Penny Nance

When HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius overruled an FDA recommendation to allow the sale of the Plan B morning-after pill over the counter to women without age restrictions, Religious Right groups weren’t able to come up with a coherent response. Several conservative activists alleged (without any evidence) that the move was intended to compel women to go to Planned Parenthood clinics instead of pharmacies, while Matt Barber of Liberty Counsel came up with the bizarre claim that the Obama administration actually opposed the position it had taken and even defended in court.

Now that the courts have sided with reproductive justice organizations that supported the FDA’s original assessment of Plan B, the administration has relented and agreed to allow sales of Plan B without a prescription.

Naturally, groups opposed to contraception are now enraged that the Obama administration is complying with the rulings.

Concerned Women for America president Penny Nance accused the administration of having “abandoned common sense,” saying she “fear[s] for the future health and wellness of women and children.” CWA senior fellow Janice Crouse warned that “it will not be long before we see girls and women forced to purchase Plan B for their abuser to keep them and others enslaved. This is a pimp, predator, and pedophile’s dream.”

Kristan Hawkins of Students for Life asserted that the Plan B case was further proof the “President Obama is waging a War on Girls” and endorsing “child abuse.”

Anna Higgins of the Family Research Council said girls will now be forced to take Plan B “under coercion or without their consent.”

Penny Nance of Concerned Women for America told LifeNews: “Though President Obama himself has said ‘as the father of two daughters, I think it is important for us to make sure that we apply some common sense to various rules when it comes to over-the-counter medicine,’ his administration has abandoned common sense and will allow our nation’s teens and young girls to have access to a highly powerful drug forty times stronger than birth control. I sincerely fear for the future health and wellness of women and children, as doctors, parents, and pharmacists are eliminated from this very serious conversation about sexual activity, pregnancy, fertility, and overall health.”

Janice Crouse, also of CWFA, responded: “Once again, those who yell the loudest about caring about the nation’s children and youth applaud a decision to place our kids in a special interest experiment. Plan B, popularly called the ‘morning-after pill’ is a much-higher-dosage version of the regular birth control pill (which used to require a doctor’s prescription and continued doctor’s supervision). It is irresponsible to advocate over-the-counter use of these high-potency drugs, which would make them available to anyone – including those predators who exploit young girls. Mark my words, it will not be long before we see girls and women forced to purchase Plan B for their abuser to keep them and others enslaved. This is a pimp, predator, and pedophile’s dream – unlimited access to Plan B.”

She added: “This is a political decision, made by those who stand to profit financially from an action that puts ideology ahead of the nation’s girls and young women. Where is the scientific data and solid reasoning behind a decision that endangers minors?”

Kristan Hawkins of Students for Life of America also weighed in on the decision.

She told LifeNews: “President Obama is waging a War on Girls by allowing young children to get Plan B without a physician or parent’s care or knowledge. The morning after pill is a megadose of the birth-control pill, which has been categorized by the World Health Organization as a Group I carcinogen. That’s the highest possible ranking – cigarettes are also in Group I. So why are drugstores required to put cigarettes behind the counter and ask for a photo id to stop minors from purchasing them, but President Obama is now ordering the morning after pill be sold over the counter, next to candy bars and packs of gum? This is not reproductive justice, this is child abuse.”

…

“There is a real danger that Plan B may be given to young girls, under coercion or without their consent. The involvement of parents and medical professionals act as a safeguard for these young girls. However, today’s ruling removes these commonsense protections,” concluded Higgins.

• E.W Jackson thinks that people are opening themselves up to possession by Satan by practicing yoga.
• Steven Strang warns that "the Obama administration is requiring federal workers to publicly embrace and affirm homosexuality."
• CWA's Penny Nance thanks Michele Bachmann for paving the way for "conservative, pro-life, pro-family, fiscally responsible, intelligent women."
• Allen West was voted out of office after one two-year term, so of course he is now thinking of running for president.
• Finally, Bryan Fischer explains that Jesus is the force that holds the atomic nucleus together:

It was only last year that Concerned Women for America CEO Penny Nance criticized the term “war on women” as “phony, focus-grouped rhetoric” geared to “raise money and hackles” among Democrats. She predicted that women would turn on Obama and wouldn't vote on issues such as abortion rights or birth control access (unless they are anti-choice). Of course, exit polls showed that Obama carried women voters over Romney 55-44% and that 59% of voters said abortion should be legal either in all or most cases.

