Apparently now that palin has been all but restricted from calling Barack Obama a TERRORIST, she's decided to go with the meme of baby killer. This attack is disgusting, and untrue, and will once again only serve to rile up the base who will now take great joy in calling him a "baby killer" but it is once again FALSE. You know, if I were a mcfailin' supporter, I'd be offended at their constantly insulting my intelligence.
Barack Obama is PRO CHOICE, not PRO ABORTION. He does not have "unlimited support for unconditional abortions." To say that he does is a LIE. The argument that you can't be simultaneously pro-life and pro-choice is not a logical one. Like Barack himself has said "no one is PRO-ABORTION." While I, as a woman, couldn't see myself having an abortion, I don't think it's right for me to tell another woman what to do with her body. We don't know every situation.
Now, as far as the late term abortions go, Obama does NOT support them unconditionally. Here are the facts, straight from the "Fight the Smears" website:
Some people just don’t care who they hurt to advance their political agenda.
Accusing a loving father of two beautiful little girls of wanting to kill babies isn’t just wrong on the facts, it’s the most disgusting and manipulative kind of hate politics around. But anti-abortion ideologues with a long history of partisan attacks are still launching unconscionable ads smearing Barack Obama.
The attackers torture and twist logic and history by willfully misinterpreting votes by Barack Obama in the Illinois State Senate to come up with their wild accusation.
Here’s the truth about Barack Obama and the bill:
1. At the time Barack voted against a bill containing language designed to protect infants who were "born alive," such protection was already on the books as Illinois state law.[1]
2. The accusations against Barack are so reckless that not even the Republican state senator who sponsored the bill will support them. In fact, he freely admits that "None of those who voted against SB-1082 favored infanticide."[2]
3. The bill was opposed by many legislators and groups like the Illinois Medical Society because of the unintended impact it would have had on other laws and legal precedents in Illinois.[3]
4. Barack is on the record[3] saying that he would have supported a similar bill that came up in Congress -- but that didn’t pose a threat to a woman’s right to choose the way the Illinois bill did.[4]
I suppose what mcfailin' can't comprehend, is the fact that if you give people more access to contraceptives, they will be able to prevent unwanted pregnancies. Barack Obama plans to focus on PREVENTION.
Preventing Unintended Pregnancy:
Barack Obama is an original co-sponsor of legislation to expand access to contraception, health information and preventive services to help reduce unintended pregnancies. Introduced in January 2007, the Prevention First Act will increase funding for family planning and comprehensive sex education that teaches both abstinence and safe sex methods. The Act will also end insurance discrimination against contraception, improve awareness about emergency contraception, and provide compassionate assistance to rape victims.
Here is a break down of the Prevention First Act:
The Prevention First Act will:
Help Women Obtain Family-Planning Services.
The bill increases funding for the national family-planning program, Title X, and expands Medicaid family-planning services to cover more low-income women.
End Insurance Discrimination against Women.
The legislation guarantees equity in contraceptive coverage by ensuring that private health plans offer the same level of coverage for contraceptives as they do for other prescription drugs and services.
Provide Compassionate Assistance for Rape Victims.
Women who suffer from sexual assault should not have to face the additional trauma of unintended pregnancy. This bill ensures that women who survive sexual assault receive factually accurate information about emergency contraception (EC) and access to EC upon request.
Improve Awareness about Emergency Contraception.
This medication was approved by the FDA as safe and effective means of contraception and is now available directly from a pharmacy for individuals age 18 and over. Unfortunately, very few women know of the medication, and too few doctors discuss it with their patients. The Prevention First Act provides $10 million for important public-education programs to women and doctors about EC and its benefits.
Reduce Teen Pregnancy.
The bill provides $20 million in annual funding for competitive grants to public and private entities to establish or expand teen-pregnancy prevention programs.
Fund Honest, Realistic Sex-Education Programs.
For the past 10 years, anti-choice activists have spent more than $1 billion in taxpayer dollars on unproven, dangerous "abstinence-only" programs that forbid teachers from discussing contraception except to talk about failure rates. Recent studies reveal that many of these programs also include serious misinformation and sometimes even outright falsehoods. The Prevention First Act would establish the first-ever federal program for honest, realistic sex education. This section also ensures that all taxpayer-funded federal programs must be medically accurate and include information about both the health benefits and failure rates of contraception.
Ensure access to and funding for contraception.
Obama co-sponsored ensuring access to and funding for contraception
A bill to expand access to preventive health care services that help reduce unintended pregnancy, reduce abortions, and improve access to women's health care. The Congress finds as follows:
1. Healthy People 2010 sets forth a reduction of unintended pregnancies as an important health objective to achieve over the first decade of the new century.
2. Although the CDC included family planning in its published list of the Ten Great Public Health Achievements in the 20th Century, the US still has one of the highest rates of unintended pregnancies among industrialized nations.
3. Each year, 3,000,000 pregnancies, nearly half of all pregnancies, in the US are unintended, and nearly half of unintended pregnancies end in abortion.
4. In 2004, 34,400,000 women, half of all women of reproductive age, were in need of contraceptive services, and nearly half of those were in need of public support for such care.
5. The US has the highest rate of infection with sexually transmitted diseases of any industrialized country. 19 million cases impose a tremendous economic burden, as high as $14 billion per year.
6. Increasing access to family planning services will improve women's health and reduce the rates of unintended pregnancy, abortion, and infection with sexually transmitted diseases. Contraceptive use saves public health dollars. For every dollar spent to increase funding for family planning programs, $3.80 is saved.
7. Contraception is basic health care that improves the health of women and children by enabling women to plan and space births.
