When I’m drafting right to life language, I don’t call up the nuns.

—Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI), responding to a letter in which 59,000 Catholic nuns urged Congress to pass healthcare reform. Not surprisingly, when dealing with issues of women’s health, Stupak only listens to men.

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If you want to help prevent low income women from dying of stupak, “A medical condition (subset of sepsis) resulting from unsafe – unnecessarily so – back alley abortions as a result of the ‘Stupak Amendment’ to the 2009 Health Care Reform Bill,” why not give the distinguished gentleman from Michigan a call at (202) 225-4735. John Cole has a suggested script:

Hi, my name is XXXXX and I am from XXXXX, and while not normally a constituent, Rep. Stupak insists on making me with his repeated attempts to kill HCR because of his fetus fetish. Please be assured I intend to donate the maximum amount to any opponent of Bart’s, Republican or Democrat, if he manages to torpedo HCR, and will worked to have him stripped of any and all committee assignments and removed from the Democratic caucus. And this includes if he should have any delusional gubernatorial aspirations.

• Wingnuts who, like Sarah Palin, aren’t big fans of the whole “book-learnin’” thing are confusing Palin’s memoir Going Rogue with satirical collection of essays Going Rouge. (NY Post)
• In preparation for his presidential campaign, Lou Dobbs says he is reaching out to Latino groups, probably to tell them to get out of his ‘Merica go back to Mexico, or wherever. (Think Progress)
• The White House revealed the magic number of new soldiers for continued war-making in Afghanistan: 34,000. (McClatchy)
• The City of Baltimore will require “crisis pregnancy centers” that do not offer information about abortion to post signs saying so in their waiting rooms. Empowering women to make educated decisions about their bodies is, of course, highly controversial. (WJZ)
• Here is your thing to be thankful for this week: Tom DeLay will return to Dancing with the Stars to preform in the season finale. (Politics Daily)

The Republican National Committee’s health insurance plan covers elective abortion – a procedure the party’s own platform calls “a fundamental assault on innocent human life.”

Federal Election Commission Records show the RNC purchases its insurance from Cigna. Two sales agents for the company said that the RNC’s policy covers elective abortion.

Informed of the coverage, RNC spokeswoman Gail Gitcho told POLITICO that the policy pre-dates the tenure of current RNC Chairman Michael Steele.

“The current policy has been in effect since 1991, and we are taking steps to address the issue,” Gitcho said.
…
“We were not aware of this, obviously, and this will, of course, be fixed,” said James Bopp Jr., a Republican National Committeeman from Indiana. “I think Chairman Steele will see to it that that’s the case.”

Rep. Jack Kingston, a Georgia conservative, said “they need to drop that clause” from the policy or find a new one.

“From a philosophical standpoint, it’s inconsistent,” Kingston said. “It makes me think someone isn’t scrutinizing the purchases.”

Whoops! Wouldn’t want anyone to think Republicans believe women should be in control of their own bodies!

Update: Another interpretation: IOKIYAR.

When Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) authored an amendment several months ago to prohibit federal dollars from being used to pay for insurance policies that cover abortion, Democratic leaders and health care principals didn’t take his proposal very seriously. As a result it was never subjected to the sort of rigorous analysis that controversial legislation is often subjected to. And now, after liberals were forced to accept the amendment as the price of passing an otherwise progressive health care bill through the House, everyone on both sides of the abortion issue is scrambling to try to figure out what the amendment’s language actually means and the practical effect it would have if enacted into law.

Before the bill passed, nobody really bothered to look at the restrictions on women’s rights in the amendment, and they are monumental. Instead, Pelosi and her team made Bart Stupak America’s national OB/GYN (or, at least, the man standing between you and your OB/GYN) in exchange for a handful of votes. Now, instead of focusing on the number of uninsured Americans who will have access to insurance and the number of insured Americans whose coverage will improve, the fate of healthcare reform rests entirely on abortion.

With pro-choice House Democrats threatening to vote against the final bill if it includes the Stupak Amendment and Sen. Ben Nelson saying he’ll help the GOP filibuster if it doesn’t, the failure of the Democratic leadership to read the Stupak Amendment before allowing it to be put into the bill could be what kills healthcare reform.