So it should come as no surprise that Nance is now using the “war” rhetoric in her latest Washington Times op-ed: “When high-sounding legislation becomes a war against women.” That’s right, she now believes that there is in fact a war on women, but that it comes from supporters of the Violence Against Women Act.

She claims that VAWA “hurts sex-trafficking victims,” even though 93 Senators voted for a Sen. Patrick Leahy’s amendment focused on combating the trafficking of women and girls.

The Violence Against Women Act headed to the president’s desk lulls Americans into believing that actual violence was addressed Thursday when, in reality, Congress pushed through a bad bill that hurts sex-trafficking victims, seeks to legalize prostitution for minors and fails to protect the consciences of organizations, such as the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, that oppose abortion but want to protect trafficking victims.
Within the Senate version of the act is an amendment by Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, Vermont Democrat, that decimates the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, seeks to change the Model State Law to promote the decriminalization of prostitution for minors, and assaults the conscience protections of groups that have a history of hands-on help for these victims.
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The Violence Against Women Act also promotes the decriminalization of prostitution of minors for states, which is also dangerous for trafficking victims. Decriminalization provides a perfect opportunity for pimps, traffickers and gangs to exploit minors in the sex industry by telling the minors that it is not illegal and that they will not get arrested. In Germany, Australia and the Netherlands, child prostitution increased after prostitution was legalized. Why would the outcome be any different here if states decriminalize prostitution for minors? Section 1243 seeks to change the Model State Law to promote the decriminalization of prostitution for minors:
It prohibits the charging of a minor for a prostitution offense. This removes all judicial discretion from the process.
The FBI’s Uniform Crime Report shows that there were only 895 arrests of minors for prostitution in 2010. In 2011, the number of arrests dropped to 763. Over the past seven years, arrests of minors for prostitution have averaged 1,067 annually.
Decriminalization provides a great recruiting tool for gangs, pimps and traffickers, who can say, “Don’t worry; it’s not illegal.”
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The lesson Congress has learned from the “war on women” apparently is that as long as the title of the legislation sounds good, you must vote for it — even if it is bad policy.

While the Religious Right reacted with apoplectic rage following the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, the lifting of the ban on women in combat has brought dejected but relatively subdued responses from conservatives.

American Family Association spokesman Bryan Fischer, who in December spoke out in favor of the ban by lying about the Israeli military’s policy on women in combat, tweeted that the decision was part of Obama’s plan to “feminize and weaken the U.S. military.”

Elaine Donnelly of the Center for Military Readiness said that “lives could be lost unnecessarily” by the new policy, which “will harm men and the mission of the infantry as a whole.” “The administration has a pattern of irresponsible actions like this using the military to advance a social agenda,” she said, “This kind of a social experiment is a dangerous one.”

Faith and Freedom Coalition head Ralph Reed maintained that the Obama administration is “putting women in combat situations is the latest in a series of moves where political correctness and liberal social policy have trumped sound military practice.”

Richard Viguerie’s group claimed that “Obama’s plan to introduce women into frontline combat roles in the U.S. military is a dangerous and irresponsible social experiment, not an opportunity for women to serve their country and advance in their chosen profession.”

Radio talk show host Janet Mefferd on her Facebook page wrote that the move is further proof that the Obama administration is “intent upon undoing this great country” and will “stop at nothing to achieve it.”

Family Research Council vice president Jerry Boykin, who was reprimanded by President Bush after he made anti-Muslim and political speeches while in uniform, called the decision “another social experiment”:

The people making this decision are doing so as part of another social experiment, and they have never lived nor fought with an infantry or Special Forces unit. These units have the mission of closing with and destroying the enemy, sometimes in close hand-to-hand combat. They are often in sustained operations for extended periods, during which they have no base of operations nor facilities. Their living conditions are primal in many situations with no privacy for personal hygiene or normal functions. Commanders are burdened with a very heavy responsibility for succeeding in their mission and for protecting their troops.

This decision to integrate the genders in these units places additional and unnecessary burdens on leaders at all levels. While their focus must remain on winning the battles and protecting their troops, they will now have the distraction of having to provide some separation of the genders during fast moving and deadly situations. Is the social experiment worth placing this burden on small unit leaders? I think not.

