Is It Murder or Not?

I'm certainly no expert on the abortion issue, but I can recognize bad logic when I see it, and NRO's "symposium" in response to Anna Quindlen's new column is full of it.

Quindlen, writing in Newsweek, asks the obvious question for "pro-lifers" bent on overturning Roe: "how much jail time for women who have abortions?" Unsurprisingly, none of the anti-abortion activists who have been asked can answer. Very few have even thought about it. Quindlen accuses anti-abortion activists of "ignoring or infantilizing women, turning them into 'victims' of their own free will." Anti-choice activists claim, in effect, to want to protect women from themselves. This, she quotes Ruth Bader Ginsburg arguing, is an "anti-abortion shibboleth" reflecting "ancient notions about women's place in the family and under the Constitution—ideas that have long since been discredited."

Quindlen zeroes in on the fundamental flaw in anti-abortion discourse:

Lawmakers in a number of states have already passed or are considering statutes designed to outlaw abortion if Roe is overturned. But almost none hold the woman, the person who set the so-called crime in motion, accountable. Is the message that women are not to be held responsible for their actions? Or is it merely that those writing the laws understand that if women were going to jail, the vast majority of Americans would violently object? [...]

[T]here are only two logical choices: hold women accountable for a criminal act by sending them to prison, or refuse to criminalize the act in the first place. If you can't countenance the first, you have to accept the second. You can't have it both ways.

Apparently the argument strikes a sore note for the "pro-lifers," as NRO recruited no fewer than 17 scholars, activists, and writers to offer rebuttals. What's striking is that none of them can answer the question, either. That's because it is logically impossible to agree with all four of the following propositions: 1) Women are human beings with free will; 2) Abortion is murder; 3) Murder is a crime deserving serious punishment; and 4) Women should not be seriously punished for having abortions.

Every single one of the responses dodges this dilemma. They all pretty much fall into one or more of the following categories:

1. Infantalization. We are told several times that "the woman is the second victim of abortion." Anti-abortion laws are for the "protection, not punishment" of the woman. Abortion is a "billion-dollar-a-year industry" preying on its patients/victims (as though abortion providers were the only medical professionals to accept fees for services, when in fact they're among the least likely to be doing what they do for profit -- but I digress). Women who have abortions are typically in states of mental duress and frequently coerced into the procedure by the men in their lives. Women who have had abortions are "punished" by the inevitable trauma and depression that results from the decision and that will plague them for the rest of their lives. It's interesting that the most common response to Quindlen's argument is precisely to reaffirm what she is saying.

2. The legal dodge. A number of respondents insist, as Hadley Arkes puts it, that "the law does not need to invoke the harshest penalties for the sake of teaching moral lessons." Wendy Long says that:

The law assigns differing degrees of culpability in various situations -- including killing other people -- all the time. If you kill someone in self-defense, you get zero punishment. It does not mean that the guy lying on your kitchen floor with a knife sticking out of his chest is not dead — or not human.

But, of course, killing someone in self-defense is not murder. Is abortion murder? Or is it a lesser sort of killing? If the latter, it can't be because the act is lesser. Are social conservatives tacitly admitting that a fetus is a lesser "victim" than a person?

If abortion is homicide, what kind is it? It's certainly more than criminally negligent homicide, since it involves an intent to kill. It's almost certainly more serious than voluntary manslaughter, which at its worst involves killing "in the heat of the moment" -- hardly the case when the "killer" has planned the appointment ahead of time. Indeed, it's hard to imagine that the "crime" could be anything less than premeditated murder -- murder in the first degree. And perhaps the lawyers reading this will forgive me if I'm wrong, but my understanding of "duress" is that it excuses a person from culpability in committing a crime only if "[she] had good reason to believe, that she would be seriously harmed if she did not participate and had no other way of escaping serious harm." The various excuses the pro-lifers offer would seem to add up to little more than the kind of mitigating circumstances lawyers present in order to secure sentences of life in prison, rather than death, for their clients.

Imagine if Joe Blow kills Jake Smith -- writes "kill Jake Smith" in his appointment book for April 12th and goes out as scheduled and does the deed. Can Joe use the defense that he was stressed out, "young" and "unmarried," without a wife "standing by" him? Can his lawyer argue that "the law does not need to invoke the harshest penalties for the sake of teaching moral lessons?" How would the social conservatives react to such a defense?

