NARAL, Planned Parenthood and Lieberman

As Siva Vaidhyanathan noted, NARAL has endorsed Joe Lieberman in his bid to retain his Senate seat, instead of his more progressive opponent Ned Lamont, who was endorsed by NOW. In consequence, over at Stone Court, Mary Garth posted her letter to NARAL, which said:

I was shocked, disgusted, and deeply disappointed to learn of your decision to endorse Joe Lieberman in the Connecticut Senate race. This is the man who has said it’s no big deal if rape victims can’t get emergency contraception in emergency rooms in Connecticut, because after all, it’s only a short ride to another hospital. This is the man who voted for cloture on the Alito nomination (the vote that counted) and then took credit for having voted against him in the vote that didn’t matter. I have volunteered for and supported NARAL in the past, although I haven’t always agreed with your endorsement decisions, but I am truly outraged by this one. I’ll be sending my contributions elsewhere (for example to Connecticut N.O.W., where they ‘get it’ in this race) until you get your heads out of your asses.

She also provides a link to the NARAL “Feedback” form, via Tennessee Guerilla Women.

A few weeks ago, Planned Parenthood endorsed Lieberman as well. Jane Hamsher at Firedoglake, among others, had a fairly negative reaction to this.

Women make up a majority of the Democratic Party. Four years ago an article in The New Republic reported:

Given the GOP’s well-known “gender gap,” it’s easy to forget that not long ago American women voted disproportionately Republican. In 1960, for instance, women supported Richard Nixon over John F. Kennedy 53 percent to 46 percent. But starting with Barry Goldwater’s nomination in 1964, and accelerating after Reagan’s nomination in 1980, the GOP’s growing social conservatism began driving away women voters. That led, by the ’90s, to women regularly supporting Democrats by absolute majorities. In 2000, women backed Gore 54 percent to 43 percent.

This change in women’s voting reflects the convergence of an economic trend and a social movement. For at least 50 years working women have supported the Democratic Party at much higher rates than have homemakers. But until recently, most women were homemakers. As more and more women have entered the workforce, however–from 37.7 percent of adult women in 1960 to 57.5 percent in 1990–women have begun voting more Democratic. Their entrance into the workforce has been accelerated by the rise of modern feminism, which has produced a spate of contested political issues, from abortion to child care to Title IX. Before 1980, Republicans and Democrats were largely indistinguishable on these issues. But in that election, the first in which gender issues like abortion and the Equal Rights Amendment played a major role, a gap opened that has not closed since–as working women began to suspect that Republican social policy was undergirded by the belief that society would be better off if women returned home.

In November 2006, the “electoral gender gap” may be at its widest point ever. And yet, today the Senate’s Democratic Party Leader is Harry Reid, who has a record on abortion as follows:

Voted YES on $100M to reduce teen pregnancy by education & contraceptives. (Mar 2005)
Voted YES on criminal penalty for harming unborn fetus during other crime. (Mar 2004)
Voted YES on banning partial birth abortions except for maternal life. (Mar 2003)
Voted YES on maintaining ban on Military Base Abortions. (Jun 2000)
Voted YES on banning partial birth abortions. (Oct 1999)
Rated 29% by NARAL, indicating a pro-life voting record. (Dec 2003)
Expand embryonic stem cell research. (Jun 2004)

Compared to Reid, Lieberman’s record on abortion looks pretty good by comparison, it is true. But it’s still lousy. And people like him are not going to do any better on reproductive rights issues unless they are pressured, rather than supported, by organizations like Planned Parenthood and NARAL. As NOW wrote in its Lamont endorsement announcement:

These are precarious times for women. We cannot be satisfied with a senator who votes for women much of the time, or even most of the time. We need courageous leaders who will protect and advance all of our rights all of the time. The winner of this election will have profound influence on national policy which directly affects women and girls in Connecticut, in the nation and throughout the world.

–Ann Bartow