Blogs Comment On Social Justice Issues, Tea Party Abortion Stance, Other Topics

Main Category: Abortion
Also Included In: Public Health;  Women's Health / Gynecology
Article Date: 22 Sep 2010 - 4:00 PDT

The following summarizes selected women's health-related blog entries.

~ "Faith Influences Views on Abortion More Than It Shapes Attitudes on Social Justice," David Gibson, Politics Daily's "Disputations": A recent Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life survey found that "Americans are much more likely to say that religion shapes their political views on hot-button issues like abortion and gay marriage than they are to say that their faith drives their opinions on social justice questions like poverty, immigration and the environment -- even though clergy regularly preach about those issues," Gibson writes. The survey "could be worrying to the emerging religious left, which has tried to make social justice issues as much a hallmark of religious witness in the public square as the traditional culture war issues like abortion and homosexuality have been," Gibson continues. On the other hand, social conservatives "may find sobering news in another finding" indicating that "social issues like abortion and same-sex marriage are at the very bottom of voter concerns this year (coming in at 12 and 13, respectively), even among conservative religious groups like white evangelical Protestants," he writes. The survey's results could "fuel the simmering debate within the Republican Party and the tea party movement over how much to emphasize -- or downplay -- moral issues in the current campaign," Gibson argues (Gibson, "Disputations," Politics Daily, 9/19).

~ "The Tea Party Abortion Doctrine," John Avlon, Daily Beast's "Blogs & Stories": Opposition to abortion rights "even in cases of rape and incest" is the "new normal creeping into Republican abortion politics," Avlon writes, noting that at least six Republican candidates supported by the tea party movement "back this absolutist stand." By contrast, there are three GOP Senate candidates who are broadly pro-choice this year, according to Avlon. He continues, "It's worth pointing out the obvious hypocrisy given the tea party's venomous views of government -- it's hard to imagine a more direct imposition on individual freedom than for the state to force a girl to carry her rapist's baby for nine months," and it is "even crueler if that baby is her father's child." The "new absolutism on abortion ... places ideology over individuals and drives out a diversity of opinion," Avlon argues. "Pro-life and pro-choice are not equivalent positions. You can be personally opposed to abortion and yet still believe that it is an individual woman's right to choose," he writes, adding that the "real distinction is between antiabortion absolutists and people who support reasonable restrictions but believe that government should not ultimately make this decision." Avlon concludes, "If rank-and-file Republicans are intimidated into accepting this new moral -- opposing abortion even in the case of rape or incest -- it will not only alienate more centrists and abandon libertarians, it will reignite the culture wars" (Avlon, "Blogs & Stories," Daily Beast, 9/20).

~ "Misunderstanding Abstinence Begets More Bristol Palins," June Carbone/Naomi Cahn, Huffington Post blogs: The "college educated middle class ... has no illusions about the prospects for abstinence through the completion of graduate school," but it "has successfully held the line on single parenthood, with non-marital birthrates that have fallen during a period in which they have risen for everyone else," Carbone and Cahn write. Meanwhile, Carbone and Cahn note, "[m]oral values advocates, who preach abstinence, oppose abortion, fight the greater availability of contraception and promote marriage," have seen their "divorce and non-marital birth rates continue to increase." According to Carbone and Cahn, "Abstinence advocates want to bring back the stigma associated with non-marital sex, but to do so requires either a high degree of compliance and/or draconian consequences." The authors add, "If, as they advocate, abortion is unthinkable, then the only remaining options are marriage or single parenting. And once you have the Bristol Palins of the world joining movie stars on the covers of magazines with their adorable newborns, the stigma against non-marital parenting has disappeared." They write, "So the college-bound have held the line on single parenthood ... because they have given up the stigma against non-marital sexuality and instead focused on managing the consequences." According to Carbone and Cahn, "This means individualized counseling for teen daughters (multiple partners and early sex are still a bad idea); promoting the universalization of contraception as a rite of passage into adulthood, rather than something that only 'bad girls' use; and, yes, accepting abortion as the responsible fallback" (Carbone/Cahn, Huffington Post blogs, 9/17).

~ "How the Global Health Initiative Can Boost Foreign Assistance Reform," Global Health Council, International Women's Health Coalition's "Akimbo": The Global Health Initiative announced by President Obama in May 2009 "is meant to maintain the U.S.'s commitment to fighting HIV/AIDS and malaria while scaling up programs in maternal and child health, family planning and neglected tropical diseases," according to a guest post by the Global Health Council. The guest post is part of a blog series that will "explore how the [GHI] might achieve great strides ... through its women-centered approach, its focus on country ownership and civil society engagement, its philosophy of integration and strengthening health systems and its investment in quality research, innovation and evaluation." GHC "strongly supports the GHI and its potential to impact the larger U.S. foreign assistance reform effort positively" while emphasizing a "woman- and girl-centered approach." For the GHI to be successful, it must "coordinate and leverage funding for health services," as well as "meaningfully engage civil society and the private sector," according to the blog (Global Health Council, "Akimbo," IWHC, 9/17).

~ "Glenn Beck Compares Abortion to Slavery (Yes, Really)," Roxann MtJoy, Change.org's "Women's Rights": Conservative talk show host and political activist Glenn Beck recently said that he opposes abortion rights because unborn infants are people, MtJoy writes, adding that Beck went on to compare abortion-rights advocates with those who believed slaves were not people in the years before the Civil War. She writes that it is "easy to tell" that blacks "are fully formed, living, breathing, thinking human beings," adding, "You know something that isn't a fully-formed, living, breathing, thinking human being? A fetus." According to MtJoy, "You know who can survive out in the world, who is a person? A pregnant woman," adding, "A real, live woman who may have been raped or abused. A woman that, for whatever reason, may not be financially, physically or emotionally capable of being pregnant for nine months, let alone of raising a child." MtJoy notes, "It is amazing to me how people rush to give rights to some special cells but ignore the woman they are found in." She concludes, "It is ironic, don't you think, that Beck misses the obvious parallel: In order to end a practice he finds similar to slavery, he'd like to force women to remain pregnant against their will" (MtJoy, "Women's Rights," Change.org, 9/18).

Reprinted with kind permission from http://www.nationalpartnership.org. You can view the entire Daily Women's Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery here. The Daily Women's Health Policy Report is a free service of the National Partnership for Women & Families.

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