That first point makes sense—feminist women were thrown under the bus in order to pass the health care bill, and they’re right to be pissed about it. But what’s this business about forcing us to vote for lady politicians? “A major element in our battle for equality is getting women into positions of power,” Siskind explains. “The hope is that these leaders, once in place, would promote women’s issues and encourage the next generation of women leaders. Speaker Pelosi reveals a flaw in feminist thinking: There are exceptions. A powerful woman can in fact be an enemy to women.”

Speaker Pelosi has taught Siskind a very important lesson: Supporting female politicians is not the same as supporting women. If only Siskind had figured that out sooner, before she wrote a big ‘ol article entitled “Should Women Back Palin in 2012?”

The obvious answer to that piece’s titular question, of course, is “fuck no.” Sarah Palin is, officially, the worst. But Siskind defies feminist conventional wisdom by throwing out this compelling argument: “Here’s the difference: Sarah Palin played women’s basketball.”

Barring the possibility Siskind believes that sinking sweet jump shots is now a requirement for President of the United States (at this point, I wouldn’t put anything past her)—I’m going to guess that Siskind supports Palin for President because she is a lady. Siskind is willing to support a woman who definitely opposes abortion rights, is totally a firm believer in teen abstinence, and is most certainly opposed to sensible rape policy—but is a lady. Why, again? Oh yeah: Because “the hope is that these leaders, once in place, would promote women’s issues and encourage the next generation of women leaders.”

That is a really dumb thing to hope, Amy Siskind. And that false hope becomes—forgive me for borrowing the terminology here—a nightmare when you learn of the wide variety of women Siskind is willing to support as her leader, just because they are women:

We should embrace what the current Newsmax cover describes as The Newer Feminism, which has a home for leaders regardless of political affiliation: Hillary Clinton, Sarah Palin, Suzy Welch, and Kathy Ireland, among others.

So, in the next presidential election, I’m going to vote for Sarah Palin and hope she suddenly starts caring about women’s issues. I’m going to vote for Kathy Ireland and hope she suddenly turns into someone qualified to lead the nation in more than just underwear sales. And I’m going to vote for Hillary Clinton and hope she turns into a hippopotamus.

I kid. But just in case you weren’t convinced that Siskind doesn’t base her faith in female politicians on blind hope, consider this argument: “I know I’ll hear from critics who claim that Palin would not share my policy views,” Siskind writes. “But what makes them so sure?”

We aren’t stuck with Stupak because we have lifted an anti-woman woman to the Speaker of the House. We’re stuck with Stupak because we have elected plenty of representatives—male and female—who are really, actually anti-women in their policies. I’ll take a pro-woman man over Siskind’s theory of spontaneous feminist conversion any day. Besides, women are not the only group who need more representation in the U.S. government. It’s worth noting that Siskind converted from a lifelong Democrat to a McCain supporter because he chose a woman as his running-mate. On the one hand, that says a lot about Siskind’s eagerness to support women in government. On the other hand, I guess that means she doesn’t think it’s important for African-Americans to gain representation.

The most troubling thing about Siskind’s aggressive campaign to put more women in office—even if their policy positions directly oppose women—is its one caveat. Why support Palin and not Pelosi? To Siskind, we must always support female politicians, no matter what—unless that female politician does not aggressively campaign to put more women in office. Keep in mind—we don’t even know if Sarah Palin would support more women in government—that’s just another of Siskind’s “hopes.” If representation is going to be our one-and-only issue, we should all be supporting Amy Siskind for president. And that’s a very scary thought indeed.

The situation: “Eva,” a married woman, is raped by her boss on a business trip. She becomes pregnant. She decides to get an abortion. Her husband is supportive of the abortion, but not of Eva—”He drove me to a clinic for a consultation and waited outside in the car because he ‘didn’t want to hear me talk about conception dates,’” she writes. Eva later decides not to go through with the abortion. Her husband leaves her. She raises a beautiful baby boy on her own. Now, seven years later, she wants to reconnect with her ex. But there is a complication: “What happened on that trip wasn’t quite rape but I wasn’t exactly willing either. The man was my boss and he was very drunk and forceful. I tried to push him away without upsetting him, but he was too strong and I didn’t fight him.”

Now, if I were the advice columnist here, I know what I’d say: “your ex-husband is a dickwad.” But I’m not an advice columnist. Lesley Garner is. Her advice is of the “stop lying about getting raped and admit that it was selfish to not get an abortion” variety.

That’s right: Garner tells Eva that (a) she wasn’t actually raped; and that (b) any woman who refuses to abort her (made-up) rape baby is selfish for denying her husband’s feelings. Let’s start with the rape part:

Let’s look at the bit about telling the truth first. Your letter is full of confusion and chaos, and then I reached the end and saw that the story with which you began—the story that you told your husband—wasn’t even true. This was a shock to me, so you can bet it would be a very big shock to your husband.

The thing that strikes me most about your whole story is that you seem to have very little understanding of how your husband might feel. It is all about you and your needs. I think it is highly unlikely that your husband will welcome you back but I guarantee that, should you get to sit down and talk together, the further revelation that your rape wasn’t exactly a rape but a situation between you and your boss that got out of hand would be the final blow.

. . . Something isn’t right here, which makes me wonder whether you are telling the truth to yourself, never mind your husband.

Ah. It wasn’t a “rape.” It was a “situation.” Situations! Anything goes in them, really! Remember this next time the man responsible for your paycheck gets drunk and forces you to have sex with him, but you decide not to physically fight him, because he is a strong, drunk, forceful man responsible for your paycheck: What were you doing turning up in that “situation” to begin with? Add that to the list of things to avoid if you don’t want to get raped, ladies: Short skirts, beer, and “situations.”

Again, I’m not an advice columnist, but isn’t the more troublesome detail here that Eva would describe her “situation” as “not quite rape”? Shouldn’t we address the fact that Eva appears to be in such denial about that “situation” that almost a decade later, she can’t come to terms with what actually happened to her? No time: We still have to deal with Eva’s horrible decision not to get an abortion!

Garner writes:

I see a complete mismatch between what has actually happened and the fantasies that you are weaving around the relationship. So I feel I should spell a few things out.

. . . You made a unilateral decision. You decided to continue with the pregnancy in the absolutely unrealistic expectation that your husband would be happy to bring up the child of another man, his wife’s rapist. This is a no-brainer, Eva. No man could contemplate this. He would have found your decision inexplicable.

. . . On the whole, men’s hearts are not melted by children who are not their own. Even a tender-hearted man is going to find it hard to be charmed by the child of a man he believes raped his wife. There is no bond between your former husband and this child, and I doubt there ever could be.

Oh, that “unilateral decision” to have an abortion! Whenever women make that decision all on their own, without even thinking of the “feelings” of their husband, government, or Telegraph advice columnist, some bad shit is bound to go down that will ruin their lives forever, right?

