CNN on Sunday night rebroadcasted forum on "Faith & Compassion" at which both candidates spoke.
I saw Obama take questions on abortion and Rev.Wright among other things. He handled the Rev.Wright
question very well, explaining how he came to join that church. On the abortion question, I personally
thought he veered tragically near gaffe territory -- he said that it was wrong that we-as-a-party had
refused to "acknowledge that there is a moral dimension" to abortion. SHIT! COME ON! This is NOT
a case where you can, like Solomon, advocate Splitting the Baby! It's EITHER a person or it ISN'T --
it's EITHER murder or it ISN'T! OF COURSE we have to take a hard line! But equally of course, telling
the truth is not the way to win votes here -- average Americans are conflicted, so we have to sympathize
with that, regardless of how irrational their feelings may be.
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.
Today I overheard a conversation among some young girls. One of them said she wasn't really happy with Hillary Clinton, but would vote for her over John McCain because she's pro-choice.
The other girl corrected her, assuring her that "McCain is totally pro-choice." When the first girl found that surprising, she was assured, "I'm absolutely sure about that. All the candidates are the same on abortion."
[As far as I'm concerned, this does not reference any presidential campaigns, but is about a wider and longer-term effort for women's rights to respect, autonomy and equality.]
Today Feministing.com posted about a pending redesign of the site, and mentioned a new idea the editors wanted to try, building an alliance of local groups "connecting feminists who want to meet, talk and even organize."
Before you could say "Wow, 'feministing' really is a verb!" there were 16 local groups signed up in this new Alliance, representing over 1200 members.
Come with me over the great divide and let's talk about what this might mean and offer.
UPDATE: I added a coda onto the end of this diary.
In the course of my diary entry yesterday, which was devoted to a broader argument, I implied a few subsidiary arguments about other things that I didn't flesh out much in the body, unfortunately.
In comments, I ended up defending one of these points, and later updated the diary with the defense as a coda.
Since few probably got to read the coda, since it is certainly independently interseting indpendent of that post's main topic, and since there is enough of it to stand alone as it's own diary, I am editing and re-posting that small argument here.
I may update this post a little later with a coda containing more of the detail of the argument.
Consider this a Feminisms open thread. I haven't had the time lately to actually write a Feminisms - or even think about a Feminisms topic, actually. Too much work - too much traveling.
Anyway, talk about what's on your mind...
I think we would all appreciate it if we could keep the candidate stuff in the candidate diaries, so if you've got comments on the primary, please take them to one of the hundred or so recent diaries on the primary. I assure you the discussion is flourishing there.
I like Obama and even if I didn't I'd most likely wind up voting for him since it appears he's winning and I would NEVER vote for a repug. BUT I'd like to see him take a stand or make a statement about at least one tough issue.
I won't call this a victory yet. The Kansas Supreme Court has temporarily blocked a grand jury, convened at the request of abortion opponents, from obtaining the medical records of about 2000 records of women, including those that decided not to have abortions. The same grand jury has also issued subpoenas for information on current and former employees of Dr. George Tiller's clinic along with referring physicians.
If Dr. George Tiller's name sound familiar, it should. This is the second such grand jury investigation of his practice since 2006. Dr. Tiller and his clinic have been the center of the battle for abortion rights for many years. In 1985 his clinic was bombed, in 1993 he was shot in both arms, by convicted "abortion terrorist" Rachelle Shannon.
The grand jury is investigating whether Kansas state laws are being violated by the clinic in providing late term abortions. This marks the continuing change in the abortion opponents tactics from the "Decade of Fear" in the nineties, when 7 people were killed, to currently trying to legitimise their opposition through court action where they feel there is a "friendly" judicial atmosphere.
More info below the fold.
With Super Tuesday predictions, polls and punditry consuming people's attention perhaps today isn't the best time to bring this up, but the time is, after all, NOW.
I received an email from a friend today who is equally reproductively-minded. A little background on her. She is a mother, one at home and one on the way. She is pro-choice and ridiculously opinionated and passionate (which I like about her very much.) Recently she became a volunteer with the Kentucky Religious Coalition for Reproductove Choice (KRCRC.) Now, she spends her Saturday mornings escorting females past protestors at our local abortion clinic here in Louisville, Kentucky. This Saturday I will join her, and not a moment too soon because this Saturday is also the first Saturday in the 40 Days For Life campaign.
Currently in Kansas, a grand jury is investigating Dr. George Tiller, one of only a handful of late-term abortion providers in the U.S. The petitioners are convinced that the Dr. has violated state regulations pertaining to late termination of pregnancy. This is the second time in as many years the doctor has been thusly investigated as he is a top target of such anti-choice organizations like Kansans for Life (like the rest of Kansans are for death?), and Operation Rescue (they aren’t interested in rescuing ‘born’ children from anything).
With this week's anniversary of the historic Roe . Wade court decision, both sides of the choice war will be gearing up to fight about all the different aspects of choice - laws outlawing abortion, laws to inform America's youth on safe sex, and everything else that the broad umbrellas of pro-choice and pro-life (or anti-choice, as they should be described) entails. It is in this light that MSNBC recently released a story about what type of women are having abortions. In addition, The Guttmacher Institute also released new facts and number, many of which were used as sources in the MSNBC article.
Wow. Lorna Brett Howard, who apparently used to be the President of the Chicago chapter of NOW, has taped a pretty devastating account of why she recently switched from supporitng Hillary Clinton to Barack Obama.
For anyone who thought that this new Obama radio ad might just be a fluke, the following YouTube video will clear things up.
The Obama campaign has definitely decided to stop with the kid gloves around Hillary. To wit:
Forget about "experience vs. change"; the new meme is, quite simply, "honesty".
Today Hillary proposed her women's reproductive rights agenda, timed with the anniversary of the landmark Supreme Court decision, Roe v. Wade. The agenda includes prevention measures, ensuring health insurers provide the same level of coverage for contraception as they do other perscriptions, ensuring women who survive assualt have access to emergency contreception, and greater access to reproductive health care services overseas. The agenda includes two important commitments, which I will highlight below the fold.
Today is the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, and this date is looked at with either celebration or revulsion depending on whichever side you happen to fall on. I think women my age sometimes don't believe this case really matters much, because we have lived it all our lives. If we get pregnant, we automatically have the opportunity to abort or keep. This is a right that not every woman has in the world, and it's an important right to keep.
January 22, 2008, marks the 35th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion nationwide — so pause for a moment and wish those reproductive freedoms you may have taken for granted a very happy anniversary!
WHY I REPOSTED: Apologies for reposting this diary from yesterday, and to anyone from the diary rescue (i'm very flattered to have been rescued) who couldn't find it. Someone had posted some comments that they wanted taken down, and I couldn't figure out how to do it except by deleting the original post. I'm sorry to lose all the other wonderful comments, and apologize is I broke a serious Kossack rule. If so, I can delete this again.
My wife Maureen and I have an incredible little girl named Kendy. She’s three and a half years old, smart as a whip, polite, tall and skinny (how the hell did that happen?), beautiful, funny, happy and playful. She loves to sing and dance and play, and we caught her singing the old Pete Seeger classic "Which Side Are You On?" and my heart about burst.
Of course, she’s also stubborn and willful (I know where that comes from!) and gets really angry sometimes when things don’t go her way. She and I have some pretty serious fights (as serious as they can be with a three year old) that always end in hugs and both of us crying.
