Prevention First Act continues to percolate along

April 6, 2006

By one important standard, [tag]Democrat[/tag]s have little reason to change its focus on [tag]abortion[/tag] rights — the party is mostly [tag]pro-choice[/tag], and so are most Americans. By another equally key standard, however, Dems are looking to expand their reach and appeal to voters who are willing to vote for the party, but have been hesitant because of abortion.

That’s what makes the “[tag]Prevention First Act[/tag]” so significant. Following up on several other posts I’ve done on the subject in recent months, the legislation is becoming increasingly significant this election year.

The Prevention First Act still has 23 co-sponsors — all Dems. Yesterday, however, The Hill reported that Dems are very encouraged by what they’re finding outside Congress: voters love the idea.

“The issue of abortion is very different from the issue of prevention, access to birth control and access to comprehensive sex education,” said Anna Greenberg, a pollster for Greenberg, Quinlan, Rosner, which works for the abortion-rights group NARAL Pro-Choice America. “I think that Senator Reid’s prevention-first agenda is not just smart in policy terms but smart in political terms because there is overwhelming support in the public for access to birth control and comprehensive sex education. People want women to be able to prevent unwanted pregnancies.”

Celinda Lake, a pollster with Lake Snell Perry Mermin and Associates, working for NARAL, has tested voter support for Reid’s Prevention First Act.

“It’s 3-to-1 in favor of it. Even [tag]pro-life[/tag] voters support it,” Lake said. “It has the potential to be both a wedge and a turnout issue post-Alito. It shows how extreme a faction [within] the Republican Party is.”

It’s exactly why you’ll likely hear more about this legislation in the coming months. If Republicans vote against it, they’re taking a stand against reducing unwanted pregnancies. If they vote for it, they’ll anger the far-right base while helping prove that Dems have the right agenda.

Harry Reid told The Hill that he’s going to fight to get this bill a floor vote soon and added that bringing the issue to the floor is “on my mind.” Stay tuned.

Diamond cutting- study the hidden fissures and tap lightly with precision to split into pieces.

  • Wow so this is what a Democratic stratagy looks like, I like it, I hope to see more of this in the future.

  • This is the best strategy to come out of the Democrats in a long time. It’s common sense, it plays well to virtually everybody, and the Republicans don’t have a way to react well to it.

    Bravo, Dems.

  • Let’s wish Harry Reid luck in getting this measure into the press if not onto the floor. It really is the perfect sort of measure for us.

  • Two items from Bertrand Russell’s essay “Has organized religion had a positive effect?” seem relevant here:

    On Christianity and women:

    We sometimes hear talk to the effect that Christianity
    improved the status of women. This is one of the grossest
    perversions of history that it is possible to make. Women
    cannot enjoy a tolerable position in society where it is
    considered of the utmost importance that they should not
    infringe a very rigid moral code. The teaching of the church
    has been, and still is, that virginity is best, but that for
    those who find this impossible marriage is permissible. By
    making marriage indissoluble, and by stamping out all
    knowledge of the ars amandi, the church did what it could to
    secure that the only form of sex which it permitted should
    involve very little pleasure and a great deal of pain. The
    opposition to birth control has, in fact, the same motive:
    if a woman has a child a year until she dies worn out, it is
    not to be supposed that she will derive much pleasure from
    her married life; therefore birth control must be
    discouraged.

    On Christianity and sex:

    It is not only in regard to sexual behavior but also in
    regard to knowledge on sex subjects that the attitude of
    Christians is dangerous to human welfare. Every person who
    has taken the trouble to study the question in an unbiased
    spirit knows that the artificial ignorance on sex subjects
    which orthodox Christians attempt to enforce upon the young
    is extremely dangerous to mental and physical health, and
    causes in those who pick up their knowledge by the way of
    “improper” talk, as most children do, an attitude that sex
    is in itself indecent and ridiculous. I do not think there
    can be any defense for the view that knowledge is ever
    undesirable. I should not put barriers in the way of the
    acquisition of knowledge by anybody at any age. But in the
    particular case of sex knowledge there are much weightier
    arguments in its favor than in the case of most other
    knowledge. A person is much less likely to act wisely when
    he is ignorant than when he is instructed, and it is
    ridiculous to give young people a sense of sin because they
    have a natural curiosity about an important matter.

    Almost every adult in a Christian community is more or less
    diseased nervously as a result of the taboo on sex knowledge
    when he or she was young. And the sense of sin which is thus
    artificially implanted is one of the causes of cruelty,
    timidity, and stupidity in later life. There is no rational
    ground of any sort or kind in keeping a child ignorant of
    anything that he may wish to know, whether on sex or on any
    other matter. And we shall never get a sane population until
    this fact is recognized in early education, which is
    impossible so long as the churches are able to control
    educational politics.

  • Even though I am disappointed with Levin and Stabenow’s failure to stand up with Feingold on censure (especially Levin who seems to be actively undermining us on this), they seem to come through on the social issues for us. When I first heard of this legislation, I called them to ask them to co-sponsor, and they both did. This is smart politics and smart social policy. More, please!

  • Like Xeroman above, my question is: what took them so long?? I’ve been saying for years that the Dems should go after the Repubs on contraception.

  • It’s about time Democrats started playing the wedge issues with some finesse. This is perfect, because contraception is the issue that will split the Catholics from their ill-conceived marriage with the fundies over right-to-life issues.

    Catholics are against abortion AND contraception. They will argue that contraception IS abortion, and will be against “Prevention First” on right-to-life grounds.

    But fundie Protestants think contraception is just fine, and will be for “Prevention First” on anti-abortion grounds.

    • Comments are closed.