One last time—I’m not an advice columnist—but if I were, I would focus on reminding Eva about what a total dickwad her husband was after she had to endure being raped and impregnated by her boss. Perhaps we just gently tell Eva that, really, the problem is not in her decision to carry a pregnancy to term, but rather the decision to continue to allow this fucking guy to have any sway over her child, her happiness, or her life.

It’s clear that both Lesley Garner and I aren’t really down with the idea of Eva and her ex getting back together. We just happen to disagree on a few of the minor details—like what rape means, and whose feelings should be most valued in the case of abortion. Nevertheless, Garner’s conclusion is a good one: “As for your lovely son, yes, it would be good if he had a father but he will also thrive if he has a happy, stable mother who has the support of a network of friends and family . . . become a happier and more fulfilled person in yourself and you have a much better chance of a strong relationship in the future.” A good place to start? Ignoring every piece of advice that preceded Garner’s final thought.

The battle for ideological dominance in our nation’s capital’s collegiate sex columns continues. Are our local campus columnists on the forefront of radical sex writing, or are they bringing back the good old days of romance born out of  aggressive homophobia?

This week: pro-life gay man worries that if he could have children, his pro-choice boyfriend might kill them; how to talk to a girl without being a creep; your boyfriend is cheating on you to avoid rumors he’s on the down low.

AMERICAN UNIVERSITY

Sex Tips: In this edition of the AU Eagle’s triple-threat sex column, Buster Darkhole, Maxwell Hillcrest, and Amber Sparkles take on the issue of  . . . ideological rifts in on-campus relationships. How apropos!

The inspiration: A pro-life man writes in to ask if his crush on a pro-choice man is too immoral to pursue. “While he and I can’t have children, it’s more the idea that if we had children he would be OK with killing them,” he writes. “Is this enough to kill a relationship?” I bet you weren’t expecting Buster Darkhole’s response: “let me just say that it is a relief to find another pro-life gay on this campus.”

Life Lesson: The American University community contains at least two pro-life gay men.

Progressive Meter: Sorry, my brain just exploded attempting to accurately gauge the progressiveness of this situation. I think we’ll split the odds and go for a 5.

—

UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND

Sex Tips: The Diamondback’s latest advice column schools undergrads on how to “start up a conversation without seeming creepy.” Columnist Esti Frischling’s suggestion: ” The rule is this: Any guy can get any girl. . . .  If you approach this situation knowing without a doubt that you are going to get some serious ass, your actual chances improve drastically,” she writes. “Seeing as you already know you’re going to get with this girl in the near future, you can certainly start to relax around her. Suddenly, imagining her naked in class changes from awkward and creepy to fun and clairvoyant. . . . Keep in mind: You are the man.”

Life Lesson: She wants to fuck you.

Progressive Meter: Assuming that a strange woman wants to have sex with you whenever you like will inevitably lead to complications. As one commenter notes, it ain’t the first time she’s doled out this advice. So much for the “without seeming creepy” part. Zero.

—

HOWARD UNIVERSITY

Sex Tips: In this Howard University Hilltop opinion piece, Morgan Winbush attempts to get to the bottom of Howard’s “dating double standard.” She writes: “in a man’s world; you have to be on top of everything including your woman and your relationships. . . . Messing around with other women feed into the need for a man to feel as if he is needed. The more women who ‘need’ him the more he is solidified as a man possessing the qualities that are ‘manly’ and thusly proving himself to be the leader of the pack when it comes to female dependency. ‘Is he gay?’ ‘Is he on the DL?’ — the more female partners a man has the less likely these labels will be placed on him.” But aggressively proving one’s heterosexuality ain’t just for men any more: “times have progressed and women want just as much ego rubbing as their counterparts.”

Life Lesson: Your boyfriend is cheating on you so that nobody thinks he’s gay. At least now you can get in on the homophobic fun, too.

Progressive Meter: Winbush makes a good-faith effort to encourage fellow students to embrace female promiscuity alongside the traditional male version. In the meantime, she raises the specter of the guy on the “down low” without even giving a positive shout-out to the campus LGBT contingent. Three.

Photo by Ollie Crafoord, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

This week, anti-abortion activists staged an eBay auction to help raise a legal defense fund for Scott Roeder, who was charged with murdering abortion provider George Tiller back in May. With the auction, anti-abortion activists were hoping to capitalize on Roeder’s newfound notoriety by selling off a series of his signed, pro-life memorabilia.

But before the items could hit the virtual auction block, eBay announced that the memorabilia would be removed from the Web site. In a statement, the company said that it would “not allow listings that promote or glorify violence, hate, racial or religious intolerance, or items that encourage, promote, facilitate or instruct others to engage in illegal activity.”

St. Louis cartoonist Gary McCoy had a more personal beef with the auction: It totally ripped off his work.

Among the offending items listed for auction: A cartoon presumably penned by one of Roeder’s fellow inmates and kindred spirits, Jason Dubrowski. The cartoon depicts a newspaper clipping that reads, “Late-term abortion provider killed. Pres. Obama ’shocked and outraged.’” Beyond the paper is the cartoon’s ironic payoff: rows of graves, each marked “Aborted Baby.” It’s signed: To all you prolifers, thanks for your support. Scott Roeder.

McCoy, a conservative cartoonist who regularly addresses abortion in his work, published that very same image back on June 1—minus the alleged murderer’s salutation. Today, Cagle Cartoons, which syndicates McCoy’s work, recognized Roeder and Dubrowski’s cartoon as a near replica of McCoy’s effort, and called the incarcerated duo out for their plagiarism. As the syndicate’s blog notes, Roeder “seems to admit” the theft in the cartoon’s eBay listing: “His name is Jason Dubrowski and is one of the best artists I’ve seen in here . . . The drawing of the field of babies tombstones with the newspaper headline comments of Obama was done after a Christian newsletter printed this illustration which a lady in Valley Center sent to me.”

McCoy was not impressed with the tribute from “one of the best artists” in prison. “I was extremely upset to learn that my cartoon was being plagiarized in order to defend Scott Roeder,” says McCoy, who was alerted to the misappropriation this morning by friends, colleagues, and even Roeder’s estranged wife, Lindsey. Lindsey called McCoy to inform him that Roeder had previously sent both her and her son a copy of McCoy’s original cartoon from prison. Clearly, Roeder was a fan.

McCoy claims he only intended the cartoon to condemn abortion, not support murder. “It was merely my attempt to comment on the contrast between Obama being outraged over Dr. Tiller’s murder, and his lack of action on abortion,” says McCoy. “Look, I’m pro-life. But I don’t condone the killing of abortion doctors. Most legitimate pro-lifers condemn that action. Only the fanatical fringe do that sort of thing, and it really upsets us.”

Roeder and Dubrowski aren’t the only ones who have insulted McCoy’s work this week. eBay’s response to the auction “kind of irked me as well,” says McCoy. “They say they don’t allow listings that promote or glorify violence, and it kind of bothers me that they thought my cartoon promoted violence. I’m glad they took the cartoon down, of course, but I wish they had made it clear that they removed it because it was a plagiarized cartoon, and not because my cartoon was violent.”

