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10/16/2008
Why no one with a uterus should vote for John McCain
Senator John McCain, Republican candidate for president, on late-term abortions, and whether they should remain legal when the health of the mother is at stake:
"Health for the mother." You know, that's been stretched by the pro-abortion movement in America to mean almost anything. That's the extreme pro-abortion position, quote, "health."
For purposes of my argument, it doesn't matter how you feel about abortion. Forget your own feelings about abortion. My own are rather liberal, offputtingly so to many people, so forget those, too. Forget your disappointment, if you feel it as I do, in hearing Senator Obama use the anti-choice movement's buzzwords, "partial-birth abortion," without busting out an angry McCainish sneer.
Focus instead on the air quotes McCain used, the belittling wiggle of his fingers as he summarily dismissed women facing what's possibly the ultimate lose-lose situation: your baby or your life.
[Source: Talking Points Memo]
Your baby. Your life. If you're reading this blog, chances are good that you're a mother, a pregnant woman, a woman who plans to become pregnant, or a woman who's trying. He means you. He means us when he holds up his hands and says with that single scornful gesture that we don't matter. That we are a figment of the "pro-abortion movement's" imagination. That — what, we're making this whole "staying pregnant might kill me" thing up? (That he did this on Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day is, of course, coincidental, but the irony, it is not lost.)
This is important to all of us, but to infertile women it has a particular significance. Everyone in the infertility blogosphere knows women who delivered babies prematurely because of life-threatening complications. Most of us know women whose illness set in too early for their babies to survive. And many of us know that simply by virtue of needing IVF to get pregnant, we're more than twice as likely to develop preeclampsia, which causes, by conservative estimates, 76,000 maternal deaths and 500,000 infant deaths worldwide each year. [Source: Preeclampsia Foundation]
Not only is John McCain saying we shouldn't have the right to terminate a pregnancy in the event that our lives are at stake, he's telling us he's skeptical that that happens at all.
We know better.
Look, I wasn't going to vote for him anyway. That's true for more reasons than I can list. But this is why I think no one should — no one of childbearing capacity. No women. In fact, no one who cares about women. No one who cares about even just one specific woman. In fact! In fact, no one with a brain. Because even if you're implacably, unconditionally opposed to abortion, a matter on which reasonable people disagree, I don't see any way a thinking person can look at those air quotes and see anything but pandering, contempt, and a dangerous willful ignorance.
Comments (436)
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@mommyzabs "I just believe God is the author and taker of all life.... "
Ok, you believe that and make the choice to keep any pregnancies you have no matter what - honestly, I respect your belief - and let me have a different believe about God and what He intends and allow me and my doctors to make our own choices... deal?
I, too, was never planning on voting for McCain but what makes me sooo angry is the use of the term "pro-abortion". It's like saying we want people to have abortions, whatever happened to "pro-choice". Personally, I'm not a big fan of abortion, I would prefer that, if the health of the mother and baby is good, that they give it up for adoption however I do believe that we have a right to choose. So by using that term "pro-abortion" they are distorting how many of the "pro-choice" people really feel. I'm they do that on purpose though.
Julie, I couldn't disagree with you more. I totally got his contempt and dismissiveness. However, I got the impression it was directed at those who would twist the phrase "health of the mother" to mean absolutely anything they could concoct, rather than legitimate medical issues such as preeclampsia. I truly don't think we'll see a resolution of the abortion issue in our lifetimes, but the debate sure will be lively.
You go, girl.
This is awesome.
Thank you so much.
I was NEVER going to vote for him, but until last night I thought he was a decent guy who I disagreed with.
Apparently he's an a**.
Amy
McCain, answering rationally and staying on point while not completely denigrating women while simultaneously implying that pregnancy is risk-free: "All too often, the health exception is re-defined to allow any woman who just doesn't want to continue her pregnancy to abort. If there's going to be a health exception, it needs to be defined narrowly to make sure we're only talking about the physical health of the woman."
I would STILL disagree with his position on late-term abortion, and I would STILL disagree with his implication that the government is better-qualified than a woman and her doctor to decide whether an abortion is the best choice for her, but at least I would not think he was, to parse a phrase, a total fucking asshole.
Totally agree with this post, Julie, but I'll also say that as a mother, I was horrified by McCain's suggestion that one of the solutions to the education crisis is a Troops to Teachers program, which would let military personnel go directly into classrooms without bothering with those pesky "exams" and "certifications." Yes! That's exactly what our children need! Teachers who haven't been tested for aptitude, teachers with no certifications!
[By the way, I don't know whether McCain supports ANY form of maternal health/life exception for abortion. He may not.
