Blog for Choice: Washington Post: Pandering pill needed

« Our “so-called" right to privacy | Main | Quick Hits on privacy »

August 4, 2005

Washington Post: Pandering pill needed

Richard Cohen tells it like it is in his Washington Post column today, Needed: A Pill for Pandering.

With governors George Pataki and Mitt Romney going ape shit over emergency contraception because of presidential dreams, Cohen suggests a morning-after pill for pandering politicians. Love it.

To back up my medical diagnosis I offer the recent statements of George Pataki, governor of New York, and Mitt Romney, governor of Massachusetts. Both men are coming to the conclusion that their country desperately needs them, and their thoughts have turned to a White House occupancy, sometime around January 2009. Pataki has announced that he will not seek a fourth term, he has recently been to Iowa, and -- after an entire career spent as a pro-choice Republican -- he has said he will veto a bill that would have made the "morning-after" pill available without a prescription. He said he does not like making the drug available to minors, who, come to think of it, are precisely the ones most likely to need it. Go figure.

Similarly, Romney, too, is finding himself in a strange mood when it comes to abortion and similar matters close to the hearts of conservative Republicans. As he mulls a presidential run, he has been mulling abortion, too. He has discovered -- maybe in Iowa, where he, too, has been -- that his position has changed...

...It has become clear that a viable Republican presidential candidate must oppose abortion, stem cell research, the morning-after pill, gay marriage and, for good measure, evolution. At the very least, you have to offer a good word for "intelligent design," as the president did just the other day in the single dopiest statement of his presidency.

These are positions that defy logic -- not each and every one of them but as a totality. Taken together, they require GOP presidential candidates to take a kind of loyalty oath to ignorance, to see virtually every issue through a religious prism.

So true. This is what kills me. No matter what your political beliefs are, you have to recognize how these recent “decisions” make no sense whatsoever. Clearly the anti-choice moves that Pataki and Romney have made piss me off for specific choice reasons--they are rolling back women’s rights and will have insanely negative effects on women’s lives. But I would imagine that even anti-choice folks would find this pandering insulting. What do you think?

Posted by Jessica at August 4, 2005 7:26 AM

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.blogforchoice.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/2727

Comments

I don't think Pataki's & Romney's actions defy logic.It's logical for a politician to go where the votes are. The much more important question is why these pols and also many Democratic pols (most notably Hillary) find it necessary to shift positions in order to secure votes. A few years ago, most of the present Democratic leaders switched from prolife to prochoice and apparently gained by it.Why are voters not supporting elective abortion like they used to? Any ideas?

Posted by: joanne at August 4, 2005 3:25 AM

But they're pissing both sides off. Anti-choicers don't think they're going far enough and pro-choicers are upset taht they're swithing up positions on choice (and harming women). To answer your question, Romney and Pataki aren't doing it for Dem votes, they're doing it for conservative support casue they're considering presidential runs.

Posted by: Jessica at August 4, 2005 10:45 AM

Jessica, yes they are "pissing both sides off" and will probably never be trusted by either side. But what of the vast middle ground, who make up the bulk of voters? They are hoping to gain there. The middle grounders are becoming less favorably disposed to elective abortion.

Posted by: joanne at August 4, 2005 12:01 PM