Sunday Discussion Group

April 23, 2006

Of all the public policy issues debated in this country, [tag]abortion[/tag] is by far the trickiest. There’s just not much room for compromise. If you believe a fertilized egg is a full-fledged human being with all the rights therein, abortion is murder. If you don’t, a government-imposed ban on the procedure takes away a woman’s civil right and allows the state to regulate the most personal of choices.

The New York Times has a good feature today on Democrats’ efforts to walk a fine middle line — starting in [tag]Pennsylvania[/tag].

As the Democratic Party tries to inch its way toward a new, less polarized politics of abortion, seeking some common ground between supporters and opponents of abortion rights, there is no better case study than the Pennsylvania Senate race.

Many supporters of abortion rights — sometimes grudgingly, sometimes led more by their minds than by their hearts — are lining up behind Bob [tag]Casey[/tag] Jr., a Democratic contender for the Senate who opposes abortion rights. The invitation to a recent Casey event in Philadelphia, raising money for his campaign to unseat Senator Rick [tag]Santorum[/tag], a Republican, perhaps captured the mood. “Pragmatic Progressive Women for Casey,” it declared.

The nine Democratic women in the Senate, including some of the strongest advocates of abortion rights, recently signed a letter of support that struck a similar note, describing Mr. Casey’s election as “critical to our efforts of regaining the majority in the U.S. Senate.”

Dems have already shown greater tolerance for dissent on this issue than Republicans — the party did, after all, make Harry Reid the Senate Minority Leader — but actively going out and recruiting a Dem who opposes abortion rights, in part because he opposes abortion rights, was rather unique. And not an altogether welcome development in some pro-choice circles.

Simultaneously, many Senate Dems are pushing the [tag]Prevention First Act[/tag], which seeks to reduce abortions by reducing unwanted pregnancies.

Are all of these efforts worthwhile? Can they work as an effective electoral strategy? Will anti-choice voters give Dems another look, or will [tag]pro-choice[/tag] voters start to stay home? Or both?

If Dems are fundamentally a pro-choice party, do these efforts represent an unwelcome vacillation on a key party principle? Or is this a pragmatic effort to “expand the tent” while keeping our standards in tact?

And as for Pennsylvania, can replacing one anti-choice senator with another be a pro-choice victory?

April 23, 2006 at 9:36 am

I’d appreciate this discussion setup more if your last line read “can replacing one pro-life senator with another be a pro-choice victory?”

I’m a Democrat who leans pro-life, and I think calling each other by our chosen titles can help facilitate a real dialogue.

I’m not sure how recruited Casey is. He’s a well placed insider with a very high name recognition. It would probably be more accurate to say competition has been discouraged, to save resources for the general election brawl with Santorum and his sizable war chest. As it turns out, Santorum is much more vulnerable than anyone would have guessed 18 months ago. Me? I’ll vote for Pennachio in the primary and whoever has the (D) in the general.

The real issue isn’t what Casey thinks about reproductive rights, it’s about what he’ll do. I doubt he’ll join the Dobson circus after taking the oath of office. I don’t like that fact that he’s anti-choice. Not one bit. But neither am I a single issue voter who would stay home in protest. In the long run, reproductive rights are much safer under Dem controlled Senate, even with a smattering of Dem’s who oppose abortion.

Now I might have an entirely different take on this if the repub was anything other than Santorum. I guess I lied above. I am a single issue voter. The issue is getting rid of Little Ricky.

It sounds, to me at least, like the Dems are finally beginning to acknowledge the “two-way-street” design of “choice.” It’s rather sad, really, when the right to choose is illuminated by only one of the two viewpoints, being the right to terminate an unwanted pregnancy. It’s a reactive, knee-jerk kind of thing; little different than the one-and-only mentality promoted by the lobotomized simians who call themselves “the party of values.” The chimps in the GOP can’t even promote proactive prevention, other than to roll out the faulty propoganda of abstaining from sex altogether–unless, of course, the husband in a heterosexual, church-sanctioned union demands his “rights.”

Prevention of unwanted pregnancies, by the way, still promotes the decision as ultimately belonging to the individual woman—and that decision can also include the sexual partner (even in a “man-and-woman union”). Personally, I think the problem that the GOP has with this idea isn’t so much about promotion of sexual activity—but, rather, it has a lot to do with the woman still being able to say “no” to bearing children—and, to a perhaps-lesser extent, the man not wanting children. And, if these dominion-minded simians cannot guarantee offspring among the rank-and-file, then there are no little simian-children to keep the pews, collection-plates, and Republikanner war-chests filled, once the “old guard” dies off. The dinosaur, eventually, becomes extinct….

