PLANK OCTOBER 11, 2012
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Whatever word there is for a feeling of utter non-surprise is necessary to describe my reaction to the news, reported Wednesday morning by the Huffington Post, that Scott DesJarlais, a Tennessee congressman who has aggressively voted against abortion rights and contraception access, pressured one of his many mistresses 12 years ago to abort a pregnancy. What would genuinely surprise me is hearing a story about an anti-choice politician who, out of sincere belief in the sacredness of fetal life, urged a mistress to keep a pregnancy. Having a former partner in adultery mother your bastard children does tend to hurt campaign donations, after all.
Calling DesJarlais a hypocrite is a fun way to spend an afternoon, but the sordid tale’s real value is in demonstrating what’s really going on with the anti-abortion movement. Anti-abortion politicians will often speak of abortion bans as “ending abortion,” even though everyone but perhaps a few sentimental Christian teenagers knows that making abortion illegal simply drives it underground. As DesJarlais’s case shows, attacks on abortion (and increasingly on contraception) serve a different purpose: Putting men in a position of power over women. But that doesn’t sound as good as waxing poetic about “life,” which would explain why they rarely talk about it in those terms.
The biggest difference between legal and illegal abortion isn’t how often it happens, except insofar as abortion tends to be more common in countries that heavily restrict it. No, the biggest difference between legal and illegal abortion is who controls abortion, and therefore who has power over women’s bodies and lives. Prior to Roe v. Wade, if a woman wanted a safe abortion, her best bet was having a wealthy man to help her. Women rarely had the connections or the financial ability to set up illegal abortions with reputable doctors for themselves. For women who weren’t the mistresses or daughters of wealthy men, it was either take your chances on the black market or have the baby.
Conservative men’s anger at having lost control of these matters comes across clearly in the transcript of DesJarlais’ phone call with his former mistress. He insists repeatedly that she owes him this, claiming at one point she is solely to blame for the pregnancy. When she insists on her right to make the final decision in an attempt to get some concessions from him, he loses his temper. As a listener, you finally begin to understand the conservative male longing to return to the abortion laws of the 50s, when a pushy mistress could be controlled with the threat of social ruin and the promise of granting her access to a safe abortion.
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Of course, you can never really go back. We live in an era of affordable pregnancy tests, and women control much more money than they did then. Banning abortion wouldn’t suddenly shift all this power back into male hands, as women of means would probably just create the connections to safe providers themselves. All a ban on abortion would really do is hurt poor women, with no material benefit for men at all.
Still, in our modern age where the conservative movement seems to be fueled mainly by the politics of resentment, such a Pyrrhic victory might be enough. Voters in DesJarlais’s district were made aware of his serious problems with women during the 2010, but he still beat the Democratic incumbent by 18 percentage points. Conservative voters may not be able to return us to the good ol’ days when women had very little power at all, but they can keep us from moving towards a future where women achieve actual equality.
Amanda Marcotte is a Brooklyn-based freelance writer and journalist. She's published two books and blogs regularly at Pandagon, RH Reality Check and Slate's Double X.
7 comments
I think the title should read "Republicans' Not-So-Secret Abortion Motive Revealed", as their lust for power over women explains the vast majority of their social policies as they pertain to women. And I believe the expression you are looking for is "shocked and dismayed" to describe your reaction.
- GSpinks
October 11, 2012 at 12:43pm
There are certainly guys like DesJarlais out there, but I think it's a huge stretch to attribute his motives to anti-abortion politicians/voters as a whole. For one thing, they're not a monolithic group of rich men with mistresses; there are numerous anti-abortion women, for example. I would venture to say that most people who want abortions outlawed/heavily restricted genuinely have a moral problem with abortion and believe that such laws would greatly reduce it. I agree with you that this is a gross misunderstanding of what would actually happen if abortion were banned, but this is not so manifestly obvious and indisputable that anybody who claims to believe otherwise must have some dastardly ulterior motive. It's simply not true to say that "everybody but a few sentimental Christian teenagers" knows what would really happen. Maybe they should know, but they don't. It's much like the sorts of arguments that conservative commentators are fond of: "It's obvious that Obamacare will be horrible for the economy/healthcare, and Democrats must know that, so it must all be part of some plot to have the government take over our lives." It's misguided and a bit paranoid to assume that everyone who disagrees with you is mendacious rather than simply wrong.
- AlanSP
October 11, 2012 at 3:15pm
The congressional seat is (was?) considered uncontested. It might be interesting to see whether this information about the one term Congressman will change the profile of the race.
- Doug12
October 11, 2012 at 3:45pm
This individual case is valuable for the insight, but it's too much (and a little paranoid!) to attribute this man's attitudes to the entire anti-abortion movement. Alan is right.
- Curran1
October 11, 2012 at 7:09pm
Marcotte is a little too much for me. This is the same person who, when working in an OFFICIAL capacity for the Edwards Presidential campaign blogged: "Q: What if Mary had taken Plan B after the Lord filled her with his hot, white, sticky Holy Spirit? A: You’d have to justify your misogyny with another ancient mythology."
- RJSampson1
October 11, 2012 at 8:44pm
I agree with AlanSP. Marcotte describes what are doubtless the motivations of some anti-abortion activists, and unfairly extrapolates that to tar all of them. I do suspect that the subset of those who fit her description is disproportionately represented in the Republican congressional caucus.
- interloper
October 12, 2012 at 4:48am
DesJarlais is an ass and misogynist of the worst kind. Attributing his attitudes to those who oppose abortion generally is clearly wrong. That said, there is a basic truth here - a significant part of anti-abortion political energy really is about the loss of control of male-dominated society over the economic and reproductive lives of women. We shouldn't ignore that. We also should not think it's the main story. There are a lot of people out there who oppose abortion in almost all cases for perfectly understandable moral reasons - they look at the facts and determine that a woman's control over her own reproductive destiny should be subordinated to society's interest in the life of the unbor. These are thoughtful, moral positions, and require a completely different response than the obvious response to DesJarlais - which is basically to call him out as a 19th century boor. For my part, I look at those facts and reach the opposite conclusion of the thoughtful pro-lifer, but it's a close call - a lot closer than my other liberal leanings would lead people to suspect.
- IowaBeauty
October 12, 2012 at 11:13am