Monica Davey of the New York Times writes that before Tiller's murder, Carhart performed abortions up to 22 weeks at the Nebraska clinic. However, now that women can't go to Tiller, he says "there is a need" for later procedures, "and I feel deeply about it." He won't specify exactly how late he is willing to perform abortions — perhaps because anything after the 23rd week requires special consultation with him — but his fee schedule mentions procedures as late as the 27th week. Since he has begun providing this service, Operation Rescue has been directing at him some of the vitriol they once saved for Dr. Tiller. Says Operation Rescue president Troy Newman, "We're trying to get criminal charges against him, to get his license revoked, and to get legislators there to look at the law."

Apparently this includes accusing Carhart of the very same "crime" they once tried to pin on Tiller. In 2006, the organization successfully persuaded a grand jury to investigate Tiller's role in the death of a 19-year-old woman named Christin Gilbert. Gilbert had Down syndrome, and became pregnant after she was raped. She received a late-term abortion at Tiller's clinic, and, tragically, died of complications several days later. According to an MSNBC story at the time, Operation Rescue and its anti-abortion allies wanted Tiller charged with "involuntary manslaughter, mistreatment of a dependent adult, and failure to report abuse of a child." The jury found Tiller innocent — and now Operation Rescue is trying to claim that Carhart was actually responsible for Gilbert's death.

The organization put up a blog post in August titled "We Can LEGALLY Stop LeRoy Carhart From Taking Tiller's Place As The Nation's #1 Late-Term Abortionist." The post begins with a "quote" from the dead woman: "'LeRoy Carhart killed me and my baby.' –Christin Gilbert, if she could speak today…" The group that once tried to get Tiller indicted for the manslaughter of Gilbert now says,

That's where LeRoy Carhart comes in. He frequently worked at Tiller's mill-filling in for Tiller as needed-and he was the abortionist in charge of killing Christin's baby.

In fact, the post doesn't mention Tiller's role in the abortion, or in Gilbert's death, at all. Instead, it says,

At Tiller's mill, Carhart and the Tiller staff finally placed an emergency call to 911-begging the dispatcher to come with "No lights, no sirens!" Then they placed the 911 operator ON HOLD for forty-five critical seconds!

Meanwhile, Christin's life ebbed away.[...]

Christin died a horrible, agonizing death at the hands of LeRoy Carhart and the staff at George Tiller's infamous abortion mill.

So who "killed" Christin Gilbert? Apparently, whoever Operation Rescue wants to shut down at the moment. They write,

But now that George Tiller's mill is closed forever, LeRoy Carhart plans to "take his place" and open a new late-term abortion mill in Wichita-in addition to the filthy butchering mill he already operates in Nebraska.

And this is where Operation Rescue comes in.

At least Operation Rescue is careful to say "there is no need for violence against LeRoy Carhart or any abortionist." But others aren't so principled, and since Tiller's death, Carhart has fortified his clinic with a metal detector, new security cameras, and a security consultant. He also limits his travel to short trips and, on the rare occasions he eats out, stays less than 30 minutes. Carhart has to place himself under virtual house arrest because he performs a legal medical procedure — hopefully, this will at least keep him physically safe. Unfortunately, it won't protect him from those who seek to pin a rape victim's tragic death on anybody they don't like.

Abortion Battle Shifts To Clinic In Nebraska [NYT]
We Can LEGALLY Stop LeRoy Carhart From Taking Tiller's Place As The Nation's #1 Late-Term Abortionist [Operation Rescue]

Earlier: More Threats Emerge Against American Abortion Providers
What's Next For Tiller's Clinic, Scott Roeder, And Abortion In Kansas?

Kate Harding writes on Broadsheet,

There's [...] a lot to be said for such an article appearing in Esquire, which one female friend (and longtime subscriber) described as "a magazine with a history of terrific longform journalism that has too often, of late, fallen into a rut of puff pieces about George Clooney and how to tie an ascot while drinking scotch." The grim realities of Hern's life and work may no longer be shocking to those who keep abreast of reproductive rights news, but it's probably safe to assume that many readers seeking ascot-tying advice do not count themselves among that crowd.

She's right that Esquire, while still publishing substantive articles like a recent examination of the "birther" phenomenon*, frequently devolves into a highbrow version of Maxim with pieces about how being a real man means being "thrilled by the snatch." If guys who read Esquire for the ascot tips (way apt, Harding's friend) actually get some insight into how difficult it is to maintain access to choice in this country, that would be a very good thing.