Matthew J. Franck accuses Quindlen of committing the "fallacy of the complex question -- treating a compound question as though it were simple." Why do I have a hard time imagining conservatives making this argument when Joe murders Jack -- no matter how complicated the reasons for the killing might be? Is abortion murder or isn't it? If it's not murder, but another form of homicide, why is that? And if it is murder, then does murder deserve serious punishment or doesn't it?

3. The way-things-used-to-be dodge. Walter M. Weber claims that "Quindlen ingores history." Echoing some of the other respondents, Weber argues that, since women were not locked up for abortions prior to 1973, why would they be after Roe is overturned? This seems like a particularly silly argument. Just because Americans tolerated a moral and logical contradiction before, doesn't mean they should tolerate one today. Women were not treated as full human beings in 1972. Should we revert to that mentality? Weber is implying that we should.

4. Ad hominems. There's a distinctly embattled tone in many of the responses -- clearly, anti-choice theorists have heard this argument before, and clearly it frustrates them. Quindlen is derided as an out-of-touch "Manhattan socialite" and an "abortion-industry rep;" her arguments are dismissed as "sophomoric," "desperate," and "smug." None of the nasty adjectives do anything to help these seventeen writers overcome their logical dilemma, though.

5. It's Not the Point. This is in some ways the most interesting response. Again, it dodges the central logical problem, but at least it points to something of a way forward. Ramesh Ponnuru puts it this way:

The crucial legal goal of the pro-life movement is not any particular set of punishments. It is that unborn children be protected in law.

Franck actually comes closest to putting his finger on the problem when he says that "the proper approach (after Roe) is to ask, what policy would reduce the number of abortions as much as possible now?" This is one of the most peculiar failures of the anti-abortion movement. They are so consumed with outlawing the supply of abortions that they are willing to almost totally ignore truly constructive approaches to reducing the demand. This obsession even limits Franck to imagining that somehow policies to reduce the number of abortions can only be developed "after Roe," when in fact there are a number of potential policies -- focusing on women's health, access to birth control, and sex education, among other things -- that could drastically reduce the need for abortions much sooner.

If the goal really is reducing abortions, then why focus on prohibition, which doesn't work? Why not adopt pragmatic policies that will work? Seems to me like a pretty good way around the logical dilemma facing the "pro-life" movement as currently constituted -- at least those who don't want to make the argument that women are not, in fact, human beings, lest they be forced to admit that abortion is not, after all, murder.

Labels: abortion, National review

  ¶ Posted by Paul Curtis 2:18 PM 5 comments

  They're Not Giving Up Yet

You have to admire conservative pundits. Faced with a considerable challenge -- how to keep defending their favorite candidate despite his having openly embraced a pro-choice position that should make him anathema to their party's base -- they're rising to the occasion:

Byron York says the clarity is a good thing, and abortion may not be the deal-breaker it's made out to be.

Charles Krauthammer says... something not entirely coherent, but it has to do with judges.

Mona Charen says that terrorism is the new abortion anyway.

And yet, one suspects that all these efforts to reason their way out of Rudy's abortion dilemma aren't going to amount to much.

UPDATE: On the other side of the fence, Human Events has a copy of a NARAL candidate questionnaire Rudy filled out in 1997. Ruh-roh.

Labels: abortion, Byron York, Charles Krauthammer, Mona Charen, Rudy Giuliani

  ¶ Posted by Paul Curtis 2:05 PM 0 comments

  Rudy's Bold New World

So Rudy Giuliani has, we're told, decided to drop the tortured pretenses and run as an openly pro-choice candidate for the Republican nomination. Ross Douthat has a pretty good analysis of some of the implications:

I doubt that he can win the nomination like this, but it's not entirely out of the question, particularly in a frontloaded primary season where his weaker rivals may not have time to accept defeat, drop out, and allow the anti-Rudy vote to coalesce around a single candidate. (Though a brokered convention - the dream of pundits everywhere - might be a more likely outcome in that scenario.)

The larger question is whether winning the GOP nomination as a down-the-line pro-choicer might prove to be a poisoned chalice. Frankly, if Giuliani being the Republican nominee doesn't prompt a third-party run by a pro-life candidate that cuts into his general-election support, then social conservatives ought to retire from politics out of sheer embarrassment.

