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How Obama Sold Women Out
Jose Luis Magana / AP Photo
The heath-care abortion mess is just the latest example of how Barack Obama took women’s votes—then let the country’s majority constituency down.
We knew it would end eventually. Just like a Hollywood romance, great love affairs just don't seem to stand the test of time. As the Obama administration began, we were gleefully informed by a leading lady feminist that President Obama was Christmas and Hannukah and New Years all rolled into one when it came to women’s issues. Turns out, it's a bit more like April Fools.
For the millions of women who voted for Obama on his promise to protect their reproductive rights, this past weekend's whipsaw on abortion funding is just the latest example of a president who frankly could care less about women beyond their votes. Ladies, we were sold a political brand name that touted diversity. But we were delivered a president with a woman problem. Now it’s time to do something about it.
He appointed fewer women into his cabinet than President Bill Clinton. He surrounded himself with czars, more than 90% of whom are male. He appointed Larry Summers, of "girls are inferior in math and science" fame, to a key economic post. And he played basketball with men and men only.
Women's love affair with Obama started in 2007. Some loved the idea of him—while not questioning his ideas. So when some women leaders heard the candidate say things like "sweetie" or "you're likable enough," or saw Obama's speechwriter Jon Favreau groping the breast of a cardboard cutout of Hillary Clinton on Facebook (no comment), these leaders ignored the signs of subtle misogyny. The National Organization for Women (under its former leader) endorsed its first all-male ticket. And NARAL endorsed Obama over Sen. Clinton, even though she had a proven track record on reproductive rights. In January 2009, Ms. Magazine’s cover featured a now-infamous image of Obama in a superman pose sporting a t-shirt that reads: This is What a Feminist Looks Like.
With these women leaders behind him, President Obama felt he could be himself. He appointed fewer women into his cabinet than President Bill Clinton. He surrounded himself with czars, more than 90% of whom are male. He appointed Larry Summers, of "girls are inferior in math and science" fame, to a key economic post. He played basketball, golfed and fished with men and men only. He had beers with Skip Gates, but ignored it when Rihanna was almost strangled to death. And so on.
The love affair started to fade with Obama's off-handed response during an MSNBC interview questioning his all-male outings: "I think this is bunk." That remark gave women a reason to take a closer look at the inner workings of Obama and his ideas. And just as Betty Friedan described the subtlety of sexism as "the problem that has no name," “bunk” revealed that the boys club was still alive and well at the White House.
• Peter Beinart: Why Democrats Were Smart to Bail on Abortion
• Dana Goldstein: How Abortion Splits the Reform Coalition
• Paul Begala: Forget BipartisanshipAnd then came the Stupak Amendment. There were signs that Obama was agnostic on choice, but this sealed the deal. Analyst Taylor Marsh sums it up most eloquently: "It was Pres. Obama who opened the door to sell us out when he decided to put the Hyde Amendment in the budget, something Bill Clinton never did. But Mr. Obama didn't stop there. During the stimulus fight, at the first sign of displeasure, our president personally asked that contraceptives be taken out. Now the president seems ready to finish the job, with Democrats in the House helping him do it."
But did women let this pass? Not this time. The sleeping giant—America’s majority constituency—is awakening. Note how few men are speaking out about the fact that a major issue for women was thrown under the bus to get a deal done: That women were not valued. It is the women leaders doing the talking and the typing.
Women's organization such as Emily's List, NOW, Planned Parenthood and The New Agenda spoke out—each with its own message and solutions—loud and clear. Women on Capitol Hill, led by vocal heroines like Rep. Diana DeGette of Colorado and Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, built a coalition unwilling to sign a bill including the Stupak Amendment. Passionate women advocates such as Phyllis Chesler and Jane Hamsher among countless others penned their displeasure.
John Talks Joe
Lloyd Grove is editor at large for The Daily Beast. He is also a frequent contributor to New York magazine and was a contributing editor for Condé Nast Portfolio. He wrote a gossip column for the New York Daily News from 2003 to 2006. Prior to that, he wrote the Reliable Source column for the Washington Post, where he spent 23 years covering politics, the media, and other subjects.
The Right Dumps Carrie
Jacob Bernstein is a senior reporter at The Daily Beast. Previously, he was a features writer at WWD and W Magazine. He has also written for New York magazine, Paper, and The Huffington Post.
Geithner's Stock Plummeting
Jeff Madrick is a contributor to the New York Review of Books and a former economics columnist for the New York Times. He is editor of Challenge Magazine, visiting professor of humanities at Cooper Union, and senior fellow at the New School's Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis. He is the author of Taking America, The End of Affluence (Random House) and The Case for Big Government.
