Maybe I should just subscribe to the PI instead, eh?

Oregon's anti-choice crowd hasn't made up much ground in the state over the last twenty years. While we do have our conservative streaks (freaky property rights hardliners and anti-tax whacknuts, to name a few), Oregon is very hands off when it comes to laws regulating what people can do with their bodies.

As someone with personal experience making the decision to have an abortion, I'm grateful that we have that unfettered choice.

Oddly tho, the story of the woes of the anti-choice aren't splashed across the pages of our paper of record. The folks up north in Seattle actually dug it up first:

Oregon Right to Life, the state's most prominent anti-abortion group, poured about $725,000 into the parental notification campaign, only to see a spirited campaign waged against it, spearheaded by the local Planned Parenthood chapter, which argued that the initiative could place young girls in danger.

The measure was soundly defeated, with 54.7 percent of Oregonians voting against it. Even in conservative-leaning counties like fast-growing Deschutes in Central Oregon, only a bare majority of voters supported the measure.

Anti-abortion groups also lost their staunchest allies at the Capitol when House Republicans lost control of the chamber. Victorious Democrats have spoken magnanimously of bipartisanship, but that apparently does not extend to any legislation designed to curb abortion rights.

This isn't so much a commentary on abortion per se. I simply find it bizarre that a great piece like this isn't sitting in the A section of the O rather than the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

In my view, its pretty huge that 43 barely squeaked out a majority vote in Deschutes County, one of Oregon's more conservative bastions. The big story in the O today is how Portland commuters have to navigate a maze of construction projects.

While I do find driving around Portland right now to be a monumental pain in the ass, it hardly seems as relevant as the fact that Deschutes County is shading more blue all the time. At least when it comes to social issues.

Eh...or maybe I'm just such a political junkie that my opinion is too skewed to tell.