If you are a Virginia voter, you must vote on November 5th. If you know a Virginia voter, you must urge them to vote.
To do our own part, we’ve launched a Feminists for McAuliffe effort.
The choices are clear and stark: The Democratic ticket for governor is pro-women’s rights. The Republican ticket is downright frightening and one of the most extreme that has ever run on a major party for statewide office in modern times. We can’t let it become the norm.
The Democratic ticket of Terry McAuliffe for Governor, Ralph Northam for Lt. Governor, and Mark Herring for Attorney General is for women’s reproductive rights and access to both abortion and birth control, pay equity for women, marriage equality for same-sex couples, immigration reform and the DREAM Act, gun control, the Affordable Care Act and expanding Medicaid so millions more people can have access to health care, and reauthorization of the Violence against Women Act.
The Republican ticket of Ken Cuccinelli for Governor, Bishop R.W. Jackson for Lt. Governor and Mark Obenshain for Attorney General holds positions that are dangerous to women’s lives and rights. All are committed to making abortion illegal even for rape, incest, and the health of the woman and all would restrict access to birth control.
They are opposed to marriage equality, gun control, immigration reform, the Affordable Care Act, reauthorization of the Violence against Women Act, and are either silent on equal pay or opposed to the efforts to reduce wage discrimination against women.
Check out our more detailed comparison of the two tickets. But no comparison does justice in depicting the extreme, Tea Party, anti-women’s rights, right-wing positions of the Republican ticket. Cuccinelli is a leader in the fight to eliminate legal abortion for any reason and has used his elected positions first as state senator and now as Attorney General to champion this cause.
He steamrolled the new Virginia TRAP (Targeted Regulations Against Abortion Providers) regulations through the Board of Health and made sure they would cover existing clinics in order to drive them out of business. He has fought the Affordable Care Act and was one of only three Attorney Generals who refused to sign a bipartisan letter urging passage of the Violence again Women Act.
The Governor already signed a Target Regulation of Abortion Providers (TRAP) law that will close most women’s health clinics in the state. And now, the state Republican Party has nominated an extreme ticket that is hell-bent on keeping that TRAP law alive, defunding Planned Parenthood and ending all abortions in Virginia.
Lesser known Bishop Jackson and State Senator Obenshain also hold extreme positions against women’s rights. Jackson’s positions are so extreme that they might be funny if he was not running for Lt. Governor. One of his most preposterous is the satanic nature of Yoga. Just Google it and see for yourself.
Obenshain opposes equal pay legislation and is so extreme on abortion that he introduced legislation that would require women to report their miscarriages to the police within 24 hours of its happening. After the outrage that ensued, Obernshain withdrew the bill and said he didn’t mean it. Really.
Vote or encourage every Virginian you know to vote to Stop the War on Women, civil rights, LGBT rights, science, health care, the environment, and gun control. We must move forward.