McCain may be super conservative, but he’s generally to the left of much of his Party. His nomination signals a shift to the left, however slight.

At a time when the country is rallying against the GOP and their principles, Obama is giving credence to the already rejected ideas of the right. Obama signals a significant shift to the right of the Democrats. That will only embolden the right. An Obama win is a longer term loss for liberal causes.

and take your place under the bus. After all, there is no place else to go for you!

Now do we get to say “We told you so and you called us racists!”?

it ought to be common, safe, legal, affordable [it would be free under hr 676 if i have anything to say aboout it] and widely available.

it ought to be allowed as a legitimate form of primary birth control, particularly ec, but also surgical abortions. i’m not promoting it as such, and darn few women would choose it as their primary means of bc, but it ought to be available.

y’all aren’t going to let me under your bus, are ya?

You’re already there, with the rest of us sweeties, crawfish etouffe and all.

between abortion and infanticide. Where precisely would that be?

(Assuming, arguendo, that infanticide is a bad thing. Anyone disagrees, we can certainly discuss that as well.)

All opinions welcome.

birth seems like an obvious one. and since we seem to be heading closer and closer to forced pregnancy for all, i’m in favor of not criminalizing infanticide within a short time after birth, if the woman was unable to get an abortion.

there are more and more hospitals and fire stations and places, where a woman in that situation can ’abandon’ her baby without fear of repurcussions. vastly preferable to infanticide, and i’m glad it’s an available option, but i hate that it will be used as justification for denying women their full reproductive rights.

gurlz wif etouffe allowed

I’ve raised seven children; there were times when I might have been willing to extend coverage of the term “infant” well into the teens.

I do love an Obvious Bright Line:

Define “a short time” after birth for your legal infanticide window.

Describe the boundary of “unable” with regard to getting an abortion.

And while you’re at it, define “birth”. Head showing? Head out but not the body? Whole body out but umbilical cord and placenta still attached? If a viable delivered baby is protected by law, as we have it today in all industrialized countries (but perhaps not under Hipparchial Rule), should the same protection extend to a full term viable fetus that is not yet delivered - at, say, just to make it challenging, the stage of early labor but with the cervix less than 5cm dilated?

that explains a lot.

obvious bright lines, i thought you might like them. i make you a present of some:

birth: whole baby out into the world, umbilical cord snipped/tied off. after that, it’s no longer a parasite dependent on me. somebody else can shelter it and feed it at that point.

infanticide: well, my parents have always been fond of defining ’no longer an infant’ as ’no longer on parents’ insurance policy/ies’.

me, i have cats.

rule by intelligent horses beats rule by dumbasses, any day of the week.

you may like obvious bright lines, but hipparchy would allow for, nay, demand much grey area. consider the lipizzaner, who just looks white, but is considered a grey horse throughout its lifetime.

Those horses are bleached, I am certain. You can tell from the blue tinge on the really old ones.

It is early where you are, but very late here; I am off to knit up my ravelled sleave. Get well soon.

What was the problem with that stance, exactly?

aside from the obvious bone thrown to anti-choicers which is enough to piss me off, is that to The Chosen One, the state of someone’s mental health is not evaluated on par with physical health. This is the status quo throughout the U.S. The insured cannot get unlimited counseling and the newest drugs. Veterans have to navigate a byzantine system and then wait a lo-o-o-o-n-g time (months) for their turn. VA emails at the Temple, TX branch show administrators not assigning a diagnosis of PTSD in order to save money. The uninsured end up on the streets or homicidal or committing death by cop.

The candidate’s comment illustrates a change in position on late term abortions—continued pandering to the religious reich. As important, however, it reveals another blind spot when it comes to caring about real people. I knew that his position on healthcare was iffy at best, but this almost throw-away line of his proves it.

We’re going to need a fleet of buses.

Even mainstream corporate legal analysts are shocked. “Wow,” indeed.

Don’t worry, ladies: we’ll decide when you can and cannot exercise sovereignty over your very body. It’s an inalienable human right, you say? Well, the human race is not called mankind for nothing.

who popularized it, of course, so Obama feels he can’t use it—and he doesn’t believe it, i don’t think.

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/… —

And Obama will continue Abstinence sex ed — “…Obama backs two bills pertaining to preventing unintended pregnancies, according to Burton.

The Prevention First Act would increase funding for family planning and comprehensive sex education that teaches both abstinence and safe-sex methods. …”

also, his “faith-based funding” expansion will certainly go to fund more of those evil fake clinics that are all over the place — http://www.alternet.org/rights/35545/ — “Misleading ’crisis pregnancy centers’ are appearing across America, aiming to limit or even prevent women from exploring all of their legal health care options.”

wouldn’t strangle them at birth.

I didn’t make that up.

It’s an old saying.

It applies to baby bears, tigers, skunks, chickens, ducks, spider monkeys, sloths, lemurs, calves, horses, gnu, catfish — well, okay, maybe not catfish, as some mothers eat others’ babies — bass, frogs, blind salamanders, and rabbits just as completely as it does baby anthropoids (even homo sapiens).

And among some of the most remarkably unattractive newborns in the known universe are doubtless homo sapiens. They come out of the birth canal with squished heads and a really funky color, not to mention the slime.

Now, bringiton, if you wanted to extend the definition of allowable infanticide to snotty adolescents, you’d be onto something, I bet.

We can admit that we’re killers … but we’re not going to kill today. That’s all it takes! Knowing that we’re not going to kill today! ~ Captain James T. Kirk, Stardate 3193.0

“… some questions for the Obama campaign: Does Obama still support the Freedom of Choice Act? Would he appoint justices like Ginsburg — or like Thomas, Scalia, etc.? Would he direct his Solicitor General to file a brief supporting state abortion bans that did not include a mental health exception? …”

Christian Conservatives Uniting Behind McCain

they never learn—pandering to these people does not help you.

He’s really a religious misogynist right-winger. He was pandering to the creative class during the primary and they got bamboozled by the shiny hopey-changey rhetoric.

As usual, with skeptics versus cons, we got called all sorts of names for pointing out the obvious.

[Hi, Sarah]

Not the only thing going on, but a major role for certain, is the maternal blood level of a parathyroid hormone called oxytocin. (Oxytocin was first commercialized under the tradename Pitocin and is fondly known as “Pit” by labor and delivery staff and exhausted mothers-to-be who are grateful for the effect of IV administration in moving along otherwise dreadfully slow labor.)

Among other interesting effects, it is one of the principle drivers that let us see as “cute” these creatures who objectively resemble nothing else so much as a shriveled up version of Winston Churchill in his dotage. Men do not experience the same elevated oxytocin levels as women are subjected to during pregnancy, so we are required to muster our own self-generated ethical and moral response and responsibility rather than rely on the reflexive, brain-addled, chemical stupor in which women take so much pride.