Kliff, however, criticizes writer John H. Richardson for calling Hern "the only one left" who does late-term abortions in America. "I know this," she writes, "because I've spent the last three months profiling another late-term abortion provider, LeRoy Carhart." Kliff says Carhart actually knows of six doctors who perform third-trimester abortions, but they understandably keep a low profile to avoid the kinds of threats Carhart receives on a daily basis (his clinic is pictured above, after a January fire). Performing abortions since the 1980s, and offering late-term procedures at his own clinic since his friend Dr. Tiller was murdered, Carhart has seen his employees quit and other doctors turn away his referrals. Kliff writes,

A few days after Tiller's murder, Carhart's daughter received a late-night phone call saying her parents too had been killed. His clinic got suspicious letters, one with white powder. It's been like this since Carhart started performing abortions in the late 1980s. On the same day Nebraska passed a parental-notification law in 1991, his farm burned down, killing 17 horses, a cat, and a dog (the local fire department was unable to determine the fire's cause). The next day his clinic received a letter justifying the murder of abortion providers. His -clinic's sidewalks have been smeared with manure. Protesters sometimes stalk him in airports. The threats, the violence, now the assassination of his close friend-all of it has left Carhart undaunted, and the billboard-size sign over his parking garage still reads, in foot-high block letters, ABORTION & CONTRACEPTION CLINIC OF NEBRASKA.

Carhart's dedication is inspiring, but what saddened me as I read this litany of threats was how familiar it all sounded. Harding writes that "many people, including me, have written a great deal about the risks late-term abortion providers face every day, about the lengths they must go to to stay alive — let alone stay in practice," and the truth is, I've become accustomed to reading about these risks. The day-to-day danger of an abortion provider's life (as a commenter pointed out, the word "abortionist" has been totally co-opted by anti-choicers) is something I've simply come to accept, even though of course it shouldn't be normal at all. And I suspect that, even among other staunchly pro-choice people, I'm not alone. If it took Dr. Tiller's death to shock us this summer, what would have to happen to shock us now?

One answer, sadly, is Kliff's description of an abortion procedure itself. Kliff describes it thus:

A first-trimester abortion, from my vantage point behind the glass window, looked like an extended, more invasive version of a standard ob-gyn exam. A woman with her heels in stirrups, clothes traded in for a hospital gown, a speculum holding the cervix open. Carhart used a suction tube to empty the contents of the uterus; it took no longer than three minutes. The suction machine made a slight rumbling sound, a pinkish fluid flowed through the tube, and, faster than I'd expected, it was over.

What's really telling, however, is her friends' reactions to her experience. She writes,

Friends who supported legal abortion bristled slightly when I told them where I'd been and what I'd watched. Acquaintances at a party looked a bit regretful to have asked about my most recent assignment. The majority of Americans support Roe v. Wade's protection of abortion, about 68 percent as of May. But my experience (among an admittedly small, largely pro-choice sample set) found a general discomfort when confronted with abortion as a physical reality, not a political idea. Americans may support abortion rights, but even 40 years after Roe, we don't talk about it like other medical procedures.

Kliff's description of an abortion reminded me of Hern's even more unflinching account of a late-term procedure. Both use occasionally graphic language that we're more used to hearing from the anti-choice side. That's because foes of abortion make the mistake of confusing our visceral distaste for the physical realities of abortion with an ethical objection to it. They show us baby dolls covered in blood and pictures of dead fetuses as though being grossed out were the same as being morally outraged. But no surgery is pretty, and while an abortion may be more morally complicated than an appendectomy, it deserves just as much protection. We don't offer that protection, though, if we pretend that abortions don't involve blood, or, in a few cases, a fetus we can visually recognize as human. Descriptions like Kliff's and Hern's should inoculate us against the scare tactics of those who use blood to stand in for evil.

But we shouldn't allow ourselves to be inoculated against the threats that Hern and Carhart receive. These men aren't soldiers, they are doctors — their job shouldn't cost them their physical security. By accepting that their careers offer an almost unacceptable degree of occupational hazard, we all but ensure that younger people won't take their place when they retire. Kliff reports at one point that Leroy Carhart doesn't go out in public anymore, for fear of being shot. This is unconscionable. We need to understand that the violent in the anti-abortion movement are far more than a lunatic fringe, that anti-choicers with a conscience must disown and denounce them, and that we all need to treat abortion doctors as we treat other medical professionals — as men and women with an important job to do, and the right to do it in safety.

* Also by John H. Richardson, author of the Hern profile.

