For Some Anti-Choicers, "Compromise Means Betrayal"
The news that some anti-choice groups are shifting gears -- working not to overturn Roe but to provide economic and social supports for pregnant women -- has sparked outrage amongst many entrenched anti-choice groups. In USA Today, Joseph Scheidler of the Pro-Life Action League, writes
There is no evidence that increasing social programs - such as low-cost health care and day care, college grants and maternity homes - will impact a woman's abortion decision. It is rare in our experience to find a woman who says the reason she is choosing abortion is that she doesn't have day care, or that she'd rather go to college.
Those of us who have spent years outside abortion clinics, talking with abortion-bound women, are keenly aware of what leads women there. Often, the woman feels she has no choice because someone important in her life refuses to support a decision to keep the baby...We see the effort to combine pro-life and pro-choice forces as a betrayal on the part of the pro-lifers.
But USA Today itself editorialized in favor of the new approach:
Even before Election Day, a loose coalition of conservative academics, prominent anti-abortion pastors, lay Catholics and other activists began working with old enemies in the pro-abortion rights camp to push a new agenda passage of measures to provide low-income, pregnant women with the kind of services and education that could discourage them from seeking abortions. They are on the right track...We hope they can do even more, particularly in finding ways to make contraceptives more widely obtainable and in improving sex education. Meanwhile, if this first sign of détente in the abortion wars helps make the procedure less common but still available, it will be a notable accomplishment.
Female Majority in New Hampshire State Senate
New Hampshire's State Senate will be majority female come January, reports Women's eNews, the first female majority in a legislative body in the country. The bad news? Women have historically been better represented in state legislatures that pay little, and New Hampshire is no exception - it pays state legislators $100 per session.
Former NARAL Legal Director to Advise President-Elect Obama
Lifenews.com reports that Dawn Johnsen, professor at the Indiana University School of Law and legal director at NARAL Pro-Choice America from 1988 to 1993, will join President-Elect Obama's Department of Justice Review Team. Johnsen also served in the Clinton administration as the Acting Assistant Attorney General heading the Office of Legal Counsel from 1997-1998 and as Deputy Assistant Attorney General from 1993-1996.
