A follow up on earlier post re petition drive in MO to put to a vote how to define "person" in the
MO Constitution:
Planned Parenthood Federation of America has filed a lawsuit on behalf of Missouri doctors, medical students and a legal expert claiming the summary of the Personhood petition does not accurately describe the true impact of the measure. They expect a hearing sometime this spring, so stay tuned.
But even though we should celebrate [the Stupak amendment] victory, we must remain vigilant, visible, and vocal because the pro-death Democrats will not give up. They are in thrall to Planned Parenthood, which wants to include abortion in socialized healthcare so they can finally achieve Margaret Sanger's goal of eliminating "undesirables" before they are born. It's not hard to imagine a government health care counselor withholding prenatal care from a poor black woman but offering her a free abortion.
The implied empathy of tea partiers for poor black women is touching.
To sum up, we're accused of trying to prevent the birth of black babies by offering abortions instead of birth control. What can I say? When you're right, you're right, PlasticEyes. We do want to prevent the birth of "undesirables"--i.e. babies not desired by the mothers. That final phrase, though, offers kind of an important distinction between what you say we want and what we do want.
Republicans, on the other hand, want neither birth control nor abortions. It was the Missouri Republican House that passed HB 1010 in 2006 banning county health clinics from providing family planning services. Fired Up! observed:
So the GOP has finally come clean that they are opposed to contraception. They used to argue that they opposed family planning because Planned Parenthood played a role. But now the GOP has targeted family planning provided by the county health clinics. Their action is a direct attack on women's access to traditional family planning services.
The amendment, offered by Rep. Susan Phillips (R-Kansas City) removed "voluntary choice of contraception, including natural family planning" as one of the permissible services that county health clinics could provide with state funding.
All that empathy for poor black women that PlasticEyes evinced rings hollow when you consider that many patients at county health clinics are poor women--and in urban districts, they're poor black women.
Claire McCaskill could possibly join John Kerry and Patrick Kennedy as a victim of heavy-handed efforts at intimidation by Church functionaries. Anti-abortion fanatic Randall Terry's Operation Rescue, recently renamed Insurrecta Nex, held a press conference in St. Louis today calling for Archbishop Carlson to deny communion to McCaskill if she "defies" the Catholic Church with her vote on health care:
Archbishop Carlson should publicly warn Senator McCaskill that if she votes for healthcare reform that includes one penny towards child-killing by abortion that she will be denied communion in every parish in this diocese.
According to a radio report, Carlson is out of town and unable to comment. McCaskill responded to the attempt at extortion by pointing out that the issue is moot since she has not taken communion since her divorce.
While it may be an act of conscience for a priest to privately deny communion to an individual for violating church teachings, a public announcement of such an action, with the intention of influencing a politician's vote, constitutes an overt attempt on the part of the Church to control our political life. Consequently, it will be interesting to see how or if Carlson responds to this public call.
When I was a child, I remember a teacher I had who said that it was too risky to vote for John Kennedy, because, if he were a good man and a good Catholic, he would always be susceptible to Church control, an intolerable situation for a diverse American citizenry. Kennedy's devotion to constitutional values proved her wrong - but the recent actions of the American Catholic hierarchy may, unfortunately, relegitimize such concerns.
UPDATE: More of McCaskill's response over the fold (via the Springfield News-Leader):
However, Rachel Maddow, in a discussion of the roots of the Stupak-Pitts Amendment last night suggested a sinister influence that might have played a role in determining Skelton's votes. In the video below (at point 2:09) Maddow states that Skelton is reported to be a member of The Family, a shadowy, elite, evangelical network that, according to author Jeff Sharlet, works through susceptible politicians to move our government closer to becoming a fundamentalist Christian state:
There's nothing intrinsically evil about being conservative, moderate, or whatever Skelton calls himself, though one can argue that his policy positions are mistaken. Neither should one question his Christian faith per se. However, what does deserve to be examined in the light of full disclosure is the possibility that Skelton, an eleted official, is unduly influenced by a secretive religious organization that works to exert a sub rosa influence on the political life of the nation.
Vicky Riback Wilson (left) and Missouri State Representative Mary Still (center).
Missouri State Representative Mary Still:...I think it demonstrates something that we all need to hear. That very good people, religious people, have a need of these services that were provided by this doctor.
And, we have today crossed the line as far as I'm concerned. A good man was shot dead in a church. They crossed a line. And we must learn how to cope with that, how to understand it, and what sense that we must make. And, my observation is that words matter. Things that people say matter.
