Been a while since I did any fisking. This, though, cries out to heaven for it. Mark Shea points out a speech by Howard Dean (available in full here.) It’s from January 21 of this year.

You know we all have our reasons for running. I'm running because I don't like extremism, and I think extremism has taken over our country.

The use of the word “extremism” has become commonplace, yet the charge is almost never substantiated with an actual example of something extreme that’s been done. Note that there’s no “extreme” action on the part of the current administration described anywhere in the speech, though Governor Dean saiys and apparently has done several things that are suitably described as extreme.

I'm going to talk to you as a governor and as a doctor tonight, but I was thinking as I was listening to the four speakers how much is at stake. It's not just abortion rights or reproductive freedoms. Title IX is under attack by this administration and I think if one of us doesn't win, next thing girls won't be able to go to school in America, you watch.

On the scale of “extreme”, I’d say that the slander that the administration would prevent girls from going to school if a Democrat isn’t elected would be substantially more extreme than a modification – not even a revocation, just a modification -- of the 30 year old Title IX.

Now Vermont is the promised land for you folks. I'm the governor, I was the governor up 'til last week. I served on the board of Planned Parenthood of Northern New England for five years. When I became governor I had to resign because all--we contracted all our family planning services through Planned Parenthood in Vermont. We do not hearken to the term "partial birth abortion" in my state because because partial birth abortion is like the word quota. The President used it six times last night. It's a code word. It's designed to appeal to people's fears, to divisiveness. Partial birth abortion is the same thing.

“Partial birth abortion” is non-technical language to include the procedures described in CPT codes 59812 through 59857 when those take place late in pregnancy. It’s common for folks who don’t have a medical background to refer to medical procedures in non-technical terms. But so it is with the left, the use of properly descriptive terms is more offensive to them than are the atrocities they describe. “Quota” is a particular way of trying to attain affirmative action goals, and an especially bad one. Fortunately it isn’t common Juxtaposing “partial birth abortion” with “quota” indicates that Governor Dean finds late term abortions and affirmative action to be of similar importance and that the terms to describe them are more important than the practices themselves. Both practices seem sacred to the far left. Even Roe v. Wade didn’t go so far as to require late-term abortion. Of course they’ve “grown” beyond that.

The truth is I went and checked and tried to figure out, because I was running against a conservative person the last two times I ran. I checked, because I knew this would come up, how many late, third trimester abortions had been done in the state of Vermont in the last four years. The number was--. Zero. This is an issue about nothing; it's an issue about extremism; it's an issue about appealing to people's fears. It is the wrong thing to do and people who use the term partial birth abortion are leading an America in a bad place.

If there have been no third-trimester abortions, then why is it extreme to ban them? Wouldn’t it be on a par with prohibiting, say, pedestrians from traveling more than sixty miles an hour? Wouldn’t the ban better be described as pointless than extremist? What of places other than Vermont? After all, Vermont has a substantially different demographic trend than most other states. Are there third-trimester abortions in, say, New York? On the other hand, would it not be extreme to fight vigorously to preserve a theoretical right that no one has exercised? That would particularly apply here when such putative right is not established by any recognized statutory or case law.

They are trying to divide us people of conscience; it is the wrong thing to do.

What functioning conscience would dictate that the destruction of a child’s life is somehow morally preferable to “divisiveness”? There is a significant divide between those who believe in the sanctity of human life and those who do not. Failing to recognize that division is simply dishonest.

It's no more honorable for the President of the United States using the word quota, because he knows it divides us by race and use of the word partial birth abortion divides us by conscience.

“Dividing by conscience” – that is recognizing moral imperatives - is substantially more honorable than dispensing privileges to people based on their ethnic origin, no? Isn’t it more honorable than dividing a child’s head from the rest of her body?

There are many good people who on moral grounds are opposed to abortion. I respect them.

Then you must also respect that those who oppose abortion on moral grounds are duty-bound to do something about it. That would mean that those who oppose abortion are not “extremists” or “divisive”. That would make most of this speech an instance of highly dishonest propaganda. Of course silencing those who oppose abortion on moral grounds would fairly be characterized as “extreme” even “totalitarian”.

I do not respect the people who defend the throwing of bombs and murders of doctors however.

Pro-lifers also don’t respect the use of violence. This is, at best, disingenuous. It would be interesting to see how many acts of violence against abortionists are in fact performed by agents provocateurs.

And some of those exist in our very administration, people who have not stood up against violence; they thought it would be better for their political careers if they didn't say too much about it. The chairman of the Judiciary Committee, last year, who refused to allow the banking bill to go through 'cause it outlawed terrorism at abortion clinics. That is a shameful act and the American people ought to be ashamed of that.

