Abortion: A Political Moneymaker

The night Ronald Reagan was elected president I was a young reporter working in a newsroom, and I half-jokingly told my female colleagues, “Well, ladies, break out the coat hangers.”

Thirty-eight years later, through subsequent Republican administrations, we still have a right to legal abortion.

If Brett Kavanaugh is confirmed for the U.S. Supreme Court, the right to legal abortion is unlikely to change.

So why all the noisy protests during Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings? Why the never-ending arguments about abortion?

Money.

Abortion is a great fund-raising tool for both sides of the issue. It fuels political agendas.

In order to inspire donations for a cause, it helps to have a perceived enemy, something or someone to point to and say: Send money so we can fight them.

The election of Donald Trump has been a boon to Planned Parenthood.

Before he was a Republican, Trump was a Democrat. Before he was anti-abortion, he was pro-choice. When he changed parties, he automatically switched his public stand on abortion because in America that’s the box you’re expected to be in if you’re a Republican.

If the truth were known, Trump has probably been party to a few abortions himself. It’s doubtful he has ever had any allegiance to either the Republican or Democratic platforms. He has been called a Social Darwinist, probably the closest thing he has to a political philosophy. If so, he likely would support birth control and abortion for those in the lower socio-economic classes who don’t look like potential winners.

If Democratic Party leaders hadn’t snubbed then-Democrat Trump for years, they might now have a Democrat named Trump in the White House. And when President Trump the Democrat had a chance to nominate a Supreme Court justice, the abortion protests would be just as loud – but instead of coat hangers and menstrual blood, there would be pictures of babies in trash cans.

This is how shallow politics can run in America.

Since Trump’s win, Planned Parenthood has claimed more than 600,000 new donors. Certainly Republican women have unwanted pregnancies, and certainly there are Republican fathers who don’t want to see their daughters forced to have babies. Yet Planned Parenthood crawled into bed with the Democrats decades ago and cast Republicans as the enemy.

Its most recent national president, Cecile Richards, was the daughter of Democratic royalty, Texas Gov. Ann Richards. The committee appointed to name Cecile Richards’ successor is headed by Anna Quindlen, a former New York Times columnist well-known for supporting liberal causes.

All these past decades, Planned Parenthood could have tried to make common cause with Republicans on several fronts.

When economist Steven D. Levitt and journalist Stephen J. Dubner explored a link between the drop in crime in the 1990’s and legalized abortion, Planned Parenthood and pro-choice Democrats seemed loath to acknowledge it — instead of using it as a way to show how abortion can reduce welfare and social decay.

Planned Parenthood could have made common cause with Republicans who support the death penalty. Ever notice how Democrats who denounce the death penalty sound like pro-lifers talking about the sanctity of life? Either life is sacred, or it isn’t. As much as we might like to believe otherwise, not all lives are equal. They never have been.

Planned Parenthood could have used the history of its founder, Margaret Sanger, to illustrate how false the liberal-conservative, blue-red political divide is. Sanger had an extraordinary life. You can find one summary of her life on Planned Parenthood’s website. I prefer the one on “Writer’s Almanac” by Garrison Keillor:

“It’s the birthday of the woman who caused science fiction writer H.G. Wells to say: ‘The movement she started will grow to be, a hundred years from now, the most influential of all time.’ … Margaret Sanger was born into a working-class Irish family. Her mother died when she was 50, after 18 pregnancies. Margaret went to New York City, became a nurse, got married, and gave birth to three kids. As a nurse, she worked in the maternity ward on the Lower East Side, and many of her patients were poor, some of them living on the streets. They seemed old to her by the time they were 35, and many of them ended up in the hospital from self-induced abortions, which often killed them. Margaret nursed one mother back to health after she gave herself an abortion, and heard the woman beg the doctor for some protection against another pregnancy; the doctor told the woman to make her husband sleep outside. That woman died six months later, after a botched abortion… .”

At a time when birth control was illegal, Sanger opened a birth control clinic in New York. When it was raided by police, she spent 30 days in jail.

