A superb and necessary point, powerfully and pithily made. Thank you.

Just Wow…may Rush and Laura and Sean etc etc et al get some idea that their speech is hateful and imflammatory. Free Speech? Sure. Tasteful or constructive or intelligent? Just take a listen, but not for long. From the feminazi word on….no, just attacking and ridiculing and disrespectful, mean, and provacative. Wow, Jane.

Jane, I personally feel that Murder is Murder no matter who is doing the killing. Not being a christian or having any religious bent, I still feel that killing someone over their beliefs is truly evil. But then my belief in evil is probably a lot different that that of any xtian fundie bastard out there. I do NOT try to impress my views on anyone, and my wife is a European Evangelical and her views and my views do not seem to cause any rifts in our 31 year marriage. She believes very much in her religion and I have no beliefs.. We love each other and respect each other and I for one would never interfere with any decision that concerns her and her rights to privacy or control over her body… Must have been the upbringing I recieved from my Socialist Swede Grandmother… Too bad the rest of the crazies in my blood family never realized what a prophet or how very humanistic she was…. I am so very tired of the Xtian Reich trying to control every thing that we as humans do… I wonder do they take a course in being busybodies, or is a gene problem?

Just this old Chief’s 2¢

Sullivan explained that many women had shared their compelling stories about complications, severe birth defects, risk of death to the mother, and etc.

Even so, Sullivan stated that he was anti-abortion (pro-forced-birth). His position makes no sense.

How can a gay man (all are persecuted) like Sullivan attempt to impose his brand of morality on others? Would his time not be better spent in support of equal rights issues?

Yes, one would think that women might make better guests to talk about this issue.

Their “movement” is about one thing — maintaining control over women. In order to maintain that control they need to make a concession here and there, as Sullivan is now doing.

Olbermann ought to spare us the hypocrisy.

The hatred and violence that has been expressed these many years since 1973, primarily by men, against women and the health care providers who have acted with the deepest moral courage despite threats, intimidation, property destruction and Murder, is beyond misplaced.

I was impressed by the number of men who attended our vigil for Dr. Tiller last night. He was a giant of a man. Not widely known are the many stories of his humane actions, not just as a provider of compassionate care for women but for all people. We heard some of those stories last night.

The small minded and black hearted individuals who spur other small minded and black hearted into action have no moral integrity whatsoever.

All Male Panels…, I guess women aren’t involved in this conversation.

But, but, but… they’re the oppressed minority!

I admit I got a little pissed listening to Andrew Sullivan talking about how he was against abortion or late-term abortions. Since he can’t get pregnant or ”accidentally” impregnate someone, how dare he pass judgement on women who have made or will make this decision in the future. Even after receiving emails from women telling their stories, it seemed he just casually dismissed them.

Has the AMA reacted to Dr. Tiller’s murder? If so, how strongly?

To your point, Jane, these men who want to pass judgment on women for the decisions they have made need to STFU. They know nothing, and the fact that they don’t “get it” after the stories women tell shows their utter lack of empathy. The E word. Totally. Effing. Lacking.

catty but true aside about Sully -

a little background – Sara Robinson co blogs on the topic of Eliminationists with Neiwert over at Orcinus – the both of them have been uncannily accurate in predicting the crazies behavior since 1/20

in recent days, Sullivan has called Sara out – as “shrill” and conferred upon her his Michael Moore Award for suggesting the right wing was kicking it in to violent gear

… and yet last night there was the little klieg light whore his own self holding forth – piously prattling about the very thing he slammed her on

Even Jonathan Turley on Rachel could only see one side of the civil liberties question: the free speech interests of the anti-abortion people. The fact that they are working hard (with the backing from their violent fringe) to restrict women’s rights to privacy, choice and corporal sovereignty wasn’t part of his equation.

I guess from my perspective, it isn’t just the murder that I would like them to renounce. Clinic bombings and sieges, intimidating healthcare professionals with threats or stalking, and the weird subculture of the CPCs, often thought of among teens and vulnerable women about places where one is at risk of brainwashing and possibly kidnapping – this is terrorism, and reminescent of the techniques of insurgent groups around the world that practice terrorism.

