It's our time to put a president in the White House who cares about women's health, take back our country, and move once again with progress and commitment to the future. That's what Hillary Clinton said when she suspended her presidential campaign and that's what my mother Ann Richards would say if she were alive today. When Mom lost her reelection bid for governor of Texas to George Bush in 1994, she didn't just get over it, she went on with it -- on to campaign with gusto for hundreds of women and other progressive candidates across the country.
Mom required only one thing of the many folks who asked for her campaign help: a 100 percent belief in women's rights. If they didn't have it, they were out of luck. But if they stood up for women as she did, she would travel to the ends of the earth for them.
That's why if she were still around she would suit up and campaign for Senator Obama in the farthest corner of the farthest state. Mom would see in him a leader with a long and consistent record for standing up for women's health care, a man raised by a single mother, a father of two daughters, and a husband who supports women's rights 100 percent.
She'd see in him what we at the Planned Parenthood Action Fund see: a leader who will improve access to quality health care for women, a partner who will support and protect a woman's right to choose, and a president who will invest in prevention programs that help prevent unintended pregnancies and reduce the need for abortion.
Elections are about choices, and Mom would have said that women voting for John McCain would be like chickens choosing to vote for the Colonel. In 25 years in Washington, John McCain has consistently voted against women's health. McCain wants to overturn Roe v. Wade, opposes basic family planning programs, and voted against insurance coverage for birth control. He has a zero percent voting record from Planned Parenthood.
As a health care provider to millions of patients every year, we take our endorsement process very seriously. In this election, the choice is very clear. Our national Action Fund board has voted unanimously to recommend an endorsement of Senator Barack Obama for president. That recommendation has been sent on for ratification to our local action organizations, who represent the interests of all 103 affiliates.
This year we have seen historic numbers of women, young people, and millions of new voters engaged for the first time in the political process. This is the kind of social change that Mom believed in and fought for her entire life. And that's the kind of work we at Planned Parenthood are all about.
Planned Parenthood Action Fund polling finds that more than half of women voters in battleground states have no idea where Senator McCain stands on women's health issues, and even worse, half of the women who support him describe themselves as pro-choice. The good news is when these women learn about his record of voting against access to family planning and sex education, as well as his opposition to Roe v. Wade, they become much less likely to support him.
That's why we are out there, engaging and educating voters on the records of both Senator Obama and Senator McCain, and turning out the key voters who will be instrumental in electing a pro-choice, pro-women's health care president.
In her famous speech at the Democratic convention twenty years ago, Mom said, "I think of all the things that never would have happened and all the people who would have been left behind if we had not reasoned, and fought, and won those battles together." Like Hillary, she would be imploring all voters to not let this moment slip away. She would agree that we have come too far and accomplished too much. Let's link arms and get on with the future, she'd say. It's time to elect Barack Obama president.
Cecile Richards, daughter of the late Ann Richards, former governor of Texas, is president of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund.
Talk about a DREAM TICKET!! Ann Richards, President and Barack Obama as V.P. Or, if fate would have it, just the other way around. I can't imagine a more robust and progressive administration in recent American history. The synergy between these two would have been out of the box! I miss you Ann, but I believe Barack will carry the work forward for you and for the rest of us. Adieu.
I remember how she got on with it, never giving in, never giving up! Fighting The Good Fight and campaigning her heart out. I saw her on the stump in '04 in South Bend, Indiana. Later she told the greatest story about it at an Observer event when she was speechifying about Resisting! http://youtube.com/watch?v=8LA1dfHqLTc
I promise I'll keep resisting and banging my pots & pans.
She was a class act all the way around. As Texas Governor she made the best use of that office selling Texas to the rest of the US and the World.
We who "knew" her were fortunate, for it will be a while before we see the likes of her again.
The Texas Star shines a little less bright with the loss of Great Texas Women like Ann Richards, Barbara Jordan, and Molly Ivans.
I would exchange a year of my life to hear Ann or dear Molly weigh in on the goings-on today! As an over 50 white woman, these women are among my most treasured role models! Pragmatic, mature, wisely political, and fair are among the the descriptions of these glorious women. There is no way they would recognize the bizarre, shallow, peevish, hateful, and yes, hysterical rejection of ideals and principles that has taken hold in the face of political disappointment.
Seriously, we need another dumb, old, white, woman-bashing, man? That helps the cause in what way?
This was a historical primary. Representatives of two key Democratic constituencies faced off in the semi-final round. We had to see it coming, one would be selected this time, the other would not. In unity all that means is that the other would also be closer to the ultimate goal. It is only through division that we fail. Let's not get lost in pouting over what will eventually be seen as a setback on the road to victory. Like all pioneers, Hillary has opened the path to future success, but there are always going to be ups and downs that can be overcome, with persistence and a little help from friends. She will need unity for her cause every bit as much as Obama needs it now. A woman who stands in the way of unity is sowing the seeds for continued struggle and disappointment. Think bigger, sisters!
