See below for link to Jim Buchy video.
Jim Holman thinks that he and his fellow right-wingers have a right to control women's bodies--rather than allowing women to control their own bodies--because...the Holocaust. Does he seriously not understand the concept of keeping your hands off other people's bodies?
The Holocaust is indeed a case of people interfering with other people's bodies, but the analogy fits Mr. Holman's efforts better than it fits a woman making decisions about her own body. Why? Because it involves GOVERNMENT action against a massive number of individuals who belong to a specific group. Of course, Mr. Holman does not demand that women be placed in concentration camps. He just wants the them to be locked out of the doctor's office so he can make sure that they remain pregnant.
So should we have laws giving women control over men's bodies? We might have less crime. But our concept of the rights of human beings does not allow our government to control men's bodies--or women's.
Mr. Holman, why don't you let God interfere with women's bodies if he wishes to do so? Why don't you settle back and accept that God decided to give women, rather than you, control over fetuses? In fact, abortions have been decreasing dramatically in recent years. What exactly can you hope to accomplish? It seems that control over women, not preserving human life, is your real objective.
See all Jim Holman posts.
Nefarious claims
By Aaryn Belfer
City Beat
Feb 17, 2009
“At JP Catholic we have an event called On Mission. The night consists of a guest speaker speaking about living out your Catholic faith in business or media, and after that there is confession and Eucharistic Adoration.”
So begins a Feb. 9 student blog post on the website of the unaccredited John Paul the Great Catholic University located in Scripps Ranch. Now, maybe you’re snickering about the “speaker speaking.” Or perhaps the mention of “Eucharistic Adoration” gives you a mysterious hankering for a Carr’s Water Cracker followed by a session of heavy petting.
But what’s notable in the post is not the redundancy in an opening paragraph by a kid who needs the guidance of a publicly validated learning institution. Nor is it a sudden, overwhelming hunger for crudités and kink. Rather, it’s the who who spoke, and what he said.
“Recently at JP Catholic,” the blogger continues, “Jim Holman, founder and editor of The San Diego Reader and a pro-life supporter, recently spoke to the students about the recent election cycle and Proposition 4 in California.” I think it’s fair to say our author effectively established that the speaking happened recently.
“He made an interesting comparison that rocked my world,” the blogger wrote of Holman, whose speech centered on his beloved-yet-failed parental-notification initiative last November. The conspicuous overlord of the gay-loathing, right-leaning, dressed-up-in-alt-weekly-clothing publication best used as an Ambien substitute—since it’s both sleep-inducing and non-addictive—inspired this student to “stand up vocally” on behalf of the unborn, by comparing abortion with the Holocaust.
...Thanks to JP Catholic and its speaking speakers, we can be assured of a whole bunch of mini-Holmans flooding the business and media industries in the near future with their right-wing extremism, average writing skills and susceptibility to snow jobs.
Abortion notification backers not giving up
By Bill Ainsworth
UNION-TRIBUNE U-T
April 14, 2008
SACRAMENTO – Jim Holman, owner of the San Diego Reader, has spent millions trying to persuade Californians to pass a law requiring parents to be notified before their underage daughter has an abortion.
After two failed ballot measure campaigns, Holman said last year that he didn't want to try again.
But when other anti-abortion advocates, including winemaker Don Sebastiani, launched a third campaign, Holman couldn't resist opening up his checkbook once again.
“Sebastiani was not deterred. He said, 'We have to go back again and again,' ” Holman said. “He led with big donations and I sort of followed.”
The result could make California political history.
The $1.8 million donated by Holman and Sebastiani so far is likely to put a parental-notification initiative before voters for the third time in four years. The measure would require a physician to notify a parent or guardian 48 hours before performing an abortion for a girl under the age of 18.
If the measure qualifies, it would be the first time since the California initiative process was established in 1914 that the state's voters will consider the same measure so many times in a four-year period.
Opponents predict another defeat for Holman, who has spent a considerable personal fortune on the three measures, about $4.6 million so far...
“Never in the history of California has one person manipulated 36 million people through his electoral hoops based solely on the extremism of his ideology and the balance of his checkbook,” said Vince Hall, spokesman for Planned Parenthood of San Diego and Riverside counties.
Holman has spent about twice as much as Sebastiani on the ballot measures, but both wrote big checks to qualify nearly identical measures rejected by voters in 2005 and 2006.