Well, the reason the issue is so important, and so important for the other side, is precisely because it can be determinative at the voting booth- by itself it can actually keep a lot of people from voting for a candidate, or make people get out and vote for a candidate.

Obviously for our side, conceding the whole issue to the other side isn’t an option.

CB wrote:

Of all the public policy issues debated in this country, abortion is by far the trickiest. There’s just not much room for compromise. If you believe a fertilized egg is a full-fledged human being with all the rights therein, abortion is murder. If you don’t, a government-imposed ban on the procedure takes away a woman’s civil right and allows the state to regulate the most personal of choices.

Although it may at least seem like a complex issue to have to argue about, I really don’t think throwing our hands up in the air and conceding the impossibility of making progress in the ideological debate is the way to go. For instance, a writer named J.J. Thomson wrote an article called A Defence of Abortion in a journal called Philosophy and Public Affairs in 1971, arguing that the way for proponents of abortion rights to proceed is to concede that the fetus is in som esense a person, but that abortion is a justified end of a life sort of how our society views that as justified in other circumstances. It’s a long term debate, but people thinking about it and reasoning about it, and continuing to talk to the next generation about it, might just be part of the way to go. People who have a voice and people who can be heard might just be a big part of that.

It seems to make any progress on this, we have to keep our eyes on all of the points I’ve mentioned.

I think the problem that the GOP has with this idea isn’t so much about promotion of sexual activity—but, rather, it has a lot to do with the woman still being able to say “no” to bearing children

I really don’t think that’s true. A lot of these people are just really concerned that the woman isn’t going to practice sexual morality to the degree they’d like them to unless abortion is restricted. Everyone’s entitled to their own sexual morality, but trying to enforce yours on someone else by trying to control whether they can have an aboriton or not is going way too far.

This is an instance where I believe the anecdotes- I think a lot of people who have talked to these people would back me up. It’s just something we have to consider and take into account.

Democrats and moderates have an opportunity to change the debate on abortion and Roe v. Wade by forcing the right to specify the intended criminal consequences…including the length of prison terms they propose for both the doctor performing an “illegal” abortion and the woman receiving an “illegal” abortion.

As long as the debate remains an abstract dialogue founded upon values and religious principles, the right will continue to garner support from voters that would, given a dose of reality, likely rethink their position on the criminalization of abortion.

Changing the debate would also force Republicans, who have enjoyed the cover of rhetoric, to take a position they may ultimately find unacceptable and more importantly, politically damaging and dangerous.

If nothing else, the reframing would force an honest debate about contraception and the fallacy of simply promoting abstinence only solutions. When confronted with the possibilities of an unwanted pregnancy and no viable alternatives, the moderate middle of America will likely fall on the side of better education and expanded availability of preventative methods…not a bad outcome from numerous perspectives. Obviously, there are people on the extreme right who will object to this approach…but they will find themselves isolated in their extremity.

I’ve always been convinced that the party that can strike the right tone with reasonable Americans in the middle will win elections. While many politicians garner criticism from vocal members on either extreme when moving towards the center, I’m inclined to think politicians ought to court the center first…and then pick off voters from the extremes.

The obstacles to this approach are the caucus and primary systems where participation is typically skewed to the extremes. At the same time, I think it goes a long way towards explaining the typically low voter turnout seen in this country. The middle becomes necessarily neglected until the general election and by that time they are disenchanted with the rhetoric from both sides.

read more observations here:

http://www.thoughttheater.com

Oh, one more thing- I think in discussing abortion, if a pro-choice thinker is going to concede that a fetus is in some sense a person, an additional point they might find valuable to to rely on is the possibility that a fetus’ interest in preserving its life might be in some ways fundamentally different (i.e., infinitely less) that a grown person’s.

This debate has to keep going on in academia and out among the rest of society, and answers and ways of understanding it that result will trickle down. And the Dems have to just do the things they do well, and try to get elected and try to fight for people’s rights.

I think we can be, and can afford to be, a big-tent party on this issue if we get back to the phrase we used to use a lot 10-20 years ago:

Safe, Legal and Rare.

There are a lot of common-sense positions that flow from this that I think the general public (as opposed to the hardcore politicos on either side) intuitively gravitate to.

For one example, treating this as a privacy issue: nearly everyone trusts their own doctor more than they trust politicians. So these highly personal, ultimately medical decisions should be between a woman and her doctor, not made by politicians who have never met you – why, that’d be like Senator Frist diagnosing Terri Schiavo!

