Mark Maynard | 2012 | June

Students at Ann Arbor’s Roberto Clemente high school organize to fight the impending closure of their school

By Mark | June 12, 2012

I’ve been receiving letters for the past several weeks, asking me to post something about the situation at Ann Arbor’s Roberto Clemente Student Development Center. Not being terribly knowledgeable about what’s going on, and not knowing what I could possibly add to the conversation, I’ve been reluctant to jump into the fray. But, this morning, I was sent a letter by a sophomore at the school, along with a request that I share it with my readers. Here, however, before I share the letter, is a little background from Terry Carpenter, a teacher at the school that I was able to reach this evening for comment.

A very brief update for your readers: Roberto Clemente is an alternative school servicing mostly black and mostly poor students. It is a part of the Ann Arbor Public Schools (AAPS). AAPS, like many (if not all) districts in
Michigan, is really struggling financially. AAPS has a decent “savings account” but, in an effort to balance the budget, has proposed several cuts. One of the those proposed cuts was to move or dismantle Clemente. We at Clemente feel we are quite successful with a population that has not shown success elsewhere in AAPS. A student-led effort has gotten “the word” of the AAPS Board that we are “off the chopping block” for a year. However, I continue to encourage people to attend the board meetings. The next one is tomorrow (June 13th) at 7:00 PM, on the top floor of the Ann Arbor District Library. It has been truly an honor to work with these amazing students.

And, here’s the letter that I received this morning from a Clemente student by the name of Tia Jones.

Hello, my name is Tia Jones and I am a sophmore at Roberto Clemente Student Development Program in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Roberto Clemente has been on the chopping block of the Ann Arbor School Board of Education since mid-April of this year. Once the school staff and students heard that Clemente was going to be closed down, and/or
consolidated, our hearts broke.

The struggle to keep our school where it is has been really hard because the board members don’t seem to be understanding nor listening. Roberto Clemente has been in the Ann Arbor community since 1974.

The Ann Arbor School District has failed many of the students at Roberto Clemente. The schools stop teaching us because we are either “black”, “bad”, “disrespectful”, or everything in between. We, the students, have been ignored since elementary, and we are still fighting to have our voices heard.

Ever since the “Roberto Clemente Family” has been on the cutting block, we have fought hard. We have written testimonies of our experiences in Ann Arbor Public Schools, and we feel that no board members expressed that they cared about what we had to say. The many things we spoke about were extremely heartfelt and honest. It hurt many of my peers to just be ignored time after time.

It has been a long tough fight, and they have given us another year only to make the choice about consolidating us with our comprehensive high schools that have failed us from the beginning. Most of the board members have not taken the time to actually come to the school to see how it is run, and yet they jump right to Roberto when budget cuts are
proposed. They are really strangers to us, and it shouldn’t be that way, because they work for us, as a community. We all have dreams we want to reach, and we all, as students, and community members, need Roberto, as it has saved many of our lives. We have no board that reflects on the community. The board attacks African Americans, and poor students first. They are supposed to be educators, but they don’t seem to care about every student’s future. We, as students, are being forced to walk down a dark road with no sidewalks, both literally and figuratively. “Exceptional” is what is on the school’s website, but this district and board has not truly learned the meaning of exceptional. Roberto Clemente is what you call Exceptional.

Thanks for your time,
Tia Jones

I don’t know how legitimate the analogy is, but, based on what she says, it sounds very similar to what happened at Catherine Ferguson Academy in Detroit.

Tia also shared the following links, for those who would like more background.

Here is a link about our Mission & Philosophy.

This link has all of the board members who have failed to look into our school community, and our programs that heal and shelter children.

These are are a few links with information about meetings that we, the students, have attended. (I, II, III, IV)

We have also started an online petition. Here is the link.

Lastly, here is a link is the letter that I have written to Rachel Maddow, along with the signatures of each student.

[note: The accompanying image comes from the public website of the Roberto Clemente Student Development Center.]

