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It’s Blog for Choice Day: why I’m pro-choice.

by Bill Prendergast on January 23, 2013

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Here’s why I’m pro-choice, and have been for more than thirty years: it’s not a human being.

If we were talking about protecting the life of a human being, then we’d have to admit that Roe was incorrectly decided and a woman has no fundamental right to choose to terminate a pregnancy in the first trimester. The purpose of law is to protect human life, interests, and rights.

But when we’re talking about protecting life in the womb, we’re not talking about protecting a human being–we’re talking about a fertilized human egg (a zygote,) a blastocyst, an embryo in the first trimester. Those things aren’t human beings.

I’m going to tell you why I’m sure a fertilized human egg isn’t a human being. But first: let me tell why some pro-life physicians think they are. (CONTINUED)
From a pro-life physician’s standpoint, the fertilized egg is a human being from the moment of conception. Here’s why:

Pro-life physician argument one: It’s the result of mating between two human beings, therefore the resulting living thing must be considered human. (Paraphrase: If its mom was a human and the dad was a human, the thing growing in mom’s womb has got to be human–right? I mean–it’s not a chicken…)

Response: Even if the mom was human and the dad was human…the result of that union does not necessarily constitute a human being. A hypothetical to demonstrate: A man is decapitated in a horrible traffic accident. Via some miracle of cooincidence, physicians with the proper equipment are on the scene, and via another medical triumph: they manage to keep the victim’s heart beating, blood pumping, lungs breathing. They take the victim back into the hospital–and there, with the help of medical equipment of the future: they are able to enclose and stabilize the victim–and keep the heart beating, the blood pumping, the lungs breathing.

Unfortunately the victim’s head was destroyed in the accident. So even though the physicians can continue to keep the victim “alive”: there is no technology or chance that the victim’s mind and consciousness can ever be restored.

Question: in that state we’re imagining–can the victim be considered “a human being?”

It’s a philosophical question and it’s a matter of opinion, but I think most of us would answer “no.” Even though this thing is “alive” (heart beating, breathing, etc.) and even though it is undoubtedly human as a matter of species (the offspring of a human mother and father)–I think that those facts alone are not enough to qualify this entity as “a human being.”

(If you think my gory hypothetical story is too far-fetched to be relevant: consider the philosophical and moral dilemma regarding the fate of human beings who have irretrievably lost mind and consciousness and self-awareness through illness and accident. Consider the questions facing surviving family and care-providers and society in those cases, and you will see that my gory hypothetical about “what constitutes a human being,” is far-fetched but quite relevant.)

For the same reason that most people would say the victim in my story is no longer a human being: I believe that that “human life” does not “exist from the moment of conception.” Just like the victim in my story: no mind, no consciousness, no self-awareness–none of those things, at this given point in time…means that the thing the thing we are talking about is not “a human being.” The fact that it was a human being or will become a human being (because its progenitors were human) doesn’t mean that it is a human being, regardless of stage of development or circumstance. And the fact that the tissue is human as a matter of species isn’t determinative either: as we saw with the headless, breathing victim, “species” isn’t the essential determinant in concluding something is a human being.

2) Pro-life physician argument two: It’s alive, it’s a living thing. When you terminate a pregnancy, you’re killing a living thing.

Response: True, but irrelevant. If the thing that you are terminating is not a human being, there’s no real moral or philosophical issue to quarrel about. (Unless you believe (as some minorities around the world do) that killing any living thing is a transgression.) The entity growing in the womb from the moment of conception is living, but so are the carrots growing in my garden, so is the fish I’ll have for dinner next week, so is a dog that I might have to put down due to serious illness. Killing a human being is usually objectionable; ending life that isn’t human is permissible in countless circumstances.

So I concluded that a thing without mind or consciousness or self-awareness is not “a human being” (or “person” if you like the relevant constitutional language.) Even if it is the living result of human procreation–these facts, by themselves, are enough to qualify it as “a human being.”

Now an opponent of Roe would say: that’s just your opinion. Yes. That’s my opinion, that’s my conclusion–in the same way that a Roe opponent’s opinion or conclusion is “just his philosophical or religious or logically derived opinion; his conclusion.”

There is no reason why a Roe opponent’s opinion about “what constitutes a human being” should trump mine, and become law. But there are at least two reasons why my opinion about “what constitutes a human being” should trump that of a Roe opponents.

The first reason is the Roe decision itself. It is the law of the land, handed down by a lawful government. It indicates that my opinion is supported by law and that the opinion of Roe opponents is wrong. (If the courts and legislature believed that Roe opponents were right, and that a fertilized egg or blastocyst or embryo is indeed a human being or “person”: these officials would end the Roe policy. And they haven’t. Thus: my opinion that an embryo is not a human being “trumps” the opinion of a Roe opponent, as a matter of law.)