The folks at Overturn Roe have put together an instructional video to help you burn your very own effigies of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid this Halloween, instead of engaging in normal human activity like dispensing candy to children. According to Overturn Roe’s set of “Marching Orders” [PDF], demonstrating that our Congressional leaders are going to burn in hell if they don’t repent for making us pay for child killing in the health care bill is not going to be easy. “Decide you are going to do this—no matter what—even if it is just you and 2 other people,” the orders read. “Do not ask permission; do not ask for peoples’ opinions as to whether or not you should do this.”

Alright then. Let’s get started!

1. Be sure to spend a lot of money on this. Pick up your corporate effigy at Kinkos and Home Depot: “Hi, I just sent you a PDF of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. I want that in full color, on paper, 3 foot by 5 foot.”

2. And time.

3. Even when it’s not burning, it should look like it’s burning.

4. Alienate your friends. When you invite people to your effigy burning, “Get a FIRM answer. ‘Maybe I’ll be there’ means ‘no.’ ‘I’ll try to be there’ means ‘no.’ Your heart will be grieved before this is over, because people who you thought would join you won’t. (Some people are terribly afraid that their reputation will be hurt.)”

5. Don’t tell your religious leaders. “If you have a pro-life Priest or Bishop, invite them to come. If they are not really pro-life, don’t waste your time. And if you are afraid of them trying to talk you out of it, do not ask them, unless you can ignore their bad counsel. (That is why I said in #1 to just decide that you are doing this no matter what.)”

6. You should probably also get these sunglasses.

7. Annoy the media. “If you do a great event, and a few hundred cars see you, this is good. If your local TV or Radio or Newspaper or Internet Papers cover you, you reach thousands, hundreds of thousands, or even millions. This is great. It is critical that you follow these instructions EXACTLY as we give them to you.”

8. Then, ignore them. “You are free to say the same thing, over and over, hammer your point. If you feel a reporter is trying to get you to say something you do not want to say, just ignore the question, and say your message. For example, you could say: ‘That’s not the point: The point is it’s immoral to perform abortions and distribute contraception’ and ‘Would Notre Dame honor Pilate after he condemned Christ to death?’”

9. Burn. “If you don’t know how to start a fire, ask a Boy Scout.” Or, just unload a shitload of lighter fluid into your backyard.

10. Buuuuuuuuurn. “We suggest you check what your local ordinances are on open flame.”

The danger of swine flu in pregnant women has received a great deal of press attention recently. As concerns over the health of pregnant women rise, the abortion debate has slyly emerged as a a central influence in the dialogue.

Yesterday, the New York Times told the story of Aubrey Opdyke, a 27-year-old woman who was pregnant when she contracted swine flu last June. What began as mild symptoms of aches and fatigue turned into a harrowing four month ordeal. Writes reporter John McNeil:

In the four months she was hospitalized, she spent five weeks in a coma, suffered six collapsed lungs and a near-fatal seizure. High-pressure ventilation blew her up like a molten balloon until “she looked like she weighed 400 pounds,” her husband, Bryan, said, and she has stretch marks from her neck to her ankles. Her muscles and lungs are still so weak that she uses a walker.While hospitalized, she missed seeing her 4-year-old daughter, Hope, learn to swim and start pre-school.

And, most important, she lost her baby. Parker Christine Opdyke, almost 27 weeks in the womb, was delivered by emergency Caesarean section on July 18, when her fetal heart rate plummeted during Ms. Opdyke’s third lung collapse. Her airways were too blocked to let a breathing tube in, possibly a side effect of the drugs saving her mother. She lived seven minutes.

In McNeil’s profile of Opdyke, losing the baby was “most important”—more traumatic than even falling into the coma, suffering a seizure, temporarily losing the ability to walk, talk, and see her family, and facing death. The trauma of losing a child in the womb is clearly central to Opdyke’s experience. But it is still Opdyke’s experience—the ordeal is hers, not her baby’s. Compare that treatment to a previous profile of Opdyke, which ran in the Scripps Treasure Coast Newspapers. It’s worth it to examine the entire lede:

The baby was beautiful, with tufts of long eyelashes—just like her mother.

But she didn’t cry.

Her heart stopped minutes after doctors delivered her from the belly of Aubrey Opdyke, who had swine flu and lay in a medically induced coma.

Aubrey never had the chance to see her.

So the baby’s grandmother, Joanne Felker of Stuart, readied tiny Parker Christine for photographs and a video.

She bathed her and held her.

“She looks like she’s just peaceful,” Felker said of the images, shot by the volunteer group Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep.

One of these days, the family will show the images to Aubrey.

They’ll fill in the blanks about the time she has spent in a coma at Wellington Regional Medical Center, battling a case of H1N1 influenza that took Parker’s life on July 18 — more than two months before she was supposed to be born.

This is a story about a fetus. Opdyke, who endured months of comas, collapsed lungs, and seizure in a fight to stay alive, is introduced in a prepositional phrase: “from the belly of.” Joanne Felker is not Opdyke’s mother; she is “the baby’s grandmother.” The loss of Parker Christine is mourned at length, but the fact that Opdyke herself was on the verge of death is never mentioned in the story. Tellingly, Opdyke was not even able to speak at the time this profile was written about her. Given her condition, it’s doubtful she had a hand in authorizing the story at all:

Now that doctors have eased her off coma-inducing medication, Aubrey can blink in response to visitors.

She indicated that she recognized her husband, Bryan Opdyke, and can wiggle her toes.

The sources in the story are Opdyke’s mother, her former co-workers, and her former Girl Scout troop leader. Opdyke’s husband is not quoted in the story. That’s too bad, because he provided an extremely interesting insight to the New York Times:

Mr. Opdyke was warned he might have to choose—her life or that of the baby, who was just at the border of survivability outside the womb.

“I said, ‘Save Aubrey,’ ” he said of the woman he married last year. “I can make another baby, but I can’t replace her.”

Her third lung collapse forced the issue. Parker had to be delivered, but she did not survive.

The Times addresses the issue head-on: Losing Parker was a tragedy for the Opdykes, but it may very well have saved a woman’s life. Andrea Opdyke wasn’t given many choices throughout her horrific ideal. At least, in the New York Times, she’s afforded a voice in her own story.

Photo by flickr user Andres Rueda, Creative Commons 2.0

Depressing Feminist Graph #1:

According to the Economist, safe abortions worldwide decreased markedly between 1995 and 2003. Unsafe abortions, though—holding strong as ever! The good—and totally obvious—news is that banning and restricting abortion does not decrease abortions, so you might as well just make them legal and safe. In fact, in places where abortions are legal and safe, women have fewer safe abortions, too, probably because the contraception is flowin’ freely there as well. [Depressing Feminist Graph hat tip to Pukeimmediately].

