Thread: Abortion issue powerful enough to swing Senate race in Alabama

Judge Moore is an ALIPAC endorsed candidate.

Abortion issue powerful enough to swing Senate race in Alabama


Alabama Republicans have been merciless in attacking Democrat Doug Jones over his stance on abortion in the U.S. Senate race. (Associated Press/File) more >

By Seth McLaughlin - The Washington Times - Thursday, November 30, 2017

GADSDEN, Ala. — Given the tenor of the campaign in the state, one might think Doug Jones was a doctor performing abortions on young women, not a former prosecutor and now Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate.

But Republicans have been merciless in attacking the man some of them have dubbed “Abortion Jones,” hoping to find reasons to rally a base they fear might stay home on Election Day rather than turn out for embattled Republican nominee Roy Moore.

“I believe the people of Alabama do not understand how important this U.S. Senate race is in the future of the country, but people from outside Alabama do,” former state Sen. Scott Beason said Thursday on his radio talk show.

Mr. Beason, who in 2011 ushered through Alabama legislation banning abortion after 20 weeks, said powerful liberal organizations are focused on the race for a reason and urged his listeners to “wake up.”

Mr. Beason’s guest, Janet Porter, head of Faith2Action, a Florida-based pro-life group in Alabama to back Mr. Moore, speculated that “accusations have been ginned up” against the Republican candidate to try to steal the seat.

“The winner of this race, whoever it is, is going to be the deciding vote on who sits on the Supreme Court for the next 30 or 40 years,” she said. “That is why this race matters so much, and that is why the assault against him is so intense.

The special election is less than two weeks away, and Mr. Moore and Mr. Jones are locked in a tight battle. After falling behind in the polls as accusations emerged of sexually predatory behavior, including against minors, Mr. Moore has retaken the lead in many polls, with voters increasingly skeptical of the women who have come forward.
He has strong support from evangelical Christian voters for whom the abortion issue is paramount.

Still, prognosticators say the race is a toss-up in a rock-red state where a Republican should be cruising to victory.

Mr. Moore has carried himself as a pro-life warrior throughout his career of public service. On the campaign trail, he has called Roe v. Wade unconstitutional and vowed to strip federal funding from Planned Parenthood.

Speaking to a congregation inside the gymnasium of a Baptist Church in Dora, Mr. Moore said “so many of our American citizens are getting killed in the womb” because they had “forsaken” God’s word and said his rival has made it clear he won’t stand for Christian values if elected.

“If your Christian culture doesn’t except abortion, same-sex marriage, sodomy, transgender rights in school bathrooms, in the military, then you are discriminatory and you will not be protected,” Mr. Moore said.

Mr. Jones is running as a moderate and staked out a more liberal position than Mr. Moore‘s, saying he supports abortion laws as they stand.

Mr. Jones‘ critics, however, have seized on his remarks, which he says he later clarified, last month on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” He said on the Sunday morning program that he is not in “favor of anything that is going to infringe on a woman’s right and her freedom to choose” and that he becomes a right-to-lifer after a child is born.

“Jones takes a radical position on abortion that is out of step with even pro-choice Alabamians,” said Brett Doster, a Moore adviser. “As voters weigh his views, they realize that Jones may be better suited to represent Massachusetts or California, not Alabama.”

Democrats counter that Mr. Moore and his allies have purposely misconstrued Mr. Jones‘ stance on the issue to motivate their base.

“He supports Alabama law, which means it is the woman’s right to choose for the first trimester and the state has the right to limit the choice for the second and third trimesters,” said Richard K. Mauk, head of the Jefferson County Democratic Party in Alabama.

At the same time, Democrats recognize the potential power of the Republican line of attack. They say no single issue resonates more in Alabama than abortion.

“This is the Bible Belt, and a lot of people now believe, which they didn’t in the past, that a life begins at conception,” Mr. Mauk said. “That is what they believe, and they don’t want that life messed with, and it is a strongly held belief by a lot of folks, and they are willing to put a pedophile in office based on that.

“How do you reconcile that?” he said. “You can’t reconcile that. It is totally irrational.”

Many pro-life activists dismiss sexual misconduct accusations against Mr. Moore. They argue that a national lynch mob comprised of weak-kneed Republican leaders and liberal organizations have played up the accusations to protect the status quo and derail a candidate in the mold of President Trump.

On “The Scott Beason Show,” Mrs. Porter said a big reason she voted for Mr. Trump last year was because he promised to put pro-life judges on the Supreme Court and that electing Mr. Moore would bolster those efforts.

