Delusional Right Wingers Compare Their Attempts To Restrict Reproductive Rights To Civil Rights Battles

The Los Angeles Times looks at the latest strategy from the right wing to try to circumvent a Supreme Court decision and impose their views upon the country:

Abortion foes, tired of a profusion of laws that limit but do not abolish abortion, are trying to answer the question in a way that they hope could put an end to legalized abortion.

Across the country, they have revived efforts to amend state constitutions to declare that personhood — and all rights accorded human beings — begins at conception.

From Florida to California, abortion foes are gathering signatures, pressing state legislators and raising money to put personhood measures on ballots next year. In Louisiana, a class at a Catholic high school is lobbying state legislators as part of a civics exercise.

“We have big and small efforts going on in 30 states right now,” said Keith Mason, co-founder of Colorado-based Personhood USA. “Our goal is to activate the population.”

Critics deride the effort as the “egg-as-person” movement and say it threatens in vitro fertilization; some kinds of birth control, including IUDs and pills; and stem cell research. They say that Americans will reject it as a government intrusion into their privacy.

Yes, this is real government intrusion in individual’s lives–not the imagined abuses seen by many conservatives. The irony is that such measures are supported by many of the same people who are engaging in right wing protests based upon a delusional view of what Obama is doing, often expressing rhetorical but not real support for freedom

As Ted Miller, spokesman for NARAL Pro-Choice America, said, “It’s a backdoor abortion ban.” So far voters and state legislatures have rejected such efforts. Supporters see a comparison between their efforts and supporters of homosexual rights and even Martin Luther King’s struggle for civil rights. What they fail to recognize is that the general movement of history has been for greater liberty and their attempts to impose such reactionary views have little chance of success in the modern world which they so desperately fight. Despite a rare outlier poll which suggests greater opposition to abortion, the vast majority of Americans would not back such a ban and a return to the era of shirt hanger abortions. A poll from May showed that 68 percent oppose overturning Roe v. Wade with only 30 percent supporting this. By continuing to pursue this issue, the right wing continues to marginalize themselves. Continued opposition to reproductive rights will leave the Republicans as a minority regional party limited to the south and Mormon belt of the west.

5 Comments

  1. 1
    Eclectic Radical says:

    ‘Yes, this is real government intrusion in individual’s lives–not the imagined abuses seen by many conservatives. The irony is that such measures are supported by many of the same people who are engaging in right wing protests based upon a delusional view of what Obama is doing, often expressing rhetorical but not real support for freedom’
     
    I touched on this very briefly at the end of something on my own blog. I called it ‘populist elitism‘ and I’ll probably write more about it as my thinking crystallizes more.
     
    Such people basically don’t want the government involved in their own lives, even when it would potentially benefit them a great deal. Often this is connected with traditional populist fears of authority and elitism.
     
    They have an innate belief, however, in their own moral superiority over their neighbors. They believe if everyone were just more like them, the world would be a better place. So they believe that the government should legislate to make people more like them, or at least live by their moral standards.
     
    They don’t see the contradiction at all.

  2. 2
    Ron Chusid says:

    They also have a bizarre lack of priorities. They can protest health care reform, which is primarily geared towards changing how insurance companies operate, not their personal health care, or a government bail out of GM, without understanding the limits to how this affects their own lives. However when it comes to matters which really involve government intrusion in individual’s lives they are all for it as long as they can impose their views upon others.

  3. 3
    Eclectic Radical says:

    ‘However when it comes to matters which really involve government intrusion in individual’s lives they are all for it as long as they can impose their views upon others.’
     
    This is exactly what it is all about. The grass roots of the conservative movement is not based in the neoconservative philosophy of its leadership. It is based in populist resentment of temporal authority and preference for spiritual authority. It is wrong for the secular government to make temporal impositions on the lives of citizens, but it is entirely appropriate (and even necessary) for spiritual authority to impose its will on temporal government and thus on many more live in deeper and more violating ways.
     
    However, they do not see this as government imposing its views on citizens. They see it as the proper imposition of Biblical principles necessary for ‘freedom’ to exist. They refuse to accept that disagreement is anything but evil or stupid.
     

  4. 4
    Diane says:

    I wonder how many girls and girl friends realize that they will be restricting the birth control pill with this legislation? They may not use it now, but most Catholic women do not believe the church’s ban against the pill.
    These people are so odd. They want the government to insure that every pregnancy is brought to term, that MD’s should not discuss end of life care so we can live like Terry Schiavo, but health insurance is not the role of government.
    They really are delusional. They must be stopped from impinging on our rights.
     

  5. 5
    Samantha Zender says:

    To get e birdseye view of how the right wing thinks it would be wise to read the very disturbing screed called “Battle of Jakes”.  It will keep you awake after you read it.

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