The second reason my opinion seems to trump that of a Roe opponent: the verdict of the American people on the issue. For forty years the American people have accepted the Roe decision and stood by it. They’ve stood by the right of a woman to choose to have an abortion in the first trimester (despite strenuous and chronic attempts of Roe opponents to end that right.) Once again: if the American people believed that a fertilized egg or embryo in the first trimester constituted a human being–in the same way that they are human beings–they would demand that Roe be overturned.

They haven’t demanded that and they’re not demanding that now. On these grounds, my personal opinion once again “beats” the opinion of a Roe opponent, in that my personal opinion on this matter has more societal support.

I understand: just because my opinion coincides with that of officials who regularly consider the matter, that doesn’t end the controversy over “what is or is not a human being.” In our culture personal moral, philosophical and religious matters of opinion are not decided by elected officials and judges. And they shouldn’t be. But when there is a disagreement about which choices are prohibited and which are permitted–elected officials and judges are charged with deciding that. So as a practical matter, their opinion as to “what is/is not a human being” is authoritative.

And I also understand: just because my opinion coincides with that of that of the majority that condones and supports Roe: that doesn’t end controversy about “what is or is not a human being.” The fact that an opinion enjoys widespread support doesn’t mean it’s correct. But in a representative democracy, the majority’s opinion counts for a lot in determining which rights we have, which choices are permissible.

So a Roe opponent has a right to maintain their opinion as to “what is or is not a human being”–regardless of the fact that the law says otherwise and society at large says otherwise.

But a Roe opponent does not have the right to use law to force a Roe supporter to act in accordance with that opinion–against the verdict of officials recognizing Roe as law, against the verdict of fellow citizens who continue to support Roe. Roe opponents have no such right…

…no matter how fervently they are convinced that “a human life is in existence from the moment of conception.” That is their personal or philosophical or religious belief; Roe opponents have no right to bind the choices of fellow citizens who disagree with their personal, philosophical, or religious beliefs. (I wouldn’t use law compel one of them to choose abortion despite their personal belief on this matter of “what is a human being.” So why do they assume they have the right to use law to prevent fellow citizens from acting on their personal belief on the same matter?)

Those are some of the reasons I’ve always supported reproductive choice. There are other, equally important reasons. For example: I believe in the right of a woman to control decisions affecting her own body, health, and life.

If I’m sure–as sure as I can be–that a fertilized egg is not “a human being” in the same sense that you or I are human beings…what makes Roe opponents think they have the right to force me (or anyone else) to behave as if it is a human being? The truth is: they have no such right; not as a matter of law, logic, or public morals.    

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Why I’m pro-choice

by Dan Burns on January 22, 2013

(Today is NARAL’s eighth annual “Blog for Choice” day.  This year, participants are being asked to share their stories about why they’re pro-choice.)

I have an unusually copious and accurate memory, and I retain a vague but definitely real recollection of being at Catholic Mass, as I was every week with my family, the Sunday morning after Roe v. Wade was handed down. I was eleven, and in the congregation; it wasn’t my turn to be an altar boy, that week. And while I certainly can’t reproduce his words, I know that there wasn’t shouting and ranting on the part of the priest.  A grim determination, to see this purported horror righted, and soon, was what came through.

I don’t think that I really knew what was going on, with the abortion thing.  But if conservatives were against abortion, than so was I, because I was definitely a hard-nosed little conservative.  I eagerly read the Reader’s Digest and the American Legion magazines that were delivered monthly to the door, and spent many fascinated hours piecing together those little plastic models of warplanes and battleships. Your typical small-town boy from the Upper Midwest, I suppose, except that I read a lot more, and without much of an understanding of editorial bias.

More below the fold.
My political views didn’t make their great leap leftward until my junior and senior years of high school, and though I’ve thought about it long and hard, I can’t precisely say how and why that happened. I do know that it had a lot to do with a growing realization of how things really work in this world, and of the vast chasms between the pious platitudes that many proclaimed in church and elsewhere, and the ways in which they really behaved. But a lot of it was probably more or less subconscious, grounded in a general sense of compassion and indignation at unfairness. Over the years, plenty of other progressives who grew up conservative, with whom I’ve discussed this matter, reported similar experiences.

The point of these autobiographical notes, in this context, is that I can’t identify a particular experience or realization that made me the (vehement) pro-choicer that I’ve always been as an adult.  Some of it certainly has to do with my scientific understanding of how bizarre it is to claim that an insensate lump of protoplasm is somehow endowed with “rights” surpassing those of the woman in whose uterus it happens to be. And another part of it is grounded in an understanding of the horrors that result when full reproductive choice is not legally available.

