I've worked in several DV shelters and one tactic that batterers use to control their wives is continual forced pregnancy. I've known women who have gone through late term abortions while either in shelter or after they had left, but under Obama's definition this would not qualify as severe mental distress, which anyone with half a brain should know that it most definitely is.

Go Hillary or Go Green!

Thanks for explaining Doe v. Bolton, but at the end you link to Shakespeares Sister... When in fact, Corrente was out front on the "periodically" story, at least in the blogosphere. Note that the first link in Shakes's post goes right here...

[x] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

A bit of laziness on my part because I was already at Shakesville for McEwan's other piece. But, you're right, it was discussed here first.

I admit it never occurs to me that very many people will actually click and read my posts. But if they do, it would make me very happy if that leads to other Corrente posts. I had a link to the WORM post and then realized it's now a defined term. Heh.

This is why down ballot races are SO important. We need an army of prochoice women in the Senate, House, State Houses, state legislatures, county councils, where ever we can recruit candidates to be sure that the laws remain humane.

Here's my post about it.

Even though I'm still waiting for credit from this place for my Guardian article with Melissa. Ahem.

Repeated from here.

TruthPartisan: here I am looking for a (preferably July 2008) RESTATEMENT OF SUPPORT for his 2007 position.
I’d like a lot of things too; shall I make you a list? There was a semi-half-assed non-denial denial from Obama and his staff on July 5, 2008 that satisfied some

Reporter: You said that mental distress shouldn't be a reason for late-term abortion?

Obama: "My only point is this -- historically I have been a strong believer in a women's right to choose with her doctor, her pastor and her family. And it is ..I have consistently been saying that you have to have a health exception on many significant restrictions or bans on abortions including late-term abortions.

In the past there has been some fear on the part of people who, not only people who are anti-abortion, but people who may be in the middle, that that means that if a woman just doesn't feel good then that is an exception. That's never been the case.

I don't think that is how it has been interpreted. My only point is that in an area like partial-birth abortion having a mental, having a health exception can be defined rigorously. It can be defined through physical health, It can be defined by serious clinical mental-health diseases. It is not just a matter of feeling blue. I don't think that's how pro-choice folks have interpreted it. I don't think that's how the courts have interpreted it and I think that's important to emphasize and understand."

According to Linda Douglass, the Obama campaign's senior spokesperson, the senator from Illinois was making a distinction in the magazine interview between medically diagnosed mental illness and the kind of mental distress that an unwanted pregnancy causes many a pregnant mother.

"Mental distress is not an illness." Douglass said. "He absolutely believes and has always said there has to be a health exception for serious physical and mental illness."

That makes sense and conforms to the senator's co-sponsorship of the Freedom of Choice Act legislation which, among other things, would codify a mental-health exception to late-term abortion prohibitions.

The problem for the senator was when he appeared to be making a clear demarcation between physical and mental health in his magazine interview by saying:

Now, I don't think that "mental distress" qualifies as the health of the mother. I think it has to be a serious physical issue that arises in pregnancy, where there are real, significant problems to the mother carrying that child to term...

He clearly needed to add one more thought to that statement. He did it today.

but not others.

Not actually interested in agreement or persuasion here. What I do intend is to not let these things go unchallenged. There is plenty for progressives to be unhappy about with Obama, but that does not lessen the fact that he is not as bad as John McCain by a long shot. Misrepresenting his positions where he is acceptable harms progressive goals - not to mention being unfair.

Anyone who takes a small sop like this, or more properly an intended soporific thrown out to the single-issue evangelical fundies in the hopes that they’ll decide that there’s not enough difference between Obama and McCain to bother voting, and tries to turn it into an anti-abortion statement in the face of Obama's many years of pro-right-to-choose policy is either not thinking things through sufficiently or just making up an excuse to bash Obama.

To repeat one last time, there is no equivalence between “mental distress” and “mental health” under any convolution I can fathom. I started out asking for definitions upthread and people didn’t want to engage, because the vocabulary is so imprecise. Hipparchia offered a definition of birth as baby out of the body and cord cut, but even that doesn’t work; is the baby not “born” until the cord is cut, even though the placenta would eventually separate and the child would be disconnected anyway? The question of "viable" is undefined, both in terms of gestational age – mortality at 20 weeks is IIRC still more than 90%, and even at 24 weeks it is greater than 50% - and length of post-delivery survival, so what does that word mean? If the fetus would likely survive birth but die in a few minutes or hours or days with an untreatable condition, at what point is it “viable”?

