Republicans are 'Pro-life' -- Except for Most of the Time

Since the political news cycle has such a short memory, let's take a little trip in time, back to the heady days of the end of last June, when Texas legislator Wendy Davis had caught America's attention with a filibuster of Texas' restrictive abortion bill (sadly, later to become law). Texas governor and noted intellectual flyweight Rick Perry decided that the thing to do would be to attack Davis' humble beginnings as a single teenage mother. It was slut-shaming by allusion and it was done so hamhandedly that Perry immediately caught flak for it.

"She was the daughter of a single woman. She was a teenage mother herself. She managed to eventually graduate from Harvard Law School and serve in the Texas Senate," Perry said in a speech before the National Right to Life convention. "It’s just unfortunate that she hasn’t learned from her own example that every life must be given a chance to realize its full potential and that every life matters."

As I say, that went over like a lead balloon and so Perry -- being a Republican -- decided that more of what wasn't working would be he key its eventual success. So he went on talk radio and repeated his slur. Most people would not touch the red-hot handle again, seeing that it just burned them, but most people aren't elected Republicans.

"I said I was proud of what Wendy had accomplished in her life," Perry said. "I’m sad that she does not understand that every life is precious, and certainly her own."

Here's the thing: Rick Perry does not believe that "every life matters" or that "every life is precious." That's something he's proven over and over during his career as the nation's most prolific serial killer governor of the state leads the nation in executions. And it's that hypocrisy that State Rep. Harold Dutton, Jr. is hoping to highlight.

CONTINUE TO POST>>

In Wisconsin, Champions of 'Fiscal Restraint' Begin Shoveling Money Into a Furnace

It's all so painfully predictable. Republicans pass a restrictive abortion law that clearly violates Roe -- and therefore, the Constitution -- in a blatant pander to the Christian conservative base. Planned Parenthood and the ACLU sue to stop the bill and a federal court does its job.

NBC News: A federal judge Monday temporarily blocked part of Wisconsin's new abortion law and scheduled a hearing for next week.

The law, which went into effect Monday, includes provisions similar to those in several other states that require women to undergo an ultrasound procedure before having an abortion and require doctors who provide abortion services to have admitting privileges at a hospital.

Opponents, including Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin, which is representing two doctors and an abortion clinic in challenging the law, said the measure was rushed into effect and that the provision affecting doctors would force two of the state's four clinics to close.

The blocked provision is the one that requires clinics to have admitting privileges at hospitals. This is an obvious attempt to regulate these clinics out of business and the judge found that the evidence "strongly supports a finding that no medical purpose is served" and that claims that the provision safeguards women's health "does not bear even superficial scrutiny on the current record."

CONTINUE TO POST>>

Right Going from Denying Rape's Importance to Denying it Even Exists

It's hard to see House Republicans move yesterday to outlaw abortion after 20 weeks as a serious effort. The bill has no chance of being taken up by the Senate and, even if it was, it would die a well-deserved death under the President's veto pen. The bill was, perhaps ironically, dead from the moment of its conception. Originally, the bill had no exception for the victims of rape and incest -- and why would it? The supposed need for the bill was the contention -- based in nothing even remotely resembling fact -- that a fetus is capable of experiencing pain after 20 weeks. Are the fetuses of the victims of rape and incest immune to this supposed agony?

No, the so-called Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act was meant to sidestep concerns about the woman seeking the abortion by putting the fetus front and center. The hope was that the people will believe junk science claims about fetal pain and allow legislators to ignore the rights of crime victims. In other words, the reason the bill didn't exempt victims of rape and incest was because that was a big part of the point of the legislation -- to set a precedent for banning abortion regardless of the method of conception.

And to get people used to the idea that maybe denying abortion rights to the victims of sexual violence wasn't so bad.

But then the bill's sponsor, Trent Franks, decided the time was ripe for some idiotic rape theorizing. This went over as well as these things always go over (anti-abortion zealots are shockingly slow learners on this subject) and an exemption for victims of sexual violence was quietly written into the legislation.

And that's where Republicans exposed their dishonesty.

Imagine this all from the perspective of someone who believed every word in the original bill. What you're voting for is a law against torturing babies to death. Assuming that's what you really believed, would you then support an exception to that law? Would you support allowing a woman to torture her baby to death, just because that child was conceived through rape or incest? I'm kind of thinking you would not. Not in a million years. It would be playing politics in an unconscionable way. In writing in an exception for victims of rape and incest, Republicans proved that the rationale behind the bill was just an excuse, that "fetal pain" wasn't something they actually believed in.

CONTINUE TO POST>>

The Holy Threats and Sacred Lies of the Anti-Choice Movement

The "pro-life" side of the abortion argument always claims the moral upper hand. Mostly Christian, they cite their religion as the sole measure of their moral and ethical beliefs and wave the Bible around as proof of their righteousness. But, as is so often the case with fanatics, they don't actually follow their religion, so much as twist it and pervert it in order to force it to follow them. Their moral upper hand never stays up for long before it comes to slap the crap out of benighted unbeliever. These people are Bible-thumpers, sure. But when they thump that Bible of theirs, it's generally over someone's head.

Raw Story:

The life of a Latina assemblywoman in Nevada has been threatened after she used a story about her own personal abortion experience at age 16 to make a point about the importance of sex education.

“I’m going to say something I’ve never said publicly before, because — Why not? I’ve been open about everything else?” Democratic Assemblywoman Lucy Flores reportedly told the state Assembly Education Committee on Monday. “I had six other sisters, all of them became pregnant in their teens — all of them. One was 14 years old when she got pregnant with twins. That is what I had to learn from.”

“I had an abortion because I didn’t have access to birth control, or even an understanding of what that meant,” she explained. “I didn’t even understand that my worth did not come from men, or sex with men, trying to fill up a hole in me from so much pain.”

 So yeah. Followers of the "Prince of Peace." If these people are so pro-life, then why doesn't the fact that Flores is getting death threats surprise anyone?

Flores was testifying as to the stunning (and entirely predictable) failure of her state's abstinence-only education policy. Her personal story is a story that's been repeated over and over in Nevada and other states, where the educational system has failed kids by leaving them almost entirely ignorant about reproductive health. She wants to reduce teen pregnancy -- and with it, rates of abortion -- through honest education and access to birth control. For the most part, she's actually on the pro-lifer's side. They merely disagree about the method.

And for that, the heretic must die.

CONTINUE TO POST>>

There's a Reason it's Called Reproductive Freedom

"Pro-life" my ass:

The Irish Times:

Two investigations are under way into the death of a woman who was 17 weeks pregnant, at University Hospital Galway last month.

Savita Halappanavar (31), a dentist, presented with back pain at the hospital on October 21st, was found to be miscarrying, and died of septicaemia a week later.

Her husband, Praveen Halappanavar (34), an engineer at Boston Scientific in Galway, says she asked several times over a three-day period that the pregnancy be terminated. He says that, having been told she was miscarrying, and after one day in severe pain, Ms Halappanavar asked for a medical termination.

