He boasted of grabbing women’s p**sy before he became president of the United States. Little wonder then a cabinet meeting with a fancy title such as the White House Freedom Caucus, which tried to make Trumpcare happen by repealing the current Obamacare, or the Affordable Health Care Act, didn’t have a single woman in a room full of at least 25 men, all white and certainly not feminists.
President Donald Trump and Vice-President Mike Pence convened a meeting with the far-right House Freedom Caucus to discuss “women’s health”. Irony is out of date now that VP Pence had little qualm about tweeting out the picture, and he seemed to be in a rather self-congratulatory mode. (When is he not?)
Appreciated joining @POTUS for meeting with the Freedom Caucus again today. This is it. #PassTheBill pic.twitter.com/XG6lQIy5a6
— Vice President Pence (@VP) March 23, 2017
Special assistant to President Trump, Cliff Sims, tweeted out another photo, this time of a standing ovation as Trump walked into the Cabinet room, in which the discussion centred around stunning ideas such as stripping the GOP care of insurance policy cover for maternity and newborn care, hospitalisation, preventive care, emergency room services, paediatric care, among other absolutely necessary medical services available under Obamacare.
Lengthy standing ovation from the Freedom Caucus when @POTUS walked into the Cabinet Room just now. Big momentum toward #RepealAndReplace. pic.twitter.com/N1FLGAVFMN
— Cliff Sims (@CSims45) March 23, 2017
How is it that a room full of white men decide the future of women’s health, their right to their bodies, their say on their own reproductive system, whether to have abortion or keep a baby, whether to choose motherhood or not, whether to have a baby as a single woman or not, and many other decisions that should best left to the women herself.
An altogether relevant photo from the popular Netflix show Bojack Horseman. [Photo: Twitter] |
Public healthcare service and insurance policies geared towards women’s health were the backbone of Obamacare, which the Republicans such as Paul Ryan and others have been dead against. As Trump stands for nothing but political equivalent of TRPs, his trashing Obamacare has less to do with conviction than with rank opportunism.
The cynical revulsion that liberal women, whether white, brown or black, feel towards these bunch of eggheads is evident in the following tweet by Democratic senator for Washington Patty Murray.
A rare look inside the GOP’s women’s health caucus. https://t.co/SgLmvSpeSM
— Senator Patty Murray (@PattyMurray) March 23, 2017
It’s also hardly unexpected that the very set of people, the arch-conservative Republicans who call the shots in Trump regime, who don’t want the insurance policies to cover prenatal and postnatal care, labour and delivery, etc, are trying their best to make birth control and abortion that much harder to access.
Happening now at the White House: a room full of men are plotting to take away maternity care #TrumpCare pic.twitter.com/SVzmqIyjQc
— Energy Commerce Dems (@EnergyCommerce) March 23, 2017
The photo has since then gone viral on social media, inviting sharp criticism from women’s groups worldwide. Journalists too have tweeted out their nauseated reactions, and expressed concern. Some have compared the White House meeting with those happening in countries such as Saudi Arabia, where women are not even allowed to drive a car, or get beheaded if they go to a mall unaccompanied.
The group proposing to cut breast cancer screening, maternity care, and contraceptive coverage. pic.twitter.com/CxsrxZmcqz
— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) March 23, 2017
Top: US (House Freedom Caucus at White House discussing women's health - March 2017) Below: Saudi Arabia (Girls' Council - also March 2017) pic.twitter.com/YbAnILCBRu
— Ali Reza Eshraghi (@AlirezaEshraghi) March 23, 2017
Welcome to Talibanised America, folks.