Definition of Insanity

Back in May, Chantal Hébert predicted that the failure of Woodworth's Wank, aka Motion 312, would be a 'crushing defeat to the anti-abortion cause'.

Not if events in Colorado are any guide.

We remember Colorado, don't we? Where twice so-called personhood initiatives have suffered what any sane person would call 'crushing' defeats -- like 3 to 1 votes against?

The monomaniacs are at it again only this time they failed to get the required number of valid signatures to put the initiative on the November ballot.

(One reason that Colorado keeps getting targetted, I learned, is that the required number for such a ploy is relatively low, compared to other states. Personhood failed in ultra-conservative Mississippi by a majority of 55 per cent in 2010. Surely, it can't be good for the cause to continue to get stomped by such wide margins in a more liberal state like Colorado? But then, as the M312 fiasco here has demonstrated again, intelligence is NOT fetus fetishists' strong suit.)

They needed 86,105 signatures and submitted 112,121. But a bunch were deemed invalid.

How many were 'invalid'?

The State of Colorado rejected 23,873 signatures as invalid. By my math, that is 21 percent of the signatures.

That's a whack of dishonesty and/or incompetence. Or, of course, both.

And a look at the actual text of the amendment reveals more of the usual chicanery.

The amendment’s text would make it illegal to intentionally kill “any innocent person”—with “person” defined as “every human being regardless of the method of creation,” and “human being” defined as “a member of the species homo sapien[s] at any stage of development.”

But the proposed text doesn’t define what to my theological ears is the more provocative term: “innocent.” 

Presumably, its use here is meant to do several things: (1) portray the fetus as an agent with moral standing, one in need of protection; (2) allow for the taking of guilty human life (since many social conservatives support the death penalty while also being opposed to abortion); and (3) contrast the innocence of the fetus with the guilt of the father. Indeed, on the last point, the amendment draws this contrast specifically: “No innocent child created through rape or incest shall be killed for the crime of his or her father.” 

But notice, where rape and incest are concerned, it is only the fetus’ innocence that’s stipulated.

They've gotten around any difficulties with the death penalty but kinda left somebody out of this careful moral balance, haven't they?

As per fucking usual, the woman is nowhere to be found.

Well, as we now know from wingnut science, if a woman gets pregnant from rape, it wasn't a legitimate rape. She must have enjoyed it, at least a little, eh?

Now that they've lost three times -- twice in thundering electoral failures, once caught in flimflammery -- they'll give up, right?

Nope.

Personhood USA vowed to fight the Colorado rejection in court. The group argues some of the signatures were improperly rejected, including some on which a notary public changed a date.

"We are going to be filing to have those ballot signatures recounted, and we are confident personhood will be on ballots this fall," Mason said.

To those of us who've been thinking that a MASSIVE defeat on Woodworth's Wank will shut our fetus fetishists up for a while, I have three words: Not bloody likely.

Reminder: the final hour of debate on M312 is scheduled for September 21, with the vote on September 26. If you haven't already done so, shoot your MP a little note about how you'd like her or him to vote.

In Their Own Words

The thing about dog whistles is that dogs yap when they hear them.

Back in 2008, while Ken Epp was insisting that his private member's bill, C484, the 'Unborn Victims of Crime' bill, had absotively nothing, nada, zip, zero to do with abortion, our old pal Johnny 'Tubesock Holocaust' Pacheco kinda blew that gaffe by calling it Kicking Abortion's Ass Bill.

Now, a Catlick organ has done it for Woodworth's Wank. Look at the headline.

Personhood motion to get more time

This is how they see it, people. This is the first step towards creating personhood for zygotes and restricting the rights of incubators.



Thanks to JJ for the webcache link.



ADDED: Of course, Tubesock himself calls it a 'personhoood' motion.

The Pre-Born Personhood Initiative

Boo-hoo-hoo.

An anti-abortion group in Ohio is facing a significant shortfall in the number of signatures needed to ask voters in the presidential battleground this fall whether the state constitution should declare that life begins when a human egg is fertilized, putting up another obstacle for the "personhood" movement.

They've got just 5% of the signatures needed.

And they don't seem to be trying very hard. They're not spending any money. Even the the Catlick Church isn't on side.

I wonder why.

Oh look.

The personhood movement has already faced setbacks in other states this year. Supporters fell short of the required number of signatures to qualify for the November ballots in Nevada and California. And in Oklahoma, the state's highest court halted an amendment effort there to grant personhood rights to human embryos, saying the measure is unconstitutional.

