• Abortion will cause you eternal damnation, unless you are Catholic and feel really bad, promise your priest not to do it again and say a gazillion Hail Marys.
• Abortion — and particularly multiple abortions, you libidinous, unfeeling slut — will render you infertile. It could be medical, it could be karmic retribution, no one really knows.
• Every woman that has an abortion gets breast cancer. The mere act of sucking a human baby out of your uterus causes cancer cells to start forming in your breasts and there's nothing that can be done.
• If you manage to escape God's retribution for your immoral acts and do get pregnant after an abortion, you'll likely just miscarry or have an ectopic pregnancy. If you actually manage to carry the child to term, having aborted another child, God will visit upon your new baby birth defects or low birth weight, if He doesn't just kill your baby entirely.
• You'll basically want to kill yourself from the guilt after an abortion, and will definitely have a mental breakdown from realizing the consequences of your actions. This will manifest as depression, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or Leslee Unruh.
• Abortion will cause every woman who has one to end up not pregnant.

It's so hard to separate the myths from reality sometimes, I know.

Photo via Amelee/Deviant Art

Abortion Not Seen Linked With Depression [Reuters]

Related: Abortion Myths [National Abortion Federation]
Top 10 Anti-Abortion Myths [Ask.com]
courtesy of Amelee
Abortion Myths: Fact vs. Fiction [TeenWire]
Post Abortion Syndrome [National Abortion Federation]

Earlier: Abortion In New Zealand
The Many Contradictions Of Leslee Unruh, Anti-Abortion And "Purity" Advocate

• An amusement park in South Korea schooled 30 female and male wannabe-Santas today on what it takes to be Santa Claus. • An Illinois woman who recently finalized her divorce claims that her ex-husband and his girlfriend broke into her house over the weekend and stole half of her king-sized bed as well as some electronics. • Captain Kate Philp of the British Army became the first female soldier to lose a limb in Afghanistan when she lost half of her leg following a blast that killed another soldier. • A report on Tuesday of a fetus in a trash bin behind the Gulfcoast Ultrasound Institute in Florida turned out to be a training tool for doctors and nurses to perform ultrasound procedures. • Nancy Kerrigan will star in an ice skating TV special, Holiday Celebration on Ice, which will air on Sunday on NBC. •

[Image via Planned Parenthood of Greater Orlando.]

• About 414 women waited in the cold outside the Apollo Theater in New York on Saturday in hopes of getting the role of Effie White for the upcoming national tour of the musical Dreamgirls. • Vivid, a student magazine at Cambridge University has sparked a controversy after printing a picture of a topless female undergrad in a recent issue. • A new study reveals that neurotic people are bothered more by uncertainty than bad news. • Campaigners of a pro-Cesarean and pain relief childbirth group in England had a meeting today with the chair of the Commons Health Select Committee to warn against ignoring "women's choice" while pandering to natural childbirth lobbyists. • A Los Angeles judge put off a decision on dismissing the case against Lori Drew today and asked for Drew's defense team to open its case. • Jump Start, a shelter for teenage mothers in Tacoma, Washington will be closing in mid-December due to lack of funds. • A 106-year-old woman discovered that she had been celebrating her birthday on the wrong day for years but still decided to celebrate on that wrong date. • A new federal investigative report into Michael Vick's dogfighting operation reveals that the athlete was directly involved in the hanging and drowning of "underperforming" pit bulls. • The Brazilian police are currently investigating 1,000 women suspected of having abortions, which are illegal in Brazil. 150 women have already been charged. • More than 400,000 women in England have had their handbags stolen from cars in the past 12 months. • Amazon.com is offering 19 best-selling products that won't require tools to open in order to deal with frustrating packaging on holiday gifts. • A cafeteria and playground aide at an elementary school in New Jersey is causing an uproar after the community learned that she used to be a porn star. • The Medina Collective in Toronto offers university-level courses to women of color about sexuality, gender, the media and hip hop culture. • Menopause isn't just for women anymore; now men can get in on the fun.•

• So, about the rape kits thing. Are you saying you didn't know what your hand-picked police chief was doing in a town of 5,000 people, or were you just fibbing about it?
• What is your exact position on comprehensive sex education?
• What is your position on teaching creationism in schools? How do you think evolution should be taught?
• Are Cole Haan boots that much more comfortable than, say, Naturalizer so as to justify the price tag?
• Why do you insist on teasing your hair up so much?
• Have you been to the part of Alaska that you can see Russia from?
• What does moose meat taste like?
• Please explain your enjoyment of aerial wolf hunting.
• Do you think you could have pulled off the Poehler rap?
• Why did you always hug John McCain at events, but never shake hands?
• Is there a reason that the Secret Service nicknamed your husband "Driller"?
• Do you really think it's a good idea to escalate tensions with Russia?
• Why do you think you've been involved in so many firing scandals when in executive office?
• Do you feel the coverage of you has been sexist? What in particular did you find sexist?
• Did you vote for Ted Stevens?
• What would you say to the girl in the rape survivor ad that felt she needed to have an abortion?
• Why did you end up attending so many different colleges?
• What about the campaign was the most unexpected to you?
• What's it like to own — at least briefly — $150,000 worth of clothes?
• Who was the biggest asshole in the McCain campaign, in your opinion?
• Do you really not believe in global warming?
• Name a community organizer you do respect.

What do you wish you could ask her, since you know she's coming back?

Katie Couric Corrects Sarah Palin On Reading Question [LA Times]

Earlier: Rachel Maddow: Sarah Palin "Is Lying To You — Enthusiastically And Repeatedly"
Debunking The Sarah Palin Rape Kit "Debunkers"
Palin Rap: "I Built Me A Bridge, It Ain't Going Nowhere!"
A Look At the Rape Survivor Ads Against McCain And Palin

"You don't work to limit the murder of innocent victims. You work to stop it," Judie Brown, the president of the American Life League adds. But couldn't they do both? Throwing their support behind more health care and opportunities for impoverished and campaigning to end abortion are not mutually exclusive things, as the more reasonable pro-lifers, like Douglas Kmiec, realize. "If one strategy has failed and failed over decades, and you have empirical information that tells how you can honor life and encourage women to make that choice by meeting real needs that are existing and tangible, why not do that?" Kmiec, a Catholic who voted for Obama tells the Post.

