“Liberal pigs and right wing men”
Really Douthat?
31
"liberal pigs"?
19
Wow, Ross, it must hurt when you twist yourself into contortions like this.
17
Oklahoma state Senator Ralph Shortey...Nuff Said!
2
Did I read correctly? "Liberals" who abuse women are "pigs" and "Right-wing men" who abuse women are "men?"
22
Ross opens with: "... female liberty depends on a right to kill your unborn child."
He follows up with: "...predatory male feminism today, support for legal abortion among men has often carried a strong whiff of self-interest, with feticide as a get-out-of-responsibility-free card..."
In place of an examination of how the GOP has firmly hitched it's wagon to a sexual predator who very likely has paid for maybe an abortion or two, Ross dishonestly tars women and men who support abortion rights as murderers.
Typical.
21
Ross, why do you denote "liberal pigs" and "right wing men"?
Personally, I'd feel much better if you had written "both liberal and conservative pigs" or something to that effect.
I guess sexual assault by a "right wing man" is a LOT more dignified than similar sexual assault by a "liberal pig.
32
>the anti-abortion cause is hitched to a party that’s seen as anti-woman
It already is. What planet do you live on?
27
So the accused are either "liberal pigs" or "right wing men"? Is your disdain for liberals so all-encompassing that they are reduced to farm animals?
19
The anti-abortionists want you to have the babies but then they will make it so you can’t afford to feed them, cloth them, they won’t have health care because God forbid they would actually have to act as the good Christians they purport to be and help you. They want the power of decision making but cut you off after that. Pathetic group. Shame!
36
Ross is really fired up, as two quotations show:
"...it has probably ended the careers of more prominent liberal pigs than right-wing men." Wow, Ross, I think you just removed yourself from the "intellectual" classification. Pigs?
"...female liberty depends on a right to kill your unborn child." Sure, every woman who has an abortion thinks "I think I'll murder my unborn child." You do realize, I'm sure, that about 20% of pregnancies are ended by natural miscarriages. Who's responsible for that? As a devout Catholic, you must believe that God is killing (or murdering; your choice) them. Yet I don't hear you invecting against God.
I think you've crossed a few lines with your latest attempt at writing.
48
In this column yet again Mr. Douthat elucidates nothing and confuses everyone. What was that even about? Pro-lifers are gender egalitarians? They give a hoot about who overturns Roe as long it’s overturned?
Huh? It seems the overall aim of his stint at this paper is to muddy the waters about the cruelty of conservative viewpoints.
10
"In its targets the #MeToo movement has made no partisan distinctions; if anything, it has probably ended the careers of more prominent liberal pigs than right-wing men. But for reasons of political expedience, conservatives have been more likely to make excuses for their predators...."
Care to further elucidate why conservatives have been more likely than liberals to defend rapists, assaulters, and sexual harassers?
22
All who are for abortion were born. (Ronald Reagan)
2
LOL. That ship sailed eons ago, Ross.
2
Now tell me again Ross how the Republican party is anti-women again!
1
"the careers of more prominent liberal pigs than right-wing men"
Right there, Douthat demonstrates why he should not be taken seriously. Liberals are "pigs," right-wingers are "men".
17
So are you really pro-life, Mr. Douthat? https://www.designmom.com/twitter-thread-abortion/
2
Why does the author use the language "prominent liberal pigs" and "right wing men"? While I understand this is an op ed, I expect someone of Mr. Douthat's stature to refrain from using the dehumanizination tactics that have become all the rage.
13
Ronald Reagan: All those who are for abortion have already been born
1
I never understood why an anti-abortion MAN is so hung up over a WOMAN'S right to choose..
26
Roos, you must be delusional You think THIS latest anti-women GOP debacle will be the tipping point for voters to see the GOP as an "anti-woman" party? That train left the station about thirty years ago. It's not returning.
16
Kavanaugh "dissents" against a teen age rape victim trying to abort the child of her attacker. It was all I needed to know other than the fact he had been educated by Jesuits.
"Defenders of The Faith" like the current Pope, these priests are known for a strict enforcement of Catholic doctrine. As females are gestation devices and orgasm services in this doctrine, Kavanaugh defends the faith.
Now The Liar Female accuses him of what most men agree is normal boyish behavior. Every woman with a mind can tell you how the script reads, no matter their pain.
He could have stopped the whole painful business with a plea for forgiveness, saying he didn't remember the event but if the woman was tormented all these years, he was sorry. After all, alcohol blackouts are common in heavy drinkers.
He claims to care about women but he treats this woman with the same disrespect as the teenage rape victim. Put this "man" in the chair but whatever he does "judge" will stain the Supreme Court with his total lack of compassion.
17
Take it to the FBI first... the reason... it is a crime to make false statements to the FBI... this will clear the air very fast....
8
"In its targets the #MeToo movement has made no partisan distinctions; if anything, it has probably ended the careers of more prominent liberal pigs than right-wing men."
So, according to Ross Douthat, politically liberal males who sexually assault women are pigs, and politically conservative males who sexually assault women are "men." Got it. No need to wonder why women are abandoning the Republican party.
18
The Democratic Party’s liberal pro-abortion policy is primarily endangered by the Party’s anti-male, and especially anti-white male stance.
Any non-minority male who votes democrat simply proves his own self-loathing.
1
WOW what is this all about - "Repealing Roe will be a hollow victory if the anti-abortion cause is seen a hitched to a party that's seen as anti-woman". The Republican party is anti-woman!!! Those who want to repeal Roe/Wade are primarily men!
13
You would be clinically insane to make these types of allegations against such a high profile person as kavanaugh. Nothing to gain, everything to lose. But conservatives don’t care, fetuses are paramount to everything, rape is no consequence if it can create a fetus.
Your religion doesn’t matter, only theirs.
8
"if anything, it has probably ended the careers of more prominent liberal pigs than right-wing men"
Oh Ross, I assure you there are plenty of right-wing PIGS as well. You need look no further than the White House.
18
There is no pro-life movement, Ross. There is an anti-abortion movement invented by religious groups illegally trying to shove their archaic beliefs down the throats of all Americans, including the vast majority who don't subscribe to their minority, backwards, antiquated religious views. A "pro-life" group would be anti-war. Christian conservatives are anything but. A "pro-life" group would be against capital punishment. Phony Evangelical Christians are anything but. A "pro-life" group would be for much stronger gun control. Radical Christian preachers are anything but. A "pro-life" group would be supporting underprivileged children after birth, providing adequate care, food, and schooling. Organized religion is anything but. Sorry, Ross, but there is no pro-life movement. Only hypocritical religious zealots trying to drag out society back to the dark ages. Try straightening out your church before letting them set secular policy for the rest of us who don't buy into your superstitions.
25
The anti-abortion, so-called pro-life, movement never was about protecting the “precious, unborn child”. It was and continues to be about controlling women, their choices, their bodies—in short, it’s about men controlling them, and “keeping them in their place”. Ruth Bader Ginsburg said, “All we ask of our brethren is that they take their feet off of our necks.” As evidenced by Grassley, Graham, Kavanaugh, Trump and countless other Neanderthals, all they want is more women’s necks upon which to clamp their feet.
14
This has become a three ring circus perpetuated by the Democrats to impede the selection of a man who has an impeccable record as a federal district judge. The accuser, a psychologist, should know that a person that suffers a tramatic event doesn’t forget when and where the event took placel. Both of the witnesses that she says were present at the “unknown” house where it took place deny that it ever happened. She is a left wing democratic perverted liberal who will stop at nothing to block the appointment of a man who doesn’t agree with her left wing beliefs.
Can we all just please admit the obvious ?
Roe is an extraordinarily silly ruling based on nothing other than a bizarre assumption that there exists an “emanation” from a “penumbra” that somehow includes a specific right which had been unrecognized for the prior 8,000 years.
No logical constitutional theory supports such a vapid “discovery.”
2
Huh? Isn't the GOP already anti-woman? I mean its pretty much established itself as being anti-full control over their own bodies party for some time now.
The GOP servitude to the Xtian Right and the Theocratic Evangelicals seeking to rule this nation with their perverted interpretations of their holy book, has long signaled that the GOP is anti-woman at its core. No matter that they have a few females among them in congress, a few females now earning a decent living by being their media advocates, for the most part the GOP IS NOW, and has long been anti-woman.
They talk the talk about individual rights, but not when it comes to a woman's reproductive autonomy. T
The issue with The Kav is he and the WH have boxed themselves in. By outright denying the incident, they are stuck with no room to be reasonable, and change the narrative that they are, as usual, being dismissive of the accuser, and by default, falling into being the same good ol' white boys in office who denigrated the credible and intelligent Ms. Hill.
This isn't about some teenage bad behaviors, or a he said, she said scenario - but IS The Kav lying now? As it seems he has a penchant for, when facing a Senate committee.
Is he lying now? My money says he's lying. Why? Trump is truly in charge of the strategy. He's pressing for full denial, and as such the team is boxed in and relying on the Harlot bringing down one of our "good guy" story-lines.
Same old white boy defense. Zero has changed in the GOP.
12
The Republican Party is anti-woman all the way and it's plain for all to see if they have their eyes open.
5
"... if the anti-abortion cause is hitched to a party that’s seen as anti-woman"
If? If??? Earth to Ross: There is zero chance that the Republican party is not seen as anti-woman.
10
The anti-abortion movement IS anti-woman. That is what defines it.
9
I agree with a lot of what he is saying, but this line caught my eye.
"In its targets the #MeToo movement has made no partisan distinctions; if anything, it has probably ended the careers of more prominent liberal pigs than right-wing men"
So, is he saying in a sentence that declares the #metoo movement as having revealed abusers on both/all political sides, liberals who assault women are pigs but right-wingers who assault women are men? Or am I reading it wrong?
1
Ironically, Mr. Judge, his one witness, has owned up to his own early faults. Kavanaugh instead has "the White House confirmation team as they conducted a so-called “murder board” with Kavanaugh Tuesday in preparation for Monday’s scheduled hearing".
"A murder board, also known as a "scrub-down", is a committee of questioners set up to critically review a proposal and/or help someone prepare for a difficult oral examination. The term originated in the U.S. military, specifically from the Pentagon, but is also used in academic and government appointment contexts". -Wikipedia
Guess who made up the "Murder Board"? They want to murder Dr. Blasey. And kill her story. Imagine the vicious gauntlet Dr. Blasey will be pushed into?
https://www.law.com/nationallawjournal/2018/07/11/kavanaugh-confirmation...
The truth will not be laid bare. They can't. Decades and a lot of money spent and at stake went into grooming and greasing Kavanaugh for this. They own him.
7
“Which is why the accuser cannot shirk testifying publicly, as her lawyer suggested last night, and expect her claims to keep him from the Supreme Court.”
Since Douthat declares war on the Pope he also has the Judgment Day power to decry shirking. The Accuser must take part in the sham. After all the last three days news cycle excuse making has demanded that conformists like Douthat take this tact.
But Douthat has a problem.
The story unfolded describes precisely the elite school life that Douthat considers exemplars of the moral failings that are destroying America. It is certain that Douthat could name people who are just like those described in this account of high school glory boys strutting and bullying and using alcohol to get sex. It is commonplace. Douthat knows it is most likely true.
4
EDUCATION and ENLIGHTENED THINKING should be deadly to the pro life movement!
4
The danger for the pro-life movement continues to be the reality of women facing difficult, personal, complex situations involving their own reproductive systems. A young, naive, culturally isolated high school student might find it rewarding to wave a pro-life sign at a rally. But will she reconsider abortion if a drunken boy at a party corrals her and impregnates her against her will?
The power of womens' individual stories can't be lost in the dicussion of power politics and supreme court appointments.
I want to echo the sentiment of Anita Hill in her opinion published in your paper yesterday: "Finally, refer to Christine Blasey Ford by her name. She was once anonymous, but no longer is. Dr. Blasey is not simply “Judge Kavanaugh’s accuser.” Dr. Blasey is a human being with a life of her own. She deserves the respect of being addressed and treated as a whole person." - Anita Hill, NYT opinion page Sept. 18
9
The Republican party is already seen as anti-woman and beyond out of touch with the real concerns of the majority of American women. Just watch the old boys club currently on full display with their neanderthal-like, ignorant responses - Orrin Hatch? Ugh. What rock has he been living under for the past few decades? I know, I know, it's the last gasp of a dying breed, but here is Douthat, another privileged white male, with all these words, circling round and round only to return to his primary fixation: how to best assure that these same men control women's reproductive rights. Keep circling around in your own little mind in your own little world, Mr. Douthat. Meanwhile, women are rising up, speaking up, running for office and getting elected. That last gasp, it's sure is an ugly and painful one!
6
The Republicans as a "party that’s seen as anti-woman"?
How about that IS anti-woman!
3
then all the abortion opponents who were supporting him should hope that his nomination is withdrawn — with, ideally, a woman nominated in his place..........
As I understand it, the pro-life movement was started as an attempt by Republican politicians to create an issue to appeal to the religious right. It succeeded wildly as a political issue, but as an actual religious issue it has a problem. The Bible actually has a procedure for causing an abortion in women guilty of adultery, in Numbers 5:11-31 - The Test for an Unfaithful Wife.
Here is a relevant snippet from the NIV:
"The priest is then to take a handful of the grain offering as a memorial[c] offering and burn it on the altar; after that, he is to have the woman drink the water. 27 If she has made herself impure and been unfaithful to her husband, this will be the result: When she is made to drink the water that brings a curse and causes bitter suffering, it will enter her, her abdomen will swell and her womb will miscarry, and she will become a curse. 28 If, however, the woman has not made herself impure, but is clean, she will be cleared of guilt and will be able to have children."
5
If the Republican Party would like not to be seen as anti-woman, perhaps it should try not being anti-woman.
8
Ah yes ! The dangers of not de-plugging the religion from the state.
Mr. Douthat, the root cause of all this - religious perversion. The dangers of using religious arguments to hinder the reproductive rights of women will now come back to haunt people like you who are really no more than mere mullahs in western disguise. You are now somehow trying to shift the blame from a potential fallout to a political philosophy. That philosophy stems from adherence to arcane religious strictures. This was always about trying to use dubious religious arguments to suppress the rights of one gender as it was earlier with the suppression of civil rights for the LGBT community.
Now you get to live with the fallout. You can kiss your conservative ways goodbye. We will change America for you.
8
Re: "pro-life feminists reject the idea that female liberty depends on a right to kill your unborn child" ....
If I elect not to give a family member whose life depends on it one of my kidneys, or a portion of my liver, or some bone marrow, you could reasonably consider me self-centered or focused on my own well-being; but I'd not be a "killer."
Same with a person who declines to give of her body to the embryo/fetus/unborn-child (or whatever you want to call it).
I'm so tired of this "killing" and "murdering" rhetoric re: abortion. We don't consider _anything_ else in the medical/healthcare world through that lens.
7
How about giving all women birth control and avoid unwanted pregnancies and abortions.
It's not that hard.
I bet most pro-life couples use birth control.
6
The GOP “seems” anti-women? No Douhat, it IS anti-women. Just like it’s anti-science, anti-education, anti-gay, anti-black, anti-Hispanic etc.
8
The so-called "pro-life" movement is pro-fetus.
But it is anti-CHILD and anti-WOMAN.
A woman's uterus should NOT become government property...as the pro-life movement proposes.
This is the ULTIMATE government take-over of the life of its citizens.
And it will lead us back to poor women dying in droves in alleys, poor women who got raped, poor women who aren't able to raise a child.
Of course, middle-class parents, both pro-life and pro-choice, will continue to be able to pay for an abortion for their daughters...somewhere else.
5
Having come from a middle eastern family, it took me 65 years to finally get it. Women’s liberation. (I know it’s and old fashion slogan). I get it. I fully embrace it.
I’m half way to becoming a modern enlightened male. It’s not the numerous articles, it’s the comments that have helped me rewire my thinking.
Neanderthals Anonymous
6
Of course Trump and his obnoxious male brethren have swamped all formerly conservative causes and blended them into a sort of toxic, fanatical mess. And of course women want nothing to do with it. Many of us are devoting our lives to wiping it off the face of the planet, which frankly is not what I expected to be doing with myself in 2018.
But there's a way out for those who actually do care about the fetuses AND the women. Make women's lives better. Work to eliminate rape. Make sure all men understand sexual consent. Make birth control readily available and free, and work to develop even more and better methods. Make things easier for women who actually want to have children, regardless of their age or marital status.
Abortion rates would plummet, even if abortion is still completely legal. The reason we have so many abortions is not because women are perverse baby killers. It's because life for women can be really, really hard, and it doesn't need to be.
13
Ross, the Republicans aren't just anti woman, they are anti sex. Given their penchant for abstinence only education, closing clinics so contraceptive prescriptions are harder to obtain, and pushing personhood amendments which will make some contraceptives illegal, I can only assume Republicans think we should only have sex for procreative purposes. You don't like sex? Vote Republican.
8
Ross, as my sister frequently says: “When a guy has a period, develops menstrual cramps, goes through the body altering phenomenon of childbirth and is paid less than his female counterparts, then he can talk to me about my body. Until then, back off!”
17
"....a party that’s seen as anti-woman."
Seriously, Ross? You think that's still a hypothetical in 2018? That horse bolted from the barn with the public abuse of Anita Hill at the hands of GOP demagogues, with too much acquiesence from their Democratic colleagues. At least Democrats show some consciousness of that, while the GOP doubles and triples down.
5
Conservatives have proven they will put their anti abortion views before all others. They are willing to elect an immoral, misogynist President who bragged about sexually assaulting women to get what they want. Any despicable behavior is OK with them, if they have a chance to outlaw abortion. I saw a comment from one conservative who said it didn't matter if Kavanaugh did it or not, Roe v. Wade was more important. I find it hard to believe that any pro lifer would care about how he got confirmed and I think they will be dancing in the streets when he does. Unfortunately, the term "conservative" has become synonymous with anti-women's rights. Conservatives love to say they have great "respect" for women, but that doesn't mean they view them as equals.
7
Douthat doesn't realize that the anti abortion party has also been anti women for generations.
John McClain said it best-
"Welcome to the party, Pal!"
2
I'll give Douthat some credit. He's far enough out of the anti-choice "Pro-Life" bubble that he at least understands there's a chance of the movement entering a suicide pact with the GOP and being flatly perceived as "anti-woman" with this latest Faustian bargain of blind loyalty to Kavanaugh. The possibility of a long term backlash against them is very real. Even if they refuse to listen, that needed to be said.
What I'm not quite as sold on is this supposed "risk" that opponents of abortion have taken to get to this point. I don't see throngs of pro-choice supporters picketing pro-life activists' homes, bombing their workplaces or going as far as shooting someone they are in opposition to in cold blood as Scott Roeder felt compelled to do. Just what risk or threat of any adverse consequences has the ant abortion movement really ever faced?
If anything, I'm beginning to question if there'd really be as many of them if in fact there were real consequences for them to actually have to be confronted with, starting with being required to pay more taxes to fund all the programs and services needed to care for more of these human lives produced once the women no longer have the choice. Maybe if indeed it did actually cost these zealots something real rather than just imagined, there might not be quite as many so committed to the "rights of the unborn".
8
As long as people like Douthat continue to use inflammatory language like "the right to kill your unborn child", even as he would claim no doubt he is quoting or characterizing what someone else said, then our toxic discourse will continue.
And as long as Douthat continues to toe the GOP line that there is no recourse for Kavanaugh to clear his name when the FBI could do that in a matter of weeks, something the Dr. Ford insists on, insuring an untarnished confirmation says a lot more about Douthat and Kavanaugh than about the accuser.
7
Mr. Douthat, as a Times reader for about as long as you have been alive, I have had my fill of the theocratic "Right" referring to themselves as "Pro-Life" — which the overwhelming majority CANNOT be, by definition (including Kavanaugh, as well as their four members currently on the SCOTUS): they support capital punishment. Q.E.D.
10
Ross,
The so called “pro-life” which in actuality are really only pro-birth have long been the anti-women party long before Roe. Republicans are obsessed with controlling women and our bodies.
If you and men in general were meant to have an opinion on how to best use a uterus, you would have been born with one. You don’t get to co-opt mine or any other woman’s.
6
It must be contagious.
First it was Bret Stephens who in every stage-right column couches his often doctrinaire conservative assertions in a mob of lib-progressive straw men and women.
Now Douthat, not to be outdone, integrates busloads of straw people into his deceptively headlined column that spins around the word "dangerous' as if somehow Kavanaugh's SCOTUS aspirations might be forcibly aborted.
"Repealing Roe will be a hollow victory if the anti-abortion cause is hitched to a party that’s seen as anti-woman. "
Seen? The Republicans think "The Handmaiden's Tale" is prescriptive not cautionary. VP Pence's peculiar notion of chastity is to avoid the company of women outside of his marriage. Their collective response to President Grab-a-cat-because-they-let-you is to avert their eyes and praise the lord while whistling dixie.
What Douthat meant by his coded subhead is "we right wing theocrats should step lightly on social issues so as not to jeopardize how we rig the economy to our advantage."
He's saying in effect abortion is the sizzle that sells their rancid red meat as the main dish of their last supper. But if abortion is seen as an attack on women (which it is) instead of the murder of notional innocents, then women might doubt 1 + 1 = 11 and doom the imposition of Evangelical misogyny on the rest of us.
Douthat mistakes clever for principle and posits as rational what is in fact religious.
Wolves in sheep's clothing shouldn't snarl so loud.
9
You've got to give Ross credit. He really works hard to make the troglodyte policies of the GOP seem somehow reasonable and republicans themselves seem like they care about people outside their immediate tribe.
6
The Republicans won't let the FBI study the validity of Ford's accusations because they know she's telling the truth.
10
You can bet that if one of President Hillary Clinton's Supreme Court nominees dropped a candy wrapper, the Republican Senate would be calling on the FBI to investigate, followed by endless hearings.
10
The Republican slur of a woman caught in the middle of an old-man GOP publicity nightmare, is by definition angry white male personified. Kavanaugh has had months and a team of govt lawyers to prepare for his 3 day lovefest. Not a single GOP in that committee asked him a serious question. The Democratic minority had no chance to even do a proper investigation with only 10% of the documents disclosed, and 110,0000 pages turned over the night before questioning. The whole hearing was a sham. And now the angry men come forward to slur some more, before they've even heard what she has to say, because the sham isn't a done deal yet.. To begin with, the assertion that she came forward at the last minute is a lie. She wrote a letter to her Congresswoman and asked for anonymity, as a kind of catharsis. We all can only speculate on her motives, but as a woman, I believe that she sent that letter hoping that somehow she'd be heard in some small way. It eventually got passed on to Feinstein, who honored the request for anonymity, and turned it over the the FBI,which was the correct thing to do. It would have probably died there, duly noted and put in his file, until the media outed first, the letter, and eventually the letter writer. So now all the angry old men will have to wait, until under the advice of a lawyer she was forced to get, and the legal maneuvering to go through the process. You all don't get to hangue her and malign her now, even before she says what she has to say.
8
Many women will see a double entendre - was it purposeful - in what's at "stake." Women died at the stake by the thousands for practicing herbalism, for being midwives...
4
How can religious extremists be pro-woman?
What does that look like for this author?
There were just as many abortions before Roe as before - the only difference is that there are less women dead.
Not having children you can't afford and don't want is liberating for women and men.
So what's the problem?
Why not focus on providing foster and adoptive homes for children whose parents are dead or in prison? Why not ensure that we pay high taxes to provide medical care, health care, food, housing, and jobs to people who need the money? How about not driving a car and lobbying to get rid of deadly coal and oil?
That seems like a better use of time if you actually care about saving lives than trying to criminalize abortion.
8
Mr. Douthat is pro-life, he says, and a conservative, he says, and concerned about "fairness" to both parties, he says. But he makes it clear that he and his anti-abortion co-religionists have waited for years for this opportunity, to get a justice on the Supreme Court whose principal aim is to undo, not only Roe v. Wade, but the rest of the changes made in our system to alleviate the problems of poor and working people. There is no fairness at the heart of any of these positions. The destruction of public education, the end of unions, loosening of regulations on corporate and private business behavior -- all have been the aims of the reactionary right since Roosevelt was alive. As a Christian, I say that each individual must answer for his or her actions to God, not self-appointed defenders of a faith not generally shared among the bulk of our population. Where is the defense of the person caught in the dilemma of trying to feed a family with no money, who steals food, or whose job was exported in the name of cheap labor for the corporate interests? Where is the defense of people whose lives are impacted by the pollution of our air and water? Brett Kavanaugh is the product of a so-called meritocracy which includes prep school, Ivy League law school, and clerking for a prestigious jurist. Our last two Democratic presidents might assume he's a fine person on that basis, but it does seem to mean he's entitled to rise unimpeded to ruin countless more lives
9
Let's get real. The republicans along with Trump don't care what people think of them. The republican party now, is one that has hypocrisy as it's "core principal."
If the republicans were to be honest they would admit that they view women as "chattel." The fact that middle aged white men will end up deciding about a woman's reproductive rights to these guys is a "no brainer." Trump and his party are saying to the women in this country, "Don't worry about it. We know what's best for you."
7
Any attempt, like Douthat's, to make rational arguments about this Supreme Court appointment in terms of the Republican Party's future, is hypocritical. Through Mitch McConnell, the party illegitimately denied President Obama the right to appoint a highly qualified person to the Court. These creeps wouldn't even meet with Judge Garland. That's all you need to know about this party.
It deserves to be OUT of power, and out of women's lives--and must take their grubby hands off of women's bodies. They are in the pockets of the Koch Brothers, whose only goal is to end democratic government. That goes for all of them, from Trump on down.
8
If you knew the Maryland suburbs in the 80s and the amount of partying and drinking, you would probably believe that Kavanaugh doesn't remember much of what he did at parties. Teenagers then were still drinking and driving with little consequence. I personally know several girls who were assaulted at house parties, but back then, no one called it rape or sexual assault. One close friend was nearly raped but convinced the would-be rapist (also captain of the football team at our high school) to accept oral sex instead. She played along at first and then bit him and ran away. She never reported the crime, and I only learned about it decades after we had graduated.
9
Kavanaugh and his fellow oppressors
are not just anti-women, they are anti freedom, anti-liberty, and pro control for control's sake. No moral or legal argument exists that can or should overturn Roe v. Wade which favors freedom and liberty while protecting the living (her body, her choice) and the unborn (read the opinion). A more important questions not asked Judge-What-I-Do-Stays-Here is how does he feel about the freedom to smoke a vegetable that grows in nature? You know he is against it! Why, because his handlers are against it. How is a man that prosecuted President Clinton to NO avail and ended his prosecution as a complete waste of tax dollars and time even being considered for the US Supreme Court? Shame on Kavanaugh and his secrets that he does not want told. Shame on the Republicans as Judge Garland should have been the choice. Shame on America (no longer the most free and liberal country in the world). Character is shown by a Joker's Joke. Refusing to give the joke merit is the same excuse for harassing a women ("I was just kidding").
3
The key to this situation is there was a witness, another young man/boy in the room who can testify one way or another. His self interest would be to say that nothing happened, but he has to be aware of the risks of perjury or coming off as a self-serving now older man trying to cover his tracks.
Georgetown Prep, more or less like most expensive preps, has a reputation as a place where rich kids gather to learn the appropriate level of misbehavior allowed for their rich cohort. Some go way over the line and are expelled, others test the line, are reprimanded and continue. The saying is "What happens at Georgetown prep stays at Georgetown Prep," according to a neighbor of ours who has reasons to know the culture well.
Prep schools are isolated enclaves, built to stand out and stand apart from the rest of the world. The message vibrating like a giant but silent tuning fork through their large, leafy campuses need not be written on a billboard: You are special. You are here because you are meant to be a member of the leadership class of your generation. It is like handing over the keys to a 180 MPH race car to teenage boys: given the advantage of a protected environment, testing the limits is a given.
Abortion was chosen first by the Catholic Church because the only way you get new Catholics is by birth. The right took it up because it seemed to have an element of primal morality to it and promised lasting political returns.
5
Perhaps, Ross, the reason the Right’s concern for the unborn rings so hollow is because we witness daily their utter disdain for the already-born. Can a political party that gleefully strips innocent people of their health insurance ever be called “pro-life”?
8
On this pale blue dot that's already dramatically overpopulated and on track for wholesale misery unless global warming is somehow curtailed by selfish acts of population control, how can anyone suggest that a family wishing to maintain a stable environment for its parents and existing children - either through contraception, or unfortunately abortion in reaction to failed contraception - be considered as something as less than an intelligent path for civilization?
Oh, wait, that's right - their Book tells them to tell you so. And it also says that it's OK to be "Christian" by ignoring the poor, the weak, the suffering ... and instead pursue a prosperity Gospel.
Sorry, it's time to call "pro-life" what it is: counter to the facts of our civilization's predicament.
4
After hearing Terri Gross’ interview with the woman who was a former member of the “purity” movement, I see how these issues are linked. Linda Kay Klein describes a culture of indoctrinating women to be sexual servants of men. Unsurprising, this led to psychological issues around sex and an environment of child abuse. (See Roy Moore, fundamentalist Mormons, etc)
The Pro-Life movement wants to institutionalize this view of male dominance into our laws. It’s very clearly a violation of church and state. This is America-a nation founded on freedom to choose for yourself. It is not a Christian government.
4
Kavanaugh is clearly horrible in many ways - he wants to get more money into politics, he will rule against environmental regulation at every turn unless someone comes up with a way to create energy without burning fossil fuels, in which case he will rule in favor of oil companies to make such a technology illegal - in the name of freedom, you understand. He will rule against gay marriage, in the name of religious freedom, and against abortion in the name of the freedom of the unborn; and in favor of corporate interests always over the interests of workers: he will vote to make collective bargaining illegal, as a violation of corporate freedom.
However, at this point, there is no corroborating evidence that the accusations against him are true, and in this country, we do not ruin people’s lives on the testimony of one person. There must be a preponderance of evidence, or we will be back to the Middle Ages, when Venetians could cause the execution of anyone they disliked by a single, unsubstantiated accusation of treason.
The #Me Too era has caused a sea change in the status of the powerful, who were once entitled to rape with impunity. This is a signal development in our consciousness. But, lives must not be destroyed by accusations which cannot be firmly established. So far, the accuser in this case is without the backup to make her case, so the Judge must be given his hearing, and the country will undoubtedly suffer for it, as we have with Clarence Thomas.
I suspect that Republicans won't allow the FBI to reopen its investigation because they know something we don't. The most obvious possibility is that Mark Judge has told Don McGahn's office that he won't lie to the FBI. It's not a crime for him to lie to media, but it's a crime to lie to the FBI.
The White House and Republicans know that an FBI investigation would scuttle Kavanaugh's investigation because it would provide a witness.
