[Changed after posting to accommodate objections]

... how else to explain the sudden ignorance of a guy as sharp as Bob Somerby? He's talking about Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow beating up on Stupak for tribalistic, Village reasons.
Somerby finds that inappropriate.

For ourselves, we think pro-choice groups have every right to bail on the bill if they decide it ends up affecting choice in unacceptable ways. But then, we also think that anti-abortion groups have the right to make the same sort of decision. That is, to jump ahead just a bit: We assume that different people, acting in good faith, may judge the morality of a measure in different ways.

Leaving Olbermann and Maddow aside, this is the first time I've seen Somerby completely miss a question of right and wrong.

What if the amendment ... said that it was immoral and harmful to everyone to overpopulate the planet, and that no Federal money should ever be spent on pregnancy, childbirth, or infants after the second child, would he sagely say my morality could become law if I had the votes?

I could have all the morals I want about these things. As soon as I tried to make anyone else live according to them, I would be wrong.

Stupak and Pitts deserve disgrace for trying to take away our rights. It has nothing to do with morals, Stupak's, mine, or the man in the moon's. Rights. The right to control our own medical procedures. The right to control our bodies. Rights. Get it?

So, no, "different people, acting in good faith" may not judge a law about rights in different ways. Not even when it's a law about women's medical rights.

What is so hard to understand about this? ...


Stupak, rights, human rights, politics