Penny Nance of Concerned Women for America said that the “majority of women” don’t care about the ban or want its elimination:

News of Defense Secretary Leon Panetta's intent to lift the long-standing ban on women serving in direct combat is further proof that this administration simply does not care about the issues about which the majority of women care. Once again, their interest on women issues is driven by special interest groups. The point of the military is to protect our country. Anything that distracts from that is detrimental. Our military cannot continue to choose social experimentation and political correctness over combat readiness. While this decision is not unexpected from this administration, it is still disappointing. Concerned Women for America (CWA) and its more than half-a-million members around the country will continue to do all we can to see that our men and women in uniform are governed with the respect and resources needed to do the hard task of fighting for and protecting our freedoms.

“God help us,” lamented Denny Burk of the Southern Baptist Convention, who seemed to suggest that women shouldn’t be in the armed forces at all:

Are the fortunes of women in our country really enhanced by sending them to be ground up in the discipline of a combat unit and possibly to be killed or maimed in war? Is there a father in America who would under any circumstance risk having his daughter shot or killed in battle? Is there a single husband in this country who thinks it okay for his wife to risk being captured by our enemies? To risk becoming a prisoner of war? Is this the kind of people we want to be? Perhaps this is the kind of people we already are. I would sooner cut off my arm than allow such a thing with my own wife and daughters. Why would I ever support allowing someone else’s to do the same? Why would anyone?

What kind of a society puts its women on the front lines to risk what only men should be called on to risk? In countries ravaged by war, we consider it a tragedy when the battle comes to the backyards of women and children. Why would we thrust our own wives and daughters into that horror? My own instinct is to keep them as far from it as possible. Perhaps this move makes sense with an all volunteer force, but what if the draft is ever reinstituted? Are we really going to be the kind of people who press our wives and daughters to fight in combat?

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Everyone in America ought to be scandalized by this news, but I’m wondering if it will even register on the radar of anyone’s conscience. To the extent that it doesn’t, we reveal just how far gone we are as a people. God help us.

Aaron Ahlert of FrontPageMag said the move is “sure to have deadly consequences” and represents the Obama administration “forcing gender radicalism down America’s throat.”

It didn’t take long for the Obama administration to advance a pernicious piece of its promised radical agenda. Two days after the president laid out his far-left vision during the inauguration, senior defense officials announced that Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta will lift the military’s ban on women serving in combat. The move overturns a 1994 provision that prohibited them from being assigned to ground combat units. Panetta has given the various service branches until 2016 to come up with exemptions, and/or make any arguments about what roles should still reman closed to women. Thus, another bit of gender radicalism has been shoved down the nation’s throat through executive fiat — and this one is sure to have deadly consequences.

...

It stretches the bounds of credulity to believe that sexual tension, regardless of the legitimate or illegitimate motivation behind it, would be lessened under front line, life-threatening combat conditions. Nor is it inconceivable to think that close personal relationships of a sexual nature would make some soldiers take the kind of unnecessary risks to save a lover that might not only endanger themselves, but their entire unit.

...

Once again, elections have consequences. Barack Obama has made it clear that part of his progressive agenda includes forcing gender radicalism down America’s throat, absent any input from Congress. Once, the United States military was all about projecting lethal power around the globe to protect America’s interests. Now, it is all about promoting diversity, inclusion and equality of outcome, irrespective of military readiness and cohesion. For progressives, who have elevated political correctness above all else–national security included–such radical egalitarianism is cause for celebration. For Donnelly and countless other Americans, it is anything but. “No one’s injured son should have to die on the streets of a future Fallujah because the only soldier near enough to carry him to safety was a five-foot-two 110-pound woman,” she contends.

Concerned Women for America president Penny Nance is getting herself in the involved debate over UN Ambassador Susan Rice’s potential nomination to be Secretary of State. Nance has attempted to paint President Obama as somehow anti-woman by claiming his campaign is “misogynistic” and views women as “a bunch of cheap floozies.” She even mocked Obama supporter Sandra Fluke by saying she and her colleagues couldn’t afford birth control because they spent too much money on beer, while refusing to defend her from Rush Limbaugh’s sexist attacks. Nance’s group launched the SheVotes campaign to energize conservative women and during an Election Day interview with VCY America’s Jim Schneider, she insisted that polling data shows Obama’s efforts to reach out to women voters were a “disaster.”