In a larger sense, Giuliani's decision makes him a considerably more interesting candidate, since it clarifies his candidacy's role as a significant litmus test for conservative and Republican politics. Are there circumstances in which a candidate can win the GOP nomination despite openly rejecting the anti-abortion position that has been so important to the strength of the party's base over the past two decades?

One might argue that many conservatives are reaping what they have sowed since 9/11: having done so much to spread paranoia over what they depict as an epochal clash of civilizations, and to encourage simple-minded hero worship and glorification of the strong leader in response, these conservatives are confronted with the harvest: a candidate whose power to reject fundamental elements of the conservative movement's agenda is drawn precisely from his ability to profit politically from those "long war" themes.

Of course, it might also be seen as a test of the relative strength of those conservative elites who have never cared much either way about abortion versus those who are dedicated to keeping the issue at the center of the conservative project. To put it more concisely: if you simply follow the money, how far will it take you?

History tells us that the conservative party in American politics tends to fare quite badly when it lacks a mass populist wing. Like it or not, for modern Republicans the anti-abortion movement is that wing. Can they survive without it? Will they dare to try?

Labels: 2008, abortion, conservatives, Presidential election, Republicans, Ross Douthat, Rudy Giuliani

  ¶ Posted by Paul Curtis 11:54 AM 2 comments

  What's Next for the Anti-Choicers?

Couldn't post yesterday, which was almost a blessing because I wouldn't have known where to start if I did. This blog is deliberately non-newsy, focused more on underlying histories and trends in the conservative movement, with some running commentary on the GOP horse race thrown in. But sometimes the news is impossible to ignore.

Yesterday's big story, of course, was the Supreme Court's ruling on so-called "partial-birth abortion." You'll find far better legal, medical, and philosophical analysis at other sites - I'll limit my own contributions to a brief look at where this ruling fits in the larger scheme of things for conservatives.

For Michael J. New, writing at the National Review, the lesson is that "incrementalism works" as an anti-choice strategy:

The ruling is a good indication pro-lifers would do well to continue this strategy of incrementalism in the future.

Indeed Wednesday’s decision was made possible by pro-lifers whose hard work resulted in a Congress, a president, and a Judiciary who were all supportive of the partial-birth-abortion ban. This decision builds on the Casey v. Planned Parenthood decision, argued almost exactly 15 years ago. Casey strengthened constitutional protection for public-funding bans, parental-involvement laws, waiting periods, and informed-consent laws. The Supreme Court’s decision on Wednesday extends constitutional protection to yet another piece of pro-life legislation.

In New's analysis, the incremental strategy succeeds because it allows the the anti-choice movement to establish fresh narratives drawn from the margins of the abortion debate, where public opinion is less settled and therefore more susceptible to the "pro-life" line. It's a sort of bait-and-switch approach, which seeks to center unusual procedures like "partial birth abortion" as the symbolic face of the debate: defining the norm according to the extreme.

[I]ncremental legislation often serves an important informational purpose. Many people pay little attention to politics and are unaware of the permissive polices the United States has regarding abortion. Many do not know that in many states a minor can obtain an abortion with out her parents’ knowledge. Furthermore, many do not know that a woman can obtain a legal abortion during her ninth month of pregnancy. As such, it is undeniable that the national campaign to end partial-birth abortion gained a considerable amount of publicity and was effective in moving the general public toward a more pro-life direction.

As New observes, the incremental strategy has only recently achieved a degree of consensus among anti-choicers:

While this may seem relatively uncontroversial in pro-life circles today, the battle between incrementalists and purists at one point was extremely divisive. Many pro-lifers are too young to remember the bitter battles within the pro-life movement during the late 1970s and the early 1980s about the best way to design a human-life amendment.

Now by the mid 1980s most pro-lifers realized that a constitutional amendment was not a realistic short term political goal. As such, the strategy of most pro-life groups shifted toward changing the Supreme Court. This enjoyed somewhat broader support and tensions cooled somewhat. However, it is possible that a reversal of Roe v. Wade could reignite these tensions. Legislators may be called to dismiss incremental legislation in favor of politically infeasible laws that would eliminate abortion entirely.