It's nice to see women unite. Let's use our muscle!! Together we can create the biggest voting bloc ever----and finally get things done instead of begging others to do them for us. Great article!!!
Funny, I thought men had as much at stake in this.
You are in the land of misandry Veronicaxy.
@cbeen: No, the opposite actually. I'm not being flip. Men have a vested interest in abortion being legal.
Smart, smart women actually leverage their full base of support to get things done.
No matter what side anyone is on the issue, it's not a men vs. women issue.
The ONLY reason Obama is even in this article is to get Press. Pelosi made the deal. Obama wasn't even apart of the negotiations. Amy Siskind knows that, she just isn't letting the facts get in the way of good story.
You would think so, but they have never really supported women's right to choose, for instance. Even the President talks gingerly about abortion. Yet, on the fundamentalist side, the men talk endlessly about how abortion 'kills babies'. I am waiting for someone to openly speak up for abortion as an important medical choice for women, not just for incest or rape! I am thankful that the women in the House are openly fighting against the Stupak amendment. And if the administration wants a healthcare bill this year, then they better support women's rights or it just may be defeated.
How utterly selfish, You would use your special intrest and put it above the the health care bill.
WHOA! HOLD ON! Daily Beast runs competing stories! Another Let Down by Amy Siskind or The Dem's Smart Abortion Move...which way is it going to be guys? Is Daily Beast FOR or AGAINST???
maybe they are trying to be "fair and balanced" ?
Oh my, are we confusing opinion and editorial for reporting and news? An opinion portal like Daily Beast should, what, align all of its writers with agendas and political beliefs?
If so, I'll be the first to delete the bookmark.
"confusing opinion and editorial for reporting and news"...... I assume you are referring to Fox and the rest of the "mainstream media"?
"I assume you are referring to Fox and the rest of the "mainstream media"?
Well that's a clear case of shoe-horning an agenda into an unrelated comment. Thank you for illustrating what it means to be totally off the point.
Are you serious?!?
President Obama had noothing to do with the house speaker cutting a deal with the conservaDems. All of this rage against men and you let the undeniable fact that A WOMAN made the deal to get the bill passed.
President Obama even said afterwards that he wants the amendment out of the final draft. Liberals aren't happy until they can blame someone for something!
D--n right and this is the proof:
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/abc-news-exclusive-obama-jobs-health-care -ft/Story?id=9033559&page=1
Obama: 'This is a Health Care Bill, Not an Abortion Bill'
and we call this journalism - give us a break - can't she differentiate the Executive branch from the legislative branch
r u kidding. abortion is not a health care issue? what planet do you live on? abortion is the surgical procedure women under the age of 40 are most likely to undergo and a third of all women will undergo an abortion during their lifetimes.
not a heathcare issue? that comment doesn't even rise to the level of ignorant. it requires more than an absence of facts: it requires real stupidity!
Obama cut this deal with Cardinal Sean O'Malley on the day of Kennedy's funeral. O'Malley said as much on his blog and Newsweek's Alter admitted this yesterday on MSNBC.
The New York Times reported this as well yesterday.
Obama spent the day twisting arms of dems to get them to vote for the House bill with the amendment attached.
This is not true. O'Malley only spoke to Obama. The Times simply reports that they met, and Obama listened to O'Malley talk. He could hardly turn the Archbishop away, and the Archbishop was hardly going to trumpet himself as an ineffective spokesman on his own blog.
As a pro-choice woman, I would naturally prefer the amendment not be in the bill, and hope it will be knocked out in conference. But if it isn't, I still want this bill. Medicare and Social Security have been continually adjusted since their institution, and there's no reason to think this bill would not be as well. In the meantime, people without any insurance have conditions that would preclude them from coverage. This isn't a theoretical fight for them.
Meanwhile, Sarah Palin gave a rabidly anti-abortion speech in Milwaukee, to a Right-to-Life group. And Siskind, whose group announced at its inception that it was eschewing the "divisive" topics of LGBT rights and abortion, has found the Stupak amendment a convenient bandwagon to climb on, the better to advance her own agenda, which isn't so much new as the 2008 agenda.
That makes the assumption that Ms. Siskind is a liberal, which she absolutely is not.
hold it, Hold It,....HOLD IT!!!!! You women had a chance to put a woman in the white house and you blew it. Yeh, you were in control for awhile and you threw it away. So don't come screaming now 'cause you aren't in control anymore. I imagine Hillary is getting a kick outta hearing you gripe after the way you sold her out.
