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Over the last year Rachel Maddow has been one of the few news reporters to cover the efforts of anti-choice politicians to limit access to safe abortion care through draconian state laws. Her outrage is appreciated, but I find myself increasingly concerned about her focus on the Republicans politicians who oppose abortion “even” in cases of rape and incest—a position she deems “extreme.” Her language seems to suggest that the desire to deny abortions to the vast majority of women with unwanted pregnancies is “mainstream” and only these few outliers are “extreme.” This perspective reinforces the idea that some abortions are more justified than others, that people should innately have more sympathy for women who did not voluntary participate in the sex act that resulted in the pregnancy. Politicians do not get to a better rating simply because they believe that abortions are justified if women are victims. Mr. Romney is extreme on this issue whether or not he accepts the rape and incest exceptions.
From a fundamental human rights perspective denying abortion for pregnancies resulting from rape or incest is just as problematic as denying abortions to women who can’t afford another child, are in unstable relationships, do not want to be a parent, or want to pursue other life opportunities. The reason a woman decides to have an abortion should be irrelevant to society’s recognition that restricting her decision is unacceptable.
In many ways people opposed to abortion in all cases have a more consistent, and I would say, honest position. For them, either a blastocyst, embryo, or fetus has a right to life, no matter how it was conceived, or a woman doesn’t have the right to terminate a pregnancy, no matter the circumstances. In contrast, the politicians who believe it is within their domain to decide which of women’s reasons for abortion are legitimate, lack a moral core and are using abortion simply as a political tool to mobilize a conservative base while trying not to appear too “extreme.” Unfortunately, it is extreme to oppose the right of any woman to make decisions about the direction of her life, no matter the circumstances under which she finds herself pregnant.
27 Comments
Thanks. That has bothered me too.
Honestly, I don’t get that impression from her, and I’ve followed her on this issue (and followed this issue since BEFORE abortion was legal.)
She is one of the few, as you did say, who keeps the republican relentlessness on the broad issue of abortion and contraception on the front burner.
She certainly makes clear that the opposition to contraception is extreme, and it is.
Whether or not to have an abortion is something that is the decision of the woman involved, period. Rachel Maddow is a poorly disguised shill for a partisan entity and as such should be regarded as suffering from a neurological disorder (partisanship). Just stop watching shows that are corporate funded propaganda machines, whether or not they claim to be promoting objective, independent views. If they were devoid of corporate control, they wouldn’t be on TV.
I’m with you. I don’t get that impression at all. Maybe if somebody just read the text of what she has said, rather than actually watching/listening to her say it, they might get that idea but it would be an incredible leap to equate no exceptions for health, rape and incest = extreme with trying to deny reproductive choice = mainstream. That’s the author’s interpretation and not one that I share. I won’t recommend this post, nor will I sign that letter.
Count me out. I don’t think that’s her meaning at all. And I am very tired of the epithet “shill” applied to someone a commenter disagrees with.
I don’t see Rachel Maddow doing something wrong in this instance. But the “shill” description comes up for Maddow again and again, because her reports try to trick Left-wing people into supporting Right-wing policies and politicians.
You must watch a different Rachel Maddow show than I do.
Will you please cite some examples?
msmolly & Margaret: If you haven’t realized that her show frequently campaigns for Barack Obama’s reelection. As long as he supports and funds Slavery, Genocide, and Torture in Bahrain, he must be considered far-Right. Yet she calls for “Progressives” to support him. She hides the existence of the only actual Progressive party, the Greens.
Here’s one example when she was fairly Fascist, when she equated Drug Legalization with Premeditated killing on her Fracking-sponsored Obama commercial: http://my.firedoglake.com/normanb/2011/09/24/rachel-fracking-maddow-equates-drug-legalization-with-premeditated-killing/
Here she attacks Romney over Bain, pumping up far-Right Obama, and never mentions Obama’s connection to Bain: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSxv_ImlnMg
Here’s one where she’s ‘exposing’ the Koch brothers, but not exposing their connection to President Obama. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFl9E3SHqKU
Rachel Maddow has claimed again and again – probably hundreds of times on the air – that there are two parties in the United States. “The two Parties” she says of the two largest corporate-funded Parties. Yet I’m sure she went to college, and that means that she knows about the Greens. And, she’s from Massachusetts, so she must also know about the Socialists, the Libertarians, and the Pirates, so when she claims that only the two far-Right Parties exist, she is lying to protect those Right-wing Parties. I’m sorry that you didn’t notice that before.