Voters have rejected similar proposals that made ballots in 2008 and 2010 in Colorado.

They also defeated the initiative in November 2011 in Mississippi, which has some of the nation's toughest abortion regulations.

Coz it's a loser idea?

On Twitter, I've been annoying the heck out of @roseblue/SUZYALLCAPS by characterizing Woodworth's Wank (M312) as a personhood initiative and posting links to possible implications of it, including criminalizing miscarriage, outlawing all abortions, banning hormonal and IUD birth control, possibly even banning in vitro fertilization treatments.

Those concerns have been raised in Ohio, but are dismissed by the measure's proponents.

Supporters in Ohio have hoped to alleviate those concerns by rephrasing their proposed amendment to say it wouldn't affect "genuine contraception" or in vitro fertilization procedures.

Well, then.

On Twitter, when I asked if M312 would entail investigation of miscarriages. @roseblue/SUZYALLCAPS said: 'No'.

And we all felt reassured.

@fernhilldammit You & Canada have >@Roseblue 's< word on that! (Well I'm sure everyone will sleep better now - NOT.) ;-) #m312 #prochoice

— Lynne A (@lahtay44) June 21, 2012

Thing is, SUZYALLCAPS doesn't like the characterization as 'personhood'. SHE knows that under that rubric, it has LOST big time, and among the strongest voices against it are 'infertility advocates'.

(Plain text to avoid juvenile fetal porn redirect.)
http://www.bigbluewave.ca/2012/05/one-way-to-fight-personhood.html

SUZY says:

This is why I think pro-lifers should use the label "fetal rights" or "unborn rights" advocate.

Because that's what it ultimately is about.

Right, then.

Here's your assignment, fans of women's rights: Tweet, blog, and talk about Woodworth's Wank as a 'personhood' initiative.

It's not, of course, but as I'm saying on Twitter:

@roseblue doesn't want us to call #M312 a #personhood law. OK, it's a #preborn law on #personhood. #Preborn thingies exist, dammit!!!!

— Fern Hill (@fernhilldammit) June 21, 2012

Bro-Choice

Remember the 'Every Sperm Is Sacred' Amendment in Oklahoma?

This is the funniest Daily Show bit I've ever seen.



h/t @thishotplace.

Humpty Dumpty Initiative in Canada

Personhood initiative in Oklahoma.

Who does this remind you of?

I asked Skerbitz what he thought of the “war on women” rhetoric that had lately taken root. He replied, perfectly on-message, “We believe our first and foremost duty is to protect the rights of all people, including the unborn, including unborn women.”

Born women, you’re on your own.

Oh yeah. Our own Personhood Promoter.

@AntoniaZ When we allow any law to say that some human beings are not human we endanger everyone's rights #TellAntiChoiceMPsEverything

— Stephen Woodworth (@WoodworthMP) March 14, 2012

We've gotta stop this in its tracks. We do NOT need a War on Women here.

Online petition approaching 2,000 signatures. Sign and pass on if you haven't yet.

How Conveeeenient

On May 27, shortly after the federal election last year, we blogged on the Knights of Columbus.

At their 108th Ontario State Convention in Toronto on May 22nd, the Ontario Knights unanimously passed a resolution “to work with a Member of Parliament to introduce a Parliamentary Bill seeking the restoration of full legal protection for the lives of the unborn.”

Hm, Stephen Woodworth is an Ontario Catholic.

Does he have any connection to the KoC? From his about page, yes, indeed he does.

Over the years Stephen has also had the privilege of assisting many local organizations as a Board member or advisor.  He was elected a School Trustee in Kitchener in 1994, 1997 and 2000, served on the board of Big Brothers, volunteered regularly with the Knights of Columbus and has been a lector at his church since 1967.

'Volunteering regularly' sounds kinda distant and benign, like volunteering regularly at a food bank or something. But you know, not actually involved or a member or . . .

Oh. Wait. He is a member. (Quite the list there, including Samuel Alito, John Boehner, and Canadian MPs Denis Coderre and Rob Nicholson.)

Seems the Knights found their MP and he's one of them.

Would some enterprising journo please ask Mr Woodworth about this?

ADDED: I asked him on Twitter this morning, now 7 hours ago. No answer. No surprise.

