Coakley's big lie

If I was a Massachusetts voter, this one would really steam me up.

Curt Schilling called a swing and a miss for Martha Coakley yesterday after the candidate gaffed and referred to the former Red Sox ace as a "Yankee fan" on a Friday night radio show.

Oops.  Wrong story.  That was supposedly just Coakley's lame attempt at ... humor.  The big lie is this one.

1,736 WOMEN WERE RAPED IN MASSACHUSETTS IN 2008.  SCOTT BROWN WANTS HOSPITALS TO TURN THEM ALL AWAY.

I am and have always been adamantly pro-choice.  Yes, it makes my voting choices complicated.  But when I say that, as a pro-choice voter, this blatantly false and prejudicial (if not defamatory) ad pisses the living hell out of me, I sincerely hope that sentiment is shared by a good number of like-minded voters in Massachusetts.

These are the facts:

• Brown's proposed amendment to the 2005 Massachusetts bill requiring hospitals to provide the "morning after pill" (a/k/a "emergency contraception) to rape victims consisted solely of an opt-out provision for hospital staff who sincerely believed their religious convictions would be compromised by administering such medication.
  

• Leaving aside the question of whether that medication is even an abortifacient (disputed), the amendment required the hospital to have in place an established procedure of referral to a staff person or another hospital (admittedly a burden on the patient/victim) unencumbered by such conflicts.

• The amendment was rejected and Brown voted for the bill without it.

Such caveats to legislation providing for controversial health care measures are widespread.  Many living will statutes, for example, include a similar opt-out provision for personnel and facilities whose religious principles forbid them from "pulling the plug."  While the emergency factor may appear to be lacking in the latter situation (it's often not), the root of these opt-out clauses lies in a fundamental provision of our Constitution: with very limited exceptions, laws shall not be enacted that tend to inhibit the free exercise of religion. 

When pro-choice candidates resort to such dishonest and manipulative tactics in their campaigns, it always provides useful fodder for those who would legislatively limit the options women have open to them in the event of unwanted pregnancies.  Martha Coakley damages the cause of reproductive rights by displaying such gross disregard for the truth and employing such cynically manipulative tactics in the guise of defending them.  Her desperate attempt to clean up the mess that she herself has made of her campaign will hopefully backfire big time.