For another, this lets us just pound the Rethugs. “They claim to oppose abortion, but do nothing to stop the causes — they don’t wan’t effective pregnancy prevention taught to girls, they don’t want to promote the use of condoms, they don’t want to ensure that a young woman can afford to have a doctor to discuss these issues with, and they don’t want to fund post-natal medical or child-care so a woman believes raising a child is something she can manage. The Republican approach wont get rid of abortions – it will reserve them to the rich, or cause them to be brutal, illegal abortions. Our plan will actually result in fewer abortions than theirs will, while respecting women, respecting our medical professionals, and respecting your privacy.”

And yes, we may have to give a little on things like parental notification (note I did not say parental consent) — the public intuitively gets the R side of that issue. Every parent would want to know, and most parents can’t understand why they would have to be notified for every other medical procedure on their minor daughter except this one. Moreover this just makes health sense: if the young woman has post-procedure complications, it is safer if her parents know what is going on.

This approach, I think, not only makes room for both a Senator Boxer and a soon-to-be Senator Casey, it also encompasses an overwhelming majority of the American public.

Explain it in terms of class. Class is Republican Kryptonite.

Dems had better run quick and make it completely clear why the Democratic position on each and every issue is the position that supports the common man and woman. Otherwise, the Dems may keep finding themselves choking on exhaust more than they’d like to. That the Republicans have been turning that around on us is something that should have gotten everyone’s tail moving- that should have got everybody talking back loud, going out into our communities, meeting new people & refeshing our ties at our churches, local civic organizations and neighborhoods ASAP.

The “abortion issue” is first and foremost one of political tactics and not a moral one. I am not saying that abortion does not raise important moral questions. It does. I am saying the public debate on abortion is not about morals. It is about the Republican embrace of a wedge issue. Were we to wake up tomorrow to news that the Republicans no longer were anti-abortion, aside from religious leaders, there would be little ground swell for outlawing abortion. The question is what tactics should Democrats use to neutralize the Republicans effort to divide the populous while maintaining a woman’s right to choose.
I do not think reasoned moral arguments will work as a political tactic. In my experience, I have found that most people, including very educated ones, do not have a moral code which follows in a well reasoned way from a set of principles. Rather most of us come to our morals via cultural norms, either secular or religious. Even for the most thoughtful amongst us, the only time that significant thought is given to a moral issue is when one is actually confronted with a difficult choice based on our moral principles. For the rest, moral decisions are typically made by child like adherence to their default moral code. For this reason abstract moral arguments in favor of abortion rights will fall on deaf ears.

I am not arguing that our approach to the abortion issue should be amoral. Rather I am arguing that the Republican approach which we must counter is essentially amoral and appeals to moral arguments are doomed because of the simplistic way in which most people arrive at their moral code.

The country club Republicans that actually run the party have been able to use abortion as a stalking horse for stacking the federal judiciary with corporatists and authoritarians. I say call the Republicans bluff. Encourage anti-abortion Democrats to push for an amendment to the Constitution to take away the right to abortion which the Supreme Court found resides there. I don’t think you’ll find too many “pro-life” Republicans, other than Santorum, Brownback, and Coburn, rushing to sign on to that. It is a risky thing to do, but something has to be done to put this bogus issue to rest.

PS. I found a interesting site concerning public opinion polls on abortion. The link is http://www.religioustolerance.org/abo_poll.htm#menu

I agree we need to resurrect the phrase “safe, legal, and rare.” After Clinton left office, there haven’t been many people, particularly Democrats, saying that.

Offering alternatives to abortion — access to contraceptives and reality-based sex ed — can be a lot more palatable to moderates and some religious voters. And if Democrats can craft a message without wrongly dumping support for abortion rights, the party can hold on to pro-choice voters. Most people favor abortion rights but dislike the procedure itself. I think that’s true of the hardcore pro-choice supporters as well.

But like so many other policy debates, Democrats must work actively get their message out and show there is a clear difference between the two parties. They must engage Republicans and the religious loonies head on. And they shouldn’t be afraid to point out the huge disparity in Republican attitudes towards woman and sex and men and sex. No one is suggesting a ban on condoms and Viagra, are they?

The choice debate should boil down to this: Democrats trust women to make their own decisions regarding their bodies and their lives. Americans should have access to accurate scientific information, contraceptives, and safe abortion facilities if they so choose.

Republicans don’t trust women to make choices for themselves. Republicans think the only roles for women are wife and mother. So they’ll restrict information to all but the most inaccurate and polticially motivated, restrict access to contraceptives and ban abortion except in all but the most extreme cases (and maybe not even then). Republicans think abstinence and a heaping dose of Catholic guilt is the right prescription for teenagers and unmarried women.

