Pregnant, Parenting, and Pro-Choice

I've been on the reproductive rights/justice beat a long time and I can't make up my mind. Are fetus freaks really really stupid or really really deluded?

I realize these are not mutually exclusive. Also that some in the antichoice movement, especially the leadership, are decidedly neither, but rather prey on the ignorance and gullibility of their followers to make a living.

But in the main, I just can't decide. Are more of them dumb than demented? Or the other way around?

Current case in point: The president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, to give it its complete title, is a woman named Ilyse Hogue. She's an interesting person as demonstrated by this Washington Post profile.

She's also pregnant with twins due in July.

This fact is making tiny heads in Fetus Nation explode. From the WaPo piece:

The reaction beyond NARAL, however, has been much more complicated, Hogue says. “There is this whole mentality that anyone who fights for the rights that we fight for must hate children and not want to parent,” she says. “So to have the leader of a reproductive rights organization — an abortion rights organization — show up pregnant, it’s just jaw-dropping.”

At one point, she says, she walked into a hearing on Capitol Hill and an antiabortion advocate looked at her swollen belly and asked, “Is that real?”

“As though I actually had strapped on a prosthetic baby bump to wear to a hearing for some reason,” recalls Hogue, who is due in early July. “It’s like, ‘What don't you get about choice meaning choice?’ ”

The gals at our own astroturf front for Focus on the Family can't get their heads around it either. Here's one of them quoting a pro-choice writer, then commenting.

Given the information she had at the time, given the fact that she was so close to finishing school, and given MY secular, liberal worldview… I have no doubt at all that if I had been my mother, there would have been no me.

Something to consider, isn’t it? Yet the writer seems to remain pro-choice.

If one is drunk enough to argue with them, inevitably one of them pulls out the Ultimate Anti-Choice Gotcha: "Well, what if your mother aborted you? What about that? Huh? What would you think about that? Huh?"

Answer: Precisely nothing.

So our beleaguered USian cousins have picked up this (foul) ball and are running with it.

They've begun a campaign that refocusses the pro-choice message into Pregnant, Parenting, and Pro-Choice,

The media and others often depict the pro-choice movement as having a political “agenda” equivalent though oppositional to that of the anti-choice movement, which seeks to eliminate access to abortion care, in all circumstances, as well as to contraception and other forms of reproductive health care, irrespective of the consequences for public health or women’s lives.

But what is the pro-choice “agenda?” Is it really just about ideology? And what is so surprising about being pro-choice and pregnant?

Being pro-choice is fundamentally about parenting, because it means believing, as the international women’s rights movement has long stated, that every child should be a wanted child, and that, by extension, that every parent is a willing parent.

Part of the campaign is a new Tumblr that is collecting great stories from prochoice parents.

Maybe someday I'll make up my mind on the stupid v. delusional question.

But not today.

CRUSH Goes Local, now with Paranoid Update

CRUSH, Canadians Rallying to Unseat Stephen Harper, is gaining momentum. From its Facebook wall:

Remember CRUSHERS, we have 3 ads in play this weekend.
1. The Calgary Herald (Mr. Harper’s riding)
2. The KW Record (hitting two Catch 22 ridings at once, that of Peter Braid and Stephen Woodworth)
3. A locally funded initiative in the Comox Valley Echo News that targets the Catch 22 riding of John Duncan.

Thank you all for making this happen. Work is progressing on future ads.

CRUSH is the totally grassroots campaign to place ads focusing on Stevie's record and 'trustability'. Originally, the plan was to run huge ads nationally. There was munny enough only for a smallish ad in last Saturday's Star.

Going local is a good idea. We all know the state of newspapers. Apparently, local CRUSHers were able to negotiate some good rates. And people read their local papers. CRUSHers hope these ads will get them talking.

The CRUSH site has downloadable PDFs, tips, and, of course, a way to donate. CRUSH hopes to continue to raise munny to funnel to the local groups and when I get my MASSIVE tax refund, I'm going to send them some more.

What's that reference to Catch 22 ridings, you ask?

Here's one of its organizers explaining at Rabble:

The Catch 22 Harper Conservatives strategy is to target winnable ridings with weak Conservative incumbents, recruit volunteers and communicate with voters before the next election is called. The main premise is that an informed electorate will vote in their own interests, and not strictly in the interests of political parties, politicians and lobby groups. The strategy will benefit some opposition candidates from the NDP, Liberals and possibly the Bloc while remaining independent of them.

Here are the 22 targetted ridings. Are you in one? Near one?

Now, while we're on the subject of targetting, the US National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws is going to make sure that those Blue Dog Democrats who so royally screwed the healthcare reform dealie over abortion PAY.

NARAL Pro-Choice America, which endorsed Rep. Bart Stupak's (D-Mich.) primary challenger Wednesday, is eyeing other Democratic incumbents, too.

NARAL joined Planned Parenthood in backing former Charlevoix County Commissioner Connie Saltonstall in her weeks-old primary challenge to Stupak, a pro-life Democrat who inflamed party activists by holding out for abortion language in the recently passed healthcare bill.

But the group isn't done yet. Asked whether other Democrats who joined with Stupak or opposed the bill should be concerned, NARAL political director Elizabeth Shipp said, "Definitely."

I asked if NARAL was eyeing anyone specifically.

"Yes, but none that I'm ready to talk about yet," Shipp said.

I realize we don't have a primary system here, but man, it would be sweet to 'NARAL' these Harper Liberals:

Paul Szabo in Mississauga South

Dan McTeague in Pickering-Scarborough East

John McKay in Scarborough Guildwood.

Hmm, maybe my MASSIVE tax refund will stretch to funding NDP or Green opponents of these guys. Anybody know who might be running in these ridings?

PARANOID UPDATE:

CRUSH ADMIN NOTE: We have had bad news about the Calgary Herald. It appears from member feedback that the ad did not appear despite assurances that it would and, to add insult to injury, we have been charged twice for the ad. We have been attempting to contact the Calgary Herald all day but it will not be possible to speak with anyone in charge of this until Monday-we will keep you posted and rectify the situation as soon as possible.