McCain's policy is much more extreme than is Bush's. He will make federal policy that is more extreme, and the election of McCain will result in the elimination of Roe, due to McCain's appointments to the SC.

This is clear, obvious, and as stark a choice as I have ever seen in my life.

if any hold-out hillary supporters were still undecided i would imagine that flippant, disdainful remark by mccain should pretty much do the trick.

McNasty out of touch???? personally I'm shocked

I know the Republican Party wants to regress us to the Gilded Age, but I didn't know they want to go back to the point where women routinely died in childbirth.

"Pro-life," my ass.

I agree that Mr. McCain appears callous. Nonetheless, that IS the argument from the pro-life movement... that the term "health of the mother" is flexible enough to include anything. So for example, they can abort at late stages, even right up close to nine months, by claiming the mother will suffer depression or low self esteem... or something like that.

My favorite moment was when Obama told McShame that his constant rants about Ayers said more about the McNasty/Scarah campaign than it did about his...course I'm pretty sure BIG JOHN didn't get it...

McCain's dismissal of the "health" of the mother brought the most negative reactions from my wife and daughter who shared the debate watch with me.

McCain declares himself a federalist on the abortion issue but then decries the democratic process in the state of IL. McCain is a living revelation of the inconsistencies and contradictions needed to satisfy all of the loosely bound interests and constituencies "contained" in modern republicanism. McCain not only represents a failed character and candidate but a failing philosophy of governing.

This needs to be a web ad ASAP,

I can not believe he would put air quotes around a woman's health. What ever you think about abortion, the exception for the health of the mother has been supported by the supreme court. It is unlikely that any law that does not contain this exception would probably be found unconstitutional by the US Supreme Court.

Between McCain and Palin's no exception for rape and/or incest, I would hope that every sain person votes against these two.

McCain is against protecting the "life of the mother" because he doesn't believe that it's a real issue? Is McCain a doctor? Has he actually researched this issue or talked to anyone who might know something about it? No, he's taken the bullshit arguments of the "pro-life" movement as fact and thinks that anyone who doesn't identify as such is "pro-abortion."

What is this, 1984? Is he working for Operation Rescue now?

Seriously, fuck him. I think he very likely pissed off a lot of women with both the content and attitude of his position.

What a McAsshole.

McCain absolutely lost alot fo woman voters last night. He totally disrespected our intelligence, our independence and our right to choose how to live. The Repugs and McCain has consistently been down on women and constantly put road blocks in the way to equality and true independence. His choice of a woman VP does nothing to counter this as she is more stupid than a 5th grader. She was selected purely as a political tool --- that is shows how much he and the Repugs dislike women, dislike our right to be equal. He is a old man with ancient ideas and very far out in right field about how we all need to live. He will definitely regret telling thousands/ millions of women that they should disregarded their health and can not make decisions for themselves. Bad call McCain.

Hey John,

How about the "health of an ex- drug addict mother" of your children?

Being of the male persuasion, I certainly don’t feel this as viscerally as a woman might. But in addition to McCain's visible anger over the ‘health of the mother’ exception, his emphatic willingness to deny women agency in the decision of how to balance the risk to their own health against the life of their unborn child...man, that just says worlds about his attitude towards women.

But at least he doesn't plaster on the makeup like a trollop.

Talking Points Memo has the footage of McCain's comments about women's health that Steve is referring to - squiggly lines included.

You know, when even Chris Matthews, Howard Fineman, and Roger Simon are aghast at the "health" of the mother issue, when even Chris Matthews (!!!) points out that McCain would never use quotations around "health of the Father," you just know McCain has gone too far.

I would love to see the focus group results from that remark. How small does your circle of friends and acquaintances have to be before you never know of anyone in that situation or possibly facing that type of situation? Even a friend of a friend?

And thank heavens for Rachel Maddow, pointing out that this issue is about how much power the government should have over pregnant women, whether they will be forced to bring children to term (who typically cannot survive) regardless of what it does to their own lives or ability to have another baby.

Chris Matthews (!!!) was right: if those three guys could get how wrong that argument is ("cruel" in the words of Howard Fineman), there's really no excuse for McCain not to understand it.

The whole McCain campaign, and probably the entire Republican party, is suffering from a massive case of groupthink. Or maybe we should call it Foxnewsthink.

They spend all their time in their own little reality, and they no longer know how normal people think, or how even to talk to them.

People forget that McCain was popular among independents and Democrats, because he wasn't perceived as a social conservative or at least not an enthusiastic one. By coming out so explicitly for an anti-abortion stance, he made a very bad strategic decision. McCain's years of muddying his abortion stance were all undone by last night's debate.