What makes you think even Hillary could get this bill passed with abortion rights in it??? It is the Congress who makes and passes bills and the President can only twist an arm here and there to get his/her agenda passed.
Oh blow it out your nose, Koftxi. Liberals are finally in the majority, or at least Dems, so it is time we get what we want. We are a little disappointed that Pelosi and the President are willing to cut a deal with conservatives to get the bill passed. And by doing so, screw the women's view again.
While I can understand the feelings of the author of being "sold out" because her position has been left behind in the overall health care debate, I feel that she over extends herself by stating that Obama has let "the country's major constituency down".
The reason why there is partisanship amongst women groups is because women, like all groups, are no monolithic, and not all women will agree to support the same position, no matter how basic it may seem to women's rights.
In the end the point is confused, you want more female representation, which is noble goal that many people, including men, can, and should get behind. In this way, if there are signals from the White House that suggest that women, or any group, is getting marginalized, then this is something to react to. However, the goal of that female representation is to make sure certain political goals are made, those goals being the one that this author dictates as being right for all women without exception.
As a gay man who has already been sold out by Obama, welcome pro choicers.....unions, environmentalists, and civil libertarians will be with us shortly.
change you can Xerox sounds about right now, doesn't it!
Quoting one of Hillary's cheaper and most obviously ghostwritten lines from the primary only cheapens your argument. Hillary and Bill are supporting this bill, flat-out, full-on, totally, with Stupak amendment and all. That is because they are, like Obama, centrists who must work with the reality given them, not some fantasy where President Hillary Wellstone Clinton waves her hand, heavenly choirs sing, and bills promising single-payer ponies fly through the houses of Congress without opposition.
Too many promises to too many groups of people with competing interests. It made for a great campaign, but it doesn't seem to be making great governance.
All of those groups used to belong to the democratic party, but Obama has sold them all out to the religious right......and his doomed pursuit of "bipartisanship".
While I sympathize with the gay agenda, surely you must know that the American people are just not 'ready' to accept gay marriage, and it would be political suicide for the President to push for this. Wait until his second term, if there is one, then push for your rights. He won't have to worry about re-election then.
Obama cut this deal with the Cardinal at Ted Kennedy's funeral. The Cardinal wrote as much in his blog: the chruch would back O's reform if he would sell out women on abortion.
Newsweek's Alter reported this as did the Times.
Obama spent all day twisting the arms of democrats to accept this deal that sold women out!
Mrs. Polly already dispatched this lie of yours upthread, Sadie (it's kind of a pathological condition with you, isn't it?) but I'll just point out that taking what the archbishop (or any interested party) promotes on their blog at face value is like believing the Iraqi minister of propaganda when he said things like "There are no American infidels in Baghdad. Never!" But then, I suppose you still believe that Hillary Clinton was under sniper fire in Bosnia.
Oh, puleeze. Still on the Larry Summers thing. He only noted that women cluster more toward the center of the bell curve in math ability, while more men show up at both the top and bottom ends. This is only relevant because college faculties skim off the top end. And it was only one cause of disparity of three he mentioned. And it was only presented as a hypothetical suggestion. And it was based on actual research results. Results that he hoped would be proven wrong.
----This raises the question of what his real offense was. Did he mention a political unmentionable? Is it an unwritten rule of feminism that any male claiming to support women can't raise questions or mention data that might be contrary to feminism's agenda? I don't see a lot of feminists arguing with the idea that higher levels of testosterone correlate with higher levels of violence. So the biological determinisms that disparage men are OK, but not the ones that disparage women.
----This kind of solipsism is what happens when the gender discourse is owned by feminists, who then get to select the criteria and methods and assumptions by which the conventional academic wisdom regarding gender is determined. Outsiders in other fields may come up with data that ruffle feathers, but feminists consider it OK to suppress them through political intimidation. A lack of numerical parity is a result of discrimination when it suits feminists' argument, as in faculty positions, but when it shows a female advantage, as in life-expectancies or gender-specific cancer funding, well, that's just the way things are.
-----Fruitful inquiry requires an ability to listen to evidence that ruffles feathers and calls assumptions into question. It requires open mindedness, not political censorship. Larry Summers didn't make up the aptitude data out of whole cloth, and he qualified it in several ways. So if mention that some sociologist noted that inner-city blacks have a higher rate of out-of-wedlock births than average, and that this might be a factor in the rates of black incarceration, along with discrimination, does that make me a racist? The message is pretty clear-- many feminists do not want open inquiry in matters of gender. They want to hear what supports their political sentiments, and when they hear suggestions to the contrary, they will hound the speaker out of the academic arena. (To be fair, a few women in Summers' audience were more circumspect about his comments, and a lot of the hype came from the media.)