7
Ross
1) There are amoral men everywhere - every religion, every race, every class, every party. And violators of morality are frequently sanctimonious, irrespective of any of the above categories. Your statement about "liberal pigs" vs "right-wing men" is simply prejudicial and demeaning.
2) Your oft-repeated definition of abortion as "killing the unborn" prevents a fair and balanced discussion. The perspective that a fetus incapable of breathing on its own is not a person is logically and respectfully a reasonable and valid perspective.
3) I find it very difficult to understand that you are willing to forgive a prior mistake by a privileged white male prep student but not a young woman who made a bad choice or was pressured into doing something that she wouldn't normally do. Yes, a fetus has the potential to become a person, but at what cost? What was the cost Dr Ford endured based on the reported events? What was the cost to Judge "what happens at prep stays at prep" Kavanaugh?
Dr Ford's story resonates with truth to me. I can forgive the mistakes of youth if responsibility is taken for them. People like Trump, Moore, and even Kavanaugh never get close.
7
Hilarious.
*IF* the anti-choice "cause" is seen as hitched to a movement that's anti-woman? The two have been openly joined at the hip for forty years.
Once again, Trump is taking the blame for a policy that, to dog-whistle ears, looks and sounds different when it is espoused with un-Trumpian sanctimony -- like Mike Pence's. He refuses to meet with any woman unless Mrs Pence is present -- does that count as pro-woman?
3
Ross' opinions have deteriorated to the point of gross boredom. Sorry you lost that "futuristic orb" that seemed evident from time to time in the past. Over the last year you've succumbed to the herd mentality of the progressives. This explains why Trump has such a staunch and growing group of supporters. He, as the main one who pushes back against the liberal mindset (which some refer to as a personality disorder), grows stronger as the left becomes more liberal. It's an odd dynamic. Kavanaugh will be confirmed and the women who fear losing the ability to abort their babies need not lose any sleep over it.
With so many coded and blatant sexist and pro-religion biases obscuring any core value or the broadest shared values why do we read all this. Here's a reason, refute the rephrased, double-negated canards that have become the radical right literacy test - don't nod if you don't agree
"....[the] perception that you can’t be pro-woman and pro-life. " To be clear:
You cannot be for liberty, life and the full equality of women while supporting government control and legal inhibitions against her fundamental and inalienable right to control her body and make all medical decisions affecting it without regard to her status, wealth, or personal beliefs.
To be clear, the statement applies equally to men. It's time men cease the constant and demeaning manipulation of the integrity of all Americans. Stop the false and deceptive message created, cheered and empowered by the monolythic American Catholic Church. Their blatant and ongoing willingness to harm children and demean women prove their defiance of community and family values, even human decency. Any claim of the Church's guardian of marriage, as s human equality, or as keeper and promotor of a divine will for humanity is false.
4
You might have missed this, but the Republican party is already widely viewed as being anti-woman.
4
The Rs in TX have done everything possible to insert themselves into what should be a private discussion between a woman and her doctor. Whether waiting periods, invasive procedures, long-distance travel to clinics, foregone preventative or pre-natal care, the TX Rs have signed up. Should I mention that most of the TX Rs are older white guys? IF they had to submit to any small part of this for their annual prostate check, there would be a hullabaloo.
IF any thinking human can believe the Rs anywhere, especially in TX, favor women's rights, please contact me for a very special deal on desert land around Valentine, TX. "Anti-woman" should be the predominant headline on any R mailing, period.
7
Right - he should withdraw. Later on all this will come back to haunt him He has lied several times and that too could come back to haunt him. His decisions will be considered flawed coming from a man of questionable character who is more than likely capable of violence against women. There are plenty of other conservative judges who will overturn Roe, and maybe a few who will let Trump off the hook when his problems hit the high bench. The monkey wrench in this is none of this can be done in the remaining time before the election and after Nov. when the DEMS take the House and Senate, none of this will matter.
5
Even in this age of hypocracy, pro-lifers (and many similar evangelical voting blocs) have shown their mercenary concern for power over principle, ethics, inclusivity, and compassion. When you are willing to kill doctors, support a party with policies that hurt the poor and help the rich, support policies that have lead to a massive rise in maternity death in conservative states, or vote in a corrupt plutocrat with a history of sexual abuse and womanizing (who used to support abortion), you are not Christian, nor moral. When Kierkegaard pointed out the paradoxes of belief, I do not think he was talking about the flagrant embrace of corruption in the pursuit of institutional power.
3
The Democratic Party is saying, "look, we have a problem, but we're dealing with it"?? Are you sure? Yes, there was the opportunistic sacrifice of Al Franken for arguably questionable allegations. However, beyond this, last I saw, the Democrats (and their allies in the mainstream media) have been very quiet about the sexual harassment allegations against current Democratic Party Congressional candidate Gil Cisneros. Cisneros is hoping to win a California district that is key to Democratic hopes of flipping the house.
And they have been very quiet about the simple assault and other harassment allegations against Democratic Party Attorney General candidate (and outgoing Congressman) Keith Ellison in Minnesota.
It is unfortunately looking like Bill Clinton and Juanita Broderick all over again. If the accusations are against GOP, the allegations must be believed and force resignations of anyone targeted. If the accusations are against Democrats, the accuser is to be ignored and marginalized.
1
The fact that Republicans have been plotting for years to deprive women of their reproductive rights is scary. It is about control and turning the clock back on women. Nominating a woman to be the deciding vote to end Roe v Wade would be cruel. I hope women wake up.
2
I'm truly a political independent: I voted from Bill Clinton, Al Gore, John Kerry, John McCain, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton. I am socially liberal but fiscally conservative.
I don't like Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court position, but I don't want him to lose it this way. The precedent it sets is staggeringly unfair and goes against anything that is right.
A vague accusation 40 years ago, when Kavanaugh was a minor, without a shred of proof. I had a friend just last week on Facebook vehemently insist that 20 years ago, I was with her when she saw a famous actor. I told her that in the timeframe she described I had no even moved to that state yet so it was impossible. There is no way Kavanaugh should be put on trial for a single accusation with barely any proof, in the face of dozens of submitted letters to the contrary from other women. It's absurd and if things like this continue, this #metoo-inspired movement will have lost my support entirely.
1
Getting past what should not be politically motivated appointments of Supreme Court judgeships, and I am fully aware that is not possible anymore one thought. Judge Kavanaugh it would seem should accept every stipulation such as a full FBI investigation no matter how long it takes to at the least not look like a complete puppet of the Republicans. As Trump says if he has done nothing wrong he has nothing to be afraid of.
4
It is Orwellian, and completely inaccurate, to refer to the anti-abortion movement as "pro-life". "Pro-life" is the epitome of right wing disinformation and demonstrably false.
These people reliably back politicians who deny others the right to medical care, cut back on welfare benefits, food stamps, day care, education, environmental regulations, deny global warming and just about any program that benefits women, children and attempts to preserve the environment.
It is widely recognized that the anti-abortion people care a lot about fetuses but nothing at all once they are born.
Could Ross and the NYT at least describe these people correctly; they are against abortion but they are hardly pro-life. Let's leave the false descriptions and and right wing disinformation to Fox news, it's their specialty.
6
Whether Kavanaugh is innocent or guilty does not change whether or not the GOP and pro-life move is anti-woman.
The GOP and pro-life movement is about control - particularly of women's bodies and sexual lives.
5
I appreciate the fact that The NY Times publishes thoughtful conservative viewpoints as well as liberal ones. In most controversial debates the options are rarely cut and dry, but some publications have a bias and refuse to entertain an opposing position. Being exposed to thoughtful points from both sides is healthy and stimulating. Thank you, NYT!
I take exception to the assertion that Dr. Blasey's claim is "false and incapable of being proven." First, every "false" accusation is incapable of being proven except by illogic or deceit. The claim is a presumption followed by gross illogic. Second, the first-hand account of an adult woman about a sexual assault is not mere "gossip." Details may be missing, but that alone does not render the statement objectively false. Third, the accusation is neither sudden nor new, as there are verified instances of Dr. Blasey talking of the alleged assault long before Judge Kavanaugh's nomination. Fourth, many if not most accusations of sexual assault are he said/she said, but this does not mean they're incapable of being proven. Any prosecutor can tell you that, and "beyond a reasonable doubt" is not applicable here, a Senate committee hearing a criminal trial. Fifth, this is not a he said/she said accusation insofar as Dr. Blasey has expressly included a third-party as a witness to the assault, a witness that has made a non-denial denial and has declined to testify. All of this amounts to a credible accusation deserving of examination before a man is appointed to a lifetime position at the head of one of our three branches of government.
4
I am troubled by the repetition of the phrase 'a right to kill your unborn child.' The quote Douthat uses to launch the discussion speak the embryo's fate.' There is a difference and the different language is typically used by the opposing sides.
Moreover, I object to the idea the accuser 'cannot shirk testifying publicly.' She, as was true with Anita Hill, has been subjected to threats and abuse by supporters of the nomination. Their intensity has only been magnified by the availability of social media and the internet, and urging violence against those who thwart Trump is an ordinary occurrence. If she appears without supporting evidence, which exists in the form of at least therapist's notes from 6 years ago and discussions before the nomination was made, this becomes he-said she -said. That is of course, what the Reps want. The choice already is being styled as an upstanding White establishment male versus an hysterical female 'belatedly' making charges. I listened to every bit of the Anita Hill hearings, recalling how I had been harassed and never reported it. And I was deeply troubled by the refusal to call corroborating witnesses, which is now being mirrored.
Women were and are made ashamed if they are victims of unwanted attention. And they fear those who harass and abuse them. That's why women speaking out as part of the #MeToo movement are called courageous. This is not easy for a woman to do under the best of circumstances.
5
I wish people would stop calling anti-abortionists "pro-life." They are not pro-life, they are anti-choice, they elieve that they are entitled to use Big Government to enforce their religious views on others, and they care little for the lives of women or children who are unwanted. Also, the subheading "Repealing Roe will be a hollow victory if the anti-abortion cause is hitched to a party that’s seen as anti-woman" is incorrect. It would be more appropriate to simply delete the words "seen as."
4
Let's start by dispelling a myth. The GOP is NOT pro-life. It is pro-birth. After a child is born Republicans absolutely do not care about what happens to it or its mother. The "pro-life" position is political. It excites evangelicals and gets to to vote in the vain hope imposing their religious views on all women and reducing them to breeding cattle.
Here is a flash. No one is going to eliminate abortion. It has been around for millennia, it will continue as long as there are pregnant desperate women. All Republicans can do is make abortion dangerous and fund organized crime. They cannot effect the wealthy who will simply take a vacation of a more enlightened country. The poor will suffer. But, that is what Republicans do.
6
The anti choice movement works very much like the prohibitionists who gave us the worst Constitutional amendment in history.
If Roe is dismantled it will be the worst thing that has happened to the GOP in a generation.
3
Douthat complains that victory will be hollow if the anti-abortion movement is hitched to a party that's seen as anti-woman. SEEN as anti-woman? It IS anti-woman. It's lead by Donald Trump and all its Congressional leaders and tens of millions of Republican voters are Trump's followers. Well, let's be fair. Some Republicans in Congress were thoroughly anti-women before Trump announced his candidacy.
Nor is the anti-abortion movement primarily primarily about opposition to abortion. It remains much more dedicated to making women controlled and subservient. I do not believe the bogus handwaving that this may have been the case long ago but is not now. I pay attention to allegedly pro-lifers. Nor is Douthat innocent in this regard himself.
1
It never ceases to amaze me how easily you reduce the right’s attacks on women’s rights, women’s stories, and women’s equality with a few glib phrases. “But for reasons of political expedience, conservatives have been more likely to make excuses for their predators,” you say. News flash: it’s only because your party fundamentally devalues the humanity of women that this happens. This isn’t a case of bad messaging or not being to “get votes.” It’s a case of a major American party that refuses the basic equality of half the country. And until you can reckon honestly with that, you will never be worthy of respect and can never lay claim to a legitimate moral compass.
3
The Pro-Life movement will not care how victory is achieved any more than the Republicans in congress care how they achieve victories while Trump is in office. That is why Trump's support among evangelicals remains so high. It's called selling your soul to the devil for an immediate gain. Classic Dr. Faustus tale with a similar fate for those who have made the pact.
1
Mr. Douthat, you must be living a very sheltered life if you don't know that the Republican party is already widely seen as anti-woman because of their policies, including opposition to pay equity, educational equity, family leave, reproductive health care and programs to support the working poor who are disproportionately women.
Your intent here seems to be mostly to cast doubt on Dr. Blasey and women in general, asserting that many recent accusations have "seemed trumped-up or the punishments too severe," (but giving no examples), and calling Dr. Blasey a shirker if she does not submit to a televised verbal assault by the judiciary committee, many of whom have already publicly questioned her veracity. I guess you aren't old enough to remember what happened to Anita Hill, or perhaps you think that sort of treatment is appropriate for women who have the temerity to come forward and object to abuse.
4
I never it made it past the sub-heading, "Repealing Roe will be a hollow victory if the anti-abortion cause is hitched to a party that’s seen as anti-woman."
What repeal of Roe would be "pro-woman" or a "victory" for those women that need to return to medieval and presumable illegal methods of terminating pregnancies?
Being "pro-woman" means being pro-choice there is no wiggling out of that hard fact.
5
If abortion rights are removed / access made more difficult, women will seek alternative, non-conventional, non-controlled ways to remove an unwanted fetus no matter what. As history has shown, this carries great risks to their health and lives. This debate is not about class, philosophy, religion, party lines etc. It is about public health. Providing a service to the health of women. What Kavanaugh thinks on that subject should be irrelevant. A bunch of lawyers - how wise they may be - should never be allowed to decide on the fate of a public health policy which efficacy has long been proven.
2
The party-that many see as anti woman-has proved by the actions at the border that it is very much anti child, anti infant, anti family, anti parent child bond as well. This is among the most inhumane actions that our country has taken in generations. We do know that our wars have killed children.We dropped napalm on children in Vietnam . Who could forget that child's photo ?
But as a matter of deliberate, planned government policy-
" Let's do this harm to this child and parent in this place at this time to achieve a policy aim ." has given me all the evidence I need to see that pro life is a falsehood in any regard.
I refused to think for a long time that the abortion issue is about control of women through fear of reproductive consequences. That seemed deeply paranoid to me and I did believe them when they said it was about the innocent child-that all other considerations were just not central. I disagreed with them, I voted against them. I gave money to pro choice candidates and causes. But I did not think " pro lifers " were wicked hypocrites. But now I know that they are.
2
Women are clearly defined as Second Class Citizens by the GOP male dominated Party. It boils down to two female GOP Senators to decide whether to support Women or support the Party Line. Their legacy will be defined by this.
4
For folks who say that Dr. Ford’s accusations are suspect because she can’t provide specific details like date, etc., I ask this.
Has there never been times when one has a very traumatic experience that you did not have the presence of mind to note down all the details other thanks know it did happen?
Has there never been a time when something shameful that might have happened that you just cannot bring yourself to talk about it until something triggers it?
I am in the unfortunate situation where I have experienced traumatic incidents in the past and I cannot recall when exactly it happened or the exact circumstances.
For those who use lack of specificity to say this accusation is false, you are not being honest with yourself.
1
The reason the accusation is likely true is that Kavanaugh knew it would be brought up, told the vetters, and they were at the ready with 65 friends who suddenly attested to his being a wonderful guy.
That said, this piece gives more credit to people to choose with intellect and thoughtfulness. That simply doesn't happen anymore -- now it's what you (as a politician) say (lie) to your base (generally people uninterested in listening to anything other than what they want to hear).
As for abortion "rights" you can kiss them goodbye and remember, as the right will surely not admit but anyone with a critical thinking brain will know, the ends justify the means.
VOTE in NOVEMBER
2
If pro-life forces get their way, will that bankrupt the Elmer Gantrys? Or what will be their next profit making cause ?
Perhaps the United States should consider abolishing it’s Supreme Court. If both sides of politics appoint highly partisan political appointments, the independence of the court is lost, and it has just become a sham arm of politics.
Indeed it makes things worse, for when there is a democratically elected change in government, there powers of legislative change maybe blocked by those polically appointed, non elected judges.
It is farcical. The Banana Republic if the United States.
As to the guilt or innocence of Kannaugh to these current aquistations, we will probably never now, not that will stop people making claims largely influenced by there political bias.
I am glad I live in a country where the politicians of both sides have properly left the highly emotional and divisive issue of abortion off the agenda.
1
I've read the comments that support Kavanaugh. It takes a lot for a woman to stand up against an assault Mostly because the impact of it has been indelible. And the supporting comments also made me realize that men don’t remember who they assaulted, who they chased in the darkness to “feel her up”, who they exposed themselves to, who they forced to touch them. But women, girls, teen-aged girls, we don’t forget, we can’t. We remain scarred with guilt, shame, a battered sense of self. It doesn’t have to be rape, it’s the smaller assaults that break us, over and over. It’s not until we (the female population) take on the responsibility of getting healed that we recover and get stronger. But men, hey, nothing to worry about, business as usual. Seems this pattern is still alive and well. And heaven help the woman who stands up, no matter when. So, I'd like an explanation from Mr. Kavanaugh and I need to see more respect from those men in Washington toward Ms. Ford
3
What if Judge Kavanaugh had succeeded in his attack of Dr. Ford, as a 15- year old girl years ago. Would Dr. Ford’s ended up with a PhD, or would she had to forego an education to take care of a child she did not anticipate or was ready for? Would, Judge Kavanaugh acknowledge responsibility? Therein lies the dilemma. What is the right choice?
The so-called, “conservative” definition of “pro-life” is a bit schizophrenic. The same conservative pro-lifers support capital punishment, unnecessary wars, and zero support or understanding for the needs of working families. Even if a woman wanted to keep a child, this society creates so many obstacles that it would be more cruel to bring a child into this world to suffer. With so much “deregulation”, another conservative trope, even education is an industry now, hijacked from it being a right of all citizens.
Many of these so-called “conservative” activists only view abortion as the result of lax morals and values. Ross Douthat, you want to see less abortions, and we all do, tell your co-conservatives to make contraception available to all.
3
"[A] a pro-life cause joined to a party that can’t win female votes and seems to have no time for women will never be able to achieve those legislative goals, or at least never outside a very few, very conservative states."
To be clear, those legislative goals would be to send people to prison for having, or assisting with, an abortion. Roe does not force women to have abortions, it only prevents the states from criminalizing the procedure.
Yes, Ross. It would indeed be a tragedy if the sickening way that conservatives hijacked the SCOTUS were to sap the political will to use state power to force women to carry through with unwanted and/or dangerous pregnancies.
3
There are a lot of sad excuses that the GOP pro-life right wing voters use to elect rep.s that are abusive, lying, predatory, and power hungry. The women who are part of this group have deluded themselves with many failing illogical and dangerous reasons that are based on their religious, cultural, and uneducated experiences. They may not realize that they are not free to make many decisions in their lives from infancy to senior years due to their insolation, insulation and subordination. Part of the excuses is the idea of ‘protection’ that they need to be in a benign paternalistic world where all their needs are taken care of. We have seen plenty of that in the pre Roe v. wade, pre Title IX, pre feminist history. However there are many more women who demand full equality and their number grows with each generation. It may be our future Civil War, part 2 where the rights of women will be fully equal to the rights of men.
1
First, pro-lifers aren't. They are pro-birth. After birth there is little evidence that they care for the child and certainly not for the woman. Else why are there so many single mothers and their children living in poverty? When men provide 50% of the financial, emotional, educational support for a child, when they do 50% of the housework, help with homework, tend a sick child and take it to the doctor, drive their child to work and pick it up, attend parent-teacher conferences and other school activities, provide a good male role model at meals, teach the difference between right and wrong and the meaning of behaving honorably, wait up at nights for their child to return home after a party, support their child's extra-curricular activities, help the child scout out appropriate colleges to attend, help with wedding plans, baby sit a grandchild, maybe, just maybe, men will earn a voice in the abortion debate. Until then they don't deserve a voice. Because currently ALL of the above is the responsibility of the single woman (and a lot of married women) who finds herself pregnant. Financial support is only a minuscule portion of what it takes to raise a child, and most men don't even do that. No, the pro-birth folks want to restrict a woman's potential to that of child rearer. But until child rearing becomes equal responsibilities for both the man and woman, no one has the right to tell her what she can do with her body, and in my opinion, not even then.
14
No long lasting public issue is ever just about what the various sides say in regard to their reasons. There are always other motivations and hints of historical ethnic, tribal and quasi religious views rumbling in the background.
The anti-abortion crowd can indeed be viewed as part of an anti-sex movement. In their view, sex outside of marriage is a sin and, you know, god took care to see that such a sin is punished by the responsibilities of raising children, wanted or not. The idea that there should be any sort of unbridled, joyful coupling outside of marriage also conflicts with the Christian mantra of life being one of toil and test to be followed by eternal reward for the faithful.
The pill and other effective means of birth control basically ended that retrogressive argument, so they were forced to move on to abortion as a symbol of ultimate evil for the promiscuous sinners. There is truth to the argument as well that the pill and abortion together freed women too far, in their view, from motherhood and traditionally assumed roles. Look what followed: feminism
It is not truly about "the sanctity of life" because most in the anti-abortion crusade favor the death penalty and don't mind going off to wars at the drop of a hostile hat. In a larger sense, it is about losing the connection of human life to consequences, the ancient argument over whether we are in charge of our existence or bound by god and biology to be one thing, nothing else. In other words, the future.
10
There's a videotape that MSNBC plays all the time: The President says he will keep appointing anti-ROE judges until ROE is overturned and decisions about abortions are returned to the individual states. Mr. Douthat repeats this sentiment in his piece. It is a commonly held view, and I find it baseless. Overturning ROE and leaving abortion decisions to the state would be, in the current political climate, a tremendous victory for pro-choice forces and a complete waste of a 50-year effort by anti-choice forces. What's the point of overturning ROE if you can have abortion-on-demand in New York and California? The right questions to ask, either Judge Kavanaugh, if he survives this latest accusation or the next anti-choice nominee that Trump nominates, are (a) do you believe in the line of Supreme Court cases that recognize a right-to-privacy in birth control decisions made by married couples?, (b) does the 14th Amendment compel the Court to claim that the potential life of a fetus is a matter of Federal Constitutional law, and therefore no state may make any law that may impair the opportunity of a fetus to come to term, (c) when does a fetus come under Constitutional protection? At the time of conception or the time of copulation?, (d) is something accidentally left behind on a beach on a summer night evidence of murder? and (e) what about the 1st Amendment freedom of religion rights of people whose religion has different answers to these questions than yours does?
7
Not every woman who needs an abortion can afford to travel to NY or California. You know that. Choice is right for ever woman not just those in the coasts. Your use of thee term “abortion in demand” suggests an anti-choice bias. Women don’t “demand” abortions for no reason. They seek abortions because they NEED them. Someone close to me would probably be dead if she hadn’t had a choice. I thank God she did and that she’s still here.
2
"But if Kavanaugh is a qualified judge, no judicial nominee is indispensable." Wow! I have never agreed with Mr. Douthat before! Dr. Ford took and passed a polygraph test administered by a former FBI polygraph examiner. Judge Kavanaugh should be willing to take a polygraph exam, too. Also, Anita Hill, in 1991, took a polygraph exam and passed. Clarence Thomas refused to take a test. I have taken polygraph exams for a military security clearance. They are accurate and it is difficult, if not impossible, to deceive the polygraph and the examiner
13
I would have more empathy for the pro-life movement if they also insisted on available birth control to all women. If they were really against abortions they would do all they could to stop unwanted pregnancies. What they're against is women having equal opportunities.
33
What is the point of Dr Ford’s testimony if there is no investigation? He said / she said only inflames. Maybe there is no resolution, but I used to be under the impression that the Senate was constitutionally responsible to advise and confirm. If senators have no interest in investigating, then they should recuse themselves.
10
The real danger to the Pro-Life Movement is economic policy and social policy that makes abortion a necessary option for many women. If those opposed to Roe v Wade's provision of safe and legal abortion want to change the situation on the ground, they would do well to push for pay equity, for family leave, for health care for all, and convenient access to multiple forms of birth control. They would push for sex education that prioritized teaching boys and girls to become adults who are capable of respecting one another, and navigating desires for pleasure with honor and care. They would recognize that no one who is pro-choice is going to budge until the anti-abortion movement starts to focus on making abortion rare, rather than just wanting to make it illegal and unsafe.
19
A good friend of mine's mother had an abortion when we were in high school and she was about 40-years-old. She told us in a moment of reflection, around a campfire, stating that the decision was "hard" but that it "made sense," because of her age and the age of her two other children. I thought the world of her back then, and that discussion was one of the reasons why -- because she always taught us that most situations are more complicated than outside observers may imagine. That was circa 1978.
Later, she became an unrecognizable Rush Limbaugh conservative, whose views hardened and narrowed, and who seemed incapable of guiding teenagers through life -- like she was so good at when we were developing our own views of life and the world. Our discussions became far less broad, as we could only find comity in the past -- such as memories of the family cabin.
She died living in a gated community, surrounded by fellow "Dittoheads," seeking to eliminate from younger women the choice that she had made for herself.
I liked her better when she understood the complexity of living.
27
Mr Douthat may indeed paint a fair picture here, especially in his observation that a more gender-egalitarian spirit is present among pro-life women. Yet, he still cannot or will not acknowledge that however much the patriarchy is discredited, state regulation of abortion still represents an imposition on women and their choices regarding not only pregnancy, but reproductive health in general. In other words, Douthat says nothing here that would help broker a compromise or acknowledge the reasonable belief that an early-term embryo may not, in fact, be a fetus, and that doctrinaire use of phrases like "kill" a baby or "feticide" are little more than insulting to pro-choice advocates who sincerely believe otherwise. Douthat's anxiety about a compromised Kavanaugh on the court says it all: the pro-life movement will not be satisfied until it has imposed a religious doctrine on the state.
25
I am a pro choice person who sees abortion as a misery for any woman who chooses it. Even so, choosing abortion is often the lessor of 2 evils and I don't envy anyone wrestling with that decision.
I maintain zero respect for anti-abortion leaders who, as this article accurately points out, use a "the end justifies the means" approach. Collectively they exhibit the human compassion of a rattlesnake just stepped on by an army boot. They take no interest or action in helping women avoid unwanted pregnancies in the first place by promoting comprehensive sex education and birth control. They focus on life from zygote to delivery, while our maternal mortality rate in this country shamefully climbs rather than falls.
Finally, science and antidotal evidence suggests that as many as 60% of conceptions end in spontaneous abortion or miscarriage (most before the woman realizes she is pregnant) due to the health and self-abusive activities of both the mother and father. Where is the action to promote choice for MEN and women ONLY when their bodies are ready to create a pregnancy that results in delivery?
18
Just as the Catholic Church is currently a danger for many Catholics, the Trump Administration generally, and the Kavanaugh nomination in particular, is a danger for Conservatives AND democracy. I don't know where in the Federalist papers it is written that democracy is a reasonable idea; but I know it is written there. However, we have given up that idea in favor of Patrician Oligarchy and a Corporation run State that the framers never could have envisioned. Nor was Paul (the original one) devoted to glory, money and the protection of child molesters in order (at least partly) to defend celibacy, as the US Conference of Catholic Bishops has been. It's pretty clear how the cards are now stacked and its equally clear that they won't be stacked that way forever.
9
The GOP isn’t merely “seen” as anti-woman; it is, in fact, anti-woman. The Republican Party has opposed everything from pay equity to Violence against Women legislation, not to mention its opposition to abortion, accurate sex education, and contraception. Despite giving lip service to family values, the Republican Party goes out of its way to make motherhood and fatherhood harder for Americans, making our laws and values outliers in the advanced world with dire consequences for working mothers and their children. The fact that they elected a self-admitted serial sexual assaulter and misogynist to the White House says it all.
43
The accuser has a right to be heard and Kavanaugh has a right to face his accuser. But the problem now is that the accuser does not want to be heard under oath at this time - she wants an FBI investigation first. This raises the suspect level quite a few notches. It sounds more like a stall tactic, to delay the vote until after the election when the make-up of Congres may flip, and when Kavanaugh would not have enough votes. And if she can stall just long enough until the election, she can avoid testifying under oath, and she will not have to face potential perjury charges of false testimony.
To some people, the end justifies the means. That is the situation in our country now. The tactic seems to be, 'By any means necessary'.
Both the accuser and Kavanaugh cannot be telling the truth. One is willing to testify on Monday and one is not.
4
Philly, Or another way to think about is one wants an FBI investigation to get to the facts and the other would rather put his fate in the hands of the predominantly male senate committee.
I’m not saying Kavanaugh is wrong but I fully understand why Ford would prefer to have the FBI investigate before she testifies.
Moreover, since the FBI is responsible for security clearances and vetting candidates; they really do need to revisit their background check.
16
@Philly, a thorough FBI investigation can be done in a week or two. What's the rush to ram this nomination through? Kavenaugh will get a vote before the election.
Like Douthat, you mischaracterize Dr. Ford's position. She isn't refusing to testify under oath--she wants to testify. She asserts--correctly--that we should follow precedent (Clarence Thomas hearings) and allow the FBI to reopen its background check investigation to assess the new charge. If the hearings proceed as Republicans want, it will be a he said/she said spectacle where no corroborating evidence is available. How is that useful?
22
@Philly
Anita Hill was given a cursory 3-day FBI investigation.
Why can't Dr. Ford be accorded an investigation to make certain of what more might be known about these allegations?
There is no impartiality on this Senate committee.
They are already trying to intimidate Ford and make her look as though SHE is the uncooperative one.
I'd say Grassley, Cornyn, and Graham are the ones copping an impatient,intimidating attitude here.
While I agree with many of the observations Mr. Douthat has made, it should be noted that Judge Kavanaugh is not on trial in a court of law. This is a confirmation hearing and he is being vetted for a seat in the highest court of our country.
Evidence, guilt, innocence, are not the vernacular in this setting. Rather credibility is the term which should be applied to both Judge Kavanaugh and his accuser. Ms. Blasey does not need to provide actual proof that she was sexually assaulted (as in a criminal trial). She does need to relate her narrative to the Senate judiciary members and answer their questions under oath. Judge Kavanaugh must do the same. This process should take time and not be rushed as it is an extremely important decision for our nation. After all is said and done, the Senators must then vote on their comfort level with Kavanaugh, keeping in mind all the other details that were revealed in the hearing. That being said, if Kavanaugh were rejected, he would continue his work on the Federal Bench. He would not lose his current position. He would be able to provide for his family. If he is confirmed, he will be on the Supreme Court for most likely the next 30 years making decisions on women's health issues.
Ms. Blasey has much more at stake than does Kavanaugh. She has already had to move her family because of death threats and is facing financial hardship for security and attorneys. The big question is why would she do this to herself and family?
