Obama Picks Up Right Wing Framing On Abortion
By Nicole Belle Tuesday Jul 08, 2008 6:20pmI just don't get it. Conventional political wisdom is that you must move to the center during a general election season. I don't agree with that--in fact, I think that is exactly the wrong thing to do right now when the vast majority of the nation by and large does not approve of how things are being done in Washington (9% Approval rating? Think that has anything to do with your capitulations again and again, Pelosi and Reid?), but it's hard to pierce that Beltway bubble to let through anything but the politics-as-usual stylings. However, it's a far cry from playing to the center and grabbing yourself some right wing frames and running with them. That makes no sense to me...is Obama thinking that he'll be able to get the 'Donald Wildmon vote contingent' this way?
Obama's desire to win these voters may be why, in a recent interview with Relevant magazine, ("Covering God, Life, and Progressive Culture") Obama seemed to be moving rightward on the issue -- rhetorically, at least -- saying:
"I have repeatedly said that I think it's entirely appropriate for states to restrict or even prohibit late-term abortions as long as there is a strict, well-defined exception for the health of the mother. 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. Otherwise, as long as there is such a medical exception in place, I think we can prohibit late-term abortions."
The language Obama used in that response seemed to remove "mental distress" as an allowable exception justifying a post-22 week abortion. [..]
Obama continued: "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."
But if Obama is saying that "mental distress" is already not a legal exception for abortion bans, then what was the point of what he told Relevant? He maintains he wasn't discussing any view that runs contrary to current abortion law, so it would seem he was just discussing a personal view -- that a woman, 8 1/2 months pregnant, shouldn't be able to get an abortion just because she's feeling blue.
Okay, I hate to break it to you, but the concept of the woman "feeling blue" and deciding on a whim after 6-7 months of normal, healthy pregnancy that she wants to end it is as much a fantastical creature created by the right as the Welfare Queen living large on government aid. It's insulting to women and their ability to understand what's happening to them.
And this is where I get really angry. Anyone who has paid attention to the relative non-issue of late-term abortions--the stuff that the right wing lives to distract and horrify the electorate with--knows that this framing of women deciding after more than 6 months that she's just not interested in being pregnant was designed as a slippery slope platform to hurt women from getting abortions, at any time. Jesse at GroupNews has more...
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Remember, people. You gotta co-opt the fundies, if you want to discard them later. Republicans do it all the time.
Let's see... Flip flop on FISA... Sounds like a right winger on abortion and faith-based initiatives... etc. etc.
Still think Obummer was a better choice than Billary? What's that? You don't? Well, too late!
What was it that John Rotten said? Oh, yeah! "Did you ever get the feeling you've been cheated?"
Speaking as someone who grew up in Chicago - Never, EVER, trust a Chicago pol.
Wow. Enraging Women don't ever have abortions on whims, especially not late term. Obama was never my progressive dream date, but I thought he was better than this. Yes, of course I'll vote/organize for/give money... but boy do we need to push him in a better direction. Well, there's no shortcut to creating a progressive social movement, is there. Obama will be as good as we force him to be or as bad as we let him.
I have to admit, I liked to taste of the Obama koolaid. Whether or not badly list fat old white men that smoke cigars tell him what to do or not, he has permanently made me apathetic to the entire political game. Heck, maybe he'll switch gears once he's in office, but I'm not holding my breath, or hope.
Faith based initutives. Anything to win an election.
Barack Lieberman
earlier was the FISA bill and now your comments(blog) really making me mad. I am so disappointed at Obama campaign and how they are making him move towards the center. I think i need a beer. Nicole-keep on doing what you have been doing. Love your site.
That whole moving to the center bit only works if you accept that the center is between center right and far right. If you accept the reality of it, someone who is center right moving to the right is not moving to the center. This is where the Dems have failed repeatedly and why elections keep being so close in my opinion of course. When you alienate the left and the centrists and try to woo the rightwing, well, you end up with close elections.
On FISA news, Obama vote yea on the sellout of our civil liberties. Surprisingly, my two corporatist senators (Schumer and Clinton) actually did the right thing. Full roll call at http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm...
Men can just shut up about womens reproductive processes!
Just thank you for writing about this. I like believing in unity - I just don't believe in being deaf, dumb and blind.
mental distress doesn't put the mother's life at risk. and giving that obama favors legislation allowing medicial exceptions, i think his is a perfectly reasonable position.
Jim @ 6:
Sen Obama may as well choose LIEberman as his VP. He was his mentor at one time, afterall.
Didn't Carl Sagan say what Obama is saying now?
Honestly, I think even a lot of "liberals" have problems with late term abortion. The baby is coming out in 2 months, if mental distress is the worst of it put it up for adoption.
this movement to the right/center may be to pick up votes. it may also be the change that obama speaks of. he understands and respects other peoples concerns and opinions. like he said yesterday were not going to agree on everything. although people aren't pleased with this administration they still have certain beliefs/lifestyle. i could be wrong but if obama stays within the left liberal spectrum he has a greater risk of losing.
I am sorry, I backed Obama all the way. He has since lost me. Now that he has his nomination he has told those of us who backed him to go screw ourselves. He was going to make changes we could believe in. His campaign was powered by the people. Well, yeah, by suckers who wrote checks and backed him to get the nomination. Now we are seeing his true colors. I still say I would not have supported Hillary because she was no different then the rest. What a disappointment, I thought he was different.
He was against FISA, he was with the American people. That was then, now he has voted for FISA just the way Bush wanted it. He is turning on every major issue and I am not going to vote for him. I will not vote for McCain either. Barr is looking better and better. Too bad Kucinich or Ron Paul don't jump in as I would vote for them.
Obama knows most of the Democrats will not vote outside of the box so he has it made. I am not so afraid and I have already changed my status to Independent. I am done with the Democratic party and will now use my time and energy to bring another party to the forefront.
Wake up people, a vote for Obama IS the same old thing even though we were led to believe he was different. He is quite the magician.
Nice work DNC.
I've been seeing a lot of Hillary supporters waving her Nay vote on the FISA bill as evidence that she would have voted the same way had she been the presumptive nominee. I don't think that that is the case (we both will never know).
I recognize the line that nominees feel they need to walk. Why they feel to walk it is another matter ...
The 50%+.1 strategy does not work. I am tempted to say "Let's not turn our backs on Barack", but that is the lousy attitude that these candidates bank on as they move toward the (center? right?). What to do? What are the odds the campaign cares what we think at this point?
Kai:
Yes, I do. If Hillary played the centrist game, people would have thought she was a fraud, like Kerry. In fact, she didn't win the primary, because they thought she was full of it. Obama's our Trojan Horse, precisely because he can actually look and sound like an anti-civil liberty red-stater, and still show he cares about law and order. Whether you like it or not, he's our only weapon against the Republican machine.
EJG @ 16:
He's the presumed nominee right now. Nothing is written in stone until the convention. He could still lose the nomination.( granted, it's almost impossible) But he could still lose it.
I have held a 10 week premature baby who weighed all of 2 pounds in my hands. Ten years later, I know a healthy, wonderful child who is perfect in all respects. This is why people want to end late term abortions. And this is where the circumstances of when is a fetus viable outside the womb must be considered.
Kai @ 2:
I still don't think that Billary is any better... so stop putting words in other people's mouths.
Just because dog vomit tastes bitter, it doesn't dog shit taste like mana all of the sudden.
Eh, I posted too quickly after reading the headline. I don't have any particular issue with banning late-term abortions. The rest of my post still stands, however.
I changed my party affiliation from Green to Democrat so i could vote for Dennis Kucinich. Unfortunately he dropped out and I was left with Hillary and Obama.
I voted for Obama because I thought he was more progressive, that he truly was for change. Turns out it's just politics as usual.
Faith based initiative and now partly anti-choice.
I voted Green in the past, and this year I will vote Green again.
This is nothing new. Obama buys into a lot of the Right's framework -- Social Security in "crisis," District of Columbia vs. Heller and that infamous straw-man of nameless religion-hating liberals.
And that's why I proudly supported Hillary's run for the presidency.
Tequila @ 1:
Are you kidding me? How about just saying what you believe? Nah...never works...unless you have big money behind you.
Just out of curiosity, will C&L be covering this weekend's Green Party Convention? Maybe progressives deserve a real choice.
Obama has sold out on FISA, Iraq, Abortion and on and on. This guy is a corporatist, just like Clinton...both of them.
I'll vote for Cynthia McKinney. At least I know who I vote for actually stands for something - other than money.
Sorry, unlike McCain, Obama has the ability to precisely clarify his position on abortion. He also has the right to "reiterate" his positions on any issues. I agree he may sway to right on an issue instead of the left during the coming months, but I do not fault him for doing so. I know far-left bloggers are dwelling on controversial issues being missed to the right by Obama such as the FISA bill. Please understand you are not within the popular majority on that issue, either. Ron Paul was a non-pandering radical conservative. Look what happened to him. Obama is radical liberal understanding what happens to politicians who become immovable on radical issues. OBAMA '08!