----This incident doesn't shine a very flattering light on feminists. If one doesn't account for their bad behavior as a function of feminists' ability to engage in inquiry or reason, it comes down to a free choice, and the morality of this kind of political censorship is even more damning. Perhaps feminism attracts a particular demographic that is intolerant of dissent or cognitive dissonance. Any way one looks at it, it's ugly.
this comment is so refreshing i almost cried. thank you whoever you are.
Wayfarin, to you the same. There is no evidence that women are innately less able in math and science. innately being the key word. but i am sure you hold that blacks are innately less able than whites because of gaps in graduation rates.
go sell ur sexism somewhere else, we are full up on misogyny here!@
what is sad here is that you don't understand the word innately.
No, what is sad is your inability to accept that no, we are not all created equal. Nobody would argue that men are "innately" more suited to being NFL linebackers than women. Yes, it's possible that with a lot of hard work, a genetically predispositioned woman could be a linebacker.
Yet someone suggests that we INVESTIGATE the possibility that a similar innate talent related to brainpower exists, and close-minded feminists go up in arms. Medical science has already demonstrated that women have different brain chemistries; isn't it possible that this could lead to talents in one area and not another? Summers never said he actually believed that women are less talented in math and the sciences -- he just said it's worth doing some research to verify. You're right that there's no evidence to support the idea that females are innately less likely to be talented in math or science. But that's only because nobody ever did the research to look into it one way or another.
Are you opposed to doing the research because you're afraid it's true?
And mind you, even if the research shows that women as an entire gender tend to be less talented in science or mathematics, it doesn't mean anyone is advocating that a woman who happens to buck the trend and be qualified for a math or science-related opportunity should the discriminated against. This isn't social policy we're debating here.
It's a purely scientific question. Or do you not understand those?
The problem with the notion of innateness is that few innate tendencies are immune to environmental modification. Humans have an innate tendency toward violence when angry or threatened, but this is modified by socialization. That something inborn can be modified by socialization doesn't negate its innateness, and the issues are rarely black-&-white, except, perhaps in cases like our innate lack of wings and feathers, or skin and eye coloring.
---One should be careful about claims that women are innately more or less able then men, because in the case of bell-curve clustering, it's not about all members of either sex, or about the average, or even the aggregate, but the clustering at the extremes. Some research reports that men are more subject to extremes in the range, and as stated above, this is relevant only because college faculties select from the upper extreme. Statements like "There is no evidence that women are innately less able in math and science," don't speak to the issue at hand, but are phrased to address averages or categorical judgments, not the matter of clustering.
---One might also consider how much attention society wants to devote to achieving parity when it might require unequal educational resources devoted to women. Like most interesting problems, there are moral trade offs here, though conventional wisdom doesn't like to recognize all of them.
-----Even before the 1992 AAUW report on middle school girls getting "shortchanged" by "obstreperous" boys, boys were doing worse in terms of dropout rates, suicide, failure to continue to higher levels of education, incarceration, drug involvement, and as victims of murders. As it is, America's college students are about 60% female, and few seem to be complaining about the unfairness of any of this. Innateness is fine for feminists, as long as it's men who can be called innately troubled or violent. but when it comes to any potential innate downside of being female, it's all socialization and discrimination.
let us turn to Merriam, shall we, BOB boy:
existing in, belonging to, or determined by factors present in an individual from birth, native, inborn. originating in or derived from the mind or the constitution of the intellect rather than from experience.
What Boob boy is trying to do is defend Larry by saying that Larry did not mean that women are born stupid, when in fact that is exactly what Larry said. Words count.
Boob boy you can try to change the lingua franca of the word but Larry used a innately and meant
Sadie, just so you know, from an outside perspective you look really dumb arguing with him. Your counterargument is extremely crude.
I thank you, for being more articulate and informed than the writer of the article in question. Thank you for your enlightening post.
I think what Larry Summers meant is that women are not as interested in science and math as are men, and, as a mother, it is obvious when raising children that girls are interested in people things and boys are interested in mechanical things. It has nothing to do with intelligence. It's just the way it is. Now, there are also some girls who ARE interested in science and math, but they are not in the majority, from my experience.
Absolutely right. While we're mentioning unmentionables, I wonder what Professor Summers thinks about where AAs cluster on the bell curve. I understand a couple of guys wrote a whole book on it.