Depressing Feminist Graph #2:

Unfortunately, when that contraception flows all the way into the strip club, it can have some negative economic effects for exotic dancers. The second depressing feminist graph comes courtesy of Julie Sunday, who notes a recent study which found that “women on the pill are attracted to more ‘boyish’ features in men.” The feminist blogs are all over the study’s more widely reported findings. But Sunday read, like, the whole fucking thing, and mined this interesting economic tidbit:

Strippers who are not taking the pill report an increase in lapdance revenue around ovulation whereas pill-taking strippers (who are thus not ovulating) do not see a spike in their revenue and earn less throughout the cycle. No, really.

Dotted line: strippers on the pill; solid line: strippers not on the pill.

Damn, girl. That’s a 50-dollar-per-shift difference during the menstrual cycle, and a full 200-dollar-per-shift-difference at the stripper’s most fertile. Somebody should do this study on women in other professions and see what they can shell up. Julie Sunday suggests that strippers looking for safety in the bedroom and success in the workplace ought to just go hormone-free, but not every type of contraception works for every woman. Would you change your method of contraception to get more tips?

“Reducing.” “Eliminating.” Saul doesn’t use the word “abortion” until page three, when she notes that “many opponents criticize selective reduction as a form of abortion.” It is abortion. So why don’t we call it that?

Saul’s story aims to accurately describe real pregnancy experiences, and the highly politicized debate surrounding abortion has a funny way of conveniently ignoring these stories. The hopeful parents Saul interviews largely fall outside the mainstream abortion debate: they are men and women who desperately desire children, and must decide whether to abort multiple fetuses or run the risk of losing their chance of ever having a healthy baby. The typical characterizations that pro-lifers associate with the word “abortion”— “baby killers,” “Godless whores,” “irresponsible sluts”—don’t exactly fit when they’re applied to people who go to great lengths to create life.

Saul’s heavy use of euphemism throughout the piece deliberately shields these women’s choices from the misplaced moral superiority of the abortion debate. Calling the procedure “reducing” or “eliminating” instead of “aborting” helps to respect the full experience of women who fight for one healthy child, but end up with seven fetuses that are unlikely to survive. The use of the “reduction” euphemism in the medical community may also help some women make informed medical decisions affecting their lives and the lives of their children. Some patients may be so opposed to abortion—or simply so put-off by the cultural perceptions of the word “abortion”—that they may endanger themselves or the lives of their potential children if they are forced to choose one.

But the medical community’s reluctance to discuss the possibility of “selective reduction” honestly and frankly with women can also harm those women who don’t realize that fertilization techniques may require abortion. One woman in the story, who chose to “reduce” her pregnancy from five fetuses to three, told the Times:

“I think there’s a huge problem in the reproductive technology industry . . . I was told the chances that I would have triplets were less than 1 percent. There was no talk of being faced with a decision like that until the day that we had the ultrasound. Then you have two weeks to decide. And you don’t get counseling from anybody.”

The euphemistic word choice can also hurt women who have abortions under other circumstances. The hesitancy to apply the term “abortion” to women who actually want babies does a disservice to all women who choose to end a pregnancy. Women choose abortion for a variety of reasons. Some women who are not carrying “multiples” choose abortion despite a desperate desire to have a child. Some women choose abortion in order to protect their children from lives that are sure to be short and painful. Some women choose abortion in order to save their own lives from dangerous pregnancies. Some women choose abortion because their bodies are unfit to carry a child. Some women choose abortion in order to protect the best interests of the children they already have. Some women choose abortion in order to protect the best interests of the children they want to have in the future. Some women choose abortion because they don’t want to have children. And some women choose abortion for reasons that are none of your business. When reporters choose to remove a select group of women from the discussion of “abortion,” they imply that all other decisions to abort are somehow less valid.

Saul’s story shows that the decision to abort is often complicated, difficult, and personal. It also shows that politicizing the decision to have an abortion can prove extremely dangerous to both women and children. In Saul’s story, women who choose to “reduce” their fetuses escape the “abortion” label because their choice to abort is explicitly aimed at encouraging life. Their choice completely upends the false dichotomy in the political debate between “abortion” and “life.” That’s all the more reason to call the procedure “abortion.”

What if Bill Clinton had openly announced, as he later did to his biographer, that Al Gore was “blowing” the 2000 election by refusing to allow Clinton to campaign for him? Maybe George W. Bush would never be president!

What if Bush had openly announced, as he did privately to his speech-writer, that his “heart was never into” banning gay marriage? Maybe gay people could be married!

And what if Richard Nixon had openly announced, as he did to his Oval Office tapes, that he thought abortion was okay “when you have a black and a white”? Maybe . . . Barack Obama’s mom would have aborted him, and “the world’s most famous mixed-race man” would never have even existed!

Wait, what?

It sure is fun to “wonder.” But pretending to pinpoint the precise political conditions that would have convinced a dead woman to have aborted her pregnancy 48 years ago instead of carry it to term is both dishonest and offensive.

Even if Nixon had announced that interracial couples would be free to abort their fetuses with impunity, why would that have convinced a white woman in a relationship with a black man to do such a thing? Why would anyone have cared what Richard Nixon thought, anyway? When Barack Obama was in the womb, Richard Nixon was already a lame-duck Vice President. And Nixon didn’t record his thoughts on interracial abortions until 1973, when Barack Obama was 12 years old. What is Egan even talking about?

The larger question is: why are commentators so quick to assume that Obama’s mother would have been interested in having an abortion at all, under any circumstances, ever?

Egan isn’t the first to jump down the rabbit-hole of Obama’s non-abortion history. In July, Republican Kansas Rep. Todd Tiahrt suggested that if Barack Obama’s mother had been offered “financial incentives” to have an abortion, then Obama may have been aborted and we would never have had a president who supported abortion. Wrap your mind around that one, liberals!

The speculation over Obama’s mother’s what-if-abortion is not a fun exercise in how even the smallest actions decisions can affect human history. It is, however, obviously racist (in his anti-abortion screed, Tiahrt also wondered aloud whether Clarence Thomas would have been aborted), and patently anti-choice.

Obama’s mother isn’t around to say, “I never would have had an abortion,” or, “I would have had an abortion if I could have afforded it,” or, “I would have had an abortion if Richard Nixon had been president over a decade before he was actually president, and had broadcast his racist Oval Office tapes over the radio in my first trimester.” This doesn’t seem to matter to the “What if” abortion set. When these commentators claim to know whether a dead lady they’ve never met would have had an abortion half a century ago, and why, they are saying that the mother’s opinion is unimportant to the discussion of abortion. They are robbing her of her ability to choose. In this case, commentators are posthumously robbing Obama’s mother of her ability to choose an abortion she never had, which just goes to show how seriously they take the whole “choice” thing.

One woman recalls her post-20 week abortion:

The baby had contracted a virus and you could see on the MRI that its organs were all messed up. It looked like there were bubbles in them, instead of solid masses like they were supposed to be. Then they figured out that the baby had been exposed to Fifth disease. All sorts of researchers contacted us, because they wanted to study it.