As for “mental distress,” what does that mean by itself? Nothing, is what. Zuzu claims that mental health alone is never an issue with third trimester abortions, so fine; meaningless then. If the argument is that a pregnant woman has the right to an abortion at any stage even up to the due date, or to demand induction of premature labor at any point regardless of the well-being of the fetus, that will be a tough argument for which to find broad support in this country. Zuzu assures us that these never happen anyway; why then make a fuss?

Does “mental distress” = “dangerous mental health issue”? Not as far as I can see. We all experience mental distress; it is a part of life. In distinction however, if for instance a fetus is deformed or diseased such that it is unlikely to survive for long and the woman feels stressed about carrying it to term that is certainly a form of stress that if unrelieved would have serious adverse effects on the mother’s health. Unrelieved stress, especially when the victim feels powerless to gain any relief, is well-documented as a cause of both serious physical problems including hypertension and insomnia and critical mental health issues including depression potentially leading to suicide. That kind of stress clearly falls within the provision of Doe and so would not be affected by Obama’s recently expressed position.

The Fundies understood exactly what Obama was saying and why, and that it is not a meaningful alteration of his pro-choice political positions. From LifeNews, written before Obama issued a clarification [emphasis added]:

by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
July 4, 2008
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Pro-abortion presidential candidate Barack Obama is again weighing in on the abortion issue and says that the normal “mental distress” that accompanies a pregnancy is no reason for women to have late-term abortions.

-snip-

David O’Steen, the director of the National Right to Life Committee, told the Associated Press that Obama can’t be believed and that his actions don’t line up with his words.

He said Obama’s comments "are either quite disingenuous or they reflect that Obama does not know what he is talking about."

"You cannot believe that abortion should not be allowed for mental health reasons and support Roe v Wade," O'Steen said.

Exactly so; Obama supports Roe and Doe and therefore he supports a mental health provision for abortion. The Fundies weren’t fooled, go Google it up and read for yourself and read as many of them as you like, they are all saying it was either a pander or a deliberate attempt to mislead and they are loudly warning the “pro-life” crowd to not be fooled.

Yet the Left went ballistic. I cannot tell you how disheartening it is to see the Fundy crowd being more perceptive than progressives; it does help explain why we’re doing so badly at national politics, however.

"a woman's right to choose with her doctor, her pastor and her family"
http://blogs.abcnews.com/legalities/2008...

oh no. what in the world does the PASTOR have to do with the right to choose?? am i the only one who is SICKENED by this religious drivel?

this just pisses me off, i really wish he kept his god to himself.

in which you list reasonable and practicable alternatives that might be desirable and might be employed (doctor, pastor, family) and by failing to include others (government) you identify them as excluded and not needed or desirable. In no way is the suggestion that a woman might want to turn to others near and dear for support something that can be IMHO interpreted as being restrictive under Roe or Doe; I just don't see that, especially in the light of the many other statements that he has made showing his clear and unequivocal support for a woman's right to choose.

I'd as soon he weren't so churchy either, but - and here's a phrase we'll all be hearing a lot - he's not as bad as many others. I grew up in a strict religion, and I have a pretty good sense for when the dog-whistle is being employed. Obama uses xtian language but he does it openly, in context, and as far as I can register it without guile. I could be missing things, but I don't think so. Bush and his religion scares me; Obama and his just annoys.

I'm a lot more concerned with what he will and won't do than I am about the exact phrasing he uses to express his intention. Churchy is apparently what the American people want, R & D & I, so I'm afraid we are stuck with it for a good long time to come.

if i can just be oversimple, statements like the one he made are just more proof to me that men should basically shut up, when it comes to abortion. like it or no, he stuck his foot in his mouth on this one, and now it's all over the intertubes pissing off women who don't have the time to finetoothcomb and parse all of his words.

silence is golden here, guys.

First, you're wrong because your post indicates I'm misrepresenting Obama's position and does so by quoting the very statement that Obama gave that is quoted in my post. My post is not a dissection of Obama's original statement on mental distress, it's a discussion of his latest "clarification." You're usually better than this, my friend. If I didn't know better I'd think you hadn't read my post before responding. (I did use mental distress instead of health in my opening graph and I've changed it.)