But there’s no “eureka” moment that I can share and – this is the real point – that might work to persuade others. I think that it’s mostly just believing in basic human rights, like those of women and girls not to be used as man-serving baby boxes, or those of anyone not to be forced into wars. (I drew that parallel deliberately; both are grounded in “I/we control/own everything of yours; your life, your health, your reproduction, everything.”) And I don’t know of a way that works, on a large scale, for getting through to reactionaries with all of that. Crude dogmatism and cognitive rigidity, in unfortunately massive quantities, really are among the greatest challenges of all to overcome. But, progress has been, and is being, made.

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House fails to pass VAWA

by Dan Burns on January 3, 2013

In its waning days, the one-of-the-all-time-worst 2011-12 version of the U.S. House of Representatives blocked the Violence Against Women Act. Atrocious and indefensible.

Back in April, the Senate approved VAWA reauthorization fairly easily, with a 68 to 31 vote. The bill was co-written by a liberal Democrat (Vermont’s Pat Leahy) and a conservative Republican (Idaho’s Mike Crapo), and seemed on track to be reauthorized without much of a fuss, just as it was in 2000 and 2005.

But House Republicans insisted the bill is too supportive of immigrants, the LGBT community, and Native Americans — and they’d rather let the law expire than approve a slightly expanded proposal. Vice President Biden, who helped write the original law, tried to persuade House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) to keep the law alive, but the efforts didn’t go anywhere.

And so, for the first time since 1994, the Violence Against Women Act is no more.

More on this, expressed with righteous vehemence, here.

I see no reason not to anticipate the same kind of War on Women zealotry from Congress in 2013.  Attacks on health care…efforts to attach anti-choice riders to every bill…etc., etc.,…when all that they have left is appeals to ignorant paranoia, what else can one expect?

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U.S. abortion rate declines

by Dan Burns on December 14, 2012

Of course a lot of purported, ideology-driven “explanations” for that are pretty ridiculous.  This emphasizes the one that makes all the sense in the world.

It is interesting to note that trends in abortion rates match the current trends in teen pregnancy rates. The teen pregnancy rate and the teen birth rate have declined by more than 40 percent since the early nineties, according to The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy. The decline, says National Campaign Chief Program Officer Bill Albert, is due to the “magic combination of less sex and more contraception.”

There is a way to keep the trend going. Research tells us that information has a protective effect, and information plus the availability of contraception reduces teenage pregnancy, STDs, and abortions. The data leads to some inescapable conclusions: repressed sexual culture equals earlier sex, less ability to refuse sex, more unwanted pregnancies and thus more abortions. Effective sex education programs have been shown to decrease sexual activity and to increase contraceptive use among those already sexually active.

Birth rates in the U.S. are at a record low.  From searching around, most “analysts” seem to be automatically crediting that entirely to the Great (Republican) Recession.  It apparently hasn’t occurred to them that not spending much of their lives pregnant or caring for newborns is in fact the choice that most women with realistic options tend to make.

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Pro-choice coalition growing?

by Dan Burns on November 21, 2012

According to this, yes.

These data throw a monkey wrench in the conventional wisdom about abortion rights – namely, that it’s an issue that the GOP could use to make inroads with the new Obama coalition. Young voters, women, African-Americans, and Latinos have average-to-conservative views on choice, we’re told. But many identified as pro-choice in 2012. What gives?

Part of the answer is that the general picture is wrong: these key Democratic groups generally track the national average on abortion or tilt left. Though some polls suggest young voters are likely to support restricting abortion rights, the most systematic evidence suggests Milllenials are as, if not more, likely to support keeping abortion legal in all or most cases as the general population. Ditto with women. While African-Americans used to lean right, the most recent polling suggests a decisive pro-choice shift.

Even Latinos, who generally (though not always) tend to oppose abortion rights, have more complicated views than pundits generally let on. While first and second generation Latino-Americans tend to oppose abortion in most or all cases, third generation and higher Latinos support abortion rights by a 19 point margin.

I’ve been skeptical of analysis like this.  I stand ready – indeed, enthusiastically willing – to be proved wrong.  More below the fold.
This questions whether more women in Congress will necessarily lead to better policy.

In these days when Republicans seek to dilute or demolish New Deal and Great Society programs, it would be terrific if leaders among that record number of women in Congress would, like Norton, spur elected Democrats to stop playing defense so much of the time and move ahead with fresh initiatives that improve the lives of working women and men the way those initiatives three-quarters of a century ago have done.

It certainly doesn’t seem likely that Republicans will change.

The issues the Violence Against Women Act addresses are not going away just because House Republicans are blocking the bipartisan Senate bill. Domestic violence shelters say they’re at risk of losing funding if the bill doesn’t pass soon, while the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy is still putting a strain on the ability of shelters and other domestic violence organizations in the northeast to help women get away from their abusers.

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The ACA will reduce abortions

by Dan Burns on October 26, 2012

This highlights a potential benefit of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, that I haven’t seen widely reported.

