xposted from Liberal Street Fighter

The constant drumbeat of bad news, the ineffectiveness of the Democratic Party as a whole ... some days it's hard to put fingers to keyboard and put anything up here. Tired of reading about blasphemous cartoons (why is it that people who claim to have the most certainty about the meaning of life always have the thinnest skins?), I certainly didn't feel that I had anything more to add to it. Ditto for Bush's latest fear-mongering and the scare directed at the legislative branch just as it's beginning to show some glimmers of doing it's job: it's just the same old tune, rearranged as a dirge.

So, what's a blogger to do? Well, sometimes pleasant suprises await as you flip link to link, and I stumbled across a Democrat who actually spoke clearly and firmly for values I hold dear.

Spitzer Strongly Defends Abortion Rights

"I want to make it clear from the start that if the new Supreme Court turns its back on women's privacy and limits or overturns Roe vs. Wade, I will do everything in my power to preserve that right here in New York," Mr. Spitzer said in remarks at New York Law School, where he was joined by his wife Silda, his 78-year-old mother Anne, and abortion rights supporters.

'There has been much debate about late-term abortion," Mr. Spitzer said moments later in his 17-minute address. "I want to be unequivocal that I support the right of a woman and her doctor to consider all necessary and appropriate options, including, as a last resort, late-term abortion when her life or health is at risk."

Wow, that wasn't so hard, now was it Senator Clinton?

Spitzer is reportedly positioning himself in case Nassau County Executive Thomas R. Suozzi enters the primary race for Governor. Mr. Suozzi, who has been a supporter of women's health freedoms in the past, has recently taken a well-thumbed page from the wishy-washy fare-thee-well wing of the Democratic Party.

Mr. Suozzi, a Roman Catholic, supports legalized abortion, but his plan to reduce the number of abortions helps position him as a moderate. In bringing disparate groups together, he also portrays himself as a conciliator and problem-solver.

Although Mr. Suozzi declined to respond to Naral, his aides called the group's criticism unjustified. At a news conference, he announced eight grants — most of them are for programs promoting adoption, housing for unwed mothers and school programs for teenagers intended to prevent unwanted pregnancies — all of which Naral supports.

What drew Naral's criticism were two grants to a Protestant-affiliated group and an anti-abortion group, to promote abstinence.

NARAL aside, this continuous embrace of so-called "centrist" policies serves only to help lock in the removal of options from women facing the hard choices of life when it comes to their reproductive health. Even though these proposals are always presented as being about "bringing people together", but all they really do is allow the forced pregnancy activists to codify more and more of their repressive agenda. As Mr. Spitzer puts it:

"As a public figure, I feel that the debate about a woman's right to make decisions about her reproductive health should not be about tinkering with a point here and there, or shading an argument to placate one crowd or another," Mr. Spitzer said. "It should be about courage of conviction and strength of belief."

If only more public figures, more supposed Democrats, would make such strong and firm stands about the freedoms and civil rights of the American people.