Submitted to a Candid World

On the morning July 7, 2005, when terrorist attacks on the London Tube claimed the lives of 52 British men and women, I had just tapped into the District Line at Earl’s Court on my way to work at Westminster.  As news of the attacks trickled through the communications lines, my train was stopped between stations, held, and eventually stopped at South Kensington, where TfL personnel ordered confused commuters off the train.  We weren’t told why - one official-looking fellow mentioned a “power surge” -  but by the time I walked to Parliament, the Uzis in the hands of the guards outside Portcullis House gave me all I needed to know.  This was no power surge.

Over the next week, I became immensely proud of the way the British people reacted to the tragedy.  Possibly because London had faced terrorism before, in the form of the IRA - hence the annoying lack of garbage cans on the nonetheless bizarrely pristine London streets - the nation rolled with the punch.  I was even told by one Londoner that this had been expected for some time.  Most importantly, and most impressively, the British people refused the temptation to, in the wake of tragedy, give in to anger, violence, xenophobia, and hatred.  At Prime Minister’s Questions the very next week, both parties came together to speak against blaming the atrocity on Muslims as a group, and to blast the extremist British National Party for trying to score cheap political points:

Robert Flello (MP, Labour): I, too, commend and praise the police and security services for their swift and effective identification of the evil extremists who brought death and misery to our streets last week. Will the Prime Minister join me, however, in condemning those right-wing extremists in the British National party, in Barking and elsewhere, who are cynically and sickly trying to exploit people’s tragedy, anguish and understandable anger over the barbaric attack in order to score cheap but dangerous political points? Does not the British National party shame itself and slur the word “British”?

Tony Blair (PM, Labour): I agree with my hon. Friend’s sentiments. If we are right in saying that these terrorist attacks are an attack on our way of life, it is most important to say that part of our way of life is tolerance and respect for other people of different races, religions and faiths. It is therefore particularly revolting for anyone to try to exploit these attacks for the purpose of racism.

What an important message, spoken at such an important time.  Going beyond Mr. Flello and Mr. Blair, to cave to xenophobia and appropriate tragedy to political gain is to give the terrorists what they want: a change for the worst in a democratic, civilized, freedom-loving people.  Terrorism succeeds not by death, but by playing upon our fears and bringing out the worst in all of us.

In our own situation, to invoke 9/11 to limit liberty, to turn misguided rage into misguided war, or to attack political opponents, is to hand terrorism a victory.  But if we respond to terrorism with the best in all of us, national tragedies can even become opportunities to strengthen democracy, by re-affirming our commitments to liberty and pluralism, in spite of sorrow, fear, and foes.

Alas for those of us who still haven’t gotten that message.

Ask anyone. Deadlines breed desperation.

I’ve said it before - the only thing more dangerous than George W. Bush with a mandate, is George W. Bush with nothing left to lose. In what I can only imagine is an attempt to find just one last way to hurt America, Bush has aimed to  cut off women’s access to contraceptives. This time, it’s a regular Texas two-step: (1) de-fund hospitals that “discriminate” against doctors & staff who won’t perform abortions, and (2) expand the definition of “abortion” to include “contraception.”

I respect the fantastic conversation we’ve been having on this site about abortion, but this goes well beyond being pro-life or pro-choice. Bush’s latest nefarious scheme is flat-out anti-women. It will not only prevent women from seeking abortions, but also function to withdraw emergency contraceptives, and even regular, prophylactic birth control pills from a large portion of the American population.

Crusading, fundamentalist Christianity’s latest backhand slap to America’s women has been - dare I say it? - gestating for the past four years. Consistent with the Bush administration mantra that not being allowed to force your beliefs on others is “discrimination,” late in the Congressional session in 2004, radical right-wing conservative legislators tacked a rider onto a massive, must-pass funding bill that required federally funded hospitals to employ pro-life staff, or lose billions of dollars in heretofore free grants. The bill - Public Law 108-447, or H.R. 4818 (2004) - tucked the provision away on page 3,163 of the immense act, in Section 507:

…
(d)(1) None of the funds made available in this Act may be made available to a Federal agency or program, or to a State or local government, if such agency, program, or government subjects any institutional or individual health care entity to discrimination on the basis that the health care entity does not provide, pay for, provide coverage of, or refer for abortions.