There's one Catholic who might not be as willing to compromise as Kmiec: the Pope According to Time, one of Obama's first moves in office may be to sign the Freedom of Choice Act, which would undo some restrictions to abortion, and "could force doctors in Catholic hospitals to perform abortions against their conscience." An insider at the Vatican tells Time, that if Obama signs the Freedom of Choice Act, "[I]t would be the equivalent of a war. It would be like saying: 'We've heard the Catholic Church and we have no interest in their concerns.'" The most unfortunate part of this potential is that the Obama administration and the Vatican have a lot of shared thoughts about foreign policy and the environment, and according to Time, "the possibility of an open clash over abortion could squander the potential for the Vatican to work side-by-side with Washington" on these issues."

Some Abortion Foes Shifting Focus From Ban To Reduction [Washington Post]
Will The Pope And Obama Clash Over Abortion? [Time]

While speaking at the National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges this week, U.S. News & World Report writer Michael Barone told the crowd:

"The liberal media attacked Sarah Palin because she did not abort her Down syndrome baby," Barone said, according to accounts by attendees. "They wanted her to kill that child. ... I'm talking about my media colleagues with whom I've worked for 35 years."

He is now claiming that to say such a thing was just a joke fallen flat because he thinks we're all fucking idiots. He also probably thinks we didn't read the National Review piece from last week that said basically the same thing.

Seeing the Palin family, in a very visible public forum, with an uncompromising and public pro life philosophy arouses deeply repressed feelings in post abortive parents, as well as media members, counselors, health care professionals, politicians and others who promote abortion rights, especially the abortion of children with challenges such as Down Syndrome. These powerful repressed feelings of grief, guilt and shame can be deflected from the source of the wound (i.e., abortion) and projected onto an often uncharitable focus upon the trigger of these painful emotions…the Palin family.

Of course, it doesn't just mean that Barone is guilty of a little intellectual thievery and a little disingenuous CYA back-tracking when called to the carpet for some statements so offensive that attendees reportedly left the room. It also means that he's just congenitally stupid, uninformed and possibly unable to consider the possibility that pro-choice women aren't all abortion-happy whores who can't stand it when other women don't terminate their pregnancies.

Barone: Media Wanted Palin Abortion [Politico]
The Palin Trig-ger [National Review]

In the Journal article about how gay panic is overtaking anti-abortion fervor for the ice-cold hearts and reptillian minds of those who like to spend their days trying to deny rights to others, the paper talks to a bunch of people who are spending way more time trying to make sure the government never recognizes the validity of any adult relationship that doesn't involve exactly 1 penis and 1 vagina. Heck, some of them sound almost eager to support President-Elect Barack Obama's plans to reduce abortions by reducing the external economic factors and lack of education about and access to birth control that causes women to consider them.

President-elect Barack Obama and other Democrats have promised to work to make abortion rare, so long as it remains legal. "Maybe it's time to take them up on the offer" instead of "bashing our heads over and over again against the same wall," writes Paul Strand, a blogger for the Christian Broadcasting Network.

Wow, he sounds positively Kmeickian! And it gets even more compassionate (for a conservative, that is):

The Rev. Joel Hunter, an influential megachurch pastor in Florida, sees a new willingness among pro-life activists to cooperate with pro-choice forces in search of a middle ground. He traces that openness in part to the flourishing of crisis pregnancy centers. As volunteers meet women struggling with unplanned pregnancies, they begin to view abortion less as an absolute evil and more as a practical challenge: How do we get this single mother a job, or help that college student with child care so she doesn't feel as though abortion is her only option?

Not that all the fundies are on board the Change train and trying to work with the other side of the aisle to reduce the incidence of abortion or anything.

"It's like saying, 'Let's work to make sure they kill fewer Jews in the concentration camps this year,"' said the Rev. Mark Dever, a pastor in Washington D.C.

Well, hey, Devers, guess who else the Nazis killed in concentration camps? Homosexuals! Not that you want to kill them, you know, but Jedem Das Seine and all, just make sure your government doesn't offer them equal rights and stuff, right?

In fact, Congressman Mike Pence — who's in the (now much shorter) line to take a senior House leadership position next year — doesn't think that the Republican Party should get back to its small government, respect for civil rights, low tax roots after two consecutive massacre-y election cycles. He says in order to get voters back to the polls, the Republican party should hit harder on rights denial issues around election time to scare voters into thinking that the Democrats are going to make gay marriages and abortions, like, mandatory or something. He thinks is a bullish idea, not because Republican-flavored voters in South Dakota and Colorado defeated two abortion initiatives, but because plenty of Democratic-leaning ones shat all over marriage equality. So, they're going to be kind of serious about jumping up and down screaming about the end of the world coming because Ellen married Portia and a touch quieter about wanting to regulate the contents of our uteruses more stringently — at least until they drive Teh Gheyz from our shores like St. Patrick supposedly did the snakes in Ireland. They'll be back for our eggs after that, though. Right now they're just hoping that, like other people from another time when "they" started coming for groups of people, you might not speak up because you aren't one of those people. Yet.

Abortion Foes' Dilemma: Confront or Cooperate? [Wall Street Journal]
New Anti-Choice Organization: Personhood USA [Feministing]
Pence: Conservatives Should Focus On Social Issues Like ‘The Sanctity Of Marriage’ While Rebuilding GOP [Think Progress]

Related: Picture adapted from Clean Your Womb [I Heart Guts]
Doug Kmiec Reaffirms Endorsing Sen. Barack Obama [Catholic Online]
Jedem Das Seine [A Teacher's Guide To the Holocaust]
First They Came... [Wikipedia]