*****A
Oh, please. Ms. Suskind sold out women a long time ago. Her brand of old-fashioned, "we are always victims," bitter feminism makes all modern women look bad. As a woman, I am sick of voices like her's trying to speak for me.
This Sarah Palin cheerleader's criticism of Obama is as meaningful and well thought out as Glenn Beck's or Sean Hannity's diatribes against the President.
Can the Daily Beast please find a more credible voice for modern feminism?
Amen, sister.
Siskind is a Hillary Clinton-dead-ender who demonstrated the completely superficial nature of her support for Secretary Clinton by transferring her loyalty to Sarah Palin when Obama won the primaries. Siskind's own organization is supposedly agnostic on the choice question for reasons of political expediency.
Siskind is in no way an honest broker on women's issues, and it's an insult to readers to pretend that she is.
Any woman who supports women is not an honest broker, right?
Wrong, Sadie. Any woman who would betray all the issues she supposedly stood for as a Democrat in a fit of pique because her candidate didn't win the primaries is not an honest broker. Any woman who would constantly flog Obama about the gender balance in his pick-up basketball games and an under-construction bill in the House while publishing fluff pieces about right-wing loons like Palin and Bachmann is not an honest broker for women.
Siskind founded The New Agenda with a motly assortment of disgruntled PUMAs (including Harriet "Inadequate Black Male" Christian of YouTube fame) for the sole purpose of continuing the proud PUMA tradition of cutting off noses to spite faces under a false flag. Anyone who thinks she's a "voice for all women" is smoking Walmart store-brand crack.
Thanks for reminding readers of Ms. Siskind's "credentials" bettycracker. People should know what a small and distorted lens she views all issues relating to President Obama.
Siskind lost all credibility on women's reproductive rights issues when she backed Sarah Palin, one of the most anti-choice candidates I can remember in my lifetime.
oh this sounds like cheenthere. that you? bet it is! your female hate is soooo easy to spot! :
calling women who talk about misogyny bitter is like calling blacks who complain about racisim whiners.
when the potus sells out women your answer is to blame women? RU Kidding me? get real!
Well, looky here sadie, I have found my lost sisters or daughters in indieinva and bettycracker. I'll be damned. It is about playing the victim, sadie, a game we were not interested in. Here is to strong woman who don't buy into that !
Here, here, cheenthere!
See indie-
I am hateful of females because I won't play the way sadie wants me to. I believe I have learned a few things by age 63, but what I really learned, I learned in the 1970's. What a relief to know there are woman who are carrying that torch.
This bill is not written by Obama, and he has already made clear on ABC News that he wants a health care bill, not an abortion bill. So don't judge too soon.
Also, there's more to this than this amendment just being against women. While I (male) personally think abortion should be the woman's choice, and no one else's, some women actually disagree. This topic is not as black-and-white as the author presents it. According to the Pew Research Center 47% of Americans support abortion rights, 45% don't. While that certainly proves that his amendment shouldn't be in this health care bill, it doesn't make it less understandable that Pelosi cum suis decided to take the hit in favor of a major and extremely necessary health reform bill. We--women, men, children--need affordable universal health care, and this House bill is a big step in that direction.
(party-of-no'ers: now it's time you start yelling that this bill is taking away the health care of the elderly, ruin the country, and so on)
Johnmcenroe, why don't you google the joint session of Congress, whereby
Pres. Obama said "no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions."
Why should my tax dollars go towards increasing the troops to Afghan only to have my brothers and sisters killed, not to mention the Afghans. Why should my tax dollars go towards health care for illegals? Why should my tax dollars go towards companies that fail and rip us off?
What you forget is that women are the largest consumers of health care, and Obama has sold us out.
women are the largest consumers of health care? i thought women only paid more because of 'insurance discrimination'.
Can you not think of anyone but yourself? This country needed healthcare reform. They couldn't pass it through the house without the abortion amendment. Healthcare is a bit bigger of an issue than abortion. Abortion is is most cases not a medically necessary procedure, but one that allows irresponsible women to terminate a pregnancy simply because they consider it inconvenient. Should federal funding go towards other completely voluntary medical procedures, like plastic surgery?
Take the time to look up the Hyde Amendment and expend your less-than-convicted time working on your new Republican buddies to get that repealed. Then we'll talk.
I think Mcenroe has it right. Given the insane level of partisan opposition for equally insane reasons I think it is wise politically speaking to not bring this controversial issue into an already heated debate.
I understand the impatients and angst that many groups of Americans (women, gays, working poor, etc.) are feeling, but there must be an 'order of operations' to successfully enact Obama's campaign agenda. Your beef should be with the mess of a political system we have today not at Obama for trying to carefully navigate that system.