And I have been in the state legislature now for four months. And I have seen the words used. And I have seen the discussion. And it's guns, and it's God, and it's abortion. And the way these issues are framed for political gain and at the expense of the general common good is shameful.
And this incident demonstrates all three.
Abortion, guns, and God. And a good man has been killed in church. Apparently, a deranged man, a mentally ill person, has perhaps heard these words. We can't blame a certain party or a certain element for, for, because one person is deranged. But we can acknowledge that what we say, especially people in positions of power, can have influence on people and influence on someone who might be mentally unstable.
So, at this time I want to weigh my words because I am outraged. But I want and pray that we can use this as an opportunity to know that violence is not the answer. And to find the common ground on these flash point issues so that we can continue as a state to move forward and continue to recognize that very good people, very well-meaning people may disagree on this issue, but we must find a common ground. And it's not violence....
....former Missouri State Representative Vicky Riback Wilson: ...We've heard tonight from people who had the privilege of knowing Dr. Tiller personally. We've heard from people who feel strongly about issues that are important in our society. My guess is, however, that there is a different and unique motivation, and a complex motivation, for each of you and each of us who came here tonight.
Most of us didn't know Dr. Tiller. Most of us, if you're anything like me, had never even heard of Dr. Tiller, even though I was active, in this area. But the complexity of emotions, I think, that brought each of us here typifies the complexities of the issues that surround, not only reproductive health in our society, but as Representative Still said, all, the whole complex of issues that are brought together around this one event.
We come not just to pay honor to Dr. Tiller, we also come with renewed fervor for making sure that reproductive health is protected, especially and most importantly for those families who have children who are desperately wanted and through some terrible misfortune the pregnancy goes horribly wrong. And they're left now in our society with very few choices and very few physicians willing to provide the necessary services.
We come here because we worry about gun violence. And people who can pull out a gun and shoot someone, particularly, in a church, a protected and sacred setting. And we come here because we need a protected place to have our voices heard. And be able to speak safely about all of this turmoil of emotions that have been brought to the fore when an event like this happens, mile away, to someone we don't know, but that so deeply touches things that each of us hold dear and in which we believe.
Tonight is the reminder for all of us, not only to stand together, but to stand separately as we talk to elected officials, as we talk to newspaper people, as we talk to the media, and, perhaps most importantly, as we talk to our friends. We've cloaked ourselves in fear about expressing how we really feel about these key issues far too often. Now is the time to take this opportunity to discuss the issues and the feelings surrounding this type of event, so that perhaps it will not happen again...
Phillip Wood, from Columbia, spoke of his family's personal experience with Dr. George Tiller:
Phillip Wood:...I can think of three reasons why I'm very happy to be here tonight. One, is when our lives have been touched by greatness. We are the richer for that. And secondly, I think that George Tiller did a lot for my family at a point when we really needed a lot. And third, if you knew George Tiller, he would have wanted it that way.
I found out about the murder and I ran downstairs to the Internet and found the address of, of the church that he was at...and found the web site and sent a brief note. I want to read you just a few things about that in about a minute.
But, in the three, four days that I knew George Tiller he was not what I expected. By the time that we were going to terminate the pregnancy, and we're in Wichita, Kansas, I kept thinking an abortion clinic was going to be kind of a cross between a hospital and a funeral home. I wasn't ready for this loud, happy, and energetic man, who told terrible, corny jokes. But, I found out later he's a Lutheran, so that's kind of an occupational hazard. [laughter]
I did write a few notes to the members of the congregation at Reformation Lutheran, and I wanted to share those with you today... "Dear brothers and sisters in Christ at reformation Lutheran Church, I am a member of St. Andrews Lutheran Church in Columbia, Missouri. I have only hours ago learned of the tragedy in your church. I am saddened at the violent loss of your church member, George Tiller...."
Sean Spence, a Columbia area activist, spoke of his personal experiences with Dr. George Tiller:
Sean Spence:...I'm here tonight for a, for a fairly personal reason. Over, over the course of nineteen ninety-seven, nineteen ninety-eight I had the good fortune to work with Dr. Tiller on political issues in, in Kansas. And I've been to that clinic and sat down, many times, over dinner with him and always felt very fortunate to spend time with him.
