OPINION/TED RALL
IT’S 15 PERCENT ABOUT ROE V. WADE Why abortion isn’t the issue
As a poster to my blog commented sarcastically about President Barack Obama apologists: “Please vote for Obama. True, he sucks, but ...” Which summarizes the feelings of many Democratic voters. Others try to justify their cognitive dissonance with one simple plea: If Obama loses, abortion will be banned. You’ve heard their argument: “It’s all about the Supreme Court.” “It’s all about Roe v. Wade.” Indeed, because four members of the Supreme Court are in their 70s, a Mitt Romney victory could lead to the end of federally guaranteed abortion rights. Obama played on women’s fears in a recent interview with Rolling Stone: “I don’t think there’s any doubt [that Roe v. Wade could be overturned],” Obama said. “Typically, a president is going to have one or two Supreme Court nominees during the course of his presidency, and we know that the current Supreme Court has at least four members who would overturn Roe v. Wade. All it takes is one more for that to happen.” A woman’s right to control her body is important. It’s also popular—77 percent of Americans think abortion should be legal in some or all circumstances. But single-issue voting is morally problematic. How does one weigh abortion rights for American women against the right of Pakistanis to not get blown up by a Predator drone? Shall we turn a blind eye to the
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people of Honduras suffering through the aftermath of an old-fashioned military coup against a democratically elected president, an outrage backed by Obama? Let’s talk about abortion. If you can overlook Gitmo and the bankster bailouts and the lack of investigations of Wall Street and George W. Bush-era torturers, even if you’re cool with the health care sellout and the wars and a president who golfs while the unemployed lose their homes—if abortion is all you care about—there still isn’t much reason to vote for Obama. First, let’s be clear about what’s at stake. Abortion rights are not at stake. What we’re really talking about is whether abortion will be 85 percent safe and legal (post-Romney) or 100 percent (post-Obama). The status of abortion in America lives in an absurd legal netherworld, ad hoc, awkward and makeshift, neither legal nor illegal. Abortion should be a settled issue. Roe v. Wade, only as good as the current composition of the Supreme Court, can and should be supplanted by a federal law passed by Congress and signed by the president. Would Romney sign a federal ban? Probably not. An Obama campaign ad includes a 2007 debate quote by Romney, in which he said he’d be “delighted” to sign such a bill were it to cross his desk. But it leaves out what he said next, that a 11 ban is “not where America is today.”
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