Barack Obama and John McCain had a full discussion of sexual and reproductive health issues in the final presidential debate tonight, and according to the CNN dialtests, America shares the pro-education, pro-prevention, pro-choice agenda that readers of Rewire are quite familiar with.  Lots more coverage coming. Check out our Election 2008 page, Video coverage including the Reality Check Series that helps debunk right-wing myths and  the Our Reality Series that share powerful personal stories on a variety of sexual and reproductive health topics.

Check out the truth on the repeatedly debunked Born Alive Act, and learn why the promotion of such lies is emblamatic of the extreme far-right wing of the anti-choice movement, a movement so out of touch with American values that even conservative, Republican, pro-life Catholics are speaking up trying to change the debate.

McCain and Obama answer the question "Could either of you ever nominate someone to the supreme court who disagrees with you on Roe vs. Wade?"

On sex education Obama reinforced his support for comprehensive sex education and improving social support services for mothers and mothers-to-be:

But there surely is some common ground when both those who believe in choice and those who are opposed to abortion can come together and say, "We should try to prevent unintended pregnancies by providing appropriate education to our youth, communicating that sexuality is sacred and that they should not be engaged in cavalier activity, and providing options for adoption, and helping single mothers if they want to choose to keep the baby."

 

VIDEO: One Man’s Experience with Failed Abstinece-only Programs
Earlier in the campaign McCain took flack for a misleading campaign ad on sex education, alleging that Obama was in favor of teaching explicit sex education to kindergartners. Obama clarified that the comprehensive sex education he supports would teach kindergarten students enough to help them defend themselves against predators. McCain has claimed that he would continue Bush’s support for failed abstinence-only policies.

Obama cited the recent Lily Ledbetter equal pay case as an example of his diversion with McCain on the types of justices they would appoint to the Supreme Court:

I’ll just give you one quick example. Senator McCain and I disagreed recently when the Supreme Court made it more difficult for a woman named Lilly Ledbetter to press her claim for pay discrimination.

For years, she had been getting paid less than a man had been paid for doing the exact same job. And when she brought a suit, saying equal pay for equal work, the judges said, well, you know, it’s taken you too long to bring this lawsuit, even though she didn’t know about it until fairly recently.

We tried to overturn it in the Senate. I supported that effort to provide better guidance to the courts; John McCain opposed it.

I think that it’s important for judges to understand that if a woman is out there trying to raise a family, trying to support her family, and is being treated unfairly, then the court has to stand up, if nobody else will. And that’s thekind of judge that I want.