pro-choice
GRITtv: Amanda Marcotte: Sexism Boehner's Top Priority
Congrats, John Boehner and Chris Smith. You took out the word “forcible” in the phrase “forcible rape” in HR 3, misnamed the “No Taxpayer Funding For Abortion Act”, and you think this somehow means that it’s not as misogynist as it was before. Amanda Marcotte blogs at Pandagon.net and is the author of Get Opinionated: A Progressive's Guide to Finding Your Voice (and Taking a Little Action). Distributed by Tubemogul.
Email this pageGRITtv: GRITtv Digs: Conspiracy Tactics: Priests for Life
As anti-abortion activist Flip Benham faces trial for stalking and violating a law against residential picketing, we zero in once again on the various tactics of the anti-choice movement. From "Wanted" posters with abortion providers' faces, names and addresses to the use of racially-loaded language by Frank Pavone and his Priests for Life group--a decidedly white organization claiming concern for African-American babies, Charles Stuart for GRITtv Digs keeps an eye on the movement in this third installment of "Conspiracy Tactics."
GRITtv: The F Word: Good for Oklahoma, How About Goldman?
Democrats in D.C. are going about this regulation thing all wrong. Want to get Republican buy-in? Give Republicans the kind of regulation they like. As usual in U.S. politics, the states provide the road map. Take Arizona. There, the party of small government's just released police to stop people on suspicion. Want to break GOP resistance to financial regulation? Release the SEC to spot-check Wall Street. Anyone who looks suspiciously likely to be hawking synthetic derivatives? Slap ‘em in detention until their lawyers can prove they're innocent. It’s all in the interests of crime prevention. Oklahoma's state legislature just overrode the governor's veto of two laws related to pregnancy and abortion. Personal privacy's nice but even good people sometimes make bad decisions, said legislators. Now women who'd like to terminate a pregnancy will be subjected to mandatory vaginal scans and forced to view fetal porn videos. Want to reduce credit default swaps? Before they make another risky bet, let’s force traders to slap on a gown, step in those stirrups, and subject themselves to a mandatory scan of their stock portfolios, while watching American Casino or Plunder or listening to the live, panicked heartbeat of manipulated mortgage owners. Regulators need to remember that even the die-hardest conservative's OK with some regulation. If it's good enough for the women of Oklahoma, it's good enough for Wall Street. Right? The F Word is a regular commentary by Laura Flanders, the host of GRITtv which broadcasts weekdays on satellite TV (Dish Network Ch. 9415 Free Speech TV) on cable, and online at GRITtv.org and TheNation.com. Support us by signing up for our podcast, and follow GRITtv or GRITlaura on Twitter.com. Distributed by Tubemogul.
GRITtv: Who Threw Dawn Johnsen Under the Bus?
Dawn Johnsen was one of Barack Obama's most progressive nominees, a strong voice for the rule of law, her nomination to the Office of Legal Counsel would have been clear message to the world that the days of torture memos and overreaching executive power were behind the U.S. So when she withdrew her nomination after over a year without a Senate vote, progressives and civil libertarians were distressed--not least because of the administration's apparent lack of willingness to fight for its stellar nominee.
GRITtv: The F Word: Solving a Problem Like Stupak
Bart Stupak is retiring. The man who earned the enmity of pro-choicers across America with his grandstanding over the rights of women in health care reform has decided not to run for reelection, stating as his reason that the bill he did his best to kill got passed. Is it time to celebrate? Rep. Stupak, from upper Michigan, represents a chunk of rural residents who tended, before him, to elect Republicans. He's now found himself in the unenviable position of being hated by women's rights advocates AND the criminalization crowd. In terms of gains for Democrats, Michael Moore has noted that Stupak hasn't been all bad -- he's supported gun control legislation, taking on the NRA -- Moore calls him a “decent guy.” Now he's politically defunct. Stupak, in other words, is the most prominent face of a big problem for progressives within the Democratic party: what to do about the conservadems? They may snatch a seat from the GOP, but what's the good, if they spend most of their time in office fighting against the party and wearing down the supposedly Democratic agenda while they're at it. The good news in this case, is there's no longer any reason for Democrats in Michigan not to support prochoice former schoolteacher Connie Saltonstall for Stupak's seat. But the bigger question's this. What's politics? If you're a party that claims to have beliefs, do you go to where the voters are, perfecting the art of the easy road to a graspable majority? Or is politics, rather, the effort to shift opinion towards what you believe is right? The worst outcome of all is Stupak's -- falling victim to a bit of both. The F Word is a regular commentary by Laura Flanders, the host of GRITtv which broadcasts weekdays on satellite TV (Dish Network Ch. 9415 Free Speech TV) on cable, and online at GRITtv.org and TheNation.com. Support us by signing up for our podcast, and follow GRITtv or GRITlaura on Twitter.com. Distributed by Tubemogul.
GRITtv: Reproductive Rights as Human Rights
Jan. 22 is the 37th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that finally recognized a woman's right to her own reproductive choices. With the election of a prochoice Democrat last November, many assumed that we might finally have some breathing room around the issue of abortion. Instead, we've seen Stupak and Nelson trying to use the health care reform bills to restrict rights even further, and clinics around the country have seen increased aggression, culminating in the brutal murder of Dr. George Tiller. To fill us in on the abortion wars, we spoke to Silvia Henriquez, executive director of the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health, author Carole Joffe and Lynn Paltrow, Executive Director of National Advocates for Pregnant Women.
GRITtv: Healthcare Day of Action Jan. 13
The final fight over the health care reform bill is coming up, and women's health care been a key issue throughout, as we've reported many times. This video from Not Under the Bus is here to remind us not to give up and to take action to ensure women don't get thrown under the bus for the sake of reform. January 13 is the national day of action!
GRITtv: N.Y. Activists Take On Stupak
On December 2, 2009, activists from NARAL Pro-Choice New York, Planned Parenthood, the New York Civil Liberties Union, and the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health headed to Washington, D.C., for a day of lobbying against the Stupak amendment to the health care bill, which drastically sets back women's access to safe and legal abortion.
Laura Flanders on The Ed Show, 11/10/2009
GRITtv's Laura Flanders debates Ernest Istook of the Heritage Foundation about the healthcare bill's future in the United States Senate on "The Ed Show" Nov. 10, 2009.
GRITtv: Compromise On Women's Backs Again
Jill Filipovic, Frances Kissling, Diane Archer and Eesha Pandit talk about strategies for responding to the Stupak-Pitts amendment, and what activists, feminists, and allies can do to make Democrats understand that women are not bargaining chips.
