Taboo-Breaker Promo: HERE'S YOUR ANTI-ABORTION KIT, GENTLEMEN !!

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Subject: The foolishness of the Dems on the abortion issue

Date: Jan 23, 2008 4:37 AM

The Dems almost exclusively lose elections over abortion. It is not
"crucial
to women's health" to have access to abortion. This is a false
premise.
It is crucial to women's health not to be pressured into sex by sex-
obsessed,
irresponsible men, the vast majority of whom happen to be Republicans-
since that's
the thing about Republicans. They're all ignorant rednecks who have
only one
topic: *themselves* and their penises are the same topic. Look at
Fred Thompson.
The whole world knows he married a pair of tits, but he has an issue
with black
people having sex (his African HIV assistance position)?

Taboo-breaker, here.

I wish the Dems would get a clue about character, because we really
need the rest
of the actual rights they tend to stand for. They should take a close
look at the
lives lost due to denials of healthcare, which is a Republican wish,
joy, desire,
or source of pleasure (they clearly love to see people suffer), and
compare it to
lives lost due to abortion. Republicans believe poor people deserve
what they get,
neglecting to see that if the inherently untalented stupid person,
George W. Bush,
was born into another family he would most like be a homeless VietNam
vet (assuming
he would not be among the 58,000 of Kissinger's folly) if not dead
from the
booze, instead of president right now.

These groups always send me mail, assuming since I am a Dem and a
Rights Activist,
I am going to swallow their Abortion Kool-Aid. They instead make all
women look
stupid for having drank the Kool-Aid of irresponsible sex, since
irresponsible sex
is clearly ALL ABOUT MEN.

I recommend these rubber rings as a Anti-Repugnicant Hypocrisy
promotional kit,
instead:
http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/livestock/beef/facts/07-029.htm

"HERE'S YOUR ABORTION REMEDY GENTLEMEN !!"

KMDickson
--------------


Published on Tuesday, January 22, 2008 by The Huffington Post
10 Reasons to Support Reproductive Justice on Roe Day
by Jill Filipovic

35 years after Roe v. Wade solidified American womens' right to
abortion, reproductive
rights remain in limbo. And while abortion rights are crucial to
women's health
and autonomy, they are hardly the end-all be-all to reproductive
justice -- even
if the constant attacks on those rights (and on the people who provide
women with
them) have forced the pro-choice movement to remain on the defensive
about abortion
in particular.

Roe at 35 is in bad shape. But there are plenty of forward-looking,
positive steps
to be taken. It's worth raising a glass to Roe today -- but even more
importantly,
it's time to get out and fight. Here are a few reasons why:

10. Abortion is already inaccessible and out of reach for many women.

Eighty-seven percent of U.S. counties do not have an abortion
provider. Parental
consent laws, 24-hour waiting periods, and other anti-choice
roadblocks make abortion
difficult or impossible for many women -- young women and low-income
women in particular.
The Hyde Amendment blocks federal Medicaid money from paying for
abortion, meaning
that low-income women have their medical care determined by anti-
choice bureaucrats
instead of doctors. When women have to spend weeks trying to legally
bypass parental
consent laws, or when they have to take time off work, save up money
for the procedure,
find someone to take care of their children, figure out
transportation, and drive
miles and miles to the closest clinic only to be told to "go home and
think about
it and come back tomorrow," the procedure gets pushed back -- and later-
term abortions
are more difficult and more expensive. An abortion at 24 weeks (a
procedure already
impossible to get in most states) can cost as much as $10,000. Groups
like the National
Abortion Network of Abortion Funds and the Haven Coalition attempt to
offset the
costs of abortion and the related expenses, but their budgets and
abilities are
limited, particularly in contrast to the financial and political
strength of the
anti-choice movement. In the meantime, Roe remains an unfulfilled
promise for many
American women.

9. If abortion is illegal, then women and doctors will be criminals.

Anti-choicers dislike answering the sticky question of how much time
in jail women
who have abortions should serve. But as it stands, a lot of anti-
abortion legislation
is not premised on outlawing abortion, but rather attempts to
establish that life
begins when an egg is fertilized. Much of that legislation expresses
the idea that
a zygote and a fetus are people deserving a full range of legal
rights. In such
a "pro-life" world, women who have abortions are murderers, and
doctors contract
killers. Women are already going to jail for "murder" because they
used drugs while
pregnant; it's hardly a stretch to argue that women could face jail
time for terminating
pregnancies, especially if anti-choicers really believe -- as they
claim -- that fetuses
are people invested with full rights. As it stands, about one in three
American
women will have an abortion at some time in her life. Those are a
whole lot women
to turn into criminals.

8. Anti-choicers care about controlling your sex life, not saving
babies.

For all their talk about valuing babies and life, anti-choicers have
demonstrated
time and again that they could actually care less. They're more
interested in punishing
women for sex and in maintaining a male-dominated family model. And
they're only
"pro-life" up until the moment of birth -- then you're on your own.
Anti-choice politicians
opposed extending health care to low-income kids; they routinely vote
against Head
Start and early childhood education programs; they abhor welfare
programs that give
aid to single parents and low-income families; and they are at the
forefront of
opposition to state childcare aid. It's no surprise that 100% of the
worst legislators
for children are "pro-life," and many of the most "pro-life" states
are the worst
for children and for women. While children are hardly their first
priority, anti-choicers
are extremely concerned about what you do with your private parts.
They are the
architects of "abstinence-only" sex education that flat-out lies and
misleads students
in order to promote conservative values of female submission,
homophobia and general
ignorance. Many of them opposed a vaccine that could save thousands of
women from
cancer -- because the vaccine prevented cervical cancer and had to be
given before
the onset of sexual activity, meaning that anti-sex nuts had one less
tool in their
slut-punishing arsenal.

