Where Are the Women

NARAL and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi tweeted this photo of the House Republicans set to negotiate with Senate Democrats. The lack of women in a leadership position in the GOP makes it easier to understand why Republicans are willing to shut down the government to prevent women from getting birth control. Elizabeth Warren gave a powerful speech, on the Senate floor, about the GOP war on women.

Republicans are shutting the government over preventing birth control access, abolishing taxes on medical devices, and denying people with pre-existing conditions getting health care insurance. Republicans are tanking the economy to appease corporate and social conservatives. That is why we are having a shut down.

The Return of Harold Ford Jr.

Harold Ford announced in the New York Post that he is running for the U.S. Senate. Ford moved to Manhattan after losing his the Tennessee Senate race to Bob Corker. Ford is going to try again in New York. What is laughable is Ford remaking himself as a champion of women's reproductive rights.

I am pro-choice -- have always been since I entered politics almost 15 years ago. My cumulative grade with NARAL during 10 years in Congress was right at 80 percent. Any assertions to the contrary are false.

Someone forgot to tell NARAL Ford's position. NARAL released an ad slamming Ford's record on abortion.

"I was not pro-choice at one time," Ford told Alan Colmes. Ford has repeated his position on other media outlets.

"I'm pro-life, Tucker," Ford said to Tucker Carlson. "I don't run from that.

Ford is running from his abotion record now.

New NARAL Ad

NARAL has launched an 30 second ad urging voters to voice their dissent against the anti-abortion Stupak-Pitts amendment in the House health care bill. There is a petition pro-choice voters can sign. The signatures will be delivered to Democratic Senators.

Know Your Reproductive Rights

Kirsten Suhr of NARAL hit the streets and gave people a quiz on reproductive rights. I got all the questions right. Try the quiz without watching the video. I

NARAL Petition

NARAL has an online petition urging Congress to support women's reproductive rights.

Call on your lawmaker to continue standing firm for these important initiatives:

Fix the birth-control price crisis. Congress must bring down the price of birth control to $5 or $10 instead of $50 or more for students and low-income women.

Improve women’s health by increasing funds for the federal family-planning program.

Cut taxpayer spending on fraudulent “abstinence-only” programs.

Take action! Fill out the form to the left and customize the message we’ve provided for you below.

Sign the petition.

Democrats Can Win On Abortion

I wrote before about how abortion is a wedge that works against the Republican Party. The Hill has an article on how NARAL helped Democrats win Congress.

Last year the group polled in a handful of districts where it played in Arizona and Pennsylvania. This year, it polled in 22 “mainstream American” districts — 19 of them Republican-held — and Quinlan said the results led him to believe NARAL “can swing that election” in those districts.

Quinlan noted that “nearly two-thirds of all pro-choice women in these districts identify as either moderate or conservative, while pro-choice independent and Republican women overwhelming identify as either moderate or conservative.”

Quinlan said the findings illustrate that 59 percent of independent-voting women favor legal abortion in all or some cases. He also found that 34 percent of all Republican women in those districts think abortion should be legal in all or some cases.

Democrats can beat the Christian Right and protect a woman's right to choose. In fact, it is in their best political interest. They need to stop listening to political advisors that put Democrats in a ditch.

Terri Schiavo and South Dakota were major defeats for the Christain Right. The Republican Party moved women to the left on abortion and end of life issues. Democrats have an opportunity to bury people like Bob Jones and Jimmy Swaggart. The former is a racist and the latter is addicted to hookers. These are people the GOP pander to to GOTV. It has nothing todo with Christian values. Swaggart and Jones are hatemongers whom love to throw stones. The GOP don't care as long as these pseudo-Christians help the party stay in power.

Facebook has NARAL as a cause. You can contributed or fundraise for NARAL.

Support Choice

NARAL is asking voters to sign a petition to keep women's reproductive rights in the 2008 debate. Republicans found that even a conservative state such as South Dakota will not support banning abortion. Citizens do not support the Christian Right's agenda. Republican candidates will trip over each other to please James Dobson. They can't campaign on increasing the tax burden on the middle and lower classes.I want to see Republican presidential candidates constantly explain their position on Roe v. Wade.

The media has been running Christian Right talking points and has shown great ignorance into reporting late-term abortions. Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting noted how the media dropped the ball in reporting how the Gonzales v. Carhart Supreme Court ruling endangers the lives of poor women.

Those circumstances, according to the ACOG’s amicus brief, include the woman having certain chronic medical conditions (like bleeding disorders or heart disease) or pregnancy complications, or the fetus having certain abnormalities (such as severe hydrocephalus, a greatly enlarged head).

What Ginsburg also made clear in her scathing dissent, though it went virtually unmentioned in the media, was that young women and poor women are more likely than others to need intact D&E, because they’re less likely to be able to access abortions in a timely manner. Adolescents often don’t realize they’re pregnant or fear their parents’ reaction, and poor women may have trouble getting together sufficient money for the procedure.

The court has ruled, in effect, that all of these women will now still be able to terminate their pregnancy, but they may be compelled by the state to do so in a way that puts their health in jeopardy, against the best judgment of their doctor. That lack of health exception both endangers real women’s lives now and opens the door for further erosion of women’s reproductive rights and health in the future, whether the court reverses Roe v. Wade or not. But that reality was too often missing from media’s reporting on the subject.

Sign the petition.