Posted on 02/03/2014 7:43:04 AM PST by Academiadotorg
Wendy Davis, a Democratic state senator running to replace Rick Perry as governor of Texas, owes her political stardom to two things: a pair of pink sneakers and her unstinting support for a womans right to terminate a late-term pregnancy in a substandard clinic. Yay, feminism!
Last year, Davis led an eleven-hour filibuster thats where the sneakers came in handy to block legislation that would ban abortion after 20 weeks and require abortion clinics to meet the same standards that hospital-style surgical centers do.
Advertisement This was all going on against the backdrop of the sensational Kermit Gosnell case in Pennsylvania. Gosnell ran a bloody, filthy clinic where he performed late-term abortions with a barbarity youd expect to find in a Saw movie. Sometimes hed snip the spines of fully-delivered babies with a pair of scissors. His instruments were so unsanitary that some women got STDs from them. Cat feces was a common sight on the procedure-room floors.
In short, you didnt need to be an abortion-rights activist to find the story of interest, but youd certainly expect an activist to be up to speed on it.
Working on that theory, The Weekly Standards John McCormack caught up with Davis last August to ask her a few questions.
McCormack noted that once you got past the squalor and filth of the clinic, Gosnells illegal late-term abortions werent all that different from legal late-term abortions in other states. What is the difference . . . , McCormack asked, between legal abortion at 23 weeks and what Gosnell did? Do you see a distinction between those two [acts]?
I dont know what happened in the Gosnell case, Davis replied. But I do know that it happened in an ambulatory surgical center. And in Texas changing our clinics to that standard obviously isnt going to make a difference.
She should have stopped with I dont know what happened in the Gosnell case because in the words of the grand-jury report, the abhorrent conditions and practices inside Gosnells clinic [were] directly attributable to the Pennsylvania Health Departments refusal to treat abortion clinics as ambulatory surgical facilities.
So the one thing she claimed to know wasnt true. Also, what curious incuriosity. If you were suddenly a national leader on an issue you felt passionately about, wouldnt you want to know what happened in a case that cuts to the heart of your cause?
Not Davis. Her time is better spent denouncing the ignorance of women who disagree with her. When McCormack asked what to make of the fact that a majority of American women support a ban on late-term abortions, Davis responded, I again think that a lot of people dont really understand the landscape of whats happening in that arena today.
Think about that. In the course of a short conversation, she revealed that she didnt know what she was talking about while casually dismissing the majority of American women who disagreed with her as not knowing what theyre talking about.
Lets fast-forward to 2014. Davis was recently interviewed by Jorge Ramos of Fusion TV. He asked her, When does life start? When does a human being become one?
Davis answered with a non-answer: You know, the Supreme Court of course has answered this decision, in terms of what our protections are. Blah blah blah.
Tom Bevan of RealClearPolitics slammed Davis for being too cowardly to give a straight answer, let alone a thoughtful one, to a straightforward question that goes to the heart of a matter she has made the signature issue of her political life.
I agree. But Davis is merely at the forefront of the cowardice epidemic. On the anniversary of Roe v. Wade earlier this month, President Obama couldnt bring himself to say the word abortion, preferring instead virtually every poll-tested buzzword. Indeed, in all of the war on women noise, abortion is almost always wrapped in the velvety euphemisms of womens health and reproductive choice.
It should tell you something when passionate advocates of unrestricted abortion are so uncomfortable talking about . . . abortion.
Perhaps all of the rage abortion extremists aim at their opponents is cover for a deep insecurity maybe psychological, definitely political about the reality of what they are defending. Senator Barbara Boxer (D., Calif.) once said that life begins when you bring your baby home from the hospital. That is not very far from Wendy Daviss position. But she doesnt want to say that certainly not in Texas! Better to change the subject to the evils of her opponents and hey have you seen my sneakers?
We are somehow playing into their hands-not hers. She will go down as a martyr and reap the rewards(Senate?) when/if Texas turns blue.
Texans need to wake up to this fact.
ditto Sandra Fluke.
More and more, I believe the anti-Christ will be a woman.
Wendy Davis leads a filibuster and she's idolized.
What am I missing here?
Texas is aware of this fact. Politically she is toast here.
A great campaign ad for Abbott would be a recording of Wendy Davis’ voice from that filibuster praising the “sacredness” of abortion, dubbed against a video of stills from Gosnell’s slaughterhouse and some footage from the film “Silent Scream.”
I support late term abortions for all who are of Wendy Davis’s ilk. Up to a 2,600 week (50 year) late term abortion. She should be proud of me. I’m more liberal on the issue than she is...
You must be sexist for pointing this out. The Left is allergic to logic or consistency.
The only thing that remains to be seen is the margin by which she is toast. If she gets over 39% of the vote, that will be appalling.
Hopefully her main function is to vacuum up national progressive $$ that could otherwise go to races that may be close.
If she is too low in the polls that won’t happen.
The letter D.
Windy the Windbag.
That idea hit me this week. I think you might be correct.
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