Over at RHRealityCheck, Dana looks at Barack Obama's record on choice issues when he was in the Illinois State Senate, and draws some conclusions about the smear campaigns the anti-choice movement will attempt:
The anti-choice anti-Obama strategy is based on Obama's clear "no" votes on the "Illinois Born Alive Infant Protection Act," or BAIPA. Leading anti-choice blogger Jill Stanek, who testified in the Illinois state Senate on behalf of the bill, has played a key role in disseminating this anti-Obama argument in the right-wing blogosphere. Taking the bait, former presidential candidate Sen. Sam Brownback, in a fundraising email to supporters of his political action committee last month, excoriated Obama for opposing BAIPA. And in a Feb. 26 editorial, the National Catholic Register fumed, "Obama wouldn't even protect children born alive by mistake during abortion attempts."But BAIPA isn't really about protecting infants; it is anti-abortion rights legislation crafted by the hard right. BAIPA targets the abortion procedure known as dilation and extraction, which anti-choicers have so successfully re-branded as "partial birth abortion." Dilation and extraction accounts for less than one-fifth of one percent of all American abortions, and is used most often to end wanted pregnancies in which expectant parents learn their baby will not be viable outside of the womb.
Read the rest here.
(And does Stanek's name sound familiar? That's because she once claimed abortion providers eat fetuses, and that we don't need the HPV vaccine because it's only for sluts, and they pretty much deserve to die of cervical cancer.)
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I wasn't sure where to post this link, but I thought it would be interesting to people here.
"...we must reckon with the fact that the Democratic presidential race (as presented by the mainstream media, as shaped by political talking-heads, and framed by the candidates themselves) has rendered racial progress as “male� and gender-progress as “white.�..."
This is a slight bit off topic from the actual post, but I just wanted to share this...
I'm not surprised what is coming from Jill Stanek here. Her and I have actually exchanged a couple of emails about some of these issues. I also subscribe to her newsletter and visit her blog occasionally and she really has some warped ideas about women, feminists, and choice. She HATES feminists and is always bashing them even though I'm sure she enjoys her right to vote, her career, and many other milestones/rights won by feminists. Obviously I don't visit her blog because I in any way agree with the stuff she says, I do it to sort educate myself and keep an awareness for what's going on with the other side of the abortion debate. They've definitely been going after Obama, I take it because he's got a pretty high rating from pro-choice groups and Jill just HATEs the idea of him or any pro-choicer becoming president.
Her website is quite educating actually, and I also visit it because I think reaching out to some of these people is quite important for the movement. A few of the people there, I noticed haven't really been exposed to actual pro-choice ideas and I have found that there are people on these sites that are actually interested in my pro-feminist, pro-choice arguments.
When I do post on the website, I'm very civil and I always explain my arguments clearly and as eloquently as possible.
I actually think that some of my arguments have succeeded at the very least in getting some of the people there thinking about the issues in a different light. I've noticed that some people on these pro-life blogs seem to have been kept in a bubble about the actual issues. They have been surrounded by the "pro-life" and "anti-feminist" message constantly, through either their church or other religious groups and/or community groups and actually haven't even really heard other women argue for the pro-choice message / feminist message. This is what initially got me into posting on these websites, the discovery that a lot of the people there hadn't even been exposed to pro-choice / feminist ideas and to hear someone who is both respectful and polite while intelligently speaking about choice and feminism has certainly got a some of them interested and at least aware that there is another position out there that maybe deserves some more consideration. Of course there are plenty of intolerant women-hating fanatical folks on these blogs as well (i.e. Mrs. Stanek and others like her). But it's nice to know that at least there are a few people who, once exposed to some of the other arguments, do have an interest and do express an openness to maybe rethinking some of their own philosophies on the abortion issue.
Just thought I'd share my experience with Stanek and her blog.
You're braver than I'll ever be, MeeNeeCat.
I like to argue with pro-lifers online and I try to make a logical, reasonable argument, but I've never been able to be as respectful to them as I probably should be. Then again, I don't think it's weird that I can't respect someone who has absolutely no respect for me... But I've only argued in neutral or pro-choice territories. It seems too difficult and too frustrating to argue in pro-life places, and after all I've heard about Stanek's blog.... well, it's amazing that anyone would ever try to show up there with a pro-choice attitude. That woman is just not well.
The anti-~abortion~ strategy against Obama....
Fixed that for ya.
Up until a few weeks ago I too visited Stanek's blog to educate myself on what "the other side" is saying. I wholly agree with MeeNeeCat about her ideals and what this woman is on about. But i stopped going because I would get so worked up about it and just couldn't bring myself to read it anymore. So kudos to MeeNeeCat for continuing to educate those people! =3
On a related note: Jill Stanek actually replied to Danas post on RHReality Check! Go have a look at the comments. Some of them are classic anti-choice.
"...we must reckon with the fact that the Democratic presidential race (as presented by the mainstream media, as shaped by political talking-heads, and framed by the candidates themselves) has rendered racial progress as 'male' and gender-progress as 'white.'..."
Hasn't that been happening for years before these primaries? Like when a Muslim woman gets accused of selling out to whites if she speaks up against sexism, accused of selling out to patriarchy if she speaks up against Islamophobia, and accused of selling out to both whites and patriarchy if she speaks up against both sexism and Islamophobia...
Locomotive (well-named!), tell me how outlawing abortion doesn't take away womens' choices and reproductive rights or reduce them to second-class citizens.