Abortion is a right

Atrios posted this first, but I wanted to say something about it.

SOMEBODY FOUND SOME MOXIE....Wow. I sat up when I read this in Newsweek: When John Kerry stopped by a meeting of the liberal 527 America Votes two weeks ago, EMILY's List president Ellen Malcolm asked him about the future of the Democratic Party. Kerry "told the group they needed new ways to make people understand they didn't like abortion. Democrats also needed to welcome more pro-life candidates into the party, he said."

Standing up and saying that to the head of the pro-choice group that holds the biggest purse strings for the party takes some guts. (Not as many guts as it would have taken to say it during the election, but these are baby steps.)

What's more, Kerry is right. And before you start spamming me with hate mail, listen up. No one is suggesting that the Democratic Party change its platform or abandon the pro-choice cause or become, as one congresswoman mischaracterized Kerry's advice, "fake Republicans." That would be stupid and, even worse, wrong.

But it's long past time for the Democratic Party to realize that they continue to lose voters who aren't one-issue abortion voters but who feel unwelcome in the party because of their beliefs. Rhetoric that verges on being pro-abortion rankles even pro-choice Democrats like me. (For a nice summary of my thoughts, read this excellent piece by Sarah Blustain.) Parents who are uneasy about parental notification laws don't have rocks in their heads--they have to sign permission slips so the school nurse can give their kids Tylenol and they're not wild about the idea of that same kid getting an abortion without their knowledge. I'm not saying Democrats should back down from protecting girls in extraordinary circumstances who need to get abortions on their own. But they don't need to frame the argument in a way that implies that those who disagree with them are stone-age misogynists.

Fuck Amy Sullivan. If she doesn't want to get an abortion, she shouldn't get one.

People like Amy Sullivan sell their soul one day at a time. By the time they finish, it's gone and they don't even notice.

I say send her a bunch of hate mail.

I'm sick of her fake piety and calls for religous conformity.

Here's a simple concept: abortion saves lives. Ask any ER doc who's worked in a society without legal, safe abortion. Let them tell you about the coat hangers and the bleach douches and the other horrors of the pre-abortion west.

I'm not a woman, so I don't want to pound on her because, frankly, it's not a choice I get to make, so if anyone has an extended response to this, feel free to send it to me.

I'll say one other thing: protecting women's health is a good thing to stand for. It is what being a Democrat should be. Pro-choice, pro-abortion, all semantics. It's about the right of a woman to make life choices dictated by her conscience, not someone else's.

But it's not my argument to make.

posted by Steve @ 8:44:00 PM