No, You're Still Wrong

More disability-as-diversity nonsense, this time from Gary Bauer and Daniel Allot (only this time reworked as a defense of Sarah Palin:)

Polls suggest public support for abortion is highest when the child is likely to have a deformity or a genetic condition.

Anti-disability bias pervades our legal and medical institutions. Studies show that parents informed that their unborn child will be disabled are often given only the negative aspects of the life to come.

In a 2005 study, Dr. Brian Skotko, a physician at Children’s Hospital Boston, interviewed mothers who had received a definitive prenatal diagnosis of Down syndrome. He found that most were not informed about “the positive potential of people with Down syndrome, nor did they feel like they received enough up-to-date information or contact information for parent support groups.”

Other studies have concluded that many pregnant women feel pressured to undergo invasive prenatal testing and to abort if results are positive for Down syndrome.

At least 28 states recognize “wrongful birth” lawsuits, in which parents of disabled children are compensated when doctors neglect to tell them their unborn child may be at higher risk of a genetic abnormality in time to abort.

These biases have helped produce an abortion rate of up to 90 percent for babies with Down syndrome, cystic fibrosis, spina bifida and other genetic conditions.

With the introduction of universal prenatal genetic testing, as well as more sophisticated and less invasive testing methods, many disability rights advocates worry about what former Washington Post writer Patricia Bauer predicts could be “the elimination of an entire class of people.”

Incidentally, a column by Patricia Bauer in the Washington Post in 2007 is what prompted me to write this:

In no way do I believe that the disabled-even those profoundly disabled-do not have a right to life, cannot enjoy life to some satisfactory extent even by a highly subjective measure, or should not be brought into the world by parents who decide to have them. But the idea that we should encourage parents to bring disabled children into the world in the interest of "genetic diversity" is absurd. Disability is not diversity. The idea that disabled people are objectively "defective" (and I use the world in a clinical sense) in some manner, does not at all mean that they are less worthy of life than non-defective people. I understand that throughout human history, there have been societies who thought so: neither the ancient Spartans nor the more modern Nazis thought much of killing the disabled at birth or later. And I understand that even in our society, there are those who-if they don't quite discriminate against the disabled-still regard even only the physically disabled as "lesser" humans than the rest of us. But the antidote to this backwards and uneducated thinking is not to argue that the disabled are only "different" from the rest of us and that we should actively encourage disability in the name of diversity.

Again: I am not opposed to the idea that people choose not to abort a fetus that is diagnosed with a disability. Neither am I opposed to the idea that some couples may choose to abort that fetus. That is a profound and difficult choice that every couple in that position must struggle to make in accordance with their own consciences. What I am opposed to, is the idea that women should feel compelled to give birth to a disabled child because they would similarly give birth to a non-disabled child. And what I am particularly opposed to, is the idea that disability represents some type of "diversity" that justifies deliberately bringing disabled children into the world. Accepting disabled children as fully realized and valuable human beings capable of living meaningful lives is inarguably correct. Arguing that profound disabilities make someone no more different than having a different skin color, is inarguably wrong.

Legislative Update XVII

After lots of arm-twisting on anti-war Democrats in the House of Representatives, Congress voted to approve funding for the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan in an emergency supplemental. This is supposed to be the last time such funds will be provided for outside of the normal budget. IMF funding and the "cash for clunkers" program made it into the final bill, but it does not include the $80 million the White House requested to start effort to close Gitmo. The bill also prohibits detainees from being released in the United States and allows the transfer of detainees for prosecution only after Congress receives a plan detailing the risks.

The Senate passed a separate bill to block the release of detainee abuse photos. President Obama had given his formal word to classify the photos to placate those who wanted to put the prohibition in the war funding bill, which would have further weakened its chances of passing. If and when it will come up for a vote in the House is unknown.

Senate Republicans blocked a resolution condemning violence against women's health-care providers. The Senate did pass a formal apology for slavery, and will be followed by the House next week. It's hard to believe this hasn't happened already. The House did pass a resolution knocking Tehran's crackdown on protesters, with Rep. Ron Paul being the only "nay" vote.

Lastly, on the health care front, House Dems presented a plan that does have a public option, but that was left out of the Senate version. What ultimate comes out of Congress is anyone's guess at this point, assuming that something does that is. The only thing we know for sure is that it appears it's a long road ahead...

UPDATE: For the first time in 20 years, the House unanimously approved four article of impeachment against U.S. District Judge Samuel Kent of Texas accusing him of sexually assaulting two female employees and lying to judicial investigators and Justice Department officials. This now sets up a trial in the Senate.

"It Was All Just a Game"

Fred Clark flays the hypocrisy of the anti-abortion movement. Nothing new, except of course Clark has a perspective unique in the liberal-ish blogosphere:

In 1994, as now, the mainstream evangelical groups responded to the slayings in Pensacola by saying all the right things -- offering a raft of statements unambiguously denouncing the violence and condemning Paul Hill's actions.

I remember those statements very well because I wrote one of them. In the '90s, I was the staff writer for an evangelical -- and, therefore, anti-abortion -- nonprofit, and so it fell to me to write the first draft of a statement after Paul Hill's killing spree.

The statement we wrote was consistent with what our group had been saying all along. My boss, in whose name this statement was released, was a lifelong pacifist, a devout Mennonite who has, for decades, unfailingly opposed all forms of violence. And as a good Mennonite, his rhetoric too was always studiously nonviolent -- peaceable to the point of blandness, actually.

But at the same time we were drafting and issuing this statement, I was reading dozens of similar statements from other evangelical groups whose rhetoric had never been marked by anything like my boss's Mennonite pacifism. These were groups that routinely spoke of abortion as "murder" or "mass-murder," and that routinely spoke of legalized abortion as an "American Holocaust." They had, for years, been using precisely the same rhetoric and making exactly the same arguments that Paul Hill was now using to attempt to justify his double homicide.