What's not to get? Obama's not the great white liberal hope, he's a fancy-sounding centrist candidate with a few good ideas. In a choice between him and McCain there's no choice for a progressive, but he's a politician in the USA, how could he possibly be anything but a moderate conservative? There is no such thing as a viable left wing candidate anywhere in the USA. None. Dennis Kucinich, your "radical" left winger, is globally centre right.
How did you miss that Obama was centre-right throughout the nomination process? This isn't a flip flop, (unlike FISA, which is a total example of pandering), this is where he's always been.
This is not hard to understand.
Barack Obama is a politician, straight out of the Chicago Democratic machine. He may look good in a suit and talk eloquently, but he comes straight out of Daleyville.
If you see Mr. Obama in elevated terms, as a paradigm of uncompromised purity, you are sure to be disillusioned and disappointed. The fact that so many people have seen him this way is what got him the nomination...and the fact that they are now seeing what he really is may well lose him the election
Dave Fragments @ 21:
This is what makes late-term abortions such a wedge issue. Late-term abortions are rare. Abortions are not rare at all--they are common. But they are performed overwhelmingly around week 6-8 when you wouldn't be able to cradle a fetus. It's smaller than an eraser. Late-term abortions are performed because there is no alternative. A woman's life or health is at risk or there is some situation that is terribly wrong. That's how it is. That's the facts. But the right would like you to think that there are women just deciding to have abortions in the last trimester. So rather than assuming that a woman is making the only possible choice, they want you to question why women are seeking abortions in the last trimester. And then... well, let's start monitoring why all women get abortions.
What's so progressive about killing babies? I see nothing wrong with his statements. At least he's taking a position, which is more than I can say for Hildebeast.
jb @ 11:
Its about the frame of the debate. These types of abortions are not common, rare even. Obama is playing by their rules when he says things like this. Its disappointing. I wish Edwards was the nominee. With Obama as VP. Oh, well.
And those who are saying Hillary would have been better are blowing smoke up their own asses, frankly. She's been in the DC machine for so long and you think she's going to change it? Did you miss the whole bit where Congressional Democrats actually quite like the warfighting, poor-raping status quo?
He's giving a new meaning to "transformative candiate" as well as to "hope." I'm feeling sick, to be honest. I have occasional feelings that I'll sit out the general election because I don't want to participate in the creation of a fascist state.
...Less than 1 percent of all tabulated abortions in the United States are listed in the last three months of pregnancy (and, on closer investigation, most such reports turn out to be due to miscarriage or miscalculation). But third-trimester abortions provide a test of the limits of the pro-choice point of view. Does a woman's "innate right to control her own body" encompass the right to kill a near-term fetus who is, for all intents and purposes, identical to a newborn child?
We believe that many supporters of reproductive freedom are troubled at least occasionally by this question. But they are reluctant to raise it because it is the beginning of a slippery slope. If it is impermissible to abort a pregnancy in the ninth month, what about the eighth, seventh, sixth ... ? Once we acknowledge that the state can interfere at any time in the pregnancy, doesn't it follow that the state can interfere at all times?
This conjures up the specter of predominantly male, predominantly affluent legislators telling poor women they must bear and raise alone children they cannot afford to bring up; forcing teenagers to bear children they are not emotionally prepared to deal with; saying to women who wish for a career that they must give up their dreams, stay home, and bring up babies; and, worst of all, condemning victims of rape and incest to carry and nurture the offspring of their assailants. Legislative prohibitions on abortion arouse the suspicion that their real intent is to control the independence and sexuality of women…
And yet, by consensus, all of us think it proper that there be prohibitions against, and penalties exacted for, murder. It would be a flimsy defense if the murderer pleads that this is just between him and his victim and none of the government's business. If killing a fetus is truly killing a human being, is it not the duty of the state to prevent it? Indeed, one of the chief functions of government is to protect the weak from the strong.
If we do not oppose abortion at some stage of pregnancy, is there not a danger of dismissing an entire category of human beings as unworthy of our protection and respect? And isn't that dismissal the hallmark of sexism, racism, nationalism, and religious fanaticism? Shouldn't those dedicated to fighting such injustices be scrupulously careful not to embrace another?
Carl Sagan
http://www.2think.org/abortion.shtml
Tony @ 14:
It is a fact of life that only "Billion Dollar Babies" get adopted,i.e. normal, white, especially male babies. All others become chronically institutionalized and often become victims of abuse. ( I know; I used to care for some of them as a nurse in an inner city Pediatric Intensive Care Unit)
I have often thought that men who express strong opinions against abortion should be compelled by law to adopt at least one special-needs( retarded, chronically ill etc) minority race infant.
Those strong opinions would disappear overnight.
Whatever, he left an opening to veto anything that doesn't meet his requirements for physical conditions. Worry about Roe, not the July smoke.
JR @ 27:
well said....i tried to convey this same opinion. you said it better and with gusto......i respect the views of others but i'm sticking with obama.....i believe he knows what he is up against...this is a possible 8 yr term and the gop/NEOCONS don't like it. it's not easy to push them around since they're in office and have a lot of power behind them.
This is NOT a change in position. Obama has always said exactly this in relation to late term abortion. Geez people.
Also, Nicole. On a more factual note. Obama IS NOT saying that women have late-term abortions on a whim because they are "blue". He is saying exactly the opposite:
"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.”
For Chrissake, I wish my liberal brethren would stop leaping on Obama for not following them on every-single ultra-liberal matter. I don't expect to agree with EVERYTHING my presidential candidate says or does. This is because I don't live in a fantasy world.
From the perspective of a telecomm (or just about any other corporate) CEO, it must be hideously amusing to watch the erupting squabbling between "progressives" who still believe that the US is a functioning democracy (Hahahahah!):
Progressive A: Obama has betrayed us by voting for the FISA bill, adopting right-wing frames on abortion, etc. In response, I've decided to say "fuck it" and stay home or vote for a third party candidate this time. I refuse to let the corporations fuck me that hard!
Progressive B: Don't you see how doing that will only help McCain? Do you want to help give him the chance to stock the Supreme Court with EVEN MORE Conservative troglodytes? Don't be so emotional and selfish!
Progressive A: Good point...I guess my ass can keep taking the pounding for now...I'll bend back over right away!
STOP THIS pathetic squabbling and WAKE UP! McCain is a Republicrat and Obama a Democran. Let's quit playing the game on THEIR terms--"their" being the corporations. Obama took big money from the telecoms (and from plenty other corporations to boot) just as McCain did. In fact, Obama took even more than McCain. So it's not a fucking surprise that they both voted to let them get away with breaking the law. Obama and McCain do not work for you and me--they work for the corporations! Stop deluding yourselves by pretending it's otherwise! Muster an ounce of courage and face up to the painfully obvious. They're both corporate shills. Let's use Obama's shameless betrayal of progressives to mobilize a movement that is actually a little bit threatening to the pathological corporate criminals and their marionettes like Obama and McCain.
If "progressives"--including on this very site!--don't start sharply critiquing and organizing against the DEMOCRATS, from a progressive perspective to force Obama to move back to the left, well, then, come November all meaningful remaining difference (whatever splinters of it there may be left at this point, that is) between the two candidates will have been obliterated. Gone. Forever. Game over. Corporations do the victory dance all the way to the apocalypse.
For your children, or your imagined children, or Jesus, or Allah, or Nature, or for whatever the fuck motivates you to care about life and what you do with yours: start forcefully critiquing and pressuring the DEMOCRATS (and forget about the Republicans!) NOW!
Nico
Stuart: I understand how you feel, but we still gotta bet with the cards we're given. Even if Obama won on a more leftist platform, we still would have to fight to get more progressive people and ideas through Congress. That's the mistake we made with Clinton I-letting him do whatever he wanted, just because the name of his party started with a "D". At least in this situation, our lower expectations mean more realistic results.
Seems like Obama is really taking the left for granted. As if, no matter what he says or does, the liberal masses will flock to the voting booth for Obama.
Not true.
I know quite a few people who are very close to saying "fuck it" and will just stay home.
I dunno; maybe Obama IS playing Trojan Horse. Obviously ya gotta hope for that. A lot of politics is like that, it's why social primates have big brains - aside from those belonging to certain political parties. If worse comes to worse and Obama is a shnook, well; it's the Democrat's turn to plunder us anyway....
Kai @ 2:
Are you really that naive? You don't think if Hillary were the nominee she would have not voted the same way Obama did of FISA? She can vote no now that it can't be used against her in the generals for being "soft on terrorism". Not excusing Obama's vote but come on! This is the same woman who was to afraid to vote against the Iraq war and whose husband was Mr. Triagulator himself!
"Once we acknowledge that the state can interfere at any time in the pregnancy, doesn’t it follow that the state can interfere at all times?"
No. See Roe v. Wade.
If the lenghty quote above is really Sagan, I have to say he was billions and billions of light years off on the abortion issue.
