of the right to choose. A woman being given some information, advice and the time to take a second thought before proceeding with an abortion isn’t necessarily being repressed.

I’d guess the impact of an abortion my take many years to strike home, and probably doesn’t really hit til a woman (and man if it was a joint decision) have a child later. When I think of my children and depth of feeling I have, I can’t begin to imagine how I’d carry the knowledge that I’d intentionally destroyed their sibling, no matter how ‘potential’ that life was.

In short, abortion should be freely available, but it’s provision should not be couched in language of religious sin, consumerist choice or feminist empowerment, it’s too an important an issue to be demonised, trivialised or hijacked.

Fri, 2012-06-15 22:33 — jankaas (not verified)

good post McMac. you are right, we must remember that there are 2 camps and it is all too easy for us (liberals, lefties, atheists etc) to focus on the pro-choice POV. speaking also as a father i am painfully aware of how much my children mean, but equally i support the right of adults to decide for themselves without too many hurdles put in place by the State. and when those hurdles start to appear designed to be insurmountable then i do tend to get on the defensive.
it's a tough topic not to get emotional about.

Fri, 2012-06-15 16:03 — John Cheese (not verified)

Here's some science Mr SS:

The WHO estimates that every day, 150,000 babies aborted. Not sure why
Ntl Org for Women isn't all over China's gendercide. Now that's a war on women...

Nice...

http://www.whyprolife.com/abortion-facts/

Fri, 2012-06-15 15:16 — jankaas (not verified)

Republicans never argue on the grounds of scientific evidence, rather, they are compelled to claim that their version of God forbids women a say about their own health. they are pathetic bullies, some so pathetic they are actually intimidated by the word vagina. you couldn't make it up.

Fri, 2012-06-15 14:14 — John Cheese (not verified)

Funny how the secularists scream about their rights in society & then when they see a law they don't like, they conveniently argue that the basis of that law must be from someone's "religious view" rather than from "for the good of the society".. pretty hypocritical. Beyond medical concern cases, isn't killing babies for birth control bad?

Mon, 2012-06-18 14:49 — whaeva (not verified)

No. If you want any basis for laws, they should be on scientific grounds. We empirically observe something in society and when after analysis we realize it is not good for society, we change the law. So, based on this, babies are not necessarily always a good thing. Children in disfunctional families might actually create much more problems for society. Yet, abortion is not the "killing of babies" any more than a vasectomy is killing millions.

Dogmatic views do not help anyone, ever. Only facts based on empirical observation can be any basis for society's norms and laws. Or should, at least.

Mon, 2012-06-25 00:55 — John Cheese (not verified)

Eugenics is a tricky art-form... I think I just heard many Senior citizen's butt's pucker when they read your comments...

Fri, 2012-06-15 13:10 — Des Demona (not verified)

An odd reaction to the word bearing in mind they sound like a bunch of cvnts.

Fri, 2012-06-15 12:33 — ScottyEnn (not verified)

I think it just goes to show both how terrified of female sexuality these people are and how utterly emotionally stunted and immature this particular mindset is.

Fri, 2012-06-15 12:19 — Patrick Graham (not verified)

I think the word Republican is detrimental to the decorum of any house - anyone saying it should have their mouth taped up indefinitely...God save the Queen of America!