I know I should be bemoaning the number of Republicans who want to outlaw contraception*, but I can’t get past this question:

QUESTION: Do you believe Barack Obama wants the terrorists to win?

 		YES	NO	NOT SURE
All		24	43	33
Men		27	41	32
Women		21	45	34
White		26	42	32
Other/Ref	9	51	40
18-29		23	44	33
30-44		24	43	33
45-59		24	43	33
60+		24	42	34
NE		19	49	32
South		28	39	33
MW		22	44	34
West		21	46	33

If you can’t even get 50% to answer “no” to that, you need to burn your party to the ground** and start over.

Somebody please tell me that this was a badly executed poll, so that I can sleep tonight.

* And I am. Believe me, I am.
** Figuratively speaking, obviously.

MSNBC, Conviction angers anti-abortion militants*

Testifying in his own defense, a remorseless and resolute Roeder insisted he had committed a justified act for the defense of unborn children by killing Dr. George Tiller, one of the country’s few physicians to offer late-term abortions. It was a bold legal strategy that, if successful, had the potential to radically alter the debate over abortion by reducing the price for committing such an act of violence.

When it failed, those who share Roeder’s passionate, militant belief against abortion were outraged: One said they are getting tired of being treated as a “piece of dirt” unable to express the reasons for such acts in court.

Maybe you’d get more respect from the courts if your legal theories didn’t entail undermining the very social contract that makes us able to function as a society. Oh, and if you weren’t in favor of shooting people in their homes and churches. Just a thought.

* (Can I just say, I’m pleased that they used “militants” and not “activists”? Cheerleading for murder isn’t activism.)

From Consistent Life (in a roundabout way: I’m the one working on this project for them):

The Center for Reproductive Rights is beginning a campaign to end the Hyde Amendment and bring back Federal funding of abortion. One of their tactics is a series of videos in which supporters question why tax dollars can’t be spent on abortion but can be spent on things they disagree with, such as war.

This would be a great chance for Consistent Life to counter with a video pointing out all the different ways in which the destruction of life is promoted by our tax dollars, and emphasizing that we can and should oppose all of them.

To contribute, record a video of no more than 30 seconds in which you discuss what life-destroying programs you don’t want your tax dollars spent on, and/or what life-affirming programs you would like them spent on instead. Preferred format is .mov, although .avi is also acceptable. Then, contact video@consistent-life.org for uploading instructions.

In light of Citizens United v. FEC, who’s for a constitutional amendment stating that all human beings, and only human beings, are legal persons?

ETA: LAMom’s in!

From Consistent Life:

We try to have a presence each year at the annual March for Life held in Washington, DC on or near the anniversary of Roe v Wade’s passage. The main organizer is not sympathetic, and has threatened several of our member groups with arrest in the past, but we definitely receive much more positive than negative vibes from fellow marchers. We need to show the pro-life community and the watching world that many who are pro-life on abortion have a different perspective than the organizer.

Join us on Friday, January 22, 2010 between 11:30 AM and Noon in front of the Sculpture Garden, on Constitution Ave. NW near 7th St. The location is across from the National Archives and about 2 blocks from the Archives Metro station. We will proceed together with our banner from there to the rally and march.

RSVP not required but it is helpful to know who plans to come. You can contact our President Bill Samuel at president@consistent-life.org to say you’re coming or with any questions. Bill can be reached by cell phone at xxx-xxx-xxxx during the March if you’re having trouble connecting with the CL contingent [number not posted here -- please email Bill if you need his number -jr]

Consistent Life member group Democrats for Life of America (DFLA) is having a breakfast that morning, 9-11 AM, at the Holiday Inn Capitol, 550 C Street SW, Washington, D.C. 20024. (One block from the L’Enfant Plaza Metro Station.) $30 paid at the door; proceeds benefit DFLA.

I’m definitely going to be keeping an eye on this new group.

From their “About Us” page:

What Does It Mean to be Whole Life?

The Whole Life ethic acknowledges that issues that appear to be separate such as human sex trafficking, political violence, famine, abortion, female genital mutilation, euthanasia, pornography, embryo destruction and many others are actually related threats to the dignity of the human person.

