On Catholics and Democrats

...Add to this the more general fear and shame induced by the rabidly vocal anti-abor 82 n DISSENT / Winter 2000 tion movement, and I am suggesting—with, I think, good epidemiological backing—that much of the responsibility for late-term abortions can be laid right back at the feet of antiabortion groups...

...But there the resemblance ends, and I find myself taken aback by the blinders you still wear on the question of abortion and how they distort your vision on a whole range of other DISSENT / Winter 2000 n 81 ARGUMENTS social and political issues as well...

...He, after all, has sabotaged our public university and commandeered the racist policing of our streets, while she's only soured my feminist dreams...

...On the contrary, you shift gears midway through your essay to a kind of rhetoric— impugning "the on-demand regime"—that (like "partial-birth abortions") reeks of moral righteousness and is intended to repudiate and denigrate rather than offer a more humane social policy...

...so how does it function...

...But also from the standpoint of developing stronger, more self-determined young women and girls, prevention is a far preferable strategy to intervention after the fact...

...And you go on to infer that feminist, pro-choice, and labor groups are likely to get on the "PAS" bandwagon, though as far as I can see none of them is especially interested in the matter...

...But there you were— sharp-tongued and bright, with a disarming touch of whimsy...

...Leaving aside the fact that post-twenty-week abortions account for a minuscule proportion of all abortions (something like .3 percent), are you aware that one-third of these are among teenagers, who are 81 percent more likely to get late-term abortions than adults...

...I should just ignore your mean and unsubstantiated claim that feminists, or "prochoice" people, don't care about the numbers of abortions but only their "quality and accessibility...

...Having grown up Jewish in the Oklahoma Bible Belt and moved to New York in the sixties, I thought I had a pretty firm grasp on where left and right were located...

...And you accuse the Democratic Party of wielding a "litmus test" without acknowledging that the Republican Party for years has been doing the same, pushed by its anti-abortion right wing...

...But what would it take, Peggy, to realize that goal...

...Yes, Bill Clinton has "Republicanized the Democratic agenda" and "legitimated and reinforced the Republican shredding of the New Deal/New Frontier social net" in a way I too abhor...

...or Bob Dole's second career as publicist for Viagra...

...But what it actually does is divert you from your original— and, in my mind, far more expansive and democratic (small "d")—focus on a broad social justice agenda...

...Who, after all, has spent more ink and energy on the necessary social conditions for abortion to be not only a real choice but a less necessary one...

...Where were you during Kenneth Starr's rampage and Monicagate...

...And I totally identified with your sense of "political homelessness" in a Democratic Party gone centrist, sold out to big money and neoliberal values...

...Now, you have to admit that the two parties have not played equivalent roles here...

...More important, don't you see that this kind of moralism is directly akin to anti-abortion and anti-gay and lesbian crusades, funded and conducted by the same folks...

...Now I read your piece on "Catholics and the Democratic Party" and find myself no less baffled than I was back then...

...what we would have called "progressive" on many social issues, in the tradition of Catholic social democracy, yet clearly hostile to my feminist politics on abortion...

...My reasons, of course, for wanting to see fewer abortions, particularly among very young women, are probably different from yours...

...In light of the epidemic of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases among young people, growing fastest among young women of color, effective use of barrier methods of contraception is a life-and-death matter...

...Suppose for a minute that every urban and rural area and school district in the country had comprehensive reproductive and sexual health services accessible to all people (including young men, and including adequate counseling and provision of condoms without stigma...

...First, Peggy, can you really have been in this country the last few years to say "politics is no longer personal...

...This is sad, because it cuts away the ground upon which we might one day be able to speak to each other about ethics, politics, and how to challenge the directions of both parties...

...This may be a device, a diversionary tactic, to paint abortion access and reproductive rights generally with the tar of libertarianism...

...and because antiabortion forces have succeeded on the cultural front, even as they have failed on that of politics and legality, in saturating the abortion experience with danger, guilt, and shame...