The abortion issue is always brought into discussion by the hysterical anti abortionists (religious fundamentalists). They want to torpedo healthcare reform so they do all they can to bring up this controversial issue, for Reps, and get the whole business off track. I am beginning to dislike Reps as mean and obstructionist.
Obama seems to have the right order of things. He and his camp quickly took the knife out of their pockets and went after abortion. They have no respect for the privacy of women's medical issues. You can be assured of something else, there will be a extra crop of unwanted babies if this bill is passed, and their pockets will be full of death due to back alley abortions. Not to mention the that the poor sick people of this
country will continue to be thrown in the streets.
I understand my sisters speaking here, Obama's message is that women are basically powerless, so get over it.
In case anyone has forgotten, Amy Siskind (in addition to being a lousy writer) is a very disturbed and bitter Hillary supporter, despises Obama for defeating her, and in her last laughable post on TDB, came out for Sarah Palin. Nothing Ms. Siskind says "shines a very flattering light on feminists."
hey cheenthere/cvillekid, you said this before. why ARE you so afraid of Ms. Siskind. Empowering women is scary yes?
Siskind's version of empowerment is to support candidates and politicians that are the polar opposite of those who truly stand for women's rights.
How I read this article is that the only things that are important are those that are important to a certain segment of women. Heatlth Care is directed at ALL of us, some of us the most poorest. We sacrifice them for you?
I am in agreement with other writers in this blog. First, "abortion rights' was sacrificed by a woman.
Second, the loudest voices were anti -abortion. Were was your voice?
Third - Congress (including the women), responds to those who vote consistantly. (Look at the governors races of Virginia and New Jersey). Neither liberal women nor the young turned out in enough numbers to affect a difference.
Blaminig Obama is starting to get old. The people on the left is starting to sound like the people on the right - whine, whine, whine, but do nothing to help!
Yet another "any stick to beat a dog" story from Ms. Siskind.
Tell us Amy - how do you square your pout-rage over this with your support of noted pro-choice luminaries like Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann?
I won't hold my breath waiting for an answer.
Thank you Amy Siskind. You are willing to say things that need to be said.
The current leadership of the Democratic Party (I am a registered Democrat) are as a Wolf in Sheep's Clothing. Following Obama's guidance, these people who know that their families and friends will continue to have both proper education and choice do not hesitate to sell out poor women for political advantage.
This will not make the fringe Left pro-abortion people happy.
Fringe? check ur facts, the majority of women support abortion rights!
Not according to recent polls:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/02/us/02abortion.html
While the majority may support legalized abortion, they do not support taxpayer funded abortion, which is what this amendment was about. Abortion is an elective procedure in the vast majority of cases, and Planned Parenthood is happy to step up to the plate in the non-elective cases.
women Ozone, the majority of women support abortion..
Are you forgetting? ABORTION IS LEGAL! Move on.
Lets face reality. Abortion is a devisive issue that is one Supreme Court seat away from being banned altogether. We have sacrificed enough house and senate seats as well as badly needed legislation on the byre of the abortion argument and viewing everything through the abortion lense. Instead of working to oust a president who is sympathetic lets try to hold on to the White House to keep or add to the pro-choice Supreme Court seats
Planned Parenthood will provide safe and free abortions to anyone who needs one, should there be complications those would be paid for under the proposed insurance plan the same as any other illness. It is also likely that private insurance companies will sell gap coverage for what I'm sure are many things including abortion left out of the current legislation.
Give some money to this wonderful organization so that it may continue to do it's good work.
1. Be careful when using the word "women" to mean "liberal / feminist pro-choice women".
2. A healthcare reform bill will never pass with abortion funding in it. Even if it somehow passed in the House it would never make it through the Senate. Be realistic.
3. If you think Hilary Clinton would have risked scuttling a healthcare reform bill by insisting on public financing for abortions you are either not a very astute observer of politics or you just insane.
Itching to do the gogo...........You want me to give some money to who? To the people who donated and endorsed Obama and put him in as top banana, and he is peeling away at our rights? You want me to trust those organizations that
served me up in a frying pan full of grease.
You don't understand the implications when abortion is used as the end game. All hospitals, all clinics, all involved in providing services will be subsidized by the government, and therefore will be impacted to follow the rules. Not to mention that women will lose their rights to privacy, and equal rights.
I was suggesting that some people might want to send a few dollars to Planned Parenthood, but you certainly have a choice.
I just don't think women are losing anything they are just not gaining more than they already have. So I can understand please tell me what is being peeled away.
