protecting doctors who lie

Because apparently people still need one more reason not to live in Oklahoma.

Tim Tebow: even his ads prefer procreation

Apparently there will be a second, pre-game version of the already infamous Tebow/Focus on the Family Superbowl ad:

There's a new Super Bowl surprise from Focus on the Family: a second ad.

The evangelical group that bought ad time in the CBS game telecast will announce today that it has bought time in the pregame show to air a second ad four times.

The new ad also features star quarterback Tim Tebow and his mother, Pam. It was filmed in Orlando last month at the same time as the group's controversial — though yet unseen — in-game ad.

Apparently they will both be of the "choose life" message variety that, though intended as a witty riposte from the anti-Roe crowd, has on occasion been embraced by members of the other side as a message that still preaches choice.

I'm increasingly skeptical on that point, but the heretofore detente on that message is important to point out here.

Also important to point out, however, are the implications of the Tebow ad outside of those considerations. For those who don't know the story, I'll quote his Wikipedia page:

Tebow was born on August 14, 1987 in Makati City in the Philippines, to Bob and Pam Tebow, who were serving as Christian missionaries at the time.[1][7] While pregnant, Pam suffered a life-threatening infection with a pathogenic amoeba. Because of the drugs used to rouse her from a coma and to treat her dysentery, the fetus experienced a severe placental abruption. Doctors expected a stillbirth and recommended an abortion to protect her life.[1] She carried Timothy to term, and both survived.

So Mrs. Tebow essentially undertook a significant risk to her own life to have Tim. It's moving, and of course things worked out wonderfully for her and we're all very happy for her. She's very lucky.

Nevertheless, is it really responsible to advocate for women to hold out on life-saving procedures on the off chance that they'll both survive anyway and have super-moral, Heisman-winning sons? The Tebows rolled the dice on her life to save his, and happened to win big that time, but many others wouldn't be so lucky. I wonder if Mrs. Tebow or any of the people who are using her story to push their political agendas have considered the possibility of some woman in her position acting on her advice, and instead of delivering the next Tim Tebow, dying from complications while giving birth to a stillborn baby. God does not save every woman with a placental abruption, let alone every baby.

Harold Ford, Jr. running for New York senate seat

What is it about this senate seat that attracts carpetbaggers?

When people of staunch liberal and conservative persuasions talk about the "squishy center," accusing them of spinelessness, double talk, and disloyalty, they're usually talking about guys like Harold Ford. Ford spent the last 5 years on television bashing Democrats for being "extremist," at least when he wasn't burnishing his pro-life credentials or supporting gay marriage bans (now that's "Big Government"!).

Now, however, with a practically open seat in a comfortably blue state, Ford has re-emerged, suddenly socially liberal.

And for the record, ontheissues.org pegs Ford's support percentage from NARAL at 30%, not 80% as he claims. I know that must have been really hard for the lofty New York Post to verify, but there it is.

Mary Ann Glendon shivs the President

If you haven't heard yet, you probably will: this year's Laetare Medal recipient, Mary Ann Glendon, is boycotting Notre Dame's commencement because the Dark Lord, Barack Obama, will be there. Glendon served as Ambassador to the Vatican from '07 to '09, and it's not like this is the first time we've seen Bush Administration officials turn around and attack the new president after serving in that trainwreck. Nevertheless, it's particularly rich coming from this Great Moral Arbiter who, so far as I can tell, was hunky dory with her old boss' frequent, gleeful, and unrepentant use of the death penalty, not to mention sanctioning of torture, mendacity, and killing of hundreds of thousands of people in an unjust war. Barack Obama being pro-Roe, however, totally crosses the line.

I know it may seem like I'm spending a lot of time on this subject, but what can I say? This really sticks in my craw. Ths kind of double-standard makes practicing Catholics (and Christians generally) look a little, well, "weird" to everyone else, especially the inflation of gay marriage and birth control and stem cells and, yes, abortion to the status of absolute moral sine qua nons, when these same people have no comment or waffle or find some sort of "nuance" on torture, preemptive war, child molestation, worldwide poverty, etc. Where was Glendon when George W. Bush was accepting the very same degree from Notre Dame in 2001, with the blood of dozens of prisoners fresh on his hands? Where was Bishop D'Arcy when Catholics were clamoring for someone in the clergy, anyone at all, willing to say that any priest caught molesting children should be cast from the Church and left to the mercy of the American legal system?