20
I have no doubt that there are pro-women pro-lifers, but they have never been a significant voice in the anti-choice movement. Luker's comment rang true because the people who made anti-choice a litmus test for conservatives included in that test so many other policies that limit women's independence and self-determination -- from the war on public assistance and a living wage to opposition to affordable health care and expanded family care leave. The best solution to abortion is obvious -- make it unnecessary by making it easier to avoid pregnancy and make the consequences of unexpected pregnancy less dire. But conservatives will have none of that, prefering to use traditional religious moralizing to shame women who must make a very difficult decision. The unifying factor behind most conservative policy is the imperative to increase the desperation of people so as to make them more dependent on corporations, and to make the consequences of non-conformity with the roles capitalism assigns to workers and consumers catastrophic. Since women are often among society's most vulnerable, they make easy targets.
26
@Mark abortion will never be unnecessary. Contraception fails; a fetus may be deformed; or the woman may change her mind about having an additional child. These are all perfectly valid reasons for deciding to have an abortion. I have enough money to support an additional child but in the unlikely event of me getting pregnant, I’d get an abortion in a heartbeat. The reason? I don’t want any more children. The abortion debate is about female autonomy, not about capitalism (which I wholeheartedly support because I know what the alternative is like). Men like to imagine that all women are naturally maternal but this is not true. I have two kids. This is enough. You could offer me a million dollars to have a third one, and I’d decline. This is my life, my body, and my decision.
4
"And from Hugh Hefner’s early abortion-rights advocacy to a certain style of predatory male feminism today, support for legal abortion among men has often carried a strong whiff of self-interest, with feticide as a get-out-of-responsibility-free card for caddish men."
Well, I respected Hugh Hefner way more than I'll ever respect you Ross. Hefner dragged an uptight Puritan country kicking and screaming into the 20th century. For that I and many others are thankful. So Hugh Hefner was self-interested. What, and Ross Douthat isn't? Give me a break, implying that men who are anti-choice on the abortion issue are less selfish or less self-interested than men who are pro-choice.
Ross, can you please tell us next time what is so selfless about obsessively lobbying to have abortion outlawed as a medical procedure? Do you seriously think that future mothers living in a potentially Vaticanized America are actually going to thank men like you for changing America's laws to that of forced birth a la the Philippines? Do you really think that impoverished women in the slums of Manila who have more children than remaining teeth in their mouths are so grateful that the Catholic priests who control their country denied them access to birth control?
I'm willing to bet you those poor women in Manila would kill those priests if given the chance, as if they had been sexually abused.
23
A straw man sort of argument. In this case the hay is stuffed into a non-existent and distant eventuality, i.e., a future case that eventually makes its way to some future Supreme Court. That foolishness is compounded by the presumption that Roe will then get overturned and, further, by the bare assertion that the only thing to explain the overturning is the Republican Party, which will then be blamed. Underlying that thought is the conceit that the court does nothing but concoct rationalizations for a priori ideological positions. In which case we might as well simply eliminate the SC altogether. Certainly there would be no point whatsoever for hearings—appointments are nothing but a way to put party partisans into power.
@HMI, of course SCOTUS nominations are a way to put party partisans into power. Why do you think Mitch McConnell refused to allow hearings for Merrick Garland for over a year? Why do you think arch partisan warrior Brett Kavanaugh has to be rammed through without a thorough vetting?
And of course conservative justices concoct rationalizations for a priori ideological positions. How do you think Heller was concocted to overturn 200 plus years of precedent? How do you think Bush v Gore ended up choosing the winner of the 2000 election--who just happened to be the Republican?
We don't need to get rid of SCOTUS. We need to turn sham Senate confirmation hearings into real hearings that require nominees to answer questions about their beliefs. We need to stop the equivocations and elaborate evasions used by nominees like Kavanaugh to avoid answering any questions.
And we need to make sure that the FBI thoroughly investigates nominees. If a serious charge arises after the background check has been closed, then the White House needs to instruct the FBI to reopen their background check. That is the precedent (Anita Hill and Clarence Thomas).
11
Hate to break this to you, Ross; but the anti-abortion cause is already hitched to a party that’s seen as anti-woman. It didn't just start with Kavanaugh, and maybe not even with Clarence Thomas. It's just a choice the party made, way back.
31
Mr. Douthat may believe that "by the late 2000s, the Claremont McKenna professor Jon Shields wrote in a 2012 commentary on Luker’s book, a clear majority of pro-lifers voters held views that sociologists would describe as 'gender egalitarian,' not traditionalist or Gileadean," but in the early 70s, that certainly was not the case. The opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment, based entirely on anything BUT "gender egalitarianism," joined with the existing anti-abortion forces (which had, theretofore, been much less strident and vociferous than they became after the merger) and, as a combined force led by Phyllis Schlafly, Jerry Falwell and others, entered into a "devil's bargain" with the Republican Party in Ronald Reagan's campaign in 1980. See, for example, Divided We Stand: The Battle Over Women's Rights and Family Values That Polarized American Politics by Marjorie J. Spruill.
9
Pro lifers would not care if a serial killer brought an end to abortion. Pro lifers imagine abortions ending the life of pretty white cherubic babies. They however never consider the lives of pregnant women or actual children. They do not care if children are fed, get an education, are in loving homes, especially if those children are not white. The whole pro life movement is a hypothetical cruel demented sham.
36
"the type of social conservatism that regards itself as idealistic and pro-woman and capable of marrying it's convictions to support for female advancement and empowerment" Would that be the type of conservatism that wants to criminalize abortion so that female advancement and empowerment would take place in prison?. Trump has lied about everything but he was correct when he said there would have to be "consequences" for abortions. Look no further than Central America to see what those consequences are.
20
I would share with you my own pro-choice views but I happen to be a man and like other men I will never become pregnant.
So I will not burden you with my views but instead I will offer my support to ALL WOMEN. Those who choose to have children and those who choose not to.
33
Douthat uses propaganda laden emotional triggers to justify his opposition to abortion. He repeatedly refers to abortion as "killing an unborn child." This isn't just exaggeration, it's a lie. Abortion is termination of a pregnancy, whether a zygote, embryo or fetus. It is a woman's Constitutional right, and her human right to control her own pregnancy. When the baby is born, then it's a child, not until.
33
Hazarding a guess that you've never been pregnant and carried a baby to term, or had a miscarriage.
I and every other woman I know who has had a baby bent over backwards during our pregnancies to avoid harming the developing child we were carrying. We knew that we'd been given a choice as to whether to abort the pregnancy or carry it to term. Having made the choice to give life we knew that we had no right to hurt it through carelessness or selfishness. Once you make the choice to carry a pregnancy to term it's is no longer just one person living inside your body. It is two. Not something that's easy for men to fully understand. They've never experienced it.
The pro-life movement is dangerous to the pro-life movement. Between the violent protests, clinic bombings, and claims that rapes that result in pregnancy are "miracles," this has to be the most self-destructive group of activists on the planet. The confirmation hearings for this alleged rapist who felt the need to track down 60-some women to vouch for him preemptively and who seems a bit overly fond of the "what happens in x stays in x" cliche is just the latest addition to the eternal tire fire that is "pro life."
27
"if the anti-abortion cause is hitched to a party that's seen as anti-woman?"
IF?
Are you serious Mr Douthat?
Do you think there is the slightest iota of a doubt that the party of Donald Trump, of Roy Moore and the like is anti-woman?
Well, ok. Donald Trump likes women. He likes them in all kinds of positions and attitudes. Mostly he likes them very subservient.
It there is a thinking woman in this country who believes the republican party has any interest in recognizing her as a sentient human being capable of discerning good from evil, then she deserves her fate.
22
Trump is such a poor excuse for a man. Seems he is not
alone in the Republican Party political scene..
13
The pro-life movement’s credibility amazes me. They’ve shown their true selves before. Supporting Roy Moore and Donald Trump, both accused rapists? Unbelievable! They act very entitled and play the victim card at every chance they get.
16
This is not about republican or democrat.
This is not about red or blue.
This is not about female or male.
This is about WE THE PEOPLE - the majority of Americans who value true democracy and social/economic equity - needing to save OUR United States of America from the International Mafia Robber Barons' and authoritarian rule. Very simple.
Call your Senator, every Senator on the judicial committee and traitor Mitch McConnell and say NO KAVANAUGH.
Call every republican Senator and tell them they work for US - WE THE PEOPLE - not the Robber Barons. Tell them to vote NO on Kavanaugh.
Here is a link to U.S. Senator's phone numbers. Please call right now and call every day you can. WE must stop them. No one else will.
https://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
14
"A Trumpified conservatism, though, will necessarily struggle to acknowledge any of this [the continuing power of #MeToo], because of what it would suggest about Trump’s own fitness for his office. And such a conservatism — much-more-heavily male than the Reagan or Bush G.O.P., organized around the fears and grievances of prominent men, and seemingly indifferent to the legitimacy of certain kinds of female anger — will end up defining all its constituent parts, all its causes and concerns, as subordinate to the defense of male impunity.
This includes the pro-life movement. "
Ross Douthat wrote this? Not bad. Possibly the most prescient (and succinct) paragraph I've read from Mr. Douthat, ever. Not bad.
2
Excuse me, but the Republican party is the anti-woman party, and has been since deciding to be the pro-gun party, part of the grand Southern strategy.
However, I never expected them to be the pro-Putin, anti-American party.
16
"The Kavanaugh accusation is dangerous for the Pro-Life Movement".
GOOD.
24
Er, ah, well, huh, um . . .
It will be a "hollow victory if the anti-abortion cause is hitched to a party that’s seen as anti-woman." What???
Seen as anti-woman? You mean that restricting women's reproductive rights can be seen as pro-woman? You mean the party that scuttled the Equal Rights Amendment and refuses to pass laws requiring pay equity?
The anti-woman flavor of your party didn't start or end with the accusations about Kavanaugh or the reaction to it. The GOP's anti-woman ideology is a central part of the platform.
And, Ross, while I'm at it, your Church is the anti-woman institution for the ages.
24
To my mind, the GOP is anti-woman. They way they are responding to the Kavanaugh issue simply confirms it.
13
I was surprised by the subheadline, "Repealing Roe will be a hollow victory if the anti-abortion cause is hitched to a party that’s seen as anti-woman." The GOP would not be seen as anti-woman if it did not include leaders that clearly are misogynists.
15
Why would anyone think the GOP is "anti-woman" when it is obviously anti-anyone who's not a rich white older conservative male ?!?
17
Any woman who votes for any Republican is voting against her own best interests. Where is it written that men make up and enforce rules for women to live by?
25
Are you delusional? All the window dressing in the world—the wife, the daughters, the female law clerks, the CYO girls basketball team, the letter signed by 65 women, would never be enough to disguise Brett Kavanaugh’s intentions. He’s a partisan pro lifer.
The pro life movement in the US as exemplified by the GOP proudly begins at the moment of conception and ends at the moment of birth. And that’s especially true if you aren’t lily white and middle class or above. Truth in advertising—they should call it the pro pregnancy position.
After that, unless you are of a certain economic status, you are on your own. Paul Ryan and his cronies have shredded the safety net and delivered tax cuts to their fat cat pals. There is no living wage for most. You can expect no or substandard healthcare and they are bound and determined to wipe out coverage for pre existing conditions again—anything to wring the life out of the ACA. There is no money for schools and teachers are on strike. The earth is under attack but Donald is bringing back King Coal.
Policies aside, Kavanaugh like his fellow fibber creepy Clarence Thomas, will serve under a cloud if we are unfortunate enough to see his confirmation.
25
Pro life is a misnomer. Anti choice is the proper word. Once born, these babies should starve to death already because the social safety net is too expensive to maintain.
17
September 19. 2018
There is cruelty in the process and much that in human terms is for deliberate Senate tasks constitutionally. say the Supreme court convenes in closed private process and that what it would seem for our systems to legislate the close door hearings to the matter of this branch of government - Inquisitional public spectacle is barbaric and creates more that it's capable of achieving in the light seeking truths by any and all every to sit before the Senator Committees with the heat of the video media cause for voyeurism - and that's another matter that we need to take to review for writ for our own sanity and the best for executions all laws that be demand for universal omniscience that the big guys our founding authors.... so to say and do say and yet that was back then and you see these days are fit for print and right living - that's the only picture we need - read on and on and learn to live by parameters of love.
1
This comment may or may not be relevant to this egregious column, but here goes.
I am old enough to remember some of the discussions about Kennedy vs Nixon election in the early 60’s. One objection some people seriously considered was the fact that since Kennedy was a Roman Catholic, he might have a higher loyalty to the Pope and the tenets of Catholicism than our constitutionally settled separation of church and state.
Most liberals like my family pooh poohed this idea and considered it an unfair attack on the Democratic candidate and merely a ploy - dog whistle if you will - to Bible Belt Protestants.
Looks like fear of Catholicism (and other religious zealots) in our government may have some justification. Look at our Supreme Court.
16
Ross — Stop the charade of calling Republicans pro-life. They try their best every single day to stamp out lives of women, minorities, gays, lesbians, transgender, the poor, sick, feeble, etc. if you are not an old, wealthy, white male, they have no use for you.
26
Your comment is a slur. Where did you get the idea that she would "shirk testifying publicly, as her lawyer suggested last night, and expect her claims to keep him from the Supreme Court." Fox News? You should be ashamed. That is misleading and mischaracterized her request for an FBI investigation before any hearing took place. She wants hard, impartial fact finding that she knows will not be had by the group of men leading the hearings. Both Grassley and Hatch have already confirmed that they will not change their minds even after a hearing. They are biased, and proudly so.
This is the Good Old Boys club circling the wagons. Don't fret. We already see what is going on. The GOP doesn't have to worry about overturning Roe v. Wade; it needs to worry about ever having women vote for them again. They are toast!
25
@nora m "Hard, impartial fact finding." Hm. Like the fact she claims he raped her? Like the fact she wrote a letter to a ranking member of the Senate Judiciary and really thinks it will never be seen? Like the fact she clearly wants to ruin this man's career but now won't just stand up and defend her claim without the FBI? Like the fact she KNOWS the FBI, who has to recommend such an investigation takes place, will never investigate this and if they do, it will take months? Like the fact she had 30+ years to bring this to someone's attention but now that she can get attention for it is when she chooses to speak up? She REEKS of an opportunist hag, not a pro-women truth teller who has any sort of backbone. My mother was a strong woman. I've known a lot of strong women. But it is high time women themselves stop putting "strong" women in the spotlight and start realizing they are doing more harm than good.
2
@John
Ford did not claim he raped her.
She claimed that he attempted to rape her, but was too drunk to get her one piece bathing suit off. Then mark Judge jumped on top of both of them and they fell to the floor. Ford was able to get away at that point.
She never said he raped her; try to get facts straight before mouthing off. Your male privilege is showing. Why are conservatives so afraid of the truth? Could it be because they do nothing but lie? How come rushing this nomination through is so important? Why not wait until after the election, after the American people have weighed in? Seems that was conservative policy less than three years ago. Or was that just another lie? I think every one who isn't a conservative apologist knows tHe truth - that was just one more GOP lie.
2
All I know is, her strategy is really poorly thought out. She came out of the gates looking like a modern day Norma Rae, but now she looks like an opportunist femme ball of emotion who won't just sit there and take the heat for accusing someone of rape. If he did it, and she is purely in it to defend women, she should have no problem sitting there and answering their questions. Her credibility is shot now, having asked the FBI to investigate Kavanaugh. And someone should tell her she broke the law by underaged drinking at a high school party but still got her PhD. Yes I know, it's comparing apples and oranges, but before you pull out a knife, maybe make sure it's sharp enough to cut. If your head just cocked to the side and you said outloud "huh?" - this means before this Dr. Ford shouldn't accuse anyone of rape unless she's willing to prove it. And yes, whether or not you like it, it is HER burden to now prove. So it's no surprise she's trying to enlist the FBI (with the advice of her lawyers). The whole thing reeks of agenda, and the sorry women who think this woman is really fighting for them are the same women who believe Gwyneth Paltrow is fighting for women. Gwyneth Paltrow only fought for women when the $20million/movie paycheck dried up and she has twelve houses.
5
@John, Dr. Ford hasn't refused to testify. She's eager to testify after a thorough FBI investigation, which is the precedent when a serious allegation arises after the FBI closes its background check. She's not "enlisting" the FBI--she's asking that we follow precedent.
She has nothing to gain and everything to lose by coming forward. Her family has already had to move into hiding. She talked about the assault six years ago and named Kavanaugh as her attacker to her husband. What agenda does that advance?
6
@John Many of these wonderful pro-life paragons are threatening the lives of her already-born children -- which, incidentally, adds to the mounting evidence that "pro-life" only means pro-pregnancy. What is she supposed to do?
2
@John
She's trying to enlist the aid of the FBI to prove her case.
Hello?
What's wrong with you guys.
2
Unlike Mr Douthat, I am not willing to concede to anyone a valid pro-life stance whose interests are over when that life is born. Pro-lifers that do not also support funding for access to medical services for mother and child (before and after birth), funding for age-appropriate nutrition and childcare, funding for public schooling until adulthood ... what are they actually talking about? If your pro-life stance does not mean a pro-social welfare stance, it means nothing.
28
It was when pro-life started to include anti-contraception that the whole thing really went afoul of what women want and need to be happy productive members of society. The Catholic church and Evangelists both preach against birth control which is the basis of most women's plans for their future. A few families will follow the 60s family model of 6,7,8,9 kids with the rhythm method keeping wives bearing children from their 20s, when pre-marital celibacy ends, until their mid-40s when their fertility ends, maybe a child every 2 years, or even closer together.
But based on current societal trends, what a lot of women want and what makes for solid middle class families ..
time in their 20s to get education and get a career
one or two kids in their late 20s or early 30s
back to work with kids in school most of the day
send kids off to college in their late 30s and concentrate on their careers
without birth control, you don't have
the option of an adult relationship in your 20s without children
you don't have birth spacing options
you have to limit your sex life rhythmically
you can't decide that 2 is enough ..
With good birth control, primarily the long-acting ones that are effective and not abortions despite right wing hysteria, women can have choices beyond mandatory child bearing
and men can have healthy adult relationships with their wives without a pregnancy that they can not afford financially or psychologically or relationship-wise or maybe just don't want.
19
Focusing on the Pro choice issue is only helping the Republican cause.
2
Ross, you sure summarized your party’s attitude towards sexual assault in a nutshell. Republicans who assault women are viewed as “men”, i.e. more manly. All other men who assault women are viewed as “pigs”. I guess being a member of the family values party gives one a pass on just about everything.
18
"Repealing Roe will be a hollow victory if the anti-abortion cause is hitched to a party that’s seen as anti-woman.z'
IF? IF?
How hard were you laughing when you wrote THAT?
24
SAY IT, no one has yet:
THE REPUBLICAN PARTY IS ANTI-WOMAN.
12
Mr. Douthat
You never address the actual argument of pro-choice people.
No pregnancy, no abortion.
If "pro-life" people were really opposed to killing fetuses, they would support universally available, free, no questions asked, all methods, all ages birth control.
They don't.
That's because they're not pro-life. They're anti-sex.
Pro-choice people actually are pro-choice. That's why Planned Parenthood's primary mission has always been to provide birth control, while devoting only a small part of its resources to providing abortions.
41
The supposed "pro-life" movement is dangerous to all women across America and around the world. Kavanaugh is their boy, as is The Con Don.
If the eleven old white republican men on the Senate judicial committee, who are bought and paid for by the Koch brothers and their Robber Baron brethren, think they can ram this democracy-life-destroyer through and the republican senate - controlled by traitor Mitch McConnell - think they can put this lying predator on OUR United States Supreme Court they have another think coming. They might approve him.
WE THE PEOPLE do not. He will not be allowed to control OUR lives.
25
The mental gymnastics required to even marginally paint pro-choice as supporting patriarchy and anti-abortion as being pro-woman is impressive.
14
@jdcallow
Why, probably half of all abortions result in the death of a female?
2
Ross, who has dictated that whether anyone is " anti woman"( a ridiculous category to begin with), is defined primarily, even exclusively, by their stance on abortion. I come from a family of very strong, accomplished women, who have taught me what feminism really means. They are not anti-abortion, as the Times decides to categorize anyone who may be conflicted on the matter.
Yet, they are infuriated that their interests as women have been virtually eclipsed by one issue.
Everything seems to come down to the outside chance that maybe if it ever came before the court, Judge Kavanaugh might ( maybe) decide to abandon or diminish Roe v Wade.
They are sick of the absurd depictions of back alley abortions and total subjugation of women, none of which will occur, but are used as scare tactics to rile up opposition.
The women in my family are progressive, and likely to vote for Trump's opponent, whoever that may be, in the next general election.
Yet, they have told me they will not not succumb to the decreed notion that their interests, as women, are reduced to the litmus test of one issue, which sets the threshold for determining whether their rights are supported.
Even the slightest sympathy with someone who might sincerely oppose abortion automatically and unconditionally categorizes a person as "anti-woman". How absurd, narrow minded and completely intolerant.
2
@Gino G, the entire point of the pro-choice movement is that every woman should be able to make her own reproductive choices. If a woman opposes abortion, she should not be forced to have an abortion; if a woman wants to end a pregnancy, she should have that choice. Women's choices should be respected.
Of course there will be illegal abortions if Roe is reversed. That's a fact, not a scare tactic. I was a young college student when abortion was illegal, and I remember friends being driven to Tijuana for illegal abortions. I remember a friend almost losing her life after one such procedure. Illegal abortions will result in more maternal deaths.
6
@Gino GYou are missing the context. How do your strong female relatives feel about sexual assault?
The alleged assault took place 35 years ago, but one of the two is lying now. Clinton was impeached for lying under oath. Kavanaugh must be rejected if he is lying under oath.
8
Kavanuagh has already lied under oath to the Senate during his previous judgeship conformation. He is tainted goods even without the sexual assault scenario. He needs to step down.
3
"IF" ? the anti-abortion cause is hitched to a party that's seen as anti-woman? No if.
There is an anti-contraception cause and an anti-woman's-health cause and yes, they are hitched to and hatched by a party that's seen and heard and smelled and known as anti-woman. It's just becoming more rawly obvious by the hour.
17
I wish Ross were limited to 1500 characters like the rest of us in these comment sections so he could stick to the point without all the passive aggressive, veiled swipes at "liberals".
I never actually thought that Republicans are "anti-woman". I've only seen that the majority of them just don't care enough about women to protect them when it matters.
For too long, Republican politicians have been willing to sacrifice the rights and respect of women and many other groups of people if it means they can keep getting votes, salaries, and benefits.
It's not that they hate women, it's that they don't even acknowledge their existence and importance in society other than tools for their agendas. It's a party without empathy.
15
Can you stop calling yourselves "Pro Life"? You are typically anti-universal health care, pro-death penalty, pro-war, anti-birth control, anti-food stamps and anti-environmental regulation . Just call yourselves anti-abortion, it is far more accurate.
33
I’m thinking the ship of “pro life is tied to an anti woman party” sailed a LONG time ago.
19
"...his nomination is withdrawn — with, ideally, a woman nominated in his place."
Wow, Mr. Bruni was right, "Bruni: There you go again, lobbying for your beloved Amy Coney Barrett..."
Barrett, who would for sure vote to overturn Roe v Wade.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/18/opinion/kavanaugh-christine-blasey-fo...
12
Two things not mentioned in this column also contribute to the perception that the Pro-life movement is anti-women: the fact that many of the most vocal of the Pro-life propagandists also endorse limiting or banning access to birth control, and the fact that nearly all of them are men.
25
The Republican Party is sounding, aside from one or two Senators, very anti-woman. This tone deafness reflects two things.
First, Senators too often vote to keep their own seats and support their own party. While that may defensible in many instances, it isn't when they vote on Supreme Court nominees. If this one lied about this reprehensible behavior, he should not be a Supreme Court justice. I might suggest that men may lose their seats the next time they come up for re-election if they exhibit this tone deafness toward women and sexual abuse.
Second, we need more women on the Supreme Court. Perhaps Senator Grassley and other male Republicans are truly incapable of seeing this through Christine Blasey Ford's eyes. If her story is true, or even if she thinks it's true, she risked so much by having her story become part of the decision. Old memories dredged up..... death threats..... disruption to her life as a researcher and professor..... relatives to consider...... Does it make sense for her to agree to a public hearing with only her and Kavanaugh as witnesses, the Republicans in control of how it is set up and run, no commitment to have her story investigated by people who are not politicians? Who will the questioners be? Why isn't Mr. Judge being asked to testify under oath?
The Supreme Court needs more representation by women, minorities, and people who didn't grow up "privileged". It should not appear to be partisan.
10
“Lifetime’s reputation for probity”?! This is a guy who regularly brags about getting hammered and who has lied or, at best, bent the truth several times under oath.
18
@Eric, I was stopped by that sentence too. Kavanaugh was under suspicion of committing perjury during his first confirmation hearings. He received stolen Democratic emails, then continued to lie that he had no idea they were stolen. He also admits to heavy drinking in school (a youthful indiscretion, but still..) and is said to have a gambling problem. The only thing we know is that he rang up a large debt, then had an implausible explanation for how it was suddenly paid off by others.
Why didn't he demand that all of his documentation be released prior to the hearings if he had nothing to hide?
This is a guy with a lot of baggage.
2
Before I accept that liberal and conservative men are equally likely to violate women's dignity in some way I want to see some proof. There are studies that seem to show that liberals are less authoritarian. Since these sexual offenses are matters of power logic might suggest that liberal men are less likely to force themselves on women.
4
Millions of people believe life begins at first breath, so Douthat should keep his religious beliefs within his family not mine. I believe life begins at conception and I understand abortion is a horrible choice women should be free to make--hopefully with support from fathers. Fundamentalists Christians saw a political opening when President Carter stripped tax-exempt status from segregated church schools and included their pro-life demagoguery capture the Republican Party and promote the Moral Majority, whose leaders have proved to be anything but moral.
9
Not all those who are anti-women are anti-abortion, but all those who are anti-abortion are necessarily anti-women.
It's that simple.
11
The Republican party was anti-woman long before Kavanaugh came along, they will be anti-woman during the Kavanaugh age, and will probably be anti-woman, anti-choice long after he is gone from the bench.
Whereas "anti-choice democrat" seems somewhat oxymoronic, "anti-choice republican" is an entirely consistent phrase.
15
@Charles Sager democrats are typically pro-tax, which limits my choice of how to use the money I earn.
1
@Mike I guess you don't like the things that your taxes pay for, like roads, sidewalks, clean water, garbage collection, public libraries . . .
1
@Mike, and yet the GOP just raised your taxes with their 2017 tax bill.
They eliminated most middle-class tax cuts, and tied marginal tax rates to chained CPI. That's not going to hurt the top one percent, but it will hurt middle-class taxpayers within a few years.
Don't assume that they want to lower YOUR taxes. They want to shift the tax burden from the wealthy to the middle class.
2
You lost me at “liberal pigs” and “right wing men”.
25
Refusing to consider sensible gun violence control is even MORE dangerous to the pro-life movement!!!!
16
"Repealing Roe will be a hollow victory if the anti-abortion cause is hitched to a party that’s seen as anti-woman". IF?
9
The allegations is plausible. Really? She can't remember where it happened. It supposedly occurred 36 years ago. She didn't tell her best friend, mom or dad? Come on...
2
@Melissa M.
Dude, the last person I'd tell about something like this was my parents.
It is well documented that many women do not tell anyone, much less all the people closest to her about stuff like this.
I'm not at all surprised she can't remember exactly where it happened. I know the cities/neighborhoods where I was sexually assaulted, but certainly can't give you the address. And it wasn't even 36 years ago. Really not that hard to believe.
14
“Seem” anti-woman?
If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it’s a duck.
14
... but repealing Roe IS anti-woman, so...
8
So, let me get this straight. Douthat's main concern about the Kavanaugh allegations are that it will somehow sully the "victory" of the anti-abortion crowd when Kavanaugh votes to overturn Roe? Wow, that is a "take" I never thought of. But Douthat's gems just keep coming in this piece. Kavanaugh ought to withdraw and be replaced by a woman who will vote to overturn Roe because that will prove Republicans aren't anti-woman? Just plain bizarre. And, coming up with"female liberty depends on a right to kill your unborn child" as the straw man argument to attack. All I can say is Wow. That is Trumpian in its ignorance or Trumpian in its lack of good faith distortion. Either way, not good.
15
"...if the anti-abortion cause is hitched to a party that’s seen as anti-woman..."
"If"?
"Seen"?
The anti-abortion cause is anti-woman. The Republicans are anti-woman. This isn't about perception, it's explicit, consistent, and ubiquitous in the GOP.
How insulated from reality must Ross Douthat be to think there's any benefit of the doubt for him to grant?
11
Ross, if you persists in using phrases like "killing of the unborn,", don't expect a lot of support north of the Mason - Dixon line.
18
The Bible clearly says that life begins with breath: no breath, no life.
The people who call themselves "pro" "life", as in the self described pro-life movement, knowingly and viciously vote as a block for congressmen and senators who oppose any program that provides food to people who need it. They vote for people who they know will eagerly deny health care to people who need it. They vote for people who will deny shelter to people who need it.
In short the people who scream so loudly they are pro-life routinely do whatever they can to deny the very means to sustain life.
Based solely on their voting record, Mr. Douthat, I recommend that the press call them what they are: the anti anything that breathes movement.
In any case, I'm really tired of the press calling them pro-life when it is so obvious that they don't care about anyone who is already born.
22
I guess Ross has now moved over to the Bret Stephens' part of the conservative movement, that very tiny space of former conservatives who argue against conservative causes, while still claiming to be conservatives. Not shockingly, that group is also employed by liberal media outlets like the Times and MSNBC. This cadre includes Ross, Bret, Joe Scarborough and Jennifer Rubin at WaPo. I am sure there are others. They have sited Trump's temperment for their treason. But what happens when Michael Avenatti becomes the 2020 Dem candidate? Can't wait for Bret and Ross's mental gyrations when that happens.
Douthat's contention that support for abort was tied in with some upper class paternalism that wanted to keep down fertility rates of the poor is ludicrous unless one wants to believe, and this is possible, that that was Ronald REagan's goal when he signed into the law one of the most liberal abortion laws in the country when he was governor of California.
As to making it possible for upper class women to get abortions, that was always possible despite laws banning abortions. There were always doctors available to perform these for those with money and there was also the availability in Europe.
I know The Times let's its columnists write what they want barring outright support for candidates but I would think it would care enough to make sure that they are writing something that at least comes close to the truth.