Those groups' condemnations of Paul Hill then -- like their condemnations of Scott Roeder now -- ring hollow. Such condemnations seem to be self-refuting. How can they condemn men like Hill or Roeder just for taking their own arguments seriously?

Paul Hill argued that abortion was the moral equivalent of the Nazi Holocaust -- just like the National Right to Life Committee, the Southern Baptist Convention, the Christian Coalition, Focus on the Family and dozens of other evangelical groups said it was. If that's true, Hill said, then he wasn't merely justified, but obligated to take up arms against abortionists. If you're confronted with an evil equal in magnitude to that of Adolf Hitler -- as all these groups insisted was the case -- then surely one is obliged to do more than vote Republican every four years in the hopes of one day appointing enough judges to change the law of the land. Confronted with what all of these groups assured him was the Holocaust, he decided to become Claus von Stauffenberg.

Yet when Hill repeated their own argument and their own rhetoric back to them, these groups all recoiled. They all claimed to share Hill's premise, but not to share his conclusion. That won't work. Hill's violent conclusion arose logically from that shared premise. If he was a madman to be condemned -- as all those groups suddenly insisted he was -- it was because of the madness of that premise. So how was it possible they could repudiate him without also repudiating that rhetoric that compelled him to act?

[...]

Now here we are again, 15 years later, as the arguments of the anti-abortion movement are again being proved disingenuous by their own self-refuting statements condemning the latest lethal fruit of their rhetoric of "mass-murder" and "Holocaust." Once again some sad, disturbed man has committed the error of taking their rhetoric more seriously than it was ever meant by the people who supposedly believed it to be true.

Didn't Scott Roeder realize that it was all just a game? Didn't he appreciate that all this talk of Holocaust was just a gimmick to get his fellow Kansans to support a repeal of the estate tax? Didn't he understand the difference between really believing that abortion is "mass-murder" and just indulging in the smug posturing of self-righteousness that makes the members of the Anti Kitten-Burning Coalition feel a little better about themselves?

No, apparently, he didn't. Apparently he was just crazy enough to believe that these people meant what they said, crazy enough to believe that they believed their own words and that he should believe them too.

To believe these people -- to believe that their words matter or that their words are truthful or that their arguments are made in good faith -- is madness indeed.

I'm not as comfortable flinging about charges of hypocrisy because I like to give people credit for actually believing what they say they believe. But Fred Clark knows these people in a way we don't, so who am I to say he's wrong? Maybe it is all just a game. You know, abortion's "murder" until somebody gets murdered over it, and then it's back to "Well now we're not saying you should murder someone just because they're a murderer."

Will Saletan also tries to address this conundrum in his Slate column, with less success:

So is Roeder getting support from the nation's leading pro-life groups? Not a bit. They have roundly denounced the murder. The National Right to Life Committee says it opposes "any form of violence to fight the violence of abortion," preferring instead "to work through educational and legislative activities to ensure the right to life for unborn children, people with disabilities and older people." Americans United for Life agrees that it was wrong to kill Tiller because "the foundational right to life that our work is dedicated to extends to everyone."

I applaud these statements. They affirm the value of life and nonviolence, two principles that should unite us. But they don't square with what these organizations purport to espouse: a strict moral equation between the unborn and the born. If a doctor in Kansas were butchering hundreds of old or disabled people, and legal authorities failed to intervene, I doubt most members of the National Right to Life Committee would stand by waiting for "educational and legislative activities" to stop him. Somebody would use force.

The reason these pro-life groups have held their fire, both rhetorically and literally, is that they don't really equate fetuses with old or disabled people. They oppose abortion, as most of us do. But they don't treat abortionists the way they'd treat mass murderers of the old or disabled. And this self-restraint can't simply be chalked up to nonviolence or respect for the law. Look up the bills these organizations have written, pushed, or passed to restrict abortions. I challenge you to find a single bill that treats a woman who procures an abortion as a murderer. They don't even propose that she go to jail.

The people who kill abortion providers are the ones who don't flinch. They're like the veterans you sometimes see in war documentaries, quietly recounting what they faced and did. You think you're pro-life. You tell yourself that abortion is murder. Maybe you even say that when a pollster calls. But like most of the other people who say such things in polls, you don't mean it literally. There's you, and then there are the people who lock arms outside the clinics. And then there are the people who bomb them. And at the end of the line, there's the guy who killed George Tiller.

If you don't accept what he did, then maybe it's time to ask yourself what you really believe. Is abortion murder? Or is it something less, a tragedy that would be better avoided? Most of us think it's the latter. We're looking for ways to prevent abortions—not just a few this month, but millions down the line—without killing or prosecuting people. Come and join us.

Unfortunately Saletan also manages to create a false equivalence between Tiller and his murderer, as opposing soldiers in the "battleground" that is abortion in this country. But you get his point. If you really believe that abortion is mass murder, then you should also believe that it's okay to murder those who administer abortions. However, there are those whom you cannot accuse of harboring any hypocrisy, at least not on their abortion stance:

While most pro-life leaders condemned the May 31 murder of a controversial abortion provider inside his Wichita, Kan., church, one former Southern Baptist Convention official called it an answer to prayer.

"I am glad George Tiller is dead," Wiley Drake, the SBC's former second vice president, said on his Crusade Radio program June 1.

Tiller, one of only a few doctors in America who still performed a controversial late-term procedure termed "partial-birth" abortion by critics, was gunned down in the foyer of Reformation Lutheran Church just after the morning worship service began. He was serving as an usher for the congregation, where he was a long-time member.

Drake, pastor of First Southern Baptist Church in Buena Park, Calif., called Tiller "a brutal, murdering monster" and said he is "grateful to God" that the physician is no longer around.

"There may be a lot who would say, 'Oh that is mean. You shouldn't be that way,'" Drake said. "Well, no, it's an answer to prayer."