Of course, Obama carried women voters by eleven points, but being completely wrong about the women’s vote in the election hasn’t stopped Nance from claiming that women across the country are appalled by his purported sexism.

How is he acting like a sexist now? By defending Rice from baseless Republican attacks.

Nance writes that Obama is acting like Tarzan and even threw out the debunked claim that the White House practices paycheck discrimination. She says that instead of speaking out in favor of Rice, he should be defending people like Sarah Palin, Ann Coulter and Michele Bachmann from “his own misogynistic attack dogs.” Speaking out against the attacks against Rice, Nance explains, is effectively “an admission that left-leaning women aren’t nearly as savvy and strong as conservative women and, therefore, need a little extra protection.”

Basically, if Obama doesn’t defend women like Palin, Coulter and Bachmann, it is sexist, and if he speaks out on behalf of a Democratic official like Rice, it is sexist and a sign that liberal women are weak. Get it?

It’s absurd to think Obama would similarly defend his male subordinates. Such statements made by the president would undermine their authority and insult their professional capabilities.

But maybe public displays of “Me Tarzan, You Jane” are just one of the perks you get when you’re part of an administration that pays its women an average of 18 percent less than their male counterparts.

Or maybe it’s finally an admission that left-leaning women aren’t nearly as savvy and strong as conservative women and, therefore, need a little extra protection. Heaven knows there were plenty of times (a la Sarah Palin, Ann Coulter, Michele Bachmann, etc., etc., etc.) when the president could have — and should have — called off his own misogynistic attack dogs. Those were full-on, unbridled, unrestrained, vicious attacks on conservative women. But honest-to-goodness, hard-but-relevant questions pointed at a female, Obama administration mouthpiece is what finally gets the president in an uproar?

Focus on the Family founder James Dobson, now the host of Family Talk, admitted on his radio program today that the National Day of Prayer Task Force, chaired by his wife Shirley Dobson, were praying for Obama to be defeated on Election Day. Religious Right activists have lambasted Obama with false smears that he had “cancelled” the National Day of Prayer and defended the event as “not politically inclined,” even though it regularly hosted anti-Obama speakers like David Jeremiah and Harry Jackson and both Dobsons are closely tied to the GOP. But during an interview with Concerned Women for America president Penny Nance, Dobson gave away the game and said that his wife and Task Force vice-chair John Bornschein put together an election season prayer effort that they hoped will defeat Obama.

Dobson: Many, many, many Christians were praying and we really need to address that issue first: where was God? Because there were these ’40 Days of Prayer,’ there were several of those that took place, where people fasted and prayed for forty days asking the Lord for His intervention on Election Day. We did a program last week where my wife Shirley came in with her vice-chairman John Bornschein and told how three hundred Gideon prayer warriors came to Washington, went to every single office of the House of Representatives and the Senate and prayed for the occupant, prayed for our representatives, went to the White House, went in a vigil to the Supreme Court, which is now at great risk, and went to the Pentagon. People like that were praying all over this country and the Lord said no.

Nance: He said no.

Later in the interview, Dobson lamented that we “we lost this election” because God “said no” and warned we are now living in a “time of judgment.” Nance even raised doubts about Obama’s Christian faith as she said that God can still “use this President” just as He has “used people who were not believers and were not followers of the Lord or followers of the God throughout the Bible to do his work.”

Dobson: Because we lost this election does not mean that the Lord has turned His back on us. I think this is a time of judgment but those of us who are trying to serve Him and defend the things that He has taught, may yet see Him act. He said no this time but who knows what will happen in the future. Nobody knows.

Nance: Nothing is too big for God. God can use this President just like He can anyone else, and He has throughout history used people who were not believers and were not followers of the Lord or followers of the God throughout the Bible to do his work, so we will pray to that end and trust the Lord knows what He’s doing, but I’m already looking ahead to 2014.

So next time the Dobsons complain that Obama isn’t caving to their demand he participates in their event, maybe they can give up the act that they are non-partisan.

• Ralph Reed declares that that the entire presidential race "can now be boiled down to two key counties" in Ohio.
• William Owens is outraged by an ad urging African Americans to vote in favor of marriage equality in Maryland.
• The Family Research Council is out with a new ad urging people to vote against President Obama ... because of Dan Savage?
• Glenn Beck says media outlets are sitting on incriminating emails regarding the Libya attack in order to protect President Obama and that if they aren't released, he will "expose them."
• Finally, Penny Nance of Concerned Women for America says that a woman who become pregnant via rape should not be allowed to get an abortion because "aborting her baby, which was the result of a crime, actually adds to the emotional and physical harm to the mother."