Second, you're wrong because what Obama said was narrower than current law and his spokesman confirmed it, so it wasn't simply misspeaking. Women have never needed to show a "medically diagnosed mental illness" to get an abortion. Yet, that's what Obama said and his spokesman confirmed it. That is a narrower definition of health than currently exists in the law. I see nothing in your post that shows I'm wrong about that.

That Obama's position may not be narrow enough for the Fundies is irrelevant. Obama's position is narrower than the one currently in the law. He's had three bites of the apple at this - his initial statement, his clarification, and his spokesman's statement - and all three define mental health more narrowly than the law, which I clearly state in my post. Zuzu is being very kind - too kind, IMO - in presuming in her post that he just doesn't know how to talk about these things, but to believe that you have to believe that the campaign itself doesn't know what the current standard is since his spokesman confirmed his position.

As for the pastor and family consultation, while Obama didn't specifically say that's the legal standard, these kind of comments cannot be heard outside of the political context they're made in. As Zuzu pointed out in her Shakesville post, there have been attempts to force women to have to consult with their husbands. I refuse to believe it's a coincidence that Obama keeps dropping these buzzwords in panders to the religious right. As Obama has said words mean things, especially to certain audiences. Many folks overlooked the double-meanings of Bush's statements to evangelicals, taking him only at the face value of his words. I refuse to make that mistake.

I know that some folks are tired of reading essays on abortion, but I refuse to be silenced on this matter or shut up simply because John McCain is worse. I'm sick of Democrats who are willing to give up some of my rights to win elections or use right-wing talking points to frame a discussion of my rights. Such framing inherently weakens support for those rights by moving the discussion - and the range of acceptable options - further and further towards the right, leaving fewer Democrats to stand up for my autonomy.

Obama's language on abortion has always been wishy-washy. He has a decent voting record when he bothers to vote up or down, but that's a far cry from being a reliable advocate on this issue. From voting present to repeatedly using right-wing framing, he's done nothing to make me believe that he would fight or spend any political capital whatsoever defending reproductive rights. He'll get the benefit of the doubt from me on this issue when he does something to earn it.

the expense of our democratic party (at least that's what we're calling it today). Kind of a toldyousoism.

Shame on me.

I love this job!

on one issue or another?

He held 2 press conferences on Iraq, had to release another statement on FISA, ...

Mr. "words matter" is awful at expressing WORM means--by intention.

it's not that i believe anything you've said to be wrong. it's only that there are times when no matter what you say to someone, they will always take it the wrong way. thus, it pays to know when it's a good time, a productive time, to contribute, and when not.

*you* may say anything about abortion at any time and i'm not worried about the impact it will have on anything or anyone outside of the circle of doctors you frequent and the women in your life with whom you have sex, if any. but obama shows us when there are times that prove my point, and when savvy pols should know, "i need to change the subject" and deftly do so. he opened his mouth, and boom! yet another pillar of support for him is collapsing. so in truth i'm speaking about pols, more than men. but some men too, who, for all they shout their defenses of a woman's right to choose, don't really understand what is at the core of our anger.

lemme put it this way. i have opinions about castration, and circumcision. but unless i'm specifically invited to express them freely, i will always respond with, "it's up to the guy with the balls/cock, not me." i'm pretty sure after a while, the more i spoke of those matters, the more men i'd be pissing off, no matter what i was saying.

i relearned this lesson in some bitterness again today: sometimes, some people just can't hear what you're saying. no matter how or in what tone or with what language you address them. that's not your fault, nor my fault, but simple wisdom about human emotions and the limitations of our logical abilities.

deft (and usually rethug) pols have all sorts of ways to turn questions like the one obama got to their advantage, and at the same time, not really answer the question. too bad he's not skilled enough to do that yet.

can't we all agree on one thing here?

Women are always going to be pithed right the frack off that men open their pietraps about abortion.

Men are always going to be just as pithed right back that women consider themselves equal in sovereignty over their own bodies, souls, and selves -- and any man who wants to argue that God never meant that can, to quote a coach I had in high school, go take a flying leap at a rolling donut.

Unless and until enough women are enough annoyed that we all get off our pretty little keisters and PASS THE GODDAMN ERA ALREADY, none of this will change.

Roe V. Wade is only in danger in the fervid imaginations of the godbotherers.