What's definitely clear from his answer -- besides the fact that he knows he's losing this election -- is that his last reliable voting bloc are evangelical Christians, many of whom do believe that there should be no life/health exception. I confess, I don't understand their position on either religious or governmental grounds, but there you go.]
Summer at #58 -- Teachers from a pool of individuals experiencing PTSD at record-high levels and whose mental-health benefits from the government are officially recognized as inadequate!
I feel stuck between a rock and a hard place, because I could never vote for McCain... But I haven't been particularly impressed with Obama. I feel the same way about abortion as I do for Gay marriage. It is the choice of the individuals involved, and the government can stay out of it. There are always exceptions to every situation, and for that reason it can't be regulated. In a perfect world abortion would never be needed, but we don't live in a perfect world... ok so off my soap box,
Amen Julie!!!
I have yet to EVER have someone give me an example where a woman's health would be more damaged by a c-section or early labor than a partial birth abortion.
I say this as a pregnant woman who had a very serious cancer scare just a few weeks ago followed by major surgery. I've looked the decision in the eye. I just don't see any morality in partial birth abortion.
ok So my name is Erin, and I posted #60 not #61
Delurking for this, because I have a long family and personal history of depression, anxiety, PPD, etc.
MommyZabs, I think the point many of us are trying to make is that no one denies your right to make the choices that are right for your family. We object to having choices that we, too, might feel are morally repugnant, made for us by the government.
The law doesn't swoop in to force you to have an abortion; nor should it prevent you from doing so for your own reasons.
While your experience of depression and anxiety means, for you, that YOU would not consider an abortion on those grounds, please have some compassion for those of us whose personal experience of mental illness is different.
Personally, as a mom of two who has finally, possibly come out at the other end of lifelong depression, an unintended pregnancy might put me over the edge. The repercussions of a pregnancy for me stretch far beyond whether I would be miserable (I would); whether my recovery would be severely hampered (it would); whether my medical insurance would cover the tools I would need to, maybe, make it work (it wouldn't). I have responsibilities to many people both young and elderly, and their care would suffer.
But I suppose the point I'm trying to make is that no one, either you, me, or McCain, has the right to determine someone else's mental tipping point. Judge not, etc.
Lisa in #62, you're looking at one right here on this blog.
If I had contracted HELLP before Charlie could survive outside of my body...
...a C-section would have been extremely risky (as indeed it was) because of my low platelet count.
...but laboring and delivering him vaginally was out of the question due to complete placenta previa, which carries an elevated risk of maternal hemorrhage. (See above, low platelets.)
As it actually happened, the C-section was worth the risk because Charlie was old enough to stand a very good chance of surviving.
But what if he hadn't been?
Julie,
Thanks for always bringing to light these kinds of issues. Just for curiousity, what do you think of the new VW commercials? I think they're crass and offensive to women struggling with infertility. Who cares about German engineering when what we really want is a baby?
Kelly
While I don't have a uterus anymore, and while I was never going to vote for John McCain, I was surprised to see him make the statement and do the air quotes. Very rarely, IMHO, do politicians let us see so deeply into their soul. McCain did and it was truly, truly scarry.
And off topic, I wonder, with all the screwing that he did in his early years, would he have been pro-life 50 years ago if someone had told him he was about to become a baby daddy?
Absolute Perfection of a Post!
I, too, had no plans to vote for him...but this could get me pounding pavement to enlist others!
Thank you, Julie! I'm so glad I prioritized watching the Phillies win to go on to the World Series than watch the debate last night. Otherwise I would've thrown something at my beautiful flat screen TV and with the economy the way it is, I can't afford to replace it.
Anyway, I think about this a lot, since I've had two D&Es for early miscarriages that I know many conservatives would classify as abortions. Let me tell you, there is no reason I should walk around for weeks while my body tries to figure out this pregnancy is not working out. And don't tell me that some "miracle" could possibly make those pregnancies viable. I know enough about science to know that's not possible.
Oh Julie, you were so much more eloquent that I was with my post about this. You were one who came to mind when I was seething last evening. Cecily too. And other women who have faced preeclampsia and barely escaped with their lives.
Thank you for your words.
