The Tea Party & Abortion

It is quite possible that one of the reasons Tea Party candidates are doing so well against republicans is their pro-life stance. There were already relatively few pro-choice republicans, and it seems that they keep getting knocked down by their Tea Party opponents. Though the abortion debate often takes a backseat to many other issues (who wants to talk about abortion when the Iraq war is on the table?) one writer at The New Republic argues that perhaps right-to-life politics plays a larger role than we think it does.

There is a large potential for the non-conservatives to overlook how zealous extreme right-wingers can get about abortion--even to the point where it has the potential to overthrow a candidate. What pro-choicers also fail to consider, in my opinion, is the language used by Tea Party and reactionary Republicans. They bandy terms about like "murder," "genocide," and "death panels" (we can thank Sarah Palin for that one) and zealously crow about having religion on their side. It can seem daunting and difficult to argue for the right to choice when someone else is making it sound like you're arguing for the right to choose murder.

In keeping with what I would call this "sensationalism" attached to the anti-abortion argument, one Tea Party candidate ran an ad that was so graphic in its portrayal of aborted fetuses, that Youtube banned it from their site. This particular candidate is running on a mostly anti-abortion platform, but instead of calling herself pro-life, she calls for the end of "child killing."

Wait a moment, now. Child killing? Using the word "child" instead of "fetus" is a really transparent rhetoric strategy--nobody wants to kill children, of all people. Her argument is that she had two abortions, and she was lied to when she was told that her fetuses were not babies. But the part that really gets me is that she calls abortion an "abuse of women". I would argue that removing a woman's right to choose is the real abuse--it's abuse of a woman's body, because it is allowing someone else to tell a woman what to do with her body for the next nine months, taking away her control over her own body. There are so many things women can't do during pregnancy, so many limitations that are put on her life, that even if a woman wanted to give that baby up for adoption, she'd be giving up almost a year of her life because someone else made the decision for her.

Also, this candidate said she had two abortions. I may be reaching here, but I find myself wondering why her opinion didn't change after she had her first abortion. Why did it take a second one to push her over the edge? I wonder about her story, because I wonder what prompted her to have a second abortion, and then to decide that it's child killing and wrong. I don't argue that the emotional trauma of an abortion can change a woman's opinion of the practice, or at least her opinion of whether or not it was the right decision for her--but... why did it take two, in this case? Which makes me feel like this is more of a political ploy, and less of a personal story.

I think it's manipulative of this candidate to call it "child killing" and the "abuse of women". Because I really don't think it matters what any given person thinks of a fetus. What matters is that a few people cannot tell the masses what they are or are not entitled to do with their bodies. These candidates could argue for better counseling, or better contraceptives, or better sex education, but instead they manipulate the constituency with scary images and sound bites.

Usually I try to keep my opinions to a minimum when I'm posting here, but I think it's pretty clear that I am unimpressed with this woman's campaign and that I find people like her extremely scary. I thought we came to America all those hundreds of years ago to get away from people trying to oppressively run our lives. I would love it if the need for abortion was eliminated--but I most certainly want the option to be available should I, or anyone else, need it.

--Alexandra