liz_marcs | Domino Theory

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Domino Theory

Mississippi is racing South Dakota in outlawing access to abortion services.

Welcome to the Domino Theory, Edition 2006.

Wonder if the Mississippi legislators will, like the South Dakota legislators, refuse to open the question up for a vote by the people in November elections. I'm thinking the answer is: "Yes."

Fuck dat noise.

Whenever you're proposing to strip people of their rights, I'm thinking you better damn well ask them if it's okay that you do just that.

You just know, just know that the reason why these "pro-life states" (in quotes because I'd actually believe these states were "pro-life" if they weren't so damned tight-fisted about spending money on actually taking care of, feeding, and educating the living, breathing, walking-around children they've already got living in poverty...) won't do it is because they know they will lose and lose very, very badly if they put the question up for a general vote.

It says something when my mother, the staunchly anti-abortion woman that she is, actually volunteered on the phone with absolutely zero prompting from me: "This banning abortion business. Looking at it now, I'm starting to think that this is not such a great idea."

Something about suddenly remembering how there were dead women back in the day before Roe and that maybe "safe" is just a little bit better than "not safe." My parents are thinking that the days of underground networks where you may or may not have been able to get a safe, sterile surgical procedure is not exactly a day they want anyone to revisit. Cause, at the end of the day, healthy, safe, and living women are a hell of a lot better than sick, trapped, or dead women.

Something I've only been saying since, oh, forever.

See? This is why I used to start fights in my religion class back at my Unnamed Catholic High School. Good thing I was a straight-A student, otherwise they would've expelled my ass.

Hmmmm, if someone like my mother is taking a step back and thinking the better of banning abortion now that it just might become reality in some states, it might not be as hopeless as we think.

Of course, that's assuming these wonderful state Legislatures have the balls to let their constituents actually vote on the issue.

Yeah. Good luck with that.

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((sighs))

((starts looking at Canadian want ads))

I feel like a chicken for even considering just fleeing, but, damn, this country is headed in a scary direction, and the brakes don't seem to be working.

Please, do me a favor and ignore the current rumor going around LJ that Massachusetts it's going to outlaw it. It's not true. There'd be riots. Legislators would be hunted in the streets by furious constituents.

Besides, if the incoming gubenatorial candidates yell, "I'm pro-choice!" any louder I'm going to go freakin' deaf.

See I didn't know that they were refusing to put it up for a vote, and that scares me more than anything else combined. And it angers me that there are people out there who are happy that this issue won't come up in a vote because then they get their way, and you know there are people out there like that.

I just don't even know where to begin.

When it comes to taking rights away, there better damn well be a vote.

A similar bill was introduced here in Kentucky. Interesting enough, the Right to Life Organization announced it really didn't like the idea. Seems they came to the conclusion that Roe v Wade is not quite ready to be reversed yet.

Or maybe they don't see a point since there are two states willing to spend money to be a legal test case. Why waste money when you've got other states willing to do it for you?

The Kentucky Bill was introduced before either South Dakota or Mississippi made the news with their action. The Right to Lifers were quite open in that they didn't want to risk it at this time as they were afraid that a loss would set back their cause. I suspect that using other state's money occurred to them later on.

Perhaps it has to happen this way. Half of the states might end up jumping on this bandwagon, and a dozen may even get the legislation passed. And then the people will get their vote, and the legislators will join the Dover school board on the unemployment line, which could finally put a coffin-nail in this insane mixture of religion and politics that is infecting the once-quite-sensible conservative right.

Ultimately, the people will get their vote, even if it's years later and involves firing the person who chose not to listen to their voice, and in this case, as in so many in this country, it's probably gonna take a massive backlash before the people paying lip-service to the religious right realize that these people aren't their base, just an extremely vocal fringe that they need to kick out of bed if they want to survive.

If they just quibble and kill this measure in session, it's only going to get reintroduced next year, and the year after that, ad infinitum, or snuck into some other bill, or introduced peacemeal (such as the current striking down of RICO extortion statutes applying to people threatening abortion clinics). If they 'win,' and then get utterly creamed for it, the survivors are less likely to touch this again in our generation.

Politicians don't learn from history, they're like children, each and every one of them has to get burned before they realize that fire's not a toy.

I think you're exactly right. Most people probably do feel personally uncomfortable with the notion. But I think as a social policy, most people are in the mushy middle.

If anything, this whole thing is making people actually think about the issue and is forcing them to separate the personal from the public policy.

I just hope we don't crash into a wall in the meantime.

Liz,

I have a question. What did you think about the Mass Supreme Court's decision about Gay Marriage. Should the people of Mass been able to vote on the issue or 5 unelected judges able to decide what they want.

The voters in SD and Miss will get the chance to vote on the issue. If the voters don't like the decision, a bunch of state legislators will be looking for work. It's the way representative democracy is supposed to work.