“They don't give up easily,” said Katie Short, a spokeswoman for the ballot measure...
“I'm a dad with daughters,” said Holman, 61. “But beyond my personal situation I see it as a great horror that young girls under 18 can be whisked away to hide an abortion.”
Holman, who is a devout Catholic with seven children, said he has stayed active because he believes he can fill a gap. He charged that others, including Catholic bishops, are too afraid.
“The bishops of California are cowards,” he said.
In the past, Holman hasn't talked about the issue publicly, instead preferring to remain behind the scenes. Last week, he agreed to a rare interview.
Holman compared his efforts to the persistence shown by civil rights advocates, who eventually succeeded in eliminating discriminatory laws.
The current campaign, which is based at the San Diego Reader offices on India Street in Little Italy, expects to turn in the 694,000 valid signatures needed to place it on the November ballot...
The new initiative also provides another option. Girls who say they are victims of parental abuse can tell a physician to notify another adult relative who is at least 21 years old, including a grandparent, aunt, uncle or sibling. Existing law requires health practitioners to report known or suspected child abuse to authorities.
To bypass a parent under the initiative, the girl has to accuse a parent of abusing her in the past and sign a written statement saying she fears physical, sexual or severe emotional abuse in the future. Her statement then would go to the adult relative who is being notified about the abortion.
“We're modifying the law to respond to Californians who were concerned about abusive parents,” Short said. “It's a progressive law for a progressive state.”
Planned Parenthood's Hall said the new provision changes nothing.
“It's a deceiving, phony solution,” he said.
Hall said the provision would require a girl to level an accusation against a parent under a penalty of perjury. Hall believes that this provision would intimidate the most vulnerable girls.
“Anything that puts a barrier between pregnant teenagers and health care is a dangerous public policy,” he said...
Campaign spokeswoman Short, who has nine children and is counsel to the Legal Life Defense Foundation, acknowledges that the measure is promoted by those who favor outlawing abortion...
Holman said that backers of the measure are motivated by their beliefs, while opponents are promoting their financial interests. He has been arrested demonstrating in front of San Diego's Planned Parenthood clinic and was honored for his anti-abortion activism by the San Francisco-based Ignatius Press.
“I don't have an economic interest in this and neither does Don Sebastiani,” Holman said. “Planned Parenthood does because they perform abortions and they make a lot of money.”
Hall disputed that, saying Planned Parenthood is a nonprofit organization that serves clients at low or no cost, depending on the woman's ability to pay...
Holman and others first backed this issue in the special election of 2005, but Proposition 73 was rejected, 53 percent to 47 percent.
In November 2006, the next parental-notification measure, Proposition 85, fared worse, with 54 percent against and 46 percent in favor.
Tony Quinn, co-editor of the California Target Book, which analyzes state politics, said the vote in favor of parental notification declined in 2006 because Republicans made up a lower percentage of the electorate...
Rep. Jim Buchy
(video) A Dude Trying To Ban Abortions Is Asked A Question He Never Considered. It's So Obvious It Hurts.
Rajiv Narayan
Upworthy
So, Rep. [Jim]]Buchy [R-OH], here's some realtalk: You don't need to be a woman to know why women seek abortions. And even if you did, maybe you shouldn't use the power of public office to legislate against things you admit you don't understand.
Rachel Maddow: Al Jazeera English just made a really good documentary in which they interviewed a state legislator from Ohio. This guy is a co-sponsor of a bill in Ohio to dramatically roll back the time in which a woman is allowed to have an abortion in that state. So he gets interviewed by Al Jazeera and he tells Al Jazeera in the interview that what he really wants is for there to be no legal abortion at all in Ohio except to save a woman's life. Then, this is the important part, watch what happens next. Watch what happens after he says that with the follow-up question here from the reporter. This is kind of amazing, watch:
Reporter: What do you think makes a woman want to have an abortion?
State Rep. Jim Buchy: Well, there's probably a lot of... I'm not a woman, so I... I'm thinking, if I'm a woman, why would I want to get a... Some of it has to do with economics. A lot of it has to do with economics. I don't know, it's a question I've never even thought about.
