Rant: Abortion

This morning when I read that 235 anti-choice bills have been introduced in state legislatures since January. My first thought was where’s NARAL? NARAL needs a spokesperson like James Carville who argues with such flamboyance, charm, and intelligence he plays the other side for fool. I am unduly angry with NARAL and I blame them for not doing enough, which I know is completely unfair, because they don’t have the money to do what they need to do. My next thought was how come the pro-choice movement doesn’t have the kind of money and organization that the anti-choice movement does? The liberal elite has every bit as much money as the Republican 1%, and God knows they give lip service to supporting women, they won the last presidential election on our ovaries, so why aren’t they coming out in droves for women’s reproductive freedom? Geez, even the Republican women in Congress refused to get behind an abortion bill they felt was too extreme, during the most recent Roe versus Wade anniversary, for fear it would cost them votes in the upcoming election.

The anti-choice movement has been extremely clear about their agenda and how they planned to implement it. The two paragraphs below are from a piece I posted 4/16/2012 on Addicting Info.

"The juggernaut of legislation we have been witnessing is clearly part of a perfectly coordinated and precisely executed strategy to chip away at abortion rights at the state level. It’s quite brilliant actually, why take on abortion at the federal level where a win is not guaranteed when with the right language in the right states, a win is guaranteed. This is the thinking of Charmaine Yoest, president and CEO of Americans United for Life. “You don’t have to overturn Roe to actually make progress at state level,” she said. The point is to make Roe “crumble under its own weight and become irrelevant.”

“AUL, the legal wing of the pro-life movement are the players behind the bills for pre-abortion ultra-sounds, trans-vaginal ultrasounds, forced viewing of an ultra-sound, abortion waiting periods, parental notification, required viewing of state established anti-choice websites, re-defining gestation time, the question of fetal pain, abortion causes breast cancer lies, required pro-life counseling, and clinic regulations so restrictive that clinics have to close their doors. The effectiveness of the bills is due in large part to the language, what is called “model language” and that language is spelled out in AUL’s annual report, Defending Life: Proven Strategies for a Pro-Life American. Once the bill is written, and AUL will provide lawyers to help, it’s just a matter of getting it into the hands of a pro-life elected official, in a state friendly to anti-abortion measures, to move it through the legislature. Any state run by Republicans is a magnet for anti-choice legislation.”

I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that AUL is ALEC’s baby sister and has access to the same kind of monies that ALEC does. AUL took a page from the ALEC playbook when it decided to attack choice at the state level. ALEC attacks at the state level to chip away existing laws protecting the environment, unions, education, and humanity. Both ALEC and AUL are extremely successful at getting their agenda passed in state legislatures and I feel powerless to stop the slow but consistent chipping away of democracy and reproductive freedom. (Yes, they are coming for your birth control.) I keep writing, I keep disseminating information, because I'm pit bull stubborn, and if enough of us keep writing we'll have a record for future generations of what really happened, what was responsible for the downfall of the country, and subsequent enslavement of her people. Oh dear, I’ve digressed.

Anti-choice legislation is firmly rooted in the soil that women can’t possibly make their own decisions about their bodies without government regulation. Doesn’t that absolutely infuriate you? It certainly infuriated a million plus back in the 2004, ergo the march on the mall. Given the fact that anti-choice has been so clear about their strategy and its implementation wouldn’t it make sense that pro-choice organizations would plan their own strategy to beat it? Again I hear lack of money and no I don’t think changing the term “pro-choice,” into something other is going to help at all though that seems to be where the conversation is headed.

I wish I had a concrete answer for why there isn’t a progressive equivalent of AUL. (or ALEC for that matter). Obviously religion plays a huge part, as does apathy, willful ignorance, and young women who are clueless about what they stand to lose, but I also think money, the making of money, and profit plays an insidious, shadowy role. I would wager the monied liberal elite think that if they come out for abortion, if they fund a pro-choice equivalent of AUL, it will adversely impact their bottom line. As ever pro-woman and pretty much anything else that has to do with benefitting humanity and the planet comes in second to profit. The Handmaid's Tale feels more and more like a reality everyday.

From my heart to yours.
Live loud, love fierce, and suffer no fools. 
Katherine Manaan MAWT