About Me

My photo
This blog is the work of an educated civilian, not of an expert in the fields discussed.

Sunday, January 20, 2013

"A Progressive Agenda for Women’s Reproductive Health and Liberty on Roe v. Wade’s [40th] Anniversary'"

{The below overlaps some with the last entry on this topic, but I want to focus specifically on this piece. As to my usual religious entry for Sunday, personally, I view abortion as involving a personal religious choice.  Ronald Dworkin has written about this, but simply put, we are dealing with a special moral and religious dispute here.  See also, The Abortion Myth by Leslie Cannold, providing various women voices on how not having an abortion is often seen as immoral. BTW, this is my 5000th post.]

Dawn Johnsen's "Issue Brief" from five years ago largely holds today, except that the legislative efforts have been ratcheted up since there. She promotes an agenda "to protect genuine reproductive liberty and reproductive health for all." To quote:
The progressive agenda should aspire to protect genuine reproductive liberty and reproductive health for all. Toward this ideal, I would suggest three shifts in strategic priorities, to augment ongoing efforts to persuade courts to invalidate abortion restrictions. First, focus more on persuading the public to support meaningful reproductive options through political action, grassroots organizing and public education.  Second, focus relatively less on the threat of criminal abortion bans that would be enforceable if the Court were to overrule Roe and more on abortion restrictions already in place or on the immediate horizon, obstacles both legislative and extra-legal that cumulatively deprive growing numbers of women of access to abortion services.  Finally, situate abortion within the full range of progressive policies essential to genuine reproductive health and liberty, policies that empower women and men to prevent unintended pregnancies and to bear and raise healthy and wanted children.

This requires looking beyond the courts, if still important, "not only in Washington, D.C., but also in state legislatures, local communities, political parties, and elections at every level of state and local government." And, it is a big picture thing.  The fight over contraceptives, still shocking that is the ground chosen, doesn't make any real sense if you are trying to convince the public at large unless something -- like putative religious liberty concerns -- are cited.

A similar strategy should be used here.  It is not only a matter of abortion.  Someone personally opposed can and should honor Roe, which involved a matter of personal liberty.  As DJ cites Justice Ginsburg noting, It was also not "some generalized notion of privacy; rather they center on a woman’s autonomy to determine her life’s course, and thus to enjoy equal citizenship stature." I have seen this myself -- Roe used, e.g., in promotion of personal use of drugs or any sort of medical procedure.  The ruling, however, was not quite that libertarian.  It cited specific concerns, which covers a lot of ground, yes, but not THAT much ground.

As Justice Blackmun asked, one wonders if some of these people have actually read Roe, or more than a few tidbits. But, nothing new in that, underlining the importance of education here and realism regarding how the specifics of a ruling might be ignored in lieu of some overall spirit, a spirit that might not actually even be there. This is not novel to the general public -- the courts also do this, including when applying precedents that can be applied in various ways.  Still, it does tire me somewhat the the same old canards pop up, the same old confusions.

Anyway, Roe was the product of a larger movement, the young advocate Sarah Weddington herself chosen (along with Linda Coffee, even more forgotten) in large part because of a desire for a feminist voice.  Truly respecting its memory therefore is logically a matter more than understanding and upholding (as much as we can) a legal ruling in the courts.  It involves the promotion of certain basic ideals and putting them into practice, particularly involving "a woman’s autonomy to determine her life’s course" though men have something to do with this too.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Thanks for your .02!