The rider was the natural expansion of a 1991 Supreme Court case, Rust v. Sullivan, 500 U.S. 173 (1991), which, in one the most nakedly partisan and legally tortured opinions ever penned by the Justices, allowed the government to pull funding from federally funded clinics that counseled recommended even mentioned the word “abortion.“

Bush’s new partisan magic comes from deciding to enforce this overlooked provision, while simultaneously redefining “abortion,” through the Department of Health and Human Services, as:

[A]ny of the various procedures that results in the procedures that result in the termination of the life of a human being in utero between conception and natural birth whether before or after implantation. [click here]

That’s right. The new HHS proposal would (1) define conception as life’s beginning, and (2) define anything that happens to the two-to-eight celled embryo immediately after fertilization - even before implantation - as an “abortion.” It would torpedo the morning-after pill, and, by extension, potentially prophylactic birth control pills too, at least insofar as it would end the ability of any publicly-funded medical care facility to dispense them.

While pulling pills from hospitals and federal clinics might sound like “not a big deal” - after all, can’t women just see a private practitioner, or get a prescription from Duane Reed? - the consequences of this decision, like so many of the Bush administration’s missteps, will (if enacted) be felt most heavily by women who lack those options, who live in towns with only hospitals, who rely on government-subsidized care because they can’t afford any better, or who face a rush, like rape victims, to prevent implantation. Bush’s HHS won’t end abortion & birth control: it’ll simply pull the option from the poor and those who need it most.

If there’s any upside to this new revelation - and I stress the “if” - it’s that Our Boy McCain is going to face a decision. Either way, he loses: he can join the President’s trip back in time to the 1920s, driving away women and moderates, or pick the moderate course and firmly alienate evangelicals, who see milestones like this as steps on the road to the Rapture.

Bush drove our country apart to further his partisan agenda; now he stands to drive his party apart, too, in a desperate final grab for power over women’s bodies.

Feminism is an umbrella term that demands very little.  While academics can debate the finer points of the ideology, parse the movement into “waves,” and wrangle with MacKinnon and Dworkin, the result is a “big tent” philosophy united on the single, unoffensive, and simple point that women are entitled to the same rights and respect as men, and ought to have the same choices as men. 

Choice is the operative word there.  While the right tries endlessly to equate the entire philosophy with its radicals - we’ve all heard from conservative pundits that, apparently, ”feminists hate stay-at-home moms” - feminism doesn’t require that women do anything with their lives, other than what they want.  And that’s the beauty of it. One can be a feminist lawyer, a feminist soldier, a femimist stay-at-home mom, or even a feminist man.  It’s all about respect, and the freedom to choose.

A freedom that, in whatever form it takes, John McCain opposes (kudos to Judith Warner).  McCain’s idea of women is one who has no choice but to get pregnant (no birth control), stay pregnant (no abortion), and, dare she work, get paid less (no equal pay).  Make no mistake: John McCain will do no favor for women.

Earlier this week, Unnamed Law Firm LLP (not my own) hosted a “women’s forum” event at Saks Fifth Avenue, where female attorneys were given cocktails, free reign of the “shoes” floor of the prestigious fashion venue, and one-day-only 15% discount cards.

While I don’t see eye-to-eye with Catharine MacKinnon, I consider myself an enlightened, feminist, pro-equality man. So, when I first heard about this event from an Unnamed Friend, my immediate reaction was, “how patronizing and anti-feminist for Unnamed Firm to pigeonhole all women as shoe-addicted fashionistas! Who do they think they are, billing this as an ‘equality’ and ‘feminist’ event?!?”

