|
|
Jump into this conversation. Join the DIA-Log!
This blog is moderated and all comments must be approved by the moderators. We will
attempt to post your comments promptly. If you have a question you may contact us at
How to comment:
This blog is for the lively and informed discussion of issues, not personalities. Please refrain from profanity, personal attacks, libelous speech, or any language likely to intimidate or silence other bloggers.
You must register to comment, but not to read. Yes, you may use a nickname to blog if you wish to remain anonymous. Have a good time!
Sisters, this is our business! Some Talking Points?
August 8, 2008
|
Here are links/excerpts from two divergent but excellent articles from which you may want to share as talking points/statistics in the #11 ballot issue dialog and with candidates.
http://blog.beliefnet.com/godspolitics/2008/07/prolife-democrats-call-for-an.html
Wednesday, July 09, 2008 Pro-Life Democrats Call for an Abortion Reduction Plank (by Tony Campolo)
As a pro-life Democrat, and a member of the party's platform committee I will be pressing for the inclusion of an abortion reduction plank in this year's platform....
A recent study indicated that as many as 200,000 abortions could be prevented each year if the government includes contraception for low-income women on Medicaid. Also if provisions were made for medical coverage for pregnant women who cannot afford doctors and hospital care, and daycare assistance provided for mothers who are gainfully employed to support themselves and their children, the number of abortions per year could be cut even more dramatically. Too many low-income women, especially those who might become single mothers, cannot afford what better-off women take for granted.
.....It is not enough to advocate the overturning of Roe vs. Wade. Pro-life Republicans must join pro-life Democrats and address the economic problems that are driving hundreds of thousands of young women to think that abortion is their only option. Such Republicans should also remember that for two years their party controlled the White House, the Congress and had a conservative Supreme Court, and yet made no concerted effort during that time to address the abortion issue. That might be why many Evangelicals who had given the Republicans their votes four years ago are having second thoughts about voting Republican this time around.
If the Democrats are going to make any dent in the support that Evangelicals now provide for the Republicans, they had better address the abortion issue and do what is necessary to show that while their party might still remain pro-choice, it has become a party committed to making abortions rare.
Published on Friday, July 25, 2008 by Real Women, Real Voices
HHS Proposal Undercuts State Birth Control Laws by Cristina Page
The Bush administration’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has been called “ground zero for the ideological wars in this country,” and a new HHS proposal leaked this week proves why. In a spectacular act of complicity with extremists on the right, HHS is proposing to allow any federal grant recipient to obstruct a woman’s access to contraception.
The American public is nearly unanimous in supporting contraception: 90 percent favor wide availability for birth control, and 90 percent of sexually active women of reproductive age are using it. It is simple common sense: the average woman spends nearly three decades of her life attempting to be sexually active without getting pregnant, and access to contraception is the only proven way to avoid an unintended pregnancy.
For most women, birth control is a basic health care need. But with this new proposal, the Bush administration plans to hand over the gears of health care to the few extremists who want to impose their deeply unpopular right-wing doctrine on the many. The “Pill Kills” fringe has generally been ignored for its warped pseudo-science, but not at Bush’s HHS. Its new proposal would make agencies receiving HHS funding promise not to discriminate in hiring against anyone who objects to abortion — and then redefines abortion so as to include most commonly used forms of birth control including oral contraceptives and IUDs.
This is the latest — and now incontrovertible — proof that the anti-abortion movement, and the administration that appears beholden to it, opposes basic pregnancy prevention and is firmly committed to control over Americans’ sex lives. If the HHS proposal is approved, anti-contraceptive operatives will seize health financing, one of the most important levers of control. The regulations would be vast in scope and serve as an open invitation for local extremists to directly meddle with your most important life decisions.....
The proposed regulation is just one of many campaigns against contraception, all led entirely by the anti-abortion establishment. Few Americans know that not one anti-abortion organization in the United States supports contraception. Even fewer understand that every effort to ensure Americans’ access to pregnancy prevention is met with fierce, well-financed, and increasingly successful opposition by anti-abortion groups.
The Bush administration has been able to implement these deeply unpopular attacks against birth control and family planning because the American public doesn’t really believe that an anti-contraception movement even exists. Under the cover of public denial, behind the banner of “Who could be against contraception?” ideological extremists have accomplished much of their agenda. Approval of the HHS proposal would be the most encompassing and far-reaching attack on the right to contraception they could hope for. What the anti-birth control extremists need now is for the public to continue to believe it can’t happen.
Page is the author of How the Pro-Choice Movement Saved America: Freedom, Politics and the War on Sex and spokesperson for BirthControlWatch.org.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/07/25/10601/
|
|
|
Cindy McCain as Miss Sturgis?
August 7, 2008
|
|
Ugh!! Do a little research, John. Please, check with your wife before you nominate her as a candidate for bike babe beauty queen! Whatever our politics, we clearly recognize Cindy McCain as a classy, articulate, compassionate and competent woman in her own right and for her own causes. Can you imagine that she'd be flattered by the Senator's comment during their appearance in Sturgis at the Buffalo Chip?
Was he pandering to the macho "I got a babe on my Harley" crowd or didn't he truly know much about the one of our nation's well-known entertainment-sporting events, the Sturgis Rally?
Unless she owns that Harley and rides it herself to where she wants to go, the sound of Sturgis isn't the sound of real freedom for everybody, Senator! Ask Cindy. She'll explain it to you.
|
|
|
Been There--Heard That!
August 7, 2008
|
|
Our congresswoman, Stephanie Herseth Sandlin is pregnant . The bloggers are buzzing. How can she run for re-election, do a good job as our representative and still be a good mom? Who will take care of that baby? How can she--GASP! maybe even as a nursing mother--make rational decisions in committees? If she wants to be a mother, why doesn't she just stay home and be one? Been there? Heard that? Whether she choses to work while raising her children, feels called to a career, or even if she's driven to the work force by necessity, every mother has heard similar questions posed by both men and women. Come on, women, you know so well what Stephanie's experiencing now! Let's challenge voters not only to ignore this "mommy snarking" but also to suggest that Congress needs MORE working mothers listening to and working for us! Any ideas?
|
|
|
|
|