That was at about 20 weeks. I got a blood transfusion and I thought everything was cool. We went on vacation. But then we came back, and the doctor realized everything wasn’t cool. His brain had a hemorrhage. The MRI reminded me of my other son’s. He’s autistic, and when he was three he’d had an MRI that also showed abnormalities. At a minimum, they said the baby would have developmental delays. But the doctor also used the words: “This child could not make it into childhood.” I was six months along then, and I was already showing. But we couldn’t handle having another special needs kid. Psychically, we just couldn’t handle it.

. . . I cry all the time, and that will be for the rest of my life. Because I really, really wanted that baby.

And from another patient of Dr. Tiller’s

In July 1993, my husband and I received the worst news about our son’s impending birth: He suffered from multiple, severe fetal anomalies, both internal and external, thought to be the result of a rare blood disorder. If he could survive his early birth at 24 weeks he most likely would not survive his blood cancer beyond the age of 9.

. . . While still reeling from the shock, we were told we could take our chances and let the baby be born, but that the state would be forced to intervene if we did not then take every measure to keep our son alive. Or, we could consider two late-term abortion clinics—one in Wichita, Kan., the other in Holland! Our initial thoughts were “how could we be in a major NYC hospital in the United States and be told these are our only choices?” To say it was surreal is an understatement.

In preparation for President Obama’s controversial commencement address at the University of Notre Dame, where he will no doubt speak at length about the virtues of killing newborns, anti-abortion protesters have converged on the University of Notre Dame campus. Some of them are simply rolling around vacant strollers (representing the never-born) or crafting signs reading “I Regret My Abortion”—bush league.

Only one dude is shaming our abortionist president the right way: with a small plane that tows “a banner depicting the remains of an aborted fetus and the words ‘10 Week Abortion.’”

Pwned.

Catholic Universities: respecting the lives of women since probably never.

Photo by Fated to Pretend

If only! Ann Coulter voices her support of an investigator’s right to choose to waterboard.

I think I’m arriving at some sort of unified theory of Coulterism:

abortion IS WORSE THAN terrorism IS WORSE THAN waterboarding

terrorists DESERVE TO BE waterboarded

abortionists DESERVE TO BE terrorized

Joy Behar DESERVES TO BE aborted

This one’s a two-fer, in response to my post on the omnipresent anti-abortion Metro ads, “Metro Swathed in Anti-Abortion Shame.”

Craig Howell writes:

Um, there’s a First Amendment issue here, folks. As a government agency, Metro cannot indulge in viewpoint discrimination. This matter was settled 30 years ago when the courts told Metro it could not refuse to run bus ads sponsored by the Gay Activists Alliance. I have been a member of what is now the Gay & Lesbian Activists Alliance since 1973, and this victory remains one of our signature achievements.

Lisa responds:

Amanda, you pointed out the legal problem with this ad campaign yourself. When you say, “but when ad bombardments are targeted specifically on a captive audience of economically vulnerable women, they can be outright threatening,” you hit the nail on the head.

In Lehman v. City of Shaker Heights, Justice Douglas says in a concurring opinion, “the right of the commuters to be free from forced intrusions on their privacy precludes the city from transforming its vehicles of public transportation into forums for the dissemination of ideas upon this captive audience.”

I think this applies here, and the revenue from the Crisis Pregnancy Crap Houses should be turned down. I don’t want to be forced to ride a shame mobile.

Photo via This is Everything.

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].

Last month, Virginia liberals were up in arms over the state’s proposal to offer a “Choose Life” vanity plate option at the DMV. On March 30, Gov. Tim Kaine signed the plates into law.

Now, a new proposition would allow Florida drivers to choose Christ. Drivers could also choose Cross In Front of Stained Glass. When the proposed legislation surfaced, Democratic state senator Nan Rich urged Gov. Charlie Crist to veto the Jesus plate.

Crist responded that those who didn’t want Jesus on their license plates “don’t have to buy one.”

Which raises the question: Who wouldn’t want Jesus on their license plate? Look how fucking sweet that is! This is a momentous occasion: A vanity plate that both right-wing religious drivers and ironic liberal drivers can both believe in.

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.”

The idea of “gradations of life” has not been particularly embraced by either side in the political turf war over abortion: Pro-lifers have focused on preventing all post-conception fetus elimination, while pro-choicers have underscored a woman’s right to choose at any time. But as Waldman points out, Roe v. Wade legislated specifically when women should have the right to choose, based on how baby-like her fetus has become: Roe “gave an inviolable legal right to abortion in the first trimester, allowed for certain restrictions in the second trimester, and actually allowed states to ban abortion in the third trimester.”

In Waldman’s “Fantasy of a Less Toxic Abortion Debate,” those on both side of the abortion debate would “embrace the safe-legal-early doctrine.” Here’s what Waldman’s fantasy would look like:

Pro-choicers who accepted this framework would be implicitly conceding that, for at least part of the pregnancy, there’s a “baby” in the womb—and the woman’s right to terminate that life is neither absolute nor nine months in duration. With early abortions not only legal but easier, pro-choice activists could then have the confidence to accept what many of them have publicly avoided but privately wanted: reasonable, tightly written prohibitions on third trimester abortions while genuinely protecting the life of the mother.

Open minded pro-lifers would take note of these concessions from their “enemies,” viewing them as a sign that these pro-choicers—far from being hideous baby killers—fully embrace a moral dimension to the abortion decision.

Meanwhile, any pro-lifers who accept this framework would be making a concession, too. They’d be saying, in effect, that if the other side can concede that something precious is alive—and becoming more alive with each day—then they could, in turn, acknowledge that reasonable people, of different faiths, can disagree about when exactly that baby becomes alive enough to have legal rights.

I understand that Waldman is trying to make nice. I, too, would like to see us all find common ground on abortion. But while Waldman thinks that will come with acknowledging that there are “gradations of life” in the womb. I think it starts with acknowledging the life of the woman.

Remember her? She’s the one who’s pregnant with the thing somewhere in between a “clump of undifferentiated cells” and a nine-month-old “baby” ready to pop out into a human. The fetus is in her womb—she knows what’s going on in there, and she takes that into consideration in deciding if and when to have an abortion. The moral question of determining the life of the fetus isn’t made in a vacuum—it’s made in the context of another life.

In order to find common ground, pro-choicers don’t need to acknowledge that fetuses are “babies,” and pro-lifers don’t need to deny that for them, life begins at conception. Both positions are valid. A pregnant woman should be free to choose between them.

[Via Slate's XX Factor]

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.

“I had found out that I was pregnant while out of state first, at an oil and gas conference. While out of state, there just for a fleeting moment, wow, I knew, nobody knows me here, nobody would ever know. I thought, wow, it is easy, could be easy to think, maybe, of trying to change the circumstances. No one would know. No one would ever know.