I can’t find anything that lends credence to Governor Dean’s attack on Congressman Sensenbrenner. None of the versions of the banking bill that I’ve seen include anything about abortion clinics. Needless to say, there’s little reason to include abortion clinics in a bill that addresses banking. There are also a number of other possible reasons for opposition to a bill. If there is something to substantiate Governor Dean’s claims, though, I’d be interested to see it. If, on the other hand, this is a fabrication, it is itself a shameful act.

Let me tell you a story. As many of you know I'm a doctor. I'm an internist, and I take care of all ages pretty much from five to 105, and one time I was sitting in my office, and it was not unusual for young kids to come and talk to me because I knew the whole family, and one time a young lady came into my office who was 12 years old and she thought she might be pregnant. And we did the tests and did the exam and she was pregnant. She didn't know what to do. And after I had talked to her for a while I came to the conclusion that the likely father of her child was her own father. You explain that to the American people who think that parental notification is a good idea. I will veto parental notification.

Mark nailed this one. If a 12 year old is pregnant, there are some serious problems going on and it would be incumbent on Governor Dean to have reported this act of child abuse. If he hasn’t, then it’s a big fat lie.

In Vermont we don't have parental notification bills, but you know what, 85 percent of all minors that seek an abortion bring their parent with them voluntarily. It is the right thing to do. When I was practicing medicine, if a young lady came to me and she was pregnant, I'd sit with her in her office and the first thing I'd do is try to convince her she ought to tell her folks, 'cause I know her folks; I usually treated them too. And sometimes she'd even say, I don't dare, I don't dare. My father'll kill me. In a small percentage of the cases that's true, and that's why we don't want the government telling us how to practice medicine.

If parental notification is “the right thing to do”, then why is a law mandating it bad? Most laws have exceptions in them and there’s no way that a parental notification law wouldn’t have an exception for cases where the girl has a bona fide fear for her safety. Could it be that Governor Dean opposes any restrictions at all on access to abortions because he’s an extremist? Now you say you don’t want the government telling you how to practice medicine? Guess what, he who pays the piper calls the tune. If you succeed in attaining a greater degree of socialized medicine, the government will be dictating a great number of practice decisions. Sure, it may still be legal to kill the patients who aren’t the ones paying you, but your other practice decisions won’t be your own. Which is more important to you?

Abortion is connected to civil rights, because the government is so impressed with itself in promoting individual freedom they can't wait to get into your bedroom and tell you how to behave. And I don't think, as a physician--people ask me what's your position on abortion. It's very simple; it's a single sentence. The practice of medicine is none of the government's business and they ought to stay out of it. This is a private relationship, this is a private relationship between the physician, the patient and whoever the patient chooses to involve in that position.

The first six words are right. Abortion is connected to civil rights. Is there any civil right more fundamental than that to life? I’d have to answer ‘no’. The government has many more things to do than to restrict sexual behaviors. To suggest otherwise is phenomenally dishonest. If the practice of medicine is none of the government’s business, then why do you support socialized medicine, which makes it entirely the government’s business?

If you become pregnant unexpectedly and it's an unwanted pregnancy, you have three choices. And you have to live with those choices for the rest of your life. You can give that baby up for adoption, and you can talk to women who have done that and they wonder for the rest of their lives what, where that child might be and what might have become of that child. You can have the baby and keep that child. Sometimes that works out. Sometimes with 14- and 15-year olds it doesn't work out very well. A teenager who has a child below the age of 18 has an 80 percent chance of being on welfare for the forseeable future. We can do better than that.

Why is abortion better than adoption? Bueller? Anyone?

And the last choice is to have an abortion. And for those who have had abortions that is also a very difficult decision, and also a decision that you will wonder about for the rest of your life. This is an extraordinarily difficult decision; it's certainly a decision that has to be lived with by the patient for the rest of your life, and what in the world can the government be thinking about for the president of the United States and nine old folks on the Supreme Court, five of whom are so far to the right that we can't see them any more, what in the world, what in the world can they be thinking that they have the right to decide the life a young woman who has the choice of adopting, keeping or aborting. They have to live with that decision for the rest of their life. President Bush can go cut brush on his ranch in Crawford and not give it a second thought.

Actually many of those who choose to abort will have to live with that decision for ever – even long after they’ve shaken off the mortal coil and followed their child(ren) into the grave. It’s sad indeed that some see the murder of infants as virtuous.