Missing the Point

Boy I've been spending a lot of time arguing with Ed Kilgore, haven't I? Anyway, a couple of days ago he wrote that Democrats in their defense of abortion rights need to de-couple the issue from other "values" issues. He thinks that the war over the judiciary is really just about abortion and nothing else. And by the way, being anti-choice does not make one misogynistic.

I think this is a very large mistake. Conservative judicial doctrine is about a heck of a lot more than abortion. The Federalist Society and its ilk are determined to use the courts to overturn the New Deal (and perhaps even the Square Deal). They want to return to the Lochner Court, in which the property rights of corporations were so strong that neither the states nor the federal government would be permitted to regulate them. If they are successful, the results would be near-permanent. Liberals would either have to wage a generation-long campaign to re-pack the court or just destroy the power of the independent judiciary. I'd much rather draw a line in the sand now.

The other distrubing thing about Kilgore's blog is his mis-understanding of the abortion issue. By suggesting that abortion is somehow distinct from misogyny or general social conservatism, he fundamentally misconceives the centrality of abortion rights. The key reason that women have been able to enter the workforce and claim an equal place in the sun is that they are no longer condemned to stay home and make babies. The religious right is not just about abortion - they are about all reproductive rights. If women, upon the moment of conception, are forced to bear a child to term, they are then returned to the days of either a) never having sex (wow that's realistic), b) becoming baby-making machines, or c) forcing women to risk their health with back-alley abortions. They are reduced to things rather than people.

Let me put this more simply. If you are anti-choice, you are anti-woman. Believing that women should not have control over their reproductive choices is to say that women should be stuffed back into their "traditional" family roles. Any judicial nominee who will not defend female equality is one that must be defeated. If that makes me an advocate of the "litmus test," so be it.