This is a recurring theme in this column.
The Republican Party is no longer interested in talking about the plight of women and their unborn children, or the need for women to be fully and equally represented in Congress, or how to get women to vote.
It is interested in a woman, the Republican Party, and her own political agenda.
The last Republican Party to talk about women was in 1984, when the party embraced the term “women’s rights.”
The last time Republicans talked about women’s rights was during the Reagan era, when they talked about the need to “end welfare as we know it” and “make our country safe and secure for women.”
But the GOP now is not interested in making a positive difference in women’s lives, but instead is focused on what it considers a “war on women.”
Republican lawmakers have been trying to make it impossible for women, particularly single women, to get abortions.
In 2010, the GOP passed a law requiring that a woman who has been raped or sexually assaulted must undergo a second abortion at 16 weeks of pregnancy.
In 2013, the party passed a bill that requires abortion clinics to provide counseling, contraception and referrals for other services, and to use state funds for abortions.
The GOP has also tried to prevent women from having access to birth control.
And it has attempted to cut funding to Planned Parenthood, which provides family planning services, birth control and cancer screenings.
But the Republicans’ obsession with women’s bodies and reproductive rights has caused them to be even more reluctant to address issues that affect women, including rape and sexual assault, and women’s health.
As a result, the U.S. Senate has passed only one major legislation dealing with rape and assault: The Protecting and Strengthening Survivors of Sexual Assault Act of 2017, sponsored by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY).
The bill would require the federal government to fund research on rape and to provide grants to help rape survivors navigate the justice system.
It also would make it a crime for a perpetrator to “further harm” a victim through sexual harassment, stalking, violence or coercion.
But even the Senate bill did not address the issue of abortion, which the Senate Republican leadership has been attempting to block for years.
The most prominent Republican senators who voted for the Gillibrands bill were all members of the Senate’s anti-abortion caucus, which included Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) and Sen. Mike Lee (R, UT).
Paul and Lee have been critical of the legislation.
But their votes were largely symbolic, because they had already voted to block the Gillibands bill.
So when Gillibranders bill came up for a vote in the Senate on Friday, Sen. Patty Murray (D, WA) said, “There are no provisions in that bill that address women’s reproductive health care.”
Murray is right.
But what did Murray actually mean by that?
She didn’t mean to say that the bill would not address reproductive health, or that it would not deal with abortion.
What she meant was that the Gilligans bill would “make it a criminal offense for a person who has engaged in sexual harassment or violence toward a victim to further harm the victim.”
And that is exactly what it did.
The Gillibrits bill does not address any aspect of women’s access to reproductive health services, including abortions.
But it does make it illegal for a “person who has sexually harassed or assaulted a victim” to “proceed to, engage in, or attempt to commit” or “knowingly participate in” the following: A. Any act or course of conduct that is intended to interfere with a person’s reproductive rights or health.
B.
A violation of any criminal law.
C.
A federal civil rights act, including a federal law prohibiting discrimination against pregnant women, abortion providers, or women who provide abortion services.
D.
The filing of a complaint, suit, or civil action.
E.
The termination of a pregnancy.
If you think that abortion is not a criminal act, you’re wrong.
The bill does include a provision allowing for the prosecution of individuals who are charged with violating the Gilligan Act.
The act makes it a misdemeanor for a state or local government official or employee “to engage in or attempt, knowingly participate in, participate in or encourage the participation of another person in or in furtherance of the commission of any of the acts specified in subsection C of this section.”
But that does not make the Gillibiards bill a crime, because the Gillis bills is a federal crime.
The Senate GOP leadership also is trying to block federal funding for Planned Parenthood.
But Planned Parenthood does not have a federal tax ID number and therefore has no need to report federal tax returns.
Nor does the government have any obligation to report the tax returns of abortion providers.
And the Gilliblies bill would have no impact on the government’s ability to spend money to help low-income women who need abortion services