Editorial: Pro-Birth is Not Pro-Life

Say what you will about a woman’s right to choose, but many on the left — nominal supporters of abortion rights — overlooked the vacancy on the Supreme Court in 2016 when they argued about whether they would vote for “centrist” Hillary Clinton in the presidential election. Opponents of abortion kept their eye on the prize, however, and when the election approached, many church-affiliated, anti-choice voters didn’t let the amorality of the Republican presidential nominee get in the way as long as Donald Trump promised to name a judge to the Supreme Court who would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that legalized abortion under the “right to privacy” that protects a woman’s freedom to choose an abortion at least until the fetus reaches viability, usually at 24 to 28 weeks.

In 2016, exit polls showed 56% of Trump voters said Supreme Court appointments were the most important factor in their support, while just 41% of Clinton supporters said the Court was the most important issue, Politico noted.

We doubt Trump, who used to support Planned Parenthood, has strong feelings about about abortion rights; his main concern seems to be finding Supreme Court justices who would back him up in his determination to cover up his high crimes and misdemeanors, but if naming anti-abortion judges was the price of the support of evangelical Christians, he was willing to go along. He promised Roe would be erased.

So the abortion foes made their deal with the devil and now they expect to claim their prize. Senate Republicans, led by Mitch McConnell, speeded up the process with new rules that let them ram polarizing Supreme Court appointments through on a simple majority vote, allowing the confirmation of Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, as well as 40 circuit court judges, on nearly party-line votes.

Now the right is pushing the extremes of anti-choice legislation. They have abandoned any pretense of concern about the welfare of mothers or their children. When the Alabama Senate approved a bill 25-6 May 14 to make it a felony for a doctor to perform an abortion — which Gov. Kay Ivey (R) signed into law — the only exception was in cases where the pregnancy carried a serious health risk to the woman. A proposed exception for pregnancies resulting from rape and incest was defeated 21-11. The state Senate also rejected, 23-6, an amendment that would have required the state to provide prenatal care and medical care for the mother and child in cases where a woman was denied an abortion because of the law. The Senate also rejected an amendment to expand Medicaid to cover working families, despite Alabama having the nation’s highest rate of cervical cancer deaths, and infant mortality rates are among the highest in the nation, while rural hospitals in the state continue to close. So don’t tell us this is a “pro-life” bill. It’s merely pro-forced-birth.

Similar bills have been passed in Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi and Ohio that ban abortion after six weeks of pregnancy and Missouri passed one that bans abortion after eight weeks. Two states, North Dakota in 2013 and Iowa in 2018, passed six-week bans that courts struck down, so they retreated to 22-week bans. Arkansas and Utah have voted to limit abortions to the middle of the second trimester, or about 18 weeks.

For what it’s worth, the public does not want a complete reversal of Roe v. Wade. A December 2016 survey by the Pew Research Center found that 28% of US adults said they would like to see the Supreme Court overturn Roe while 69% said they would not. More generally, in June 2017, 57% of US adults said abortion should be legal in all or most cases while 40% said it should be illegal in all or most cases. Public support for abortion rights has remained relatively steady in recent decades.

Americans’ views about abortion differ markedly by their political and religious affiliation and educational background, Pew noted. Three-quarters of Democrats, for example, believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases, but around two-thirds of Republicans (65%) take the opposite view. Six-in-ten independents say abortion should be legal in all or most cases.

While 61% of white evangelical Protestants think abortion should be illegal in all or most cases, 67% of white mainline Protestants say abortion should be legal in all or most cases. Catholics are more divided, as 51% say abortion should be legal in all or most cases and 42% say it should be illegal.

As if the assault on choice wasn’t bad enough, the right-wing justices who can be counted on to dismantle the Roe decision also are very bad on other progressive and populist issues, such as worker and minority rights, regulation of businesses and environmental protection. Trump seems to leave it to the right-wing Federalist Society and the Heritage Foundation to come up with the names, and they have been working to veer the courts right for a generation.

In January 2010, the Supreme Court, in the Citizens United case, overturned laws dating back a century to rein in the corruption of politics by special-interest and corporate money. In June 2013, the Supreme Court, on a 5-4 vote in the Shelby County case, overturned an important provision of the Voting Rights Act that the Republican majority said was outdated, which effectively stopped the requirement that certain states and local governments obtain federal “preclearance” before they implement changes to their voting laws or practices. June 2018 the court upheld, 5-4 Ohio’s practice of purging voter rolls, which has become a favorite tactic of voter suppression.