This was refused, he says, because the foetal heartbeat was still present and they were told, “this is a Catholic country”.

She spent a further 2½ days “in agony” until the foetal heartbeat stopped.

CONTINUE TO POST>>

Why Romney's Afraid of Abortion Questions

And that would be Republican Vice Presidential candidate Paul Ryan, affirming a point I made yesterday -- specifically, this one:

[Trying to spin it] is stupid. Either the [RNC's strict anti-abortion] plank means what it says or it doesn’t. If an “unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed,” then what the hell do rape or incest have to do with anything? If a woman is impregnated through rape, how is that not an “unborn child?” If a young teen is molested and made pregnant by Uncle Perv, how is the fetus not a person to whom “Fourteenth Amendment’s protections apply?”

How can they create exceptions and remain consistent in their reasoning? They can’t. They can’t possibly. And they never meant to.

And now here's Ryan, applying exactly that lunatic logic. "I'm very proud of my pro-life record," Ryan explained in an interview, "and I've always adopted the idea that, the position that the method of conception doesn't change the definition of life." That is, if abortion is "killing a baby," then it doesn't make any difference how the patient got pregnant. Like Todd Akin, Ryan sees abortion as evil -- regardless of how pregnancy occurred. No exceptions for rape or incest.

Then Rep. Ryan goes on to dig in deeper; Mitt Romney's position on the issue goes pretty far -- but not far enough for him. "And the president, in this case the future President Mitt Romney, has exceptions for rape, incest, and life of the mother," Ryan said, "which is a vast improvement of where we are right now." In an earlier interview, Ryan called Romney's position a "good step in the right direction."

CONTINUE TO POST>>

GOP Fights Akin-Like Lunatics of Their Own Making

Todd Akin has become a real headache for the GOP. But there are more of these headaches in the pipe. And those headaches are self-inflicted, like a hangover after an ideological bender. Observe:

ThinkProgress:

In a local television interview, Hillsborough County (New Hampshire) sheriff candidate Frank Szabo said that he values the life of an unborn fetus so much that, when it came to elective and late-term abortions, he’d be willing to kill for it:

But Szabo may have inflamed the issue further when asked if he would use deadly force to prevent an abortion.

“I would respond specifically by saying that if someone is under threat, a full-grown human being, if they’re under threat, what should the sheriff do? Everything in their power to prevent them from being harmed,” he said.

CONTINUE TO POST>>

Which Abortion Position Will Romney Finally Settle On?

Party platforms are mostly BS. They've become a way for political parties to throw the base a bone. The GOP had a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage nationally as a plank, for example, but this never became a serious effort. They took on the "problem" state by state, in a way that attempted to maximize GOP voter turnout.

So it's tempting to dismiss reports of a certain plank in the GOP's 2012 platform as red meat for the chumps. We''ll call it "the Todd Akin plank."

CNN:

The Republican Party is once again set to enshrine into its official platform support for "a human life amendment" to the Constitution that would outlaw abortion without making explicit exemptions for rape or incest, according to draft language of the platform obtained exclusively by CNN late Monday.

"Faithful to the 'self-evident' truths enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, we assert the sanctity of human life and affirm that the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed," the draft platform declares. "We support a human life amendment to the Constitution and endorse legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment's protections apply to unborn children."

This runs counter to Mitt Romney's supposed position that abortion should be legal in instances of rape -- I say "supposed position" because Romney swaps policy stances as often as he changes his socks.

CONTINUE TO POST>>

Being 'Pro-Life' Means Lying Very, Very Easily

When Rep. Todd Akin of Missouri said that it was almost impossible for a woman to get pregnant from "legitimate rape," he was repeating a lie that's been around for a while now. The "pro-life" camp has always been the "pro-lie" camp. Whether it be linking abortion to breast cancer and depression or claiming that nine months of pregnancy -- with all the medical expense that goes with it -- is merely "inconvenient," they've always lied without hesitation.

And there's a reason why they lie so easily -- they believe they're 100%, absolutely correct. Further, they believe their position is endorsed by their god and, through a simplistic process of elimination, assume it's opposed by their devil. The enemies of the anti-abortion movement are the allies and minions of Satan, so any tactic -- no matter how dishonest and shameful -- is smiled upon by Jesus. This is not a political debate, this is war. Nothing is off the table. Deceit is an acceptable and legitimate tactic in war. Especially when that war is as fundamental as a battle of good vs. evil. If ever the ends justified the means, it's in a cosmic struggle for the fate of the universe.

All of which makes statements made by "pro-life" politicians worthy of a grain of salt, as Akin's comment so clearly demonstrates. If you believed a lie could save America from it's worst and most dangerous enemy, you'd do it. So will they.

But in terms of utility, it turns out that the "legitimate rape" line wasn't the wisest lie. Legal abortion in cases of rape and incest -- which the hardcore anti-abortion folks oppose -- is actually a very popular idea. Even among those who otherwise oppose abortion. And dismissing rape is never a smart thing to do in any context. This may very well cost Akin an election that he was winning just days ago.

CONTINUE TO POST>>

An Astonishingly Poor Opinion of Women

Tell me if this sounds achingly familiar to you.

ThinkProgress:

When a woman in Alabama seeks an abortion procedure, she already has to sign [pdf] that her doctor has performed an ultrasound and that she either viewed the ultrasound image or rejected seeing it. But state Sen. Clay Scofield (R) is pushing SB 12, a bill in the Alabama legislature that would mandate the physician “to perform an ultrasound [pdf], provide verbal explanation of the ultrasound, and display the images to the pregnant woman before performing an abortion.” The physician could also require the woman to submit to a transvaginal ultrasound — “in which a probe is inserted into the vagina, and then moved around until an ultrasound image is produced” — if she or he determines it necessary.

A Senate committee voted 4-1 on Friday to approve the measure, and the state Senate is expected to vote on it early this week. Even though studies have proven that viewing an ultrasound does not lead women to not have abortions, the bill’s sponsor says he hopes it will...

After Virginia Republicans were forced to remove the transvaginal ultrasound measure from their pointless bill, Alabama's going to go ahead and give it a shot. Identical bills in two states? Like the so-called "life amendment," his has ALEC written all over it. So much for "local control"; Washington lobbyists now write state laws and local legislative puppets just introduce and vote for them.

CONTINUE TO POST>>

GOP Incoherent on Abortion, Contraception

I'm pro-choice, without apology or qualification. If you're expecting some emotionally wrenching story about how I came to be pro-choice -- some tragedy involving a woman I cared for, maybe -- you're going to be disappointed. I don't have one. My position is based on a rational understanding of history and human nature -- when abortion isn't legal, women die. It's pretty straightforward. Laws restricting abortion risk creating public health crises. Want to end abortion? Fine with me. Figure out a way to make it unnecessary and women won't seek them. Outlawing abortion doesn't end it, it just makes it more dangerous. As long as the term "crisis pregnancy" exists, abortion will be necessary and no legislative action can possibly end it.

