I'm tired of People I work with/for keep talking about Roe/Wade.

[BlueJazz]

If I heard it once in the past week I've heard it 20 times.

Them: "Well, it looks like Roe versus Wade will be overturned in the next 4 years"

Me:"What makes you think that?

Them: The Republican controlled House and Senate and our President will be pushing for it's demise.

Me: You've got to be kidding. Look...Figure it out. If Roe/Wade is trashed most Republican Men will vote (in the next election) pretty much the same as they do now. Democratic Men will vote a little more left...And Democratic Woman will vote more Left. The HUGE difference will be Republican Women. Even those that in the past have fairly much toed the Republican line will not be happy at all to see Roe/Wade go. Keep in mind that most of the important elections are won by margins around 5 percent. If you have a very large Group of Women suddenly swinging their vote to the "other side", Sweetheart..You're in deep shit. Also..Keep this in mind:. The Republicans in charge know all to well that the scenario I described above is most likely true. In short..the Republicans may talk the talk but Walk the Walk??...I think not.

[OldLeftieLawyer]

1. Here's what always makes me wonder about those people

Why are they so interested in what goes on in the uterus of a woman they'll never meet?

I always ask them about their own reproductive organs. That seems to shut them up.

I could list some of my favorite questions here, but I know the message would be deleted.

[Midlodemocrat]

2. You know, I totally agree with that.

...like the saying goes, If you are against abortion, don't have one. I am personally anti-gun, so I don't have one, but I am not stopping others from having one.

[TwentyFive]

6. Yeah - I don't have a gun or a uterus, so I'm for giving freedom to choose

[fudge stripe cookays]

3. They'll have to put up or shut up...

but a lot of people have to WAKE up first.

Roe v. Wade discussion isn't going away. Nor should it.
FSC

[gmoney]

4. Well, it's easier to campaign on the PROMISE...

They can't ever deliver on this, because then they'll have nothing left to sell.

But maybe you're right... it could be similar to the way the entire white south shifted to the republican party after the Civil Rights act was passed...

Wonder what the stats are on anti-abortionists? 50-50 men/women, or higher for one gender? I can see men being a larger percentage in that we don't have to carry the baby, but on the other hand, I can see women being a larger percentage because of the adorable baby factor.

[matcom]

5. check Today's Boston Globe op-ed

sorry, heading out but they had an EXCELLENT article on whether Roe would be overturned

you'll enjoy sharing it

[Stephanjnj]

7. Unprecedented Backlash Anyone?

Politically, the Republicans need to have this issue remain unresolved.
If Roe v. Wade is ever overturned, the tide will turn against Republicans for all the reasons you've mentioned. The diehard fundies won't care about political consequences, but the secular republicans who depend on the fundie vote will care a lot.

Whether they realize it or not, this administration has painted itself into a corner. If and when a Supreme Court vacancy (or -- shudder -- more than one vacancy) occurs, Bush will have to decide whether to nominate a far-right ideologue or more moderate individual. With a new wingnut Scalia clone on the bench, any resulting repeal of RvW will alienate women voters by the millions. And there would no longer be that particular milk cow vote-getter any more for the purpose of motivating the fundies. With a hold-the-line moderate, the religious right would be up in arms over being "sold out" by Bush. In the best-case scenario, they would splinter away from the GOP, but more likely they would stay home in droves come election time.

I'll voice preference for the second scenario as a basis for keeping RvW as the law of the land. At any rate, regardless of what happens, the GOP will not be coming out of this smelling like a rose.

[NMDemDist2]

8. i was at a screening of "Outfoxed" handing out Kerry lit in Oct and

a woman my age (50something) made a point of telling me my hands were covered in blood for supporting a pro choice candidate

I also had a 20 something that worked for me and she was a repub strictly because of choice

there are more women than you think who are anti reproductive freedom and will stay that way til their daughter or niece needs one for ____ (enter justification of your choice here)

[Branjor]

16. Sometimes I wonder....

< a woman my age (50something) made apoint of telling me my hands were covered in blood for supporting a prochoice candidate.

