Va-gi-na: The passage leading from the opening of the vulva to the cervix of the uterus in female mammals.
Vagina. It’s a word that appears in the dictionary, and it is defined as above. It also appears in the medical dictionary and in the encyclopedia. It’s a legitimate word. Yet, in the tiny little minds of the Michigan house Republicans, this word is offensive. Last week, two female politicians were banned from addressing the Michigan House after one used the word “vagina” and the other argued for regulating vasectomies during debate over an anti-abortion bill.
State representative Lisa Brown found herself gagged and not allowed to voice her opinion on a school employee retirement bill after she concluded her speech on anti-abortion legislation HB 5711 with this comment:
“Mr Speaker, I’m flattered that you’re all so interested in my vagina, but ‘no’ means ‘no.'”
For that she was gagged because a pack of intellectually challenged GOP nitwits found the language offensive? You’ve got to be kidding me. If you cannot handle discussion of the particular part of a woman’s body that is being regulated, I pretty much think you have no business legislating it. Yet, according to Majority Floor Leader Jim Stamas, Brown’s comments violated the decorum of the House.
Representative Mike Callton added, “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.”
For the record, I’d like to say that women have no problem with the word vagina. It’s part of our bodies. So, feel free to say it in front of us. And as far as saying it in mixed company, I have heard men speak about women. All you need to do is hang around in a bar for a while on a Friday night. What comes out of their mouths is much more crude than the word vagina. What the male members of the Michigan house found offensive is the fact that women were fighting back.
The legislation in question which ultimately passed 70-39, continues the GOP War on Women. It now moves on to the Senate, but it most likely will not be taken up until the fall. In a nutshell, this hardline bill will introduce new rules and insurance requirements for abortion providers, make it an offense to force a woman into an abortion, and regulate the disposal of fetal remains. It’s just another backdoor attempt at taking away a woman’s right to choose. Lisa Brown spells out exactly what HB 5711 means for women:
- It will institute a bureaucratic licensing and regulatory process and enact expensive new fees intended to shut down many clinics.
- It will invade the private doctor/patient relationship by requiring new screenings to determine if a woman is being coerced into an abortion.
- It will create a new windfall for insurance companies by requiring doctors to carry $1 million in medical liability insurance even though liability coverage limits are not mandated in state law for any other medical practices.
- It could ultimately result in the elimination of most women’s access to reproductive health care facilities by forcing the vast majority of clinics to close and by discouraging doctors from practicing in Michigan.
Categories: 2012, Abortion, GOP, Reproductive Rights, Right-Wing Ideology, War on Women, Women's Rights
Revolutionary Radar 
I have read this story with astonishment. Conservative men are hopeless dolts. It’s a good thing these two women did use the word “penis” in any of their presentations or they would probably both have been labeled sluts and arrested for soliciting and prostitution on the House floor. This is just bullshit.
Every time I see a Republican “Family Values” politician get arrested in a public men’s room while “taking a wide stance”, I think that’s a man that doesn’t like vagina!
It could be said that while these are “grown men” perpetrating this nonsense, they are not “Grown up”. They are like 6th grade boys, who have never had sex ed, who have purloined a copy of Hustler magazine. Right now they are huddled behind the school building, at recess, smoking cigarettes and giggling, while they stare at nudie photos and wonder why girls are shapped like that. I am certain that Calvinism and Puritanism have played a role in all of this, but those are two under-developed thought processes that have failed to get beyond any mental puberty, either, just like these sixth graders.