“Then when my amniocentesis results came back, showing what they called abnormalities. Oh, dear God, I knew, I had instantly an understanding for that fleeting moment why someone would believe it could seem possible to change those circumstances. Just make it all go away and get some normalcy back in life. Just take care of it. Because at the time only my doctor knew the results, Todd didn’t even know. No one would know. But I would know. First, I thought how in the world could we manage a change of this magnitude. I was a very busy governor with four busy kids and a husband with a job hundreds of miles away up on the North Slope oil fields. And, oh, the criticism that I knew was coming. Plus, I was old . . .

“So we went through some things a year ago that now lets me understand a woman’s, a girl’s temptation to maybe try to make it all go away if she has been influenced by society to believe that she’s not strong enough or smart enough or equipped enough or convenienced enough to make the choice to let the child live. I do understand what these women, what these girls go through in that thought process.”

Photo by √oхέƒx™

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?

Yeah, yeah: We found ‘em. Those sixteen million “girls” were actually, Saletan figures, fetuses terminated by Chinese parents who are only allowed one kid, but can have as many sex-specific abortions as they want. Don’t get me wrong—I think it’s terrible that some parents, in all cultures, still value boys over girls. But the distinction between “girls” and “aborted fetuses” is an important one.

If Saletan wants to frame the question around live humans, he could just as easily have asserted that “there are too many actual human boys in China,” since it’s the sex disparity that’s ultimately causing the country problems. That’s a lot different than what he did say, which is, essentially: “There are too many female ghost fetuses in China.” The construction not only dips into far-right pro-life rhetoric—counting the number of “murdered” children that could be our friends and neighbors today—it isn’t totally accurate, either. After all, Chinese girls “disappear” through adoption, too. Boys go missing, too: Even without sex-selective abortion, the one-child-only rule will still necessitate the procedure.

Post-lede, Saletan’s piece actually handles the intricacies of China’s one-child policy, sex-selective abortion, and the boy surplus admirably. Saletan even rejoices in the fact that China has recognized that it is in the country’s own self-interest to limit sexist abortion—though Saletan still “wishes this turnaround were being driven by a better motive.”

As I argued in last month’s Saletan-flavored Sexist Beatdown, I find Saletan’s forays into the fringes of the abortion debate interesting—I just wish we didn’t always have to endure the dreaded “Saletan Curveball” in order to get to the good stuff.

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.

Sarah Seltzer for Reproductive Health Reality Check wonders if Levi is a “victim” in the Palin spotlight. “The Internet is buzzing over Levi Johnston’s appearance on Tyra yesterday to ‘break his silence,’ and providing us all with a reminder that patriarchal policies like abstinence-only education hurt young men, too,” writes Seltzer.

I couldn’t agree more: We’re all victims here: Levi, Bristol, Tripp, and Palin herself all suffered at the hands of her ridiculous abstinence (with a teenage pregnancy backup) method. Everyone, that is, except Tyra, who pulls a fierce Katie Couric to get the daytime interview of the post-pregnancy season.

This time, it’s the American Right to Life Action group repeatedly harassing Ann Coulter for her support of Mitt Romney, who is maybe pro-choice and also Mormon! (She gets pissed). This is all still relevant because Romney might come back in 2012 to secure his polygamous alien reign and abort your teenagers, or something.

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.

SADY: good morning! are you ready for SALETAN?

AMANDA: rarely am i afforded the pleasure of discussing a topic of such immediate ethical consequence!

SADY: indeed! i have now read the preface to SALETAN’s book! on! abortion! It is entitled “Bearing Right,” and it is about how conservatives have “won” the “abortion war” by changing the terms in which we talk about it, by, for example, not making it about a person’s right to choose what happens in her own body. i have also read several columns by saletan in which he refuses to frame abortion as a question of a person’s right to control what happens in her own body! so, he’s learned well, one supposes.

AMANDA: and this, i suppose, is why saletan continually frames the abortion debate around pregnancies that do not happen inside a woman’s body, but rather inside … another woman’s body.

SADY: exactly, or the IVF thing, which he hammers on constantly. he keeps talking about how, in the course of IVF, non-viable or extra embryos are produced and discarded. selecting embryos really pushes his buttons.

AMANDA: yes, i think it’s very problematic. he thinks that when a pre-baby is in a petrie dish, it is therefore out of the realm of concern for a woman’s body. but, look, it’s got to go in some woman’s body sometime. if saletan wants to implant all the frozen embryos in the world into his body to try to nurture them into little league, he’s free to do so. BUT i am here to defend saletan!

SADY: oh ho! an unexpected position! what, pray tell, is your defense? i am probably way too hard on him, i will tell you that much for free. i mean, a lot of his positions – contraception being the best way to avoid abortion, for example – are completely sensible. however, i feel he pushes for some weird policy of shaming people to make them better. even in a 100% perfect educated world, people will miss a pill or get drunk and forget their condoms. it’s not great, but it happens.

AMANDA: i think my only defense is a journalistic one. yeah. i dont think saletan and i agree on abortion, but i do share his interest in the fringe cases. the construction of his that you make fun of, an introduction, followed by a crazy ethical question like, “but, would you abort your medically unsafe pregnancy if there were a one percent chance your baby was the son of god?” i mean, i kind of LOVE those. i’m sure you take some sort of sick pleasure in them also

SADY: yes, it’s true, the Saletan Curveball is strong.

AMANDA: but the point i guess is that these very uncommon cases that may never actually happen are where all the interesting debate comes in. i do often disagree with the results he draws from them though. the one where the women aborted the fetus that was possibly not hers—saletan basically says she and the biological mom should talk it out. like he’s advising women who may go through this in the future—essentially, no one

SADY: exactly. i guess one of my main issues with the way he constructs these incredibly rare and weird scenarios is that i feel manipulated, as a reader. the second person that recurs – what if YOU, dear Reader, had YOUR fetus implanted in another lady’s uterus? what if YOU loved YOUR fetus? wouldn’t YOU be sad? – just sort of (a) runs right over these individual people and their individual perspectives, and (b) doesn’t seek to allow you any empathy or identification with anyone else in the story. i feel like he’s trying to back me into a corner, whereas, having a uterus, i could be either lady in some ridiculous implausible scenario. but i’m not either one! and i don’t know their positions in the matter, because saletan doesn’t tell me!

AMANDA: yeah. he essentially says that the person who cares more about fetuses should be able to make the decision

SADY: i say we do it biblically. cut that fetus in half! this is my King Solomon jurisprudence.

AMANDA: and in his mind, a woman who pays 100,000 for a surrogate womb cares about her fetus. the woman raking in the cash is just punching the clock. i looked at where the money goes, when you pay a company to find you a surrogate womb. one interesting tidbit: you have to pay the woman carrying the fetus $2,000 if you choose to abort it

SADY: oh, yowza.

AMANDA: so the assumption is that the bother or emotional stress of having to become pregnant and then abort it is worth 2,000 dollars. i say, if those women have to spend more than that on their pregnancies of these alien fetuses, that is when they are clear to abort without saletan’s concern. think about it—their abortion grief is established to be worth only 2,000 bucks to the people who donated the embryo. spending more than that on not aborting the baby is charity, in my opinion. i wish saletan would get even deeper into his arguments, is what i’m saying. the columns are just too short. i need more what ifs!!

