NARAL blasts DNC chief

What's the reason these centers are so threatening? They show ultrasounds to the expectant mothers and provide adoption and unwed mother support services if the mother has the baby. The threatening part- once many of the mothers see the little baby moving in the womb, sucking its thumb, and moving its limbs- they don't want to have it cut up and aborted. From the opposition to this funding, it's clear that in reality "pro-choice" is "pro-abortion" and the "values" which NARAL is espousing are the values of death.

Course you'd never know it from this article, but the funding is attached to a new "Choose Life" vanity plate in Virginia, with some of the proceeds from the plate going to these crisis centers.

Just show's the ridiculousness of all these vanity plates that every state seems now in the business of. How cops can even tell them all apart, I do not know.

This is a pretty pathetic article. It doesn't give any details about what is objectionable about the bill in the eyes of pro-choice advocates.

agree with 3. this is pretty awful journalism.

No one should be pro-abortion, but that is how NARAL appears. What is wrong with showing young women their real choices?

One thing this article has moved me to do is to email the Democratic National Party and tell them until Kaine is gone as Chairman, I will not send one cent their way. I'd encourage all other Dems to do the same.

I had to use a crisis pregnancy center. They were kind to me. Did not try to influence my decision one way or another. I kept my child , he's 18. My Choice and his father's, my husband now. This knee jerk reaction that the pro-choice folks are having is ridiculous and I am pro-choice and these centers are not a threat and Choice is just that, your choice. Choosing to either keep your baby or have an abortion which will still be your choice whether you go to Crisis Pregnancy Center or Planned Parenthood. I have used both services. Maybe both groups should find common ground.

Last time I checked, pro-CHOICE ment that women have the right to CHOOSE whether or not they want to have an abortion.

Or is the Right right... does Pro-choice really mean pro-DEATH? Because outrage at the idea of funding organizations that provide funding to women who choose to have the baby would tend to support that second outlook on what pro-choice really means.

HOW WOULD YOU LIKE TO BE THE CHILD OF A MOTHER WHO DOESN'T WANT YOU?

Extremists on either side of this issue are tiresome. Nother_Insight is a hands-on-hips, thin-lipped, finger-wagging puritan who speaks the language of the terrorist pro-life crowd who wouldn't hesitate to blow up a Planned Parenthood nurse if he/she could get away with it. On the other hand, NARAL is a gang of hand-wringing fanatics to whom the word "choice" is analogous with having only one choice: an abortion. It couldn't possibly mean choosing to not have one. Certainly, you both share the same misguided values of intolerance and hatred for anyone who doesn't believe as you do. Sound familiar?

Didn't take long for all the righties to line up to spout their nonsense for this post.
In reality pro-choice is just what it says. Call it pro-abortion or whatever makes you feel self-righteous; but this legislation, which is just another attempt to force religious dogma upon people, will fail subsequent court tests.

These crisis centers attempt to guilt trip women! They also portray themselves as helping the woman but are really trying to subvert her right to choice! If this article is true, shame on Obama.

Democrats like Tom Kaine should serve as a firewall to the extreeme left . If Dems. hope to be a party of the " whole" country they must moderate some parts of their agenda. This is one.

What is objectionable about the centers is that they are not geared to medical help but to brainwashing and strong arm tactics. The one near my home does not have a doctor and gives out baby clothes and things when the women complete tasks for them. It doesn't give prenatal care or any advice on birth control for the future. In fact, the prudes who run it brag that they were abstinent until marriage. Many of them got married as teens. Getting married too young leads to unhappy marriages and families. All in all, these centers are not run professionally by staff trained in either medicine or council. They are not regulated and at least where I live their professionalism is questionable.

As was already stated, the bill dealt with a simple "Choose Life" license plate. People who buy the plates know that part of the money they spend goes to the crisis pregancy centers. It is hardly "state funding". Just shows how far the culture of death will go to hold the line against anyone who would ever suggest that anyone else actually choose life. These people are scary.

Ultrasounds aren't devices for showing cutesy baby pictures; they're a medical diagnostic tool. CPCs give a pretense that a woman is receiving medical care when she's not. Pregnant woman need treatment from someone who will present the full range of options and allow them to choose for themselves, not someone who's going to push an agenda on them.

Why did this article not tell the specifics about the centers? It's really hard to get a hold of what the issue is when there are no specifics about what the funding is for and what the nature of the centers is. The description in the article is so benign as to be pointless.