8. Women experiencing unintended pregnancy are at greater risk for physical abuse and women having closely spaced births are at greater risk of maternal death.
9. A child born from an unintended pregnancy is at greater risk of low birth weight, dying in the first year of life, being abused, and not receiving sufficient resources for healthy development.
Source: Prevention First Act (S.21/H.R.819) 2007-HR819 on Feb 5, 2007
On Abstinence-Only Education
Teach teens about abstinence and also about contraception
We've actually made progress over the last several years in reducing teen pregnancies, for example. And what I have consistently talked about is to take a comprehensive approach where we focus on abstinence, where we are teaching the sacredness of sexuality to our children.
But we also recognize the importance of good medical care for women, that we're also recognizing the importance of age-appropriate education to reduce risks. I do believe that contraception has to be part of that education process.
And if we do those things, then I think that we can reduce abortions and I think we should make sure that adoption is an option for people out there. If we put all of those things in place, then I think we will take some of the edge off the debate.
We're not going to completely resolve it. At some point, there may just be an irreconcilable difference. And those who are opposed to abortion, I think, should continue to be able to lawfully object and try to change the laws.
On the woman's right to choose partial-birth abortions:
Q: What us your view on the decision on partial-birth abortion and your reaction to most of the public agreeing with the court's holding?
A: I think that most Americans recognize that this is a profoundly difficult issue for the women and families who make these decisions. They don't make them casually. And I trust women to make these decisions in conjunction with their doctors and their families and their clergy. And I think that's where most Americans are. Now, when you describe a specific procedure that accounts for less than 1% of the abortions that take place, then naturally, people get concerned, and I think legitimately so. But the broader issue here is: Do women have the right to make these profoundly difficult decisions? And I trust them to do it. There is a broader issue: Can we move past some of the debates around which we disagree and can we start talking about the things we do agree on? Reducing teen pregnancy; making it less likely for women to find themselves in these circumstances.
Notice how he always comes back to effective sexual education to prevent women from being forced to make such a tough decision. I know a couple of people who have had abortions, in fact, I remember crying about it with one of them. They are not easy decisions to make. For anyone to suggest that women who do have abortions do it just for the hell of it, is wrong. The one I cried with is now married with two beautiful children.
And Barack Obama doesn't just TALK the talk, he also WALKS the walk:
Sponsored bill providing contraceptives for low-income women.
Obama introduced expanding contraceptive services for low-income women
OFFICIAL CONGRESSIONAL SUMMARY: Amends Medicaid to:
1. prohibit a state from providing for medical coverage unless it includes certain family planning services and supplies; and
2. include women who are not pregnant but who meet income eligibility standards in a mandatory "categorically needy" group for family planning services purposes.
EXCERPTS OF BILL:
1. Congress makes the following findings:Rates of unintended pregnancy increased by nearly 30% among low-income women between 1994 and 2002, and a low-income woman today is 4 times as likely to have an unintended pregnancy as her higher income counterpart.
2. Abortion rates decreased among higher income women but increased among low income women in that period, and a low income woman is more than 4 times as likely to have an abortion as her higher income counterpart.
3. Contraceptive use reduces a woman's probability of having an abortion by 85%.
4. Levels of contraceptive use among low-income women at risk of unintended pregnancy declined significantly, from 92% to 86%.
5. Publicly funded contraceptive services have been shown to prevent 1,300,000 unintended pregnancies each year, and in the absence of these services the abortion rate would likely be 40% higher than it is.
6. By helping couples avoid unintended pregnancy, Medicaid-funded contraceptive services are highly cost-effective, and every public dollar spent on family planning saves $3 in the cost of pregnancy-related care alone.The Social Security Act is amended by adding [to the Medicaid section] the following: COVERAGE OF FAMILY PLANNING SERVICES AND SUPPLIES -- a State may not provide for medical coverage unless that coverage includes family planning services and supplies.
LEGISLATIVE OUTCOME:Referred to Senate Committee on Finance; never came to a vote.
Source: Unintended Pregnancy Reduction Act (S.2916/H.R.5795) 06-S2916 on May 19, 2006
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Obama speaking at a Planned Parenthood event in 2007:
(I'm trying to find a transcript of his remarks, but please watch the speech if you can, it's really good)
So those are the facts. Barack Obama is NOT a baby killer. He does NOT think having a child is punishment, and he DOES sympathize with the people who call themselves "pro-life." Again, the terms "pro-life" and "pro-choice" are not mutually exclusive. He has been fighting to get comprehensive sexual education in our schools to reduce the amount of abortions, not to turn our youth into sex crazed maniacs (the media/entertainment sectors are already doing a fine job of that on their own). Like Obama said in the videos "culture wars are so 90s."
Tips, recs, comments, and other facts that you think are important that I haven't included are welcome!
From Taya Lawrence:
Abortions decreased under Dem president
Kerry Kennedy, daughter of Robert Kennedy and author of the book "Being Catholic Now," was asked on MSNBC about the Catholic vote.
She said that during the Clinton presidency abortions in the United States decreased by 34 percent, while during the Bush presidency abortions increased by 14.2 percent.
Clinton had proven programs in place that taught birth control.
President Bush switched to "abstinence only" programs, which did not work and resulted in more unwanted pregnancies, leading to more abortions.
A John McCain-Sarah Palin presidency would continue the failed Bush policy.
A Barack Obama-Joe Biden presidency would reinstate Clinton’s proven programs.
Kennedy concluded, "If you are truly interested in reducing the number of abortions, you need to vote for the Obama-Biden team."
Jim Reiser
Johnstown