SADY: exactly, yet when he raised the issue of surrogates terminating the pregnancies due to lack of funds, he POSTED A DUDE’S CONTACT INFORMATION so that people could contact him to stop it. without checking with the dude to see whether any surrogates actually sought to do so! and my understanding is, one did, then changed her mind, so there are Zero Aborting Broke Surrogates in the picture. yet that dude got a whole lot of e-mails, unexpectedly, probably some from 100% certified crazy-pantses. and saletan didn’t check on this? he has the dude’s contact information! yet did not use it!this is what i mean when i say that he has no concern for the people in the picture.

AMANDA: yeah, and he did then say—well, i mean, these women are working for free and they deserve the money anyway. but why is this different from any other sort of breach of contract? you get the money LATER, in court. not from saletan.

SADY: hah, yeah, maybe he should just set up a paypal link on the page!

AMANDA: i guess he feels like the “pregnancy” and the “women” are so delicate that they need the money now, or a terrible ethical situation will rise again. but i applaud saletan for bringing all this weird lady part shit to my attention, because i think it’s fascinating

SADY: oh, yeah, and i agree with you. more complexity = longer columns = better saletan. MORE SALETAN, is what we need! and, yes, i would never have learned as much as i have about weird pregnancy issues without him. so: thanks, guy.

AMANDA: i have a lot of unanswered questions. for example: if the woman implanted with the other lady’s embryo did not abort the fetus would saletan ask her to give the baby to the other woman? or does she get to keep it? this could possibly be MORE traumatic for the other woman.

SADY: well, considering that he referred to it as THAT LADY’s baby throughout, and talked about how she might never get another chance, i think he’s asking her to be a surrogate.

AMANDA: shit, i would keep it. the one thing that i have to ask, personally, about all this stuff is: why is this even happening? the lengths people will go. just buy one! i think it’s cheaper

SADY: exactly! i have an ethical question: is it wrong for me to sell my babies on the black market? what if they’re REALLY CUTE? but, yeah, for all the every-sperm-is-sacred thing we’re hearing, adoption never even enters the picture.

AMANDA: yeah. every sperm and egg are sacred, as long as they are mine. the other ones you have to birth, too, i just don’t have any insight into what the hell you do with them once they’re not fetuses anymore

SADY: well, you know. at that point the ETHICAL QUANDARIES become far less fascinating, i suppose.

AMANDA: yeah, then it’s just kind of a bummer

SADY: until the ex-fetus grows up, and becomes a lady, and somehow gets pregnant with a toaster! how did THAT get in there? what do we do with the embryonic toasters? don’t they deserve a chance to toast? i guess what i am saying is, there are many odd fringe cases left unexplored.

AMANDA: yeah, but the point is, we already have a mechanism by which to deal with those. the woman decides, the end. but saletan can certainly write an overture to her which she may or may not consider. what i want to know is—how do i get saletan to set up a paypal account for me? i’m currently not considering aborting anything

SADY: hah, yeah, we were all once fetuses. we deserve the right to live, and in my case, cable, which i can’t afford. how do i get saletan to extend his noble efforts to my cable bill?

AMANDA: what about the fetuses without cable?

SADY: um, can they download stuff from itunes, maybe?

AMANDA: kids, they can do anything

SADY: just don’t put an iphone in there, or your fetus will sext!

AMANDA: by william saletan

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!

The novelty license plates, championed by Choose Life, Inc., are currently “on the road” in 13 states: Florida, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Hawaii, Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, Connecticut, South Dakota, Montana, Ohio Kentucky, and—yes, it is too late for them—Maryland.

When the bill was defeated in Virginia’s Senate Transportation Committee, Cuccinnelli’s initiative was tacked on to another initiative, which was passed. Supporters can already download their “Choose Life” plate application here [PDF]. Just check “Special Interest,” write in “Choose Life,” and agree to fork over $25, and you’re on your way to driving away abortion!

Well, as long as Virginia Governor Tim Kaine signs the legislation into law. Now, Planned Parenthood is asking Virginians to call the Governor to ask him to veto the legislation. If form letters aren’t your thing, you can call Kaine up at (804) 786-2211.

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].

How much of your pro-life stance, for you, is informed not just by your Catholic faith but by the fact that you were adopted?
Oh, a lot. Absolutely. I see the power of life in that—I mean, and the power of choice! The thing to keep in mind about it… Uh, you know, I think as a country we get off on these misguided conversations that throw around terms that really misrepresent truth.

Explain that.
The choice issue cuts two ways. You can choose life, or you can choose abortion. You know, my mother chose life. So, you know, I think the power of the argument of choice boils down to stating a case for one or the other.

Are you saying you think women have the right to choose abortion?
Yeah. I mean, again, I think that’s an individual choice.

You do?
Yeah. Absolutely.

Are you saying you don’t want to overturn Roe v. Wade?
I think Roe v. Wade—as a legal matter, Roe v. Wade was a wrongly decided matter.

Okay, but if you overturn Roe v. Wade, how do women have the choice you just said they should have?
The states should make that choice. That’s what the choice is. The individual choice rests in the states. Let them decide.

Do pro-choicers have a place in the Republican Party?
Absolutely!

High school students Elizabeth Liang, 18, Morgan Seibert, 17, and Megan Gutting, 17, took a whirlwind trip to Washington, D.C. by bus last night to participate in the march for life. The three Grand Rapids, Mich. teens, who arrived at 7 this morning, missed the inaugural festivities by a couple days—they opted to attend the protest instead of the celebration—but still shared in the excitement of their new pro-choice President.

“I love Obama,” says Gutting, who carried a sign reading, “A Nation That Kills Its Own Children Is A Nation Without Hope.” “But for reasons other than abortion, obviously.”

“He’s very positive,” adds Liang, carting an “As A Former Fetus I Oppose Abortion” sign. “He’s about change, and unity.”

Seibert, who inscribed a Dr. Suess quote—”A Person Is A Person No Matter How Small”—on her sign, added to the Obama accolades. “I think he’s what we need right now,” she said.

Today is the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court case that established a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion. This was a great day for pro-choice women, but the pro-lifers have always celebrated it the hardest. Today, thousands of anti-abortion activists will descend on Washington, D.C. to protest the 36-year-old decision in front of the downtown Planned Parenthood clinic, the U.S. Capitol, and the U.S. Supreme Court in the March for Life 2009. Here’s a map of their protest plans.

I’ll be reporting from the march throughout the day.

Photo by PinkMoose

For some, abortion activism begins at conception.

If you’re under 35 years old, you are a post-Roe baby. You were born onto an abortion battleground. Both pro-choice and pro-life advocates want to recruit you into the second generation of the movement. Each side holds tactical advantages in winning your support. To choicers, you’re a young person to whom legalized abortion has always been the norm. To lifers, you’re a “survivor”—you’ve lived though your aborted “peers” have not. Below, a primer on age-appropriate outreach efforts on both sides of the movement, from conception to college applications.

