Sufficient Scruples

Bioethics, healthcare policy, and related issues.

March 18, 2011

The Drill (Divide & Conquer on Reproductive Rights)

by @ 11:58 AM. Filed under Access to Healthcare, Autonomy, General, Healthcare Politics, Reproductive Ethics, Women's Issues

From Comrade DougJ at Balloon Juice, this says it perfectly:

You know the drill on the politics of reproductive rights: most voters support a woman’s right to choose, but those who oppose it are much more likely to be one issue voters. Most anti-choice legislation focuses on fucking with poor people who vote Democrat anyway, so as not to alienate more middle-class and upper-class women (who are often strongly pro-choice but sometimes vote Republican anyway). I have to wonder at what point all this bullshit turns a lot of middle-class and upper-class women into single issue pro-choice voters. All this crap will stop as soon as that happens, but it will continue unabated until it does.

The key point is that the right wing hates upper-class women as much as they do lower class women (though for fewer reasons: they’re not poor, and more likely to be white, so that eliminates certain causes of the antagonism, but not its strength). Because of the class divide, the assault on women has less effect on the upper class, but the motivation is still there. When upper-class women begin to feel it, they’ll respond. (And in that regard, the move to eliminate tax deductions for all and only health plans that cover abortion may be welcome prod, as DougJ notes in the above-linked post.)

Sadly, solidarity begins when suffering is shared, not when it is merely noted. But GOP overreach makes that almost inevitable.

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