Terrorism is defined thusly by the Pentagon:
“The calculated use of unlawful violence or threat of unlawful violence to inculcate fear; intended to coerce or to intimidate governments or societies in the pursuit of goals that are generally political, religious, or ideological.”

Killing Dr. Tiller wasn’t just about eliminating one unpopular man for the sake of that elimination.. it was a move calculated to “coerce or to intimidate” to effect social change or at least to sent a message about how they would like social change to be effected. This is what their movement has to renounce – not just the few among their members who would actually pull a trigger inside a church.

I actually have less of a beef with Sullivan than I do with the decision to have him as a guest at just this moment. I thought he was honest and appreciated him talking about the women who had written him, and what he learned about the true nature of what they went through.

The more compelling analysis, the next intellectual connection in this specific story, should have been to the distortion and demagoguing of the situation by right-to-lifers. Why is he just discovering this? Why isn’t this well-known within the anti-choice ranks, or within the main stream media? What’s wrong with our national discourse, and what role do right-to-lifers bear in perpetuating the distortions that inexorably lead to this kind of violence?

That would have been a truly interesting discussion.

nothing on the JAMA site yet. but American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists released their statement yesterday

Jane, did you know you are the greatest? Keep up the good work. You can always get right to the heart of things.

During my time of doing Clinic Defense/ clinic escorting in the late 80s/early 90s against Operation “Rescue”, it was clearly evident that any & all positions of “authority” and decision making within their ranks was almost exclusively male. I always found that (while not surprising) quite stunning – that these idjits felt they knew what’s best for the wimmenfolks. Not much has changed over the years, apparently. Oh & Sullivan’s also an idjit, as his rationale proves:

Sullivan explained that many women had shared their compelling stories about complications, severe birth defects, risk of death to the mother, and etc.

Even so, Sullivan stated that he was anti-abortion (pro-forced-birth). His position makes no sense.

AND THE KILLIN GOEZ ON AND ON AND…

Citizen Hamsher and the Firepup Freedom Fighters:

A-fuckin’-MEN, Sister Jane, A-fuckin’-MEN!!! It is sickening to watch these evil infested, intellectual mollusks tryin’ ta avoid the obvious…there is nuthin’ “conservative” about the conservative movement, it is fascism plain and simple and it has resided inside our politics for over 200 years. With professional armies in the field and no productive economy left, it is time to irradicate this disease once and for all.

KEEP THE FAITH AND PASS THE AMMUNITION, THIS WAR IS OURS WE PAID FOR IT AND NOW WE MUST END IT!!

noticed he called Operation Rescue out as culpable, but wouldn’t let go of the “lone gunman”, “crazed rogue” life raft

Citizen Blub:

One could argue, as I do, that Amerika has been a terrorist state since it’s inception and we can’t avoid or hide from the reconning that history holds for us today.

You nailed it. Thanks Jane!

Jane,

fyi – Sara Robinson is attending the America’s Future Now Conference – hope you two have/had a chance to chat :D

Eh, Roxanne Cooper (Rox Populi/Pandagon) is here visiting. We’re winding each other up.

I’m on Shuster at 3:30 today and then I’m heading over there. Hope I get to see her (and a whole lot of other people).

I know the question in the headline bothers JH, but I think it is legitimate question. The problem was in Salaten’s column, which I fould disgusing, shallow and tendentious.

The question has an obvious answer:
Yes, it is wong to kill an abortionist.

Why wasn’t that the first sentence in that crummy column?
Even if the abortionist was doing it for sport (which he was not) it would be wrong to commit murder on anyone.

There is a good oxdown column up which discusses BargainCounterTenor’s experience with the medical issues that usually lead to a late term abortion
http://oxdown.firedoglake.com/diary/5565

Facts, which are often helpful, are absent from the moral idiot Salaten’s column

hey jane, say hi to roxanne for me. I’ll miss her at drinking liberally tonight. she’s awesome.

as for sully and his thoughts on abortion, I could give a fuck what he or any other man thinks. When Andrew Sullivan and I are capable of getting pregnant and carrying babies to term, maybe then we get some say in the matter.

I can’t stand fundamentalists. I can’t stand them.