The most perplexing part of this whole debate is that so many of the people who oppose abortion seem to go out of their way to make it more necessary. They want to slash funding for anti-poverty programs and make it harder for people to collect unemployment benefits -- both measures that increase the demand for abortion services. But perhaps least rational of all, many oppose contraception and sex education. I'm constantly amazed at how people can house two obviously contradictory ideas in the same skull. Amazed, but a lot less than impressed.

I'm not sure what the exact opposite of reasoning is, but it's what these people do. And it's what these people are doing now.

CONTINUE TO POST>>

Please, Call it "Obamacare"

Write those letters now. Call your friends, and tell them to write them. If you don't, this program I promise you will pass just as surely as the sun will come up tomorrow. And behind it will come other federal programs that will invade every area of freedom as we have known it in this country, until, one day... we will awake to find that we have so­cialism. And if you don't do this, and if I don't do it, one of these days, you and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children, and our children's children, what it once was like in America when men were free.
-Ronald Reagan, urging voters to act against the passage of Medicare

As Republicans rail against creeping socialism, it's apparently already too late -- about 45 years too late. According to conservative icon Ronald Reagan, the United States went fullblown Marxist when Medicare passed in 1965.

What can we learn from Reagan's warning? For one thing, that hyperbole looks especially stupid as history moves on. For another, that the "slippery slope" argument is always horsecrap, because it involves crystal ball gazing. For yet another, it proves that Republicans either don't have the courage of their convictions or don't believe the things they say; Reagan never pushed for the repeal of Medicare, he left America to the socialist nightmare of singlepayer health insurance for seniors. Mr. "Morning in America" had previously argued that Medicare would be sunset in America. Remember that as other conservatives lament the passage of healthcare reform in the House of Representatives last night; they were wrong the last time, too.





The effects of this bill will be felt immediately. Many provisions won't kick in until 2014, but Reuters has a great breakdown of what's in the bill -- including what happens this year:

Insurance companies will be barred from dropping people from coverage when they get sick. Lifetime coverage limits will be eliminated and annual limits are to be restricted.

Insurers will be barred from excluding children for coverage because of pre-existing conditions.

Young adults will be able to stay on their parents' health plans until the age of 26. Many health plans currently drop dependents from coverage when they turn 19 or finish college.

Uninsured adults with a pre-existing conditions will be able to obtain health coverage through a new program that will expire once new insurance exchanges begin operating in 2014.

A temporary reinsurance program is created to help companies maintain health coverage for early retirees between the ages of 55 and 64. This also expires in 2014.

Medicare drug beneficiaries who fall into the "doughnut hole" coverage gap will get a $250 rebate. The bill eventually closes that gap which currently begins after $2,700 is spent on drugs. Coverage starts again after $6,154 is spent.

A tax credit becomes available for some small businesses to help provide coverage for workers.

And, explaining house minority leader John Boehner's fierce opposition to the bill, "A 10 percent tax on indoor tanning services that use ultraviolet lamps goes into effect on July 1."

Clearly, this bill might as well have been written by Kim Jong-Il.

On the right, the meltdown has already begun. As part of a last minute deal to get passage, Rep. Bart Stupak dropped his opposition to the bill over abortion coverage. In exchange for his vote -- and the vote of other anti-choice Democrats -- Stupak accepted an executive order that goes nowhere near as far as his amendment would have gone. Basically, the order states that government has to abide by existing law. In other words, Stupak and company caved. As Bart Stupak spoke in defense of the healthcare bill the chamber just passed, an unknown Republican shouted out "Baby killer!" Classless.

So, now it's a baby-killing, Marxist government takeover of healthcare. What are Republicans going to say when all this crazy stuff doesn't come to pass -- when the US doesn't turn Soviet, when there aren't any "death panels," when abortion rates don't skyrocket? Nothing, of course. They won't say a thing. They never do. Reagan pushed his crazy anti-Medicare fearmongering, then denied he ever did so. When Carter brought it up in a debate, Reagan's response was that famous "There you go again" line. He said he wasn't so much against the goals of Medicare, as he was in favor of alternate legislation.

So they'll freak out for a little bit. Maybe launch a doomed and half-hearted campaign to repeal healthcare reform. But I can practically guarantee that, as time goes on, one bit of rhetoric will die off -- conservatives will stop referring to it as "Obamacare." None of the things the GOP is warning of will happen and people will come to rely on these reforms in their everyday lives. Imagine if Medicare were most widely known as "LBJcare" and you can see why I say Republicans will stop using "Obamacare." Hell, Democrats should embrace that language and try to keep it going for as long as they can.

History shows that Republicans can say crazy things without consequence. I think we can change that.

-Wisco


Get updates via Twitter

Undecided Voters and Pro-Life Democrats are Equally Dumb

There's a truism in American politics that the remaining undecided voters get dumber the closer you get to election day. This is especially true lately, since the differences between candidates is likely to be stark. If it's late October 2008 and you're still torn between Barack Obama and John McCain, it's pretty clear that you have no idea what you want in a candidate. Like all generalizations, it's not universally true that the late undecided voter isn't very smart, but it's true enough. Some of these voters realize the importance of their decision and agonize over it, some don't like either candidate and are trying to determine who sucks less, but most are just slow. By the time you reach the finish line, the differences between the candidates should be pretty obvious.

Don't ask me why, but this truism popped into my head when I read this post from Greg Sargent:

Late last week, a source says, President Obama summoned a key undecided House Democrat, New York Rep Scott Murphy, for a one-on-one meeting at the White House — a sign that he’s beginning to lavish direct personal attention on individual members of Congress to persuade them to vote for the Senate bill.

According to a source familiar with the meeting, the President asked Murphy what he needed in the bill in order to support it. Murphy is being closely watched right now because he voted No last time, and flipping him to Yes would be a key get for Dem vote-counters.

“It was, `What are you looking for in the bill?’” the source says, describing the President’s request. “Scott was pressing him on the need for cost control. Medicare fraud came up. Scott said we need to step up — what we did in the House last time was not enough.”

According to Sargent, the White House "is amping up the efforts at persuasion, so expect more one-on-one meetings like this one, with the President making a direct effort to give individual House Dems what they need to climb aboard."

Let's look at some dem holdouts and apply the "undecided voters are dumb" cliché, just to see if it fits.

The biggest cadre of holdouts are among Rep. Bart Stupak's abortion funding holdouts. These people are dumb. Federal funding of abortion -- for good or ill -- is already illegal. What Stupak's amendment would do would make it illegal to offer coverage for abortion in private plans in health exchanges. This would be a de facto illegalization of abortion coverage. They say they're concerned about federal money paying for abortion, but the facts say there's no reason for those concerns. So, giving the Stupakian contingent the benefit of the doubt and assuming they're not just lying, we have to assume they're stupid.

Further evidence of pro-life dem stupidity comes in the form of statistics. The United States ranks 30th in the world for infant mortality. This is among the worst in the industrialized world. Even Cuba does better. And Stupak and company stand against expanding coverage for pre- and neonatal care -- under the flag of "saving babies."

