I hate cold-calling. In fact I absolutely loathe it. I hate it when people do it to me and I hate it worse when I'm the caller. So why do I find myself one night a week on the phone cold-calling? Because I can't live with myself if I don't volunteer to do SOMETHING about the abortion ban abomination that currently is law in South Dakota.
Most voters in South Dakota have received the push poll in which one of the questions was "Would you vote to uphold the abortion ban if you knew there were exceptions for rape and incest?" Of course, there are no exceptions in the law for rape or incest or problems with the mother's health--the pregnancy continues unless the mother's death is imminent. Some people think they are voting on whether or not to restrict abortion. They do not realize we already have a standing law in place and the current vote is to undo that law. To see some of the responses I heard from SD voters follow me below the fold.
Last week the phone lists were of pre-vetted presumed friendlies. This week the lists were open-population with mostly R's next to their names. I knew I was going to get lots of rejection and nasty responses but these are the very people I want to talk to. Hey, don't give me the easy stuff, I want to make a difference.
A majority of our calling is wasted time because people are not home, the phone number has been disconnected, or the number no longer belongs to the person who is listed. The people who did answer the phone were not quite what I expected. Out of a list of about a hundred names I talked to about twenty-five people.
There are a few who just hang up when they hear the topic. I only had one of those. A few get huffy BEFORE they hang up--I had two of those. Some people interrupt before I can get a full sentence out to tell me I am "preaching to the choir" and they are ABSOLUTELY going to vote against the ban. At least four men told me they they felt that this was an issue for women to decide for themselves so they were voting against the ban.
The ones who really surprise me are the people who haven't made up their minds yet. I really didn't think many people would be ambivalent about this issue. Among the people who were in this position, were one woman who thought abortions were "too easy to get" but vowed to vote against the ban when reminded that 12 year old victims of incest would be force to carry the pregnancy to term; another woman committed to voting against the ban when she realized that pregnant women with cancer, for instance, would no longer be able to get chemotherapy because it might harm the fetus. Many people respond to the idea that "Maybe we do need a law about abortion--but not THIS law."
My favorite call of the evening was to the man who hadn't made his mind up. After he talked about how "This government is out of control and way too intrusive," and about "Whose taxes are going to go up to pay for defending South Dakota against the court challenges regarding this ban?," he decided he was going to vote against the ban. When I asked how strongly he now held this position he said it was a done deal. The part that made me laugh was that he told me I could also put his wife down as a "for-sure NO vote" because he was positive he was going to convince her to join his position--as soon as she got home.
Another surprise is that there are a number of Republicans who are going to vote against the ban and Democrats who are going to vote to keep the ban. In the end, the YES votes seem about equal to the NO votes.
I'm told that there are radio and TV ads out that encourage voters to vote NO on the abortion ban. I haven't heard or seen any although I've seen plenty in the newspapers and on signs about supporting the abortion ban.
The truth is that South Dakota is the Religious Right Republicans' little political experiment toward nullifying Roe v. Wade by having their ban's legal challenges go all the way up to the Supreme Court.
Please recommend this diary so we can all be reminded just how close we are to losing Roe v. Wade and if you'd like to do your part in keeping this abomination out of YOUR part of America you can contribute (SOON please, we've already got early voting going on) to:
http:\www.sdhealthyfamilies.org
OR
South Dakota Healthy Families
PO Box 1484
Sioux Falls, South Dakota 57101
Please add the .01 to your contribution so this organization knows how much help the netroots can be.