Anne has completely lost it... The right-wing media and conservatives nation-wide are LOSING THEIR MINDS over scandal, so that immigration reform can be passed under cloak and dagger? Does that really make any sense? Talk about a warped and revisionist sense of what's happening. Sadly, Anne, the world is not that organized and coordinated. We probably couldn't pull off a massive conspiracy like that if we wanted to, left or right.

But, anyway, see your above repost for my response...

Why do you feel the need to repost everything you respond to me to the top of the comment board? It feels more like you are trying to call me out, rather than have a rational conversation. I know where I've commented, so if you would respectfully reply, I'll certainly make it back to you eventually. It's easier to have a conversation in one thread than have to search all over the board for it...

Joycey, Your prediction sounds like the plot to a Lloyd Alexander novel. As for my "sub-humanness"... I fail to believe that honest and intelligent conservatives do not see the consequences to both positions. I could call you evil and subhuman for supporting laws that have resulted in the suffering and death of millions of women worldwide. But that doesn't really serve much of a purpose if I want to have a rational discussion about your views as opposed to mine. I was simply pointing out that progressives believe abortion rights are a balance between the legal rights of the unborn and the legal rights of the mother --and the left does not have some unequivocal support for terminating pregnancies or a lust for doing so, as is portrayed consistently by commenters here at TH. It's a calculus of legal rights, a zero-sum game whereby the gain of one is the necessary loss of another. And a quick aside, the morality arguments are absolutely going to fall flat with those of us on the left, even if we accepted your premises about the way the world is "supposed" to be. If your argument is that everyone should be more responsible, then we all agree--and in a perfect world, they would be. But what happens when society fails to work out so harmoniously. What do we do with the rest of us that don't come from a Leave it to Beaver family (or weren't raised in Levittown, PA circa 1950)? Many of us feel that is the problem with conservatism in general, as an ethos it simply refuses to deal with large sections of the population, and by that virtue often marginalizes them or worse.

Really? No one calls them "hussies"? See the two comments following yours. As for contraception, the right fights access at every turn, and then claims that access to contraception is an adequate protection for women such that abortion rights are unnecessary. While I respectfully reject that premise on its own merits, I'm not sure that conservatives generally regard contraception as any more favorable than abortion--since they consistently refer to Plan B as the "abortion pill" and attempt to go even further than allowing an employer's religious beliefs to block access to contraception supported by insurance by attempting to carve out "conscience exceptions." I don't, for a second, honestly believe that conservatives would embrace contraception if abortions were restricted--they would merely turn their attention. To address Americathebeautiful's "keep your legs crossed" comment...this is exactly the attitude that makes contraception and sexual reproductive rights so important for women. Abstinence only education has not been sufficient to prevent unplanned teenage pregnancies, and the spread of STD's, and the statistics are encouraging when people have full access to family planning information and medical care. While shaming these people by calling them the "w" word as you have so tactfully embraced may make you feel better, it does nothing to solve the social problems attendant to ignorance about safe sex. 2/3 of unplanned pregnancies are due to those who do not use contraception or do not use it correctly/consistently. That can easily be changed through education and access to family planning facilities. But not if the religious right restricts access at every turn.

And nowhere did I refer to anyone as "my women." Where do you get this stuff?.... Reading comprehension. It's a lost art...

Really? I'm not human? Because I don't want the women in my family and community burdened with onerous reproductive restrictions? Unreal... Both views have consequences, and the list is long of women who have suffered and died because of an oppressive society that denies her choices. I'm not slinging around the "evil" label on anyone whose views tacitly endorse such results. And I'm not advocating we drop protections in place for prematurely born babies who their mothers attempted to being to term. Not sure how you anecdote illustrates my "A-morality" (sic) or anything else for that matter.

Who claims that life doesn't begin until the baby has "exited the womb completely"? Certainly not Obama, who supports Roe v. Wade that imposes a viability standard for abortions. The left's support for abortion is not unsupported by a balance of contingent rights. Meaning, the right simply thinks in absolutist terms of "when does a being become a "person," while the left thinks in relativist terms of "when does a being become a "person" such that it has independent legal rights apart from, and in certain circumstances, superior to its mother"? Obviously I think one is a more appropriate question to ask, which is why I'm in the side of the abortion debate that I'm on. But they are two entirely different conversations, and I feel like the right often forgets that the left's support for abortion is not unequivocal, but rather, highly contingent on a zero-sum game of legal rights whereby any gain for the unborn necessarily equals a loss for the pregnant woman. In seeing the sexually repressive regime exacted on women throughout history in the name of "morality," I have far more trust in unfettered mothers to largely protect their babies, more than I trust the unfettered state to protect women's rights. I would think conservatives would inherently trust individual choice over collective state action.

This column is so off base, I don't even know where to begin. We already have a system where private entities are paying these women for eggs, often much more than the compensation based regime allows, and the ones who are stuck unable to purchase eggs under this system is researchers that desperately need them in efforts to improve women's health. The current bill under consideration would expand the ability of researchers to enter into the legal market for women's eggs that ALREADY EXISTS. And I'm supposed to believe that these callous researchers who are focused on improving women's health will have less regard for the health of these women than private contractors trying to harvest eggs for rich couples? Why, because they will take people without a college degree? That's laughable. This argument makes the case for more legislation on this issue, not less. Its an issue of protecting women better during and sfter these procedures. And researchers absolutely deserve a seat at the table in this legal market. They are not the problem.

Really? It's questionable whether Romney wanted to be President. Right...he only ran for twelve years.

Ricky, you have lost it... The UN is not trying to make you "cede" any parental authority. It's a provision that's aimed at removing restrictions to getting disabled kids put of third world countries and to a place that offers appropriate care. Does anyone really think that the US is not the best place on earth for a disabled kid? So how is this a problem? Just more made up threats about the New World Order from an increasingly irrelevant former politician.