Rachel Maddow: Why would a woman want an abortion? "I've never thought about it" says the man who is doing his best to ban abortion in Ohio. Amazing moment from that new Al Jazeera documentary. It's called "The Abortion War", you can watch it on their website. We've posted a link to that at MaddowBlog if you want to see it. I highly recommend it.
Chelsea Clinton and her husband, Marc Mezvinsky, are expecting their first child
CREDIT: Evan Agostini/Invision/AP
Why Chelsea Clinton’s Pregnancy Is So Baffling To Abortion Opponents
By Tara Culp-Ressler
Think Progress
April 21, 2014
Last week, the news that Chelsea Clinton is expecting her first child inspired its fair share of headlines — even fueling suggestions that it was somehow carefully timed to benefit her mother’s potential presidential run. The announcement also made the rounds in the right-wing blogosphere, inspiring several op-eds attempting to highlight the apparent contrast between the Clintons’ stance on reproductive rights and their daughter’s decision to have a child.
Abortion opponents expressed confusion that the Clintons would refer to Chelsea’s unborn child as a “baby” and not a “fetus,” suggesting that’s wholly incompatible with their support for legal abortion. “When it’s their own grandchild, it appears the Clintons see things differently, with their words most definitely betraying their true feelings on the matter. No talk of a non-person fetus, only of a child,” a Christian Post editorial noted, declaring that the Clintons must actually believe that life begins at conception.
The insinuation, of course, is that the people who support abortion rights must always opt for abortion over pregnancy. But that’s an incredibly black-and-white view of reproductive rights that doesn’t actually reflect the reality of Americans’ experiences — including the women who have chosen to end a pregnancy at some point in their lives.
Although the issue of reproductive rights typically separates people into two camps, either “pro-life” or “pro-choice,” there’s increasing evidence that those labels don’t accurately capture Americans’ complex relationships to abortion. Many people identify as both, and say their attitude about the procedure depends on the situation. Some people who tell pollsters they’re “pro-life” don’t actually support overturning Roe v. Wade. It’s possible to believe you are carrying a baby and choose to end the pregnancy anyway. Many times, personal experiences with abortion fall into what’s known as a “grey area” between the two political camps.
Furthermore, the idea that “pro-choice” women never want to give birth is demonstrably false. About 61 percent of women who choose to have an abortion have already given birth to at least one child. It doesn’t make sense to construe the women who support abortion rights as being anti-family or anti-pregnancy. But the fact that most women who have abortions are parents simply doesn’t fit into the anti-choice community’s narrative, which relies on the assumption that the women who seek out this procedure don’t value children.
In a society that understands women are capable of making complicated moral choices, there’s nothing unusual about Chelsea Clinton or any other “pro-choice” women who decides she wants to parent. Simultaneously, there’s nothing unusual about another woman who decides to end a pregnancy because she can’t currently financially support another child. But as demonstrated by the barrage of state-level restrictions attempting to legislate women’s bodies, not everyone lives in that world yet.
This isn’t news to reproductive rights supporters, who are well aware of the fact that Americans often have huge misconceptions about abortion and the women who choose it. That’s largely because of a persistent stigma surrounding the procedure that makes women feel like they’re not allowed to talk about it. In order to change the narrative — which could eventually help lead to a policy shift in this area — advocates are attempting to create more safe spaces for women to be “open” about their wide range of experiences.
Advocates are also challenging the fundamental misconception that reproductive rights begin and end at abortion. Lawmakers are increasingly calling for a range of pro-woman policies to support people at every stage in their lives, including when they may want to have a child — comprehensive packages that include maternity care, pay equity, and the preservation of abortion access. But the anti-choice community often doesn’t take such a holistic view.
Apparently, We Need To Remind People That Pro-Choice Women Are Allowed To Have Babies
The Huffington Post
by Samantha Lachman
4/17/2014
v Chelsea Clinton is pregnant, and some anti-abortion activists responded to the news Thursday by showing they don't understand what being "pro-choice" means: being able to choose to have a baby, or not.
Clinton, the daughter of former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, said she and her husband, Marc Mezvinsky, are expecting their first child "later this year." LifeNews didn't seem to understand Thursday how a woman who supports a person's decision to not have children could be excited about her pregnancy:
Abortion supporter Chelsea Clinton announced today that she’s pregnant — not with a fetus or clump of cells but with a “child.”
This is the same Chelsea Clinton who lamented last year that her grandmother didn’t have access to Planned Parenthood.