EJG @ 16:
except he has done nothinng like that at all...seriously.
get a grip. his positions and policies are exactly the same as they were 3, 4, 5, 12 months ago...
he's not "moving" or "shifting".
he's just not.
Ruthless People @ 44:
...and btw...where is Hillary from originally? Chicago? Never trust a Chicago pol?
Kai @ 2:
Yes.
More than just disappointing. I agree. Though in his overall approach to executive powers, I preferred Obama to Clinton, though I'm on record as having both of them among my last choices when the primaries had other candidates.
If, by "sounds like" you mean adopting that kind of framing, yeah, but he's not talking about appointing judges who would overturn Roe. Note that this post is about Obama's "framing" and the strategy it evinces. I don't like the framing, and I agree that it's likely not necessary, but it's true that Obama hasn't taken a position contrary to current abortion jurisprudence and law.
Nope, the press fucked this one up badly. Again, while I don't much see the necessity of bringing faith-based organizations into our programs or welfare distribution, as long as they don't actually preach or proselytize in the course of using government funds, there's no Constitutional basis for excluding them from helping out. But Obama is not simply expanding Bush's programs.
Heh, there are those of us who felt cheated at the media's and many of our fellow Democrats' blindness about both Obama and Clinton. We supported others, and were marginalized from the word "go."
Now, though, Obama is the candidate. I'll vote for him to keep the Republicans out. It does matter. It does make a difference. It does.
Yeah, I grew up in Chicago too. Don't take anyone at their word. Do your homework. Not much Obama is saying now is different from what he's said in the past.
I still think he's a better choice than Sen. Clinton, and I still think he was a worse choice than most of the others.
And again, we absolutely must win this election! It is imperative!
The Bush regime is a criminal regime. It's existence marks a parenthesis in American history. The only important question at this point is whether we allow McCain to keep the parenthesis open, likely passing the point of no return, or whether we give Obama a chance to close it.
this is what the (R) wants.....fighting amongst ourselves.
what did maximus tell his band of dudes fighting in the arena if we stick together we live......we have to become realistic....and set our ideals aside
Ya'll are just not listening:
“Look, let me talk about the broader issue, this whole notion that I am shifting to the center,” he told a crowd gathered at a town hall-style meeting in this Atlanta suburb. “The people who say this apparently haven’t been listening to me.”
Yeah, trojan horse.
Give me a freaking break.
Oh and he thinks you are stupid because you can't speak Spanish.
He is an elitist pos like the rest of em.
Get freaking real.
This past weekend I watched a Romanian film, 4 Months, 3 Weeks 2 Days.
Yesterday I watched Juno.
We humans don't really understand life, much less the universe and everything. Subjects dealing with life and death, such as abortion and the death penalty, are therefore hard to get a grasp on. Manichaeism is counter-productive.
Intellectual honesty is one way to get one's bearings. For example, if one believes that states have the right to decide something as important as human rights (or, in this case, the estimated chronological age at which an organism is granted human rights, and is thus illegal to kill), it is ridiculous to simultaneously believe that some random law on inter-state commerce can be invoked to deprive sick Californians from the palliative benefits of state-certified medical marijuana.
To maintain the two ideas simultaneously is pathological.
I am really becoming disappointed with Obama, but at the same time, I'm understanding the strategy here. Despite the popular belief (and like it or not, a lot of people seem to believe it) that most of the media is liberal, they seem to be willing to bow to the RNC and follow their talking points because, if they were to tell the truth, they'd lose access to the Republican Party and that will embolden the base even more... of course, we know Fox "News" will never go against the party. So the lies and disingenuous comments made by McCain and other RNC knuckle draggers will go unchallenged there and the people will still believe them as the truth.
Obama has decided to play the political game the way it's always been played and it's very sad. He is, unfortunately, allowed himself to be forced to play it in the same way as the Republicans. He lets them (the RNC and their sarogates) decide what the majority of Americans want (whether we really do or not) and he tries to align himself to that position so he can't be labeled negatively. The Democrats have been doing this the last 3 Presidential elections and it's rather pathetic.
Why are they trying to prove Ralph Nader right?
Herby @ 24:
{ Deleted, Abusive. SiteMonitor}
I am of the opinion that Obama may have a hard time raising money from small donors from now on. This is not what I signed on for and I am now signing off on Obama. He can crawl all the way he wants to the center but he I am not going to be fooled by him any longer. He is lucky that McCain is such an horrible candidate.
“this movement to the right/center may be to pick up votes.”
He isn’t moving to the “center”. The “center” is where the pubic is, this is supposed to be a democracy. The “center” of public opinion is to the left of the political establishment. THEIR center is NOT for universal healthcare, the public’s is. THEIR center isn’t for a pullout of Iraq, the public’s is. THEIR center is to blindly support “free trade”, the public’s isn’t. It get tired of having to point out this logically absurd talking point. Ask yourself whose center he’s moving towards then ask yourself how a democracy is supposed to function. Then look at who is giving Obama advice. Status quo economists, foreign policy elites and the like. It’s THEIR “center”, the media’s “center”, the corporate elite’s “center”, not ours.
Please, look at the polls on the issues and ask yourself if where he is moving is for or against public opinion, this has nothing to do with votes. If it were he’d move in the exact opposite direction.
yeah !yeah! thats it! obama never really voted for fisa! hes fooling the repigs by acting like one! the guys a genious, why didnt i see it?
{Deleted, SiteMonitor}
Stalin, nice name for someone who's too stupid to see any arguments outside of black/white. Voting for the lesser of two evils, now THAT is genius. Sure, it's gotten us NAFTA & like minded deals, the Iraq War, soon to be another with Iran, the Telecommunications act, a corporate take over & wealth concentration not seen in decades, declining or stagnant wages, a horrible environmental policy and a democracy gap large enough to drive a truck through (where politicians almost without exception vote against popular will, which is one hell of a democracy) but it sure is better than the other side winning...it never ends either. You'll be here every four years saying the same crap as the country continues to die a slow death.
Herby @ 24:
I'm voting Socialist.
Susan Smith, Darlene Routier, Debbie Schlossel
All women who killed their kids
The first and the last were known to be mentally disturbed.
That last killed her infant girl here in Dallas, by cutting her arms off.
In her defense, she said she heard God demanding the girl as a sacrifice.
I do sincerely hope he is merely playing the game as needed, and keeping his cards to his chest. The American public is stupid, and functions interms of sounds bites. He needs to dance their dance or he won't get elected.
But...
if he's full of shit and continues playing the game, he's going to lose his base. Let's hope he's as smart as we've given him credit for.
The question is, are there legitimate mental distress situations where abortion would be valid? Yes. You can take a look through a copy of the DSM, and see any number of conditions that call into question the ability of a mother to go through the birthing process, including schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and a laundry list of other mental disorders that MAY not be present at the time of conception, but may be TRIGGERED by the stress or the anxiety of the possibility of birth.
"Feeling blue" is an unfortunate rejoinder that people who don't believe in either medicine or science use in order to justify their unverifiable prejudices and opinions towards people suffering from serious mental diseases. While I don't think Obama is using the phrase in that way, it is part and parcel of the thinking that people should just "buck up" and "take it like a man".
wow.........obama knows you people are smart and understand human compromise....to me change is in the white house...policy.... not this culture/semantic/linguistic/propaganda division battle. obama is going against a formidable opponent. these people are dirty. as we know they will cheat. they will and can turn on the fxxking "fear" button at any time. there is a lot of power and hidden money behind mccain.
if we actually lose faith in obama we could set our country back another 20 yrs.
Nicole, I absolutely agree with you.
We need strong leaders who have the gonads to stand up for their values.
That doesn't mean being irrationally stubborn when the facts begin to fly in your face, it just means sticking to your guns on core values. It saddens me to see Obama so quickly pandering to the right. The democrats could easy take the election in November, such extreme measures are not necessary.
In fact, I think this will hurt their chances.
Gotta say, I don't like some things about Obama. That said, I'm voting for him. McCain MUST be kept out of the Whitehouse.
I think that there is a much better chance of Obama doing a decent job of it than there is chance of McCain finding a clue or a conscience.
Me, I'm against late term abortions. So I kinda agree with Sen Obama. kinda. The over ruling factor is choice. It should be up to the person(s) to make that choice for themselves. Just like I can choose to be against late term abortions. No one should have the right to tell someone else what they can and can't do. NoOne.
Abort the election it's been a sham from the start.
mudshark @ 64:
Frankly I don't like abortion at all.
However I can understand that their are situations inwhich it must be done.
The later it's performed though the harder it is though to support it.
Carl Sagan's take on abortion is spot on.
Kai @ 2:
We'd be seeing the same losing strategy if HC had been the nominee. Obama's recent positions are coming straight from the same festering pool of misguided establishment campaign advisers that Clinton drew hers from.
Where is Mark Penn (Clinton's campaign strategist) now?
How about Lani Davis?
