To Be Blunt About It . . .

President Obama apparently didn't know how big a hornet's nest he was stirring up by advocating a contraception insurance coverage directive that required faith-based institutions to provide such coverage to their employees. Although he revised it to allow religious organizations to be exempted and have insurance companies fill the gap by mandate, and although Catholic groups are pleased with the compromise, the pro-life movement in the Republican party sees the revised version as forcing other employers to provide coverage contrary to their own moral objections.

In that spirit of ill will, Senator Roy Blunt, a Missouri Republican elected in 2010, has introduced an amendment that would allow all employers the right to refuse coverage to employees for any medical procedure they deem morally offensive. These procedures include maternity care, HIV/AIDS screenings, diabetes testing . . . any procedure involving treatment and care for a medical condition which could have been brought on by a lifestyle that the employer may find unhealthy and/or immoral. Thirty-seven Senate Republicans, including accidental senator Scott Brown of Massachusetts, have signed on to the Blunt amendment, which would likely be mated to a transportation bill - the same transportation bill ending dedicated funding to non-automotive transportation modes and initiatives - currently up for consideration in the House.

Oh yeah, don't think Brown is shooting himself in the foot with his support of this amendment as he runs for a full Senate term in liberal Massachusetts. It will likely get him more support from national Republican and pro-life groups and win him favor with Catholic Democrats and independents in his state. Brown can't fend off the challenge he faces in November from Democrat Elizabeth Warren with only Republican votes; he needs to fool enough gullible Massachusetts voters with his manly pro-life positioning. Enough Bay Staters, after all, were taken in to elect him to the Senate once - and to elect Mitt Romney as governor in 2002.

Meanwhile, the Virginia state legislature is pushing a pair of pro-life bills that could conceivably (no pun intended) become law. One would require mandatory ultrasounds for women seeking abortions. But because most abortions are performed within twelve weeks, a transvaginal ultrasound - literally inserting the instrument into a woman's body - would be required. So what, says Virginia State Delegate Todd Gilbert (Republican- male caucus) - abortion isn't really medically necessary all the time, he argues, it's mostly just a "lifestyle convenience."

The other bill would recognize fetuses as persons, similar to the bills rejected in Colorado and Mississippi. Virginia Governor Robert McDonnell, a Republican, has indicated that he will sign at least one of them, most likely to burnish his vice presidential prospects.

Apparently, it's not the American infrastructure, antiquated as it may be, that is severely outdated. It's the American political establishment. And the idea that a handful of reactionaries could win power at the ballot box and use it to deny rights to others with a technologically superior communications system and a ruthless organizational structure suggests that we're closer to fascism in America than any of us have ever imagined.