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Categories: Health Care, Civil Liberties & Privacy, Education, Ethical Government, Civil Rights, Reproductive Rights, Children and Family Issues, GLBT Community, Women's Issues, One Wisconsin Now - The "tOWN Hall"
McCain, contrary to the image his cynical marketing juggernaut has created, is neither a moderate, nor a maverick. (Discuss amongst yourselves.) Not when it comes to reproductive rights and women's health.
Let's look more closely at the REAL McCain: In 2006, McCain co-sponsored the Federal Abortion Ban, a law that criminalized some abortion services even when a woman's health was endangered. In this campaign, McCain put it more bluntly than Bush ever did, saying, "I do not support Roe v. Wade. I think it should be overturned." These are not the words of a moderate candidate - the vast majority of Americans support Roe and do not want to go back to the bad old days of back-alley abortions where women were treated like criminals.
So McCain's no moderate. But what about a maverick? One might hope that McCain's so-called independent streak would prompt him to buck his anti-birth control conservative counterparts and vote for measures that actually prevent unintended pregnancy. In today's Republican party, such common-sense support for birth control and honest sex education would indeed be maverick. Yet McCain continually votes against contraception and family planning access! In fact, he also pushed legislation to throw millions more tax dollars down the rabbit hole of failed abstinence-only programs, even though they're proven to lead to riskier sexual behavior (read: unprotected oral and anal sex) among young people.
We're not hopeful that McCain will get wiser as he ages - he's had plenty of time already, and just keeps getting worse for women's rights. It is time for the pro-choice majority to speak up and recognize this "moderate maverick" caricature for what it really is - a lie. If Wisconsin Right to Life, one of the most extreme, dangerously anti-choice organizations in the country can see the Real McCain, so should we.
You say that the vast majority of people support Roe. That doesn't mean they're correct. The vast majority of people once supported slavery and segregation. The vast majority of men once supported denying women the right to vote. It didn't mean they were correct then, and it doesn't mean abortion is anything but a terrible injustice now.
There is no clear provision in our law and Constitution for doing so, but I believe that the definition of those rights, and the intersection and possible conflict between them, should be entrusted entirely to the careful consideration and decision of women. We men should and must entirely respect their collective judgment in this important matter, and just butt out - except to the extent necessary to ensure that all men do likewise.
I completely support the recently signed law that requires emergency care facilities to provide information about and access to emergency contraception for victims of rape and incest. And I agree with the point made in the previous comment that just because the Supreme Court has decided something is constitutional, or just because the majority of people support something, doesn't make it right.
But I think the implications of abortion and child bearing and personal privacy cry out for women's judgment. Think of Judge Solomon's decision to give half of the newborn baby to each woman who claimed it was hers. The allegedly true mother immediately relinquished her claim, while the other woman was silent. But that's a story about a male judge, whose threatened cruelty has been called "wisdom". Do you think that case might have been investigated and judged in a different fashion by women?
The problem we now face is that our Supreme Courts and our legislatures, unfortunately, are not composed entirely of women. And if the male Justices properly recuse themselves, there will be only one U.S. Justice left to hear the case.
"Hearts and Minds"
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