This shouldn’t be surprising. Still, I have somehow managed to watch the onslaught against the reproductive rights of women without becoming completely cynical. So, when Amadi posted the response she received after writing to her state representative, I was a bit shocked.
Today, I received an oversized manilla envelope from Rep. Readshaw. Inside was a printout of HB 1077, a printout of some database’s information about me, indicating where I live, that I’m not the head of the household (why/how it knows this I do not know) and a few other things about me, like ethnicity, that no elected official should or needs to know. I’m going to have to get to the bottom of that.
Not content to make it blatantly clear that he had violated Amadi’s privacy, he went on to violate his daughter’s in the letter.
HE JUST DISCLOSED HIS DAUGHTER’S PRIVATE MEDICAL INFORMATION IN AN EFFORT TO JUSTIFY HIS SUPPORT OF THIS BILL AND GENERAL ANTI-CHOICE POSITION.
Sorry for shouting, no, actually, I’m not. I am beyond disbelief that he believes that this woman’s personal pain, her private information, her reproductive status is fair game to be bandied around like this, to be used to score political points, as a gotcha at me. She can’t have babies and I want to KILL THEM! What kind of person am I that I could possibly support other people having autonomy over their own reproduction when she doesn’t have any?
Then he went after Amadi’s again.
One last note, remember when I said that in the envelope with the letter was a printout of some database’s information about me? Check out the last line again:
Congratulations on your voting record it is very good!
I’m going to presume that there is some database that shows how many times I’ve voted since I registered in 1991. (The answer is “twice a year, every year, or 42 times thus far.) But why is he looking that up before sending me a letter in response to me writing to him? Why is it germane? Why is it his business? Why is it legal? Do I not get a letter if I don’t vote or vote often enough for his tastes? I’m going to be looking into this too, I assure you.
So, who would think it was okay to behave like this, to dig into and share private data when talking about legislation–in what should be a discussion about the public good? Pennsylvania State Representative Harry Readshaw, co-sponsor of Pennsylvania’s forced-penetration-before-abortion bill.
As I said, I shouldn’t be shocked.
Go read all of Amadi’s post. There’s plenty more there on the topic of the bill. If Readshaw is your representative, let him know what you think of the bill and his behavior. If you have an interest in the privacy of the general citizenry, raise a stink about this. Never forget that this isn’t about “babies”. It’s about control, and your privacy is a tiny price for someone else to pay to gain control.
14 comments
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unbound
February 24, 2012 at 12:14 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Wow. Just wow.
I hope she has already reached out to the ACLU.
d cwilson
February 24, 2012 at 1:05 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Unbelievable. I hope she sues.
Moggie
February 24, 2012 at 1:44 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
This is basically a threat, isn’t it? He’s essentially saying “I have the power to find out everything about you, so watch out”. That’s how I would interpret it, anyway. I hope he’s overstepped, and suffers for this.
Jadehawk, cascadeuse féministe
February 24, 2012 at 2:04 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
holy fuck
James
February 24, 2012 at 4:24 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
The ACLU might be a good starting point, but I think Anonymous might be quite interested in Rep. Readshaw’s actions and might come up with a less indirect method of education on privacy than a law suit.
F
February 24, 2012 at 5:49 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Fuck. This.
Two major malfunctions at the very least here.
becca
February 24, 2012 at 6:51 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Thanks for helping spread the news about this. PA abortion law is draconian, and this bill is a disaster waiting to happen.
And Readshaw. Ugh. I just can’t even begin to process anything but extreme anger toward him.
McCthulhu, now with Techroline and Retsyn
February 24, 2012 at 6:56 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
We can’t be incredulous at how low someone who supports this bill would stoop. I second the idea to contact the ACLU. This is a serious violation of privacy and a serious misconduct by an elected official. Of course, he would probably weasel out of it and just blame it on an over-enthusiastic intern.
Interrobang
February 24, 2012 at 8:38 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
A friend of mine blogged this in her LiveJournal (and linked here), and I just commented “I wouldn’t write to that guy if you paid me, and I’m a foreigner. Apparently writing to him means that your whole life gets investigated and data-mined, and in these days of CSIS cooperating totally with Homeland Security, I’d be on everybody’s No Fly lists and No Entry list at the border, and hell knows what else. My mother didn’t raise any fools, and my mother also raised enough of us non-fools to realise that there’s a huge chilling effect going on.”
Scary, scary stuff.
Jason Thibeault
February 24, 2012 at 9:05 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Isn’t this pretty much the political equivalent of “nice house, shame if something were to happen to it”? Fucking crazy bullshit. Glad it’s getting some sunlight. Hopefully said sunlight will cauterize the creeping slime that is Readshaw.
Arain
February 24, 2012 at 11:05 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Hello people??? You are missing the even bigger picture here: that they even have this information collected and accessible to … who? Politicians! This isn’t about one politician accessing it. We should thank this guy from the bottom of our hearts for exposing that they have access to our information in this way (and have even collected it on an innocent citizen!), which is what really matters. THAT is the problem.
Giliell, not to be confused with The Borg
February 25, 2012 at 4:32 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
What the fuck?
Orwell wasn’t writing a “how to do” when he wrote 1984.
And what an exceptional asshole do you have to be to use the unfortunate medical condition of your daughter to further your misogynist agenda?
Stacy
February 25, 2012 at 3:09 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
What an object lesson in conservative respect for women’s privacy.
Seriously, this fuckwit needs to be held accountable.
caravelle
February 29, 2012 at 9:37 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
As Arain says, the main issue is that all that information was available to him in the first place, and the biggest mistake he did was in revealing this. Internet privacy issues are a huge, huge problem but I do know that in my country there are laws that at least nominally try to protect people from this kind of thing (I’m thinking of the CNIL in France).
Does Pennsylvania not have such laws, or are they just being blatantly ignored ?