It’s not easy for me to get excited about the whole reproductive rights fight. I know it’s a huge deal with many women, but I also know that a lot of women were excited to see Trump win in 2016 in the hope of overturning Roe. I’m told by the choice side that since I do not have a uterus, I should have no say in theirs. Then they ask me for help in supporting reproductive rights. For me, it a minefield. It’s also not part of my daily life and has never been a concern for me, personally. I have two sons, no daughters. My wife is past her reproductive years. Before I go any further, let me assure the reader that I am on the side of the pro-choice side and would never vote for anyone who was not. But again, I can’t get too exited about it, while I fully understand the passion others have, on both sides.
So how does the Pro-Choice Side get my attention and get me to march?
Change the narrative.
This is about a minority of right wing religious extremists forcing their radical views on others, though the legislature and the courts. While an important issue, this is about much more than women’s reproductive rights. It’s about the separation of church and state, freedom from religion, and individual liberty.
What happens after they are successful in overturning Roe based on religious dogma? Not just any dogma, far right wing Christian evangelical dogma. Do you think after Roe is overturned these people will fold up their tents and leave the fight? Hell no they won’t. Their extremist views will not allow it.
They are coming for you next.
So what’s next? Medicare, Medicaid, the ACA are all contrary to their ideology. Given their way, we would all be in health care sharing ministries. They would do away with the state and instead force us to rely on “faith based” charitable institutions that, by the way, won’t pay your medical bills if you do not have regular attendance at group worship, have sex outside the bond of male/female marriage, drink alcohol, or are engaged in any other non-compliant behaviors, whatever the elders deem those to be.
What about alcohol? We tried prohibition before and may be forced to try it again. After all, to these people in power in our government, it’s all “God’s Will”….as the Bible clearly warns about the destructive and addictive nature of alcohol .
Social Security? Nope, that has to go as the Bible stands in opposition to the Social Security system enacted in America.
While today’s battle is on the field of women’s reproductive rights, the battle being fought is far reaching and, if the extremists have their way, will affect us all and force us to submit to their far right extremist religious demands.
You bet your bippy they’re coming after us.
These are people who assert that sex between consenting adults that is outside the narrow boundaries of their religious belief is an “abomination”. This movement seeks to return criminal sanctions (including incarceration) for those who enjoy oral and anal sex. These crazies condemn such activities among hetero couples just as much as among members of the LGBTQ community.
The battle against abortion rights also very much includes an attack on access to artificial contraceptives. The bigots who attacked gay ordination in the Episcopal Church used that as ploy for their real target — the ordination of women. In the same way, the extremists who attack abortion use it as a ploy to limit access to artificial contraception. The right-wing attacks on Planned Parenthood target its role as provider of birth-control far more than abortion — the latter is a very small part of the organization’s activity, while the former is its central mission.
As the baby-boomer generation begins collecting social security and medicare, there will be increasing demands to cut those benefits. The same political forces who are attacking women also oppose paying social security and medicare benefits to all of us. Those forces will wrap those attacks in religious garb and pander to the same right-wing religious extremists that they’ve so completely won over in their current attacks on women.
They ARE coming after the rest of us.
First, they came for the abortion providers…
My personal evolution on this issue (and we are talking from soft pro-choice with some pro-life views to strong pro-choice) mainly comes down to the fact that it’s actually about personal freedom and economic freedom. It really isn’t a social issue at all. Kids are expensive, and the people who have to pay for them should be the ones who decide how many they can handle.
I think the rational thing for the pro-life side of the aisle to do is to join us in making kids less expensive via paid leave and universal health care and tuition free public college. I think the rational thing for the pro-life side to do is to cosign the free IUD pilot in CO that halved that states abortion rate and reduced its teen pregnancy rate by two thirds.
They don’t do this because they aren’t rationall. As my dad would always say when we argued about this issue “they want women to have the babies, but they refuse to pay for them”. He may have stolen the argument from on of our favorite comedians.
My cynical take is that they will not overturn Roe because they know that is a losing issue. The lower circuits will kill the more extreme regulations. This ends up being a win win for the GOP though. Trump can attack those lower circuit judges and keep the evangelicals in line for 2020 while keeping the country club Republicans fat on tax cuts without going too far to the right. It’s been a successful playbook for 40 years.
The way to disrupt it is to go after the Sam’s Club moms who don’t want Mike Pence making them have a third or fourth kid. The way to disrupt this is by making Cory Gardner and Susan Collins own their far right in reality record on choice. Making affordable access an issue is a winner with women all across America.
They aren’t rational because they believe they are doing God’s will. The religion they espouse is the antithesis of rational. It is a peculiarly fundamentalist definition of faith — quite modern in theological terms, by the way, coming as a reaction to the advances of 19th century science — that defines “faith” as specifically rejecting rationality, facts, and evidence in favor of dogma.
This cohort actually DOES believe that women exist to make babies and pleasure their husbands (not too much, though, and only in ways that are able to produce babies). This culture demands that women be virgin until they are married, then skilled professional sex workers (but only for the husband). We must not shy away from the reality that this is rooted in the self-serving dogma of the institutional Roman Catholic church — EVERY child must be raised in the Roman Catholic church. EVERY Roman Catholic must attend mass at least once per week. NO Roman Catholic wife must ever use artificial contraception. No Roman Catholic husband should ever go to sleep wishing his wife had had sex with him that night.
The Republican Establishment did not expect Donald Trump to become President. The Republican Establishment may not expect Roe to be overturned, but it’s very likely to happen. The Republican Establishment has been stuffing the Judiciary with incompetent right-wing religious nut-cases for a long time.
I think the Republican Establishment has lost control of the Frankenstein it created.
A tangent, but one of my favorite Christian left bloggers recently passed away. Rachel Held Evans was a great evangelist for a post-religious right Christianity refocusing on social and racial justice. She also very strongly kept her beliefs in the traditional liturgy and traditional creeds, leading her to the Episcopal church. She never rejected her evangelical identity, but she did reject a lot of its theological underpinnings she had been raised in.
If anyone doubts how anti-woman the religious right is, they should read her Year of Biblical Womanhood. She spent a year living her life according to the literal teachings of the book to expose how irrational they are. I also liked Searching for Sunday, it came to me during a time in my life when I rejected the church and helped bring me back. Her death at such a young age is a tragic loss for her husband and kids, but also leaves a void in the conversation. I do think there is a via media between a purely atheistic materialist view of the world devoid of divine teaching on morality or majestic mystery and the draconian dogmas of the religious right.
Though whenever anyone argues for Biblical (or Koranic for that matter) gender roles, they need to be reminded that much of those teachings were actually an improvement over the status quo.