An Honest Question

If 65% of Americans support Roe v Wade, who's doing more damage to the Democratic Party:

• Groups that support choice?
• Bloggers who continue to marginalize choice?

Comments

[Susie from Philly]

You girls really ought to shut up, sit down and let the boys fix everything. Have you thought of doing a recipe blog instead?

[Roxanne]

Actually, I've been looking for a good recipe for tamale pie.

[doghouse riley]

Is this a trick question?

Do tell me, someone--what's the distinction between a "single-issue group" and someone who insists that all other concerns be subjugated to his own vision of the best PR stance for the Democratic party? I can think of but one: if the single-issue groups win, we know what we're getting. If we succeed in winning elections after adopting some wonk's idea of how to pander to Red State voters, we wind up with...what?

I know November '04 was painful. Is that some reason to dwell there forever like some Democrat Miss Havisham? And just how is it that someone attuned to the daily ins and outs of politics still imagines the Republicans are one big exercise in precision marching?

And hey, you wanna give up something for the good of the Party, how 'bout starting by not climbing on the Pork Train before it pulled out of the station? Not a single Democrat voted against the Highway bill. But I guess fiscal sanity would constitute another single issue.

[eRobin]

He's not a fucking gatekeeper!!!

[eRobin]

Sorry for the double post - I forgot to mention that Digby has this nailed down:

You want to see some aggressive progressives -- here they are. NARAL. Fighting for what they believe in. They are getting this issue on the front page of the NY Times and they aren't backing down. Good for them.

[Scott Lemieux]

No no, you don't understand--the Democrats need to punt abortion at the first possible opportunity. Except for abortion, people in Alabama and Kansas strongly favor the Demoratic principles. And it's not like wealthy liberals in New York in California will stop voting for Democrats if they abandon women's rights. Do you seriously think a pro-choice Republican could become governor of New York or California? Please.

[Chris Clarke]

Kos said:

Because when Democrats regain power, choice, the environment, worker's rights -- the whole gamut -- will be protected.

By "protected," of course, he means "eroded at an incrementally slower rate."

What a fucking putz. I guess it's not just GOP koolaid drinkers who rewrite hstory.

[Lee]

Exactly right, Chris. And what's really disturbing about the DKos quote you pulled is that it implies that a Democrat-led government would be some sort of benign dictatorship. We'll appeal to the masses by telling them what they want to hear, and then we'll force the vegetables down their throats once we're in power.

This isn't just ethically questionable, it's also impractical. I mean, the Popular Front won a lot of power back in the '30s, but they seem to have lost most of it in the intervening 60-odd years (in the sense, you know, that no such alliance now exists). You can't protect women's rights and the environment if the status quo discourse in this country coniders those things to be "extreme" concerns. These "single-issue" groups are doing more to protect these things by talking about them and forcing individual candidates to be judged on their positions on these issues.

The real problem today, after all, isn't just that the right-wing is in power, but that all politics are sliding rightward. I don't read Kos regularly, but from what I've seen he seems to be part of that problem.

[John]

Not to be contrarian, but I think Kos has an important point that seems to be getting glossed over in the hurry to vilify him.

"So NARAL goes around endorsing Republicans like Chafee because they talk a good game about choice. But then, Republicans like Chafee vote for people like Trent Lott and Bill Frist as majority leaders. And then they vote to confirm reactionary anti-privacy, anti-choice judges like Janice Brown"

His primary point here is that NARAL should support Democrats in general, not because it is the way to win back red-staters, but because blue-state pro-choice Republicans just go to the Senate (or wherever) and cooperate with the powers that want to destroy choice. While an anti-choice Democrat is going to go to the Senate and cooperate with the powers that want to preserve choice (Has anybody been watching Harry Reid since the start of the year? Anti-choice? Yes, but nonetheless he's actually working hard and getting things done for our side!).

Kos is correct on this point.