Voters who consider themselves truly pro-life must commit themselves to working not only for successful pregnancies, but also parents’ rights to work for a fair income that provides for adequate food, clothing and housing; the right of every family to have a decent home; the right to health-care for parents and children, the right to child care if both parents are expected to work; educational opportunities for children; and the right to economic security in retirement. These ideas have been knocking around since Franklin D. Roosevelt proposed a Second Bill of Rights in January 1944.

If you can’t sign off on these rights, you’re merely pro-birth. And you aren’t impressing Jesus, by the way. He never mentioned abortion, but he had plenty to say about taking care of the hungry, the thirsty, the sick, the unclothed, the imprisoned and strangers — and if you consider yourself a Christian, you don’t want to be numbered amongst those who ignored these unfortunates. After all, Jesus was once a refugee who was unjustly executed. The Mammonite preachers who have backed Trump and Republicans, who insist on empowering plutocrats at the expense of working people, might not spend much time on what Jesus actually said, but you can check out what Jesus had to say about the Judgment of the Nations in the Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 25: 31-45.

At least, for Christ’s sake, if you believe in banning abortion, try to promote family planning first, as well as supporting candidates who otherwise support organized labor, voting rights, subsidized housing and nutritional assistance for working poor families, clean air and water, and health care for all so no family needs to fear cancer or other catastrophic medical condition will drive them into bankruptcy.

In any case, we don’t need Trump naming any more Supreme Court justices. Thus endeth the lesson. — JMC

From The Progressive Populist, June 15, 2019

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Selections from the June 15, 2019 issue

COVER/Marshall Auerback
US-China talks are about much more than trade

EDITORIAL
Pro-birth is not pro-life

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR 

DON ROLLINS
Remembering Rachel Held Evans

RURAL ROUTES/Margot McMillen
We are direct drivers of extinction

DISPATCHES
‘Money laundering’ and ‘The President’;
Trump camp stands against Constitution;
Judge denies Trump’s bid to deny House his financial records;
Audits of rich people plummeted last year;
Trump’s in trouble in battleground states;
Brazilian meat barons got millions from Trump’s farmer bailout;
Wold 'not on track' to stop 1.5 degrees of global warming, UN Secretary General warns;
Gas car sales 'have already peaked and may never recover' as battery prices plunge;
Monsanto hit with $2B verdict in Roundup cancer suit

CHERIE MORTICE 
Farm country: Don’t get fooled again

ART CULLEN
Trump’s folly on trade

JILL RICHARDSON
Reminder: Climate change was no accident

JOHN YOUNG
A mysterious coverup that would make Richard Nixon blush

ALAN MACLEOD 
‘Purity tests’ can be a good thing

SARAH ANDERSON
The reality behind the ‘surging’ US economy

GRASSROOTS/Hank Kalet 
Fetuses are not children

JOEL D. JOSEPH
Arresting the attorney general

LEO GERARD
The PRO act as a pathway to power: An economy is only as healthy as its workers are empowered

SETH SANDRONSKY 
How citizenship matters

BOB BURNETT
Donald Trump and the measles epidemic

MARTHA BURK
The most dangerous time for women’s rights in decades

HEALTH CARE/Joan Retsinas 
The last journey: Who will pay?

SAM URETSKY
Trump puts hopes on tariffic trade war

GEORGE MILLER
For a Green New Deal that works, look to California

WAYNE O’LEARY
The Trump international

JOHN BUELL
On negotiating with Trump and his allies

JASON SIBERT
Military spending is worth fighting for

BOOK REVIEW/Heather Seggel 
Escaping garbage island

ROB PATTERSON
News and infotainment sources

SATIRE/Rosie Sorenson 
Trumpus redactus

FILM REVIEW/Ed Rampell 
What about Confederate movie monuments — like ‘Gone with the Wind’?

HECTOR FIGUEROA and BEN BEACHY
Save the planet — with good union jobs

and more ...

Lowering voting age to 16 is a bad idea. Better to raise it—and age at which one can join the military—to 21

By Marc Jampole

Many major media outlets, including USA Today and New York Times have been floating the idea of lowering the voting age to 16.