It’s simplistic. But I think that’s what the abortion debate should boil down to.

Forgive me for being so stupid but how can any party claim to have any kind of big tent policy if they have a litmus test for anything?

Should we kick the Senate leader our of the party?
Should we kick Senator Ben Nelson out?
Should we kick Cynthia McKinney out?

I think we, the Democrats, would have a far better chance at contol if we kept the moderate center and gave up on the extreme left.

I think the Republicans have an advantage if the rich right wing capitalist side and the middle and lower class religious right side stay in the Republican party. I think the people who should vote for Democrats will keep voting Republican if they think that Democrats have a litmus test.

Here’s the problem with this political chess game… you can’t get too attached to a single piece, but need to look at the whole board, with a plan to orchestrate your movements to anticipate your opponent …with a single purpose.. to win.

An example of what the Dems are up against…
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Bolton’s five point strategy to save the White House (from Raw Story)

1) “Deploy guns and badges” — to play to the conservative base on illegal immigration, using the cloak of Homeland Security.

2) Make Wall Street happy through tax cuts.

3) Brag more (“highlight the glimmer of success in Iraq”).

4) Reclaim security by playing tough with Iran (On Iran, “Democrats will lose”).

5) Court the press (pffer Tony Snow of Fox News the job of White House press secretary)
*********
The repubs are loading up their noise machine with viseral images of greed and fear… not actual substance or solutions..intent only on political gain.

Dems who lock into integrity and substance in seeking an actual solution to single complex issue without awareness of the entire chess board will forfit the game.

The retreating onto an oblivious moral and intellectual high ground leaves the swamps defenseless for the rampage of media satuation by swiftboats… leaving the question. How do we fight the slimers without becoming slimed in the process? How do we politically manage the divisive abortion wedge offensive without becoming the very Rove-like political operatives we despise?

Two points on Bob Casey as a pro-choice woman. He and his father are populist Democrat’s who are great on the pocketbook issues. He will be so much better than Santorum that it is not even a question of voting for the lesser evil.

Second, I so agree with the comment on Supreme Court politics. Overturning Roe will be a disaster for Republicans. I don’t want that to happen but the political fallout might make many red states blue.

The right to choose what is best for you is the most important principles for a progressive person. The “general public” believes that the Republicans are about “small government” and not meddling in personal business and issues. But the truth couldn’t be more wrong. Think Terri Schiavo. Think abortion. Think sodomy laws and cohabitation laws.

If you explain to many people that you want to promote proper sex education, promote condoms (safer-sex), birth control, and let people make informed personal choices many people will support your position.

Making abortion safe, legal and rare is a perfect way to put it. That’s the reason I believe in the Prevention First Act. The act is SO important to changing the debate about abortion. We can limit the number of abortions while still let women who are not ready for children to terminate the pregnancy without having to break the law or risk serious medical complications.

The people who say that abortion is used as birth control need to understand what kind of decision these women are making about that fetus.

And promoting safer sex is not only about limiting the number of abortions. There are considerations like HIV and other STDs that can be prevented with condoms and sex education. Abstinence might work for some people, but the vast majority it will not. There’s no doubt in my mind about that. We live a culture which talks openly about sex and not expect people with sexual needs not to do anything is crazy talk. If you ask people to lock their sexual desires in the closet, you end up with people doing really crazy stuff and committing more risky behavior.

I’m very happy with the fact that Democrats are freeing themselves from down-the-line special-interest fealty. While I am pro-choice, it’s a position I hold with some reservations and misgivings… not unlike the large majority of opinion in this country.

I can’t abide Hillary Clinton, but I think she got it exactly right in characterizing abortion as a necessary but often tragic choice. Getting past the lurid take of the extreme anti-choice right, and the tone-deaf triumphalism of the extreme pro-choice left, allows us to focus on what we can fix: one, reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies through the Prevention First Act and other measures, and two, working toward a society in which every child–planned or accidental–is supported with loving parents/guardians and sufficient resources to have a decent shot at a decent life.

A more nuanced and thoughtful Democratic position on reproductive issues adds the second benefit of exposing Republicans’ hypocrisies and incoherence on the question. How can they claim to be “pro-life” if their focus is on mandatory birth rather than reducing unwanted pregnancies? The core issue is that Republicans–or rather, those of the Dobson stripe–want to control your (as they think of them) nasty bits. The real “choice” they want to foreclose is the one you make in terms of who you have sex with, and when you do so.