Stupid again.

For his part, Bart Stupak is predicting failure for healthcare reform.

The Hill:

Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) said Monday he thinks House Democratic leaders are not close to having the votes to pass health reform.

In an interview with Fox News' Greta Van Susteren, the anti-abortion rights lawmaker said, "I'd be surprised if they have 200 votes."

House Democratic leaders need 216 to pass the bill.

At this point, no one really seems to know if the votes will be there, but the consensus is that it'll be close. The only people echoing Stupak's numbers are people named "Bart Stupak." According to The Hill's whip count, it's the anti-reform side that's short of votes, not the reform-minded. There are a lot of undecideds, but including even leaners who could switch, the antis only have 37 votes now -- they need 38. By my count, if you throw out the leaners, they have only about 24 or 25 firm or likely no votes. These may not be undecided voters, but I think we've established that they're dumb nonetheless.

So Barack Obama is back on the campaign trail this week, kissing hands and shaking babies, trying to sway undecided voters in the final minutes of a year-long campaign. If you're hoping to see reform pass this year, remember that he's pretty good at convincing these last-minute dummies.

-Wisco


Get updates via Twitter

New Rule for Iraq Practically Guarantees Abortions

If you're in Iraq and you get pregnant, you've got trouble.

CNN:

A new order from the general in charge of U.S. troops in northern Iraq makes getting pregnant or impregnating a fellow soldier an offense punishable by court-martial.

The directive, part of a larger order restricting the behavior of the 22,000 soldiers under Maj. Gen. Anthony Cucolo's command, is meant to prevent losing soldiers at a time when troop strength is stretched thin, Cucolo explained in a statement sent to the troops under his command and provided to CNN.

"I need every soldier I've got, especially since we are facing a drawdown of forces during our mission," Cucolo wrote. "Anyone who leaves this fight earlier than the expected 12-month deployment creates a burden on their teammates. Anyone who leaves this fight early because they made a personal choice that changed their medical status -- or contributes to doing that to another -- is not in keeping with a key element of our ethos."

"I've got a 22,000-man task force and I need every soldier I've got," Cucolo explained. "We are facing a drawdown and anyone that leaves earlier than the expected 12 months creates a burden on their teammates. My female soldiers are invaluable -- many of them hold high impact jobs. In general, my troops are few in number and I need them all."

The problems here are many, but the one that came immediately to my mind is that this new rule practically guarantees abortion. I decided to take a tour through some top "pro-life" sites and see what they had to say about this. Turns out, their response to this new rule is... Well, they don't have one.





In every case, the big stories on these site were how healthcare reform is going to pay for abortions -- something that's entirely untrue.

But hey, they don't have time to worry about real world abortion, they have BS to launch against healthcare reform. You have one issue that's guaranteed to encourage abortions and another issue that's not going to do anything to encourage abortions. But the Republican Party isn't launching an attack on Cucolo's new rule, so neither are the anti-abortion types. If you ever needed proof that the entire "pro-life" movement is just a sockpuppet for the GOP, there ya go.

Of course, there's also another explanation; it may be that the anti-abortion types think they already have their bases covered here. If you're in the military, it's not so easy to get an abortion.

Author Kathryn Joyce explains:

"You hear these legends of coat-hanger abortions," a 26-year-old former Marine sergeant told me recently, "but there are no coat hangers in Iraq. I looked." Amy (who prefers not to use her real name) was stationed in Fallujah as a military journalist two years ago when she discovered she was pregnant. As a female Marine, a distinct minority in the branch, Amy was fearful of going to her chain of command to explain her situation.

For military women, who lack all rights to medical privacy, facing an unplanned pregnancy is a daunting obstacle. Thanks to anti-abortion forces in Congress, military hospitals are banned from providing abortion services, except in cases of life endangerment, rape, or incest (and for the latter two, only if the patient pays for the service herself). Amy says her options were "like being given a choice between swimming in a pond full of crocodiles or piranhas."

Amy tried twice to self-abort with the cleaning rod from a rifle. When the second attempt hospitalized her, she was charged with a crime. "The first sergeant came to her hospital room to announce that Amy would be punished under Article 92 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice," Joyce writes, "which addresses violations of general regulations, for having had sex in a war zone." Amy's pregnancy was the result of rape, an ongoing problem in the military. A Pentagon report released in May discovered 2,923 reported cases of rape in 2008.

Of course, the anti-abortion movement has good reason to ignore cases like Amy's, which in turn gives them good reason to ignore Cucolo's rule. When women can't get clinical abortions, they still abort. Women don't abort because of "convenience," as the common lie would have it, women abort because they believe they have no choice. As a result, when you make abortion illegal, women die. The inability to legislate abortion out of existence isn't something that these groups want to highlight -- especially when you consider that their entire strategy toward abortion is to legislate it out of existence. It's not working in the military and it won't work anywhere else. So they don't bring up Cucolo's rule, because they don't want to bring attention to their failures.

At least, that's the only explanation that occurs to me. If you've got a better explanation for why the "pro-life" movement is silent on a rule that is guaranteed to encourage abortion, I'd like to hear it.

Wisco


Get updates via Twitter

Abortion, Healthcare Reform, and Self-Destructive Idiocy

Here's a bit of good news, The Hill reports that the author of an anti-abortion amendment to the House healthcare bill doesn't give a Senate version of the same bad law very favorable odds in the Senate.

Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) said Monday he thinks its unlikely the Senate will pass restrictions on funding for abortion similar to those passed by the House.

Stupak, the author of an amendment to the House's health reform bill that curtailed federal subsidies for coverage of abortion, told the Detroit Free Press it's unlikely the Senate will pass a similar amendment.

“I think it will be a tight vote,” Stupak told the paper. “I don’t think we will prevail in the Senate.”

Imagine my disappointment. The Yooper rep's amendment would basically kill the coverage of elective abortion in health insurance plans. Bart Stupak, a member of the C Street cult "The Family," thinks that healthcare reform means reducing coverage for women. I think that's what I dislike most about anti-abortion politicians -- they're arrogant and always fundamentally dishonest.





The George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services took a look at the amendment and came to the conclusion that it would, in effect, end the coverage of entirely legal abortions by private insurers:

Industry-wide impact that will shift the standard of coverage for medically indicated abortions for all women: In view of how the health benefit services industry operates and how insurance product design responds to broad regulatory intervention aimed at reshaping product content, we conclude that the treatment exclusions under the Stupak/Pitts Amendment will have an industry-wide effect, eliminating coverage of medically indicated abortions over time for all women, not only those whose coverage is derived through a health insurance exchange. As a result, Stupak/Pitts can be expected to move the industry away from current norms of coverage for medically indicated abortions. In combination with the Hyde Amendment, Stupak/Pitts will impose a coverage exclusion for medically indicated abortions on such a widespread basis that the health benefit services industry can be expected to recalibrate product design downward across the board in order to accommodate the exclusion in selected markets.