For this superhuman effort we get no credit, but if we let slip one moment’s honesty about the subjective nature of baby “cuteness” we will be roundly condemned as insensitive, vile and heartless beasts. The depth of psychological persecution to which men are routinely subjected is vastly underappreciated.

Other than hipparchia, who has apparently decided that taunting me is nearly as much fun as teasing kittens, and now you with some parental commiseration, there doesn’t seem to be any stomach for this discussion along the lines of maybe Obama was actually being honest and forthright and thoughtful and nuanced and – heaven forefend – even actually right. That would certainly break the prevailing ObamaBash spell.

Third trimester abortion is, for me and many others, a very difficult topic to come to grips with. Perhaps if you’ve not spent time around, struggled with saving the lives of, preterm infants you can’t appreciate how clearly they express their individuality, their unique personality, their very humanness. What constitutes individuality, who is human, what are the boundaries between abortion and murder, who has the right to kill another and under what circumstances, are not trivial issues and should not, IMNSHO, be bandied about lightly for the purpose of scoring political points.

That Obama is willing to openly discuss the matter and offer a reasonably considered, nuanced and compassionate position for addressing a horrifically complex matter is, it seems to me, clear evidence of a liberal mind and a progressive nature as well as a courageous step in the right direction. On balance, it is something for which he should be praised.

Praising Obama, however, even allowing that he might not be all bad all of the time, doesn’t fit with the agenda of some who have, again IMNSHO, taken on all of the worst aspects of the mindless Clinton bashers of whom they supposedly disapprove. Amazing how quickly the human mind can flip, and take on exactly the characteristics and behaviors of those others who are so despised. Milgram and Zimbardo,indeed.

Perhaps another round of oxytocin is in order. Care for a snort, anyone?

First is the issue of Obama then and now. I don’t think it’s mirroring Clinton-bashing to point out that his position has shifted right—or that such a shift ought to have consequences. Obama should have gotten his consultants to write him up a nuanced, compassionate position already, in other words. Before fucking over the base made it necessary for him to suck up to the right.

Second is the issue of late term abortions. I remember — when I was young — also attempting, and failing, to draw a line between late term, not yet born, just born, and infanticide. I was a student at the time, and so the issue was academic for me; just as the issue is academic for me today, since I’m not very likely to personally bear children.

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

is like the born-again stuff—they get all gung-ho about it all.

I think that’s the area where he actually is being honest—and it’s horrendous.

the second one for nearly 24 hours, ’cause he went straight to NICU.

Third trimester abortion is, for me and many others, a very difficult topic to come to grips with.

Well, good thing they only make up less than 1% of all abortions, and are only performed when there are terrible fetal abnormalities or the pregnancy will seriously impair the mother’s health or kill her.

And they’re just about always performed on *wanted* pregnancies, so the decision is not undertaken lightly. You of course have shown a noted disregard for women’s intelligence, so I’m sure you’re a subscriber to the “those sluts just do it on a whim a day before the due date” school of thought. Because I have no other way to interpret your “bright line” comments about infanticide.

And “what is birth”? Seriously?

more available— hell, online pharmacy available without perscription — birth control?

*Any* enhanced/more available birth control for women?

Anything better than the slowly-strangled availability we have now?

I’d be skeptical he even sees women as being involved in childbirth other than in their role as automatic delivery machines that sometimes go bad and kill sweet lil’ babies, in this, until he goes after — yes, criticizes — doctors and hospitals and pharmacists who refuse to do their jobs in order to deny women reproductive choices that avoid abortions.

And they’re just about always performed on *wanted* pregnancies, so the decision is not undertaken lightly. You of course have shown a noted disregard for women’s intelligence, so I’m sure you’re a subscriber to the “those sluts just do it on a whim a day before the due date” school of thought. Because I have no other way to interpret your “bright line” comments about infanticide.

And “what is birth”? Seriously?

I think you’re deliberately refusing to consider that you’re not paying attention.

Bringiton’s not into impugning the intelligence of women, either individually or in the aggregate, that I’ve seen. Then again, neither of us is big on inviting people who haven’t figured out that being stupid isn’t — and shouldn’t be — a protected handicap to go blithely on being stupid despite the consequences.

Birth marks two things: the end of a pregnancy and the beginning of a life.

A stillborn is still a newborn.

A miscarriage is not a birth.

And a terminated pregnancy is exactly that.

Some pregnancies stop naturally, but the process does not go forward to delivery of the uterine contents.

Some pregnancies are aided in stopping — by perhaps drugs, force or medical intervention — and some of them stop, either naturally or with intervention, so early in the process they’re indistinguishable from a normal menses.

There is a cult in this country that worships the fetus; minutes after delivery, that “innocent pre-born” is merely another bit of “human trash” in their eyes. These people, I do not understand. These people, I can not figure out at all.

We can admit that we’re killers … but we’re not going to kill today. That’s all it takes! Knowing that we’re not going to kill today! ~ Captain James T. Kirk, Stardate 3193.0

What does the man have to do to be any clearer? When you realize that this is a totally Democratic year, where running on the Party’s principles guarantees any Democrat a landslide, it becomes a lot more obvious that Obama is not doing what he needs to do to win, but what he wants to do. Abortion rights is all the more telling since there are no major corporate interests at play here unlike, say, FISA. This is who he is (see: his exploitation of misogyny, spewing ignorant nonsense, and choosing men like Wright and Pfleger as mentors).

All Obama ever had were words and now his supporters can’t even hold onto the empty rhetoric of “change you can believe in” anymore. All they have left is celebrity and the symbolism of electing the first black president.

Tried to break my New Year’s Resolution all in one fell swoop there, but two topics is good for a start.

Obama then and now…I don’t think it’s mirroring Clinton-bashing to point out that his position has shifted right
Nor do I, but that is not all that is happening. Doesn’t matter what he says or does, someone will jump out and condemn him for it. It isn’t just here, and I’m not singling out one particular person or another, just commenting on what to me has taken on the very aspects of VRWC behavior against Bill Clinton and the worst of the Obamabots (abetted I strongly believe by VRWC elements) treatment of Hillary Clinton. I didn’t like it then, I don’t like it now.

I especially don’t like it when he doesn’t appear to me to have shifted at all, which is the source of my crankiness over this post as well as McEwan’s.

or that such a shift ought to have consequences.
What is presented here is an explosion of anger directed at two words that in context are to me completely innocuous. McEwan decides that they must mean something that she finds offensive (and would be, if true) and then condemns the very construct she herself has conjured. Not fair, not right, not acceptable; any reasoned reading of his words clearly shows that he is saying that a temporary state of upset should not be sufficient cause to abort a third-term pregnancy. I don’t find that unreasonable, in and of it self. A better tack to take, I believe, is to then challenge Obama with what exactly he intends to offer for support and counseling and evaluation of a woman caught in that position. For me, “talk to your family and your clergy” comes up far short.

