Elie Mystal: Democrats Must Become As Brave and Righteous as Abortion-Clinic Escorts

[Nevilledog]

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Elie Mystal
@ElieNYC
The left is going to need to reclaim the moral high ground in the abortion debate, before it will be able to reclaim the legal one. For too long, too many have ceded that space to the forced birthers. No more.
My latest in @thenation

thenation.com
Democrats Must Become As Brave and Righteous as Abortion-Clinic Escorts
To win back abortion rights, Democrats need to learn how to fight the moral battle being waged by anti-abortion theocrats—something clinic escorts do every day.
8:43 AM · May 16, 2022

https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/abortion-moral-fight/

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https://archive.ph/VZVm1

We now live in a country where the government cannot force you to wear a mask on a plane during a pandemic but can force you to carry a pregnancy to term against your will. It is a country where the government won’t ban certain kinds of assault rifles but will ban certain kinds of medical care. We live in this country because five justices in thrall to a fundamentalist Christian orthodoxy have taken control of the Supreme Court—and because the majority of Americans who reject that orthodoxy have too often ceded the moral ground to the monsters who claim to have legitimate, enforceable interests over women’s bodies.

Women’s rights organizations and advocates have been in the trenches, fighting this fundamentalist sect, at literal physical risk to their lives, for decades. They’ve been fighting in the streets and fighting in the courtroom, but their alleged allies in Congress, in the media, and in the boardroom have rarely had their back. Fundamentalist Republicans have spent the better part of 50 years acting like they are on a holy crusade to stop baby murderers. Democrats, many of the elected ones at least, have hung on to Bill Clinton’s formulation that abortion should be “safe, legal, and rare” like a dude trying to combat global warming with a parasol. Is it any wonder which side is winning?

It’s understandable why advocates and allies have long embraced less strident language when it comes to abortion rights. The moral case for “choice,” for instance, is nice and easy to make, and has the benefit of being the only sane way to run a free society: If you think abortion is murder, then please do not get an abortion! But while “pro-choice” was a fine argument when we were trying to persuade people, it’s insufficient as a fighting posture. I am done ceding the moral space to Christian fundamentalists. Forced birth—literally commandeering a person’s womb and forcing them to incubate cells against their will—is evil and barbaric and cannot be compelled by a legitimate government.

To claw back the basic human rights the Supreme Court is set to strip, the fundamentalist program will have to be opposed—and opposed vehemently—through policy, the courts, and moral suasion. Centrist Democrats don’t want you to know this, but opposing this program politically is, far and away, the easiest of the three.

*snip*

[50 Shades Of Blue]

1. K & R!

[DLevine]

2. Agree. nt

[Solly Mack]

3. ...

“This Court was egregiously wrong when it held that Roe was egregiously wrong. While women’s rights are not deeply rooted in the misogynist founding of this country, we find the inability of long-dead sexists and slavers to recognize the fundamental humanity of others to be their problem, not ours.”

Now that Christian fundamentalists have claimed control of uteruses that don’t belong to them, perhaps it’s time for Democrats to take their cues from the brave clinic escorts instead of the people who think zygotes have more rights than rape survivors. Perhaps it’s time to stop trying to compromise with them and start trying to fight them.

[Novara]

4. He's damn right

I always respected the hell out of a friend who unapologetically said the "safe, legal, and rare" bullshit was too much capitulation, and it's us playing their game, letting them create the narrative and make the rules. She always said "abortion on demand, no questions asked," because that was the only way to honor women making their own choices about their own bodies.

No one has the right to make us justify our reasoning. If I don't want to have a child, it's my decision and I don't need to justify it to anyone.

It isn't a life. It is only potential life, but it does NOT have more rights than I do, it does NOT have more of a claim on my body than I do.