The Last Abortion Doctor? [Newsweek]
The Abortion Evangelist [Newsweek]
Competing Emotions [Newsweek]
Late-Term Abortion Hits The Lad Mags [Broadsheet]

Earlier: "If Anyone Wants Hope For The Human Species, Don't Talk To Me": The Loneliness Of An Abortion Doctor

[Image above by Jamie Kripke for Esquire]

After Tiller's murder, it's not surprising to hear that Hern feels vulnerable all the time. He has been getting death threats since 1970, and anti-abortion protesters call his mother at home. He says, "I will never be safe. I'm always looking over my shoulder."

What's more surprising, however, is that some of Hern's own patients treat him with "contempt and disgust," because, in Richardson's words, "They hate all abortion except for their special case." Richardson writes,

One even said they should all be killed. Only fourteen, she came with her mother. What brings you here? he asked. I have to have an abortion. Why? I'm not old enough to have a baby. But you told the counselor we should all be killed. Yes, you should all be killed. Why? Because you do abortions. Me too? Yes, you should be killed too. Do you want me killed before or after I do your abortion? Before.

Up against such hatred, Hern can't even take comfort in an uncomplicated relationship to his work. He tells Richardson that "you can never get used to this." He explains,

You can't. I think we're hardwired, biologically, to protect small, vulnerable creatures, especially babies. The fetuses may not be babies, but some of them are pretty close.

This is a far cry from the bloodthirsty, uncaring abortion doctors that anti-abortion advocates love to depict. Dr. Hern performs a procedure that many people hate him for — including some of his own patients — and he performs it all but alone, in full knowledge of its emotional complexity. It's no wonder that he sometimes sounds embittered. Of Randall Terry, who once prayed for his death on the radio, he says,

These guys are just despicable. If anyone wants hope for the human species, don't talk to me.

And yet, Hern himself offers hope, if not always comfort. What's perhaps most striking about him is his unwillingness to use euphemistic or inaccurate language. Whenever Richardson calls his patients "moms," he corrects him: "They're not moms until they have a baby." And in a 2003 Slate article, Hern offered this description of a late-term abortion (warning, it's disturbing):

Earlier this year, I began an abortion on a young woman who was 17 weeks pregnant. Because of the two days of prior treatment, the amniotic membranes were visible and bulging. I ruptured the membranes and released the fluid to reduce the risk of amniotic fluid embolism. Then I inserted my forceps into the uterus and applied them to the head of the fetus, which was still alive, since fetal injection is not done at that stage of pregnancy. I closed the forceps, crushing the skull of the fetus, and withdrew the forceps. The fetus, now dead, slid out more or less intact. With the next pass of the forceps, I grasped the placenta, and it came out in one piece. Within a few seconds, I had completed my routine exploration of the uterus and sharp curettage. The blood loss would just fill a tablespoon. The patient, who was awake, hardly felt the operation. She was relieved, grateful, and safe. She wants to have children in the future.

In the middle of the 2003 partial-birth abortion ban debate, Hern offered a specific and unflinching physical description of what goes on in an abortion. Some would call this impolitic, but it's also courageous. Hern spells out what abortion sometimes is, and he stands up for it anyway. This is perhaps the strongest counterargument to the anti-abortion movement's buckets of fake blood and photos of dismembered fetuses. Yes, Hern is saying, sometimes abortion is grisly, but we need it all the same. In a recent post on Tiller's death and the power of language, Megan wrote,

Every day, we're bombarded not by "Thou shalt not kill," but by the message, "Thou shalt not kill unless" - and there's no firm consensus on what "unless" entails. In the absence of that consensus, in the midst of that grey area in which societal justification meets individual circumstance meets human frailty and the easily-led, what we too easily find is the darkness of the human mind and what inhumanity humans are capable of when exhorted not by the barrel of a gun but by the power of words.

Dr. Hern's frankness shines a light into "the darkness of the human mind." It's too bad he's so alone.

The Last Abortion Doctor [Esquire]
Abortion Doctor George Tiller Is Killed; Suspect In Custody [LA Times]
Did I Violate The Partial-Birth Abortion Ban? [Slate]

Earlier: Dr. Warren Hern: "It Is Terrifying And It's Infuriating. There's No Excuse For This."
On George Tiller And The Profound Power of Language

Today, a federal appeals court overturned a lower court ruling that said Virginia's ban on partial birth abortion was unconstitutional because it made no exception for the health of the mother. Of the 31 states that enacted bans on the procedures after the anti-abortion movement figured out it was a good way to trump the idea that a woman's health is paramount, 16 have now been upheld and 15 remain blocked.

