Why Romney Won’t Ban Abortion and Obama Won’t Legalize It.
As a poster to my blog commented sarcastically about Obama apologists: “Please vote for Obama. True, he sucks, but…”
Which summarizes the feelings of many Democratic voters.
Others, whether smarter or more long-winded, try to justify their cognitive dissonance with one simple plea: If Obama loses, abortion will be banned.
You’ve heard their argument:
“It’s all about the Supreme Court.”
“It’s all about Roe v. Wade.”
Indeed, because four members of the Supreme Court are in their 70s, a Romney victory could lead to the end of federally-guaranteed abortion rights.
Obama played on women’s fears in a recent interview with Rolling Stone:
“I don’t think there’s any doubt [that Roe v. Wade could be overturned],” Obama said. “Typically, a president is going to have one or two Supreme Court nominees during the course of his presidency, and we know that the current Supreme Court has at least four members who would overturn Roe v. Wade. All it takes is one more for that to happen.”
A woman’s right to control her body is important.
It’s also popular. 77% of Americans think abortion should be legal in some or all circumstances.
But single-issue voting is morally problematic. How does one weigh abortion rights for American women against the right of Pakistani (and Yemeni, and Afghan, and Somali) women (and men, and children) to not get blown up by one of Obama’s disgusting Predator drones, which have 2% accuracy? Should a feminist close her eyes to the Obama Administration’s actions in U.S.-occupied Haiti, where it pressured the post-invasion Haitian puppet regime to slash the minimum wage for (mostly female) workers in U.S.-owned sweatshops by half, to 31 cents an hour? Shall we turn a blind eye to the people of Honduras, suffering through the aftermath of an old-fashioned military coup against a democratically-elected president, an outrage backed by Obama?
Let’s talk about abortion.
If you can overlook Gitmo and the bankster bailouts and the lack of investigations of Wall Street and Bush-era torturers, even if you’re cool with the healthcare sellout and the assassinations and the wars and a president who golfs while the unemployed (including many women) lose their homes—if abortion is all you care about—there still isn’t much reason to vote for Obama.
Romney is barely pro-life.
And Obama is barely pro-choice.
First, let’s be clear about what’s at stake. Abortion rights are not at stake.
Abortion rights in states with conservative legislatures are at stake.
A City University of New York study guesstimates that 31 “red” states, mostly in the South and Midwest, would ban abortion if Roe v. Wade went away. The effect would be significant. An average woman would see the distance to the nearest abortion clinic increase to 157 miles.
If you live in northeast Kansas, it’s more like 600 miles. But northeast Kansas is sparsely populated. The state ban effect would be mitigated by the fact that the biggest states—California, Florida, New York, etc.—are liberal and pro-choice. “Under this scenario, abortion rates would fall by 14.9 percent nationally, resulting in at most, 178,800 additional births or 4.2 percent of the U.S. total in 2008.”
What we’re really talking about is whether abortion will be 85% safe and legal (post-Romney) or 100% (post-Obama’s 200th round of golf).
Like the independence of Taiwan, the status of abortion in America lives in an absurd legal netherworld, ad hoc, awkward and makeshift, neither legal nor illegal.
Abortion should be a settled issue. Roe v. Wade, only as good as the current composition of the Supreme Court, can and should be supplanted by a federal law passed by Congress and signed by the president.
Would Romney sign a federal ban? Probably not.
An Obama campaign ad includes a 2007 debate quote by Romney in which he said he’d be “delighted” to sign such a bill were it to cross his desk. But it leaves out what he said next, that a ban is “not where America is today.” Anything is possible, but not too many politicians—certainly not one as craven and wishy-washy flexible as Romney—are willing to piss off 77% of the electorate.
Of course, Romney is an unknown quantity. We don’t know what he’d do.
On the other hand, we do know what Obama did. And what he didn’t do.
Would Obama sign a federal legalization? Definitely not.
In 2007 he told Planned Parenthood that he would. However, after he became president—with a supermajority in Congress, natch—he walked that back. “Now, the Freedom of Choice Act is not highest [sic] legislative priority,” he said in April 2009. “I believe that women should have the right to choose. But I think that the most important thing we can do to tamp down some of the anger surrounding this issue is to focus on those areas that we can agree on. And that’s—that’s where I’m going to focus.”
The White House ordered Democratic leaders in Congress to kill the Freedom of Choice Act. FOCA has never been introduced under Obama.
Romney and Obama are continuing their parties’ cynical posturing on abortion. Knowing that abortion is popular, Republicans rile up their right-wing misogynist base with loud rhetoric and minor legislative initiatives that fall way short of a federal ban.
Democrats, who exploit the fear that a right-wing Supreme Court would overturn Roe v. Wade, would lose their leverage over pro-choicers if they legalized abortion.
So, if you’re a pro-choice voter, if abortion rights is the main reason you’re voting for Obama, remember two facts:
First, only 15% of abortion rights is at risk.
Second, when Obama had the political capital and the Congressional backing to legalize abortion once and for all, he sold you out.
For Obama, women are “not highest legislative priority.”
(Ted Rall‘s latest book is “The Book of Obama: How We Went From Hope and Change to the Age of Revolt.” His website is tedrall.com.)
