Jezebel, June 19, 2012 by Erin Gloria Ryan
Maybe he just wasn’t ready to be the father of such a harsh ban. Michigan’s Republican governor Rick Snyder has apparently asked, all hush-hush-like, that the most odious parts from the state’s now-infamous new set of abortion restrictions be removed from consideration by the legislature — according to reports, a bill that previously banned all abortions that occurred after the 20 week point with no exception for the health of the mother magically disappeared from consideration after Snyder made a phone call to his buddies in the House. But rather than use this opportunity to publicly come out as a social moderate with priorities beyond women and what they do with their privates, Governor Snyder’s remained extremely hush-hush about the whole thing. So what in the name of pro-life Yakity Sax just happened?
The 20-week ban was never a part of the anti-abortion rights governor’s plan in the first place, claims MLive’s Tim Skubik, and he made his lack of support for any sort of ban known to his colleagues. But somewhere along the line, another anti-abortion rights legislator either didn’t know about the governor’s agenda or chose to ignore it and slipped the 20-week-no-exceptions bill into a committee meeting. What probably happened was this, according to Skubik: once the 20-week ban started getting legs and gaining attention, the governor knew he had to do something — he couldn’t support a ban, but he couldn’t publicly not support a ban and anger his anti-abortion rights constituency. The only solution, then, was to make a quiet phone call to a specialist in Lansing that could take care of his little problem, quickly, and with discretion. It would be like none of this had ever happened.
So was all of this — the public uproar over the bill, Rep. Lisa Brown’s “no means no” vagina speech that got her banned from the House floor, the subsequent reading of The Vagina Monologues on the steps of the state House — for naught? Not quite. The House did pass a bill that will make it much more difficult for abortion providers to operate in the state of Michigan, which the Senate would probably pass (if it brings it up for consideration), and the governor will probably sign. The 20-week ban isn’t dead, either, and a rogue Senator hungry for pro-life votes could easily re-introduce the zombie 20-week ban in order to score political points with constituents. Meanwhile, everyone is trying to do everything they can in the most vote-maximizing way possible, since it’s an election year and everything is thee-ah-tah.
Election year, vaginas, secrets, and pro-life pissing contests in the Midwest — that, my friends, is how a shitstorm is formed in the wild.
War on Women 
Posted on June 19, 2012