NYT: Senator Clinton Seeks Middle Ground in Abortion Debate

Clinton Seeks Middle Ground in Abortion Debate
By RAYMOND HERNANDEZ
Published: June 13, 2006

WASHINGTON, June 13 — Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York moved today to shift the debate over abortion to the subject of access to family planning services, saying that the nation's focus should be on preventing unwanted pregnancies.

Mrs. Clinton's remarks reflect the degree to which Democrats around the country are trying find a middle ground on the issue of abortion since their party's defeats in the November 2004 elections.

"This should not be an ideological battle," the senator said during a speech to members of the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association in Washington.

"Let us unite around a common goal of reducing the amount of abortions," she said, "not by making them illegal as many are attempting to do or overturning Roe v. Wade and undermining the constitutional protections that decision provided, but by preventing unintended pregnancies in the first place through education, contraception, accessible health care and services, empowering women to make decisions."

Mrs. Clinton, a potential candidate for the presidency, also used her speech to take a jab at Republicans who, while adamantly opposed to abortion, have resisted efforts to pay for programs providing greater access to contraception and other family planning services....

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/13/nyregion/13cnd-hillary.html?hp&ex=1150257600&en=4185304f68cee779&ei=5094&partner=homepage

A lot of folks wouldn't think this is middle ground:
"not by making them illegal as many are attempting to do or overturning Roe v. Wade and undermining the constitutional protections that decision provided"

That's all I want to hear. She isn't changing her position or the Democratic party's position or moving to the middle on this one. This has been the stated position all along... Keep abortion legal, but try to prevent unwanted pregnancies.

he was even able to speak of a program (s?) that Teresa was involved in.

The real problem is that there is no middle ground - there are people who want access to abortions and others who want it illegal.

I do believe the media is shitting all over Hillary. What a bullshit headline.

Move the debate off of the Anti-choicers turf!

NT!

for Hillary in 2008

didn't read anything but the title. She has some good ideas here.

It's bullshit, she shouldn't legally be allowed to run. This is the Constitutional Amemdment we need...to block immediate family members from being able to run for President.


Bush
Clinton
Clinton
Bush
Bush
H. Clinton
H. Clinton
Jeb Bush
Barbara Bush Jr.

instead of making a judgement on the title alone.

be an ideological battle," isn't it fair to ask "why not?"

Here are the two sides, imho:

a) either one supports the idea of women's reproductive freedom

or

b) one opposes the idea of women's reproductive freedom.

Since polls show that 70% of Americans tend toward option a, I fail to see why Dems can't take Repukes on over precisely those poles of the debate.

I fully support Roe v Wade, and hope that it remains the law of the land. But even those of us who support abortion rights in a legal sense are not necessarily comfortable with the rate at which women are seeking them.

My issue is not whether I think abortion is right or wrong, because I have a different opinion depending on the situation. The law can't provide for different opinions in such a way-it's an all or nothing deal. That's really the way we should be framing the debate-make it clear to the "anti-abortion except in rape, incest and to save the mother's life" crowd how impossible it is to make a law that says that. The anti-abortionists know that once a law like that is enacted, abortion is illegal for everyone but those who can get their doctor to write it up as a d&c.

I hope that I will never be in a position where I feel that abortion is my best option. That would be a tragic situation indeed.

health services for the poor, if those services include abortion, have turned this from a strictly "rights" issue into a class issue. IMHO, one either believes in women's reproductive freedom or one does not. If one believes in the former, as I do, I think "seeking the middle ground" leads to situations where, among others, federal funding for abortion services for the poor is restricted while the affluent remain free to exercise their "right."

I understand and recognize that I am in the minority on this issue currently. As a male, I will never have to make that choice on behalf of my own body\person, and I think the choice is difficult enough for any woman, rich or poor, that adding additional encumbrances, i.e., politicizing the issue, represents the height of cruelty.

Probably because the right of a woman to have control over her own body is so much under assualt, that the side issues connected are kind of forgotten.

Michigan had a voter ballot initiative in 1990 that banned medicaid abortions. PP in Detroit will do abortions for poor women on a sliding scale, but when they run out of money for them in a given year, they run out of money. There are several abortion clinics in the Detroit area, at least one in Kalamazoo and one in Lansing.

PP in Grand Rapids does not perform abortions-they refer women elsewhere, either to a private doctor/clinic or to the clinics in Lansing or Kalamazoo. When I went to WMU, the PP near campus was burned down by lunatics at least twice in that four years, and at least once since then. There are 4 hospitals in GR-2 are owned by Dick DeVos (Spectrum Health Care), the GOP candidate for governor this year, one is catholic and the other is osteopathic. I don't know about the last one, but none of the other 3 will provide abortions.
I don't know if there are services for women in the UP, which is kind of an isolated area.

Hillary should be upholding the decision by the Supreme Court. There us no middle ground in this debate. Of course, most of us here would agree that family planning should be supported.

There's nothing in the substance of what she said that any liberal or progressive Democrat, or even most Americans in general should disagree with.

The nutjobs RW fundies don't want sex ed or contraception either, because sex is BAD, women are BAD, and the penance of sex is unwanted children...or something like that...
:crazy:

It is the middle of the road voter, who might be pro-choice, but is uncomfortable with the rhetoric that usually accompanies the abortion debate. Or with those who dissaprove of abortion in general, but see a need to carve out exceptions for rape, incest etc, and who like most Americans are not opposed to birth control.

Reframing the debate takes it from turf from which we cannot possibly hope to reach everyone with our views, onto one in which common sense and an emphasis on prevention of unwanted pregnancies takes center stage.