The Whole Life ethic recognizes that a threat anywhere to human dignity constitutes a threat to human dignity everywhere.

The Whole Life ethic is dedicated to promoting and defending human dignity in all its stages. In the United States the biggest threat is abortion, other places it may be female genital mutilation, famine, forced sterilization, or lack of civil rights.

I have a comment on the disclaimer that ran at the beginning of the December 8 show (I’m a bit behind).

You said,

“The following hour of programming contains language of a scientific nature, which may be offensive to some people.

If you believe that evolution is an attempt to undermine your creation;
if you are sure that the moon landing was a government hoax;
if you are certain of the age of the earth and that it is less than 10,000 years;
if you know global warming is fake because of an email you haven’t ever read;
if you think developing cures to human disease from ten-celled blastocysts shatters human dignity;
then you are listening to the right show.”

One of these things is not like the others. Evolution, the moon landing, the age of the earth, and global warming are matters of verifiable — if, in some cases, interpretable — fact. The question of whether it is ethical to destroy human embryos is not. It’s a philosophical matter, and it’s one on which scientifically literate people differ.

The construction and tone of the intro suggest that you consider your perspective on the status of human embryos to be the scientific one. There’s no such thing. Science can inform our views on philosophical questions, but it can’t resolve them. Calling those who disagree with you “sheeple” doesn’t do much to resolve them either.

In case you’re wondering, my perspective is that throughout human history, attempts to divide the human species into those who count and those who may be exploited or killed have always been destructive of human dignity.

Two new action alerts from Consistent Life:

Challenging the Abuse of the Consistent Life Ethic

On-line forums are a prime place to get across various aspects of the consistent life ethic. One current thread is at a large forum at www.prolifeamerica.com. This is the forum for Life Dynamics, whose August DVD LifeTalk show included an attack on the consistent life ethic as a ploy to water down the abortion issue. A message was posted with the subject “Challenging the Abuse of the Consistent Life Ethic.” The responses have started coming in quickly, and it’s a good spot for people who do know what the consistent life ethic really is to at least read through the thread, and hopefully to contribute cogent points. In this case, it’s not intended to bog down into arguments on war and death penalty, since that’s off-topic to the particular forum, but to help pro-lifers understand what the consistent life ethic is when it’s used well.

The forum is at
http://www.prolifeamerica.com/fusetalk/forum/categories.cfm?catid=7

If you want to post a response and have not already done so, you’ll need to register, but that’s easily done.

There are surely several other forums on the web where it would be good for us as a consistent-life community to be contributing to threads. Anyone who is aware of specific places, please send them in to allforlifeaction@swbell.net — this is part of what Action Alerts are for, allowing our community to respond quickly. We always had in mind community participation in coming up with needed actions.

Pro-Peace/Pro-Life Harmony Pilot Project

Do you know of groups in the same campus, denomination, or community that define themselves as either pro-peace or pro-life, but might be willing to dialog with each other? Consistent Life’s emphasis on how the issues are connected and on cooperation of violence-opposing groups gives us a prime opportunity to change the destructive right/left dynamics of these debates. We have a PowerPoint presentation designed for joint meetings of such groups to encourage discussion.

Before launching this as a program, complete with a manual with good advice on what experience has shown, we need to have experience to know what experience has shown. Anyone who might like to organize a session with appropriate local peace & life groups to help us develop this program, please contact project coordinator Rachel MacNair directly at drmacnair@hotmail.com.

So, Scott Roeder may be trying a “justifiable homicide” defense.

I’ve linked my “The Fallacy of Justifiable Homicide” piece from Shared Sacrifice before, but I think it bears repeating

Who gains from the constant equation of opposition to abortion with opposition to family planning? Two groups come immediately to mind:

* The minority who are anti-family planning, because it increases their stature and influence (Jill Stanek must love being considered THE voice of pro-lifers).
* Abortion advocates who want to paint their opposition as extreme and out of touch.

Who are the biggest losers? The people who would benefit the most if the broadest possible coalition of pro-lifers and pro-choicers came together to support family planning and sex education.

Just something to keep in mind.

Speaking of common ground, Marysia has braved the intensely hostile waters of RHRealityCheck with a post titled, What the First Wave of Feminism Can Teach the First Wave of Common Ground.