I have a terrible theory; The christianist movement are ready to ignore the acts of their own. They automatically assume (theory, again) that their own must have had good reason to do it. They then blindly okay it on first blush, and when push comes to shove, the people that are saying it is bad are people they distrust to begin with. They have to back their own until or unless, their minds come to awareness that they are giving more than tacit approval to murder. They have also found a way to dehumanize the opponent (wondered where they learned that?) to have a fundamental distrust of any opinion that isn’t in line with theirs.
It is a combination of foment by their leaders, ignorance or stupidity on the follower, and in those irrational seconds and minutes and hours, the voices all join into a chorus that would make a lynch mob proud.

I wonder if it ever occured to MSNBC to have some WOMEN comment on this mostly male dominated conversation. Preferably a woman who has had an abortion and not ashamed of it. I’ve had one and I’m not ashamed, have no regrets but it was no walk in the park.

I just find it weird that this issue seems to be dominated by men.

thanks for the heads up. missed yesterday’s panel with Sara and Perlstein but found it in CSpan archives

me either. CANNOT STAND.

Seconded.

If Men Could Get Pregnant, Abortion Would Be A Sacrament

tell me, what year is it again ??

I’m with Jane!

Why isn’t the story, in this specific case, focused-on the Bug-Light of Hate Speech that the Right bathed Dr. Tiller in – until they attracted a Killer to him?

and if men had babies, there wouldn’t be any. Whine whine whine when they have a cold-they’d never make it through childbirth- or an abortion for that matter.

tell me about it. I was one of the helper’s when my boy Sam was born, and that is no day at the beach. between the pitocin, the dilating, the episiotomy, and everything else, it gave me a much more informed idea of exactly what birth entails.

I know I couldn’t handle it.

This is actually a consistent position for Turley. He doesn’t appear to have a problem with people using legal means to restrict others.

Apparently there is a SCOTUS decision (I didn’t catch the style on the case) which was purported to say that even speech that calls for violence against a particular person is protected under the first amendment. This fails to recognize the difference between my saying, “Randall Terry is so awful, he isn’t worth the powder it would take to shoot him!” and Bill-O-the-Clown calling for violence against Dr Tiller.

The only appropriate action is for us all to push hard for policy changes that will make sure that the services Dr. Tiller provided remain safe and available. The nature of things will make them rare, relatively speaking.

Bill-O-the-Clown claimed last night that Tiller was personally responsible for 68,000 late-term abortions over his 35 (or so) career. According to the National Center for Health Statistics, there were 4,291,000 live births in the US in the year from Sept 1, 2007 to August 31, 2008. Even if Tiller did all of his procedures in the last year, that would be 1.6% of all pregnancies that could have resulted in live birth. If we make more realistic assumptions (like he performed roughly the same number of procedures each year), the rate of late term abortion relative to the number of pregnancies drops to 0.05% or so. If you want to assume that Dr. Tiller was typical of the surgeons performing the procedure, then you can raise the rate to 0.15%.

And remember the reason that Tiller and the others performing these procedures do so many of them is that they are the go-to people. The Bill-O-the-Clowns and Hannity’s and Randall Terry’s of this country have chased all the others out of the practice. The rate won’t go higher if more GYN’s begin doing the procedure.

My mom was SO proud that she’d had an abortion in the 1930’s (illegal, of course). She’d taken her life of poverty into her own hands, had Dad’s assent, and spared a child a really poor start.

I was conceived later. I’ve often thought I’d not have minded if mom had one more. Life is occasionally interesting, and I’ve been lucky, very lucky, but I’d not live it again, and not having been born would suit me fine.

Nobody asks the fetuses, but former fetuses are walking around all over the place, and any thinking fetus would demand abortion rather than be born into predatory corporation world.

Interesting call-in to the radio this a.m.:

a caller suggested that as long as men can inseminate women and thereby cause pregnancies, they should be force to have a vasectomy before they are married and able to assume the responsibility for any consequence of the sex they engage in. Once they are “ready” they can reverse the vasectomy. That way so many unwanted pregnancies can be averted. If men so were just so adamant about it, this is one way to go…!

To add to her point, shouldn’t we have some concern for the male DNA material as much as the egg since it carries viability of life????

The thing that really fried me about the whole discussion on KO [so much so that I wrote to Rachel suggesting she do a story], is that these “boys,” however “well-intentioned” they may be [and that includes you, Mr. President], always conclude with a “we want to reduce the need for abortions.” And then they go on to cite increased birth control, more adoption, etc.

