There's No Economic Justice Without Abortion Rights [View all]

[ehrnst]

Some men in the Democratic party seem to think a strong defense of reproductive rights is optional.

On Wednesday's Morning Joe, Vermont senator Bernie Sanders went on to talk about working with Donald Trump and the future of the Democratic Party. Host Joe Scarborough brought up the question of abortion and other "social issues" that he said kept white working-class voters voting Republican in states like West Virginia, where they would gain more economic benefits if Democrats were in charge. He suggested that if Democrats want to win white working-class voters in states like Kentucky, they might need to run candidates who reflect the social values of those same white working-class voters - that is, opposing a woman's legal right to decide for herself whether to carry a pregnancy to term. Could Democrats, Scarborough asked Sanders, "be open to candidates that may not be rigidly pro-choice, may not be rigidly pro gun control?" Sanders said yes.

A few days earlier, a column appeared in the New York Times encouraging Democrats to moderate their abortion stance. The writer, a male theology professor, implored Democrats to tamp down their opposition to the Hyde Amendment, which bars federal Medicaid funds for paying for most abortions - making the procedure harder to get for poor women - and treat abortion as "an issue of profound moral and religious concern."

Some men, it seems, think moving right on women's rights will allow the party to secure more votes and give it space to move left on economic issues.

This is a terrible strategy. It demonstrates the limits of "economic populism" when the term is defined by only men. And it's exactly why feminists have been so worried about the backlash against "identity politics" and the obsession from both the right and left with white working-class men. In the aftermath of Hillary Clinton's loss, a cottage industry of "I-told-you-so" men has sprung up to lecture feminists and racial justice advocates on how identity isn't enough to win elections. Many of these same political analysts (and men who play political analysts on Twitter) have an outsize reverence for the white working-class man and seem to think that leftist economic policies will get these conservatives voters to change their long-standing right-wing politics -- if Democrats just abandon the "identity politics" of pushing issues related to race and gender.

Of course, when "identity politics" are demonized in an effort to appeal to white men, it's women and minorities who lose out.

http://www.cosmopolitan.com/politics/a9203970/democrats-abortion-economic-justice/