The Virginia law mirrors the definition of "partial birth abortion" enshrined in federal law, which is to say there isn't one, making it harder on doctors (and women) to make decisions about women's health. The Guttmacher Institute explains:

In its April 2007 decision in Gonzales v. Carhart, the Supreme Court upheld the federal Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003 and, in the process, set a major jurisprudential precedent. The federal law includes no health exception. Moreover, although the law does not include a precise medical definition of what is banned, the Court found the federal law's definition sufficient to pass constitutional muster.

So, basically, the government doesn't care about women's health as long as it can continue to vaguely define what procedures women can't have in order to protect said health or fertility if they're ever in need of a late term abortion. Don't you feel more protected now?

Virginia: Abortion Law Upheld [NY Times]
Bans on "Partial-Birth" Abortion [Guttmacher Institute]

Kissling starts out by saying that she feels doctors should refuse to perform abortions for reasons of sex-selection. She stops short of saying such abortions should be illegal, but she does say that pro-choice people need to consider the "morality" of abortion more than they currently do. She writes,

The thought of putting every woman through the indignity of meeting with an ethics committee, or getting a doctor to sign off on her reasons for abortion, has forced most of us to stick with the principle that women must be allowed to make their own private ethical decisions, without the state getting involved. But is it really leadership for us always to simply shrug and say: "Who knows whether that was an unethical decision for that woman?" Don't we express moral views about every other issue under the sun, from the number of embryos it is ethical to insert into a woman's uterus to the morality of bonuses for Wall St. executives who robbed us blind? Expressing our views about controversial issues is how society develops norms and shared values.

Her description of what those shared values might look like is the following:

I think it's important for us to be able to say: When a fetus reaches the point where it could survive outside the uterus, is healthy, and the woman is healthy, and she has had five months to make up her mind, we should say no to abortion. One can and should have compassion for the woman or girl who seeks to end a pregnancy at that late date, but absent severe fetal abnormality, a threat to her life or a clinical diagnosis of serious mental or physical health consequences of continuing the pregnancy, I believe we should say: "I am so sorry. You waited too long. I know this is a difficult decision for you to bear, but we cannot give you an abortion. I will help you any other way I can, but I cannot perform an abortion."

Again, Kissling refrains from bringing the law into it. Her words seem directed more at doctors than at lawmakers, more at the people in a position to personally refuse one abortion than at those with the power to prevent many. This may be due to Kissling's lingering ambivalence about the issue. She writes,

I still have a twinge of doubt when I write these words. For most of my years as an advocate of a woman's right to decide, I stepped back from this conclusion. I could not bring myself to say that there are circumstances in which I would force a woman to continue a pregnancy.

Now, however, she is comfortable writing a sentence like, "I have come to believe that women's autonomy does not require that all efforts be made to protect women from pain or from hearing the word 'no,'" and saying that, "President Obama was correct during the campaign when he said "mental distress" without clinical dimensions is not a justifiable reason for late-term abortion." She is comfortable using the fact that there are only two late-term abortion providers in the country as evidence that we should more severely limit late-term abortions, and the fact that Dr. Tiller sometimes refused patients as evidence that other doctors should. "What changed for me?" she asks. Her answer involves a fear of "a coarsening of our respect for both women and for life," but what really seems to have changed is Kissling's regard for a woman's own self-determination — and her understanding of what that self-determination means.

The right to choose isn't about being "protected from the pain of being told 'no.'" It's about having the right to decide whether or not you make your body home to another life. Kissling would call this "single value ethics," would argue that it ignores all the moral circumstances attendant on every abortion. And it does. Or rather, it places the responsibility for considering these moral circumstances on the mother, which is ultimately where it belongs.

It's not "coarse" or single-minded to say that the final choice about whether to have an abortion should rest with the woman, even if that choice displeases us. We aren't "simply shrugging and saying: "Who knows whether that was an unethical decision for that woman?" if we say that abortion is an ethical decision that woman have to make for themselves. Instead, we are giving them the power and the task of being the ones who determine if it is morally acceptable to end a pregnancy. It's not a comfortable power; it's not an easy task. It's not one that we, as a society, should wish to take upon ourselves. Instead, we should recognize that we're not protecting women or letting them off the hook by allowing them to choose whether to have an abortion. We're taking an often devastatingly difficult decision and setting it where it belongs: with them.

