Choking the antichoice minority.ABOUT 1980 THE REPUBLICAN PARTY was hijacked by a band of dedicated and vocal antichoice fanatics. Not so long ago those same fanatics hijacked the high road on the abortion issue itself. They creatively constructed a public relations public relations, activities and policies used to create public interest in a person, idea, product, institution, or business establishment. By its nature, public relations is devoted to serving particular interests by presenting them to the public in the most strategy designed to put us on the defensive using an issue created out of whole cloth--the so-called partial birth abortion Abortion, Partial Birth Definition Partial birth abortion is a method of late-term (after 20 weeks) abortion that terminates a pregnancy and results in the death and intact removal of a fetus. . But instead of calling it what it was; the use of taxpayer money to conduct a public relations campaign, the prochoice movement moved courageously to protect women's lives and the doctor-patient privilege, but lost the PR battle. So how do we get the high road back? Let me offer a couple of strategic ideas. First, we must get the pollsters, all of them, to go back to asking the question, "Who should decide--the woman or government--as to her reproductive health Within the framework of WHO's definition of health[1] as a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity, reproductive health, or sexual health/hygiene ?" Pollsters dropped that question in favor of the self-labeling question over 10 years ago. Many people are now confused as to what prochoice means, especially in the GOP. I can't tell you bow many amusing conversations I have had with elected and appointed Republican officials who say "I don't agree with you on abortion," but when you ask more, they say, "Oh, but I believe the woman should decide if she wants one or not." We need to remove the confusion. Second, we need to call the GOP's bluff on abortion. It keeps passing laws that chip away at the edges of Roe. The GOP is in the majority in both the House and the Senate and it has an antichoice president, so why hasn't it moved on the one piece of legislation that the Republican Platform holds up as the "solution," the so-called Human Life Amendment? Why? Because the debate on such an amendment that would outlaw abortion 100 percent would kill the party. The HLA HLA human leukocyte antigens. HLA abbr. human leukocyte antigen HLA (human leuckocyte antigen) would mean women going to jail, most major forms of contraception contraception: see birth control. contraception Birth control by prevention of conception or impregnation. The most common method is sterilization. The most effective temporary methods are nearly 99% effective if used consistently and correctly. would be outlawed and you would need a national registry of pregnant women to enforce it. Yeah, that would go over well with the women of America--they get turned in and put on a national registry when they get pregnant and in nine months they better have a baby, or a way to prove they had a natural miscarriage miscarriage: see abortion. miscarriage or spontaneous abortion Spontaneous expulsion of an embryo or fetus from the uterus before it can live outside the mother. . Yeah, that would be a real political winner for the GOP! It was a big hit when they did it in Romania! So how do we call their bluff? I have my ideas and would love to discuss them with the other leaders in the prochoice movement before announcing them here. We can do it but it would take a GOP effort. It will involve giving the cop some of what the antichoice leaders in Congress think they want and watching them choke (jargon) choke - To fail to process input or, more generally, to fail at any endeavor. E.g. "NULs make System V's "lpr(1)" choke." See barf, gag. on it. ANN STONE is the national chairman of Republicans for Choice PAC, a group dedicated to locating and mobilizing mobilizing, v 1. freeing or making loose and able to move. 2. observing any ongoing movements in a client's body, whether small or large, assisted or not, that identify strengths and weaknesses, as well as the client's physical and the prochoice majority in the Republican Party, in order to change the party platform and elect prochoice Republicans at the federal, state and local levels. www.RepublicansForChoice.com |
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