Specifically, women in the United States use long-acting reversible contraception (LARC) at a far lower rate than the rest of the developed world – less than 10% of American women choose these forms of contraception. Forms of LARC include intrauterine devices, such as Mirena or ParaGard and subdermal implants like Nexplanon. These forms of LARC are up to 20 times more effective than the birth control pill, but their cost often makes it impossible for many women to afford.

Researchers were surprised to find, though, that when these options were made available for free that their utilization increased dramatically. In fact, fully 75% of the women in the study selected a form of LARC (the researchers anticipated a doubling of utilization into the low-teens). And, as you would expect based on those numbers, unplanned pregnancies and abortions sharply declined…

Expand those numbers nationally, and there will literally be hundreds of thousands fewer abortions per year even if the rates don’t decline as much as they did in the St. Louis area. Enabling access to all forms of contraception empowers women and allows them to make the best decisions – from all the available options – for their lives and circumstances. For that, the Obama Administration deserves credit.

More on “women’s (in fact, everybody’s) issues,” below the fold.
From equal pay to contraception to Social Security and more, here are the top six lies that Willard Mitt Romney has told women.

Plans in Texas to restrict Planned Parenthood, if implemented, will likely have disastrous consequences.

A new university study has found Texas wanting when it comes to reproductive health care in the state. Researchers at George Washington University have found that if Texas manages to exclude Planned Parenthood from participating in the Texas Women’s Health Program (WHP), “tens of thousands of low-income Texas women could lose access to affordable family planning services and to other women’s health services.”

GWU has had its eye on the state since May, when it released a report questioning claims by Texas’s Department of Health And Human Services that non-Planned Parenthood providers could easily see the 50,000 or so Texans who currently rely on Planned Parenthood for breast and cervical cancer screenings, contraceptive supplies, and other basic preventive care. Lawmakers in Texas want to exclude Planned Parenthood from the program because they consider it an abortion “affiliate,” even though no Planned Parenthood clinic enrolled in the WHP provides abortions and the WHP itself cannot ever be used to serve a pregnant person-it’s intended solely for the use of Texans who do not want to be, and who are not, pregnant.

I got the following from Righteous Babe Revolution.

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Romney’s ankle-snapping turnabout on abortion

by Dan Burns on October 10, 2012

This is quite preposterous.

Mitt Romney said Tuesday he has no plans to push for legislation limiting abortion, a softer stance from a candidate who has said he would “get rid of” funding for Planned Parenthood and appoint Supreme Court who would overturn Roe v. Wade.

“There’s no legislation with regards to abortion that I’m familiar with that would become part of my agenda,” Romney told The Des Moines Register’s editorial board yesterday before an event in the swing state of Iowa.

The linked article describes how his campaign walked – nay, desperately ran – it all back, in a hurry.

Here’s a history of Willard’s purported stances on choice, which in fact have bounced around like an excited puppy.

You would think that this would have provoked echoing howls of fury from the anti-choice zealots.  I haven’t seen substantial indications of that, yet.  Which can only mean that they, too, know that he lied.

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The G.O.P. and a Platform Built for the Past‏

by SJGulitti on September 12, 2012

To hear the pundits and political professionals talk about it, this election is all about turning out a party’s base. That’s because there are few if any undecided voters left and the only undecided voters that count are the ones residing in a handful of swing states. That said the only real purpose of a political party’s platform is to energize and excite the base so that it will turnout en mass to vote, volunteer and hopefully convince others to vote for the party’s candidate. However when you examine much of the Republican Party’s 2012 platform one thing is clear. It may excite the base but it’s not likely to broaden that base in any way that will make a difference this election day or on any election day in the future. If this election really turns out to be a battle of the bases and the Republicans lose then part of that loss may be a direct result of having structured a political platform that alienated more potential voters than it engaged. What’s most interesting is not how much the Republican platform differs from that of today’s Democrats, it’s how drastically it differs from their own of 1980 as detailed in “Republican Party Platforms, Then and Now” cited below. Today’s Republicans are heading back in time not forward and when you read their platform and observe their actions of late and it couldn’t be more obvious, particularly in issues of the culture wars.

Marriage: On the topic of marriage the platform states: “We reaffirm our support for a Constitutional amendment defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman.” This position on marriage is in direct contrast to today’s social trends. If you analyze polling results over the past decade you see a distinct trend away from the idea that same sex marriages or civil unions should have “no legal recognition”, except among Republicans. However what’s interesting here as that even younger Republicans are breaking ranks with their party on social issues. Referencing a recent article “Young in G.O.P. Erase the Lines on Social Issues”, “In a break from generations past and with an eye toward the future, many of the youngest leaders of the Republican Party are embracing views on some social issues that are at odds with traditional conservative ideology…A poll this year by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found that the percentage of Republicans ages 18 through 29 who favor same-sex marriage has grown to 37 percent, up from 28 percent eight years ago.” In fact what was even more striking about the RNC is the point to which gays and lesbians were totally absent from the proceedings as per New York Times columnist Frank Bruni: “It was striking because the Republicans went so emphatically far, in terms of stagecraft and storytelling, to profess inclusiveness, and because we gays have been in the news rather a lot over the last year or so, as the march toward marriage equality picked up considerable velocity. We’re a part of the conversation. And our exile from it in Tampa contradicted the high-minded “we’re one America” sentiments that pretty much every speaker spouted.”