Kastlefeer @ 65:
I fear that you are correct, but as a pacifist I must proceed as if it could make a difference and cast my vote. If I were a violent man, I might begin to think something less than pleasant.
This is totally unnecessary on Obama's part. As a moderately conservative pro-life independent, I determined to vote for Obama after his speech after the Iowa win in spite of disagreeing with him to some extent on abortion. And anyone who strongly agrees with him on abortion would never vote for McCain. So why even get into the abortion issue. I don't get it. The social issues aren't going to be a big factor this year. Obama's other progressive social and economic policies are so much better than anything McCain is offering, and McCain is completely unacceptable because of his temperment and poor thinking skills. I bet there are a lot more voters like me than Obama realizes.
Oh, and don't forget Howard Wolfson.
Tim @ 31:
Killing babies? FU! That is a far-right-wing tactic, and I resent it. When women have full equality with men in the world, then and only then can men have a say in whether a woman continues a pregnancy or not. Until then, please go spill your seed upon the ground. As long as men can abandon a pregnancy--and they can and do every day--then women have to have that right too.
It's progressive for women to control their own reproductive systems and not be pawns in a continual power game.
I just want to say, I still think Obama is BY FAR the better candidate for this November.
Until the United States finds a way to create a real democracy, we've got to work with the system as flawed as it is. In the short term, keeping McCain out of the Whitehouse ought to be #1 priority. He's dangerous and must be stopped.
For that reason, for the desire of having someone SANE in the white house I say: PLEASE vote for Obama.
The world will thank you for it. I can say that, because I speak for the whole world. Yup, I'm just that powerful.
Cal @ 66:
I don't know anyone who "Likes" abortion Cal. It's a matter of choice. The right to make that decision for yourself. For me, the discussion ends there.
Sadly, it appears an Obama presidency will not obviate the need for political blogs. The problems with America's political system are much, much bigger than one election could possibly solve.
Obama is desperate to raise his poll numbers a few more percentage points against McCain. Instead of gaining those few percentage points, he's (rightfully) pissing off his base.
To clear my comments on 58.
Some woman don't have the mental wherewithal to become new mothers.
The state shouldn't force them.
Obama's using the same slippery-slope argument conservatives use against stem cell research, cloning and euthanasia.
It's a intellectually dishonest and lazy way of approaching issues.
All those who express that a woman's right to choose can be altered should be compelled by law to adopt a special needs infant of minority race - regardless of marital status. Because it is to that which you would consign these unfortunate women.
I will never forget my time as a nurse in pediatric intensive care. I had the "Privilege" of seeing the things that happen when unfit parents have unwanted children. One in particular:an eighteen month old boy who was held by hands and feet and dangled in a pot of boiling water. He had third degree burns over his butt, groin, genitals,upper thighs and lower back and stomach. We had to inject him with morphine and scrub the excess scar tissue off of his raw burns (for proper healing, it's called escharotomy; do a search on it)once a day while he shrieked in agony.
Sure, you can make a woman have her baby, but she may look at it in a very different way than you do - and I don't mean cute and cuddly.
When it comes to a woman's choice, mind your own damn business.
From FISA to abortion to public campaign funding to NAFTA to Iraq to faith based offices in the White House et al, can anyone recall a single original Obama "change" campaign position that has survived the primaries into the early general election process?
He's done nothing but select 7 from column Bush and 3 from column Clinton since the moment Clinton delivered that concession speech.
Oh my God! This man is a charlatan! How many late term abortions are done in this country every year? The answer is very few. And how many of those are done because the woman is "feeling blue"? The answer is none!! No doctor in this country who has any desire for self-preservation would even attempt a late-term abortion without a very valid medical reason to protect the life of the mother. This is a right-wing argument that lost perspective and legitimacy years ago. Obama is a fool for adopting this position.
Not being a member of the Bush or Clinton family is all I ask for at this point. Gotta start with baby steps.
I'm glad to hear Democrats talk with some decency about abortion. Each and every abortion is a goddamned tragedy, both for the woman and her child. Maybe, finally, the numbers will go down from a million a year.
For years the GOP has used abortion as a tool to ram their disgusting policies down the throats of the people. I'm glad Obama is willing to acknowledge that the Democrats care.
Tony @ 14:
Spoken like a true neanderthal.
Sorry, at #77 I accidentally misidentified debridement as escharotomy. It's been 30 years. It's something that you don't soon forget, anyway.
Eric Hussein in Ottawa @ 72:
Dangerous is promising to help block FISA and then disappearing. Dangerous is flip flopping on commitments made to your base. Dangerous is pretending to be a progressive then pandering to the Right.
Sorry, you were saying McCain is dangerous? How much less dangerous is a politician that will promise anything and betray anyone to get elected?
Mickxotic @ 63:
And your reasoning is based on what exactly?
pk @ 84:
Obama didn't "promise anything".
I think this argument you're making is a bit of a stretch.
Would you rather see McCain in the white house singing bomb bomb Iran?
LMAO, I think if this TOOL wins he will be more hated then GWB after his 1st term. He is going to be the biggest disappointment in history, just watch and see.
BigT @ 81:
BigT @ 81:
Let me guess...your against a woman's right to choose? Please see #77. You can see what often happens when you force an unqualified woman to have that cute, darling baby.
Right, insist on the woman having an unwanted baby. Angelina Jolie can adopt them all.
BigT @ 81:
You could outlaw every late term abortion done, taking out even the exception for health or life of mother and it would not reduce the number of abortions done but by less than 2%.
This procedure is EXCEEDINGLY rare and done under exceptional circumstances. However it is right wing framing that they use to make the issue of abortion one about murder, since the fetus is theoretically viable in the final trimester. Obama bought into the framing and that's a disappointing sight for a Democratic candidate.
PJ @ 82:
Unfair and immature. Not everything is a black and white issue. There are morally sound reasons to appose late-term abortions. You don't have to be for all abortions all the time to be a good liberal. I'm pro-choice, but if you don't acknowledge that there are some tricky ethical issues regarding abortion you're in denial.
Do we have a bunch of right wing trolls here or are democrats / lefties really this divided on the topic of abortion?
Just curious.
I'm as frustrated, or more so, than anyone else with the moves to the right that Obama is making, we wouldn't have gotten any better from Clinton. Yes, she can vote against FISA reform now, but if she had been the nominee, she'd be doing the same. I'm not in the least surprised by it and anybody who didn't expect the Democratic nominee to act like this in the general election was delusional. The Democratic party is a center right party and, except for notable brief moments of populist and Progressive groundswells, has always been so. I would have preferred to have seen Russ Feingold run and even more pleased if he picked Bernie Sanders for VP, that would be my dream ticket, it ain't gonna happen.
We need to be realistic and consider the alternative should Obama lose the election to McCain. It's fine to be principled and idealistic, but not at the expense of ceding our country to overt Fascism, the likelihood of a war with Iran and a Supreme Court stacked with far right ideologues that will crush any hope of Progressive reform for decades, if not generations to come.
Hello, I have been a faithful follower of crooksandliars for a couple years now. I never post because I just like to read the news stories that are posted. The majority of the time I agree with the comments that are added onto the stories, however, this time, I feel such strong disagreement with the post that I feel a need to make a couple comments. I do this with a little bit of wariness, because the one other time I posted on this website, stating that I don't support corporal punishment being legal, I was told that I was as bad as Bush. Anyway, with no further introduction.
First, to make sure we are on the same page, I assume that when Obama says "late-term abortions," he is using the term that the left and most feminists use, except for those who dislike both terms. In other words, he means, as he says later on in the article, a partial-birth abortion.
Now, approximately 70 percent of the population supports a ban on partial birth abortions.
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2003/feb/03021705.html
In fact, Hillary Clinton supports a ban on partial-birth abortions.
http://www.ontheissues.org/Senate/Hillary_Clinton_Abortion.htm
Furthermore, Obama has consistently opposed a partial-birth abortion.
To say that he is moving further to the right is to simply make the same mistake and to buy into the rhetoric of the right, who, as this site has consistenly noted, are trying to claim that Obama is further to the left than he is, both to portray him as some kind of socialist and as a flipflopper. Obama's campaign from the beginning has been running on the hopes of compromise. 70 percent of the nation agrees on what the rules should be about abortion, and the extremists on both sides, left and right, are stopping that compromise from being made. The reason abortion is not a big issue in Europe, or many other countries where it is legal, is not because those countries are more liberal, but actually because they have less liberal policies than the U.S. The only reason there is such a strong backlash against abortion in the U.S. is because as of now we have policies which are simply unnecessary, and partial-birth abortions used to be one of those examples. I furthermore believe that it is a red herring to claim that if we give the right an inch they will take a mile. A ban on partial-birth abortions is simply not a step towards the ban on all abortions, but instead, a way of making certain that the far right will not mobilize the center towards banning abortions all together.
