Comments Elsewhere

“Case in point: For years now, we’ve walked a very specific line on the issue of abortion. The government shouldn’t be allowed to tell us what we can or can’t do with our bodies has been the mantra of pro-choice advocates for 40 years. And while I certainly agree with that point, it doesn’t play well. The past two elections, and especially in this last one, our candidates have just looked silly with lines like, I have a tenet of faith, but I can’t force that tenet of faith on anyone else, when compared with a consistency from the Republicans on the issue.”

Pardon? Every time people are asked about invasive government restrictions on abortion in polls, lines like “The government shouldn’t be allowed to tell us what we can or can’t do with our bodies” does play very well. The problem is that it seems to be impossible to get Democrats—oh, hell, let’s say it, Democratic men—to just come out and say that without and endless stream of Concerned Looks and hand-wringing and apologies for being pro-choice like the majority of people in America and far more useless blather about how much you want to reduce abortion than about how it’s unconscionable for some well-armed prick in Washington to ordering women around on how and when to use their uterus.

The Clinton line is a case in point—and it just gets worse with repetition. “Safe, legal, and rare” is a slogan that uses rhetorical emphasis to highlight the fact that the speaker is conceding that there’s something wrong with getting an abortion, instead of the fact that jailing women and/or doctors is dead wrong. Of course that doesn’t motivate people; it doesn’t motivate people because the slogan apologizes for itself immediately.

Most Democratic men seem to feel profoundly uncomfortable with saying this (Howard Dean being the noble exception). Most Democratic women don’t seem to waste everyone’s time with it (Hillary Rodham Clinton—alas!—being the ignoble exception). But Democratic men have been the candidates for the past, well, 200 years, and thus we have weaselly ignoramuses like George Bush, who looks visibly uncomfortable and resorts to dog-whistle soundbites whenever the matter comes up in a public forum, looks like the Voice of Integrity by comparison.

Yeah, this is stuff I’ve worked over before, but it’s still true. If the Democratic candidates would stop trying to devise creative new apologetic soundbites and actually get on board with the fact that the party is pro-choice, they’d have a lot more success than they actually do.