Dean Urges Dems to Court Pro-Life Voters

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80sU2isBest

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By DEVLIN BARRETT
Associated Press Writer

July 22, 2005, 10:02 PM EDT

WASHINGTON -- Democrats need to reach out to voters who oppose abortion rights and promote candidates who share that view, the head of the party said Friday.

Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, told a group of college Democrats that their party has to change its approach in the debate over abortion.

"I think we need to talk about this issue differently," said Dean. "The Republicans have painted us as a pro-abortion party. I don't know anybody in America who is pro-abortion."

Dean's approach echoed similar arguments advanced in recent months by former President Clinton and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y.

"We do have to have a big tent. I do think we need to welcome pro-life Democrats into this party," said Dean.

Still, he added, "I think that we must be absolutely firm in being the party of individual freedom and personal freedom, which means that in the end the government doesn't get to decide, we do."

The effort to attract anti-abortion voters comes as Senate Democrats are preparing for confirmation hearings on Supreme Court nominee John Roberts. Roberts' views on abortion are already being intensely scrutinized.

Dean did not mention the looming confirmation hearings. He discussed the abortion debate after a student questioned why the party was supporting Bob Casey Jr., a Pennsylvania Democrat challenging incumbent Republican Sen. Rick Santorum.

The chairman tried to draw a distinction between Casey and Santorum, even though both men oppose abortion rights.

"You have to respect people's positions of conscience," said Dean. "I think Bob Casey's position is a position of conscience."

Dean, a former Planned Parenthood board member, said the difference between his party and Republicans is that "we believe a woman has a right to make up their own mind and they believe (House Majority Leader) Tom DeLay should make it up and Rick Santorum should make it up for them."

John Brabender, a consultant to Santorum's re-election campaign, said Dean's distinctions were meaningless. "It makes absolutely no sense for Howard Dean to attack Rick Santorum unless he's also attacking Bobby Casey," he said.

DeLay spokesman Kevin Madden said, "Howard Dean's rants are a perfect example of why the American people have lost faith in the national Democratic party."

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationw...print.story?coll=sns-ap-nationworld-headlines
 
80s,


Great news,

the Dems truely have a "big tent"

you can get the hell away from W and his class warfare support of CEOs and Corporations agaist decent working peolpe like yourself. :up:
 
I'm amused by the GOP tactics lately: a near constant reinforcement that Howard Dean "rants" and "the American people have lost faith in the Democratic Party." Dean could say that the "sky is blue" and the GOP would say the same things.

Maybe the Democratic Party needs to learn some repetitive mantras too, because, statistically speaking, if you say it over and over enough, people will eventually believe it, no matter how true or untrue it is.

Melon
 
deep said:
80s,


Great news,

the Dems truely have a "big tent"

you can get the hell away from W and his class warfare support of CEOs and Corporations agaist decent working peolpe like yourself. :up:

From what Hilary said, I'm not so sure about that.

She made it sound like the prolifers the Dems would be welcoming are the ones who are personally against abortion, but want it to be legal.

Politically, that's as useless as a screen door on a submarine.
 
80sU2isBest said:
Politically, that's as useless as a screen door on a submarine.

Except the idea is that you can encourage more "pro-life" activities besides banning abortion.

After all, a lot of people think the GOP's idea of "pro-life" is really just "pro-fetus," but once you're born, you can plain fuck off.

Melon
 
melon said:


Except the idea is that you can encourage more "pro-life" activities besides banning abortion.

The main goal of most prolifers is the overturning of Roe V. Wade. If a "prolife" caandidate doesn't support that, most prolifers will consider his "personal" views irrelevant.

melon said:

After all, a lot of people think the GOP's idea of "pro-life" is really just "pro-fetus," but once you're born, you can plain fuck off.

Melon

Yes, I've heard a few here say that - not you, but others.
 
80sU2isBest said:




She made it sound like the prolifers the Dems would be welcoming are the ones who are personally against abortion, but want it to be legal.



Would you rather live in a society where adultery was illegal and had a 40 % occurrence?

or

A society where adultery was not against the law and had a 3% occurrence?
 
deep said:



Would you rather live in a society where adultery was illegal and had a 40 % occurrence?

or

A society where adultery was not against the law and had a 3% occurrence?

40% occurrence? Huh? As in, 40% of all pregnancies terminate in abortion?

Where did you get that figure? Why in the world would you think that overturning Roe v. Wade would cause such a high abortion rate?
 
80sU2isBest said:
40% occurrence? Huh? As in, 40% of all pregnancies terminate in abortion?

