This Just In...

Congratulations to Ellen Moran from EMILY'S List for having just been named White House Director of Communications.

President-elect Barack Obama made the announcement today.

Ellen is currently Executive Director of EMILY's List, a fantastic organization that backs women who support abortion rights in their quest for political office.

Moran has served in the political department of the AFL-CIO and in 2004 directed independent expenditures for the Democratic National Committee, managing placement of presidential advertising and directed television, radio, mail, and phoning efforts in 20 states. In 2000, Moran directed the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s $50 million issue advocacy campaign.

This is another example of Barack Obama bringing in very experienced, talented people to help manage the affairs of the White House.

We congratulate Ellen Moran and wish her the best.

Wall Street Journal on Choice

Stephanie Simon has an interesting piece in the Wall Street Journal today on the future of the anti-choice movement. File this under good and bad news -- she reports that many anti-choicers are moving more towards a platform of reconciliation, choosing to focus more on pregnancy prevention than on criminalizing abortion.

The bad news? She reports that:

"With state courts continually resetting the rules, gay marriage feels more fresh and urgent to voters than abortion, which has settled into a status quo that polls show a large number of Americans can accept."

Sigh. So while I'm all for people finally approaching reproductive rights from a sensible standpoint that puts the health of women first, the implication that it has to be at the expense of someone else's rights makes me sad.

Monday Morning News Dump

Good morning! Here are a few key repro-rights related news stories from this weekend:

- California budget cuts are threatening the state’s family planning funding
- All hail Obama! Washington Post reports that our President-Elect is planning on rolling back as many regulations in place for “overtly political reasons” as possible, including ones related to stem-cell research and reproductive health!
- But, as the Houston Chronicle reminds us, that won’t stop the Bush administration from trying to sneak through as many last-minute changes as possible.
- And, in the news of the horrific department, the AP reports on a Tusla abortion clinic, the main such facility in the state, fighting a state law that would have required women seeking an abortion to not only get an ultrasound beforehand but to listen to the doctors describe to her what the fetus looks like.

Seriously, go vote.

Separation of Church and State Just Flew Out the Stained Glass Window

Via Politico:

The Catholic bishop Kansas City, Robert Finn, urged Catholics not to vote for Barack Obama in a radio interview today -- warning they put their souls at risk by supporting Obama's "fanatical" stance on abortion rights.

"You make yourself a participant in the act of abortion and you mustn''t do it because your eternal salvation is tied up with that important choice," Bishop Finn
said.

Monday in the World of Blogging

While this election has a number of interesting ballot measures on the table, one that we’ve rarely discussed on this blog is Proposition K in San Francisco, legalizing sex work. Broadsheet over at Salon has a nice roundup of the issues involved.

Broadsheet also goes into the pregnancy pact at Gloucester High School, and how one young (and un-pregnant girl) was acting as a PR rep for all the rest.

Feministing takes a look at the New York Times article on gender disparity in Health Care coverage.

And on the Feministing community site, a 14-year-old feminist in Maryland posted pictures of what may be the best Halloween costume yet: Choice Avenger.

Feministe has a new reproductive rights correspondent! Everybody welcome her.

BlogHer has a great post about why you should vote against the parental notification Prop 4 in California. Not that you needed more reasons not to, but in case you have any confused California friends.

Over at Jezebel, Megan has a summary of how Kristi Burton, the 21-year-old anti-choice and repro rights activist behind the Amendment 48 in Colorado that would allot personhood to fertilized eggs, isn’t exactly being backed by a lot of anti-choice leaders.

NY Mag’s Daily Intelligencer has a short piece up about the local NY State Senate elections (which you all should be paying attention to!) and whether or not pro-choice politician Malcolm Smith has a good chance of winning the Majority Leader seat.

And file under information I considered keeping to myself: Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn reports that Babeland is offering voters a free sex toy for voting tomorrow.