14
It is a pity that all Mr. Douthat can see from this accusation is danger to the pro-life movement, and all GOP can see is danger (though by all likely hood the Senate will be more republican after the mid-term elections) to their conservative agenda, and all that DT can see is danger to his obvious machinations to thwart the coming indictments against him. And somewhere the continuing trauma of a lady who was assaulted at a young age and who has shown much courage in coming forward does not enter into the calculations of statecraft. It is a pity, but not a surprise considering the swamp they infest.
7
Prof. Christine Blasey Ford should decide to forego Congressional testimony and state her case through a wide media audience.
In 2018 Gallup polled just 11% of the US population trusts Congress "a great Deal/Quite a lot," while twice as many (20%) trusts TV news.
If Congress insists on a rushed, sham hearing, in order to "AnitaHill" the witness, what's the downside to Prof Blasey for taking her case directly to the public?
https://news.gallup.com/poll/1597/confidence-institutions.aspx
3
I love this: "And from Hugh Hefner’s early abortion-rights advocacy to a certain style of predatory male feminism today, support for legal abortion among men has often carried a strong whiff of self-interest, with feticide as a get-out-of-responsibility-free card for caddish men." Ross, this is not polite! Not supposed to be said in the mainstream media! Congratulations to you for the courage to say it.
2
Believe it or not, Hefner was libertarian in his politics and took the pro-choice position as a consciously libertarian position that the government has no right to tell a woman what to do with her own body.
8
@Vivid Hugh, please. The flip side of this coin is that anti-choice men step up to their responsibilities and don't arrange for their mistresses to have abortions.
It's strange phrasing (caddish?) and an antiquated mind-set that reveals a lot about Douthat, but this issue is about whether women will make their own reproductive choices. It isn't about whether men marry the women they impregnate.
2
My guess is that Douthat's predicate presupposes that he (and who else on the Republican right?) have concluded that there is in fact a woman nominee to co-opt the screamers of the left. I can't penetrate the thick, fraudulent smoke that emanates from both of the ignorant armies that clash by night on this issue, but it is interesting to me that Trump and his minions are playing this whole spectacle with a very cool hand. Meanwhile, the big Trump scandals are getting cool, or, least competitive, with this sensationally televised burlesque of truth and justice How cool is that, folks?
1
Ross:
"Repealing" is for statutes, and only Congress can do that. Cases get "overruled," either explicitly or sub silentio.
1
"Repealing Roe will be a hollow victory if the anti-abortion cause is hitched to a party that’s seen as anti-woman." Being anti-choice or pro-forced pregnancy is anti- woman.
6
Abortion would be uniformly uncontroversial, legal and available across the US were it not for the Catholic Church's opposition to it and to birth control, based on their particular religious ideology. It isn't a coincidence that the rights of women to control their reproduction has been restricted year by year, decision by decision, as the number of Catholic justices has increased over the years. Today the majority of justices on the SCOTUS are Catholic, were educated in Catholic schools, live devout Catholic lives (including participation in extremist groups like Opus Dei), and make no bones about their religion "informing" their judicial decisions. Will we continue to perpetrate the nonsense that these justices are just calling balls and strikes when they overturn Roe, and certainly not imposing their particular religious beliefs on the on the rest of us, contrary to the First Amendment?
11
It seems that to worry about a "Movement" being in danger usurps concern that a victim of sexual assault and her family's lives are now in danger is emblematic of our time.
6
'Feticide' and 'right to kill your unborn child'? Code words for denigrating the complexities around making decisions about whether or not to have or not have an abortion. The decision is difficult and must remain that of the pregnant woman. Laws that try to interfere with that are inherently wrong.
13
It’s interesting that when it comes to sexual harassment and sexual assault, Douthat talks about “liberal pigs” and “right-wing men”. Even when allegations are proven, Douthat still gives “right-wing men” greater respect and the benefit of the doubt. His biases and lack of objectivity very neatly mirror the opinions being express by GOP Senators on the extreme right-wing.
If Douthat believes that the Trumpification of conservatism is only reason that the GOP is seen as anti-woman then he’s not being intellectually honest – even with himself. Trump is a symptom of the way that the GOP has behaved towards women for a long time now. Douthat and people like him are a part of the problem. If they don’t even admit that to themselves then they can’t be a part of the solution!
13
"pro life" quote unquote has always been anti women. It comes from a culture that has ALWAYS seen women as inferiors to men. Get religion out of government, and get men out of the difficult decision that rests between women and their doctors. Atheists know that religion is a scam, an invention that has been obsolete for at least a century. Religion has become big business selling an invisible fantasy product. I am PRO TRUTH.
10
“Feticide as a get-out-of-responsibility-free card for caddish men”? How can Douthat complain about polarization after writing stuff like this?
12
It is not a pro-life movement. It is a pro-life-begins-at-conception movement, which is a religious proposition. It is creationism, God causes conception vs. evolution: sperm and egg meeting through a random roll of the dice.
The soul enters the fetus very late in the gestation process. This is why almost no one sees abortion as murder.
Women in this modern age of science and technology should not be forced to endure evolution's randomness.
Life-begins-at-conception is not a benign fantasy. It has tremendous negative consequences. It is not true. By holding it to be true, religions undermine their authority the same way the Catholic Church's authority was undermined by prosecuting Galileo.
12
Banning legal abortion IS anti-woman; that's the whole point. Making women's lives difficult, punishing women for their sexuality, ensuring that women live their lives in fear of unwanted pregnancy, forcing women to illegal and self-abortion is the point. If people actually wanted to reduce the number of abortions and help women, they'd focus on excellent sex education for everyone, Medicare for all, access to birth control for everyone, family leave for everyone, free childcare; things that would genuinely help women and their children. Nominating a rapist and banning abortion have everything in common. Consistency from beginning to end: the Republican party will do anything to make women's lives worse and to punish children for being born.
19
The thing is:
They Don't Care
8
The anti-choice movement is, in fact, the anti-woman movement, which goes by the innocuous name of "pro life".
11
"...if the anti-abortion cause is hitched to a party that’s seen as anti-woman..."
there are no "ifs, ands, or buts" about it Ross.
Republicans are ideologically anti-women as is mandated by their conservative philosophy.
10
Ross Douthat's bizarre argument that abortion is paternalistic is so far beyond laughable. Once again, women remind you that we don't need your guidance or your supervision, pal. We need you get your big, bossy nose out of our business. You have very good reason to "worry" that the anti-abortion movement will be seen as anti-woman. It simply is.
14
The GOP isn’t just anti women. They are now viewed as the party that GROPES women.
11
In Catholic school I had a friend whose Mother was actively against abortions. We lost touch due to different high schools but at 20 we reunited with her toddler in tow. In her first year of college she became pregnant and could not comprehend how hard pressed and angry her Mother was when she refused to get an abortion.
No one knows what the future brings but it's a fact there have been staunch political anti abortionists who can't wait for their girlfriends to get abortions. Someone like Kavanaugh, with 2 daughters, doesn't know what could be in his future because it can happen to anyone. He may sing a different tune just like my friends Mother.
12
Reading through some of these comments...Ross....hate to break it to ya....time to find another career.
12
Dear Ross, your a day late and a dollar short, as we are fond of saying here in Brooklyn. The GOP is no longer able to play the deception game regarding women's rights. Nominating guys like Kavanaugh forces the GOP to show their hand. And it's a loser.
17
Douthat, my man. Republicans already ARE the party that is anti-women. Republicans hate women. Even Republican women hate women. The secret's out, dude.
18
[Gaining the legal authority to control women's reproductive rights] will be a hollow victory if the anti-abortion cause is hitched to a party that's seen as anti-woman.
... I have the sneaking suspicion they might be okay with that association.
3
I think this is overstated. Änti-woman” is a talking point. More than half of white women voted for Trump. I worry sometimes that Ross Douthat is spending too much time with his ultra-liberal colleagues. Think for yourself.
1
Sorry, in what world does a conservative-led repeal of Roe v. Wade NOT enshrine Republicans as an anti-woman party? The push for this repeal is so fundamentally anti-woman that describing the party leading it as such is tautological.
10
You (Mr. Douthat) mention "a perception that’s fatal to the pro-life movement’s larger purposes — the perception that you can’t be pro-woman and pro-life."
That perception is already firmly in place. If a woman has qualms about the current practice of "abortion OK up to nine months, solely at the mother's discretion," then she is consigned to the outer darkness of the woman-hating women, subjected to their husbands, narrow-minded, pathetically oppressed, and most of all, incapable of having an independent thought for themselves on the subject of abortion.
I came of age in the wonderful era of the women's liberation movement. When I learned that no woman was wanted in that huge women's march in January of 2017 if she had any thought of needed limitations on abortion, I felt the movement had lost its way entirely. When it started, the hope was to extend and expand the lives and spirits of *all* women. Not any more.
4
This is the kind of thought process that landed the Democrats on the street and out of Congress and most governors' offices.
The women who are anti-abortion care very little about labels such as "anti-woman".
America today is about power: getting as much as you can, preferably by taking it from your opponents.
2
Standard Ross to spin the obvious misogyny rampant in the Republican party as a matter of "political expendiency" while gleefully pointing out the many liberals #metoo has exposed. No Ross, the fact is from Roy Moore to Donald Trump to Orrin Hatch and all the rest- the GOP is party of decrepit white men who in fact do not believe that women are equal.
13
Yep. Not gonna look too good when Roe is reversed by a judge who may have assaulted a woman in high school -- and the president who nominated him is both a well-known womanizer who pays off women he's allegedly had affairs with, and (we'll probably learn in the next few months), became president with extensive help from Vladimir Putin. But Douthat's usual prolixity here indicates that he's scared to come out and say straight to his fellow conservatives what he's thinking: dump Kavanaugh, because another nominee would be much better for the pro-life movement. (From the liberal perspective, you can expect the Russia investigation to result in a movement based on the belief any SC justices named by Trump are illegitimate.)
8
" No judicial Nominee is indispensible. " Absolutely correct. Why have a Nominee under a large cloud for a job which is the crowning glory of a career in law, a job defined by transparency and personal integrity? Kavanaugh is utterly dispensible, guilty or innocent. Before this sexual assault allegation his candidature was already compromised when Republicans decided not to disclose thousands of documents related to him. Still his pro-life rulings of the past cannot be hidden although he is stated to rule according to precedent like Roe v/s Wade. But did he typically in a lawerly way twist the word 'precedent' Because we know what preceded Roe v/s Wade! Besides, why do we have a Supreme Court if rulings were based only on precedent? SC Justices have been given life-terms to bring about changes and new laws within the frame of the Constitution. Yes, the Senate enacts them and signs them into law.
Yes, Kavanaugh is very dispensable. There are other great candidates with excellent credentials without baggage. Judge Garland? I guess he is too clean for the Republicans!
9
Either a woman herself has the right to decide whether to bear a child or the government reserves that right for the state. So, you see, anti-choice is anti-woman.
10
"if anything, it has probably ended the careers of more prominent liberal pigs than right-wing men."
So liberal predators are "pigs" and conservatives "men?" This from the party that has been gorging itself at the public trough since Reagan on subsidies, tax cuts, deregulation, offshore havens, dark campaign money, lobbying bribes, and more--a real porkerama.
With the 77 overflowing hog lagoons in North Carolina, Trump should feel right at home there today.
12
There has always been so much hypocrisy connected to the so-called “pro-life” (are the rest of us anti-life?) movement. They can’t wait to block a woman from having an abortion but forget all about the infant after that, uninterested in whether it eats or has a roof over its head. It’s the pro-contempt for women movement.
13
Dangerous shmanderous, if the righties can get a giraffe on the SCOTUS to take away a woman's right to choice, they would do it and worry about it later. If at all.
7
The headline on this piece puzzles me.
I am pro-life, just like many others I know who believe abortion should be available to women.
I know that anti-abortion activists like to paint themselves as "pro-life" - implying that people who don't agree with them are "anti-life."
We're not.
Why not use the factual term "anti-abortion" rather than the loaded "pro-life"?
10
Repealing Roe under any conditions will be a disaster for the GOP. The end will come when the first woman dies having a "coat hanger" abortion. Think we have a culture war now, just wait.
17
Ross, when are you going to stop believing that this cherished GOP feature is a bug?
6
More Douthat loonery.
Outlawing abortion — forcing women to endure pregnancies they don’t want — IS anti-woman.
There's no getting around it Ross. You might as well ponder if a strident call to reinstitute slavery would “be a hollow victory” if the “cause∏“ is “seen as anti-black”.
Furthermore, virtually no one — even within the nominally “pro-life!” camp — actually believes that abortion is “Murder!” (the necessary foundation of their position)... if they actually believed that to be true, they would, necessarily, insist that EVERYONE involved — the boyfriend/husband, the doctor, the nurses, the receptionist — in a “conspiracy to commit murder” be charged, morally AND legally, with “Murder!”. Only the looniest of the loons (Westboro Baptist?) will go that far, and the vast majority of the so-called “pro-lifers” don‘t, precisely because they themselves do not truly believe that it is “Murder!”.
Serpentine essays that attempt to re-stitch and jolt to ‘LIFE!’ a classic GOP ‘Frankenstein’s Monster’ — bits of “See! We’re really PRO-women!” yammerings crudely attached to the “overturn Roe v Wade!!” tripe — yields EXACTLY what it is intended to yield; an untenable monster... a cudgel to be used to beat women (and everyone who is not of the privileged class) over the head. Unceasingly.
35%? ... 32% ... 28%...
GOP is a minority that shrinks with every passing day.
: ) L
15
I don't support giving "Deplorables" a platform but the NYTimes's republican columnists are laughably out of touch/in denial about what their party has become. Ross and David's perspectives on Republicans are useless in today's environment. The rank and file Trump voter is not some conflicted pro-life feminist. They're just not. There might be some of those out there but not enough to make a difference in today's politics.
The Republican party is Trump's party. Your gender chasm became uncrossable with his election. I'd wager it was already pretty wide after Todd Akin. It certainly doesn't start with Kavanaugh.
11
It is very curious as to why Mark Judge has not been subpoenaed by the GOP controlled Senate Justice Committee to testify under oath, with or without immunity for his own part in the alleged attack
on the 15 year old girl.
Surely this would provide exonerating or incriminating evidence for Kavanaugh as to whether or not Kavanaugh and the girl were at any
party where the attempted rape could have taken place, and Judge's role in any alleged attempted rape.
Why doesn't the GOP call Mark Judge to testify under oath, with the risk of perjury?
8
The day that all 'pro life' folks have adopted 10 unwanted children then maybe we can talk.
17
God, Ross how did you get your head so pickled up?
I agree that the right to lifers do not give a darn about
the child and the mother after the child is born, but think of it
They do not even care much about it while it is in the mother's
womb, as long as it stays there. Are the pro life people providing women ordered to carry the child to term ways to
receive good prenatal care and counselling. Remember this example is a forced carry to term? Have they set up programs for good nutrition for the forced mother?
Don't the sacred pro life people have their own lives to look after? How would they like it if I found a way to order them to lead progressive lives. Which of course as a progressive I would never do, even if I could.
What was the point of breaking off from the England, if we still have the puritanical and crazy strain amongst us. Yes, I said crazy and mean it. Trying to control others, pro life is just the excuse, and a flimsy one at that. Those old pursey lipped
puritans are the ones going to hell.
15
@cheerful dramatist
The Puritans were actually the ones who broke off and came to America. They wanted freedom for their own brand of extremism.
5
@cheerful dramatist Are you sure about that? Or, hoping that?
1
"From the beginning of the modern anti-abortion movement — whose origins lie in the 1960s, not just the aftermath of Roe v. Wade — it has included female leaders who identify as pro-life feminists and reject the idea that female liberty depends on a right to kill your unborn child."
And it's that begged question in your fallacious argument that calls it into question - i.e., is it even a child? To throw the mirror image of that statement back onto you, from the beginning of the modern anti-abortion movement, it has included people who want to prevent not just the killing of unborn children, but the abortion or contraception of _potential_ children, conferring on embryos and even gametes the rights of human being when by their own admission those _potential_ humans have not yet become human beings who have those rights. When you cannot even prove that it is human beings you're protecting, it stands to reason that it is no longer about the "child", it's about controlling women under a Bronze Age paradigm.
Roe v. Wade has set strict limits on abortion after what most doctors consider viability outside the womb, the third trimester. To most people this is a sensible line to draw.
5
Douthat is right on target when he says that "the accuser cannot shirk testifying publicly, ..., and expect her claims to keep him from the Supreme Court."
I'll go further: Blasey has a duty to all of us and to the Republic and, not least, to Kavanugh and his family, to go to the Senate on Monday and tell the plain unvarnished unlawyered truth.
If she shamelessly shirks that responsibility, the Senate should move on. It is scandalous that she should try to duck this responsibility by playing the fragile helpless female role.
If she lets herself be used by the Democrats as a prop in their strategy of delaying a vote on Kavanaugh by all means necessary, then she has got to understand that her credibility will be in tatters.
If all she is going to do is tell the truth, then why does she need to delay? Is the truth of what happened 35 years ago going to change in the next week?
3
@Ian Maitland, the better question is why are Republicans in such a rush to ram this confirmation through without thoroughly vetting the candidate? There's no reason the Judiciary Committee should have only a small fraction of the nominee's relevant papers, and there's no reason the FBI shouldn't do its usual investigation of claims against a nominee. Are they afraid of what that background check might find?
Like Douthat, you misrepresent Dr. Ford. She isn't "shamelessly shirking her responsibility." She wants to testify, but not in a sham session where the allegation hasn't been investigated. We all know where that leads.
1
@Ian Maitland Yes, let's have the partisan politicos use their prejudice-based questioning to try to discredit her (only a liar would not report a rape within 3 hours, after all...), and not trained law enforcement.
Jeez.
"If the anti-abortion cause is seen as hitched to a party that's anti-women" is a laughable sub-head and wishful thinking. The majority of anti-abortion forces and the cadre of current Republicans that they've elected don't care how their victory is won and culture of white male power is held, they don't care about extending their value of life to abolishing the death penalty or not separating children from parents or providing reasonably modern female health services to low income women that prevent unwanted pregnancies. They don't care how it looks or works or walks or talks or reads. They supported Trump after he "grabbed" (intended reference) the nomination of their party, partly because of the judges he would nominate. Why would they start caring now?
7
Interesting take, and I appreciate Douthat's thoughtfulness in interpreting many positions on this issue.
I will add that there are proven policy mechanisms to reduce abortions: 1. reduce unwanted pregnancies through free birth control, and 2. reduce the economic incentives of abortion through quality, affordable pre-natal care, parental leave, and child care. Re: #1, the US abortion rate is down significantly since the ACA mandated contraceptive coverage. Re: #2, France is seeing a baby boom because of 12-week paid parental leave and a high-quality child care.
Meanwhile, we know that anti-abortion policies fail. They failed before Roe v Wade, when 5,000 women/year died from dangerous illegal abortions, and they have recently failed in Texas, where researchers found an increase in self-induced abortions until their onerous abortion restrictions were overturned by the Supreme Court in 2016.
Most pro-choice advocates are not pro-abortion. They're just realistic about and empathetic to the reasons why 1/3 of women will have an abortion in their lifetimes and most abortions are performed on women who are already mothers.
Until the pro-life movement offers explicit support for policies that will reduce abortion without regulating women's personal healthcare choices, they will continue to be branded - for good reason in my opinion - as anti-woman and anti-child.
8
I have two thoughts on this matter. Despite my post name, I am a woman--and an old (78yo) Catholic woman to boot. For me, abortion is a moral issue, and my Church advises me, and I agree, that it is morally wrong.
However, The State has no business telling women what they must do with their reproductive capacities. Such control over women's bodies is a vestige of the worst aspects of paternalism. Men should tend to their own bodies, and quit trying to impose their will on women.
My second thought. I am a retired attorney, who appeared before many judges on the state and federal level. I never argued a federal appeal, so I have no appellate experience on the federal level. However...I know that a good judge leaves his political beliefs at the door of the court room.
If the Supreme Court becomes blatantly ideological and leaves the American people behind to serve an ideology or a discreet group, It will lose its' moral authority, which is really its' only power. If Kavanaugh is put on the Court without resolving this issue, he will forever be seen as illegitimate by a huge segment of the public. This will only serve to further undermine our faith in the Supreme Court. We already have two justices on the Court that have questionable legitimacy, Clarence Thomas (because of the Anita Hill debacle) and Neil Gorsuch (because of the McConnell debacle).
21
The only person to decide when, where or how a victim of sexual assault talks about the incident is the victim and when the victim is ready. At that time they deserve to be listened to no matter whether or not the statute of limitations has expired or not. The statutes deal with the ability to prosecute the crime rather than the the right of a victim to speak. The trauma of sexual assault is deeply personal. How it affects a victim is again deeply personal. The healing process, if there even is one, must suit only one person.
Members of Congress are chomping at the bit to proceed no matter what. Collectively they are ready to go at Christine Blasey Ford to suit their own motives rather than respect what it has taken for her to speak her truth. It isn't her fault Kavanaugh was the perpetrator.
The first consideration of these ungentle men and women should be: Is the way I would want my mother, wife, daughter, granddaughter, and yes, perhaps son, brother or other loved one to be treated with respect to a sexual assault? The lack of compassion displayed by Grassley, MCConnell, Collins et al, is the crux of the entire #MeToo movement. The faction is overwhelmingly insensitive in blaming the victim, the Democrats, or anyone else rather than take responsibility.
Women are already running from the GOP in droves because they recognize the Trump's total lack of respect for women in general. If the general body of the GOP is nothing to redeem their credibility.
6
Much could be accurately said about Kavanaugh's reputation, but "a lifetime’s reputation for probity at stake," is not. Kavanaugh is a right-wing hack who, at very least, misrepresented the truth to the Senate multiple times. He proposed humiliating and disgustingly explicit questions for Monica Lewinksi, the true victim/survivor of Clinton's impeachment scandal, which were rejected by no less than Kenneth Starr as being invasive and inappropriate.
Additionally, Kavanaugh bragged about being glad that what happens at his high school, stayed at his high school. Also, his best friend and accused accomplice, Mark Judge, literally wrote an entire book about how the too consumed dangerous amounts of alcohol when they were younger.
3
Re "Which is why the accuser cannot shirk testifying publicly, as her lawyer suggested last night, and expect her claims to keep him from the Supreme Court."
Yes, but let's be fair about this. Throwing Dr. Blasey -- an accomplished academic psychologist -- and Mr. Kavanaugh -- an accomplished, battle-hardened lawyer/judge with powerful friends -- into a Washington hearing *next week* would be nothing short of "Trial by Ordeal." A complete and ugly sham, in other words.
Thankfully, Dr. Blasey is too smart for that. The fact that Dr. Blasey IS willing to testify AFTER the FBI investigates speaks volumes: She knows she's telling the truth and she's confident the FBI will have no trouble confirming this. And she knows that with FBI backing -- but only with FBI backing -- she and her testimony must be treated fairly.
5
Imagine that: the GOP might be considered anti-woman. What a shocker. Thanks for the warning, Ross. Next you'll be telling us that the Catholic Church might have an image problem with its all-boy structure.
9
The new lamb, Christine Blaney Ford has been suffering quietly from her sexual abuse for years. This is unacceptable. She must end it. A lamb to the slaughter…. But she must take as many of her tormentors with her. Ms. Ford must testify before congress in a public forum before the Judicial committee with live television and maximum exposure for a clearly well-defined time to assure at least a portion of her story is told and seen by as many people as possible. Injustice/abuse must be exposed. In so doing, if anyone in the course of questioning Ms. Ford causes even one tear, frown, or sigh, they will be exposed for the dangerous /immoral people they are. There are times when martyrdom is essential; the old lamb, Anita Hill knows that. She is clearly still angry from her humiliation, but very supportive of Ms. Ford. She is holding her breath, based on her recent writings. But this is not 1991; the senatorial conspirators may be the same, but the public, WE , have changed. I am confident that this lamb can be that special once in a lifetime lamb; the lamb that broke the camel’s back. I, along with many others, now, can and should look forward….
4
Much could be accurately said about Kavanaugh's reputation, but "a lifetime’s reputation for probity at stake," is not. Kavanaugh is a right-wing hack who, at very least, misrepresented the truth to the Senate multiple times. He proposed invasive and disgusting questions for Monica Lewinksi, the true victim/survivor of Clinton's impeachment scandal, which were rejected by no less than Kenneth Starr as being invasive and inappropriate.
Additionally, Kavanaugh bragged about being glad that what happens at his high school, stayed at his high school. Also, his best friend and accused accomplice, Mark Judge, literally wrote an entire book about how the too consumed dangerous amounts of alcohol when they were younger.
12
Kavanaugh recently wrote judicial opinions that effectively grabbed a 17 year old girl against her will, then tried to forced her to bear a child (who would have been stripped from her). This is the "tender concern and mercy" one can expect from Kavanaugh.
Dr. Ford's compelling evidence shows Kavanaugh had his chance as 17 year old to assault a 15 year old girl, knowing he would get away with it, and he took it. Only inexperience and accident prevented him from completion. Only the aggressive attacks on Dr. Ford are preventing the others from coming forward. (Are there others? Very likely--otherwise, Kavanaugh would likely have excused this as a "one time" error that he was very sorry for. He can't do this because, if he does, others will likely come forward. Is the White House organizing or just enjoying the attacks on Dr. Ford?)
His wrong and deliberately cruel court rulings forcing a young immigrant woman to bear a child show Kavanaugh has not stopped abusing women. He is, however, a far more accomplished predator than the clumsy, drunken, high school man-child Dr. Ford encountered.
15
"The reality has always been more complicated. From the beginning of the modern anti-abortion movement — whose origins lie in the 1960s, not just the aftermath of Roe v. Wade — it has included female leaders who identify as pro-life feminists and reject the idea that female liberty depends on a right to kill your unborn child."
The fact that a movement dedicated to controlling women's bodies and lives includes a few co-opted women who call themselves feminists doesn't make it any less patriarchal or abusive of fundamental human rights.
5
"...a party that can’t win female votes and seems to have no time for women" is the Republican party. Sorry. That will be more clear as the years move forward (look at how the GOP polls among millennial women).
If the GOP actually cared about the health and well-being of unexpected and unwanted children, they'd fund healthcare, education, and childcare programs that would assist them. They never do. Not a penny. Just more tax cuts for the rich. Instead, we get harshly restrictive reproductive laws, "religious beliefs" dictating which contraceptives adult women are "allowed" to access, and Republican politicians who want to "punish" women for having either an abortion or a miscarriage. The misogyny of the Republican party is pathological.
9
Oh, baloney. This talk of a "hollow victory" is baloney. The anti-abortion people will do anything—absolutely anything—to make Roe meaningless.
If you don't get that, you haven't been paying attention.
10
What we learned today with this fellow P.J. is that the accuser (simpler than various names/titles) identified four people to the Post reporter. So far three of them are saying the party did not occur. If the fourth person pops up with a statement, and concurs, (likely) that will be four people who say the event as described did not happen. And these second two will presumably share no apparent culpability. Gosh that's quite a rebuke to a story that from the get go she has admitted is stunningly vague in the details. Forget that she told no one, as some commenters note. Fair enough. Who wants to recount that? But it's the willful lack of memory, except for the four names, that seems so weird. I mean weird. Can we really have this kind of justice? Steven Pagones, remember, won a big award over the Tawana Brawley incident. Why? Well you cannot have law and order in a society if people can make these charges if they have no apparent basis. And remember, in many other countries, the threshold for damages is way lower than here, where our libel laws are incredibly slanted to the accuser. We are way outside the norm. Plus, a lot of the liberals defending the accuser are probably the first people to endorse various hate speech laws. Again, if many countries, you can get fined and imprisoned for such statements. But now, all of a sudden, you can make these kind of statements, and get everything you want? Sorry. No way to run a decent society.
1
Were I so unfortunate as to be a Trumpist, I would stay far far away from questions of remembering what happened.
2
Most misleading headline I've seen in a while. It's not the "accusation," it's the nomination, that puts the so-called 'pro-life movement' in jeopardy.
7
For about 15 years now I have been asking that journalists use the term against choice, instead of pro life. Everybody seems to understand the issue somewhat, but the understanding is still, woefully incomplete. Pro-life? Whose life? Wait a minute, the life of a miraculous two celled Protozoa or the life of a substantive woman? Don’t start, just don’t start! I have two daughters, I love them to pieces, but when I was in labor and about to be admitted to a Catholic hospital , I freaked. That was back in 1979. I made my husband swear that he would do everything in his power that my life would be saved, if it ever came to the awful choice between me or my unborn child. Yes, that child had way more than two cells by then, but honestly, I don’t care.
Yes, I am selfish, and this selfishness is called a “strong self preservation instinct”. Society does not have to like my strong self preservation instinct but it is MY life, MY body, MY rights. Please, back off.
Yes, it is trite, but if men could have babies, abortion would be a sacrament. Brett Kavanaugh, do you hear me? It’s called against choice! You’re not taking my choice away, because as Gloria Allred said: “we’ll remember in November.”
10
@Ursula Weeks No. It is not against choice. It is against cruel and reckless murder of innocent human beings. Human life begins at conception, and that is a medical fact. To describe a fetus simply as "protozoa" is to make life cheap. You and your daughters started to be what you are now at that stage. Abortion is not necessary as long as there is prevention, and in the United States prevention has been available to women for a long time in various and adequate forms. There are, indeed, times when abortion is necessary for clear medical reasons, but the number of abortions performed every year in this country cannot be justified medically. Also, while "MY life, MY body, MY rights" may be ethical and legal as long as it does not infringe on someone else's rights, as far as parenthood is concerned both individuals who procreate, that is, both man and woman, have equal rights over the fetus and over a child. The American court has recognized this matter again and again, and to claim otherwise is to ignore and defy the law.
1
@Ursula Weeks
I refused to travel to any Republican states let alone restrictive foreign countries when pregnant over the fear of the medical care I'd get there if an emergency happened. I can't imagine having to birth in a Catholic hospital. I know it's the only choice for many. Shudder.
5
@Eduard C Hanganu I respectfully disagree. You state that "human life begins at conception, and that is a medical fact." But a fertilized human egg has not evolved yet into a human being, and that's true according to the lived reality (not dogma, not ideology) of all human beings. Moreover, you cannot elevate fertilized eggs to the level of human beings without at the same time reducing human beings to the level of fertilized eggs. We know that such an equation cheapens the value and dignity of humanity by the way so many pro-life zealots lose interest in the well-being of babies once they're born.
3
It is too bad there are not more lawmakers who think that forcing a 17 year old to carry a baby to term at 14 times more risk to herself than the first trimester abortion she was seeking is not in itself disqualifying. We already know he sees women as lower than a few dividing cells or a developing embryo with no higher consciousness. I don't know if he attempted to rape someone in the past but he has already shown contempt for women more than once. This is unacceptable in the 21st century.