The argument for the amendment is that public funds shouldn't be used to pay for elective abortions. Whether this is a valid argument or not (and I'm with "not") is a question for another day. The fact is that it's already illegal. There's that fundamental dishonesty again; Stupak would end private coverage of abortion under the pretense of making an already illegal use of public funds even more illegal. If the concern is that tax dollars would be used for abortions, then the amendment is entirely unnecessary. In terms of real world consequence, it won't do anything but stop the coverage of elective abortion by private insurers. Given that, it's almost impossible to believe that this wasn't the intent.

So the death of a Senate version should be welcome news. And if elected officials were sane and honest, it would be -- although, in that case, the amendment would never have been introduced in the first place. But the truth is that the Republican party doesn't have a monopoly on lying crazies and some Democrats are threatening to derail healthcare reform entirely over this BS issue. According to that same Hill article, Sen. Ben
Nelson "has said he'd oppose ending a filibuster for any bill without the abortion restrictions, while Stupak has said he has the votes in the House to defeat a healthcare bill if his abortion provision is removed during conference with the Senate."

We've covered the dishonesty -- here's the crazy. Losing healthcare reform before going into the 2010 elections could be disastrous for Democrats. "If we don't pass this healthcare bill, not only is it a disaster for future healthcare efforts, it is a disaster for future efforts on the climate, on financial re-regulation, on jobs," Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse told MSNBC Monday. "You will have a divided and fractured Democratic Party. We have got to get this done."

Stupak, Nelson, and the rest of their idiot crew are threatening to handicap their own party's future over an underhanded, backdoor ban on private abortion coverage. I don't care how you feel about abortion, this would be stupid beyond words.

-Wisco


Get updates via Twitter

Pro-Lifers Discover Reality

The right has been stringing their voters along for decades with the wedge issue of abortion. Few Republican candidates get their campaigns off the ground without taking a position as close to the right pole of the issue as they can get away with. Even John McCain, who didn't seem comfortable with the issue, described himself as "proudly pro-life" and expressed a desire to overturn Roe v. Wade. In the final presidential debate, McCain treated the question of a woman's health as an excuse to get an abortion. "That's the extreme pro-abortion position, quote, 'health,'" McCain said, making air quotes with his fingers.

But the thing is, Republican candidates have talked a good game on abortion. While Bush claimed to want to foster a "culture of life" in America, he got right to work creating a culture of death. We absolutely needed go to war and kill people and, if you wanted to stop killing people, it would be an insult to those who had died. If we quit after it became clear the Iraq war was pointless, Bush argued, the dead would have "died in vain." Not only did we have to spread death and misery around the world, but we then had to worship that portion of the dead who were American. The glorious culture of life was only mentioned when throwing a bone to the anti-abortion folks, mostly through actions that wouldn't reduce the number of abortions performed in any way -- a ban on funding embryonic stem cell research, for example. The ban didn't stop a single fetus from being aborted. Not one.





Of course, it was never designed to. It was designed to create another wedge issue between the anti-abortion types and the rest of us, just in time for the 2004 election. Bush had "discovered" one more way that the secular forces of science had come up with to kill babies. In the end, Bush accomplished nothing but getting re-elected. Stem cell research was set back, no abortions were avoided, and the war over abortion was fresh as a daisy and basically unchanged -- just the way the Republican party likes it.

It's been sort of an ongoing theme of mine that the GOP uses the pro-lifers as pigeons. They use abortion to get people to vote for them, then don't do much to address it. Republicans are pro-life activists on the campaign trail and pro-corporate politicians in office -- it's all about abortion on the stump and all about capital gains tax cuts and deregulation once in office.

It's also been my long-standing argument that sooner or later these voters are going to wise up. You can only pull the same trick over and over so many times before people stop falling for it. But these are mostly people of faith -- with "faith" meaning "unquestioning belief despite evidence to the contrary" -- so it takes a while for them to catch on. In this case, about four decades. Remember, many of these people are still fighting over the 150 year-old theory of evolution. This process of enlightenment takes a while.

But, in the case of abortion, it seems to be taking about forty years. The Washington Post's Jacqueline L. Salmon reports that some of these pro-lifers are changing their tactics to match reality.

Frustrated by the failure to overturn Roe v. Wade, a growing number of antiabortion pastors, conservative academics and activists are setting aside efforts to outlaw abortion and instead are focusing on building social programs and developing other assistance for pregnant women to reduce the number of abortions.

Some of the activists are actually working with abortion rights advocates to push for legislation in Congress that would provide pregnant women with health care, child care and money for education -- services that could encourage them to continue their pregnancies.

Actually working to reduce abortions. What a novel concept. Well, it would be a novel concept if the pro-choice movement hadn't beat them to it. Making abortion illegal would never have eliminated abortion; the way to do that is to make it unnecessary. As Bill Clinton once put it, the goal should be to make abortion "safe, legal, and rare."

"Abortions did become rarer during Clinton's time in office, dropping by 11 percent," columnist E.J. Dionne wrote last week. "But since Clinton made no major public moves on abortion reduction, many pro-lifers who had been inclined his way felt he ignored the third word in his motto." If they had watched the numbers, rather than anti-abortion propaganda, they'd have had reason to celebrate Bill Clinton's accomplishment. Instead, they considered him the devil. And some see this new approach as equally evil.

"It's a sellout, as far as we are concerned," said Joe Scheidler, founder of the Pro-Life Action League, told Salmon. "We don't think it's really genuine. You don't have to have a lot of social programs to cut down on abortions." Others see a reasoned approach to abortion as problematic as well.

The Archbishop of Denver Charles J. Chaput says that these new efforts to reduce abortions "undermined the progress pro-lifers have made and provided an excuse for some Catholics to abandon the abortion issue." Excuse me, but what progress? Roe v. Wade has practically become a founding document and most Americans want it to remain that way. A July Quinnipiac poll asked respondents "In general, do you agree or disagree with the 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision that established a woman's right to an abortion?" 63% agreed, 33% disagreed. There hasn't been any progress for the anti-abortion types.

I suppose the lesson here is that some people will wise up after being played for chumps for decades. They'll abandon a total ban and work with reality.

Others won't and will continue to devote their lives to a fight the Republican party has no interest in letting them win.

-Wisco

The Right's Stealth Campaign

The final USA Today/Gallup poll is out today and Barack Obama holds a national lead of 11 points. A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll puts it closer, with an 8-point lead for the Democrat, 51% to 43%. Gallup also gives it to Obama by a pretty wide margin, 55% to 44%. We can pretty safely say that the consensus is that Obama's walking away with this thing tomorrow. In fact, networks will probably call it for Obama before the Mountain Time zone polls close. But, just between you and me, you can write McCain off if he loses Virginia. If that happens, the race is over early for most of the nation -- 8 p.m. Eastern at the latest. And it's looking like that's the way it's going to go.

For Republicans and rightwingers in general, looking for good news will mean looking elsewhere -- the national race is all but officially over. Where might they find these little rays of sunshine? In statewide victories for Republican Jesus. Down ticket races seem to be trending Democrat, so they're prepared for big congressional losses as well as the big one in the electoral college. They can't lose every race, but the wins will be nearly meaningless, given the lopsided nature of the next Congress.

