peacocks and lilies

In part I of the Specter of Roe v Wade series, we discussed how the Democratic party really has no right to demand support on the basis of defending Roe v Wade because they have been actively working against holding the line on that precious right for women. From helping pass the so-called partial birth abortion ban, to supporting SCOTUS chief Roberts in droves, to completely abandoning rhetoric that defends abortion rights in favor of the language of appeasement, the Democrats have spent the last 8 years capitulating on this issue, and abandoning women as a constituency as a result.

But what of the so-called advocacy groups? Groups like NARAL and Planned Parenthood have traditionally operated as clearing houses for information, funds, and political access, and served on the front lines of defending women’s right to choose. But what have they been up to as Democrats have been falling down on the job the last 8 years?

Most of my readers are already familiar with the actions of NARAL this primary season. Well before the media selected Barack Obama as the Democratic nominee, the national NARAL group chose to endorse the candidate who had the lesser record when it comes to abortion rights—Obama. To add insult to injury, they did not even consult with local chapters, and made the announcement without informing those chapters they were doing so. This in turn outraged many of those local chapters, and those chapters openly announced their resentment. It eventually led to an open fight with Emily’s List, a group that promotes the election of pro-choice females to office, and which supported Clinton during the primary. Emily’s List later endorsed Obama, but waited until he was selected to do so.

So what is NARAL’s background? Way back at the beginning of 2006 Jane Hamsher (of firedoglake) began an assault on NARAL, focusing her attention on Nancy Keenan, the Catholic head of the national group. She published article after article on her blog, firedoglake, and on Huffington Post, at which she is a regular contributor. Hamsher, as well as many other pro-choice activists, were angry at a number of poor choices NARAL and Nancy made, including endorsing Lincoln Chafee, Joe Lieberman, raising money specifically to fight the Alito nomination, and then not spending a dime on that fight. Hamsher had this to say about NARAL fundraising:

Don’t reward failure. Tell your friends. Don’t give money to NARAL when they come knocking on your door to tell you that choice is going down the crapper unless you give them a lot of money, because what you’ll be giving money for is Nancy Keenan’s ability to point her little pinky over tea at Washington cocktail parties and tut-tut over the state of choice in this country at the hands of the fundamentalists. She’ll take no responsibility for the fact that NARAL will not fight, will not back those that fight, and worse yet, that NARAL sucks up all the pro-choice money so nobody else can mount a meaningful fight, either.

I couldn’t agree more. There seems little point in funding a group that has repeatedly failed in its very purpose. The group’s strategy makes no sense, and it campaigns for funds promising action they later fail to deliver. I don’t believe it’s hopeless, however. I think Nancy has to go, and a real fighter needs to take her place, someone who wants to work as a team with local chapters, and who isn’t susceptible to the beltway lifestyle and resultant isolation from reality.

Hamsher has been strangely quiet about pushing her war against NARAL since March of this year, and I don’t pretend to know why, but thought it was worthy of note. The blogger boyz that previously supporter Hamsher’s effort have also been strangely quiet, or have acted like NARAL was never called into question. I couldn’t find a single post by her regarding the NARAL endorsement of Obama, who developed a strategy along with Planned Parenthood to vote “present” on abortion rights votes in the Illinois legislature in an attempt to dupe some of his constituency into believing he had no opinion on abortion, and might even oppose it. (This strategy will no doubt help in this effort.) Yet she railed and railed against the Lieberman and Chafee endorsements. Hmmmm.

Peacocks and Lilies will explore the role of Planned Parenthood in part III of the series. That post should be up later today or tomorrow.