| |
|
There's an interesting article by Zoe Williams about this - and I never thought I'd say that.
I have. I'm not ashamed.
There's a follow-up, which summarises the view succinctly and well, I think:
The prevailing attitude these days seems to be that abortion is state-sanctioned murder and we put up with it because if we didn't, women would have them in back alleys anyway. It is the lesser of two evils, therefore, and as such, must be cloaked in silence, since whichever way you look at it, it still has an evil at its core. This line has taken hold because it is the least controversial way of supporting the right: so an MP standing up and saying "Women need this right, because otherwise they will put their health at risk having illegal terminations" will not find the pro-life lobby instantly rearing up against them, petitioning their constituents with what a murderer he or she is. If, however, an MP were to stand up and say "I am pro-choice because I do not consider this to be murder. I do not consider it to be evil. I do not consider a foetus which a woman has a one in three chance of involuntarily rejecting anyway to be a viable life unless she deems it so. I do not buy this craven sentimentality about the unborn, this pseudo-spiritual cleanliness we ascribe to it. In fact, it makes me sick", then votes will be lost. In other words, there are no votes to be won supporting abortion in an ideologically honest way, and lots to be lost.
Personally, I am neither pro nor anti-abortion. I've never had one, I am in no danger of needing one. I am pro women having the right to have abortions. Nothing has convinced me that those who would seek to deprive women of the right to control their own fertility in this and a number of other ways are other than misguided, actively cretinous or morally repulsive.
However, there appear to be people out there who would vote for the Democrats if only they were a bit more socially repressive - I don't know what other cultural issues Lyons is unhappy. There are also people who are sufficiently easily persuaded by right-wing rhetoric that they unconsciously parrot meaningless bollock phrases like "partial-birth abortion". Basically, there are a lot of people who are socially or sexually a bit backwards, but who might nonetheless be prepared to support the Democrats, and thus broadly possibly nudge the US away from its current course, if only by a few degrees, if the right noises were made. After all, the whole point here is that these people are gullible - so, for example, there is no mention of overturning Roe vs Wade in that article. There is mention only that at one point Harry Reid voted for a nonbinding resolution opposing Roe vs Wade. That's just sleight of hand, really
However, it's very difficult to negotiate that space. First, because people who are misguided, cretinous or repulsive are also unprincipled in their pursuit of their goals, and people who are socially or sexually backward are often ethically backward also. If you invite them to your table, you can't really get too upset if they wee in the salad bowl. Second, if you turned up to dinner to find that your seat was adjacent to a doctrinaire nutter with two tiny feet attached to their lapel, you probably wouldn't want to visit again. If the Democrats do start weaseling seriously on abortion, their socially liberal supporters, and the socially liberal and libertarian population of the US unattached to a political party, will give up on them in disgust and simply stop voting. And where would the new votes come from? The Christian Right? Devout Catholics? Is there really a big enough group of people who, like Lyons, would vote Democrat if it weren't for "cultural issues" - and if so, what else will they want to be won over, and who would the Dems alienate in offering it to them? |
|
|
