One of the political arguments constantly fowarded on abortion is that Democrats shouldn't fight to defend
Roe v. Wade because the far right really doesn't want to see
Roe overturned. The argument generally goes that they get too much traction from abortion to give it up--
Roe is just too important as a rallying point for motivating volunteers, raising money, and ultimately bringing people to the polls. South Dakota puts the lie to that theory.
These people, including Bill "Sodomized Religious Virgin" Napoli, aren't just a bunch of religious fantatics being used by cynical national politicians to get elected. No, they're the people actually getting elected at every level of government, from school boards and city councils all the way to the U.S. Senate. Their effort to end legalized abortion is played out in state level efforts to restrict abortion to its Constitutional limits. Consider these facts from a brand-new report by the Guttmacher Institute [pdf].
Refusal: 46 states allow individual health care providers to refuse to participate in an abortion. 43 states allow institutions to refuse to perform abortions, 16 of which limit refusal to private or religious institutions.
State-Mandated Counseling: 28 states mandate that women be given counseling before an abortion that includes information on at least one of the following: the purported link between abortion and breast cancer (3 states), the ability of a fetus to feel pain (4 states), long-term mental health consequences for the woman (3 states) or the availability of services and funding should the woman decide to carry the pregnancy to term (26 states).
Waiting Periods: 24 states require a woman seeking an abortion to wait a specified period of time, usually 24 hours, between when she receives counseling and the procedure is performed. 6 of these states have laws that effectively require the woman make two separate trips to the clinic to obtain the procedure.
That's just a handful of the restrictions currently in place in states throughout the nation, all intended to make abortion as difficult to obtain as possible. They are the result of the unceasing activism of the far-right. People like Martin Wishnatsky in North Dakota. He has been banned from going within 150 feet of Red River Women's Clinic, so he uses his zoom lens to take pictures of the women entering the clinic, and then posts them on the Internet. His defense? "I hope this might contribute to turning people's hearts back to life." And people like Bill Napoli.
Just because they've stopped bombing clinics and assassinating doctors doesn't mean that they aren't as committed to ending abortion as they've always been. They've just become smarter in selecting their targets. Instead of blowing them up, they legislate them out of existence by getting their people elected. They're the people who've made sure that health care providers can even refuse to provide contraception in 12 states.
Digby had an excellent post on this last week that's been rattling around in my head since I read it.
They really mean it. This is no bullshit. There is no downside to overturning Roe for them --- and if there is, they don't care. If they want to overturn Griswald, they'll do that too.... Conservative absolutists don't give up just because liberals get up-in-arms. They certainly don't care if we think they are shrill....
This is not an issue for tweaking.... State mandated forced childbirth and denial of access to birth control cannot be negotiated or finessed. This one's going to have to be fought out head to head, day to day to a final reckoning. That's what they are going to do and if we don't recognise that and act accordingly, we will lose.