14
The pro-choice movement is not all about sexual freedom etc as you put it Mr. Douthat, it's about giving a woman the power to make a choice that has a profound effect on the rest of her life. Sometimes it's about saving her own life from a dangerous pregnancy. But right now in many states and the Republican party platform itself there is no exception to protect the life of the woman. Until you can frame the issue honestly you have no credibility. It sounds, as usual, like an attempt to smear the motives of pro-choice women who want to protect themselves from harm.
24
"In its targets the #MeToo movement has made no partisan distinctions; if anything, it has probably ended the careers of more prominent liberal pigs than right-wing men."
-------
Interesting that it's only the liberals who are described as pigs, while the conservatives get to retain their humanity, even though their actions are the same.
1
It already is.
Kavanaugh doesn't change the ongoing history of open disdain and hatred for anyone who isn't a white christian or jewish male from the Republican party.
Wake up, sir. The attempt to overturn Roe is and always has been about men legislating women's bodies.
6
Poor Ross. He doesn't care what actually happens when you take self-agency from 51% of Americans. He cares how it looks when you do it.
18
Ross says: ... the #MeToo movement has made no partisan distinctions; if anything, it has probably ended the careers of more prominent liberal pigs than right-wing men"
The #MeToo movement has made no partisan distinctions. Can't say the same for Ross.
3
Hilarious.
A generation ago, Senator Hatch accused Anita Hill of using "The Exorcist" as a guide to her sex life and as a tool for smearing Clarence Thomas.
The other day, Senator Hatch accused Christine Ford of being "mixed up"--in other words either too deranged, or too stupid to remember which person tried to rape her.
But Ross Douthat believes that Republican men don't actually hate women. Yes, they do. As Senator Hatch, and Senator Grassley (another inquisitor of Anita Hill) and Senator Cornyn and Senator Corker and President Trump demonstrate every time they open their mouths to speak.
If you are a woman (or a man who cares care about his wife, or daughter, or sister, or mother) and you don't grasp that Republican men will do everything they can to control your body (and your mind), and punish you if you resist that control, then listen to Douthat. You will deserve what befalls you.
13
@camorrista
Why is Orin Hatch still around?
4
Hatch is still around because conservatives never learn.
3
anti woman and a potential attempted rapist
5
Too late; I already see the self-called pro-life movement as hypocritical. Life begins at conception and ends in the birth canal.
10
"In its targets the #MeToo movement has made no partisan distinctions; if anything, it has probably ended the careers of more prominent liberal pigs than right-wing men."
This is an unfortunate syntactic construction. "Liberal pigs....right-men". I get what he is trying to say, but unless Douthat is trying to sound aggressive and partisan, it would be have been better for him to use "men" in both cases. To turn the #MeToo movement into a partisan competition does dishonor to the women involved. When harassed, abused or raped, the political affiliation of the man doing it is most likely not central to the experience of humiliation, fear and shame for most women.
4
Comment refers to wording of the editorial as of 09/19/2018 12:26 PM EDT:
Why is it that the "prominent liberals" whose careers were probably ended by the #MeToo movement are "pigs", whereas right wingers whose careers were also ended are "men"?
Unlike most conservative pundits, Ross Douthat is very clever when it comes to camouflaging his bias with sophisticated verbage that seems, at first glance, to be somewhat objective. "liberal pigs" vs. "right-wing men" is an example of one of his more obvious slip-ups. Otherwise, the bias can be seen in the details of that verbage, wherein "liberal", "left-wing", and "Democrat" (among others) are consistently identified with negative attributes, whereas "conservative", "right-wing", and "Republican" are identified with positive attributes.
To wit, "...But among men who are legitimately prominent, not just unfortunate collegians": collegians are "just unfortunate" whereas non-collegians are "legitimately prominent."
Those unfortunate collegians. Tsk, tsk.
3
"Liberal pigs" vs "Right wing men??" Extra malicious and wrong-headed, even for Ross. By the way, no, you cannot be anti-choice and pro-woman.
22
The Republican party IS anti-woman, no mystery there.
15
"In its targets the #MeToo movement has made no partisan distinctions; if anything, it has probably ended the careers of more prominent liberal pigs than right-wing men."
Liberal pigs and right wing men. Really?
And I thought for a moment there you might actually write something in a non biased way about the lack of bias in the #Metoo movement. I think the word men should not be used with either parties pigs as the behavior itself is so utterly boarish.
3
Let’s reject the use of the nomenclature “pro life” as that would imply the other side is anti life.
8
"...that his nomination is withdrawn, ideally, with a woman nominated in his place." Just any woman, really? Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachman, Phyllis Shafley? Sure, just any woman.
2
What "liberal pigs or right-wing men"? This is a very strange choice of modifiers. I understand that Douthat is a conservative, but I had no idea he was that biased! Liberals who abuse women are pigs, but conservative men who do the same are still men. I'm still letting this soak in. Does he mean that liberals who abuse women are different from or worse than conservatives who do the same? Aside from that very weird sentence it's a good article about a difficult subject. Having been forced to marry my rapist in 1965 and give birth to and raise our son I can say that, short of murder or incarceration, there is no greater violation of a person's civil rights than that. It's pretty drastic. Instead of being a freshman in college, I was an 18 year old single mother. Free and accessible health care for young women, open adoption and financial support would have been a nice alternative, and is still not talked about much. Until the pro-life people offer real alternatives their arguments about the sanctity of life are empty. (Liberal pigs indeed. My right wing rapist was a pig too. Mr Douthat, Pighood is bi-partisan.)
28
The Republicans are fond of finding judicial nominees among the Federalist Society members who represent the most extreme conservatives in American jurisprudence: originalists and textualists.
So let's ask, Where does the Constitution give government the right to control women's reproductive health? There is no similar intrusion on men. Taking away a right is serious.
And yet, overturning Roe -- like repealing Obamacare -- has been a cri de guerre for conservatives forever. Most Americans do not want the court to ban abortions.
So yes, the Republicans are fighting a losing battle against women.
8
Something more is going on here. We are told the president cannot control his impulses and that no one on his staff can control them either. So why isn't Trump busy tweeting that Dr. Ford is dumb, a liar and a dog?
3
As well-reasoned and well-written as this article is, its conclusion betrays it as nothing more than a slick promo piece for Ross's preferred Supreme Court nominee, Amy Coney Barrett, who, like Ross, is Catholic, pro-life and fervently anti-Roe. She is resurgent patriarchy's Trojan Horse.
Ross can only get behind the kind of patriarchy which is supported by "women of faith." You see, Ross wants patriarchy to be sustainable far into the future. So he needs his kind of women (shackled to superstition) to carry the load for him.
How... traditional!
15
You can hardly expect to be taken seriously when you say "In its targets the #MeToo movement has made no partisan distinctions; if anything, it has probably ended the careers of more prominent liberal pigs than right-wing men." Really? Liberals are pigs but conservatives are men? That about sums up why women find conservatives repulsive.
4
Republicans being 'seen' as anti-women would be like Red Sox fans being 'seen' as anti-Yankees; it is their raison d'etre.
3
Oh don't worry; the Republican Party of 2018 won't be SEEN as anti-woman... they will be KNOWN as anti-woman.
10
Russ. Pro-life = Anti-woman. Get a clue...
16
@Dersh
Right...all the pro-life women are 'anti-woman'. How ludicrous.
News Flash, Ross.... they don't care.
1
"Repealing Roe will be a hollow victory if the anti-abortion cause is hitched to a party that’s seen as anti-woman." ???
Isn't that the case already? How could it become a stronger connection - do we need even more explicit language in the next party platform?
2
There is no such thing as a pro-life feminist.
4
That it's 2018 and there's STILL a debate about abortion is asinine. Mr. Douthat, how many poor orphans born in poverty/out-of-wedlock are you willing to take in? How much higher in taxes are you willing to pay the babies of the teen moms and their deadbeat/abusive/rapist dads? And the extra resources required to support them? We already know the the answer to that for most of the GOP: zero. They're willing to contribute zero more to help those they would have forced into this world to suffer. Zero contribution. Zero accountability. Zero empathy.
10
Dangerous for the pro life movement? I think the headline minimizes how important this issue is to those that believe there is a child in the womb before it leaves the womb. It’s not an issue that you drop because of a particular Supreme Court nominee.
1
When you assign the argument of your opposition view, Mr Douthat, you ought to take greater care in the selection of your literary devices - "in reality abortion restriction is a means to a different end:"
Criminalizing abortion IS a different end.
Seems like? Seems like? Consistently is.
1
Your continuing assumption of when life begins is incredibly arrogant. How do you or any "pro life" people know what constitutes the timing of when life begins. Accept you are not all knowing in this regard, and you will start to understand the moral viewpoint of those called "pro choice"
4
Mark Collins, actually the question of when life begins depends on the exact definition of "life," which is subject to each person's opinion.
Excuse me, Ross. The GOP is already seen as anti-women, especially with the pro-womanizer-in-chief at the helm. When the Senate Judiciary Committee votes without Dr. Blasey's testimony heard & without any formal investigation into her claims, that will be it. Game over! Should that happen it will be interesting to see what happens with the two women GOP Senators. Power by "any
means necessary".
4
It makes sense to me that an anti-abortion party would be readily willing to condone sexual assault and rape, at least when perpetrated by powerful white men. It seems to derive from a view of women as passive vessels for producing babies and satisfying male sexual desires, rather than as full, independent human beings with their own desires, needs and goals.
I don’t understand why so many white women still vote Republican. Stockholm syndrome perhaps?
12
Oh, please. The so-called "pro-life" faction proved they have no scruples when they overwhelmingly voted for Trump and no shame as they turn a blind eye to his misogyny, racism, cruelty and perpetual lying. When you advocate for putting women in jail for daring to assert their right to control their bodies and their lives, you're capable of just about anything.
7
Most women I know (of 50++) can recall every last instance of violent verbal and physical abuse in their lives vividly, as if the events had happened yesterday.
10
I can't help but notice Douthat's unspoken assumption that the only possible reason to terminate a pregnancy is because the woman simply "doesn't want" a baby. But women lose very much wanted babies in utero and require abortions for health reasons. Women find out late in pregnancy that a fetus has severe birth defects that will allow it to live only a short and painful life. Women are victims of rape. Women are victims of incest. No, these are thankfully not "most" women. But they're not a negligible number, either. And yet the hardest-liners in the pro-life movement would have ALL of these women be forced to give birth. Even if it meant that the women themselves would risk their own health or lives. This is why we say "trust women" -- because this decision should belong to the pregnant woman, and not to anyone else. Every woman is different, every pregnancy is different and this is one of the most personal decisions that can be made. The government has no business in it or in regulating which reasons are acceptable.
Your pre-Vatican II outlook on life I'm sure works fine for you and your family, Ross. Please keep the rest of us out of it.
14
I wonder if there is a correlation between Trump's election and women having to relive 20, 30, 40 year old trauma. Beginning with the Access Hollywood tape, Trump's treatment of Hillary in the debates, and his general attitude toward woman seems to be opening old wounds.
7
Kavanaugh refers to contraception as "abortion inducing drugs."
10
I disagree. The war against abortion is worth the casualty of a feckless, spendthrift, warmongering establishment GOP.
1
"Repealing Roe will be a hollow victory if the anti-abortion cause is hitched to a party that’s seen as anti-woman." A bit late for that, dude. Most of us pegged Republicans as anti-woman years ago.
10
How awful if people actually started seeing the GOP as they really are, anti-woman. How will they ever be able to enact their viciously misogynistic agenda if they are revealed to be anti-woman? The horror.
17
Four thoughts:
1. I think Kristin Luker was right that the anti-abortion movement is principally an effort to control and punish women, especially young women.
2. I think Ross Douthat is correct that pro-choice Americans will never accept the right to obtain an abortion being undone by a GOP that is anti-woman, attracts fewer and fewer women voters, and nominates to the U.S. Supreme Court anti-choice men who may have committed sexual assault.
3. Ross Douthat obviously continues to pine for an even more ardent foe of abortion, Amy Coney Barrett, to be nominated to the Court. Let a woman do the dirty work of undermining women's rights!
4. Ross Douthat is in this essay treating the Supreme Court as a political branch of government, and is worrying about the "optics" of Supreme Court nominees--or, dare I say, "candidates."
2
Before the election I called the Michigan headquarters of Right to Life. They are a powerful force in this state. I asked who they were endorsing for president. I already knew the answer, I just wanted to hear them say they endorsed a misogynist sexual pervert. The poor woman at RTL couldn't say his name. She would not say Donald Trump. It seemed for a brief moment that she was as stunned and disgusted as I was. I told her it was ok, she didn't need to say it. It followed a consistent pattern of RTL's complete disregard for women.
6
First, a wager: the staunchest supporters of abortion on demand are MEN. Far from a “patriarchy” trying to dictate women into motherhood, MEN want unrestricted access to women, without consequent responsibility. Make a misake? Vacuum it out. The staunchest pro-lifers I have ever known were women, almost inevitably mothers, who understood that offing a kid is nothing that in any way benefits women.
A “strong whiff of self interest”? You bet your bippy.
Something like 99% of the metoo perps have been hard-left, impeccably feminist, pro-abortion, Planned Parenthood supporting men. Maybe, just perhaps, if THOSE are your allies, one should reconsider the merits of the ideas which bind you to them.
So, the question posed in the headline requires an answer : “seen as anti-woman” by whom? Indeed, the idea that ANYONE is “anti-woman” is preposterous on its face. But your NYT friends believe it with every fiber of their being, just as they passionately believe that racism is endemic. Because that’s what they MUST believe; their religion regards it as irrefutable dogma. That those beliefs are delusional makes no difference.
Republicans consistently win majorities among white women and their problems with minority women have nothing to do with abortion.
But there is simply no way for the GOP to win the vote of those for whom identity is an obsession, who consider their uteri political statements.
1
"a cruelly sexist form of anti-abortion politics reared an ugly head."
Well aren't you clever, sneaking in a reference to Stormy Daniels' Mario-Kart allegation!
But seriously, if Trump were to take his daughter's advice and cut Brett loose, he'd be sawing off the branch he sits on. The only fallback would be "presidents will be presidents, but judges must stay sober".
Perhaps they've worked out a deal with Pence: if Donald resigns, Ivanvka gets appointed to Vice.
1
Mr Douthat : Have you informed your mother , your wife , and possibly your sister (s) , that you consider them all intellectually and morally incapable of making their own decisions regarding their personal reproductive health care ?
What a guy !
15
Let me put this in even simpler terms for you, Ross: anti-choice IS anti-woman.
9
We up here in Canada do not usually get exercised by our neighbours domestic disputes.As a pretty run of the mill card carrying NDP chappie,the daily Whitehouse tweet tinder was mildly diverting. Now,the the latest incendiary Kavanaugh confirmation process details, to whit:Ford(or is it Blasey) is carefully scrutinized by my wife,whose normally pacific soul has focused jaundiced attention to the machinations of the old white male Republicans and a renewed sense of outrage.
Good luck America!
1
I am a white male Catholic born and raised in Texas and I find Douthat's argument that the GOP is actually pro-women would be laughable if the GOP did not pose such an eminent danger to the lives of all women in this country.
Douthat shows the true focus of his concern in the focus of this essay - it is occupied entirely with the negative effects that accusations of sexual violence will have on the political lives of men. There is not even the pretense of actual concern for the effects that this violence has on women.
The GOP endangers the lives of women by restricting their access to reproductive health care, by opposing pay equity that increases their work-related stress and makes them economically disadvantaged to men, by refusing to protect women who are the victims of violence at the hands of men, as they are now doing on the national stage.
Douthat's column, while pretending "liberal" concern for women is occupied entirely with the rights of men.
11
"Repealing Roe will be a hollow victory if the anti-abortion cause is hitched to a party that’s seen as anti-woman."
Too late.
7
I cannot see the pro-life people as categorically pro-women. I cannot even see them as categorically pro-life, since many support the death penalty. This is, as noted in the column, about patriarchy and power.
4
I doubt if all the women forced to carry pregnancies will consider any "victory" against them "hollow."
7
The percentage of pro birthers that are concerned about women relative to their rights and privileges being equal to all other citizens is a small percentage. What Russ states is true, there must be some, but not true enough to matter from a public policy perspective. Their concern about women is pretty evidently not a focus if they need to lie to women to get what they want.
Humans are like any other species, if it has plenty of food it will reproduce quite rapidly. Those who have been taught they are special, above nature, that the universe was created just for them are the ones that have a hard time imagining their particular existence is nearly irrelevant. After all their god is a personal god, he will save YOU. I can assure you there is no plan or our species, never was one, and if you are imagining your god has one he/she does not need your help to mobilize it. Leave others deal with their own fertility issues, please.
2
Does Douthat seriously believe that it is the Kavanaugh debacle will show that the GOP is anti-woman? That's hilarious.
2
@xdrta - correct, the entire womanhood of this country already knows the GOP hates women. Russ may need to put whatever it is, down!
1
Mr. Douthat writes: "If it is false, the work of a faulty or disoriented memory, then he is in a legitimately terrible position, with a lifetime’s reputation for probity at stake and no clear way to clear his name." Habits of public drunkenness and gambling budget exhaustion are not part of a reputation for probity. Mr. Kavanaugh is in a "legitimately terrible position" of his own creation.
8
No worries, Ross.
There's no such thing as a "hollow" victory for the GOP.
It's just a "W" or an "L" for them. They don't care if they have to lie or cheat or steal or how it "looks".
You ought to know that by now.
6
Oh, I wouldn't let that worry me. The anti-choice (or if you prefer, pro-brood-mare) movement has been blatantly anti-woman from its inception, so this doesn't change anyone's perception.
5
The pro-life movement asks women to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term. What do they ask of men? Nothing. Even worse, these are often the same people that refuse to provide women with easy access to birth control--an approach that attempts to mitigate this obvious gender inequality. Let's not over-think this--it is old-school misogyny, and because of that, they will be ecstatic to have your so-called "hollow" victory--they couldn't care less about the distinct rights of women (once they are out of the womb).
8
Hate to say this, but the old walruses on the Judiciary Committee (Republicans) are much better at guerrilla politics than their Democratic colleagues. They have no moral boundaries and history tells them there will be no consequences if they confirm Kavanaugh. Sadly, if they must trash the accuser, they will and will injure her cruelly.
The only way to save Roe v. Wade is to keep Trump's nominee from being confirmed. There is no discernible strategy and he will soon be fitted for a big black robe.
5
This "debate" has never been about a fetus' ability to exist. It has always been a tool used by women to say, "Get government out of MY life." If a women wants to rip a potential life from their body because they consider "it" their property, then so be it. It is a very myopic and dated ideology that has been crushed by democratic dissent in our county.
@Pilot - betcha' another you're a man Pilot! No woman who has an abortion thinks in those terms, promise. And I promise you one more thing, if men got pregnant, abortions would be available on every corner, promise!
8
I beg to differ. The accusations against Kavanaugh is not what is dangerous to the pro-life movement.
Anyone who is in fact pro-life, as opposed to merely anti-abortion to the exclusion of actual pro-life policies, can easily recognize that Kavanaugh himself is the danger to the pro-life movement. It's time for anyone who claims the mantel of moral superiority to take responsibility for their actions and start enacting policies that make abortion unnecessary, not illegal.
Absent that, their time would be better spent praying to whatever deity they profess to worship for forgiveness for their self-righteous hypocrisy.
1
A wild youth is not disqualifying for positions of responsibility later in life. You probably have met people who have turned around their lives, and whose deep internal regrets and self-knowledge have later infused their lives with humility, humanity, empathy, understanding, and motivation. These people do not snigger in private over their wild youthful activities, nor "deny them categorically" in public.
Some people may want to excuse past "indiscretions" by saying that things were different back then. But this is now, and if you are still publicly lying about your past activities, and in private sniggering about "just between us boys" -- well, that is what is completely disqualifying for any position requiring integrity such as the responsibility of filling a seat on the Supreme Court, and indeed of any judiciary position.
4
The term "Pro-Life" has got to stop.
"Anti-abortion" (in the subtitle here but not in the headline) comes closer. But the more accurate term is "anti-choice," because it implies acknowledgment of the bigger picture: A woman's freedom and control over her own body.
The bias in the term "pro-life" has gone on for so long, till it's now embedded in the discussion. The power of language is critical here; the term "pro-life" conjures up images of formed, viable children, while at the same time ignoring the fact that a woman's "life" counts too.
Mr. Douthat, stop sugarcoating the issue. You're against abortion and - more importantly - you're against a woman's right to choose. Calling yourself "Pro-Life" is euphemistic and self-serving. Words matter. You're a writer; you know this. And if you instantly dismiss the point I'm making here, please consider taking a break from writing about it until you can see the difference.
8
A teenage girl gets assaulted at a drunken party by two older drunken boys of privilege and does not press charges at the time. In fact, she chooses to suppress the incident until later in life. Do you think this has happened to women in this country? Every day such events occur, lost under the radar of embarrassment, guilt and fear.
Sorry if it is a inconvenience for Republicans to have slow their process down. No one could ever accuse them of holding up supreme court nominations. Please hold proper investigations into the current accusations and don't run some sham by us. Even if you are tempted to do so.
9
Pro-choice vs No-choice.
So, what is it with conservatives forcing their (restrictive) views on non-conservatives?
No progressive has ever said any woman MUST get an abortion, but progressives have said any woman MAY get an abortion.
For Republicans and other conservatives birth control, abortion and other sexual matters are NOT about morality but ARE about the power of white, Christian, heterosexual males over anyone else.
The label, pro-choice, aptly and completely, describes the pro-choice movement’s raison d’être. Pro-choice advocates for a woman’s right to make her own decision, her own choice. It does not force anything on anyone. No-choice (aka “pro-life”) is just that, the imposition of opinion by force.
No-choice's concern and advocacy seldom, if ever, encompass the quality of life after birth for parents and/or children, just the quantity.
5
I can understand some philosophical objection to late term abortions of course but what infuriates me is how breathtakingly hypocritical many if not most pro life people are. Many support the Death penalty. More than that they could care less about the living children in the world who go on suffering while we enjoy the plenty of American middle class culture and riches. Instead of working hard to prevent the killing of an embryo better to work toward equal opportunity and enough food and shelter for all in America and worldwide. Instead many prolife people and frankly pro choice people live in big houses consume overpriced coffee while their human neighbors struggle to feed their families educate their kids and keep a roof over their heads. Basically their position is protect the unborn but once out of the birth canal you are on your own baby.
2
Can I just point out (as a mother of three who would have hated to abort) that a 12- or even 20-week foetus is not yet a 'child', born or unborn. The only actual human being concerned in abortion is the woman. The embryo/foetus is a very unusual creature stuck between life and non-existence. Have a look at a developmental chart of the fetal brain: even at 20 weeks, it has barely any creases; it has no chance of functioning as a human being's brain. Failure to recognise this ambiguity is a major intellectual shortcoming of anti-abortionists.
Unlike the modern anti-abortion movement, medieval Catholic theologians were able to make the distinction b/w a future and an actual human being; see Thomas Aquinas's suggestion that the soul doesn't enter the foetus until sometime late in the first trimester. But then in those days, the church didn't have to worry about feminists.
The fact that the whole 'life begins at conception'-discourse only started once things such as safe abortion, contraception and access to the labour market loosened the hold of patriarchy over women suggests strongly that the underlying concern is about control (over women), not life (of the foetus).
8
It's easy for me to say because I am a man but part of me hopes that a 5-4 SCOTUS ruling overturns Roe. Why? The intense backlash and electoral damage to the GOP. Abortion will always be legal here in New York, and I'm sure funding and volunteers could be found to bring women from "pro-life" states to clinics in pro-choice states.
The whole idea of "killing an unborn child" is an oxymoron.
One cannot "kill" something that is not, in fact "a child" as the overwhelming majority of abortions take place within the first trimester where the only "life" is that of the mother. There is NO "child" to be "killed".
Period!!
Certainly, people have the right to disagree with this premise, and nobody is forcing that opinion on any woman that does not believe it...no forced abortions.
If one believes that life begins at contraception (or, as the Catholic Church teaches, sperm and eggs in and of themselves deserve protection), they are certainly free carry out their beliefs and not get an abortion or practice birth control.
The idea that a narrow definition of when "life" begins, being foisted on everyone is just absurd and counter to human freedom and liberty.
Sorry, but forcing one's religious beliefs on others in NOT "Practicing religion". It is forcing one's beliefs on others.
I for one think that the last place the government, egged on by religious zealots, need to be is in a woman's uterus.
6
"The accuser cannot shirk testifying publicly, as her lawyer suggested last night, and expect her claims to keep him from the Supreme Court." It's a primary argument that misogynists, which you falsely claim do not comprise the core of the anti-abortion movement, are making. Her name is Dr. Blasey, not the "accuser," (you don't even use her name until the end of the very last sentence of this piece), isn't "shirking" anything. She and her attorneys understand what Republicans will do to her if she testifies in this inquisitorial Republican proceeding. Republicans are already vilifying Blasey in every way. Some Republicans say she's mistaken, others say that Kavannaugh is the real victim here, but how Republicans plan to treat Blasey is best illustrated by the sick fake letter that Donald Trump Jr. posted on Instagram. It pretty much says it all: To Trump, to Don Jr., and to their Republican enablers, Rape is nothing but a big joke.
The current hearing rushed by Republicans was already a travesty. It only looks like a judicial hearing. Republicans control the committee. They're prosecutors, judges, and jury. They can shut Democrats down any time they want. They can shut down Blasey any time they want. They can exclude any and all evidence of Kavanaugh's guilt, as they already have. No one should testify in an unjust proceeding in which Republicans are determined to protect Kavanaugh at all costs. It is why there must be an investigation by an impartial fact finding body.
4
I can bet that Dr. Blasey Ford is not the only hapless victim of Georgetown Prep "boys." I attended Catholic elementary school and a public high school with a large Catholic student body (mostly Irish-Catholic). Even as a child, I noticed that when our school let out, the kids, especially the boys, went wild after a day of strict discipline. The kids from the nearby public school were happy though calmer. I ran into more male Irish-Catholic behavior when we lived in Inwood, in Manhattan, which was heavily Irish-Catholic, the "bedroom" of NYPD until the cops moved to Queens. Even children were drunk during the weekend's revelries in Inwood Park and elsewhere. Some of my Irish friends called that population "shanty Irish." I'll just mention St. Patrick's Day Parade.
Everyone in NY knows what that means. The Archdiocese just looked the other way. It took me some time to get over the male Irish-Catholic blight. The idea that Brett Kavanaugh would behave in such a vile manner is no surprise though certainly upsetting. Time for an investigation, if for no other reason than to reverse that surprise and upset.
3
A dangerous moment for the anti-abortion movement (I have no idea what is meant by the "prolife movement") is a promising moment for women and, indeed, all Americans, (even though a significant minority of us don't know it). Strange to find hope in the headline of a Douthat column, but there it is.
3
The anti-choice movement IS anti-woman. Moreover, this movement is already attached to the Republican party, which is itself anti-woman. There is no "if" about it. The Republican political party focuses intently on policing woman's uterus but wants no interference in polluting our climate. Their motto might as well be "Regulations out of the boardroom and into the bedroom!"
7
Safe legal abortion was preceded by unsafe, illegal and generally secret attempts to induce miscarriages sometimes by punching young pregnant girls in the stomach repeatedly. In Catholic facilities, some pregnant girls were tied flat on their backs for penance, a treatment which obstructs digestion, breathing and blood circulation, physiological disruptions which certainly harm both mother and fetus. In my community, and I am older than Kavanaugh and his accuser, a fraternity of Catholic HS boys pushed their way into a private home, forced a girl reputed to have had a baby onto her back and poured beer on her at her babysitting job because they felt she didn't deserve to earn 50 cents an hour babysitting someone else's child while the child who had been taken away from her was being cared for by some other woman and her family. Reproductive rights and the right not to be sexually assaulted or, prior to puberty, shamed into believing one is the a priori cause of some male's inability to control his physiological impulses and the ultimate direction of his sperm flow are rights that in daily practice, have never existed for women in any one continuous period of time, including the post Roe v. Wade era. When I was a sexual assault victim in grammar school, I didn't know what sex was and I was told I was feeble-minded and gullible for having "let" it happen. I believed in the Virgin Mary and that babies came from God's blessings. Truth needs to be told.
9
Anti-abortion politics have become so misogynistic and so extreme that women are jailed for miscarrying, and denied life-saving medical care during difficult pregnancies. Republican candidates are repeating outrageous factual distortions like rape never results in pregnancy.
Ross, if you're that pro-woman, start speaking up loudly on women's issues that DON'T involve pregnancy termination.
4
Agree. Mr. Douthat is entitled to his own opinion but men have no part in this issue, in what is essentially a woman’s choice. Any male voices in this room smacks of paternalism.
2
" if it remains unprovable but squarely in the realm of plausibility, then all the abortion opponents who were supporting him should hope that his nomination is withdrawn"
What Ross Douthat hasn't considered here is that if Kavanaugh withdraws - or is withdrawn - Democrats know they have a winning strategy to defeat any conservative Court nominee.
This is why an FBI investigation is a bad idea. Suppose such investigation turns up zilch after 2 or 3 weeks, but then another woman comes forward with an accusation against Kavanaugh. That woman claims she didn't feel the need to expose herself to national scrutiny since Dr. Ford hopefully was enough to bring down Kavanaugh. But since the FBI failed to confirm Dr. Ford's story this second woman feels an obligation to come forward.
If Dr. Ford's story merited an FBI investigation, why shouldn't a second accuser's story merit the same thing? And what's to stop women from coming forward with false but plausible stories against future conservative nominations?
My suggestion is that there be a dividing line between stories with real evidence and/or prior corroboration, and those which are simply unprovable. (Dr. Ford has zero corroboration behind her story, other than what her husband claims she told him 6 years ago.)
We just can't have nominees with sterling pasts brought down by decades-old accusations which are so devoid of any factual basis that they'd never make it to the courthouse steps.
3
The use of "unborn child" by this male writer is not accurate, since most terminations of pregnancies are done at an early stage. The basic question is who decides: the woman, or some older white man in Congress who doesn't even know her ? Ironically, one of the biggest threats to all life on this planet is overpopulation: so to be able to control one's own reproduction is responsible citizenship. Finally, nobody "likes" to have an abortion; if you choose to do this, there are always serious reasons.
3
Sorry but the freedom of women absolutely depends on our ability to prevent unwanted procreation. I could point out that an “unborn child” is an oxymoron, unless you subscribe to a very particular kind of Christian theology, but this is irrelevant. The biology of reproduction is such that the interests of the mother and the fetus are at odds. Evolution wants as many offspring as possible, even if they drain or kill the woman. But as a human individual, I want self-fulfillment, even if it comes at the expense of not having children or having only a few. This is the calculus of human reproduction and no platitudes about “unborn babies” will change it. Contraception is better than abortion, but contraception prevents the birth of potential children as surely as does expulsion of the fetus. So yes, the choice is between living my life the way I want it, and breeding like an animal. I choose the former regardless of how it makes Mr. Douthat feel.
