On abortion and appealing to right to lifers: Look into my daughter's eyes

[ScreamingMeemie]

and tell her she's not important enough to take a stand over. Tell her that it should be her personal fight as a woman. That the Democratic Party can't take her on anymore because she is a threat to electability. Look into her eyes and tell her that maybe after eight weeks it would be okay to force her to have a child that she is unprepared for. Tell her that even though abortion rates were lower under a Democratic presidency than a Republican one...that education works better than punishment,it's just not important enough anymore. Look into her eyes, tell her that, and then try and get her to vote Democratic in four years.



Thanks.

[Scout]

1. Couldn't do it ....

even if I agreed with those sentiments... at least not and sleep at night.

Excellent post. I don't think I'd ever mess with your daughter, mom!

[The Backlash Cometh]

2. Lovely child.

Mrs. Grumpy, there are angles to this issue which the Democrats, for reasons that I cannot understand, have not explored and used to their advantage.

First, many of us are only one generation from abject poverty. We have parents who each lost siblings because of their dire environment and because the government was not there to help them. We are now returning to that kind of environment.

and

Second, many women who had abortions, did so to delay raising a family until they could financially support children and not be a weight on society, which seems to be a major concern to conservatives. This is a major cognitive dissonance issue for conservatives. They don't want to spend a penny to raise the child of a poor person, yet they want that poor person to have children.

I would whip them with the contradictions.

[Liberal Gramma]

13. It's not as contradictory as it looks

Actually, conservatives are investors and want to have cheap labor. What is cheaper, and more desparate, than a family with a lot of kids to support. It's not religion for some of them, it's money. A second, but important issue, is the effect of early child-bearing on a woman's ability to succeed. If you would rather give the good job to a white man anyway, what better way to achieve than legally than to ensure that few women will rise to positions of influence by ensuring that a greater proportion of them will be mired in the childrearing years. I don't understand why any woman would support the "right to life" since it's her life she's signing away.

[DrGonzoLives]

3. Yes, let's focus COMPLETELY on abortion

and keep on losing.

The idea is NOT to abandon our position on abortion, but to quit playing into the GOP's hands by making it the chief debate all the time, along with the rest of the culture-warrior bullshit that they win on ALL THE TIME.

The sad thing is that so many Democrats are ready and willing to go into the culture war as well, instead of dismissing the GOP on it as they should be.

You don't have to call for banning abortion to appeal to many people who oppose abortion, you just have to start stressing things like health care, jobs, etc. It can be done.

[RafterMan]

5. You can't escape it

If the Democrats never say another word about abortion, they're still going to keep getting tarred over it. In fact, I get the sense they would love to do just that -- it's the GOP that (wisely) keeps brining it up.

You have to be ready to win the battles you don't choose as well as the ones you do.

[DrGonzoLives]

9. No, you can't escape it

But we can stop letting the Republicans frame debate. As it is now, the Democrats just let the GOP say whatever it wants, and think that responding with intelligent debate on the issue is going to sway people. You won't sway people on this. Not overnight, anyway.

When the GOP starts in on the culture war shit, we need to come back with arguments like "Yeah, what else? If abortion is outlawed tomorrow, will there be more jobs?"

[Cheswick2.0]

15. I agree n/t

[cali]

19. I see where you're coming from

but I can't really agree. It's grown impossible to ignore the culture war and people don't relate to it in the context of economic security. It's not only an issue in concrete terms, but it's a symbolic issue, one that represents the attempt of the religious right wing to dominate social order, and impress their will in a myriad of ways.

I think we have to engage with them, and fight when they attempt such measures as the amendment attached to the spending bill in the Senate.

[ScreamingMeemie]

6. Yes DrGonzo...let's send our daughters to maternity group homes

for their youthful mistakes, or any reason for that matter. Let's do that. She's not worth it. None of them are. :hi:

/sarcasm off

She's not voting for our party ...nor would millions of other young girls...if we let this happen

[DrGonzoLives]

7. Thanks for proving my point

You didn't even bother to read my post, did you? You just looked at the subject line, like pretty much everyone else does around here, and completely disregarded anything else that was said.

Yeah, exactly, your daughter's not worth it, that's EXACTLY what I meant. :eyes:

[ScreamingMeemie]

18. I read your entire post and it's hogwash. The Right continues to bring

this issue to the forefront, and we never fight them on it. We let them run with it. They decide the issues for us, and we don't fight them. Your idea is more of the same, exactly like theirs.

[Cheswick2.0]

10. we don't focus on it.. they do

I have seen two politicians answer the question well over the last few years. One was Ed Rendell when he was running for governor. He said "The democratic party is the party of choice. That is not going to change".
The other is Howard Dean who said something like "Abortion is a medical matter to be decided by a woman and her doctor". Then he moved on.

Unfortunately many democrats make qualifying statements which not only betray women but make the politician look weak. Of course some of them are weak and so we have to listen to: "Well I am personally opposed to abortion because of my religious faith blah blah blah... but I support a woman's right to chose".

[buddhamama]

16. you make a valid point, Dr.

the repubs won't let the abortion issue go the Democrats be smarter in their counter arguments.

you said: "you just have to start stressing things like health care, jobs, etc. It can be done." - these issues can be brought into the abortion issue too, if need be. If the GOP is about 'protecting the life of the child' then it's time the DEMs showed the GOP policies for what they are Hypocrisy. how is growing up poor, sick, uneducated,etc., protecting a child?

edited for spelling

[BlueCaliDem]

4. An Angel, You've Got There, Mrs.Grumpy. I Would NEVER

take away her right as a woman, to choose what's best for her own.