From what I can tell, she's also very fond of calling herself a feminist while lecturing other women on what they should be doing with their bodies, so I'm not exactly crushed that she won't be gracing the stage this year.

a story in pictures

Pretty stark.

Sunday is now Sanctity of Human Life Day

Yes, I'm serious. And yes, "every person waiting to be born" gets special mention.

And yes, he does still have the authority to do this shit to our calendar.

pandering on abortion

Sometimes candidates give answers to questions that are clear cut cases of pandering. Blatant, pathetic, eye-rolling pandering. Such was John McCain's answer to the question of when life begins at the faith and politics forum over the weekend:

At conception.

Interesting answer in light of his opinion that embryonic stem cell research should continue. I guess Christians get no straight talk from Senator John "my Veep may be pro-choice" McCain.

Atrios makes a good point:

While the Villagers seemed to object, and it didn't go well with the audience, I was quite pleased with Obama's response that the question of when life begins is above his pay grade. I remember Pastor Tim Russert asking, I think, Claire McCaskill a similar question and she was like, "What are you asking? When does an embryo become ensouled?"

Believe what you want, but the important question for politicians is how such things get translated into... policy. And when McCain says he believes life begins at conception (cheer!) it's pretty meaningless unless he's asked to explain how that would be translated into policy.

You want some straight talk on when life begins? Here it is: the position that life begins at conception is utterly and completely untenable from a policy perspective. If the government proceeds from the assumption that life begins at conception, then all abortion becomes ipso facto felonious, not just criminal, no matter what trimester or under what circumstances the conception occurred or what damage, short of death, the pregnancy could do to the mother. It is only an extremely tiny minority of Americans who would agree with this policy (over 60% of Americans, for instance, agree with Roe v. Wade as it stands, and how many more don't agree but still think rape and incest qualify as extenuating circumstances?), and yet it would require a tremendous investment of police and judges and whatnot to enforce it while further diminishing the already dangerously low number of doctors in this country. "Enforcing" in this case has to mean charging doctors and women with murder and conspiracy to commit murder, because in this context abortion is simply a woman paying a doctor to murder her child. And if you think the percentage of people who want to ban abortion is low, wait 'til you see the number that want women charged with murder.

For that matter, did you know that scientists think the pill, at least on occasion, prevents implantation of a fertilized egg? How could such a pill possibly stay legal?

And what about the non-abortion ramifications of this law? Suddenly every miscarriage would have to be issued a death certificate. Embryonic stem cell research would clearly be illegal, as would any life-saving medical procedures that require those cells. In vitro fertilization often ends with the discarding of a number of fertilized eggs, which, obviously, kills them. How can that not now be multiple homicide? Atrios once brought up another point: would this mean that blastocysts are entitled to child support?

You can believe whatever you want personally (and for what it's worth, I'm sympathetic to the opinion that life begins at conception/implantation/whatever), but policy positions have to be sensible and pragmatic, or else they spin off uncontrollably into a maelstrom of unforeseen side effects. The ideological forces these decisions unleash can make landfall in unexpected places while rushing to impose "consistent application" upon the legal code and law enforcement.

Women for John McCain

Nice.

Jesus Camp

I actually put this movie into my Netflix queue expecting something more. It's shot well enough, and the filmmakers focused in on 2 kids, Rachael and Levi, that are at times frightening or heartbreaking, and always sympathetic. We all knew kids at some point that share Rachael's adorably frenetic way of speaking and Levi's earnest desire to please the adults in the room. Also, the focus at the end of the movie on Ted Haggard was, of course, prescient.

That being said, I think there's an element of scaremongering in the movie's billing that bothers me. The previews imply that Jesus Camp exposes the bible camps of "evangelical Christians" as places where they brainwash their kids into becoming the terrorists of the future. First of all, the movie doesn't focus just on generic "evangelical Christians”; it's a movie about Pentecostals, a pretty radical evangelical denomination. Yet they are used to represent all "evangelical Christians,” even though most evangelicals would find thing like prophecy and speaking in tongues and collapsing in church pretty bizarre. The willingness to stretch such an egregious example into a representation of the whole of evangelicalism makes me wonder to what degree the bible camp shown here is also anomalous.