Voting Rights: When considering voter fraud initiatives the 1980 Republican platform seems downright liberal: “Republicans support public policies that will promote electoral participation without compromising ballot-box security. We support the repeal of those restrictive campaign spending limitations that tend to create obstacles to local grass roots participation in federal elections.” Now contrast that to the 2012 platform: “we applaud legislation to require photo identification for voting and to prevent election fraud.” But what about those elderly inner city dwellers that no longer have or may have never had a driver’s license or any other form of photo i.d.? To many observers the current crop of voter photo i.d. initiatives and restrictions on early voting initiatives smack of the poll taxes and literacy tests of yesteryear. More to the point there seems to be little in the way of widespread and substantiated voter fraud. An article appearing in People Politico sums up what’s been revealed in other sources: “Again we find, as has been obvious in many other reports, that voter fraud at the polls is so minute and inconsequential that it should outrage all Americans that our politicians are wasting the valuable time they have to try to tackle an issue that doesn’t even exist…Not only did this article dive deep into the entire issue of voter fraud, it used the raw data collected by News21 and their new database to illustrate just how inconsequential in-person, at the polls, voter fraud is. The number of actual cases is somewhere near the 1000th’s of a percent range. That is .001%.”

Guns: Particular specifics of the language on gun rights are especially backward: “We oppose legislation that is intended to restrict our Second Amendment rights by limiting the capacity of clips or magazines or otherwise restoring the ill considered Clinton era gun ban.” While I fully support Second Amendment rights being a gun owner myself and a military reservist who trains with an assault rifle among other weapons, I can’t for the life of me see why anyone outside of law enforcement or the military needs an assault rifle or a high volume clip. Again polling shows that there is little support in the population for unrestricted gun ownership, the civilian use of assault rifles or high capacity clips. In fact polling shows a double digit decline in the opposition to stricter gun laws.

Health Care: The platform is backward looking on the issue of health care: “It states that a Republican president would use his waiver authority to halt progress in implementing the health care act pushed through by President Obama. It proposes a free-market-based plan that gives consumers more choice.” Americans, like the rest of the modern world have tried and failed to have the private sector be the primary engine in delivering adequate affordable health care. America’s Republicans are essentially the only conservative party in the world that is serious in suggesting that government supervised health care should be dismantled. Even the conservatives in Europe are seeking to balance fiscal reform with an underpinning of their country’s social safety nets. The great irony of this is that now, even Mitt Romney has begun to part company with his own party. On this Sunday’s Meet the Press Romney told David Gregory: “I’m not getting rid of all of health care reform. There are a number of things that I like in health care reform that I’m going to put in place. One is to make sure that those with pre-existing conditions can get coverage.”

Abortion: While deriding the role of government in our lives Republicans now propose a constitutional amendment to essentially outlaw all abortions: “we assert the sanctity of human life and affirm that the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed.” The backwardness of conservative thinking on reproductive rights hit a new high in the commentary of Republican senatorial candidate Todd Akin whose comments conservative writer Ross Douthat labeled as a blend of “superstition, sexism and stupidity.” While a slight majority of those polled now consider themselves to be pro-life, when the specifics of whether or not abortion should be legal are the issue, consistent majorities say abortion should remain legal to one degree or another. When the specifics of pregnancies due to rape, incest or where a woman’s life or health are endangered the overwhelming majority of poll responders favor abortion. In contrast, the number of respondents who feel that abortion should be “illegal in all circumstances” is seen to be consistently in the low double digits. Moreover, the Republican position on abortion is joined conceptually with backward thinking on the use of contraception and sex education as evidenced by the popularity of the idea that young people should practice abstinence until married as a way of warding off unwanted pregnancies. While the 2012 platform encourages adoption, which is part of the solution in minimizing abortions, it is completely silent on a woman’s right to use contraception and family planning services. It is also silent on the value of sex education as a way of mitigating the need for abortion.

Education: “Republicans support consumer choice, including home schooling, local innovations such as single-sex classes, full-day school hours and year-round schools.” Since when, in a democracy, has education, up to the level of grade 12, been anything but a function of government? Yes we’ve always had prep and parochial schools but they have not been the avenues through which the vast majority of Americans have obtained their educations. With regard to home schooling I’ve known people who have pursued that route and when the parents were well educated it’s worked and where they were lacking in a college education themselves one can only wonder what the final outcome could possibly be. Moreover it would seem to me that single sex classes would serve to retard the social development that coeducational schooling naturally provides. Suffice it to say that in an interconnected and technologically advancing world practices like home schooling and same sex classes would only serve to hinder American development rather than advance it. The bottom line is that ideas such as these belong to a day and age that we left behind long ago.