• A 13-year-old girl became the youngestsuicide bomber in Iraq yesterday when she blew herself up in Baquba, killing five Iraqi guards. • School bake sales may be a thing of the past, as hundreds of schools have instituted policies to limit the amount of junk food consumed by students. • Several new studies suggest that babies born from frozen embryos are less likely to be premature and underweight than those that develop from fresh embryos, possibly because only the strongest embryos survive the freezing process. • A topless portrait of a Tahitian girl painted on one of Captain Cook's journeys will be given a public exhibit for the first time in 200 years before being auctioned in December. • A movie based on the best selling memoir My Friend Anne Frank by Frank's best friend Jopie is being developed by an indie studio. • According to a new study, obese women have less impulse control than normal-weight women, but obese men aren't any more impulsive than normal-weight men. • New research suggests that the anti-depressant Paxil, a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor, may reduce male fertility by increasing DNA fragmentation in sperm. • Doctors say that crying may make us healthier by literally expelling certain chemicals from our bodies. The compounds found in emotional tears are different from those caused by eye watering. Tears may be how the body removes chemicals that build up from emotional stress. • Under a new law in Australia, partners together for two years will get the same rights as married couples to seek "spousal maintenance" claims. The could mean philandering husbands will be forced to keep paying for their mistresses after their affair ends. • John and Jenny Deaves, a father and daughter who revealed that they were having an incestuous love affair and had a child together have split up. The Jenny is now engaged to a bisexual man and they both live still with her father and the former couple's one-year-old daughter. • New research on pre-eclampsia found that women who have had two or more abortions reduced their risk for pre-eclampsia by 60 percent, meaning they are as well protected as women who have previously given birth. • Soon women will be able to delay motherhood into their 40s and beyond by having one of their ovaries removed, stored in a freezer, and re-implanted. • The New York Times visits the thong and gold lamé strewn dressing room at Larry Flynt's Hustler Club, a Manhattan strip club. • British food writer Fiona Beckett has tips for surviving the hard economic times by stretching your food budget, including by buying cheaper cuts of meat, watering down salad dressing, and cutting down on second helpings. • Scientists have found that hormonal changes caused by menopause change the way older women judge the attractiveness of younger women and decreases competitive feelings toward other women for male partners. • Though abortion is largely banned in Latin America, Uruguay's Senate voted today to decriminalize abortions during the first 12 weeks of presidency. However, the president is expected to veto the bill. • Lonesome George, a giant tortoise from the Galapagos island who is the last of his kind, may not become a father, thus saving his species from extinction. He mated with two females of a different subspecies this year, but 80 percent of their eggs appear infertile. •

In an interview with the National Review's K-Lo, Dannenfelser says that, on Election Day, the anti-choice movement lost 15 of its issues' advocates in Congress, and that about 40 percent of the candidates they backed lost. She blames this entirely on the economy, and not on the fact that the majority of Americans think abortion should remain legal. She's saddened by the loss of Marilyn Musgrove, who carried much water for the social conservative movement by pushing for amendments to our Constitution to ban everything the fundies want banned. She blames American baby-killing, gay-sex-having heathens:

They wake up in the morning with anger and hatred of our cause, spend the day leveraging the energy from it into brilliant strategy, and go to bed thinking they have saved the world from anger and hatred.

I think Dannenfelser probably knows more than a little about waking up in the morning with "anger and hatred" for the people on the opposite side of this issue.

Amusingly, Dannenfelser is incredibly angry that there are no pro-life women in the Senate anymore, helpfully ignoring Republican Senators Lisa Murkowski and Kay Bailey Hutchison who are, clearly, godless baby-killers despite their voting records. Nonetheless, she sees hope for a renewal of her efforts to erode the personal liberties of women:

The pro-life movement will grow much stronger now. If the movement does its job, we can gain great ground in this climate. With our backs up against the wall because of FOCA, and all three branches of government under pro-abortion control, the movement will retrench, reorganize and re-energize as it did after Clinton came into office.

Basically, she's not only not going to stop, she's going to use the specter of an Obama Administration handing out RU-486 willy-nilly to raise more money and come on stronger than ever before. And so, despite this win for the pro-choice movement, it's not really any time to rest on our laurels and wait for a Supreme Court nomination.

The Atlantic's Ross Asshat Douthat has an article in Salon where he happily picks apart anti-choice conservatives, like Douglas Kmeic, who voted for Obama because of Obama's ideas about reducing the incidence of abortion. Douthat whines that this is no time to talk about respecting the rights of women and reducing the reasons for them having abortions to reduce abortions, it's time to just make it nearly impossible for women to get them (if not illegal) and for conservatives to stop being such pussies.

To my mind any pro-choice American who sincerely seeks a national consensus on the subject of abortion should support overturning Roe and returning the issue to the democratic process

Uh, if there was a worse week to argue to liberals that we should stop fighting the primacy of the judicial branch and put our established personal liberties up for a vote, this is not it.

Pro-Life Causes Live On [National Review]
Kmeic's Abortion Folly [Salon]

Related: Lisa Murkowski on the Issues [On The Issues]
Kay Bailey Hutchison [On The Issues]

"The silence of Saddleback Church pastor Rick Warren on the subject of abortion in this election has been notable," Miller writes. "In 2004, Warren sent an e-mail around listing the five "non-negotiables" for any evangelical voter, and abortion was of course high on that list. This year, he has made no such pronouncement." Unfortunately, Miller doesn't think the abortion battle is anywhere near over, despite the fact that it has not been an overarching issue during this election.

Though some older pro-life Catholics have been able to get past Obama's pro-choice stances because they agree with him on the economy and the environment, it seems that the anti-choice conviction of many young Evangelicals remains strong. Miller reports, "According to research by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, young evangelicals are as conservative—if not more so—than their parents on abortion."

With the overwhelming popularity of Barack Obama among people of my generation, I really thought that after years of an increasingly socially conservative country we were in for a swing to the left. But according to Miller, just as the left has been galvanized by Obama, the right was galvanized by Jerry Fallwell and the moral majority in the 80s. "Young evangelicals, especially, who were raised in that environment talk about how difficult it is to see abortion in anything but black-and-white terms," Miller says. "Gov. Sarah Palin, whose family portrait contains the silent but not hidden message, 'I didn't have an abortion and neither did my teenage daughter,' speaks directly to these Christians and echoes the messages they've heard their whole lives—at home, in Sunday school, at youth group and at church. "

Knock on the hardest piece of oak in existence, we will be seeing an Obama administration stride into the White House in 2009, and if that's the case, our right to chose will be relatively safe for a prolonged period of time. But don't ever fool yourself into thinking that the battle has been won. Those nuns do not fuck around.

