Fresh Loaf

State Rep. Alisha Thomas Morgan, D-Austell, is the youngest person to ever serve in the Georgia General Assembly. She’s also the first African-American to represent majority-white, majority-GOP Cobb County in the state House. And she’s now been named one of the nation’s leaders when it comes to an important — and often unpopular — cause: standing up for a woman’s right to choose.

Rep. Morgan, who’s 29 and been in office for six years, is one of five people to receive a national award from D.C.-based reproductive rights group Choice USA. The honorees were announced today.

According to a press release about the award:

Morgan joins a distinguished collection of accomplished leaders and emerging activists working to secure and enhance reproductive health, reproductive justice, reproductive choice and reproductive rights in the U.S. and abroad.

The group called Morgan “a fiery advocate for the rights of the underserved.” We’ll second that.

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Highly respected news organization The Onion has gripping video coverage of a tragic story we may soon face: An expectant panda, communicating through cutting-edge technology, tells the world in staccato bursts of honesty that a zoo life is not one she’d wish upon her offspring.

Officials at the zoo, which, in light of the revelation, has become a battleground for abortion rights and pro-life advocates, say they hope the panda will make the right choice. But they’re also fearful of what may transpire if they are hesitant to act.

Thank you, Onion, for opening our eyes to what will be our city’s darkest hour. That’ll be whenever Lun Lun, Yang Yang and Mei Lan get Internet access and discover the plight of their distant brethren, but you know what I mean.

Until then, we stand vigilant alongside the truth — may her blade of righteousness cut us all down to size.

Click here for the video and the heart-wrenching pleas the panda makes to her “human masters.” Click here to look at our cuddly creatures at Zoo Atlanta. We just wanna nuzzle their cute widdle nosies.

(Screenshot from The Onion)

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During the legislative session, Rep. Bobby Franklin, R-Marietta, blogged for The American View, a conservative Christian web site whose organizers aim to create “Christian America, and a Christian world, a Christian galaxy and a Christian universe.”

But since there is no area of life outside of the Lordship of King Jesus, all votes cast are religious in nature and must be based on what the Bible says is the proper function of the civil government.

— Franklin, on Jan 31, explaining how he decides his legislative votes.

By a vote of 154-1 the House approved HB 1088, a bill to provide state central planning of “agricultural tourism.” The last time I checked, I could not find any Biblical role of the civil government in the function of tourism, agricultural or otherwise.

— Franklin, on Feb. 18.

HB 1043 amended an already bad law, the “Childhood Lead Exposure Control Act” by allowing the state to enter your property if some state agent thinks that your kid has been exposed to lead. Whatever happened to the Supreme Court’s “Roe” and “Casey” right to privacy?

— Franklin rails against a bill aimed at protecting children from lead-contaminated structures.

You are a person while in the test tube. But the state then can deny your personhood the moment you are implanted in a uterus. With so called right to life organizations promoting this type of abomination, no wonder roughly 40,000 babies are still being slaughtered in their mother’s womb’s each year in Georgia.

— Franklin criticizes a bill proposed by Georgia Right to Life that would designate embryos in test tubes as “people.”

While Georgia is throwing the book at people that use alcohol vaporizing devices, the butchering of the unborn continues[.]

— Franklin writes about a House bill that would ban alcohol-vaporizers.

This bill allows the commissioner of the Department of Natural Resources (why there is such a department is another story) to prohibit all commercial and recreational fishing for blue crabs.

— Franklin questions the importance of an agency charged with protecting the environment.

Why is the Georgia House of Representatives concerning itself with any sport when tens of thousands of babies are slaughtered in the womb each year here in Georgia?

— Franklin expresses disgust with a bill that would urge the NCAA use a playoff system to determine a national college football champion.

First, individuals do not have any natural rights — which transitions to the second point: rights are given by God and are not privileges handed out by the state. It is very dangerous when those elected to office begin to believe and govern as if the State is God.

— Franklin states his views on basic rights.

Does it surprise you that the question never lets the voter know that if the Governor so chooses that not a dime of the tax could go toward transportation? Republicans - gotta love’um [--] NOT!

