In the Washington Post, Kathleen Parker writes on the Notre Dame Barack Obama abortionist love-fest speaker scandal:

Abortion, after all, is settled law, and Obama is the duly elected president. Clearly, the American people have moved on.

Or have they? And should we? Is there really ever a time when we should be comfortable with the ratification of abortion? It has always seemed to me that the truest form of feminism, as in the earliest days of suffrage, would be to hold abhorrent the state-sanctioned destruction of women’s unique life-bearing gifts. Out of material expedience, we’ve somehow managed to convince ourselves that life is a mistake. [Emphasis all mine].

Oh yeah, the “truest form of feminism” must be wherever feminism was ONE HUNDRED FUCKING YEARS AGO. Now that women have the vote, what more do they want—the capacity to murder babies at will?

I, too, wish we could go back to the good ‘ol days of feminism, when women were forced to provide their “unique life-bearing gifts” on demand instead of, you know, if and when they chose to give the fucking gift. I WANT ALL GIFTS ALL THE TIME! MORE GIFTS! MORE MORE MORE!

[via Pukeimmediately].

Over at Beliefnet, Steven Waldman is arguing for the abortion debate to drop its central moral question—”Does life begin at conception?”—and begin to address the fact that “Most Americans believe there are gradations of life.”

Waldman cites a 2007 Third Way study which found that “69 percent of Americans believe abortion is the ‘taking of a human life,’ but 72 percent believe it should be legal.” Waldman attributes the statistic to the idea that most people believe that “some living things are more alive than others, and so the later in the pregnancy it gets, the more uncomfortable people become with the idea of ending it. . . . they believe both that a life stirs very early on and that a one-week-old embryo is more ‘killable’ than a nine-month-old fetus.”

Read More “Hot Trend: Pro-Choicers Who Believe Abortion Is Murder” »

That’s what Ruth Marcus claims in today’s Washington Post, quoting Sarah Palin’s remarks from a—what else—a pro-life fundraiser. At the dinner, Palin discussed her “choice” to have a child with Down syndrome  at the age of 44—a choice that, as Marcus points out, Palin wants to deny other women. Marcus is miffed that right-to-lifers like Palin routinely justify their anti-choice positions by describing their own “correct” “decisions” to have children. This isn’t the fist time Palin has used choice to explain why women shouldn’t chose—who could forget Palin’s election-season classic, “We’re proud of Bristol’s decision to have her baby”?

Palin’s pro-”choice” comments—where she describes twice considering abortion before deciding to carry her pregnancy to term—after the jump.

Read More “Sarah Palin Makes Case For Abortion” »

According to Slate’s William Saletan, whose abortiony rhetorical stylings my colleagues and I have discussed at length, “Sixteen million girls are missing in China.”

Holy shit, China. How did you manage to lose all these little girls?! Prepare to send out the biggest fucking Amber alert of all time!

Oh wait, this is Saletan we’re talking about—the reluctant pro-choice columnist of our time. That unbelievable lede that refers to real humans is actually about fetuses, right?

Read More ““Sixteen Million Girls Are Missing in China”” »

Tomorrow marks the end of the 30-day comment period on Obama’s proposed scrapping of Bush’s so-called “conscience rule.” Bush snuck the conscience rule in at the end of his godforsaken presidency to allow all healthcare providers to deny services (or “abortions”) to patients (or “women) based on their moral beliefs (or “misogyny”). Obama swiftly moved to resciend the rule; Shakesville has the deets on how to speak up as to  why it should stay that way:

Go to the ACLU Action Center here, or visit Planned Parenthood’s action page here, or Compassion & Choices’ action page here, all of whom have made it incredibly easy to make your voice heard by the Obama administration.

If all goes according to plan, the conscience rule will have accomplished nothing at all. Mwa ha ha.

Trent Franks, an Arizona Congressman, announced his introduction of the “Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act,” or “PreNDA,” today. The bill would “prohibit knowingly performing, or soliciting funding for, race- or sex-selection abortions.”

Franks previously introduced a different version of the bill, known as the “Susan B. Anthony Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act of 2008,” in the last session of Congress, but the session ended before action was taken.

The Intellectual Conservative Arizona blog notes that 87 percent of Americans support a law to “ban sex selection abortion.” The race thing is a little trickier. Barring some sort of hidden interracial extramarital affair—an unlikely scenario—why would any woman abort a baby based on its race? Isn’t the fetus’ race known before the baby is even conceived?

Read More “Congressman Introduces Bill to Prevent Abortion Eugenics” »

Unborn fetuses: Your lives are in Saletan’s hands.

Welcome back to “Sexist Beatdown,” the weekly event wherein Sady, of New York ladyblog “Tiger Beatdown,” and myself, of D.C. ladyblog “The Sexist” carry on evolved conversation on such topics as abnormal boners. This week, we discuss William Saletan, the Slate contributor obsessed with what Sady and I have, but what he does not: wombs (and the fetuses that sometimes develop in them).

Saletan is the king of the Ethical Ladypart Curveball, searching out freaky weird situations involving reproductive rights, in order to blow his fucking mind and encourage him to completely rethink the ethical rules involving abortion. Observe:

“If you stop paying a surrogate mother, what happens to the fetus?”

“Would you abort a fetus just because it wasn’t yours?”

Hey, we’re cool with “lady’s choice.” Not Saletan—it can never be that easy for Saletan. Is this awesome, or awesomely offensive? We decide, after the jump.
Read More “Sexist Beatdown: Debating William Saletan Edition” »

The District of Columbia isn’t the only locality sparing with lawmakers over political license plates. If Virginia state senator Ken Cuccinnelli gets his way, Virginia drivers will soon be able to wear their anti-abortion stances on their bumpers.

Last month, Cuccinnelli supported a bill that would allow Virginia residents to buy ‘Choose Life’ license plates from the Department of Motor Vehicles. Proceeds of the sales would go toward the state’s “crisis pregnancy centers,” outlets which provide freaked pregnant women with information about what to do next—and it’s certainly not abortion!

Read More “Virginia Drivers May Choose “Choose Life” License Plates” »

Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele told GQ interviewer Lisa DePaulo that he “absolutely” supports a woman’s right to choose, before promptly apologizing for the remarks, which could not have possibly been misinterpreted or taken out of context.

Steele also told GQ, “I loved to party—still do—and have a good time.” So, you know, this guy will say anything to anybody.

The pertinent portion of the interview follows [via Wonkette].

Read More “RNC Chairman Michael Steele Is Pro-Choice” »

Health and Human Services published President Obama’s official proposal to rescind Bush’s “conscience rule” in the Federal Register today. Bush’s rule expanded protections for healthcare providers who are morally opposed to performing or aiding in certain procedures—abortions, sterilizations, birth-control prescriptions, treating gays and lesbians, etc.

For the next 30 days, the public is invited to comment on Obama’s proposed rescission of the rule. Love it? Hate it? Tell the Obama administration through one of four easy ways (no faxes, n00bs). Once Health and Human Services opens comments for review, I’ll post the highlights here on the blog. And stay tuned for this week’s City Paper, where I’ll have more on the short-lived regulation.

For now, get to commentin’! Instructions are after the jump:

Read More “Comment on Obama’s Reversal of the “Conscience Rule”” »