Now you can accuse the man of being a fraudulent representative of the religion he purports to preach, but you certainly can't accuse him of hypocrisy on abortion. Abortion providers are murderers, and deserve death. But people like Drake only highlight the problem for the rest of his ilk, who are comfortable with the rhetoric but not with what naturally follows from such rhetoric. People whom, after the tragic death of Tiller, are forced to issue standard repudiations of the all-too-logical violence of their fellow believers.

An Incalculable Loss

I don't have much to offer on the murder of Tiller, and the fierce re-kindling of the debate over abortion that mostly simmers and smolders in our country. It's not that I don't have a bevy of feelings on the matter, because I most certainly do. It's just that I don't have anything that's really as articulate and coherent as, for example, this post by John Cole.  I'm no expert on the subject of abortion, not even the law of it in our country, but I do know that though some anti-abortion activists attempt to portray it as something else, the decision to have an abortion is frequently a difficult and harrowing choice for a woman. And no more so than with a late-term abortion, where a woman may be asked to choose either to have an abortion or give birth to a horribly disabled child, or risk her own physical or mental health to bring a pregnancy to term. According to this account, which is worth excerpting at length, a woman facing such a difficult choice could find no better a friend than Dr. Tiller:

One woman described her elation at being pregnant and how the possibility of motherhood offered a glimmer of hope through several family deaths. Then she found out her fetus had severe spinal and cerebral deformities. "I laid on the table crying and knowing in my heart at that point my son was not going to make it," she wrote. At almost 23 weeks pregnant, she was too far along for an abortion in her own state, and so, like many women in her situation, she made the anguished pilgrimage to Wichita.

Writing five weeks after her abortion, she said, "I hate that my son is gone. I hate that I had to make the decision to end his life. I hate that my womb and my arms are empty. But I am strengthened in the fact that I made my decision by focusing on him and what was best for him. I am eternally grateful to the wonderful people that guided me through this horrible experience with compassion, love, and understanding."

Her gratitude toward Tiller and his staff is not unique. Ayliea Holl, the administrator of the site, saw a different doctor for her own abortion, but she's met many of Tiller's patients. "Every single one of them received the kindest, most caring and compassionate, the best health care that they could get," she says. "Dr. Tiller was extremely compassionate. He was so helpful to so many women."

After his murder, it's not clear who will take his place. In the mainstream media, Tiller is frequently described as "controversial." But in the tight-knit world of abortion providers and pro-choice activists, he was often called a saint, because he took on the hardest cases, whether they could pay or not, and was incredibly tender with his patients. "His clinic was known for really treating women with extraordinary decency and respect," says Carol Joffe, a professor of sociology at the University of California, Davis, and one of the country's foremost experts on abortion. They sent him volumes worth of letters of effusive and urgent thanks.

Tiller's death is an incalculable loss to women's health care. There are two other clinics that do late-term abortions, but neither are known for taking patients regardless of their ability to pay or for ministering so comprehensively to their emotional needs. Tiller's murder leaves a void that could imperil women across the country.

[...]

Bill Harrison, an abortion provider in Arkansas, referred hundreds of patients to Tiller over the years. "To do what George does is like doing major cancer surgery," he says. "It's a subspecialty all its own. It took a real organization to do it safely and effectively and cheaply like he did it." Over the years, Harrison had 20 or 30 patients who were so poor that he had to give them money for gasoline to get to Wichita. "I would call him and tell him about the patients, and he would say, 'Send them up,'" he says. "Obviously if they couldn't pay for gasoline, they couldn't pay for anything, and he did the abortions anyway."

Tiller's murderer believed-like many others-that Tiller himself was a murderer of babies, that he performed abortions "on demand" for money. But Tiller was the last hope for many desperate women, and he was their hope because he believed in what he was doing, believed in helping women who faced extraordinarily difficult decisions the likes of which you and I will never face. He did it even though he knew with certainty that it put his own life at risk. Now, it remains unclear who these women will turn to for the compassion they need to help them make a choice they'd hoped never to make. Yes, the loss of Dr. Tiller is incalculable.

Morning Links

Stuff you should be reading this morning:

1. Iraq: another article on the gradual upswing in attacks, and the largely unabated violence in one of the last bastion's of the insurgency, Diyala Province.

2. Congressional watchdogs lament the lack of transparency and oversight regarding the handout of TARP funds. Economist Joseph Stiglitz condemn's the Obama administration's approach to the crisis on Wall Street, characterizing it as "ersatz capitalism, the privatizing of gains and the socializing of losses." Paul Krugman's saying the same, of course.

3. In a surprise move, AG Holder dismiss the Stevens indictment and says there will be no new trial. The Stevens conviction has fallen apart in the face of allegations of prosecutorial misconduct.

4. The World Health Organization warns of an impending "explosion" in cases of drug-resistant tuberculosis.

5. Michael Gerson at the Washington Post says Obama is losing Catholics over the issue of abortion, but unsurprisingly fails to note that American Catholics are as divided on the issue of abortion as non-catholics. As is typical among media pundits (especially those of the conservative ilk) an entire group is said to be represented by it's conservative members.

6. ADP, a payroll processor, reports that 724,000 jobs were lost in March.

7. The Economist opens it's new theme park, Econoland (h/t Josh Berthume.) All the horror of the modern world, only funnier.

8. In honor of the day, the top 10 greatest April Fools pranks in modern history.

9. The tabletop wargame Battletech celebrates it's 25th anniversary. Not that that's anything special to us, ahem.

Yes

AG Eric Holder has announced the Justice Department will end raids on state-approved dispensaries for medical marijuana

The new policy represents a significant turnabout for the federal government. During the Bush administration, DEA agents shut down 30 to 40 marijuana dispensaries, the agency said...

“Holder’s statement marks a dramatic shift in U.S. drug policy and is a major victory for the 72 million Americans who reside in states where the use of medical cannabis is legal,” said Paul Armentano, deputy director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, said in a statement.

Thirteen states allow the cultivation, sale and use of medical marijuana.

