As the anti-choice crusaders pile on the hypocrisy and irony of their pro-death crusade, my old pal Milt Shook reposts a must-read from 1997

"Pro-choice is not the same as 'pro-abortion.' Most pro-choicers would agree that it would be a good thing if no one had an abortion. If we could eliminate most or all of the reasons why women have abortions, we could practically eliminate abortion, without having to ban it."

-- Milt Shook, in a 1997 post, "Pro-Choice Is the Essence of
Liberty," that he recently reposted on his "PCTC* Blog"

by Ken

With attention focused on the anti-abortion jihads in Texas and Carolina, writes ThinkProgrss's Tara Culp-Ressler (whose post I read via Nation of Change), in Iowa's Board of Medicine, now stuffed with right-wing zealots, is pushing to outlaw something most of us haven't heard of: "telemedicine abortion." It's a move that may "threaten reproductive health care for the state’s low-income and rural communities," and "could also spark a legal fight with implications for abortion access across the country."

"Telemedicine" is a fancy term for the practice of using video technology to allow doctors to consult with patients remotely. Telemedicine procedures, which were first invented in the 1960s to treat astronauts, are becoming an increasingly standard practice in the medical community. Telemedicine is now used by about 10 million to 12 million Americans every year.

As most of us are aware, there is a serious and growing lack of access in the country to live physicians, notably among Americans in non-urban areas and those who can't afford to make their way to one. One solution has been the increased use of telemedicine. Indeed, tells us, "Iowa's Board of Medicine reviewed and approved the telemedicine program in 2010." Since then, however, "the Board has been stacked with abortion opponents."

Even though "telemedicine abortion programs are not actually very common yet," Tara notes,

abortion opponents are preemptively attacking it anyway, hoping to cut off the possibility of expanding reproductive access to more women. Over the past several years, twelve states have rushed to enact bans on telemedical abortion services even if they’re not currently in place.

One popular trick: "State laws often stipulate that women must be in the presence of a doctor when taking the abortion pill -- even though that's medically unnecessary -- preventing telemedicine programs from even getting off the ground." Another trick is "try[ing] to limit access to the abortion pill by forcing clinics to adhere to outdated methods of administering it."

In June the newly constituted Iowa Board of Medicine, whose ten members have all been replaced by "ardent anti-choice" Republican Gov. Terry Branstad since the board last considered the issue, and even though responsible medical professionals consider the telemedical abortion procedures safe, the abortion foes voted to prevent telemedicine use for abortions. The irony here outstrips even the hypocrisy, which is enormous. The stated ground for concern is the "safety" of the telemedical abortions, when everyone knows that the only goal is to deny women access to safe, legal abortions.

ON ABORTION, MANY OF THE ANTI-CHOICERS
AREN'T "PRO-LIFE" -- THEY'RE PRO-DEATH

There's no question that the goal of a significant portion of the anti-choice movement isn't to reduce the number of abortions, but merely to limit access to safe ones. The portionn of the anti-choicers that isn't made up of morons knows perfectly well two things:

(1) Deep-pocketed purported anti-choicers will always be able to secure medically safe abortions for their women-in-need.

(2) Women who can't afford such access will return to the '50s world of illegal abortions, aka butchery.

Most nauseatingly, we had the recent spectacle of unspeakably loathsome right-wing scumbag Erick Erickson taunt-tweeting "Liberals" with a link to a website selling coathangers. This creature actually thinks it's cute to fantasize about women being slaughtered. He should have been presented with a sword with which to impale his vile carcass.

BY COINCIDENCE, MILT SHOOK HAS RECENTLY
REPOSTED A POST HE FIRST CIRCULATED IN 1997

In reposting the piece, "Pro-Choice Is the Essence of Liberty," my old friend and political mentor explained, "I wrote and posted this in a forum for the first time on April 18, 1997. It's depressing, in a way, that it's even more fitting now than it was when I wrote it.

I hope you'll read the piece as Milt wrote it, but let me try to give you the gist. Milt recalls recalls a childhood friend-of-the-family police officer, Mr. Andy, who "used to love to regale us with stories of the seamier side of life," including the almost-daily incidence of "a call from someone who found a fetus in a dumpster outside a building somewhere in the city."