A medical condition (subset of sepsis) resulting from unsafe – unnecessarily so – back alley abortions as a result of the “Stupak Amendment” to the 2009 Health Care Reform Bill.

Doctor: Unfortunately, while this would have been covered under private insurance carriers, public plans were barred from including women’s health measures. I’m sorry, you’ll have to see “Dr. Julio” in the alley behind 7-11.

(Three weeks later.)

Doctor: I believe you’ve developed Stupak, a form of sepsis, a severe illness in which the bloodstream is overwhelmed by bacteria.

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Altmire, Barrow, Boccieri, Boren, Bright, Chandler, Childers, Davis (AL), Davis (TN), Gordon (TN), Griffith, Holden, Marshall, Matheson, McIntyre, Melancon, Peterson, Ross, Shuler, Skelton, Tanner, Taylor, Teague

AL-2 Bright, Bobby; AL-5 Griffith, Parker; AL-7 Davis, Artur; AR-1 Berry, Robert; AR-2 Snyder, Victor; AR-4 AR-4 Ross, Mike; CA-18 Cardoza, Dennis; CA-20 Costa, Jim; CA-43 Baca, Joe; CO-3 Salazar, John.

GA-2 Bishop, Sanford; GA-8 Marshall, James; GA-12 Barrow, John; KY-6 Chandler, Ben; IL-3 Lipinski, Daniel; IL-12 Costello, Jerry; IN-2 Donnelly, Joe; IN-8 Ellsworth, Brad; IN-9 Hill, Baron; LA-3 Melancon, Charles; ME-2 Michaud, Michael.

MA-2 Neal, Richard; MA-9 Lynch, Stephen; MI-5 Kildee, Dale; MI-1 Stupak, Bart; MN-7 Peterson, Collin; MN-8 Oberstar, James; MS-1 Childers, Travis; MS-4 Taylor, Gene; MO-4 Skelton, Ike; NM-2 Teague, Harry

NC-2 Etheridge, Bob; NC-7 McIntyre, Mike; NC-11 Shuler, Heath; ND Pomeroy, Earl; OH-1 Driehaus, Steve; OH-6 Wilson, Charles; OH-9 Kaptur, Marcy; OH-16 Boccieri, John; OH-17 Ryan, Timothy; OH-18 Space, Zachary.

OK-2 Boren, Dan; PA-3 Dahlkemper, Kathleen; PA-4 Altmire, Jason; PA-10 Carney, Christopher; PA-11 Kanjorski, Paul; PA-12 Murtha, John; PA-14 Doyle, Michael; PA-17 Holden, Tim; RI-2 Langevin, James

SC-5 Spratt, John; TN-4 Davis, Lincoln; TN-5 Cooper, Jim; TN-6 Gordon, Barton; TN-8 Tanner, John; TX-16 Reyes, Silvestre; TX-23 Rodriguez, Ciro; TX-27 Ortiz, Solomon; TX-28 Cuellar, Henry.

UT-2 Matheson, Jim; VA-5 Perriello, Thomas; WV-1 Mollohan, Alan; WV-3 Rahall, Nick; WI-7 Obey, David.

Ryan has introduced legislation in the U.S. House to reduce unintended pregnancies by making contraception easier to obtain, provide more aid to women who proceed with unintended pregnancies and expand adoption programs.

Ryan said he tried to convince officials with Democrats For Life of America, which he referred to Monday as a “fringe group,” that the use of contraception is needed as part of any plan to reduce unintended pregnancies but that failed.

“They asked me to leave; I got booted,” said Ryan, who was on the group’s national advisory board for about four years.

Silly Tim Ryan, everyone knows that condoms are the tools of the Devil! Good Christians know that they should just pull out wait until they’re married before having sex.

Anyway, good thing teen pregnancy rates are declining! Oh wait.

* Cf.