Winning in November isn’t enough, says Van Jones. We also have to mobilize against Obama.

By Mark | June 11, 2012

I know he’s a big hero to many on the left, but Van Jones sometimes rubs me the wrong way. He’s too smiley, or something. Maybe it’s a reaction to having been taken in by John Edwards, but I now prefer my heros to be a bit more wonky, and bit less telegenic. But, at the same time, I also love the guy because he’s so feared and despised by the far right. And I acknowledge that our movement needs people like Jones to stir things up, and to get the airtime that tiny, brilliant, bearded people like Robert Reich can’t… So, it was with somewhat conflicted feelings that I went to see Jones, who, as we’ve discussed before, is now running an organization called Rebuild the Dream, present the final keynote at Netroots Nation 2012… While I didn’t care for some of his rhetorical flourishes, much of what he had to say was spot on. Here are my brief notes, followed by video of the presentation.

The corporate media is pushing a narrative, says Jones, about Scott Walker’s victory in Wisconsin. They want to say that we’ve been beaten, and that we’re demoralized. It takes a lot more than being outspent 8-to-1, though, to demoralize us, he says. Progressives have died for the cause before. Our parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents went up against billy clubs and dogs before. They fought for the 40 hour work week, safer working conditions, and civil rights. They put their lives on the line. And we won’t give up because 13 billionaires poured money into Wisconsin. We’ve seen worse.

“What happened in Wisconsin is awful,” he says, “but it actually teaches us something. In this movement, we sometimes have to learn the hard lesson at the right time. What we learned in Wisconsin is very simple. When we do our minimum, as a national movement… I’m not talking about the local forces, who fought beautifully… No, the local forces fought beautifully. The local forces fought well. The local forces stood up. The local forces created a miracle. They turned a national breakdown into a potential national breakthrough… on their own. The labor forces… and lets not forget the African American and Latino communities, especially in Milwaukee, exceeded every expectation. The local forces stood up. They did the maximum. But they fought alone. Let’s be honest here. We’re all friends here. Where were the national Democrats? And where were a lot of us? There’s something wrong with a movement when we spend more time and energy mourning the loss, than we spend time and energy securing the win. We have to take accountability as a national movement. When we do our minimum, and the other side does their maximum, we lose. Is that simple enough? You don’t have to have an advanced degree in politics to understand this. They outspent us 8-to-1. You essentially had the local labor movement fighting 13 billionaires… 12 of whom don’t even live in Wisconsin. Understand this. If we don’t like the way we felt when we woke up in June, having observed but not fought… There were some exceptions, but the civil rights establishment never showed up in large numbers… There were exceptions, but the environmental movement never showed up in large numbers… There were exceptions, but the women’s movement, the national Democrats… None of us showed up in large numbers. We saw it. We observed it. We munched the popcorn. But we didn’t jump into the screen.”

“We have a quandary,” says the former White House Green Energy Czar. We know we’re supposed to be fired up, but wer’re mad. We like the President, but we’re not in love with him like he used to be. Yes, he stands up for Trayvon Martin, and for gay marriage, but we don’t love him the way that we did. According to Jones, we’re “caught between Barack and a hard place.” And, because of that, we don’t know how to get fired up again. We know that just supporting Obama won’t get us the change that we want. And some of us want to teach him a lesson. Jones says he knows that some of us think that Romney and Obama are essentially the same. But, he says, we need to think about what the right has done in the state houses they’ve recently taken over. “If the Tea Party is allowed to score a trifecta,” he says, the consequences would be unthinkable. “Their ideas are already corrupting the Supreme Court. You see that with Scalia’s antics. They already have half of the Congress. If they get the rest of it, and the White House… If the Tea Party governs America… If, this time next year, you are living under a government run by the Tea Party, let me suggest to you that they might use power a little bit differently than we did. When they get power, they use it to decimate us. The last election was a hope election. This one may be a fear election. They’re scared of us – we should be terrified of them. When they get power, they use it to decimate us. Look at what they did in the state houses. They didn’t run on destroying the unions, but the minute they got in they didn’t say, ‘Well, perhaps we should make some adjustments to labor law… let’s have a committee.’ No, they decapitated our unions… And they say that they’re not just going to make some adjustments to the EPA, but eliminate it. Do you think they’re joking? The EPA has probably saved more American lives in the last 30 years than the Department of Defense… If they have a trifecta, they will use it to decimate us. It will be no holds barred.”