Can We Ever Say A Woman Can't Choose? [Salon]

The Huffington Post's Jason Linkins is correct that O'Reilly's most ludicrous moment came when he leveled a direct accusation at Walsh, saying, "My constitutional rights say I can say what I say, you can say what you say, as vile as you say it, you can say it, and I would never condemn you for saying it. You are misguided, you have blood on your hands because you portrayed this man as a hero." But he made a number of more insidious points. First (at around minute 1:30) he said that Tiller charged $6,000 per abortion and "became a millionaire doing it." Walsh argued with O'Reilly about his figures — and in her column about the show, she explained that Tiller sometimes waived his fee — but really the numbers are beside the point. We wouldn't expect an oncologist to work pro bono, so why would we expect Tiller not to charge for his — by all accounts difficult and complicated — services? Presumably because abortion is a special category of medical procedure, one so objectionable that doctors shouldn't have the right to get paid for it.

In the wake of Tiller's assassination, this stigma against abortion in the medical world is getting some well-deserved attention. Reuters reports that assaults on abortion clinics — there have been 67 in the first half of 2009 alone — may be keeping new doctors from entering the area. And in her excellent Salon piece on the "next generation of abortion providers," Kate Harding writes that although abortion is "the second most common outpatient procedure in the U.S.," a third of med students get no training in the procedure at all. She allows that, "given that many students won't pursue specialties that would involve providing abortions, and even those who go into family practice or obstetrics and gynecology might choose not to offer abortions, you could also argue that it's a waste of time in an already overburdened curriculum." But really, not offering abortion training may just perpetuate a vicious cycle, in which fewer students receive exposure to abortion issues and techniques, and fewer and fewer doctors choose to offer the procedure as a result. Excluding abortion from the medical school curriculum just encourages people to view it as less legitimate than other medical procedures, something doctors can get away with ignoring, and something they'd better do out of the goodness of their hearts if they do it at all. In an ideal world, everyone would have access to low-cost, comprehensive healthcare, including abortion — but even in that world, doctors should still get paid.

The second deeply upsetting point O'Reilly made has to do with why Tiller's clients sought abortions. He maintained that "Tiller was aborting late-term fetuses for casual reasons." He then called in Dr. Paul McHugh, head of the Psychiatric School at Johns Hopkins University (a title O'Reilly repeated several times, as though it qualified Dr. McHugh to pass judgment on women's choices), who made some vague claims about Tiller offering abortions so that women could "go to concerts" or "take part in sports." Walsh rightly disputed whether McHugh should be the one deciding what's best for women, but when O'Reilly pressured her on late-term abortion she said,"I believe that late-term abortion, under the current circumstances, to save the life of the mother, should be legal." She also said she's working for "abortion reduction."

It's become popular for liberals to say they're in favor of reducing the number of abortions, but this is an area where the left is letting the right define the terms of the debate. Frances Kissling in Salon explains how this has happened:

Recognizing that they probably won't succeed in making abortion illegal, the Democrats' faith-based allies decided that they could still use their moral disapproval to shape policy. They asserted that the number of abortions that takes place in America constitutes a moral tragedy and called for initiatives that would reduce the number of abortions. According to their mind-set, this was common ground, an abortion-neutral prescription for ending the culture war.

But "abortion reduction" is not an "abortion-neutral prescription." It's a prescription that assumes that some abortions are okay, but that some women and girls in America are getting abortions who should not be getting them, and that we need to put a stop to this. On the one hand, reliable birth control and sex education are obviously preferable to unwanted pregnancy, and most people who seek common ground would agree that improving access to these would be good for everybody. But there's a more disturbing corollary to the abortion reduction argument — the idea that some reasons for getting an abortion are better than others, and that it's acceptable to try to keep women from getting abortions for "casual reasons." This is what Ayelet Waldman found objectionable about the website A Heartbreaking Choice — the idea that some abortions are justified (in AHC's case, because of fetal abnormalities) while some are not.

If we start condemning abortions for reasons we deem casual, if we think of abortion as something that should only happen under conditions we deem appropriately dire, then we, like Dr. McHugh, place ourselves in judgment of women. If we truly want to preserve a woman's right to choose what to do with her body, we need to accept that sometimes women will abort for reasons we might not agree with. Really, being pro-choice doesn't mean thinking every abortion is a good idea. It means realizing that the only person who should truly have the right to determine whether it's a good idea is the mother, and protecting her rights means allowing her to make decisions we might not necessarily support. If "abortion reduction" means teaching people to protect themselves so they don't get pregnant in the first place, great. But if it means reducing the number of circumstances under which abortion is sanctioned — whether those circumstances include the life of the mother, the health of the fetus, or the duration of the pregnancy — then abortion reduction is really not a pro-choice position, because it takes the choice out of the hands of the mother, where, ultimately, it belongs.

