Backsliding on Roe

Some people think Barack Obama can end the culture wars. In historical terms, that would be like predicting in year 50 of the Hundred Years War, that the light at the end of the tunnel was just ahead.

The Culture Wars will continue because it's just about all the right has left. Fiscal conservatism? George Bush knocked that into a cocked hat. An American century backed up by military force? The neocons screwed that up with the fiasco in Iraq. Smaller government? Gone, after Bush in effect nationalized the financial system.

But what did conservatives jump on first in the stimulus package? A family planning program that involved condoms. Many on the right hope that hot-button issues like abortion, contraception, school prayer and creationism will keep people voting against their own pocketbooks and for the tub-thumper issues that the religious right feeds on.

But there are some liberals who are so eager to end the culture wars, and to get back the white male vote, that they are perfectly happy to throw women under the bus. The strategy? Let Roe v. Wade go down and return the issue to the states.

Damon Linker blogs for the New Republic, "How could Obama -- how could liberals, how could supporters of abortion rights -- both win and end the culture war, once and for all? By supporting the reversal or significant narrowing of Roe, allowing abortion policy to once again be set primarily by the states -- a development that would decisively divide and demoralize the conservative side of the culture war by robbing it of the identity politics that holds it together as a national movement."

This issue gains special relevance with the news that Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a firm supporter of women's rights, is battling cancer. Most of us hope Ginsburg will be healthy and back on the court as soon as possible, but her illness underlines the importance of the retreat from Roe by some on the left.

Jeffrey Rosen, a law professor at George Washington University, argued in the Atlantic that overturning Roe might be good for Democrats, because the pro-life forces would overreach, alienating the public. "When the dust settles, in five or ten or thirty years, early-term abortions would be protected and late-term ones restricted."

In the interim, of course, in the states that adopted draconian restrictions, women would have to bear children they could not afford to support, either emotionally or financially. Rich women, as usual, could travel to a blue state, check into an upscale hotel and have the procedure. Poor and working-class women would have a much harder time. We might even see the return of the coat hanger, as desperate women try to self-induce abortions. I remember a time when abortion was illegal, and I know women who went to back-alley abortionists. Some were lucky and got skilled doctors; others had physical problems for years thanks to unsterile conditions or unskilled providers, and the unluckiest of all died at the hands of such people.

Brookings Institute fellow Benjamin Wittes writes, "Since its inception, Roe has had a deep legitimacy problem, stemming from its weakness as a legal opinion. Conservatives who fulminate that the Court made up the right to abortion, which appears explicitly nowhere in the Constitution, are being simplistic -- but they're not entirely wrong. In the years since the decision an enormous body of academic literature has tried to put the right to an abortion on firmer legal ground. But thousands of pages of scholarship notwithstanding, the right to abortion remains constitutionally shaky; abortion policy is a question that the Constitution -- even broadly construed -- cannot convincingly be read to resolve."

But similar arguments were made for years against Brown v. Board of Education. Conservative legal scholars said the decision was more an act of sociology than of law. But if memory serves, no liberals argued that we ought to repeal Brown and bring back segregated schools, because of the "softness" of the decision.

It's certainly unlikely that Barack Obama will appoint a pro-life justice to the court, but it's disturbing that some on the left don't seem to think that women's reproductive rights are all that important. Roe is going to need all the support that can be mustered, because the departure of the Bush administration may bring the extreme factions in the pro-life movement to the fore. Bush after all, kept throwing them goodies to keep them quiet. He appointed to an influential FDA panel on women's health an OB-GYN who would not prescribe birth control to his patients because they might practice premarital sex. He also decreed that women suffering from premenstrual syndrome should read the Bible.

In one of Bush's last moves, he approved a "conscience clause" by the department of Health and Human Services, allowing workers at more than 584,000 U.S. medical facilities that receive federal funding to refuse to provide care or administer procedures with which they disagree, including emergency contraception. The rule could prohibit states from enforcing laws that require hospitals to offer the morning-after pill for rape victims.

As a pro-choice president moves into the White House, will the newly frustrated, violent wing of the pro-life movement return to the days of clinic bombings and the targeting of doctors who provide abortion?

In recent years, reports the Southern Poverty Law Center, many in the pro-life movement have moved away from public demonstrations, alienated by the violent few. "But at the same time, those who have always advocated some violence have become increasingly revolutionary, seeing themselves as fighting a holy war to recreate society in a religious mold. Today, those in the most militant wing of the anti-abortion movement are more and more willing to kill."

Over the last 20 years, violent anti-abortion activists have committed six murders and 15 attempted murders and have also been behind some 200 bombings and arsons, 72 attempted arsons, 750 death and bomb threats and hundreds of acts of vandalism, intimidation, stalking and burglary.

Media images of abortion have moved decisively to the right since the early days after Roe was decided, when it was regarded as a vindication of the rights of women to control their own lives, and to leave the decision of whether and when to bear a child to a woman and her doctor. Today, try to find a television show or a popular film that presents a woman opting to have an abortion with anything resembling approval. More typical is the movie "Knocked Up" in which a female television reporter has a one-night stand with a nerdy slacker and gets pregnant. What does she do? She leaves her job and marries the slob -- who, in the unlikeliest of denouements, magically turns into a good dad and husband.

What's really likely in such a scenario? The woman would end up as a single mother with no job, and the child's father would run away as fast as he could from responsibility.

Today, those who support abortion rights need to argue forcefully that reproductive freedom is an important human right. Women must not be forced by law or custom to bear children without their consent. Roe v. Wade was a giant step for the rights of women, and deserves the strongest possible support from those on the left.