He notes that, when we have power, as we did in 2008, after winning the House, Senate and White House, we decided it was time to be bipartisan. We haven’t historically, according to Jones, known how to use power. If they win, however, all the crazy stuff they say, they will do, he warns. And, worse yet, a victory will be a reward for their despicable behavior these past four years. Over the past four years, he argues, the Republicans have betrayed the American people. They’re letting people die because they don’t want to give Obama anything that can be considered a victory, he says. They want to win the Presidency, and they don’t care how much suffering it takes for them to demonstrate how bad of a President Obama is. That’s their character, says Jones. They won’t even pass their own bills right now, if they think it will help America. They want more carnage. And we cannot reward that kind of behavior, regardless of what we think about Obama.

We have to be smart, he says. We have to support Obama, but we also have to hold his feet to the fire. “We have to be as sophisticated at the machine we’re fighting.” It’s going to be hard, but we have to be twice as passionate as we were in 2008. We have to do two difficult things. We have to reelect the President, and we have to hold him accountable. You need two things to get real change, he says. You have to have a President willing to move, and you have to have a movement that’s willing to move him. We haven’t had both at the same time. Under Bush we had a movement, but he was unwilling to move. And, under Obama, until the Occupy movement came along, we weren’t pushing him. It was the Tea Party that was in the streets. We let them have almost three years. Thankfully, Occupy Wall Street came along and started changing that dynamic.

We have to win two main battles. We have to stop the Tea Party in November, and we have to win the budget battle in December. That, he reminds us, is when the Bush tax cuts expire. That’s also when the Pell grant money runs out for poor kids seeking to go to college. All of the cans that we’ve been kicking down the road need to be addressed in December, and that’s when we’ll have our opportunity for change, assuming we’ve been able to keep Obama in the White House. Regular Americans, he says, have paid our share. It’s time for the rich to pay their share. No more “ham and egg” justice. Asking a chicken for an egg and a pig for his leg, he says, is not equivalent, and we need to keep pretending that it is.

And, he says, we have no excuse this time around. It’s not like when we elected Bush. This time, we know for certain what their wrecking ball agenda is. They paint it red, white and blue, but we know what it is. They want to smash unions, eliminate public education, and roll back clear air and clean water legislation. And they have it in their sights. And, what’s more, they’ve shown a “brutal willingness” to destroy what our communities need to survive. At this point, Jones shares Grover Norquist’s comment about how he wants to shirk government down to the size that he can, “drown it in a bathtub.” We know it all now, and we have no excuse, according to Jones…

Posted in Church and State, Civil Liberties | Tagged Antonin Scalia, Bush tax cuts, Citizens United, corporate takeover of politics, Department of Defense, Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, fear, gay marriage, get the money out of Washington, Grover Norquist, hope, John Edwards, money as free speech, money in politics, Netroots Nation, Obama, Occupy Wall Street, Pell grants, political organizing, Scott Walker, slickness, Supreme Court, tax the rich, tea party, Tea Partyfication, Trayvon Martin, unions, Van Jones, Wisconsin | 11 Comments

NY Attorney General Eric Schneiderman on holding bankers accountable, and the need for a second New Deal

By Mark | June 9, 2012

In a Netroots Nation session earlier this week, a panel of activists shared stories about the various grassroots campaigns that they’ve waged against the big banks in their communities. One of the panelists… I believe it was Max Berger, an organizer associated with Occupy Wall Street… mentioned how, when it had first been announced that New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman would be co-chairing the federal Financial Fraud Task Force’s Mortgage-Backed Securities Working Group in January of 2012, there was a great deal of optimism. Many, it seems, felt as though prosecutions were eminent, and that we’d soon see being bankers being marched away from their corner offices in handcuffs, like we did during the savings and loan crisis, in which several hundred went to jail. That, of course, didn’t happen, though, and, in late April, Schneiderman launched his own investigation into the illegal actions of those bankers responsible for the collapse of 2008.

