Hey, Remember Abortion?
As I'm sure anyone with a computer, TV or political-dork friends now knows, moderate Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O'Connor is retiring, and Bush gets to nominate a new justice for Senate approval. Two points to consider:
1. Republicans feel burned by Republican-appointed Supreme Court justices of the past, and they are going to go way extreme this time to make sure their nominee stays a true believer forever. Going way back to Earl Warren, a Republican governor before he became Chief Justice of one of the most liberal Courts in history, Republican-appointed justices have tended to drift left over time. Souter is the obvious example these days, but conservatives are plenty mad at Anthony Kennedy (Reagan's replacement nominee after the Democrats, led by Joe Biden, took down Robert Bork). And lest we forget, O'Connor is a Reagan appointee herself. As Ted Kennedy pointed out on a conference call today, if Bush were going to nominate a consensus pick, why have conservative groups raised $18 million already to support the nominee?
2. I have no idea if or when Roe v. Wade is going to be overturned, but conventional wisdom has it that three justices (Rehnquist, Scalia and Thomas) would actually vote to overturn it. Now, that means that the GOP has to get their ducks in a row for both this new nominee and whatever pro-Roe justice (i.e., not Rehnquist) retires next, before we can even think about Roe being overturned.
But just so we start thinking about this now, I assume that the current political climate would support a federal law or state laws across the majority of the country banning abortion. Fortunately, I think this is because the abortion debate has shifted while it's been off the radar screen of the political/media establishment. In other words, supporting abortion is being increasingly equated to supporting killing babies. What liberals/Democrats have to do, should Roe be overturned, is to remind everyone that they oppose abortions (policies to lower poverty among single women would help), but focus the choice on whether you support back-alley abortions. Back-alley/bathtub/wire-hanger abortions will return to American life post-Roe whether social right-wingers like it or not, and if we can claim that we want to keep abortion "safe, legal and rare," and push hard to back up all three of those terms, I think the public will go for it. So the days of not having to fight on abortion may be ending, but it's still a fight we can win.
(P.S. That photo above is Schilling at the PawSox game. Uh-huh.)
Comments
wow, do you really think the current political climate would support that? The sad part is, the "current political climate" is run by a "moral majority" which in reality is a minority; they just scream louder and are more active. These people are motivated by religion to dictate right and wrong to the rest of us. Unfortunately, the rest of us are not as motivated... until our rights are threatened. The only way they can overturn Roe v. Wade is by stealth - keeping it off the front page, out of sight, out of mind.
remember that politics trends kindof like a sine curve, and we are on the far right of that curve right now. Moderates start to get nervous and pull back toward the left. The current danger is that the conservatives have disguised themselves with "compassion" and pass themselves off as "moderately conservative." They look so unthreatening, in sheep's clothing and all, and those concerned with fiscal responsibility will vote for them, as long as it seems social issues are not in danger. The liberals, meanwhile, seem to be in tailspin looking for the button to push to motivate their voters. (I know what the right button is, by the way.) If democrats fail to inspire the public with issues, we could have a major problem in the next presidential election, particularly if we see a McCain/Giuliani ticket. The public will be looking to sway left (which would buy the time needed to even out the court,) but they will need to be wooed.
Posted by: Rebecca | July 2, 2005 12:11 AM
p.s. Curt's looking pretty rough, isn't he? Maybe he should see Johnny's stylist.
Posted by: Rebecca | July 2, 2005 12:13 AM
What's wrong with Giuliani and McCain? One saved the earth from terrorism and the other finally got soft money out of politics. Everything's been coming up Milhouse since then.
Posted by: A retired NYer in Arizona | July 2, 2005 9:26 AM
Thanks for the comments, Rebecca. How about, so we don't hang ourselves anytime soon, we think of the abortion debate in Moneyball terms: it's inefficient. What people are hearing about abortion now is not what they'd hear if a ban ever became a serious, immediate possibility, and that works in our favor.
Also, if those social conservatives really thought the Good Book gave them the right to dictate morality for everyone else, they would, like the Bible, be focusing a lot more on povery. In other words, I think they're full of doody.
Posted by: Terry | July 2, 2005 10:10 AM
Terry--You are dead-center right on when you say it should be reframed (rightly) as a debate about coat-hanger back-street abortions. Abortions will take place whether legal or not, just depends on the conditions, sanitary or not, sterile or not. The other issue: will a woman who does not want a baby stay away from harmful substances? Don't these children later become society's problem? Btw, Marilee told me that the AMA lobby will never allow legalized abortion to be banned. Does the Republican establishment REALLY want that, or is it a sop to the extreme right to keep them hanging on? Bush has never gone there, and has rarely even given the prospect lip service.
Posted by: Ricki | July 2, 2005 4:06 PM
The hue and cry on the conservative side of things is going to be to not have another Earl Warren. I think the wingers are gearing up for a heated battle because they feel that Bush will nominate someone like Janice Rogers Brown or Priscilla Owen to replace O'Connor.
By they way, does anyone know if there are any rules or guidance about re-nominating a recently-nominated and confirmed Federal judge to the Supreme Court? I'm too lazy to climb up on the chair and get my copy of Schwartz's "History of the Supreme Court" off the top shelf of the office book shelves.
The reason I ask is this: Why not turn around and nominate either Owen or Rogers Brown? Both are zealous conservative fruitcakes of the highest order, both are female (replace the first female Justice with another) and Rogers Brown is not only a zealous conservative fruitcake but also the Bench's standard-bearer for the "Constitution in Exile" crack smokers.
I can think of some substantive reasons why you wouldn't want to turn around and nominate Rogers Brown or Owen, but let's face it: Substantive reasons only rarely get in the way of what the Bush White House wants to do.
Posted by: Patrick | July 5, 2005 3:52 PM