“What good is that promise if you don’t have a Senate that is willing to confirm them?” she said, voicing concerns about the slim Senate Republican majority, which now sits at 52-48.

Voters here also said the issue is at the top of their list of concerns.

Charles D. Jackson, 83, said he used to be a Democrat but left the party in large part because of the way it has embraced abortion. He said he could never support a candidate who was fine with it.

“Hell no, I don’t like abortion — period,” Mr. Jackson, a retired Marine, said as he strolled through the Gadsden Mall, a location where, according to some of his opponents, Mr. Moore sought out teens to date as a prosecutor in his 30s.

Just outside the building, a woman puffing a cigarette who declined to share her name over concerns related to her job, said she has known for a long time that some of the accusations against Mr. Moore were true but she was still wrestling with the question of whether she would vote for him.

Asked whether an issue like abortion could swing her, she said she would listen to “my gut.”

The heavy national attention also appears to be weighing on Alabama residents.

A man sporting an Atlanta Braves baseball cap sitting in a rocking chair at the mall said he had been following the race but had no interest discussing it with The Washington Times.

“You ought to go home,” he said.
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news...issue-alabama/

AL Democratic U.S. Senate Hopeful Doug Jones: I’m Pro-Abortion Up Until ‘Once a Baby Is Born’


by JEFF POOR
28 Sep 2017



Wednesday on MSNBC’s “MTP Daily,” Alabama Democratic U.S. Senate hopeful Doug Jones told host Chuck Todd he was opposed to any restrictions on abortion all the way up until the birth of the child.

Todd asked the former Clinton U.S. Attorney Doug Jones, the Democratic nominee for a U.S. Senate special election, about his views on the issue, to which Jones replied by touting his “pro-choice” bona fides.

Partial transcript as follows:

TODD: All right. Many Democrats in the South get tripped up in a couple of cultural issues. One is guns, one is abortion. Let me ask you on abortion, what are the limitations that you believe should be in the law when it comes to an abortion?

JONES: Well, look, I am a firm believer that a woman should have the freedom to choose what happens to her own body. And I’m going to stand up for that and I’m going to make sure that that continues to happen.

I want to make sure that as we go forward, people have access to contraception, they have access to the abortion that they might need, if that’s what they choose to do. I think that that’s going to be an issue that we can work with and talk to people about from both sides of the aisle. That’s one of those issues that I think —

TODD: But you wouldn’t legislate — so, you wouldn’t be in favor of legislation that said, ban abortion after 20 weeks or something like that?

JONES: I’m not in favor of anything that is going to infringe on a woman’s right and her freedom to choose. That’s just the position that I’ve had for many years. It’s a position I continue to have.
But when those people — I want to make sure that people understand that once a baby is born, I’m going to be there for that child. That’s where I become a right to lifer.

Jones faces former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore on December 12 for the U.S. Senate seat formerly held by Jeff Sessions.
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor

http://www.breitbart.com/video/2017/...ion-baby-born/

PolitiFact vs. Kayla Moore

by RAMESH PONNURU November 29, 2017 10:00 AM @RAMESHPONNURU

Kayla Moore accuses Doug Jones, the Democrat running against her husband, Roy Moore, for U.S. senator from Alabama, of supporting “full-term abortion.” Jon Greenberg of PolitiFact calls this claim “false” on two grounds: The phrase Mrs. Moore used was novel, and one expert told Greenberg that abortions in the third trimester of pregnancy happen “generally” in cases where fetuses have severe abnormalities that make their survival unlikely. (While we do not have solid data on the third trimester, a study of abortions after the 20th week reports that “most women seeking later terminations are not doing so for reasons of fetal anomaly or life endangerment.”)

Neither of these grounds justifies PolitiFact’s conclusion. With respect to Greenberg’s first point, his organization is supposed to be in the business of fact-checking, not standard-usage-checking. It’s not like anyone is having trouble getting the gist of Mrs. Moore’s comment. As for his second point, presumably she does not believe that an unborn child late in pregnancy should be aborted because the child’s prospects are poor. She is claiming that Jones supports abortion very late in pregnancy; it hardly refutes her claim to note that some people make arguments for abortion very late in pregnancy. The point is also irrelevant because Jones has not suggested that abortions should be restricted late in pregnancy to cases of severe fetal abnormality.

Jones has made two sets of comments on abortions late in pregnancy, which PolitiFact, to its limited credit, quotes. In September, he responded to a question of whether abortion should be prohibited “after 20 weeks or something like that” by saying that he was “not in favor of anything that is going to infringe on a woman’s right and her freedom to choose,” and that “once that baby is born” he would be an advocate for the child. The logical implication is that Jones favors legal abortion even very late in pregnancy.