Obama should have gotten his consultants to write him up a nuanced, compassionate position already, in other words.
Hmm. Edging into “damn the bastard” territory here. He has a broad position, but knowing how much you hate being told to go to the website I’ll bring it to you here:

REPRODUCTIVE CHOICE
Supports a Woman’s Right to Choose:
Barack Obama understands that abortion is a divisive issue, and respects those who disagree with him. However, he has been a consistent champion of reproductive choice and will make preserving women’s rights under Roe v. Wade a priority as President. He opposes any constitutional amendment to overturn the Supreme Court’s decision in that case.

And additionally, there are multiple statements of position and policy here, at OnTheIssues. I fail to see a “rightward” shift in this latest statement, nor do I see anything inconsistent with recent Supreme Court rulings. Obama is running for President of the United States, and he has sworn to uphold the Constitution and the laws. That would include those laws you and I might find to be in error, and those aspects of the Constitution as interpreted by the Supreme Court with which we disagree. Can’t fault him for playing fast and loose with the Constitution in one area and then complain when he is respectful in another.

Before fucking over the base made it necessary for him to suck up to the right.
You have this slightly off; he’s sucking up to the right, and the consequence is being perceived as an abandonment of his base. But you and I already knew that neither you nor I were in his base; many of those who did support him are now finding out that they weren’t his base either. Slow learners, apparently.

He was always going to appear to swing right; Clinton would have done the same. Both of them are center-right politicians, he slightly more so than her and that hasn’t changed much for either of them. What is happening now is that Obama is de-emphasizing what leftward lean he had and is putting more emphasis on his true positions, which are center-right. It isn’t a flip-flop or a betrayal or inconsistency, although the VRWC is surely pushing that perception and many on the Left are echoing it. As near as I can tell, Obama has stayed within a close range of where he’s been all along; not far enough left to suit me and far to much towards the center to let the VRWC be comfortable.

I do want to point out that if Clinton were the nominee, I believe we’d be having the same discussion.

not called newborns, nor given birth certificates — nor considered alive—they’re born dead.

newborns are born alive—even preemies.

Expand access to contraception; reduce unintended pregnancy

AT A GLANCE
Reproductive Choice: Obama has been a consistent champion of reproductive choice and will make preserving a women’s right to choose under Roe v. Wade a priority as president. Obama also supports expanded access to contraception, health information and preventive services to reduce unintended pregnancies.

OBAMA’S PLAN
Protecting a Women’s Right to Choose: Obama will make safeguarding women’s rights under Roe v. Wade a priority. He opposes any constitutional amendment to overturn that decision.
Reducing Unintended Pregnancy: Obama will work to reduce unintended pregnancy by guaranteeing equity in contraceptive coverage, providing sex education, and offering rape victims accurate information about emergency contraception.

OBAMA RECORD
Throughout his career, in both the Illinois Senate & the US Senate, Obama has stood up for a women’s right to choose, consistently earning 100% ratings from pro-choice groups.

Source: Campaign booklet, “Blueprint for Change”, p. 35-36 Feb 2, 2008

*******

Now if you would, please provide a citation in support of your claim “I’d be skeptical he even sees women as being involved in childbirth other than in their role as automatic delivery machines” beyond setting up the ridiculous verbal hurdle you propose he jump over.

I think you’re deliberately refusing to consider that you’re not paying attention.

In what way? What am I not paying attention to?

I see his argument an awful lot, writing for feminist blogs. He’s pretending that Obama’s limiting the health exception — which has, for the past 35 years, specifically included mental health — to physical health only is “innocuous” and not a big deal considering Obama’s record.

The health care exception is crucial to abortion rights advocates and is considered a legal loophole by abortion opponents. By limiting the health exception to a “serious physical issue,” Obama set himself apart from other abortion rights proponents.

Yet Obama’s voting record contains some troubling stuff, such as his “present” votes in Illinois (which were *not* part of a strategy approved by Illinois NOW; the person who made that claim did not work for the organization at the time of the votes). He had to be talked out of voting for Roberts because it would be bad for him politically — and this was in an article he has posted on his website — and he went on the Sunday-morning talk shows to trash-talk the idea of filibustering Alito.

Then there’s the way Obama talks about abortion, and about women’s bodily autonomy. He uses a lot of right-wing and anti-choice framing when he talks about this stuff. He says that women should have “some” control over their bodies. He talks about the “sacredness” of sex (meaning, of course, heterosexual sex, preferably married). He states that pro-choicers just haven’t considered the moral implications of abortion. He talks about abortion as always a “wrenching” decision, and that a woman should make the choice to do so only after consultation with her family and her “pastor,” not her doctor. He praises abstinence-only sex education.

These, each and every one, are anti-choice frames. Is he pandering to evangelical voters? Maybe. But what’s wrong with coming up with some variation of “safe, legal and rare”? That formulation managed to acknowledge some people’s qualms about abortion but stake out a commitment to keeping it safe and legal.

It’s almost as if Obama hasn’t really made an effort to understand Roe. But don’t take my word for it. Ask a professional anti-choicer:

A leading abortion opponent, however, said Obama’s rhetoric does not match his voting record and his previously stated views on abortion rights.

David N. O’Steen, the executive director of National Right to Life, said Obama’s remarks to the magazine “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.

Oh, and the whole infanticide thing? Strawman. Like I said, the only time that a viable fetus is aborted is when it will die anyway, or when the mother will die or face serious consequences to her health if the pregnancy continues. And when this happens, it’s a wanted fetus — which only amounts to fewer than 1% of abortions. So anyone, like bringiton, who raises this argument, is either disingenuous or has not taken the trouble to learn the facts about late-term abortions.

So, do you still think I’m “blithely being stupid,” or what?

are still not paying attention to what’s important here. What’s important here is that this isn’t a core issue; it’s a diversion. It’s meant to weaken Obama, and thereby all Democrats. Sadly, it appears to be working in spite of many Democrats’ recognition that one need not love The Chosen Precious in order to stand fast on the issues, and in the interests of the people, the Democratic party has represented before the Chosen Precious took over.

I’m tired of the bashing — but I’ve taken a different tack.

I’m bashing ALL the politicians now, just like I used to do before Al Gore and John Edwards made me think this whole shivaree mattered enough to give a damn about.

I’ll even say the one thing that might get me kicked out of my staircase. Bad as he is, Bush gets one thing right.
His stance on Mexican immigration is the one — and the only — thing that he’s ever shown me anything other than compound interest on being a moron about, and so I will allow that, while it isn’t enough in my book to be a saving grace, it is proof that even the blindest of hogs can occasionally find an acorn.

But there are so many reasons I don’t — won’t — can’t — bow the knee to The Chosen Precious, be that McCain or Obama, that I’m adopting a new manifesto. It’s a Janus-like image, but instead of a two-faced god, it’s two mountain lions, shoulder-to-shoulder, one snarling to the left and the other snarling to the right.