One of the things...I, I liked about him was his sense of humor. And, and at one point after we'd been together a few times and talked about some fairly weighty issues, as one does in this political world. We, we talked about the time when he was shot. Which was just a few years before, before that. Which was a few years after he had been bombed. This is what we're talking about. And he said, he said, "Well you know I was shot here." [indicating forearm] And he said, "People always kind of wonder, 'cause I was in my car, how was I, how was I shot here? And I said, "Well, how were you shot there, Dr. Tiller?" And he said, "Well she came up to the car," you know, she, this women who'd flown in from Oregon. You know we talk about the rage and the insanity in these things. And to me it's personified by a woman, flew from Oregon specifically to carry out murder on someone who is doing something he believed in. And he said, "Well she came up to the car and, and I didn't know, but I knew there was something going on, and I knew that she was just one of the, one of them. And, so I flipped her off." [laughter] "That was when she pulled the trigger." [laughter] To me that, that really did say a lot about, about him. Both sides of that.
I want to tell you that I'm a little bit ashamed to be here tonight. It's a little emotional. And, and the reason is because when...I called...to ask if we were going to be doing anything. And, and then I mentioned that I'd had some fairly personal experiences with Dr. Tiller. And she said, "Would you say something?" And, you know, I, I told her I had to think about it. And, I, I said, "Well, let me, let me think about it and I'll let you know later today or tomorrow." And I'm embarrassed. That I, that I had to do that. He's a controversial man, again, kind of in this world of ours. A man who shouldn't be controversial. A man who is providing an essential, was providing an essential service for women who needed it in a way most of the women in here will never understand, much less me. I'm certainly never gonna understand. But he was doing something, and he felt it in his heart, in a way that is just incomprehensible. And so to him it was not something that should be controversial and it, and it shouldn't be. And as I thought about that I was just embarrassed that I didn't immediately say, "Well yes, let me stand up. Let, let me share my experience and, and my heart on, on this issue."
Because, you know what, he sure, sure did a lot more than that. You know, every day. Let me tell you what you go through that, in to that, that clinic and it was kind of like, you know, the compound in The Godfather, you know. I mean it was, it was walls and it was, it had to be. Except that it was picketed, you know, all day, every day. There were people who were there all day every day. And he, to get to work, to provide an essential service that very few people in the world were willing to brave the problems to provide, he went there and he did it. And he did it every day. And he did it after his clinic was bombed. And he did it after he was shot. And he did it, and he did it, and he did it, and he stood up.
And it's the least I can do, stand up and say a few things. And it's the least all of us can do and, and I think he should be an example for all of us. In every way he's an example for me. And he's a reminder that the least we can do, the least every one of us can do, is stand up and talk about what's right, and talk about what's in our hearts and do what ever little bit we can. That's what it means to me...
An outdoor vigil scheduled this evening in Columbia to honor the memory of Dr. George Tiller who was gunned down in his church, allegedly by a disturbed anti-abortion zealot, was brought indoors due to rain and thunderstorms. There were approximately thirty-five individuals in attendance, and an additional ten people representing the press.
A number of individuals spoke of their personal experience with Dr. Tiller - as a family member of a patient in difficult circumstances, as colleagues, and as activists advocating for women's choice.
As the speakers in turn helped fill out the portrait of Dr. Tiller, he became much less the abstract story - as portrayed by the media and as vilified by those in opposition to him - and assumed his rightful aura as a complex human being, with friends, family, with acts of kindness and humility and caring, working and fighting, sometimes with defiance, for what he believed in.
Constantly dehumanizing someone in life makes it so much easier to ignore or dismiss their death at the hands of another. Learning parts of the story of that person's humanity after their senseless death makes any attempt at comprehending the insanity of it all impossible.
...Using the political system to stomp on radicalized fringes does not seem to be very effective in getting them to eschew violence. In fact, it seems to be a very good way of getting more violence. Possibly because those fringes have often turned to violence precisely because they feel that the political process has been closed off to them...
...Lady, are you smoking crack? Are you smoking crack while sitting in a cloud of crack-smoke wearing a T-shirt that says I HEART CRACK while waiting for your crackhead boyfriend to come home with more crack that you sent him out to get so that you'd have some crack when you were done with the crack you're smoking now? Seriously? Because last I checked, "not being able to convince somebody else that you're not a fucking lunatic and that your ideas about everything should be adopted by everybody" doesn't qualify as "the political process has been closed off" to you. That's not how this works, that's not how this has ever worked, and to coddle domestic terrorists by saying they were just pushed to it because they weren't handed everything they ever wanted is ... special. Some kind of special. Some kind of something, that's for sure. What the fuck, today? It's like all the stupid were set free from their stupid-farm for some kind of idiot rumspringa of 24 hours.
