Thu, 2006-02-02 18:08

Now that George Walker Bush (note: “walker” has fewer syllables than “double-you” so it’s easier to pronounce plus it’s more in keeping with our tradition of identifying serial killers, unfit presidents, and other morally repugnant figures) has installed another radically anti-American Republican on the Supreme Court, we can kiss Roe vs. Wade goodbye.

Don’t get me wrong, there will probably always be something called “Roe vs. Wade” on the books — the women-hating extremists who’ve foisted this situation on us, the Wahabist-wannabes who believe women should be grouped among a man’s “cattle, and man-servants and maid-servants”, the cynical adoption-industry baby traffickers who stand to profit from the elimination of adult American women’s right to reproductive choice, and the nominally “conservative” politicians who claim to support it while sending their own partners and daughters off-shore for “cruises” and “vacations” where (surprise!) they’ll get “emergency appendectomies” and “elective procedures” at discrete clinics and the animals who inseminate their daughters because they want grandchildren as much as people do and don’t want them to have any say in the outcome, will make sure of that since keeping something with that name is good for raising money — but Alito, and Scalia, and Roberts, and Thomas, and subsequent appointees will erode it to a brittle husk of its former self.

(Years ago, when I was a teenage volunteer helping to cover for other teenagers who needed to slip away to Washington D.C. or New York, where the only legal abortions were available, we’d amuse ourselves by cataloguing all the other places where abortion was technically legal but *unavailable.” 1972 was a very long time ago but I remember that one very popular trick for thwarting abortions where it was legal was to make the approval process take nine or more months. Women and their doctors could apply, and if she still needed an abortion a year later she was welcome to have it. Given his record of Alito’s legal opinions I look forward to the Court holding that while Roe vs. Wade still stands, a nine-month waiting period should provide “no undue burden” on women who seek abortions. That should do the trick.)

What’s done is done. Talk amongst yourselves, reassure yourself that 60-75% of Americans believe abortion should remain legal, but don’t kid yourselves. It’s over.

And why yes, as a matter of fact I am a little bitter about it.

I would like to direct your attention once again to the issue of birth control, which I believe is going to be the next battleground. The only question is whether we should go on the offensive or if we should plaintively stand by and wait for them to assault us. Care to guess my answer?

In the pages of Slate Magazine Will Saletan and Katha Pollitt are continuing a debate begun by Saletan in the New York Times and joined by Pollitt in The Nation over how we should address birth control and abortion. While I think they’re mistakenly rehashing the last battle (which we’ve lost) they’re still raising some wonderful, wonderful points, though I think they’re both missing the heart of the matter.

Saletan would like to see a big push for reliable birth control and effective sex education because, while he’s pro-choice, he’s uncomfortable with abortion. Pollitt worries that emphasizing birth control as a way to reduce abortions effectively aids and comforts the enemies of American freedom. Both, of course, are correct. Both, of course, are missing the point.

Here’s the deal. When the original Peace Corps was started back in the 1960s, one of the famous screening questions was “is this glass half empty or half full?” If you said “half full” you were in because you exhibited optimism. “Half empty” allegedly got you washed out as, I guess, a hopeless cynic.

Me? If you’re trying to figure out if 60’s-era middle-class young people are going to cut it in a very different, often very downtrodden part of the world then maybe that’s a good question. As a foundation for policy it’s awful!

It’s awful because it’s a philosophical question, and ideological one, one you can quibble over for days or escalate into full-fledged fanaticism because there’s no objective answer. It’s awful because while the particular answer may say something about you, both answers are unquestionably correct.

And utterly irrelevant. As is the debate that’s swinging around the political blogosphere as thoughtful, passionate, and influential progressives side either with Saletan or Pollitt. “Half full!” “Half empty!” “Half empty!” “Half full!”

It’s not a Miller Lite commercial, gang, it’s about reproductive freedom. It’s clear that everyone participating in the debate believes that passionately. Meanwhile it’s half empty because people with degenerated morals have just gotten through spilling the other half while morally conflicted people stood by and let them. Meanwhile the remaining half is slowly evaporating.

So if “half full / half empty” is an inherently divisive question, what’s a better one?

How about “Is half a loaf better than none?”

Now that’s a question you can sink your teeth into. That’s a question one can answer with more than navel gazing, and contextualizing, and positioning, and framing, and, and, and…

Look at it this way: Back when abortion was legal we could quibble about water levels. Now that abortion will no longer be legal, should we push for better birth control and sex education — for better pregnancy prevention? Yes or no?

I say yes.

Does pushing for better birth control and sex education — for better pregnancy prevention — aid and comfort the enemy? Who cares, they’ve already won.

Let’s start another battle then. One without queasy quisling moral uncertainties. The same gruesome fiends who want to force women to have babies whether they want them or not also want to rob them of birth control as well so they’ll be even more vulnerable and thus more to their liking. (To be perfectly honest I think they want to treat women like livestock because they’ve always preferred sex with livestock but that’s for another day.)

The difference is that the rest of America might feel ambiguous about birth control but the rest of America also thinks outlawing birth control would be stupid. Their dark-robed majesties may be able to play on people’s uncertainty about abortion to twist our country towards the dark side. Having won that battle I think they imagine they can win the next. If we, in turn, imagine our time is best spent debating philosophy they just might.

Do me a favor. Go visit the debate on Slate. Both Pollitt and Saletan are right. They’re in 99% agreement. Both have good pragmatic suggestions and strategies for promoting birth control, sex education, and unwanted pregnancy prevention. (I particularly like Saletan’s suggestion that men should be more confronted with their birth-control responsibilities, and Pollitt’s point that society nearly always — and incorrectly — absolves men of any responsibility at all.) But notice also how unnecessarily, perhaps tragically divided they are.

Half a loaf is or isn’t better than none. If it’s not any better than none — if, in other words, we’re going to starve either way, then we need to stop talking and go get more. If half a loaf is plenty then I guess we can sit around quibbling about water levels.

Me? I’m ready to write as big a check as I can afford to the best foundation or research institution I can find that’s working — hard! — on developing better contraception, better access to the contraception we’ve got, and developing and distributing the best sex education campaigns out there. That’s where the fight is heading so that’s’ where my contributions are going as well.

I wish it weren’t that way. It is.

Your nominations for best contraception development and sex education advocacy groups would be very much appreciated. Thanks.