Because the truth is NO national politician speaks for me, or for many people who are more like me than they are unlike me, now; the ways they are unlike me might be issues of skin color or age or income, but the ways they are like me are that they’re concerned about the future, they want a level playing field for everybody right here right now, and they don’t trust the “leaders” the media adore.

Oh, and they’re not big stockholders, so their interests aren’t in profit shares; their interests are in things like affordable cars and houses, decent jobs, health care for themselves, their families, and their children’s families still to come — and in Constitutional government, human rights, and actually living in a country that doesn’t invade other countries, doesn’t advocate torture, doesn’t operate an old Soviet-style internal spy network, and isn’t spending itself into oblivion for a war it doesn’t need, its people don’t want, and its military can’t prosecute because so many of them have already been wasted for no reason.

In other words, we’re people.
There are so many of us now, the bus can’t crush any of us effectively.

And bringiton, despite a penchant for provocation, is one of us too.

I’m for any Democrat — any real Democrat, in the sense of someone who’ll fight for the constitutents not named Blackwater, MBNA or Boeing first, foremost and in spite of the needs of the constituents named Herrerra or O’Shaughnessy or Delvecchio or Costanza or Kanakaredes or Smith or Jones or Austin or Mbele or Akira or Chen or Ng or Thomas or Johnson or Owens or Red Deer. Who I’m not for is the “Democrat” who’s first obligation is to MBNA or Exxon-Mobile or Cigna or Humana, because their obligations to those constituents make them predators on the regular people they’re supposed to be representing.

There’s no real Democrat in this Presidential race; and since I live in Texas, which will probably go for McCain, what I can and will do is go out and vote a straight Dem slate in the downticket races.

We can admit that we’re killers … but we’re not going to kill today. That’s all it takes! Knowing that we’re not going to kill today! ~ Captain James T. Kirk, Stardate 3193.0

L: I remember — when I was young — also attempting, and failing, to draw a line between late term, not yet born, just born, and infanticide. I was a student at the time, and so the issue was academic for me; just as the issue is academic for me today, since I’m not very likely to personally bear children.

I suppose it depends on what is meant by academic, as I too will not be bearing any children. My daughters perhaps will, though, so my interest in what their rights may be is of at least some indirect concern. Further, though, I’ve come to view this issue as very much a public policy matter that will require a broader rather than a more narrow discussion if we are ever to have any sort of resolution, even an uneasy truce.

Since you were young, which surely is not so long ago as when I was young, the definition of viable when applied to a fetus has changed, and the bright clear line has become even greyer than it used to be.

Of the problems in the way of any settlement, vocabulary and definitions are to my mind quite significant. Among the few encouraging things I’ve seen from Obama is a willingness to try and set aside the existing frames and engage in new ways. The terms he uses when he proposes doing so are, for reasons I do not understand, at best untactful and at worst offensive to those of us who have been at this for some time; while I am uncomfortable with the way he talks down to me, I am also committed to keeping an open mind. I hope others can do the same.

What I wanted here, which we now have underway, was a discussion with some sharp disagreement; a little heat, a little light, you never know, there might be some progress.

What’s important here is that this isn’t a core issue; it’s a diversion. It’s meant to weaken Obama, and thereby all Democrats.

DIVERSION????

You quite clearly know nothing, NOTHING, about abortion politics.

OBAMA IS AT ODDS WITH FREAKING DOE V. BOLTON. Meaning he’s at odds with 35-year-old, longstanding Supreme Court precedent.

And this is a fucking DIVERSION?

Excuse me if I don’t think that WEAKENING OBAMA is a more important consideration than PRESERVING MY FUCKING RIGHTS.

Jesus, what is WRONG with you?

>^oo^<

love your list:

…someone who’ll fight for the constitutents not named Blackwater, MBNA or Boeing first, foremost and in spite of the needs of the constituents named Herrerra or O’Shaughnessy or Delvecchio or Costanza or Kanakaredes or Smith or Jones or Austin or Mbele or Akira or Chen or Ng or Thomas or Johnson or Owens or Red Deer.

including medical care, will have the intended consequence of allowing religiously-connected health centers to deny abortions and contraception to patients.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/02/us/pol…

He thus embraced the heart of a program, established early in the Bush administration, that critics say blurs the constitutional separation of church and state. Mr. Obama made clear, however, that he would work to ensure that charitable groups receiving government funds be carefully monitored to prevent them from using the money to proselytize and to prevent any religion-based discrimination against potential recipients or employees.

He will make sure no religion-based discrimination against employees takes place… but that opens up the certainty that anti-abortion applicants will not be barred from being hired, even if they make no bones about their beliefs, and their on-the-job demonstrations of faith — such as not filling prescriptions for RU-486, or making policies that no abortion or contraception counseling will take place on their premises — cannot be barred.

That? Creates automatic delivery machines, when women can’t afford to go anywhere else.

That happens when he professes support of Roe v. Wade, but conveniently forgets that Supreme Court nominees have opinions that can be looked up, and their stances derived, and that potential voters pay attention to such things — that is, until a savvy advisor reminds him to not vote for a bad one — the one that is the youngest Chief Justice *ever*— lest it look bad.

And after the weeks he’s had distancing himself from the documented liberal issues he used to like, why in the heck would I trust one damn thing on his website, anymore? Betcha his webmasters are filing claims for carpal tunnel syndrome, the opinions spin around so fast….

Oh, and if you were curious about what such a takeover looks like….

http://www.denverpost.com/ci_7300979

The Exempla board wants the community hospitals in the deal - Lutheran Medical Center in Wheat Ridge and Good Samaritan Medical Center in Lafayette - to be allowed to continue to offer the procedures in some manner.

The Denver Archdiocese, however, has advocated a strict interpretation of church ethics rules, which would prevent the procedures from being done in any Catholic-operated hospital.

Exempla was formed in 1998, combining the Sisters of Charity’s St. Joseph Hospital and Lutheran. In 2004, a third hospital, Good Samaritan, was opened.

St. Joseph, as a Catholic hospital, follows the church’s ethical and religious directives and does not offer abortions or tubal ligations - a form of sterilization. As community hospitals, Lutheran and Good Samaritan offer these services, said Exempla’s Selberg.

Exempla is a chain that does not suck. But the SoC runs hospitals that are mandated care and ER centers for Kaiser Permanente — which means if a woman needs an abortion, she’ll have to pay out-of-pocket costs and leave her doctors and HMO facilities, to get it. “Elective” surgeries are expensive enough; being forced by monopoly charities to go outside might make it impossible to get help. Note that *birth control* is also forbidden — that means no morning-after drug, AFTER A RAPE.

Sure, sure, Kaiser probably finds a way to make things work, but what if they figure it’s too costly to try, anymore? What if all the hospitals in the area figure they’ll get swell tax breaks if they ally with religious institutions, eliminating nearby secular hospitals?

