Progressive Candidate Darcy Burner: How I Became the Target of a Right-Wing Smear Campaign
Darcy Burner, who is running for Congress in Washington State’s first district, has become somewhat of a star in liberal politics for the way she speaks her mind – she’s a full-throated, unapologetic progressive, not a wishy-washy, corporate-friendly Democrat.
After giving a powerful speech about the politics of abortion, Burner has recently become the target of a smear campaign cooked up by conservative bloggers and pushed into the mainstream media (perhaps with a little bit of help from her wealthy, more “centrist” primary opponent’s staff).
Burner appeared on this week’s AlterNet Radio Hour to help sort out the fact from the fiction. Below is a lightly edited transcript of the discussion.
[…]
DB: I think you’re completely right that they’re human rights issues. They’re human rights issues that do affect men as well as women. If I had died during my pregnancy that would have had an enormous impact on my husband, not just on me. He was prepared to support a decision to terminate the pregnancy because he cared about whether I lived or died. All over the world there are men and women who are affected by this. I think the more widely we recognize that, the better.