Elie Mystal: Democrats Must Become As Brave and Righteous as Abortion-Clinic Escorts [View all]

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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*