Getty Images

Looks like our neighbors next door are at it again.  In their unbridled zealotry to end abortion, our GOP dominated, Christ-loving neighbors have introduced yet another bit of legislation aimed at narrowing a female’s options in regards to reproductive rights.

Last year, Kansas State Legislature tried to enact a law to place restrictions upon where a woman could have an abortion. Certain aspects of the law actually placed specifications as to the dimensions of the rooms that doctors could see patients intended to shut down clinics that provide the service. Federal Courts soon challenged the law resulting in its suspension.

And now the introduction of a sweeping reform into this process has been introduced.  Not to mention its clearly nefarious regulation of the practice of abortion, it also includes misinformation linking abortions and breast cancer.

And all this in the face of an ethics case against former Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline and a settlement for sexual discrimination which has cost tax payers a pretty penny.

Why are Kansas’s politicians so eager to fight battles that have been decided for decades? Well, it fires up voters and distracts them from the real issues at hand.  If legislators used half the time bickering about abortion and put it towards solving big inconsistencies in performance in its public schools, we’d all be the better for it.  But instead we deal with yet another blow to womens’ reproductive rights and the rights of those who work to provide them.

Which brings me to a bigger topic.  Are women feeling ostracized by the Republican party? Between zealots and misogynists, the ladies have got to be feeling the squeeze.  It’s hard to fathom that this debate still rages on in our modern world: that regulating the choices women make about their bodies is fair ground for government.  But it seems to have an unlikely champion in an institution that’s no more than a front for small government.