South Carolina is currently projecting a budget shortfall of $877 million in 2012. With a GDP of $159.6 billion in 2009, our current debt/GDP radio is 9.59%. The state has $12.1 billion in unfunded pension liabilities and unfunded health care and other liabilities of $8.6 billion. Our state is in financial trouble.

Two billion dollars has already been cut out of what was a $7 billion budget three years ago.

John Ruoff, director of South Carolina Fair Share summed it up when he said, “We’ve cut the fat. We’ve eaten the muscle and now we’re cracking open the bones and sucking the marrow.” Even business people are concerned about further cuts to the budget. The Greenville News quotes Frank Knapp, president of the small business Chamber as saying, “We can’t cut our way to prosperity.” Business leaders are rightfully concerned about further debilitating cuts to health care and education and what that could mean for the future of our state and its citizens. Ruoff, Knapp and others have formed a coalition to urge lawmakers to consider tax reform and yes, tax hikes to cope with the budget deficit. The recent report from the SC Taxation Realignment Commission or TARP suggested several revenue raising ideas including eliminating the 44% discount on capital gains income and lifting the tax cap on luxury items like yachts and jet planes.

Instead of heeding this advice, the South Carolina legislature led by Governor Nikki Haley has continued to swing the budget ax, threatening services to disabled children and adults, the total elimination of state funds for arts programs and educational television and radio. A program providing free breast cancer screenings to 16,000 low income women in South Carolina is also on the chopping block.

With news of a 10.7% unemployment rate in December, logical minds would conclude that the SC legislature would spend its current session focused like laser beams on jobs, employment and deficit reduction, instead they’ve chosen to spend their time pressing for further restrictions on abortion and birth control for women. State Senate bill 165 is called the Right to Life Act, I like to refer to it as the “anti-birth control bill.”

This radical piece of legislation seeks to establish full legal rights, including due process and equal protection for-eggs from the moment of fertilization. This ill conceived bill would endanger a woman’s right to access to hormonal birth control including the pill, IUD’s, emergency contraception, stem cell research and even in-vitro fertilization, since all those fertilized eggs would have full legal rights.

Even more frightening is the prospect that doctors could be prosecuted or subject to lawsuits for giving women medical care that could endanger the fetus. The grassroots advocacy network tell them www.tellthemsc.org points out that The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists estimates that between one third and one half of all fertilized eggs never fully implant, yet this bill would grant them full constitutional rights.

Another bill that was debated this week would provide protection to health care workers at the expense of women seeking birth control. The “Freedom of Conscience Act” would allow health care workers to opt out of providing emergency contraception or any medical procedures that would end a pregnancy, again the rights of the fetus trump the rights of a woman to protect her own health. This doesn’t seem that problematic until you consider the rural parts of our state, where one pharmacy may service the entire community. If a woman is seeking emergency contraception at this sole pharmacy and the pharmacist or clerk refuses to provide the medication, this could force the woman to drive to another town prolonging the time before the medication can be administered in order to avoid pregnancy. This seems extremely intrusive and a violation of the woman’s rights. I also question how this is such a huge problem that we need legislation to protect the rights of these health care workers. How many times has this issue come up? Oran Smith, President of the Palmetto Family Council, a Columbia faith-based group tells The Greenville News that there have been instances in other states-but none in South Carolina where groups got in trouble for raising moral or religious objections to providing some forms of medical care. So…it’s never happened here but we need legislation to address the problem. Makes no sense to me.

South Carolina lawmakers also want to weigh in on what procedures can be covered under state health care plans. A bill under consideration would limit private health care companies to offering coverage for elective abortions only as an optional supplement, paid for by a separate premium.

I’ve had enough of this crap. I’m sick and tired of the obsessive attention paid to abortion and restrictions on birth control for women in South Carolina. I object to medical health care plans which will cover prescriptions for Viagra but no cover birth control pills and IUD’s. Where’s my damn bill?

I have a huge problem with a bunch of men telling my health care provider what can and can’t be covered. I object to a bunch of white men ignoring the real problems that confront our state and continuing to pander to their conservative constituents to the detriment of women of child bearing age in our state. South Carolina has the lowest percentage of females serving in the state legislature of any state in the nation. Bills like the Right to Life Act and the Conscience Act are the result of the ongoing lack of female representation.

It’s not just women who suffer under the reign of a predominantly white male legislature, children bear a heavy burden as well. The latest Kids Count Data Book, ranks South Carolina 45^th in the nation in the well being of its children. Nearly half a million children in our state live in poverty, 485,000 qualify for Medicaid benefits, 370,000 received subsidized school meals, 37,000 were the subject of child abuse investigations and 27% of children who start school will not graduate.

South Carolina has lots of serious problems, financial and social. Can we please focus some attention on these issues and stop fixating on abortion and women’s sex lives?