Please tell me that before you got so together and articulate you first yelled at the TV? Because that's where I was stuck the whole time-- the anger phase. "Fuck you"s galore, interspersed with the names of all the women he apparently wants dead, and jumbled thoughts on how insulting it is to imply they didn't want their children or do not grieve them. Still wasn't anywhere near coherent enough on the subject this morning, though I was much better a couple of weeks ago when it came up on my own blog. What I said then, and what I'll say any time it comes up again (if I am not silenced by the blinding anger, that is) is that every woman and every family should have the choice of picking what Someone@22 would-- attempting to save the baby even at the expense of the mother's life,-- but that having had to (with my husband! not all by myself!) help my daughter make sense of her world after the death/stillbirth of her brother, the task of the surviving spouse in the family where mom didn't make it seems incomprehensibly huge, and that the choice to risk that outcome can't rest with anyone but the woman and her family (and her doctors). Can it?
not even gonna touch politics but YEah (#66)
THEY MAKE ME INSANE I COULD SLAP BROOKE SHEILDS!!!!!!!!!!!
Having (unwisely, I guess) forwarded your post to a couple people that I thought might be interested in it, I've spent the last 30 minutes or so in the employee bathroom weeping. Apparently, I'm a hideous person and an idiot because I agree with you.
Yay. I guess.
I'm still glad you wrote this, Julie, because I whole-heartedly agree with you. I think I should be able to make the choice about what happens to my body.
Jody@60-- didn't you hear? PTSD is for sissies, or the untrained unwashed masses. So says Cindy McCain. John, see, he was trained, so no PTSD, no how.
But yes, that's exactly what I said last night too-- let's send them to teach, and let's not bother with that pesky PTSD screening. Cause the kids need to toughen up anyway. And plus, don't those pinko commie educators keep telling us that hands-on learning is the best? Well, there you go-- the kids will learn about PTSD real good.
Thank you, Julie. It was, indeed, the finger quotes that put this (completely) over the edge for me. How phenomenally insulting.
Amen Julie. This chills me to the bone that he can just sit there and act like this is just something someone made up so that all of us who happen to be of the female persuasion can just gleefully get abortions whenever we want. No. I hope and pray that I never have to make this choice, but I still want the choice to be there for me to make. I think McCain is absolutely heartless and insensitive to anyone who has been faced with this decision. Not that I would have ever voted for him anyway, but this is just further proof that I am making the right decision.
Y'know, one of the things I don't see brought up often enough in the "keep the government out of my uterus" debate is the one-child law in China. They're trying to limit the population, so they heavily fine anyone who has more than one child. Abortions are encouraged, and there are rumors in provincial areas of them being forced.
People who argue that the government should be able to make choices for you might consider what happens if the government makes a choice you don't like.
I wasn't going to vote for McCain anyway, but I do hope that his dismissiveness discouraged undecided voters. (How you can still be undecided this late in the game is another question entirely.)
I agree with the people who notice that strange ability many Republicans have to declare (loudly) that the government should stay out of their business, but have no problem using our government to shove their personal, spiritual, religious, whatever beliefs down the throats of us hell-bound folks.
Kind of a sensitive topic for me, living in California, facing Prop 8 this election, and trying oh-so-hard to be amused at the unbelievable hypocrisy of these people who now want the government to DEFINE MARRIAGE FOR US. I kind of thought your bible, church, holy book, or whatever should be the appropriate authority on that, not the STATE, you HYPOCRITES!
The government should protect the constitution - that is it's sacred duty. Of course, these people want to write discrimination into the constitution, so I don't know where to go with that one. But I digress, and not very eloquently, especially when I'm all worked up.
Nicely said Julie.
Amen, sister! And screw you, John McCain with your snide, demeaning finger waggling! I hate air quotes anyways. What an ass!
On a side note: I'm also pissed at both the candidates for their lack of support for gay marriage.
I make this comment as a straight woman with no children and no immediate plans to have any. But what the hell ever happened to rights? I also agree with the commenter who objected to McCain's use of the word 'pro-abortion'. I don't consider myself pro-abortion at all. I am very strongly pro-choice though and I believe there is a big difference!
perfectly put. thank you for this. it should be required reading for the voting public.
i paused the tv and screamed at him during the debate last night. basically said what you said in a much less eloquent way.
Amen. AMEN! I've enjoyed reading you for years and very rarely commented but I couldn't let this one pass without pumping my virtual fist in the air and saying, yes, yes, yes. Thanks for articulating so well what so many of us are feeling.
I am yet another woman (and mother of a 2-year-old) who was outraged by the air quotes.
I am also concerned about the flippant use of the term "partial birth abortion". Some people frankly have no frigging idea what they're talking about, and while I really respect people who carry on with their pregnancies under heroic circumstances and would never consider having an abortion, they need to have the same respect for other women and understand that there is nothing cut-and-dry about these issues.
