If we’re seeing any renaissance in American politics at the moment, it comes from a backlash against an ever-advancing policy against the ability for women to think and make choices for themselves. Women — and the men who respect them — have had enough of conservative overreach, and we’re seeing a real and sustained pushback.

Aren’t Republicans all about the government staying out of our business? Oh wait, unless it’s our lady business, and then they can get all up in it.

Before we went into Afghanistan, I remember reading about a law there ruling that women couldn’t become doctors, and couldn’t be treated by a male doctor. And I thought to myself, that’s some creative hatred. You have to get up early and actually think about hatred like that.

This is what we’ve seen from our stateside version of the Taliban when it comes to abortion laws.

Rick Santorum — a pious Roman Catholic — has gotten knocked for losing the Catholic vote to the Mormon Mitt Romney, but those who note this generally take a simplistic view of “the Catholic vote.” They confuse the positions taken by the bishops with the positions embraced by rank and file Catholics, and wonder why Santorum doesn’t get more Catholic votes. Hint: maybe it’s because lots of Catholics disagree with their bishops. See “contraception” and “divorce and remarriage.”

That said, Rick Santorum is poised to win the Kansas caucuses today, and if he does, it will be because of the support of the conservative “purity Catholics” that are more numerous in Kansas than other parts of the US church. And in a caucus state, you can be sure that they’ll turn out.

Voters are telling pollsters that the election this year will be all about jobs and the economy. With the economy still in bad shape, the so called “social issues” such as marriage equality and abortion barely even register with voters, according to a Gallup survey.

While everyone was high-fiving the pullback by the Virginia legislature of their trans-vaginal ultrasound bill and happily discussing how conservatives had overreached on social issues, the GOP determinedly made their changes and passed a mandatory ultrasound bill that contains several provisions humiliating to women and may become the GOP’s model for other states.

The Republican Party has decided to run on a platform of sticking a speculum inside of women, but every time people find out about it, the GOP backs off. In Virginia, the trans-vaginal ultrasound bill was changed to a trans-abdominal ultrasound. The State Senate passed over a chance to vote on that bill yesterday, but may take it up today. In Alabama, the outrage over a trans-vaginal ultrasound bill didn’t even last 24 hours before the bill sponsor agreed to changes.

And now for something I didn’t think in January I would have reason to update: the abortion bills across the country which mandate that the women receive an ultrasound before getting the legal medical procedure. Virginia gave up, for now, forcing transvaginal ultrasounds, but continued with still medically unnecessary and invasive procedures designed to shame and humiliate women. And many other states are doing the same.

Probably the most convenient thing about turning one’s political party into a something closer to a religion, as the Republicans have increasingly done, is that your adherents can be relied upon to believe anything you say, no matter how implausible, provably false, or downright cuckoo it happens to be. When you’re talking about a religion, after all, the more improbable the belief is, the more fervently it is held, and for Republicans this tendency is always a bonus, for good reason.

The bill in Virginia requiring all abortion seekers get a mandatory ultrasound is now in peril, after the right-wing Senator who introduced the trans-vaginal ultrasound requirement rebelled against changes asked for by Governor Bob McDonnell.