For eight fucking years anybody to the left of Pinochet had to kick back and watch while sensible centrists and the Coalition of the Involuntarily Committable got together and raped the country and fucked up the whole world. For eight fucking years we were told that marching in the streets with giant puppets was the most horrific form of treason imaginable, was demoralizing our troops and hurting the debate and making the baby Pope Benedict cry. Not once did I ever in that time hear Megan McArdle or any of her other sensible friends discuss how maybe, just maybe, President Bush and his administration had PUSHED us to the edge, where we HAD to make those puppets because we felt the political process was closed to us.
No, back then it was "elections have consequences" and "you lost" and "look upon my works, ye mighty, and fuck off," and anytime anybody had the temerity to say, "erm, dude, if you don't mind I'll be over here with this sign on a stick" they might as well have been plotting to shoe-bomb Air Force One the way the whiners in the nuttersphere howled and shrieked. There was none of this, "you just don't know how hard it is to be on the losing end of everything including your soul" back then. Just them, partying with Free Republic on the White House lawn, waving their big foam fingers in our faces going "nyah nyah nyah."
Now that they're out of power, natch, what choice do they have but to go shoot up church lobbies in the hopes of bagging abortion doctors for their trophy wall of American apostates? Really, what else could they do? It's not like they could vote, or convince other people to listen to them, or organize, or do any of the damn things I feel like we've been doing since before there was dirt in order to get a not-entirely-crazy in-another-life-he'd-be-a-moderate-Republican dude finally elected so a third of the country could act like Satan just put his feet up on their mother's white-clothed dinner table. It's not like they could do anything else, right? They had to start shooting...
...That is, in fact, the way I felt for much of those eight years. And I had a lot more excuse for feeling that the political process had been closed to me: after all, my candidate for President actually won the election in 2000, for all the good it did him. And yet, somehow, I managed not to kill anyone. Funny thing, that.
Two weeks ago, of course, nobody knew that this year's anti-abortion joke of a bill would get shot down in the House. So last week, pro-choice senators had to be thinking, some option that was they were being offered: agree to a law that forces medical professionals to lie to patients seeking abortions or stand by and watch a much worse law passed.
And by "much worse law", I'm not even referring to that godawful grotesquerie the House sent over containing a provision making it a felony to coerce a woman to have an abortion. As I've pointed out before:
When "Honey, I think you should have an abortion" becomes a felony, we might as well move to Afghanistan.
Republican senators, being, on the whole, less wild eyed than their House counterparts, knew that the "Freedom of speech? We don't need no stinkin' freedom of speech" coercion provision wasn't going to fly. They'd have needed 18 votes to move the previous question (that is, force a vote) and shove it by the Democrats. But even with 23 Rs to 11 Ds in the Senate, the votes weren't there.
So Democrats in the Senate knew the coercion provision was off the table. Even if it hadn't faced a Nixon veto, the Supreme Court would have deep sixed it. No, the choice Democrats faced was between two bills that both required:
that a woman seeking an abortion come in on two separate days, first to be informed of the risks and then to receive the abortion
that professionals working in abortion clinics lie to patients about the possible effects of abortion.
Both bills required that women be warned they would face certain psychological consequences, but that information is based on junk science. True, the claims were printed in reputable journals, but that doesn't make them credible:
Frankie and Johnny were sweethearts. Until Frankie got pregnant--by another man. Johnny told her that he wasn't raising another man's brat. He was big about it, though, and said that if she would get an abortion, all would be forgiven. Otherwise, she could move out, since the lease was in his name.
You might think Johnny was a fool to forgive Frankie, but some of our Missouri legislators take a dimmer view of his reaction. As far as they're concerned, off to jail with him for advising, nay "coercing", baby murder. He would have--under a bill now being considered in both houses of our legislature--committed a Class A misdemeanor or a Class C Felony, depending on the sentencing judge's appraisal of the situation.
Admittedly, this scenario is an extreme example of how a proposed law might be applied, but even milder examples I could imagine would, like the example of Johnny, violate a man's first amendment right to free speech. S.B. 1058 and H.B. 1831 create the the crime of "knowingly coercing a woman to seek or obtain an abortion."
To sum up, we're accused of trying to prevent the birth of black babies by offering abortions instead of birth control. What can I say? When you're right, you're right, PlasticEyes. We do want to prevent the birth of "undesirables"--i.e. babies not desired by the mothers. That final phrase, though, offers kind of an important distinction between what you say we want and what we do want.