McCain is such a Mysoginist. I don't know that hardworking women really get.

There needs to be an ad with a shot of him mockingly using the quotation marks around "health of the woman" in conjunction with his voting against the critically important Lilly Ledbetter equal pay case (shrugging it off as "it happened too long ago" and it was nothing more than 'a Trial Lawyer's dream') and also voting against the 'violence against women act'.

The way McCain is running his "campaign," he is surely going to "lose."

low-tech cyclist: "...his emphatic willingness to deny women agency in the decision of how to balance the risk to their own health against the life of their unborn child..."

That's just it. The mocking "health of the mother" assumes that a woman's health is *not* at risk. (Allow me to explain for those who can't hear the dog whistle.) The anti-abortion side believes "health of the mother" is a loophole in abortion restrictions. They're afraid a woman will claim that carrying a pregnancy to term will give her headaches and invoke the "health" clause to get around restrictions.

What Steve is getting at is that most Americans aren't aware of this level of the debate. All they hear is McCain talking derisively about "health of the mother."

If the conservative pro-life movement has constructed a clause in their laws to protect the health of the mother, I would like to see it.

Otherwise "the argument" about health being stretched to mean anything leads directly to the law banning any consideration for the health of the mother. The argument becomes the reality, that, yes, pro-life extremists DO NOT MAKE EXCEPTIONS FOR THE HEALTH OF WOMEN. Period.

To say that it's "just an argument" is give the knuckle-draggers far too much credit. The air quotes actually does reflect a deep, abiding and complete lack of concern for the health of mothers.

McCain didn't have that many pro-choice women anyway. But there is a certain contingent of moderate Republican women who like to pretend that Roe is safe regardless of whom they vote for. I expect some of them walked away last night.

I got a strong impression that McCain's "health of the mother" comment was largely blurted out in pique. I don't think this howler was one of the many "I practiced it so I gotta say it!" blunders he made last night. I think he just got mad and started flailing.

Obama's a moderate on abortion, but McCain is hardcore antichoice, and has been his entire career. He has near lifetime perfect scores from all the right to life orgs. I know Obama has run some ads on this, but really should be pushing it more, especially in swing states outside the South. McCain won't just seek to overturn Roe v. Wade via SCOTUS appointments; everything his administration does will push to simply eliminate it as a medical option for women. A lot of voters assume McCain is sort of moderate on this issue or something -- he's not.

I viewed the youtube on TPM and there's some damn poll question pasted on top of the vid that obscures what the squigglies were doing when McCain was doing his air quotes.

Regardless, I bet air quotes and McCain are going to be a source of much mocking derision on TDS/Colbert/SNL over the next few days. Too bad Chris Farley isn't around to give it a whirl.

I thought McCain't was against Government intrusion and wanted to give the people choice. Oh yea, that's only when it serves HIS purposes and appeals to his base (the 'haves' and the "have mores", who of course, can covertly fly out of the country to get an abortion, if they wish). In the U.S. of A., the government will tell all woman that they can not have an abortion, that they WILL have the rapist's baby, and that the "health" of the mother is of no consequence and is therefore not a consideration. Pregnant women, even those pregnant due to forced intercourse from their father or an intruder, YOU are on notice. The US government, under a McSame/Phlail'in administration WILL assume control over YOUR body. To any woman contemplating voting repuglican, don't say you weren't warned.

In his comment about health exceptions, McCain made his contempt for women obvious. In other remarks, he indicated that he lacks understanding of the abortion issue in particular and reproductive rights in general, continually referring to those who sought abortions as "young women," and he fell back on adoption as an overall panacea. Any woman who's made the choice between having an abortion and continuing a pregancy when she must surrender the child will tell you that these decisions and far from simple and demand more emotionally that McCain's boilerplace comments acknowledge. For her part, of course, Sarah Palin is on record favoring forcing women to continue pregnancies that result from violence and emotional trauma. That's quite a combination. I'm terrified to think what will happen to women's rights if McCain wins the presidency.

What kills me is that Sen. Obama used that damn "partial-birth abortion" term. It's not a "partial-birth abortion," dammit, the term is "intact dilation and extraction"!!! PBA is a term coined by Christofascists who view women as property and needed a political buzzword to get their way in Congress and the courts.