Armentano said the shift would add momentum to campaigns in states that are considering their own medical marijuana laws. The New Jersey Senate approved such a bill Monday, and Gov. Jon Corzine said he would sign it if it cleared the state Assembly.

Also, President Obama plans to repeal a Bush-era abortion rule:

President Barack Obama plans to repeal a Bush administration rule that has become a flash point in the debate over a doctor's right not to participate in abortions. The regulation, instituted in the last days of the Bush administration, strengthened job protections for doctors and nurses who refuse to provide a medical service because of moral qualms...

Federal law has long forbidden discrimination against health care professionals who refuse to perform abortions or provide referrals for them on religious or moral grounds. The Obama administration supports those laws, said the HHS official.

The Bush administration's rule adds a requirement that institutions that get federal money certify their compliance with laws protecting the rights of moral objectors. It was intended to block the flow of federal funds to hospitals and other institutions that ignore those rights.

But the Obama administration was concerned that the Bush regulation went too far and could also be used to refuse birth control, family planning services and counseling for vaccines and transfusions.

The White House released a statement saying that Obama supports a "carefully crafted" conscience clause — not Bush's version.

"He believes this issue requires a balance between the rights of providers and the health of women and their families, a balance that the last-minute Bush rule appears to upset," the statement said.

The administration will review comments from the public before making a final decision. Options range from repealing the regulation to writing a new one with a narrower scope.

It's good to have adults in charge again.

Encouraging News on Abortion

Not only has the rate fallen but the increased use of RU-486 for early abortions has made the procedure more widely available. The goal of the anti-abortion movement, short of over-turning Roe v. Wade has been to attack abortion availability, making it considerably more difficult for poorer women or women living in rural areas to get access to the procedure. But RU-486 can be prescribed by a general practitioner, thus eliminating the necessity of visiting an abortion clinic that can be difficult to get to, might targeted by anti-abortion activists and is certainly more draining emotionally and physically for a woman. This is good news.

Abortion rate falls in places where it's legal, birth control available

Once again, empirical evidence proves conservative arguments completely wrong:

A comprehensive global study of abortion has concluded that abortion rates are similar in countries where it is legal and those where it is not, suggesting that outlawing the procedure does little to deter women seeking it.

Moreover, the researchers found that abortion was safe in countries where it was legal, but dangerous in countries where it was outlawed and performed clandestinely. Globally, abortion accounts for 13 percent of women’s deaths during pregnancy and childbirth, and there are 31 abortions for every 100 live births, the study said.

The results of the study, a collaboration between scientists from the World Health Organization in Geneva and the Guttmacher Institute in New York, a reproductive rights group, are being published Friday in the journal Lancet.

“We now have a global picture of induced abortion in the world, covering both countries where it is legal and countries where laws are very restrictive,” Dr. Paul Van Look, director of the W.H.O. Department of Reproductive Health and Research, said in a telephone interview. “What we see is that the law does not influence a woman’s decision to have an abortion. If there’s an unplanned pregnancy, it does not matter if the law is restrictive or liberal.”

But the legal status of abortion did greatly affect the dangers involved, the researchers said. “Generally, where abortion is legal it will be provided in a safe manner,” Dr. Van Look said. “And the opposite is also true: where it is illegal, it is likely to be unsafe, performed under unsafe conditions by poorly trained providers.”

The data also suggested that the best way to reduce abortion rates was not to make abortion illegal but to make contraception more widely available, said Sharon Camp, chief executive of the Guttmacher Institute.

The study also shows abortions are declining worldwide due to wider use of birth control practices, but right-wingers want more abstinence-only education (like we have here in Texas - the state with the highest teen pregnancy rate).

The number of abortions annually fell to under 42 million from 46 million between 1995 and 2003, with rates decreasing most significantly in Eastern Europe, said the report from the Guttmacher Institute and the World Health Organization.

The number of abortions fell most in developed countries where it is legal compared to poorer countries where it is largely banned and considered unsafe, the researchers said...

The report said an estimated 20 million unsafe abortions occurred in 2003, 97 percent of them in developing regions and places where the procedure is banned.

"Each year, about 70,000 women die due to unsafe abortion and an additional five million suffer permanent or temporary disability," Paul Van Look, director of the WHO's department of reproductive health and research, said in a statement.

So basically, if "pro-lifers" are really interested in reducing abortion and upholding the "sanctity of life," they'll make sure it's safe and legal (so women don't die), and rare by also supporting increased access to contraceptives and sex education (which reduced unwanted pregnancies).

The Reality for Abortion Availability

Many people believe-quite reasonably-that the availability is determined by the law on abortion, and precedential Supreme Court decisions like Roe v. Wade, Planned Parenthood v. Casey and now Gonzales v. Carhart. But the reality is that foes of abortion have waged an underground campaign aimed at circumventing a woman's right to have an abortion by attacking the availability of abortions in general. This article in the LA Times discusses just one example of this phenomenon:

Thousands of women have safely ended pregnancies at this clinic since it opened in 1987. Conservative lawmakers in Missouri say abortion patients deserve better.

They have enacted the most far-reaching regulations in the nation -- dictating the physical layout, staffing and record-keeping policies of any facility that performs five or more abortions a month, including private doctors' offices that regularly prescribe the abortion pill.

The law, which a federal judge is to review today, would force the immediate closure of at least two of Missouri's three abortion clinics, plus a private medical practice near St. Louis run by a doctor who offers first-trimester terminations in his office. Those facilities would need extensive renovations to comply with the law; the requirements could include widening hallways, raising ceilings, installing locker rooms, rerouting plumbing, and creating surgical suites stocked with emergency resuscitation equipment, even when no surgery is performed on-site.

"We're applying the same standards of healthcare to abortion clinics as we are to other medical facilities," said Pam Fichter, development director of Missouri Right to Life.

