The other day, the local paper ran a headline that went something like, "Obama takes controversial middle ground in abortion debate." What he was doing was focusing on the reasons that women need abortions in the first place, hoping that by concentrating on addressing these problems, he could reduce the number of abortions. This is not a bad thing to do; when I lived in SD, I met an amazing woman who raised money for women who needed abortions, and she said that she very frequently heard, "I just can't do it - I have two kids already and my partner just walked out, and I don't have the money." So, certainly, I support all of the things that will pull women and children out of poverty and grant them access to health care and education and help them to prevent unwanted pregnancies - all the things the Republicans oppose, in other words.
But here's what's weird to me. In SD, Obama's approach was pretty much the same as the pro-choice activist approach. In much of the rest of the country, however, this stance is perceived as being not committed enough to choice. And even more interesting - in SD, the anti-choice movement was completely opposed to such an approach, while in the nation, at the moment, it seems that the anti-choice folks are hesitantly encouraged by Obama's focus (though they are far from happy about some of his other moves).
I don't really have anything to add here that I haven't said already, many times, but I thought this was interesting.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
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2 comments:
I'm with you -- the idea that this is "controversial" rather than "sensible and obvious" is just weird to me.
People often seem confused about the difference between "this is my personal belief" and "this is what I support legally" when it comes to other peoples' positions on reproductive rights. I think also the fact that Obama has ties with evangelism and so on than a lot of Dems throws people off.
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