Can We Talk about the Gosnell Case? Apparently Not

Yet another demonstration of why there is no common ground between pro- and anti-choice.

When Kermit Gosnell was convicted Tuesday in the deaths of three babies, it might have been a moment for anti-abortion and abortion rights groups to come together over something they both opposed: a doctor providing bad medical care to women.

Instead, it was another moment of dissension. Anti-abortion groups warned that Gosnell was just one example of many doctors who carry out troubling late-term abortions across the country, while abortion rights groups said women went to Gosnell's "house of horrors" Philadelphia clinic because they didn't know what other options were available.

"I would hope that we could both rally behind the prosecution of someone who was providing subpar medical care to women," says Leah Chamberlain, administrator of the Philadelphia Women's Center, one of the first abortion clinics in the city. "[But] this situation seems to be drawing clear divisions between the two camps and there's a lot of yelling at each other rather than listening."

Yeah, you'd think we could agree at least on that.

But no.

There is common ground, but it is occupied by pro-choicers. We already support all the family friendly, abortion-reducing things: affordable birth control, adoption, child care, comprehensive sex ed, financial and other support for pregnant women and families, and good health care for all.

There is no talking to, let alone compromising with fanatical fetus fetishists, and, thankfully at least in Canada, no earthly reason to.

The Pro-Liars Are Eating Their Own

I just lurve this shit.

From today's LifeShite:

Ohio congressman Tim Ryan is digging himself deeper and deeper into a hole when it comes to his relationship with the pro-life movement. The former darling of the pro-life community has come full circle and is not refusing to take a firm pro-life stance and is supporting abortion in health care.

Ryan was initially elected as an Ohio congressman who was one of the rare pro-life Democrats in the Democratic Party. His willingness to stick his neck out earned him accolades, endorsements, and a seat at the leadership table of pro-life groups.

As LifeNews.com previously profiled, Ryan got himself kicked off the advisory board of Democrats for Life of America.

Between his pro-abortion voting record and his insistence on funding the Planned Parenthood abortion business in a warped version of a pro-woman, pro-life bill he had worked on for the pro-life Democrats group, Ryan increasingly alienated himself from pro-life advocates.

Now, Ryan is earning the scorn of pro-life advocates for claiming that a new amendment in the House version of the government-run health care bill that funds abortions is a "common ground" abortion effort.

For a saner more balanced view, check out Cristina Page at RH Reality Check (emphasis mine):

Congressman Tim Ryan (D-OH) is, in many ways, a typical pro-life American. He opposes abortion and, because of that, supports every effort to prevent the need for it. Just like most pro-life Americans, Ryan supports contraception -- primarily because it is the most effective way to prevent unintended pregnancy, and thereby abortion. And yet because of this, Ryan no longer qualifies as "pro-life." He was recently banished from the board of a national pro-life group he served on for four years. Ryan, in return, has turned vocal. He's leading the call for common ground and pragmatism, and is rallying the no longer silent majority of pro-lifers who support contraception. And he is provocatively trying to fight what he views as an unrepresentative slice of pro-lifers, those who can't bring themselves to support contraception. "The new fault line," says Ryan, "is not between pro-life and pro-choice people. It's within the pro-life community. The question now is: "are you pro-life and pro-contraception, therefore trying to reduce the need for abortions, or are you pro-life and against contraception and you hope that people's lives improve just by hoping it, wishing it so."

Ryan is committed to preventing abortion so much so that he, unlike every other pro-life legislator in Congress, spent the last few years working to identify the policies proven to reduce the need for abortion. This work, which he undertook with The Third Way, a center-left think tank, resulted in the "Preventing Unintended Pregnancies, Reducing the Need for Abortion and Supporting Parents Act." It's also called the Ryan-DeLauro bill, named for him and his co-sponsor Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT.) As thanks for his outspoken leadership in trying to make abortion less prevalent, Congressman Ryan was removed from the board of Democrats for Life of America, and with it, disowned by the pro-life movement at large. Pro-life publications have taken to qualifying his pro-life status as "allegedly" pro-life or referring to him as someone "who claims to be" pro-life. Because of his support of prevention in 2007-2008 congressional session, Ryan received a "0" rating from National Right to Life Committee. According to the pro-life establishment's new standards, his support for prevention means he no longer qualifies as "pro-life." And that means very few pro-life Americans will either.

It may come as a shock to most pro-life Americans, but there's not one pro-life group in the United States that supports contraception. Rather, many lead campaigns against contraception. As Congressman Ryan explained, "I think the pro-life groups are finding themselves further and further removed from the mainstream; they're on the fringe of this debate." Considering that the average woman spends 23 years of her life trying not to get pregnant, the anti-contraception approach depends on a scourge of sexless marriages or a lot of wishful thinking.

As if anyone needed any further evidence that the anti-choicers are not ALL ABOUT THE BAYBEEZ, but really ALL ABOUT SLUTTY WOMEN, I'll say it again: Not one pro-life group supports contraception.

As I've said before, pro-choicers already occupy the common ground.

Whereas the pro-liars are increasingly to found on the fringe, wanking to medieval delusions.

On Common Ground

William F. Harrison, gynecologist, abortion provider, and diarist at Daily Kos writes: There Is No Santa Claus, No Easter Bunny, and No Common Ground!.

On the subject of Reproductive Freedom, there can be no common ground between the militant anti-abortion religious right, including the Roman Catholic Church (RCC) and those of us who believe that people have the right to use any method of birth control they choice, up to and including safe, legal abortion.

I agree and I'm getting damned sick of all the triangulation and Third-Way hand-wringing bullshit over reducing abortion.

Or, looked at another way, we pro-choicers already occupy that middle ground. Most of us support all the measures that have been bruited about to reduce abortion.

Wide access to affordable, safe birth control, check.

Age-appropriate, fact-based, comprehensive sex ed, check.

Financial and other support for pregnant women, check.

Financial and other support for individuals and families with children, check.

Quality, affordable daycare for parents who want to or have to work or go to school, check.

Making adoption easier, sure, why not?

If the militant anti-abortion religious right won't budge on so-called artificial contraception and fact-based sex ed -- and I highly doubt they will -- there is NO middle ground.

In related news, there's a search for common ground elsewhere. SUZY ALL-CAPS takes issue with those uber kool kids at The Signal Hill, a.k.a. Pro-Life BC. SHE asks: What about common ground on fetal rights?

See, in the attempted rebranding of Pro-Life BC into something normal people would pay any attention to, the Signalers claim to be moving away from trying to legislate restrictions or prohibitions on abortion and moving towards changing the 'culture'. You know, that Culture of Death we sensible people supposedly inhabit.

Well, they might be claiming that -- and in the process getting up the noses of militant anti-abortion fundies, wot fun! -- their website contains links to all the usual bullshit, like 'abortion causes breast cancer' and a newish site set up to whine about 40 years of sexual liberation in Canada. There, the splash page has a photo of a very pregnant woman with ghostly fetus showing through her abdomen and clothes with the timeless shrieeeeek 'Have we gone too far?'

Nope. We haven't gone far enough. When every woman in Canada -- I'm looking at you, New Brunswick -- has access to safe, legal abortions, then we'll have gone far enough on the abortion issue.