—
CONCEPTION.

Publicize your pregnancy—or your abortion. Pregnant pro-lifers can photograph their fetuses for use in sidewalk anti-abortion campaigns. Face the Truth, an anti-abortion initiative promoted by the Pro-Life Action League, enlarges graphic photographs of fetuses-healthy and aborted-for display on major thoroughfares across America. One common objection to the practice-that it is a “dishonor” to the unborn-is addressed in the league’s FAQ. “We honor these aborted babies’ memories by exposing the cruelties they suffered,” it reads. “What would truly dishonor these children would be to hide the evidence of what was done to them for fear of upsetting some people or looking ‘extreme.’”

As for pro-choicers, Kierra Johnson, executive director of Choice USA, says the pro-life movement doesn’t have sovereignty over the pregnant. “What makes it frustrating is that they have really simple illustrations of what being pro-life means,” says Johnson. “A pregnant anybody is their symbol. For us, it’s a little more complex. The picture runs the gamut for us, from young people who have decided to have children to those who decided not to carry a pregnancy to term.”

—
BIRTH.

Still close to the womb but not old enough to wish they had never been born, babies are natural recruits to the pro-life position. “It’s never too early to start talking about life,” says Pro-Life Action League founder Joe Scheidler, a 35-year veteran of the movement who has raised seven pro-life children and 19 pro-life grandkids.

Sarah Smith Bartel, a 31-year-old Hyattsville grad student, brought her 2-year-old and 5-year-old daughters along when she held vigil outside of D.C.’s Planned Parenthood this fall during the “40 Days for Life” campaign. “When I’ve got my daughters with me, they have a symbolic value,” says Smith Bartel, who first engaged her kids in the movement in D.C.’s annual Roe protest, the “March for Life,” when they were just 1 and 3 years old.

Pro-choice advocates, meanwhile, can earn instant cred by having a baby-and proving that choice doesn’t always lead to abortion. “You come across these young people who will say, ‘I feel like I was an activist from the time I was born,’” says Johnson. “They’ll say, ‘My mom took me to a pro-choice rally when I was 2, or when she was pregnant with me.’”

—
ELEMENTARY.

Once their children reach school, parents can begin their transition from accessory to activist. “We’re pretty successful with kids. They have an intrinsic knowledge that human life is valuable,” adds Scheidler, who tours Catholic elementary schools around the country educating youth about fetal development. By late elementary school, Scheidler’s pro-life content turns explicitly anti-abortion, with the permission of the teacher. “Having prepared them by seeing the child alive, I will show them the photos of what abortion does,” says Scheidler.

Smith Bartel says that her 5-year-old developed her own activist streak only in the past four to five months. “Now that [she's] older, she has a lot of questions about what we’re doing and what’s going on [at the clinic],” says Smith Bartel of her precocious pro-lifer. “My daughter doesn’t know what football is, but she knows what slavery is, and what racism is, and she knows what abortion is. She’ll stomp around the house, saying, ‘When will this stinking law end?’”

Seeds of reproductive rights awareness can also be sown “as early as first grade,” with the introduction of human sexuality classes in public schools. “A lot of the anti-choice rhetoric gets heard because [pro-lifers] have more access through churches, after-school programs, and even in public schools,” says Johnson, so groups like Choice USA and NARAL Pro-Choice America work legislatively to further comprehensive sex education in schools from elementary on. “I do think it starts with little kids, elementary school kids,” says Johnson. “I don’t mean we’re going to show the STD video to a 5-year-oldŠit’s not all about sex. It’s about communication, self-esteem, and self-empowerment.”
—
MIDDLE SCHOOL.

Hit them on their beepers. By the time kids start toting their own cell phones and opting into online social networks, pro-choice groups are ready to reach out with tech-savvy initiatives tailored by age. “The cell phone has become an important symbol of activism,” says Ted Miller, communications director for NARAL Pro-Choice America. Last month, NARAL launched a new youth-oriented Web site, called Free.Will.Power, which Miller says is targeted at youths ages 16 to 24. Among its adolescent-friendly initiatives are automated text message services, YouTube videos, downloadable ringtones, a T-shirt contest, and an online quiz. “Do sexual assault survivors have access to emergency contraception, like the ‘morning-after’ pill in emergency rooms?” one question prompts, before answering, “I know, it’s soooo not okay.”

Those in the pro-life movement have also mobilized to put technology on their side. “Your generation is the first generation that can go to the bookshelf and pull off a VCR cassette, or go to a photo album and see pictures, of what you looked like before you were born,” says Troy Newman, president of pro-life initiative Operation Rescue, who says that the visuals are important evidence against abortion. This is also the age that children of pro-lifers may begin to experience abortion fatigue-and rebellious tweens may defect to the pro-choice movement. “You can turn people off. They get tired of it,” says Scheidler, who also says that it’s important for pro-life families to take an abortion vacation once in a while. “You have to do other things sometimes,” he says. “If we go on a family trip, I don’t talk about it too much.”

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HIGH SCHOOL.

Adopt an activist. Most pro-choice efforts ramp up in high school, where most young adults become sexually active, making abortion a personal possibility as well as a political one. They also begin to develop an interest in social justice-and start looking to beef up their college applications. In addition to NARAL’s Web-based efforts, Choice USA offers sex-ed and community-organizing training to local charter schools, and many of the Feminist Majority Foundation’s college chapters adopt high school groups for reproductive rights mentoring.

Generations for Life, the youth wing of the Pro-Life Action League, encourages high school groups to raise money for pregnancy crisis centers and stage walks and hiking excursions for life. For pro-life high schoolers, the ultimate destination is Washington, D.C.—Missy Smith, a local activist who founded Wake Up (Women Against the Killing and Exploitation of Unprotected Persons) estimates that as many as 25,000 high school and college students attend a youth Mass at the Verizon Center each year on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade.

In high school, the pro-life set also focuses on abortion as a social issue-and begins folding in its anti-abortion message with such high school history class milestones as slavery and the Holocaust. “Your generation has been targeted for extinction,” says Newman of the post-Roes. “Many Jewish people feel that their aunts and uncles were targeted for extinction. Many African people feel that about slavery. My generation doesn’t understand that.”

Photo courtesy of the Pro-Life Action League.

The foundation also breaks down the new female house members’ positions on abortion, after the jump.

7 Pro-Choice Democrats:
Ann Kirkpatrick (D-AZ)
Betsy Markey (D-CO)
Suzanne Kosmas (D-FL)
Debbie Halvorson (D-IL)
Chellie Pingree (D-ME)
Dina Titus (D-NV)
Marcia Fudge (D-OH)

1 Pro-Choice Republican:
Lynn Jenkins (R-KS)

1 Anti-Choice Democrat:
Kathy Dahlkemper (D-PA)

1 Anti-Choice Republican:
Cynthia Lummis (R-WY)