COPYRIGHT 2012 TED RALL
10 Comments.
@Ted
“How does one weigh abortion rights for American women against the right of Pakistani (and Yemeni, and Afghan, and Somali) women (and men, and children) to not get blown up by one of Obama’s disgusting Predator drones, which have 2% accuracy? Should a feminist close her eyes to the Obama Administration’s actions in U.S.-occupied Haiti, where it pressured the post-invasion Haitian puppet regime to slash the minimum wage for (mostly female) workers in U.S.-owned sweatshops by half, to 31 cents an hour? Shall we turn a blind eye to the people of Honduras, suffering through the aftermath of an old-fashioned military coup against a democratically-elected president, an outrage backed by Obama?”
Fairly easily, yes, yes and yes. Obama is not running for President of Pakistan, Haiti or Honduras,so questions about whether or not he’d improve life in those countries arent particularly relevant.
“However, after he became president—with a supermajority in Congress”
It’s disingeous at best to fail to mention that he had a supermajority for 24 Congressional working days- a period of time simply too short for ANYONE to get ANY meaningful legislation through with a sociopathic opposition party that had already decided to block and delay every piece of legislation no matter what the cost to the country..
“The White House ordered Democratic leaders in Congress to kill the Freedom of Choice Act.”
Proof?
“Second, when Obama had the political capital and the Congressional backing to legalize abortion once and for all, he sold you out.”
Flat out false- see my statement above about only havign a supermajority for 24 working days.
“For Obama, women are “not highest legislative priority.””
This is a good thing. No one group should be give the highest legislative priority. What’s good for the country as a WHOLE is the only thing that should be given “highest legislative priority”.
Damn, add “especially when there is zero evidence that Mitt Romney would do anything better than is currently being done for those countries” to my first response paragraph. Wish there was an edit function.
First off, @Whimsical (although I don’t really know why I bother)
“Obama is not running for President of Pakistan, Haiti or Honduras,so questions about whether or not he’d improve life in those countries arent [sic] particularly relevant.”
You’re assuming we don’t care about people in other countries. I actually practice some things I like to call morality and altruism, whereby I give a shit about my fellow human beings. If you tried it, you might understand why we want a foreign policy that doesn’t actively shit on the rights of non-USians.
@Ted
I see where you’re going with this, but IMO you sort of lost track of it at the end. What you’re saying, for most of the column, is that the federal government is only actually defending women’s choice for 15% of the population, so as a country and an electorate we should be focusing on something more important. You make a reasonable case for that, although I disagree on some of the specifics. But then you complain at the end of the column that Obama doesn’t see this issue as a legislative priority. In that one sense, he’s basically agreeing with you. What exactly is wrong with that aspect of his position?
@ans-
You obviously didn’t read my add on about there being no evidence that Mitt will be any better for those countries. If there was any evidence whatsoever that Mitt would be better for the poor people of other countries, voting for Obama would require some debate instead of being the completely obvious choice that it is now.
I give a shit about my fellow human beings, but it’s just human nature to care more about people close to you and care less the further people are away (for lack of a more elegant way to describe it).
So, in the absence of evidence that Mitt would be better for people in other countries, and the preponderance of evidence that Mitt will be worse for the people in this country, yeah, I’m gonna put the people in this country first, and I make no apologies for that.
The acknowledgement of “a sociopathic opposition party that had already decided to block and delay every piece of legislation no matter what the cost to the country” is hardly justification for doing nothing with a congressional super majority, quite the opposite.
Blockage and delay of legislation by said opposition no longer exists, by definition, with a congressional super majority.
Therefore, 24° working days, could have been made into an eternity for “sociopathic opposition party” except for the lack of will or the total ineptitude of Obama and the Democrats. (°Some sources suggest a supermajority from July 2009 into Feb 2010.)
—
On another topic, an aptitude test question.
What is the next occurrence in this pattern:
1) drone killing of foreigners outside the US
2) drone killing of American citizens outside the US
3) “surveillance” drones used inside US (http://tinyurl.com/9pjwl7s)
4) ???
@falco.
Obviously you know very little about American government- there are a great many things the opposition can do to delay legislation, even when the prevailing government has a (decidedly temporary) “supermajority”, and they all were done.
Besides that the supermajority was in name only, as it counts Lieberman and other “blue dogs” even though they voted a lot of the time with the Republicans.
So frankly your “some sources” are full of crap.
To Whimsical:
You forgot some snarky overreaction to the aptitude test, or did it hit too close?
You have NO source for your allegation of 24 working days of “supermajority” except your proclamation, Does that make your proclamations “super-crap”?
The most important thing about American government for the last 3.8 years is that after a prior 8-year plunge into the neo-fascist abyss the new president, with a now fully acknowledged “sociopathic opposition party that had already decided to block and delay every piece of legislation no matter what the cost to the country,” still insists on kissing the butts of that opposition
Ted, I’m a little surprised.
Abortion is most clearly examined by asking: “From which groups do the women come from who are not able to raise the necessary amount of money required — and free up the necessary amount of time from their schedules of work and family commitments — to obtain abortions when necessary?”
It’s an economic control issue much more than a biological one. Biology is simply the gimmick by which those in charge continue to control the impoverished.
You forgot to mention his teleprompter.
The concern that Romney would most likely get to appoint more than one Supreme Court Justice is a legitimate one, but remember that all nominees must be accepted by the Senate.
All the right wing hacks that are currently sitting there now are there because of the approval of many Democrats that were in the Senate at the time of their appointments.
We have Citizens United because of the lack of backbone and/or gleeful approval of Democratic Senators who voted for the right-wing nut-jobs that now sit on the highest court in the land.
Remember, if Romney puts any right wing wackos on the SCOTUS it will have to be done with the approval of some Democrats. If we don’t push back on the Democrats why should they ever stop their incessant march to the far right?