From 2003: A Time to Choose. How we began to lose the abortion debate in 1995.

madfloridian

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Mon Jun-14-10 09:54 PM
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From 2003: A Time to Choose. How we began to lose the abortion debate in 1995.

A major role in this new outbreak in the abortion wars was played by a man who is now a judge on the Florida Supreme Court. He was also one of the leaders of the attacks against Bill Clinton. He was a Democrat turned Republican named Charles T. Canady.

In this photo provided by the Governor's Press Office, Gov. Charlie Crist, right, shakes hands with Judge Charles T. Canady after he named Canady to the Florida Supreme Court on Thursday as Canady's wife, Jennifer, watches.

He is anti-choice, pro-vouchers for private religious schools, and said he will base his decisions on the will of the Lord.

I found this article by Amy Sullivan from 2003 describing the anti-choice wars of the 1990s. I don't agree with all she says in the article. I believe doctors and women should make those decisions together.

However she presents the role of Florida's Charles Canady vividly, and it is really pretty scary how the right wing messaging took its toll on Democratic candidates.

Canady, then a congressman from Florida was appointed by Governor Crist to the Florida Supreme Court in 2008 along with another strongly anti-choice judge.

Charles Canady was once a Democrat, but he was one of many in the the 90s in Florida who changed parties in order to win. He was raised Southern Baptist and was known for his strong anti-choice views. It is hard to think of him as a Supreme Court judge now.

From 2003 in the Washington Monthly. Sullivan gave it a very apt title.

A Time to Choose. How Democrats started losing the abortion debate.

How Canady got involved. Posting only parts of it as the descriptions get graphic about the procedure. He used it as propaganda, and he was very good at it. Instead of speaking up that such a procedure was rarely used and usually only to save a woman's life.....the Democrats did indeed panic.

In the spring of 1995, during a lull in the abortion war, Rep. Charles Canady (R-Fla.), a conservative anti-abortion politician, came across a disturbing but fascinating paper written a few years earlier by an Ohio doctor named Martin Haskell. The paper outlined an abortion procedure that sounded horrific...The "why" of the procedure did not matter to Canady--he recognized that the "how" was immensely important. He now had a weapon with which to restart the abortion wars, which had lost steam in previous years following several abortion rights victories. The clunky medical term "dilation and extraction" wouldn't do, however. So a staffer suggested "partial-birth" abortion. A new phrase entered the political lexicon.

.."In one swift, brilliant move, Canady had taken the abortion debate away from the question of timing, where it had stalemated, and focused it instead on the gruesome description of a procedure. Although the American public was generally in favor of keeping abortion legal, people didn't want to think about the actual procedures involved, especially when performed on a late-term fetus. This new strategy put those details front and center.

The reaction from the Democrats was to figure out ways to compromise on women's rights instead of taking a firm stand. The power of the Republican noise machine became very obvious, and our party had little in the way of media with which to fight back. There really was not a Democratic messaging machine. I think we are still lacking in that area.

The prospect of debating in circles for years over an abortion procedure whose description gave even staunch abortion rights senators the willies was not a welcome one for Democrats. Many viewed the example of Tom Harkin --who saw a 15-point lead in his 1996 reelection campaign evaporate within the space of two weeks after his opponents raised the "partial-birth" issue--as a cautionary tale. Others were genuinely tired of opposing abortion restrictions that fell just short of being reasonable. Some of these senators were politically liberal, but came from religious backgrounds that had firm, clear teachings on abortion, and they often found it difficult to reconcile their political and religious beliefs.

Exactly what happens when we don't take firm stands on keeping religion and politics apart.

It appears some of the groups for women's choice rights turned a blind eye and did not make much fuss about it.

Under normal circumstances, abortion rights organizations would never let them get away with writing a bill intended to restrict abortion. But the emotional nature of the "partial-birth" debate had swayed public opinion away from a hard "pro-choice" stance and abortion rights organizations worried that the issue might marginalize them.

So just weeks after the veto override vote, Daschle led a group of like-minded senators--(including Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), Olympia Snowe (R-Maine), Susan Collins (R-Maine), and Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.)--in an effort to develop legislation that would restrict abortion while protecting women...

Amy Sullivan's article makes it sound like kind of a good thing, but I don't agree. Here is more about Daschle's plan..1997. NOW spoke out in alarm about the plan.

Tom Daschle's rigid anti-choice plan from 1997

"We believe the Daschle approach is unconstitutional, as is the Republican ban that denies a woman the right to an abortion to preserve her health -- a right that Roe v. Wade and other cases have consistently protected," Gandy said.

"Daschle's so-called compromise bill, as quoted in the New York Times, permits an exception to the ban for `a severely debilitating disease or impairment specifically caused by the pregnancy (emphasis added),' but makes no provision for a pre-existing, life- and health-threatening `debilitating disease or impairment' that is being exacerbated by the pregnancy. This could include kidney disease, severe hypertension and some cancers. Nor does the Daschle bill allow for an abortion in cases of severe fetal abnormality where it is unlikely the fetus would live long outside the womb, even with technological support.

"The physician certification requirement and the potential loss of a medical license in the Daschle language invites government scrutiny of private medical matters and threatens doctor-patient confidentiality. The intent of this and other abortion ban bills is to control women and to limit their ability to make critical reproductive decisions that affect their families, their health and their lives. These bills represent the ultimate in Congressional arrogance," Gandy charged.

Charles Canady and the GOP took the reins on the topic of women's rights. They have never let up on the issue. We as a party have never effectively fought back.

From another article about Canady from 1998 Connections Magazine. I find things about him fascinating because he embodies the Florida Democratic leaders in so many ways. When we say many Democratic leaders in Florida are "different", it is true. He is a good example.

This is the environment in which I grew up and in which I taught for many years. The rigid newer Southern Baptist movement was formed in large part in Central Florida. I taught many of the leaders in this movement to blend religion and politics. Their goal is to enforce their religious views by law. Their religion carries over to their politics way too often.

Parallel to Canady’s political career was his growth in the faith.

"I was raised in a Christian home and influenced by the preaching of the Gospel from my earliest days, when I was on the ’cradle roll’ at our church," he says. "So at a very young age, I came to have faith in Christ."

Raised and baptized as a Southern Baptist, Canady began attending a Presbyterian church in his hometown 19 years ago. It was at Covenant Presbyterian that Canady met his best friend, Vince Strawbridge, Jr., who eventually introduced him to Jennifer Houghton, a church member and local elementary schoolteacher.

Canady and Houghton married in 1996. She now works in Canady’s Washington office. They attend Bible studies on Capitol Hill–Jennifer with other congressional spouses, the congressman with a small group of House colleagues, including Tim Hutchinson, R-Ark., and Bob Inglis, R-S.C.

"My faith forms everything I do," Canady says. "My faith forms my views about policy issues, about what is right and wrong....My faith also forms the way I relate to people in the legislative process."

Connections Magazine

And an interesting aside note about how Canady plans to function and make decisions as a Supreme Court judge.

When Canady was appointed to the Florida Supreme Court there was an odd difference between the online edition of The Ledger and the print edition.

This was in the print edition.

In the online edition the last word was changed to "law" instead of Lord.

Amy Sullivan's title was true...that was when we started losing the battle for women's rights.