Thursday 19 February 2009

Well, what do you expect from people who believe in sky faeries?

From TIME: 'The Catholic Crusade against a Mythical Abortion Bill'.

The Catlicks got their tighty-whiteys all twisty-wisty. They're preaching and screeching. They're mounting postcard and letter writing campaigns. They're in a Facebooking frenzy.

Over what, you ask?

Over the Freedom of Choice Act that the 'most radically pro-abortion president evah' promised to sign.

Small problem however.
In the midst of all this activity, the fact that there was no Freedom of Choice Act before the 111th Congress went largely unnoticed and unmentioned.

A Freedom of Choice Act was first introduced in the 108th and 110th Congresses (from '03 to '05 and '07 to '09, respectively), by Rep. Jerold Nadler, a New York Democrat. It was developed at a time when the future of Roe was in doubt because it was unclear if George W. Bush would have the opportunity to appoint another justice to the Supreme Court. But FOCA had a hard time gaining traction — even under Democratic control of Congress, the bill was not only never voted on but never made it out of committee. And now abortion rights advocates are breathing easier with Obama in the White House — so much so that when a coalition of 63 organizations sent the Administration its top 15 priorities for reproductive rights and health, FOCA did not even make the list. (emphasis mine)

Ah, but a little truthiness can't stop a well-oiled propaganda machine.
James Salt, director of organizing for the progressive organization Catholics United, thinks the USCCB has been prodded into focusing on FOCA by misinformation from right-wing groups. "These right-wing organizations are deliberatively misleading people in order to stoke the culture war," says Salt. "They're using this as a fundraising tool, as a way to gin up their relevancy. And unfortunately some of these groups have the ear of certain bishops."

I like that: 'gin up their relevancy'. Relevancy is just what they're down a couple of quarts of at the moment, what with these nutters on their side.

But I digress.

The e-rumours are swirling: Catholic hospitals will be shut down or forced to perform abortions.
Some versions of the e-mail even claimed that FOCA could "result in a future amendment that would force women by law to have abortions in certain situations — and even regulate how many children women are allowed to have."

Ooh, does that remind you of anything? Oh yeah. The recently rebranded gang at Signal Hill/Pro-Life BC, who, in their own efforts to fundraise gin up their relevancy, asked people to agree or disagree with this statement, 'The government should dictate how many children a woman can have'.

SHRIEEEEEK! 93% disagreed!

So there! That proves, um, something.

1 comment:

deBeauxOs said...

Those fetus fetishists have certainly never made up an abortion criminalizing hyperbole they couldn't use for raising munneee.

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