If it has not already become clear, I completely support abortions up to the vague point where abortions can be termed late term or partial birth. I don't know exactly what week I would stop at, but probably somewhere around 25. I don't believe Obama is saying anything different. If you disagree, that is one thing. I don't feel like getting into a moral debate about why a woman should have a right to have an abortion past 25 weeks. What I do think is important to debate here, and what bothered me about the post, was the suggestion that somehow Obama is moving anywhere towards the center, and furthermore, the strategic mistake on the part of the post to claim that somehow it would be a good idea for Obama to oppose a ban which is not only supported by 70 percent of the population, but which really isn't such a bad thing anyway. If you are really most concerned about Obama's comments about a woman feeling blue (which by the way, he says he does not agree with this characterization, and notes that the prochoice people don't either, but for some reason the post acts as though he does), you should be aware that he is only trying to define exactly how difficult it should be to get a partial birth abortion, and again, this is not something that is not at all dissonant with the opinions of the majority of people in this country.
I also wanted to say that I am shocked that crooksandliars could have a post which acts so much more pissed off about obama's support of a partial birth ban that about his support of the FISA bill.
It scares me to see on the left such a distorted view both of what is most important right now and of where the majority of americans stand on a position. I'm sorry, but, to put it simply, Obama is not "pandering to the right" by agreeing with 70 percent of the population.
That Obama still claims to be a progressive is laughable now. He's starting to make Hillary Clinton look liberal.
Snowball @ 93:
Why don't leftist parties get anywhere in the US?
They do pretty well here in Canada, and in many countries in Europe....... is it a throwback to the McCarthy era or what?
PJ @ 85:
My reason is that John McCain has voted something like 97% with GWB, has voted against veterans' benefits 100% of the time in the last seven years, is in favor of privatizing Social Security, voted in favor of invading Iraq, and would have a chance to appoint, perhaps, up to four more right wing judges. He has consistantly voted to deregulate the SEC, and voted against children's healthcare supplements. That's what I can think of right off the top of my head.
I keep an eye on what he does here in my home state of AZ
mudshark @ 73:
Believe it or not there are some people out there that think having an abortion is something to be proud of.
On the flip side are the anti-choice loons who would rather seen both mother and child die than an abortion take place.
If I have to pick one side I have no option but to side with the pro choice crowed.
I don't agree with it, or like it, but if there was ever a candidate who needed to hedge his bets, its a black candidate.
Eric Hussein in Ottawa @ 96:
There are many reasons that Left wing parties have little impact in America. I can name a few:
1. In the United States, the Supreme Court has ruled that money equals free speech and corporations are considered legal persons with all the rights that are supposedly afforded citizens. This immediatly knocks the left out of the political playing field. It's pay to play baby.
2. Congress is not like a parliament, where multiple parties can join together to form a majority. You could have a majority of left leaning independents in Congress, but none of them alone would hold a majority against a single unified right wing party. Thus, they could not set the agenda.
3. The United States has the most sophisticated propaganda system the world has ever devised. Americans believe the illusion we have a free press but it is really controlled by a small number of corporations who of course, exclude and deride left wing opinion as it is inimical to the financial interests and political power of corporations.
4. Americans have been subject to generations of anti-left propaganda and associate it with Stalinism. We are daily inundated with pro corporate propaganda by the media and the Horatio Algers myth that hard work will bring financial success. Even the poorest of Americans with no chance in the world believe they will one day strike it rich and identify along class lines with the wealthy more than they do their own class interests.
Maybe WillIAm and a bunch of other know-nothing celebrities should come out with another song telling us why we should side with Scalia and Thomas to support the death penalty for child rapists, change our position on using public finding, allow telecoms to help the government spy on us and to maintain our god-given right to bear arms.
hawc @ 94:
If 70% of the population thinks that the sky is green, it ain't necessarily so. What are 70% of the population doing in some stranger's life to make her private decision?
I'll start agreeing with the 70% of the population when they start being required to adopt lots of special needs babys - ahh -but that would be meddling with THEIR private life, wouldn't it?
David @ 95:
She is the progressive fighter.
Re: The article
Ok, so it seems your mad because Obama says late term abortions should be at an absolute minimum, and only when there is significant physical harm that could be done to the mother. You then say that late term abortions other than those that might harm the mother are extremely rare, I believe you used the term myth. So what's your problem?
You go on to state that the issue isn't really late term abortions being banned, it's that banning them might lead to more and more restrictive laws. Ok, I can see that, but attacking a viewpoint that seems rather legitimate to me, even as pro-choice, for a hypothetical is not a sound argument.
I'm pro-choice up until the baby is developed (Can feel and hear enough to react). At that point I believe the mother has to be in serious peril for an abortion to be acceptable. There's always unique cases, and so probably there should be a loop-hole built in to the system for those cases, but I'm completely fine with what he said. In fact, reading the title of this, I thought Obama said we should stay in Iraq for 100 years... All he said was that late term abortions probably shouldn't happen unless the mother is in physical danger. Wow, that's really not too right wing at all...
Does anyone really believe abortion is the main issue in this election?
It is not a constitutional issue in any real sense; it is a wedge issue, pure and simple.
Way to go, Nicole, for further wedging the base.
getalife @ 103:
Hillary IS the more progressive legislator. But we have Obama, who is more progressive than McCain. Hell, Mussolini is more progressive than McCain.
Cal @ 98:
Really - I've had 2 girlfriends that had abortions and neither of them were proud of it. In fact I can't think of a single person in my life who was proud of having an abortion. It's actually rather disgusting that someone would be proud of destroying the beginnings of life. It might be something that needs to be done, but being proud of it? c'mon...
Well, I suppose there are those people out there that are still proud of the job Bush has done too... so loony is the way of the day apparently
hawc @ 94:
With all due respect, when you use phrases like "partial birth abortion" you are pandering to the right wing.
Let me explain this to you in the most personal of terms. At 25 weeks of first pregnancy, my doctor could no longer find the heartbeat of child inside me. I opted to have a D&X, which is the clinical terminology you so cavalierly call a partial birth abortion, because I could not bear the thought of carrying the corpse of my child inside my body for another two months or more, hoping that my hormones would kick start labor. A D&C is no longer an option at that stage of pregnancy. I didn't want to have it, I'd much rather have had my child. However, when we start down the slippery slope of deciding what is and isn't clinically advisable on a federal level, I'm going to dig my heels in and fight you tooth and nail. That choice should ONLY be between the woman and her doctor.
Partial birth abortions are a fairy tale. They don't exist in reality. Doctors don't perform late term abortions because a woman has changed her mind after committing six months or more to a pregnancy. It doesn't happen.
Emotional reactions like yours are understandable, but your emotions should not rule over my body.
Nicole - you are always on top of things. Yes, the late term abortions is the same bull crap as the welfare mom driving a new Cadillac.
Widespread @ 105:
I think that as long as there are men who want to control women, as long as there are people who want to impose their religious superstitions on others - abortion will be an issue.
Right on, Nicole.
Damn I miss John Edwards
Nicole Belle @ 90:
Widespread @ 105:
I'll agree with that. I'm all for a woman's right to choose (no matter when), but I'm more than a little sick of allowing the right wing to make it the exclusive focus when it comes to political campaigns and Supreme Court nominations. If we do that, we're falling into their trap and playing their game, the Democrats do it over and over again and always lose. The simple fact that the right understands is that the majority of American voters find it distasteful. Obama is right to try to set this issue aside in favor of other issues that most Americans can agree upon. The invasion and continued occupation of Iraq is a costly disaster, going to war with Iran would be a bigger one, our economy is in a shambles, the economic divide between the rich and the rest of us is growing daily and we are facing an environmental crises that could literally make the world uninhabitable within our life times.
This kind of stuff is the stuff progressive activists like Paul Krugman were warning about during the primary race; the same progressive activists that people here were badmouthing because they were still enjoying the Obama kool-aid.
Cult of personality indeed.
Mickxotic @ 110:
Yeah, because this is all about men wanting to control women :-/
???
Mickxotic @ 110:
That is so true. Why can't people mind their own business and stop being judgmental.
I don't think Obama has shifted his politics. He always was in the centre. Some "liberal" bloggers got their panties all wet over him, convincing themselves he was the Great Liberal Hope, and of course he encouraged that meme with a ton of rhetoric about change. Well, people want change, of course they do. The economy's rooted, after all.
But he's shifted how he talks about his politics. What has disappointed the left is that he was talking such a good game, and now he's not bothering with that bullshit. Why would he? He's the nominee now.
As for FISA, well, who gives a fuck about Wisconsin now? The Dems will vote Dem, the Repubs Repub.
I agree with ck's surprise at the amount of attention this issue is getting.
As for Mickxotic, certainly that 70% says the sky is green doesn't make it so. I don't believe in God, and I certainly dont think that because 90 percent do, it makes it so. But it does make it the case that Obama would not be pandering to the right or to the left to say he believes in God. Nor so with Partial birth abortion. My point is that Obama is staying very much in the center by supporting the ban.