Why not extra funding for the Planned Parenthood Clinics already in place? To quote Nother_Insight from above - "What's the reason these centers are so threatening?"

They offer honest information on ALL the options available to women - without forcing them to view ultrasounds.
ALL options are discussed, but none are advocated. The informed choice is the woman's.
Abortion is the last option - not the 1st as the anti-abortionists would have us believe.

Do the Crisis Pregnancy Centers, (suspiciously located near Planned Parenthood Clinics & modeled to look like them), OFFER all the services if a woman elects to stop her pregnancy? Or do they just cast the woman directly into the fires of hell?

Government (State or Federal) $$ should not be used for pushing a religious agenda. These clinics, by offering only the medical services they deem acceptable, are doing just that.

The reason why you so-called Christians don't "see" what is objectionable to this bill that he signed is that you so-called Christians have no ability whatsoever to empathize. If men were in this situation then they certainly wouldn't appreciate "waiting" for this procedure (and I am sure that this wait will take FOREVER). For example, when a guy is ready to cum...make 'em wait. "See honey, let's look at a sonogram, or video of our forthcoming love child! Where are you going honey???" christians make me sick!

Nother, there is a problem with some (but not all) of the "Crisis Pregnancy Centers"
A minority are okay--just want to give the woman booties and pep talk.

Others are criminally deceptive. For example, some provide a "pregnancy test" and advise a woman set on abortion that she is not, indeed, pregnant. The idea is to delay her until it is too late to act. Majority of these centers have no medical personnel on staff. Sometimes an egg still in the fallopian tube is impregnated--the woman will die without surgical prevention. Crisis Center response, who cares?

Nother, there is a problem with some (but not all) of the "Crisis Pregnancy Centers"
A minority are okay--just want to give the woman booties and pep talk.

Others are criminally deceptive. For example, some provide a "pregnancy test" and advise a woman set on abortion that she is not, indeed, pregnant. The idea is to delay her until it is too late to act. Majority of these centers have no medical personnel on staff. Sometimes an egg still in the fallopian tube is impregnated--the woman will die without surgical prevention. Crisis Center response, who cares?

I hope that Governor Tim Kaine of Virginia is not aspiring to a higher office. I am pro-choice and sick of the far right dictating a state religion to the rest of America and forcing officials to play to their lack of science.

I'm laughing out loud LOUDLY. This is what NARAL gets for abandoning Hillary Clinton in the primaries to get on board with O'Bambi....yeah, NARAL, how does it feel? Dump the WOMAN who has a LONG record of Women's rights including pro-choice for the dumb male who's stance on women's issues is QUESTIONABLE. I'm glad I left NARAL after the primary. Screw Hillary and you screwed yourself.

The question, ultimately, is whether or not a fetus is a human being. Technology increasingly provides objective evidence in this area and, to some, a positive and personal answer to this question. NARAL, however, has obviously made up its mind on this issue, from conception through delivery, and is as dogmatic as its religious opposition. Logic, science, and morality can now only be found in the center, and we should listen to individuals like Tim Kaine who strive for a reasoned morality and are skeptical of extreme positions on either side.

I don't understand the issue here. I'm pro-choice. That means I believe it's a woman's right to decide how to deal with her pregnancy. If she decides to continue the pregnancy, I agree. If she decides to terminate the pregnancy, I agree. I don't have any problems in funding programs like this. Is NARAL saying they want funding going to programs that only advocate termination of all pregnancies? I DO have an issue with that! Free choice IS free choice -- let's not restrict it.

I AM ANGRY WE DO NEED CRISIS CENTERS. MEN CAN IMPREGRNATE WOMEN AGAINST THEIR WILL.

...that's because most of us already know why they're so objectionable:
- They advertise as comprehensive health care clinics, but have no doctors, nurses or legal medical staff. Their only services are propaganda.
- They give inaccurate information about abortion, contraception and pregnancy
- Their sole purpose is to do anything they can to prevent their unknowing victims from receiving an abortion, including preventing them from receiving necessary actual medical attention, promising them support way above the center's means, and emotionally assaulting them

This is scary, isn't part of the pro-choice movement also choosing the life for your baby? If there's a service that allows a pregnant mother to choose life, how does that go against the pro-choice ideals? I agree with the poster above, this sounds a lot more like pro-death than pro-choice.

"What's the reason these centers are so threatening?"

These centers exist solely to undercut abortion rights. The religious fanatics refuse to let this settled issue rest and insist on shoving their beliefs onto the rest of us.