This is the other trend lurking within the movement; it has been manifested in moments of overreach like the South Dakota abortion ban and even the failed attempt to impose forced sonography in South Carolina. The incremental approach requires a great deal of discipline - all the more so, one would think, as it begins to succeed. With each victory, anti-choice extremists will be tempted to see the endgame on the horizon, and to break ranks in pursuit of it. This, as New seems to realize, threatens to undo the movement altogether. "The pro-life movement would do well to remain united," he argues, pointing out that in a broad sense abortion rights have gained durable public support since Roe. It remains unrealistic for anti-choicers to anticipate overturning that consensus - but they can keep chipping away at the margins, through "parental-involvement laws, waiting periods, and informed-consent laws." In this analysis, things are going the anti-abortion movement's way, but only if they don't go too far.

Ed Whelan, of the conservative Ethics and Public Policy Center, is downright enthusiastic about the possibilities of the incremental strategy in the wake of yesterday's decision. Writing at USA Today, he calls for an ambitious series of next steps:

Americans now have the green light to enact state partial-birth bans modeled on the federal ban. Legislatures should also pursue more robust informed-consent rules on, for example, ultrasound imaging and fetal pain.

In contrast to New, who seemed to focus on gradually changing the terms of the debate and actually trying to reduce the number of abortions (however mistaken his analysis), Whelan seems to see an opportunity to regulate abortion out of existence. Licking his chops at the prospects of "further improvements in the court's makeup," Whelan sounds very much like one of those reluctant incrementalists who, having had a taste of blood, is anxious to surge forward - discipline be damned.

The editors of the Wall Street Journal, on the other hand, are far more cautious. "Yesterday's abortion ruling," they say, "was only a baby step."

Not only did the Court not overrule its Roe and Casey decisions, it didn't even overrule Stenberg v. Carhart, the 2000 decision that overturned a Nebraska law banning partial-birth abortion. Instead, Justice Anthony Kennedy upheld the 2003 Congressional ban because he said it was more narrowly drawn. "The Act makes the distinction the Nebraska statute failed to draw," he wrote, "by differentiating between the overall partial-birth abortion and the distinct overt act that kills the fetus."

[...]

Justice Kennedy had been a dissenter in Stenberg, so changing his position would have been a little too protean even for him. The fact that he wasn't willing to overturn even Stenberg suggests that this Court is not in the mood for sweeping reversals of precedent. As for Messrs. Roberts and Alito, the Court's opinion also gives no clue about how many abortion precedents they might be willing to overturn. The Court has shown a very modest new deference to the will of the voters on abortion, but no more.

What this does represent, to the Journal's editors, is a chance to debate an abortion-related issue in state legislatures. The issue itself might be a narrow one, but it's a sort of rehearsal for the large-scale shift that "respectable" conservatives want to achieve: by overturning Roe and Casey, they intend to make abortion policy a question for state politicians to decide. You have to admire how neatly this dovetails with the entire conservative history of disingenuous federalism: we all know by now what support for "state's rights" really says about one's opinion on civil rights.

At any rate, the editors are not wrong about one thing: "Americans are ambivalent about abortion, with a majority wanting it to be legal but also rarer than it is now." Yesterday's ruling happened because enough Democrats were willing to sign onto a law that dealt with a very marginal aspect of the abortion debate. I'm certainly no expert on the politics of abortion, but one thing seems to be getting clearer: the heart of the matter now rests on the question of reducing abortions, one way or another. The central dilemma for anti-choicers - the fact that most Americans support legal abortion in principle - is not going away. Serious anti-abortion activists are turning to an incrementalist strategy, but the question is whether they will be able to maintain the discipline to keep it up. Meanwhile, the pro-choice movement has the opportunity to exploit the very same context - ambivilent but broad support for abortion rights - in a different way, by taking up a prevention-first strategy. There are two strategies here, almost mirror images of each other, but aimed at very different goals.

Labels: abortion, Supreme Court

  ¶ Posted by Paul Curtis 11:04 AM 2 comments

  SC Says No to Forced Sonography

Via Feministing - Another stumble for the anti-choicers:

A legislative panel on Thursday dropped a measure from an abortion bill that would have made South Carolina the only state to require women to review an ultrasound images of the fetus before terminating a pregnancy.

The anti-choice movement has made the promotion of sonography a major part of their strategy. At the conservative summit, Robert George paired it with "de-funding" abortion as a primary focus for anti-choice efforts going foward. Talk to Action, in the course of a very interesting profile of prominent anti-abortion doctor Eric Keroack, described how Keroack "pioneer[ed] the use of ultrasound as a high-tech weapon in the war on abortion."