Nicole, thank you for responding to my post. I want to first say that I am obviously in a very insignificant way ignorant about this issue compared to you. As for my "cavalier" use of the term partial birth abortion, I only use the term because it is the term used in the legislative documents, it is one of the terms Obama used, and it is the most common term as far as I know (used even by doctors). If you can give me a term that you would prefer for this discussion, I would be happy to use it, but in other contexts, I will continue to use partial-birth abortion, simply because otherwise most people will not know what I am talking about otherwise. I'm also very confused by your claim that dilation and extraction is not legal anymore. Of course doctors can remove a baby from the womb if the baby has died. Or am I horribly mistaken here?
A good summary of how I feel about this issue is the following:
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F04E2DB163CF935A1575AC0A...
But to be honest, I don't have much of a moral opinion. Its more of a practical opinion. I'm not too concerned about babies heads being smashed in nor am I horribly concerned about a woman's right to do anything with her body up to the moment she gives birth (suicide should be legalized for christ's sake). I just think that we should all learn to compromise - even when we are compromising our bodies. It is better than losing all power - which again, I repeat, making a big deal out of stuff like this is more likely to cause than anything else.
I do find it funny that you say my reaction is emotional. I am only emotion in response to what seems like an excess of emotion over an issue which pales in comparison to other criticisms of Obama that I think could be made. I think your reaction was clearly, and for very good reason, much more emotional.
ck @ 115:
A quaint custom, usually practiced by those of fundementalist religious beliefs. Women are seen as the chattels of their father at first, then their husband. There are a number of good books about it; one of the best I've seen is "One Nation Under Gods" by Richard Abanes.That one focuses on the mormon church. If you do a search at Amazon on "Women's issues/religion there are numerous books on the subject.
Dr Zen
You could be very, very wrong. Democrats are getting damn tired of having to hold their nose to vote for the Democrat who no longer even pretends to give a crap about their needs or their beliefs. This is the first time since 1968 that I am considering not voting. And it really ticks me off that my Democratic Party has brought me to this point. And, please, don't give me that crap about how McCain is so much worse for this country than Obama. Maybe this country needs to hit rock bottom and "We the People" might get up off our butts and throw all the corporate bums out and take back our country and our Constitution.
Tequila @ 19:
She didn't win, because it was stolen by the RBC and DNC!!!!!
I watched all 8 hours during the RBC meeting, even the missing vote, that violated their own freaking charter! Did you watch it?
What part of 18,000,000 votes did you miss out on?
Jesus christ people, we're supposed to be progressives, but we fell for republican tricks pulled by a corporate backed democrat! The Clinton's have made their fortune; obama has $$$$ in his eyes, which one do you think would be more likely to bow under pressure of $$$$?!
obama=lost me at racebaiting!! Anyone willing to stoop that low to win votes, is willing to stoop even lower.
ARGHHHH how could you people be so stupidddd!?!? The same media that f*cked us over in covering for bush, sucked in obama's followers hook line and sinker; unless they were completely aware of the smoke and mirrors, and ignored it because they were supporting what THEY wanted this time around.
the link didn't go through. if it doesn't work this time, just google "Why defend partial-birth abortion?" NY Times
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F04E2DB163CF935A1575AC0A...
hawc @ 118:
By Republicans and their proxies
Hence my saying that Obama is taking right wing frames and running with them. Doctors do not use the term. The correct term is Dilation and Extraction or D&X. Partial birth is a term dreamed up by pro-life groups because it has an emotion gut reaction.
People will understand a D&X or late-term abortion.
Never said that. D&X is the procedure that they seek to ban--the pro-life groups would like it with no exceptions, Obama is at least arguing that there are exceptions, however, he did question whether we need to tighten standards as to whether it's an appropriate measure, saying the mental well-being (as opposed to the mental health) of a mother is hard to quantify. My point is that is an unacceptable slippery slope.
Legally yes, they can. In reality, there are states where doctors are afraid to do so because they fear retribution. Check out some of the links I've given. NARAL's site has testimonials of women forced to cross state lines to have stillborns removed.
But even in that op-ed, Koop is arguing that even if a developing fetus is somehow damaged, that science has gained that we can allow them to live. That is perhaps true, but again, if a mother knows she doesn't have the wherewithal to care for a disabled child (one of my very good friends just found out that her niece has Prater Willi syndrome--you'll have to look that one up), who is the state to argue with the decision that woman and her doctor come to?
But to be honest, I don't have much of a moral opinion. Its more of a practical opinion. I'm not too concerned about babies heads being smashed in nor am I horribly concerned about a woman's right to do anything with her body up to the moment she gives birth (suicide should be legalized for christ's sake). I just think that we should all learn to compromise - even when we are compromising our bodies. It is better than losing all power - which again, I repeat, making a big deal out of stuff like this is more likely to cause than anything else.
I do find it funny that you say my reaction is emotional. I am only emotion in response to what seems like an excess of emotion over an issue which pales in comparison to other criticisms of Obama that I think could be made. I think your reaction was clearly, and for very good reason, much more emotional.
ck @ 107:
One of the harder things I've had to do was tell a friend that I wasn't sure if she could afford to raise a child and that came just days after she discovered she was pregnent.
You said:
A D&C is no longer an option at that stage of pregnancy.
Is that the case or not?
If you think that only republicans and their proxies use the term partial-birth abortion, then you must think that America is at least 70% republican, and I think there are many far leftists who would be surprised to be considered a republican. My father is a doctor, and I have worked in a hospital for 4 to 5 years, and I can tell you that the term partial-birth abortion, outside strictly medical conversations, is very common among democrats and physicians. I hope that your argument that Obama is using right wing frames is not at all related to his mentioning of the term once in his dicussion. Just because somebody uses a term does not mean they approve of it. But for the sake of this discussion, we can call it late-term abortions. I do however think this is a little bit of a distraction.
You can call the question of a woman's mental well being as a slippery slope, but that does not mean we can avoid climbing down it. There is simply no other option when it comes to policy. And I think Obama does a good job of taking away this "feeling blue" conception of the issue and pushing for strict psychological standards.
As for crossing state lines to have a still birth removed, that's obviously horrible, but a completely different issue. In fact, much of this is simply a question of policy which is completely legitimate but in much of the states is not being followed faithfully - that is scary, but that is not what Obama is talking about.
Again, I don't really feel like getting into an argument about whether a woman and her doctor should be able to do whatever they want no matter what hte majority of americans believe. I'm simply saying that the post was, in my opinion, out of touch with teh political scene, and irresponsible in regards to the political activism for abortion.
getalife @ 103:
Like when she no-showed the Bankruptcy Bill and voted for the war. Seems as if we're losing sight of the fact that beating McCain should be job one.
Also, everything hawc is saying. Good on you for getting the nuances of this complicated issue.
Barack Obama isn't running for the President of Crooks and Liars, he is running for President of the United States in America. Abortion is really no ones business. Not the Church, not the Government. I'm pro life and pro choice because I'm pro freedom.
hawc @ 124:
A D&C is not the same as a D&X. A D&C is essentially a vacuum that removes the fetus at a fairly unrecognizable-from-human form. It cannot be done in the third trimester because the developing fetus is too large.
Make no mistake, a D&X in the third trimester is a painful, difficult procedure that takes time to physically recover from.
Because of a concerted effort since the inception of Roe v. Wade from pro-life groups to frame the debate, and the general public not being informed nor educated to think differently. Partial birth is not a clinical term and even my own late term D&X was not referred to in the hospital as a partial birth abortion.
He who frames the debate wins the argument. That's why I will never accept partial birth as an acceptable framing.
Yes we can. The state has no right to claim it knows a woman's mind better than she does.
What right does the state have to decide this? Whose standards? Again, I think you are assuming that there are totally healthy fetuses developing in totally healthy pregnancies whose mothers have decided that they don't want to be pregnant any more. That isn't a situation that exists in reality and to use that infinitesimal exception as a rule to make policy is not something that I think Obama should be speaking on, much less recommending legislation on.
It is, and I suggest you read the article. He was saying that the states should have the right to make these decisions vis a vis late term abortions, not the woman and her doctor.
The "majority of Americans" is a easily falsifiable canard, depending on the framing of the polls you quote. I read a long time ago that there was a poll taken that asked people if they agreed or disagreed with a number of sentences. It turned out that the VAST majority (I'm forgetting the actual number but it was >70) of people polled strongly agreed with liberal principles, only they didn't realize it because all the high emotion, ideological terminology was stripped out.
I can ask 1000 people whether they think that the government should allow partial birth abortions and then I could ask those same 1000 people if they feel that women must be obligated to carry to term any pregnancy regardless of how it might damage their health or how viable the fetus might be and get two very different numbers. But it's the same question asked in different ways.
Obama has had a busy day, wonder how many votes he's lost.