Schneiderman, as you may recall, formally launched this New York probe on April 26 of this year, saying, “The reckless deregulation and irresponsible conduct that brought down the American economy must be systematically investigated.” And, Occupy Wall Street had his back. As Berger noted during the panel, he and other Occupy protesters held a sit-in at Schneiderman’s office, showing their support, and encouraging him to take the matter and hand seriously. They, again, were hopeful. Unfortunately, it seems, people are now beginning to lose faith. Berger said, toward the end of the panel, that he personally thinks that Schneiderman didn’t know how powerful the forces aligned against him were… And, with that as context, here’s video of Scheniderman, who took the stage at Netroots Nation later that evening.

And here are my brief notes, for those of you how would rather hear what the Attorney General of New York had to say, filtered through my mind.

First, it’s probably worth mentioning that there were protesters. They were sitting right up front. When Schneiderman took the stage, they raised their placards. I couldn’t read what they said. They weren’t obnoxious about it. Someone yelled that he should make good on his promises to hold people accountable, but, otherwise, people just held their signs.

Schneiderman thanked the bloggers and activists in the crowd, saying that he wouldn’t be where he was today without an active online community, pushing for progressive change. He talked of our collective power, noting that leaders don’t create movements, but that movements create leaders. Politicians, he said, liked to come in late, after battles had been won, and claim credit for what others on the ground had done. I got the sense that he was acknowledging this about himself, which I liked. He said that holders of elected office, by their very nature, were inclined to be cautious. He said that it was our job to push them… He asked for us to push him… This was a refrain that he’d keep going back to over the course of the evening. “You lead,” he said, “and your leaders will follow.”

This is the point where someone in the audience yelled out something about his inaction relative to the prosecution bankers. Schneiderman smiled and said, “I apreciate your getting my point about pushing elected officials.”

Quoting FDR, he then said, “I agree with you. Now make me do it.”

In this country, said Schneiderman, we had a century of progressive action up until 1980, during which the conditions of the poor and middle class continued to improve. The conservative shift we’re seeing, he said, wasn’t started by Republicans holding office. The Republican movement was started by activists that were dedicated to derailing the progress being made by Progressives. We need to do the same thing on our side. We need to plan for the long term, and build a movement.

He talks of the difference between what he calls transactional politics and transformational politics. Transactional politics, he says, are the individual fights that we’re all engaged in on a day-to-day basis. They’re the battles over individual pieces of legislation, and the campaigns we wage over important issues. He argues that we need to strategize at a level above that. And that’s what he calls transformational politics. “We need to change how people think, so that the impossible becomes possible,” he says. We don’t just need to win the fights that are in front of us right now, but we need to do the groundwork so that we can get a better deal for all Americans in the future. The greatest damage that the conservatives have done, he argues, doesn’t have anything to do with individual pieces of legislation. It’s that they changed the mindset of the American people so that they would embrace laws that hurt them, by repeatedly telling them that government is less effective than the private sector, and convincing them that unions were bad for the middle class (despite the fact that they created the middle class). We need to change the way people think, so that when opportunities arise, we can push for positive change. That’s what the other side did. They worked for 40 years. We need to have a similar mindset.

He says that what we need is a second New Deal. The people in power, he says, know that this could be brewing, and it frightens them. He says that we need to know it, too. We need to know that this is a possibility, and we need to act on.

Speaking of the New Deal, he said that the thing that made it special wasn’t just the individual legislative components that comprised it, but that it marked a change in thinking about government. According to Schneiderman, it marked a transformation moment. With the New Deal, he said, people began to think, “We’re all in this together.” Furthermore, they came to accept that government could, if run well, exist to help us. And, according to Schneiderman, we could be on the brink of such a transformational moment once again. 2011, he says, marked the opening for this transformational work, and a second New Deal.