Is there a next generation of abortion providers? [Salon]
How to talk about abortion [Salon]
O'Reilly Rages Against Joan Walsh Over Tiller Murder (VIDEO) [Huffington Post]
Threats, violence seen eroding U.S. abortion rights [Reuters]
Why I went on "The O'Reilly Factor" [Salon]

Okay, you guys, my knowledge of obstetrics is rudimentary at best, but how is that even possible? Even if she reached up into her uterus poking around for the umbilical cord, how could she find it in order to sever it? And if she had severed it, wouldn't she have also seriously injured herself in the process? Medically-trained readers, please, enlighten me.

I'm not the only one with a WTF reaction. The AP tried to get more details from Captain Tyler, but he declined to comment. However, the AP did discover a condition"called umbilical cord prolapse, when at least part of the cord emerges from the birth canal while the fetus remains in the womb. Medical literature states the condition can occur during a premature birth after the amniotic fluid is released."

Johnson is currently being held in the Lauderdale County Detention Center and her bail is set at $50,000. Captain Tyler said to the Times Daily "Certainly, the events surrounding this case are highly unusual. Though under normal circumstances, the members of our police department would be sensitive to the needs of a mother who recently lost her baby."

If it turns out that Johnson actually did sever her own umbilical cord, this case is sure to bring up a lot of uncomfortable issues about the viability of a fetus, late term abortion, and the idea of personhood. Not to mention the issues surrounding Johnson's sexual behavior. You see, Johnson allegedly cut the umbilical cord at the house of a new boyfriend. This boyfriend was not her baby's father. The Times Daily interviewed the father, Jerry Pigg, on Wednesday. It sounds like Johnson was seeing both Pigg and the new boyfriend simultaneously. The bereaved Pigg said he went from "sad to mad" when he found out that Jennifer had been arrested, and believes that she had a hand in the fetus' death because she told him she was "sorry" she miscarried. "I know she knows what she did was wrong, or she wouldn't have been telling me she was sorry," Pigg told the Times Daily. Considering the mystery shrouding this case, you have to wonder: if Johnson were a married woman, would she be in custody right now?

Woman Charged In Unborn Baby's Death [Times Daily]
Baby's Father Questions Death [Times Daily]
Ala. Woman Charged after Fetus' Umbilical Cord Cut [AP via Al.com]

MOE: you there?
MEGAN: I am! I'm sitting in a cafe in Saarbrücken, drinking my 4th dose of caffeine for the day and watching it sprinkle outside.
MOE: How pleasant! I am in my bed with a raspberry Kombucha, and I have yet to make the caffeine so as with so many days I am somewhat cranky, particularly regarding the kneejerk hostility of my countrymen, which is to say what the fuck, "Obama aide"? God people need to simmer down. Beyond that I was talking about the Jesse Jackson thing last night and decided that like everything it was just really funny.
MEGAN: I forgot to tell you, I saw Snuffleupagus get into a cab at M and Connecticut the other week! Also, because I missed Crappy Hour yesterday because my flight was super delayed, I also forgot to mention that Madeline Albright was on my flight but I never managed to get back up to business class to fan girl out in her direction after she caught me staring and grinning like an idiot when I got on the plane. Also, how nerdy is it that I fan girl out about Madeline Albright? Anyway, I'm not sure I quite understand the Jesse Jackson thing, but that might be because I spent the time I should've been reading about it toasting my friends' marriage on an empty stomach and thereafter read about it.
MEGAN: But my nerd-crush Chuck Todd says that the map is shifting to Obama anyway so maybe Jesse Jackson can shove off? I forget, did he knock his mistress up or just get caught having one?
MOE: You know, anyone who gets caught whispering about how he's going to cut off the nuts of a guy who is not only in all likelihood the next leader of the free world but a
MOE: close family friend — while miked — at Fox News!…at FOX NEWS…definitely says shit a lot worse than that on a very regular basis, as my friend Brian was pointing out last night. He sort of wanted to engage in a hypothetical Jesse Jackson empty threat contest. I think he started with a reference to skullfucking.
MEGAN: How about eyeball licking when you've got cold sores? Eye herpes=painful and blinding. Plus just the thought of it gives me the chills.
MEGAN: Also, can I say, it sort of freaks me out in Germany that people are, like, totally willing to get caught looking at you. People watching is more of an art form in America in which the goal is not to get caught. Here, they don't care and it is very disconcerting. I don't say that because a group of 15 men just walked by and all stopped talking to look at me as they walked by or anything and I'm not even speaking English or anything.
MOE: Dude WHERE IS MY NOONAN. NO NOONAN TODAY. And where the fuck has Brooks been? You mean to tell me these once a week columnists get vacations? Anyway, so what is all this bullshit with Obama and abortion? I have a block against reading about abortion because reading abortion stories doesn't tell you anything new about anything I guess. And re the Prussians, I kind of like that. I look at people unabashedly all the time. If I have left my house, you are fair game is how I see it.
MEGAN: I know, I just keep, like, checking to see if my bra is showing or something.
MEGAN: Oh, that's the late term abortion thingie.
MEGAN: Basically, he's all like, no "late term" abortions for mental distress, but then there's been no real explanation for him about the definition of "late term," which could be anything from one week into the second trimester to the 8 month mark, AS THOUGH women look down and 8 months and go, ohhh, shit, yeah, this was a bad idea.
MEGAN: Anyway, so peeps are all pissed off and I think rightly so because, for me, it's all within the context of other stuff he's seemingly moving to the middle on which is why I wrote this.
MOE: I guess I should also go through some other shit I ignored this week, such as the party of Lincoln bloggers are angry Obama said Americans should learn other languages, but I think he is maybe just being "pro growth" since some language skills might do something to staunch the rapid falloff in the value of a US life. And to that end maybe Phil Gramm's tough love approach to fending off recession could be exported to other places with economic woes like I dunno Egypt?
MEGAN: Ok, shit, my battery's about to die and I don't see a plug and don't remember the word, so if I disappear, I'll see you shortly but maybe not shortly enough to continue with this...