One more set of links before I go tuck my babies to bed:
Open Letter to Obama on Late Term Abortions
Obama Botches the Abortion Conversation
Why not just say "Late term abortion is a medical decision to be made by a woman and her physician"? He could even pander better than has by adding "with prayer to God for guidance, wisdom, and if need be, forgiveness"
Nicole, again, my point is that however much the right may be responsible for the use of the term partial birth abortion, it is now standard use, both liberals and conservatives, republicans and democrats, and to say that Obama is somehow buying into a right wing framing of the debate is to not acknowledge that practically every other theorist, politician, and activist also buys into this standard. My point, again, is that Obama is not framing this from a right point of view for using this term.
You may be right that "he who frames the debate wins the argument," but I think the use of that word is no more an agregious submission to one frame than your use of the gendered pronoun "he" to make your rather absolute aphorism.
I am sorry Nicole, but the state is going to spend just as much time finding out about a woman's mind in regards to her fetus as they do in all other cases of psychological distress and mental illness that traipse onto legal territory. This is very common practice, and we should pretend that it isn't. Perhaps we shouldn't be happy that we have to do this kind of thing, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't do it.
I certainly agree that the answer to the poll depends on how you ask the question. And I promise that if you asked the question with a detailed description of the different methods used to enact abortions after 25 months, you would find that far more than 70 percent of the country are opposed to late term abortions. Ïn fact, when framed with the magical word "late term" in addition to "partial birth," more than 70 percent said it should be illegal:
http://www.pollingreport.com/abortion.htm
"Now I would like to ask your opinion about a specific abortion procedure known as 'late term' abortion or 'partial birth' abortion, which is sometimes performed on women during the last few months of pregnancy. Do you think that this procedure should be legal or illegal?"
Legal - 22% Illegal - 72 Unsure 5%
In related news, which also says something about polls, a Canadian doctor and huge activist for abortion rights recently received the Order of Canada, the biggest aware a doctor can receive. It was controversial, but 65 percent of Canadians said they support the aware. Poll experts remarked that 65 % was remarkable, and that it is rare to ever get more support than that on an issue - which I think says something abotu how strongly people in the US feel about partial birth abortion.
However, I have the feeling this has more for you to do with the notion about mental distress, and all I want to say is that I don't agree with your or anyone else's claim that Obama's clarification of mental health is in anyway an attempt to reach out to voters who wouldn't otherwise have voted for him.
Do you really think Obama believes that those Americans who plan not to vote for a democrat due to beliefs about abortion are really going to suddenly change their minds about Obama because he remarked that it is necessary to clarify what exactly we mean by mental distress when we give certain women the exceptional right to have partial-birth abortions? Do you really think he was making a political move with that ridiculous of hope?
There were those on the left that thought Gore wasn't perfect, so they stayed home or voted otherwise.
There were those on the left that thought Kerry wasn't perfect, so they stayed home or voted otherwise.
In both situations, the outcome was that a bunch of young american soldiers got killed or maimed, and a bunch of other innocent iraqi citizens were killed or maimed.
There are those on the left that think Obama isn't perfect, I wonder what they'll do on November 4?
gwen @ 91:
Nicole Belle @ 90:
jimbo92107 @ 74:
All of these points are good and valid, and quite honestly, I need time to think about this one. I suggest everyone take some time to think about it... reacting violently isn't always the way to go, as we can see from that book you just posted about, right Nicole???
One hard reality we must face is that the Nominees must please all gods at once to get elected. He could be just trying to make conservatives feel better about agreeing with a non-substantive ssue - if the statistics you all quote are true, the outlawed abortions would be very VERY minimal. In fact, almost none, since almost every abortion in late term is because of the health of the mother. according to y'all.
Secondly, Obama could be pandering to special interests. or he could be being manipulated by people like Bill Clinton, who could be well-meaning in trying to help him solidify a more 'centrist' view, whatever that frikkin means. Obama could be testing the waters to see how his voters react, to find what THEIR center is, not what pundits define as the center, or even what Democrats define as their center.
You see, the game of kings is called CHESS, and you have to be extremely patient and willing to make sacrifices in order to win. That, and it is critical to understand that their are no hard and fast rules for strategy in chess, only rules on how the pieces move.
Let us not forget that Obama is running for ALL Americans, so he claims, so he can't just stay left the whole time, even if it's the right thing to do from most people with a brainstem.. he needs to be able to make his dissenters like him - or at least hate him less - in order to listen to him, WHERE HE CAN ACTUALLY CHANGE PEOPLE'S OPINIONS. More flies with honey than vinegar, anyone?
All that aside, he could be showing his true colors and dumping on all those simpletons who gave him money, me included. The truth is, we won't be able to see his true game until more of the pieces have been moved on both sides. So I say, WITHOLD YOUR JUDGEMENT, AND CALM THE FUCK DOWN. Furiating isn't it? yes. it is. but if you think you could be a better President of the United States by reacting the way you all are the first time an influential person does crap you don't like or didn't expect, I wouldn't trust you with the Nuke switch, either. Chew on that for a while people, and then come back to the debate.
What's wrong with Obama reframing the issue in terms that people who have hesitations about abortion can sympathise with? The kind of partial birth abortion/late term abortion he's talking about really is pretty much opposed by everyone except when the life/health of the mother is at risk.
The debate is on this exception--how narrow it should be. The most extreme anti-abortion folks say that it is NEVER necessary. That's medically wrong. They've succeded in framing the debate to make people think that women ARE going around having a "partial birth" abortion cause they have nothing better to do. This idea is completely outrageous.
Obama is just clearly reiterating that, no, "partial birth" is really only an exceptional medical intervention. (I take him at his word that he thinks that mental illness is a medical illness.) Obama is clearly, forcefully reiterating that he, consistent with Roe v. Wade itself, wants strict limits on abortion in the 3rd trimester.
This statement its an easy way for him to show that he, like the vast majority of all Americans, believe that abortion is a serious moral issue and that it should be subject to SOME restriction.
I include myself among the Americans to whom Obama's position of framing abortion in a different way has significant appeal. I am very reluctantly pro-choice. That is, I believe that abortion is almost always wrong and that there should be a serious societal effort to reduce the incidence of abortion. However, because it seems pretty clear that there will be huge numbers of abortion even if it were made illegal, the only thing making it illegal will do is cause back-alley abortions where, in addition to the abortions, many more women will die or be seriously harmed.
Also, I think the only way of actually reducing abortion in an appropriate way has to include 1) access to birth control and comprehensive sex education 2) investment in the lives of women so that we're not faced with making this kind of choice--health care, educational opportunities, safe communities, domestic violence prevention, accountability for fathers.
All of these ways of real "abortion reduction" strategies are only going to be supported within the progressive community. I.e., the Republican party's motto of "Protecting life from conception to natural birth." If the progressive community can start to dialogue more with people who are anti-abortion and try to work together by changing our rhetoric, I don't really see the harm.
It would be exciting for me: a lot of times my progressive Christian friends--who are dedicating their life to social work, education, anti-war activism--just can't get involved politically because they can't support a candidate who is "pro-abortion." However, if they could support a party that REALLY had as its goal the reduction of abortion, even if it still sought to keep abortion "safe, legal, and rare," they could get engaged for the common good. The "I dislike everything about the Republicans, but I have to vote for them because they are 'pro-life'" argument would be diffused and they could start voting on all the other issues they're committed to.
Who's talking about Obama being perfect? If you want to cast your vote for the lesser of two evils, you have that right as an American.
I'll vote for McSame if you want, because after today, I wouldn't be able to take Obama's Iraq War rhetoric seriously - why should I think he won't change his mind to pander to the right on that too?
I think I have a pretty good clue about what happens when we elect Democrats and they become the majority in the House and Senate, no way in hell I'll be responsible for it happening to the Presidency.
Mickxotic @ 36:
Well that's wonderful, but I know several people offhand that haven't adopted "normal, white, male babies". There's places that completely focus on the opposite of what you're claiming is all that happens. Maybe it's true for you and maybe that's the majority of what happens, but I'm not exactly seeing statistics for your comment here or, conversely, my comment. There's only so much you can do when your frame of reference is based upon your own experience and little more.
One has to wonder how many of these people in horrible circumstances are waiting 6 months down the road to get an abortion, considering how many people in here are clamoring these are "rare".
So, honestly, I don't even see the difference here. The key here is "late term", not just "abortion". I think a lot of people cut a difference between these more than some would want to admit.
Also, I'm not sure how feeling this way makes me a "neanderthal". People can't disagree on things? This is a VERY SPECIFIC situation and I can feel how I want about it. I'm not running around comparing people who think it's fair to do this to freaking violent barbarians. Meanwhile, I get compared to an idiotic cave man?