The only thing the 'Pro-Choice' vice the 'Pro-Life' movement has going for it is that you can be 'pro' choice and 'anti' abortion (NOT anti-abortion rights!).

'Pro-Life' is just a cover for Anti-Abortion Rights.

If I have to be Pro-Abortion to be Pro-Choice -- count me out!

Spare the hyperbole about being pro-death. People on the Right love the fetus but care little for the child once its born. Cuts in health insurance to poor children done by the Bush Administration is but one example of such hypocrisy. These clinics and ultra-sounds are designed as mental cruelty and emotional abuse. Women and girls preparing to have abortions already know they are making a tough emotional decision. Women and girls in this position need our love and support, not condemnation disguised as medical advice. Showing the fetus on an ultra-sound is not an effective means of stopping abortion either. The way to reduce abortion is prevent unwanted pregancy, (i.e. education and access to contraception). These clinics are a waste of tax payer money and show yet again the utter lack of concern for the lives of women and girls faced with this decision by so the Religious Right. It's a condescending message sent by men with power and religious leaders that women and girls can not be trusted to make this decision, because they lack some sort of moral apptitude to understand they are aborting living tissue. Its hard to take the Religious Right seriously with their claim of representing a culture of life when they continue to show contempt for human beings actually living outside the womb.

I agree that the article says nothing, a reader's digest article saying nothing.
But more to the point why is Kaine the DNC head? Do we need to have the DNC head be the equivalent of the RNC chair, Michael Steel?

Ditto to #3. Does the article continue somewhere explaining what is objectionable? Take a journalism course!

I heard about this on the radio last night. It's a tack-on to a license plate. If a thousand of these "Choose Life" plates get ordered, then out of the $25 license fee, $15 goes to the crisis centers out of each additional plate.

Doesn't seem particularly threatening to the Choice movement, since people who are going to have these plates already are going to have bumper stickers etc to advertise their views, if they are willing to publicly broadcast their opinion on such an incendiary topic anyways.

Kaine will be on a telephone/email call in today (3/31) at 10:00 am eastern on a local news radio station -- www.wtopnews.com, I'd love to hear his explanation for wandering so off course from the Democratic Party's platform of equality for all while he tries to maintain his perceived "fast track" political career.

Also, it seems to me the new "Choose Life" vanity plates breach the separation of church and state in both their existence and the fact that a percentage of the proceeds from the sale of these plates help fund a non-profit "nonreligious" organization.

The "crisis pregnancy centers" are a bunch of liars. They provide NO medical services whatsoever - they lie to women about how far along they are in their pregnancies. The pro-choice groups want a CHOICE - baby, no baby, adoption. The CPCs don't offer anything but dogma. When they start using their funds to help mothers in financial crisis after they have an unplanned pregnancy - then we'll talk. They pretend to care about "babies' before they're born - but once the mom has the baby...they don't give a rats behind what happens to that kid or that mom. They're awful...

What is so "mainstream" about pro-choice values? I'm pretty sure that there is still a very divided public on this issue - somewhere around 50/50. When Obama says "I have no desire to continue this stale and fruitless debate" regarding abortion, he effectively dismisses anyone who does not agree with his radical left stance on the issue. How's that for change?

Kaine has taken a very reasonable position/it is important women have strong pro-life choices as well.

Words matter - what is an "abortion advocate"? Are they in the same league as "free market advocates"? As a pro-choice woman with 2 daughters and 3 grand- daughters, I do not ADVOCATE abortion, I consider it a painful option of last choice.

Women going to these centers pre-select themselves as women who are not planning to get abortions anyway. They go for the free ultrasound, free clothes, free food. I am pro-choice but see no harm in these centers. At least in my area, women know they are walking into a center that anti-choice. These centers do help low-income women to get into the system for early prenatal care.

Do the clinics still offer abortions? Are mothers offered real choices or are they only emotionally battered in a pre-chosen direction? Are pro-life people trying to coerce women in this clinic or are pro-choice people afraid that more women won't choose abortion if they have more real choices available to them? We don't know the answers to these questions from reading this article. As Obama said, most of us are not Pro abortion. We're pro for the woman making her own choices and in order to make that choice, she needs unbiased information. If they offer to show the ultrasound, (but don't force women to look at it,) in a non-judgmental way, that's one thing. If they show it and make the mother feel that she's a terrible person that's another.