With all due respect, we are voting on it in November.

In addition, most of the legislators who opposed Equal Marriage in the state and who stood for re-election 2004 found themselves out of a job.

And, as has been pointed out repeatedly, the State Supreme Court ruled on the constitutionality of it and our constitution clearly states that you can discriminate against any group of citizens. It further ruled that if the state wanted to ban Equal Marriage, the constitution would have to be ammended.

The legislature failed to do that. It is now up for an open vote.

There's also a huge difference between ensuring people have their rights, as opposed to taking them away. The State Supreme Court ensured that a group of people had their rights under the law. That's a completely different question and the banning abortion issue (taking a right away) and the Equal Marriage issue (ensuring everyone has equal rights) are two completely different issues and two completely different questions.

Besides, how does allow GLBT people get married to someone of the same sex take away anyone else's rights or affect anyone else's rights? It doesn't.

Allowing Equal Mariage does not force any relgion to recognize that union or provide services to that couple, therefore no one's religious rights are being abridged.

Allowing Equal Marriage doesn't take food out of anyone's mouth. If anything, if a same-sex union dissolves, it now forces one of the responsible adults to pay child support, which means a lower rate of single-parent homes living in poverty. It also means that domestic violence laws can be more rigorously enforced and properly prosecuted in cases where there is domestic violence in a same-sex relationship. Ergo, it's not picking anyone's pocket, either.

Allowing Equal Marriage is a bonus for the business community because now they don't have to offer domestic partnership benefits. Now they can insist on a marriage certificate since anyone in this state can get a marriage certificate and legally prove they are family for the family bennies. Businesses have indicated that this saves them money. Ergo, there are many private and public institutions financially benefitting from Equal Marriage in this state.

In short, no one is getting punched in the nose, no one is being forced to pay for it. So the apple and oranges comparison is moot, as far as I'm concerned. It's not the same question. At all.

Liz,

You were complaining about the SD Legislature refusing to open the question up for a vote by the people in November elections.

I pointed out that the Mass Supreme Court did the same thing. The difference is that you approve of one result and not the other.

I think that the 5 judges of the Mass Supreme Court should have been impeached, tarred, and feathered. However, if the Mass Legislature had passed a law doing the same thing, I wouldn't care. I don't live in Mass and don't really care about the issue. I do care about democratic process.

Abortion is a political issue now because of the Supreme Court. In the years leading up to Roe, the political consensus on the issue was changing. Abortion was legal in many states and being discussed in other places. Abortion was legalized in CA by that extreme liberal, Ronald Reagan. Then the Supreme Court decided the issue by fiat. This had roughly the same effect as clamping down the relief valve on a steam engine. It has been poisoning American politics for a generation.

And again, let me state: There are two completely different issues here.

One is upholding rights that were already spelled out in the Massachusetts Constitution. That is not "judicial activism" or deciding an issue by "fiat." That is called upholding the law as it is written in said state constitution.

Please get your facts correct on this.

The other is taking away rights without placing it in front of the people who will lose that right.

There is a significant difference.

Now, by the same token, I'm all for legalizing marijuanna. I'd jump up and down with joy about all the sin taxes we could slap on that puppy and swell the state coffers. However, there is no law anywhere that says we have a legal right to it. In fact, there are state and federal laws against it.

I would be all for putting it up for a vote in a general election because there you are overturning an existing law.

In the case of Equal Marriage, no laws were overturned. None. At all. Period.

Have I mentioned that you kick serious ass?

I've been having an ongoing discussion with a colleague over whether overturning Roe would turn out to be a good or bad thing in the long run. The vast majority of Americans support abortion rights, but very few vote on them because they believe Roe has it covered. If we lose Roe, does that mean people will start voting this issue, and thereby bring in a generation of progressive leadership? Or does it mean the loss of a central principal that is essential to maintaining individual rights and dignity over the long run? I don't know, the same way that I don't know if this constant stream of attacks is slowly degrading that principal or if it is building resentment among people who would otherwise not have considered this a core issue - like your mother.

I do know that I love to watch you kick.

It's funny how a lot of people who are personally against abortion are suddenly going, "Unh...then again, maybe not."

See, once upon a time, it was safe to wish abortion away because everyone thought it was here to stay. Now that everyone is suddenly seeing the possibility of it going away, everyone's starting to feel a whole lot less secure.

Now, my mother finally clued in to what I've been telling her all along: you're only going to create a lot more problems for society if you force women to give birth. Those who can afford it will leave the country if they have to, which means you're leavng the most vulnerable women swinging. If they really don't want to be pregnant for whatever reason, they will not stay pregnant even if it means turning to unsafe means to do it. Congrats. You've now got a body count.