I’ve since changed my tune. Putting this argument and male outrage at a perceived stereotyping event to my female friends, I couldn’t even get through the word “anti” in that short little speech before receiving the following reactions:

• <Eyes glazed> “…that’s…. awesome…”
• <Eyes glazed> “NO. WAY. Wait, Saks?”
• <Chat window glazed> “SHUT. UP.”

I guess some stereotypes are fine if they’re applied to bring near-uniform happiness. Equally, I for one wouldn’t object to a similar event at Best Buy or the Apple Store, so my gender might be just as easily pigeonholed. In fact, if I were a male associate at Unnamed Law Firm LLP…

Abortion is a complicated issue with no easy answer. Just ask Kang (impersonating Bob Dole).

Just like any issue, there are principled stances on both sides. While I disagree vehemently with the position that abortion should be illegal in all instances, it is intellectually consistent, and draws its strength from a deep (and indisputable) belief that human life begins at the very second of conception, and is sacrosanct. I can’t debate that. I can’t debate away someone’s religion. I have to respect it.

Oddly, though, this position commands a bare 13% of Americans. In fact, polls like this suggest that reproductive choice is becoming a valence issue - but let’s set that aside for a minute. I’m interested in the 24% who oppose abortion in “most” cases.

Those who believe that abortion should be illegal in most cases get to that position by starting with a categorical ban - like the above 13% - and then carving out exceptions. However, carving out exceptions, under the “sanctity of life” reasoning, is carving out lives from the protective umbrella of the law: granting any exception to a categorical ban, besides an exception for the health of the mother, literally vitiates the “sanctity of life” justification for opposing abortion. If these moderate pro-lifers can no longer (logically) rely upon the “sanctity of life” argument, why do they oppose abortion at all?

Here, the exceptions carved out by moderate pro-lifers are illuminating. At the risk of mixing polls, 81% of Americans believe that abortion should be legal in cases of rape. Thus, for some Americans, rape is on a short list of very few cases under which abortion should be legal. Why? If every fetus is a sacred human life, ergo illegal to terminate, why would it matter if its mother isn’t complicit in the sexual act?

Because, for many pro-lifers, the abortion issue isn’t about defending life, it’s about punishing fault. The difference between rape and consensual sex is a difference in culpability. If recreational sex is a sin, both members of the couple who engage in it are sinners. But in the case of rape, only the man is a sinner; the woman is innocent. In a philosophy where sex is immoral, rape removes the cloud of fault from the woman.

By making a legal distinction based on rape, then, provided that abortion is otherwise illegal, we let the concept of culpability determine whether or not abortion is an option. In short, a notion that women are “at fault” for sex, and ought to be punished, lurks nastily behind the “sanctity of life” rhetoric spouted by moderate pro-lifers.

This betrays the true injustice of banning abortion. If we ban abortion only because we believe women ought to be punished for sex, we force upon her punishment that, if justly leveraged against anyone, ought to be leveraged against both members of a consensual sexual couple. The law becomes a tool by which women are punished for their humanity, while men get away free; it becomes a tool of enforcing a caste system.

I don’t mean to suggest that the choice is between banning all abortions, and legalizing all abortions. Dole/Kang was wrong at least the first two times. I merely suggest that where “the sanctity of life” is the only reason to ban abortion, and where “life” begins at conception, exceptions to a categorical ban vitiate that reasoning and expose the true malignant thought process behind the pro-life movement: namely, anti-feminism.

Starting from a different point, though, allows one to honestly and morally come to a middle ground. I believe that every life is sacred, but I draw the line for what constitutes “life” at the end of the second trimester (possibly first - I haven’t worked that out yet), and would categorically ban all abortions after that point except those necessary for the mother’s health. Unlike Justice Kennedy, I don’t think we can dispose of that exception.