So ostensibly, the purpose of this bill is to make abortion safer. What it will actually do is make an abortion much more difficult to obtain. This is the bill's purpose of course, as Gov. Matt Blunt admitted when he said the bill was "one of the strongest pieces of pro-life legislation in Missouri history" as he was signing it in a Baptist church. As the article explains, this new strategy may prove to the means by which anti-abortion activists attack abortion in other states as well. Not that the underground campaign hasn't already done it's work; note above that Missouri has only three clinics that provide an abortion in the whole state. Three, in a state in a country where a woman is supposedly guaranteed the right to choose. Thus, a woman may choose an abortion...she just may not be able to get one.

Make no mistake, the attack on availability is the single greatest threat to the right of a woman to have an abortion in this country today, and pro-choicers are quite simply losing the battle.

Legislative Update II

The House voted 355-69 on Thursday to adopt a proposal, as part of a $34.2 billion bill that funds State Department operations and foreign aid, to revive the Iraq Study Group.

The House also voted 223-201 to reverse a ban on contraception aid to groups overseas that offer abortions in an effort to overturn Bush's ban via executive order. Bush will veto the measure and conservatives in the House will uphold it.

Lawmakers from both parties proposed opening up agriculture exports to Cuba and ending travel restrictions, putting them at odds with a White House adamantly opposed to easing a half-century-old embargo.

On the Senate side, progress on the energy bill was a mixed bag. The Senate voted to increase fuel economy standards to 35 miles per gallon for cars and SUVs, the first significant boost demanded of automakers in nearly 20 years. The agreement was announced at a news conference and then quickly adopted by the Senate without a roll call vote. However, the chamber refused to limit debate on a $32.1 billion tax package proposed by the Finance Committee that would roll back tax cuts for oil and gas companies in favor of renewable energy sources, like the bill the House passed earlier in the year. However, there is still hope for the bill to come back and be passed. Democrats got enough Republican support they were only three votes down from the 60 votes needed. Sen. Boxer was out of town, and Sen. Reid only voted against it as a procedural move so he can bring it back up later when potentially Sen. Johnson will be back in the Senate after having recovered from his stroke earlier in the year. Thus, they would have the three votes needed for passage.

The Senate Judiciary Committee continued to ramp up its pressure on the White House by authorizing Chairman Patrick Leahy to subpoena documents relating to the administration’s warrantless wiretapping program. Republican Sens. Hatch, Grassley, and ranking member Specter joined all Democrats on the panel in subpoenaing both the Executive Office of the President and the Department of Justice for documents relating to the authorization of and legal justification for the wiretapping program.

UPDATE:

According to the AP, the Senate passed an energy bill late Thursday that includes an increase in automobile fuel economy, new laws against energy price-gouging and a requirement for huge increases in the production of ethanol.

"Shortly before midnight, senators voted 62-32 to cut off debate, and followed by passing the bill 65-27. The measure now awaits action by the House, which is expected to take it up next week. But attempts to combine the two bills and send legislation to President Bush probably won't be possible until later this year."

UPDATE II:

On Friday, the House voted to prohibit any aid to Saudi Arabia as lawmakers "accused the close ally of religious intolerance and bankrolling terrorist organizations," according to the AP. The prohibition was attached to a foreign aid funding bill for next year that has not yet been debated by the Senate. It also faces a veto threat from the White House.

The Intellectual Dishonesty of "Pro-Lifers"

Though I could write about this in the sense of right-wingers caring more about already-discarded embryos (stem cell research) than the actual killing of infants (the Israeli offensive on Lebanon), I want to bring up another "pro-life" issue.

Firstly, a new poll shows that South Dakota voters are leaning against supporting the abortion ban that was passed by lawmakers earlier this year. It was to become law on July 1, but opponents gathered enough signatures to delay it and to let voters decide in November whether the ban should take effect. If voters reject the abortion ban at the ballot box, they would effectively repeal it. The statewide survey of 800 registered voters found 47 percent opposed the strict ban, while 39 percent favored it.

This is certainly good news and will be a tremendous setback for the anti-choice lobby. However, in the same poll, 59% of respondents said they'd support the ban if exceptions were in place for unwanted pregnancies due to rape or incest. So, the issue for many is not the restriction of abortion rights for women, but that the only exception is for the life of the mother and not these other sympathetic cases.

Ok, here's my thing. While I respect the "pro-life" side in the abortion debate - and even agree with them on partial-birth abortion (as long as their is a medical exception) and parental notification (as long as there's a judicial recourse for those girls who have been raped by a relative) - and I certainly appreciate being sympathetic to those women who had pregnancy forced upon them by vile men, is there really an intellectual consistency here?

Look, if you *truly* believe abortion is murder, if you truly believe it is the killing of an innocent life, you can't support it no matter what the circumstances (except "life of the mother" where it's hard to say whose life is more important, though I know Catholic doctrine would hold that the woman is dying a natural death, and the baby, murder). Though in cases of rape and incest it may be more understandable to a pro-life person, you still can't support the destruction of an innocent life. If we are being honest, to do so is to say that the real issue is the sexual history of the woman. If she wanted to have sex and got pregnancy, well she has to bear the child. If she was raped, well you can kill it. No, that doesn't make any sense.

And given that many who are opposed to abortion adrently support the death penalty, they should support the death penalty for the women and doctors involved in any abortion right? I mean, is it not murder? Yet many only favor a fine or small prison sentence. I do not mean to be harsh or overly cynical, and obviously I don't believe any of this myself, but would this not be more logically consistent?

While I would certainly not argue for anyone to become more ideologically extreme here, and it's obvious many do honestly hold this "pro-life" view, I would ask them to consider whether they are looking more at the nature of the woman's sexuality than protecting life. While there is also intellectual dishonesty on the pro-choice/left in regards to some of these issues (and many who would make the "slippery slope" argument from the other end), at least there are some well-thought out positions on why it's acceptable to be pro-choice up to a certain point (including my personal favorite discussion on the abortion issue by Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan).

But whatever side we are on here, let's just be honest with what we really believe and why we believe it.