Late-term abortions are all about the health and life of the woman, or the quality of life of the fetus. This is why they comprise less than 1% of all abortions performed (see Guttmacher statistics). It's when continuing the pregnancy will kill or seriously injure a woman, or the fetal defects are so bad that they will not survive outside the womb or have a horrible quality of life. Please google "anencephaly" for an example. Women cannot just decide at 32 weeks that they are tired of being pregnant, the stress is too much and their clothes don't fit, and trip merrily on down to Ye Olde Woman's Clinique for an abortion and a stress-relieving facial with aromatherapy.

The late-term abortion issue is a moot point now, anyways. Bush signed a ban on D&X back in 2003, the issue went to the courts in Gonzales vs. Carhart, and SCOTUS upheld the ban on a 5-4 vote. Why does this always come up even when it's irrelevant?

Oh, right. Because wedge issues are all Republicans have left.

Touched on by other commenters.

Is McCain saying Obama should have voted for the bill when it would have required the attempt to birth a baby that had substantial likelihood of killing her?

Remember, the bill did NOT exempt pregnancies that might be lethal to the mother.

This strongly suggests that McCain himself favors the birth of all babies even if it means killing a man's wife / the mother of children she may already have had.

Black and white morality leads to insanity like this. Better to please John McCain's vision of God and have TWO dead people, a widower and permanently traumatized motherless children.

Conservatives say that two parent families are better. I suppose that applies only when the mother can participate by carrying only healthy children to term. Otherwise, John's perfect Christian faith will have to comfort them regardless of what faith they themselves may choose to practice. This is a Christian nation and John will make sure we show it in all its painful, dogmatic glory.

Re bonnie, @12:20: Of course, it should read: "...than McCain's boilerplate..."

For reptiles like McCain, women are a replaceable commodity. A man's seed, on the other hand, is sacred. As is a man's "right" to take his pleasure whenever and wherever he wishes, no matter the consequences (vide insurance-guaranteed access to contraceptives for women, versus Viagra for men). That's why, to McCain, "health of the mother" is not a real issue and why he can, so cavalierly, put it in quotation marks.

Maybe Amy Sullivan can give us another round of concern trolling on the importance of being sensitive to the anti-choice crowd.

And thank heavens for Rachel Maddow, pointing out that this issue is about how much power the government should have over pregnant women, whether they will be forced to bring children to term (who typically cannot survive) regardless of what it does to their own lives or ability to have another baby.

They also never seem to stop and think about the corollary -- once you decide the government can make a decision about a woman's pregnancy, you set up a situation where the government can force a woman to have an abortion even if she doesn't want to.

Some women do choose to carry anencephalitic fetuses to term, and that's their decision. Do we really want the government to have the ability to come in and say, "Nope, we've decided that since your fetus has no chance of survival, you have to abort the pregnancy right now. Wheel her in."

Pro-lifers like to pretend this could never, ever happen, but they're not too good at figuring out the long-term consequences of the policies they support.

Mnemosyne, hon, they aren't pro-life, and we need to stop referring to them as such. If they were pro-life, they'd throw full support to social programs that help struggling mothers and their children. They'd be against war, the death penalty, and aerial shooting of endangered and threatened species. But they aren't. These knuckle-dragging mouthbreathers are not pro-life. They are ANTI-CHOICE.

They don't want women to be able to choose when, how, or with whom to have sex. They don't want women to have the data required to make an informed decision about contraceptive methods. They don't want women to have the choice of contraception. They don't want women to have the choice of abortion. They don't want women to have the choice of health care plan or doctor. They don't want women to have the choice of staying at home to raise a child, or working outside the home.

These people don't want women to have ANY choices at all, because to them, women are a replaceable commodity, a possession. It goes far beyond abortion.

Not pro-life. Anti-choice. Call a spade a spade.

Bill Sanford, your grammar! We elites know that your sentence should read, "They are annoying to us elites." Take note.

"I'm terrified to think what will happen to women's rights if McCain wins the presidency."
For this we have 2 choices:
1. make sure he does not get elected
2. once again hit the streets and fight like we did the first time around.

JM is old school and has an 'OLD MAN'S' opinion of women. Think about it, doesn't he sound like your father's and grandfather's?

I just blogged about this a bit ago, actually -- I think it's just another case of McCain talking to his base in words that only they will understand. To staunch pro-lifers "health of the mother" exceptions are just a loophole for doctors to write "permission slips" for abortions. i.e., will you be bummed if you have to have a child? OK, your health is in danger -- you can have an abortion.

It's as absurd as the claim that only women in physical danger get abortions, but it's become accepted wisdom in pro-life circles over time. Unfortunately, to everyone else it was just an inexplicable, horrifyingly callous statement.

http://www.growingupgoddy.com/blog/eaton/some-thoughts-about-health