@WoodworthMP Care to comment? …hinglywrongrightwingnutz.blogspot.com/2012/02/how-co… Are you KoC's point man on fetal rights? #prochoice #cdnpoli #HiddenAgenda

— Fern Hill (@fernhilldammit) February 16, 2012

The 'Every Sperm Is Sacred' Amendment

In Oklahoma, where legislators have been glorying in an orgy of anti-abortion bills and laws, one senator added a mocking amendment.

Anti-abortion lawmakers vowed Wednesday to continue pushing for tighter restrictions in Oklahoma as hundreds of advocates flooded the halls of the state Capitol as part of a rally to urge lawmakers to pass more anti-abortion laws.

But one Democrat, in a seeming attempt to fight the measure, added an amendment to the bill stating that “every sperm is sacred,” according to Think Progress.

State Sen. Constance Johnson, D-Oklahoma City, added language which states that masturbation and sex acts other than vaginal intercourse could be considered detrimental to unborn children as abortion.

The Oklahoma bill is, of course, part of the 'personhood' movement, an attempt to confer rights on fetuses that would effectively render women third-class citizens, after menz and baybeez. Not to mention probably outlaw IUDs, hormonal birth control, emergency contraception, and in vitro techniques.

Which is where we're going here in Canada if Stephen Woodworth is successful with his private member's motion to create a Parliamentary committee to examine when 'life begins' and thus, when a fetus has rights in competition with the incubator's, er, woman's.

Some of the boyos are all revved by this opportunity to discuss the weighty matter of when life begins. Here's a classic mansplanation on the subject, kindly supplied to me yesterday in a Twitter spat.

While sane people understand that biological life is completely irrelevant to legal personhood, that fact won't deter Woodworth's sneaky back-door attempt to muddy definitions of 'human' and 'person' and get that feverishly wished-for debate going.

We sane people will not let that happen.

We at DJ! suggest that all 'personhood' legislation be called ESIS bills. Because that's what their proponents believe.

Here's their hymn.

Nationwide Anti-Abortion Hit List

Rachel Maddow catches us up on two recent Fetus Lobby moves in the Excited States -- both terrifying.




I won't link to Operation Re-Scum, but here's a description from Ms. Magazine.

Operation Rescue, an extremist anti-abortion group, has launched a website - abortiondocs.org - which lists the photographs and addresses of abortion providers, as well as maps to find their places of business. The website, which describes itself as the "largest collection of documents on America's abortion cartel," aims to list every abortion provider in the country.

Kathy Spillar, executive vice president of the Feminist Majority Foundation and co-founder of the National Clinic Access Project, stated, "What causes us real concern is fear of where this could be headed. It opens the possibility that some so-called 'grass-roots activist,' who does believe in the use of violence, will be able to use this as a tool for stalking doctors, which has happened."

Rachel Maddow remarked on her show on MSNBC last night that website is Operation Rescue's attempt to take individual WANTED posters, which she described as "a tried and true means of intimidation for the anti-abortion movement," to a national level through the web. She stated, this is "an extremist movement with a history of violence taking something that is arguably criminal and trying to make it more mainstream and national."

And oh yeah, Dr LeRoy Carhart -- the subject of an OScum 'research project' -- is on the list.

Rachel also brings us up to date on the most recent Looney Tunes ReThuglican debate, sponsored by Personhood USA.

Here at DJ!, we've written about the Humpty Dumpty Initiative a few times. These are the nutbars who want a fertilized human egg declared a 'person', thus not only outlawing all abortions, but endangering birth control, emergency contraception, and in-vitro techniques. Also possibly criminalizing miscarriage and spreading the application of child endangerment laws back to second 1.

Basically, you know, shoving the government up every uterus in Merka.

Yabbut, I hear you saying, this dealie recently failed a referendum in ultra-conservative Mississippi, didn't it? So, like, there's nothing to worry about, just a bunch of nutters, right?

Wrong. Rachel points out that while Mississippi -- arguably the most conservative state down there -- rejected this insanity, EVERY SINGLE ONE of the ReThug candidates has endorsed it.

Let me repeat that -- EVERY SINGLE ONE.

There you have it, fans of sense and reason. This is the atmosphere into which a nationwide, online, anti-abortion Hit List has been injected.

Someone -- a doctor, nurse, clinic worker, patient, bystander -- is going to be killed. And it probably won't be long now.

h/t RH Reality Check

The Dog Ate My Personhood Initiative. . .

