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'Pro-Life' -- What Does It Mean?
"Pro" means "for", and "life" is for "protecting life," right? So does "pro-life" mean protecting cells, or protecting the living and breathing here on earth?
I was forced to confront these questions today. And I, in return, attempted to force an unsuspecting telemarketer from a company called MDS Communications to confront them, too.
She contacted me because her firm was hired by Dr. Beverly Lahaye from the Concerned Women for America to fundraise for them. She explained how using her firm was more cost-effective for her client than if the CWFA did it on their own.
"Whatever!" I thought. I was just ticked that a telemarketer had somehow gotten my number. Yet because I had not heard of either organization before, I allowed her to continue with her script as I quickly wrote down the URLs.
"You are being contacted because we show you might be pro-life. Are you pro-life?"
"I am pro-life," I said in response. I suspected she might have meant 'anti-abortion,' but I wanted to hear more about what she had to say in case it would give me a clue as to how the CWFA got my number. Besides, I really am pro-life; I just don't consider anti-abortionists to be the only ones entitled to that label.
And so she continued with her pre-canned rap track...
"Your money will be used on abortions!" she unequivocally stated. "The House has recently passed the H.R. 3 Bill"... and thus, the rest of her hip-hop routine to her rote-rap song began:
"...they are using your tax dollars for abortions."
"...little embryos being killed for science!'
"...no evidence that embryos will save lives any better than adult stem cells."
(Welcome to my own ah-ha moment here!)
The H.R. 3 Bill she was talking about was the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act of 2007. Her hip-hop routine, said with soto-voce'd exaggerations and lies, finally hit on my last nerve. (Not to mention the whole "they're making us pay for abortions" while I'm stuck paying for their war spiel hit me, too!)
I guess you could say that she was now about to get hit with the truth.
I asked her if she was pro-life. To which she replied, "Yes."
"So we're both pro-life then," I said, "What about the 19, 20, 21, 25, year olds who are dying in Iraq. Aren't they a life?"
"But, that's not the same..." she stuttered and uttered the well-known barf-inducing refrain, "They're fighting for our freedom."
I almost asked, "What do you mean, our?. But I let that frame go unanswered because I had a larger point to make. "But ma'am, what about these 19, 20, 21 year olds who are being shot with bullets made from Depleted Uranium -- (nuclear waste by-products)?"
She responded, "I'm calling you to talk about important matters, but not the war."
My hair began standing on end at that comment...
"But ma'am, they are using nuclear wastes that are causing cancer and birth defects --"
She interrupted me to say, "Well, I have no proof of that."
So I offered her the link as I reminded her that we are both pro-life and that I had accepted the links she gave me.
She refused to take the links but she continued to stutter, "But I'm not calling you about that issue!"
I was pretty upset at that point to have 'pro-life', 'stem cell research', 'war', and 'depleted uranium' all summed up in the most unsupportive to life word: 'issue'!
So I pushed harder and more fiercely, though still attempting to keep her engaged by reminding her that I was indeed pro-life. The strain could be heard in our voices as we both began talking over the other. Yet, in my head, the only thing I could think of was Dr. Dahlia Wasfi's testimony regarding the Iraq Occupation before the Democratic Congressional Forum on Iraq.)
Though I saw only 3 minutes of Dr. Wasfi's speech and the slides at Camp Democracy, it was all I could take. She spoke of pregnant women who were no longer asking, "Is it a boy or a girl?" when their baby is born. Instead, they are asking, "Is it dead or alive? How many limbs does it have? Is it normal?" And I was remembering the slides she showed with those statements. I remembered the picture of a dead pregnant Iraqi woman who had been shot in the stomach, and the picture of her newborn baby (via cesarean) with the bullet hole through its chest and back -- dead as well.
I wish I would have been able to verbalized those thoughts to my unwilling caller, even though I would likely have cried had I been able to get the words out of my mouth. Instead, all I could fiercely utter was, "Ma'am, what about the pregnant Iraqi women who are giving birth to babies with extra limbs, missing limbs, and birth defects -- all because of the nuclear wastes our forces are using in bullets over there? Don't they count, too?"
