Category: Politics

Don’t Become That Which You Hate

I’ve said this before, but something in a comment thread over at Shakes’ place got me going enough to want to say it again.

Thread commenter Eric said:

once Roe is overturned, you are going to see a profound shift in the political landscape as women realize that their own civil, and reproductive, rights are being supressed by male legislatures. The Democrats will then have a strong rallying cry, and perhaps an infusion of support by women as they realize the difficulties, hardships, and dangers of back ally abortions.

Overturning Roe will be the turning point in the destruction of the religious wing-nut’s power over the Republican Party.

This attitude infuriates me. It is just as odious an argument for progressives to make as it is for the wingnuts who sit safely behind their keyboards, cheering on the Iraq war. The bottom line for both types is: It’s all good as long as someone else does the dying.

Progressive who argue this line of reasoning are generally sitting safely in deep-blue states or are financially well-off in red states. The only reason they consider the overturn of Roe to be an acceptable turn of events is because they assume that they will be able to insulate themselves from the casualties.

My question to them is: How many deaths do you consider to be “acceptable losses” before it happens?

And a few follow-ups: What if it was not some anonymous women in Red states who had to do the dying for Roe? Are you willing to let your wife / daughters / sisters / cousins / friends be the ones who have to bleed out on their kitchen floors or die from massive infections? And if you’re not, then why are those other women’s lives expendable?

In short, isn’t that the exact thing we’re fighting against?

On Chess and Choice

Each game of chess means there’s one less
Variation left to be played
Each day got through means one or two
Less mistakes remain to be made…

Chess (Anderson, Ulvaeus, Rice)

Today’s actions were just one early move in the bigger chess match that is abortion rights in America today. I’m not surprised at the latest burst of outrage around the blogs, but remember the big picture here, gang. South Dakota Governor Mike Rounds’ signing the bill was a forgone conclusion. It doesn’t start to get interesting until someone — presumably Planned Parenthood — files their challenge to the law and the courts get into gear.

This is chess — think a few moves ahead. Not only is this law on the fast track to SCOTUS, but in addition, it’s also nicely timed for the 2006 congressional election cycle. You can bet your bootie that congressional candidates all across the country are going to be asked to weigh in on their beliefs about women’s reproductive rights by way of their comments on this case.

So, vent your spleen all you like, but save some energy for the battles to come, becasue come they will. And if you can, consider tossing some $ to Planned Parenthood; they’re going to need it.

Time, by the way, has an interesting look at this issue. It’s worth a read, here’s a snippet:

In a country where two thirds of the public does not want to see Roe vs. Wade overturned, but nearly as many favor stricter limits on abortion, pragmatic abortion opponents have pushed for parental notification laws, waiting periods, restrictions on late-term abortions: The strategy was to chip away at Roe to try to shrink it, change its shape, and over time promote a

A Bit Late To The Party But…

Still, this is worth posting:

Scott and I were talking about Iraq in the context of Lebanon instead of Vietnam the other day. What bothers me is that it took less than 300 US casualties of Marines to get the US out of Lebanon, yet with this set of jokers in Washington, the kind of attack that killed 241 Marines in one day in Lebanon will be seen in the context of Iraq as a reason to throw even more members of the US armed forces into harm’s way.

Civil war in Iraq, should it come, is not a good thing for anybody. Not for us, and definitely not for them. Whether it can even be stopped is the question at hand. And I really have no idea. I’d like to hope that a full-out civil war in Iraq is not inevitable, but the cynic in me says that cooler heads generally don’t prevail until after a lot of blood has been shed.

They Didn’t Wait Long, Did They?

Three states have ruled that a Federal law banning late-term abortions is unconstitutional, but SCOTUS has decided they need to look at the case as well. Uh oh. That doesn’t bode well.

And Shakes delivers a nice smackdown in response:

The big question, of course, is what is the point of ramming through this legislation [that restricts abortion] without a provision that allows it in cases where the mother

Cheney Discrepency List

There’s a piece on the AP wires today with a long list of all the discrepencies around last weekend’s Cheney shooting. I do think this story is going to fall off the news cycle soon, but it’s a nice summary for those who’re interested.