[T]he A Woman's Concern centers directed by Keroack delay women's access to abortion care by suggesting to them that early miscarriages are common, that they could have an ectopic pregnancy or a blighted ovum, and that it would be best to wait a few weeks before making an appointment for an abortion: "For the CPC counselors, meanwhile, the extra 2-3 weeks provide another opportunity to persuade the woman that she should continue her pregnancy. And if the process calls for a follow-up ultrasound examination, there is one more opportunity for the mother to bond with her unborn child."

As T2A notes, the use of sonography for non-medical purposes has been condemned by professional medical organizations, but since when have legitimate scientific or ethical standards mattered to the obscuritanist fringe?

The proposed South Carolina law represented the first attempt to actually require women to have sonograms. Rightfully, the provision was denounced as totalitarian, and dropped from the larger bill:

"[The revised bill] is not forcing a woman to do something against her will," said Sen. Linda Short, the only woman in the Senate and a member of the subcommittee that dropped the measure.

The whole thing echoes the South Dakota abortion ban fiasco. Once again, the anti-choice movement overreaches in a conservative state, and once again they suffer an embarrassing defeat.

Labels: abortion, Feministing

  ¶ Posted by Paul Curtis 3:37 PM 0 comments

  More Conservative Warnings for Rudy

John Podhoretz in the NY Post: "Get real, Rudy: You're blowing your White House Run."

As a presidential candidate, you seem to be winging it these days - giving off-the-cuff, ill-considered answers to delicate questions. If you keep winging it this way, you're going to fly off a cliff.

Cal Thomas at Townhall: Giuliani is a contortionist:

If Giuliani believes in a strict construction interpretation of the Constitution, he could not support abortion, because a strict constructionist does not find language permitting it. For him to take the position he does on abortion and then to say he would nominate strict constructionists to the bench twists him and the law into a pretzel.

Giuliani says people who don't like his position do not have to vote for him. Many social conservatives who view abortion as a make or break issue are likely to follow his advice.

The good news for Rudy is probably that at least all these pundits are talking about him (poor Sam Brownback).

The bad news is that the abortion issue is beginning to consume his candidacy just as surely as many predicted it would.

Labels: 2008, abortion, Presidential election, Rudy Giuliani, social conservatives

  ¶ Posted by Paul Curtis 7:23 AM 0 comments

  Rudy's Abortion Blowback

Rudy Giuliani appears to have been seriously damaged by his recent abortion gaffe, which opened the door to fierce conservative criticism of his record on abortion and the courts generally. As pieces like this one appear across the nation, the editors of the National Review pile on:

Since his announcement, he has said that, in his mind, a strict constructionist judge could as easily rule to keep Roe as to scrap it. He has continued to misrepresent pro-lifers as seeking to throw pregnant women “in jail.” He has refused to rule out signing federal legislation codifying Roe should it be presented to him as president. And, most troublingly, has reiterated his longstanding support for taxpayer funding for abortion.

The NR editors are, unsurprisingly, fixated on this last issue. They find Giuliani's logic incoherent and offensive:

The mayor’s rationale for abortion funding is bizarre. Putting his statements together and reading them as charitably as possible, his argument is that so long as the Supreme Court says abortion is a constitutional right state governments have an obligation to help poor women afford it.

Note that governments have no such legal obligation: The Supreme Court, in a series of cases from 1977, ruled that they do not. So Giuliani must (we again assume charitably) be positing some kind of moral obligation to carry out the Supreme Court’s work beyond its writ. Combine this view with Giuliani’s other constitutional musings, and the results get stranger still. Giuliani has said in the past that people should have to show good character and get federal licenses before buying guns. Now he says, without repudiating those past statements, that the courts should read the Second Amendment to protect an individual right to own guns. So should states spend money to let poor people pack heat? Or will women need to show good character and get federal licenses before they have abortions?

Mayor Giuliani has tied himself in knots. His position makes neither logical, moral, nor political sense. Many conservatives are disappointed, and hope that their disappointment is not going to grow as the campaign wears on.

Coming from the NR's editorial board, this criticism indicates a turn against Giuliani by conservative opinion leaders.

Labels: 2008, abortion, National review, Presidential election, Rudy Giuliani

  ¶ Posted by Paul Curtis 10:19 AM 2 comments

  The End of the Litmus Test?