Why do insurance companies cover Viagra, but not birth control, Mr. McCain, and why have you voted to keep it that way?

The obvious answer is because, based on the religious outlook on sex, men should enjoy it, and women shouldn’t be having it.  So there’s literally no conflict in letting men do it through old age, but keeping women away from the fun by forcing them - and them alone - to embrace the consequences.  To politicians like McCain, that’s just the way it is.  Some things ought never change.

Oh, but don’t you believe him.  Do any lingering Pro-Clinton/Anti-Obama partisans still doubt how badly we need to keep this guy away from the Oval Office?

Thanks to Natalie for the video link.

As you may know, my friend Tim Brady is a co-author on this blog, but lately he’s been a little tied up with other things… for one, you see, he’s in Iraq for the next month filming for his nonprofit group, the Soulbird Music Project.

But, good news, everyone! Apparently, Iraq has gchat, and I’m happy to report that Tim is alive and well (setting aside some food-related unpleasantness; hope you get better!). I’m looking forward to some great insights from him on the situation over there when he’s able, but in the meantime, read more about his projects at Soulbird.org.

Especially on the Fourth of July, we ought to recognize that, as Barack Obama said, patriotism knows no party lines:

But, when a political movement comes into conflict with the most basic values of America, to the point that it is clearly perpendicular with our foundational ideals, we ought to draw the definition of “patriot” to exclude that group.  I think that this line, if it exists, ought to be fairly hard to cross, particularly because calling someone “unpatriotic” is a clear slap in the face to individuals or groups who legitimately seek to improve America with their ideas, crazy though they may be.  The democratic requirement of a vibrant marketplace of ideas demands that we not so devalue each other.  Where an ideology comprises a shade of gray instead of an unequivocal danger to democracy, it’s not fair to call its adherents categorically unpatriotic. Patriotism merely requires that one do what’s best for America, with its foundational ideas. There are many respectable means to that end.

But there are ideologies that come at a crossroads with patriotism, though they come only when one seeks to oppose a fundamental, highly abstracted democratic principle.  America will brook no tyrant, for example, and anyone who would supplant democracy with kingship or tyranny couldn’t fairly be called a patriot.  Democracy requires free speech: shooting ones’ political opponents is clearly obnoxious to the idea of America, and therefore unpatriotic.

Similarly, while Americans obviously clash on the definition of how much difference our commitment to equality requires us to tolerate, I think we are justified in withdrawing the label “patriot” from someone who undertakes affirmative opposition to the very principle of equality before the law. While a patriot may fairly decide to fail to empower a group of society, no true American should co-opt the machinery of the state to suppress the same group. By example, I do not doubt that one may oppose gay rights (marriage, nondiscrimination) and still call themselves a patriot, but one may not affirmatively seek to remove the fundamental rights of all Americans, such as suffrage, from a group while claiming to vindicate any of America’s foundational principles.

Given that definition - which I’m still not so sure about, so I welcome debate - I’m not sure on which side of the line the late Jesse Helms falls.  I’m thinking about this because the immediate impetus when a powerful and successful American politician dies is to valorize the individual, and hail them as a patriot.  But I’m not sure Senator Helms’ legacy deserves the inevitable praise.

There’s something basically wrong about someone who fails to recognize the equal rights of black Americans, even after decades and decades in power, and decades of experience with men and women of all races.  While some wiggle room ought be given when evaluating historical figures, who must always work within the mode of the day - it’s a common human failing to not question the evils of ones’ time, if they’re widespread enough - persisting in bigotry while the rest of the world moves on signifies, to me, a certain corruption unbefitting an American.  Patriotism requires us to work always towards a more perfect union.  People who works against that, when the rest of the nation has moved on… those types really make me scratch my head.