The Silent Issue [Newsweek]

Earlier: South Dakota Will Vote On Measure Basically Banning Abortion
Sarah Palin: Obama Has Left Behind Even The Middle Ground When It Comes To Abortion
Some Pro-Life Catholics Have Become Obama Grandmamas

• Just to prove to American voters that they are really unfeeling, the Republican National Committee released word today that the California Republican Party is filing an FEC complaint against Barack Obama for his visit to his dying grandmother, who passed away today. Is anyone home over there? [Washington Post]
• If you weren't already aware, Barack Obama doesn't want to see your underwear. Panty-flinging should remain metaphorical. [Politico]
• Sarah Palin is definitely not releasing her medical records. I want to be angry about this, but I wouldn't want reporters pawing around my gynecological exams either. [CNN]
• Republican Senator Orrin Hatch, having lived the last 8 years with his head firmly up his ass, thinks that the U.S. will "lose a lot of stature throughout the world" if we elect Obama. [Politico]

• Speaking of embarrassing America, the KKK is recruiting again in Ohio because of Obama. [The New Republic]
• In other embarrassing news, robocalls have gone out to voters in Toledo to try to convince them they can avoid long polling place lines by voting by phone. I'm sure they're totally not Republican-funded. [Rolling Stone]
• Calls telling Democrats to vote on Wednesday have been made to voters in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, too. [Huffington Post]
• And Republican Senator Roger Wicker is so worried that he'll be voted out of office he's handing out sample ballots telling Mississippi voters he's a Democrat. [Huffington Post]
• Republican groups have started hitting Obama on his support for reproductive rights again through commercials, which will totally change the race for McCain. [Time]
• As will neocon Fred Kagan's idiotic weekend editorial that voters need to stop paying attention to the American economy, Wall Street and Main Street and start voting on what's happening on Baghdad's Haifa Street. Spencer Ackerman's got video of what Kagan knows about pretty much any street, which is to say "nothing." [Attackerman]

Malvasi is a Vietnam vet who grew up in extreme poverty in East New York. When he returned from Vietnam, he became a drifter who floated in and out of jail and fell into the pro-life movement, in part because he was enraged that "he’d defended his country and was called a baby-killer while others were murdering the unborn with impunity." His anti-abortion convictions were so extreme that he became New York City's first abortion clinic bomber in 1985.

Malvasi turned himself into police only after Cardinal O’Connor issued a public plea, begging Dennis to give himself up. After Malvasi's stint in jail for those bombings, his friend from the old neighborhood "Joseph" took him in. Joseph is a Polish Jew who stayed in Poland during WWII but eventually left "when some kids went after Joseph with a straight razor, claiming that his parents had killed Christ." Why did Joseph support this nefarious character? "Here was someone from the old days who’d gone on to become a war hero, someone who made him feel like a big shot just by knowing him." New York's Robert Kolker writes. “It was the same old Dennis," Joseph says. "Easygoing: ‘Everything’s going to be all right.’ A sweetheart. He stood up for this country and the war. I looked up to him—respected him for doing it.”

Joseph knew that Malvasi was still involved with the pro-life movement but he looked the other way. It seems as though he just didn't want to take Malvasi down from his war hero pedestal. But then Malvasi got romantically involved with Loretta Marra, and his ties to the craziest fringe of the pro-life movement intensified. Kolker describes a speech Malvasi gave to the White Rose Banquet, "the ultimate radical pro-life trade show." You see, because Malvasi had actually bombed abortion clinics he was a hero to the Banquet attendees. Loretta helped him write his speech, which is quite an evil piece of work.“One favorite [saying] is, ‘Violence never solves anything,'" Malvasi told the group. "Of course it does. It solves all kinds of problems. And just men have used it as a tool throughout history.…[I salute] the noble work of supporting your local baby-defender, from lock-gluers to bombers…arsonists, and snipers. Your help makes all the difference in the world—to the babies themselves.”

Malvasi and Marra eventually married, and they would go on to help murderer James Kopp evade police. Though the article is framed as "Why did Joseph turn in Malvasi?" (duh, because he thought murder was wrong and there was a $1 million reward), the more interesting question is how did Malvasi go from "the kind of kid everyone else wanted to be — the funny one, the street-smart one, the handsome one with a natural swagger" to unrepentant potential murderer? Kolker attempts to answer that question by plumbing a screenplay that Malvasi had written, loosely based on his own life:

In the screenplay, as in life, the cardinal comes forward to plead with our hero to surrender. But in Dennis’s script, the cardinal is a patsy, duped by law enforcement to lure Danny into the hands of a malevolent government. The movie of Dennis’s life concludes with the hero walking into the trap, but at least his conscience is clear. “I’ve always followed my heart,” Danny says at the end, on his way to prison. The cardinal is wrong. Danny—Dennis—is a martyr.

Mercenary For Justice [New York Magazine]

Professional jealousy? Not really, but anti-abortion activists are concerned that the sheer absurdity of Burton's law and the eventual challenge to it could undermine their years of work convincing Americans that they aren't all crazy. They're even more scared that the eventual challenge to the underpinnings of Roe V. Wade they've been ginning up for when the Supreme Court gets that last, coveted conservative will be naught but a dream if Burton succeeds and then, at the Supreme Court, fails.

The problem with Burton's amendment is that it wouldn't just eliminate abortion (or enshrine a particular religious Weltanschauung into Colorado's constitution), it would also make illegal: certain kinds of birth control — from the Pill to IUDs to Plan B; the destruction of unused embryos from in vitro fertilization (if they get to remain unused at all, if the practice even remains legal since it generally involves the loss of some fertilized eggs); and research on embryo-initiated stem cell lines. Would they stop me at the border and forcibly remove my IUD if I chanced to have sex in Colorado? Force you to check your birth control pills at the border? Burton doesn't say — but she doesn't much care, either, because the Protection of The Unborn is more important than any right that the Supreme Court might have offered American women in Roe v. Wade or Griswold v. Connecticut. Oh, that's right! Burton's law, if upheld by the Supreme Court, wouldn't just invalidate Roe, it would dismantle Griswold, which protects our right to birth control — which the fundies know most Americans consider settled (and important) law.

Clark Forsythe, the president of Americans United for Life, opposes Burton's bill because he thinks the time isn't ripe for a Supreme Court challenge to Roe (since he doesn't have his last required judge) and because he recognizes that most Coloradans are going to think it's just a little crazy for the state to start outlawing methods of birth control:

"If it's defeated 60-40, or even 70-30, what does that say to lawmakers?" says Forsythe. (A mid-October poll shows 35 percent of the voters support the amendment, 55 percent oppose it and 10 percent are undecided).

