Planned Parenthood Action Fund unveiled an advertising campaign Wednesday in swing states painting Mitt Romney as the wrong choice for women, a critical voting bloc in the battle for the White House. Backed by $1.4 million, the spot will run on broadcast and cable television in West Palm Beach, Florida, Des Moines, Iowa, northern Virginia and Washington, D.C., according to the political arm of the women’s health care organization. [CNN]
JOE SCARBOROUGH’S “MORALITY” line is a trap religious conservatives have relied upon for decades, with liberals, libertarians and moderates caught in the marketing slogan that defined women’s freedoms in the 20th century. He utilized it when speaking with Cecil Richards of Planned Parenthood, speaking about government funding of her organization. She reminded him that most of the work PPA does is cancer screening and other preventative care. When Dan Senor tried to rebut PPA’s new ad against Mitt Romney, seen above, Richards toyed with Senor like he was the incredible shrinking man tethered to a pole, so she could poke him for her own amusement. I haven’t watched “Morning Joe” in a very long time, but this was one of the more entertaining infotainment show moments I’ve seen in a year.
A lot’s been made of a recent poll showing the “pro life” marketing label rising versus the “pro choice” defensive squat so many people have been stuck defending for decades. A false equivalency that I’ve refused to accept just about that long.
Maybe that’s because I’ve been in the position of having to make a life-altering decision to save myself, which was one of the most moral of my life.
Religious conservative men like Joe Scarborough pronouncing people being against Planned Parenthood out of “morality” is a preposterous judgment made from a point of sheer ignorance. Men don’t begin to know what a woman faces at this time in her life. Abortion rights opponent females do, but what they can’t understand or comprehend is that the life of the woman predates and preempts everything else, including the role of mother, which is separate until she accepts that job. It can never be forced on her, though religious conservatives and Republicans think that’s government’s job to do so.
If someone asked me in a survey whether I related or was “pro life” or “pro choice,” I’d either refuse to answer the question or I’d say “pro life.” I reject and resent anyone marketing I’m less a lover of life than anyone else on planet earth because I put my personhood first.
Liberals, libertarians and moderates of whatever political party you choose, need to quit buying into the religious conservative framing that has kept our reproductive health care debate ensnared for decades. It allows infotainment talking heads and hosts to preen and posture about “morality,” automatically lowering anyone else who believes individual rights are equally moral to uphold as less ethical.
Defending and protecting an individual’s freedoms is a human right, with women’s rights one of those that is morally important to protect.
The right’s war on women begins with the premise that religious conservatives have the right to strip women of a U.S. protected medical procedure.
As for the argument that Joe Scarborough made that people don’t want their tax dollars going to PPA. I don’t want to put another dime into Iraq, give aid to Pakistan, continue funding Afghanistan until 2024; and was against our involvement in the Libya bombing, too. What is anyone going to do about that?
I’m a weak agnostic. Been one for awhile. Hence my view regarding abortion isn’t influenced by pure belief in faith or not. That being said, I have no problem saying I’m pro-choice and don’t get bullied by the morality folks. We live in a society where medical science gives a woman a choice. And life is a string of choices upon choices. You can choose to fight or flee. Kill or no kill. Work or not work (even after being forced out of work). I may not agree with a choice but you have should have the right to do so.
My argument is this, if you really want all abortions to end, let’s work of the factors that lead women to consider abortion. And DO NOT start with the “they need to stop having so much sex” angle. That is just flat out stupid. Let’s work on the economics, the living conditions, crime, etc. Those things that may lead an average woman to the abortion clinic. Oh wait… Oh my… That sounds HARD. Let’s not do that cause it’s HARD and makes us THINK about THINGS.
“That is just flat out stupid.”
You just summed up every single male bovine fecal matter argument the anti women’s reproductive rights mob make.
Life begins with the woman
Exactly, religious conservatives tend to forget this or do not care. Reminds me of a stomach turning story that made waves in Brazil some years ago. The uncle of a young girl repeatedly raped her getting her pregnant at 9 yrs of twins. After complaining of stomach pain her mother took her to ER and that is where the doctors and mother found out about her pregnancy. The mother authorized an emergency abortion to save the young girl’s life.Yet the Catholic church excommunicated the girl (a child!), the mother for authorizing the abortion and the doctors for performing the abortion, yet did not excommunicate the uncle who performed to atrocious act because killing was a worse sin than raping a child. They did not care (enough) that without the abortion the girl would have probably died. Her life was worth less than the life of the unborn fetus, and she was a child. That’s how absurd and inhumane the narrow focus of some religious conservatives can get. That’s why I don’t want them anywhere close to power.
I don’t want to put another dime into Iraq, give aid to Pakistan, continue funding Afghanistan until 2024; and was against our involvement in the Libya bombing, too. What is anyone going to do about that?
Exactly!!!
killing was a worse sin than raping a child
It is the Catholic Church afterall.
