The Truffle

It seems Americans really do support abortion rights after all. See, three recent polls have indicated a slight majority of respondents consider themselves "pro-life." Except that a recent Slate article breaks it down: Republicans and GOP-leaning independents are more likely to call themselves "pro-life." Gallup editor Lydia Saad told Slate that "Republicans, in particular, may be less willing to identify as 'pro-choice' if they perceive that aligns themselves with the Democrats or Obama." In other words, partisanship is a factor. What else is new? Meanwhile, Nate Silver shows that support for Roe v. Wade remains high. Sixty-eight percent of poll respondents oppose overturning Roe v. Wade. Meanwhile, an ABC News/Washington poll has similar results: fifty-eight percent said Roe v. Wade should be upheld. Needless to say, it is perfectly possible to oppose abortion on a personal level and still support choice. Besides, polls are snapshots of...

Yes, there are already a lot of media takedowns of Rand Paul. However, Katha Pollitt has an excellent one showing the limits of Rand Paul's libertarianism: Apparently, it doesn't extend to women's reproductive rights. Randy is so anti-choice that he supports laws with doofy names, like the Sanctity of Life Amendment and the Human Life Amendment. Basically, laws saying that life begins at conception and abortion should be outlawed in case of rape and incest. You know, a return to the days of back-alley abortions. Really un-libertarian stuff.

How does a socially liberal blue-state centrist Republican try to win over the fundies? Is it even possible? Rudy Giuliani doesn't know, but he's sure going to try. Doesn't he get dizzy from all that flip flopping? From the LA Times : On Friday, the former New York mayor tried to put the issue behind him with a speech to hundreds of Christian conservatives at Houston Baptist University. He called abortion "morally wrong" but stood by his position that women should have "the right to make that choice." Addressing voters in general, he said, "You have a right to evaluate this in figuring out if you can support me, and at what level you can support me." *** As Giuliani prepared to speak in Houston, fallout from his efforts to blunt resistance to his abortion rights stand continued. His biggest problem remained his equivocation at a debate of the GOP presidential candidates last week in Southern California, where he said it would be "OK...

On the plus side, the right-wing talking point about "personal freedom" has been revealed as the empty rhetoric it truly is. On the minus side...well, women who need a medical procedure to save their lives are going to be up the fucking creek. George Bush's new, conservative Supreme Court delivered a victory to anti-abortion activists yesterday when it upheld the so-called Partial Birth Abortion Act, which outlaws a specific, relatively rare procedure usually carried out on pregnant women reaching the end of the second trimester. The issue has been mired in controversy for years, with anti-abortion activists arguing that the operation, which involves crushing the foetus's head, is unspeakably barbaric while their opponents say it can, in certain circumstances, be the least traumatic way of ending a pregnancy and causing least damage to the health of the mother. Six courts have ruled that the 2003 federal law banning the procedure was unconstitutional because it did n...