Concerned Women for America's president Penny Nance recently sat down with CWA to discuss the different ways in which the Republican and Democrats are trying to appeal to women in their respective conventions and messages.

While the GOP was working to highlight pro-life women leaders, Nance said, the Democrats were trying to appeal to women like Sandra Fluke by handing out free birth control ... women who, if they just spent less money on beer, could afford their own birth control:

The question before us now is how are the Democrats going to handle that issue, how are they going to appeal to women? Is it going to be the Sandra Fluke sort of message that women are only interested in free birth control or free stuff at that. The question is what message works and it is a message of victim-hood, that you need free stuff from the government to be able to be productive in society?

Is this just about the idea that really all it takes to win a woman's vote is free birth control which, by the way, we know that WalMart offers it for $9 a month. I often think I'd like to say to Sandra Fluke that if you'd just had less beer in college, I think you probably could afford the birth control you wanted.

A number of prominent women leaders of the Religious Right have come together for the American Prayer Initiative, which is “designed to help draw ‘we the people’ of this nation back to the One upon whom she was founded.’ The group includes the National Day of Prayer’s Shirley Dobson and Vonette Bright, talk show host Janet Parshall, Liberty Counsel’s Anita Staver, Concerned Women for America’s Penny Nance, Susan B. Anthony List’s Marilyn Musgrave, activist Rebecca Hagelin and Susan Allen, wife of Virginia’s George Allen. The group offers members a specific prayer for every day of each month until Election Day, including prayers condemning homosexuality and the separation of church and state.

One message asks participants to pray for God’s “healing for those who struggle with same-sex attraction” and to “replace unnatural affections”:

We pray for healing and restoration of true manhood and womanhood in America. We ask for Your wisdom and protection against attempts to re-define our very identity as men and women.

We pray for Your design for abundant and fulfilled manhood, womanhood and marriage to gain preeminence in America.

We pray for a full restoration of the image and definition of manhood and womanhood in America.

We petition You, God for Your healing for those who struggle with same-sex attraction. May they come to know Your power, Your mercy and Your love as You replace unnatural affections with ones You Yourself designed.

Another is a prayer to oppose the legalization of same-sex marriage:

We pray that the union of one man and one woman will be embraced by all societies as the sole form of legitimate marriage and the proper basis of family.

We ask that the power of Your hand intervene to transform and heal the hearts of those who would attempt to re-define marriage.

The group also sends a message criticizing the influence of judges and proponents of the separation of church and state:

We ask for leaders, a judicial system and judges who adhere to the original intent of our founding documents and their many connections to Biblical principles.

We pray for a true understanding of justice according to Your Word We pray for Your protection from attempts to redefine justice for political gain.

We ask You to convict, transform and protect those who are out of Your will. We ask You to encourage, strengthen and protect those who honor and follow You.

We ask You for judges who will follow constitutional principles rather than ruling according to pre-chosen outcomes or relying on international law.

We pray that courts will recognize parents’ fundamental rights to the care, custody and control of their children.

We ask for Your guidance for accurate rulings over first amendment issues, and an awareness in our country that the words, “separation of church and state” are found nowhere in any one of our founding documents. We ask for a reversal of rulings which have inaccurately established “separation” as a Constitutional principle.

There is even a prayer against a media looking “to bring our country down by bringing our culture down”:

We ask you, Lord, to open greater and greater opportunities for Your Gospel to flow freely across our airwaves.

We ask, Lord, for You to grant Americans the wisdom to discern truth from deception.

We pray for those in the entertainment industry that they may better serve the families of our country by creating programs and movies that are uplifting in nature and extol positive virtues.

We especially pray Your blessings upon those in media, entertainment, the arts and journalism who are driven by loyalty to You. We ask for favor and acceptance for their work.

We ask You to raise up, equip, and abundantly provide for Your true disciples in the media, the arts, entertainment and journalism.

We pray for honesty in journalism.

We pray for those who would intend to bring our country down by bringing our culture down.

We ask you to foil the plans of those who would bring others down in any form.

We ask for Your transforming power in the lives of those who would divide, deceive and destroy.