Should have responded earlier.

My point was that as a means of communicating to voters, choice is a tired term that doesn’t have much meaning.

I am prochoice, but we need better phrasing, because the term has so much baggage and is so dated. I expect to see Phil Donahue and Gloria Steinem at a rally somewhere with the way we talk.

We need to engage with a compelling overall philosphy of personal freedom, which includes choice and marraige rights, but package it in a way that makes sense and is compelling to people in 2006, not in a way that makes people remember the 1970s.

I don’t like the choice to have rape be the way in to the abortion debate. There are plenty of “moderates” who are in favor of the right to choose in cases of rape and incest. To me, there’s nothing moderate about this position; anything short of women having dominion over their own bodies is bullsh*t. This commercial is giving up ground from the very start. I can’t call it unapologetic.

I don’t think that is what this commercial is saying.

What it says to me is: forcing a woman to have sex against her will is wrong. Forcing a woman to have children against her will is also wrong. It is making explicit the connection between rape and the policy of forced childbirth, in that one is nothing more than the logical extension of the other.

Forced childbirthers want to keep the debate focussed on “unborn babies,” where they have a chance to seize the higher ground. We shouldn’t let them, we should keep the debate on our terms — forced childbirth.

The question is (or should be) this: “Under what circumstances is it justifiable to force a woman to go through childbirth unwillingly?”

For us the answer is easy, it is never justifiable. For the forced-childbirthers it’s a lot trickier. They believe it is always justifiable, or at the minimum, justifiable when the woman is a “sinner,” i.e. she consented to sex in the first place. This is what they call “incest and rape” exceptions.

But rape and incest exceptions are not a matter of compassion or generosity, as they like to claim. Far from it. What they are really saying is “if a woman or girl is raped the first time, we won’t rape her again. But if she wasn’t raped the first time, then we will rape her.”

This is what Xena here has done, she has pulled the debate onto our territory, where we can win.

The right today is not conservative, it is the intrusive party. The right wants to control what you read, what you watch, who you sleep with, how you have sex, who you talk to, and what kind of health care is available to you. They believe that they know what is best for you and that you are incapable of determining for yourself what is best for you.

The problem is that young women, especially young single mothers are the group least likely to vote. Certainly they don’t have a lot of time to keep abreast of all the nuances of politics, so it is incumbent on all of us to reach out to those women who say they aren’t interested in politics or don’t have time for politics. They can understand in just a few minutes that they do have time to vote about who is going to control their bodies, Dick Cheney, or themselves.

I just find myself getting so impatient and irritated with those who feel that their own beliefs on subjects that are entirely personal to each individual should take precedence over the beliefs of others, and look to the law to impose those beliefs on everyone.

Abortion is not an event that any woman – that I know of – celebrates and revels in as a good thing. Abortion represents a failure, and not just of the birth control that can and does fail. It represents the failure of plans – the relationship or marriage that didn’t work out, leaving a woman alone and facing a pregnancy she cannot afford. It represents a failure of trust, when a woman gets raped and gets pregnant. It represents a failure of genetics, when the cells that for so many others results in near perfection, goes horribly awry and produces anomalies and defects that are incompatible with life. Or an array of problems that a mother does not wish to inflict on her child.

Abortion is never a success. For most women, it is not as unemotional as having a tooth pulled or getting a hsircut.

Abortion is failure. And because it is failure, we should do whatever it takes to prevent unwanted pregnancies in the first place. That means education, even for younger girls. It means education for boys, as well. That means making birth control available, even to girls and boys under 18. It means developing newer and better technology to identify genetic problems as early as possible, and encouraging pre-pregnancy genetic counseling. It means funding the science that can correct defects in the womb.

Reducing abortion means being realistic about the effectivness of abstinence programs. It means teaching children an appreciation for life and the consequences of failing to be responsible.

It means not closing our eyes and our ears to our children, making ourselves available for honest and frank talk about sex and love and babies.

It means allowing womwn to have full autonomy over their own lives and their own bodies, and teaching them that having that autonomy means having children when one is emotionally and financially ready.

Nothing bad ever got better because people kept it in the dark.

Want to bet that pricing of gas mirrors the lean/solid map for candidates?

Wonder if somebody in our ranks can whip up a Google mashup mapping price by candidates’ districts…???

Punaise, I adopted two older cats today from a friend of a friend. One is 19.9 lbs (!) and the other is an orange tabby, looks just like that picture VG put up. When he comes out from under the bed I’ll try to take a picture. Luke has renamed the fat one Gimli. No new name for Sonny yet.

missed this earlier. woo hoo!

20 lbs. … sure that’s a cat?!

But I also have a niece who is Down’s, who spent months and months in the hospital because of heart defects, who will likely have more surgery throughout an abbreviated life. I have had a niece with multiple births, two of which died after many surgeries that attempted to correot numerous birth defects. The pain and the sorrow was immense, made greater for what I perceive as a lack of moral strength to be merciful and bring surcease of suffering.

I don’t know how I could ever tell another woman who has to face the sure knowledge of a child’s immense suffering that she cannot excercise the ultimate in maternal mercy. To me that is immoral.

Rats! I had a snarky comment planned, but it looks like “Steve Langavin” has been corrected to “Jim Langavin.” Good.

Now can you spell Langevin correctly, too? Thanks.

picky, picky, picky! but thanks, it’s now corrected…