ZZ: Well, good thing they [third trimester abortions] only make up less than 1% of all abortions…
Which still turns out to be quite a large number. The last data I can find is for 2005, showing 1.2 million abortions per year in the US; at just less than 1%, the total would be around 10,000 “late-term” abortions per year. In comparison, the capital crime execution rate in America since 1930 has averaged around 65 per year and I find that a disturbingly large number. Before you explode, understand I’m not trying to equate the two; I only cite both numbers to show that the number of deaths per year is not trivial, and it is not surprising that people who disapprove of abortion under any circumstances find them to be discomfiting.

and are only performed when there are terrible fetal abnormalities or the pregnancy will seriously impair the mother’s health or kill her.
To the extent that this is true, and I will assume that you have actual data to support such a claim, then the criteria Obama referred to – “mental distress” – never comes into play. It would amount to no more than a sop to the anti-abortion crowd. Who would be harmed by that? Why should it matter at all?

And they’re just about always performed on *wanted* pregnancies,
Again, you do have the data to support that claim, surely.

so the decision is not undertaken lightly.
To be sure. I operate on the assumption that every decision to abort is taken with great seriousness and no small amount of reluctance. I have seen nothing from Obama to suggest that he feels otherwise. If you have such information, please provide it with full context. If not, please refrain from making defamatory implications that you cannot support.

You of course have shown a noted disregard for women’s intelligence,
Rather the opposite. I see no difference between the genders in level of intelligence, or the willingness to behave stupidly regardless. I treat women as fully intelligent and capable – which means I don’t need to tiptoe around or speak in euphemisms. What I don’t have patience for any longer is when people say stupid things or do stupid things. Sometimes I choose to speak out about that stupidity, when I see it being harmful. Hopefully that clears things up for you; easy to see how you might have misunderstood.

so I’m sure you’re a subscriber to the “those sluts just do it on a whim a day before the due date” school of thought.
You’re “sure”? Amazing. One meets so few true mind-readers these days. The reason might be that they are so often wrong. For the record, as we’ve discussed before, I view every female as a lady; I don’t even view those who behave in a sluttish manner as less than ladies. Also for the record, I do not believe that any woman decides to have an abortion on a “whim.” It may happen, but the number must be vanishingly small and those must be some very emotionally troubled women indeed.

Because I have no other way to interpret your “bright line” comments about infanticide.
You could ask. If, that is, you’re actually interested in what I think more than you are in preaching a sermon of condemnation.

And “what is birth”? Seriously?
Yes, seriously. I understand it isn’t as simple a question as it sounds, which may be why you are reluctant to try and give an answer. Think it over, take your time, and come back if you wish.

It appears that you find this sort of accusatory bluster useful in some way. I do not. Perhaps it serves some purpose for you, but for me it is no more than a waste of time to read, and a greater waste of time to deal with. When I write in a provocative manner, I do so with purpose. If you want to engage on the substance, please do; we both might learn something. If all you want is a chance to vent as far as I’m concerned you’re free to do that as well, but in future it is unlikely I’ll respond since your issues haven’t anything to do with me.

Oxytocin and….

Among other interesting effects, it is one of the principle drivers that let us see as “cute” these creatures who objectively resemble nothing else so much as a shriveled up version of Winston Churchill in his dotage. Men do not experience the same elevated oxytocin levels as women are subjected to during pregnancy, so we are required to muster our own self-generated ethical and moral response and responsibility rather than rely on the reflexive, brain-addled, chemical stupor in which women take so much pride.

For this superhuman effort we get no credit, but if we let slip one moment’s honesty about the subjective nature of baby “cuteness” we will be roundly condemned as insensitive, vile and heartless beasts. The depth of psychological persecution to which men are routinely subjected is vastly underappreciated.

Oh my, my. I’m sorry you feel that “teh women” under the uncontrollable hysteria of hormonal manipulation just won’t give you any credit for the logical and um self-generated, completely logically derived, ethical system of utterly-selfless-woman-and-society-serving-triggers-and-compulsions that you’ve developed in order to say, “cute, kid!”

Sigh.

Please tell me you’re not serious with this — that there was a sarcasm cue that I missed somewhere.

You ignore the very clear statements Obama has made on the subject and instead embrace conjectures based on nothing having anything at all to do with Obama. Your choice, but you have presented no evidence to support your claims. In fact, the very NYT article you cite - in spite of its obvious intent to stir up discontent among potential Democratic voters while trying to ward off any possible interest by evangelicals - very clearly says that all forms of discrimination towards either employees or recipients will be forbidden. It couldn’t actually be any clearer.

As it happens, I know the case in Denver very well, having done research at both St Joes and Lutheran. Staff at Lutheran are deeply upset and resistant to the Diocese decision, as is the current parent organization, the city and county and members of the legislature. There are multiple lawsuits underway seeking to block the merger, and it is IMHO unlikely that it will go through as planned. Kaiser have said they will terminate their agreements with the three hospitals involved, so their patients will have full services through other institutions.

This issue with Catholic hospitals has been ongoing for a very long time, and has nothing to do with Obama or any program he has proposed. Under the terms Obama describes, Catholic owned health care facilities would not qualify. You are attempting to conflate two separate matters.

As for the What If…What If… sequence, I have nothing to say. That sort of conjured nightmare scenario has no appeal; I find What Is to be challenging enough.

The underlying point, which your response now gives us the delightful opportunity to discuss, is that while a great deal of time, effort, energy and social convention are spent on the manifestations of women’s hormonally driven behaviors and diseases, relatively little - actually damn near nothing at all - is directed towards the effects of hormonal drives and their damaging effects on men.

Getting late here now, I’ll come back tomorrow, but ask yourself - when was the last time you saw or heard of anyone wearing a ribbon or having a fun-run or hosting a star-studded benefit gala in support of research into prostate cancer?

Not that breast cancer is undeserving, but research into it is funded far out of proportion to any other; for example, lung cancer is by far the more frequent killer of both men and women but it is funded at less than 10% of what breast cancer receives on a per-life-lost basis.

How much is expended on PMS and PPS? Of the top of my head I have no idea, but it must be enormous. How much is expended each year on mitigating the undesirable effects of testosterone? Zip all nothing is what, yet our society suffers much more from unmanaged testosterone than from swings in estrogen levels. The seemingly intractable problems of ghetto violence and fatherless children are not unrelated, nor are they accidental; they are largely ignored and untreated male hormonal derangements, and as a result we all suffer generation after generation.

Equality. That would be nice. Perhaps we can talk about how to achieve that for everyone, in ways that matter to everyone.

A lot of interpretation of What Obama Plans has been offered in this thread, absent much in the way of link and firm text. I’ve read a fair amount of Obama’s own words, and I fail to find support for the negative claims being made here.

All I see here are bits and pieces, snatched out of context and jumbled together with projections and fearful ramblings. Who knows how these thing get started, but the repetition is a fearful thing; each spin around the rumor mill making him seem more and more of a raving antiabortionist and maniacal oppressor of all things female.

