Anti-Abortion Advocates Use Of Race Is Out Of Bounds

I realize that abortion is a hot-button issue (one that could hardly get much hotter) that stirs a lot of emotion inside a lot of people.

While I do believe people are entitled to their own points of view, as far as the issue is concerned, I find it appalling that some extremists are using race as a way of promoting their anti-abortion agenda.

I saw this bullshit on the Web site toomanyabortions.com:

Abortion is not a me issue.  It’s not a you issue.  It’s not a personal issue, nor is it just a woman’s issue.  It is a human issue.  And today, with over 40% of all black pregnancies ending in induced abortion, it is a human crisis. The ‘Endangered Species’ campaign highlights the disproportionate impact of abortion on the black community. The Radiance Foundation has decried abortion’s impact on our entire society, regardless of race, but this particular campaign attempts to dig deeper and focus on abortion in an historical context with real present-day ramifications. This isn’t black versus white, or a me versus you. It’s the truth versus the lie. The truth is that abortion kills an innocent human life.

The end of this excerpt makes the comment that “this isn’t black versus white,” but clearly the whole campaign is about race and using race as a way to draw blacks to the anti-abortion side of the issue. This is completely foul and wrong. Trying to use the politics of fear and race, as a way to drum up support for an anti-abortion campaign, is disgraceful.

Remember When Janet Napolitano Was Criticized For Homeland Security Report On Right-Wing Extremism

It was not all that long ago that Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano was being strongly criticized by right-wing politicians and pundits.

Here is a sample from the Washington Post:

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano responded yesterday to widespread criticism of a leaked domestic intelligence report warning local law enforcement agencies to be on guard for right-wing extremist groups seeking new recruits amid the nation’s economic troubles.

“Let me be very clear: we monitor the risks of violent extremism taking root here in the United States,” Napolitano said in a written statement issued by her department. “We don’t have the luxury of focusing our efforts on one group; we must protect the country from terrorism whether foreign or homegrown, and regardless of the ideology that motivates its violence.”

With the heinous assassination of Dr. George Tiller (a doctor who provided abortions), maybe there was a lot more merit to the report (not that it did not have some flaws) than people wanted to believe at the time.

Extremism (to this extent) is wrong … whether it comes from the left or the right.

Washington Post:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/15/AR2009041503390.html

Field Negro:
http://field-negro.blogspot.com/2009/06/domestic-terrorist-and-people-who.html

Bill O’Reilly Is On The Air Smearing The Dead Dr. George Tiller

Showing no shame, Fox News far-right hater Bill O’Reilly is on the air in his 8 p.m. The O’Reilly Factor show smearing a dead man. Showing virtually no sympathy for the death of Dr. George Tiller, who appears to have been murdered in an act of domestic terrorism in church by a far-right, anti-abortion nut. It’s a horrific crime. At this very hour, Bill O’Reilly is on the air covering his own rear end and exploiting the heinous assassination of Dr. Tiller to smear liberals, liberal bloggers and all those who differ with him. He is slamming Arianna Huffington, The Huffington Post and all others who disagree with him. Once again, O’Reilly reveals himself as a flat-out bigot. He is radically hostile to all those who disagree with him. That would not be so bad. But to exploit the murder of Dr. Tiller (while also smearing a dead man calling him, among other things, “Tiller the baby killer”) to attack liberals is shameful.

Are Pro-Lifers Callously Exploiting Dr. George Tiller’s Murder For Political Gain?

Fox News has a story on its Web site with a headline that reads: “Pro-Life Leaders Denounce Murder Of Abortion Doctor George Tiller.”

But, it’s the sub-headline that interests me: “Opponents of abortion condemned the murder of abortion provider George Tiller but used a platform outside the Supreme Court Monday to blast President Obama’s abortion policies and strongly question the beliefs of his high court nominee Sonia Sotomayor.”

First, how about the lack of respect to not refer to him as Dr. George Tiller, but instead refer to him as “abortion provider George Tiller.” I know it was used in the headline, but I find it a little interesting that label him as “abortion provider” rather than “doctor” or along with “doctor.” So, the pr0-lifers are exploiting the death of Dr. George Tiller to take cheap shots at President Barack Obama and U.S. Supreme Court justice nominee Sonia Sotomayor. That is plain disgusting.

Here are a couple of head-scratching quotes from the story:

“It is immoral and it is unchristian,” Rev. Rob Schenck of the National Clergy Council said of Tiller’s murder. He said the reaction to it “becomes a greater setback to the pro-life movement than anything the so-called pro-choice movement could do.”

“We call on President Obama and the [congressional leaders] not to use this tragedy for political gain,” added Rev. Patrick Mahoney, director of the Christian Defense Coalitions. 

That takes a lot of nerve for a man to speak to the media and call on someone else not to use the tragedy for political gain. Talk about a hypocrite.

Here is another excerpt and quote from the Fox News story:

The group’s former president, Randall Terry, said that, despite Tiller’s murder, abortion opponents must not retreat from calling him a “mass murderer.”

“The pro-life movement must not be browbeaten by Obama or the child-killers into surrendering our best rhetoric, actions and images. We hold absolutely no responsibility for his death,” Terry said in a written statement.

Again, Terry exploits this heinous murder of Dr. George Tiller for his own selfish and radical political agenda by attacking President Obama. It just goes to show how nutty some of these individuals are when you get right down to it.

Fox News:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/06/01/abortion-opponents-discouraged-doctors-murder/

SIDE NOTE: The story, which in the eyes of many casts a negative light on far-right conservatives, is no longer getting as high a positioning on the Fox News Web site.

Is Fox As Concerned With Murdered Doctor As It Is With Black Panthers?