I'm on your side. I have participated in Pro-Choice demonstrations and there are not that many middle aged white men who are willing to do that.
What convoluted thinking, UglyRed. Women should support Planned Parenthood, the only group who really fights for women's rights. They put a lot of the anti-abortionists out of business by taking them to court. Bravo!
Newsflash: When you're making compromises someone always loses out. I'm sorry that we live in a diverse nation that has a myriad of different constituencies with a breathtaking array of political opinions, but sometimes reality comes back to bite you in the ass. Perhaps you should be more concerned about the fact that we, the people, accept a political structure that necessitates massive special interest money, thus ensuring that the people will be sold out multiple times during the politicians tenure. Then again, that would be fulfilling your obligations as a citizen of this country and I can't think of anything more un-American than that.
Oh for God's sake.
Am I pissed that abortion is being messed with again? Yes. But am I happy that health care for *everyone* is finally looking like a possibility? Hell yes. I think we - women and men - should look at the bigger picture here.
And secondly, since when did a sign of real feminism look like only appointing women to the Cabinet? Real feminism takes gender out of the equation and only judges people on their merit. I'm sure we could all fill our dream Cabinets with only women, but would an all-female Cabinet serve the country better? Not necessarily.
Third and finally, just because women are the majority doesn't allow us to be tyrannical about it.
Thank you for explaining which side you are on. As women we shouldn't be taking sides, we should be working together and not backstabbing each other, and we should keep abortion as a private medical issue not a political football.
You asked what gets peeled away, mainly women's access
to health care, leaving the poorest of women destitute and
thrown to the back alley for blotched abortions. Not to mention a society of unwanted children.
Thank you for the role and support you give us. But in all fairness I cannot give to those who contributed to overthrow
the civil rights of women in this country.
I am glad someone finally mentions one of the most tragic consequences of "pro-life" legislation. Millions of children born to parents unable or unwilling to care for them sets an obvious pattern in motion - more generations of unwanted children with unprepared parents, all increasingly angry due to limited choices and opportunities and subsequently dependent on welfare and depressed. I would much rather fund an abortion than pay for basic survival perpetuate futility.
BettyCracker----time to come out of your parents basement and stop stalking Amy Siskind. You look like a nut....
BettyCracker-----time to come out of your parent's basement and stop stalking Amy Siskind.
"Smart"woman, there's this thing called "comments" on some internet forums. The sole purpose of that function is to allow people to express opinions about the content published.
Siskind is free to peddle PUMA sour grapes all over the internet, and I am equally as free to call her out on it on any forum in which she does not have moderator powers.
See how it works? I would have thought you'd understand that, seeing as how you follow Siskind around with a broom like an elephant keeper in a circus and thus have broad exposure to the derision her poorly reasoned, badly written pieces invariably attract.
Betty---you are one of the most hateful people in the blogosphere. You might think that what you are portraying is logic, but it is pure hatred. I have to say that I do admire your talent for displaying a bottomless well of hatred unlike I have ever seen. It is a force of nature. However, that's the only nice thing I can think of saying. Otherwise, you are living a pathetic life inside your head and in your parents' basement.......(BTW---how am I supposed to know if you are living with one or two parents? From your miserable take on things, I assumed you must be from a very unfortunate background)
No, no, Betty -- now she's "Smartsmartwoman." As if saying it twice will make it so. Man. And she calls other people "pathetic."
Instead of talking about how Betty spews "hatred," why don't one of you PUMA luminaries try to counter the facts Betty and I have presented?
It is true Siskind formed the New Agenda with Harriet Christian, who screamed about Obama being "an inadequate black male" at the DNC rules and bylaws committee in 2008. It is true that there is no record of Amy Siskind and New Agenda being active in women's issues, let alone abortion rights, before 2008, though lord knows that the issue of poor women having a disproportionately difficult time accessing abortions has been present for a depressingly long time (which is why some of us actually donate money to organizations that help these women out). It is true that Amy Siskind has consistently championed anti-feminist and anti-choice candidates, including McCain, Palin, and Michele Bachmann. And it is true that her support for Palin is particularly hypocritical, given that Palin said Hillary Clinton was a whiner, giggled while male radio jocks said the most heinous misogynist things about Lyda Green, and refused to support two pro-choice GOP women.
I understand, "smartsmartwoman," that you are angry that the facts in hand contradict what you like to consider your reality. And by the way, I was the one who corrected your "parent's/parents'" issue -- do you have proof for your assertions about Betty, or are you just, you know, spewing hateful lies?
Oh wait -- you're a PUMA. We all have the answer to that question.
