filed under Daily Dose | Election 2008 | Sex | Women
Coming Soon To a Presidential Ticket Near You!
12:31PM ON
08/29/2008
BY
Jessica Ramsey
Hold on to your birth control, ladies!
John McCain has chosen experience maven Sarah Palin as his running mate! The Alaska Governor, formerly a beauty queen and the mayor of a suburb of Anchorage, has been in office for a whopping two years. She likes Jesus, or at least the version of Jesus that doesn’t think gay people should have the same rights as straight people. She loves off-shore drilling, especially the Alaskan kind. She wants all kiddies around the country to believe that the earth was created in 7 days.
I’m sure that Palin’s vagina will satisfy my favorite crafty Providence Journal columnist, who received a pounding of criticism for her delusional column about John McCain’s moderate stance on abortion.
For those of you who missed McCain’s fuzzy controversy about birth control, here’s a recap, just for fun:
2. Pro-choice group NARAL responds, highlighting that McCain twice voted against measures that would have required insurance companies to cover birth control — in 2003 and 2005.
3. John “buh-uh-well” McCain dodges the question and apparently doesn’t have an opinion. See for yourself:
We can assume the choice of Governor Palin clears things up when it comes to reproductive rights. Holla at me, Froma Harrop!Four more years of threats to our reproductive rights? Well, unless we’re interested in giving up sex, I guess we know who to vote for.
August 29th, 2008 at 2:12PM
joe bernstein Says:
Boy-didn’t take long-she has as much time actually being a governor as Obama has in the senate considering he’s been running for president for at least 18 months.Just can’t stand a woman who respects the rights of the unborn can you?Or who likes guns?Heaven forbid! Why must we always be burdened with cosmopolitan intellectuals or dirtied up inside the beltway hacks(and plagiarizers)-she is neither of those.She has five children,including a son in the armed forces(eat that Lieberman!)and she was a union member-her husband is a fisherman,not a dirtbag lawyer,and what’s wrong if she’s a beauty queen?It’s immaterial.I notice that some feminists who couldn’t get a date in the ACI are bothered by such things.
Just remember Alaska is a huge territory containing substantial mineral/energy reserves and is in a very strategic location.
This pick is calssic McCain-not the same’ol same’ol.
If you(plural)are going to flame me,please bring an argument instead of an epithet.I’m listening.
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August 29th, 2008 at 2:15PM
Marc Says:
Even after two terms of the most anti-abortion administration we could imagine, and several years when the legislature was also on that side, Roe vs. Wade wasn’t overturned.
I’d say that the ‘anti-abortion’ talk that the right wing spewed for the past decade was just empty threats made to get votes from people who feel that way. If it wasn’t, they would have done something about it.
Bush says he’ll end abortion, Obama says he’ll make the tax system fair, and Ahmadinejad says he’ll wipe Israel off the map. They’ll all say whatever they have to to get elected.
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August 29th, 2008 at 3:26PM
Toby Bradshaw Says:
Great idea Republicans. Put someone who has experience as a mayor in a suburb and two years as Governor of Alaska as the emergency back-up behind potentially the oldest President.
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August 29th, 2008 at 3:31PM
Marc Says:
When I heard the announcement on NPR this afternoon, I thought that McCain -really- made a powerful bid on a lot of those undecided votes.
I’d like to see Obama as our next president (I’d much rather see a federalist libertarian or a green party president, but that’s got about a snowball’s chance in hell), but I really think this is going to pull a lot of votes out from places we all expected to see ‘reaching left’ this November.
Like it or lump it, I think a HUGE portion of this country is going to find it a lot easier to ‘complete the arrow’ next to an old white veteran and a hot young small-business-friendly gun owner than a black man. Not to mention that this will undoubtedly pull a ton of votes from moderate women who just want to see a woman in high-office.
After reading Freakonomics and looking at past elections, it’s easy to see that a lot of people really do just vote for ‘who they -like- best’, not ‘who will do the best job’.
I did hear something funny on the radio last night though. A commentator said that Obama is on the losing-end of the ‘likability’ contest, and that ‘who wouldn’t want to have a beer and watch the game with John McCain?’. This made me laugh out loud; if I wanted to ‘have a beer and watch the game’ with a grumpy 72 year-old man who can’t lift his hands over his head and probably rattles-off war stories nonstop, I’d go to the VFW hall. I’d much rather hang out with a sub-ancient, hip lawyer from Chicago who’s been around the world (toting schoolbooks, not an M-16).