Taxes: For all of the rhetoric embodied in the 2012 Republican Platform, no matter how you spin it it’s nothing but the old wine of “trickle down” economics in a new bottle. One independent analyst after another has come out and said that the math doesn’t add up and there’s no way that tax breaks for the rich can be enacted without the middle class paying more. These are the policies that have already failed once if not twice already so why try them again?

Labor Unions: The Republican platform derides the current administration as being beholden to the era of union confrontation with management which is odd as only 13 percent of the private sector is currently unionized. It bemoans the now faded support of the card check while completely ignoring the established fact that companies, have for decades, engaged in sophisticated anti-union campaigns aimed at denying workers their rights under existing laws to organize and engage in collective bargaining. The platform claims it will “restore the rule of law” to our national labor relations system by “blocking card check” while remaining completely silent as to the need for restoring the rule of law as it pertains to enforcing existing laws on the books to protect workers in their right to organize and bargain collectively. It “demands” an end to Project Labor Agreements, a practice that has proven highly effective in moving the construction industry forward as it claws its way out of the financial bubble that burst during the last Republican administration. The platform promotes a “National Right to Work” environment which will do nothing but guarantee that non-union workers continue to earn significantly less than they would under a union contract. In a very real sense the Republican Party sees the economic disenfranchisement of America’s workers as a key ingredient in reviving America’s economic prosperity. Thus whatever rationale which previously existed for the so called “Reagan Democrats”, workers who could support the G.O.P., it has long since dissipated and the whole notion of such a thing has long since ceased to make any sense. In fact if you spent anytime watching the Tampa RNC you would think that everything good that ever happened in this country was the work of entrepreneurs. Odd but it never seems to dawn on conservatives that all of the great ideas and the financing that flows to entrepreneurs would amount to nothing if workers didn’t get out bed in the morning and go to work to make it all happen. Capitalism isn’t solely about the bosses; it’s about a partnership between capital, labor and public investment, an essential fact of America’s economic history that seems lost on American conservatives today.

This is not to say that the entire Republican platform of 2012 is completely backward looking. There are parts that acknowledge the need for government investment in infrastructure as an important element in ensuring economic growth but you sure don’t hear much about that from those running for office in this election cycle. Moreover, in a party so transfixed with cutting government spending where will the money come from to build this new infrastructure? Neither from the wealthy nor from the military based on the current rhetoric. The platform also addresses energy independence as if that’s something that the current administration has forgotten but yet this document is merely reiterating what the current administration has already put into motion. A recent article entitled “U.S. Inches Toward Goal of Energy Independence”, along with others cited below, shows how America is in the best position in terms of energy independence than it has been in decades, lying waste to the conservative lie that Barack Obama is not even remotely interested in this country’s energy security. The G.O.P.’s reaffirmation of the need for strong military engagement differs little from that of the present administration in realistic terms and any saber rattling on the part of the Republican Party and the NeoCons needs to be held up to the realities that the American people are tired of overseas military adventures that have yielded little or nothing in the way of enhanced security. In fact today’s version of “The Take Away” on PBS showed that two thirds of the American people felt that the country was no safer as a result of the war in Iraq. That’s sad commentary when assessed against the cost of that war in terms of lives and national treasure. Just imagine what would be if we spent all of the money that went to Iraq on America’s infrastructure, we might no longer even be in recession.

Those who take issue with this article will say that, generally speaking, party platforms aren’t that important. By and large that may be true but as it turns out, this year that’s not the case. Quoting an above referenced article on the 2012 Republican platform, “a poll by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center found more people interested in the GOP platform than in the upcoming acceptance speeches by presidential candidate Mitt Romney and his running mate, Paul Ryan. The survey found that 52 percent said they were interested in learning about the Republican platform, compared to 44 percent interested in Romney’s speech and 46 percent interested in Ryan’s.” That said it goes without saying that more people, especially independent voters are more likely to be turned off by what the G.O.P. has on offer than excited by it. The Republican Party lags the Democrats by around 10 points when it comes to favorability. The Republican Party in Congress is one of the least liked organizations in America. Combine that with the fact that Mitt Romney is hardly loved by his own party and a vote for Romney is really a vote against Obama and you have the makings of a major shortcoming for a party and a movement that, given public sentiment and the state of the economy, should be out in front in this election by 5 to 10 points.

In an article I wrote in February of 2009, “The Challenge of a New Morning in America”, I pointed out that the Republican Party was in a state of ideological exhaustion having little or nothing to say that was relevant for the age of globalized economic and political competition other than to watch you’re spending. When you look over the content of the G.O.P’s 2012 political platform it appears that this is still the case and that’s not good news for a party trying to recapture the government or a conservative movement that’s supposed to be ascendant.