I have to wonder who's the actual neanderthal here. Maybe next time more context could be provided alongside your insult, smart ass.
dude @ 131:
They'll say that we should have joined them or some other rubish.
nicole:
kudos to you for dealing with this recently-quite-inflammatory crowd of posters. between religion, the normal threads that sometimes turn *into* religion, and now this, it's becoming infuriating and not worth it to read the comments that i used to find insightful on the whole, or at the least amusing.
i also commend your strength, from one mother to another, to broach this topic (and deal with the pedants who appear to have very little concern about compassion at times) here. while i'm not rabidly *anything* in terms of ideals (too many grey areas to be rabid about major issues, really), i am very VERY moved to follow and support safe and accessible abortions for all women, including my daughters and myself, in all points of gestation. it has very much to do with personal situations, and you can't make a law based on a Lowest Common Denominator that quite possibly doesn't exist (like flippant 8-month pregnant women who just up and decide to abort, or perhaps the new-caddy-driving welfare queen).
but if there's going to be one thing in this world that gets my goat every time: it's whitebread, privelaged males telling me that the fruits of my sexuality are also my punishment, even the underdeveloped/abnormal/stillborns..while they very reliably gallavant off to bu-fu some other repressed schmuck in a public bathroom.
public healthcare, proper sex-ed, access to contraceptives, public-funded childcare, and (now this is really stretching it..) males no longer being taught that they somehow own females and have directive over a woman's body.. that's utopia!
Tony @ 136:
On a non-insulting note, I agree with your detractor about adoption choices. It is very very expensive all tale told, to adopt a child. Hence, many people who can afford to will choose the babies that will be easiest to care for, i.e. genetically healthy, usually white, well-tempered children.
That being said, I understand your point as well. In a better-off state of affairs, I might even agree to let the child go for adoption. I just think that it is so much smarter to stop having so many unwanted pregnancies in the first place, and to make adoption easier and less expensive, and I also firmly believe that no one, least of all males, should be telling a woman what she can or cannot do with her body.
But all of this pales in comparison to the heart of this post, which is a politically calculated move that some people don't like, for a number of differing and/or complimentary reasons. See post #132 in that regard.
elysse @ 138:
Wow, there is so much kewlness in your comment that it's hard to even get offended about the gender-bashing there.
But there you have it, that's kind of offensive. I happen to be a white male, who likes to bu-fu other men (and women), however not in public bathrooms. I would never presume to tell a woman what she can or can't do with her body, only advise her IF she asked my opinion. And dare I say that there are PLENTY of women out there who presume to tell you whether you can or can't have an abortion as well. In all, I agree with your sentiment, but find a better way to say it, lady.
Obama has finally (after 55 years on this Earth) convinced me that all politicians are the SAME, I'm either 3rd party for the first time or staying home. No point in fighting for Amerika anymore.
Wise_Fool @ 140:
Wow, there is so much kewlness in your comment that it's hard to even get offended about the gender-bashing there.
But there you have it, that's kind of offensive. I happen to be a white male, who likes to bu-fu other men (and women), however not in public bathrooms. I would never presume to tell a woman what she can or can't do with her body, only advise her IF she asked my opinion. And dare I say that there are PLENTY of women out there who presume to tell you whether you can or can't have an abortion as well. In all, I agree with your sentiment, but find a better way to say it, lady.
you knows what i mean. :)
if i was to be more specific, it's not *men*, it's not *whitebread* men, it's not repressed gay men ($DEITY bless 'em)... it's the ones that decide they have some sort of say in legislation about personal issues.. actually, the very same crowd up in arms about same-sex marriage most of the time...
the women who don't support at least some form of elective termination/birth control make me sad. they must be very self-loathing, and that's no way to be..but that's also my opinion.. they too had to make personal choices to get where they are in their own mindset, however different it may be from my own. the main difference is that i don't insult and shame them when i disagree with what they choose to do with themselves (see also: the republican's wife who's pregnant with #17, last i heard, and has her own tv show....even though part of me wants to yell "hey! it's a vagina, not a clown car! treat the VJ with a bit more respect!" :) ), ): i respect their choice, and i don't try to make my representatives draft legislation to prevent them from living their chosen path...
it's all too complicated for 1:20am, i think i should sleep off the illness that comes with experiencing another election cycle with the abortion pony back out on display.
Obama should know by now that an energized base is worth a lot more than the few votes he can get from the right.
People aren't voting against Obama because of the issues mostly due to McSame being 4 more years of what 77 percent of us don't like.
People are voting against Obama because of something stupid like his wife scares them as if she's going to come to their house and kick their ass's.
I do agree with him on late term abortions, after 4 months someone should know whether or not they're going to have a child or not but he shouldn't frame it in such ignorant terms, he's better than that.
elysse, and all those who have now decided that obama is no different than mccain, no matter how much you may believe and intend otherwise, it is your beliefs and your stances that are going to get abortion made illegal, it is your beliefs that are going to get elected another bush in the exact same way that the man himself was elected, it is you who are going to ruin this country for the rest of us. i suggest you think twice about being unwilling to make a single compromise with the rest of this country (like all those on the right who refuse to compromise and who you probably hate so much), and if after that you still can't, and you will continue to be as dissatisfied, do as many of us do, which is go somewhere where it may actually be the case that the majority of the people think like you. until then, get used to the fact that, as somebody else already said, obama is, unfortunately, running for the president of the united states of america, not the president of crooks and liars. and unfortunately, no matter how much we don't like it, for 70 percent of the population, at a certain point a woman has to understand what it means to be pregnant, namely, that the baby, in their opinion, is no longer a part of her body, and even if she can do what she likes with her body, she can't with somebody else's (speaking of compassion). you may not agree, but you better wake up to the fact that you have very extreme views which are only going to ruin the chances of all those who don't but still want to have the ability to have abortions in the vast majority of cases.
if i was to be more specific, it's not *men*, it's not *whitebread* men, it's not repressed gay men ($DEITY bless 'em)... it's the ones that decide they have some sort of say in legislation about personal issues.. actually, the very same crowd up in arms about same-sex marriage most of the time...
the women who don't support at least some form of elective termination/birth control make me sad. they must be very self-loathing, and that's no way to be..but that's also my opinion.. they too had to make personal choices to get where they are in their own mindset, however different it may be from my own. the main difference is that i don't insult and shame them when i disagree with what they choose to do with themselves (see also: the republican's wife who's pregnant with #17, last i heard, and has her own tv show....even though part of me wants to yell "hey! it's a vagina, not a clown car! treat the VJ with a bit more respect!" :) ), ): i respect their choice, and i don't try to make my representatives draft legislation to prevent them from living their chosen path...
it's all too complicated for 1:20am, i think i should sleep off the illness that comes with experiencing another election cycle with the abortion pony back out on display.
[boldface added by me]
Fair Enough, and ROFL!!! You almost made me pee myself with the $DEITY thing, too. Could you tell I wasn't exactly a mainstream religion type person, either? ;P
Thanks for taking the time to clarify too. I hope I didn't come off too harsh in prior text. sleep well.
hawc @ 144:
*ahem* a woman "has to understand"? what are we, collectively 4-year-olds to you? have you ever been pregnant? ever been in labor? childbirth? how about homebirth twins, like yours truly? tell you what, when you have walked a mile in my moccasins you can make a move on what i do with my body, and until my child takes it's first breath, it is still part of me. after that it is still on me to birth, feed, raise, support this child, all the while being told by people who are not me that this was the best choice i could make? i think not, but whenever you find a way to give birth to *my* children, i'll let you handle the logistics of my own personal gestation.
my...*extreme* views? my view that i want a woman to be able to make her own decision, however differing from my own it may be?
or perhaps you see my failure to drink any one party or cause's kool-aid completely as a sign that i simply won't make a decision in november, or that perhaps since i'm Just A Woman i'll have to let someone else do that for me as well? you would be dead wrong, i actually believe in weighing all choices when i have as much information on as many of them as i can get.. which will most likely take me until november, possibly right before i walk in the booth.. that would be the Independant's Burden, which i happily shoulder.
I will not be voting for Obama. FISA, overtures to the religious right... Too many disappointments. He does not represent me.
I'll be writing in John Edwards, who had the most progressive policies and the most outrage.
Getting into this a bit late. It seems to me the key phrase of Nicole's post is a quote from someone else. Here is is:
"Obama’s desire to win these voters may be why, in a recent interview with Relevant magazine, (”Covering God, Life, and Progressive Culture”) Obama seemed to be moving rightward on the issue — rhetorically, at least — saying: "
Key words here:
1) May be why
2) Seemed to be moving rightward
3) rhetorically
Not is, but "may be". Not moved but "seemed to be moving. Not policy but "rhetorically."
I am sorry, can someone can show me a policy change? Because until they do, all I see here are the rants of those offended by any language that is divergent from their view of how everything should be phrased when speaking about the single most important issue of all time to them. They then arouse the feeble minded who accept anything that is said on that issue as gospel who pronounce they will now leave the ranch and let John McCain get a couple of cracks at the Supreme Court.
As a male, I would not tell a woman what to do with her reproductive rights. And quite frankly, as an adoptive parent, I have read many comments here that convince me that Obama's rhetoric is wrong. I have seen how tough mental stress can be right here in this thread. Many do not have what it takes mentally to be a parent and should be allowed to abort at any time for the sake of the mental health of the unborn child they might be bearing.
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