They're afraid Burton's eventual defeat will actually set them back further in their efforts to convince you to let the government tell you what you can put into your body or take out of your uterus, or that it might convince the Supreme Court to reiterate its stance on Roe in a way that makes it nearly impossible to challenge in their lifetimes. So, ironically, Burton may do more good for the reproductive choice movement than it's ever done for itself. Funny that.

Roe v. Wade v. Kristi [Newsweek]

Related: They Just Won't Quit [Wonkette]

It shocked me that the PGD testing is legal in the U.S., because there is so much debate when it comes to extensive prenatal testing. But then I realized that PGD tests the eggs before they're implanted, rather than after, so this testing doesn't ever lead to abortion — only to more babies. And who can get mad or moral about more babies?

But back to Britain, where PGD is still only allowed to determine fetal abnormalities. McBeth went undercover to investigate a Turkish clinic, the Jinemed Center, that promised her PGD…except that PGD is illegal in Turkey, as well. "Many patients who were planning to go abroad were completely confused as to where it was legal and where it wasn't," McBeth says. In addition, the Jinemed Center "said they normally put in three embryos. That rang alarm bells. The maximum in the UK is two and most doctors would like to see that reduced to one because multiple pregnancy is the single greatest risk with IVF."

The Jinemed Center is now under investigation by the Turkish government, thanks to the undercover camera McBeth brought into a consultation with Jinemed representatives. "Proof if needed that the desire to complete a family with a son or a daughter by going down the 'high tech' route could turn into a legal nightmare," she notes.

Parents Queue To Select Baby Gender [BBC]
Pre-Birth Defects [Slate]

Earlier: Advances In Prenatal Testing Create New Twist In Abortion Debate

Related: Many Clinics Use Genetic Diagnosis To Choose Sex [NPR]

MEGAN: It's good to have the old gang back together! We should make it a point to talk about ass fucking.

JIM: Please. Please no ass fucking. What a disgusting act. But yes, hello, Megan and friends here at the Jezebel.

MEGAN: I'm sorry that the bad man did that to you that time. But that doesn't mean no one likes it.

JIM: HAHAHA WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?? Tell me a political story.

MEGAN: Sort of like I'm sorry that that Michelle had to submit to The Chin last night. Or the fact that "no one really knows how often electronic voting machines fail. The Election Assistance Commission—an independent governmental agency charged with establishing election standards—doesn't collect comprehensive statistics on failure rates".

JIM: Hmm, is J. Crew a "good" political brand for Michelle Obama to sport, or does it make her seem fancy? Here's my answer: no one cares.

MEGAN: That's because a dude tells us it's sexist to care. Which I guess makes all women sexist. Because I was like, what happened to White House Black Market?

JIM: All this talk about voter irregularities. I'm led to believe that if I vote for Obama (btw, I'm not voting because I live in DC which will go 143% for Obama; sue me) a robot will jump out of a broken computer screen and chop off my head with acorns. There's way too much of this conspiratorial malarkey going around. Everyone knows that people will vote and whatever happens, George Bush will somehow win again.

MEGAN: And we will all thank our robot overlords, bowing and scraping to their king, Dick Cheneybot 9000.

JIM: This is never an auspicious start: "Republican [figure] called the media 'sexist' Monday..."

MEGAN: But that is how everything starts now! Republicans care about us laydeez and how sexism affects our daily lives, like when we read media stories about Sarah Palin's clothes. Just not, you know, when we want insurance to cover our birth control or our bosses to pay us the same as our male colleagues doing the same work. That's just silly. Also, did you know that the head of the RNC was some guy named Mike Duncan? Didn't it used to be, like, famous Republicans and shit? No wonder their brand sucks.

JIM: Yes, Ed Gillespie was the most famous person alive when he ran that little chop shop. I have no idea what this "Duncan" looks like. Maybe he is unattractive.

MEGAN: Not to be sexist again but yes.

JIM: Oh he's kind of cute. Hey so let's talk about abortion, specifically, how all Liberal ladies like to have them, all the time, for fun. This is why Liberals hate Sarah Palin, according to the National Review, in one of my favorite articles ever. Some loser argues that since Palin didn't abort her "Trigger," Liberals all RESENT HER FOR BEING MORAL. All I do now is read the National Review all day long.

MEGAN: They are bringing the crazy like no one else this election year, it's true.

JIM:

Seeing the Palin family, in a very visible public forum, with an uncompromising and public pro life philosophy arouses deeply repressed feelings in post abortive parents, as well as media members, counselors, health care professionals, politicians and others who promote abortion rights, especially the abortion of children with challenges such as Down Syndrome. These powerful repressed feelings of grief, guilt and shame can be deflected from the source of the wound (i.e., abortion) and projected onto an often uncharitable focus upon the trigger of these painful emotions…the Palin family.

Is this true, gals?

MEGAN: I mean, obviously I'm just a quivering mass of grief, guilt and shame from the abortion I never had nor needed to have because my school saw fit to teach me about birth control, I have seen fit to use it even when insurance didn't cover it but did cover my colleagues' Viagra and because I've been damn lucky. Yes, deep quivering mass of shame, that's why everything I write is about how Sarah Palin is an annoying slag. I mean, if we're going to talk about misdirected anger, methinks some sort of National Review writer knows a little too much about what it feels like for a girl.

JIM: I hope National Review goes under next, since we now have a magazine or newspaper imploding two or three times a day. Ha ha, "jobs," there are none.

MEGAN: Well, Christopher Buckley "left" to save all those angry Republicans from canceling their subscriptions after his apostasy. So I guess that means it will survive or something. Sadly.

JIM: Yeah, and now obviously he is the greatest person in Political History according to the liberal media. It's reminiscent also of how he "left" his bastard child son by disowning him and how WFB Jr. "left" the same bastard child no money in his will by claiming that the kid was DEAD TO HIM.

MEGAN: Wow, it's obviously the kid's fault that his dad likes doinking publicists. Also, Anna just sent this to me as "breaking" news, but apparently a "top McCain adviser" — you know, one of the ones that convinced McCain to choose her — thinks that Palin is a "whack job". Good to know that they're not completely out of touch with reality.

JIM: Ha ha, surely this person would say the exact same thing if McCain was winning the election. This is just more Mormon space espionage from the Romney loyalists.

MEGAN: Well, if anyone knows about whack jobs from personal experience, it would be Mormons. And Romney loyalists.

