Look for the federalist label
by digby
Adele Stan talks to pollster Celinda Lake about this alleged drop in "pro-choice" sentiment and she explains that it's less the attitude than a revulsion toward the fight:
[W]e know from other data that people are significantly less interested in labels right now, period," Lake said. "[W]e're seeing it in everything -- it has nothing to do with abortion; we're seeing it in lots of different areas -- is that people just don't like labels right now. They think it's divisive, and not reflective of the complications of an issue, gets in the way of solutions."
We're seeing a lot of this, particularly in the issues that have to do with the "lady-parts." Recall Dana Milbank just recently:
In his latest column, Dana Milbank criticizes abortion provider Merle Hoffman for raising a ‘false alarm’ about the threat to reproductive rights in this country. He then goes on the cite the numerous marches and events that will take place on both sides of the debate over the next week as the country celebrates – or laments – the landmark Roe v. Wade decision that made abortion legal in this country.
All of this attention troubles Dana Milbank. He writes, “if these groups cared as much about the issue as they claim, and didn’t have such strong financial incentives to avoid consensus and compromise, they’d cancel the carnivals and get to work on the one thing everybody agrees would be worthwhile — reducing unwanted pregnancies.”
He chastises the choice movement by telling us that “not every compromise means a slippery slope to the back alley.” He tells us to stop with the “sky is falling” argument and to acknowledge that the majority of Americans have legitimate concerns.
That's very typical gaslighting, which is something almost guaranteed to make almost any women want to scream in frustration. But be that as it may, there are a lot of people who just want this to go away as an argument and most of them happen to be people who support abortion rights.
I don't know what to do about that. It's a complicated argument and we've clearly failed along the way to make it simple enough to counter the lugubrious paeans to "life" from the people who want to cut off unemployment insurance. But still, there remains at least a bare majority of Americans who support the policy itself.
And Stan spells out how the right is effectively dealing with that:
When you look at the results of national polls on both abortion and marriage equality, you get a clear sense of why the right plays the states' rights game today, just as slave-owning Southerners did two centuries ago. Opponents of equality for women and LGBT people know they can't win a national popular vote on their bigotry and misogyny; the best they could hope for is a draw on women's rights, and a loss, however close, on LGBT rights. That's why the right aims its biggest battles at state legislatures. Now that the Supreme Court is a right-winger's dream, any test of draconian law at the state level may well be sanctioned at the federal level. And if enough Tea Partiers and religious-right types win election to Congress, the law of the land may come to defy overall public opinion.
Just look at the Washington Post poll on marriage equality. It was released just days after North Carolina passed a particularly restrictive amendment to the state constitution that not only banned same-sex marriage, but civil unions and domestic partnerships for both gay and heterosexual couples. In passing such a ballot measure, North Carolina joined another 30 states that have already passed same-sex marriage bans.
Even as the nation remains divided on abortion, a torrent of restrictive legislation aimed at women seeking abortions or the medical facilities that provide them is flooding state legislatures. This year, bills have been introduced for mandatory ultrasounds for women seeking abortion -- some of which demand that the ultrasound technician ask the woman to view the image or listen to the fetal heartbeat -- in 17 state legislatures. Two of those bills have already passed, in Virginia and Arizona.
For advocates of reproductive justice and marriage equality, nothing less than a shift in the balance of power on the Supreme Court will settle the law in their favor.
Indeed. And the only people who are old enough to retire any time soon are people who already support women's and LGBT rights. Barring something unexpected happening, this battle is going to rage on for quite awhile. Sorry.
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