I know a couple of women - not well, but they are friends of the family - who had late-term abortions. Not because the mother's health or life was in danger, but because testing well into the second trimester detected problems with the baby that were likely to be fatal. Can you not put yourself in those women's shoes for one minute? Can you not understand that for them, continuing to be pregnant, each day meaning the heartbreak would last longer, the delivery would be harder... and the chance to have a healthy living child would that much more delayed - would be too much for them?
Again, I understand that some women would face that decision and choose to let nature take its course, so they could still go through "normal" labor and get to hold their child and say goodbye. I totally understand and respect that too.
But neither way should be FORCED on the woman. It's bad enough when nature forces us to make these horrible decisions. The government should not, and other people should not be trying to use the government as a tool of enforcing their beliefs on everybody.
(And for those McCain-Palin supporters reading this... I hope you'll delve a little further into their records and compare their policies to Obama's and the Democrats more honestly than you've been doing. I think you might find that the more "pro-family" candidate isn't who you think it is.)
Julie, you say...
If I had contracted HELLP before Charlie could survive outside of my body...
...a C-section would have been extremely risky (as indeed it was) because of my low platelet count.
...but laboring and delivering him vaginally was out of the question due to complete placenta previa, which carries an elevated risk of maternal hemorrhage. (See above, low platelets.)
Maybe I just don't understand late-term abortion, but how would it have been any safer for you than either of these two options. Whether the baby is dead or alive, doesn't it still have to come out?
I disagree with your post, mostly because (even though I am marginally pro-choice--i.e. I am okay with some restrictions) abortion is not my number one issue. I will be voting for McCain for other reasons. And whatever their failings, I have both a uterus and a brain.
PS--With all of this moral relativism flying around, I can't resist offering a thought experiment. What is the difference between having an abortion at any stage of pregnancy according to your personal belief system and killing a week-old infant according to your personal belief system?
Undecided here... this late in the game.
I didn't perceive McCain's actions to be dismissive, but rather a quick reaction with inadequate time to further delve into a pointless debate about semantics and pro-choice and pro-life. His conservative base doesn't care, they are with him on the pro-life issue anyway. Obama's base doesn't care either, they tend to be pro-choice . This is why the question was only a blip during the debate. Why waste precious time on such a polarizing issue?
I'm undecided for many reasons. As a disenchanted republican, I like the idea of Obama. But, as a Republican, it is hard to vote democratic. But I believe in our right to choose. This issue is not going to be a deal breaker for me. Other issues however, will be.
Oh, and I do have a brain!! Even if I do decide to vote for McCain. I personally could have done without that statement in your post, Julie. It is as dismissive to me as McCain's finger quote was to you. I do still love you though.
Christa@84,
I don't want Julie to have to say this, seeing as the example was her, so I will jump in here. As horrible as it is to think about, while dead or alive the fetus has to come out, if dead, it doesn't have to come out in one piece. Partial dilation of cervix followed by careful evacuation of the contents of the uterus would minimize the risk of hemorrhage as compared to either a c-section or a vaginal delivery complicated by either HELLP alone (see: extreme stress on vital organs, possible organ failure) or HELLP with placenta previa (or even previa by itself-- I had partial previa in my pregnancy with my daughter, and man does it, by its very lonesome, with no other complicating factors, and in mere partial incarnation, does it ever strike fear into the hearts of doctors!).
Julie didn't say you don't have a brain. She said people who do shouldn't vote for McCain.
I just noticed that rhymes!
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Mother of 7 month old twins here. Julie, you are spot on with your analysis. I was enraged by McCain's dismissive attitude. Who is he to decide what "health" means, or how important it really is? What a jackass.
The good news is, I thought he performed really badly in last night's debate, as he has in the others. He seemed smarmy, tense, and disingenuous all at once.
Thank you for posting this Julie! You are so good at saying what the rest of us are thinking. Keep up the good work.
Thank you.
JuliaKB, thank you for that careful answer to a terrible what-if. Can I ask another honest question? Julia says those would have been her options had her onset of HELLP happened before viability (-24 weeks??). If that is the case would that have really been a "late-term" abortion (not sneer quotes, I am really trying to understand)? When does a late-term abortion actually take place? And if you have placenta previa, wouldn't partial dilation cause the bleeding you are trying to avoid in the first place?
Nina/Nine-a, if people who do have a brain shouldn't vote for McCain...then those who do vote for McCain...fill in the blank...the idea that voting for McCain makes us brainless was clearly implied and I don't think Julie would pretend otherwise. This is her blog and she doesn't have to parse like the candidates do.
wow. didn't see the finger quotes, but *heard* it on the radio - it was in his tone of voice.
