[Fwd: Re: Abortion and the Death Penalty (was Re: abortion litmus test)]

[Katha Pollitt]

Wojtek, I don't want to hog the list either, but I have to ask you to
provide some evidence that significant numbers of american working class
people are anti-choice, that the anti-choice movement has a lot of
followers, that the language of "choice" has alienated large numbers of
working class people etc. I think you are factually mistaken on all
these counts. As Yoshie showed, with her posting of stats from Catholics
for a Free choice, abortion is a very low priority for the vast majority
of Catholics, and very few Catholics (10-13 percent) are  totally
anti-choice. Do we know that that percent is working-class? I don't
think so! I'll bet most of them are just old.

  Similarly, the evangelical and fundamentalist Protestants who make up 
the religious right are often discussed as if they are working class,
but are they?  I don't know. Do you? Promise-Keepers say their members
have a median income of $48,000. Not exactly downtrodden.

  .

   As for 
"choice " being a word that turns off working class people, here too I'd
like some evidence. Working class people are, after all, Americans: they
shop in great big supermarkets that boast of the many varieties of every
kind of product; they want to choose their own doctors; to choose their
own religion (lots of church-hopping),and their own spouses, their own
style of dress, car, TV programming, fast-food burger, pornographic
magazines, vacation and home addresses. Working class people are just as
individualistic as other Americans: they don't like govt (or their
neighbors) telling them what they can and can't do in their private
lives.

  Other politicized uses of the word "choice" have  not harmed those
causes: school choice for example (letting parents choose their child's
public school instead of having to send the child to the zoned one) is a
very popular cause.  

  so IF "choice" is a bad way to phrase the right to abortion, the
answer cannot be a general working-class resistance to the idea of
choice,but something more specific: THIS is not a choice they believe
women should have.

  So after you explain why you believe the anti-choice movement is
largely one of working class people, you can explain why working class
people in particular believe women should not have this particular
choice.

  
best, katha