I too have a daughter; a thirteen year old angel-face.

I couldn't tell her that she was not the mistress of her own body, and mind, and that her body belonged to the United States of America; as if she were a slave because she was female.

Never.

[Blue Dog Dem]

8. A winning position

Is one where we do not stop abortion, but we never fund it with tax dollars. When we have framed the debate in that context we have ALWAYS won.

[Cheswick2.0]

12. please give examples

of people have won because they said that.

[Kber]

22. Never fund abortion with tax dollars

even if a woman who qualifies for medicaide needs one to save her life? That's the one life saving procedure we won't pay for? Not sure I could get behind this position.

[crasmane]

23. Like it or not, this is the government's position.

Look at the Hyde Amendment, 1977, and the first woman to die as a result of that policy, Rose Jimenez, in Texas.
Impoverished women are dying as a result of unsafe abortions, which they risk as a result of poverty in the United States.
It's the very last story neocons want told.
And as for Henry Hyde, if this doesn't prove him to be a sociopath, nothing does.

[RevCheesehead]

11. WHY are men so dense??

I've been thinking about the abortion argument for the last several days, and I STILL don't understand the men who say "we need to let go of this issue."

WHAT PART OF "This is MY body" DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND???
(sorry for shouting)

We're talking about the basic, fundamental right of self-determination. It is an intensely personal decision, and rarely is it "an easy solution."

Respect for life? What about the life of the woman? Apparently, she no longer deserves the same basic rights that we say we believe in.

I once asked my father, "if you had to make a choice: If mom was pregnant, but that pregnancy would maybe kill her, what would you choose?" Without hesitation, he said, "I would choose your mother." "But, Dad, what if it was ME?" "I would choose your mother." (BTW, he's an open-minded evangelical Christian.)

So, given those circumstances, why should the government interfere in that intensely personal issue? And since it speaks to individual freedom, WHY ON EARTH should we put this issue aside?????

[crasmane]

24. Yes, every assertion that the fetus's life is sacrosanct

is also an assertion that the mother's life is not.
Women are more expendable than infants, yet they are needed to carry infants.
This is the primary and unspoken rationale behind the pro-life movement.

[cali]

14. Oh dear, I'm afraid my first thought as the mother

of a teenager is: Do you have your daughter's permission to post her picture like this? My son would be furious and he sure wouldn't give his permission.

As to your larger point, I certainly want your daughter to be able to control her own body- which kind of ties into my first point.

[ScreamingMeemie]

17. Yes. My daughter has my permission. This is not her high school

message board. Thank you for addressing my point. She's sitting right here watching television and picked out the picture herself.

[MrUnderhill]

20. It's a battle you don't want to fight that way.

With respect. And, btw, noting that your daughter is adorable. And admitting that I am personally opposed to abortion though I won't tell your daughter what to do.

You can't make your family the target that this kind of statement set you up for. Imagine if you were the politician using that argument (Kerry could have with two daughters, or he could have used Bush's daughters). Also remember how much it hurt us for Kerry to even bring up Cheyney's daughter.

That level of personal rhetoric backfires too easily.

Here's how it plays out:

"Look into my daughter's eyes and tell her she's not important enough to take a stand over"

"You look into your daugter's eyes and tell her that she's lucky you weren't in the middle of a big project at work when you got pregnant. Or maybe wanted a boy and the sonogram didn't work out. Or that you got mad at her father and broke up with him. Or final exams were just a few weeks away... Or you were just fooling around and didn't even know who the father was... or that for some stupid reason there was something, ANYTHING, in the world that was more important to you than she was at the time. There was something you thought you could give to this world that was a more valuable contribution than raising her to be the happy healthy young woman she obviously IS... And that she's lucky to even be here."

He says it and he's got those "tears" in his eyes that he pulled out at the convention and you've lost the battle right there.

You see... as framed, this isn't a winning issue for us right now. The way Carter brought it to us it WAS a winning issue (as I said... I am personally opposed to abortion but can't make that decision for some woman by passing laws as President). But the VAST majority of people do not support "abortion at any time for any reason"... just as the VAST majority do not support completely removing a woman's right to choose what to do with her own body.

Look at how Kerry had to answer that woman in the last debate who was close to tears herself. I don't understand how some of our pundits can say that we need to learn to TALK about "values" better and bring our faith in to the conversation. If Kerry didn't do it THERE... what more do they want??? He was GREAT! But it was obviously TOO EASY for shrub to speak to this woman's heart.


To summarize? What the heck was this rant all about? Don't bring your children in to the battle. They're who we're fighting FOR... they aren't the grounds on which we fight.

[stellanoir]

21. you have a gorgeous child there Mrs. Grumpy.

I wish upon wish that the media had aired more frequently Kerry's reiteration of former President W.J.C.'s very wise statement, that (paraphrasing here) "abortion should be rare, but it should also be both safe and legal."

That guy really knew how to simplify complex issues.

[TnDem]

25. How could I look into her eyes at all if....

How could I even look into her eyes if you had aborted her in the first place? How could she even answer or matter?

What if someone had looked in YOUR eyes and asked you the same thing before your daughter was born? You wouldn't even HAVE a daughter now to ask that question about, would you?

You asked the question and I answered... And it is this kind of issues that the liberal wing of the party keeps pounding that kill us in all of the south. THIS is why we cede 200 electoral votes from the get-go.

I say STFU about Guns, God and Abortion...before we lose what little we have left.

TNDem