Howard Dean said he did not want to use pro-life and pro-choice....

[madfloridian]

he did not want to use those words anymore. He said that several months ago, he said that too much damage has been done to the terms. He is changing the argument to mean privacy from an intrusive government.

Notice that tonight on Hardball, he said the Democrats were the party who wanted the government to stay out of personal decisions which rightfully should be made by a family and a person. That includes far more than just abortion....it includes the right to die without the government butting in. It includes a woman's rights to take birth control pills. That is why Howard Dean as governor did not think young girls who got pregnamt should be forced to get the consent of their parents, it includes the right to a doctor and a woman to discuss a late term end of pregnancy without a government making the decision.

Those are just some of the privacy issues that he referred to when he said government should not be intruding on our family decisions.

He said he would not use the words pro-choice and pro-life as they have been distorted. I was looking for the interview, can't find it, but I did find this great article from The Hill. This guy really understood what he was saying.

Getting the Words Right

In a wide-ranging discussion with Tim Russert on NBC’s “Meet the Press” last Sunday, the former Vermont governor and new chairman of the Democratic National Committee continued to defend the values for which Democrats stand in words that resonate with the folks in that Kalamazoo focus group and hundreds of others I have sat through.

Dr. Dean did not back off from traditional Democratic values. He just spoke about them in terms that made sense. He made the enemy intrusive government, not big government. That is a critical difference.

“What do politicians know about practicing medicine?” he asked. Does government make life-or-death decisions for families? Should Tom DeLay or family members make life-or-death decisions traditionally determined by families? Dean challenged that the Republican leadership “are intrusive, and they invade people’s personal privacy.”

Dean is on a roll. If he can reposition this fight as being “for the soul of America,” he’s opened a route to the hearts and votes of millions of red-state residents and built a platform on which the Democratic Party can begin to swing purple states into the blue column. (It is amazing the political shorthand we develop — turning the nation into red, blue and purple states as though real people with real concerns and real issues didn’t live inside our artificial boundaries.)

When the Republican right turns on its own leadership for what seems like a very reasonable compromise “on the filibuster, whatever that is,” as I heard one voter say, and when DeLay wants to impeach the 14 judges who said Terri Schiavo’s husband should determine her future, Dr. Dean has a lot to talk about. When he positions the Bush Social Security plan as taking away a cherished safety net and handing out sweetheart contracts and big tax cuts to business friends, his words are falling on receptive ears.

Dean is positioning today’s Republican Party as being “intrusive and they invade people’s privacy.” He is positioning today’s Democrats as fighting to let “individuals decide personal questions in their life.”

So I understood what he was doing tonight. He is just as "pro-choice" as he ever was, he just used different words to express it.
He said the Democrats were the party that did not want government making decision for them. That is very clear.

[Guaranteed]

1. I've disagreed with this approach for a long time.

We have to defend the procedure itself, AND the choice a woman makes in undergoing it.

[madfloridian]

6. In the present environment of hate and ugly rhetoric...

this way might work better. I had to think about it a while, but I thought tonight it sort of sunk in.

The right is filled with so much hate toward "liberals", another dirty word.....that defending abortion as good right now just won't work.

[Guaranteed]

9. Well, I'm not saying that we should defend it as "good"...

What I'm saying is that we have to defend it as being justified within the realm of a woman's choice, because it's her body.

It's along the same lines as the privacy argument that Dean has undertaken, but that particular argument avoids the procedure itself. And the truth is we just can't avoid this argument. We have to put it out there.

[Why Syzygy]

14. Isn't he doing that?

It's all our bodies. We ALL have a right to choose.

I like it this way.

[Guaranteed]

18. What he seems to be doing is saying that it may be "wrong,"

but it's nobody else's business.

I don't think that we should be conceding that it's wrong. I think we should be letting people know that when a woman decides to get an abortion, she's making a decision that is her moral right.

She is not morally bound to take a fetus to term, because it's her womb. The fetus has no moral right to occupy her womb.

