Bernie, There Will Be No Revolution Without Reproductive Rights [View all]

[ehrnst]

I understand that Sanders is wildly popular among a certain faction of the progressive left. And I understand why he is wildly popular. His message of economic justice resonates. Fighting for the little guy. Fighting for the middle class. Hell, that message resonates with me.

The problem is that Sanders’ vision of economic justice is woefully incomplete. Bernie Sanders and many of his supporters seem perfectly content to categorize reproductive rights and abortion access as a social issue—a distraction from economic justice and reforming Wall Street, which they deem the so-called real issues.

And that simply doesn’t work, because reproductive justice and economic justice are inexorably intertwined.

But not according to everyone’s favorite senator from Vermont and his most stalwart supporters. Just this week, when asked whether Jon Ossoff, the Democratic candidate who nearly pulled off a victory in a special election in Georgia’s extremely red 6th District, is a progressive, Sanders said “He’s not a progressive,” according to Dave Weigel at the Washington Post. Sanders is “endorsing Democrats based on their economic populism,” Weigel reported: “[T]hey could differ from progressives on social issues but not on the threat of the mega-rich to American politics.”

There he goes again: categorizing abortion rights as a social issue and differentiating it from his economic message.

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“And we have got to appreciate where people come from, and do our best to fight for the pro-choice agenda. But I think you just can’t exclude people who disagree with us on one issue,” he continued.

Nonsense.

If this is Sanders’ best, I don’t want to see his worst. But it tells me that he doesn’t view abortion rights as a core progressive value. And this isn’t new: Recall his position that Trump’s controversial comments about imprisoning women who get abortion were a distraction from “a serious discussion about the serious issues facing America.” And last month, when Joe Scarborough asked Bernie Sanders whether Democrats should be open to candidates who aren’t “rigidly pro-choice,” Sanders said they should.

Sanders’ willingness to support anti-choice candidates and dismiss Trump’s extreme comments say he doesn’t really understand the connections between abortion and poverty. As the U.S. Supreme Court said in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, “[t]he ability of women to participate equally in the economic and social life of the Nation has been facilitated by their ability to control their reproductive lives.”

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Pro-choice values should be a prerequisite for progressivism. Reproductive autonomy isn’t just a social issue or an issue about which reasonable minds can disagree. Reproductive autonomy is a human right—and last I checked, stripping a basic human right from 50 percent of the population of this country is not progressive.

Here’s the thing that really chaps my hide, though: I’d be willing to bet everything that I own that Sanders would exclude from his reformed Democratic Party any candidate who disagreed about challenging Wall Street or regulating banks. He would likely excoriate any Democratic candidate that he felt was “in bed with Wall Street,” a charge he repeatedly lobbed at Clinton during the primaries.

https://rewire.news/ablc/2017/04/21/bernie-sanders-no-revolution-reproductive-rights/