Yesterday I wrote about an article by Noemie Emery at the Weekly Standard, which argues that Rudy Giuliani is positioned to win the GOP nomination despite his "socially liberal" tendencies. Emery's analysis of Giuliani's appeal is convincing enough, but let's look a bit more at whether the litmus test is really endangered.

Emery argues:

After 30-plus years of fierce, intense arguments, much emotion, and many polls taken, both sides in the abortion wars have been mugged by reality, and realize that neither is likely to reach its major goals soon. Dreams of outlawing abortion on the one hand, or, on the other, of seeing it funded, legitimized, and enshrined as an unassailable civil right, have faded in the face of a large and so-far unswayable public opinion that is conflicted, ambivalent, and inclined to punish any political figure it sees as too rigid, too strident, or too eager to go to extremes. For this reason, no politician shrewd enough to make himself president is likely to go on a pro-life or pro-choice crusade.

Activists are becoming increasingly sophisticated both in accepting the political complexities of the abortion debate, and in recognizing that a president's personal beliefs in fact have little bearing on the state of play. Emery acknowledges that, for many dedicated conservatives, this kind of subtle analysis is unconvincing. But, she says, "the surprising thing is that these debates are occurring at all."

This is why early assessments of Giuliani's possible weakness may be misleading, among them polls indicating that many social conservatives would never back a pro-choice nominee. They do not show what might happen if the nominee pledged not to push for a pro-choice agenda, or if he were endorsed and supported by conservative icons who vouched for him, campaigned with and for him, and swore to their backers that he was all right.

The deal in the works has been carefully crafted to make sure that no one loses too much. Conservatives would be getting a pro-choice nominee, but one who would not push a pro-choice agenda, and one who would give them (as far as presidents can be sure in these matters) the kind of judges they long for. Giuliani would not be required to renounce his beliefs, merely to appoint the right kind of judges and to remain more or less neutral in a policy area in which, to be honest, he has never shown that much interest. The Republicans will remain the pro-life party--as desired by the bulk of their voters and required by the workings of the two-party system--though now with a larger, more varied, and in some ways more competitive field of candidates.

Emery suggests that Democrats, too, might move away from an abortion litmus test - but that's another discussion entirely.

For Emery, the litmus test has been problematic from the beginning, dictating from the extremes a debate in which most Americans fall somewhere in the conflicted middle:

It has been a very good deal for the people who imposed it, but a very bad one for the country at large. It has meant that a candidate for national office must begin by embracing ideas that have been rejected by seven in ten of Americans, while a candidate who comes close to the center of public opinion would never be allowed to compete.... Worst of all, it posed the real possibility that a candidate would come forth who seemed equipped to deal with a crisis, but who, because he held the "wrong views" in the eyes of the interest groups, would not be allowed to emerge.

That crisis, of course, is terrorism - and the man who "seems equipped" to deal with it is Rudy Giuliani, President of 9/11.

I don't know enough about Emery to guess whether this is strictly objective analysis, or whether she is a Giuliani sympathizer making a case for Rudy's viability.

I do know that Ramesh "Party of Life" Ponnuru disagrees with her. Citing the need to look beyond the "negative connotations" of the term "litmus tests," Ponnuru asks what the phrase really means:

Only that some people have the nerve to prefer candidates who agree with them on the issues that they care about.

He criticizes Emery for being "too quick to declare, and to celebrate, its demise."

[M]y own guess is that pro-life and pro-choice voters will cease to care about the views of presidential nominees only when the politics of abortion is de-nationalized: which is to say, after Roe v. Wade has fallen.

It seems Emery is putting the cart just slightly before the horse: she argues that anti-choicers will support a candidate as long as he promises to appoint the judges to overturn Roe; Ponnuru seems to think they'll believe it when they see it - and meanwhile, litmus test away.

At any rate, Ponnuru doesn't think the litmus test has been such a bad thing at all:

No cost-benefit analysis is complete if it looks only at costs, as Emery does. What have been the benefits of the pro-life “litmus test”? It has kept open a question that the courts, among others, have repeatedly and arrogantly tried to declare closed. It has helped to promote policy changes that have brought the abortion rate down. It has made the Republican party a more conservative party across the board; and it has furthered a campaign to restore the judiciary to its proper place in the constitutional scheme of things, a campaign that would have gotten nowhere without it.