Clients should be given the option of viewing the film or not. I am ProChoice, but, I am not at all opposed to any program that offers scientific information and practical support and guidance once the woman has made her informed choice. The ideal would be if these programs could work together and not try to push any position on the woman. Present the facts, without hysteria and sensationalism, and then see how she can be helped. ProChoice safeguards a woman from being forced to terminate a pregnancy or to continue a pregnancy. She needs lots of help and support either way. And once those children are born, THEY need lots of help and support like SHIPS!

tons of help and support, like S

FYI Vanity plates are license plates you pay extra for in order to pick your own numbers/letters (such as your name, hence "vanity"). The theme plates a state offers are not called vanity plates unless the plate number is customized.

If pro-choice advocates are honest they would view the centers as another option - or choice - for the woman. I'm proud of Gov. Kaine.

Nother,

A. it's not a baby, it's a fetus. Always has been under the law, always will be. The majority of people, especially women (yes, even Christian women), have consistantly voted down legislation that gives human rights at birth. Why? Because, as the anti-choice people when pressed will coyly admit, that would also restrict access to birth control. And not even some of your must gung-ho anti-choice advocates want that. There are many collateral benefits to birth control.

Fetuses aren't given the same rights because they aren't born, they haven't sustained the genstation period, and who knows if they will. There are many legal complexities such as if a woman gets hit by a car and loses her child, is the person charged with manslaugher?

B. NARAL gets up in arms with issues such as making women wait, making the dr. show them ultrasounds, etc. because this used to be the law in some states and has been struck down as unconstitutional. Ever so slightly Christian values are sneeking their way into the laws of our secular government. But then again, with the decrease in the Christian population, they need to find some way to hold on to power and inflict their moral views on the entire population. Some say it's tradition, but the tradition has never been that a fetus has the same rights as a child.

C. Almost all abortions are done in the first trimester, as much as anti-choice advocates don't like to admit, and the fetus isn't "sucking it's thumb" at that time. In fact, it's basically a blob with a slightly human shape. The videos most people are shown of abortions are of the second trimester when the fetus has more human qualities and the image sticks greater in the mind.

They only way they should be able to show the ultrasound to the woman is if she asks. There should be no pressure to do so, however, this usually isn't the case. Once the nurse - directly or indirectly - pressures the woman to see the ultrasound, makes her read pamphlets, etc, guilt sets in and guilt should never be the reason one keeps a child. Such instutitions run on fear-mongering.

He's finished

Comment 1 by Nother_Insight was deceptively well written. Starts out sounding moderately for NARAL's position then does a complete one-eighty. Very impressive. Now, when it comes down to choice, and anti-choice, NARAL is right in this one. And values have nothing to do with it, we can't have doctors prescribing values to patients, that's not their place. Where does government intervention end? If someone has made a decision it will be their decision to live with. Just leave them alone.

Crisis pregnancy centers do not offer pregnant women "choices". They will give them a pregnancy test to confirm they are pregnant and then they will tell women anything to get them to keep the baby. They will tell them that abortion is murder. They will tell them that fetuses can feel pain. They will tell them that abortion is linked to breast cancer and other complications. They convince these women who are in desperate need of help to keep the baby and then once they do, they do nothing to help them. The majority of these "crisis" centers are run by churches so they have have a religious motivation to stop women from seeking abortions. But, if a woman goes to a PP clinic, she is offered all the options. Many PP clinics even have adoption counselors on staff and the woman can receive pre-natal care at PP. This is why people have a problem with the funding from these plates going towards these crisis centers - it is funding a religious ideology - not healthcare for women.

To Kendra (post No. 9). Why not ask that question of the millions of children who are right now in Foster Care or an Orphanage; most of they're mom's didn't want them or at the very least could care less what happens to them.

The Dems really need to make sure the power of small- their coordination with the white house and interest groups that usually support them- are kept in the loop and consulted with regardless the outcome. The White House can't take the risk of letting its own party and support base fracture so early on, they need to take the small and simple steps to stay cohesive.

In response to #18 & 19, you're wrong. You should know the facts about any of the "centers". I went to a Planned Parenthood for a pregnancy test, and when I was called back in to tell me I was indeed pregnant, the first and the ONLY thing discusssed was abortion doctors they could "hook me up with". Of course I went there very young and uninformed about what they are all about. But even then I had a conscience. You see the difference in my comments is that they are first hand facts that I experienced and not some hear say or made up garbage.