Maybe those readers following along would like to know what Obama actually has to say for himself, with his own words and in his own voice. Perhaps, having read and listened to Obama himself rather than the interpretations of others, those who rail against him will find themselves comforted after all.

From an unofficial transcript of a speech at the Planned Parenthood Action Fund in July of 2007:

What kind of America will our daughters grow up in?

Will our daughters grow up with the same opportunities as our sons? Will our daughters have the same rights, the same dreams, the same freedoms to pursue their own version of happiness? I wonder because there’s a lot at stake in this country today. And there’s a lot at stake in this election, especially for our daughters. To appreciate that all you have to do is review the recent decisions handed down by the Supreme Court of the United States. For the first time in Gonzales versus Carhart, the Supreme Court held—upheld a federal ban on abortions with criminal penalties for doctors. For the first time, the Court’s endorsed an abortion restriction without an exception for women’s health. The decision presumed that the health of women is best protected by the Court—not by doctors and not by the woman herself. That presumption is wrong.

Some people argue that the federal ban on abortion was just an isolated effort aimed at one medical procedure—that it’s not part of a concerted effort to roll back the hard-won rights of American women. That presumption is also wrong.

Within hours of the decision, an Alabama lawmaker introduced a measure to ban all abortions. With one more vacancy on the Court, we could be looking at a majority hostile to a woman’s fundamental right to choose for the first time since Roe versus Wade and that is what is at stake in this election. The only thing more disturbing than the decision was the rationale of the majority. Without any hard evidence, Justice Kennedy proclaimed, “It is self-evident that a woman would regret her choice.” He cited medical uncertainty about the need to protect the health of pregnant women. Even though the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists found no such uncertainty. Justice Kennedy knows many things, my understanding is he does not know how to be a doctor.

He dismissed as mere preferences the reasoned judgments of the nation’s doctors. We’ve seen time after time these last few years when the president says otherwise, when the science is inconvenient, when the facts don’t match up with the ideology, they are cast aside. Well, it’s time for us to change that. It is time for a different attitude in the White House. It is time for a different attitude in the Supreme Court. It is time to turn the page and write a new chapter in American history.

-snip-

There will always be people, many of goodwill, who do not share my view on the issue of choice. On this fundamental issue, I will not yield and Planned Parenthood will not yield. But that doesn’t mean that we can’t find common ground. Because we know that what’s at stake is more than whether or not a woman can choose an abortion.

Choice is about how we lead our lives. It’s about our families and about our communities. It’s about our daughters and whether they’re going to have the same opportunities as our sons. There are those who want us to believe otherwise. They want us to believe that there’s nothing that unites us as Americans—there’s only what divides us. They’ll seek out the narrowest and most divisive ground. That is the strategy—to always argue small instead of looking at the big picture.

-snip-

It is time to turn the page on policies that fail to deal with tragedy of ten thousand American teenagers getting an STD everyday. Of fifty-five contracting HIV and another twenty-four hundred becoming pregnant. It’s time to turn the page on a stance that refuses compassionate support of victims of rape and sexual assault.

-snip-

It’s time to turn the page on a policy that provides almost 1.5 billion dollar to teach abstinence in our schools but refuses to teach basic science and basic contraception.

-snip-

Let’s teach science to our kids. We need, we need to make choices about what happens before pregnancy. It’s a false argument to say that the only way to prevent disease and unintended pregnancy is abstinence education. Just as it is a false argument to say that the only way is through contraception. As Martin Luther King used to say, “It’s not either/or it’s both/and.”

There’s a moral component to prevention. And we shouldn’t be shy about acknowledging it. As parents, as family members, we need to encourage young people to show reverence toward sexuality and intimacy. We need to teach that not just to the young girls, we need to teach it to those young boys. [Applause] But [Applause] But even as we are teaching those lessons, we should never be willing to consign a teenage girl to a lifetime of struggle because of a lack of access to birth control or a lifetime of illness because she doesn’t understand how to protect herself. That’s just commonsense.

-snip-

We need more leadership at the federal level. That’s why I’m an original co-sponsor of the Prevention First Act. [Applause] To guarantee equity in contraceptive coverage, provide comprehensive sex education in our schools and offer rape victims factually accurate information about emergency contraception.

We need to tackle the tragedy of unintended teen pregnancy. When seven hundred and fifty thousand teens become pregnant every year, and half of Latina and black teens will become mothers before reaching their twenties, it’s not just a public health problem. If we reduce teen pregnancy, we can also reduce poverty.

-snip-

The struggle for equality is also a struggle for opportunity. You’ve worked in the communities. You’ve seen women and families trying to keep pace. You’ve seen our daughters hit the glass ceilings and come to closed doors.

The social contract in this country was made for a time when most women stayed at home with the kids. But even though this time is long passed, we still have social policies designed around the old model. The, as Justice Ginsberg said, “Ancient notions of women’s place in the family,” and so women still receive less in pay, less in health benefits, less in pensions, less in social security. When women go on maternity leave, America is the only country in the industrialized world to let them go unpaid.

If you’re a single mom, like my mom was, and you can’t afford health insurance for yourself and you’re trying to figure out whether your kids are going to be covered or not, the message from this current administration is: tough luck, that’s the breaks.

The truth is, too often our daughters don’t have the same opportunities as our sons. But that’s not who we are. That’s not the America we want for our children and I am absolutely convinced that we can make this change. We can update the social contract so that caring for a newborn baby isn’t a three month break, it’s a paid leave—so that all of our children have basic health care.

We should be ashamed that the President of the United States is fighting providing health insurance coverage to all children because he’s worried that’s socialized medicine. He would rather fight an ideological battle than make certain that children who have preventable illnesses, like asthma, are getting regular checkups instead of going to the emergency room, which is costing all of us more money.

We can update the social contract so that our kids can go to school earlier and stay longer; so that a mom can stay home with a sick child without getting a pink slip; we can go to work, she can go to work—knowing that there is affordable quality child care for her children; so that more families can stay together and prosper and our daughters have no limits to the shape of their dreams.

We can make these changes but first we gotta get rid of the can’t-do-won’t-do-won’t-even-try style of government that we’ve had in Washington over the last several years. An administration that says, “We don’t have the money to do it.” But we’ve got ten billion dollars a month to fight a war in Iraq that should have never been authorized [applause] and should have never been waged. We can find the money to make sure our daughters have the same rights as our son.

We can make this change.

-snip-

I am absolutely convinced that we stand on the brink of that kind of achievement. And if we succeed in raising the awareness all across America that what is good for our daughters is also good for our sons. That when we expand opportunity for some, we expand opportunity for the many.

When we have achieved as one voice a strong call for that kind of more fair and more just America, then I am absolutely convinced that we’re not just going to win an election but more importantly we’re going to transform this nation.

Obama said something else, in the Q&A:

Well, the first thing I’d do as president is, is sign the Freedom of Choice Act.