What I love about Marysia’s writing is that without compromising her own views, she takes the arguments of pro-choice feminists very seriously. She doesn’t dismiss them or lie about them. She doesn’t have to, because her convictions are solid. And frankly, pro-choice feminists are right about a lot of injustices facing women, and failing to understand that will be the downfall of the pro-life establishment.

If I were to interview, oh, say, Amanda Marcotte and then pose the question, “Why do pro-choicers think all pro-lifers are misogynists and reject any notion of finding common ground with them?”, I think pro-choicers like Steven Waldman might get a bit miffed. He might protest that Marcotte doesn’t represent the views of most pro-choicers, no matter how loudly and how often she and her fans repeat those views. He might even take the opportunity to remind us how much he personally respects people on “both sides”* of the abortion debate.

So when he asks Jill Stanek why pro-lifers oppose contraception, he might first want to take a step back and question whether, in general, they do.

Several commenters pointed out that Stanek’s views are extreme and don’t represent most pro-lifers, but apparently Waldman either didn’t read the comments or ignored them, because he was beating the same drum again few days later.

Surely one of the first principles of “common ground”, which Waldman so endlessly claims to seek, is that one must honestly engage the people with whom one is trying to find commonality, and not resort to stereotypes and holding up extremists as examples.

* Scare quotes because I think the notion that there are two neat sides is preposterous.

Big project at work eating me alive. Happy but so, so busy. Hope to be back in a couple of days.

I’ve been reading about the appointment of Alexia Kelley, executive director of Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, as director of the Center for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives in the Department of Health and Human Services. (Quite a mouthful, that.) It is being repeated as fact all over the blogosphere that Kelley is opposed to contraception. However, all of these reports seem to trace back to just two sources. The first is an unsubstantiated claim in a Salon article by Frances Kissling of Catholics for a Free Choice.

What Greenberger and others will want to know is why the post, which includes oversight of the department’s faith-based grant-making in family planning, HIV and AIDS and in small-scale research into the effect of religion and spirituality on early sexual behavior, has gone to someone who both believes abortion should be illegal and opposes contraception. That’s right — Kelley’s group of self-described progressive Catholics takes a position held by only a small minority, that the Catholic church is right to prohibit birth control.

What’s Kissling’s evidence for this claim? I have no idea. She doesn’t say.

The other source is a TAPPED article in which Sarah Posner builds her entire case on one out-of-context quote.

Kelley and CACG have made clear they are committed to Catholic doctrine on abortion and birth control. CACG has supported the Pregnant Women’s Support Act, aimed at stigmatizing abortion and making it less accessible. In discussing legislation on reducing the need for abortion, Kelley has written that various pieces of legislation concerned with women’s health “are not all perfect; some include contraception — which the Church opposes.”

Well, yes. From the Catholic Church’s perspective, legislation which funds contraception or would require Catholic employers to provide insurance that includes contraception is imperfect. It’s impossible to tell from this truncated quote whether this is a perspective Kelley herself shares or whether she’s simply reporting a fact. And given Posner’s thorough misstatement of the goals of the Pregnant Women Support Act, I’m not going to assume that she’s interpreting Kelley’s statement correctly.

I checked CACG’s website and could find no mention of their stance on contraception, let alone Alexia Kelley’s. They do, however, link to the pro-contraception National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy.

I’m not saying Alexia Kelley is pro-contraception. I don’t know what her position is. I just don’t think most of the people criticizing her know either.

I am working 14-hour days, so in lieu of writing, I link.

• Some people, (pro-choice and anti-abortion alike) argue that if pro-lifers really believe that abortion takes the life of a human being, then killing abortion providers is a morally acceptable, or even imperative, action. Shared Sacrifice published my response in The Fallacy of Justifiable Homicide.
• Consistent Life released a Statement on Killing of Dr. Tiller.
• Marysia asked pro-lifers to commit themselves to nonviolence in deed, word, and thought in An Open Letter to the Prolife Movement, from a Prolifer.
• The murder moved commenter vitameme to start a new blog.
• And, this just in, Tiller’s clinic will not re-open. I’m frightened that this will embolden more assassins.