MEGAN: Sorry, in the meantime, a woman sat directly in front of me, lit up a cigarette and, to avoid blowing the smoke in her companions face, blew it in mine.
MOE: Hey, you know who's not on vacation for which we can be thankful? E. J. Dionne.

The biggest political story of 2008 is getting little coverage. It involves the collapse of assumptions that have dominated our economic debate for three decades.
Since the Reagan years, free-market cliches have passed for sophisticated economic analysis. But in the current crisis, these ideas are falling, one by one, as even conservatives recognize that capitalism is ailing.
You know the talking points: Regulation is the problem and deregulation is the solution. The distribution of income and wealth doesn't matter. Providing incentives for the investors of capital to "grow the pie" is the only policy that counts. Free trade produces well-distributed economic growth, and any dissent from this orthodoxy is "protectionism."

MEGAN: Anyway, Norquist's point is that a bunch of sole proprietorships file under the personal income tax code and thus will see their taxes go up under Obama's plan, but doesn't account for how many people are filing taxes under the personal code instead of the corporate code and thus would switch if the corporate rate was lower, which Obama has proposed lowering.
MEGAN: Wow, Dionne finds conservatives willing to say that boards voting crazy compensation packages for the people who appoint them and pay them might be a market failure?
MOE: It's funny, I had this drink with my old agent yesterday and I went off on this, I'm not quite sure why, and I said something about how the nation's policy makers could have pursued globalization differently and he looked at me like I was — well maybe like he was mulling whether I as stupid as I was inarticulate — and said something like "we don't control globalization" as if globalization was like gravity, which just…uh, may be a common misnomer.
MEGAN: Well, we don't control globalization, but we can control how we implement policies that can effect globalization or the effects of globalization and the only people that don't really seem to understand that are... people whose interests are best served by unfettered globalization.
MOE: Well this is a discussion for another time, but we have now but more importantly, over the past 30 years we, America, the world's largest market by a very long shot and in recent years by a psychotically long shot, have had an inordinate amount of power over how the thing works, and to the extent that our diplomatic interests are our commercial ones, you know.
MEGAN: Our diplomatic interests aren't always our commercial ones? I guess that does explain the depths of our committed engagement in Darfur, Zimbabwe, Burma and Cuba.

Seriously, given that you got attacked from the left for appearing a little squishy on abortion during your time in the Illinois legislature and you've still got Hillary supporters to court, it probably wasn't the most prescient time to say this:

I have repeatedly said that I think it’s entirely appropriate for states to restrict or even prohibit late-term abortions as long as there is a strict, well-defined exception for the health of the mother. Now, I don’t think that "mental distress" qualifies as the health of the mother. I think it has to be a serious physical issue that arises in pregnancy, where there are real, significant problems to the mother carrying that child to term. Otherwise, as long as there is such a medical exception in place, I think we can prohibit late-term abortions.