One could apply a pretty cynical analysis here. The abortion litmus test has indeed given discipline and impetus to the conservative agenda. It has done so at the cost, to anti-choice true believers, of electing presidents who pay lip service to an extremist anti-abortion agenda, but are powerless to actually do anything about it. And thus, considering how much political damage the Republican party would suffer if Roe were ever actually overturned, from the point of view of a GOP operative, the litmus test has perhaps been a pretty great thing all around.

Labels: 2008, abortion, Presidential election, Rudy Giuliani, social conservatives

  ¶ Posted by Paul Curtis 3:38 PM 0 comments

  The Rage and Despair of the Fundamentalists

Very interesting article by Chris Hedges at Alternet, on how "the radical Christian right is built on suburban despair." As Hedges explains, ordinary radical fundies are not stupid, just alienated and desperate:

[S]he had found in the fight against abortion, and in her conversion, a structure, purpose and meaning that previously eluded her. The battle against abortion is one of the Christian Rights's most effective recruiting tools. It plays on the guilt and shame of woman who had the abortions, accusing them of committing murder, and promising redemption and atonement in the "Christian" struggle to make abortion illegal, in the fight for life against "the culture of death."

[...]

In the United States we have turned our backs on the working class, with much of the worst assaults, such as NAFTA and welfare reform, pushed though during President Clinton's Democratic administration. We stand passively and watch an equally pernicious assault on the middle class. [...]

The stories believers such as Learned told me of their lives before they found Christ were heart breaking. These chronicles were about terrible pain, severe financial difficulties, struggles with addictions or childhood sexual or physical abuse, profound alienation and often thoughts about suicide. They were chronicles without hope. The real world, the world of facts and dispassionate intellectual inquiry, the world where all events, news and information were not filtered through this comforting ideological prism, the world where they were left out to dry, abandoned by a government hostage to corporations and willing to tolerate obscene corporate profits, betrayed them.

They hated this world. And they willingly walked out on this world for the mythical world offered by these radical preachers, a world of magic, a world where God had a divine plan for them and intervened on a daily basis to protect them and perform miracles in their lives. The rage many expressed to me towards those who challenge this belief system, to those of us who do not accept that everything in the world came into being during a single week 6,000 years ago because it says so in the Bible, was a rage born of fear, the fear of being plunged back into a reality-based world where these magical props would no longer exist, where they would once again be adrift, abandoned and alone.

I've already quoted too much, but there's a lot more worth sharing. Go read it all.

(h/t: slacktivist)

Labels: abortion, Alternet, Chris Hedges, fundamentalists

  ¶ Posted by Paul Curtis 2:27 PM 0 comments

  De Rigeur in the Anti-Choice Set

Brownback is the new black: Hotline reports from the anti-abortion march in Washington on the label everyone wants to wear.

Sorry, Mitt.

Labels: 2008, abortion, Mitt Romney, Presidential election, Sam Brownback, social conservatives

  ¶ Posted by Paul Curtis 3:53 PM 0 comments

  Mitt Romney at NRO: Vive la Difference!

(Cross-posted at Daily Kos)

This morning at the National Review, K-Lo puts Mitt Romney through his paces, as the Governor from the Great State of Dukakis/Kerry continues his effort to pander to conservatives. Given how the GOP spent 2004 redefining Massachusetts as "France, only worse," it can't be easy for the guy.

To the tune of "I Walk the Line":

Lopez asks Romney about comments he made in 1994, when he argued that gay marriage should be an issue decided by the states and denounced "extremist" Republicans ["People of integrity don't force their beliefs on others, they make sure that others can live by different beliefs they may have" - whoops! Don't let Dr. Dobson hear you talking like that!]:

GOV. ROMNEY: These old interviews and stories have frequently been circulated by my opponents ever since I took a stand against the Massachusetts supreme-court ruling on same-sex marriage. This being the political season, it is not surprising this old news has appeared again. But I have made clear since 2003, when the supreme court of Massachusetts redefined marriage by fiat, that my unwavering advocacy for traditional marriage stands side by side with a tolerance and respect for all Americans.

Like the vast majority of Americans, I’ve opposed same-sex marriage, but I’ve also opposed unjust discrimination against anyone, for racial or religious reasons, or for sexual preference. Americans are a tolerant, generous, and kind people. We all oppose bigotry and disparagement. But the debate over same-sex marriage is not a debate over tolerance. It is a debate about the purpose of the institution of marriage and it is a debate about activist judges who make up the law rather than interpret the law.