[FIGMO]

Oh Eff Kos. On this he is wrong. I was in the army when in Jimmy Carter took the right of a safe, legal, government paid, abortion away from women who qualified for military medical care. That meant, paying for (and privates don't get paid all that much) an expensive, sometimes illegal abortion on the local economy or self financing (if you were given the time off) a trip back to the states where you could pay for your own abortion. This was especially difficult for military women in Korea, Italy and other such countries. Military women in remote states such as Montana or Idaho also had a problem. These were democrats who made the military woman's health care a secondary concern. Tell me again how democrats will protect my rights? Lets get real. If it is a woman's issue, 'most' men don't give two hoots about it.

[Anon]

Kos is a toadie for whoever happens to be payings his bandwidth bills this week. He and his puppetmasters are mad because the NARAL girls didn't get their permission first.

[badgerbag]

That's so infuriating! God, those women and their petty issues.

You know those pregnancy simulation vests? All guys should have to wear them for a few months, maybe when they hit 16 years old. At the *very least*. Nevermind simulating the hemorrhoids and lifelong downward mobility. The brutal interference by the state with their bodies should go a long way to scare 'em.

And to get the simulation vest thingie removed they should be required to travel to another state, run a gauntlet of Operation Rescue simulators, spend at least 500 bucks - or they have the choice of back-alley vest removal which involves a life-threatening unsanitary rectal exam with a coathanger.

[tas]

If I were editing your blog for a day, I'd replace the word "honest" in your title with "ridicously simple and rhetorical" question "that if you don't know the answer to, you deserve to get spanked".

There are probably some good reasons why I'm not an editor.

[cookie]

It seems one thing that Kos is pointing out, albeit in a rather sexist way, is that NARAL should be bit choosier about who they endorse and look at the big long-term picture of how to protect our reproductive rights. And that point is well taken.

However, to some (men without testicles, for instance) choice can be a political issue, and for others (women with unwanted pregnancies, for instance) it is a very personal issue.

[media girl]

I think NARAL's approach is to take reproductive rights out of the Democratic Party context and put it into the American people context. NARAL does not exist to back a political party, it exists to advocate on a fundamental issue of liberty, privacy and equal protection under the law.

That is not a party issue, and the Democrats' insisting that NARAL not "put out" for others is patently ridiculous. NARAL is not the Democratic Party's bitch.

If only women's rights weren't constantly used as a political football, maybe we'd all be better off.

[JDC]

“Comrades, [Squealer] said, “I trust that every animal here appreciates the sacrifice that Comrade Napoleon has made in taking this extra labour upon himself. Do not imagine, comrades, that leadership is a pleasure! On the contrary, it is a deep and heavy responsibility. No one believes more firmly than Comrade Napoleon that all animals are equal. He would be only too happy to let you make your decisions for yourselves. But sometimes you might make the wrong decisions, comrades, and then where should we be?”

[Pepper]

I'm happy that NARAL ran that ad. Yeah, I do blame the bloggers who marginalize choice.

I thought up until very recently that electing the Democrats would act as an umbrella protecting all the rights I treasure. Then I started thinking more and more about what it meant that Hillary Clinton and others were moving toward the middle.

And I don't like it one bit. Once you give up a right, it's awfully hard to get that right back. And I don't want my uterus to be in limbo while everyone's hoping the Democrats get the majority.

[Jenny K]

yes, yes, yes, to what media girl said.

The civil rights, women's suffrage, and feminist movements did not make progress by allowing the party that was "better" on these issues continue to frame the debate in terms of Republicans versus Democrats, but because they forced the debate to be reframed in terms of average Americans (or traditional American values) versus extremeists.

It makes sense for NARAL to have a higher bar for "rewarding" Democrats than for "rewarding" Republicans. Their goal is to improve things, not just maintain the status quo.

I think a part of the problem is that many (male?) liberals don't think that progress still needs to be made on women's rights. They're quite content to pat themselves on the back for something their elders accomplished and work on pretty much just maintaining the status quo.

[Agi T. Prop]

No no, you don't understand--the Democrats need to punt abortion at the first possible opportunity. Except for abortion, people in Alabama and Kansas strongly favor the Demoratic principles.

