DeclinetoState
02-03-2006, 01:34 PM
http://www.creators.com/opinion_show.cfm?columnsName=ses
Now that Sam Alito has been confirmed, the pro-choice movement in America needs to take stock. The effort to stop Alito was a colossal failure. The opportunity to educate the public about the tenuous state of abortion rights in America was utterly lost in a confusing Senate strategy that at one moment focused on Alito's club memberships, at another on his investments and hardly ever on the likely future for women in this country.
But the senators alone cannot be blamed. The pro-choice movement was in many respects no more effective than the senators in reaching women -- despite repeated claims that Roe was at risk, most women remained ummoved. There was no outrage, little pressure and nothing resembling an effective grass-roots movement to stop Alito.
Part of the reason, no doubt, is because the women with the most political clout in this country do not feel vulnerable to Sam Alito. To a very large extent, they are right. But that is not a good enough reason for their apathy.
Even if Roe were to be overruled, women in blue states along the two coasts would be unlikely to see any major changes in their rights, or in access to abortion. The decision as to abortion rights would shift back to each of the states -- in states with pro-choice majorities or supermajorities in the legislatures and-or pro-choice governors, protection of abortion rights would be afforded by state law, or even by the state Constitution.
I guess this is her point, near the end of the article:
When I tell my students about the bad old days, when we used to collect money along the hallway of the dorm and bundle someone off on the bus to New York, hoping she wouldn't start hemorrhaging on the way home, they look at me as if I were from another time zone, another country.
Another time zone, another country--when it was much harder to kill your kids.
Now that Sam Alito has been confirmed, the pro-choice movement in America needs to take stock. The effort to stop Alito was a colossal failure. The opportunity to educate the public about the tenuous state of abortion rights in America was utterly lost in a confusing Senate strategy that at one moment focused on Alito's club memberships, at another on his investments and hardly ever on the likely future for women in this country.
But the senators alone cannot be blamed. The pro-choice movement was in many respects no more effective than the senators in reaching women -- despite repeated claims that Roe was at risk, most women remained ummoved. There was no outrage, little pressure and nothing resembling an effective grass-roots movement to stop Alito.
Part of the reason, no doubt, is because the women with the most political clout in this country do not feel vulnerable to Sam Alito. To a very large extent, they are right. But that is not a good enough reason for their apathy.
Even if Roe were to be overruled, women in blue states along the two coasts would be unlikely to see any major changes in their rights, or in access to abortion. The decision as to abortion rights would shift back to each of the states -- in states with pro-choice majorities or supermajorities in the legislatures and-or pro-choice governors, protection of abortion rights would be afforded by state law, or even by the state Constitution.
I guess this is her point, near the end of the article:
When I tell my students about the bad old days, when we used to collect money along the hallway of the dorm and bundle someone off on the bus to New York, hoping she wouldn't start hemorrhaging on the way home, they look at me as if I were from another time zone, another country.
Another time zone, another country--when it was much harder to kill your kids.