FOCA is Barbara Boxer’s bill. Text is here.

Harry Reid’s Prevention First Act, which Obama has signed on as a co-sponsor, text is here.

Watch the Planned Parenthood speech video here.

Put all these Democratic and Constitutional principles on one side, throw in some deliberate confusion, and have people think they’re voting for those principles when they vote for Obama because it looks that way.

All people have to hold onto are his words and they have already been proven worthless.

All people have to hold onto are his words and they have already been proven worthless.

That is, when those words are aimed at the base. His words about unilaterally revising NAFTA, quick withdrawal from Iraq, filibustering telco immunity and the like, and perhaps protecting the rights of women to have autonomy over their own bodies. It’s not like we are dealing with somebody whose positions on the web site we can believe.

Bruce Dixon
www.blackagendareport.com

I understand your argument, bringiton, that in July 2007 there was much in that speech to clearly indicate Obama’s pro-choice position. But the main clue here is the year. Obama’s stated position here is so last year’s.
It’s now July 2008 and Obama in the CURRENT interview does not support the CURRENT law.

Is your position that Obama is merely a liar and hypocrite?

From Jan Crawford Greenburg, ABC’s legal correspondent:

This has been a central battleground issue in the Supreme Court going back 35 years, to Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton, when the Court ruled a woman had a constitutional right to abortion. The decisions said state’s can ban all abortions after the fetus is viable — but that any restrictions must include exceptions to protect a woman’s physical and emotional health.

In the years since, anti-abortion groups have fought hard against mental health exceptions, arguing that they create giant loopholes that make abortion bans meaningless. Doctors, they argue, can always find a “mental health” exception. But abortion rights groups just as strongly argue the mental health exception is critical to preserving a woman’s right to an abortion—and that the woman and her doctor must be allowed to make those decisions about her health without government interference.

In 1973, when the Court issued Roe and Doe — on the same day — it sided with the abortion rights groups and said states could not interfere with a doctor’s medical judgment on whether an abortion was necessary.

“[M]edical judgment may be exercised in the light of all factors—physical, emotional , psychological, familial, and the woman’s age—relevant to the well- being of the patient,” said the Supreme Court in Doe, which was a companion case to Roe. “All these factors may relate to health . This allows the attending physician the room he needs to make his best medical judgment”

Obama’s comments that he does not support mental health exceptions in so-called post-viability abortions (after 22 weeks) is squarely at odds with that holding, which remains the law of the land today.

Current Supreme Court jurisprudence is understood by lower courts to prohibit those flat-out bans unless the laws provide exceptions for a woman’s mental health. Lower courts repeatedly have struck down laws that only provide an exception for serious physical issues as being contrary to Supreme Court precedent.

So. Obama’s position — which you can read for yourself at Relevant — is squarely at odds not just with the pro-choice position, but with 35 years of Supreme Court precedent. That’s not to say that some Justices haven’t taken the same position as Obama, but can you guess who they might be?

Indeed, only Thomas and Scalia have expressly supported the position that a mental health exception is not necessary. They penned a dissent to that effect in 1998, when the Court refused to take up the Ohio case that struck down a state law because it did not include an exception to protect a woman’s mental health.

As Greenburg notes, Obama’s had quite a week, agreeing with Scalia and Thomas on gun bans, the death penalty, and now abortion.

So the next person who tells me that I have to vote for him or we’ll lose Roe can stuff it.

I’m not seing anything changed. Just a lot of outrage over nothing at all.

It isn’t that there’s “much” in that speech. There’s a lot, a whole lot, in that speech, and there’s nothing whatsoever since to contradict any part of it. If you see something, put it up; don’t just repeat what others are saying without evidence.

The “mental stress” issue has been dealt with, zuzu helpfully pointing out that it never happens. It was a meaningless pander, a sop to the evangelicals, designed to undermine McCain just a bit. Even if it is sincere, it has no meaning since it never happens anyway. To project from a meaningless nothing to say that Obama’s throwing Roe and Doe under the bus is ridiculous.

Don’t want to overstate your position here, so correct me if I’m wrong. What I hear from you Bruce, and Davidson and others, is that Obama is a liar plain and simple and that nothing he says can be believed.

From there, and this is an understandable projection from that premise, it is that he’s up to no good and will be at least as harmful as McCain if not worse net-net for the country.

I just don’t see that at all, and I’m no fan of Obama. I see a flawed man, certainly, but then I see one of those in the mirror each morning. I see inexperience, but I also see someone willing to say and appear to me to mean that what we’ve been doing in this country hasn’t been working very well and we need a change. There is a real lack of specificity around that “change” business, and I rather suspect that there won’t be as much “change” as people are hoping for, but the thing is that “change” will come whether the next President is ready or willing or not; the only question is whether they will try and influence the change in one direction or another.

All I want, all I think we can reasonably hope for from the next administration is a slowing down of the rate of destructiveness. We’ve been on a downhill slide for 40 years, and it isn’t going to turn around in a progressive direction in anything like a big hurry. We’ll have made a stunning success if we can get moving where we need to go in a decade.

I would have near the same low expectations and the same apprehensiveness, only slightly diminished, if Hillary were the nominee. They aren’t either of them likely to be able to do much more than start slowing down the rate of descent. But with McCain we are stepping off the cliff and into the pit of hell. Four years of a Republican presidency will destroy us. To me, avoidance of outright overwhelming destruction is reason enough to vote for the Democrat whoever it turns out to be.

I think progressives do themselves and the cause a great disservice by attacking the Democratic nominee on anything less than very sound issues. What is happening instead is that one faction adopted the VRWC techniques to use against Clinton, and now a substantial portion of the opposing faction has adopted them for use against Obama. If that keeps up, unfounded rumor mongering and selective quotes taken out of context and misrepresented, flat-out lies, we will damage the Democrat so severely that McCain will win. We will have destroyed ourselves.

I don’t know that there is anything I can say to dissuade you from the position that Obama is a flat-out liar about everything. I do urge you to take another look at what he’s said and who he is, and try to view him as more complex and more nuanced than that.

I also hope that you would look at what the next presidency can accomplish within the context of the greater forces at work in the world; many of the damaging policies of the last 40 years are going to take some time to turn around, including Iraq and Afghanistan and the economy and education and and and…you name it. Expecting an Obama or a Clinton or Pick Your President to do more than start sorting out the shitpile and shoveling away the stinkiest parts is unrealistic.

I’m not happy with Obama. I would be only marginally less unhappy with Clinton. Of McCain, however, I am terrified.

The current interview I’m referring to is the original one in Lambert’s post above (www.revelantmagazine.com); the 2007 speech I’m referring to is the one in the post you made, the Planned Parenthood one (you provided the url.)

I agree about putting up proof—I didn’t here since www.talkleft.com did in their original post that Lambert posted above.

Please give links to show, “There’s nothing whatsoever since to contradict any part of it.” Thanks for posting the above snips at length; it’s very helpful.