I think we'd do better in the long run if that was the argument that we made.

[Why Syzygy]

41. Where is the word "wrong" in this debate?

His point seems to be that we all have our own "moral choices" to make.

I'm not going to get into arguing about fetus moral rights.
I think that's a little over the top, actually.

Do you know any women who have had abortions? They often have second guesses and self-condemnation. It is not an easy choice.
YES! It should be a safe procedure. But it is kinda sounding like you don't understand that women suffer from the "procedure".

How about some compassion?

[Guaranteed]

11. It's just not going to work, mad. We have to address

this stuff head on to get to the root of it and actually inform people of why it is a woman's right. We can't just run away from it and cloak it in privacy.

[madfloridian]

13. I felt that way for a while.

I am very passionate on this issue, but I began to see that his terminology was making a difference. My son was home recently, a staunch Republican. He said he liked the way Dean talked about the choice issue. He understood it in a different way.

[patdem]

34. BullGooseLoony..it is not ONLY about choice ..it is now about the pill

the morning after pill and even birth control..no..it has moved beyond choice...it is now about privacy and the control of ones own body......too bad men do not have those problems.....YET...just wait till they (the reight wing of the reight wing) refuses to allow treatment of syphliss...or ghonoreah (sp?)...

[madfloridian]

37. And about the right to die, as in the Schiavo case.

It is really truly about privacy in all areas of our personal lives.

[leftchick]

2. I totally understood what he was saying

and am happy to hear it! He was great! Too bad tweety did not get it as usual. :eyes:

[serryjw]

15. Agree 100%

As this country gets older we will be facing more life and death decisions. As a Buddhist ( and a breast cancer survivor )I am not worried about death. I am worried that my governemnt will intrude on issues that are noneof their business. I defend the ORIGINAL SCOTUS decision based on the 4th amendment..I'm not going to abandan it now

[Child_Of_Isis]

21. Tweety did get it.

That's why he almost cried. :bounce:

[longship]

3. Excellent.

Dr. Dean really knows how to deliver the message.

I love that guy more and more every day.

[HockeyMom]

4. They are Pro BIRTH

NOT Pro Life. They don't give an damn what happens after they are born.

[FreedomAngel82]

10. I call them pro-fetus

That's all they give a damn about. Look at what Bush is cutting in his budget cuts next year. All programs that help the poor and students while still giving tax cuts to his rich friends and corporations. Being pro-life is more than just "saving the babies" and saying a few Bible verses and saying you're going to hell. It's about caring about actual life including privacy and letting people make their own choices and consequences about life.

[IronLionZion]

23. I call them hypocrites

People who strongly support an immoral war, death penalty, poverty, drowning, starvation, and other forms of death are obviously NOT PRO-LIFE!!!

Democrats are REAL pro-life, and many of us are also pro-choice and pro-freedom. Socially responsible policies actually reduce abortions. Republican policies increase abortions and increase the number of innocent people dying a cruel and unusual death during hurricanes and wars and cold winters.

Republicans don't value human life after, during, or even before birth because they are the party of selfishness and callous indifference. They value abortion as the emotional wedge issue that forces sensible people to vote against their own interests. Repukes will never, ever, allow abortion to become illegal because it would destroy them.

[femrap]

22. Pro-Fetus.....Anti-Child nt

[Carolab]

5. Plus he didn't take the bait that Chris put out there.

Trying to get him to say that the entire party is pro-choice. It's a blanket statement anyway that doesn't apply, just as not all Republicans are "pro-life". It's a personal decision and should not be a public one. Roe v. Wade is premised on "safety/health" in any case and not on one's determination regarding when life begins and whether abortion is "a sin".

[FreedomAngel82]

7. That's how things should be

Personal choices. The government has no place in telling anyone how they should die, when they should die or anything with medical issues. They aren't doctors and shouldn't butt in. We should stand for privacy and I think that framing it that way is fine. The public knows enough about the democratic party and that we are pro-choice that we shouldn't have to repeat that anymore but we should tell how we're for privacy either way whether it has to do with religion or something with medical issues like that.