After getting their collective ass handed to them in Mississippi, those persistent personhood peeps aren't giving up. They've got a raft of similar abortion-killing, birth-control-banning, miscarriage-criminalizing dealies rarin' to go.

All over the blogosphere and Twitter, fetus fetishists are advancing whacky reasons why their supposed slam-dunk failed so miserably. Here's some interesting speculation on what happened between the opinion polls -- that indicated it would pass easily -- and the voting booth by Amanda Marcotte. (Hint: secret ballots are excellent things in conformist conservative jerkwater places like Mississippi.)

But my favourite load of BS is by SUZYALLCAPSLOCK. This is a link to the tweet linking to HER post. Two clicks but no juvenile redirect to fetus pr0n.

Commenter lastchancetosee sums up HER increasingly desperate explanations of the fiasco:

So to recap:
a) even Pro-Lifers opposed it, preferring to actively pursue a humiliating defeat by voting against it than succeeding in passing it and thus stopping the "abortion holocaust" at least temporarily, not to mention the PR advantages, and precedent etc.*
b) if the Catholic Church with its negligible following in Mississippi had recommended voting for it, hundreds of thousands of non-Catholic voters would have marched to the polls for this, when their own convictions and religious leaders weren't enough to do so.
c) due to unspecified "circumstances" people decided to kill an initiative they supported
d) this is actually a huge win for the pro-life cause because a vote that was expected to be a close thing was a very clear knock-down, and that is a good thing.
e) this result still has absolutely nothing to do with 60% of the people, including many pro-lifers, opposing this measure.

The nile is not just a river in egypt.

* you do know what the purpose of all these initiatives for amendments, laws etc. is, do you? To get as many as them passed as possible, so that they get challenged in the courts, until you find one case where a court sides with you, thereby creating precedent. The people who push these things KNOW that they will be challenged. They WANT them to be challenged. Why do you think it is that most of these things have so very obvious constitutional issues?
This being challenged in the Supreme Court is a BONUS, not a drawback. But sure, pro-lifers opposed it because they feared it might be overturned ….

h/t for cartoon to @IAmDrTiller.

Link to original cartoon.

ADDED: The liars at LifeShite speak truth for once:

As pro-life political scientist and abortion law researcher Michael New explains, if the amendment can’t win in Mississippi, it’s likely not going to win anywhere in the current political climate.

“It is difficult to see where Personhood proponents go from here. Tuesday’s election offered Personhood supporters their best opportunity for electoral success. They qualified a citizen initiative in Mississippi — among the most pro-life states in the country — during a low-turnout election in which Democrats fielded relatively weak statewide candidates,” he explains. “In spite of all this, the Mississippi Personhood Amendment still lost by a double-digit margin.”

Knowing that the personhood amendment lost by a landslide twice in a swing state and a lopsided 17-point margin in arguably the most pro-life state in the nation, there’s little realistic expectation that the personhood amendment will be approved anywhere in the country. As the amendment continues to rack up defeats, support from pro-fie advocates willing to invest in what will almost assuredly be a losing proposition will wane. Media reports will continue focusing on the pro-life movement losing at the polls and the pro-abortion side will continue gloating that they are in the majority despite clear polling data showing America is pro-life.

The damage to the pro-life movement from suffering defeat after defeat in the polls will become more and more palpable as the losses mount.

LifeShite's strategy is to get more misogynist Supreme Court justices.

Humpty Dumpty Initiative in Mississippi

The Humpty Dumpty Initiative is up for a vote next week.

A fledgling movement that seeks to add fuel to the national debate over abortion appears poised to score its first major victory Nov. 8 in Mississippi, where a constitutional amendment would declare that human life begins the moment an egg is fertilized.

The so-called personhood proposal—also known as Amendment 26—is backed by both Republican and Democratic leaders in the conservative state and has substantially outraised its opposition in funding. Mississippi is considered favorable ground because it is dominated by socially conservative Republicans, already has some of the U.S.'s strictest abortion laws, and has only one abortion clinic serving its population of 2.9 million.

The proposed amendment, one paragraph long, says any reference to a person in the state constitution will be defined as "every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning or the functional equivalent thereof."

It is intended to challenge Roe v. Wade, but its immediate effects will be devastating. There are no exceptions for conception resulting from rape or incest. It would ban common sorts of contraception -- the morning after pill, IUD, even the pill itself. It would deny abortion to women with life-threatening illnesses. It would open the door to the criminalization of miscarriage. It would threaten in vitro fertilization. It would necessitate every state law that contains the word 'person' being reviewed and perhaps rewritten.