There are many people who oppose abortion who believe the opposition to birth control is lunacy.

CLINTON SEEKS MIDDLE GROUND IN FAMILY PLANNING DEBATE. The NYT headline is misleading and inflammatory.

This is an emotional issue and invokes visceral reactions from people who have a vested interest in the outcome from both sides.

She is making an end run around a Republican wedge issue and attempting to unite people around a common sense approach everyone can work with. The religious right has claimed abortion as their cause and trampled on women's rights for too long.

"We've tried it the way our nation's religious zealots told us to for over 5 years. What we've learned is that abstinance only education and lack of knowledge have actually increased the number of abortions."

NT!

and she will lose votes from voters that believe it is not the government's business to dictate women's reproductive choices.

Hillary came in second to John Edwards in a recent Iowa poll. If she keeps this shit up, she may find herself trailing Kerry before long.

be the Dem candidate in '08. Having said that I will say that whoever is the Dem candidate needs to hit this argument hard. Mr. Clinton said that abortion should be "rare and legal". This will get traction from some on the right. We have friends who vote Repug largely on the abortion issue. They are, imo, struggling to find a way to vote Dem because of the war and the economy and the growing gulf between rich and poor, etc. I think that many will be able to vote Dem if the Dems declare that we want to reduce the numbers of abortions as much as possible. Obviously the NeoCon tactics INCREASE the numbers of abortions. Making abortion illegal will not stop abortions, it will just increase the suffering.

No, I think Hillary is right about this. I just think she's wrong about nearly everything else.

who are the biggest opponents of family planning and birth control.

What is Hillary going to do, endorse the Vatican's Rhythm Method?

if a better candidate did want to buck the Vatican, they could point to the new research that shows that the rhythm method results in the deaths of more fertilized embryos that other methods of birth control. There has been a hint of some movement on the Catholic condom position and maybe this research will push some to use condoms to spare the fertilized embryos????? Who knows?

Those people don't want to hear someone say that abortion should be rare, they want it to be ILLEGAL. Anything short of advocating for the criminalization of abortion, and you can write off the anti-choice vote. And then, if by some miracle you get them past the abortion hurdle, they'd still refuse to vote for anyone promoting The Gay Agenda.

Why the hell are we even trying to get votes from people who think we are the spawn of Satan? :shrug:

She's not doing one of those horrid, "well, some abortions shouldn't be allowed, in some circumstances" dodges that even some Democrats have pulled.

She's saying: you want fewer abortions? Fine. Better education, healthcare and contraception. Put up or shut up.

That's not a pander, IMO.

but you're right. What she's doing with this issue is both good policy and good politics.

choice for a candidate -- simply because too many people have a deeply ingrained, irrational hatred of her. I don't think she could get beyond those people, whatever she did.

I think she's smart and strong, and I do admire her, though.

and I think she's just as electable as anyone else. The people with the irrational hatred are generally the ones that automatically vote for anyone with an "R" after their name.

I just feel that she panders to the Right way too much on other issues.

for him. I do imagine she's attempting to be seen as a moderate voice of reason. After all, the right continually paints her as a wild-eyed liberal -- which of course, we wild-eyed liberals find hysterically funny.

I've just heard vitriol from so many people (not hard-core "R"s) about her. Stupid, senseless, pointless, but all the same intense, dislike of her. I'm really not convinced she can get by that -- enough to win enough votes.

Believe me, I'd be jumping up down and sideways to see a Dem woman as our candidate. It's so past time. And I think she'd likely make a terrific president.

But I also just reflexively resist the push -- it seems the right is absolutely set on seeing her as our nominee. There's some concerted effort from that camp to have it done and wrapped up and Hillary. And that makes me itchy, I guess.

"Let us unite around a common goal of reducing the amount of abortions," she said, "not by making them illegal as many are attempting to do or overturning Roe v. Wade and undermining the constitutional protections that decision provided, but by preventing unintended pregnancies in the first place through education, contraception, accessible health care and services, empowering women to make decisions."


How is she pandering? The headline is BULLSHIT TOO. I don't care for Hillary either but try to be impartial.

"Pro-life" extremists will not be appeased. They will continue to bitch. Pro-Choice people will see this as equivocation and/or blatant political opportunism.

That's not "middle ground", if by that they mean she's abandoning a pro-choice position. I've run into no pro-choice folks who think there ought to be more abortions or that contraception and education aren't critically important.

What Hillary is proposing is just plain common sense. If calling that "middle ground" gets some of the wild-eyed, anti-abortion, anti-woman folks to listen, then I guess that's good.

There is no middle ground with these people. Marriage = Sex = Procreation. Abstinence Only Before Marriage, and Faithfulness in Marriage. Where is the prevention of pregnancy in either of those?

Plus the Rhythm Method or "Natural" Family Planning, as they now call it, is to SPACE births in marriage. They do not talk about PREVENTING them. The Catholic Church says that all sexual acts must be "open" to the possibility of children. If they are promoting NFP, then extrapolate from there.

I'm thinking of the people who live somewhere in the middle. The ones who dismiss pro-choice folks as just those way-out liberals, but the ones who would actually be quite open to all the things Hillary mentioned.

Besides, by changing the terms of the discussion, we force the antis to expose themselves for what they are. It's not about saving babies, it's about controlling women.

READ the article before you jump all over her for christ sakes... if you just here to bash Hillary LEAVE! Actuall Dems here are getting really sick of the UNJUSTIFIED bashing. This headline is shit and any DUer should be able to see that.