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**Hekate** · (This post was last modified: 02-19-2011 05:00 AM by Hekate.)

California Representative Jackie Speier has already endured more than any person should have to in one lifetime. She survived the ambush at Jonestown when she was a young legislative counsel to Leo Ryan, though she sustained 5 bullet wounds in the ambush that killed her boss. She almost lost her arm and leg from her wounds.
She married a surgeon, had a son, and then had repeated miscarriages and years of failed fertility treatments. While she was finally pregnant again at age 43, her husband was killed in a car accident.
http://speier.house.gov/index.cfm?sectio...itemid=240

And on the 18th of February this week, we learned something more about Jackie Speier's courage.

During an outrageous assault on Planned Parenthood in the US Congress, by means of which right wing radicals intend to destroy it as they destroyed ACORN, Republican Chris Smith of New Jersey described a dilation and evacuation abortion in graphic detail and said PP is a place where babies are "exterminated." The vitriolic and incendiary language had been going on for some time, but this was the last straw for Ms. Speier.

"I lost a baby," Speier began softly, admonishing Republicans for graphically describing the procedure she had endured. "But for you to stand on this floor and to suggest, as you have, that somehow this is a procedure that is either welcomed or done cavalierly or done without any thought is preposterous."

The article and video clip are here and are well worth viewing in their entirety.
http://www.mercurynews.com/peninsula/ci_...ck_check=1

I seriously doubt that even one Republican gives a good god damn about her pain or the pain of other women. Although there was applause in the House after she finished speaking, at the end of the day the House voted on party lines to cut off all funding to Planned Parenthood, although not one penny of government money has ever gone for abortion. She spoke of her tragedy once before, in 1996 as a member of the California Legislature, and afterward in a closed door session a Republican colleague said of her testimony, "Jim Jones didn't finish the job."

Jackie Speier says of Leo Ryan:
Leo Ryan is often the forgotten element of the Jonestown story. Not only is he the only member of Congress ever to be assassinated in the line of duty, more important, he was the only congressperson that thousands of Americans, from his district or not, knew they could trust when no one else would listen. He didn't win all his battles, but to Leo, the fight was as important as the outcome. There is a quote from Winston Churchill that reminds me of Leo Ryan: "Success is never final, failure is never fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts."

I suspect the same might be said of her. She joins my limited pantheon of heroes.

Hekate

edit for typo

**nofurylike** · 02-19-2011, 04:46 AM

that is beautifully and powerfully written, Hekate. what an inspirational message about, and from a true hero.

she is now my hero too, thank you so much.

***azmouse*** · 02-19-2011, 11:16 AM

I've been seeing her on the tv and hearing her on the radio a lot in the past few months.
I like her more and more every time I hear her speak.

**OptimistesMaddie** · 02-19-2011, 01:51 PM

If you have not seen any of the documentries about the Jonestowne masacre with 1st hand accounts and the attack on the government officials please make an effort to do so.

Ms. Spears is an amazing woman and I have admired her since seeing the documentries. She could have walked away from government but she didn't.

**Cha** · 02-19-2011, 02:07 PM

Thank you, Hekate..I hadn't heard of her until now. How courageous she is..Jackie Speier!

What does that even mean "Jim Jones didn't finish the job"?

***azmouse*** · 02-19-2011, 02:12 PM

(02-19-2011 02:07 PM)Cha Wrote: Thank you, Hekate..I hadn't heard of her until now. How courageous she is..Jackie Speier!

What does that even mean "Jim Jones didn't finish the job"?

It was a crude and nasty beyond belief comment and the Republican scum who said it should be kicked out of office. He was saying he thought she should have been killed in the Jonestown massacre by Jim Jones' henchmen.
My blood boils at that comment.