From the Wikipedia entry “Shill”:
“…Shill typically refers to someone who purposely gives onlookers the impression that he is an enthusiastic independent customer of a seller (or marketer of ideas) for whom he is secretly working. The person or group who hires the shill is using crowd psychology, to encourage other onlookers or audience members to purchase the goods or services (or accept the ideas being marketed).”
The Maddow show is always sponsored by Fracking. Obama is the Fracking President, promising in his State of the Union message this year that he would be promoting the superstitious, anti-scientific, climate-change-denying practice known as “Fracking”.
So your point seems to be that since she’s a partisan Democrat, she’s a “Fascist”? Sorry but that’s a weak argument, filled with assumptions and hyperbole. By that logic, I can imply that you’re a greenhouse polluter since you exhale carbon dioxide. Not buying it.
How much control of sponsorship does Maddow have? Got any citation for that or is that one of those “Well-if-she-doesn’t-support-fracking-she-should-resign” kind of rationales?
She lies for the President who’s funding Genocide. “Shill” I think is the appropriate word. If what Obama’s doing in Bahrain is not Fascist, what is it? Is that what the Democrats want? Is that what the Democratic Party stands for? Genocide? Torture? Slavery?
And what kind of a person, given a network fake news show refuses to expose something as important as our Government’s involvement in Genocide?
Hyperbole is interesting, so let’s try this one out:
Any American who comments on the internet, regardless of connection type, is supporting Fascists, because somehow a Fascist is profiting from the commenting. Therefore all internet commenting is Fascist.
Because it’s true! Someone got site traffic, someone got pipe traffic, and all of it helps the Fascists.
Yes, we saw the Genocide victims, but we were not the Genocide victims, so it was OK to ignore them. It was OK to pretend that it’s not our responsibility to do something about it. Let’s just pretend that those dead bodies are hyperbole.
Not only is it OK to ignore the victims, it’s also OK to be a cheerleader for the “leader” appropriating the money for the Genocide. I can’t be OK with it. Genocide is a character flaw that I can’t get past.
I also decry Obama’s mercenaries’ Genocide of the Black people of Libya: It’s true, as the mercenaries claimed, that lots of Black people supported Ghadaffi. But it doesn’t follow that it was then OK to kill those people. You see, the Black skin did not prove that they had done anything wrong, and it did not prove that they deserved to die.
Ummm, a person who wants to keep her job? I just don’t think she has the editorial control that you’re assigning her. If you don’t like Maddow, by all means, don’t watch her but Kelly @ 17 is spot on: I could come up with a thousand reasons why you support fascism without scratching my head or putting on my thinking cap. We all have to deal with people and corporations we’d rather not so I think you’re being a wee bit unfair.
This isn’t about Maddow, is it? This is about your disappointment rooted anger at Barack Obama, isn’t it? You’ve got every reason to be angry and disappointed, (especially if you hadn’t been paying attention to the man and his philosophy before you voted for him), but ripping Maddow for pointing out that Obama is better than Willard is misplaced in my opinion.
Yep. Our only choices lie in which evil corporate entity is the least objectionable to us as individuals and use that service. The only other option is to go the full Ted Kaczynski and drop out of society.
She should not be campaigning on the air for either far-Right candidate, while pretending to support the Left. Lying is lying. Hypocrisy is hypocrisy. Obama hiring Imelt (the Brain of Bain) to downsize, privatize, and close down parts of our Government was harmful to our country. Hiding that is doing a bad job.
I know that Rachel Maddow and the guard at the concentration camp are just doing their jobs. No one should be expected to speak up, if it endangers their job.
Did anybody watch Democracy Now! today? They had gruesome grotesque photos from the Afghan Torture facility called “Obama’s Auschwitz.” I wonder if RM will cover it.
Maybe you folks better not look.
http://www.democracynow.org/2012/8/1/congressional_probe_reveals_cover_up_of
Okay, that tells me what I wanted to know, albeit in an indirect way. You started in about Maddow “lying” and that quickly morphed into the “Obama is/did/wants __________!”, rant. And as for Jeffrey Immelt, as chairman and CEO of G.E., which owns NBC, that person is ultimately Maddow’s boss. Would you go on television nightly and call your boss a fascist pig and expect to be employed long? Of course not! She wants to keep her job and it’s unfair to demand she get herself fired. But since this is just you venting about how much you hate Obama for wasting your vote, I’ll leave you alone to get it out of your system. Goodnight. :)