ellie needs a kick

There is a great article on Salon today about this whole morality/abortion/Hillary Clinton/Andrew Sullivan conversation (or, as author Rebecca Traister refers to it, "a risky mission to put the heart back into the fight for abortion rights").

The article provides some much-needed context to Hillary's recent speech, including efforts from the International Planned Parenthood Council and Catholics for Free Choice to get abortion rights activists to rethink how they talk about the issue.

In the category of "wish I had written that" (from the article's author, Rebecca Traister):

"Confronting the status of the fetus is a scary proposition for pro-choice advocates. To acknowledge it as anything other than a mass of developing cells is to risk careeening down a slippery slope to the word 'murder'. To write or speak a sentence on the subject of abortion rights is to face a field of semantic landmines; every reference to a fetus or its potential future must be preceded by the appropriate conditional."

Amidst all the talk about rethinking, however, Kate Michelman, who resigned from her position as President of NARAL last year, points out something that I have been saying on this blog:

"As one who has reached across the ideological chasm . . . I regret to say she (Hillary Clinton) may find that few on the other side are reaching back."

Again, great article.

One gripe. Ellie Smeal from the Feminist Majority Foundation comes across BADLY. Like a grumpy old feminist who wants things to stay exactly as they have been because that's exactly how it has been. Except, of course, that we appear to be losing the battle and it's time to do something about it.