HARD-LINE conservatives have gone to new extremes lately in opposing
abortion. Last week, Richard Mourdock, the Tea Party-backed Republican
Senate candidate in Indiana, declared during a debate that he was
against abortion even in the event of rape because after much thought he
“came to realize that life is that gift from God. And even when life
begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God
intended to happen.” That came on the heels of the Tea Party-backed
Republican Representative Joe Walsh of Illinois saying after a recent
debate that he opposed abortion even in cases where the life of the
mother is in danger, because “with modern technology and science, you
can’t find one instance” in which a woman would not survive without an
abortion. “Health of the mother has become a tool for abortions anytime,
for any reason,” Walsh said. That came in the wake of the Senate
hopeful in Missouri, Representative Todd Akin, remarking that pregnancy
as a result of “legitimate rape” is rare because “the female body has
ways to try and shut that whole thing down.”
These were not slips of the tongue. These are the authentic voices of an
ever-more-assertive far-right Republican base that is intent on using
uncompromising positions on abortion to not only unseat more centrist
Republicans — Mourdock defeated the moderate Republican Senator Richard
Lugar of Indiana in the primary — but to overturn the mainstream
consensus in America on this issue. That consensus says that those who
choose to oppose abortion in their own lives for reasons of faith or
philosophy should be respected, but those women who want to make a
different personal choice over what happens with their own bodies should
be respected, and have the legal protection to do so, as well.
But judging from the unscientific — borderline crazy — statements
opposing abortion that we’re hearing lately, there is reason to believe
that this delicate balance could be threatened if Mitt Romney and
Representative Paul Ryan, and their even more extreme allies, get
elected. So to those who want to protect a woman’s right to control what
happens with her own body, let me offer just one piece of advice: to
name something is to own it. If you can name an issue, you can own the
issue. And we must stop letting Republicans name themselves “pro-life”
and Democrats as “pro-choice.” It is a huge distortion.
In my world, you don’t get to call yourself “pro-life” and be against
common-sense gun control — like banning public access to the kind of
semiautomatic assault rifle, designed for warfare, that was used
recently in a Colorado theater. You don’t get to call yourself
“pro-life” and want to shut down the Environmental Protection Agency,
which ensures clean air and clean water, prevents childhood asthma,
preserves biodiversity and combats climate change that could disrupt
every life on the planet. You don’t get to call yourself “pro-life” and
oppose programs like Head Start that provide basic education, health and
nutrition for the most disadvantaged children. You can call
yourself a “pro-conception-to-birth, indifferent-to-life conservative.” I
will never refer to someone who pickets Planned Parenthood but lobbies
against common-sense gun laws as “pro-life.”
“Pro-life” can mean only one thing: “respect for the sanctity of life.”
And there is no way that respect for the sanctity of life can mean we
are obligated to protect every fertilized egg in a woman’s body, no
matter how that egg got fertilized, but we are not obligated to protect
every living person from being shot with a concealed automatic weapon. I
have no respect for someone who relies on voodoo science to declare
that a woman’s body can distinguish a “legitimate” rape, but then
declares — when 99 percent of all climate scientists conclude that
climate change poses a danger to the sanctity of all life on the planet —
that global warming is just a hoax.
The term “pro-life” should be a shorthand for respect for the sanctity
of life. But I will not let that label apply to people for whom sanctity
for life begins at conception and ends at birth. What about the rest of
life? Respect for the sanctity of life, if you believe that it begins
at conception, cannot end at birth. That radical narrowing of our
concern for the sanctity of life is leading to terrible distortions in
our society.
Respect for life has to include respect for how that life is lived,
enhanced and protected — not only at the moment of conception but
afterward, in the course of that life. That’s why, for me, the most
“pro-life” politician in America is New York City Mayor Michael
Bloomberg. While he supports a woman’s right to choose, he has also used
his position to promote a whole set of policies that enhance everyone’s
quality of life — from his ban on smoking in bars and city parks to
reduce cancer, to his ban on the sale in New York City of giant sugary
drinks to combat obesity and diabetes, to his requirement for posting
calorie counts on menus in chain restaurants, to his push to reinstate
the expired federal ban on assault weapons and other forms of
common-sense gun control, to his support for early childhood education,
to his support for mitigating disruptive climate change.
Now that is what I call “pro-life.”
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