Baby, that ain't what we need to hear. I miss the days when you used to whisper sweet nothings in my direction, things about that timely Iraq withdrawal and supporting a woman's right to choose. I'll admit my heart beat faster hearing you yell "Yes we can," and "We are the change that we have been waiting for." But, Barry, baby, "as long as there is such a medical exception in place, I think we can prohibit late-term abortions" is a total lady-bonerkiller.

And, honey, you totally put the kibosh on my mood with this little nugget:

I think we know that abortions rise when unwanted pregnancies rise. So, if we are continuing what has been a promising trend in the reduction of teen pregnancies, through education and abstinence education giving good information to teenagers. That is important—emphasizing the sacredness of sexual behavior to our children. I think that’s something that we can encourage. I think encouraging adoptions in a significant way. I think the proper role of government. So there are ways that we can make a difference, and those are going to be things I focus on when I am president.

Barry, ignorance is not sexy. Abstinence education? Oh, Barry, we all know that's not effective even though the fundies love hearing about it. Whose love do you want? Ours or theirs?

Look, I'm not trying to be clingy here. I know that everyone needs friends in their life, and I'm all about you making new friends. Don't think this is about that. I'm trying really hard not to be worried about your fidelity or to how you'll live up to the promises you made, but you're not making it easy. You can't just whisper "January 2009" in my ear anymore and send tingles up my spine. You have to say things like "universal health coverage" and "your body, your choice" and "comprehensive sex education" and "complete withdrawal from Iraq" and you have to mean it if you want to get my juices flowing again. Just try it, you'll remember how damn good it feels, and so will I.

— Me

Obama: Most Liberal Senator In 2007 [National Journal]
A Q&A With Barack Obama [Relevant]
Obama Supports FISA Legislation, Angering Left [Washington Post]
Bush's Faith-Based Programs Will Remain [San Francisco Chronicle]
Obama May Consider Slowing Iraq Withdrawal [Washington Post]
Abstinence-Only Education Ineffective In Preventing, Delaying Sex Among Teens, Study Says [Medical News Today]

As Parliament was in session yesterday, pro-choicers protested outside, chanting "Not the church, not the state, women must decide their fate." Snappy! The Guardian points out that the British Medical Association, the Royal College of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, the Royal College of Nursing and the House of Commons science and technology committee all supported the 24 week limit, refuting many of the 20 reasons conservatives were using to further their argument.

Court Strikes Down Virginia Abortion Ban [Washington Post]
No Shift In British Abortion Law [New York Times]
Now Is The Time To Decriminalise Abortion, Says Pro-choice Lobby [Guardian]

Earlier: Conservative British MP Calls America "The Abortion Capital Of The World"

Dorries' calls America "The Abortion Capital of the World" because the rate of abortion per 1,000 women is 19.4 to Britain's 18.3 (Australia's is the highest in the world, at 20.0). The Daily Mail has a chart comparing abortion laws in 9 different countries; in it, the newspaper lists the "Upper Limit" of legally-acceptable abortions in the U.S. to be 26 weeks. But the reality is that getting an abortion after 12 weeks in many states is outright impossible.

According to NARAL, the pro-choice organization, "23 states have unconstitutional and unenforceable bans that could outlaw abortion as early as the 12th week of pregnancy, with no exception to protect a woman's health." In addition, "15 states have unconstitutional and unenforceable near-total criminal bans on abortion." Zoe Williams points out that "If you really wanted more abortions to take place earlier in the pregnancy, then you would work towards improving access to terminations on the NHS." Similarly, if Americans really wanted fewer late term abortions, they would provide better sex education in public schools and easy and cheap access to birth control. As we said earlier, 87% of counties don't even have access to an abortion provider. And anyway, Dorries is just picking on America because we're so loud and crass and angsty over the abortion issue. If she were really being accurate, she'd go after those abortion-happy Aussies, who "kill babies" even more than we do.

Britain Is 'Becoming The Abortion Capital Of The World' Claims Tory MP Fighting To Lower Legal Limit [Daily Mail]
Fact, Fiction And Foetuses [Guardian]
Abortion Bans After 12 Weeks [NARAL]
We Had Our Babies Under The 24-week Abortion Limit - And They All Survived [Daily Mail]

Earlier: Pro-Life Teen Says "I Feel Like We're All Survivors Of Abortion"