Apparently, if you live in a Ninth Circuit state (California, et al), the dismembered-fetus-picture truck is soon to join the ice cream truck outside the schoolhouse. Ruling on the issue just yesterday, the Ninth Circuit greenlit the use of abortion images outside schools as the latest weapon in the anti-choice activists’ arsenal, reaching a conclusion that’s questionable on the law, and emblematic of the principle that the first amendment requires us to embrace the bad with the good. I’ve divided this post into two sections; if you want, please feel free to skip “the law” to get to “the rant.”

The Law

You can get a little bit of the legal background at Education Week’s School Law Blog. Doctrinally, this ruling is a little bit surprising: owing to the traditional respect for speech in the open air and on the streets, the state can’t ban controversial commecial speech items, like smoking ads, near schools, but the Supreme Court has previously outlawed disruptive speech near schools (Grayned v. Rockford).  Why Grayned doesn’t control here is beyond me.

Also, courts have shown themselves quite flexible when dealing with extremely offensive speech near sensitive locations.  It ought to be unsurprising that a majority of these “offensive speech in sensitive locales” cases come up in the context of anti-choice abortion protestors and picketers, and courts have generally balanced the rights, handing neither side a sound victory, but letting protestors have their way in a less gruesome, less intrusive manner.

For example, law limits the traditional right to protest in the streets to prevent anti-choice protestors from screaming outside a politicians house (Frisby v. Schultz), and in no less than three major Supreme Court cases, the Justices have balanced the protestors’ rights to be insane against the clinicians and patients’ rights to be free of insanity, offensive yelling, and harassment, coming up with solid compromises allowing protests while protecting patient privacy and reasonable expectations of non-harassment (Madsen, Schenck, Hill). In short, the Grayned principle, regarding disruptive speech near schools, and the Madsen/Schenck/Hill balancing tests, all had to go out the window for the Ninth Circuit to decide this case the way it did. I’m a little confused. But enough of the law. I can’t hold in the rage any longer.

The Rant

Seriously, who the hell do these people think they are? I admit that a lot of first amendment cases these days are about finding out just how many people the law will let you piss off, but just because it’s legal doesn’t mean you ought to do it. These are people who will stand outside your home if you’re a doctor at a women’s clinic, make “WANTED” posters with your name on it and circulate it to murderers, harass you on your way to Planned Parenthood - even if you’re just there to get a yearly checkup - and then turn around thank God for the chance to so harass you. While the first amendment empowers the lunatics of the world to choose that course, it does not require them to do so.

I’d be a lot more convinced about the seriousness of the pro-life anti-choice movement’s commitment to “the sanctity of life” if they showed a little more concern for decency, and the line between “debate” and “harassment,” in their day-to-day activities. When a movement becomes a race to the bottom, to shock the most, to scare the most, to disgust the most, it’s time to question the movement’s direction and its real purpose. If their end is so vaunted, holy, and sacred, then their means ought to matter. And I get called “biased,” rest assured that I’d say the same thing about any movement that stooped to these inane tactics. The first amendment lets us speak our mind; but we don’t have to be jerks about it, nor should we. The first amendment is a right and a responsibility to engage in good speech; the right without the responsibility undermines society and democracy.

Picketers, get these trucks away from our kids. I wouldn’t shove gay porn down your kids’ throats, or plaster it on trucks near schools; why would you do this, just because you can?

I routinely run into this little propaganda piece, all over the (6) Train, and the (N)(Q)(R)(W) Trains, and I really have to wonder.

What the hell is a free abortion alternative? As a female friend of mine has often pointed out, it would have to include at least medical care, paid maternity leave from work, and, unless the child is adopted, either hundreds of thousands of dollars in child care, or an interest-free advance on whatever salary the child would earn upon reaching a working age (minus the child’s own living needs).

I’m aware that the pro-life screed is, “if you can’t afford a child, don’t have sex,” but for the women this propaganda is targeting, “don’t have sex” is clearly no longer an option. Why lie to women about the economics of their family planning decisions once the deed’s been done?