And so on.

Here's Frances Kissling, president of Catholics for Choice for 25 years, on the irony that it may be the great state of Mississippi that inflicts this travesty on its people.

Mississippi is perhaps the last state with any standing to extend personhood to fetuses. A fertilized egg in Mississippi, should it be born, has one of the worst prognoses for a dignified life in the United States. What will that fertilized egg, once it is born, discover about how Mississippi treats persons?

The state ranks last among all states in health and third for the highest rate of diabetes and high blood pressure . It has the lowest per capita personal income and an unemployment rate of 10.6 percent. It is the last in academic achievement. More than 1 out of 5 people live in poverty. The state is second in the nation in terms of the imprisonment ratio (749 prisoners per 100,000 people.) If you are black, your chances of dying at birth or shortly thereafter are pretty high: fourteen out of every 1000 black infants ( 6.8 for whites) born die in childbirth or the first year of their lives. Your mother is more likely to die delivering you than mothers in 44 other states. If fertilized eggs could be afraid, surely the thought of being born in Mississippi would be traumatizing.

And now meet the nutbars men behind Mississippi's initiative.





More on the 'Conceived in Rape' tour.

On November 8, keep your fingers crossed, because there are at least 30 other USian states crafting or considering this kind of virulently misogynist legislation.

Enriching the gene pool and other freaky fetus fetishist antics

I keep thinking: 'OK. Have we had enough crazy yet? Are we done?'

But no. There's no end to the insane, hateful, murderous crap happening around the world.

Then I saw this story from San Francisco. Progressives there are pushing back against the lying liars who run fake clinics.

Supervisor Malia Cohen and City Attorney Dennis Herrera today announced a joint effort to combat what they view as deceptive marketing at crisis pregnancy centers - and were peppered with questions from pro-life activists who attended the press conference."

San Francisco is the latest city to take up NARAL's strategy to regulate the liars at the municipal level. The good guys have been successful in a few places, only to suffer set-backs in the courts on the basis of freedom of lies speech. In New York, city officials are appealing such a ruling.

What caught my eye in that story was this:

Several pro-life activists in the audience pressed Herrera on the subject, including Audrey Richter of Oakland who held her 2-year-old son, Exodus, in her arms.

Really? Exodus? Does he have an older sibling named Genesis? Is she pregnant with Leviticus?

That reminded me that I'd collected some recent linkies demonstrating the general all-round crazy and/or creepiness of fetus fetishists.

Remember the MASSIVE FAIL in Ohio when a fetus was going to 'testify' by means of live ultrasound? Except, the testimony was pretty much undetectable.

Recently, nutbars in Florida went that stunt one better. Convicted stalker Flip Benham came up with this one during a week-long anti-abortion campaign in Orlando.

Flip Benham and a group of anti-abortion activists are staging an Orlando “memorial” this morning at which an “aborted baby girl” will answer questions.

I couldn't find out how that went. No clinics were shut down during the campaign, however.

The Personhood (aka Humpty-Dumpty) Initiative folks are also getting creative. In Mississippi, they're getting the 'Conceived in Rape' tour on the road.

A woman named Rebecca Kiessling makes a living playing victim by broadcasting her mother's rape.

The very existence of a scumbucket like Becky is a very strong argument NOT to force women to carry their rapist's sperm to term. Sure, enrich the gene pool with lotsa rapist DNA. That should go well.

**********

'Leviticus' reminded me of this. Best smack-down ever.



Ah, Josiah Bartlet, the best president the US never had.

Update on the Humpty-Dumpty Initiative

Here we go again. Another 40 Days of Harassment begins, not that it ever ends. (Lard, I'm dim betimes. I just realized that there are two of these bun-fests a year. The persecution high is too intense for only once a year.)

So, over the next while, when you see tiny shivering groups of DUOPs (dried-up old prunes) holding tattered signs with the usual fetal pr0n, you'll know you must be near a women's health clinic.

I thought this might be an opportune moment to update the Egg as Person Initiative.

There are 31 USian states working on crafting legislation or amending their constitutions to redefine 'person' as a fertilized human egg.

But the campaign is not going too well.

First up, Colorado, where the fetus fetishists are banging their collective head against a wall trying again despite being clobbered by a 3 to 1 margin the last time they tried this.

