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Monday, Nov 30, 2015 9:06 PM UTC
Anti-choicers are immoral liars, and liberals should not hesitate to claim the moral high ground
The anti-choice movement is rotten to the core, built on lies and indifferent to the nasty outcomes of those lies
Topics: Pro-choice, anti-choice, planned parenthood shooting, colorado springs shooting, Republicans, Christian Right, Election 2016, News, Politics News
If there was any lingering hope that the loss of three innocent lives during a shooting at Planned Parenthood on Friday would guilt Republican candidates into acting like decent human beings, that hope was dashed over the weekend in an outpouring of lies and indecent posturing about how anti-choicers are the real victims here. Mike Huckabee was quick to play the victim:
The Colorado Springs tragedy is domestic terrorism, especially for those us in the pro-life movement.
— Gov. Mike Huckabee (@GovMikeHuckabee) November 29, 2015
Ted Cruz, exploiting a bizarre right-wing conspiracy, told an obvious lie, calling the shooter, Robert Dear, a “transgendered leftist activist.” (As thorough reporting from many media outlets has established, Dear is exactly who you would think he is: A conservative Christian with what appears to be major rage issues towards women.) Carly Fiorina, who told a particularly dishonest version of the “baby parts” lie that Dear appears to have been inspired by, claimed to be victimized by “left-wing tactics,” a line which suggests that quoting someone directly and fact-checking their lies is dirty pool (though only when done to Republicans, of course).
I could go on and on, but you get the point. An honest look at the conservative reaction to this tragedy exposes how shamelessly immoral it all is. No real consideration for the victims, no moment of hesitation over their own complicity in spreading the lie that Dear was acting on, nothing. Instead, they got right back to dishonestly demagoguing Planned Parenthood, even though there is now indisputable proof that such rhetoric can fall on the ears of the unhinged and inspire them to commit acts of violence.
None of this should really be a surprise. The anti-choice movement is rotten to its seedy core. The movement, since its inception, has been built on a lie: That it is about “life,” when it’s clearly a movement of religious prudes who want to sneer at women they think are sluts. (Don’t bother to argue. Suffice it to say that people who actually thought abortion was murder would do everything in their power to make contraception available, instead of defunding contraception every chance they get.) A movement built on a lie is bound to be one that’s wicked and dishonest in all its tactics, and that is what we see with the anti-choice movement. People who are willing to lie to get their way are not going to apologize and grow a conscience just because some people get killed for their lies.
That the anti-choice movement has been successful in painting itself as a moral movement is a demonstration both of how religion can distort our understanding of morality and how backwards this country continues to be when it comes to sex. We’re slowly extricating ourselves from our sex negativity—the majority of Americans are both pro-choice and pro-gay nowadays, for instance—but there continues to be a lingering sense that having sex for pleasure is still a sinful pastime, and that religious condemnations of sexual pleasure are somehow rooted in morality, instead of sadism and resentment.
Even though most of us intellectually understand that there’s nothing wrong with sex, this shame makes it difficult for most liberals to get aggressive on this issue. Meanwhile, conservatives get to enjoy that unearned sense of moral superiority that comes with citing “religion” when they try to impose their deeply immoral sexual restrictions on others.
Consider the Hobby Lobby case, where the owners successfully argued that their deep religious convictions should somehow give them a vote in their employees’ contraception use. There is no logical reason to believe that being anti-contraception is more moral than being pro-contraception. On the contrary, pro-contraception is clearly the more moral choice, as it allows people to live fuller, happier lives and to give the children they do have a better chance at being raised in stable environments. But that lingering sense that sex is wrong and anything done in the name of Jesus is right trumped actual logic, and Hobby Lobby was able to impose its oppressive viewpoint on employees who simply want to do the right thing for themselves and their families.
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