Shorter "smartsmart"woman: "Whah! I can't refute any points you brought up, so I'll just wail about how mean you are while issuing personal attacks on you and your parents instead!"
Thank you, "Smartsmartwoman," for illustrating so comprehensively the utter lack of self-awareness, logic and decency that characterize Siskind's enablers.
sadie -
Time to stop pretending Siskind has anyone's best interests at heart, other than her own. Busting Obama for "selling women short" while simultaneously singing the praises of notoriously anti-choice Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann goes beyond mere hypocrisy and into hucksterism.
Ok so here it is simple.
I love The New Agenda and all the 4th wave blogs! Obama is a democrat and he is the person we expect to not sell us out!
We need two party system. The democrats are the party of choice, or used to be until the age of Obama/Kaine.
Ms. Palin is from the republican party, which i say we need to exist as a democracy. I get that Obama had to talk left and Palin had to talk right during the campain, but when in office what did Palin do????
She put a pro-choice former member of Planned Parenthood on her Supreme Court.
What did Obama do in office: mothered a deal to outlaw private abortion coverage. He talks the talk, but apparently Palin walks the walk!
I want women to be elected in the republican party as well as in the democratic party. I WANT gender parity and that means women will have to be elected in both parties!
I don't expect the Republicans to be Democrats, but I do expect the Democrats to be Democrats.
Amy Siskind is advocating, as do many of the sister sites such as Reclusive Leftist, PumaPac, FemiSex, Uppity Woman, etc. that women need to allow women to be both Red and Blue to get gender parity.
But how can we expect balance if the Blue party betrays Blue ppl so appallingly?
Sadie notes below that "Sarah put a pro-choice former member of Planned Parenthood on her Supreme Court." But as even the anti-choicers noted, to their sorrow, this was solely because she could only appoint one of two names, both of whom were pro-choice: http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/mar/09031708.html
This notion that Palin chose a pro-choice justice of her own volition is a well-worn PUMA talking point (i.e., "a demonstrable lie."You may want to retire it.
And as reported right here at the Daily Beast, Palin also appointed a virulent misogynist as her attorney general -- Wayne Anthony Ross, who said "If a guy can't rape his wife, who can he rape?" http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-04-13/palins-new-disast er/
Almost as funny as John McCain's "Who was that magnificent ape?" rape joke. Or his joke about how Chelsea Clinton was so ugly because Janet Reno was her father. Or as funny as the time he chuckled at a townhall when asked, vis a vis Hillary, "How do we beat the bitch?" Or the time he called his wife the c-word in front of reporters. Yeah. McCain/Palin was the real feminist ticket.
You're right on one point, Sadie: Palin "walks the walk" -- right out of the elected office she swore to the people of Alaska that she would hold for four years.
Again, name ONE achievement of PUMA. Just one.
Amy's a big girl, Smartwoman. When she stops displaying her hypocrisy and intellectual dishonesty in public fora, we'll stop calling her out on it.
And "parents' basement?" (Note correct use of apostrophe with the plural possessive -- you'd think a "smartwoman" would understand eighth-grade punctuation a little bit better.) You PUMAs are so witless and tiresome and predictable. Why not say "Cheetos?" Why not just string together a bunch of nonsense about ACORN and Axelrod and Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright and birth certificates and go for an across-the-board win with Wingnut Bingo?
Now, go back to lighting candles to your altar of Imaginary Sarah Palin. You know, the one who cares about women's rights, instead of the one who sells out other women and their rights every chance she gets.
Think John McCain would have overturned the Mexico City Policy? Fat chance. He promised not to sign Lily Ledbetter. Would McCain's Justice Dept. have risked the wrath of the Tom Tancredos of the world and moved toward allowing asylum for foreign women who have been victims of domestic violence, as Obama's has? Yeah. Right.
bettycracker and oblomova-
I think I have died and gone to heaven, I thought women like you were a vision of the past. Thank goodness.
first he sold out the gays, now women. welcome to the club, sister.
I'm confused... has abortion ever been covered by an insurance company?
after hardfought battles 90% of private ins. covers abortion currently. in the of Obama all female gains are being retracted. As Siskind points out, Obama couldn't even bring himself to put women on his Cabinet at a rate over what Clinton did some 10 years ago.
Obama is regressive for women. and to gays, sure! don't even ASK!
Siskind lies, and so do you. Obama has MORE women in his cabinet than Clinton. Stop lying about things that are easy to disprove, Sadie. You make yourself look stupid and venal.
http://tinyurl.com/bum5ka
Thank you.
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