She took her campaign everywhere and didn’t draw political boundaries. She spoke to every group from civil rights organizations to the Ku Klux Klan.
Yet look how Renee Bracey Sherman, a reproductive-justice activist in the 21st Century, apologized for Sanger during the 2016 presidential election:

“Sanger was a birth-control advocate who had complex views that matched the time she was living in. She held somewhat confusing beliefs: She donated her money and time to the Anti-Nazi Committee, but also spoke with Ku Klux Klan members about the benefits of birth control.”

There was nothing confusing in Sanger’s beliefs. In advocating for birth control, she reached out to find common ground wherever she could. She didn’t have the luxury of living in a time when abortion was legal. She did have the advantage, though, of living at a time when the phrase “wrong side of history” wasn’t leveled against people by those presumptuous enough to think they know the future.

What would Sanger make of the protesters who tried to shut down Kavanaugh’s nomination hearings by resorting to smearing menstrual blood in their crotches? She might wonder at the time and political energy wasted on such stunts. How do they help persuade anyone of the benefits of abortion?

In 21st Century America, it isn’t legalized abortion that’s on the line. It’s political agendas and their related fundraising efforts. Some are more sacred than others.

– Pamela Fitzsimmons

Related:

Political Hands Rock the Cradle

From the archives:

This Will Never Stop

America’s Transit of Venus

10 Comments

  • NoFascists wrote:

    Abortion has become so entrenched. I know one person who has changed his mind on abortion in the last years. Me. How many do you know? What changed me was seeing my uncle die.his insurance wouldn’t pay for the best treatments. He might’ve had Obamacare but the cheaper plan. The sanctity of life argument is a joke.

    I also like the idea of cutting down on single moms. They’re the ones filling prisons with men who can’t function. Look at the studies and stats. Single motherhood is a disaster unless you’ ve got some education, skills or a good profession.

  • NoFascists wrote:

    I meant to say last 10 years. You made some thought provoking statements. Abortion should’ve never been a political issue. What’s going on with Kavanaugh is going to piss off men who support abortion rights. What bullshit. A lot of gameplaying going on. Women are not innocent creatures.

  • The only person I know who might have changed his mind about abortion in the last 10 years is my brother. I believe he used to be staunchly anti-abortion. We used to have strong political disagreements and once stopped talking to each other for almost 10 years.

    Our grandmother gave home-birth to 13 babies, two of whom died in infancy. I had never heard my brother comment on our grandmother’s hard life until about a year ago when he said, “Grandma was treated like a puppy mill.”

    That’s how women used to be treated — and still are in some countries. I suspect my brother has softened his views on abortion and likely would support one of his daughters if she wanted an abortion. Like you, he has seen that not all life is sacred.

    This latest twist on Kavanaugh’s confirmation — that he groped someone in high school — might be the beginning of a tide against the MeToo tyranny. It borders on ridiculous.

    How many high school guys have groped a classmate? How many high school girls have deliberately acted in a flirty manner to try and get a guy to grope them?

  • Interestingly or coincidentally last Saturday I had a madwoman thrust the crotch of her inside out jeans at me when I request that she cease bathing naked in a toilet stall.

    I think its the eugenics aspect of the matter that some would claim disfigures Sanger’s legacy.

    I paid for two abortions but now have very strong feelings and thoughts about it. I do wish that adoption could enjoy a little foregrounding. And, that having children wasn’t considered by so many an inconvenient crime against humanity.

    I would not want to live in a nation in which many of its people failed to object to abortion.

    I regularly drive Canadian mothers to to the Shriner’s children’s hospital. Canada’s healthcare system doesn’t make provision for the desperate ailments of these children. Shriner’s flies them down, puts them up, and then provides unparalleled medical care.

    One mother had a son so severely damaged by congenital birth defects that she would never see any return for the love and time she put into that child. I don’t know if I ever seen anyone take that much responsibility on before.

    The Kavanaugh business – high school say so recalled 30 years later? Christ on a fuckin’ crutch.

