Moore: GOP no threat to abortion

[Doug Henwood]

[via Michael Eisenscher]

"Ain't Fallin' For That One Again"

Originally posted at Grassroots.com

by Michael Moore

I think the first time I remember hearing this political urban myth 
was in the 1976 presidential election. Somebody told me the reason I 
had to vote for Jimmy Carter was because if Gerald Ford was elected, 
women would lose their right to chose to have an abortion. Abortion 
had been legal for only three years at that point. It was considered 
a great victory, one we all wanted to support.

So, I voted for Jimmy Carter -- and guess what? One of the things he 
did was to stop all abortions provided for women or wives in the 
armed services! He also stopped any further funding to birth control 
groups overseas that offered abortion as an alternative. And he ended 
all Medicaid payments for poor women in need of an abortion.

I felt a bit abused. I mean, Gerry Ford had been pro-choice. His wife 
was an ardent supporter of women's rights. And it was a Nixon 
appointee to the Supreme Court -- Justice Blackmun -- that wrote the 
majority opinion making abortion legal. What was I thinking? (Other 
than that the Nixon Nightmare years had to come to an end! That, I 
correctly rationalized, was worth the vote for Carter.)

Four years later, Democrats and liberals were going nuts over the 
possibility that Ronald Reagan might unseat Carter. Dire warnings 
were issued to all: If Reagan gets in, abortion will be illegal, 
period.

Well, I didn't vote for Reagan OR Carter, Reagan got in, and then 
something strange happened: Abortion remained legal! Sure, Reagan 
built on Carter's abortion restrictions, but Roe v. Wade was still 
the law of the land when the Gipper rode off into the sunset eight 
years later.

Yet Reagan had appointed plenty of wingnuts to the Supreme Court, so 
when the doomsayers in 1988 warned that George Bush would CERTAINLY 
send women back to the alleys to have illegal abortions, another 
bizarre thing happened -- Bush got elected, and ... four years later 
... ABORTION WAS STILL LEGAL!

But Bush did leave us with Clarence Thomas, so when the Democrats 
came to scare the bejeepers out of me with what Bush would do to a 
woman's right to choose if he got a second term, I decided to vote 
for Bill Clinton.

So what's happened under our first feminist-man president?

Perhaps Clinton misunderstood his mission: he was supposed to support 
a Woman's right to choose, not his right to choose women. Roe v. Wade 
is still on the books (mainly because of the consistent and 
unwavering support from the Reagan-appointed Justice O'Connor, the 
Ford-appointed Justice Stevens, and the Bush-appointed Justice 
Souter! They have voted to uphold abortion rights every single time). 
But it is now twice as hard for a woman in America to obtain an 
abortion as it was when Clinton took office. The anti-abortion 
terrorists have been so successful in their campaign of violence 
against abortion clinics and doctors and hospitals who perform 
abortions that a woman can now get an abortion in only 14% of the 
counties in the United States. That's right. Terrorism has scored its 
first victory on U.S. soil by assassinating enough doctors and 
firebombing enough clinics so that no one wants to perform an 
abortion. So if you live in one of the 86% of counties where not a 
single doctor will do an abortion, let me ask you this: what good is 
a "right" to an abortion if you can't get one?

The stunning thing about this virtual elimination of abortion in 
America is that it has occurred at a time when nearly 70% of the 
country supports some form of legal abortion. The terrorists have 
literally gotten away with murder -- with a pro-choice attorney 
general sitting in Washington, D.C., doing damn little about it. 
About the only reason I voted for these clowns was because of this 
issue -- and where the hell have they been?

Which brings us to Ralph Nader. Vice President Al Gore, on Meet the 
Press this week, told Tim Russert WHAT WOULD HAPPEN if George W. were 
elected president. Women would lose their right to have an abortion, 
Gore bellowed, with no equivocation and no hint of shame for what has 
happened on the Clinton/Gore watch.

All the pundits -- and the Democrats -- tell us that a vote for Nader 
is a vote for Bush because all Ralph will end up doing is siphoning 
off votes that would have gone to Gore. This is their mantra:

"IF BUSH IS ELECTED, HE WILL APPOINT JUSTICES TO THE SUPREME COURT 
AND THEY WILL DECLARE ABORTION ILLEGAL!"

Well, I've fallen for this before and I ain't fallin' for it again. 
In fact, I will go so far as to say that George W. Bush, if for some 
reason he is magically elected, will NEVER do ANYTHING to make 
abortion illegal.

Here's my proof:

1. To recap what I have already stated: Roe v. Wade was written by a 
Republican, and upheld for 27 years by Republicans. No Republican 
president has made abortion illegal, and none will this time around.

2. George W. is, first and only, a politician. For crying out loud, 
if 70% of the country favors legal abortion, trust me, that party boy 
is NEVER going to cook his goose on this issue. He is already moving 
to the center on abortion and has been doing so since the primaries. 
He wants to win. He already has the majority of women supporting him 
in the polls, in part because a lot of women are confident he will 
not upset this apple cart.

3. The New York Times two weeks ago did a study of Bush's court 
appointees in Texas and found that he did NOT appoint right-wing 
crazies, but rather moderates or moderate conservatives who have 
upheld legal abortion in Texas and struck down some cases that tried 
to put restrictions on a woman's right to choose.

4. Sometimes even conservatives end up accepting that the tide has 
turned against them. The most stunning example of this came last 
month when ultra-conservative Chief Justice William Rehnquist 
insisted on writing the MAJORITY opinion for the court upholding the 
Miranda ruling that requires the police to inform an arrestee of his 
or her constitutional rights. Now, you know a guy like Rehnquist 
personally just hates forcing the police to read someone their 
rights. But in his decision keeping Miranda the law of the land, 
Rehnquist wrote that the Miranda rights are now "part of the American 
culture" and therefore should not be done away with. Even pro-Miranda 
liberals had never heard that line used by the Supreme Court in 
backing a decision, but it was, in essence, the truth. Reading 
someone their rights is now like apple pie -- and so is a woman's 
right to chose what to do if she should become pregnant. The 
overwhelming majority of Americans believe it a decision best left 
with a woman, her doctor, her God -- and it's nobody else's dang 
business. That, too, is part of the American culture. It's called 
privacy, and it's been around for over 200 years. Nobody, regardless 
of their political stripe, wants the politicians or the justices in 
their bedroom.

So, this year, I'm not going to let the fearmongers scare me into 
voting against my conscience. And I'm not going to let the Democratic 
candidate for president cynically use this issue when he himself has 
served in D.C. for 8 years allowing the right to get an abortion to 
be whittled away to near nothing.

Plus, I believe the true Nader constituency out there is among the 
100 million nonvoters who have given up, thinking they no longer have 
a say in what really goes on in Washington. Gore shouldn't worry 
about Ralph taking votes from him. Rather he should think about what 
his administration with Bill Clinton has taken away from the women of 
this nation.

Come November 7, I plan to enter the voting booth and vote not from 
fear, but from a desire to see this country returned to the people.

Michael Moore
July 18th, 2000