NOW, let me just say that DEPRESSION is a god damn PHYSICAL medical issue. Last time I checked, my brain was in my head. It's definitely a biochemical issue which is PHYSICAL. And that's all
But OBama's position sucks too (based on what I've read from some of the comments above) just not as much. And all the candidates suck on the position of gay marriage. But, hey, I think the government shouldn't be in the marriage business at all - they should stick to legal contracts (and if that means contracts between even more than 2, it's OK with me) and leave "marriage" to churches and other homes of worship. Separation of church and state and all that.
Bottom line is none of the candidates are liberal enough for me.
I'm wondering if ANY of them would actually support my right (do I have one?) to CHOOSE to have a baby as a single woman...The right to bear children? I wonder these things and get that Handmaid's Tale chill everyoneceandawhile.
-Margie
I am a McCain supporting Republican. I am also pro-choice. I don't feel that it's my place to make such a deep, personal decision on behalf of someone else.
That being said however, I am not in favor of late term abortions. Just because I'm not in favor of it, doesn't mean that I don't feel there should be choice. I think sometimes the liberal left confuses that, grossly.
But, let me ask...with a late term abortion...how is that different then induction or c-section? The baby (or fetus for those that want to completely remove any humanity from the situation) still has to come out somehow. Why kill the child first? I don't understand that...especially when the point of (potential) viability has been reached.
I am certainly in favor of saving the mother. I've been in the situation and delivered twins at 20 weeks. We did everything we could to save the pregnancy, but in the end, we couldn't do any more to stop delivery without me bleeding to death. Obviously, if I did bleed to death, the babies would have died, too. So, it was deliver and live, but the babies die, or die and the babies die, too. Well... I DO NOT (let me repeat that...DO NOT) consider this to be an abortion. It was a case of "we did everything we could, but unfortunately..." At no time did I state that I don't want to be pregnant anymore because of what was happening.
Just because a baby is born prematurely because of a condition with the mother does NOT make that an abortion. I think most rational thinking Repubs would/could concur.
Another thing that I just don't quite understand is - why is the abortion argument such a huge issue with the liberal left? The thinking is that if a Republican is elected, abortion will instantly be outlawed. This is absurd on so many levels. First of all...abortion? Really? In this day and age of war, economic disaster, foreign oil dependance, terrorism, etc...is abortion really our biggest concern? Wow.
Secondly, lets the some math here. Roe vs Wade was decided in 1973, during the Nixon Republican administration. In the 35 years since Roe vs Wade has been on the books, 23 of those years we were led by a Republican president. The last eight years can even be arguably stated that we have had one of the most conservative presidents ever in office. In all of those 23 of 35 years, abortion has remained perfectly legal.
To take that even one step further. Seven of the nine Supreme Court justices that are currently on the bench have been appointed by Republican presidents, including the current Chief Justice. There has not been any inclination at all that the Supreme Court is even considering overturning the 35 year old decision.
Any politician can step up and say that they don't agree with it and would like it to be overturned, but none have ever made it happen. I think it's safe to say that like it or not, Roe vs Wade will remain intact. If it hasn't gone away yet, it most likely never will.
JuliaKB - you answered one of my questions (why does it matter how the baby comes out) while I was posting, so I did not see that before hand. Thank you for that explanation...as horrible as it is to consider, it does at least scientifically explain the difference.
Julie, I love reading you here. I really do. But PLEASE, no more politics.
DD--hear, hear. My sentiments exactly.
Another debate sidestep that both candidates ducked...since when did Sarah Palin become an expert on autism? She is barely raising a baby with Downs syndrome. Anyone with special needs children knows the process of becoming an expert takes years. Puhleez. Haven't seen any education or experience in the field in her CV. Guess she has seen someone with autism.
Well...I don't think McCain's delivery was good. But, I have a brain and will be voting for him. I AM pro-life, but don't, for one minute, think banning abortions is the answer. People will find a way. Just as I don't believe he'd somehow find a way to overturn Roe v. Wade.
I don't get why many pro-choice people (not directed at you, Julie - as if I know you and can use your first name... :) )don't understand why republicans (people who want the govt. to stay out of their business, supposedly) are pro-life. It isn't about the government regulating your uterus...it is about the goverment protecting human life. Pro life people believe that it stops just being about your uterus and starts being about another living being. I can understand if you don't agree, but please don't over simplify it by acting like you can't fathom it. That's just ridiculous.
As for #36, McCain was not comparing DS to autism...Sarah Palin's nephew is autistic. Not saying it was a good example...just stating where he was coming from.