No, the wins for the right will come in ballot initiatives. The stealth campaign for control of the nation comes in the form of control of the states through direct democracy. If they can't rule by elected office, they can rule by referendum. The highest profile referendum is Proposition 8 in California, which would amend the state's Constitution to ban same sex marriage. The good news there is that the proposition looks to be headed for a loss. The bad news is that it exists at all and that the loss looks to be a narrow one.

Los Angeles Times:

The Field Poll of 966 likely voters, conducted between Oct. 18 and 28, shows 49% opposed to the measure, 44% in favor and 7% undecided. The race is narrowing. A September Field poll showed the measure trailing by 14 points, 52% to 38%.

The new poll also found that "significant proportions" of voters on both sides are conflicted about the issue.

Women are more likely to oppose Proposition 8 than men, the poll reports; 51% of women and 47% of men surveyed oppose the measure. It also found that respondents who said they personally knew a gay person were more likely to be opposed than respondents who said they did not.

The problem here is that this ballot initiative, like similar discriminatory referenda, isn't only designed to change California's Constitution -- it's also an organizational tool. All those petitions become mailing lists, all those volunteer canvassers and phone bankers don't go away after they lose. They'll be told they'll keep up the fight and that Jesus will eventually prevail in California's battle with the Homosexual Menace. If they win -- which is still a very real possibility -- then they'll use that energy to move forward with other "pro-family" issues.





But the fact is that a loss is almost better than a win -- at least in terms of organizing. When the battle's over, people on the winning side tend to go home. When the culture war continues, the culture warriors fight on. This is where the Republican base will rebuild -- not around failed candidates, but around wedge issue ballot measures.

Arizona and Florida will both be voting on referenda similar to California's Prop. 8. In Florida, it seems close. Although polling shows the voters approving the ban 56% to 37%, Florida requires a super-majority of voters -- 60% -- to pass such a measure. This one's a nailbiter, but leaning the right way. Organizing after losing this one will be a pretty simple matter, since they can use that majority to claim "mainstream" status and because Florida conservatives tend to be pretty insane anyway (see Katherine Harris).

To give you an idea of how powerful these referenda become as organizing tools, we can look at Arizona. In 2006, Arizona became the first state to defeat an anti-marriage equality measure. The groups opposing marriage kept working, turned their petitions into mailing lists, and now a second attempt looks likely to pass -- 49% to 42%.

In Arkansas, voters will be asked to bar gays from adoption or foster parenthood. Thankfully, this looks like a big loser -- 55% oppose the measure, while 38% support it.

Don't get the idea that the right's stealth campaign is all about hating on the gays. It's just mostly that way. In South Dakota, it's about hating on the women. An initiative there asks voters to make abortion illegal in almost every circumstance. A similar ban lost last time around, but these people aren't taking no for an answer. Where the original ban had almost no exceptions, the current measure would include "limited exceptions for rape, incest and the health of the pregnant woman." That brought it much closer to winning. In fact, it's a tie -- 44% to 44%.

The S. Dakota measure is certainly unconstitutional and is meant only to challenge Roe v. Wade. There's absolutely no guarantee that it'll ever make it all the way to the Supreme Court, but it's all about the PR anyway. They're building the groundwork for a propaganda campaign to energize the crazies.

Want a reason to vote? There you go. And it's important to remember that these don't represent the right going away next year -- so neither should you. That's the danger of a successful presidential campaign, people go away. In a democracy, the fight is never over, by design. Wins must be defended.

No matter what's on your ballot, vote. But remember, democracy doesn't end on November 5. The religious right isn't going away on that day, so neither should you. We've got to win the big one and keep fighting the other ones. Democracy means that the fight never, ever ends.

-Wisco

Final Score; Obama 3, McCain 0

Last night the two major party candidates went head to head in the battle to become President of Joe the Plumber. I'd go into Joe Wurzelbacher's ideas -- at a press conference he announced he opposes Social Security, for example -- but suffice it to say that he's pretty far to the right. The Plumbers Union endorses Barack Obama, by the way, but Joe doesn't really strike me as a union man. At the same press conference (which I watched on CNN but apparently isn't on the web as of this writing), Joe Wurzelbacher said he wasn't going to endorse anyone.

Not surprisingly, no one was waiting for Wurzelbacher's opinion when it came to deciding who won the debate -- Barack Obama ran away with it. CBS News polled it as a complete rout -- 53%-22%. CNN polled it a bit closer, 58%-31% -- still a slaughter. CNN's polling shows Obama taking the lead in every question but two -- and those two were negatives.

...Eighty percent of debate watchers polled said McCain spent more time attacking his opponent, with seven percent saying Obama was more on the attack. Fifty-four percent said McCain seemed more like a typical politician during the debate, with 35 percent saying Obama acted more like a typical politician.

It may be that McCain's negativity going into this was really what killed him. "This was Sen. John McCain's best debate yet," wrote Taegan Goddard. "He scored many points and effectively distanced himself from President Bush with the comment, 'I am not president Bush. If you want to run against president Bush, you should have done that four years ago.' It was probably the only memorable soundbite from any of the debates." Yet his best wasn't anywhere good enough.





Obama's been playing rope-a-dope with John McCain, letting him do all the work in debates and just playing defense. McCain has been the earnest one, the passionate one, and against that background of negativity, that earnestness and passion comes off as anger. It doesn't help any that McCain actually got angry in the debates. And McCain was already out of material going into this last one, throwing out arguments that Obama had already answered in previous debates. Apparently having learned absolutely nothing from his previous attempts to smear Obama onstage, McCain tried the exact same punches in exactly the same way. Obama dealt with them as easily as he had all the other times.

"In contrast, McCain tried too hard to land a knockout punch," Goddard said. Agreed. But it's understandable. The last debate may have represented the last chance. And McCain pretty much blew it by trying to please his base. Widely seen as the most negative of the two, he tried to bring up William Ayers and ACORN. But those arguments only work when there's no one there to set the record straight. In the end, it didn't really go anywhere. I'm sure McCain supporters were cheering at home, but his supporters aren't who he should've been aiming for -- they're already going to vote for him.

McCain also lost a lot of points on style. In trying to play both sides of the abortion issue, he probably wound up making no one happy. "We have to change the culture of America. Those of us who are proudly pro-life understand that," McCain said. "And it's got to be courage and compassion that we show to a young woman who's facing this terribly difficult decision." This represents a bit of doublespeak on McCain's part, since those who are "proudly pro-life" don't give a damn about the woman's decision -- difficult or not. They don't want the woman to have that decision at all; they want the government to make that decision for her.

In the same section, McCain made a tremendous mistake in talking about what the right has named "partial birth abortion" -- a PR term for a procedure called "intact dilation and extraction." He suggested that the health of the mother was something only pro-choice nuts are concerned about.

