I have a lot of sympathy for the people of the Unitarian church in Tennessee. When the story first broke, I had a bad feeling about the motive and was saddened to see that my suspicions were correct.
I hope and pray that this will be an isolated incident and not a trend as it becomes more apparent that our next President will be a Democrat.
One thing the incident did was remind me that there are people out there; other social liberals who are always under the threat of death from misguided people drunk on the hateful writings of right-wing 'personalities'. I'm talking about those who work in women's clinics and Planned Parenthood; be it the doctors, nurses or escorts who risk their lives to make sure patients can access these clinics to get the services they need.
I am a patient advocate with Planned Parenthood. It is my job to calm a patient waiting for her abortion procedure, hold her hand, distract her, tell her to breathe during the procedure....whatever it takes to get through the most difficult 10 minutes of her life. If you are interested in what happens in a Planned Parenthood clinic, without the right wing spin, read my diary on the subject here.
The Bush administration is about to release a rule that would allow federal funding specifically designed to prevent unintended pregnancies and promote reproductive health to now be used for anything but that.
Planned Parenthood just released a new ad that'll play in the fall battleground states of Colorada, Iowa, Minnesota, New Mexico, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Washington, D.C.
A few days back came the news that Walmart would not allow planned parenthood to hold an event in their parking lot. It seems that a few on the far right protested, claiming that Planned Parenthood was "pushing pornography and contraception onto young children – beginning in kindergarten," and pressuring "kids into promiscuous lifestyles." Walmart gave in to the small protest and canceled the event. This is, unfortunately, not surprising given Walmart's history of pushing a far right agenda. WakeUpWalMart.com put out the following statement:
What does John McCain’s voting record, and what do his public statements, suggest about his views on women and families? It’s a pretty lengthy, damning, and devastating list...
A new Greenberg Quinlan Rosner poll commissioned by NARAL finds that once "balanced information" about Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. John McCain's respective positions on abortion are introduced, Obama gains 6 points nationally, with his lead in battleground states expanding from a net 2 points (47% to 45%) to a net 13 points (53% to 40%). Other key findings: "Despite the fact that the national focus seems to be on the economy, among pro-choice Independent women, pro-choice Republican women, and liberal to moderate Republican women, the issue of abortion produces a larger advantage for Democrats than the economy, the war in Iraq, or health care."
Hi Daily Kos Friends.
At least half of McCain's women supporters are not aware of McCain's radical anti-choice votes and views. Planned Parenthood Polling revealed the fact that 36 % of McCain's women supporters would strongly consider changing their vote if they knew that fact. As Cecile Richards stated, the difference between Senator Obama and Senator McCain on these issues is as vast as the Grand Canyon. We must get this out. Please pass this on!!! Thank you!!!
This is the perfect out for a short diary. I just received the enclosed link to a YouTube video created by Planned Parenthood. They requested that I forward it to 5 friends. I thought, why not 165,000?
Update: Don't miss math4barack's NARAL video below!
Unfortunately, many women are ignorant of John McCain's actual positions. The Planned Parenthood Action Fund recently polled 1,205 women in 16 likely battleground states, finding that
* Despite his extreme voting record, 51 percent of women voters in battleground states have no idea what John McCain's positions are on women's reproductive health issues.
* Forty-nine percent of women currently backing McCain express pro-choice views, and 46 percent of women supporting McCain over Obama/Clinton want to see Roe v. Wade upheld.
* In a McCain-Obama matchup, 36 percent of pro-choice McCain supporters say they are less likely to vote for McCain when told that he opposes Roe v. Wade.
With the bitter primary battle continuing to make delusional fools of the two Democrats' most partisan supporters, McCain continues to benefit from media laziness. As he basks in the myth of "the Maverick," he continues to lay out a platform that would not just prolong the Bush Administration's policies, but would truly bring the full scope of Bush's bizarre vision for America to fruition. So far, he's flip-flopped on torture, he's flip-flopped on fiscal responsibility, he's flip-flopped on his "opposition" to a permanent occupation of Iraq, he's flip-flopped on his attitude towards right-wing demagogues, he's flip-flopped on social security privitization...
Everyone has been so distracted by the election that no one has been paying attention to single issues -- and by this single issue I mean abortion and reproductive justice.
Well, while we were sleeping, The Family Research Council plans to present Bush with a petition next Monday from 80 pro-life groups with the request he extend the global gag rule on abortion domestically via Executive Order. The gag rule will be tied to Title X funds and will prohibit clinics that receive money to provide reproductive health care to the poor to even discuss abortion as an option with their patients, likely regardless of socioeconomic status.
Are you horribly awake now? I wasn't sleeping but I wish I was dreaming.
The Planned Parenthood Federation of America has perpetuated a "genocide on the black community," says a group of African-American pastors who claimed Thursday the birth control and abortion provider has had a racist agenda since its beginnings in 1921.
[...]
"Every day ... over 1,500 black babies are murdered inside the black woman’s womb," said Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, of Brotherhood Organization of a New Destiny (BOND). "This is a race issue."
If whites were to just leave the United States and let blacks run the country, they would turn America into a ghetto within 10 years. The audience, shall we say, disagreed with me strongly. Now I have to disagree with me. I gave blacks too much credit. It took a mere three days for blacks to turn the Superdome and the convention center into ghettos, rampant with theft, rape and murder.
On Wednesday, April 9, SB 1878, an omnibus anti-abortion bill, passed the Oklahoma Senate by a vote of 38 - 10. The draconian bill forces doctors to perform an invasive procedure on a woman one hour prior to an abortion, including verbal descriptions of the fetus.
This is bad enough in the most ideal circumstances, but imagine you are the victim of rape or incest, and are pregnant not through choice, but through a violent crime. This law will not exclude you, but force you to endure yet another intrusion into your autonomy and privacy.
Women in Oklahoma and their allies are making a last ditch effort to stop this monstrous bill from becoming law. Please read on to see how you can help.
I’m content with, or at least resigned to, copping out on the abortion issue.
In politics and theology I consider myself a “Christian progressive”, rejecting the notion you have to earn your way to heaven, principally by being lucky enough to be born into, and/or industrious enough to discover and clever enough to recognize, the one true religion.
I think if we need to be “saved from our sins”, a concept my inadequate brain has never fully grasped, such redemption was Christ’s gift to all, and not reserved for an elite minority.
I’m anti-war unless the very sovereignty of our nation and/or a NATO ally is legitimately threatened; against capital punishment and torture; for habeas corpus; wishy-washy on immigration (we’re all God’s children, is it their fault they were born on the wrong side of a border?); in favor of gay marriage, or at least a functional equivalent; for healthcare and other social programs that aid the least advantaged in our society; anxious about the damage we do to our environment…you get the idea.
In case you missed them, a couple of eye-popping reports have recently been released on the sexual state of our (apparently increasingly libidinal) nation. The most attention-grabbing, for all kinds of reasons, was a recent study by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention which revealed that one in four of America’s darling little teenager gals has a sexually transmitted disease or infection. And this came hot on the heels of a previous CDC study showing that teen birthrates are on the rise for the first time in 14 years. Of course, the fact that this alarming explosion of STD-sharin’ and baby-makin’ among Generation Y (as in “Why’s it so itchy down there?”) just happens to coincide with the federal government’s decade-long, $1.5 billion push for increased “abstinence-only” sex education is just a meaningless coincidence, we’re sure.