7
If Kavanaugh doesn’t get confirmed, his career is Toast.
Unfortunately he will spend the rest of his hating days on the next highest court doing the bidding of his rich white corporate person friends.
3
This column is well argued, Ross, but I'd like to ask: why is the whole argument regarding abortion always only about women as if men had nothing to do with babies? Convince me that you have thought through men's responsibility to and for every child they father.
3
Why is abortion still an issue in this country? It's not even holding its ground in bought-and-paid-for subdivisions of the Catholic church like Ireland.
I don't know a single person who's ever mentioned the continued legal access to abortion in this country as an issue they care about, and this includes people willing to talk about Obama's birth certificate, the right to own machine guns and building a wall on the Mexican border.
To the extent that some people (mostly Republicans) still make an issue out of this and still don't seem to care at all about childcare, schools or children in poverty totally confirms that this issue is just about controlling sexuality in women and men.
9
Clever piece Ross- “please dont whitewash my Fence”
You’d love to see Kavanaugh withdraw and be replaced by his female back up from Notre Dame who is unabashedly ,openly and genuinely opposed to Roe and will vote to overturn out FAR sooner than Kavanaugh will. To be sure, she will have much opposition, and she will be confirmed by probably the narrowest margin in history but she will be confirmed if senate stays the same.
But at least she would not be a lair, and for SCOTUS, thsi is no small thing. We should ALL expect ALL our SCOTUS justices to be holier (and more modest) than us.
One final point- its not only plausible, but likely, that Brett Kavanaugh was a bright, boorish, immature mysognynist who when in a not unusual state of weekend inebriation did what Ford says he did, yet now is a highly admirable , fair, thoughtful, and chivalrous man....youd only be describing most of the Georgetown Prep alumni. I dotn think this is disqualifying per se-but lying about it is. WE can probably get past thsi impasse with just two quick questions next Monday
1) how many times in your life have you been drunk, ie had more than 3 drinks 2) how many items in HS-
if he denies or says he can’t recall he should be dismissed from the bench not just withdrawn his nomination as teh fraud and liar he has presented himself to be the past few months.
Douthat continues to suggest that if Kavanaugh is innocent but the accusations, though unprovable, cannot be decisively refuted, then he should withdraw. I say to this column, and the previous one with Bruni, "Have all the adults left the room?" What kind of precedent would that be? Isn't it outrageous to think that the business of our government should be dictated by accusations that are (on the present hypothesis) false and incapable of being proven? Isn't it outrageous if the level of public discourse is so low that the most important decisions are determined by gossip? Does Douthat not think that this is worth remarking on, other than to say that politics isn't fair?
Has he no decency?
73
@Mark She does have proof - counselling sessions, her husband, friends and others she spoke to about it at the time. Too bad she didn't report it to the police, then there would be an official report there. But, due to the death threats she is now getting (classy), she and her family have had to move out of their home, and someone is impersonating her on social media, she has withdrawn from testifying. But - personally I feel Kavanaugh has many more issues than this one accusation, especially when you have most of his documentation hidden by the Republicans. Women are watching.
8
The scenario that Kavanaugh would ever withdraw his name from consideration is impossible. We might as well be asking ourselves if we should use conventional or nuclear weapons if attacked by an aliens from the Alpha Centauri solar system.
@Mark : Jurors are told, in final instructions, that the testimony of a single witness is sufficient to find a defendant guilty — if they find that witness credible. Judge Kavanaugh is not a defendant in a criminal case, but Ms Blasey’s account of what happened is entirely credible (for any number of reasons which space prevents me from enumerating here). To refer to it as “gossip” is simply outrageous.
Moreover, Judge Kavanaugh is not saying that Ms Blasey is exaggerating or that she misunderstood his intentions. He’s saying that none of this ever even happened! In other words a 51 year old married professor fabricated this whole incident out of whole cloth. She’s subjecting herself (and her family) to hate mail, death threats and hate ..... for what? The fun of it? How can right-wingers be so naïve — and amoral?
1
I just wish men ALL men would stay out of our reproductive lives once and for all. We have absolutely no say over your bodies I ask that you leave us out of your discussions about pregnancy because as you will never know what it's like you shall have no power over us. Kamala Harris' question should make all of you men take note. Think upon that for a long while and ponder her question. In case you men missed it, it was a gem. Here it is:
"Can you think of any laws that give government the power to make decisions about the male body?"
A. THERE ARE NONE.
Kavannagh had no response. We women do.
579
You and Kamala Harris are correct, Margo. Imagine a law passed by Congress and affirmed by SCOTUS requiring all men aged 40 or older to get a vasectomy. This would reduce abortions by making them near impossible for these men.
Imagine the outcry from these old white men who dare to dictate what a woman can and cannot do with her own body.
4
@Margo Channing
I've got an answer for you and Sen. Harris: 50 U.S. Code Sec. 3802
". . . [I]t shall be the duty of every male citizen of the United States . . . between the ages of eighteen and twenty-six, to present himself for and submit to registration [for Selective Service] at such time or times and place or places, and in such manner, as shall be determined by proclamation of the President and by rules and regulations prescribed hereunder."
That statute resulted in the conscription of over 15 million American men in the last century, over 17,000 of which were killed (not to mention the injured) in the Vietnam war alone.
1
@Margo Channing
You are assuming only men are pro-life? And for ms harris, Selective Service registration
1
Since first publication of “Malleus Maleficarum”, the “Witches Hammer”, in 1487, thousands of women were killed by the Roman Catholic Church (particularly during the 16th and 17th centuries) using its 256 pages to advise on the identification, persecution and punishment by death of witches. And this hardly has been the only example of a Church and to a lesser degree its derivative churches demonstrating a pronounced “anti-woman” ethos, which goes back to the RCC’s founding with Peter as its non-woman leader and first pope. The far-right of the Republican Party, so dedicated to repeal of Roe v. Wade, even at a time when it’s largely becoming obsolete due to the ease and ubiquity of abortion pills, as with the ultra-faithful among Democrats, long ago bought-off on that anti-woman reality.
As far as women go, dedicated Christianity these days is merely a watered-down version of Islam. And overwhelmingly, the pro-life movement is motivated in its contempt for Roe by its religions.
So, if Ross’s conclusion is that credibility in anti-Roe commitment is sacrificed on the right by an allegation of sexual assault by Brett Kavanaugh when an inebriated youth decades ago, then I can only conclude that the view is rather narrow. And it’s unknown whether Kavanaugh, who has stated that Roe is “settled law”, would even vote for repeal of Roe.
“Caddish men”? Heavens, I can see Ross arguing at the First Council of Nicea (325 AD) for the universal tonsure.
…
5
…
Ross is flogging for exhumation of the candidacy for that Supreme Court seat of Judge Amy Comey Barrett, who is socially conservative enough to punch-up “Malleus Maleficarum” for the 21st century. Won’t happen. Unless more women come forward on Kavanaugh, the likelihood is very high that he’ll be confirmed within a couple of weeks. And as abortion pills flood the American market, Roe will become increasingly less important – perhaps enough so that Ross no longer will regard its repeal as so central to the salvation of America’s soul. Or of reclaiming the tonsure.
3
@Richard Luettgen: even more so ... the reason women sought "back alley abortions" used to be SHAME -- awful shame to have had premarital sex! and be single and pregnant! -- real disgrace and shame.
Today there is no shame. It has literally disappeared. Every church, every state accepts unwed childbearing AS THE NORM.
There is no reason today to get a back alley abortion when having unwed pregnancies and illegitimate babies IS THE NORM.
@Concerned Citizen
On this issue we're pretty different.
I would hope that someday we can inveigle human beings into wholesome communities and keep them there without the artificial goad of "shame".
But it's a lot deeper than what you perceive as shame. It's a loss of absolutes delivered from agencies claimed to be beyond human ken that must be obeyed at the risk of "salvation". Shame is merely the lever for keeping them faithful -- among those who still accept that the fence posts within which people retain their sanity at an infinite universe and our temporary inhabitation of it … were sunk by some power other than human, and that we owe it fealty.
It's not right to enslave a gender to biological identity. We need to find wholesomeness even WITH abortion.
1
Ours is a pluralistic society differing moral, religious, and philosophical views are acknowledged and tolerated. That is the very basis of our Constitutional protections on religious practice
And moral questions surrounding abortion are fraught with ambiguity;
When does "life" begin? When is abortion warranted? Birth defects? Rape? Circumstance? What about the question of viability? How do we weigh the sets of interests inherent in childbirth? When in conflict, at what point do we determine with set of interests outweigh the other ?
Does a woman cede her "personhood" to become a vessel of the State, church, or the next person's moral views upon conception?
Personally, I don't see how a Constitutional legal argument can be made to outlaw abortion outright without resorting to a call to impose religious or moral absolutism on a society where those views are not universally shared, or are in fact, the minority view.
This is particularly incongruous to expect from a Supreme Court justice who purports to hold to a textural interpretation of the Constitution.
8
You’re absolutely right and I would add that the willingness to do that does not stop there as the argument will be made though concocted that oral contraceptives do the same thing. Elevating the personhood of an embryo over that of its mother diminishes the mother and that rejection of personhood was the overreach in the Dred Scott decision. The point of view of those that want to outlaw abortion are not rooted in the Bible, morality or ethics and we should it let them call themselves pro life
Of course Douthat leaves the part out that Kavanaugh lies in the hearing already and should be rejected on that basis.
2
@RD: the Supreme Court does not make ANY laws.
They interpret the US Constitution, and are the "last appellate court".
Only Congress can make laws.
However...laws about things like abortion and marriage properly belong TO THE STATES and it says so right in the US Constitution.
1
@Concerned Citizen First, the right to abprtion as is currently stands is not a matter of legislation. It is a Constitutional right.
So the fact that every candidate weighs is on the subject is basically a political accessory, like the American flag tie tack.
No one said the SCOTUS makes laws. What may happen is states will make laws in conflict with the Constitutional right to abortion, and the right will be put to the test.
However, I still maintain that it is impossible to make a legal argument to overturn Roe v Wade without effectively deeming women little more than baby machines and imposing religious and moral views in conflict with the social pluralism that is the basis of our Constitution and a fact on the ground in our society.
And let's be clear; there IS a difference. No one is forcing people to have abortions against their will. But people opposed to abortion would restrictively impose their moral views on those who do not share them.
2
From statements from FBI agents online on the subject of investigations, it takes 90 to 120 days for the FBI to set up a proper investigation, which will last as long as it takes to resolve the case. It may remain open for years.
By making her testimony conditional to an FBI investigation, Dr Blasey is kicking it into the longest grass within her reach. If she's willing to talk, it is hard to understand why her unburdening is contingent upon the FBI.
2
@GG2018: there is literally nothing to investigate.
Kavanaugh ALREADY had SIX (6) FBI investigations and passed with flying colors.
A seventh will not turn up anything.
Ms. Ford wants the FBI or someone else to dig up dirt on Kavanaugh and justify her charges -- because she knows they are vague, bogus and possibly she was assaulted by someone else entirely. She does not even know the year this happened.
The FBI cannot "solve" that.
Mr. Douthat says in his article:" the perception [is] that you can’t be pro-woman and pro-life." I don't mean to be rude, Mr. Douthat, but there is a crystal clear choice that you can. If men were to use male birth control upon reaching puberty, problem solved.
This idea is about as outrageous as requiring a driver to wear a safety belt. It's the law, in my state anyway, though some shriek that their freedom is compromised.
Oddly, our country has spent decades designing birth control for women but apparently never thought to devise birth control for men. Since women have a much heavier burden in accidental pregnancy than do men, its logical that men should be required to carry responsibility.
6
they designed it, they perfected it, they dropped it. Not enough men were interested.
1
@Mary Feral: it's been tried. The male reproductive system is just different -- men produce sperm continually and MILLIONS of them.
Women produce one (or rarely, 2-3) a month. Women are born with 1000 eggs, but by puberty have only 400. And by age 40 or so, they have withered and are not much good.
It's much easier to prevent ONE EGG from releasing each month than 10 million sperm each day.
Also: since women get pregnant....they have far more motivation to use birth control than men do.
@Concerned Citizen
Women can't get pregnant on their own. Why is it always up to the women to use birth control? Would be nice if men who impregnate their many girlfriend and sire many children would take some responsibility for their actions.
Thank you Mr. Douthat. As a progressive, pro-life, feminist who identifies with no party, I have been making this argument for a long time. Sadly, many pro-life people are caught in a no-(wo)man's land, unwelcome among Democrats, and unwilling to align with Republicans.
The best version of the pro-life argument is that, at some point in their development, blobby little zygotes become living human persons. Whenever that happens, those living human persons are deserving of society's protection, whether in utero or born. And the babies' right to live has to take precedence over others' rights, however dear and fragile those right are. This is an important conversation, but just like many "pro lifers" ignore the impact on women and ONLY talk about babies, many "pro choicers" ignore the (potential) impact on babies, and only talk about women.
I am grieved, and disgusted, to see the unholy union between many (not all) pro life advocates and the anti-woman administration that is wreaking havoc right now. But I hope society can ultimately look past WHO is making the argument, and consider the innocent lives at stake.
1
I don’t doubt your sincerity. But given that the vast majority of pro-life politicians are socially conservative across the board, are against making birth control readily available, are against expanding access to health care, and weaponize these issues to provide cover for their real agenda, which is making the rich richer, you will have a very hard time convincing anyone of your point of view.
If you really cared about the unborn, it seems to me your efforts would be better focused on trying to prevent unwanted pregnancies in the first place, and in shoring up the social safety net so that a woman would not feel that abortion is her best alternative because she doesn’t have economic resources.
23
@Sara Peters
"And the babies' right to live has to take precedence over others' rights, however dear and fragile those right are."
What other human person on the planet can claim that it's right to life extends to permitting it the right to use my body? <<<<This is why you can't be a feminist and pro-life.
You just can't. You can claim all you want that you believe in equal rights for women except reproductive rights, or that you think forcing women to gestate is good for them or that it's a worthy sacrifice for the rights of babies (sic). But it is literally impossible to state that you support equal rights for women when you do not grant her the full right to determine who uses her body, when, and how.
9
If you are anti-choice you are simply not a feminist.
6
You keep using that phrase "pro-life" ... it does not mean what you think it means.
I am intensely pro-life: I donate blood. I have registered as an organ donor. I am trained in CPR and I have given CPR to a stranger whom I found prone on the road, his bicycle fallen out from underneath him. I have written to my Governor providing him with reasons to commute the death sentence for particular individuals. Just last Sunday, I visited a friend near death to give her strength and support. (She lacked the strength to sing, but I sang to her: "For the beauty of the Earth ...".)
These are difficult, time-consuming, emotionally-draining activities, but I do them because I value life.
When Ross Douthat uses the word "pro-life" he doesn't mean to make a difficult decision. He means that the government should make difficult decisions for us.
How can Ross Douthat call himself a conservative when he supports such extreme nanny-state regulations?
47
Let’s put aside for a moment the virtually 100% overlap between those people who want to outlaw and abortion and those who seek a return to traditional moral codes about sexual behavior and sanctions for violations of those codes. Let’s assume that supporters of abortion prohibition do not seek to reimpose unwanted pregnancy as a disincentive for women’s failure to serve as sexual gatekeepers.
Even still, abortion prohibitions inherently subordinate women by Valuing fetal life over women’s health, well-being, and other interests. Supporters of outlawing abortion often say that prohibition will benefit women by protecting them from supposed, yet undemonstrated, psychological trauma or from greedy abortionists. Such arguments subordinate women further by infantilizing them or denying them agency.
Sorry, columnist Douthat, advocating abortion prohibition is a stand against women’s interests. Women will bear real harms from forced pregnancy or from riskier illegal abortions. Republicans, and Douthat, need to show the courage of their convictions and say, “Sorry ladies, but the fetus comes first.”
14
If the assault claim is false, Kavanaugh should welcome a thorough investigation. Otherwise his legitimacy and objectivity as judge, on whatever court, will always be in question.
20
@Jean Travis Investigate what? I wish they would investigate why I didn’t win the lottery, but I doubt they will. Without a time and place, there is not even enough for a protective order.
1
Absolutely!
This is what I don’t understand about Trump and his cronies. If they are innocent why do they act so guilty?
3
@Jean Travis: Kavanaugh has already had not one, but SIX (6) separate FBI investigations....which he passed with flying colors.
Adding Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court risks ruination for a generation of children who will be victims of the republican pro-life theology politics.
The "pro-life" movement based on a religious belief that a fertilized egg equals a human being is profoundly anti-life in republican culture.
Pro-life in the US is always anti-child.
Children need a right to health care, a parent (or two) with sustainable wage work and flexible child care work hours, high quality public daycare, high quality public schools, and low cost post high school education. All of this requires government financial support for the common good in the form of taxation of the wealth hoarders.
Until this culture is willing to provide for children, the 'pro-life' agitators are simply practitioners of hyper-vicious hypocrisy. They worship at the fetus altar and destroy the lives of existing children.
Restricting birth control and ending legal abortion without support for children and parents is nothing but anti-life.
26
Call it what it is.
Anti-abortion - not pro-life.
A vast number of these people support the death penalty.
That's not pro-life.
30
@celia They are also advocates for unrestricted access to guns. Just how "pro-life" is that?
5
Douhat is wrong to declare the test of Blasey’s veracity and the legitimacy of her allegation is her willingness to testify publicly.
No, the test of the legitimacy of the Senate confirmation process is its willingness to have trained truth-finders, i.e., FBI, investigate first, before a public hearing.
Douhat’s giving short shrift to calls for an FBI investigation is a strong tell of his lack of intergrity, intellectual and otherwise. He too just wants to win, he wants cover...to overturn Roe.
6
To late Ross. I remember when the anti-abortion right wing was a faction of the Democratic Party in Minnesota. They saw their chance in the 70's to take over the moribund Minnesota Republican party and were soon its masters. They wasted no time in purging the MN GOP of its "individual liberty" squishies and allied with the Catholic and Protestant right wing to support their paternalistic anti-women agendas.
14
Grassley, Hatch and McConnell
are prepared
to push forward the confirmation of a man
who is accused of sexual assault.
Just read that sentence again.
That's all.
35
@celia
They won't care the havoc they will cause they will retire as millionaires, they are men, so completely out of touch with what we women go through. They are pathetic.
2
The only way now for Kavanaugh to recover his reputation is to acknowledge and apologize to Dr. Blasey for even the possibility that this incident occurred which he realizes would end his goal of joining the Supreme Court. His choice seems to be to live the rest of his life with this terrible stain. Not the choice I would make. How can he continue to look his daughters in the face? Is he really such a selfish and shameless man? Apparently so. There was another person in the room-we can get to the bottom of this.
4
"Pro-life" is a straw man descrptor. If there was indeed a pro-life movement in the religious right it would oppose the death penalty in all cases. It would be anti-war. It would favor stringent gun control laws. It would encourage government funded post-natal and early childhood care for poor women. But it does none of those things.
Instead, it brands unwanted pregnancy with a tacit scarlet letter. It applies dubious biology in an attempt to stigmatize women. And worst of all it dehumanizes women by viewing them as reproductive machines.
22
You are one of the more reasonable conservatives writing op-eds today, and I appreciate this piece. But you left out an important part of the so called "pro-life" movement discussion-- the hollow hypocrisies of its promoters. This is almost always left out when mentioning the feminists who sincerely oppose abortion. One cannot be pro-life and work to undermine policies that help families survive and thrive. Long ago, the efforts of the right to shrink the government when it comes to education, health and social programs revealed its true disregard for human life. And people usually remain in the class to which they are born. This may also be why some conservatives have turned their heads when one of their own upper class members needed a dispensation from their stated morals.
The anti-abortion position is convenient and insincere for all too many. It is also anti-woman and anti-life.
10
the anti-choice theocrats attempting to force women to endure pregnancies are the opposite of pro-life, they care nothing for current women or their future children. they are only interested in control.
19
Whatever the outcome, as a practical matter the Republican "how can we sweep this under the rug as quickly as possible" reaction, reinforced by the "no woman lawyer is going to tell white male senators what to do" attitude of Senators like Grassley and Lindsey Graham should rev up women voters in November to punish Republicans for their women hating display in the Kavanaugh matter.
Reportedly the FBI passed the allegation to the White House, which did nothing about. The decision to cover up the allegation is bad enough but the press, which has not done its job here, should ferret out whether the White House Counsel informed Judge Kavanaugh of the allegation. If so, why didn't Kavanaugh himself ask for an investigation?
Kavanaugh has not done himself favors by hunkering down in the White House, apparently engaged in a non-stop murder board, confirming suspicions that he is a puppet of this White House. He may be innocent but he has let the White House and Republican Senators make him look bad.
Meantime, a suggestion for women angry at the obtuseness of their Republican menfolk. Vote for Democrats by all means but also read Aristophanes.
6
What if he admits it is probably true,expresses deep sympathy for the victim and true remorse for the behaviour? Does he get a pass?
It's almost laughable to imagine that overturning Rowe could be seen as anything other than anti-woman. It fundamentally makes a woman's body the property of the State. Instead of the right to self-determination, it is the prison of regressive thinking. Go ahead, grandstand on morality. I would like to see you carry an unwanted baby to term. 'Hollow victory if' Ha!
24
“...it has included female leaders who identify as pro-life feminists and reject the idea that female liberty depends on a right to kill your unborn child. ...” This is a favorite argument of the so-called pro-life lobby. It is so false - it is steering the argument away from the essential bedrock essence of Roe v Wade which acknowledges implicitly that a woman owns her body - her entire body - and that the US Constitution recognizes this fact. We donate blood, we donate organs even the organs of decedents. When my dad died, in order to donate his corneas, I had to be actually there to sign the papers allowing this to happen. Roe v Wade is not about the right to kill anybody it is you owning you - you own your body. The billionaires’ ownership of THEIR money is recognized and the woman’s ownership of her body must also be recognized.
13
"Repealing Roe will be a hollow victory if the anti-abortion cause is hitched to a party that’s seen as anti-woman."
"If," Ross? If?
Come on, Ross.
14
It would be easier to take "pro-life" arguments seriously if "pro-lifers" showed any signs of caring about children after they are born. But instead, it is "pro-lifers" who are now _cheering_ for immigrant children to be ripped screaming from their parents and locked in cages indefinitely.
23
@The Pooch
Yes. The children they 'save' are then free to live in poverty, want, and ignorance.
These same 'saviors' will deny these same kids health care, decent food, enough food, decent opportunities.
Whew! Good thing they saved them.
The problem with the anti-abortion movement is its desire to strip women of their civil rights at conception and apply them to an entity that is not even recognized legally.
7
In contrast to some other commenters, I find this to be perhaps Douthat's most logically reasoned column in memory.
It's hard to doubt the accusations, and I'm sympathetic to Dr. Blasey Ford's situation. Stakes aside for a moment, though, I do believe that she has made a mistake by ducking the testimony on Monday. She might have a legitimate claim in waiting on the results of an investigation, but the ball is now in play. If she doesn't step up to the mike, then Kavanaugh's version of events will go virtually unchallenged.
Dr. Blasey Ford: It's hard to imagine what you must be going through--and what you have suffered. For the sake of this country's future, please finish this.
I would agree that women do not have the right to choose if they are producing livestock and the farmer is the government. Cattle cannot choose but humans can.
5
CAUTION: The “Pro-Life” Movement is dangerous to some women’s health.
Also: The politicalizaton of the legal system and particularly the selection of Supreme Court Justices makes me think, that to save time, why not have separate Republican and Democrat Law Schools to start with. Why stop there, medical schools as well, with specialists in Republican Med School, and generalists in Democrat Med School.
More than 50 years ago, when we moved to Colorado and I just entered 8th grade, a couple of classmates jumped me outside a small shopping center and proceeded to "pants" me. One held me down and the other pulled my jeans off. This was "just" a bully's way of saying "welcome to our school." The assault went no further (I'm male, as were the bullies). Obviously, I remember the incident clearly, although some of the details are missing. I remember the exact location. This was an humiliating experience and such experiences tend to get etched into one's long-term memory, even if -- again -- not all the details are retained.
My experience, however, barely compares to that of Professor Ford in her "encounter" with Mr. Kavanaugh. I doubt if my bullies remember the incident at all since they were doing the humilating -- exercising their power. So, frankly, it does not surprise me that Kavanaugh might not remember (assuming he is being honest about not remembering).
23
Mr. Douthat, with all due respect, my freedom does not revolve around my right to kill my unborn child. I know no one who is pro-abortion, who has a few every year simply because they are so much fun. My freedom lies in my ability to make a choice to save my own life. I nearly bled to death from a miscarriage. The anti-abortion crowd would sentence me to a preventable in order to protect a "child" that has a 0% chance of survival. No government has the right to force death upon me and a motherless existence upon my children. "Oh, but there will be exceptions" the anti-abortion crowd cries. Really? Because in states where abortion is nearly illegal, it's almost impossible to get a doctor to help you for fear that they will lose their license. I believe that women AND men should have easy access to birth control options that will prevent unwanted pregnancies in the first place. This is freedom. I believe that I have the right to protect my own life from a nonviable pregnancy. My life is worth something, Mr. Douthat. My life is worth a lot - to me, to my husband, to my children, to my parents and to my friends. My life is worth something.
16
Handmaid's Tale indeed. I don't care if someone was carrying an entire universe, it's their right to abort it, no one else's. Only they have agency over their own body. If "pro-life" wanted to be consistent, they'd also care about the already-born: the homeless, the veterans, refugees, those on death row who might be innocent, those who can't afford legal representation and are behind bars for not having an expensive-enough lawyer, the LGBTQ who took their own lives from being tormented by overzealous Christians. Douthat would do well to take a survey of all the countries where abortion is currently illegal and also look at their abhorrent human rights records.
7
Dr. Ford's attorney did not suggest that she would "shirk" anything. Dr. Ford and her attorney have in fact welcomed an FBI investigation in accordance with precedent-- and offered to testify under oath once a foundation of facts has been established. Mr. Douthat's careless characterization of the very reasonable and precedented process that Dr. Ford has requested to participate in is emblematic of the very problem his column tried to raise. Mr. Douthat seems to think that he and the rest of the white men standing in judgment can make up rules as they go that apply to women in order to rig the outcome. She's a "shirker" if she asks for a hearing that follows established process of an FBI inquiry BEFORE she is grilled by hostile congressmen who have already called her "mixed up"? This is the 2018 version of the Anita HIll slur, "nutty and slutty."
This character assassination trap Sen. Grassley proposed is far from the "gender egalitarian" GOP Mr. Douthat seems to hope for-- in fact it is EXACTLY Gileadean-- mysogeny masquerading as "concern" for women.
Mr. Douthat is the one who is shirking his duty to accurately present the facts of the situation. Dr. Ford said, "not only will I testify, I will go you one better, I will submit to an FBI investigation as is precedent. Will Mr. Kavanaugh and Mr. Judge?" That's not shirking anything.
449
@Kim How is this well-articulated, highly on-point comment not a "Times Pick"?
1
@Kim
If Blasey wants wants sort of credibility, she need to make a statement under oath and give details about
- The place and date of the party
- The details of the lie detector test she took (what questions were asked)
- Explain the difference between the psychiatrists notes and the letter she sent.
The issue that pro-lifers ought to care more about is climate change. A lot of young people are questioning the wisdom of bringing a child to life on a planet whose ability to support human life is being severely impaired.
7
"The #MeToo movement...if anything, it has probably ended the careers of more prominent liberal pigs than right-wing men."
Everything is at stake for conservatives, Ross. The Chief Pig is in the White House. Any of you could assert some moral authority and end this travesty. But no---11 white men have already decided Kavanaugh is innocent.
Pro-life means pro-people who think like you. There is no Pro-Choice for the undesirables--as has been proven with efforts to end Roe.
You can dress this up any way you want. But if it assaults like a guy, it probably IS an assaulting guy. (See Access Hollywood tape for DJT's confession).
5
"Liberal pigs and right-wing men". Liberal predators are pigs,and right-wing predators are human?
7
"Liberal pigs" and "right-wing men." So liberal predators are pigs, and right-wing predators are human. Really?
29
" — it has included female leaders who identify as pro-life feminists and reject the idea that female liberty depends on a right to kill your unborn child." As usual, the christ-yelper, Doubtthat, gets it wrong yet again...no woman wants a right to kill their unborn child. What women want is the the ability to not be trapped in economic poverty (caused by unwanted children) by having to raise some one-time sperm donor's off-spring...Until the male boner brigade realizes that being little "Johnny Sperm Seed" has economic consequences, women will need the right to have an abortion...
6
"...the idea that female liberty depends on the right to kill your unborn child."
Douthat, you are absolutely disgusting.
17
The Supreme Court and its selection is now so political that should Kavanaugh be confirmed that democrats in the future could very well impeach him. They could set up an 'official' investigation into this accusation which could lead to such an outcome. They could very well impeach Gorsuch too saying his whole nomination and confirmation was illegitimate... and then there is Thomas. What a bag of worms the dems and repubs are!! Nobody cares about the center!!
4
A woman is not less a (hu)man because of the lack of a penis but as long as some women are afraid they'll lose their meal-ticket all women will be only nearly human. Being born a female is not a ticket to a half-lived life nor is its only option to follow submissively behind what ever male is in front of her, which can range from her grandfather, father, husband, husband's brother, and her sons.
My problem is Islam is just that and you know what? That is also my problem with Christianity and Judaism.
Moses wrote a story of creation where Eve was made of Adam's rib. One can only deduce that because god breathed the breath of life into the nostrils of Adam then Adam is the only one with an entire soul. Eve was just a blow-up doll with a lesser form of Adam's conscientiousness and a willingness to pick up the slack while accepting leftovers as fair payment. But what all these conservative guys don't get is that if that story has a speck of truth in it then nobody except Adam ever had a soul and that includes all the so-called prophets and prophetess, male and female saints. I hate to burst bubbles here but it does include everyone who is alive today and it did include Jesus too.
5
@Susannah Allanic
wow. Very well said
I call BS on this column.
13
It is most unfortunate that those who want to interfere in women's personal medical care have grabbed the 'pro-life' label. As a physician I am 'pro-life', in the sense that I want to enable my patients to have long lives with good quality of life, and I am 'anti-abortion' in that I want to prevent circumstances in which an abortion would be seriously considered. I want to protect pregnant women from exposure to toxins that would harm their unborn babies. I want contraception to be easily accessed and publicly funded, so every baby is wanted. I want pregnant women - and all women - to be safe from physical abuse by their intimate partners. I want pregnant women to get regular prenatal care and neonates to get excellent follow-up. I want breastfeeding to be supported and encouraged. All of these positions are truly pro-life and anti-abortion.