Admittedly, just Pentecostals, or even just this woman, preparing kids for terrorism would be scary, but the movie doesn't deliver that, either. For all the military imagery used by the adults and kids, for all the uses of terms like "soldiers of Christ" and being prepared to die for God, the movie never establishes that these kids are willing, or taught to be willing, to do violence in the name of their religion. Anyone familiar with evangelicalism knows that the evangelical martyrdom fantasy involves not killing Muslims or bombing abortion clinics, but having a gun put to your head and being told to recant or die, and there's no evidence these people are picturing anything different. The woman running the camp even mentions at one point that she's NOT talking about violence.

What you're left with is a movie about parents with quirky religious perspectives who indoctrinate their kids with all their radical beliefs and political views without any respect for the children's freedom of thought or psychological well-being. That, however, is hardly peculiar to "evangelical Christians," and though sad, is not exactly something worth staying up at night worrying about.

John McCain does not believe in your right to privacy

...and, if he is elected president, he will appoint the final judge who takes it from you forever.

I can't hammer it enough that this is the single starkest consequence of a Republican presidential victory in 2008, and if John McCain wins, it will happen. The Supreme Court currently has 4 diehard, social conservatives who don't believe in the right to privacy. There are 2 ancient justices who are likely to retire within the next couple of years, and they're both liberal. John McCain has already said on multiple occasions that he will appoint "strict constructionist" judges, which is dog whistle for anti-right to privacy. John McCain has also already said that he thinks Roe v. Wade, which relies entirely on the right to privacy, should be overturned. Why would he do anything other than to appoint another socially conservative judge? And why would anti-Roe groups do anything other than to bring an lawsuit before the Court when that happens? And why on earth would 5 socially conservative, "strict constructionist" judges in the most politicized Supreme Court in decades do anything other than to hand their side their greatest victory in who knows how long?

If Justice Scalia were presiding in a case over the constitutionality of the right to privacy or abortion, would you bet your rights on him doing a 180 and voting with Ginsburg and Souter? What about Alito? Thomas? Roberts?

learning to pick your battles

Via Cristina Page there's news that people opposing birth control are planning to protest the anniversary of Griswold v. Connecticut, the court decision that guaranteed the right for married women to use birth control by recognizing an implicit constitutional right to privacy. Frankly, this is a protest that I just don't understand, and I mean that in the strategic sense. I don't understand why anyone would take up this fight.

Now I can understand, tactically speaking, waging a campaign to ban abortion, even though I don't agree with it ethically or politically. The procedure is visually disturbing and the idea of people having it done "wantonly" offends a lot of people. Even for the people who want it to be legal, it's not something you could ever call "popular," and virtually nobody is willing to mount an unqualified defense of the practice. It's pretty easy to gin up support for a movement to "get the sluts to take responsibility for their actions instead of killing their children."

Birth control gets a might trickier, though, as you're now talking about something that just about everyone uses or has used at some point in their lives. Condoms, for all that can be said about sensitivity and having to apply at awkward moments and whatnot, have saved a lot of people a lot of heartache, not to mention a lot of lives, and that's before we even bring up The Pill. We didn't pass over medications curing all manner of diseases and helping us sleep and focus and stop seeing hallucinations in favor giving the oral contraceptive the moniker of "The Pill," for nothing: The Pill is a magical thing. It prevents pregnancy with extremely high efficiency. Using The Pill lessens the need to stop in the middle of the warm-up to fiddle with other contraptions and jellies and whatnot (assuming, of course, you two are safe STD-wise). It regulates menstrual cycles. It decreases your chances of developing ovarian and endometrial cancer. It can even reduce acne, for Christ's sake! I mean, my God, the only people who love The Pill more than men are women! Trying to get people to support a movement banning The Pill is no easy thing.

But the pro-lifers and the anti-"judicial activism" people aren't stopping there; they are even waging a rhetorical assault on the right to privacy. The right to privacy. In a time when people are chaffing against the government's ever increasing desire to monitor our phone calls and web activity and library records, when people on the Left decry the "police state" and people on the Right rail against "big government," the pro-lifers are trying to convince people to support laws and politicians who will take away their right to privacy. Anyone wanna place bets on the outcome of this battle?

the post-Roe era

Of all the potential ramifications of this election that people are speculating about, perhaps the only outcome that is simultaneously the most obvious, the one that will most impact people's lives, and the least discussed is the future of Roe v. Wade. The Supreme Court, at this very moment, is one judge away from overturning Roe, and it's a virtual certainty that the next president will be replacing 87 year old liberal justice John Paul Stevens.

All of the Democratic front-runners have publicly advocated "a woman's right to choose." All of the Republican front-runners have publicly advocated the destruction of Roe v. Wade and promised to appoint "strict constructionist" judges. In no case is there any reason to doubt them.

