What was officially dubbed as an opportunity to discuss issues facing women today turned into an anti-Right wing rant at a panel during the Taking back the American Dream Conference in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday.
Progressives on a panel entitled War on Women’s Health, Economic Security and Voting Rights made the case that the “war on women” narrative played up by the media is neither Republican nor Democrat.
It is, rather, a Right-wing war on women’s rights, according to the panel.
“[In 2010] Tea Party extremists flooded the United States Congress,” said Terry O’Neill, president of the National Organization for Women (NOW).
And it was those Tea Partiers support of H.R. 3, that supposedly justifies the panel’s claim there is a Right-wing war on women. O’Neil said H.R. 3, would have “100 percent defunded title 10” family planning centers.
“Which, by the way, provide no abortion services, but do mammograms, HIV screenings and [provide] birth control,” said O’Neill.
Not content to simply state that pro-life forces in Congress are “extreme,” Melanie Campbell, president and CEO of the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation, stated that after dubious results in Florida in 2000, the gloves really need to come off this election cycle.
In order to combat the perceived “war on women,” the panel is in complete agreement that in order to roll back some of the pro-life legislation, President Barack Obama would have to be re-elected.
“I don’t know if logic is going to win this for us,” said Campbell. “We know there were some racial issues, and we were being too nice in 2000.”
Like O’Neil, Campbell also alluded to the Tea Party as the problem in current politics.
“We are going to have to push back [with the Occupy movement] against the Tea Party.”
Campbell said that people on the Left have to form a coalition and work together, but it goes beyond voting. It also includes going to polling places and volunteering to be poll members.