Then there’s the question of “pro-birth” vs. “pro-life.” Bob Casey, like his father before him, believed that his commitment to “the unborn” didn’t end when they were breathing on their own. The Caseys stand for great natal care, social and economic supports for unready mothers, and other measures that would help unplanned babies make it in the world.

Obviously, this is quite a difference from Sick Rick Santorum, whose commitment (in the classic phrase of Barney Frank) begins at conception and ends at birth. That’s the other point Democrats need to hammer on if we’re really going to turn this debate around.

Another vote for safe, legal and rare.

Accepting choice challenged Dems over time may become more of a necessity as science and medicine get even better at moving up the viablility date for fetuses, (feti?), and providing ever more detailed information regarding what’s going on in the late stages of pregnancy. My girlfriend is a pediatric nurse at a busy children’s hospital and I am fascinated by her stories of what is being done to save and sustain life at very, very early stages of infancy.

I am very pro choice but the lines between kid and sort of a kid and not really a kid are pretty fuzzy and it’s going to become fuzzier still.

It’s all about prevention. If candidates can back up their anti-choice, (sorry Drainpipe, your prefered label doesn’t work for me), proclivities with real, badass commitment on the other end to rock solid sex ed and real, unequivocal commitment to running the FDA as a non-partisan, science based dept. rather than an ideology mill and removing barriers to the acquisition of contraceptives by women of all ages, then we can talk.

If the candidate pays lip service to prevention while doing little or nothing to facilitate it, then I see no alternative to keeping the door open to abortion even into the period when it’s really heartbreaking to contemplate what’s taking place.

Activists need to not get so tied up in the abortion issue that they sacrifice crucial, temporal advantages for the chance to make a point on a single, particular issue. That’s certainly clear enough.

But if we’re talking about how abortion is going to get resolved, and how it’s going to stop being a thorn in our side, the answer is that that’s a long-term campaign.

Intellectuals and philosophers are incredibly important, much more important than most people realize. That’s why the Republicans fund think-tanks and policy journals.

Any particular liberal reforms we enjoy today, that together make our society very different from America 100 or 300 years ago, and from the rest of Western civilization even further back, can be traced back to writings in some heady philosopher’s works. You can actually go to a library and find the seed of each idea that left the barbarisms of the Middla Ages behind in the works of some particular philosopher or political theorist.

These ideas trickle down from these thinkers, and are considered and adopted by the people only after the originators have spread them to their circle of friends, the intelligentsia, to the top tier (class-wise and expertise-wise) of professionals, the middle tier, and so on. What you end up with is people discussing those ideas even in their county college classes, church groups, local newspaper editorial pages, and homes and workplaces. This is why the whole background of how a modern person sees the world and other people around them is completely different from, say, how a European peasant in the 1600s or a Native American in the 1700s saw the world, and saw themselves and the rest of humankind.

That’s why it’s so important for people to not be intellectually lazy, and to take an interest in those issues. If you’re capable of it, engage on that field. Talk to people about what you learn. After all, you’ll find that a lot of Republican activists that we call “wingnuts” have read up a lot on, and know quite a bit about, the arguments in favor of their positions on the issues that excite them– Creationism and abortion. People do appeal to reason in trying to understand what’s important to them. Being able to explain things in terms of reason is always important, and it’s especially important as the world changes.

You can yak all you want about “safe legal and rare” but the reality is that the anti-choice people are gunning for Roe, and have been for decades. If we don’t elect pro-choice legislators, it will be “unsafe, illegal, and – guess what? – still not rare.”

That is reality folks.

And how do you think Roe v Wade is going to be overturned? That’s right – through the Supreme Court.

Casey came out publicly supporting Roberts, and said he would have voted yes for Alito as well. (oh, and how do you think that speaks to Casey’s view on executive powers? That’s comforting, isn’t it?) Clearly, with Bob Casey in office, “safe legal and rare” ain’t gonna happen. If it does, it will only be becuase we have enough real democrats out there who are interested in protecting the woman’s right to make this decision. Casey would be happy to hand that very perosnal decision over to the government.

It is OUTRAGEOUS that the democratic party would put their backing behind this guy. He’s not only anti-choice, he’s anti-stem cell research, he’s pro-war, he supports the federal marriage Amendment — the list goes on and on.

And it is a sad irony that while so much effort is put behind dumping Lieberman, somehow we’re supposed to just hold our noses and vote for this republican-in-democrat’s clothing.

Santorum is so low in the polls that my dog could probably beat him — it’s insulting that we should be expected to support a candidate like Casey.

