This diary will be brief because the point is simple: The GOP has creamed us on framing issues.
All of Santorum's blather about states having the power to prohibit birth control reminded me of one of the 2008 republican debates. In one of those down-the-line type questions, they were all asked where the decisions about abortion should be made. They all said the same thing, "It should be up to the states."
Implicit in this oft-repeated phrase is that abortion is somehow handled by the federal government. And it's a safe assumption for anyone who hears the frame to make because republicans say the same thing about stuff that really is handled by the federal government, or is, at least, within the power of the federal government to handle.
Their frame is 100 percent false. But no one ever calls them on it. No moderator of a debate, no pundit, no interviewer, and certainly no Democrat ever says, "Are you advocating that a right that currently belongs to the people should be taken from them by their government?"
Griswold said that birth control decisions are mine to make. Roe said likewise on abortion. These fundamental liberties belong to We the People.
That should be our frame, because it's the truth and it speaks the language of liberty. And it would tell every single woman in America that it's the Democratic party that respects them, that it's the Democratic party that will thwart the efforts of anyone who would try to take our rights away.