I wonder sometimes where the body-count voices from pre-Roe are. The other side has all these speakers on their circuit, women who have decided that their abortions were mistakes and feel haunted by them, people who claim they wouldn't have been born if their mothers had been able to get abortions. Where are the people who lost a daughter or a sister to a back-alley abortionist? The women who became infertile because of unsafe procedures, who wanted children, just 'not yet'? The people whose lives demonstrate the real cost of limiting women's choices. Is it just too frightening to speak up? Because we need those voices to be heard, to show what 'pro-life' really means.

And in the past six years, I have seen the only place I knew of in the top half of the state to get an abortion close.

I am in complete agreement with you that if people want for women to stop having abortions then the underlying social issues must be addressed, and I don't even mean the biggies like poverty. I mean, the parents who disown their daughters because the Southern Baptist Deacon's daughter coming up pregnant would be embarrassing. Or schools that won't let pregnant girls win academic honors or be in the Beta Club or something like that. And how about teaching birth control?

I was never taught birth control. In highschool they showed us some pictures of people with syphilis and various other STDs and said, "Don't have sex til you're married or this will happen to you," but nobody ever demonstrated how to use a condom for us or gave us free ones. I mean, we all knew we should use one, sort of in the back of our minds, but I don't remember being really worried about it. And I can also remember one incident in which my highschool boyfriend completely unrolled a condom and filled it with water to be sure there were no holes and then we used it, which, uh, cannot have been good.

I know this is way too much TMI, but I saw this post listed over at

crazydiamondsue's lj and thought I'd chime in.

No worries. I've been busy running around because there appears to be a rumor running around LJ that Massachusetts is going to be outlawing abortions. It appears someone came across an old article interviewing our outgoing loser of a governor who said he'd approve any anti-choice measure and given the current culture of paranoia...

Needless to say, he's not up for re-election this November and all the gubenatorial candidates can't yell, "I'm pro-choice!" loud enough because they know there'll be riots if abortion was outlawed in this state. Not that we're liberal, liberal about it. We're middle-of-the-road for laws and access. Perfectly mushy-middle.

But, yeah, my issue is that there's a very simple way to decrease the abortion rate and that's to improve sex education and increase access to birth control. Let's make it rare and safe. I'm on board with that.

The other thing that frosts me is that there's an awful lot of lyin' goin' on about birth control and sex education. Nothing pisses off people more than being lied to. Life will generally clue you in on what's a lie and what's not. I can only imagine some kid who got stuck with abstinance-only discovering the wonderful world of sex and figuring out that an awful lot of adults fed him or her an awful lot of bullshit.

As for the condoms...heeeeee! Once a bunch of us were making a gore -slasher film for someone in film school. We decided that we'd make bloodpacks and use condoms to hold the concoction until the moment when the actors would have to burst them.

What we got were a lot of corn syrup-filled condoms that wouldn't burst. People had to stab their condums repeatedly with pins to even get a "blood" trickle. It was funny as all hell.

[quote] Not that we're liberal, liberal about it. We're middle-of-the-road for laws and access. Perfectly mushy-middle. [/quote]

Middle-of-the-road liberals and conservatives are shockingly similar (and usually sane, too boot), but it's the frothing extremist whackjobs at both ends that seem to get all the attention...

Yes, let's define our laws and rights by religious doctrine, 'cause nothing says 'democracy' like putting one small vocal group in charge of the affairs of everyone they disapprove of (and as an aside, isn't getting away from religious intolerance one of the reasons why our ancestors fled Europe to get here? Wasn't America supposed to be a haven for all the 'huddled masses' (aka unloved weirdos) like Protestants and Mennonites and Amway Salesmen?).

After seeing how well putting the mandates of clergymen over the will of the people worked for the Taliban, I can't imagine why anyone thinks it would be a great idea here.

The other thing that frosts me is that there's an awful lot of lyin' goin' on about birth control and sex education.

*nods*

I watched a documentary (or at least a TV show LOL) some time ago that I forget the name of, but which highlighted Texan teens that had made abstinence pledges and showed their sex education classes. The guy leading the class straight up lied and told the students that condoms just don't work. *boggles* It's so dangerous the misinformation a lot of kids are getting.

Also, your movie condoms are cracking me up. I guess it's encouraging that it took so much to puncture them. I bet that was hi-larious though. :)

Personally, I'm not all that big a fan of direct democracy. If a politican consistently votes in a way I oppose, or votes in a way I oppose on an issue that's important enough to me, I'll vote for someone else in the next election. Fortunately in Illinois we really don't have much of a mechanism for direct democracy execept for amendements to the state constitution.

As far as this specific issue goes, I think you'd be surprised by the outcome of a direct vote to ban abortion in some of these states, though it's doubtful we'll ever find out.

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