I've always thought that if the Democrats went "pro-life" they'd start winning elections. If they did, most of the pro-choice crowd would probably abstain from voting rather than vote Republican. I don't advocate this but I think it would work for the Dems would it not?

[StealthBadger]

I don't think Kos is saying drop abortion. I don't think anyone is saying drop anything. I think what's being said (and it's a damn good point) is that the GOP is fighting on EVERYTHING AT ONCE, as a unit.

The only way to counter this is for the different progressive organizations to cover each other's backs and lend their voices to each other's causes. The "fantasy conservatives" have been building an interlocking social and political structure ever since Jimmy Carter was elected, and have been using it to devastating effect. Unless the single-issue organizations focus on the people first (and people are a whole tangle of messy issues) and the individual issues second, attacking them at the most fundamental level: Do we want government to have the power to arbitrarily legislate who we may or may not give custody of our children to if we are suddenly killed in an accident? To mandate what a girl will do with the rest of her life because of a lapse in reason, when there is a safe, if unhappy solution to offer her, if she's just not ready to become a mother? Do we want government to be able to say that an artificial legal abstraction essentially is superior in rights, privileges, and power to a human being? Do we want these super-beings to be able to deny us the right to collectively express our needs and bargain with pretty much the only lever we have against them, the productive ability we have learned with our minds and bodies? It just doesn't end, because the issues that the would-be theocrats would enforce don't end, *ever.* The only places those backed by the Dominionists will not intrude (and there is no guarantee of this, which is what gives me hope that the GOP coalition will explode), is where their financial backers have shown they have a vested interest.

In general, the grassroots supporters of those who have grabbed control of the GOP believe firmly that Bush represents their interests, even when it is demonstrable that he does not. Therefore, all these various organizations have to work together to educate, teach, assist, and make a hell of a lot of noise - because each group acting alone, right now, is only strong in one very narrow area. Unless we fight on all levels, then we might as well just pack up and head to Canada, or become surly malcontents doing nothing but bitching about the good old days.

So if you find yourself disagreeing with another progressive about something, ask yourself this: Do you want to support the government's right to decide the question? Before you answer, realize that the government's answer will probably be one neither of you like. And if it's a matter of social assistance, ask yourself if you would rather hope that someone else come along and do something about it if you can't, or whether it's necessary enough that it should be considered an immediate and serious material need, and therefore the provenance of government, which is supposed to "promote the general welfare."

Bah. I talk too much. But little turf wars like this piss me the hell off. Abortion is a serious issue. DUH. With the exception of civil rights as a whole, for this country it's the defining issue of the whole damn century, and one that is CRITICAL to women! I got that part!!! But the theocrats are aiming for complete adherence to Biblical law - not just a piece of it. And they cannot be opposed piecemeal. We've been trying it for a long time, and we're getting eaten alive.

[liza Sabater]

Hey Rox, where did you get that 65%? The last Harris Poll measured in at 52%.

And Stealth Badger, when you say

I don't think anyone is saying drop anything. I think what's being said (and it's a damn good point) is that the GOP is fighting on EVERYTHING AT ONCE, as a unit.

The only way to counter this is for the different progressive organizations to cover each other's backs and lend their voices to each other's causes.

I say, ROCK ON !

[Roxanne]

If you click through the link you'll see where the 65% comes from.

[Jen Sorensen]

Um, does anyone remember that little march in Washington last year where 1.15 million people gathered to support choice? That's roughly 1 in every 300 Americans. That's huge.

I also saw a statistic while in Idaho earlier in the year that 59% of Idaho -- IDAHO! -- is pro-choice.

Choice is a winning issue for the Dems, as is the woefully-ignored issue of the environment.

[Jenny K]

Agi T. Prop

Was that meant to be a joke? If pro-choicers aren't voting, who is left to vote for the Democrats? Do you think all the Sanatorums of in the country are going to suddenly switch parties because Democrats dump women's rights?