What’s Wrong With Nancy Keenan of National Naral?

[LiviaOlivia]

Please Try To At Least Pretend You Care
By: Jane Hamsher
12-05-06
http://www.firedoglake.com/2006/12/05/please-try-to-at-least-pretend-you-care/


When Democrats take over the House in January, bills that will force them to go on record about social issues that are divisive within the party will probably no longer make their way onto the floor. Which is why Republicans are so anxious to stir the shit with one last push for Sam Brownback's paeleolithic "Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act," based on wingnut-pandering junk science:

Proposed federal legislation would require doctors to provide fetal pain information to women seeking abortions when fetuses are at least 20 weeks old, and to offer women fetal anesthesia at that stage of the pregnancy. A handful of states have enacted similar measures.

The review says medical evidence shows that brain structures involved in feeling pain begin forming earlier but likely do not function until around the seventh month, when fetuses are about 28 weeks old.

[]

Offering fetal pain relief in the fifth or sixth month, when brains are too immature to feel pain, is misguided and might result in unacceptable health risks to women, the authors said.

So basically, the bill forces doctors to provide pregnant women with misinformation that could result in them taking unnecessary actions that could jeopardize their health. One might think that an organization dedicated to women's reproductive rights would object to such a thing, but one would be wrong:

While the measure has provoked strong opposition from Planned Parenthood and the National Abortion Federation, NARAL Pro-Choice America, perhaps the nation's leading abortion rights group, has stayed neutral.

"Pro-choice Americans have always believed that women deserve access to all the information relevant to their reproductive health decisions. For some women, that includes information related to fetal anesthesia options," Nancy Keenan, NARAL's president, has said in a statement on the bill.

Democratic leaders cited NARAL's position when they decided against trying to influence the vote. Democratic leadership aides said yesterday that they are leery of Republicans charging that they are already out of touch with mainstream values, even before they assume power.

NARAL's actions have put pro-choice representatives in a horrible position by giving cover to this cynical ploy to embarass and divide Democrats and provide fundamentalist kindling for Brownback's 2008 bid. It's what we've come to expect from NARAL's Nancy Keenan, who put up no fight against Samuel Alito and undermined Connecticut NARAL's efforts to force all publicly funded hospitals to provide emergency rape contraception by endorsing Joe "short ride" Lieberman, who opposed it.

I know she's anxous not to alienate her GOP donor base who haven't yet tumbled to the fact that there is no such thing as a pro-choice Republican, but really this is just getting ridiculous.

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Follow up below
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What’s Wrong With Nancy Keenan?
By: Jane Hamsher
12-06-06
http://www.firedoglake.com/2006/12/06/whats-wrong-with-nancy-keenan/


I have to say I just do not understand this. Fred Vincy did some digging in Lexis/Nexis and found some information on Nancy Keenan's background not available on the web (from a January 1, 1990 Boston Globe article):

For many public officials, personal conviction that abortion is wrong does not extend to public responsibility. "As a Catholic, I accept the teaching of my church on abortion. That is my personal religious belief . . . As a public official, there is no question in my mind that depriving women of the right to follow their conscience is the same as imposing religious beliefs," Montana's school superintendent, Nancy Keenan, said in a Dec. 5 letter when questioned by her bishop.

Now I respect people who believe that their personal religious views should not become the basis for law, and who nonetheless respect the individual's right to make their own decisions regarding their bodies. But after yesterday's weird decision by Keenan (contra Planned Parenthood) not to challenge Brownback's fetal anesthesia bill, it's worth thinking about the wisdom of hiring someone to head an organization who believes that the right she is tasked with defending is a mortal sin.

As Amanda Marcotte says:

See, philosophically and logically, the right to an abortion is based in the right to your bodily autonomy. However, on the political side, a lot of Americans are swayed by a combination of uneasiness with sex, sexism, and religious belief to be more fascinated by the red herring discussion of when life begins. Which means that whoever is going to be in leadership positions in the abortion rights leadership needs to be firmly committed to opposing all attempts to define fetuses as some sort of pseudo-citizens, in that they don’t have names or rights, except the one right no real citizen has, which is the right to commandeer another person’s body for your sustenance against their will.

Over at Brendan Calling, Brendan Keenan also writes about his email exchange with Carolyn Treiss of CT-NARAL, in which she expresses a whole lot of frustration with the national PAC's endorsement of Joe Lieberman (totally undermining everything that Treiss and others in Connecticut were doing to get Plan B contraception mandated in publicly funded hospitals).

Writes Treiss:

Of course NARAL Pro-Choice America is not going to publicize the fact that the state affiliate doesn’t agree with their endorsement. It undermines their credibility and ability to raise money. We also disagree with their endorsements in the Murphy/Johnson and Simmons/Courtney Congressional races, but they don’t tell you that either.

Unhappiness with Nancy Keenan's leadership, or lack thereof, does not seem to be limited to the blogosphere. There is something very wrong about this woman being the head of the most prominent pro-choice rights group in the country, and more and more people seem to be coming to the same conclusion.

[justinaforjustice]

1. Her Anti-Abortion Religious Views Explain A Lot.

The most devastating set back for the Pro Choice movement took place when Alito was confirmed to the supreme Court bench. Now I understand why NARAL did so very little to fight that nomination. Kean is anti-abortion and very likely a Republican at heart. How ever did she get elected/appointed (?) to head NARAL? We have been deeply betrayed. I will never, ever, contribute to NARAL until it has aggressive, pro choice leadership.