    No, I wont shut up Senator.

    http://cultofthe1st.blogspot.com/2018/09/why-christine-blasey-fords-high-school_19.html?m=1

  • Thanks for that link. I had not seen Ford’s redacted high school yearbook. It’s not surprising, though. Adolescents — male and female — are capable of playing sexual games.

    You probably heard about the Republican congressman who joked that Ruth Bader Ginsburg was groped by Abe Lincoln. Naturally, The New York Times is treating this as serious news. Just wait until they find out that one of Ginsburg’s fellow kindergartners, now 85, has reported that Ruthie asked to see his pee-pee.

  • I forgot to complete the exchange with the madwoman, her jean’s crotch wash soaked in menstrual blood.

  • Nobody can say your job is boring.

    A madwoman who is young enough to still menstruate is capable of getting pregnant. If she did, would it be better if she had an abortion? What would happen to a child raised by a madwoman? We can’t force people to adopt or become foster parents.

    Now I understand your other comment about Sanger’s link to eugenics. We have a world population pushing 8 billion. If birth control is a form of eugenics, then so be it. If we can’t find a humane way to control the planet’s population, Mother or Father Nature will likely find a way. It may not be very humane.

  • Dealing with the floundering population of America’s drowning does get repetitious if not actually boring. I had a second madwoman on Sunday. Her circumstances were so desperate that the police picked her up and got her to medical help.

    The 6’ 3” 250 male was a different story (and Wednesday as opposed to Saturday and Sunday). Like taking a redwood down with a hand ax. Which is why I got 6 cops and a taser in on the deal.

    I don’t know what to do. Sangerish eugenics? Well, truthfully I’d endorse sterilization over abortion. This madwoman is a case in point. She’s forever on a high wire. Without constant and compelled medication she’ll be, she is a danger to herself. Moreover, I do not know the provenance of the blood that she was displaying. That was the only statement that she made that was seemingly supported by evidence.

    Anyway, the antiquated hyper protective approach to the subject of abortion is perhaps why a man such as Gosnell and all of the as yet undiscovered Gosnells carry on.

    Is PP selling body parts of babies that have been aborted or is that right wing propaganda? If it is not are we ok with an industry that profits from…?

    Overpopulation? Begin at home, America. Today a responsible study suggests that the actual population of illegals in America is double (22 million) the accepted figure of 11 million. I’ve always suspected it closer to 33 million people (to-may-to/to-maw-to, or as the current Lion of Feminism would have it, “What difference at this point does it make?”).

    I mean before we get them to condom up in Tegucigalpa and Swaziland let’s see what we can do here in Oregon. Of course today the city dedicated half a million taxpayer dollars to the legal defense of illegals.
    Poor thinking but good feeling, no?

  • Several years ago, I wrote an op-ed in The Oregonian that suggested one way to reduce the number of mothers and children in the foster care system was to bribe the mothers into using birth control. I based this in part on a conversation I’d had with a social worker when I was a Court-Appointed Special Advocate for foster children. One of the children assigned to me told me she didn’t think her mother should have any more babies. The social worker said some mothers could probably be bribed with a bus pass.

    Irresponsible breeding is one subject that neither conservatives nor liberals will address — and feminists are some of the worst. They are opposed to any kind of societal shame directed at females.

    Now about the madwomen and madmen you’re dealing with: Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler recently named a new citizen committee to help reform the police bureau’s handling of the mentally.

    The last citizen committee met for two years before it was disbanded after meetings were constantly disrupted, in part by folks claiming mental illness. A few weeks ago, I attended a city meeting giving an overview of this new citizen group. It will likely be no more successful. The problem is that the members are not people who, like you, literally get their hands dirty dealing with a difficult population.

    The city wants somebody to take care of the criminals and the crazies in a way that will not offend Portland’s progressive values.

  • Off point but I’m very fond and respectful of Steele.

    Lot of pop-ups, but it is a free and short read.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-the-left-is-consumed-with-hate-1537723198?mod=hp_opin_pos1

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