Hatch and his Republican colleagues on the Senate Finance Committee are pushing legislation that would require insurers operating within the new Exchange to to deny coverage for abortion services. From Raising Women’s Voices:

The Senate Finance Committee has been writing a health care reform bill and struggling to create legislation that will have bipartisan support. Chairman Max Baucus (pictured left) considered several compromises to win Republican support, so they can claim it is bipartisan legislation. One of these potential compromises comes in the form of an abortion exclusion, which would prevent abortion services from being covered by some or all insurance plans in the Health Insurance Exchange. We fear that members of the Senate Finance Committee are considering such a compromise.

Nineteen House members have also sent a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) stating that they will not vote for health care reform legislation “unless it explicitly excludes abortion funding from the scope of any government-defined or subsidized health insurance plan.” “Furthermore, we want to ensure that the Health Benefits Advisory Committee cannot recommend abortion services be included under covered benefits or as part of a benefits package,” the members wrote.

Now the question becomes whether the Democrats will allow women’s health to be sacrificed on the sacred alter of bipartisanship. Especially now that they have 60 votes in the Senate, there is no excuse.

In Evansville, though, Palin concentrated on the task at hand: an emphatic defense of the anti-abortion cause. But in doing so she made a startling confession about what she thought when she learned she was pregnant at 43 with her youngest child, Trig, who arrived in April 2008, as the world now knows, with Down syndrome. “I had found out that I was pregnant while out of state first,” Palin told the crowd. “While out of state, there just for a fleeting moment, I thought, Nobody knows me here. Nobody would ever know. I thought, Wow, it is easy to think maybe of trying to change the circumstances and no one would know—no one would ever know. Then when my amniocentesis results came back, showing what they called abnormalities—oh, dear God—I knew, I had instantly an understanding, for that fleeting moment, why someone would believe it could seem possible to change those circumstances, just make it all go away, get some normalcy back in life.” It is almost impossible not to be touched by the rawness of her confession, even if it is precisely this choice that Palin believes no other woman should ever have, not even in the case of rape or incest.

This “for me but not for thee” attitude towards abortion aggravates me to no end, and it’s not the first time we’ve heard it from the Palin clan–Bristol Palin too talked about making the decision to have her baby. What the pro-life movement needs to understand, and what they undoubtedly never will, is that “pro-choice” doesn’t mean free abortions for everyone whenever. Pro-choice means that when women find themselves in a difficult or unexpected situation, they, like Sarah and Bristol Palin, will be able to make a decision, rather than having that decision made for them.

• “There are times when an abortion is necessary. I know that. When you have a black and a white,” he told an aide, before adding: “Or a rape.”

It is perhaps worth noting that under the Nixon standard for reproductive rights, President Obama’s mother could have had an abortion.

The Wichita abortion clinic run by a doctor who was shot and killed will remain closed permanently, his family said on Tuesday.

Dr. George R. Tiller’s clinic was one of the few in the country to provide abortions to women late in their pregnancies, and for decades, women had traveled there from all over the nation and from overseas. It was also the only remaining abortion clinic, even for first trimester abortions, in the Wichita region.

“The family of Dr. George Tiller announces that effective immediately, Women’s Health Care Services, Inc., will be permanently closed,” according to a statement issued on Tuesday morning by the family’s lawyers. “Notice is being given today to all concerned that the Tiller family is ceasing operation of the clinic and any involvement by family members in any other similar clinic.”

And to nobody’s surprise, successful terrorism breeds more terrorism:

Last week, Troy Newman, the leader of Operation Rescue, had said that closing the clinic now would send a worrisome message. “Good God, do not close this abortion clinic for this reason,” he said in an interview with The New York Times. “Every kook in the world will get some notion.”

And I wonder where those “notions” came from?

Those who know Roeder said he believed that killing abortion doctors was an act of justifiable homicide.

“I know that he believed in justifiable homicide,” said Regina Dinwiddie, a Kansas City anti-abortion activist who made headlines in 1995 when she was ordered by a federal judge to stop using a bullhorn within 500 feet of any abortion clinic. “I know he very strongly believed that abortion was murder and that you ought to defend the little ones, both born and unborn.”

Dinwiddie said she met Roeder while picketing outside the Kansas City Planned Parenthood clinic in 1996. Roeder walked into the clinic and asked to see the doctor, Robert Crist, she said.