JIM: Hmm, well let's guess who this could be. My guess is: John McCain.

MEGAN: OMG, that would be the best thing ever. Like, fuck my advisers shutting me off from the press, I'm going to sneak into the Straight Talk Potty and engage in some straight talk.

JIM: My guess is: Michael Goldfarb.

MEGAN: Anyone that likes Abba as much as Michael Goldfarb has no place calling Sarah Palin a whack job. Besides, he couldn't go back to his old job "writing" because love for Palin is the new litmus test. I'm betting it's a lobbyist. We're all wicked backstabbers.

JIM: Well she wouldn't be such a whack job if they would LET HER FREE. Let's talk about the electoral map or something, speaking of whacking off.

MEGAN: The electoral map? Man, I would've had more coffee if we were going to get down with The Math this early. And by "more" I mean "some."

JIM: Ha ha I have had none! Anyway. Ahem: KERRY STATES +IA+NM+CO OR +FL OR +VA+NV+... Oh I can't do this either. But there are new shocking states at least make-believe "coming into play" every day. Arizona (angry Mexican spill over from NM/CA/CO)

MEGAN: Dude, I suddenly live in a swing state.

JIM: And the funny thing about that bad boy is that John McCain pretends to live there!

MEGAN: When he really actually lives here! There's a reason that his campaign office is located in Arlington and not, say, Sedona, and that's because it makes it easy for him to walk to work, not that he does because his entourage drives the 3 blocks in their armored SUVs that get 8 mpg.

JIM: Ha ha you live in the Racist Confederacy, this is true. You should come up to DC for Election Night though, to participate in the Race Riots!

MEGAN: I'll head over to Rosslyn and live blog it burning from a safe distance. Luckily, everyone in D.C. is too gephyrophobic to come across the river.

JIM: What is that fancy $50 Georgetown master's degree word you're throwing at me?

MEGAN: Phobic of bridges.

JIM: Oh. I could've guess that from context! I did poorly on the SAT.

MEGAN: Bullshit, Mr. Ivy Grad.

JIM: Tut tut now!

MEGAN: Where's your monocle?

JIM: Sssshhh I WILL PURCHASE YOU. And SELL YOU to THE ACORNS.

MEGAN: Noes! not the ACORNS! Did they give you a cane with which to hit other staffers with at graduation?

JIM: YES, that was the best story ever! How do you wake up this early, every morning. I would vote for that Republican, Wolf, because why not, that little twerp deserved a caning.

MEGAN: Dude, I wake up at 7:30, curse the world, and try not to die of sleep deprivation.

JIM: You grown-ups are weird.

• Alaska Senator Ted Stevens was convicted today of all 7 counts he faced related to not reporting gifts on his Senate financial disclosure forms. He's up for re-election but most sources agree he's unlikely to do time. [CNN]
• The ATF foiled a half-assed plot by a bunch of psycho skinheads to kill a bunch of African-American high schoolers and assassinate Barack Obama. Because, you know, then everyone would be on their side or something. [Huffington Post]
• In other dumb ideas, a GOP group is running $2.5 million worth of Reverend Wright ads in swing states this week. As TNR's Michael Crowley points out, please note how the word "hate" turns into "God" in the middle. Subtle! [The New Republic]
• At a Palin rally in Iowa this weekend, one of her supporters gave up on using subtle terms like "terrorist" or "traitor" or "socialist" or "communist" and loudly expressed why she thinks people shouldn't vote for Obama: "n*****." Palin, naturally, stumbled in her speech but didn't say a word and neither did the crowd. [YouTube]

• A bunch of hateful racist asswipes tore down the sign marking the location in Tallahatchie County, Mississippi where authorities recovered Emmett Till's body in 1955. Emmett Till was the 14-year-old victim of a vicious, racist attack for which the two white guys who admitted to it were later acquitted by an all-white jury. Police think the racist vandals might have chucked the sign in the river. What the fuck is wrong with people? [MSNBC]
• Just in case you didn't know, the bullshit line of the religious groups trying to get Proposition 8 passed in California is that it will be the end of religious freedom because it will force them to marry gay people. Of course, Catholics churches can refuse to marry non-Catholics and every other religion can impose rules and whatever, but logic is totes overrated. [NY Times]
• Oh, and the Yes on Prop 8 hatemongers are attempting to blackmail California businesses into supporting their cause by threatening to expose their tolerance to homophobes that would boycott them. [KFMB]
• A self-identifying Republican launched a series of robocalls against incumbent Republican Mike Thompson inspired by phone sex. It's, um, creepy. [Huffington Post]
• The lady who survived her mother's attempt to abort her has another anti-Obama ad up. If you thought McCain was condescending in the debates, try her on for size. [Politico]
• But 7 members of the cast of The Wire are going to be campaigning for Obama in North Carolina tomorrow. That's about all I got for uplifting news, sorry.

MEGAN: For a campaign that attempted to accuse everyone and anyone of sexism in regards to Sarah Palin, there's some sort of irony in campaign staff now calling her a "diva", I think. Also, I love the back-stabbing of the end of a campaign because it just shows you who is in it for the candidate and who's only in it for what the candidate winning can do for his/her career. And, yes, I'm looking at all the lobbyists in the McCain campaign.

LATOYA: I just feel like it's karma — you asked for a maverick, didn't you? Well now, she's just gone maverick on the trail. I watched McCain on Meet the Press on Sunday, he still says he's proud of her.

MEGAN: Not that her remarks this weekend were "the remarks [they] sent to the plane [that] morning."

LATOYA: I'm loving how some polls are calling Palin "a bigger drag on the campaign than Bush" — that's cold. Yet, there seems to be a strong push for Palin in 2012. (OMG, I am sleepy — I keep typing Plain when I mean Palin. Is my subconscious trying to tell me something?)

MEGAN: Apparently because she can deliver the xenophobes and the racists.

LATOYA: And the VPILF set.

MEGAN: Then Stephanie Herseth for VP in 2012!

LATOYA: Don't forget them. I was watching D.L. Hughley's comedy show on CNN on Saturday and Palin supporters were obviously playing bingo with the campaign buzzwords. "Maverick." "Real American." "Hot"

MEGAN: Palin supporters are the most boring people ever, like, how do you not just make that a drinking game?