Where did you get that figure? Why in the world would you think that overturning Roe v. Wade would cause such a high abortion rate?

I think he's talking in hypotheticals.

If you could convince people not to have abortions, while still keeping it legal, would you prefer it to it being illegal, but women still having them at the same rate? The fact is that abortions occurred long before Roe v. Wade, and women would likely continue to have them illegally like before.

So is it about the legality or the abortions? That's the question.

Melon
 
melon said:


I think he's talking in hypotheticals.

If you could convince people not to have abortions, while still keeping it legal, would you prefer it to it being illegal, but women still having them at the same rate? The fact is that abortions occurred long before Roe v. Wade, and women would likely continue to have them illegally like before.

So is it about the legality or the abortions? That's the question.

Melon

Yes, women would still have them, but I think the numbers of abortions would go down, at least slightly (maybe even more than slightly), because some women who might have had them legally wouldn't have them illegally, for fear of prosecution and incarceration.

But even if the abortion rate would be the same (which I highly doubt), of course I'd still want it to be illegal.

But one thing I know beyond any sort of reasonable doubt whatsoever - if we overturned Roe v. Wade, the abortion rate would not be higher than it is now.
 
80sU2isBest said:


Yes, women would still have them, but I think the numbers of abortions would go down, at least slightly (maybe even more than slightly), because some women who might have had them legally wouldn't have them illegally, for fear of prosecution and incarceration.

And the ones that would still have them anyways will end up shoving coat hangers inside themselves in their basements, as opposed to in a sterile environment with painkillers like in a hospital.
 
How do you know it would be unchaged? Did it ever occur to you that the abortion rate is down b/c there are Planned Parenthood Facilities?

As to the Court and Dems..there is no compromise. Before the Court vacany came up, you could maybe have a "big tent." But with the Court about to change, you have to defend Roe. B/c that's what they've wanted since 1973. Never before have they been in apolitical position to overturn it, and now they are. They've waited a long time. Abortion is NOT something that can go back to the states. It must NOT be subjected to the willy-nilly of politics every 4 yrs. Abortion must be federally protected, beyond the reach of the states or lower courts..it as fundamental as birth control. Meanwhile, we should be working on ways to lower the need for abortions. This covers a wide range of things from economic stumuli, etc...we aren't ready to scrap Roe. When we are ready to scrap it, fine. But we aren't. In fact, it has gotten worse. Too few women have health insurance, access to cheap birth control, etc. The income gap has windened dramatically in 30 yrs.

And lest we forget, I suspect a lot of this Taliban bunch would do away with birth control if they could. Look at the absurd pharmacy "conscience" law controversy. A lot of those "concerned" pahrmacists don't like giving out Pills either. Coincidence?

And DaveC...spoken like a true man. Men do not have to deal with the responsibilty of raising kids. Society still does not tar and feather a man for abandoning a child, the way it does a mother. Women are still the ones stuck with the kids, push comes to shove. Doing all the dirty work. Men, for the most part, don't have to suffer as much. Sorry, guys, but when it comes to kids, the double standard is still alive and well, for all you are "enlightened" today and do the housework sometimes. If you flame me for this statement, I don't care. Men sow their wild oats. They are "husbands and fathers."But women are viewed as abnormal in popular culture if they are as carelessly promiscuous as men. We take sex for granted, but popular culture doesn't. Look at "Fatal Attraction" (old movie, I know, but standards haven't changed.) Women are "wives and mothers." Why switch the order in the popular phrase? Women stil have the responsibilities, and they take most of the blame if things don't work out.

Men just CAN'T relate to pregnancy. They can't....or what it will mean. They are still freer to walk out of the relationship and abandon that unborn child. Society will not force him back. The woman must deal. It is HER choice.
 
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Teta040 said:
How do you know it would be unchaged? Did it ever occur to you that the abortion rate is down b/c there are Planned Parenthood Facilities?

Who's talking about "Planned Parenthood"?

I'm talking about overturning Roe V. Wade. If abortion is made illegal, there's no way the abortion rate will be higher than it is now.
 
Teta040 said:
Men sow their wild oats. They are "husbands and fathers."But women are viewed as abnormal in popular culture if they are as carelessly promiscuous as men. We take sex for granted, but popular culture doesn't. Look at "Fatal Attraction" (old movie, I know, but standards haven't changed.) Women are "wives and mothers." Why switch the order in the popular phrase? Women stil have the responsibilities, and they take most of the blame if things don't work out.