Mr. Andy and other officers would have to go out, do a search and write a report, although they just about never "caught" anyone. Mr. Andy was also fairly regularly called out to investigate cases in which women, who had either died, or were severely hurt, by trying to give themselves an abortion, or after having one performed by someone who had no business performing a medical procedure. Among the items used to perform these abortions were coat hangers, soda bottles and vacuum cleaners.

"Such barbarism," Milt writes, seemed to have been "transcended" thanks to Roe v. Wade.

But there are some who would take us back to those days, and once again give the government the choice as to whether a woman gets to terminate her pregnancy, and take it away from the woman.

Dominion over her own body is the essence of a woman's liberty, and the essence of a free society, and that is basically why the anti-choice movement is so dangerous at its core.

Now Milt gets to a crucial point: "No one likes abortion."

No one thinks abortion is a desirable outcome. Young girls don't grow up thinking, "I can't wait until I'm old enough to have an abortion." Most women never have them. Most women would never have one. Pro-choice is not the same as "pro-abortion." Most pro-choicers would agree that it would be a good thing if no one had an abortion. If we could eliminate most or all of the reasons why women have abortions, we could practically eliminate abortion, without having to ban it.

But many, who rather facetiously call themselves "pro-life", would rather do the easy thing, and make another law, because they somehow feel that, when you make a law, a problem goes away. You know; like all of those magical drug laws that have served to reduce drug use so much? Like all of those signs along the freeway that keep people driving at such a safe speed? Those have worked so well, say anti-choicers, let's do the same with abortion.

The anti-choice movement, says Milt, brings nothing to the table "self-righteous posturing," with no solutions to reduce abortions except punishment, "as if somehow, the mere specter of punishment would act as a deterrent."

This is ludicrous. On an annual basis, it is estimated that there were just as many abortions in the 1950s as there are in the '90s. Considering the fact that there are nearly 50 million more women, this is a startling figure. But there are reasons why this is the case. For one thing, welfare is much more of a factor now than it was in the '50s. Food Stamps, WIC and AFDC give a woman in a seemingly hopeless situation at least a little hope that she can raise her child after it is born. Also, many of the Victorian taboos that were still in evidence in the '50s have been exploded. Women do not have to quit school, and move to a different city to have a baby these days. Young girls are less likely to be labelled as "sluts" or "whores" by the community at large. Parents and friends of these girls and women, as well as the community at large, have become more tolerant of the situation that used to be the main reason for the sense of desperation that led women to terminate a pregnancy.

All of these factors have served to reduce the number of abortions significantly, in the absence of a law against it.

The anti-choicers, says Milt, insisting that a fetus is a "child," want to overturn a Roe v. Wade, even though, "at the time that more than 95% of all women who have abortions have them, the fetus does not have the ability to live outside the womb, under any circumstances."

Suppose there were a seven-year-old child who needed a kidney, and the government forced you to be hooked up to him for nine months, to keep him alive. Something tells me, most anti-choicers would be outraged at such a breach of their liberty.

Even if you could define what a "viable" fetus is, "you still can't force a woman to carry it to term." He concludes:

Pro-choice is not about pro-abortion. It's about freedom, and the ability to have autonomy over your own body, with no government interference whatsoever. Anti-choice people want to control women, and force them into a morality they themselves feel is the norm. And that's never a good basis for law.

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For a "Sunday Classics" fix anytime, visit the stand-alone "Sunday Classics with Ken."

Former MD Gov. Rob't Ehrlich pushes the sleaze envelope, and our pal Milt Shook offers his take on the 2010 elections

This "unlisted" YouTube video, "Andy Barth reports on Bob Ehrlich's devotion to his family," can be accessed only by people who are given the link by the maker. But since the maker, ehrlichformaryland, is the Ehrlich Republican gubernatorial campaign, it's a good bet that they're going to be getting the link for this and their other campaign videos out there. The twist is that interviewer Andy Barth is known to Baltimore-area viewers for more than three decades' worth of local TV reporting -- producing segments that looked, gosh, pretty much like this!