One thing I find despicable, however, is the presentation of Planned Parenthood as a uniquely virtuous, humane and compassionate organization. This is a total distortion of that organization's history and goals.
How many people know about "the negro project" proposed by the racist Maggie Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood? The "negro project" was a program to encourage use of contraceptives among the African American population in the U.S. Liberal AA pastors who got in step with the project would receive monetary donations from Sanger and her ilk. You see, the problem, in Sanger's eyes, was that there were too many "human weeds"-blacks, immigrants from Southern Europe, etc. and they were contaminating American society. "More children from the fit, less from the unfit." That was the racist Sanger's rallying cry. I
Realizing how successful Bush and his cronies were at stealing national elections, I keep asking did Ann Richards really lose the gubernatorial race to George Bush. How do you work up the balls to steal a national election? I say, practice, practice, practice.
Crazy, but I wonder.
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The preamble is important to the Constitution. It starts "We the People of the United States". That is where the power was and still is. Remove the Preamble and we remove ourselves.
IF you do not want our representatives spending money on health, organize, educate, and get your point out there. It is not easy but the making of these United States was not easy.
If you want change, become that change.
If we want a constitutional right to abortion, then we should pass a constitutional ammendment.
Abortion wouldn't be nearly the contentious (sp?) issue it is if only the people were allowed to decide for themselves what the law should be.
Being pro-choice and favoring Roe should be two seperate issues.
And this is a silly argument. Roe is not stopping the passing of a constitutional ammendment. But the overturning of Roe would stop legal, healthy abortions.
I don't see the point of arguing for its overturning or voting for McCain to do it for you. What would that accomplish? The rushing in of an ammendment? Ridiculous.
In case you didn't know, individual rights trump even majority rule.
This abortion debate does not belong at the national level. Too many people are basing a vote for president on the possibility the next person in that office will see a vacancy on the Supreme Court that will allow him to nominate someone who will be confirmed by the Senate who will be sitting on the Court when a case comes before them that will have some bearing on the status of abortion in this nation and that person will cast the deciding vote in a 5-4 decision that will either (depending on your point of view) save the Republic from utter everything it was before 1973 which is backward, misogynistic, evil, ig'nint, etc. or return us to that golden age when everybody loved one another and crisis pregnancies didn't happen, or at least people didn't talk about them in polite conversation.
Give it a rest. Dump Roe v. Wade. Send it back to the states where people can make up the own minds with regard to the law. If the super majority wants abortion on demand across the land, put it in a constitutional amendment.
If it's hyperbole, it's not very useful. If it's an attempt at a genuine comparison, it's way off. I'm not too familiar with McCain's plans for our country because I can't get past is nutso foreign policy ideas, but I'm pretty sure nowhere in his platform is tucked away plan for killing and eating our nation's women.
I ain't gonna miss Roe v. Wade if it ever gets dumped. The abortion debate poisons national elections. Send it back to the states.
This is from an April 23, 2008, AP article:
"McCain stated his opposition to the bill as he campaigned in rural eastern Kentucky, where poverty is worse among women than men. The Arizona senator said he was familiar with the disparity but that there are better ways to help women find better paying jobs.
"'They need the education and training...,' McCain said."
Women have plenty of options before they get pregnant to many use abortion as a form of birth control and the father has no options except to loose his child or pay out the butt for 18 years but try to get a woman to pay child support LOL yet they want equal pay equal opprotunity and hey I am all for that but what ever happened to equal responisbility?
And if you say "a rapist can't participate in the decision", do you have an increase in the number of accusations of rape as some women decide they don't want their former lover to have a say (I'm not approving it... I'm saying it'll happen)?
Equal rights is a farce, you people want special privilage lets call it as it is.
Boy, McCain is really TOO OLD, especially in his ideas to be president.
If they were alive today,I think that among the many things they would shed light on ,one of them would be clearing up of hysterical terms like "late term abortions"and "Partial Birth Abortions".
They would point out that the Roe V.Wade opinion for the majority spells out very clearly the requirement for a sound medical opinion that a "third term termination of pregnancy" is neccessary for the health and well being of the mother.
They would also point out that the term"Partial Birth Abortion"is medicaly meaningless since there is no such procedure and it is a term used very losely in the vernacular sense by the uninformed and zealots.
Nature being often so tragicly unpredictable,there are times when it is neccessary and vital that a severely malformed fetus(or whatever term can be used),be removed and the mother's life and well being be spared from further harm.
This is a very serious and often dangerous procedure and is never done capriciously!