I don't know how it works in America, but in my country, and in the UK, the legal system is abused by some women to deny fathers access to their kids. That is FACT.

'Men sow their wild oats' - SOME men sow their wild oats. So do SOME women.
 
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Teta040 said:
, Society still does not tar and feather a man for abandoning a child, the way it does a mother.

I respectfully disagree, there are numerous cases over here of society - through the tool of the legal system - 'tarring and feathering' men by denying them access to their kids.
 
80sU2isBest said:
By DEVLIN BARRETT
Associated Press Writer

July 22, 2005, 10:02 PM EDT

WASHINGTON --


Still, he added, "I think that we must be absolutely firm in being the party of individual freedom and personal freedom, which means that in the end the government doesn't get to decide, we do."


Said the leader of the party that consistently removes the right of motorcyclists to choose whether or not to wear a helmet. :rolleyes:
 
Re: Re: Dean Urges Dems to Court Pro-Life Voters

martha said:


Said the leader of the party that consistently removes the right of motorcyclists to choose whether or not to wear a helmet. :rolleyes:

Is being denied that right really a great loss to anyone? I mean surely common sense dictates that if you're participating in a potentially dangerous activity, you should take reasonable measures to protect yourself from injury.
 
Re: Re: Re: Dean Urges Dems to Court Pro-Life Voters

FizzingWhizzbees said:


Is being denied that right really a great loss to anyone? I mean surely common sense dictates that if you're participating in a potentially dangerous activity, you should take reasonable measures to protect yourself from injury.

Boy, you're back and taking no prisoners, aren't you.

Since when do we measure the loss of rights by how "great a loss" it is to you?

One could certainly use your very argument to oppose abortion on demand, couldn't one? "Surely common sense would dictate taking reasonable measures to protect yourself from pregnancy."

Watch out Fizz. Willingness to deny rights that you think are "no great loss" will come back on you.
 
Re: Re: Re: Dean Urges Dems to Court Pro-Life Voters

FizzingWhizzbees said:
Is being denied that right really a great loss to anyone? I mean surely common sense dictates that if you're participating in a potentially dangerous activity, you should take reasonable measures to protect yourself from injury.

Yes, but that should be the person's choice to make, not the government's. If I go out and ride a bike and am not wearing a helmet and pads, and I fall and hurt myself, I have nobody else to blame but myself for my stupid behavior. It shouldn't be the government's job to make sure that I'm all padded up before I go out for a bike ride.

Angela
 
DaveC said:


And the ones that would still have them anyways will end up shoving coat hangers inside themselves in their basements, as opposed to in a sterile environment with painkillers like in a hospital.

I'm against abortion becauise I think it's murder. I'm not about to support what I consider murder so that there will be "safer places and better conditions under which murder can be committed".
 
Re: Re: Re: Re: Dean Urges Dems to Court Pro-Life Voters

martha said:
One could certainly use your very argument to oppose abortion on demand, couldn't one? "Surely common sense would dictate taking reasonable measures to protect yourself from pregnancy."

Certainly one could! Why not go the whole hog and legalise drink driving and heroin abuse? How dare the government interfere in our private lives.

One wonders where does the wish of the foetus to maybe, possibly, conceivably, stay alive, come into your commitment to libertarianism/human rights, etc? But the foetus can't speak up for itself, organise demonstrations, etc.
 
80sU2isBest said:
40% occurrence? Huh? As in, 40% of all pregnancies terminate in abortion?

Where did you get that figure? Why in the world would you think that overturning Roe v. Wade would cause such a high abortion rate?

Based on the available data, the pre-Roe rates were in fact much higher than you seem to believe. The 1953 Kinsey report, by far the largest pre-Roe study to directly address this issue, found that about 25% of its (female) respondents had had abortions. Other, smaller pre-Roe studies found similar figures: Taussig (1934) surveyed 1241 women, who reported 1 abortion per 3.28 live births; Kopp (1934) studied 10,000 women's medical records and found a 1-in-5 ratio of induced abortions to births; Brunner and Newton (1939, AmerJourObGyn), Stix and Wiehl (1938, AmerJourPubHealth), and Abrahamson (1936, Lancet) all found rates from 12-22% among women surveyed in New York, Pennsylvania, Newark, Minnesota, and Cincinnati.

I won't get into the international data (which is abundant, especially for the late 20th century), but suffice to say it also fails miserably to make a case for criminalization being the way to keep abortion rates low.

DaveC said:
And the ones that would still have them anyways will end up shoving coat hangers inside themselves in their basements, as opposed to in a sterile environment with painkillers like in a hospital.