My vote in May goes to Pennacchio, though I would support Sandals if he won the nomination. I WILL NOT VOTE FOR CASEY IN NOVEMBER.

These are hard questions to be diplomatic about, so maybe I’ll try to avoid discussing most of what I want to jump up and down about.

But as to CB’s last question–is replacing one anti-choice senator with another any kind of pro-choice victory?–I think it’s instructive to compare Reid with (what we know so far about) Casey.

First, take Reid. He calls himself personally opposed to abortion. Okay. He can still play a role in the senate for the Dems, and a big role at that, because he’s willing to fight against the Republicans’ radical anti-choice legislative agenda. He is willing to fight to make abortion safe and legal, and what’s just as important to him, rare as well. Pro-choicers can work with that kind of senator, so great.

Now, take Casey–or at least what we know about him so far. He’s personally opposed to abortion. Does that matter? No, Reid is personally opposed to abortion too. The problem is that Casey has signaled his willingness to accept, and for all we know, actively to pursue, a radical anti-choice legislative agenda. What else are we supposed to read out of the tea leaves of his endoresement of Alito for the SCOTUS? He didn’t have speak out in favor of the fillibuster effort to be on the right side of that issue. He didn’t have to say *anything*. And yet, he decided to endorse Alito publicallly. He decided to endorse for a seat on the SCOTUS a guy who, despite the kabuki of the confirmation process, has a clear interest in criminalizing abortion. In other words, Casey might want to make abortion rare, but he’s clearly not interested in keeping it safe or legal.

So Casey might be great for PA on pocketbook issues. But I see no reason to think that replacing Santorum with him is going to be in any sense a vistory for pro-choice types. I live in PA, and I wanted to get behind him. But that Alito thing made it impossible for me.

The right to chose abortion is certainly never going to be offered by Republicans. It ought to be offered by the Democratic Party. But it ought not to become the litmus test many have treated it as over the last few decades. There are many other bread-and-butter, war-and-peace, racial-and-ethnic issues of far more importance to the future of all working people in this country.

We can quibble over it. I personally don’t think it should be a federal issue; it’s certainly not my issue (I’m too old, have no offspring, and am male); I don’t see any problem with notification (provided, e.g., incest isn’t involved) or limits on “late term” abortions (again, with all due medical caveats). But these are not the things which ought to be sapping the energy of the Democratic Party. As I said, there are many, many much more important issues, issues which affect us all and which the Repulbicans are on the wrong side of.

“If you believe a fertilized egg is a full-fledged human being with all the rights therein, abortion is murder.”

Not necessarily. There are humans all over this world who are dying right now because they don’t have the food, medical supplies, sanitation, housing that they require. I have the capacity to give that to some of them, but that doesn’t mean that I’m a murderer because I don’t.

If the intent of the abortion is to kill something, then it makes you a murderer. If the intent is to remove something from your body that you don’t want growing there — that’s something different.

The state may eventually decide that life of humans is paramount. (In which case, not only will we end the death penalty, but we will end war.) If so, it might require a person to remove a fetus in a facility which could take over providing life support to it.

The fact that the growing human came out of your body, from your cells, doesn’t give you ownership of it. Just as you don’t own your children. There is no right to kill it, only to remove it.

My logical mind just can’t go along with some story that a fetus is something entirely different from a human. If I could go along with that, perhaps I could believe that children are something entirely different from adults, and that makes it okay to treat them different (badly).

And maybe I could believe in an afterlife, a god, and the Easter Bunny.

Just because it would be more convenient for me to consider fetuses as an entirely different creature doesn’t make it so.

Life isn’t sacred. We eat animals. We squash bugs. Every second, there are people across the world doing unspeakable things to other people. Many of them in the name of their government.

Why do many people who are pro-choice feel some sense of distaste toward people having multiple abortions?

If you feel some sense of differentiation between those who take the pill and those who abort, you can ignore it, or you can examine it.

Your choice.

i speak not just as a physician but as an Obstetrician & Gynecologist

the answer is right in front of both political parties but they refuse to take the obvious “treatment”

if a politician ran on the platform of adequate contraception for all (side note – people wanna get lied to when they preach “abstinence only”) then one never has to face to abortion dilemma dumb debate

Steve,
It seems to me that your second sentence is the whole key. There ISN’T room for compromise, and this should be of huge benefit to Democrats. The cornerstone to the position of the strident anti-choicers is that abortion of a fetus is murder, but for thirty years they’ve never been required to state their position on the appropriate punishment for either the doctor or the woman. A generalized opposition to abortion is an easy one for a person to assume; signing off on murder investigations after miscarriages and the death penalty for doctors and desperate young women is another. Public support would gel behind criminal sentences that reflect an equation of a woman who aborts at six weeks and a man who kills a teenager, and yet we’ve allowed craven politicians to avoid this hook, not even calling out the hypocrisy of the incest and rape exceptions, which are an official component of the Republican platform. Would they similary allow exceptions for the murder of a thirty-year old who was conceived in the rape of her mother by anyone, whether family or not? Of course not. And yet their agonized position requires this, and Democrats have given them a pass on it.

