If abortion is horrible, then those who have one are horrible as well. Never mind the reasons, a pregnant woman is only a good girl if she brings the child to term.

 I personally know two people who had abortions at age 13 and 14, respectively. Their abortions were not horrible. They were the right choice for them. The girls got to grow and learn and became mothers when they were ready. They made their choices in the 70s, before the anti-abortionists had changed the climate. They were not ashamed of what they did, then. Hopefully not now. They shouldn't be.

 I've always been cautiously optimistic about the progressive community and their support for women in the work place, in the bedroom, in the world. The last couple of weeks have knocked that out of me. I know believe that the "pro-life" fundies have won the battle and the war. Women are either good incubators who don't make a horrible choice--or they are bad. Fuck!

For some time now I have secretly hated the whole abortion issue, felt it was an obstacle preventing anything else from being discussed. I thought no one would change their mind about abortion, so what was the point?

That ambivilance was brought into sharp relief recently when my wife had a miscarriage. I no longer felt competent to choose sides at all. Even seven weeks in, that life was important and real. And yet as I learned how common miscarriage is (our doctor told us 1 in 3 pregnancies end that way) I realized how fragile that life is. Especially early on, it represents only a potential.

I believe that my wife's body detected something wrong, that it aborted the process because that was the best thing to do. And when a woman's body does this a third of the time because something only it can detect is not right, the arguments of anti-abortion activists seem ludicrous. Yet in the end I was left unwilling to face the issue at all. It had become too big and too real.

I have doubted my feelings about abortion for a long time. I knew what I was against but, without being able to speak to what I was for, I could only be silent.  Thank you for writing today.  You have given me new words.

I had a lot of things to say, please take a moment and read it all

In other discussions about issues that many feel are wrecking it for the Dems, there's a palpable envy of the right wing model that demands (and gets, voluntarily or through pressure) eventual support. Please -- dump this attitude immediately.

Don't accept the right-wing skewed media cud that the country is "divided" ... which is oh so HORRIBLE. As if the concept of one-party rule in perpetuity is GOOD. Why is the phrase partisan-Democrats as common in Mousy Media as partisan Republicans is rare? When did dissent and diversity become BAD?

Who granted George Fucking Bush and his Royal Republicans the divine right of kings?

It's impractical to think that pesky "single issue" people can be made to step back into the margins and STFU except by top-down force.

That noise is people's many different lives and views that won't fit comfortably into the kind of talking points that get handed out for this week's ginned-up Schiavo circus. That static is the hum of grassroots. You wanted em -- well here we are.

I understand Kos's frustration about wanting to focus on strategies, and have said elsewhere that if the Dems dead-on challenged the GOP on their stances, so much hand-wringing and needless scapegoating wouldn't be necessary.

Equality and justice for all is easier to protect -- and "sell" -- than equality and justice only for the people conservative Republicans like.

Trying to outspin the Rethugs here is a losing proposition unless Dems get a flying monkey army that relishes harassing others.

The attitudes behind anti-abortion extremism is about as "pro-life" as invading Iraq was about spreading freedom, and most people know this already. They only need to be reminded of what they already know.

Conservative Republicans want abortion to be unsafe and illegal. Why? What is their plan to make men equally responsible for unplanned pregnancy? What is their plan for modern, efficient, universal pre-natal healthcare?

Conservative Republicans are against modern birth control and disease prevention. Why? Healthcare costs are already skyrocketing so what is the Republican plan to deal with even more disease? When your kid falls off the abstinence wagon -- and most do -- do you think it's only going to be with someone who doesn't have a sexually transmitted disease?

Senate Republican Leader Bill Frist, a doctor, is against giving women complete, current, scientific medical information about an elective procedure. That's not only immoral but illegal, and it's called being a quack. Bill Frist is against a woman basing her decision on her life, needs, and views. Why?

House Republican Leader Tom DeLay, a religious zealot, is against women making their own moral and religious decisions. Tom DeLay is against a woman using her own religious beliefs in her own life, needs and views. Why?

This is the leadership of today's Republican party.

So professional and amateur party strategists do your strategizing to find the magic phrases, but make forcing the GOP to own their bullshit an everyday part of the discourse.

This is the truth.

If women can't protect themselves from having to give birth, we're slaves.

Birth control doesn't always work, under the very best of circumstances -- and every female does NOT have access to needed birth control.