She was at a true panic at this point. (Honestly, so was I!) And she uttered something about supporting the war, and then she continued, "I support George Bush. I think he's doing..."
Uh oh... we both felt it. The rest of the sentence.
The words lingered in the air unsaid. Because at that point, the air was charged, our breaths sucked in... And on that note, I'm not sure who hung up faster. As she hung up, I think I was muttering about the precious lives lost because of a lie.
A heck of a job, huh?
I wonder if she'll think about the depleted uranium in the bullets and the Iraqi mothers who give birth to deformed children with each and every call she makes. As she argues about the issue of stem cell lines that are future little kids running around and experiencing pain from science, I wonder if she'll think argues about the issue of the little Iraqi children who can't run around now because they're mutilated from bullets made with nuclear wastes. I wonder if she'll think about the issue of lies that lead to war that lead to dead babies and dead pregnant women.
It was a learning lesson. I am pro-life in a valid and meaningful way. I believe she wants to be pro-life as well. But she's been trained to think of life in a single-dimensional way.
The CWFA web site's ad banner says that their organization is "Pro-America, Pro-Family, Pro-Life." The CFWA's talking points say that "For the left, and especially for the United Nations, violence against girls and women does not include abortion."
These anti-choicers are not making the connection.
Violence against girls and women in Iraq includes shooting pregnant women, maiming women, men, and children. And killing little fetuses isn't protecting life and it's not valuing life. The use of depleted uranium is killing them. Some die immediately but others will die slowly and painfully. This is a life-and-death issue and this is a moral issue!
18, 19, 20 year olds deserve our protection. Pregnant moms of our 'enemies' and their off-spring deserve our protection. War is not 'pro-life'. War does not protect families. And your stance on war exemplifies your moral values.
It is our job to help people like my caller and the CWFA see that. We have to make them realize 'pro-life' isn't 'pro-war'. And 'pro-life' isn't just protecting cells and cytoplasts.
I tried to do that today. Care to join in now?
You can help protect a life by educating MDS Communications and their clients about the dangers of using munitions made from depleted uranium. Give them a call and give them the facts.
MDS Communications: (480)-752-8140
Concerned Women for America: (202)-488-7000
Your member of Congress: (202)224-3121
~~
Author's footnote:
In case you're curious about MDS Communications and do not want to click on the link to their web site from here, their blurb on their site proudly states:
MDS Communications provides high quality telephone fundraising services to pro-life organizations, conservative political causes, Christian ministries and relief organizations. Our mission is “to lower the cost of telephone fundraising for non-profit organizations and to be a catalyst for change in the fundraising industry.”
And the following organizations have used MDS Communication's telemarketing service:
Conservative Public Policy Organizations:
Concerned Women for America
Family Research Council
National Right to Life Committee
Christian Ministries:
The Navigators
Promise Keepers
American Bible Society
Crown Financial Ministries
K-Love Radio Network
Numerous divisions of The Salvation Army
International Relief & Development Ministries and Organizations:
Food for the Hungry
CARE
Political Organizations:
The Republican National Committee
The National Republican Congressional Committee
The National Republican Senatorial Committee
MDS Communications' original founders included an assortment of partisan organizations and church affiliations. Though that list had been scrubbed from their website, you can still view the cached "About" page here.
Ah... but that's a whole other story in itself. For now, feel free to educate all of them!
This is great. So few "pro-lifers" have an integrated view including whether to eat meat, whether to support capital punishment, whether war killing is justified, whether children are entitled to a decent school lunch, whether people should sleep in the streets, whether to take extraordinary means in medical situations etc. & frequently, no position on "quality of life" or who deserves a "living wage" or basic necessities of life, and whether they are "pro-life" with respect to just one type or stage of organism, just one race, etc.
Thank you for this thread. There are so many levels to the sanctity of life than just the unborn.
ALL life is precious, including those who are already born, and those who are productive members of the society.
Thanks for also reminding me to never, ever call the Salvation Army again to donate things. I've refused to deal with them for years anyway.