Dr. George Tiller, a doctor who performs abortions, was murdered in a Kansas church on Sunday where he was serving as an usher.

Here is an excerpt from a story on the Fox News Web site:

Fox News has been going nuts about an isolated case that involves three members of the New Black Panther Party allegedly intimidating voters at a polling place. Based on the racial angle, it’s obvious to me why Fox News would focus on such a story.

WICHITA, Kan. —  Dr. George Tiller, who remained one of the nation’s few providers of late-term abortions despite decades of protests and attacks, was shot and killed Sunday in a church where he was serving as an usher.

The gunman fled, but a 51-year-old suspect was arrested some 170 miles away in suburban Kansas City three hours after the shooting, Wichita Deputy Police Chief Tom Stolz said. 

Here is an excerpt from the story posted on the Fox News Web site:

Charges brought against three members of the New Black Panther Party for Self-Defense under the Bush administration have been dropped by the Obama Justice Department, FOX News has learned.

The charges stemmed from an incident at a Philadelphia polling place on Election Day 2008 when three members of the party were accused of trying to threaten voters and block poll and campaign workers by the threat of force — one even brandishing what prosecutors call a deadly weapon.

The three black panthers, Minister King Samir Shabazz, Malik Zulu Shabazz and Jerry Jackson were charged in a civil complaint in the final days of the Bush administration with violating the voter rights act by using coercion, threats and intimidation. Shabazz allegedly held a nightstick or baton that prosecutors said he pointed at people and menacingly tapped it. Prosecutors also say he “supports racially motivated violence against non-blacks and Jews.”

I wonder if Fox Nation and Fox News will be as outraged about a doctor being murdered at church for doing a job as it is about three thugs at a polling place. We’ll see how the outrage over this murder matches other outrage over far less significant issues.

I don’t condone either, but if there is outrage about these three Black Panthers then even the far right should be going nuts about a doctor murdered in church forhelping women exercise their constitutional rights.

There is no justification for this cold-blooded murder.

Fox News (Dr. Tiller’s murder):
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,523581,00.html

Fox News (Black Panthers):
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/elections/2009/05/29/charges-black-panthers-dropped-obama/

Catholic Priest Shows Ignorance And Bigotry In Anti-President Obama Comments

This far-right notion that people go out essentially cheerleading for abortions is nothing short of asinine. Yet, as Fox News continues to inject steroids into this anti-President Obama story at Notre Dame, that is precisely what we’re left with: asinine, anti-President Obama garbage.

This is from Fox News:

Rev. Frank Pavone, director of Priests for Life, told “FOX News Sunday” that the reason students and Catholic leaders are protesting Notre Dame’s decision to award an honorary degree to Obama is because they believe it’s the latest indication that the country is “trivializing abortion.”

Pavone was reacting to a new Gallup poll that shows more Americans calling themselves “pro-life” than “pro-choice,” by 51-to-42 percent, for the first time since Gallup began asking the question in 1995. A recent FOX News poll also showed more people describing themselves as pro-life for the first time since 2004.

“The nation is becoming more and more pro-life and they’re realizing that … abortion on demand throughout all nine months of pregnancy is just not where the American people are today, it’s not where they’ve ever been,” Pavone said. “The president’s position on this is in the minority.”

First, I think most people want to see as few abortions as possible. However, not all people are willing to take away a woman’s right to choose (her reproductive freedom). I would want to see more data from that poll before I would make any kind of a sweeping judgment. What’s in the minority is people who stand at clinics and harass women making a deeply personal and painful decision.

First off, Obama’s stance on abortion:

“I don’t know anybody who is pro-abortion. I think it’s very important to start with that premise. I think people recognize what a wrenching, difficult issue it is. I do think that those who diminish the moral elements of the decision aren’t expressing the full reality of it. But what I believe is that women do not make these decisions casually, and that they struggle with it fervently with their pastors, with their spouses, with their doctors.

“Our goal should be to make abortion less common, that we should be discouraging unwanted pregnancies, that we should encourage adoption wherever possible. There is a range of ways that we can educate our young people about the sacredness of sex and we should not be promoting the sort of casual activities that end up resulting in so many unwanted pregnancies.

“Ultimately, women are in the best position to make a decision at the end of the day about these issues. With significant constraints. For example, I think we can legitimately say — the state can legitimately say — that we are prohibiting late-term abortions as long as there’s an exception for the mother’s health. Those provisions that I voted against typically didn’t have those exceptions, which raises profound questions where you might have a mother at great risk. Those are issues that I don’t think the government can unilaterally make a decision about. I think they need to be made in consultation with doctors, they have to be prayed upon, or people have to be consulting their conscience on it. I think we have to keep that decision-making with the person themselves.”

I think President Obama’s stance is easily within the mainstream. Like a lot of people, he wants abortions safe, legal, rare and in the hands of people who know what’s best for them and their body. This is not to start a debate about abortion, but to debunk this notion that the president wants to run around encouraging people to have abortions or that people who are pro choice are pro abortion (a term designed to scare that is oftentimes used by pro-life people). My point is to point out that the president is not trying to cheer on women to have abortions. He understands how painful and personal a decision that is for women and for families. My point is to make sure that the president’s stance is a little better understood because his position is the position of a lot of people in this nation.

Leave it to Fox News to push this story because of its right-wing stance on the issues. Obviously, Fox is playing up the Gallup poll because it suits their conservative interests. And, the ability to tie it to this commencement address has to almost feel like Christmas in May for the conservatives at Fox News (they can trash Barack Obama, stand up as pro life, cite this poll that they like and create news).

Fox News:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/05/17/catholic-leader-obama-abortion-position-minority/