All the talk about “prevention” is nice, but it will never penetrate far enough into the mindset of Joe or Josephine Sixpack to affect voting patterns, as rational and sensible as it is. The criminalization matter will rebound against the right, I believe, in much the same way that the country rebelled against the conservative moralizing in the Terry Schiavo affair. Their honesty there and in the legislation in South Dakota laid bare to the country just how radical and fringe their desires are, and Democrats should focus on pushing the entire issue onto that terrain.

Sorry–I obviously meant “Public support would NEVER gel behind criminal sentences that reflect an equation of a woman who aborts at six weeks and a man who kills a teenager…”

I agree with ddoublesstandard on the contraception issue. This could be the Dems ace-in-the-hole. There is no doubt that vast majorities of Americans are in favor of contraception (hypothetically and actually and despite what their church may tell them). We have to make the case that what is at stake is not abortion at all, it is access to contraception. Hypothetically, every mom wants her teenage daughter to be celibate (preferably until age 30 or so). Practically, every mom wants her daughter to understand and use effective contraception (whether she wants to know about it or not).
The agenda here is much more radical than people realize. We need to change the subject to contraception where everyone (who is living in the 21st century) can agree. Make them look marginal and radical (because they are).
Intelligent people can disagree about abortion (if you don’t like it, don’t have one). Can the same be said about contraception?

I agree with Ed. I believe abortion is indeed sapping the energry out of the Dems. As a person who has never cosidered abortion as an option for me or anyone I love, I still believe in choice. For me it is a 4th ammendment issue, an expectation of privacy and security. How dare anyone consider criminalizing abortion, consentual sex between adults, or medical marijuana? These people are very good at targeting certain groups who don’t have the clout to fight back. The Dems should not even address abortion, they should address the mentality behind such an idea as undoing Roe vs Wade. Further the Dems shouldn’t back someone who thinks that way no matter what badge he or she is wearing.

I do believe that most people are a lot like me, they believe abortion is a personal choice, between a patient and her doctor. A lot of us would never choose abortion but a lot of us would. I think it is a private matter and should never be subject to government supervision. Having said all of that, I don’t think abortion is a matter to revisit every time there is an election. Come on people we won this battle in 1972, isn’t it time to look at some other issues? There are many serious problems to think about and so many battles that still need fighting.

The recent apointments to the Supreme Court frighten me not because of Roe but because of the potential for an “activist court” to take away our constitutionally guaranteed rights to be secure in our homes and in our papers, and all that is guaranteed by the 4th ammendment. These folks in power scare me a lot, but Roe is the least of my worries. We may keep Roe, but what about tapping our phones and internet communications? We have some far more serious issues than some future fear that Roe might be overturned.

I have to admit that abortion is a litmus test issue for me. Although I have never been confronted with circumstances requiring me to make that choice, I always wanted it available to me. In my mind, the right to choose to have an abortion is a bedrock principle of a woman’s autonomy. It is part of her ability to control her own destiny. So, if Harry Reid began to make it clear that he was going to work to take away a woman’s right to an abortion, I would support throwing Harry out. If I lived in PA, and I concluded that Bob Casey was likely to work to take away a woman’s right to choose, I would not support him. Perhaps I am an extremist, but I believe their are some issues that are worthy of being “litmus” tests. For me, abortion is one such issue. Sorry for all of you who feel drained by the issue. I am comfortable financially, perhaps I should feel drained by the debate over poverty? I’m not gay, so perhaps I should become fatigued over the argument that gays should be allowed the dignity of marriage? I could considerably lighten my moral load if only worried about the issues that effect “all” of us. I’ll just have to take a few moments now to think about what those are.

Finally, although I agree that contraception and education are important, they do not solve every abortion problem (rape, incest, medical necessity). The only way we would never face the “abortion dilemma dumb debate” would be if men suddenly could become pregnant. Believe me, if carrying and bearing an unwanted children was the lot of men in life, there would be no dilemma and no debate.

” Believe me, if carrying and bearing an unwanted children was the lot of men in life, there would be no dilemma and no debate.”