Boston University journalism professor Caryl Rivers is the author of Selling Anxiety,: How the News Media Scare Women (University Press of New England.)

Comments

[JEP57]

"In the interim, of course, in the states that adopted draconian restrictions, women would have to bear children they could not afford to support, either emotionally or financiall­y."

Other than cases of rape or a failed condom, maybe they should've thought of this before they let themselves get pregnant. And don't tell me it was because of a lack of education that they got pregnant. Almost everyone knows how to prevent conception and where to get the devices or pills to prevent it. Condoms can be had for free.

[S1]

I never use the words "pro life," as you have done. Everyone's "pro life," and one of the greatest failings of the choice movement is to allow the anti-choice crowd to own the word "life."

I always use (as I just did) the phrase "anti choice" because, well, that's what they intend, that a woman lose every choice in controlling her own reproductive being.

[kissmygrits]

Great article. I am very tired of white 'liberal' men being anti-feminist and anti-woman. Sick and tired of it. You already have a paradigm in this country which is basically misogynist. The least you could do is literally take your hands off my body.

[RainbowPhoenix]

Even people on the pro-life side, if they think about it, can see that making it illegal, will cause more problems than it solves. A better option is to keep it available, while working to keep it from being seen as necessary. Instead of shaming and criminalizing women, work to prevent the situations that lead to abortions from happening in the first place. Comprehensive sex education and access to birth control. An end to making people feel ashamed of their natural urges. Regardless of our personal feelings, it's not going to go away, so the better option is to keep it safe, while creating an environment that makes it rare.

[mikefarinha]

This comment is pending approval and won't be displayed until it is approved.

"An end to making people feel ashamed of their natural urges. Regardless of our personal feelings, it's not going to go away, so the better option is to keep it safe, while creating an environment that makes it rare."

Couldn't the same thing be said about any type of 'natural desire?'

Maybe we should send free condoms to child molesters so to keep our youth from contracting HIV? After all they shouldn't be shamed of their natural urges. And you can't say pedophilia isn't a natural urge, after all the optimal child bearing age is 14.

Shame is something that is, unfortunately, quickly escaping our culture. Of course shame is a powerful thing, however it isn't a good thing nor a bad thing. It is simply one of many cultural tools used to keep communal order.

[Binea]

You spoke of human rights.Whe­n a woman decides to have an abortion she is choosing to kill another human being,not herself,so she is the abuser of human rights. BTW as long as some in Government deem it ok to use tax payers money to support clinics here or in other countries,that give out abortion litature,or perform abortions ,there will be plenty of amunition.­.and those on the right will be in the right on this one.By using our tax dollars for something we find abhorent you cross the line.I'll gladly pay to support life,never to take it.

[rosiebond007]

Instead of using the word "abortion" as your mantra - try thinking about FAMILY PLANNING.

Support Family Planning in a big way so that abortion will become unnecessary.
Give women ALL the information they need and can use to help them understand all of their actions.

AND TELL MEN TO KEEP THEIR PANTS ZIPPED -
IF THEY CAN'T, THEY HAVE TO BE WILLING TO TAKE MORE OF THE BLAME.

KEEP THE OLD (SENATORS) MEN OUT OF THE BEDROOM - THEY HAVE FORGOTTEN THEIR MIS-SPENT YOUTH.

[NCRDIBULL]

The condom give away was taken out of the bill because it had nothing to do with stimulus 9 well then again).. Roe is now a pro life proponent.­.... NO WHERE IN THE CONSTITUTION IS ABORTION ADDRESSED.­. and nowhere are extermist liberals( progressives) addressing the unborn child

[kissmygrits]

I think you mean fetus or embryo... There is no child until birth.

[sdskelton03]

Nowhere did you mention at all the life of the child in the womb.

My wife suffered our second miscarriage this week. I can't possibly describe the heartache of looking at the ultrasound moniter and the reality setting in that the heartbeat we had seen at week nine was gone just a week later.

To remove our child from the womb, my wife underwent a D and C procedure. The same procedure that is used in an elective abortion.

It is unfathomable to me that someone would undergo that procedure with a living child in their womb.

It is unconscionable to me that anyone could stand for the legality of that practice. Sickening really.

[rosiebond007]

I am sorry foryour loss - it must be heartbreaking.

However, not everyone is in the position of wanting or being able to cope with another child and therefore, their needs are very different from yours. Have sympathy for them too, it's never an easy decision whatever the case.

[kissmygrits]

I guess us women just think our lives and our autonomy is slightly more valuable than a fetus. I know, I know, it's crazy for us to consider ourselves THAT human, but many of us do.

[marxmarv]

Count not anyone else's chickens lest your chickens be counted.

[jcwtts1]

We have two goals, one immediate and one long term. The first begin the vetting process of young liberal women and men who believe deeply that a right to choice is fundamental. We need to be prepared to place our names in nomination quickly. POTUS will get 4 or 5 seats in 8 years. This is the immediate issue. The longer term issue is securing our values for more than a simple generation. We must expand the court and we must do it now, in the first term. The Court switched total membership multiple times in the 1800s. The last change was in 1869 when the number was set at 9. But that is by no means locked in stone. It takes an act of congress to change. I propose, since the population of the US has grown so staggeringly since the 1800s that we add 4 justices to the court over the next four years, bringing the total number to 13. The court politicized itself when it picked GWB for President. Lets teach them a lesson about what happens when you leave the safe ground of Judicial prudence for partisan politics. So, give Obama 8 or 9 seats and lets put all these issues to bed for ever. We win the culture war.

J

[degenerate1991]

If politicians are allowed to pack the courts at their will, then what is their purpose?