Should the Democrats Campaign on Pro Choice Issues?

On a recent Rachel Maddow show she presented the very extreme positions on abortion held by the current Republican candidates. She wonders why the Democratic Party doesn’t make an election issue of this extremism.

Several Republican candidates have declared their intent to make abortion illegal even in cases of rape or incest, including Sharron Angle, Christine O’Donnell, Rand Paul, and Ken Buck.

These freedom lovers think they should get to decide what a rape victim does with her body

This is a position that is more extreme even in fringe anti-abortion politics not very many years ago

 Christine O’Donnell’s feelings about how Americans should conduct their private lives are well known by every tv pundit and comic. She has said many times that she opposes abortion in cases of incest and rape

Rand Paul, says on his Web site that he supports a ‘Human Life Amendment” and a” Life at Conception Act” as “federal solutions to the abortion issue.

According to Paul, the federal government should not only have the power to tell women what to do with their bodies, but the duty to intrude on women’s reproductive choices: “I believe life begins at conception and it is the duty of our government to protect this life.”

This all seems very contradictory when you listen to their right wing message of keeping government out of our lives. What really is their underlying message?

They seem to be a bit off kilter, get rid of Medicare, Medicade, Social Security, food stamps, unemployment insurance etc.

The message of smaller government, fewer regulations obviously does not extend to our bedrooms and our bodies.

I wonder if any of them have thought this idea through and would their decision be the same if something so terrible as rape should happen to a member of their own family.

Now as we all know, Sarah Palin’s daughter was not raped. Palin brags about her daughter’s choice to give birth and keep the baby.  CHOICE, (she chose.)

Should a 13 year old girl be forced to carry her rapist’s baby to full term?

Carrying a baby to full term then giving birth is known to be 10 times more dangerous to a woman than abortion. How about a 13 year old, 90 lb girl?

The emotional toll this would present is far more than we could expect a girl to endure for the rest of her life. The psychological torment of the rape itself will be with her forever, should we force her to live with that result for the rest of her life?

Then there is the legal aspect . I don’t really hear people talking about this point.

In most states the biological father of the child can demand parental rights.

He may well be denied those rights but she will be forced to go to court to prevent him from it and there have been numerous cases of his prevailing.

The rapist may gain parental rights depending on his relationship with the victim.

Most rapes are perpetrated by someone the victim knows. Just because the victim knew her attacker does not mean she had a relationship or that she wanted one.

Another complication is the well-known judicial bias against rape victims and the difficulty of "proving" a rape charge.

 A rapist may be more likely to be awarded parental rights by the courts if he denies the rape and insists the sex was consensual.

And if a rapist secures parental rights, generally, parental rights guarantee a lifetime of ongoing contact between the mother and the rapist - including visitation rights, child support, and even ongoing legal disputes over custody.

<In one case a 14-year-old girl, decided to give up her baby for adoption. She was required by law to give notice of the adoption to the rapist, an adult man.

While she was permitted by a court to give up her rights to the child, the rapist retained his and then sought child support payments from her.>

By Sara Ainsworth, Northwest Women's Law Center

Oh, if life were just so “black and white” instead of so many shades of grey!

How the “Christian Right” is trying to dumb down our education system.

The so called “Christian Right” is invading our everyday lives and trying to force beliefs on all of us through our education system. Consider recent statements from Glen Beck, Palin and Christine O’Donnell.

Politicians already elected and others trying to get elected are trying to force our schools to teach only creationism to our children.

Denying scientific fact is a huge detriment to the education of our children.

We need scientists, not just to argue the other side of how we got here but in all facets of life. We need new scientists to carry on studies of germ warfare,global warming, bioweapons, stem cells, cloning, pollution ,agricultural, genetics and National defense.

Just as an indication of how badly America is in need of a science image makeover, consider that the US was ranked 29th in Science and Math education behind countries like the Czech Republic, Croatia, and Liechtenstein.

A recent study found, for example, that one in five American adults think that the Sun revolves around the Earth.

Proven undisputed fact: Sarah Palin believes that man walked beside dinosaurs on Earth just after it was created a mere 6,000 years ago, and that priests who speak in tongues can put a shield against witchcraft around you. 

 Scientific literacy also means voters who can make better informed decisions on subjects ranging from stem cell research to transportation to natural resource management.

Contemporary advocates of creationism attempt to force their views through lawsuits and campaigns of misinformation, seeking to bypass the scientific community altogether and directly indoctrinate the next generation of students with fraudulent objections to science.

Although creationist legal maneuvers have so far resulted in failure the creationist PR effort has been successful.

The only hope for those who care about science is to match misinformation with information: to invest as much time and money into educating the public as creationists do into misleading it. The Internet contains many good resources for those who wish to defend science.