edited: Title changed per recommendation in comments. Thanks guys.
One of the hardest things for me, when I'm very passionate about a subject, is writing about it clearly. I will never capture the raw anger of other, better known contributors to this forum, because invariably my instinct to present a rational argument is overwhelming. I rant in person; but I reason in prose.
I have watched the Alito confirmation this week with sadness, and a great sense of inevitability. It has been my position for a long time now that we have already passed the "tipping point" in this country, and nothing short of a bloody civil war will set things right. The voting process has been subverted, and no matter how the people vote later this year the GOP will retain control. We have already lost the right to protest when that moment finally reaches us. Many of us are probably already ensnared in the NSA's spying and have been categorized at enemies of the state, while they wait for just the right moment to begin "detaining" people. And as of this week, Constructionists control the highest court in the land and Unitary Executive is no longer just a theory, but a way of life.
Overall, I am not optimistic about the outcome. Things are going to get much, much worse, and I have no doubt that an early casualty will be abortion rights.
Which brings me to my reason for popping in to leave a little note. With the overturn of Roe looming breathlessly on the horizon, it occurs to me that all of my arguments for abortion access to date - it's my uterus, so fuck off; it's a non-sentient cell cluster; God didn't care about the unborn either, go read Hosea; it's between a woman and her doctor; etc. and so on - are no longer effective (though some of you may argue they never were). These are all arguments brought by people who, in the back of their mind, knew that at the end of the day a woman could still get an abortion. It's easy to argue in the high ground of civil liberties when that liberty is still tangible.
But in the very near future, that is going to change, and we will have to make the argument knowing in the back of our minds that at the end of the day a woman CANNOT terminate her pregnancy, surgically or otherwise. As such, the argument needs to change too.
I've been mulling over this for some time now, but didn't actually have a chance to test any of it until yesterday (bear with me here while I digress a bit, then get back on topic). Where I work, there are a lot of Republicans. In fact, out of the thirty or so people in my department, only three of us are Democrats. Only one of us is vocal about it (me). In the time that I have worked here I have been on the receiving end of numerous accusations and pranks, made to wait months for new computer equipment when others got stuff right away (in one situation I waited a year for new monitors, while the old ones burned my eyes out when I tried to write code), and gotten into more than a few heated arguments with co-workers. I have used all the old arguments and never gotten anywhere. It's been so difficult that one of my resolutions this year is to actually STFU and not be controversial with these people, if only to make my work life less stressful.
So it was no surprise when yesterday my boss asked me if I was sad that Alito got confirmed. He was baiting me, we both knew it. What he expected was for me to launch into a tirade. But I didn't and very quietly commented about how I am concerned about Alito being a proponent of Unitary Executive Theory, which I didn't agree with. He got quiet for a moment, then asked what that was.
Score one for me. I quietly explained to him what it was, and pointed out that it might seem all good now that the GOP controlled things, but what if Democrats were in power?
Another moment of pause from him, then he switched the conversation over to abortion and how he'll be glad to see it outlawed, but he was sure we would never agree on anything political.
Still using my quiet voice I answered that it was sad because outlawing abortion won't make them go away, it will only kill women. Then I quickly maneauvered into how I was really worried about Griswold v. Connenticut being overturned.
Yet another pause, and a "What's that?" So I explained the case, and about the push to ban birth control by "fringe republicans," to which he indicated how unacceptable that would be.
"See?" I told him. "We do agree on something."
Now, my point here about the abortion argument is that too often we get dragged down by the freepers into who's rights are more important, the woman's or the zygote/embryo/fetus'. We can't argue that anymore, because it's a dead end debate. But with the overturn of Roe so close that they can fucking taste it, what we can do is start filling their heads with images of DEAD WOMEN. Legalized abortion should not be about "rights," but about DEAD WOMEN.
ILLEGAL ABORTION = DEAD WOMEN
Period. End of story, end of debate.
Peronally, I don't see how this argument can go wrong, because from my experience there are two types of anti-abortion voters: the fluffy bunnies who believe in a world where every baby is wanted, and the rabid dogs whose real purpose is to kill those whoring bitches that try to murder babies. The fluffy bunnies want to believe that the rabid dogs are few and far between; the rabid dogs only want to manipulate the fluffy bunnies. If anything, pointing out the dead women will horrify the fluffy bunnies while the rabid dogs go on about how those women should die. If we can get the fluffy bunnies to see the people on their side who don't really care about stopping vulnerable humans from dying... well, so much the better IMO. The most ideal would be to sway the fluffy bunnies into agreeing that a woman should not be made to die just to end a pregnancy, at which point they would have a viable way to reconcile "pro-life" and "pro-choice."
Then again, maybe my pessimism is such that I've forgotten what genuine optimism looks like, and I'm totally off my rocker. Whatever. I'm tired.
So this brings me to the second part of my little note. Many folks have talked about an underground railroad for women seeking an abortion, which I think is all fine and good but in this modern day not very practical. Seriously, our communications are being monitored; there are survelliance cameras everywhere and satellites that can zoom in on a needle. I don't see it being very effective.
What I can believe a more viable option is a special fund for women to access to pay for their own transportation to and fro a state that provides abortions. A sort of non-profit making interest free loans to women in need. There are far more details that need to be investigated than I am going to do for this diary, but is giving somebody money to pay for airfare the same as transporting them across state lines for an abortion? Might be a loophole in there somewhere. Base the nonprofit in a state that allows abortion, maybe even make it the actual clinic where women go to have it done. I leave it to people smarter than me to figure out.
The last item I would like to touch on today is the utter need we have for a constitutional amendment guaranteeing privacy. Seriously, we keep revisiting various fucking privacy issues because Constructionists don't like broad interpretations of the Equal Protection Clause. So let's just fucking get it in writing and settle it, once and for all. Such an amendment might read like:
"Every citizen has the right to seek and receive private medical care, free from government interference, and the right to private interpersonal contact with consenting adults, free from government interference. No government may interfere, restrict, harass, or otherwise prevent the people from peaceful enjoyment of these rights."
Peace -
bk