As for his work relative to the derivatives market and the crash of 2008, he tells us that he has three main objectives. He wants for those who caused the crash to be held accountable. He wants there to be meaningful help for home owners who are suffering as a result of the actions of these individuals. And he wants to get everything documented, and out in the open, so that people can’t rewrite history.

The collapse of 2008 did not, he says, happen because we were trying to get poor people into homes that they couldn’t afford, and it wasn’t because we spend too much on teachers, police or firefighters. Public employees and the working poor were not the ones who blew up our economy, he says. “Unregulated derivative trading caused this.” These people fought for deregulation, and this was the result. In 2004, he notes, our elected officials, at the behest of the big banks, refused to regulate predatory lended, and they stopped the states from taking action on their own. They led us down the path toward “supply-side devastation.”

Last year, the big banks offered the states a settlement deal. Schneiderman says that he found it to be inadequate, and refused to accept it. The banks, he said, in exchange for their money, wanted a broad release for all of their previous wrongdoing. Most of the other attorney generals wanted to do it. Schneiderman says that he, and a few others, didn’t want to accept it… And, as they were preparing to fight it out, something incredible happened… Occupy Wall Street came about, and gave voice to the demand for accountability. And, at that point, the national debate shifted. The attorney generals started to get behind a more narrow release, which would allow for wider accountability. Now, he says, it’s bsck on the national agenda. And, he added, because of this, Obama, at the State of the Union, began saying things about how “everyone needed a fair shot” and about how we all needed to “play by the same rules.” That wouldn’t have happened otherwise, he says. And we can’t stop now. We can’t just elect people and go home. We need to stay engaged, and we need to keep holding their feet to the fire. We need to keep pushing for comprehensive change. It won’t happen overnight, but we need to keep fighting for a second New Deal.

And here, for those of you who are interested, is a clip from early May of Occupy the SEC’s Alexis Goldstein discussing the investigation, and ongoing initiatives to reign in the big banks, with Schneiderman.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Posted in Corporate Crime, Economics, Politics, Uncategorized | Tagged accountability, Alexis Goldstein, Bank of America, banking, banking reform, derivatives, Eric Schneiderman, FDR, Financial Fraud Task Force, holding people responsible, Max Berger, Mortgage-Backed Securities Working Group, Netroots Nation, New Deal, Occupy, Occupy the SEC, Occupy Wall Street, savings and loan scandal, transformational politics | 7 Comments

Elizabeth Warren and Bowzer…. starting day two at Netroots Nation

By Mark | June 8, 2012

I’m incredibly frustrated. I’m seeing a lot of good stuff at the Netroots Nation conference, but, unfortunately, technical difficulties have been thwarting me at every turn. I thought that I was being sufficiently cautious when I packed two cameras, but, now that I’m here, neither seems to be working. My old Flip camera is refusing to charge, and my little Canon isn’t allowing me to reformat the disk, which it keeps telling me is corrupted. As a result, it doesn’t look like I’m going to be able to share much, which is unfortunate, as, just in the last 24 hours alone, I’ve had the occasion to encounter the likes of Elizabeth Warren, Bill McKibbon, Tammy Baldwin, Eric Schneiderman, and Mazie Hirono. I’ve also had the opportunity to sit across a table from the likes of Markos “Daily Kos” Moulitsas, Zach Wahls (that guy who made the progressive face-book-o-sphere explode with joy when he talked so eloquently about his two gay moms), and Howard Dean’s brother Jim, who serves as chairman of Democracy for America, the organization that brought me to Providence.