LATOYA: See, I was thinking scrabble myself. I know I could hit a couple triple word scores with "RealAmerican", hit "maverick" with the M... I was amused at Hughley's sketch though — he kept telling the supporters that Palin needs a black guy to win, and handed out Palin/Hughley 2012 signs.

MEGAN: The only board game I am really good at is Trivial Pursuit, and even that I haven't played in years.

LATOYA: Response from the one guy — "We don't know you!" (Doesn't that sound familiar?)

Response from an angry woman: "Are you for abortion?"
DL: "I would never have one."

MEGAN: Maybe they're just worried that all black people aren't really Americans.

LATOYA: Neither are you latte-sipping coasters.

MEGAN: Screw lattes, it's all about the café au laits for me.

LATOYA: I think we need to start a campaign for fake America. American Faux. We need a tee shirt.

MEGAN: What would be our symbol? Lattes, arugula and diversity?

LATOYA: Oh, we should make a crest! "In cosmopolitia, we trust."

MEGAN: Do we still have to use the eagle? Could we go with the turkey like Ben Franklin, the ultimate latte-sipper if there ever was one? And then like in those old grade school drawings where you make it from an outline of your hang, we could put a different symbol for our cause on every feather!

LATOYA: See, this is shaping up nicely. I vote for Ben Franklin, Crispus Attucks, and Phyllis Wheatley as our symbols of American Faux. Though I think the first tee we make should be telling K. Rove to sit his ass down somewhere and stop being Captain Obvious. I thought he was a strategist. Who changed the job description?

MEGAN: A strategist is something even other Republicans think McCain lacks. Rove's a pundit now and so like Bill Kristol he has to walk that fine line between a level of intellectual honesty that can leave his job intact and party loyalty, so that's about all he can say. At least David Frum had some helpful suggestions, even if they were basically to let McCain continue to run his campaign into the ground on his own and start fighting to keep some Republicans in office.

LATOYA: Yeah, well it looks like they switched strategies — maybe they are hoping that they can just stop people from voting outright. Or that the election boards will do their work for them:

Berry is one of more than 50,000 registered Georgia voters who have been "flagged" because of a computer mismatch in their personal identification information. At least 4,500 of those people are having their citizenship questioned and the burden is on them to prove eligibility to vote. Experts say lists of people with mismatches are often systematically cut, or "purged," from voter rolls.

It's a scenario that's being repeated all across the country, with cases like Berry's raising fears of potential vote suppression in crucial swing states. "What most people don't know is that every year, elections officials strike millions of names from the voter rolls using processes that are secret, prone to error and vulnerable to manipulation," said Wendy Weiser, an elections expert with New York University's Brennan Center for Justice. "That means that lots and lots of eligible voters could get knocked off the voter rolls without any notice and, in many cases, without any opportunity to correct it before Election Day." Weiser acknowledged that "purging done well and with proper accountability" is necessary to remove people who have died or moved out of state. "But the problem is it's not necessary to do inaccurate purges that catch up thousands of eligible voters without any notice or any opportunity to fix it before Election Day and really without any public scrutiny at all," she said. Such allegations have flared up across the United States during this election cycle, most notably in Ohio, where a recent lawsuit has already gone to the U.S. Supreme Court.

MEGAN: I love how even Scalia was like, oh, Christ, fuck off, Ohio Republicans.

LATOYA: I feel like I need to call the election board and make sure I'm on the guest list. I didn't know voting was like clubbing — "I swear I'm on the list! I registered on Thursday! Can I please get my free drink ticket?"

MEGAN: Well, even if they purged you, they have to let you cast a provisional ballot.

LATOYA: Yeah, like someone is going to count those. And those ballots are shady anyway.

MEGAN: Well, I mean, that is the issue. I think, though, if they have purged so many people that the provisionals could make a difference, Obama's lawyers will probably have your back. I saw Recall. God, I love that movie.

LATOYA: One would hope. In good news, it seems that a lot of former felons have been re-enfranchised.

According to advocacy groups, about 5.3 million Americans, or 1 in 41 adults, have lost their right to vote because of a felony conviction.

"The issue here is really if someone should have a permanent scarlet letter on them — if there are certain offenses for which there is no redemption," said Democratic Rep. Steve Cohen, who played a lead role in revising Tennessee's voting law in 2006.

The suffrage laws vary by state and often by felony, with violent crimes incurring greater restrictions. Only two states — Maine and Vermont — permit voting by all felons, including those still in prison. California, along with states such as New York and Colorado, automatically reinstates voting rights to felons once they are released from prison and are off parole.

MEGAN: I think that if you've served your time, you've served your time, you shouldn't have to re-apply for citizenship. But people on probation and parole aren't done repaying their debt to society.

LATOYA: But unfortunately, we're still hating on Native Americans. And, um, Ohio voters.

MEGAN: I mean, there are reliable voting blocs that go Democratic, right? Why does the GOP not try to systematically disenfranchise groups of white people? Why is it always people of color?
Why do they hate your freedom?

LATOYA: Because, obviously, I'm not a real American. Therefore, it is obvious that I should only have fake rights and fake freedoms.

According to the Journal, "Parker survived and is now 20 months old. He has poor language and motor skills and may never walk. Already hospitalized three times, Parker's medical odyssey has stretched the Cardens' finances and put a huge strain on their relationship." It got to the point where the Cardens had to get help from their parents to buy groceries for their family, which included three other children in addition to Parker.

A piece in the Washington Post outlines the pros and cons of increasingly advanced fetal DNA testing. Proponents of the test, which "use 'gene chips' to detect much subtler chromosomal variations than standard prenatal testing can," like Baylor's Arthur L. Beaudet, argue that for people who want maximum information, they deserve to know. "Some of these disorders are quite burdensome. They require lifelong nursing care. In some cases these children never walk, never talk, never feed themselves," Beaudet tells the Washington Post. "It can have a major impact on the family. People say, 'I wish you had given me the opportunity to know ahead of time. It's really destroyed our lives.' That's why women want to know."

Opponents say that not only is the test not accurate enough, but that its use could lead to eugenics. "The question is, what is the information used for?" David Prentice of the pro-life Family Research Council asks the Post. "If it's for informing the parents so they can be prepared for what might come, that's great. But if it's being used for eugenics purposes — for abortion — we would be against it." Where I think this could add a new wrinkle in the abortion debate is that perhaps some pro-choicers will believe that aborting a special needs child is morally wrong. This is pure speculation based on anecdotal evidence, but possibly it hews too close to eugenics for some, even considering the dire emotional and fiscal costs to the family involved.