Steven J. Gulitti

9/11/12

Sources:
2012 Republican Party Platform; http://www.scribd.com/doc/1042…

GOP votes for tough-talking platform: http://www.onlinesentinel.com/…

Platform’s Sharp Turn to Right Has Conservatives Cheering; http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08…

Republican Party Platforms, Then and Now; http://www.nytimes.com/interac…

Ross Douthat: The Democrats’ Abortion Moment; http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08…

Polling Report.com – Same-Sex Marriage, Gay Rights; http://www.pollingreport.com/c…

Young in G.O.P. Erase the Lines on Social Issues; http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08…

Voter Fraud: More Evidence of No Evidence; http://www.peoplepolitico.com/…

Election Fraud in America; http://votingrights.news21.com…

Frank Bruni – Excluded From Inclusion; http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09…

Polling Report.com – Gun Laws; http://www.pollingreport.com/g…

Romney, Easing, Says Health Law Isn’t All Bad; http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09…

It Will Be Tricky for Romney to Keep Best of Health Law While Repealing It; http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09…

Polling Report.com – Abortion; http://www.pollingreport.com/a…

U.S. Inches Toward Goal of Energy Independence; http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03…

Viewpoint: Gas Prices and the Great GOP Lie

http://www.time.com/time/healt…

Gulf of Mexico activity continues to escalate; http://www.workboat.com/Blogs/…

Massive oil and gas lease shows ‘Gulf is back’; http://www.workboat.com/Online…

The Challenge of a New Morning in America; http://open.salon.com/blog/ste…

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What does “war on women” mean, anyway?

by AprilStreich on September 9, 2012

Katherine Kersten, the Star Tribune’s resident head-in-the-sand religious zealot, homophobe, and anti-feminist columnist, explained to us the other day that there is no such thing as a “war on women” which, she claims, President Obama invented purely to help his re-election campaign:

There’s a “war on women” being waged by those knuckle-dragging Republicans. How do you know? Because President Obama has told you so, and because his media enablers parrot the line at every opportunity.

Yes, we know because Obama told us so, not because the GOP platform is actually looking poised to include a constitutional ban on abortions of any kind for any reason; it’s also definitely not because we have men holding elected office who actually believe that uteruses contain magical powers that stop pregnancy from happening during a “legitimate” rape; it’s also absolutely not because so many men think it’s totally fine to suggest an entire audience gang rape a woman who had the nerve to mention that rape jokes aren’t funny, and that so many people defend the “joke.”  It can’t possibly be because a discussion about contraception included zero women, on behalf of whom the men were charged with making decisions — and that the only woman able to testify was subsequently called a slut, told to share videos of herself having sex, had her perceived sexuality judged openly and maliciously by commentators everywhere, and whose sex life essentially became the focus of the national discourse for weeks. And it definitely can’t be because all of these things, and more, clearly affect primarily women, over and over again throughout history, and rarely affect men on such a visceral and immediately practical level.

But, no. Those things do not constitute a “war on women.” In fact, the real problem is something entirely unrelated to the massive political and cultural fight against women’s reproductive rights, ability to speak in public, and comfort knowing half the population doesn’t think it’d be funny if you got gang raped: women are currently slightly more financially successful than men are, because of the recession!

What does the battlefield look like? A first reconnaissance might suggest that men, not women, are under assault and in full-scale retreat. For example, women now earn almost 60 percent of college degrees, and a majority of master’s and doctoral degrees. Education is the best predictor of future earnings in our information economy.

Women now hold 51 percent of white-collar management and professional jobs. Traditional male sectors like manufacturing are in decline, while women dominate 13 of the 15 job categories projected to grow most in the next decade. In 2010, the Atlantic magazine documented the shift in an article titled “The End of Men.”

That women outpace men in college degrees is nothing new; it’s a statistic we’ve been hearing for ages that has its share of varying analyses. Kersten, like so many others in her position, also makes no mention of the persistent and institutionalized misogyny and glass ceiling that women continue to face in academia in many fields, proving once again that women’s technical legal equality does not mean that women are fully equal in all of society.

On the workplace front, Obama supporters allege that women make 77 cents on the dollar compared with men. They blame sexist employers, and denounce Republicans for opposing the Paycheck Fairness Act, which they portray as key to “pay equity.”

In fact, the wage gap essentially disappears in “apples to apples” comparisons of the earnings of women with and without children. Women with children tend to choose hours, occupations and flexible work environments that result in lower earnings, while childless women earn virtually the same as their male counterparts on average. In fact, in cities like Minneapolis, Boston and New York, women in their 20s who work full-time now outearn their male peers.

