peacocks and lilies

Oh my word, it’s starting already, even in the PUMAsphere! Some Democrats are so trained in their politics of fear–just like some Republicans–that they are actually trying to convince other PUMAs that Palin favors, OMG!, FORCED PREGNANCY! I don’t know what’s up with the author of that piece, who I know to generally be smarter than that. Palin, who is staunchly pro-life, (so much so that she herself refused to abort a child she knew had Down Syndrome) is not in favor of forced pregnancy, and that kind of rhetoric is desperate and irresponsible, not to mention pretty thoughtless.

As I outlined in The Specter of Roe v Wade Parts I, II, and III, elected Democrats and the pro-choice groups supposedly designed to protect your right to choose are not at all concerned that the right will be taken away, and they have worked to allow more and more restrictions on abortion along with Republicans. Don’t look to Democrats to protect you, they won’t, because they can’t. Abortion is established law that most Americans want to maintain, even if they are okay with some restrictions on it. (Hell, I’m a liberal feminist, and I’m okay with some restrictions on it.) Until that changes, your right to choose will be protected. As one self-identifying conservative commenter at The Reclusive Leftist wrote:

There are two nuclear issues in American politics, and they are The Right to Bear Arms and Abortion rights. They are the only two issues that cause one side, or the other, to actually go out and riot in the streets. You can twiddle with them a little (partial birth bans, assault rifle bans) but there is no way that Conservatives will EVER be able to make abortion illegal, and no way for the Liberals to EVER confiscate a private citizen’s guns.

I think that’s true, and I’m done with a rhetoric that tries to scare me into voting on someone else’s criteria. And I’m ready for a serious post-partisan approach that doesn’t rely on demonizing the troops on the other side. This is an approach that Obama talks about, but cannot deliver on, because the base is so insistant on maintaining assumptions sold to them by party sheisters and media liars. I live in a very Red state, Indiana (my vote for McCain WILL Count), and I know a ton of Republicans. They are generally more respectful and more articulate than your average Democratic voter, even if I disagree with them on some policy issues and values issues. They are ready, if this comment, also by a self-identifying conservative, is any proof:

Shinhao Li says:

Hi,

I’m one of the dreaded Instapundit readers who followed the link over. The Republican base is absolutely ablaze after Palin, and in this spirit of enthusiasm, I thought I’d try my hand at bipartisan diplomacy.

I’d would write a one-world-kumbaya fluff piece on why we should all vote for McCain-Palin, but no one is stupid enough to fall for that. If absolute choice over abortion is a must for you, there’s no way in good conscience that I can ask you to vote for McCain. Your interests are better served with Obama.

Debating abortion is a perilous topic, so I won’t try. But if you are willing to consider something less that totally unrestricted abortion, you might find the Republican side surprisingly hospitable. After all, we have Giuliani and Thompson, both pro-choice. One the other hand, we have Palin. But most Republicans, including myself, are somewhere in between. Somehow, the rights of the pregnant woman and the fetus both need to be recognized. I don’t know the answer.

Bolding mine. Did you see that? It’s called respect for the other side, and a lack of arrogance. This Republican doesn’t know the answer, but knows that we’ve got to compromise if we want to move past the gridlock and abuse of the abortion issue. S/he also realizes that most voters want some form of abortion to be legal, even if they’re okay with restricting it.

I agree with this assessment, but I only recently came to it myself. Writing the Specter series really opened my eyes to what the Democratic leadership was about with this issue. After I wrote it, I felt taken advantage of and abused by party elders. Then, while teaching my Fundamentals of English class, I assigned from the textbook an essay by Anna Quindlen, a mainstream liberal political writer, titled Abortion Is Way Too Complex To Feel One Way About, and it solidified the change in my thinking on abortion. I wish I could find a link to it to post here, but I can’t. If you can find it, I suggest reading it. It displayed a kind of intellectual consistency that I only admired at the time, but have come to adopt since then, and in the face of all that has happened this campaign season.

Regarding abortion and the pro-life position, I think the fight against sexism, and the fight for equal opportunity and protection do much more to further the cause of protecting a woman’s right to choose than just stupidly fighting with religious conservatives within the Republican Party. As we kill sexism, we will open up the world to better ways of thinking, and that will, I think, lead to a natural evaluation of abortion as a necessary medical service worth protecting. Furthermore, I don’t believe we can win the abortion-on-demand argument, and I think we’re losing a valuable opportunity to use Republican abortion legislation as leverage to achieve a funded mandate for sex education, as well as greater access to birth control for poor women, where it is needed most. As that last commenter said, some Republicans are open to compromise on anything but a demand for unrestricted abortion. I think we should take them up on it.

Links in this series: Part I, Part II, Part III