And for some relevant data here...a 15-state survey of maternal deaths from 1927-28 (US Dep't of Labor, Children's Bureau) found that 794 of the 7537 deceased women had died from self-induced abortions. Sangmeister's 1931-1940 survey of maternal mortality in Philadelphia found that about 20% of the women had died from induced abortions. And a 1962 California Medical Association study of the 515 cases of maternal mortality for that year found that 70 (14%) of the women had died from self-induced abortions.


financeguy said:
SOME men sow their wild oats. So do SOME women.

Men don't get pregnant. Big difference.
 
I think, overall, the Left has not made a good case for strengthening personal morality, instead of the government setting the morality for them like the GOP prefers.

Of course, I do think that, right now, this is more of a new and still half-assed gesture from the Democrats. They need to have more conviction, more consistency, and get the Religious Left to have more vocal support.

The fact remains that most people don't quite understand the difference between personal morality versus governmental morality. After all, the GOP ripped Kerry apart over the issue of finding abortion personally immoral, but supportive of it's legality.

Melon
 
yolland said:


Based on the available data, the pre-Roe rates were in fact much higher than you seem to believe. The 1953 Kinsey report, by far the largest pre-Roe study to directly address this issue, found that about 25% of its (female) respondents had had abortions. Other, smaller pre-Roe studies found similar figures: Taussig (1934) surveyed 1241 women, who reported 1 abortion per 3.28 live births; Kopp (1934) studied 10,000 women's medical records and found a 1-in-5 ratio of induced abortions to births; Brunner and Newton (1939, AmerJourObGyn), Stix and Wiehl (1938, AmerJourPubHealth), and Abrahamson (1936, Lancet) all found rates from 12-22% among women surveyed in New York, Pennsylvania, Newark, Minnesota, and Cincinnati.

I don't know anything about the other studies, but I do know that the credibility of Kinsey's research is widely criticized; some purport that a large portion of the people he talked to were inmates and criminals.

As for the other sudies, do you really believe their credibility? 1 in 3? 1 in 4? 1 in 5? Come on, surely you don't believe that. I'd bet that if we were to study those studies, we'd find some serious research issues.
 
80sU2isBest said:
I don't know anything about the other studies, but I do know that the credibility of Kinsey's research is widely criticized; some purport that a large portion of the people he talked to were inmates and criminals.

That criticism has indeed been leveled at Kinsey's earlier studies on male sexual behavior, which drew significantly on prison populations. Incidentally, the criticism was itself controversial and widely criticized, not least for its assumption that 'inmates and criminals' must display high levels of deviant and abnormal sexual behavior--an assumption not borne out by subsequent research. (Needless to say, this doesn't apply to sex offenders, but then Kinsey wasn't surveying them.)

As for the other sudies, do you really believe their credibility? 1 in 3? 1 in 4? 1 in 5? Come on, surely you don't believe that.

Sounds perfectly plausible to me, and there are at least a dozen more like those I could cite. Remember, this was before the widespread availability of contraception, so the percentage of pregnancies that were unplanned and unwanted was much higher than it is today.
 


I'm against abortion becauise I think it's murder. I'm not about to support what I consider murder so that there will be "safer places and better conditions under which murder can be committed".



I promise i won't get into a slinging match, but you just CANNOT say that. Am i right in thinking you believe abortion is murder because you'rereligious and thats what you've been taught? Because if you were in anyway scientifical (which has basically overturned and proven wrong nearly ever christian belief out there) then you would realise that its not murder, its a procedure to get rid of a mass of cells from a woman because she isn't ready to have a child and doesn't want to give it to someone so in 20 years will have to deal when the kid comes looking for her full of hostitilty and emotional baggage.

Abortion should be legal because in our society sex is an everyday occurance and sometimes pregnancy is a by product of that, and a baby CHANGES your life FOREVER.

For example using the helmut thing, say if a guy rides his bike without any protective gear (or maybe just a faulty helmut that cracks when hit hard) and falls off his bike and smashes his head on the concrete, should he be refused medial attention because he didn't use a helmut in the first place? A brain hemmorage could certainly change his life, but should he just be told to take two asprin and fuck off?

I'm sorry but this whole abortion is murder thing is a purely religious/spiritual thing which should have nothing to do with a countries laws. What happen to the whole seperation of church and state?

I think if abortion is made illigial then so should working on a sunday, divorce, swearing, anyone going to a church OTHER then a christian one and all those other commandments that i have no idea about. Because thats where this whole fairytale started from.
 
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