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August 29th, 2008 at 4:15PM
anne Says:
Marc, I wish I agreed with your opinion that the right has failed to act on its promise to end abortion, but I think that many right-wing politicians actually have been successfully doing something about this, and we need to take the growing threat to abortion rights in the U.S. more seriously.
The general opinion most of my friends have is that Roe v Wade isn’t going to be overturned by a huge piece of federal legislation that comes out of nowhere — it’s going to stem from decades of work to systematically decrease abortion accessibility/legality throughout the country, stack the courts with anti-choice judges, modify the definition/rights of a fetus, etc. And this is clearly already happening.
(And to get back to the original topic: Palin definitely wouldn’t make the situation any better, to say the absolute least. But that’s also true re: most of the issues I care about.)
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August 29th, 2008 at 4:54PM
anne Says:
P.S. I just got this in an email from the alternate universe inhabited by Carcieri’s PR folks:
“Governor Carcieri called the selection of fellow Governor, Sarah Palin (R-AK), as the GOP Vice-Presidential candidate an “excellent choice. She is bright, articulate, and has shown tremendous leadership on energy and reform issues.”"
Yeah, because nothing says “bright and articulate” like filing a lawsuit because you want to kill more polar bears and speed up the race towards human extinction.
http://www.adn.com/polarbears/story/413710.html
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August 29th, 2008 at 6:08PM
Marc Says:
Anne,
I’ve written about this before, but not here. I agree that over the past few years the -availability- of abortions has declined in most areas, and the restrictions on abortion have been increased. I do not think the ‘right’ to it has been at all challenged, though.
One could make an argument that a ‘right’ that has no ability to be exercised is no right at all, but I’m not of the mindset that the government’s job is to provide the means to exercise ‘rights’, only to guarantee that they are, in fact, ‘rights’ and defend against infractions on them. If there are no doctors who want to provide abortions somewhere, then people who want them are just going to have to travel farther or pay more for them. If I need heart surgery but I live in Arkansas, I don’t bitch that there’s no Mayo Clinic extension in my state, I buy a bus ticket and go to one. I think a similar mindset can be adopted with regards to abortion as well, since human gestation isn’t exactly a super-speedy process.
I’m a big supporter of a woman’s right to choose, enough that I’ve donated money to the cause, but I still think that Roe vs. Wade is a total ‘legislate from the bench’ crock of crap. I also think that Roe vs. Wade is why Bush is our president right now. If we let each state make their own policy on the issue, there would be states where you couldn’t get abortions and states where you could, and the constitution guarantees unhindered access of citizens between all states.
Eliminating Roe vs. Wade is, in my opinion, the ultimate compromise and a win-win for both sides. People in ‘blue’ states wouldn’t have to worry about abortion being eliminated on a federal level, people in ‘red’ states wouldn’t (ostensibly) have abortion going ‘on their turf’, and everyone would still be -able- to get an abortion if need-be. Also, and most importantly, the whole country could get back to electing leaders based on the ‘real’ issues (like running a country) instead of this visceral hot-button stuff.
Also, I would totally donate money to a service that ferried less-fortunate women to abortion-friendly states for the procedure.
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August 29th, 2008 at 6:43PM
joe bernstein Says:
Does anyone bother with birth control?It would sure eliminate the need for so many abortions.
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August 29th, 2008 at 7:15PM
Jessica Says:
Joe,
Access to birth control sure does eliminate the need for abortions. The issue here is access and education to birth control. Conservatives have pushed for abstinence-only education for years, which, in case you didn’t know, has been really ineffective for reducing STDs and unwanted pregnancies. Further, as I pointed out in my original post, most health insurance companies don’t cover birth control, which can be really expensive. Women don’t crave abortions - it’s a difficult thing to go through and expensive as well. I would love to see abortion rates go down. The solution I see is not to make abortion illegal, but to increase the availability and affordability of birth control.
Given your most recent post, it appears that you keep posting until you say something ignorant enough to be flamed.