It pains me to admit that one part of Kersten’s critique actually makes sense, but even a broken clock is right twice a day: the argument from the left about pay inequality between women and men is misleading, at best.  The argument is frequently framed in a way that leads readers/viewers/listeners to believe that the oft-cited “a woman makes $0.77 to a man’s $1.00″ is based on same pay for same work, when in fact, the statistic is a comparison between the employment and pay of all men and all women who work full-time hours, regardless of field, age, or any other factor other than hourly wage or yearly salary. As Kersten noted, apples-to-apples comparisons did, in fact, result in the much sought-after “equal pay for equal work.”

Ultimately, thought, it does not matter that Kersten and her conservative friends are right about this often-overlooked statistical complexity, because she, like nearly everyone else in this argument, continue to neglect the most important factor, and all of its implications: the industries dominated by women (childcare, teaching, housekeeping work) are the ones that pay the least, whether it’s a man or a woman doing the job. The industries dominated by men (construction, etc., etc.) pay the most, whether the job is held by a man or a woman.  We all agree on this pretty much irrefutable statistical reality, but why do we always stop there?  There are many more questions to ask:

The fact that there remains a vast disparity in the average amount of money women earn in general and the average amount of money men earn in general is still something that should feel immediately disturbing to all of us.   Why are these jobs compensated to unequally? Is it because women do the work typically performed in the most underpaid sectors, and we’re inherently sexist? Maybe; but that’s certainly not the whole story, nor, do I think , is it the right path to take when trying to determine the whole answer. What I’d really like to see discussed is why we, as a culture, value and subsequently reward performing physically strenuous or dangerous work more than we value instilling lifelong critical thinking skills, historical and technical knowledge, and socialization skills to our youth?  Alternately, why do we feel, as a culture, that waking up to an alarm, going to a cubicle in an office building with a deliberately aggressive and dictatorial environment, and bringing home a check signed by someone else, is more of an accomplishment worthy of practically meaningful compensation (i.e., money) than engaging full-time in the rearing of children, who need to form familial bonds and learn about the world in their youth, whether it’s from a mother, father, or other steadfast guardian figure in their lives?  Why do we insist on paying people for the type of job they do, rather than the time it takes to do it? A full-time cashier who makes $8.00 an hour still spends the same amount of their own limited on this planet time ringing up other people’s purchases as an accountant for a local bank who presses buttons on a calculator full-time for $14.44 an hour.

While there is much to be debated about what kind of time, whose time, and which activities happen within this time, and how to fairly compensate this time, it remains that we have constructed a society in which practically every single thing needed for a modestly comfortable life requires access to money. Some people have money, some people don’t, and its easier for some people to earn it than it is for others.  

Ultimately, the economic inequality between women and men won’t be meaningfully resolved until we have a serious conversation about how we spend our time, what we contribute to society, what we need, and what it means to be compensated fairly for our work. It’s time we move past the petty and unceasing arguments about whether or not there is still such a thing as “sexism,” as if it weren’t painfully obvious to most of us, and tackle the root of the issue.  Perhaps with such a large audience at her fingertips, Kersten could try to be part of the solution, rather than part of the problem.

This article was cross-posted to PaperRevolution.org.

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Does Michele Bachmann believe in magical rape sperm blocking?

by The Big E on August 23, 2012

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) has been a staunch pro-lifer her entire political career. She opposes abortion even in cases of rape, incest or when the life of the mother is in danger. She’s positioned herself as a national leader in the Pro-Life movement. Here’s Bachmann during a 2012 Presidential Debate positioning herself to the right of former MN Gov. Tim Pawlenty who believes in exceptions for rape, incest and the life of the mother.

But now that Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO) has suggested that women have magical rape sperm protection in their ladyparts, where does Bachmann stand on his claim? As a trailblazer for the Pro-Life movement, I am surprised she hasn’t commented on this.

When Akin doubled down on his insanity suggesting that he was only talking about legitimate rape, where does Bachmann stand on this claim?

Akin can’t seem to stop digging. He is now suggesting that women make false rape claims. Where does Bachmann stand on this?

Here’s what is particularly interesting. Akin was simply repeating a lie that has been perpetuated by Dr. Jack C. Willke, a founder of the Pro-Life movement. This lie has been circulating around the Pro-Life movement since 1985. Willke resurrected a paper written the U of M in the 70s that has been widely debunked as bull****. Bachmann is sure to have heard it.

Willke wrote a book defending the raped-women-don’t-get-pregnant view in 1985, then followed up with a paper on the topic in 1999. On Monday, the day after Akin made his controversial comments, Willke defended the view again, saying: “[Rape] is a traumatic thing — she’s, shall we say, she’s uptight. She is frightened, tight, and so on. And sperm, if deposited in her vagina, are less likely to be able to fertilize. The tubes are spastic.”

What is Bachmann’s stance on Dr. Willke’s claims?
As a bonus, here’s Bachmann getting her crazy on speaking on the floor of Congress:

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