"That's the extreme pro-abortion position, quote, 'health.'" McCain said, actually making quotation marks in the air with his fingers. He then went on to talk about his adopted daughter, as if adoption were the answer to women's health concerns. I could almost swear I heard a cry of "what?!?" rise up from my neighborhood.

That wasn't the only time McCain's Manson Family Values were on display. In discussing the Colombian Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), Obama brought up Colombia's terrible workers' rights record. "The history in Colombia right now is that labor leaders have been targeted for assassination on a fairly consistent basis and there have not been prosecutions," Obama said.

McCain actually rolled his eyes at this, apparently exasperated that young chucklenuts here would let a little thing like government-supported murder stand in the way of "free trade." Anyone who takes this attitude toward Colombia, while crying crocodile tears over the things Saddam Hussein did in Iraq, is inconsistent at best and hypocritical in truth.

Whatever the hell it was John McCain needed to do last night wasn't done. He huffed and puffed like a cranky old steam engine, he tried tired old attacks that didn't work the first time, he straddle issues and avoided others. Meanwhile, Obama did what he needed to do, which was just answer the questions. McCain's the one everyone talks about after these things -- and that's the way Obama likes it. Some lefties have been frustrated with Obama's debate performances, but they need to remember that Barack Obama doesn't need to convince them. It's McCain who's been the sort of debater they've been calling for and that didn't work out so well, did it?

Maybe Joe the Plumber made up his mind last night. From what I've seen, he probably made up his mind a long time ago. But, unless something crazy and unforeseen happens, the President of Joe the Plumber is going to be Barack Obama.

A grand slam. The trifecta. A hat trick. Pick your favorite sports metaphor, but Obama takes the debates 3-zip.

-Wisco

McCain vs. McCain

John McCain knows the issues inside and out, left to right, top to bottom. There's a reason for that -- on most issues, McCain's taken both sides of the argument at one time or another. If you don't like his position on an issue, just wait a while. Once his position becomes unpopular or inconvenient for himself, he'll take another.

When John Kerry was ridiculed for saying, "I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it," few noted that he was talking about two different bills. The media, assuming as they always do that you're a freakin' moron, called this "nuance." Vote for the original bill, then vote against the amended franken-bill monstrosity it later becomes and that's a "flip-flop." But what happens when you oppose a law you had a hand in creating?

The media labels you a "straight talker."

The Hill:

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) has told conservative activists that he will vote to strip a key provision on grassroots lobbying from the reform package he previously supported.

The provision would require grassroots organizations to report on their fundraising activities and is strongly opposed by groups such as the National Right to Life Committee, Gun Owners of America, and the American Civil Liberties Union.

[...]

McCain sponsored legislation last Congress that included an even broader requirement for grassroots lobbying coalitions to reveal their financial donors. But now he will vote to defeat a similar measure.

Of course, the fact that Baghdad Johnny's running for president and needed lobbyist money to re-energize a failing campaign wouldn't have had anything to do with that.

McCain's "straight talk" has a bad habit of bending straight around to the position most popular at the moment. Far from being a maverick, McCain is the very definition of a "finger in the wind" politician who, with his nose in polling data and policy papers by special interests, leads by following. Often, the McCain of the present denies the McCain of the past ever existed.

Before the invasion of Iraq, it was John McCain who told us, "We will win this conflict. We will win it easily." It's not the only time he'd said something like that. He threw around words and phrases like "easy," "overwhelming victory," and "a very short period of time."

But that was then, when the invasion was fairly popular. Now it's about as popular as salmonella and now McCain not only says it isn't easy, he ridicules those fools who said it would be.

CNN:

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), ARIZONA: It grieves me so much that we have not told the American people how tough and difficult this task would be. And it has contributed enormously to the frustration that Americans feel today because they were led to believe that this would be some kind of a day at the beach, which many of us fully understood from the beginning would be a very, very difficult undertaking.

What about abortion; is John for or against it? That depends on who he's trying to please. "I’d love to see a point where it is irrelevant, and could be repealed because abortion is no longer necessary," McCain said in 1999. "But certainly in the short term, or even the long term, I would not support repeal of Roe v. Wade, which would then force X number of women in America to [undergo] illegal and dangerous operations."

But that was before he decided he needed the religious right to be elected. His position as shifted slightly since then -- about 180 degrees. "I don’t think a constitutional amendment is probably going to take place, but I do believe that it’s very likely or possible that the Supreme Court should — could overturn Roe v. Wade, which would then return these decisions to the states, which I support," he told George Stephanopoulos in 2006.

Sometimes, it doesn't take him long to do a complete 180 at all. This January, McCain piled on Mitt Romney for wanting a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq. Of course, that wasn't so much true -- sometimes "straight talk" has to take a few liberties. But McCain made it clear that setting a date for withdrawal would mean chaos and genocide.

In fact, a month later, Baghdad Johnny sat down with Stephanopoulos again and told him, "I still say setting a date for withdrawal is chaos, genocide, and we'll be back, because Al Qaeda will then succeed."

Of course, back then he hadn't focus-grouped that message and found out it was a sure loser. After finding out how unpopular an open-ended commitment was, McCain adjusted his opinions of timetables and dates for withdrawal.

CNN:

On the same day that Sen. John McCain gave an ambitious speech laying out what he intends to accomplish by the end of his first term in office, his campaign released an accompanying Web ad dramatizing those hypothetical achievements.

“The year: 2013,” an announcer says as the words “2013” appear on screen. Then the ad goes through a laundry list of accomplishments McCain envisions: stabilizing the Middle East, reducing the threat of nuclear terrorism, strengthening border security, advancing energy independence, reforming wasteful spending by the federal government, delivering health care choice, and restoring economic confidence. “The year: 2013, the president: John McCain,” the announcer says as McCain’s image appears on screen.

What happens in 2013? We'll let Baghdad Johnny answer that one. In a speech that put future events in present tense McCain, like some weird Republican swami, told us yesterday, "By January 2013, America has welcomed home most of the servicemen and -women who have sacrificed terribly so that America might be secure in her freedom. The Iraq war has been won. Iraq is a functioning democracy, although still suffering from the lingering effects of decades of tyranny and centuries of sectarian tension."

Wouldn't January of 2013 be something like a date? Wouldn't all of these predicted accomplishments represent steps along the way? Wouldn't that be the very definition of a "timetable for withdrawal?"

Not if you ask him. "It's not a timetable, it's victory," he said later. "I'm promising that we will succeed in Iraq."

This is like saying, "It's not a timetable, it's a schedule. They're different words."

McCain has a habit of putting things in different words, mostly because he constantly holds different positions. There doesn't seem to be any central philosophy guiding John McCain's political life -- other than "always kiss up to those most likely to help you."

-Wisco

Technorati tags: politics; elections; 2008; Republican; propaganda; abortion; Iraq; war; History shows us that John McCain's not a straight talker -- he's a waffler

Abortions are Down -- So Let's Lie About Why...

It's the typical bad headline from the mainstream media. In reporting on new study by the Guttmacher Institute -- an organization that tracks reproductive health issues -- ABC News offers us "Why Abortions Are Down in America." Except, they don't really tell you why. As I say, typical.

