Move Over Texas And Arizoney, North Carolina Legislature Is In It To Win It

Folks in North Carolina have a funny way of celebrating freedom this Fourth of July. While many folks around this great land are canceling fireworks displays because of freedom-loving sequestration, North Carolina legislators are working on a bill to give women the freedom to not worry about control of their bodies! Don’t worry your pink-shoe-wearing selves, little ladies, the menfolk of the GOP legislature will take care of those decisions for you:  

A bill restricting abortions that popped up in the state Senate without public notice Tuesday evening and received swift approval would force clinics to meet expensive license requirements and make it more difficult for doctors to perform the procedures.

Apparently they saw the ruckus caused by participatory democracy happening in Texas and figured that the best course of action would be to cram a bill through in the dead of night so that women-folk (and supportive men-folk, because WE COUNT TOO) wouldn’t have time to organize against it. Let’s explore other ways that the North Carolina legislature is seeking to undermine democracy in the name of freedom!

Just how did this bill move so quickly? Well, it was attached to another bill moving through the Senate:

On a 27-14 vote, a North Carolina bill that originallybanned Sharia law— and then had restrictive abortion-related amendments added to it on Tuesday — passed a second reading in the state Senate at 8 p.m. Tuesday.

Wait a minute – North Carolina is banning Sharia Law? Has there been a mass uprising of people seeking to implement Sharia Law that no one is aware of? Have there been amendments to the North Carolina constitution seeking to overturn parts of it in favor of Sharia Law? Or is this just pandering to paranoid asshats who want every child to pray to Jesus before every football game, but want to make sure that other religions feel as ostracized as possible? Got it, check.

Let’s get this straight. North Carolina decided it was necessary to pass a bill banning Sharia Law, but not content to just offend one segment of the population with a ridiculous bill that can only be construed as hate-mongering or pandering to wingnuts, it decided to offend an additional segment of the population with overly restrictive abortion-related nonsense. A two-fer of awfulness! How’s that outreach to women going, Reince?

But wait! There’s more! Not content to just restrict access to abortion, North Carolina wants to lie to little girls about abortion, because sex ed is important only if you can scare the bejezus out of people and then make teenagers just do it in the butt, because that’s the only way you can be a virgin for your husband, right? Anyway, there’s this:

The [North Carolina] governor said late last week that he will sign SB 132, a new bill that will require health educators to teach seventh-grade students, incorrectly, thatabortion is a cause of preterm birth.

It seems like Republicans are determined to make every kid in North Carolina stupid enough so that when they grow up they will continue to vote for Republicans. It is a deviously ingenious plan, but we think that the GOP is just dumb and passing on dumbness to kids there.

North Carolina is also seeking toram through Voter ID laws , now that the SCOTUS has gutted the Voting Rights Act , slashed unemployment benefits, and is generally trying to make living in North Carolina as painful as living in South Carolina. So. Much. Awfulness.

But some righteous folks in North Carolina are standing up for their rights as people and trying to have their voices heard:

Just a day after drastic, GOP-backed cuts hit North Carolina's unemployment benefits program, thousands of protesters again gathered at the state's General Assembly building to voice their displeasure in the ninth consecutive "Moral Monday" protest.

Hooray for you, people of North Carolina! One more Moral Monday, and you get a coupon for a free "Moral Tuesday" protest! Now you just need a pink-shoe wearing hero to garner more national attention, but our little mommyblog is proud of ya! Detractors have called the weekly protests “Moron Mondays,” because they are terrible at mocking people they don’t like. Luckily, Our Glorious Readers are a finely tuned group of mockers, judging by this. 

In sum, fuck those legislators in North Carolina.

[ News & Observer / Buzzfeed / RH Reality Check via tipster “tequila mockingbird”/ HuffPo ]