Jones tried to provide a more moderate impression in subsequent remarks, saying that late-term abortions should be “permitted to protect the life or health of the mother.” (Note that he isn’t saying anything about severe fetal abnormality.) These remarks do not necessarily contradict the implication of his September comments. The Supreme Court, as the Guttmacher Institute acknowledges, has held that abortion may not be restricted at any stage of pregnancy if an abortionist deems an abortion necessary to protect a pregnant woman’s emotional health. In its clean-up remarks, the Jones campaign said the candidate supports “the current law on a woman’s freedom to choose, which has been in place for decades.” Legal abortion at any stage of pregnancy, so long as an abortionist considers it necessary for emotional health, is part of the current law that has been in place for decades.

Greenberg also writes, “At its roots, abortion law sorts out the moral rules during the time when the baby depends on the mother for survival. The idea of full-term abortion lies beyond that window of time. By definition, at full-term a baby without significant anomalies is able to survive outside the womb.” This is word salad, and it tells us nothing about either the content of Jones’s views or the accuracy of Mrs. Moore’s characterization of them.

Kayla Moore says that Jones supports abortions very late in pregnancy. The available evidence tends to confirm that claim. She may well be wrong about a great many things, but this, sadly, does not appear to be one of them.

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/corner...s-and-abortion

I do not understand how people think that it is acceptable or moral to kill a baby right before it is born. This is the thinking that leads to death panels.

Originally Posted by GeorgiaPeach

I do not understand how people think that it is acceptable or moral to kill a baby right before it is born. This is the thinking that leads to death panels.

Especially since it is muder to kill and unborn child in the womb in commission of a crime.....

The Unborn Victims of Violence Act of 2004 (Public Law 108-212) is a United States law which recognizes an embryo or fetus in utero as a legal victim, if they are injured or killed during the commission of any of over 60 listed federal crimes of violence. The law defines "child in utero" as "a member of the species Homo sapiens, at any stage of development, who is carried in the womb".^[1]

The law is codified in two sections of the United States Code: Title 18, Chapter 1 (Crimes), §1841 (18 USC 1841) and Title 10, Chapter 22 (Uniform Code of Military Justice) §919a (Article 119a).

The law applies only to certain offenses over which the United States government has jurisdiction, including certain crimes committed on federal properties, against certain federal officials and employees, and by members of the military. In addition, it covers certain crimes that are defined by statute as federal offenses wherever they occur, no matter who commits them, such as certain crimes of terrorism.

Because of principles of federalism embodied in the United States Constitution, federal criminal law does not apply to crimes prosecuted by the individual states. However, 38 states also recognize the fetus or "unborn child" as a crime victim, at least for purposes of homicide or feticide.^[2]

The legislation was both hailed and vilified by various legal observers who interpreted the measure as a step toward granting legal personhood to human fetuses, even though the bill explicitly contained a provision excepting abortion, stating that the bill would not "be construed to permit the prosecution" "of any person for conduct relating to an abortion for which the consent of the pregnant woman, or a person authorized by law to act on her behalf", "of any person for any medical treatment of the pregnant woman or her unborn child" or "of any woman with respect to her unborn child."
However, the reticence of a federal law to authorize federal prosecution of a particular act committed under federal jurisdiction does not prevent states from passing their own laws against the act committed under their jurisdiction. Meanwhile, the definition of all unborn babies as “members of the species homo sapiens” in section (d) says essentially what proposed “personhood” laws say.^[3] Sponsors of such proposals say such legal language will trigger the “collapse” clause in Roe v. Wade, by establishing what Roe said must be established for legal abortion to end.^[4] Several state supreme courts have ruled that sections (a) through (c) are not threatened by Roe,^[5] but no court has addressed whether Roe can survive the triggering of its “collapse” clause by section (d).
The bill contained the alternate title of Laci and Conner's Law after the California mother (Laci Peterson) and fetus (Conner Peterson) whose deaths were widely publicized during the later stages of the congressional debate on the bill in 2003 and 2004. Husband Scott Peterson was convicted of double homicide under California's fetal homicide law.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unborn...f_Violence_Act

People are going to get abortions whether we like it or not.

Needs to be term limits

Need to have access to free or low cost vasectomies and tubal ligations

Need an all out campaign for both MEN and WOMEN to prevent pregnancy and make the choices easily available and over the counter!

Stop letting MEN off the hook...their sperm...their baby too. They just cannot walk away from this anymore!