Sometimes I wonder about these people. Even though the majority of murders are committed by men and it is men who wage the wars that both sexes (but mostly men) go to fight, kill and die in, in their minds WOMEN must be the great killers of humanity, just because of abortion.

[NMDemDist2]

17. what is sad is it won't stop abortions, it will just make them more

dangerous and harder to get if you are poor. The rich will get them easily in sterile conditions

the poor will get them in back alleys from butchers and die from infection or lose their fertility etc etc

those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it

[meow2u3]

9. They won't overturn Roe

They need it as a wedge issue to keep conning people into voting for the regressive right....as well as a weapon to blame Democrats for not confirming Bush's judicial tyrants who pass themselves off as morally upright "strict constructionists."

The pharisees also need for abortion to remain legal so they can boink their mistresses, get them pregnant, and blackmail them into getting an abortion so their wives at home will never have find out the hubby was cheating.

[Hippo_Tron]

11. I wonder what those "strict constructionsists" think of the Patriot Act

Somebody needs to ask * that question.

[cosmik debris]

12. It is their straw man

They will never let it be overturned because there aren't enough queer issues to win on. They need Roe v. Wade to bash the liberals with and to scare the "duh" voters.

[sangh0]

15. You've both got it right

Sometimes I think they need women to have the right to an abortion more than the women do.

[m berst]

10. it served its political purpose

The abortion issue was a handy tool to help them gain absolute power, and has now probably outlived its usefulness and will fall out of view.

It worked well to divide and inflame the electorate and distract people from the coup they were engineering.

They are as likely to make abortion mandatory as they are to outlaw it, depending on which policy best advances their goal of total enslavement of the population.

Mandatory abortions and sterilization of undesirables will somehow be justified as doing God's work if needs be. "And the Lord said, make the heathens to be unfruitful for the glory of the kingdom."

We keep trying to make sense out of insanity, and we overlook the fact that the public is being intentionally driven insane to make them more pliable and ultimately, controllable.

It isn't the left that is under assault, nor is it any particular law or policy. It is sanity, reason, and common sense that are under assault.

[Malva Zebrina]

13. What I really think is that they will continue to work on bastardizing the

language.

It has already happened far more than necessary, imo. Real damage was done toward women with the "partial birth abortion" bill. Even though there was no such procedure amongst medical practitioners, and even though almost every state there were laws against third term abortion and no doctor, according to surveys, would ever do a third term abortion unless the life of the mother were in danger.

The bill and the men who wrote it, saw to it that the life of the mother was not to be considered at all, period. Most people, knowing nothing about the conditions of medically advised third term abortions reacted emotionally, without knowing the facts, to the "partial birth abortion" tack on, imagining a full blown "child" being killed deliberately by wicked women who did not want it for , of course, selfish reasons.

For instance, the word "child" or "baby" has replaced fetus. Even amongst pro-choice women, these false, but emotionally laden words prevail to decsribe a fetus. Heap on the guilt by accusations that an abortion kills a "child" or a "baby" and without stopping to parse that, women will be persuaded eventually to carry through a pregnancy they do not desire or maybe even sacrifice their own health and be proud of it. Couple that with more propaganda on the superiority of women who are mothers over those who are not, and those with families, superior to those who do not have families, with all sorts of mother's day platitudes, and soon the trend will shift and there will be little to worry about when overturning RvW.

Just my two cents

[HootieMcBoob]

14. It will be up to the right wing activist judges not the republican pols

The Fundies are gonna hold the republicans balls to the fire and force them to put extreme right wing Judges on the bench, including the supreme court. As soon as a case makes it that far up the ladder it's likely that these judges will at the very least make it a state's rights issue and it will be up to individual states to decide. Either that or it could be outlawed entirely. The politicians will be out of it at that point. The damage has already been done.