[Quixote1818]

8. Great Move. I have been arguing changing the term to Pro-Privacy

here on DU for quite some time. Dean is 100000% correct! Good job Dean!

[Gloria]

12. It should have been this way for a long time, instead of getting

drawn into their turf...

YEARS ago, Planned Parenthood ran full page ads in the NYTimes, etc. which showed a bed and asked if Americans wanting the government looking into their bedrooms...

I bet that would be just as effective today...

In reality, the issue affects women, men, their families....everyone.

[RaleighNCDUer]

16. I have always thought it peculiar that the repubs want to privatize

everything except these personal moral choices. We can count on the private sector when it comes to pollution, charity, even warfare, but the most personal decisions a person can make, like creating new life or preventing the same, like ending ones own life, like who and what gender to marry must be watched over by the unblinking eye of the government.

Arguments like this could pull moderate repubs and libertarians back into the Dem column. (I've never really understood why libertarians so often go repub. Real discontinuity there.)

[Why Syzygy]

42. good points

yeah.ah. don't worry about global warming.. that's PRIVATE.. but your right to procreate . or not . oh that's our business.

GIMME A BREAK. So right on.

[Child_Of_Isis]

17. You watch. Dean will become our "Rove"...

I think he is just that smart. It's all about catch phrases, slogans and manipulating words.

[cynatnite]

29. Dean is way smarter than rover and he would never stoop so low...

:)

[Pirate Smile]

19. I saw it and I think he is doing the right thing. This broadens the

debate past simply one issue to include even more issues where the majority of Americans agree with the Democrats and not the Republicans.

It opens the door to more people, like the woman who said she was pro-life (a story Dean has told before) because she wouldn't get an abortion and she hopes her daughter wouldn't but she doesn't feel like she has the right to dictate what other people should do. We know that she is actually pro-choice but she labels herself pro-life so in talking points battles of "pro-choice" vs. "pro-life" she believes she is on the Republican's side. She isn't.

Remember when the Republicans first started saying "Death Tax"? We probably scoffed at it and thought it was ridiculous. Well, it stuck.

Give the privacy angle a chance. I think it is a smart move but they probably need to do some practice debates/interviews (murder boards) to learn the best ways to turn conversations around to use the frame we want to use.

[NNadir]

20. I was an early Dean supporter, and I felt bad about what happened to him.

But it's working out well. He may be of more service where he is than he might have been as the nominee.

Howard has hit his stride.

[ElectroPrincess]

24. Yes, I agree with you NNadir ...

Howard Dean handled himself well against that SPASTIC Chris Mathews. Ole' Tweety Bird ---> freaks me out on so many levels.

Howard was as calm as a cucumber. He has learned from his past mistakes. I was very impressed ... and I'm not easily impressed ;)

Go Howard!

[europegirl4jfk]

25. That's a good approach!

I think the difference between Conservatives and Liberals is that Conservatives don't grant other people the right to have their own opinion and make their own decisions while Liberals are tolerant people who have no problems with diversity in culture and life-style. BTW, the word "liberal" here in Europe is a very positive word and means just that: being tolerant and generous and accept different opinions.

[Why Syzygy]

43. I would prefer

the term "diversity" to "liberal"... although they mean essentially the same thing. Wtf? Just let people LIVE. Is that so hard?

Evidently for the mass murder crowd, aka George W. Bush, living is not allowed.

[progressoid]

26. This is a weird conflict for Dems and Repugs...

Overly simplified is becomes: Democrats want a smaller govt for personal issues. Repugs want a larger govt for these issues. However there are some on the right that want smaller govt in all areas, so I suppose it's possible that this could actually appeal to a small segment of the right.

[Pirate Smile]

30. The libertarian segment of Republicans which is in direct conflict with

the social conservative Republicans.