Marc, that’s a compelling idea, and I certainly appreciate your commitment to the right to choose. It would eliminate this hot button issue from the national conversation - which I agree would be totally rad. The trouble I have is that we would most likely have entire chunks of the country where women couldn’t access abortion. I’m thinking of a situation where a woman in FL decides to have an abortion - and the closest place to get one is Maryland. There is a possibility that she could take a few days off of work, purchase a plane ticket to Baltimore, and have the procedure there. Maybe no sweat, but it is expensive and I’m not sure we could find proper funding to help everyone. The worst case scenario is if that woman were to forgo the trip and get a ‘back alley’ abortion from a quack doctor, then faces some of the terrible consequences that American women dealt with before 1972
This last scenario is why I am pro-choice - making abortion illegal will not eliminate abortions, it will only jeopardize women’s health.
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August 29th, 2008 at 8:55PM
joe bernstein Says:
Well,I guess I am not a proponent of abstinence only.I think birth control should be encouraged and covered by insurance.Birth control is pro-life,pro-choice neutral because no conception occurs.I also support RU 486 as a “morning after”measure or as a treatment for rape.I don’t oppose an abortion that if not done,would endanger the life of the mother.
I don’t really mind if people tell me I am absolutely wrong,but calling me childish names doesn’t advance the argument.I had a bitter exchange with a feminist on a talk radio show about the issue of whether the prospective father should have a say in an abortion.I felt he should if he wanted the child aand was prepared to provide both emotional and monetary support.She started screaming at me and I wondered if she had children,but didn’t ask,just hoping she did not.In spite of artificail insemination,a child is a product of two people,each of whom has rights as a parent to be.
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August 29th, 2008 at 8:59PM
PING Says:
Jessica,
You are exactly what is wrong with the Democrat Party and you will bring yourselves down…
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August 29th, 2008 at 11:22PM
Marc Says:
Joe,
RU-486 and the ‘morning after pill’ are two entirely different things. The ‘morning after pill’ is essentially a big dose of the same stuff found in regular birth-control pills, and it ‘upsets’ the environment in the womb enough to keep any fertilized eggs from embedding (in fact, you can take three ‘regular’ pills to ‘make your own’), you basically just don’t get pregnant if you ‘made a mistake’. The RU-486 pill actually induces an abortion after it’s much farther along than ‘the morning after’. Think of RU-486 as more of a ‘make me miscarry’ pill. I know several women who have induced abortions via RU-486 and by herbal means, and they all said it was -very- emotionally and physically distressing, but far less so than they imagined a surgical abortion to be, since at least they got to go through ‘the mess’ at home and in private.
I think we should be subsidizing birth control too, but first we need to make a decision about population growth and the future economy. We can subsidize the pill, but we’ll have to reform our models for social programs to not rely on future population growth as a means to bail-out of financial situations we make today. Right now in Rhode Island, we do -not- subsidize the pill or abortions, but we -do- subsidize prenatal care, birth, and the various social programs for people who choose to make babies without the financial means to care for them. I think it’s clear that Rhode Island has made the (in my opinion) unwise and unfortunate decision to irresponsibly promote population growth in -exactly- the socio-economic segment (poor, unmarried, and without insurance) that we would rather see grow smaller.
I’d rather have the state ‘take care of the bill’ for having kids if you’re a married (or civilly-united) college graduate (or documented long-time worker) who decides to stay in Rhode Island to make your family. Why we subsidize teenage mothers and not college grads is beyond me. I think we should give birth control to anyone who wants it, but only encourage growth in educated and motivated populations.
I know to some, this sounds like borderline racism/fascism/classism, but it’s tough to get an entire picture of what I’m saying out in a blog comment. I’m also into ‘raising’ the portion of the population that’s currently struggling up so they would be able to count as ‘educated and motivated’ too. I should start writing this all down somewhere…
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August 29th, 2008 at 11:34PM
Samantha Says:
PING,
that’s an awfully vague comment, care to elaborate?
Well, Jessica, the very minute I heard about this whole thing I thought of you. This is just plain insulting, and I’d like to hope the majority of women voters use their ~female intuition~ to call some serious bullshit when they see it.
One good thing that will possibly come out of all this: feminism is back in the mainstream political dialog. The glass ceiling doesn’t mean anything when she’s so blatantly anti-choice.
“one step foward, five steps back!”
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August 30th, 2008 at 12:23AM
joe bernstein Says:
Marc-Unlike some people I won’t label your statements because you are obviously having a debate with yourself and that is generally a good thing.I don’t come to the positions I take by having them spoon fed to me by anyone.I think things through and then decide.Sometimes I can’t decide on a position because I just don’t know enough.Thanks for giving me the info on the difference between the “morning after” and RU 486.A rape victim shouldn’t have to carry a baby from it-the crime is bad enough by itself.
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