Abstinence-Only Multimillionaire Funds 527 Attack on Abortion Issue

On a day when most Americans are looking at the news from Wall Street, as markets plunge, comes word from far-right social conservatives that one multimillionaire funder will attempt to distract voters with independent television advertising on more Culture War issues.

Last week featured the now resoundingly discredited lies about age appropriate comprehensive sex ed, discredited even by Karl Rove on Fox News Sunday when he said, "McCain has similarly gone, in his ads, one step too far and sort of attributing to Obama, things that are, you know, beyond the 100% truth test."

Those lies were about legislation in Illinois promoting comprehensive sex ed, that clearly stated in Section 2, Lines 11 and 12, that all sex ed curriculum would be "age appropriate." For Kindergartners, that meant teaching kids "good touch, bad touch" lessons to protect them from pedophiles and predators.

The abstinence-only-until-marriage crowd pushed the McCain campaign one step too far, even for Karl Rove. Now one of abstinence-only's chief profiteers, Raymond Ruddy, a wealthy multimillionaire, is going to be the primary funder of an independent advertising campaign that will attack Obama on the also discredited, by FactCheck.org, claims that he supports infanticide.

Social conservatives -- emboldened by the addition of Sarah Palin to the ticket -- are promoting Culture War issues to shift the focus away from the economy, housing, energy, the environment and national security. In the process, the debate Americans could be having on these critical issues is being distorted -- as is the reality about sexual and reproductive health.

Who can blame the far-right when at stake in the election is their access to government grants to continue profiting from their failed abstinence-only programs; their efforts to ban all abortions, even in the case of rape and incest; and to reduce access to contraception by allowing individual medical professionals to redefine contraception as abortion, as the Bush Administration is currently attempting to do.

The ad will be emotionally powerful and manipulative, but in the end it is being funded primarily by one multimillionaire, whose company Maximus, has benefited from more than $100 million dollars in government grants during the Bush Administration. That fact won't likely appear in the 30 second ad or many mainstream media reports. Meanwhile, wars still rage, the economy is in decline, the environment is a mess, Americans with jobs are concerned about losing them, and those without health care are wondering what to do if they get sick.

Raymond Ruddy, the multimillionaire behind the ads, will be okay though. Don't worry about him when you see his ads or hear the media reports about them.

 

 

Comments

[S1m0n]

When it comes to morality, you're not judged on what you SAY, you're judged on what you do.

People who claim to be pro-life but who also restrict information about sexual health and access to contraception are not, judged by the effect of their actions, pro-life. They're pro-abortion. No one in our society does as much as they to encourage both unwanted pregnancies and abortions.

When folk such as they stick their heads above the parapit, they need to be told in no uncertain terms that we've had it with their false claims to morality. If they won't do anything effective to discourage unwanted pregnancies, they should damn well shut up and quit getting in the way of the people who are.

[MBryant]

I realize it is anecdotal, but to the extent that Sarah Palin is any sort of mother and any sort of conservative leader hasn't she made abstinence only preganancy prevention into a sort of national joke?

[schatsie]

Let me tell you, that until you have ADOPTED a baby with anencephaly, that means only water for brains, you should just shut the f up....

I never had to make that decision and I thank God for that, but for any mother who has an infant like this, you are totally out of line with taking away her choice..

More families are destroyed by having these severely handicapped children and NOBODY CARES about that...

But you don't care that a mother has to work 3 jobs in this country, have no medical insurance and try to raise a decent human being at the same time....

[oxford]

The rest of the world will really embrace the US being led by right-wing Christian fundamentalists pushing that agenda upon them. Given the takeover of the military by Evangelical Christian zealots, we show that we are on a mission from GOD.. Let's all march to 'Onward Christian Soldiers". NOT!

[deliriousgod]

a Culture War is a self-inflicted lobotomy, a country beating its own brains in. Russia and China both waged internal wars against intellectuals and the elite. hence

[deliriousgod]

You know who had a culture war? China. Mao called it the 'Cultural Revolution'. It rooted out all the elitists and intellectuals. Today they put powdered plastic melamine in baby formula because they can 'see' that it improves the colour and texture and protein count. They can't see that it damages kidneys and leads to premature death because only an elitist doctor can see that.

[milo h minderbinder]

What do they really think they're going to gain with abortion propaganda? People who are pro choice are a solid majority. This may excite the core base, but with the swing voters/independents who will decide this election, more of them are probably on Obama's side anyway.

I could see this hurting more than it helps.

[SheenaVa]

The anti choice propaganda is a HUGE fundraising issue on both sides. The Republicans use this issue every 4 years as a wedge issue, it's keeps their base cohesive. Ever since Roe v Wade was enacted, it's been brought up year after year to fatten up the right wing coffers. As long as the Supreme Court was mostly "liberal" it wasn't as big of an issue to the pro choice crowd because wouldn't be able to successfully challenge it. This time it's different. If McCain gets in, he's promised that he would appoint judges that follow in the "Alito mold".

My fear is that we've enjoyed years of having reproductive rights and I hope that the majority has not gotten complacent with that, thinking they'd never lose them. It's a real possibility now.