I’m particularly upset that I can’t share footage with you of this morning’s panel discussion on what actually happened on the ground in Wisconsin a few days ago, which I found to be incredubly interesting… It wasn’t perhaps the most significant thing to transpire during the discussion, but I did want to share one story with you, before I head back into the next round of sessions. At the end of one panel, an older man posed a somewhat antagonistic question to the four individuals on stage. I can’t remember his exact words, but he essentially suggested that the lack of “big names” at this year’s conference, and the absence of corporate media, might signal that the conference wasn’t as relevant as it once was. The panel, I think, did a great job of responding, but that’s what I wanted to share with you. What I wanted to tell you was that, just after this man made the suggestion that the conference was irrelevant, and devoid of anyone relevant on the political scene today, the very next man in the audience to take the microphone was none other than Jon “Bowzer” Bauman from the band Sha Na Na. I found that to be really funny. And I mean no disrespect to Bauman when I say that. I just think that it was a beautiful and surreal moment. Not more than a minute after this man had made the charge that Netroots Nation wasn’t pulling relevant attendees, I was looking up at Bowzer, who was doing his classic pose. (Yes, he introduced himself by holding his curled fist above his head, and opening up his mouth so that it looked as though he intended to eat it.)

The thing is, though, Bauman, who is apparently a dedicated and knowledgeable political activist, asked a good question about whether the mechanism of recall in Wisconsin, and whether it was in part to blame for our inability to sideline Walker and curtail his agenda. His point, if I understood him correctly, was that the people of Wisconsin failed to effectively stop Walker because they didn’t have the proper tools to do so. (The only tool they had available to them was the recall.) As he noted, the situation in Ohio was considerably different, as the voters in that state were able to challenge individual pieces of legislation, and didn’t have to resort to recall.

And, Jon, if you’re reading this, and if you’re up for it, I’d love to ask you about performing before Hendrix at Woodstock… Speaking of Hendrix, how weird would it be if he were alive today, showing up at political conferences, asking questions about obscure legislative maneuvers? I can’t even begin to imagine what that would bee like.

One last thing… As it was pointed out to the man who posed the question about the relevance of this conference, it would be easy for the organizers of Netroots Nation to hold the event in DC, and pull in big names to deliver canned speeches. That, however, isn’t what this conference is about. It’s about sharing grassroots strategies for the construction of horizontal organizations that can effectively push for substantive, long term, progressive change… And, of course, one could also argue that Elizabeth Warren is a pretty big name… I forget the exact quote, but someone on the panel said something that I liked very much. He said that we didn’t need big media, and powerful people to “validate” us. I thought that was a great take-away.

Posted in Other, Politics, Uncategorized | Tagged Bill McKibbon, Bowzer, Daily Kos, Democracy for America, Elizabeth Warren, Eric Schneiderman, Jim Dean, Jimi Hendrix, Jon Bauman, Markos Moulitsas, Mazie Hirono, Netroots Nation, Providence, recall, Scott Walker, Sha Na Na, Tammy Baldwin, Wisconsin, Woodstock, Zach Wahls | 6 Comments

The War on Women makes its way to Michigan

By Mark | June 7, 2012

I had the opportunity to hear Cecile Richards, the president of Planned Parenthood, speak earlier this evening. She ended her speech by reminding people that, 96 years ago, Margaret Sanger was arrested for handing out information on birth control to poor, immigrant women in Brooklyn. Richards then mentioned that, last month alone, some 4.4 million people accessed similar birth control information from the Planned Parenthood website. Her point, I think, was that, despite the attempts of conservatives, over the past 100 years, we’re continuing to make progress. Along those same lines, she noted the huge outpouring of support that Planned Parenthood received when the Komen Foundation, a few months ago, announced that they would be putting politics before women’s health, and cutting financial support. The response, as she said, was immediate and overwhelming. Some 1.3 million tweets were sent by Planned Parenthood supporters, and Komen was forced to back down. And, Planned Parenthood raised an incredible amout of money from individual donors as a result, further growing their already large base of support. Unfortunately, however, the Republicans aren’t giving up. They’re continuing to push an extremist agenda that seeks to limit reproductive freedom. Today, in fact, Republicans in the Michigan House of Representatives introduced a 60-page omnibus bill that would, if passed, effectively end abortion access, and seriously limit women’s reproductive options across the state. The ACLU is calling the legislation, “sweeping and unprecedented,” and Meghan Groen, a spokesperson for Planned Parenthood Mid and South Michigan, has referred to it as, “the most extreme legislation we’re seeing anywhere in the country.”