Bad idea. If anything, we should raise the voting age to 21.

The simple fact of the matter is that the brains of virtually all 16-year-olds are still forming. Their reasoning capacity and their ability to comprehend complex material will keep improving for several years. The brains of many boys continue to develop until well into their twenties.

While there are exceptions, the average 16-year-old is still as much child as adult. A 16-year-old still looks heavily to both parents and peers for approval. Those in the middle and upper classes have not had to work for a living and probably have led sheltered lives. Rich kids and poor kids alike have had a minimum of experience in the real world. Many have irrational crushes on celebrities. Others are in poor control of their emotions. We can’t expect a 16-year-old to make an informed decision about issues or candidates.

The one advantage of giving 16-year-olds the right to vote is that we could register kids in high schools, which would hopefully lead to an increase in the percentage of Americans who vote. But we could also use a mass outreach approach to register young voters at other life stations—as part of registration for college or vocational training. Or better yet, we could extend selective service registration to women (and non-binaries!) and make voter registration part of the process.

I believe that a majority of my dear readers will agree with me that 16 is too young to vote. But my second assertion—that we should raise the voting age to 21—will likely meet with two thumbs down from most. If, however, you put credence in medical science, you should see little difference between voting at 16 and 18. The human mind is still developing at age 18. Although 18 year olds are for the most part much more mature than 16 year olds, they don’t have their acts together as much as they will at age 21. Far from it. Every parent will readily be able to cite examples.

The reason that we allow people to vote at 18 is business. The business of war, which since World War II may be the biggest and most important business that Americans pursue. After all, we have been at constant warfare somewhere around the globe almost continually over the past 70 years. Our annual military budget is about equal to that of all the other countries on Earth combined. We are the primary arms merchant throughout the world; our bombs and guns participate in virtually all of the almost 40 current armed conflicts worldwide.

We gave the vote to 18-year-olds in 1971 in the middle of the Viet Nam War after many Americans—young and old— rightfully pointed out that anyone old enough to die for his or her country should be old enough to vote. At the time I was overjoyed, because I had turned 18 about three months before the 1968 election and was frustrated that I did not have a chance to write in for Eugene McCarthy.

It was about the time that I realized that my hypothetical vote in 1968 should have gone to Hubert Humphrey that I also figured out that in bringing fairness to army enrollments, the United States should have moved the age of combat up and not the voting age down.

The cynical would argue that many young people need the discipline and structure that life in the armed forces provides. Especially for those who go don’t go to college and for the poor, rather than be set adrift in an uncaring economy, 18- and 19-year-olds can “grow up” in the army. This argument supposes that crime and social unrest would increase if we didn’t let young adults, and especially young men with proclivities towards violence, join the army. Once you establish the indispensable social and socialization role of the army for 18-21-year-olds, you have to allow 18-year-olds to vote. Once again, if they’re putting their lives on the line, you have to let them have a say.

But then there’s the ultra-cynical view, the one to which I subscribe. Without the pool of 18-21-year-olds, the armed forces could not fill its ranks. The army grabs kids at the very age when most are still adrift, still sorting out their path in life. They don’t own houses yet, haven’t started families, haven’t had their first full-time job. They have the fewest community ties and the least to lose by serving for a few years in the armed forces. Our armed forces recruitment centers grab them when they are most vulnerable to nonsense about pride and belonging. Primed for the plucking. Just enroll ‘em, train ‘em and send ‘em to a war zone.

Like every military since the rise of organized armies millennia ago, the Armed Forces of the United States of America depends on the 18-21 age group to provide cannon fodder for our military death machine. If raising the voting age to 21 makes us raise the minimum age to join the armed forces to 21, it might cripple out ability to wage wars.

And that would be a very good thing.

World’s largest Electoral Exercise In India

By N. GUNASEKARAN 

In one of the most important elections in the history of India, voters have elected members of India’s Lok Sabha, the lower house of Parliament. As per the Constitution of India, Parliamentary elections should be held once every five years. The 17th general election in 2019 was held in seven phases from April 11 to May 19 across 29 states. More than 8,000 candidates from seven national parties, about 300 state parties, other smaller parties and independents were in the fray. About 900 million citizens were eligible to vote and and they cast their votes to elect 543 members of Parliament. Results are not expected to be announced for several days.

