Reply #174: I think you are deeply, fundamentally wrong here. (long) [View All]

[Warren DeMontague]

On several different levels. It's obvious you're philosophically opposed to abortion, and that's certainly your right. However, abandoning Roe v. Wade will not be like "ditching a lead anchor", it would be a horrible mistake and probably the last nail in the coffin of a Democratic party that has consistently wimped out and sold it's principles off at the altar of supposed "electability".

First off, on abortion itself: You toss around the slavery metaphors like a true member of Operation Rescue. All you left out was the obligatory reference to the Dredd Scott decision. You briefly acknowledge that a "woman's own body" is also involved, but that right there is the big difference between a woman with a post conception fetus and a "slave owner"... A fetus is not a slave working in a cotton field, it is in a position wholly unlike anyone else in our society in that it is wholly dependent upon the physical being of another for it's survival. See, if your cousin needed a liver transplant, and you were the only person who could be a donor, would you be obligated to provide it to him? No? Why not? He's got a "right to life", yes? But not to your body. If a fetus has a "right to life", does it also- from the moment of conception- have more of a right to a woman's body than the woman, herself, does? By allowing the right to criminalize abortion, however "morally indefensible" you may think it is, what we are saying is that the government should be able to have more control over women's bodies than they should themselves. That they should be able to force women, against their will, to remain pregnant. That the most personal decision of all should be made by anonymous, impersonal forces.

You say that "the pro-lifers have won the PR war" about abortion. You are wrong. The majority of Americans are firmly pro-choice. The right-wing talking heads went out of their way before this election (the one you call the "recent poll" on the matter) to say that because of terrorism, etc. (not to mention gay marriage) abortion was "irrelevant". They say this because they know they are in the minority on the issue. The GOP makes sure to float a few big name pro-choicers at each convention because they understand where the public sits on this matter. They may be uncomfortable with abortion, but they certainly don't want the government making that decision instead of individual women.

You say that "obviously rape would be an exception", but have you really thought through the logistics on this, or on other end-result realities once televangelists start writing abortion laws? Go to most pro-life websites, and there, (right next to where they state that criminalizing the birth control pill is part and parcel of their agenda) they will talk about how "rape is no excuse" and "how are we going to stop women from lying that they were raped?"... How, indeed. I suspect the plan is to go back to the days where pregnant women were forced to stand in front of long card tables full of strange men, and explain why, precisely, they were attempting to get an abortion.

The GOP is in deep shit on abortion, and all we really need to do is wait. The worst thing we could do is abandon our core principles, even if that's what a significant portion of the nabob contingent here keeps exhorting us to do. See, they have reached "put up or shut up" time with regards to abortion. The pro-life religious right contingent feels that it's payback time. Yet the groups who comprise a big portion of the intellectual and financial base of the GOP are fiscally conservative vaguely libertarian types, who just hate paying taxes.. and they think Bush is stringing the googly-eyed religious crowd along. I suspect the GOP is very close to implosion over this, and I, for one, am prepared to sit back and enjoy the show. And in case you hadn't noticed, we're the minority party right now. Sitting back and watching is about all we can do.

Rather than doing what you propose, I say we reframe the debate. Call the religious right on their commitment to "life". They support a war based on lies and misinformation, don't they? They oppose policies that would make it easier for poor people in our society, don't they? I think anyone who says they oppose surgical abortion should be asked what precisely- aside from trying to make it illegal- they have done to reduce its incidence. How about supporting research into safer, more effective birth control? How about making the pill, and even the morning after pill available OTC? Comprehensive sex ed as opposed to "abstinence only"? A liveable minimum wage? A Single Payer Health Care System, because what is 45 million americans -ex fetuses, all- with no health insurance, if not a moral travesty?

What I'm not prepared to do is abandon my commitment to choice. Neither, I'm sure, are the 1.2 million other people, who like me, came out to DC to march for choice last april in the largest march the mall has ever seen.