Her Daily News

The debate on abortion has long been a heated one, with strong opinions on both sides and far-reaching ethical implications. However, this debate resulted in tragedy today as a prominent abortion doctor was shot and killed at his church in Kansas.

Dr. George Tiller, 67, was serving as an usher at Reformation Lutheran Church when he was shot and killed this morning, according to the Associated Press. A suspect was later detained; this man has been identified as Scott Roeder, who has a criminal record and who has expressed strong anti-abortion views in the past. So far, he has not been charged with the murder, and it is expected that he will be taken to Wichita for questioning.

Dr. Tiller’s Women’s Health Care Services is known as one of only three clinics in the country that performs late-term abortions. He and the clinic have been targets of violence in the past - the clinic was bombed in 1985, and Dr. Tiller was shot in both arms in 1993. Furthermore, the clinic was targeted in recent acts of vandalism, and Dr. Tiller had asked the FBI to investigate recent incidents including damage to security cameras.

Reactions to the murder have been varied among those on both sides of the debate. Some anti-abortion activists have denounced the violent tactics used, while others have called Dr. Tiller a murderer in his own right. Meanwhile, pro-choice activist Nancy Keenan of NARAL Pro-Choice America has spoken out in support of clinics like Dr. Tiller’s in light of this tragic act. However, President Obama summed it up very well: “However profound our differences as Americans over difficult issues such as abortion, they cannot be resolved by heinous acts of violence.”

During the 2008 presidential campaign, GOP vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin drew criticism and controversy when it was found out that her teenage daughter Bristol was pregnant, especially in light of the Alaska Governor’s well-publicized views favoring abstinence-only education. More recently, though, Bristol, now 18, has spoken to the media about the birth of her son Tripp - and she faced some tough questions about the media attention that she had to deal with during her pregnancy.

People reports on Bristol’s recent segment on Fox News in which she told Greta Van Susteren about her hope that her experience will serve as a lesson for others - she hopes that teens will wait longer than she did. She told Van Susteren that her situation was not the easiest one to raise a child in: “I hope people learn from my story … It’s so much easier if you’re married, have a house and career.” Nevertheless, she insists that the choice that she made to keep her child was not dictated by her mother’s staunch anti-abortion stance, stating emphatically, “It was my choice to have the baby.”

Her views do differ from her mom’s on the issue of abstinence-only education. While Governor Palin strongly favors teaching abstinence, her daughter feels that this stance is not realistic. Indeed, telling her parents of her own pregnancy was difficult for the teen - she says that the conversation was “harder than labor.” Nevertheless, she enjoys being a mother - she said, “I love it, just seeing him smile and stuff. It’s awesome.” And Tripp’s grandmother made an appearance during the interview as well - of all her family has been through in recent months, she says, “Hey, life happens.”

Birth control becomes a campaign issue - an article by Cristina Page

Republican Senator and Presidential Candidate John McCain has selected a female state governor as his running mate in the upcoming 2008 election. Alaska Governor Sarah Palin has agreed to be his Vice President.

Palin is the mother of five children and most recently gave birth to her second son on April 18 of this year and returned to work three days later. … I have a problem with this. If nothing more than from the standpoint of a mother, why isn’t she home caring for herself and her newborn. When you choose to have children you commit yourself to them, commit to putting their needs ahead of your own, commit to being THERE. I am not saying that a mother needs to put her own needs, goals and aspirations in the deep freezer, but actually, sometimes you do have to shelve them temporarily. And one of those temporary times is when you have a newborn. You owe it to that baby to be there, not to pawn him off on his father or siblings or family members. It is possible to have a career and be a good mother but I think Palin has reached too far. It seems ironic to me that she would be accepted by the Republican party being such an ambitious woman.

When the mother of a newborn baby (4 months) leaves her family to go out on the presidential campaign trail she isn’t going to garner support from other women. Other women will say, “what are you thinking?” and “If you are THAT SUPER MOM then I cannot relate to you.”

It is particularly odd to me that a party (The Republicans) that believes women should not have the right to choose to terminate a pregnancy or that a war deserves more funding than education and that working class people should be taxed in a higher bracket than families making over $200,000 would choose a woman who has so clearly chosen to have a career at the disgrace and sacrifice of her family. She may have a working class background and her husband may be a commercial fisherman but that doesn’t mean she can relate to the greater population of soccer-moms nationwide. In fact, I find her to be untouchable, unreachable and most importantly, unrelatable.

I also have a problem with a WOMAN who is a LIFETIME member of the National Rifle Association. Just sayin’.

Source: Wikipedia
Photo Source: People Magazine

This is a case that really makes me wonder how someone could call themselves an “activist” but not be informed enough to get their protesting right:

David McMenemy, 46, was sentenced Friday to 5 years in prison for attempting to burn down a Davenport, Iowa women’s health clinic on September 11, 2006. McMenemy, a Detroit native, crashed his car into a building that he believed to be an abortion clinic and lit a bottle filled with gasoline before surrendering to firefighters. The Edgerton Women’s Health Care Center does not perform or make referrals for abortions, but provides prenatal care and medical services to low-income and underprivileged women, according to clinic officials.

During the sentencing, McMenemy admitted wrongdoing, telling US District Judge John Javery, “It was wrong. Even if it was an abortion clinic, it would still be wrong.” He then added that he planned to distance himself from any anti-abortion organizations in the future.

The judge ordered him to pay $263,252 in damages to the clinic and also to be treated for mental health and substance-abuse.

It’s not like it would have required much more effort to crash into the place and burn it down than it would have to find out what the clinic actually does. He and the guy who burned down the Hummer plant because they are high polluters (and his destruction of the plant actually caused more pollution than the Hummers could have put out in years) should get together and start a “hair-brained activist club”. In it, they will discuss ways ruin the environment and lives by making base-less assumptions and then acting on them through violent explosions.

I am quite saddened about this case. First of all, I don’t think he received a stiff enough penalty. Maybe if we started factoring is stupidity, sentences could be harsher. Additionally, that clinic was probably helping many women. It was probably run by an non-profit organization who does not have the funds to re-build the entire facility and now will have to remain closed (at least for some time) in order to build more funds. In the mean time, countless low-income and underprivileged women will have to seek care elsewhere, possibly further away and possibly not at all. Sometimes when you fight so hard for a cause, you do more harm than good.

women, abortion, clinics, activists, anti-abortion

The abortion discussion in America is often times different from those of other countries. In Mozambique it is a question of protection of women’s lives. Too often women seek abortions in this country, where it is illegal, only to suffer serious injuries and even death because of improper procedure. These illegal abortions are the third leading cause of maternal mortality in Mozambique. For a country with the highest maternal mortality rate in the world, the measure will offer women a chance to seek procedures in proper facilities. The Feminist Daily News has the rest of the story.

women, abortion, Mozambique, international, mortality, maternal

Fertility treatments are definitely a hot topic recently. An article released recently on Salon.com’s Boadsheet caught my eye when discussing what these kinds of treatments mean for women in our society. Both of the women in the article gave birth to sextuplets with the help of fertility treatments only 10 hours apart. So what’s the big deal? Well, its the classic battle of nature vs. science.

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