Category: Abortion, Feminism, Women’s Rights
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JMU: Where Not Only Are You Wrong, But How Dare You Ask?
by James A. Bacon Western Civilization went more than 2,000 years with people dividing the world between male and female. About 10 years ago, the idea gained traction in the United States that gender wasn’t based on biology — XX and XY chromosomes — but was a social construct. Within an extraordinarily short time, transgender…
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Abortion, Black Women, and the Thirteenth Amendment
by Paul Goldman I write today to put the abortion debate in its proper Virginia political, social, and legal contexts. The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution banned not only slavery but also “involuntary servitude.” “While the general spirit of the phrase ‘involuntary servitude’ is easily comprehended, the exact range of conditions it prohibits…
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The Enrollment Gap Colleges Don’t Like to Talk About
by James A. Bacon While college administrators across Virginia and the United States fixate on the racial/ethnic makeup of their institutions, there’s a large and growing gender gap. Young women dominate enrollment at most higher-ed institutions these days. Fewer young men are applying, and even when they do, they’re dropping out more frequently. Administrators don’t…
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VMI a Hell-hole for Women, Says… the Washington Post
by James A. Bacon If you want a case study in why much of the public believes nothing emanating from the mainstream media, read The Washington Post’s latest smear job on the Virginia Military Institute. Staff muckraker Ian Shapira slams the Institute for the misogyny and sexual assault that he, like the Barnes & Thornburg…
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Contrary to Report, Women Are Safer from Sexual Assault at VMI
by James A. Bacon Not only is the Virginia Military Institute a cauldron of racism, according to the recently published Barnes & Thornburg report, it is a bastion of sexism. As the executive summary puts it: “On gender, many respondents — including men — stated that VMI’s gender-equity issues are worse than its racial-equity issues.” As…
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Why Northam Is Such An Important Governor
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in Abortion, Feminism, Women’s Rights, Agriculture & forestry, Business and Economy, Charity, Philanthropy, Nonprofits, Civil Rights, Individual Liberties, Consumer Protection, Defense, National Security, Energy, Environment, Federal issues, General Assembly, Governance, Government Finance, Government Transparency, Government workers and pensions, Gun rights, Health Care, Immigration, Infrastructure, Insurance, Labor and Workforce, Land use & Development, LGBQT, Media, Money in politics, Regulations, Gov’t Oversight, Science & Technology, Social Services and Entitlements, Taxes, TelecommunicationsBy Peter Galuszka This is a bit like throwing chum at a school of sharks, but here is my latest in Style Weekly. I wrote an assessment of Gov. Ralph Northam that is overall, quite positive. My take goes against much of the sentiment of other contributors on this blog. They are entitled to their…
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End Parental Discrimination in Surrogacy Cases
by Jay Timmons Residents in the Richmond area are represented by three Republicans in the state Senate with very different views of Life and Family. All three will be on the ballot Tuesday. When it counted, Siobhan Dunnavant stood strong for children and the unborn. But sadly, Glen Sturtevant and Amanda Chase chose discrimination and…
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The Most Cost-Effective Anti-Poverty Program Known to Man: Contraception
Back to exploring “root causes” of poverty… This chart shows vividly how poverty is a demography-driven phenomenon. Poor people have more children than the not-poor do, and they have children at a younger age. The consequence of this “disparity” in fertility rates is that the percentage of children raised in poverty is vastly higher than…
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Now Everybody Has a Club on Abortion. Wonderful.
Watching the abortion issue being shoved into the coming Virginia elections by ideologues on both sides, it is fair to ask the question: Can the center hold? Are the many people who are fairly comfortable with the state of the law these last few decades going to be sorry with an outcome in either direction?…
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Unraveling the Ralph Northam Infanticide Controversy
Background. The past several weeks have been full of controversy for three of Virginia’s leading Democratic politicians – Ralph Northam, Justin Fairfax and Mark Herring. The local, state and national media have been focused on allegations of racism against Northam and Herring and sexual assault against Fairfax. However, prior to the media onslaught regarding racism and…
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Herring Makes the Right Call
Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring supports abortion rights. He’s sympathetic to the intent behind a federal lawsuit filed by Planned Parenthood challenging states restrictions on abortion. But he has filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit. “Many of the challenged laws are decades old, some of the challenged regulations are under active review, and plaintiffs…
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Is U.Va. Possessed by the Devil?
By Peter Galuszka Over the past weeks there’s been plenty of blogging about Rolling Stone’s coverage of the University of Virginia and lots of comment by two conservatives who believe there is an evil “hook up” culture that involves casual sex and today’s loss of morality. Well, I’ve been feeling sort of down recently (maybe…
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The problem with the death penalty
D.J. Rippert Virginia’s non-debate. Politics in Virginia includes a lot of debates. Trasnportation funding. Medicaid expansion. Taxes. However, one critical aspect of Virginia law has fallen from view – the death penalty. This lack of debate over the death penalty is not due to a lack of executions. Since 1976 Virginia has posted the third…
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Is the End of America’s Culture Wars in Sight?
by James A. Bacon Have the Culture Wars peaked? Is the national debate over God, Gays and Guns on the downward slide? Michael Lind, a conservative thinker and cofounder of The New America Foundation, thinks the end is foreseeable. Just as the Civil War didn’t end after Gettysburg — the Confederate states still had a lot…
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Pope Francis Slams “Trickle Down”
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in Abortion, Feminism, Women’s Rights, Business and Economy, Children and Families, Consumer Protection, Demographics, Economic development, Energy, Environment, Government Finance, Labor and Workforce, Land use & Development, Media, Money in politics, Planning, Regulations, Gov’t Oversight, Social Services and Entitlements, TaxesBy Peter Galuszka In a sharp rebuke to traditional conservative economic thought, the leader of the world’s Roman Catholics says he wants the church to rethink its strategies towards addressing income inequality and poverty and shun “the idolatry of money” and “trickle down” philosophies that give the rich far too much influence. Pope Francis outlined…