Last week on Meet the Press Russert had on Kate O' Beirne and Kate Michelman to give the anti-feminist/feminist viewpoint on the Alito nomination and what it could mean for the future of Roe. Based on the title of O'Beirne's book, you can guess what side she was taking. Some of the women she thinks have made the "world worse", according to the book description: Hillary Clinton (didn't see that coming), Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Gloria Steinem (ditto), and Michelman. Needless to say, the tension was palpable between the two. O'Beirne was a loud-mouth hothead, to distract from the fact she was doing nothing but spewing the same old anti-woman conservative rhetoric that has been coined and spewed by generations of conservative blowhards before her. Michelman kept her cool, as liberal ladies armed with facts, compassion, tolerance and tact are wont to do. But she had to interrupt O'Beirne when O'Beirne dropped the good 'ole pro-life zinger "abortion on demand." Michelman jumped in, and I paraphrase: "I have never, in all my years working to protect the reproductive rights of women, come across ANYBODY who has EVER "demanded" an abortion!" O'Beirne just sat there and pursed her lips.
It's just so disturbing and baffling to me that a woman could be against the right to choose what she does with her own body. It is something I will never understand. I'm curious to read O'Beirne's book, just to see what could possibly motivate a woman to be anti-choice. I want to read Michelman's book too, With Liberty and Justice for All: A Life Spent Protecting the Right to Choose.
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Did you happen to catch the Frontline episode from late last year "The Last Abortion Clinic"? Other than being just generally depressing, the thing that struck me is how so many of the anti-choice people in the show had very obviously never once made an effort to see for themselves what actually happens in a clinic. They all seem to assume the staff are gleefully shoving women through the doors into the procedure room as soon as they arrive. It's all so frustrating I can't even talk about it. Argh.
No, I haven't seen that. It IS so frustrating. I'll never forget counter-protesting at that Brookline abortion clinic where a gunman opened fire (before the shooting), and having tiny plastic fetus' waved in my face by 70 year old men. Beyond frustrating.
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