[B Calm]

27. Pro life... why didn't he say anti choice?

[usregimechange]

28. Now we have to follow suit and get in line. repeat repeat

[cynatnite]

31. I totally agree with the approach...

It's nobody's business and most especially not the government's business whether I or any other woman have an abortion, get her tubes tied, take birth control or any other option we have as far as our reproductive health.

on edit: It's a right to privacy and to make decisions as we see fit.

[Cha]

32. Thanks for this analysis, mad.

I had no idea this reframing of the "pro-choice/anti-choice" issue was going on.

I like it much better. If something isn't working then redo it.

Sounds like tweety couldn't handle it.

[madfloridian]

36. I remember when it started....it took me a while to understand.

I watched him on Hardball, and it was quite clear to me that he was putting this in action. He said he did not want those words to be on the agenda, just privacy.

[ruggerson]

33. And Dean is totally correct

and we all should be following suit:

Do not use the terms "pro choice" and "pro life" anymore.

They are terms Republicans use to control the debate.

Use the term "Pro-Privacy."

Republicans want big government to intrude into a family's private medical decisions.

Democrats want government to stay out of a family's private medical decisions.

Democrats are PRO PRIVACY.

[madfloridian]

49. It takes the argument away from the other side.

I saw Chris Matthews last night with Jimmy Carter, still hammering on Dean about this. Matthews is not stupid, and he should acting that way.

It is not easy for me to admit this may be the best way, because this is one issue that covers so much....the whole role of women in society.

Pro-privacy in our personal decisions about health care and life and death.

[doc03]

35. I think that Dean is right, we should have taken that position

all along that takes the Repugs argument away from them. Myself I have always been anti-abortion but I believe that is a decision to be made by the mother and not the government. I have never liked the term Pro-choice, it's not a "choice" to me it's a "life".

[madfloridian]

38. Here is Renee's transcript from Shadow Blog. From Hardball.

With a few ticked off comments inserted.

http://shadowbfa.blogspot.com/2005/10/howard-dean-on-hardball-1031.html

[Cha]

39. Thanks for that transcript, mad.

Much better for me to read it. I liked those "inserted comments"!

[DanCa]

40. I am just so sick of these labels all together and the word abortion-

However the good Dr missed one point. It doesn't matter how we define ourselves it's how the rw wing loonies choose to define. I think the old addage you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink applies.

[RaleighNCDUer]

44. Ha! My tired old eyes read that last line as

You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink apples.

Somehow, in a conversation about re-framing, it made sense!

[madfloridian]

45. Here's the exchange between Dean and Matthews on the issue.

Just before Matthews became insulting to him. Well, actually he was insulting during the whole interview...I should say before he became more insulting.

"Matthews: The people believe the Republican party, because of its record, supports the pro-life position. Does your party support the pro-choice position?

Dean: The position we support is that a woman has a right, and a family has a right to make up their own mind about their health care without the government's interference.

Matthews: That's pro-choice.

Dean: A woman and a family have the right to make up their own minds about their health care without government interference. That's our position.

Matthews: Why do you hesitate from the phrase "pro-choice"?

Dean: Because I think it's often misused. If you're pro-choice, it implies you're not pro-life, and that's not true. There are a lot of pro-life Democrats. We respect them, but we believe the government--

Matthews: Do you believe in abortion rights?

Dean: I believe that the government should stay out of the personal lives of families and women. They should stay out of our lives. That's what I believe.

Matthews: I find it interesting that you've hesitated to say what the party's always stood for, which is the pro-choice position--

Dean: The party believes that the government does not belong in our personal lives--"

http://shadowbfa.blogspot.com/2005/10/howard-dean-on-hardball-1031.html

[Why Syzygy]

46. He is so strong.

Always has been, always will be. He doesn't let anyone talk him down. Thanks for the post, madfloridian.

[m_welby]

48. what an intelligetn man

never give in to tweety. keep repeating what you want to say and ignore his attempts to redirect.

I am a Pro-Privacy Democrat. - I like the sound of that.

[Pirate Smile]

47. kick