Both Texas and Virgina have been in the spotlight lately for passing restrictive abortion laws. The paternalism that the legislators of these states display is truly disgusting: they think they know what women ought to do. And, by gawd, they are going to be the ones to tell them.

In Texas, as if their recent abortion restrictions – which will close most clinics in the state – weren’t enough, along comes state Senator Eddie Lucio with an appallingly condescending bill which would require any women seeking an abortion to take a 3-hour web seminar on adoption before they can even think about looking for one of those scarce clinics. The bill provides NO exception for victims of rape or incest. Oh, did I mention that Sen. Lucio is a Democrat? It’s bad enough that we have to constantly fight the Republicans on this issue, we don’t need the Democrats that we elect to represent our concerns voting against us, too.

Katherine Haenschen, at the Burnt Orange Report, rightly states:

“… this anti-woman attitude deserves no quarter in the Democratic Party… Lucio’s vote for the unconstitutional back-door abortion ban — not to mention his seemingly endless speech in favor of it — and the votes of several Democrats in the House for the bill blurs that line, and perhaps calls into question whether Democrats really are united in our support for women’s health.”

This bill not only assumes that women are so stupid that they need to be ‘mansplained’ when it comes to their own reproductive health, it makes a huge assumption that these children would ever be adopted. Given the high Latino population in Texas, and the low rate of adoption for Latino children, there is bound to be a significant number of those children who will not be adopted. But they’ve been born by then, so the men who support this crap won’t care. Add to that the fact that Texas has spurned the Medicaid expansion that is a part of Obamacare and you have a recipe for sick women and children who will be unable to get health care.

But a short web seminar isn’t as bad as it can get. No, you have to go to Virginia to see that. Under state Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, the war on women has been running apace in the Commonwealth. One of the weapons in Virginia’s war is the “crisis pregnancy center” or CPC, a so-called clinic where pro-birth staffers use every dirty trick they can to keep women from terminating a pregnancy. Like most fanatics, they don’t care if the woman was raped or an incest victim. Their goal is to send her home so full of doubts and misinformation that she will either decide not to seek an abortion or vacillate so long that she would be unable to. They will tell her anything to prevent her exercising her choice.

Under the auspices of NARAL, the Pro-Choice Virginia Foundation has conducted a year-long investigation of Virginia CPCs and what they found is alarming. They secretly recorded CPC staffers telling women outright lies, among them:

Condoms are “naturally porous” and do not protect against STDs

Women who have taken the birth-control pill for four years prior to their first pregnancy have a 46% increased risk of breast cancer

Having an abortion will damage all of your future relationships

If you have an abortion, you will see that child’s soul again in the future: “At the end of the world you’re gonna know that was my child that I chose to kill”

That last one is incredibly manipulative. As if this decision isn’t difficult enough, to place that guilt on a religious woman is outrageous. But Cuccinelli supports any and all lies that are told at CPCs. It was he who sponsored the legislation making “Choose Life” license plates available: those plates are one source of funding for Virginia CPCs.

Tarina Keene, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia, pointed out that the worst thing about the CPC’s misinformation campaign is that women are receiving medical information that is dangerously incorrect:

“Regardless of your stance on abortion, we can all agree that anyone seeking health care services and advice should receive comprehensive, non-judgmental, and factually accurate information. This audio is nothing short of shocking – yet these are the lies and underhanded manipulation that Virginia women are subject to everyday within the walls of the Commonwealth’s 58 CPCs. It is wrong, and it must stop. Women deserve our respect and the truth.”

Women do deserve respect and to be told the truth. But Republican – and, unfortunately, some Democratic – men don’t believe that. They just know it is their responsibility to tell those silly women what they should and shouldn’t do when it comes to their reproductive health. Because men always know best, right?