See, the Guttmacher study tells us that "the U.S. abortion rate declined to 19.4 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15-44, continuing the downward trend that started after the abortion rate peaked at 29.3 in 1981" and that this marks "its lowest level since 1974."

In telling us "Why Abortions Are Down in America," ABC basically says, "Who knows?" Bait and switch, anyone? Still, it gives us a starting point by narrowing things down to three possibilities -- fewer abortion clinics, the success of phony "family planning clinics" run by anti-abortion activists, or better access to birth control methods and emergency contraceptives like Plan B.

The first doesn't seem to be supported by the facts. While there are fewer abortion clinics in the US than in the past, we're not seeing other signs that would accompany women without access to abortion. I've written about it before -- when women don't have access to abortion, maternal death rates rise sharply. This hasn't happened.

In fact, the study's lead author, Rachel Jones, "told NPR that though there is such a direct link in some regions, it doesn't account for the overall decrease in abortions. In fact, the decline in abortion providers is significantly smaller than in previous years," according to Salon.

The second seems unlikely as well. Back to ABC News:

Opponents say more women are coming to grips with the horror of abortion, in part because of the increasing numbers of so-called crisis pregnancy centers, which set up near abortion clinics and offer services like ultrasounds to convince women to keep their babies.

"This is a very powerful tool," anti-abortion activist Chris Slattery said of ultrasounds. "Now it's much harder for them to actually think of destroying a child."

The problem with this explanation is that it requires that women be freakin' morons for it to work. "Crisis Pregnancy Centers" are basically places that pose as clinics, but where the entire focus is to convince women not to have an abortion. The methods are a textbook example of passive-aggression and are hopelessly hamhanded:

Anti-Choice "Crisis Pregnancy Centers": A Personal Account, Planned Parenthood:

...The woman then ushered me into another room, saying that a nurse would do an ultrasound for me. I wasn't sure what to expect; I'd never had an ultrasound and I didn't know much about the procedure. But even if I had, I couldn't have been prepared for what came next.

After administering the ultrasound, the nurse turned the screen to show me the sonogram results. She said, "This is the fetus." Below the photo of the fetus, someone had typed in the words "Hi Mommy!" I couldn't believe it.

I was totally shaken but I tried to play it cool and appear calm. The receptionist made an appointment for me to come back in two weeks, and I thanked the woman for her "help." I didn't want to make a scene because I felt so unsafe -- and I didn't want them to know that I was considering terminating the pregnancy.

Not only didn't it work in this case, but it's really hard to see how it could work in any case. If it weren't so incredibly dismissive of women's intelligence, it'd be hilarious in its absurdity. She didn't leave that office convinced that she'd give birth, she left seriously creeped out. The gross dishonesty of these phony clinics can only leave women feeling insulted. There's no way I can credit these people with any decrease in the rate of abortion. It would just make no sense at all. The average woman isn't that dumb.

So, by the process of elimination alone, we're left with increased availabilty of birth control. The problem here is that the anti-abortion movement is against that, too. The American Life League spells it out -- while attempting to spin their position as the exact opposite of what it is. In a page on "Countering Pro-Abortion Arguments," we're shown their answer to "The pro-life movement is really a group of religious fanatics whose goal is outlawing contraceptives."

The pro-life movement's legislative goal is passage of the Paramount Human Life Amendment. This would establish legal personhood for all human beings from the moment of fertilization.

The fact is that some so-called "contraceptives" are abortifacient in action and kill already existing human beings (e.g., the "pill," lUD, RU486). Of course, we are against these devices. Every abortion kills a human being, whether accomplished chemically, surgically or by other means.

So not all contraceptives, right? Just the most effective ones.

Well, no. Not really. It doesn't take long for them to prove they are "a group of religious fanatics whose goal is outlawing contraceptives." ALL tells us, "We cannot condone contraceptives as a 'solution' to any troubling facet of human sexuality. In virtually all areas, the contraceptive culture and mentality must be viewed as part of the problem," and that, "The acceptance of contraception fostered acceptance of abortion. Margaret Sanger, who desired legal abortion, foresaw this over 50 years ago."

In fact, their literature shows a shocking -- and likely willfull -- ignorance of the facts. In answering the obvious conclusion that without contraception, people will still have sex, they answer, "Of course people are going to have sex! Lets be more specific. For clarity's sake, we should deal with premarital, promiscuous or 'at-risk' sex, not monogamous sex within marriage."

If we go back to the Guttmacher Institute, we see that "The majority of U.S. women who have abortions (61%) have children." The image of the unmarried teen, pregnant for the first time as the average abortion-seeker is a mythical one.

"We found that consideration of motherhood issues in abortion decision-making falls into two broad areas: responsibilities for existing children and the 'ideal' conditions of motherhood," says Rachel Jones. "Among those women with children, the most commonly cited reason for choosing to have an abortion was the concern that having another child would compromise the care given to existing children. Women felt that they were already stretched thin financially, emotionally and physically -- and they wanted to put the children they already had front and center..."

This is the problem with the anti-abortion movement -- it's not anti-abortion only. It's the Anti-Sex League. ALL tells us, "If people can be educated to use contraceptives, they certainly can be educated to abstain. Let's attack the true problem, promiscuity."

"Contraceptives increase promiscuity," they go on. "And promiscuity increases crisis pregnancies, abortions, AIDS victims and the prevalence of sexually transmitted disease. Not to mention adultery, divorce, rape, and child sexual abuse -- i.e., the overall decay of the family and our moral fiber."

None of which is true. All of this is just stuff they're pulling out of their butt.

Which gets me to the real problem with the anti-abortion movement and the religious right in general -- they lie. Often.

Imagine your thought processes if you were absolutely certain you were on God's side. Who would it be that was fighting against you? When your political and cultural enemies are the Devil and those who fight on the side of the Devil, what actions would you rule out? There's no reason to fight fair with Satan, since -- no matter what you do -- your cause is just and holy. You can lie and you can cheat, since you're not really fighting these poor, deluded forces of darkness -- you're saving them. If saving them from themselves requires you to make stuff up and lie, then making stuff up and lying is the most ethical thing you could do. You don't get an alcoholic to come over if you say you're going to stage an intervention -- you tell them it's going to be a party. If you have to trick people to get them to do the "right thing," then there's nothing wrong with lies.

So, with the news that abortions are declining, the best possible thing they can do is lie about why it's happening. But the problem here is that they're lying to women about what women think and what motivates them. It's hard to see how that's going to work. Where ABC News fails to tell us "Why Abortions Are Down in America," a little reasoning gives us the answer. Abortions are down because the reasons for abortion are now fewer. The widespread availability of contraceptives and reproductive health gets the credit, not a bunch of passive-aggressive religious whackos with made up "facts" and phony "clinics."

Women just aren't that dumb.

--Wisco

Technorati tags: politics; religious right; health; women's rights; "Abortions are down," say the religious right. "Let's lie about why."