"Every campaign, every candidate, especially in today's digital age, looks for ways to communicate directly with voters and get around the media filter. I don't see anything wrong with that. But I've never seen this exact situation."

-- Democratic media strategist Mo Elleithee, about the Barth-Ehrlich YouTube spots, as quoted by the Washington Post's John Wagner

by Ken

Here's a story I've been better-dealing for a few weeks now, but I did want to take note of. It's not a big deal in the grand scheme of election sleaze, but it's yet another tribute to the capacity of American pols to push the sleaze envelope wherever there's an opportunity -- and it's a chance to touch base with a longtime pal, and one of the blogosphere's great firebrands.

Have you been keeping up on the thrill-a-minute Maryland governor's race? What, you don't even know who's running?

Okay, I was kind of vague about it myself until I read the above-noted Washington Post piece in late June, and discovered that Maryland voters are getting a rematch of the 2006 race, only with the roles reversed. This year Democratic Gov. Marvin O'Malley -- who's not exactly the favorite Dem of anybody I know, or anywhere near the top of that list -- is the incumbent seeking reelection against the man he unseated four years ago, Republican Robert Ehrlich. These days Ehrlich is an anachronism of sorts among Republicans, a man of such modest conservative credentials, you'd expect him to be a prime target of Teabagging wrath, being as he is of what we might call the Norm Coleman wing of the party -- opportunistic candidates of moderate-to-liberal background who saw a better electoral opening among the R's and accordingly made the connection based on the principle that matters most to them: What's in it for me?

We should note that the Ehrlich campaign hasn't tried to put these "spots" on TV, where Andy Barth's newsman recognition might really stink up the smell test. Of course what the campaign is trying to do is exactly to exploit the bypass-the-media electricity of online video virality. This seems to me a pretty poor message for that medium, but that doesn't diminish the sleaze component of trying to cash in on whatever recognition and trust Andy Barth built up in those decades of screen presence. You'd think that, even now that he's jumped over to the political side, he might have a bit more regard for whatever journalistic cred he once built up, but all this proves is that when it comes to politics, all America is a giant whorehouse.

I had another reason for tuning in, however feebly, to the O'Malley-Ehrlich rematch. Ehrlich is a bête noire of our longtime online political pal Milt Shook, who these days is sounding the horn of enlightened liberalism in a blog called Please...Cut the Crap! As it happens, Milt has known "Bobby" Ehrlich, well, maybe not quite back to the cradle, but a long ways back, and has a fondness for his old playmate that recalls the affection of Captain Ahab for that darned whale Moby-Dick, except without the respect.

So naturally I wanted to get Milt's take on the O'Malley-Ehrlich nail-biter, and asked him for his thoughts, knowing how tight he and his old chum Bobby are. "So tight," he shot back in late June, "that I’m considering working on his opponent's campaign?"

This is going to be an entertaining race, because he and O’Malley really can’t stand each other. Ehrlich and his wife (a former paralegal in his law office when he was still practicing) have a radio show in Baltimore, and he’s thus far refused to give up the show until he officially files his candidacy papers. So last week, O’Malley ran an anti-Ehrlich ad right in the middle of the program, and the Democratic Party apparently had people call his radio show and challenge him. Here’s some coverage of it at TPM.

Now we get down to the insiderish dope:

Bobby is actually quite the little prick, and he really can’t stand dissension. He has no tolerance for anyone who disagrees with him, which is probably why he gets on my nerves so much these days.

By the way, there isn’t a snowball’s chance that Ehrlich can win. Even in good times, the GOP has a hard time in Maryland; there’s no way they’re going to go with a retread. It’s funny, though; he’s actually trying to position himself as an outsider. Yeah… that sounds like a winner, huh?

Finally, Milt offered a perhaps surprising perspective on the elections:

Of course, the Republicans nationwide are in a hole. I don’t see them gaining any net seats to speak of. If they do, it’ll be about five in the House and 1-2 in the Senate. A lot of people are touting the “conventional wisdom,” but there’s a major flaw in their theory that the GOP should win seats this time… WHO is supposed to win them? They have an empty bench…

I've learned a huge amount about politics from Milt over the years -- not least to take seriously his often unconventional, no-bullshit take on events.

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