Amen!! Thank you, TuiMel. And I’m a guy.

TuiMel,

I said I didn’t think right to abortion should be a litmus test item. By that I meant that if people were opposed to it, they were still welcome in my version of the Democratic Party (i.e., I could think of many, much larger issues, etc.). But I agree with you: I don’t believe the Party should ever be “big enough” to welcome those who would close off choice.

If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament. ~ Florynce R. Kennedy, 1973

If we are to be a big tent party that is capable of agreeing to disagree and remain unified (wishful thinking, yeah) then we need to accept pro-lifers. Safe, legal, and rare is an excellent policy and the “litmus test” should be the safe part rather than the legal part.

We should not accept Democrats who, like many right-wing Republicans, wish to banish family-planning measures such as condoms, contraceptives, and sexual education. Banning these not only will result in an incredible increase of unwanted pregnancies and unsafe abortions. We should not have to agree to disagree on that point but say that you must accept that abortions remain safe and rare. That shouldn’t be hard since I can’t think of anyone who honestly likes the idea of a grisly abortion holocaust.

i dont mean to downplay the abortion issue at all, nor sound flippant, but for me there is one litmus test right now, on which i am a single-issue voter:

how would the candidate vote on the resolution to organize the chamber?

a simple reason that trumps all other issues: lets say Casey gets elected and that is the difference that gives Dems control of the Senate (i.e. he votes for Democratic leadership – the initial vote on control of the chamber that formalizes a majority’s status.) The Dems name committee chairs, the Dems have a majority on each committee – does anyone really think significant abortion restrictions even make it out of committee and to the floor? At that point, what Casey thinks about abortion is, frankly, irrelevant — there is never a vote where he can express it.

which is to say, now matter how distasteful any individual Dem’s views on any one issue may be, we are all better off on ALL issues if the Dems have control of one or both chambers.

does anyone really think significant abortion restrictions even make it out of committee and to the floor?

Ummm yes. Several restrictions have been proposed right here in the comments: parental notification, late term abortion, changing the subject from the availablity of legal abortion to the availability of contraception (and by that I suspect many would be just as happy to make abortion illegal if we just expand availability of contraception — the idea being, I guess, that as long as the woman had legal access to contraception, “well, you had your chance, now take the consequences, honey”), not to mention the “reasonable exceptions” crowd who’d be fine with making abortion illegal as long as it has rape, incest and health allowances (“you can have an abortion as long as WE think your reason is acceptable, and we’ll decide what that is, thank you very much”).

I think all of you who would like to make this issue just go away because you’re tired of hearing about it miss the point. There really IS no compromise, any more than there should be compromise about Jim Crow laws. Either women have autonomy and sovereignty over their bodies, or the state does. And that is far more fundamental than phone tapping, control over committees, or any “pocketbook issues”.

I am pro-choice but understand the pro-life arguments (well, the arguments of those who are pro-life AND who also strongly support full sex ed, contraceptive use, increased funding for adoption programs and for programs to help those who decide instead to keep a child). But I do not lean pro-choice due to a disbelief that life begins at conception–to me, that fact is somewhat irrelevant.

In a nutshell, my take is that there are two competing interests here–the woman’s interests and the fertilized egg/fetus/child’s interests. As with darn near everything today, we must balance these competing interests. For some part of the 9 month period between conception and birth, the woman’s rights must be superior to the other’s rights. And for some part of this 9 month period the egg/fetus/child’s rights must be superior. The trick is finding the right point where the superior rights of the woman give way. The Roe court made an attempt at finding this point–I think generally viability. However, based upon current science and the actual realities of when most women seek abortions (outside of the significant health risk/death of the mother realm) it may make more sense to move this point up in gesstation to something well before viability, like 16 weeks into a pregnancy.

The one small fallacy that I see in most pro-life arguments is that they look at a fertilized egg as constituting life–which it may or may not be–and that this fact overrides all other issues surrounding pregnancy. But the problem with this view is that it fails to recognize the unique and shared relationship between the fertilized egg and the woman. Yes, if the fertilized egg could survive and grow on its own, then maybe it should be entitled to superior rights from the get go. But that is not the case. It cannot survive outside of the womb, as opposed to the mother, who is in fact surviving quite well. This unique and shared relationship then is what requires me to balance the competing rights of each. And to me, a living breathing woman should have more and superior rights to an egg/fetus/child in the early stages of pregnancy, and in the intitial stages, she should have the ability to decide what is to be done with her own body–up to a certain point. And almost all women will make their decisions in a timely manner.

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