Last, but not the least, Beverly LaHaye is the worst traitor to womanhood. (Mann Coulter doesn't count because s/he isn't even a woman.)
Silence, your words have scared everyone off!
Below is a statement by Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.) on the announcement by Secretary Rice that the United States will engage on high level talks with Iran and Syria on the future of Iraq.
Senator Kerry, who has long called on the Administration to engage in direct talks with Iran and Syria, last year introduced a bill calling for a summit of Iraq and its neighbors to arrive at a political solution to the civil war in Iraq. Congress passed the Kerry legislation last September.
“The Bush Administration's long overdue decision to join talks with Iran and Syria on the future of Iraq is a good step forward, but just pulling up a chair isn't a plan,” Kerry said. “The Administration must be fully committed to engaging in direct dialogue with these countries, as we have finally done with North Korea. I've long advocated convening a summit of Iraq's neighbors, and I’m glad it has finally come to pass. But we need to lay the diplomatic groundwork in advance to make it as successful as possible. Conversation is not capitulation. To test the Syrians and Iranians directly, as the Baker-Hamilton Commission suggested, we need to have an American strategy to get Syria and Iran's leaders to make their own strategic decision to change direction, and stop fomenting chaos in Iraq."
Dear "Silence is Complicity":
Great thoughts and great thread-header and great try to get a dialog going.
War is a last resort. As for myself,I'm pro-choice, pro-life, and, though not a pacifist, I believe that recourse to war must be used only as a last resort, which is to say that all other reasonable alteranatives must be exhausted first (Fe -- help me out on this as "reasonable" is a contracts phrase of art!). Anybody that tries to put fire-walls through all of these things is lying to themselves and to their god.
Thanks,
Chuck in Houston
Song Time:
"Little birdie, little birdie,
"What makes you fly so high?"
"It's because I
"Have a true little heart
"And I don't care to die....
"Well I'd rather drink
"Muddy water --
"Rather sleep in a hollow log --
"Than to stay here
"On this old river
"And be treated like a dirty dog."
Chuck in Houston
"I'm a man, I'm not wooden;
"Tell you 'bout a gal they called Sally Goodin."
"Lived upon a hill top
"Seen my Sally coming
"Thought to my soul
"I'm gonna kill myself running."
"Had a little hog, had some pudding;
"Give it all away, to hug Sally Goodin."
Chuck in Houston
"Ain't gonna work on the railroad;
"Ain't gonna work on the farm.
"Just lay around my shack
"Till that mail train comes back.
"And I'll roll in my sweet baby's arms."
Chuck in Houston
Arthur Schlesinger has died.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/01/washington/01schlesinger.html
He'd be on my short-list of people that I want to have met, and exchanged ideas with.
I think the issue of pro-life VS. pro-choice has these folks stuck. Chuck says he is both and, of course, that would be true for most of us!
The culture is so deeply BORDERLINE, in the clinical sense of the word...
From George Bush's brave hometown newspaper:
http://www.lonestaricon.com/absolutenm/anmviewer.asp?a=1174&z=113
John Kerry's Long Journey
Yes, I don't want to define myself anymore as pro-life or pro-choice - will have to ask "what do you mean?" "what exactly are you referring to?" I think I'm going to try to start doing that with any black-and-white thinker, and drive them insane. I will be "nuanced" - people will not get it. Wait a minute! Didn't someone just try to do that in the last election? Like our whole party? I guess I haven't figured out how to talk to black-and-white thinkers because they can't see anything in between. Have to break it down to elementary text level maybe. They do also call us snobs, elitists & aloof, even though they have most of the money.
Supreme Court Tackles Bush's Faith-Based Initiatives:
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/politics/4591383.html
Texas papers are hopping today!
Important case for separation of Church & State in America.
I do believe it was the Good Reverend Indy who heavily promoted his personal "anti-label" campaign during the last national election, and I gotta tell ya, I've seen the lite.
I'm monkey, and no longer hooked on phonies worked for me.