— Franklin channels Wayne’s World in his final post of the legislative session.

Rep. Franklin then said that the folks that wanted to end slavery were called “crazy” and “radical”, but they were doing “what was right”, so he didn’t mind being called crazy because he’s doing what’s right.

— Andre Walker in a Jan. 2007 GeorgiaPoliticsUnfiltered blog post after he asked Rep. Franklin about pro-choice groups labeling him as “crazy.”

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As this item is being posted – around 4 p.m. Monday – a public hearing is unfolding in a legislative committee room across from the Capitol that will showcase what are likely the two nuttiest, most extremist hot-potato bills of this General Assembly.

The first is another in a long series of absurdist anti-abortion proposals from state Rep. Bobby Franklin, R-East Cobb, the king of file-it-and-forget-about-it legislation. His bill would make it a capital offense to perform an abortion in Georgia.

The second item, introduced by fellow loon Rep. Martin Scott, R-Rossville, has already gained notoriety in other states as the “Human Life Amendment.” The proposal, HR 536, would define newly fertilized embryos as “persons” – a distinction that confers a “right to life,” according to the measure.

Pro-choice activists had expected to face Scott’s resolution this year; lobbying from conservative Christian groups was too fierce for it to stay bottled up. Hell, the measure even has its own website. But they didn’t anticipate having to deal with Franklin’s HB1, which (I just enjoy saying this) calls for doctors who perform abortions to be put to death.

As a result, such groups as the Feminist Women’s Health Center held a press conference this morning to decry what they see as a twin threat of poison legislation.

Granted, we don’t usually see Franklin bills make it as far as a committee hearing, but how seriously should we take this portent? And why would Rep. Ed Lindsey, the level-headed, moderate Atlanta Republican who chairs the subcommittee in question, decide to hear these two bills?

Basically, we asked Lindsey, WTF? The answer was enlightening.

He explained that he paired the bills because one would affect the other if passed. There will be six hours of scheduled hearings spread over two days. In addition to the various interest groups on both sides of the issue, Lindsey has asked professors, doctors and health experts to explain the potential impact of the bills – including the foreseeable consequences of declaring a zygote a person with legal rights.

In other words, Lindsey wants fellow lawmakers to understand what would happen if the concept of personhood is stretched to its illogical conclusion.

He puts it more diplomatically: “I want to give both of these measures a full and fair hearing and, if we do, I have a feeling how it’s going to turn out.”

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After only one term in office, state Rep. Martin Scott, R-Rossville, has already carved out a reputation as a zygote’s best friend. This spring, when he wasn’t backing bills to outlaw abortion, Scott was earning a coveted Golden Sleaze award by proposing a constitutional amendment to redefine the word “person” to include “unborn children at every state of development, including fertilization.”

Just last week, Scott wrapped up an 11-day, 17-city bus junket around Georgia charmingly called the “Let Them Live” tour (which would have made an interesting double bill with Metallica’s 1983 “Kill ‘em All” tour).

Sponsored by, you guessed it, Georgia Right to Life, Scott’s tour involved visiting churches, meeting halls and restaurants to preach his vision of “preserving life within the womb.”

Scott’s pro-life interests don’t, however, seem to extend outside the womb. This is a guy who loves him some death penalty, having voted for a nutty House bill to allow convicted murderers to be put to death on the say-so of a nonunanimous jury. Scott also has backed almost every pro-gun bill of the past two years, including failed legislation to allow diners to pack heat in downtown restaurants and to protect the dubious right of workers to keep firearms stashed in their vehicles while parked on company property.

In his own way, perhaps Scott is simply the pro-life version of Will Rogers: “I never met a fetus I didn’t like.”

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Former Georgia Christian Coalition head Sadie Fields; state Sen. Nancy Schaefer, R-Turnerville; and a cabal of other die-hard right-to-lifers got a little too grabby on the last day of the 2007 legislative session. Their bill originally sought to require abortion providers to offer to let women see sonograms of their fetuses, with no exception for victims of rape and incest.

The version of the bill that passed the House and later the Senate was modified so that sonograms wouldn’t be mandatory, but if one were taken, it would be offered to the woman. Not content with that, Fields’ minions crammed the bill with extreme language in a conference committee, making it just as repugnant as it was before.

