In
recent months, a bubbling stew of Republican extremism, tone-deafness and rank
misogyny aimed at a series of poorly chosen targets (Planned Parenthood, Sandra
Fluke, breast cancer activists who also use birth control) have turned
pro-choice women into a potent and wide-awake political force. A DCCC appeal
decrying the “war on women” raised over $1 million. In last
week’s cover story, Elizabeth Mitchell reported
that Planned Parenthood drew 1.3 million new supporters in 2011 and raised $3
million in the wake of the Komen controversy alone. Viewed one way, what should
be happening is happening: women are waking up(E.J. Graff), making their displeasure known, and wielding political capital accordingly (Irin
Carmon). The attacks on birth control are turning off independent and moderate women,
who are now taking a second look at the once-beleaguered president. And Obama
will be ready for them: he is staking his re-election in large part
on women voters.
Moments
like this are clarifying, and can act as a teaching tool. Americans, who
strongly support access to birth control and the birth control coverage mandate in specific,
are catching on to Republican hostility to a key tenet of contemporary American
culture. The attacks on birth control are demonstrable proof that the religious
right, including the Republican presidential candidates, intends, at root, to
re-impose archaic sexual mores and roll back the clock on women’s equality.
It is about women, not about unborn babies. Irin credits the
amped-up outrage to the “growing realization that these aren’t isolated
incidents, but rather systematic attacks based on a worldview that is actively
hostile to female self-determination.”
But
we can’t forget the conversation we’re having is about defending what we have,
not demanding what we don’t. The Affordable Care Act will increase the number
of women who, directly or indirectly, access birth control with government
support, but the federal government’s family planning program, Title X, already
exists and enjoys broad public support. By contrast, the using of healthcare
reform as a moment to reopen the debate over public funding for abortion in the
debate over healthcare reform was a non-starter. The compromise we ended up
with will require women receiving government assistance to obtain insurance
through the exchanges to sign up for a separate rider that covers abortion—paid
for with their own money. Reconsidering the Hyde Amendment was not up for
discussion.
I’m
reminded of a superb Nation editorial that
ran just after Komen reversed its decision to cut funding to Planned
Parenthood: “But the Komen reversal, like the defeat of Mississippi’s Fetal
Personhood Amendment this past fall, while sweet, was ultimately a defensive
victory. The campaign succeeded not in advancing reproductive healthcare but in
preventing a loss of such services. It was fueled not by an ambitious vision
but by outrage…”
Obama’s
#1 pitch to women voters—that the first bill he signed helps ensure equal pay
for equal work—exemplifies this problem. Yes, the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act
corrects a great injustice—the requirement that employees file a pay
discrimination claim within an impossibly short window of time since the first
discriminatory paycheck. But the reality is that this only corrected a harmful
Supreme Court decision from a year before—and doesn’t address the other factors
that drive pay discrimination.
The
news today that 31 percent more women are living in states with
abortion restrictions than did in 2000 is a timely reminder that we’re living
in a world not of our own making. The politics of the moment may be baffling—as
Cecile Richards said recently, Mitt Romney’s “attacks [on birth control] make
no sense given where the American voter is.” But the underlying reality—that,
on a national level, those of us who supports women’s rights aren’t setting the
agenda—is crystal clear.
Related Topics: Reproductive Rights | Conservatives and the American Right
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