I know how the Repubs are going to attack abortion rights

[Mizmoon]

They are going to point out that Margret Sanger was a eugenicist and they are going to say that Dems (and anyone else) who supports abortion are NAZI EUGENICISTS too.

This will probably be part of their "wooing of the blacks" too - "Those e-vil liberals weren't being nice, they were really trying to kill off your babies!"

I know they've been saying this to each other for years, but now they are going to trumpet it from every bought journalist's platform possible.

Dems better start thinking about a counter-strategy. Sanger's eugenics beliefs are totally sucky and impossible to defend. They are going to reframe this argument on us if we don't watch out.

[flamin lib]

1. I don't think so.

They can talk about it to the far right, but to actively begin an attack would awaken the left and begin driving our numbers. I hear lots of talk but don't see any action.

People who aren't threatened tend to be complacent. Hey, it's legal, so why get all hot & bothered, right? But make the threat immediate and it's like cornering a frightened animal. The Repubs don't need that going into the off year elections.

Our problem with choice is that the anti-choice is so motivated and loud. Like the protester at the Inag parade yelling F*** Bush. Outnumbered 100 to 1 but clearly heard.

[nadinbrzezinski]

4. Ok reframe, they are PRO FETUS

get it?

They cannot defend it, and get oh so defensive

[papau]

2. Unborn Victims of Violence Act passes Senate/House -Abortion=murder?

Unborn Victims of Violence Act passes Senate/House -Abortion=murder?


Saletan avoids Hillary's message that the goal should be to PREVENT unwanted pregnancies, reminding people that some pro-life groups also oppose birth control.

However, I did like his point that "A human embryo is a member of our species. But that doesn't mean it's a person. An adult is a senior member of the species. A child is a junior member. A viable fetus is a more junior member. A pre-viable fetus is a still more junior member. A zygote is the most junior member. You can argue that personhood begins at viability while admitting that human distinctness begins at conception. On the other hand, if you deny the human distinctness of the fetus, most people will stop listening to you."

http://slate.msn.com/id/2097927 /

Face the Fetus
It's time for abortion rights advocates to stop denying reality.
By William Saletan (also on NPR's Day to Day)
Posted Monday, March 29, 2004, at 3:28 PM PT

How long can supporters of abortion rights go on denying the distinct legal significance of unborn human life? Not any longer, if they want to save Roe v. Wade.

That's the message the U.S. Senate delivered Thursday as it passed the Unborn Victims of Violence Act. Under UVVA, which had already passed the House, anyone who injures or "causes the death" of a "child in utero" during a violent federal crime will get the same punishment "provided under Federal law for that conduct had that injury or death occurred to the unborn child's mother." The bill defines a "child in utero" as "a member of the species homo sapiens, at any stage of development, who is carried in the womb." President Bush will soon sign it into law.

Once enacted, the law will double the penalty for any boyfriend, husband, or thug who harms or kills a fetus in the course of beating or killing a pregnant woman. More broadly, it will enshrine in federal law the principle that killing a fetus is legally equivalent to killing a child. That's exactly the principle the Supreme Court rejected in Roe.

Advocates of UVVA say it won't affect abortion rights because it stipulates, "Nothing in this section shall be construed to permit the prosecution … of any person for conduct relating to an abortion for which the consent of the pregnant woman, or a person authorized by law to act on her behalf, has been obtained." But the exemption is plainly illogical. Imagine a federal ban on gay marriage that stipulated, "Nothing in this section shall apply to a daughter of the Vice President of the United States." A gay marriage is a gay marriage. A child is a child. Once the embryo is defined as a child, and killing it is defined as killing a child, abortion at any stage of pregnancy becomes murder—immediately in theory, and eventually in law.<snip>




William Saletan is Slate's chief political correspondent and author of Bearing Right: How Conservatives Won the Abortion War.

[flamin lib]

5. I stand corrected.

Roe v Wade is what I was referring to, but this and "partial birth abortion" are defiantly attacks.

[liveoaktx]

13. Vid Clip from today-Cspan

Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act

[proud patriot]

3. You mean repukes attack "PRIVACY Rights"

of course they do , Republicans Hate freedom .

[TNOE]

6. I don't know

couldn't this tactic be used to bring Bush's grandfather Prescott into the mix - for supporting Hitler and his policies. Aren't a lot of the elite involved in eugenics? What about the Nazi's that the US brought to this country who worked in this field? This could open up a whole can of worms for them.

[moobu2]

7. The dems need to carefully frame the reasoning behind the issues

for instance, the right-to-lifers are comparing supporters for abortion here to Nazi eugenics when IT WAS THE NAZI WHO OUTLAWED ABORTION AND CONTRACEPTION.

Nazi's persecuted "undesirables" -Jews, gypsy's, blacks, homosexuals and political opponents but one of the first things Hitler did when he came to power was outlaw abortion (for Germans).

[ultraist]

8. START ATTACKING?

Did you see the info about the bill that was posted here today that defines an embryo or fetus as a human life? A woman can be charged with MURDER for a three week old blastocyst that she miscarries if they can blame her for the miscarriage under this new legislation that Bush plans to sign. Anyone who supposedly causes the death of the blastocyst/embryo/fetus can and will be charged with MURDER. It is extremely difficult to determine why a blastocyst does not develop. This bill is wide open for abuse of power.

Then there is the legislation that recently passed where Doctors do not have to inform a woman of the option of abortion, even if she is DYING from the pregnancy!

THEY ARE ALREADY ATTACKING AND MAKING HEADWAY!

[salin]

9. Alan Keyes has been doing a similar attack for years

claims that abortion is a holocaust for the black community.

Yet he never gets a huge deal of support in the voting booth.

Some rhetoric fails because it is blatantly over the top.

[ComerPerro]

10. Didn't they elect a eugenicist to Congress in TN?

Or somewhere in that area? I don't remember who, but I remember it was in a Red state and that one of the Republicans running had links about eugenics on his campaign site.

But, yes, it wouldn't suprise me to hear them say this.

[David__77]

11. They've been playing the "race" angle on abortion for years and years.

And there is a point. Black women should not be economically compelled to have an abortion--there should be guaranteed minimum income and universal health coverage. They don't want to go there.

It's just like the Bush attack on Social Security using a "race" angle: that "reform" would benefit Black people because they have a shorter life-span. Well, we can certainly counter that Bush doesn't care to address WHY Black people die sooner and that the solution is affirmative action, universal healthcare and a redistribution of social resources.

[Egalitariat]

14. By guaranteed minimum income, do you mean I could

choose to do nothing and still get money from the taxpayers? How much money would you propose?

[EC]

12. Can't,

it'll bring out how much money Prescott Bush gave to her cause and support of her....