I don't see how closing clinics, denying people health coverage, reducing sex education, making contraceptives harder to access, reducing environmental protection, etc. is 'pro-life'.
What if there is convincing data that the 'pro-life' lobby's policies taken together would actually increase the rate of abortions and the number of miscarriages, stillbirths, and disabled infants? Would the 'pro-life' people care? I don't think so, because they are driven by the conviction that they are right and that God is on their side.
13
I would have more respect for the "pro-life" movement if it seriously campaigned for the universal and free prenatal and obstetrical care and publicly subsidized adoptions.
If the "pro-life" movement really cared about the blastocyst and latter stages of development of the gestational child, you would want each and every child that comes into this world to be as healthy as possible.
If the "pro-life" movement really cared about the child after it has been born, you would want those children to be with a permanent family.
We can ague to infinity and beyond when a child gains a soul (I am sure that Mr. Douthat knows that there are other monotheistic religions than Roman Catholicism, and that some of those traditions view that the soul is gained in stages, which is why those traditions have different mourning ceremonies for miscarriages and for infant deaths that occur in the first days after birth.) What is most important and I think we all can agree on is that every child should be given the best opportunity to be born health and into a permanent family.
2
Mr. Douthat wants us to give those who oppose abortion the benefit of the doubt: they're truly advocating for the rights of the fetus, not trying to deprive women of control over their own bodies.
Let me say this: when most so-called "pro-lifers" also oppose sex education for young people in schools and want to deprive women of access to good birth control methods, it's very hard to give them the benefit of the doubt.
Sorry, Mr. Douthat, but I can't give you the benefit of the doubt either.
11
Yes, muscling through Kavanaugh indeed plants another red flag on the anti-female perspective of Republican leaders. But it is only a painful rallying point for women who are justifiably angry at the male dominated trend of government. It isn't, as Ross implies, a sole weakness of a Republican that favors gender equality. They don't, in any sense.
Mr. Douthat makes a superb point, with the backlash already visible in the tidal wave of female candidates.
Ross's argument is backwards. Our government -- Republican in particular but Democrat too -- is dominated by rich, white conservative men. They practically represent a modest minority of the people but a majority of the campaign money.
Among the views of those conservative men is social conservatism which sees women as subservient and preferably barefoot and pregnant and certainly occupy subservient positions should they dare to enter the workforce. Rich men don't need wives that work, middle class and blue collar workers do. These men don't represent us.
Where Ross has it backwards is that pro-choice is only one element of the ways that rich men treat women as subservient. It is only one of the ways that women are treated as subservient including wage equality and access to child care.
6
That "lifetime's reputation for probity" only exists in the minds of Brett Kavanaugh and his supporters.
The evidence is compelling that Kavanaugh knowingly trafficked in stolen documents for partisan political ends and lied about it under oath in his confirmation hearings to become a federal district judge and in the hearings for his appointment to the Supreme Court.
The evidence is also compelling that Kavanaugh has been living far beyond his financial means, which does not exactly smack of "probity."
And yes, it was more than 30 years ago, but his best high school friend's memoir references to "Bart O'Kavanaugh's" regularly getting blind drunk also raise questions about the judge's personality and impulse control.
13
@liberalvoice -- his crazy baseball ticket buying is something worse than just a failure of "probidity."
At the level of the money he was spending those are box seats; and the question is who was in his box?
There's also the question of whether he was actually using the tickets, really going? Those tickets are fungible, and they are a common vehicle for pay-to-play, disguising illegal transactions (you buy a ticket, give somebody the ticket, they sell it), bribery.
For a federal judge, that ticket buying should raise all sorts of warnings.
3
@Lee Harrison, that's a good point. As Mother Jones magazine has reported, there are also questions about Kavanaugh's membership in one of the Washington, DC area's most expensive, and traditionally most racist and anti-semitic, country clubs.
1
A dear woman friend once confided to me the story of her sexual assault--an event that was, at the time, some twenty-odd years in the past. That she had kept this life-changing event a secret for so long, she said, had seemed necessary to her survival: "Some things can stop you dead in your tracks," she told me, "unless you find ways to lock them up somewhere in the darkest, most secret recesses of your mind." That she hadn't completely succeeded in that regard was all too obvious to me then. I do not find Dr. Ford's long silence on the matter of her assault strange or questionable. Not at all.
634
I agree . I have a sister who was sexually assaulted also many years ago.
Look at all the men who were sexually assaulted years ago by priests in the Catholic Church, and never told anyone for 25 years or longer. No one questions them do they? They are believed. And investigations years after the fact proved the men were in fact assaulted.
7
I graduated from Franciscan University. I was part of both Campus Crusade and then "conservative" Catholicism back in the early 2000s. As a woman it took me years of therapy to wash that experience from my brain.
The pro-life movement is by its nature anti-woman. The damage "pro-life" laws does to women's bodies and lives is already common knowledge so I won't even bother here.
Instead, I want to highlight the spuriousness of the claim that because there are pro-life women it is a "pro-woman" movement.
Just because women are involved in it doesn't make it less so. Every woman who has ever lived knows that women are capable of harming other women in the worst way, of inserting themselves into hierarchies that depend on crushing the women beneath them. The "cool girls" of Christian Conservatism don't function any differently than the mean girls in high school; they just seize their power through their own promotion of their superior morality and "obedience" to male hierarchy.
Oh no, good Christian women aren't like those OTHER girls.
I spent years being praised by men and the women who were their accomplices for being a "good Catholic" or "good Christian" girl. Years fearing the social shame of not conforming to the Cool Girls of Conservatism.
I am so glad I left that toxic world behind. I am now happily married for 8 years, with three daughters and real female friends whose relationships aren't based on competitive morality and punishing those "other girls".
10
Our columnist and his cohort of conservative male "authorities" on what's best for women keep trying to make their wish to put the contraception genie back in the bottle less obvious. And while that's not likely to happen, if for no other reason than simple demographics, they wil press the assault with language like feticide and killing unborn children.
Whatever happens to Kavanaugh's nomination, he is faced with a singularly unpleasant future career in the law. As a high court Justice, his credibility, scholarship, and jursiprudence will be suspect by both sides; anti-abortion zealots will never cease to suspect he's holding his fire to maintain legitimacy with public opinion and women's rights progressives will surveil and analyze his every public word. If the Senate finds its conscience, he will have a lot of time to think about what might have been.
4
Ross cheerfully describes the issue as killing the unborn child, avoiding 90% of what abortion is about, including the ludicrous notion that it includes contraception. It’s doubtful that any logic or any context would alter the views of one so strenuously avoiding a frank and clear approach to the issues.
10
"This points to a conclusion that’s certainly unfair to Kavanaugh if he’s innocent, but nobody ever said that politics would be fair."
In the short time since the allegation, it has already been established that Kavanaugh was not a choirboy. He was a party boy. He believes the GOP philosophy that what they don't know can't hurt us. Is it possible that he and his friend Mark Judge were so stone-drunk that they have no memory of the event? It may have been over 30 years ago, but I am certain that the violence of Dr. Ford's sexual assault was seared in her memory. As a good Catholic, Kavanaugh should know the teaching that "the truth will set us free." Whatever amount of time that takes.
6
Everyone is always looking for logic in the way "conservatives" think and act. There is really only one unifying theme and it's bigotry. Race, gender and religious-based bigotry. Is anyone truly surprised to see this charge against Kavanaugh? Of course not. It fits the MO perfectly.
10
The negative characterizations of the people who are pro-choice, both men and women, presented in this article are inaccurate, insulting, and reflect badly, not on the pro-choice movement, but on those who trash it.
The mixture of zealotry and contempt that characterizes the anti-choice movement's propaganda regarding the beliefs, motives, and sincerity of the defenders of a woman's right to autonomy, conscience, privacy, and freedom from government interference in the most private of matters only exposes the hypocrisy of a movement that pretends to be "pro-life," but is actually just a front for male dominance, authoritarianism, and the conjoining of church and state to push one religion's beliefs on all.
This is not to denigrate the people who oppose abortion on grounds of conscience or religious belief; there are many who do so with sincerity and conscience, and without the overwheening arrogance of the leaders and propagandists of the anti-choice movement compelled to impose their beliefs on others under penalty of law. People who oppose abortion have just as much right to express their beliefs and choose not to have abortions, just as strong a right to privacy and physical autonomy as those who would choose to have an abortion. That is what being pro-choice is all about.
No amount of offensive and misleading propaganda denigrating pro-choicers can hide the anti-choice movement's anti-woman agenda, and the Republican Party's submission to its goals.
6
Why should Dr. Ford have to testify in public if the only identified witness Mr. Judge will not be called? Mr. Doythat, you make some good points but you are still part of the problem.
4
"Pro-life" is a marketing ploy and a misnomer. The legal imposition of religious beliefs with respect to when life begins is a violation of the US Constitutional separation of church and state. Since the Republican Party displays nothing but contempt for the US Constitution, it is no surprise that religious fundamentalists find a ready home in the GOP.
11
@jefflz: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion" is the only phrase in the Constitution, as amended, that separates church and state in the US.
@Steve Bolger
Perfectly correct, but it goes a bit further:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, OR prohibiting the free exercise thereof; .
Different religions practice diverse beliefs with respect to the commencement of life. Why should only one belief be forced by law on all?
Ross, the fact of the matter is .. the GOP is, de facto, anti-women. So yes, repealing Roe doesn't matter .. to them and their electorate .. as it is entirely consistent, expected and imperative. So, what's the dilemma?
7
In Douthat's framing of the argument, "female liberty" depends on the right "to kill your unborn child."
He just can't resist looking at things this way. The embryo, the fetus, all of this can be fitted under the umbrella of "killing" a child by the pro-lifers - just read what they say.
If you have a conservative personality inclination, as Douthat does, that personality characteristic is often determinative. He's bright and tries to be even-handed, but his character always holds him back.
5
Any rational human being (male or female) should not deny scientific factual evidence in making life/death decisions.
That clump of cells/zygote/fetus is an actual living growing thing. Don't believe me? Show me where in the universe something is growing that is dead?
Look...reasonable people should be able to come to agreement that we need to adopt European style responsibilities of personal conduct for American women. No relying on the "Julia" theme where the government takes care of everyone of your emotional, physical, and spiritual needs. This is on us..ladies.
If we can't hold ourselves to the same level of personal responsibility as our sisters in Paris, it shows a weakness in our moral character that is disheartening.
We have over 1 million American families on adoption waiting lists. Surely there is room to ask women to make a decision on abortion in the first trimester; afterwhich there are only exceptions for the PHYSICAL HEALTH of the mother which needs validation from two independent physicians.
How a class of people (women) can migrate from 'get that thing out of my belly' to "oh...look...isn't she the cutest little thing" in a heartbeat is rather disgusting from a moral perspective.
Compromise is needed, and when 78% of the public says there should be some restrictions..including Diane Feinstein? Maybe it's time to accept a 1st trimester only clause...and use that as a means of personal empowerment.
We've been hearing that Roe will be overturned since the 1970s. This claim is to the republicans what banning guns is to the democrats: a fear tactic to raise money. Even Clarence Thomas says that Roe is settled law. And that to overturn it will create chaos. Most people I have discussed this with don't even know what Roe did. They think it says abortion is now legal. No wonder they live in fear.
https://emcphd.wordpress.com
1
Ignoring modern reproductive science. Kavanaugh conflates birth control drugs with drugs that induce abortion. With him on the Court, taking down Roe v. Wade could also allow states to ban birth control.
So with Kavanaugh, the GOP has a lifetime of embarrassment ahead of it. A Justice who rejects science, who sees birth control as a form of abortion, a man with a possible gambling problem, and a "conservative" eager to treat the President like he's George III and the American Revolution never happened.
With a sex abuse allegation on his resume. And gambling addiction doesn't just cure itself. Without treatment, that kind of problem will make itself known again.
The pro-life movement is going to be marked by this kind of representation for his entire lifetime on the Court. Patriarchal, unpatriotic, anti-science and morally shallow.
10
Here again we have Ross lining up with his conservative brethren. He talks a good game about Trump being a pig etc but when push comes to shove it is clear where he lines up. Sure Ross let's just ignore the fact that the GOP literally stole a Supreme Court seat. Let's ignore the fact that the President is almost certainly a money laundering felon and possibly colluding with a foreign power. But according to Ross he should be able to make a second lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court.
Let us also ignore that Kavenaugh has actively perjured himself in his testimony for the Supreme Court and previously for the Appellate Court. Even if he was innocent of sexual assault (which is doubtful) he should be impeached not elevated.
8
@Bill smith
Yes - Kavanaugh is a proven liar (thank you, Senator Leahy) and now a thwarted drunken party boy/rapist (thank you, bathroom door with a lock). Let's put him on the Supreme Court! And quickly! Oh to be a fly on the wall in McConnell's office and Grassley's office.
4
The "pro-life" claim that the human soul is implanted by God during insemination of the ovum is specious nonsense. The human "soul" is the unique software we each develop for ourselves, after birth, to cope with the circumstances of our lives. That is why birth marks the origination of the soul-building process.
Failure to keep faith-based beliefs out of laws is the basis for most of the intractable discord in the USA.
4
Please don't use the term "pro-life". The correct term should be "pro-birth". Most of the "pro-birthers" don't really care about what happens to a fetus after it's born. If they were "pro-life" they would care about the health and well-being of everyone, especially children.
9
The trouble with the anti-choice side has been threefold. There has been very little concern with living children, there is even less interest in the well being of the mothers and above all sex is seen as bad and pregnancy is the proper punishment for a bad woman.
10
There is another danger for the anti-abortion medical procedure movement - it's status as a Republican wedge issue used by craven Republican politicians to enrage single-issue voters to vote against all their other interests to support cynical billionaires in their quest to replace the New Deal with the New Feudalism. No matter how much lipstick (pro-life) you paint on this group of religious zealots (you can't argue that this isn't a fundamentally religious movement) the fact is these poor souls are being manipulated to obtain a completely different objective - permanent majority status for the Republican party. And Kavanaugh is a key component of that goal.
4
What about the "pro-life" movement isn't anti-woman?
Please.
So-called pro-life politics is all about telling women we can't manage our own bodies, our own lives, and it's frequently accompanied by assaults on our right to contraceptives since, apparently, SCOTUS has declared that "pro-life" corporations have Sincerely Held Religious Beliefs and can deny insurance coverage to their female employees for contraceptives.
Contraceptives themselves are characterized as "abortion inducing drugs."
I do agree though that the Kavanaugh nomination is bad for the "pro-life" movement.
His creepy contributions to the torment of Monica Lewinsky, the prying, dirty, salacious Starr Report, the mistreatment of Jane Doe in the "Garza," that's more than enough to paint this person as anti-woman.
And the circus in the Senate just shows us what "pro-life" and "religious freedom" really mean to the GOP: the authority to force people to follow their diktat.
7
The question is not just whether Kavanaugh committed sexual assault 36 years ago when he was 16 or 17 years old (the accuser is uncertain of what year the alleged assault took place). Had he been charged at the time, he would have been tried in juvenile court rather than criminal court. There is a reason the juvenile justice system is separate from the criminal justice system. The justice system recognizes that children who commit crimes are less blameworthy than adults and have a greater capacity for change. During the three-and-a-half decades subsequent to the alleged incident, Kavanaugh has established an exemplary record free of sexual misconduct allegations. He has been robustly endorsed by dozens of women who know him. So, the question is not just whether Kavanaugh committed the act his accuser alleges he committed as a teenager, but whether, if guilty, he has changed.
1
Anyone whose religious beliefs oppose premarital sex, contraception, or abortion should refrain from those practices. They should also refrain from telling other people with different beliefs how to live their lives.
The Republicans use abortion as a wedge issue, not as a matter of principle. They want a conservative judge primarily to oppose unions, to limit minority voting rights, to gut regulations on business. The GOP understands that firing up the base about culture wars is a good way to mask the real war, the class war.
17
As a liberal male who was raised Catholic, I've been (uncomfortably) undecided on this issue for most of my life and would never cast a vote solely based on it. I have other reasons to find the prospect of Judge Kavanaugh's tenure on the court horrifying.
But I don't think "if you don't want an abortion, don't have one" or "I won't impose my views on others" are stances on this issue that bear the weight of scrutiny. For the pro-life side, abortion is nothing less than the conscious and premeditated taking of a life. And Americans don't say, for example, "if you don't want to murder someone, don't--but get out of the way of others doing so." Laws are informed by our collective sense of ethics and practicality and the greater good. By definition, they involve a group of people imposing their beliefs on others.
2
No in reply
That the joining of two cells is a full human is not science. That it must be advantaged over the woman in front of you is a religious belief.
That the person who was living their life is now dead by someone’s hand (murder) is observable and can be verified and have secular consequences without reference to religious belief.
4
The anti-abortion cause is anti-woman because abortion is not murder on demand it is women exercising their right to dictate their own healthcare decisions and outcomes. That has been the whole point of the decades-long debate. The pro-choice movement is about *whose* choice - the woman. It is not about celebrating the act of abortion. It is about letting women decide what health care decisions they want to make and giving them access to the healthcare system in order to effectuate those decisions.
15
Ross
Allow me to point out the not so hidden prejudice in your text:
"In its targets the #MeToo movement has made no partisan distinctions; if anything, it has probably ended the careers of more prominent liberal PIGS than right-wing MEN. "
So only staunch conservatives can be "REAL MEN"????
12
Thank you for this thoughtful and well-reasoned essay, Mr. Douthat. Though I often disagree with you, this essay and many that you write represent the honesty and intellectual rigor for which I once respected many conservatives. It is a loss for all of us that the integrity of thought that you bring to your writing is so rare.
Nominate me for Supreme Court.
I went to a Midwestern public high school, not an elite DC prep school.
I did not drink alcohol under age.
I never assaulted anyone.
I was both an altar boy and an Eagle Scout.
I graduated suuma cum laude from Notre Dame.
I am not a lawyer, but I am a Medical Doctor.
I know our society, having treated tens of thousands of patients from every walk of life over the past 40 years.
I am a very good listener, and a natural problem solver.
17
1. I do not personally know whether Kavanaugh actually attempted to rape Dr. Ford but I do know that Kavanaugh has been evasive and secretive about less damning charges, such as supporting torture and opposing equal rights for minorities. Consequently there is no reason to believe that Kavanaugh will be any more candid about his sexual predation.
2. According to Kavanaugh's buddy, Mark Judge, these boys were habitual binge drinkers who got blackout drunk. Ford's accusation corroborates Judge's description. Consequently, there is no reason to believe that Kavanaugh was sober enough to remember whether he attempted to rape Ford or actually raped other girls.
3. The partisan screening of papers, the last minute document dumps, the mountains of withheld materials, and the general haste with which Kavanaugh's confirmation has been rushed forward without the traditional past due processes proves beyond a reasonable doubt that Kavanaugh and his Republican sponsors have a lot to hide and fear the truth.
It no longer is possible for any reasonable American to conclude that Kavanaugh is a fit nominee for the Supreme Court.
Even if confirmed, Kavanaugh never will be legitimate --- nor will the unConstitutionally constituted Republican majority on the Supreme Court.
20
In its targets the #MeToo movement has made no partisan distinctions; "if anything, it has probably ended the careers of more prominent liberal pigs than right-wing men."
How about a little equality here Ross......they are all pigs or they are all men. Or do I detect a little bias here.
6
Why does the NYT insist on writing "allegations" and "accusations" regarding the nominee? In this whole affair there is only one allegation, one accusation from one woman. This isn't Cosby or Rose, Moonves or Weinstein - as much as you wish it were. Has another woman stepped forward with a lurid story about the nominee? He's been 'on the loose' for 36 years. No? Not one?
@Teller
Not yet.
2
Too late, Ross.
Republicans are anti-woman and have been for years.
Now, with a misogynist, serial sexual predator as their party leader, its become de rigueur.
How any self respecting woman, in this day and age can abide by president orange embarrassment, a feckless gop, and their expressly anti-woman policies is astounding. Simply astounding.
18
Men cause unwanted pregnancies.
Do you get it now?
22
“In its targets the #MeToo movement has made no partisan distinctions; if anything, it has probably ended the careers of more prominent liberal pigs than right-wing men.”
Really? Is this your comparison? Liberal pigs vs right-wing men?
Also, one thing that rarely gets mentioned in the pro-life debate is that the number one cause of death for younger women, before Roe vs Wade, was illegal abortion. This is a public-health issue! And definitely anti woman.
16
I take a huge sigh as I write this, UNLESS YOU HAVE BEEN A VICTIM OF SEXUAL ASSAULT, YOU WILL NEVER REALLY UNDERSTAND WHAT WE AS WOMEN FEEL. Why must we continue to cover up all this ugly behavior by men and boys?
So he did it only once! It never happened again! Why is the victim NEVER taken seriously? Is this so ugly that no one can look at it when it's over? We should be screaming from the roof tops, instead we sit here and are forced to justify ourselves to everyone that we aren't "bad girls" No one ever forgets what it's like being left on the ground covered in spit, semen and their own blood.
33
"In its targets the #MeToo movement has made no partisan distinctions; if anything, it has probably ended the careers of more prominent liberal pigs than right-wing men." Your bias is showing, Mr. Douthat. Why are liberal men "pigs" while right wing men are men? There are many more depraved pigs in the GOP than the Democratic Party. History has shown that. The current crop of rich old white men in the GOP who clearly don't care about or take women's issues seriously, even 27 years after the Anita Hill fiasco, only shows how ossified the GOP really is and how they need to exit stage left.
8
"...the #MeToo movement has...probably ended the careers of more prominent liberal pigs than right-wing men". An interesting choice of adjectives. Surely all abusers, independently of their political ideologies, could be described as pigs.
6
"... it has probably ended the careers of more prominent liberal pigs than right-wing men." Liberals are pigs, right-wingers are men?
13
Ross, why do you refer to liberal males guilty of bad behavior “pigs”, and right wing males of guilty of bad behavior “men”?
9
I have so many problems with the coded wording in this op ed. Liberal pigs vs Republican men? Why are we discussing false allegations which subtly suggest this woman may be lying? The suggestion of false memory? Trauma victims experiences are known to be different than regular memory. The media frenzy around this is exactly why her story is credible. Why risk her reputation and family? Like many of this columnists opinions I find the writing disingenuous and manipulative. He poses as being intellectually rigorous but the subtle shadings are pure misogony.
26
@sleiter1014
"... it has probably ended the careers of more prominent liberal pigs than right-wing men."
I thought the same thing. why make this comment, Ross? It totally undermines your whole premise when you slip in digs at "the other side" when you could just make a "human" case not a party of affiliation case.
2
As disheartening as the last two years have been,it has been extraordinarily instructive to see conservatives come out of their shells and demonstrate who they really are. Seem like an anti women party? You are an anti women party. Seem like the party of racism? You are the party of racism. Seem like the party of the greedy? You are the party of the greedy.
Others may have their "I am Spartacus moment." You all get your "I am Donald" moment.
Oh, and " liberal pigs and Republican men." transparently weak.
24
"...probably ended the careers of more prominent liberal pigs than right-wing men."
Why are liberal's pigs and conservatives men? Douthat cannot even write about liberal and progressive ideology without showing his clear religious conservative bias.
12
Republicans are the dog that caught the car. After winning elections with pandering to the anti-abortion fringe, the Republicans are now, amazingly, going to appoint an accused-attempted rapist to carry this out. What are they thinking? That women will forget that old white men Republicans appointed all five anti-Roe judges, despite the fact that 40% of those judges have dubious personal histories with women’s rights. The GOP has now morphed into the GOwmP, the grand old-white-man party. Why would any woman ever vote Republican, again?
16
Like it or not, the anti-abortion crusade is indelibly linked to:
* the party's vice president who calls his wife "Mother," who has starry eyed notions of Gilead and female-subordination;
* a party's Supreme Court nominee who, more likely than not, attempted to rape an underage girl;
* a "Hugh Hefner" president who has been credibly accused of sexual harassment, groping and even rape by more than 20 women including an ex-wife;
* white supremacists, pro-Trump, whose published doctrine requires women to submit to "incels," wear dresses, stay home, and procreate;
* the party which pilloried Professor Hill in order to get their first rightwing anti-abortion extremist justice
* the party whose very same members (still all male) now propose to sit in judgment of Dr. Blasey
* a party that would control women's procreation and women's bodies, and tell them what they may not do in their own bedrooms;
* the party whose concern for life stops at birth; whose ignorant policies will not stop abortions but rather simply make them into deadly back alley or DIY catastrophes;
* the party of illegal abortion even in cases of rape;
* the party that couldn't care less about character and honesty, in the service of the anti-abortion crusade;
* the party that couldn't care less when its politicians and supporters harass, grope, molest, or rape girls, boys, and women (e.g., Moore, Kavanaugh, Hastert, Jordan, Trump, Thomas).
20
A fetus is NOT a child !
16
There is a reason why our birthday is the day we start counting time in the life of a person. In the womb we are nothing more than a collection of cells under the control of the mother. What she wants to do with those cells is up to her not a bunch of other people who have nothing to do with her.
4
@DSS
Absolutely correct !
In other words, the "feminist" pro-lifers are being outed as no such thing. They marry their anti-abortion agenda to excusing sexual harassment and undercutting penalties for rape, and now that hypocrisy is right out there in the public eye, and ooh, poor them, they won't be able to ban abortion now.
Do you ever listen to yourself, Ross?
15
It’s fascinating that those anti-choice people are the same ones who shout that “Liberals, will have to take their guns away from their cold dead hands!” So basically, they are the only ones whose rights matter!
The anti-choice crowd are the very same people who cry for the unborn and vote for politicians that CUT funding to programs that’s help poor mothers and their children! What hypocrisy!
The same anti-choice crowd who weeps for the unborn, supports the death penalty, is SILENT when our children are massacred in their schools, and turn a blind eye when families are torn apart at our border and children’s are placed in Camps! The hypocrisy is beyond understanding!
Just like the religious types sold their souls and voted for a misogynistic serial adulterer who is suspected of treason, they are attempting to shove another suspected sexual predator down our throats! Their agenda “stop all abortions” is more important than the man’s character or integrity!
I believe Dr. Ford was assaulted sexually by Kavanaugh, he had a choice: he could have spoken the TRUTH said he was sorry and sick over what happened when he was drunk 37 years ago, and apologized sincerely BUT NO he first said “didn’t remember being at the party” and when that didn’t fly he said “he was there’s but it never happened.” His first instinct was to LIE.
Call your congressional representatives tell them to please vote NO on Kavanaugh!
20
Oh, get real, Ross.
You know very well that Roe became a political football when Henry Hyde proposed his "amendment" (not a "Constitutional" amendment, just a budget rider) that no Federal Funds would be used to pay for ANY abortion.
That was because Hyde was a skirt-chasing philanderer who saw that the only control he could have over women was on $$$$.
So he said that those POOR women couldn't have a cent of money made by decent God-fearin' tax-payers.
But who did he leave out, Ross?
That's right.
He left out all the women with $$$$. All they had to do was go to their private doctor and utterly bypass all those women-hating politicians.
$$$$.
That's your "pro-life" folks, Ross.
You never see them picketing outside some 5th Avenue doctor's office, do you?
I sure don't.
And, that's why it is valid to look at the number of children that rich, women-hating, Roe-Hating, Republican Politicians have.
Caveman Kavenaugh only has two.
But he is rabidly anti-Roe.
AND Kav also believes that "birth control is an abortifacient", so that means that his wife can't use that either.
So, do Kav and the Missus practice what they preach? Or, is Roe versus Wade ONLY for the POOR women?
I have never yet seen any Republican howl about RICH WOMEN'S ABORTIONS. It's only the poor. The ones with no $$$$. No car. Renters. Or homeless.
So, let's talk about Henry Hyde's affairs, shall we?
How many did he have?
How many children were made?
And, did the women abort?
So much for the ethics......
16
Feticide. Gimme a break, Ross, with this inflammatory word.
It's forced birth and nothing less. Anti-abortion agitating is 100% anti-woman. You can not give more rights to a fetus than to the woman who is carrying it. You can not force her to give birth, with all the health risks and stress on her body that entails. You can not force her to give birth when it might mean an entire uprooting of her life and goals and well-being. You can not do any of these things if she is considered an equal and viable member of society.
Here's a word for an unwanted fetus: parasite.
19
What I find most interesting is that even Douthat doesn't believe Kavanaugh when he says that Roe is settled law. Douthat sees Kavanaugh as the 5th vote to overturn or amend Roe. As such, Kavanaugh has lied to the committee.
And I always come back to the question, if one is truly against abortion, why is that person not also fiercely in favor of contraception and comprehensive sex education. Evidence has show that these cut down on unwanted pregnancy. When I see pro-lifers who oppose all of these things, I can interpret it no other way but to believe that their goal is control women's bodies, control their sexuality.
25
@Matt S.
Given Kavanaugh's memo that came to light during the hearings, we can conclude that by "settled law" he means "up for grabs."
1
Mr. Douthat, please consider a slightly different stance on abortion: I'm against abortion AND against all laws that restrict it before the final trimester. Abortion may be immoral for all those who value human life, but who is anyone to invade another person's body like that? If you're going to force women to carry pregnancies to term, then you (all pro-lifers, all society) have to take responsibility for that baby's well-being until the child comes of age. That means taxpayer-funded nutrition, health and social services, as well as access to unconditional love (NOT the same as tolerance for bad behavior). Can you guarantee that?
12
Let's start from first principles. If the Equal Protection clause means anything it means the right of a woman not to have others impose their philosophical and religious beliefs on her decisions, especially one so fundamental as whether to give birth to a child.
Second, lets look to privileged entitlement. That has been the essence of Judge Kavanaugh's life. That too is the essence of the mindset of the President who has nominated him and the Senators who seek to railroad his confirmation before a full investigation of the veracity or lack thereof of the allegations against him.
14
Thank you Mr. Douthat for this honest and reasoned assessment. When I read your columns (or watch you being interviewed) I find that you and I do not agree on many issues facing our society, but I always come away with the view that you are honest and candid in your analysis.
You are right about the appropriate outcome. If Ms. Blakely testifies and appears credible, there is no practical choice but to withdraw the Kavanaugh nomination, or vote no. As much as conservatives want to do away with Roe v Wade, to do so under this cloud (with not only Kavanaugh but also Thomas in the majority of such a ruling), would be a grave miscalculation on the part of the conservative movement. While Supreme Court openings are historically rare, available qualified candidates are not. Yes, it is a he said, she said situation. Unless Kavanaugh can say that he never drank while in High School (yet alone to excess), the more reasonable response from him would have been that he does not recall such an incident but if there is any truth at all to the allegations he is deeply sorry. He did not do that. Instead he issued a blanket denial which showed absolutely no empathy for what Ms. Blakely apparently feels she experienced. Under these circumstances, should she testify and appear credible, the country will be better served by the selection of one of the thousands of available other options.
