It’s no secret that the self-proclaimed Party of Liberty seems to take great interest these days in what happens in the realm of OPP-Other People’s (insert your usage for P here, we’ll go with ‘Pants’ in the name of decency). Whether it’s their stance on DADT, gay marriage or a women’s right to choose, the modern Republican Party really, really needs to know what’s going on down there, and put a hard stop to it if said goings-on fail their purity tests.
It’s not merely the zeal with which the GOP takes an interest in these things-it’s the outrageously vile lengths to which some lawmakers will go in order to achieve this goal. Senate candidate Todd Akin (R-Missouri/In Yo’ Business) and his ‘legitimate rape’ moment of opinion-sharing stupidity is only the latest in a recent litany of conservative politicians and activists floating ideas about abortion the would heretofore been referred to as ‘extreme’.
And that’s where things get scary.
See, it’s not as though a woman’s choice on abortion has been a long standing, Constitutionally guaranteed right-like the right to carry any and all implements of high-powered-death-dealing. Prior to Roe v. Wade, more than half the states in the nation had laws on the books outlawing abortion, period, no exceptions.
That fact standing, it’s not surprising that someone, somewhere, has been looking for ways to chip away at a woman’s right to choose in the interceding 39 years. It took until 2003, though, with a GOP-controlled Congress and White House to get the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act, subsequently upheld by a grossly conservative Supreme Court in 2007. That’s where it started getting ugly for women.
Whereas the ruling in Roe held that:
“We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins. When those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary, at this point in the development of man’s knowledge, is not in a position to speculate as to the answer.”
This is where the Overton Window, personhood legislation and the thrashing-against-reality members of the GOP collide.
Brief primer/refresher on the Overton Window-it’s essentially considered that somewhat narrow area where acceptable policy debate can occur. ‘Moving’ the window essentially consists of convincing some decent sized portion of the electorate that a given policy position is ‘reasonable’. Another way to put it is to say that one side or the other is moving the goalposts on a given policy discussion.
The GOP has successfully done it on fiscal policy, taxes and national security. I’m very scared that they are pulling the same con on a woman’s right to choose. Look at tax revenues or the defense budget, and the results of this effort are clear.
Look at the so-called ‘personhood’ legislation that’s been proposed in multiple states. While there’s some solace in the fact that, put to a popular vote, personhood has gotten trounced in Mississippi (not exactly a hot bed of Progressivism) and Colorado, it’s frightening that there’s enough support behind a position such as personhood to get on the ballot.
It’s frightening because it seems possible that, by presenting as reasonable the idea that a fertilized egg sitting in a fertility clinic lab somewhere, frozen for potential use in an in-vitro procedure, is actually a full-on human being with human rights, suddenly banning abortion post-conception isn’t so crazy. The fact that there’s even a conversation about ‘only in cases of rape and incest’ is a significant blow to women’s rights.
For all the teeth gnashing over Todd Akin and even Paul Ryan, and their shared record on anti-choice legislation, the GOP is still lining-up lock step behind Ryan, who presents the same ideas as Akin, albeit in a more mainstream-sounding manner. Further, Karl Rove may have bailed on Akin, but some pretty prominent conservatives like Mike Huckabee still voice support for his lunacy.
There will always be extreme views that make their way into our national discourse. We’re a diverse country, and we’re encouraged to speak our minds. It is when those views gain 200+ sponsors for a bill in the United States House of Representatives that we should concern ourselves with the direction our discourse is taking, and the impact of that move on the very real policies that govern our nation. The longer we allow the conversation on a woman’s right to choose to be pushed and pulled to the far right, the more ground women lose as it pertains to control over their own bodies.
