This will be quick. But something needs to be said.
There are several diaries up right now arguing that reproductive rights are non-negotiable...that democrats who oppose abortion rights deserve no more support than those who oppose social security. I wholly agree with those diaries.
My point is more simple. Many people are still framing the debate in terms that we need to give women’s issues equal weight to broader economic issues—and I agree with that. The framing of the whole debate is also that abortion is a woman’s issue and again, given the society that we live in, that’s right too. That said, the only reason that abortion is a woman’s issue is because we live in a society that is, at its core, profoundly misogynistic.
If we lived in a just society, with the exception of the 9 months that women carried the fetus, men and women would be equally impacted by having children. Men and women would face the same amount of sleeplessness, the same fears, the same joys, and the same financial hardships. Both men and women would equally need to delay their education or careers.
The fact is we do not live in that society, and women take on a far larger share of child rearing, whether single parents or even married with a supportive partner—women disproportionately do the work of child rearing and suffer the economic losses that child rearing incurs.
My point is simple, for those who want to say that reproductive rights are a women’s issue, and thus less important than economic issues that impact men and women...the only reason that’s true is because you have already accepted a profoundly misogynistic reality.
I will not support, endorse, or do anything other than criticize any democrat who opposes reproductive rights any more than I would support, endorse, or do anything other than criticize any democrat who opposes social security.