...that young men and women (espe ARGUMENTS cially those from working class, African-American, Latino, and immigrant families) knew they would be able to stay in school, get a good public education, and find decent jobs...

...For most women this is not because of deepfelt religious beliefs but because it calls into question their relationships and their ability to control their own bodies...

...Yes, I hold my nose when (and if) I go to the polls, and will do so again when forced to vote for Hillary over Rudy for the Senate...

...W W ELL, LET'S cut to the chase and address our differences on abortion...

...In the end, it's through the litmus test of abortion politics alone, and not the abandonment of a broad social vision, that you view, and condemn, "the future of the Democratic Party...

...Though you say you feel just as strongly about support of the death penalty (inherently racist in our system) and cuts in social welfare, your real preoccupation here is with "physicianassisted suicide"—an issue that affects a tiny percentage of the population, and mostly those who are able to pay for it (hardly the "poorest" and "most vulnerable...

...If we're honest and clear-sighted about the necessary social conditions for diminishing abortions, we come right back to the broad agenda of equality and social needs that you and I accuse mainstream Democrats of selling out...

...that those services (and contraception) were fully covered by health insurance available to all...

...So here, I suppose, our different ethics can lead us to a common goal: making abortions fewer if not "rare" (which you yourself agree is unlikely in the real world...

...and indeed, so do you...

...Yet there are also strong points of intersection...

...I remember how you baffled me then with political contradictions that had no reference points in my own background...

...DEAR PEGGY, Twenty-one years ago you were edi tor of the Hastings Center Report and I was a still youngish scholar and "socialist feminist" activist, spending the year as a resident fellow at the Center to research a book on abortion politics...

...Just put this scenario together, Peggy, and imagine what it might do to current abortion (and HIV infection) rates...

...ROSALIND PETCHESKY is a professor of political science and women's studies at Hunter CollegeCUNY, the author of Abortion and Woman's Choice and co-editor of Negotiating Reproductive Rights...

...The divides in our ways of viewing the current political landscape seem just as deep today...

...And has it occurred to you that the main reason pregnant teenagers delay getting abortions is precisely fear about the parental consent and notification laws that you consider "at the margins" of abortion politics...

...You insinuate ("the way abortion functions in our society"—yes...

...Yet, amazingly, in all your polemic against Clinton for reneging on the promise of "safe, legal and rare," you never once mention contraception, health insurance, or any other aspect of what I would take to be a social democratic and feminist approach to the abortion question...

...I do not agree (based on much clinical and survey data) that abortion is a "tragic" decision "for most women," but it is a hard one...

...without giving evidence or reasoned argument...

...Of course, this is not the "personal politics" of your childhood— of taking neighbors to the hospital and getting the corner street lamp fixed—but a more grotesque version, filtered through television talk shows and a public ethos of both self-revelation and sexual inquisition...

...As a feminist (and staunch nonbeliever in "fetal personhood") I'm not concerned about fetal survival but about women's self-determination and health...

...Your evocation of "civic engagement" resonated with all I had longed for as a young person and had to piece together in a much less nurturing social context...

...Let's take the second- and third-trimester abortions you seem particularly upset about...

...DISSENT / Winter 2000 n 83...

...In my vision of a better world, like that of so many feminists before me, women of all ages and social situations would be able to enjoy their sexuality free from fear of pregnancy and with a clear sense of control over their decisions...

...Don't you see that the Republican right wing has been in the vanguard of the push to sexualize national politics in a way that probably, if I know you at all, leaves you choking (so much that you manage to forget the whole thing...

...that (maybe in part as a result of the latter) young men no longer abused young women with slurs like "slut" and "whore" (as I heard ad nauseam on the bus coming home the other day) for being sexual or dressing a certain way...

...Your lively description of your Chicago Rosalind Petchesky neighborhood and your youth as "the niece of a Democratic precinct captain," so different from my experience, was thrilling to read—I wanted more...