Using the abortion issue as a political football is about as offensive and distasteful as Lt. Governor Ron Ramsey can get in his bid for the Governor’s office.
Until he starts being a more responsible legislator and targeting what really works – reducing the number of unintended pregnancies by advocating for age-appropriate reproductive health education in public schools, affordable contraception for all, or some other useful public policy – he needs to just stop.
And where is he on Tennessee’s abysmal infant mortality rate?
Aunt B. has more.
If you think he can’ out do himself, he apparently spent the evening at a Ruby Tuesday’s in Strawberry Plains laughing and telling jokes about the Tucson Massacre
Congenital icthyosis (Harlequin fetus)
http://www.thefetus.net/page.php?id=1448
In an indirect way, RU-486 helped to get Ron Ramsey elected as Tennessee Lt. Governor.
Upshot: The notable Tennessee Republican Party campaign contributor, Tennessee Right to Life contributor, and Former King Pharmaceuticals, Inc. CEO John Gregory was business partners (through King Phara subsidiary Monarch Pharmaceuticals) with one-time corporate RU-486 abortion drug patent owners Hoechst A.G./HMR.
The late December 1998 purchase of U.S. marketing and distribution rights to Altace by Monarch Pharmaceuticals allowed Hoechst A.G./HMR to circumvent the 1994 consumer boycott by the National Right to Life organization against Altace and other HMR branded pharma products in the U.S. and recoup the Hoechst A.G./HMR corporate investment into bringing Altace into the U.S. market.
Tennessee Lt. Governor Ron Ramsey is still one of the many toadying TNGA Republican lapdogs still on the leashes held by the members of the Bristol based Gregory family…
McKamey for State Senate (2004, Ron Ramsey television spot)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIi9S2y5FIk
There’s gotta be an effective political ad in here somewhere.
VV – Regardless of how people feel about the issue, trying to score cheap political points with it (as Ron Ramsey is doing) is gross.
Mary,
Thanks for this! Ron Ramsey apparently thinks he can make hay with the abortion issue and kick Planned Parenthood around and everyone in Tennessee will cheer. Apparently he doesn’t know that a whole lot of people in this state don’t think abortion is murder and a whole lot of women (at least here in Memphis) have gone to Planned Parenthood’s clinic at some point in their lives for birth control or some form of gynecological health care.
Lets call Ron Ramsey what he is–a misogynist.
Answers.com: Company History – Hoechst AG
http://www.answers.com/ topic/hoechst-ag
excerpt:
With operations in 120 nations around the globe, Hoechst (pronounced “herckst”) A.G. is the world’s largest chemical manufacturer. By the mid-1990s, less than 25 percent of its annual revenues were generated in its home country of Germany. From its roots as a dyestuffs producer, the company grew to become one of that nation’s top three chemical firms. It was a key component of the IG Farben chemical cartel, and emerged from the post-World War II breakup of that conglomerate as a strong and growing entity. Hoechst developed a particular focus on pharmaceuticals in the ensuing decades, but its diverse product line–including agricultural and industrial chemicals, fibers, polymers, and engineering services–helped to shelter it from vacillations in any one market. In 1996 the Kuwaiti government, through Kuwait Petroleum Corporation, continued to hold the 25 percent stake in Hoechst that it had first acquired over a decade before.
…
As the twin demons of recession and drug industry consolidation bedeviled Hoechst in the early to mid-1990s, the company devised new strategies. Key among them was the joint venture, wherein two or more companies share the costs and benefits of researching, developing, and marketing new products. Joint ventures with Courtaulds in fibers, Schering in pesticides, and Wacker in plastics were expected to boost productivity in these lagging sectors. Cooperative projects such as these also helped forge vital relationships in new and emerging markets. In 1990, for example, the company signed an agreement with Japan’s Teijin to manufacture flame-retardant fibers.
Ironically, acquisitions were also used as economizing measures, as Hoechst executives expected to squeeze economies of scale from new affiliates. Accordingly, the company acquired three European powder coatings operations, a German fibers producer, and a controlling stake in an American manufacturer of generic drugs. In a 1995 bid to re-establish itself as a leading player in the drug business, the company acquired Marion Merrell Dow for US$7.1 billion. The merger moved Hoechst into third place in the continuously consolidating pharmaceutical industry.
YouTube: 2004 Ron Ramsey Commercial
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIi9S2y5FIk&feature=player_embedded
Ask Lt. Governor Ron Ramsey how he and other Northeast Tennesee anti-abortion rights Republicans (i.e.: Jason Mumpower, David Davis, Steve Godsey) actually helped John Gregory’s Monarch Pharmaceuticals (a subsidiary of Gregory’s Bristol based King Pharmaceuticals) and Hoechst Marion Roussel (HMR, subsidiary of the German giant pharmaceutical company Hoechst AG,one-time patent owner and manufacturer of abortion drug RU-486 ) circumvent the U.S. National Right to Life Committee consumer boycott against Hoechst and Hoechst pharmaceutical products including ALTACE…
During 1994, the U.S. National Right to Life Committee announced a U.S. boycott of all Hoechst pharmaceutical products including Altace in opposition to the distribution and sale of the Hoechst RU-486 abortion prescription drug and by September 17 the anti-abortion organization, Pharmacists For Life International, joined the NRLC boycott, “…against the American subsidiary of Hoechst AG, Hoechst-Roussel, Hoechst-Celanese, its generic subsidiary Coply Pharmaceuticals and the agricultural Hoechst subsidiary” while asking U.S. consumers to “…focus on key Hoechst drugs which have the most economic impact rather than taking an across-the-board shotgun approach” and specifically targeting Altace as a boycott list item.
Gregory’s Monarch Pharmaceuticals did not buy Altace from HRM outright, but rather obtained U.S. marketing and distribution rights to Altace and certain other Hoechst products, thereby actually becoming business partners with Hoechst.
Abd if you should examine some of the earliest King Pharmaceutical filings (yearly reports available through the Edgar Search) with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, you would also learn that Monarch Pharma was actually purchasing ALTACE ingredients from Hoechst during the time before Monarch Pharma obtained FDA approval for ALTACE being processing at Monarch’s facilities.
Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey and his political connection to Altace, Hoechst Marion Roussel
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=179×4843
Isn’t Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey simply creating more Tennessee “welfare queens” by preventing Planned Parenthood from distribution birth control…?