WP: A Medical Crisis of Conscience

A few years ago here in Denton, Texas (where I attend the University of North Texas), a young woman who had been raped was denied the morning-pill at a local CVS pharmacy by a pharmacist who cited his religious convictions in opposition to dispensing the medication. As you can imagine, this incident started quite a stir in the community and the state, and the above-linked article brings up several examples and the controversy over - how the article frames it - "religious freedom vs. patients' rights."

Certainly seen in this view it is a complicated matter. No one wants to force people to do what they are opposed to, especially out of religious conviction, but at the same time, professionals have a professional duty and responsibility to their patients. And how far can it be taken anyway before it's completely unnacceptable? Many are sympathetic to Christian pro-lifers who don't want to be involved in anyway with abortion, but what if it was a scientologist who didn't want to dispense anti-depressants? Furthermore, many would argue these patients can simply be helped by other people, but as the article points out, the people who would deny them can also rationalize not referring them to other health professionals who wouldn't.

I have to say my personal feelings lean towards that of the side that says maybe if you're in a position where you don't feel you can discharge your professional responsibilites you shouldn't take them on in the first place. But what this article overlooks is the actual legal situation.

Currently, it's not illegal not to dispense the morning-after pill, etc. I don't think anyone's in favor of making it so either. But what some in the legislature here in Texas, and in other states, pushed for was a law that would have prohibited CVS from letting go the pharmacist that refused the rape victim the morning-after pill.

Now while I would never want anyone to be forced into participate in something they thought was morally wrong, I don't think they should be given special protection for doing so either. If CVS felt that they needed to replace this pharmacist, they should't be prevented from doing so. I think it's easy to see how whether their actions were understandable or not, that's unreasonable, and probably why enough conservatives opposed the Texas bill for it not to pass.

What pharmacies and hospitals do need to do is make sure they come up with policies to deal with these types of situations. I would hope some reasonable solutions can be found.

Senate Dems to pursue new strategy on abortion

According to a new Zogby poll, "Americans are pro-life across the board on numerous abortion-related issues... Americans support every pro-life law considered on the state and national level and believe life begins at conception."

It's clear that though a consistent majority of Americans do not favor the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade as many conservatives do, many or most take a "pro-life" stance on many or most abortion-related issues.

In this highly charged atmosphere over abortion, with South Dakota banning most abortions and the confirmation battles of two new Supreme Court justicies, the poll found that pro-abortion Democrats who want to use the abortion issue to gain votes will have a hard time.

Pollster John Zogby noted that "Democrats will have trouble gaining a political advantage by using the emotionally charged issue of abortion."

Indeed, and while the Democrats should - and rightfully - remain the pro-choice party, it is becoming clear that Democrats will have to find a way to retake the issue or it will continue to be a liability in much of the country.

Luckily, according to The Hill, Democrats in the Senate are backing what they hope to be a way to do just that.

The Senate Democratic leadership says it has found a wedge issue to strengthen the party’s position on abortion rights... legislation expanding access to contraceptives and sex education, which polls show a majority of Americans support but which Democrats are betting will be difficult for social conservatives in the Republican base to accept.

The bill is called the Prevention First Act and has over 20 Democratic co-sponsors. The article says polls show an overwhelming majority support such a plan, even many pro-lifers. But this would force conservative Republicans to have to go on record about it, which could hurt them with moderates or their conservative base depending how they vote.

The bill would prohibit group health plans from excluding contraceptive drugs, devices and outpatient services if they cover the cost of other prescription drugs and outpatient services. It would also require the secretary of health and human services to disseminate information on emergency contraception to healthcare providers and require hospitals receiving federal money to provide emergency contraception to victims of sexual assault.

The bill would also mandate that federally funded programs provide information about contraceptives that is medically accurate and includes data on health benefits and failure rates.

This sounds like a good start at least. William Saletan makes a good case for such a stategy in his article "Life After Roe." Hillary Clinton and our U.S. Senate candidate here in Texas, Barbara Radnofsky, call it "target-zero" abortion, taking Bill Clinton's "safe, legal, and rare" meme to an even more mass-appealing level.

Unfortunately, many activists on the left reject the strategy as I witnessed at UNT when Sarah Weddington (the lawyer who succesfully argued Roe) came to speak and several of those who asked questions took the oppurtunity to attack the Democrats' perceived acquiescence on the issue. I understand and sympathize with their frustration, but it's not productive. And it won't help them get what they want, which is continued legal access to abortion.

As I said, Democrats must remain the party that stands for the right to choose. However, we must also be the party that has its own strategy for making abortion less common, or rather, for making it as least common as possible. I think we can all agree, no matter what side of the debate we are on, that is a worthy goal.

What Value Life?

Patricia Bauer, a former bureau chief for the Washington Post, writes in today's Post about abortion and the disabled, in the light or raising her own daughter Margeret with Down syndrome.

"Whenever I am out with Margaret, I'm conscious that she represents a group whose ranks are shrinking because of the wide availability of prenatal testing and abortion. I don't know how many pregnancies are terminated because of prenatal diagnoses of Down syndrome, but some studies estimate 80 to 90 percent."

"What I don't understand is how we as a society can tacitly write off a whole group of people as having no value. I'd like to think that it's time to put that particular piece of baggage on the table and talk about it, but I'm not optimistic. People want what they want: a perfect baby, a perfect life. To which I say: Good luck. Or maybe, dream on."

"And here's one more piece of un-discussable baggage: This question is a small but nonetheless significant part of what's driving the abortion discussion in this country. I have to think that there are many pro-choicers who, while paying obeisance to the rights of people with disabilities, want at the same time to preserve their right to ensure that no one with disabilities will be born into their own families. The abortion debate is not just about a woman's right to choose whether to have a baby; it's also about a woman's right to choose which baby she wants to have."