As for the argument that Joe Scarborough made that people don’t want their tax dollars going to PPA. I don’t want to put another dime into Iraq, give aid to Pakistan, continue funding Afghanistan until 2024; and was against our involvement in the Libya bombing, too. What is anyone going to do about that?
Building your political strategy once again on simply drawing ideological battle lines against religious conservatives will get you exactly where it has gotten you for the last 40 years………..nowhere.
You don’t have the public support for public funding of abortion…….
An April 2011 CNN poll showed that 61% of respondents opposed public funding for abortion.
A January 2010 Quinnipiac University Poll showed 67% of respondents opposed federal funding
of abortion.
A November 2009 Washington Post poll showed 61% of respondents opposed government
subsidies for health insurance that includes abortion
A September 2009 International Communications Research poll showed that 67% of respondents
opposed measure that would “require people to pay for abortion coverage with their federal taxes.”
Running a frontal charge against a superior number of forces will end the same for you as it did for Lee and Ewell. You would unequivocally do better to advance the fight in areas where you can assemble a greater number of allies. A flanking maneuver is always used to offset the numerical imbalance.
As I said earlier, I don’t believe the fight is with abortion per se. For the one woman that I know who had abortion, it was the last option. But how she arrived to that option is what was interesting to me:
One woman had a boyfriend for 2 years. She got pregnant by him and he faked being happy (he left and effectively disappeared). She was in college (5th year senior) and had no parental financial support (grandparents raised her). Well this mechanical engineering major faced no finances, education in jeopardy (she had an internship overseas to attend), etc. I remember her distinctly saying that if her boyfriend would have stuck by her, she would have happily put education on hold. But her elderly grandparents couldn’t help her and she saw herself trying to raise a child with no to little income. She went to Planned Parenthood with my wife and the counselor gave her ALL KINDS of options outside of abortion. And my wife and I at the time (we were 22 and childless) even considered helping to raise this child. But ultimately, she had an abortion due to economic and yes, social fears.
That was 17 years ago. That woman is now married, working as a mechanical engineer, and has two healthy children. I cut the story down for time but there were many factors in her decision. Those factors are what I see as paramount. Let’s not treat abortion as the root cause. It is an outcome.
So in a sense CO, I agree with you. The flanking maneuver is to address the decisions that arrive to abortion. Until we actively address those decisions with REAL solutions and workarounds, I’m firmly pro-choice.
“For the one woman that I know who had abortion, it was the last option.”
For the two young women who died from illegal abortions and the resulting infections who should have graduated with our class from high school before it was legal it abso-fracking-lutely was the LAST option.
Again with the male bovine fecal matter public poling numbers crap.
How about poling on how many people want their tax dollars going to oil companies? Being flushed down the sewers of Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan?
And you don’t mention the OVERWHELMING numbers that favor abortion rights.
I appreciate conservatives leaving comments, casualobserver, but please don’t channel Sen. Jon Kyl factoids, and don’t change the subject, something people always do when they can’t win on points. I’m not making the case for public funding of abortion, which is a separate issue from funding PPA.
The federal funding for Planned Parenthood goes overwhelmingly for other services, well beyond abortion.
The battle lines have been drawn by religious conservatives, whether Democratic or Republican, which is irrefutable. I wouldn’t even be writing about this subject if they didn’t demand the overturning of existing law that included honoring privacy rights of women, or admit the fact, which you refuse to do as well, that PPA uses very little of that funding for abortion services.
WOW Ms. Marsh….in other words….being dishonest about the whole thing? conSERvatives being dishonest in their arguments? I am shocked, SHOCKED I tell you!!!!
Religious conservatives IN BOTH POLITICAL PARTIES, secularh.
If they be conSERvatives they almost assuredly be religious.
Wow, a reply in bold font. I must really be in trouble now. Can the dreaded ALL CAPS be far off?
Religious conservatives are losing battles all over the country and it is seen most in the gay rights movement. Even they admit they are losing that battle. These people’s time has come and gone. Why do these people deserve special budget privileges that the rest of America doesn’t? I have asked many a conservative that question and they have no answer for it. Giving special rights to religious conservatives is wrong when no one else has those special rights.
Heh-heh… Emphasis on BOTH parties for me, because for those with short memories it was the trifecta of Stupak-Pelosi-Obama who codified Hyde in law to launch the right’s war on women.
Carry on, my work is complete on this one.
ANY time the peoples rights are determined by religious conSERvatives…no matter what party…the people get screwed.
I wish people would mind their own bussiness. Its a womans right to choose and in some cases, its a decision between the woman and her spouse. They each talk to one another if her life is a stake or they are in a situation where the child will be brought into harm. Its sometimes a man and a woman together that make that decision. Fox News is going 24 hours on that story about a gender abortion at Planned Parenthood by a rogue employee that didn’t no what she was doing. It was taped by the anti-abortion group live-action. Conseratives are doing everything to stop abortions by local and state laws. I just hope women know what the stakes are and that their reproductive rights are in danger.