I agree with 3,000 years of recorded history. I believe marriage is a sacred institution between a man and a woman and I have been rock solid in my support of traditional marriage. Marriage is first and foremost about nurturing and developing children. It’s unfortunate that those who choose to defend the institution of marriage are often demonized.

Shorter version: "I supported civil rights until the courts started trying to enforce them."

You certainly get the sense that Romney has been carefully studying his conservative lexigraphy. One of the benefits of being a Republican is that if you want to appeal to conservative voters, there are certain pre-packaged words and concepts you simply need to cite in order to demonstrate your bona fides. It's a remarkably effective way for a political movement to exercise control: provide the specific language that politicians must use. Orwell understood this. In this case Romney sees the obvious out: this isn't about teh gays, it's about "activist judges who make up the law rather than interpret the law." A million conservative heads nod in unison: check.

On abortion:

LOPEZ: In a 1994 debate with Senator Kennedy, you said “I believe that abortion should be safe and legal in this country. I have since the time that my Mom took that position when she ran in 1970 as a U.S. Senate candidate. I believe that since Roe v. Wade has been the law for 20 years we should sustain and support it.” [...] What is your position on abortion today? On Roe? How do you account for what is obviously a change — certainly publicly — on the issue?

GOV. ROMNEY: My position has changed and I have acknowledged that. How that came about is that several years ago, in the course of the stem-cell-research debate I met with a pair of experts from Harvard. At one point the experts pointed out that embryonic-stem-cell research should not be a moral issue because the embryos were destroyed at 14 days. After the meeting I looked over at Beth Myers, my chief of staff, and we both had exactly the same reaction — it just hit us hard just how much the sanctity of life had been cheapened by virtue of the Roe v. Wade mentality. And from that point forward, I said to the people of Massachusetts, “I will continue to honor what I pledged to you, but I prefer to call myself pro-life.” The state of Massachusetts is a pro-choice state and when I campaigned for governor I said that I would not change the law on abortion. But I do believe that the one-size-fits-all, abortion-on-demand-for-all-nine-months decision in Roe v. Wade does not serve the country well and is another example of judges making the law instead of interpreting the Constitution.

What I would like to see is the Court return the issue to the people to decide. The Republican party is and should remain the pro-life party and work to change hearts and minds and create a culture of life where every child is welcomed and protected by law and the weakest among us are protected. I understand there are people of good faith on both sides of the issue. They should be able to make and advance their case in democratic forums with civility, mutual respect, and confidence that our democratic process is the best place to handle these issues.

This one is particularly neat: "It was the plight of the stem cells that made me see the light!" I hope some communications consultant got a bonus for that one. (He also includes another dig at those wacky activist judges and - what's that high-pitched whistling sound? - a jab at "experts from Harvard.")

The answer is actually a pretty half-assed attempt at sounding moderate while going after the anti-choice vote. He burps out some vacuous rhetoric about "civility, mutual respect," and the "democratic process" to at least make a show of covering his butt as he makes the only promise that matters here: a President Romney would appoint justices who would overturn Roe v. Wade. Operation Rescue will take care of the rest. There are ways to approach the abortion issue from a consensus-building perspective. This ain't it.

And in case there's any confusion on the matter:

LOPEZ: Does that mean you were “faking it” — as one former adviser has suggested — as a pro-choicer in your previous political campaigns? Why should anyone believe you’re really pro-life now?

GOV. ROMNEY: I believe people will see that as governor, when I had to examine and grapple with this difficult issue, I came down on the side of life. I know in the four years I have served as governor I have learned and grown from the exposure to the thousands of good-hearted people who are working to change the culture in our country. I’m committed to promoting the culture of life. Like Ronald Reagan, and Henry Hyde, and others who became pro-life, I had this issue wrong in the past.

Lesson learned: Mitt Romney, unlike the majority of Americans, is anti-choice.

Of course, Romney was for civil rights and choice before he was against them. Is 2008 the year that the Republicans nominate a flip-flopper from Massachusetts?

(Paul)

Labels: abortion, gay marriage, Kathryn Lopez, Mitt Romney, National review

  ¶ Posted by Paul Curtis 10:19 AM 0 comments