BTW, I disagree with the idea that it’s not important to take away women’s rights to control their own health decisions and bodies—by saying that mental health shouldn’t be counted, even if the situation doesn’t arrive often.

My fear here is that in attempting to show Obama is better than McCain, which you argue in your last post, many people sugarcoat Obama’s positions or misstate them. The truth doesn’t hurt anyone. It just shows who they are.

from DoneDems—really worth reading and following the links there too— Obama Caves on Choice: Mental Distress Not a Health Exception

… which makes it right, Roe is perfectly safe if the SJC grows a spine. If they did that, Pope Benedict could be President, and Roe would be safe.

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

and do so here in all earnestness and seriousness:

How’s that working for you so far?

What could possibly lead anyone to believe that any part of the Congress will be any more resistant to McCain than they have been to Bush? With judges, SCOTUS and otherwise, the Senate against McCain will be even more of a pushover; there are something like 45-50 Federal bench openings now, likely another five by the time the new president is sworn in. Without some approvals in a hurry, the caseload will start to seriously bog down; pressure will be irresistable from all sides to approve somebody, anybody. After four years of appointments by another Republican gangster, not just the SCOTUS but the whole of the Federal bench will be so tilted to the VRWC that there will no longer be any check on executive power; democracy will be destroyed.

I’ll open my mind to be convinced, so have at it; more than wishes are required, though.

I still see nothing in what Obama said that threatens Roe or Doe. My comments are all above, not repeating them again here. All this hoorah about a meaningless throwaway line that has no substantive impact is ridiculous.

Obama says he will defend a women’s right to chose, says it six ways from Sunday, sponsors a bill, promises to sign another one that will restore all the rights that the SCOTUS and the states have stripped away, and all the focus is on one throwaway meaningless line? I say, bullshit - all of it.

Please give links to show, “There’s nothing whatsoever since to contradict any part of it.”
Request for Proof of a Negative; not possible, eh?

My fear here is that in attempting to show Obama is better than McCain, which you argue in your last post, many people sugarcoat Obama’s positions or misstate them.
Am I doing that? Sugarcoat, yeah, that is so me. If you believe so, show where; if not, why throw it in - to try and discredit me by false association?

The truth doesn’t hurt anyone. It just shows who they are.
Which is why it is important that we stick to the truth, even when it doesn’t fit with our agenda. Bash Obama when justified, but this made up bullshit does no good for anyone and much harm to the progressive cause.

I posted my reply to you above before your longer post showed, so yes, thanks, I see your longer thoughts above.

I haven’t had time to answer everything here, in part because of Sunday Morning Book Reviews. Hope you’ll post a book review sometime. You’re so articulate. I will post the part 2 to what you say above as soon as I can.

“(TP:) Please give links to show, “There’s nothing whatsoever since to contradict any part of it.”

“(BIO:) Request for Proof of a Negative; not possible, eh?”“

Generally I would agree with you; here I am looking for a (preferably July 2008) RESTATEMENT OF SUPPORT for his 2007 position. Not only is looking for this type of confirmation reasonable in a general election atmosphere that often sees candidates swing to the middle, it is vital in the midst of Obama’s current, unprecedented, huge switch to the opposite of many positions he had held (NAFTA, FISA, etc., etc.)

TP: My fear here is that in attempting to show Obama is better than McCain, which you argue in your last post, many people sugarcoat Obama’s positions or misstate them.

BIO: Am I doing that?
TP: I think so, because I think that Obama has made other statements much less supportive (as shown by links at talkleft and lambert above) and particularly that his last statement (about mental distress) is an unprecedented suggestion, even going beyond the usual, vague GOP suggestions and, in fact, is in agreement with the 1998 dissent of Thomas and Scalia in Voinovich here.
BIO: Sugarcoat, yeah, that is so me.
TP: I believe you are known for this. NOT.

BIO: If you believe so, show where;…
TP: I posted above—I believe you are not intending to mislead but are misstating Obama’s CURRENT position—through not updating with his new, intentionally different statements.

BIO: …if not, why throw it in - to try and discredit me by false association?
TP: Why, yes, I am known for that. NOT. Aren’t you here practicing exactly what you are complaining about—kind of accusing me of trying to discredit you by false association? When in fact I am explicitly saying I think you are misstating Obama’s CURRENT position? (Oh wait—if this is ironic: good one.)

TP: The truth doesn’t hurt anyone. It just shows who they are.
BIO: Which is why it is important that we stick to the truth,…
TP: I completely agree. You might have noticed my name.

No need for any apology, we all have things to do. The danger of dealing with these deeper threads is that comments don’t always get noticed. If this goes on much longer and you’re interested, it may be worthwhile to drag it back to the top with a new post.

TP: 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.

the only bright line i want to draw is the one that allows women, all by themselves, with accurate medical advice should they want it, to make the decision whether or not to have an abortion, and at any point during the pregnancy [nor was i kidding about the infanticide, but that’s a different post].

i’m distressed with obama’s injecting all this faithiness into everything [we need to ask our clergy about getting an abortion?!]. i’m happy to hear that the fundies don’t think he’s far enough on their that they’ll vote for him if they’re single-issue voters, but why the hell is obama even pandering to them in the first place?

Thanks for the quotes here, Bringiton—really appreciate the updates from so recently!

You said here: “Not actually interested in agreement or persuasion here. What I do intend is to not let these things go unchallenged.”

I had been working on answering the rest of what you said before, and I have something to say here too. But the above SEEMS to make it clear that you wish to merely challenge what you think of the views of some people (not me because I haven’t even finished answering you yet so you can’t know what my full views are)—so it’s making up a strawman.

I would say that you meet your self-set standard in your last post, in terms of being generally challenging. You raise some big questions with enthusiasm—and linky goodness! You’ve made some interesting points about the big general election picture for the Dems.

Are you also interested in discussing the points? I’m not snarking here at all. I mean, are you interested in saying A and here’s my proof and I say B and here’s my proof. Then you say B doesn’t disprove A, heh, and we go on. I am discouraged somewhat from trying to talk to you here in a back and forth because above you just repeated some of the things that you had said PRIOR to my last answer—to paraphrase, stating without evidence that people are just interested in unfairly criticizing Obama and are not interested in the truth. Although that may be true of some, I went on a bit saying that wasn’t true of me, and now you’ve completely ignored what I said about that and thrown me back amongst some strawmen. That is, although you start out here answering me, by the end, you are not having a conversation with me.

Do you want to? If so, would you respond to the rest of my first post?—I would be particularly interested in what you think of Voinovich and you addressing the bit about discrediting by false association and how that can be avoided on both sides of an argument while still discussing the issues.

If, instead, you just want to go with your general challenge as above that’s fine too. I will wait to hear your response before posting again.

I remain impressed by your linked response about the current Obama abortion position and its supporters and critics. Thanks!