Although elections were held peacefully in many constituencies, there were a number of booth capturing and malpractices in the states like Tripura and violent clashes happened in West Bengal. The Election commission of India was criticized by the opposition for not acting in an impartial manner. Many objections were raised during the election process about the large spending by the candidates for road shows, advertisements, etc., exceeding the amount of money, allowed for spending on candidates’ entire campaign. The Election Commission of India has fixed the limit as seven million rupees ($100,000). And numerous complaints were lodged about bribing the voters.

In the last elections, held in 2014, the Hindu Nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), led by Narendra Modi, had won and assumed office. It was then seen by many political observers as the triumph of Hindu Majoritarianism in Indian politics. They predicted the shift in Indian polity, from the traditional principle of secularism which sought democratically accommodating minorities on an equal footing with Hindu majority. For the past five years, attacks on the rights of minorities and physical attacks by Hindu outfits have increased across the Indian states. So the voters were really concerned about India’s social cohesion. 

This was explained by renowned journalist Prannoy Roy in an  interview with Moneycontrol: “Based on our travels around the villages and small towns of the country, the factor that stands out the most is the level of polarization among Hindu voters that we have rarely seen before.   Voters either love and admire Modi – or dislike Modi intensely. Virtually, no voter is indifferent.” The politically polarized electoral campaign had various issues like performance of Narendra Modi-led government, serious economic problems, nationalism, social discontent, divide on religious identity, etc. The popular perception among the voters was that the BJP-led government have failed to address the alarmingly increasing unemployment and farmers’ distress levels. The majority of the voters are from rural villages. Among them, declining agricultural income, corporate takeover of lands, agricultural unemployment, farmers suicide, etc., were the main concerns.

In 2017, Prime Minister Modi announced a draconian economic measure, called Demonetization. By overnight, his administration banned high-value cash denominations. The government claimed that it was an attempt to combat corruption and tax evasion. But the move crippled small businesses and destabilized India's cash-based economy. Non-formal sector, urban trade and self-employed small industries came to a standstill and millions of workers lost their jobs and livelihoods. The demonetization and other economic policies affected the middle classes, which included a large backward caste population who were historically marginalized and they might have opted to vote for the opposition parties, either the Congress or regional parties,

Recent terrorist attacks in Jammu and Kashmir and subsequent hostilities between India and Pakistan had an impact on electoral campaign.The BJP tried to prop up this issue for its nationalist appeal. However, the economic policies and the economic  slowdown became the main plank and it  may certainly hurt the governing party.

The Indian electoral system is based on a first-past-the-post system, and this system helped the BJP In the 2014 election. It polled 31% of the vote and won 282 out of 543 seats while the Congress got 19.3% with just 44 seats. So small percentages of voters with a swing of even 3 to 4 percent can decide the outcome. To avoid this drawback, there is a long-pending demand, particularly from the Left, to opt for a electoral system of proportional representation.

But in this election, such drawbacks in the system would not be advantageous for the governing party. Most of the media and political commentators believed the BJP could not retain its Lok Sabha majority and the Indian National Congress under the leadership of Rahul Gandhi, many regional parties opposed to BJP and the Left would come forward to form a coalition government. The forming of alliances would be the critical factor  in determining the next government

The BJP’s basic ideology was the Hindu nationalist policies,vcalled Hindutva, which is based on strengthening of old caste and social oppression. the Dalits, who are socially oppressed in the caste hierarchy, and women were affected by these policies.It is expected that higher women turnout and that of other weaker groups may harm the prospects of the BJP 

The national parties have little presence in many states. Hence the role of regional parties have become an important factor in forming the new government.For example, in Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state and Tamilnadu, the southern state, both together have about 120 seats and neither BJP nor Congress could gain much in these states. India’s federalism demands to heed the democratic aspirations of all nationalities in various states. If the parties come together to form a coalition on the basis of definite people-oriented policies, that could advance the interests of the poor and working people. But the corporate capital interests that drive the policy orientation of many parties may hinder the meaningful federal plurality.

As far as the political narrative of the political parties are concerned, except the Left, no party had constructed an alternative set of policies replacing the ongoing neoliberal policies. Only such alternative policies could be favorable for the betterment of India’s weaker sections among the youth, women, middle class, rural poor and Dalits. 

N. Gunasekaran is a political activist and writer based in Chennai, India.