Precious Is The Right Child

Perhaps the best news to come out of the "Palin Affair" is that it appears that Americans are having a change of heart about mixing religion and politics. By a narrow majority the public now believes that churches and other houses of worship should keep out of political matters and not express their views on day-to-day social and political matters. For a decade, majorities of Americans had voiced support for religious institutions speaking out on such issues.

A new national survey by the Pew Research Center reveals that "most of the reconsideration of the desirability of religious involvement in politics has occurred among conservatives. Four years ago, just 30% of conservatives believed that churches and other houses of worship should stay out of politics. Today, 50% of conservatives express this view."

Of course that does not mean that the anti-choice zealots won't remain the Republican Party's biggest and loudest supporters. For them morality is simple, complexity is evil. Ironically, the Bible is silent on abortion. It does say that it's better to die in the womb than live an unhappy or wicked life. And generally a child was considered viable if it survived its first month. (That's if the boy also survived one of Jove's numerous commands to massacre some enemy tribe's first-born sons.) Republican support for the death penalty and preventive war nonwithstanding, fundamentalist right-wing Christians insist that human life is precious and sacred. Although I suspect that for some "right-to-lifers" there are babies with shades more precious than others: In 1868, birth rates among white native-born Protestants were declining, prompting anti-abortion leader, Horatio R. Storer to note, "would the West be filled by our own children or by those of aliens? This is a question our women must answer; upon their loins depends the future destiny of the nation."

The development of the modern Anti-Abortion Movement is remarkably parallel with that of the Anti-Saloon League that was ascendant in American politics from the 1890's until the early 1930's. Just as the prohibitionists draped themselves in the mantle of a single great cause and ended up giving rise to a revived Ku Klux Klan, the anti-abortion movement has attracted neo-Nazis and die-hard racists.

"The militant anti-abortion movement is driven by three different but overlapping theologies that motivate violence: Christian Reconstructionism, Christian Identity and apocalyptic Catholicism. To understand this movement's increased militancy and its goal of instituting a theocracy — a goal that by definition means ending democracy — it is necessary to examine these three ideological strands."
--Southern Poverty Law Center

These reactionary forces have disguised their true agenda and in doing so have won support from Washington and favorable treatment in the corporate media.

Even when its protagonists resort to violence they are rarely shunned nor widely condemned. In fact, the Reverend Jerry Falwell, then of the Moral Majority, offered to defend and provide financial aid to the terrorists who bombed a Planned Parenthood clinic in Pensacola. Consider that despite the media's unblushing attempt to tie Barack Obama to William Ayres whose support for political violence ended in the 1960's when the senator was all of 8, none question the likes of Dobson and Falwell who compared the bombings to the civil rights movement, ignoring the "irony" that the Pensacola bombers were brought to the anti-abortion cause by a head of the local KKK.

"Four or five years ago, when the Ku Klux Klan first got its legs... I came to the conclusion that it was no more than the Anti-Saloon League in a fresh bib and tucker"-- H.L. Mencken

So what would be the ultimate effect, if contrary to the current, encouraging trend away from religious/political demagoguery, Roe V Wade was overturned and abortion was again made illegal? A glance at the effects of the 18th Amendment to the US Constitution may be instructive.

In 1893, an interdenominational Protestant organization dedicated to advancing prohibition through political means was founded Rev. the H. H. Russell. The Ohio Anti-Saloon League was the first single-issue interest group in modern American politics. The multiplication of Russell's "Ohio plan" in other states led to the creation of a national body in 1895. Using modern techniques of organization and persuasion, the league pushed for local option and state prohibition laws through legislation and by supporting dry candidates for office. Beginning in 1913, it led the successful fight for a constitutional amendment.

Instead of Al Capones and speakeasies we might see a resurgence of back alley abortions and a boom in "sanitariums", mostly along our borders with Canada and Mexico. But then the degree to which abortion is available now is already in question. 87 percent of all U.S. counties do not have an abortion provider. After years of Republican maneuvers using laws such as the federal late-term abortion ban and countless state restrictions, abortion rights have been rolled back beyond the point of real use by millions of women, particularly poor women and women of color.

Abortions decrease under Democrats

It is the Republican and "neo-liberal" mantra that social spending is counter-productive but it is well documented that when women have access to child and reproductive care the incidents of unwanted pregnancies decrease significantly.

Evangelical Republicans have nothing but praise for Sarah Palin's decision to bear a child with Down syndrome. Without questioning the morality of that decision it is important to point out that as governor Palin has requested 31 earmarks worth $197.8 million for Alaska, a state with roughly 670,000 people. As mayor of Wasilla, (population @5,500) she requested and received almost $27,000,000 from the federal government.

Remember that the next time you hear a Republican rail against welfare moms and taxes.