If Andrew Sullivan had actually READ the letters from women who described WHY they needed a “late term abortion,” he would have found that neither birth control nor adoption could have prevented them. Severely deformed fetuses, fetuses who die, conjoined twins, one of whom dies and threatens the other — these are among the reasons women are forced to seek this surgical procedure.

Enough of the “boys” trying to be “helpful.” Let us have control over our bodies and we can do just fine, thank you.

And acknowledge that by putting WOMEN, who’ve experienced this, on the air.

“… shouldn’t we have some concern for the male DNA material as much as the egg since it carries viability of life????”

Excellent point ! I saw Sullivan many years ago on Maher, berating Gore Vidal and no one stomped on Sullivan’s arrogance. I haven’t cared for him or his musings since and I dunno why anyone does. I guess the fact that he is pro-choice keeps him in the spotlight for the Rethugs.

Exactly. There is nothing anybody can do to avert the need for late-term abortions. My sister was forced to give birth to a dead baby because there was no one in her liberal state who provided late term abortions. I am just furious over the lack of knowledge here. I think I, too, will wrtie Rachel.

I wish someone had the gall to ask Sullivan if he would give women full rights over their bodies if he could get Gay marriage approved all across America.

I am in complete agreement with a commenter above … how can someone in a persecuted segment of society see fit to deny full rights to another persecuted segment of society ?

Good for you, GdP … I will e-mail Rachel as well – rachel@msnbc.com

Done. Thanks for doing it too, Petro.

Thank you, Jane. There is so much irony I am thinking. One man killed another man. The cause the horrifying undertow, getting stronger, of misogyny in this culture. A woman not respected enough to have sovereignty over her own body. How sad that the feminists as the DFHs’ causes are not a stronger legacy for the youth of today, both for males and females, but poignantly in this case among younger women.

I keep wondering if the possionate identifying with the fetus, especially among the angry men in the pro-life movement, is about those childhood issues of rebelling against the powerful mommy parent and the need to separate one’s identity from her, since often the daddy parent was remote or gone and the role model the boys needed to integrate healthily into their psyche. Without that healthy integration of who they are, they have a more brittle, caricature-like image of what it means to be male. And that doesn’t give that an integrated sensibility to empathize with others, like the plight of children and women. It is about power and competition and not about partnership and cooperation. (I am not talking about ALL men, thank God. In fact the evolved men seem to champion women’s needs and rights with more commitment at times than we ourselves do).

The mandate for too many males to dominate the females and children.

The global misogyny is alarming. And women need to bond with their sisters in spirit and politically before we all are lost and will be burqua-ed psychologically, socially, or literally.

Here’s the thing, Canada has allowed gay marriage and abortion without limitation and we’re a better Country for it … it is revolting that Sullivan or anyone else can be against either of these.

Yes. One of the regrets I have is that Mr. Gnome moved us back to the states rather than continue to live in Canada. How our lives would have been different!

Thou shalt not kill.

Late to the party, as usual – just wanted to note that as usual, Rachel was the MSNBC exception. She did have Turley on – he’s practically a regular, so I can’t really blame her – but she also a woman doctor who does abortions on.

Gee, let’s see, what was it someone said recently about their onw life experience (and sex and ethnic group) inevitably influencing how they see and do things?/s
‘

Listening to Randall Terry, finally got it.

You only try to control something you believe is powerful. Terry doesn’t think women are powerful. He thinks we’re stupid, gullible, flighty and irrational. We can’t be trusted to choose “correctly”. Children (male children, that is) can be taught, women can only be trained.

I would be very interested in hearing how many women are in senior positions in Operation Rescue. Bet almost all are secretaries, receptionists, gophers. Terry hates pro-choice women because we won’t admit he knows best. And he hated Dr. Tiller because Tiller believed women were smart enough to make their own decisions.

Re Randall Terry, I wonder if he has a lot of childhood rage projected at his biological mommy now causing him to pathologically identify with a fetus against its “killer mother” and ricocheting over to his mission to destroy the enabler of the killer mother, the doctor. I wonder if this is a pattern among many such pathologically obsessed anti-abortion male activists!