(Paid for by the No Longer Hooked On Phonies campaign to eradicate labels and in the box thinking)
My take would be that an authentic definition of pro-life would require adoption of a philosophy that grants adults the widest choice of defensible options available at any given moment in our development as a culture/species.
To deny women choices for their spiritual/personal development is IMHO to deny life itself, in preference for archaic, utimately lifeless, forms of hero worship - assuming that one can credibly even claim to know what any given hero or heroine would think or say when confronted by the conditions faced by humanity in the 21st century. As far as I'm concerned, we know little, if anything, about the cosmos' ultimate intentions for a species that lives on a planet that revolves around a relatively minor star in the heavens - and in this era of sacred madness, where partisans on all sides fantasize about the end of time, and radically different conceptions of Paradise, it might be good idea to keep that in mind.
Well stated!!
Jesselyn Radack has a new diary at Kos. Politics and the Justice Dept...
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/3/1/7511/42911
Also, she's won the "Wings of Justice" Award.
http://wingsofjustice.com/07/02/woj07009.html
How in the heck did we get stuck with these goons when so many GOOD people (Good, ethical, honest, moral...) are out there?
Posted by: monkey at March 1, 2007 09:44 AM
That's true of course. Except we also had to take back our ideas from the negative label others had given them.
So in a sense, you had to adopt a label in order to fight the label.
It's all about the ideas we have and the ideas we have in common.
Then it's about forging the best policies from those two ideas. Ideally, nobody would get 100% their way. However, since when is honesty in government a 'lefty idea'? Or not starting a war on lies and selling it to the public only a 'lefty idea'?
This is what is still happening out here. I know. I heard it all last weekend at the convention. Supposedly, as one jerk said, "The only two issues anyone cares about is jobs and healthcare and the rest of the 'lefty crap' should be dropped!"
And yes, one of the ptb locally said that. And this man has the power to control his county party.
The Senate’s Forgotten Iraq Choice
By LINCOLN D. CHAFEE
Providence, R.I.
AS the presidential primary campaigns begin in earnest, the Iraq war is overshadowing all other issues, as it did during the midterm elections. Presidential candidates who were in the Senate in October 2002 are particularly under the microscope, as they are being called upon to justify their votes for going to war.
As someone who was in the Senate at the time, I have been struck by the contours of the debate. The situation facing the candidates who cast war votes has, to my surprise, often been presented as a binary one — they could either vote for the war, or not. There was no middle ground.
On the contrary. There was indeed a third way, which Senator James Jeffords, independent of Vermont, hailed at the time as “one of the most important votes we will cast in this process.” And it was opposed by every single senator at the time who now seeks higher office.
A mere 10 hours before the roll was called on the administration-backed Iraq war resolution, the Senate had an opportunity to prevent the current catastrophe in Iraq and to salvage the United States’ international standing. Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan, offered a substitute to the war resolution, the Multilateral Use of Force Authorization Act of 2002.
Senator Levin’s amendment called for United Nations approval before force could be authorized. It was unambiguous and compatible with international law. Acutely cognizant of the dangers of the time, and the reality that diplomatic options could at some point be exhausted, Senator Levin wrote an amendment that was nimble: it affirmed that Congress would stand at the ready to reconsider the use of force if, in the judgment of the president, a United Nations resolution was not “promptly adopted” or enforced. Ceding no rights or sovereignty to an international body, the amendment explicitly avowed America’s right to defend itself if threatened.
An opponent of the Levin amendment said that the debate was not over objectives, but tactics. And he was right. To a senator, we all had as our objectives the safety of American citizens, the security of our country and the disarming of Saddam Hussein in compliance with United Nations resolutions. But there was a steadfast core of us who believed that the tactics should be diplomacy and multilateralism, not the “go it alone” approach of the Bush doctrine.
- more -
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/01/opinion/01chafee.html
Pro-life label by the right is a lie anyhow - an exercise in skillful framing. They are anti-choice and anti-life and want women barefoot & pregnant, and eventually uneducated & voteless.
surprise (not)
McCain announces run for president
~~~
McCain Says U.S. Lives 'Wasted' in Iraq
NewsDay http://tinyurl.com/2958sk
Posted by: aimzzz at March 1, 2007 12:23 PM
And will anyone call on McCain to retract or apologize for making the very same statement that Obama made a couple of weeks ago?