According to our friends at Eclectablog, the Health Policy House Committee held a hearing this morning on the legislation, which was “abruptly ended,” when it became evident that opponents of the initiative intended to voice their concerns. The committee, at this point, hurriedly blessed the legislation, and then handed the it off to the full House for a vote. Fortunately, though, the House adjourned this evening without having addressed it. Word is, the vote could come as early as Monday or Tuesday of next week. And, in that time, Planned Parenthood is doing everything in its power to get the word out, and mobilize its forces to block the omnibus bill from being rushed through by Republicans… Here’s their petition.

…House Bills 5711, 5712, and 5713 represent a sweeping and unprecedented attack on women’s reproductive health. It is vague, poorly drafted, and will have incredibly serious ramifications for women’s access to health care services. It is being rushed through with only a week from introduction to committee and will require a strong response from YOU to ensure defeat.

Michigan women need your help today! Take a stand and tell your representative to treat women with the respect they deserve!

The legislation includes but is not limited to:

Back Door Abortion Ban

The intention of this legislation is to completely shut down all abortion providers by instituting targeted, harmful, and medically unnecessary regulation on health centers that provide abortion services. Supporters of these regulations are political organizations who believe that all abortion care should be illegal, no exceptions. This is an attempt to shut down all abortion providers in the state in a backdoor attempt to ban abortion. If these attacks succeed, women will pay the price. They will pay with their rights, their health, and their lives.

Attack on Doctors

This legislation is an outright attack on physicians’ ability to practice medicine. Under these bills, doctors would be forced to go against their best medical knowledge when providing services to patients. It allows medicine to be dictated by politics, not by science.

Furthermore, the legislation singles out doctors that perform abortion care. It is filled with many aspects that violate standard obstetric practice, interfere with the doctor-patient relationship, and are dangerous to women’s health. It puts increased liability on physicians and sends the message that politicians, not doctors, know what is best for women.

Jeopardizes Women’s Health

Included in this legislation is a restrictive ban seeking to limit access to abortion services. The ban goes against the ruling of Roe v. Wade. Moreover, it does NOT include an exemption for rape, incest, fetal anomaly, or health of the woman, and it leaves women in an emergency situation in peril.

Make no mistake—this legislation is about politics. When women do not have access to abortion services, it doesn’t go away. Women still have abortions—just less safe abortions. Making abortion a crime puts women’s lives and health at great risk. Politically motivated legislation that makes it more difficult for health centers to provide high-quality health care only makes it harder for women and couples to access critical reproductive health care services, including lifesaving cancer screenings, contraception, STD prevention and treatment, and continued access to safe and compassionate abortion care.

This legislation must be stopped! Take a stand and tell the Michigan Legislature that women & their doctors should make health care decisions, not politicians! House Bills 5711, 5712, and 5713 are an insult to women, doctors, families, and the residents of Michigan.

If you would like to join me in signing this petition, you can do so here.

And, once you’ve signed the petition, I’d appreciate it if you would contact your member of the Michigan House, and let him/her know how you feel. If you’ve never called or written, you’ll find your Representative’s contact information here.

One last thing… For those of you who think I might be overstating the intention of Republican legislators when I say that this is about defunding Planned Parenthood, and limiting reproductive options for women, I offer the following quote from Representative Mike Shirkey, from Clark Lake, Michigan… “[Abortion] is nothing short of infanticide. Until we completely eliminate abortions in Michigan and completely defund Planned Parenthood, we have work to do.”

[note: The photo above was taken at Netroots Nation earlier this evening. In case it’s not clear in the photo, the folks from Planned Parenthood were handing out chocolates in the iconic shape of birth control pill packaging.]