Blogs Comment On Palin, Feminists For Life, Presidential Election Rhetoric, Protecting Patients' Rights

Main Category: Women's Health / Gynecology
Also Included In: Sexual Health / STDs;  Abortion;  Public Health
Article Date: 15 Sep 2008 - 6:00 PDT

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The following is a summary of selected women's health-related blog entries.

~ "Feminists for Life's Imaginary World," Amanda Marcotte, RH Reality Check: "In order to back the claim that she's 'pro-woman'" Republican vice presidential nominee and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin claims affiliation with the antiabortion organization Feminists for Life, which under the "banner of feminism ... tries to deceive women into letting go of the very things feminists fought for women to have," Marcotte writes in a blog post. According to Marcotte, FFL focuses its antiabortion advocacy on women enrolled in college, and low-income women are "something of an afterthought." FFL's focus on women in college does not match its "rhetoric" that it is an "organization broadly opposed to abortion" and "reflects the larger priorities of the anti-choice movement, which isn't to save 'babies,' but to remake America into their idealized version of the fifties, with a pretty white submissive 19-year-old housewife in every house," Marcotte writes (Marcotte, RH Reality Check, 9/10).

~ "An 'Inappropriate, Outrageous, Demeaning Personal Attack,'" National Right to Life Committee's News and Views: The comment by South Carolina Democratic Party Chair Carol Fowler that Palin's "primary qualification" for vice president "seems to be that she hasn't had an abortion" reflects how Democrats who support abortion rights "cannot curb their vindictiveness, even knowing that it infuriates people who have no particular allegiance to the Republican Party," a NRLC blog entry says. According to the entry, "It is important to understand that as a public official, Gov. Palin's pro-life position is annoying enough for the anti-life set. That she lives her convictions really sticks in their craw" ("News and Views," National Right to Life Committee, 9/11).

~ "Genuinely Above Their Pay Grade," National Right to Life Committee's News and Views: In their public statements, abortion-rights supporters "always insist if only the electorate knew that candidate 'x' was pro-life, they'd be toast." The entry adds, however, that "as soon as the pro-abortion candidate stumbles/bumbles his/her way into discussing the issue, those same abortion advocates bemoan how abortion has been unfairly 'injected' into the campaign" ("News and Views," National Right to Life Committee, 9/10).

~ "McCain Wrong on Obama and Sex Education," Lynn Sweet, Chicago Sun-Times' The Scoop From Washington: Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) "never championed a bill intended to teach kindergartners 'comprehensive sex education,'" despite accusations from Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), Sweet writes. McCain's attack "echoed a sexy -- but misleading -- line of attack" seen in 2004 when Obama was running for the U.S. Senate against Alan Keyes, according to Sweet. In addition, Obama did not sponsor the bill and the measure said in "several places" that all sex education had to be "age and developmentally appropriate;" the bill "would let parents opt out of a sex education course;" and the measure never became law, Sweet writes (Sweet, "The Scoop From Washington," Chicago Sun-Times, 9/10).

~ "Testimony Before the President's Council on Bioethics: Protecting Patients' Rights," Lois Uttley, RH Reality Check: In light of the proposed HHS regulations that would allow health care workers to refuse to participate in procedures they find objectionable, Uttley, director of the MergerWatch Project, submits excerpts of testimony she gave to the President's Council of Bioethics about protecting the rights of patients to receive accurate medical information and needed treatment in a timely manner. Uttley said that maintaining such rights for treatments such as emergency contraception is an imperative of the U.S. health care system (Uttley, RH Reality Check, 9/12).

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