Politics of Abortion Examined

02/27/2006

Paul Munnis

The abortion issue is about to explode and to create huge problems for the GOP.

The two main reasons for this are the South Dakota Legislation initiative and the Morning After Pill.

Let’s start with the Plan B, or Morning After pill. By allowing it to be on the market the number of abortions that occur will drop radically. This is exactly what the GOP and Democrats seek and all this without any use of our Courts. No need to overturn Roe v Wade and no more abortion wedge issues in politics. The pill is approved and it meets everyone’s needs.

So what’s the problem then? The problem is that the Plan B pill is rejected by the GOP and the religious right. The States are polarized according to the red-blue political characterization of the states. The sense the red states have is that use of the pill is virtual abortion. But that isn’t so because no conception has yet occurred. Plan B is the rough equivalent of using condoms in that they prevent conception and condoms have been in use for a long time.

The GOP was forced into permitting Plan B on the market but they don’t like it.

This leaves the GOP bemoaning the fact that Plan B will become an alternative to abstinence in sex. But that is a battle that Priests, Ministers and Rabbi’s must solve within their congregations.

We can be blunt about the problem: many churches loose their young people when they hit age 16 and don’t get them back until they are married and bear children. The reason is because the churches have not addressed the problems that youth has in dealing with sex in a manner that young people are comfortable with inside of their society.

It is not the realm of politics to solve that problem. It is up to the churches to do it. They have not done so and they have tried to fop the problem off onto the Courts and the Government. But Plan B gives the problem back to the churches to solve as the moral problem that it really is. Morality is not legislated, it is adopted.

The other GOP problem is the gathering storm in South Dakota. They are issuing legislation almost sure to cause direct confrontation in the Supreme Court over abortion and to retry Roe v Wade.

GOP strategists wish that the South Dakota abortion issue would just go away. The reason is because the GOP is moving into a no win position over the South Dakota stance on abortion. They do not want the Court to confront Roe v Wade, instead the strategists prefer to retain the issue and to chip away at it over time thus having a long run of political advantage with voters. Confrontation in the Court will make it a matter of settled law one way or the other.

There are two possible outcomes from the confrontation battle either Roe v Wade is overturned or it isn’t. Let’s examine both possibilities.

If it is not overturned then the GOP will have been handed a defeat that is insurmountable. Roe v Wade will stand, abortion will be upheld and the GOP will be powerless to change the law. Their political leverage over abortion will have been lost forever.

If Roe v Wade is overturned, then the GOP has a series of problems made in heaven for a female Democratic candidate running for president in 2008. It will ignite female activists over the return to illegal abortion. The results will be indeed messy for the GOP.

The first issue is that any woman who gets an abortion will have to go to prison. That is what illegal means. It means the person who sought the abortion committed murder or else tried to. That will mean that either the child goes with them or is put up for adoption or else goes into foster care. The latter will drive up the entitlement programs—exactly what the GOP does not want. If the children must go to prison with the mothers than all sorts of prison growth, investment, and restructuring will be needed. Not likely during a time of huge deficits and really its just another form of entitlement.

Another issue is that the practice of abortion will revert to the back alley, the use of knitting needles, potions, pills, and rusty coat hangers, and thus female death rates will climb as a direct result. We know this from prior history in America and we can quantify it. That is bad news for women and it will provide political grist for decades to come. The arguments will be used against the GOP and the issue will be very harmful to the GOP candidates.

The problem is that women do make this birthing choice and it has nothing to do with Roe v Wade. The law is simply acknowledging that a choice is made. The key determination has to do with the woman’s assessment of a future for their fetus. Does the child have a chance of making it with them as the mother? That is the question asked by every pregnant woman and it will continue to be asked for as long as women are faced with reproductive decisions. If the support system is there then the child will be likely born and if it is missing over a lack of a nuclear family or lack of mental health, or lack of income, (for example) and there is no social contract to fall back upon, then the child will not likely be brought to full term.

The GOP’s platform is to kill off social entitlement and support programs and so the choice will be for abortion instead of birth. It is a social contract with the mother-to-be that encourages the choice for birthing.

Democrats prefer that Roe v Wade not be challenged in the Supreme Court and the GOP now hopes that it is not overturned by the Court.

South Dakotan’s don’t care what either Party thinks. They are ready to go to Court.