Yet I've yet to hear anyone state the obvious here: if a Republican wins the presidency, Roe v. Wade will be overturned, thus turning the abortion question over to the states and igniting a firestorm of campaigning, legislation, and court battles in nearly every state in the union.

Below is a US map that I've colored to represent the immediate legal ramifications of the repeal of Roe.

*RED states have "trigger laws" on the books that will ban abortion in the state the moment Roe falls.
*PINK states have similar legislation on the books called "statements of policy" that, unlike trigger laws, are not legally binding.
*PURPLE states have pre-1973 state bans that could be reactivated with a simple lifting of a court injunction.
*DARK BLUE states have legislated enduring abortion rights regardless of Roe's fate.
*LIGHT BLUE states have constitutions that state judges have determined implicitly guarantee abortion rights.

It should be noted that several of these states, such as New Mexico and Tennessee, have both abortion bans and implicit abortion guarantees and would likely spark a legislation/judicial battle to decide which side wins.

Were Roe v. Wade to be overturned, and southern states to do what one would expect southern states to do, lonely little New Mexico could end up as the only place where women can get a legal abortion between Yuma and the suburbs of Washington, D.C.

That's a distance of roughly 2,500 miles.

Fred Thompson: male prostitute!

Wow, it was a bad campaign week for Freddy. From The LA Times (c/o Josh Marshall):

Fred D. Thompson, who is campaigning for president as an antiabortion Republican, accepted an assignment from a family-planning group to lobby the first Bush White House to ease a controversial abortion restriction, according to a 1991 document and several people familiar with the matter.

A spokesman for the former Tennessee senator denied that Thompson did the lobbying work. But the minutes of a 1991 board meeting of the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Assn. say that the group hired Thompson that year.

His task was to urge the administration of President George H. W. Bush to withdraw or relax a rule that barred abortion counseling at clinics that received federal money, according to the records and to people who worked on the matter.

You got that? Hollywood Fred actually lobbied Bush 41 against the gag rule! Thompson's goons are, of course, saying it never happened, but the man himself?

"I'd just say the flies get bigger in the summertime. I guess the flies are buzzing," said Thompson, who is considering running for president as a social conservative. He refused comment on whether he recalled doing the work.

Wow, dodgy and an asshole!

Meanwhile, the power tools and other rightwing hacks are preparing another defense: lobbyists shouldn't be accountable to their patrons because they don't necessarily have to believe in someone's cause to lobby for it. Yeah, have fun with that defense, guys.

a perfect circle

From AP (via Feministe):

AUSTIN — A package left at a women’s clinic that performs abortions contained an explosive device capable of inflicting serious injury or death, investigators said today.

“It was in fact an explosive device,” said David Carter, assistant chief of the Austin Police Department. “It was configured in such a way to cause serious bodily injury or death.”

The package was found Wednesday in a parking lot outside the Austin Women’s Health Center, south of downtown Austin.

Nearby Interstate 35 was briefly closed, and a nearby apartment complex was evacuated while a bomb squad detonated the device.

Did you hear about this anywhere? Anywhere at all? Does anyone else find it astounding that no one bothered to cover an act of terrorism in the capital city of the second most populous state in the Union, and pretty much the only time that, out of all the times when the police find a "mysterious object" in some public place, it really was a bomb?

One of Zuzu's commenters noted sarcastically that "perpetrated by Muslims" is part of the definition of terrorism, so since this was not likely committed by Muslims it doesn't count. Of course, as we've seen with media and government treatment of groups like Operation Rescue, or of the Free Republic commenter who mailed Keith Olbermann an envelope filled with fake anthrax, or, to a lesser degree, Klan marches, the commenter's characterization is dead-on (no pun intended). It doesn't complete the circle, however: why do you think the media and government tacitly make "perpetuated by Muslims" a prerequisite for an act to qualify as terrorism?

So they don't have to count abortion clinic bombers or rightwing kooks or white supremacists or any of the rest of the GOP's more unsavory constituencies, that's why! Think I'm being too partisan? Then explain to me why the one single solitary non-Muslim group regularly referred to as "terrorists" are eco-terrorists, who are associated with "the left" (coincidentally, eco-terrorists are also, if I'm right on this, the only group I've mentioned who don't have any history of taking or threatening human lives, which you'd think would be the main prerequisite for being a "terrorist").