Or maybe McCain just endorsed Obama for president...
also anti-life:
Feared Security Chief to Govern Chechnya
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/01/AR2007030100369_pf.html
snip ...Vladimir Putin nominated a widely feared security chief as the new president of Chechnya on Thursday, while Europe's human rights chief denounced torture and other rampant abuses in the war-battered region. Ramzan Kadyrov, who previously had served as Chechnya's prime minister, has run a security force that is accused of abducting and abusing suspected rebels and civilians believed to be connected to them...
Posted by: madame defarge at March 1, 2007 12:30 PM
Obama/McCain ticket o_O
(just kidding)
He had a full life, but oh, I'm so sad... he never let his liberal flag down... mant eras ending of late...
Historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. Dies at 89
Kennedy Confidant, Pulitzer Prize-Winning Author Dies of Heart Attack in New York
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/01/AR2007030100053_pf.html
Yes Senator McCain, by all ways and means, please elaborate on the "wasted lives" comment, specifically the use of the word "wasted", cuz somehow if I say it, it's deemed unpatriotic and nothing short of public execution or character assassination is acceptable.
We've Become Uncomfortably Dumb
Can you imagine what the RNC would be saying today if it was Hillary, Obama,Richardson or Edwards who had said we have wasted lives in Iraq? JK's botched joke was mild in comparison and the media went on and on about that for weeks. I am Steamed with this double standard.
apparently b/c Obama made the same slip about the troops, he was much more magnanomous about the phrase then I would have been, but it brings back memories of JK's botched joke and the insane reaction eventually forcing JK out of the race.
Life is what happens while you're busy making other plans.
...to colonize mesotopamia,
Otter
People put down politicians who refuse to apologize to the left or the right (ie. attempt not to let the media call the shots) but it may be a smart strategy in the end.
In politics and entertainment nowdays (are they one and the same?) the call often goes out for so and so to apologize, retract a statement, etc. It's a complete manipulation.
How about:
"I'm not sorry - I said it on purpose"
"I wasn't joking - you have no sense of humor"
Other responses to try:
The Zell Miller (challenge the offender to a duel)
The Britney Spears (shave head and do not discuss)
They are anti-choice and anti-life and want women barefoot & pregnant, and eventually uneducated & voteless.
Posted by: not my president at March 1, 2007 12:03 PM
And that's precisely what Mann Coulter said, because according to him/her, women only know how to spend money, not make it. (Look up Coulter quotes at dKosopedia on Daily Kos.)
Coulter and Phyllis Schlafly have been chosen by MSN Lifestyles: Women as two of the ten women who set other women back. Not bad for Coulter, who isn't even really a woman.
The Britney Spears (shave head and do not discuss)
Posted by: not my president at March 1, 2007 02:32 PM
I thought The Britney Spears was "trusting W in everything that he does, and having faith..."
But I digress.
Posted by: not my president at March 1, 2007 02:32 PM
My comment RE: McCain's statement was not to illicit an apology from him. It was meant to point out the hypocrisy in which McCain gets away with saying the same thing Obama said and was raked over the coals for it.
BTW, I do agree about apologies. They're meaningless & empty these days, when everyone seems to think it cures all.
Democracy means never having to say you're sorry.
madame
I did understand, as I had read a little about it, I think at DailyKos. & now I see McCain has actually apologized.
But yes, this whole routine of people saying things and then someone else demanding a retraction or apology is getting very old and boring. It's so juvenile. Where is the intelligent discourse?!
Bubba,
I agree. I was listening to an interview that Kerry did a month ago in Boston, and some lady was saying the same thing. It seems like what Kerry said was mild compared to what Obama said, yet, the media (and RNC?) gave Obama a pass, while they forced Kerry out of the race. Interesting people are saying good things about Kerry now that he is no longer a threat to their candidates.
I am sick of this double standard thing also.