McFetus

Stolen from Cesca by popular demand. Wonder where they get those tiny flags?

Palin powers abortion groups' fundraising

Backlash indeed. Gotta and I were talking yesterday and decided that these groups are exactly who needs to take on the "rape kit" controversy. I also like the idea to call them "rape tax", which I read somewhere else, but can't remember where.

Advocacy groups on both sides of the abortion issue are reporting a surge in fundraising in reaction to newly selected Republican vice presidential nominee, Sarah Palin.

Last week NARAL Pro-Choice America had the highest grossing week since it began fundraising for the 2008 election, according to staffers, raising more than $120,000 from two e-mail alerts. Planned Parenthood also reported high fundraising numbers from e-mail appeals.

The same held true on the other side of the divide, where anti-abortion groups said Palin sparked an outpouring of money into their coffers. The Susan B. Anthony List, a group that helps promote female candidates who oppose abortion, said its weekly fundraising tripled last week.

(snip)

While abortion has failed to galvanize voters over the past few election cycles, as issues like the war in Iraq, the economy, and immigration have dominated the debate, Palin’s nomination appears to have returned it to the front burner.

Already, Palin is proving to be a lightning rod on the issue.

On the website of Feminists for Life, of which Palin is a member, President Serrin M. Foster reports of “phones ringing off the hook” and “being inundated with requests for information and help.”

On Wednesday, South Carolina Democratic Party Chairwoman Carol Fowler created a storm of controversy and was forced to issue an apology after telling Politico that McCain had picked a running mate “whose primary qualification seems to be that she hasn't had an abortion."

On the left, abortion rights groups report a flood of e-mails and calls from existing and new members who are alarmed by the prospect of a GOP ticket where both candidates would like to see Roe v. Wade overturned, with a vice presidential nominee who supports abstinence-based sex education and opposes abortion in all cases unless the life of the mother is at stake.

“That’s a pretty good indication of how fired up people are,” said Beth Shipp, political director of NARAL. “It has energized our base.”

Joe Biden on freedom of choice

By GottaLaff

I was watching Obama on This Week, so I came in at the end of Joe Biden's interview. Here he is on the question of freedom of choice (re: abortion) on Meet the Press:

I voted against telling everyone else in the country that they have to agree with my religiously based view.... It's based on a matter of faith...

He does not want to impose his faith on others. He does not want to make something into a criminal act that is derived from a decision based on faith.

Tom Brokaw announced that Sarah Palin has also been invited on the show. Cricket... cricket...

FOX News labels "anti-choice" Sarah Palin as "pro-choice," repeatedly

This makes my freaking blood boil. Via Newshounds.

One of the appeals of Sarah Palin to the far-right base John McCain is trying to motivate is her unequivocal opposition to abortion, even in cases of rape and/or incest. But to try to coax disappointed Hillary-voters into settling for another woman - any woman, as if we're all interchangeable s'long as we've got the parts - FOX chyrons erroneously labelled Palin "pro-choice."

John Sidney McCain's pro-choice choice?

By GottaLaff

About that Tom Ridge for V.P. idea...

Rich Lowry of National Review's "The Corner": "NR has learned that the McCain campaign has been calling key state GOP officials around the country the last couple of days and sounding them out about the consequences of a pro-choice VP pick. The campaign is asking about the reaction of conservative grass-roots activists to such a pick and whether a pro-choicer can be sold to them. This is an indication that the McCain campaign is serious about the possibility of a pro-choice VP nominee and that McCain leaving the door open to Tom Ridge last week may not have been merely a friendly nod to a longtime supporter. In this scenario, McCain's emphatic pro-life statements Saturday night and his pledge that he'll run a "pro-life administration" would have been partly an attempt to reassure conservatives in the event of a pro-choice pick."

So. J Sid's a pro-life religious true believer who gives forceful and decisive answers to pre-screened questions as he forcefully and decisively implies that a pro-choicer could be a heartbeat away from the presidency, should he keel over.

It's about time: Obama uses the "L" word

By GottaLaff

It's about time someone uses the word "liar" when it's deserved. I couldn't load the video, but you can watch it here:

Brody: Real quick, the Born Alive Infant Protection Act. I gotta tell you that's the one thing I get a lot of emails about and it's just not just from Evangelicals, it about Catholics, Protestants, main -- they're trying to understand it because there was some literature put out by the National Right to Life Committee. And they're basically saying they felt like you misrepresented your position on that bill.

Obama: Let me clarify this right now.

Brody: Because it's getting a lot of play.

Obama: Well and because they have not been telling the truth. And I hate to say that people are lying, but here's a situation where folks are lying. I have said repeatedly that I would have been completely in, fully in support of the federal bill that everybody supported - which was to say --that you should provide assistance to any infant that was born - even if it was as a consequence of an induced abortion. That was not the bill that was presented at the state level. What that bill also was doing was trying to undermine Roe vs. Wade. By the way, we also had a bill, a law already in place in Illinois that insured life saving treatment was given to infants.

So for people to suggest that I and the Illinois medical society, so Illinois doctors were somehow in favor of withholding life saving support from an infant born alive is ridiculous. It defies commonsense and it defies imagination and for people to keep on pushing this is offensive and it's an example of the kind of politics that we have to get beyond. It's one thing for people to disagree with me about the issue of choice, it's another thing for people to out and out misrepresent my positions repeatedly, even after they know that they're wrong. And that's what's been happening.

Brody: I wanted to give you a chance to clear it up.

H/t: Commenter Adrienne

ABC News: Are Dems Pro-Life?

By GottaLaff

Did they not watch CSPAN today? Apparently not:

Are Democrats Now Pro-Life? As Convention Draws Near, New Talk of a Pro-Life Presence

That's some headline, for suresies! Of course Democrats are "pro-life". They're sure not pro-death. And they continue to be pro-choice.

An excerpt from the Democratic platform:

Abortion (called "Choice")

The Democratic Party strongly and unequivocally supports Roe v. Wade and a woman's right to choose a safe and legal abortion, regardless of ability to pay, and we oppose any and all efforts to weaken or undermine that right.

Seems clear enough to me.

NARAL Pro-Choice backs Obama

By Paddy


The only endorsement that would have surprised me more is if William J Clinton himself endorsed Obama. Granted, NARAL has been kind of schizophrenic in the past, but to pick the male candidate over the female one when their policies are very similar just floors me.

NEW YORK (AP) — Democrat Barack Obama has won the endorsement of NARAL Pro-Choice America. The leading abortion rights advocacy organization has supported rival Hillary Rodham Clinton throughout her political career.

The organization was set to announce the endorsement of its political action committee Wednesday.

NARAL president Nancy Keenan said in a statement: "Today, we are proud to put our organization's grassroots and political support behind the pro-choice candidate whom we believe will secure the Democratic nomination and advance to the general election. That candidate is Senator Obama."

Oh, now I get it. It's not policy, it's that Hill has no chance. That makes sense.