When the bill came back to the Senate to be approved, Sen. Renee Unterman, R-Buford, was so enraged by the sneakiness of the changes that she took to the well to complain of the attempt to put conservatives such as her in a tough position. “You’re pushing people and I don’t like to be pushed,” she said.

The altered bill failed by three votes, sending Schaefer racing out of the chamber to try to work up a less-noxious version of the bill. At this writing, though, there’s no assurance that it’ll be allowed to come back for another floor vote. In other words, Fields and Co. might well have succeeded in snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

The lesson here is, a fetus in the hand is worth two in the bush.

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“The late-night, quick fix was the wrong solution for Georgia.”
-Gov. Sonny Perdue commenting on the $142 million tax cut included in the ‘07 supplemental budget that he vetoed last night.

Once again Sonny, I really wish you had felt that way before you got that $100,000 “late night” tax break from Larry O’Neal.

– Andre at Georgia Politics Unfiltered. A story about the “late night” $100,000 can be found here.

Not one of these candidates acknowledge the brutal nature of the procedure, nor the broad popular support for banning it. In light if these comments, I think it’s safe to say, Clinton, Edwards and Obama are abortion extremists. Voters beware.

– Buzz at The Buzz Blog calls the leading Democratic candidates for president abortion extremists, in light of their comments on the U.S. Supreme Court’s Wednesday ruling upholding the federal ban on late-term abortions.

Wednesday’s decision was the first since Roe v. Wade to uphold a law restricting abortion without an exception for the mother’s health.

Fernbank is one of those really cool places that i always forget to take advantage of when coming up with ideas for outings with the kids. So, I’m really going to try and get the family over there for their National Astronomy Day celebration on Saturday (April 21st.)

– Annie at Metroblogging Atlanta on National Astronomy Day at the Fernbank Science Center on Saturday.

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During the debate on the bill, Sen. Nan Orrock (D - Atlanta) said that the legislature was becoming a “regular mill that churns out bills to limit choice.” Sen. Orrock also said that there is an “effort across the country to put barriers in the way” of abortions being performed, and while she wanted to reduce the rate of abortions, she felt that “there is a better way” to do it.

– Andre at Georgia Politics Unfiltered, on state legislation that will require facilities or physicians carrying out abortions to offer patients ultrasound imaging of the fetus

but my real question is who in the world can feel good enough about marta to want to memorialize it on their body?

– James at Metroblogging Atlanta, on the MARTA rail map someone had tattooed on their hip by Liberty Tattoo. The post includes a photo of the tattoo.

So as usual, who better to trick people into giving TBN money, than a master at the game?

– Independent Conservative on Lithonia’s New Birth Missionary Baptist Church Bishop Eddie Long’s appearance on TBN’s Spring Praise-a-thon 2007 fundraiser.

Here’s a clip:

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The Athens Banner-Herald reported today that one in three girls in several counties in northeast Georgia will have a baby before she’s 20 years old, according to numbers complied by the Northeast Health District. What’s more, if the female is African-American, she has a 38 percent chance of giving birth before she’s out of her teens.

These numbers are alarming, but not completely surprising considering the type of sex ed — or rather, lack thereof — adolescents receive in Georgia. According to the Guttmacher Institute, a sexual and reproductive research organization in New York, Georgia only is required to teach abstinence as a preventative measure for pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.

(more…)

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It’s one of those crushing disappointments and irritations in life when you’re looking for objective information and instead you get stuck with a sermon.

It’s especially irksome when you’re in a moment of crisis.

Pro-life state legislators want to require doctors to offer women sonograms of their fetuses before proceeding with abortions. To that end, state Rep. James Mills, R-Gainesville, has taken the lead with what he’s calling “The Woman’s Right to Know Act.”

One of the bill’s most outspoken critics, Dionne Vann, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Georgia, says what the legislation does is needlessly badger pregnant women.

“This bill includes no exclusion for rape or incest victims or medical anomalies,” Vann says. “The premise of the bill was to give women as much information as possible, but it doesn’t do that.”

(more…)

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