Life Links 4/5/10

At the Nation, Sharon Lerner has a piece on how health care reform was a setback for pro-choicers.

But if prochoice leaders felt beleaguered, the outcome was not so much a reflection of their loss of influence as a painful public display of their longstanding political weakness. "The conditions that allowed healthcare reform to totally exclude abortion existed before it happened," says Frances Kissling, a visiting scholar at the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, who was president of Catholics for a Free Choice for twenty-five years. "The difference now is that everyone knows we're powerless." Or, as Tanya Melich, a political consultant who has worked on women's issues for thirty years, puts it, "We've never had the votes. And we've always had antichoice Democrats."

On Friday, federal agents searched abortionist Kermit Gosnell’s home and office for evidence of illegal activities.


Amanda Marcotte has come up with a not-so-new reason why prolifers are opposed to late-term abortions: misogny. In case you wanted one more example of how completely ridiculous and illogical Marcotte is - here you go:

You’d think people who claim to be “pro-life” would be so ashamed of terrorist acts that they’d do anything to distance themselves from them. But instead, Roeder’s murder of Dr. George Tiller, the preeminent late abortion provider in the nation, seems to have emboldened anti-choicers to double down on the harassment of other late abortion providers. Not only have anti-choice protesters moved on to targeted Dr. Carhart for abuse and threats, but as Lynn Harris noted, legislators in Kansas and Nebraska seem to be emboldened by this act of terrorism to put further restrictions on late abortions.

So apparently, in order to distance ourselves from people who kill abortionists, prolifers are supposed to avoid protesting at abortion clinics at all costs. We’re also supposed to avoid attempts to restrict late-term abortions because attempting to restrict late-term abortions (something prolifers have been doing for years) might lead morons like Marcotte into thinking we’re trying to restrict late-term abortions because we’re emboldened by someone who murdered a late-term abortionist.

This is a little like a prolifer arguing that abortion clinics should allow abortion protesters to protest inside their clinics since Harlan Drake shot Jim Pouillon or else pro-choice organizations are encouraging people to shoot abortion protesters.