On Friday, Personhood Colorado turned into the Secretary of State 79,817 signatures in support of its initiative – not even 4,000 more than the 76,047 needed to land its proposed anti-abortion “personhood” proposal on the ballot in November. Thousands of signatures are routinely thrown out in the process of validating initiative petitions. The group’s amendment seeks to grant fertilized human eggs the full spectrum of rights enjoyed by U.S. citizens. The difficulty its sponsors seem to have had gathering support suggests the idea they are promoting is no more attractive now to Coloradans than it was in 2008, when they defeated a similar proposal in a landslide vote.

Next, that free-wheeling state of Nevada.

The Personhood Nevada organization has filed a state Supreme Court appeal of a district judge's decision prohibiting the circulation of a petition aimed at ending abortion.

Kenneth Wilson, treasurer of the organization, said Monday the group hopes that justices will overturn District Judge James Todd Russell's decision and allow the circulation of the petition. Russell ruled the petition was too vague and violated a state law that limits a ballot question to one subject.

On to Mississippi, where, it seems, the entire exercise was a charade from the git-go.

It appears to be all over but the cryin' for supporters of the Mississippi "egg-as-a-person" initiative to ban abortion. RH Reality Check has discovered that a unique provision in the state's Constitution prohibits modifying the Bill of Rights by voter referendum.

A fact known by the Personhood campaign and ignored for political reasons.

Facts? Pish, say the fetus fetishists.

More Quixotic efforts in Montana.

Legislative efforts similar to CI-102 failed in Montana in 2007 and 2009 and another initiative in 2008 fell about 18,000 votes short of making the ballot.

And Iowa and 26 other benighted places.

So, while it's encouraging that the Humpty Dumpty Initiative is falling off the wall all over the place, what's depressing is that we -- the normal people -- have to keep fighting. There is so much work to be done to improve the lives of people in so many ways, but the fetus fetishists keep sucking us into this kind of idiocy.

And it must be fought. Every time. Everywhere.

With hard times facing individuals, organizations, and governments everywhere, precious time, energy, and money is spent countering this dippy delusion.

Leave aside the whole abortion/contraception bollocks and women's rights problem for a moment and consider this.

During the last Colorado battle, I read an argument against the amendment from a lawyer who did not declare her- or himself on either side. The argument was: The word 'person' occurs about 10,000 times in Colorado state law. If this measure passes, thousands and thousands of lawyer hours will be billed to the state to examine every instance of 'person', to determine how the new definition impacts that law and what should be done about it.

Property law, inheritance law, family law, criminal law. Every kind of law would have to be revisited with the new definition of person in mind.

What a colossal waste of time and money.

And the fetus fetishists have the gall to label us pro-choicers as 'selfish'.

(Isn't that a gorgeous illustration?)

Sarah Can't Catch a Break

Via TPM, this shocking news:

On a day where most critics are attacking Sarah Palin for being too conservative, one group of anti-choice activists is slamming former Alaska governor for not being conservative enough when it comes to the issue of abortion.

American Right To Life, the self-proclaimed "personhood wing of the right-to-life movement" attacked Palin today for using "liberal, pro-choice, socialist terminology" in her political rhetoric on abortion and for distinguishing "between her 'personal' and public pro-life views" ("personally pro-life means officially pro-choice)," the group says.

ARL has launched a new website to promote its 'personhood' idiocy initiative.

It ranks Sarah in Tier 4, 'Personhood Never', along with pro-abortion Mitt Romney and George W. Bush.

I am not making this up.

At the top of her page, there's this:

As a candidate whom many pro-lifers want to support, her actual abortion record and rhetoric is shocking to the conscience.

Then a long list of sins against personhood, including this:

Uses Liberal, Socialist Terminology: Palin's Facebook page uses liberal, pro-choice, socialist terminology even in a very politically sensitive context (trying to defend her pro-life credentials after appointing a Planned Parenthood board member to the Supreme Court). America is told that Palin believes in a culture of life "from cradle to grave." This is poor, even harmful, communication and shows a lack of political savvy. On the economic spectrum from freedom (capitalism) through socialism, to communism, Palin commits an economic faux pas by using a term that describes a socialist government which gives entitlements including health care, "from cradle to grave." Regarding abortion, using the phrase "cradle to grave" seems to betray a pretend ownership of pro-life values.

Here she is dancing with another liberal, pro-choice socialist.



Photo snaffled from Pink Sheep of the Family.