To the Editor:

Believing in the power of women’s votes, here are some facts that we are facing in November.

We have heard the GOP war on women dominate the news while delaying action that is imperative to the quickly vanishing middle class. GOP congressional members have been relentless in trying to restrict women’s health care rights and economic equality. 

• It costs $4.8 million to keep the House of Representatives open for one day.

• 52 days of House business was sidelined by their War On Women.

• $4.8 million times 52 days = $249.60 million of taxpayers money wasted.

• In 2011, the GOP House attacked women’s rights 19 of the 25 weeks they were in session.

• In 2012, GOP House attacked women’s rights 19 of the 21 weeks they were in session.

In the past, a women’s place for the most part was to stay home, barefoot and pregnant. Do we really want our daughters, granddaughters and generations to come to lose the rights we have worked so hard to give them? No, we want them to be recognized as valuable assets to themselves, their family, their community and their country?

On the Mother Jones website, Nick Baumann reports, “Under a GOP-backed bill expected to sail through the House, the Internal Revenue Service would be forced to police how American women have paid for their abortion. To ensure that taxpayers comply with the law, IRS agents would have to investigate whether certain terminated pregnancies were the result of rape or incest.” Remember illegal abortions that use to be done, frequently with very bad or fatal results?

The House Republicans have already voted on a bill that said some rapes are “legitimate.” Over 200 House Republicans co-sponsored H.R. 3 at the beginning of 2011. The truth is, Missouri Rep. Todd Akin is totally in line with today’s Republican Party. They also voted for a Republican amendment to cut all federal funding for Planned Parenthood. Do our young people who may have made a mistake really deserve that?

Some attacks of the GOP’s War on Women are:

• Reducing women’s access to abortion care.

• Redefining rape.

• Cutting nearly a billion dollars of food and other aid to low-income pregnant women and babies. Yes, there are some women who abuse this benefit but think of the ones that don’t, who have no other choice.

• Women should be home with the kids, not out working. In this Republican-caused recession, what would happen if women didn’t work?

• Cutting Head Start by $1 billion, which means over 200,000 kids could lose their preschool spot. That can’t be what any middle- or low-income class mother would want.

Republicans are taking particular aim at low-income elderly in the form of cutting or eliminating funding for meals, heating assistance, transportation and housing subsidies.   Do we really want to see poor elderly and disabled people walking the streets?

We need to speak out with loud, outraged voices and show the GOP: 

• No to taking away the rights and freedom of American women.

• No to threatening the health of millions of women and their families.

• No to attacks on women’s right to choose.

We have heard a lot about GOP candidates and their views. This information is just a preview of the tragic plans they have for women. The future of our younger generations of girls is in our hands and votes. We must protect them and their futures.

I believe in the strength and moral compass of American women.

Valerie Harrison

Dillsboro