7. They're going after your birth control, too.

Pro-lifers care about lowering the abortion rate, right? Wrong. They
oppose contraception,
too -- and though they're quiet about it now, you can bet that it's
next on the list
of things that have to go in a "pro-life" nation. In fact, none of the
major pro-life
organizations support contraception access, despite the fact that
accessible and
affordable contraception is the most effective way to decrease the
abortion rate.

6. Illegal abortion kills women.

There are no two ways about this one -- when abortion is illegal, women
are killed
and maimed. Some 80,000 women die as a result of illegal abortion
every year; hundreds
of thousands more are injured. Women around the world suffer when pro-
life laws
rule the land. And "pro-lifers" could care less. Illegal abortion is
the cause of
25% of all maternal deaths in Latin America, 12% in Asia, and 13% in
sub-Saharan
Africa. Women's lives, apparently, aren't covered by that whole "pro-
life" thing.

5. Legal abortion is good for women, men and families.

Post-Roe, American women have made phenomenal gains in nearly all
areas of life,
and American families have benefited. Women go to college at the same
rates as men.
We can define ourselves as something other than mothers, or as mothers
and something
else. Poverty has been cut in half since Roe gave women the right to
control their
own reproduction. Men can be nurturing too, and are expected to take
part in raising
their children. Families can be planned. Men have greater choices in
their occupations
since they aren't required to be the sole bread-winner. More people
have access
to education. Women have more power to escape abusive relationships or
bad jobs.
Parents of both sexes spend more time with their kids than ever
before. Overall,
reproductive rights have been tremendously beneficial to all Americans
-- except
for those who want women to be second-class citizens.

4. Poor women and women of color are disproportionately impacted by
anti-choice
policies.

When anti-choicers chip away at abortion rights, they take down the
easy targets
first -- and since poor women and women of color have relatively little
political
power, they suffer the brunt of anti-choice ideology. Abortion is made
much more
expensive by the myriad restrictions placed on it, and low-income
women bear the
burden of navigating through the costs and impediments of accessing
basic health
care. Women of color not only face restricted abortion access, but are
then blamed
for "genocide." And women in the global south face the deadly
consequences of the
global gag rule, which not only impacts their reproductive health care
but silences
them as social and political actors.

3. Choice isn't just about not giving birth -- it's about your right to
have children.

The anti-choice movement isn't just against abortion and birth
control; many anti-choicers
also oppose in-vitro fertilization and other fertility treatments.
They also draw
convenient lines about who is fit for motherhood, bemoaning the lack
of white babies
up for adoption while supporting organizations and practices that
strip women of
color of their right to reproduce. Reproductive freedom is about the
ability to
determine for yourself when and if you have children; the anti-choice
movement is
about the exact opposite. Anti-choice governments don't just limit
abortion rights
-- as China's one-child policy aptly demonstrates, they also limit the
right to choose
to have children.

2. Anti-choicers are also going after the rights of women around the
world.

Not content to stick it to American women, anti-choicers have taken
their crusade
abroad with policies like the global gag rule. The United States'
policy of denying
reproductive health funding to any organization that so much as
mentions abortion
-- by petitioning their own government for reproductive rights,
performing abortions
with their own non-U.S. money, referring women to abortion providers,
or even telling
women that abortion is an option -- contributes to "shockingly high
death and disability
rates in developing countries." Reproductive health care clinics
usually provide
a variety of services, and when the U.S. cuts off funding because of
abortion advocacy,
they also cut off funding to pre-natal care, HIV/AIDS services, well-
baby care,
STD prevention, and sexual health education. The majority of births
world-wide already
take place outside of hospitals, and a third of women receive no pre-
natal care.
In places like Kenya, Uganda and Ethiopia, experts estimate that up to
up to 50
percent of maternal mortalities result from unsafe, illegal abortions.
In sub-Saharan
Africa, 920 women die for every 100,000 live births. The number for
Europe, on the
other hand, is 24. Contraception access, safe abortion, sexual health
education
and generalized health care could save many of these women. It is
estimated that
giving contraception alone to all the women who want it could prevent
22 million
abortions, 23 million unplanned births, and 1.4 million infant deaths.
Instead of
increasing access to health care, anti-choice groups are at the
forefront of denying
it. And they have lots of blood on their hands in the name of "life."

1. Reproductive justice is about you.

It's about your rights and your family and your body. All of us make
reproductive
choices -- to have kids or not, to use birth control or not, to have
sex or not,
to continue a pregnancy or not. Reproductive health care impacts all
of our lives.
In a pro-choice country, children are wanted and cared for, pregnancy
is voluntary
and families are healthy. Women and men have a full range of rights,
and the liberty
to act as individuals instead of squeezing themselves into narrow
gender roles.
Sex is both a pleasure and a responsibility, not a guilt-ridden
exercise intended
only for reproduction in the context of a male-headed heterosexual
marriage. One's
character and morality are squarely centered in their heart and their
head, not
between their legs. Health care is available for everyone who needs
it, without
judgment or impediment. And lives are actually valued -- even mine and
even yours.

That's what a pro-choice nation looks like. And despite the odds and
the opposition,
I'm maintaining hope that most Americans do value healthy families,
gender equality
and human rights -- and that if we keep working towards those goals, it
won't take
another 35 years to get there.

Jill Filipovic is a New York-based freelance writer, political blogger
and law student.

Copyright (c) 2008 HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.