“Robert Crist came out and he stared at him for approximately 45 seconds,” she said. “Then he (Roeder) said, ‘I’ve seen you now.’ Then he turned his back and walked away, and they were scared to death. On the way out, he gave me a great big hug and he said, ‘I’ve seen you in the newspaper. I just love what you’re doing.’^”
…
Leach said he met Roeder in Topeka when he went there to visit Shelley Shannon, who was in prison for the 1993 shooting of Tiller.
…
Roeder, who in the 1990s was a manufacturing assemblyman, also was involved in the “Freemen” movement.

“Freemen” was a term adopted by those who claimed sovereignty from government jurisdiction and operated under their own legal system, which they called common-law courts. Adherents declared themselves exempt from laws, regulations and taxes and often filed liens against judges, prosecutors and others, claiming that money was owed to them as compensation.

In April 1996, Roeder was arrested in Topeka after Shawnee County sheriff’s deputies stopped him for not having a proper license plate. In his car, officers said they found ammunition, a blasting cap, a fuse cord, a one-pound can of gunpowder and two 9-volt batteries, with one connected to a switch that could have been used to trigger a bomb.
…
Suzanne James, former director of victim’s services for Shawnee County, said she remembered Roeder.

“He was part of the One Supreme Court, a Freemen group based out of Shawnee County,” James said. “He was fanatic about a lot of things. I went to one of his court appearances and thought, ‘This guy is dangerous.’ There were a lot of red flags that came up about him.”

In recent years, someone using the name Scott Roeder has posted anti-Tiller comments on various Internet sites. One post, dated Sept. 3, 2007 and placed on a site sponsored by Operation Rescue called chargetiller.com, said that Tiller needed to be “stopped.”

“It seems as though what is happening in Kansas could be compared to the ‘lawlessness’ which is spoken of in the Bible,” it said. “Tiller is the concentration camp ‘Mengele’ of our day and needs to be stopped before he and those who protect him bring judgment upon our nation.”

If Scott Roeder really is responsible for Tiller’s death, then it is clear that this tragic murder–really, this act of terrorism–could have been prevented. So I’m with Sullivan:

 As someone who has always called what the Jihadists do terrorism, could I get a response from Malkin as to whether she believes this Christianist murder is terrorism as well? Imagine an Islamist fanatic had assassinated a pro-Israel rabbi in a synagogue, and had harassed synagogues for years, including one arrest for bomb materials in his car. Imagine if one of his associates had tried to kill the rabbi before. Would there be any question that this was Islamist terror? So why is this not Christianist terror?

(via)

Watch out! The pro-life right wing nuts are on the loose! Be very careful….They could be lurking around any corner!

Oy-vey.

Hey, that’s basically the message coming from the Department of Homeland Security. In a new report, here’s how DHS defines right wing extremism in America:

Rightwing extremism in the United States can be broadly divided into those groups, movements, and adherents that are primarily hate-oriented (based on hatred of particular religious, racial or ethnic groups, and those that are mainly anti-government, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority, or rejecting government authority entirely. It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration.

Read the DHS report here.

The American Center for Law and Justice is outraged to say the least. Read a statement below from the group:

This is an outrageous characterization that raises serious questions about the leadership and direction of the agency charged with protecting Americans in the ongoing battle against terrorism,” said Jay Sekulow, Chief Counsel of the ACLJ.  “Why would the Department of Homeland Security single out groups like pro-life supporters when they should be focusing on identifying and apprehending the real terrorists – like al-Qaeda – groups that have vowed to destroy America? This characterization is not only offensive to millions of Americans who hold constitutionally-protected views opposing abortion – but also raises serious concerns about the political agenda of an agency with a mandate to protect America.”

A sad reminder as the nation mourns George Tiller.

WICHITA, Kan. — George Tiller, a Wichita doctor who was one of the few doctors in the nation to perform late-term abortions, was shot to death on Sunday as he attended church, city officials in Wichita said.

Authorities in Wichita Johnson County are believed to have a suspect in custody. Condolences to the Tiller family and friends.