Laigle’s Forum

Prominent feminist urges abortion advocates to vote for Obama

by Laurie Higgins

In an op-ed piece appearing in the Wall Street Journal on Oct. 21, University of Michigan feminist law professor, Catherine MacKinnon, provides pro-lifers multiple compelling reasons to vote for John McCain: judges, judges, judges.

Concerned that women’s “legal” and “social” equality will be threatened by the election of John McCain, MacKinnon warns that “At stake in this presidential election are the federal courts. . . . The next president will appoint scores of lower court federal judges who will have the last word in most cases. One, perhaps three, justices may be named to a Supreme Court that in recent years has decided many cases of importance to women by just one vote.”

If for no other reason, the next president’s opportunity to appoint scores of lower court judges and perhaps three or more Supreme Court justices should provide more than sufficient justification for voting for McCain.

Increasingly, lower courts are usurping the right of citizens to govern themselves. We need only look for evidence of that claim to the Constitution State, Connecticut, where four judges recently legalized same-sex faux-marriages.

And from Roe v. Wade we have been made painfully aware of the devastating human and cultural consequences of poorly decided Supreme Court cases.

We should be as concerned with the issue of abortion as MacKinnon is. Fretting about the prospect that women may someday be unable to legally exterminate the incipient life growing within them, MacKinnon urges Americans to vote for Obama, the co-sponsor of the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) which “applies to every Federal, State, and local statute, ordinance, regulation, administrative order, decision, policy, practice, or other action enacted, adopted, or implemented before, on, or after the date of enactment of this Act.” FOCA will effectively remove what few obstacles stand in the way of the slaughter of the unborn.

All of the following could be overturned:

• Bans on the despicably barbaric practice of partial-birth abortion
• “Conscience” laws that allow health-care providers to refuse to provide abortions or, in the case of hospitals, pay for abortions
• The Hyde Amendment which prohibits federal funding of abortions for low-income women
• Parental notification laws
• Laws that require those seeking abortions to be provided with factual information regarding fetal development and abortion risks, and then required to wait 24-48 hours

MacKinnon speciously argues that a 1980 court decision in which the “Supreme Court permitted exclusion of medically necessary abortions from Medicaid coverage” effectively robs poor women of “social equality.” Somehow, MacKinnon has so perverted rhetoric as to arrive at the claim that publicly funded murder is necessary to achieve equality.

MacKinnon plaintively urges America to see that “At stake is nothing less than whether women will be, finally, equal,” conveniently ignoring the rights of the unborn, some of whom, of course, are female. Moreover, she fails to address the question of whether the right to simply exist just might be a right of a higher moral order than “reproductive rights.”

MacKinnon fervently hopes for the appointment of judges committed to yet another euphemistically named darling of feminists: “comparable worth” laws. She bemoans the fact that “Courts have not interpreted existing laws to guarantee equal pay for work of equal value.”  Comparable worth laws, however, denude the labor market of the effects of the forces of supply and demand and depend on unreliable subjective evaluations of the worth of particular jobs. Many economists view these laws as impractical and ultimately economically injurious to working women, particularly less-skilled working women.

MacKinnon worries too about a particular subset of women whose needs she believes can be met only through “gender justice.” She contends that “the myriad rights lesbian women need” can only be met through the activities of the myriad judges she wants us to give Obama the opportunity to appoint. Though MacKinnon is a little fuzzy about what particular rights are being denied homosexual women, we needn’t worry our pretty little heads because she assures us that Obama-appointed judges will take care of the unseemly inequity.

If MacKinnon gets her druthers, Obama will be elected and appoint “scores” of activist judges who will interpret existing laws in ways that comport with her radical feminist vision. And women and children will suffer.

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