I don't agree entirely with the point she's trying to make in her piece. She seems to come close to advocating that no fetus should be aborted because of disability. At the same time though, she does not advocate that abortion should be restricted, but rather that abortion should not be used for the "convenience" of eliminating a fetus that will suffer a mild or moderate disability during it's life. Whatever larger point she is trying to make, she raises some extremely difficult questions that I think we as a society are going to have to wrestle with in the very near future.

For one, to what extent should abortion be used to eliminate fetuses that show signs of disability? The writer details her own personal experience with her daughter and how her daughter, though disabled, is as fully capable of enjoying life as any fully-abled person. That her daughter enjoys life, and thanks to modern medicine is capable of leading a considerably longer and fuller life then she would have been able to only 50 years ago, would undercut any rationale to have her terminated before birth because her life would supposedly be one of suffering. But how many families would deliberately choose to raise a child that is mentally and physically disabled? If the figures she cites above are to be given any credence, then not many. And this leads to a larger question. To what degree should fetuses be eliminated that aren't disabled, but merely have characteristics the parents don't want their child to have? What if the child is inclined towards obesity? Or will inherit diabetes? Or stands a good chance of suffering cancer by middle age? Can abortion really become, as the author says, about the right to choose what type of baby a woman will have?

I believe that abortion should be protected by law, with few limitations. I also believe that women should have adequate access to and knowledge of methods of contraception, so that abortion is rarely used to prevent an unplanned for pregnancy. But such freedom also gives women the freedom to eliminate a fetus based only on considerations as to the future child's genetic make-up, and some women and couples will exercise this freedom to eliminate fetuses that don't meet their standards. This is certainly legal, but is it morally valid? In terminating fetuses that we consider "inadequate", are we not placing a lower value on some lives, and a higher value on others? Is the life of Michael Jordan more "valuable" then the life of Margaret Bauer? If not, then how can we justify terminating fetuses that show signs of Down syndrome? If yes...what does that mean?

Smarter people then me are so far unable to answer these questions, but they are certainly questions that lead us to wonder about some of our basic beliefs about the worthiness of lives, our own and others. And we have no choice but to try and answer them, as inadequate and flawed as our answers may be.

Epidemic of illegal abortions in Iran leads some to consider change in law

Conservatives skeptical of claims that making abortion illegal would lead to many dangerous, illegal ones may want to read this article from AFP:

"A booming business in backstreet abortions has pushed Iran's religious conservatives to consider changing the law, which was supposed to have protected the lives of mothers.

For women wishing to terminate an unwanted pregnancy, there are two options: prove that the child is putting their own life in danger, or otherwise join tens of thousands who go through dangerous illegal procedures...

According to local press reports, at least 80,000 illegal abortions are carried out every year. But some believe the real figure could be far higher. "

The report goes on to say that currently lawmakers are only considering a proposal to allow abortions in cases where the fetus has been diagnosed with a handicap, but further analysis shows there is ground for allowing more leinance within the religous-political arena.

"...the current debate over abortion revolves around the question of when a fetus develops a soul. There is still division over this question, although some prominent clerics have put the time at four to six months... one top cleric, Grand Ayatollah Yousef Sanei has issued a fatwa, or religious decree, stating that 'abortion is allowed before four months of gestation, and if the mother suffers a psychological burden caused by unwanted pregnancy, the fetus is handicapped or the mother's life is in danger.'

I am by no means endorsing the Iranians' view on abortion. It is required for those that are pregnant out of wedlock, raped, etc. Choice works both ways, and much of their reasoning is much different than abortion rights advocates here. However, I do find it interesting that a culture dominated by religious conservatives - where this hard-line religious point-of-view is actually written into their constitution - is more practical and socially mindful than many here in the United States. Recently, the State House of South Dakota moved a bill out of committee that will put in place in SD what is the current Iranian abortion law (should Roe ever be overturned).

Why do conservatives stop caring about a child after it's born?

Cynthia Tucker (one of my favorite columnists) has another good article this week about how those politicians most adamantly opposed to abortion rights are also most adamantly against the programs that are aimed to help children in need (sounds like a pretty good Democratic attack line to me). Again, I can't really put it better than she does, so I'll just let you read it.

On the so-called Child Custody Protection Act...

According to the AP, "The abortion bill most likely to become federal law this year would affect a relatively small number of pregnant teens, yet its impact on them could be dramatic — sharply reducing the options for girls in many states who dread telling their parents of their plight... It would outlaw transporting a minor across state lines to obtain an abortion in order to evade parental consent or notification laws in the girl's home state. Titled the Child Custody Protection Act, and carrying a sentence of up to one year in prison, the bill has bounced around Congress for years, winning House approval three times but never reaching a vote on the Senate floor. Only now — after making the Senate GOP's Top 10 priority list — do supporters and foes believe its passage is probable."
Now I support parential notification for minors seeking abortions as long as there is broad judicial bypass available, but this bill "would criminalize the well-meaning acts of an aunt, older sister or other confidante who assist a girl terrified of being beaten or evicted from home if her parents learned of the pregnancy" and could very well create situations in which it is impossible for a young woman to obtain an abortion. This would both violate her constitutional rights and could force her to turn to dangerous self-induced or illegal abortions. Unfortunately, Senate Democrats are pretty unlikely to fight this since it is one of those lose-lose political issues and some will probably support it foolishly believing it will help woo conservative voters.

The article also mentions that "ACLU lawyers already are studying possible challenges on grounds that the bill violates the right to travel from state to state and does not make an exception for cases when a girl's health is jeopardized. " Those are also really good points and hopefully if this passes the courts will find it unconstitutional.

DOJ omits emergency contraception from rape guidelines

"The U.S. Department of Justice has issued its first-ever medical guidelines for treating sexual-assault victims - without any mention of emergency contraception, the standard precaution against pregnancy after rape," the Philadelphia Inquirer reports."

Gail Burns-Smith, one of several dozen experts who vetted the protocol during its three-year development by Justice's Office on Violence Against Women, said emergency contraception was included in an early draft, and she does not know of anyone who opposed it.