But let's get back to Trig, the public face of special needs. Unfortunately, his mother, for all her purported caring about other children with Down syndrome, does not support the raising of taxes to fund special needs programs. She came out against Colorado's Prop 51, which according to the Guardian, "would provide thousands of children and adults with autism, Down's syndrome, cerebral palsy and other disabilities with critically needed care, through a phased-in sales tax of 0.2%." The proposition has been championed by a McCain/Palin supporter, former Colorado first lady Frances Owens. Palin is against the ballot measure because, "There's got to be an alternative to raising taxes. It's a matter of prioritizing the dollars that are already there in government. What I did as governor of the state of Alaska was prioritize for a great increase in funding for our students with special needs up there. And I think that Colorado can do that also."

But, as the Guardian points out, "It's hard to see how this could become a reality. McCain has sworn to an immediate government spending freeze. And Palin, in Colorado Springs, promised to cut taxes and balance the budget in one year. If past experience is any guide, all that means is cutting programmes affecting children with special needs." Again, as with Bristol's pregnancy, and the Alaska Governor's history of non-support for pregnant teens, it seems that the only children Palin cares about supporting are her own.

The Toughest Test [WSJ]
Fresh Hopes And Concerns As Fetal DNA Tests Advance [Washington Post]
Special Needs And Conservative Creeds [Guardian]

Earlier: Ask Not What Bristol Palin Can Do For You, Ask What Sarah Palin Can Do For Your Pregnant Daughter

• Not that it's surprising, but the 43 economists of the Economists' Policy Group on Women's Issues graded John McCain and Barack Obama on 10 issues of importance to women and Obama came out ahead. McCain got an "F" because the group was concerned that his positions would do harm to women. [US News & World Report]
• They probably didn't take into account, though, that the highest paid person on McCain's staff in October was a woman. She's, um, the woman that does Sarah Palin's make-up, and she got $22,800 for the first two weeks of work. [Huffington Post]
• Once upon a time before Ahmadenijad or Chavez came to power, McCain was casting votes in Congress to get the Reagan administration to sit down with an Mozambique group designated as a terrorist organization without preconditions. [Huffington Post]
• And long before Obama met Bill Ayers, McCain was palling around with Chilean dictator and human rights violator extraordinaire Augusto Pinochet and his pals. [Huffington Post]

• Speaking of domestic terrorists, people that bomb abortion clinics and assassinate doctors aren't, in Palin's Weltanschauung. For some reason, that sounded right-er in German. [Firedoglake]
• For those people keeping track of these sorts of things, Palin announced today that the McCain-Palin Administration would except disability programs from its spending freeze. So far, they're exempting defense spending, homeland security spending, veterans programs, science programs and disability programs. Kinda makes you wonder what they are actually going to reduce spending on. [Washington Post]
• Tom Ridge thinks that maybe John McCain would be doing better in Pennsylvania if he'd picked Tom Ridge as VP, but he totally supports Sarah Palin. Tom Ridge: not as blindingly stupid as one would assume if one watched his performance at Homeland Security Secretary. [CNN]
• In a stellar end of the week for the campaign, former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan, former Massachusetts Governor (and Republican) William Weld, former Minnesota Republican Governor Arne Carlson and current McCain adviser Charles Fried announced they were all voting for Obama. But they just did it because they're bla... Oh, wait, they're all white. I'm sure Rush Limbaugh will find another reason. [Christian Science Monitor, Talking Points Memo]
• The Republican Party in New Mexico has hired a private investigator to go around and harass elderly Latino voters and try to intimidate them from voting by threatening those completely legal citizens with deportation. [TPM Muckraker]
• In further Republican stupidity and assholery, noted asshole Michelle Bachmann has taped an ad apologizing for calling for the media to investigate anti-Americanism in Congress. Left out of the advertisement is the text of the legislation she'll introduce if re-elected to force Congress to conduct the investigation. [Politico]
• And Joe the Motherfucking Plumber is going to run for Congress in 2010, like anyone will give a fuck about him on November 5th. [The Hill]

The Times notes that only 26 percent of Latinos favor John McCain at the moment, a sharp decline from the 44 percent who voted for Bush in 2004. This is despite some racism among Latinos towards African-Americans, as picked up by the Washington Post:

Geronimo Cruz, a retired factory worker living in Mora County, worries aloud that "blacks are for blacks," and that in the White House, Obama would care for his racial brethren in the inner cities before looking out for the white and Hispanic rural lands. He cites hip-hop videos as proof that confident, aloof African Americans are more interested in a good time than hard work.

He, like many others, refers to Obama as "El Negrito," a diminutive that can be affectionate when referring to one's grandfather, as in "abuelito," or condescending when referring to the potential President of the United States.

The Post, by the way, calls describes those comments as indicative of "subtle racial concerns." I guess compared to "Traitor" and "Kill him!," maybe they are!

So what's the problem with McCain for Latinos, who, as Laura Ramírez Drain tells the Washington Post, used to kind of dig Republicans? Janet Murguía, executive director of the National Council of La Raza has an answer:

"The Republican brand has been tarnished as result of the immigration debate and the extreme rhetoric that came out of that debate. We think McCain remains an advocate of a comprehensive approach, but his standing has been undermined by those within his own party and the tough immigration plank in the 2008 Republican platform."

Many Latinas agree, while others cite the need for health care reform and the poor economy as reasons they are backing Barack Obama this time. In fact, the Latinas who are supporting McCain tend to gloss over those issues and instead talk about how the need to criminalize abortion and eliminate same sex marriage are reasons to back him (in addition to the fact that some of them really like Sarah Palin). The WaPo:

Why McCain? The Latinas for McCain cite moral values. He is antiabortion and for "the sanctity of marriage."

A couple of small businesswomen also parrot McCain's line that Obama's tax plan will kill their businesses. Roxana Cazares Olivas, a small businesswoman herself, former Bush backer and a founder of Latinas Unidas por Obama sees plenty of reasons to back Obama:

"Immigration, the war, the economy, Katrina," she says. "We just need a change. . . . He not only captured me in his actions but also captured my heart." She doubts McCain's continued commitment to immigration reform, and says she has never forgotten Obama addressing a huge march for immigrant rights in