Former President of NARAL Pro Choice America, Kate Michelman, had this to say in today’s Philadelphia Inquirer in regards to running as an Independent in the 2006 PA Senate election:
With conservatives controlling the White House and Congress, and the addition of clearly anti-choice justices John Roberts and Samuel Alito, the principles embodied in Roe and the right of every American woman to make reproductive health decisions face an uncertain future.
But with challenge comes opportunity. Rather than buckle or retreat, it is time to rally the pro-choice community and for women to control their own futures. Under similar circumstances, the pro-choice movement was critical to Democrats’ recapturing the Senate in 1990 and the presidency in 1992. The silence of many pro-choice senators regarding Alito’s confirmation and the specter of Democrats recruiting anti-choice Senate candidates at this critical time is a real concern for woman’s rights supporters.
Sounds like she’s taking a stand there, eh?.
Every fiber in my body tells me that these principles should be defended. It is difficult to imagine that the right for which so many have worked so hard can be whisked away by politicians more interested in accumulating power than standing up for a fundamental right.
Sounds like she’s really pissed off and wants to effect change.
Despite profound and fundamental differences, I have decided that Pennsylvania will be better served by electing Bob Casey to the U.S. Senate than giving his opponent another term. I do this knowing that I may forever regret not responding one more time to the clarion call of principle.
And with that, Kate Michelman is a backstabber in my eyes and I presume that many other people who feel that the issue of choice is an incredibly important one will feel similarly.
I was an apathetic schlep for the first twenty years of my life and slowly my eyes opened after the 2000 5 to 4 vote to hand George W. Bush the presidency and since the 2004 election I’ve been mad as fucking hell about it. I’m tired of not responding to the “clarion call of principle” that Michelman speaks of. I’ve only been a Democrat for six years now, but I’ve been a “good Dem” and followed the pack. But the Democratic party has veered to the Right and I don’t like how things are looking down the line. I don’t like how the “clarion call of principle” is being ignored by the Democratic leadership and treated as an annoying cacophony of cries from a bunch of loonies outside of the mainstream. They are wrong, we are the base and they are losing more of us each and every day.
Choosing to endorse an anti-choice [among other things] candidate instead of an incredible Progressive Democrat in Chuck Pennacchio makes Kate Michelman a backstabber. It has been six days since the candidates filed to be on the primary ballot. [And just to be clear, I am a hard working volunteer on the Pennacchio campaign, but I was saying this after I had heard him speak and before I started to actively volunteer my time on his campaign]
Supporting a candidate who believes this:
It would seem obvious: Democratic Senate candidate Robert P. Casey Jr., who opposes abortion, believes Roe v. Wade should be overturned.
“You can’t say you have the position I have and not believe that,” Casey said in a recent interview about the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that made legal abortions available nationwide.
makes Kate Michelman a backstabber.
Casey apologists will see Michelman’s decision to 1) not run as an Independent and shove the issue of choice onto the top of the 2006 PA Senate election and 2) not endorse one of the two pro choice Democratic candidates [the other being Alan Sandals] as a dose of pragmatism. I simply call it selling out. And when you sell out your base as a former President of a national organization, that makes you a backstabber.
I’m not much of a single-issue voter. I despise Democrats like Casey for a host of reasons including his stance on the Iraq War, embryonic stem cell research, his lack of support for a living wage and universal healthcare, his stance on forcing pharmacists to not fill prescriptions based on their private beliefs, his soft stance on equal rights for all… But Michelman was the president of a huuuge single-issue voting bloc. And she just sold them out. Big time. That makes her a backstabber. I know that she fought hard for nearly thirty years on the national level, but today, she stopped fighting. Most of her activities were before my time and I’m sure many here in this community witnessed it and were a part of it firsthand. I’m curious to hear your reactions to her change of heart.