'But in the climate in which we are currently operating, politically it's a hot potato,' said Burns-Smith, retired director of Connecticut Sexual Assault Crisis Services

....The controversy has erupted just weeks before the Food and Drug Administration is scheduled to reconsider whether to make it easier to get emergency contraception. A year ago, the FDA rejected nonprescription sales of Plan B, an emergency contraceptive. The ruling delighted conservative groups that had lobbied the Bush administration but went against the FDA's own staff, advisory panels and major medical societies."

Now this is the kind of thing I've talked about before. How far-right policies things like this are happening without many people knowing about it. I would to wager to bet that even many people who consider themselves to be pro-life would be against policies that stifle raped woman from getting contraception (and in most cases it is indeed contraception, not abortion) to treat her pregnancy.

Rethinking Abortion

The L.A. Times had an article Thursday about how the Democratic Party might try to redefine its position on abortion to appeal to many people who would otherwise, or at least be more inclined, to vote for Democrats if it weren't for their opposition to abortion:

"Party leaders say their support for preserving the landmark ruling will not change. But they are looking at ways to soften the hard line, such as promoting adoption and embracing parental notification requirements for minors and bans on late-term abortions. Their thinking reflects a sense among strategists that Democratic presidential nominee John F. Kerry and the party's congressional candidates lost votes because the GOP conveyed a more compelling message on social issues.

But in opening a discussion about new appeals to abortion opponents, party leaders are moving into uncertain terrain. Abortion rights activists are critical pillars of the Democratic Party, providing money and grass-roots energy. Some of them say they are concerned that Democratic leaders are entertaining any changes to the party's approach to abortion."

Altering the party's stance on abortion is anathema to a lot of liberals, but I, for one, do not think the party has to cede ground on the issue just because it alters its position. I don't think any reasonable people believe abortion should be completely unrestricted, what I believe many liberals and other abortion rights' advocates fear is, say, banning late-term abortions (nationally anyway, most are already banned by states as allowed by the USSC abortion rights rulings) would create a "slippery slope" that would chip away at abortion rights until there is nothing left. The thing is, is it not the right position? Does anyone really think late-term abortions can be justified? This kind of thinking is a major problem people have with liberals here and on other issues.

You see, I think a lot of time people vote for Republicans on the issue not because they are themselves conservative on abortion, but because they think Democrats are too liberal. In short, they'd rather vote for someone who favored too many restrictions than too few, because at least, in their mind, the question of life is being considered. Too many Democrats talk in language such as "women's rights" which means nothing to most people who believe a fetus is a life and some stage or another, and suggests to them Democrats are simply beholden to far-left social groups. So, in another sense, it is also a question of language and communication. Truthfully, many Democrats have these very moderate positions and the voting records to back them up, but they've, so far, not be in able to get this message out.

Other liberals will point out that a solid majority of Americans are pro-choice, so aren't we just selling out to a conservative minority? Well, no. Most people are pro-choice, but also want the kinds of restrictions listed above. Also, most people who are pro-choice, like with those who favor gun control, are already living in blue areas, but these issues are make-or-break in many of the other regions of the country we need to win over to be the majority again.

Many people also mistakenly come off thinking Democrats are "pro-abortion." That's thanks mostly to conservatives working to create that image, but again, as I explained above, Democrats have done a poor job explaining their views. Democrats should point to adoption programs, the lowered unwanted birth rate from successful sex ed programs, and that the number of abortions has increased under Republican rule because they have turned away from those things.

I am against parental notification, 24-hour waiting periods, etc. but those things are mostly state issues and that's where they should be fought. I would not want to see the national party embrace such things, of course.

But I also have no problem with Democrats being more accepting of pro-life Democrats. Republicans accept their pro-choice people, like Rudy Guiliani and Arnold Schwarzenegger, because they see the bigger picture. Many will say it's because they will do anything to win, even betray their own principles, and we should be more noble. That may well be true, but it works in suggesting to people Republicans are more accepting of different beliefs on social issues (although that probably couldn't be farther from the truth). Why shouldn't we also, for real, be accepting of different beliefs? Better a pro-life Democrat than a pro-life Republican, I say. As long as they are of the Harry Reid type, and not Zell Miller, we don't have to worry about the national party weaking its stance.

We could discuss the finer points of this issue for many blogs, but in summary, Democrats need to retake this issue. Most people aren't far-right on abortion, but they aren't far-left either. Democrats should never cede territory on this issue to conservatives, but they should make sure they have a honest to themselves (which is more often than not, moderate) position and that most people know about it. There's no reason Democrats should be losing on this issue. People are on our side. It's time we took advantage of that.

Religion and Politics

Dr. Glen Harold Stassen, a "pro-life" Christian ethicist, has written an article arguing that Bush's conservative economic policies towards jobs, healthcare, etc. has actually lead to an increase in the number of abortions over his presidency. I wish many Christian voters would realize they shouldn't focus on a single issue. Can they honestly say Bush is a better Christian than Kerry? Besides, as this article points out, not looking at the big picture can have the exact opposite effect you want to have.

Also, here's an open letter to Catholic bishops saying Catholics shouldn't vote for Kerry and an examination on how denying someone the Eucharist is wrong. As someone who is so similiar to Kerry is both his Catholicism and liberalism, I am proud there are those who are standing up to this. I thought Kerry was very effective and heartfelt in explaining his religious and political views in the last debate. I know from research and personal experience many, if not most, Catholics lean more towards Kerry's views than the Church and right-wingers would have you believe. And it certainly offends most of us some want others to be singled out over political differences.

UPDATED: The NY Times reports Liberal Christians are mobilizing to counter the religious right and has a great quote:

"We have Southern Baptists who wear buttons that say, 'Vote your values.' I say, 'Vote all your values.' The cries of the poor ring from cover to cover in my Bible. God hears the cries of the poor. Do we?"