3
Ms. Ford can get some control over what is going to be a tsunami of public exposure by simply telling Grassley and the rest of the Republicans that if they don't want to give her an appropriate amount of notice and opportunity to be heard before their kangaroo court, she won't just go away, never to be heard from again. She won't have any trouble get the nation's undivided attention if she announces she will be giving a speech, or a prepared documentary presentation, of her side of this event.
Then, sit back, and watch what the Republicans - who think they have all the cards - do.
9
Why does Douhat believe Kavanaugh is pro-life?
As a judge he opined that disabled women could be forced to have abortions without their consent.
There is nothing pro-life or pro-choice about forcing women to have abortions.
4
Let's be clear, the anti-abortion is just a facade for control over women's bodies. Abortion has been around longer than the 1960s and before Hugh Hefner stepped into the scene Mr. Douthat. Margaret Sanger saw it in the tenements and the poor women who suffered greatly trying to survive pregnancy after pregnancy. You may want to go read the confessions of an abortionist by Martin Avery published in 1939. The plight of poor women and other women, who were subjected to pregnancies which threatened their lives and for which they had limited resources to sustain, led her for the search for the pill and the birth control device which would eliminate unwanted pregnancies and abortions. Of course, Douthat and the members of the pro-life movement, are also against birth control, so go figure. The GOP has been anti-woman for a long time. It's just becoming more and more difficult for it to hide behind the veneer of respectability. I suppose that is another side effect of having a woman groping man sitting in the Oval Office supported by evangelical Christians.
19
The Kavanaugh affair reminds all of us that rich, white men have nothing at stake in the debate over Roe v. Wade. They have always been able to do what they want sexually because daddy and mummy belong to the same country club as the family doctor (or, in this case, the same pool club). Their rich connections have always enabled them to get out of "trouble" with a whisper and a check. They are able to go to college then law school and then acquire a fast-track (and in this case, overly partisan) career with nary a thought given to their sexual exploits. When the conservatives make abortion illegal again, they will not feel its impact in the slightest.
23
Where were you, Ross, when McConnell would not even hold hearings for Merrick Garland? Wan't he a qualified nominee?
And how about Clarence Thomas - his appointment has always been under a cloud, so maybe he should be impeached?
11
Conservatives are very shrewd at naming their beliefs for political purpose.
Pro-Life is a great fantasy position for hypocrites and warmongers, but Pro American Fetus is a much more accurate description.
8
In the world as is, pro lifers restrict and constrain abortion to women living paycheck to paycheck, not to women of means.
15
Here we go again: "rejects the idea that female liberty depends on a right to kill your unborn child" and "feticide".
To folks like Ross, taking his wording from the world of the celibate older white clergy of the Catholic Church that just paid out tens of millions in the latest payout in NY for molestation of the youngest church members holds no irony. The language around those crimes is vague and obtuse, no responsibility was taken until absolutely forced, the criminals in many cases dying long before victims had a say.
To everyone else, equating fertilized cells with a full grown baby is once again about lying - why? because you still have the power to do so.
13
Anti-abortion is inherently anti-woman.
25
When the president of the US says this morning that, re Dr. Blasey Ford, "I have given her a lot of time," that's a category 5 landing of disrespect. The ladies may have mixed feelings about "choice," "life," and politics, but "I have given her a lot of time" is pride headed for a big fall.
5
Too clever by half: In the first paragraphs "pro-lifers" have evolved over the years into nuanced feminists who believe in the equality of women and men; women who think abortion should be legal and safe are, on a deep level, still dupes of elite WASPs wanting to save "nice girls" from mistakes and the hedonism of Hugh Hefner. Douthat lays on his sophistry and one-sided history and sociology for the rest of this column, but as usual he's basically starting from an ideological first premise and burying it in a snow job. Is the argument too clever? Maybe. But not too honest, or finally convincing.
13
No man has anything to say about this issue that I want to hear or read.
14
While Ross Douthat offers a generally well-balanced opinion piece, he seems to ignore the woman willing to testify. He doesn't seem to offer any sympathy for what she's going through. His focus is solely on the story's effects on the nominee and the pro-life movement.
He also had an unfortunate Freudian slip, referring to "liberal pigs" and "right wing men." So Al Franken is a pig, but Roy Moore is a man?
Lastly, the pro-life movement, while supposedly about the rights of unborn children, seems to care very little for them after they're born. Most Republican policies cut support for women and children's program, which especially hits lower income people the hardest. Yet Douthatclaims abortion was created by the elites to control the poor. The modern pro-life movement should be susceptible to the same criticism.
16
It really is too bad that someone can't come back from the dead, stand up to the microphone and put to rest the belief that an omniscient, all-powerful big "G" god exists is just plain not true.
Religion, at least that of the Christian persuasion, has been since the inception of the Catholic Church, about the subjugation of womankind. For millennia women had no place in the church other than to be baby producers. If you didn't want to have babies, well, then, the church was happy to accommodate you...just get thee to a nunnery, and fend off the priests and monks.
Roe v. Wade was, as much as anything, about freedom FROM religion, a concept as essential to the DNA of American democracy as is freedom OF religion. Freedom is the first thing everyone, men as well as women, will surrender if a Supreme Court packed with Kavanaughs voids Roe v. Wade. Theocracy will loom as the future of American governance, and theocracy is not democracy.
15
A second sensible conclusion in an opinion by Mr. Douthat.
You can't violate women in the ways that you want to and not be "anti-women." Controlling women's sexual and reproductive lives is a violent act. You can spin and twist and whisper sweet lies into your own ear but there really is no way to make your position any less cruel and misogynistic.
23
Please, Mr. Douthat ... pro-birth, not pro-life.
Our GOP legislature here in NC is solidly pro-birth, but, as for being "pro" regarding the actual lives of the NC citizenry (education, health care, social services, etc.), not so much.
26
This is an interesting and persuasive column, leading to an obvious point: Amy Barrett or Joan Larsen.
Both are Trump appointees to the federal bench, either would be confirmed without controversy, both received some votes from Democrats (Larsen more).
Trump is obviously eager to get Kavanaugh because of his extraordinarily expansive view of presidential power and prerogatives.
Religious conservatives should think very hard indeed about expanding the powers of the presidency. That is nearly certain to boomerang badly, in very short order.
The religious right is doing itself untold damage by continuing to back Trump, refusing to acknowledge that he is the most spectacularly unchristian man in the office in American history. By doing this the Christian right is forfeiting all claim to morals, proving to everyone that morals are a charade and only for others.
And coupling a campaign against abortion to men who sexually assault women is unspeakable.
22
@Lee Harrison I wish I thought either of them would be confirmed "without controversy," but I fear their confirmation hearings would feature similarly disgraceful spectacles by Democratic senators, especially Sen. "The dogma lives loudly within you" Feinstein, and Sens. Collins and Murkowski would refuse to support them.
@LEM -- every Republican voted for both of them. Many Democrats voted for Larsen; only Manchin and Donelly voted for Barrett.
It should come as no surprise that the next Supreme Court justice will work to strictly limit, narrow or outright overturn Roe. The Federalist Society has played a long game in developing and promoting judges with this point of view and is now poised with GOP in control of the executive and Congress to stock the court with their picks. Their bench (pun intended) is deep with many possible candidates. This is the reality...Roe will soon be functionally dead for now. But that is not the reason to torpedo Kavanaugh's candidacy. He was chosen - out of all the other pro-life leaning potentials - specifically for his views about the President exempt from adherence to the laws of the land. Not one citizen among many but subject to a different and consequence-free status with regard to the laws of our land. That his behavior 30 yrs ago was piggish, boorish and if not crossed then fully nudged the legal line is indicative of a whole mindset that gives a pass to similar recurrent behaviors (in spheressexual,civil and commercial) from Donald Trump throughout his life.
Republicans! Withdraw this unsatisfactory candidate and go to your bench!
Surely you can find a jurist who, though conservative, holds the sanctity of the law paramount and who recognizes that without equal status of all before the justice system - from traffic court the our highest court - one of the fundaments of our Republic is destroyed.
7
There is no "pro-woman" anti-abortion stance. Ross Douthat is engaged in a fantasy here. Overturning Roe will have one effect and one only: stripping from women the right to control their own bodies.
It should be noted that the rights of US citizenship begin when one is born. The "unborn" do not have any rights under our Constitution. If religious people wish to believe that the unborn have "souls" that is their choice, but there is nothing in the Constitution to support civic rights before birth.
Adult women who are US citizens, however, should and do have the right to decide how to use their own bodies under our Constitution, according to Roe. To host a fetus that will grow into an infant, then be born, is a commitment that involves sacrifice of one's own interests. No woman who does not wish to host a new life should ever be forced to do so.
That our Supreme Court is on the brink of overturning Roe is a vile and disgusting result of the religious take-over of US politics. It will result in untold suffering for women.
27
I really do not care what teenager Bret did or didn't do. These accusations merely shine a light on a powerful man without moral compass, similar to the man temporarily residing in the White House. The Republicans who spent a year ignoring a qualified and moderate nominee are now rushing through a very qualified but radically partisan one who seems to have a challenging relationship with the truth, just like the man who nominated him. Of course they are, because if they wait the electorate may not give them another opportunity. The Democrats are playing politics too, without a doubt. Without the institutional power to resist, they are making their case in the court of public opinion where they do hold sway. However none of this really matters, only Lisa Murkowski who finds herself on a very hot seat. So far she has ignored her pro-choice inclinations, but can she ignore her influential Native American supporterswho are deadset against confirmation? As Murkowski goes, so will Cowardly Collins. And that folks is the whole ball game.
10
@Chuck Burton yes, Democrats are playing politics. Remember, Merrick Garland?! I say to Democrats play and play hard!
5
It's worth stepping back. In most species, and probably in pre-agricultural humans, female choice governs mating. The female has control over which male impregnates her. This makes sense, since she's responsible for carrying the offspring. Males can impregnate many times, females few. This makes them selective, which is important. As Darwin noted, natural selection is mostly mating choice, which produces the next generation. Female choice is selective.
Zoom back into today's debates. They haven't changed for 2,000 years. Some ancient Greeks, some ancient Romans, believed a tiny person exists at conception. Others thought the dividing line was in the 2nd, 3rd, or 4th month. It's worth remembering that by week 10, the embryo is the size of a grape. It's neural cells are clumps with less organization than a worm's.
But all the philosophers were men, and they spoke from agricultural societies. Kids were beasts of burden, women became baby-makers, they lost their power to select.
We left farms 100 years ago. Things change slowly, but female choice is reemerging. It makes sense. In other species the female can "abort" without aid. People can't, so abortion is needed. Some men despise what this implies, namely that it's not their choice who the next generation will be. Don't worry, guys. If you're nice, you'll get selected. Naturally.
6
The GoP confirms it is groper friendly. Noteworthy enough to crowd out the real news--that there are not 2 GoP Senators with the scruples and integrity to refuse to vote for Kavanaugh until the National Archives takes over document selection, the 100,000 pages are reviewed and handed over and time is provided to review the 140,000 pages of properly redacted documents. It's a matter of refusing to make a mockery of Democracy. BUT NOT ONE GOP SENATOR STOOD UP FOR MINORITY RIGHTS PRECEDENT, DOING WHAT IS RIGHT! Takeaway?--the GoP is morally bankrupt.
And why are Trump and the GoP not piling on Ford? Because the case, without proper investigation, turns into a classic "He said, She said" with Ford and America losing out. A "mistaken identity" explanation is even making the rounds. Did Kavanaugh and Judge go to the same high school, live in the same community as Ford who is a psychologist and well aware of who assaulted her? She is not mistaken identity. This is truth. As a former Harassment Adviser at a huge organization there is a clear prima facie case that NOBODY brings such a charge given the consequences unless it is true.
Did Ford tell friends one wonders? Keep a diary? Tell a psychologist or counselor (she did). An investigation would clarify and show that the process is working unlike the Anita Hill case when women lined up to testify against Clarence Thomas but were denied a hearing.
GoP, IS IT SO DIFFICULT TO DO WHAT'S RIGHT FOR AMERICA?!!
17
Judge Kavanaugh has stated that semi-automatic weapons have become so common since the ban on them lapsed in 2004, that they cannot be regulated. That means that mass shootings will continue, enabled by this clueless protected new guy on the SCOTUS. He is in favor of enabling violent maiming and death as long as the NRA (which has invested one million dollars to advocate for him on public media) profits from the sale of the murder weapon.
Kavanaugh is NOT pro-life.
30
"From the beginning of the modern anti-abortion movement ...it has included female leaders who identify as pro-life feminists..."
A claim I've never heard before, made without giving a single name as example. Dismissed as obvious propaganda.
And as for Jon Shields, he's as right wing a professor as you could find anywhere. Is his "clear majority of pro-lifers" statement based on a poll? Is that poll publicly available anywhere? I would bet a year's salary that if it was based on a poll, his interpretation was as skewed as possible.
Luker is entirely correct. While there may be a few fuzzy outlines, the pro-life movement largely consists of people who want women to submit to male control, and they want the force of the state to support their minority religious view.
12
The Kavanaugh mess isn’t about what he deserves.
It is about what America deserves!
What do Americans deserve when a lifelong appointment to the highest court in the land, where the judges are to be of the finest minds, judgments and characters?
If there is even any question whether a candidate is everything WE deserve, then take a pass and appoint someone else.
Scrutiny of a candidate for the Supreme Court is much different than the rights one has in a guilty vs. innocent trial. Any question at all of competence OR character means we need to move on to the next great legal scholar and practitioner who would be a stellar candidate.
12
Well said, Mr. Douthat. I am a Catholic liberal Democrat who believes that abortion is only morally acceptable in limited circumstances, i.e., rape, serious health threat to the mother, or the suffering of a severely compromised fetus. At the same time, I am NOT willing to impose MY beliefs on every other woman in America. Although I respect the passion of my pro-life female friends, I am amazed and saddened by the the fact that they feel that in order to protect the unborn, they will have to "suck it up" and elect men that consistently excuse the abuse of women. Let us teach all men to respect the women they desire, and to take equal responsibility in preventing pregnancies neither of them is prepared to deal with. That is the true path to reducing the number of abortions in this country.
616
@Motherboard well said! Exactly, I may not choose to have an abortion but I will not shove my values or beliefs down the throats of those who do not share them.
4
@Motherboard Years ago, my position on the abortion issue was much like yours. But then, during a presidential debate, Michael Dukakis (remember him?) pointed out that most people agree that there should be exceptions to a total ban on abortions such as the ones you mention (rape, the health of the mother, a fetus that will not be able to survive). He also mentioned incest, I believe, which is another exception that many people agree with. And then he said something like this: "Who decides? I think it should be the woman."
I have never been comfortable with the idea of abortion used as a form of birth control, but I think Dukakis got it right. The woman should be the one to make this momentous decision, not the government. And I totally agree that the way to decrease the number of abortions is to make birth control a responsibility of both the man and the woman, and to make it easy to obtain as well.
9
@Motherboard Best response I've heard in a LONG time.
Liberal gropers are termed pigs, but accused RWers are men?! Seriously?
19
Liberal pigs vs right wing men???? Really didn’t need to read any further....
17
Liberal pigs? Right to kill the unborn child? In other words, Mr. Douthat, you want Ms Amy Coney Barrett nominated. Why not just say so instead of once again immersing yourself in all this hyperbolic claptrap?
13
I am so sick of the anti-all-abortions crowd calling itself "pro-life."
An anti-all-abortions stance too often goes along with a passionate love of guns, enthusiasm for any and all military interventions, a desire to cut the social safety net that many single mothers depend on, opposition to raising the minimum wage, and a tendency to slut-shame sexually active unmarried woman while excusing the predatory exploits of immoral men.
I can respect anti-all-abortions people who are part of the "seamless" pro-life movement. That is, they also oppose war and capital punishment and promote a strong social safety net for the already-born.
The rest set up a Catch-22: No accurate sex education, difficulty in obtaining birth control, no access to abortion, no social support if you do have a baby, slut-shaming if you're not married (and "Why did you have a child if you can't afford it?" if you are), no obligation for your employer to provide paid family leave, being called a "welfare mother" if you're on welfare, food assistance, and Medicaid; being called "neglectful" if you work two jobs to just to survive, now that you no longer qualify for the safety net.
(Interestingly, right-wing ideologues want affluent women to stay home and take care of their children, while demanding that poor women work however many jobs it takes to make ends meet.)
The right-wing apparently thinks that all poor people should be life-long virgins.
27
Please use Professor Blakey Ford’s name in your article. She is not anonymous.
11
Why say liberal pigs and right-wing men? You need to label all predators with the same term.
16
"Liberal Pigs and Right Wing Men" Lost me right away. This rant is more suited to FOX than the Grey Lady. Are there any civil right wingers out there?
25
@Ken Okin not when it comes to abortion. Mention abortion and Conservatives go ballistic!
at least the "liberal pigs" have a conscience and step down.
21
This is Douthat's convoluted way of saying he thinks it is time to dump Kavanaugh and move on to Amy Coney Barrett.
13
I read this in the wake of yesterday's give and take between Mr Douthat and Frank Bruni. In that piece, Mr Douthat made it clear that his interest in this lies not with whether Kavanaugh is fit to sit on SCOTUS or whether the accusations against him are viable, but rather with what his confirmation would mean to the Republican party as a whole. His conclusion, then and again in this column, is that Kavanaugh's confirmation would brand the Republican Party as anti-woman, and therefore his nomination should be withdrawn.
While this would seem to reduce the equation down its essential part, Mr Douthat left out of this column something he mentioned in yesterday's --- that the withdrawal of Kavanaugh would open the door for the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett, a nominee whose views on abortion make Kavanaugh look like a pro-choice marcher, and whose nomination he hints at without mentioning her by name. Anyone who has read Mr Douthat's columns over the years knows he is squarely beside Coney Barrett in this; even his choice of language in this column reflects this --- "killing of the unborn", "feticide".
So, while I admire his well thought out presentation of the case against Kavanaugh, there is, to paraphrase Mr Douthat, a "strong whiff of self-interest" here, in that the withdrawal of Kavanaugh would be a dream come true for him, and not just because it would save the Republican Party from being the anti-woman party.
5
@Jim -- your points show the obvious: Trump did not pick Kavanaugh as the strongest pro-life nominee, the frank truth of the matter is that he's pro-abortion -- he was for all his younger years and his recent apparent "conversion" on the issue is as unbelievable as "it was just locker room talk."
Trump picked Kavanaugh because he's the most pro-Trump nominee.
2
Just one question. Why did Mr. Doughat call liberal men pigs and right wing men men?
17
"The restraint of women’s choices, the restriction of their sexual freedom, their subordination to the rule of fathers and husbands and patriarchy writ large."
I must disagree with the author's assertions of complexity regarding the pro-life movement's restraint of choice and sexual freedoms, primarily of women, but really of everyone. It's not complicated at all.
Abortion itself receives attention for obvious reasons, but it is important to recognize that it is but ONE of the many, many examples of attempts to legislate spiritual/religious beliefs into secular law. While INDIVIDUALS within the pro-life movement may genuinely believe abortion is murder, the extremely wide net cast by religious groups in general tells another story.
One would think that being anti-abortion would make a group pro-contraception, but one would be largely wrong. And even if abstinent, from interfaith to interracial to same sex prohibitions, the Christian right has historically tried to dictate who may marry (and who may be a couple at ALL). They have made past attempts to legislate which children are "legitimate" or "illegitimate." That's not to mention the laws about approved bedroom activity.
These are the kinds of groups that have tried to dictate how a woman may dress, whether alcohol may be sold on Sundays, the content of scientific textbooks, whether a person wishing to die must be forced to live (and vice-versa)... it is about control of life, not its preservation.
15
There is no pro-life movement. There’s a pro-fetus or pro-zygote.
Life doesn’t end at birth. If it were pro-life we would get rid of the 2nd Amendment, we would have free health care for all, eliminate the death sentence, and the list goes on and on.
18
I might agree with Mr. Douthat if the pro-life movement wasn't also anti-birth control and so unwilling to help women prevent unwanted pregnancies. Calling all forms of birth control as abortion inducing as Judge Kavanaugh did is scientifically incorrect and clearly indicates where he stands not only on abortion but more importantly birth control and womens health and role in society.
Pro-Life advocates need to stop using the Little Sisters of the Poor, who are not a group of five or six "little sisters" but a large Catholic organization with many employees and recipients of health insurance and health care. Using them as a means to fight widespread availability of contraception also tells the real agenda for the conservative legislatures and justices.
As for the accusations against Judge Kavanaugh, I'm fairly certain that their are many high school girls and former high school girls that can tell of similar experiences and that there are many high school boys and former high school boys that have erased theses experiences from their memories.
I would sympathize with Judge Kavanaugh if the accusations prove untrue, but I believe either way he would do the country a service by withdrawing from consideration. He should recognize that his own aspirations are not more important than the country's need to have a justice that at least has the confidence of the country on the way in.
6
Just tell me one thing - how on earth can we let a man like this decide the most critical of women's rights? Her right to privacy, her right to control her own body, her right to be healthy? How can we sit back while a man like this outlaws safe abortions for decades, and inevitably, chips away at birth control methods and access? It's just sickening. Truly sickening.
19
Oh man. LOL. See, it's just that most people aren't so easily "persuaded" on issues of reproductive rights. It's not something we should be trying to "persuade" people on. That's gross. And if you're pro-choice, this is the backbone of the argument. No persuasion necessary. But, if you're against reproductive choice, then you are against bodily autonomy, and you've made up your mind–despite widespread evidence, realism and pragmatism in the world. But you've GOT to keep telling yourself that you can hold these opinions and still be "pro-woman", and so you make up some story about whatever that means to you. Some people will use flimsy rhetoric like old-tymey sex, gender and class roles, and the "certain style of predatory male feminism". LOL.
3
attempted rape is a crime. it is one in a long line of violations of a woman's body and her basic civil rights that includes forced pregnancy. reproductive freedom is a foundational civil right for women. violation of women's bodies -- attempted rape, forced pregnancy -- is republican policy.
5
@true patriot "Forced pregnancy"? How so? "Forced pregnancy" must come with "forced sex." Are women forced to have sex and procreate? If so, this is a crime, and the law must know it immediately and act against it with all the force necessary. But this is not the case with the millions of negligent pregnancies in this country, is it?
@Eduard C Hanganu:
//"Forced pregnancy" must come with "forced sex."//
Um, no. If my birth control method fails in the course of freely agreed-to sexual congress, I am going to avail myself of my civil, human, and Constitutional rights in order to not remain pregnant. Anyone who attempts to interfere with my free exercise of those rights is advocating forced pregnancy. Gestational slavery is cruel and inhuman torture.
1
The so-called pro-lifers are a bunch of cowards and moral despicables, so I don't see how this is dangerous for them. I would bet Mr. Douthat a million dollars that they will have no trouble supporting Kavanaugh and just ignoring the accuser. Every single one of them had already decided to do so.
11
This is what's wrong with the Religious Right. Douthat fails to recognize that "repealing Roe" is, in fact, anti-woman.
16
Quite simply there should be an FBI investigation of the allegations against Kavanaugh. I believe Dr. Ford. When I put down the Wa Po account on Saturday, buried recollections of a similar situation in my life came front and center in my mind and details were revived. I googled the man, and found that he had run for Congress as a Republican in 2010.
If there were an FBI investigation, Kavanaugh would withdraw from consideration. Such an investigation would force Kavanaugh, a sitting Federal Judge, to choose between possibly lying to the FBI in maintaining his denial, a crime. He risks someone else coming forward about this incident or perhaps another. There is corroboration in Judge’s book concerning Kavanaugh ‘s high school drinking.
Kavanaugh and Mitch McConnell know the risk and will avoid FBI involvement at all costs. White male privilege assaults Dr. Ford again.
8
But the party *is* anti-woman. The only question is whether it will publicly demonstrate that once again, in a manner that (perhaps) makes it more difficult to deny.
Have we already forgotten that Donald Trump -- a man who's admitted to sexual assault and regularly expresses his contempt for women -- is the leader of the party?
I'm hopeful that the GOP won't be able to win female votes for as long as Trump's enablers remain in office. The party doesn't deserve it.
10
Attempting to be pro women and at the same time telling them that others have power over their bodies is ludicrous.
26
This column will seem very ironic -laughable, really -to women, but I'm glad that it has finally dawned on you that the GOP's problems with women have reached a fever pitch. And since you're an intelligent conservative male, perhaps you can persuade some other conservative males to think outside of the
conservative male box.
it's also interesting that you admitted that the #metoo movement has been non-partisan in its "toppling" of both liberal and conservative sexual assaulters and/or harassers.
But it was more than interesting that you called the liberal sexual assaulters/harassers "liberal pigs," and the conservative sexual assaulters/harassers "right-wing men."
It was also fascinating that you feel college campuses have gone too far in "traducing" the rights of the male accused, but you made no note that female accusers have been treated like dirt by college administrations until only VERY recently, and then only after they were forced.
Finally, you suggest that Dr. Ford is waffling about testifying. No, she has made the decision to testify AFTER she has been accorded the standard due process of a targeted FBI investigation (not a background check).
Even Senator Corker and Flake have indicated that she must testify on Monday - so that they can hold the confirmation vote ASAP.
While I'm relieved a few things are dawning on you, mr. Douthat, you and the GOP still do not get it. You all think that the GOP is in control of Dr. Ford's testimony.
15
Your message, Ross, is that the real goal is repeal of Roe v. Wade. Anyone is indispensable to achieve it. Any tactic is acceptable.
I wonder whether we have reached bottom. It feels like it, but every time come to that conclusion the right digs the hole even deeper.
BTW, this is not a defense of Kavanaugh. That is a separate issue. If the charge is plausible, he, of course, has to go. But a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court cannot hang on a single issue, except for the reactionary right.
3
The actual beginning goes much farther back than stated here. Margaret Sanger opened the first clinic in the US in 1916, four years before women could vote, where women could obtain both contraception and reproductive information. Predictably Sanger was arrested, but her continuing work led to the founding of Planned Parenthood. The very idea that women would have some voice in their reproductive years had been largely missing until Sanger and other brave women risked their lives to state it plainly. The 19th Amendment following closely behind was no coincidence.
9
A dilemma that is very sad, but just delicious for those of us who have watched Conservatives and family values folks, twist and turn when caught in the net of sexual assault.
The really sad part, though is that this kind of assault is not a partisan matter. It is a human matter that involves women and men of all ages and political parties, religions and economic status. It relates to hormones, human relationships and the worth of individuals caught in a trap of desire and immediate gratification or, more likely - control.
3
Yeah!
"more prominent liberal pigs than right-wing men"
That's rather unsymmetrical of you.
17
The cause is anti-woman - telling a woman she can't have control over her bodily autonomy is nothing but that.
The party is anti-woman - the fact that this process is going the way it is, with Dr. Ford being alternatively slandered or dismissed out of hand, should be all the proof we need of that.
What neither the cause nor the party is is "pro-life" - not when this attempt to roll back womens' bodily autonomy is being paired with attempts to cut back on education, health care, nutrition, and however many other programs that are crucial to not only protecting lives, but ensuring they can be lived to their fullest potential.
Never have been, never will be.
10
@Zach Nonsense. "No man [human] is an island. My autonomy ends where your rights begin. And children have rights, too.
@Eduard C Hanganu:
//children have rights, too//
And all children, everywhere, have already been born. Rights accrue at BIRTH.
1
It would be possible to imagine that the GOP-linked pro-life movement actually cared about fetuses and their mothers except that they also oppose contraception and, even more strange, sex education. They are really about subjugating women to the demands of motherhood if they want to have sex lives or get matched to men who want them to have sex lives. The irony, of course, is that most of the opponents of contraception seem to use it - you don’t see all that many families anymore with six or seven or eight kids and women who are used up by the time they hit 30. So I guess it’s contraception and a good sex life for me, and a woman in my life who can make career decisions or otherwise control her life, but sorry, not so much for you, especially if you’re poor.
17
Writing this comment feels terrible for an older, white-male Democrat who is very supportive of empowering women, very outraged by sexual imposition of women in any setting, very pro-choice, very opposed to the cruel and dishonest authoritarianism of Donald Trump and Brett Kavanaugh, very angry at the high-handed decisions of Orrin Hatch, Chuck Grassley and Mitch McConnell to rush through the Kavanaugh confirmation without granting Democrats access to important documents.
It is also extremely difficult to write this comment, when one is very sure that Kavanaugh has lied on several occasions in this and prior Judiciary Committee Hearings.
That being said, it would be a lot easier if Dr. Christine Blasey Ford were not in the picture.
Those of us who will go to our graves without being able to look at the face of Joe Biden without disgust for his treachery against Anita Hill and the nation in the Clarence Thomas confirmation find it particularly difficult to wish Dr. Ford were not a factor.
But, she is a factor, and she deserves not only a fair hearing, but also a fair investigation before that hearing of Judge Kavanaugh and of Kavanaugh’s witnesses.
220
@sdw FBI investigation first...........then if Kavanaugh is still standing...........as well as his buddy Mark Judge.........then a hearing. If Kavanaugh is so innocent, I would think that he'd want his named cleared...wouldn't you?
3
@Julie
I agree completely, and that is what my comment urges. By the way, Julie, I admire you for speaking out in Boise, which strikes me as being much braver than saying the same thing in Cleveland.
@sdw:Oh really prove the honorable Judge has lied but we know you can't right?. How come first it was a public hearing Democrats wanted now when the Republicans said yes they want a FBI investigation first. You enjoy spreading spreading stuff like the Judge now is part of a 'cruel and dishonest authoritarianism'?. I believe Trump is President and he has the right to select his nominee not the defeated Democrats and yes denial of the Garland nomination was very wrong.
I understand the "Pro-Life" stance. It's horrible, the thought of any life being cut short. However, being a Christian, I take issue with the Pro-Lifers overall agenda.
I have often said, if the Pro-Lifer's would adopt and care for every child born in to this world who was unwanted or unloved, I would support their cause. But the truth is, Pro-Lifers only pretend to do God's work, without dealing with the devastating aftermath of their righteous decisions.
Women are not second class citizens. God loves all his children equally. God wants women to rise, to succeed, to have the strength to stand on their own. God gave us a voice to be heard. We need to speak loudly, so that the world hears us clearly. "I am female. I have a right to choose".
Kavanaugh is the Republican Party's golden egg. That's why they are wiling to push his nomination through for the Supreme Court without allowing due process to occur. The Republican Party wants to move the female's rights to choose. It's their end goal.
6
To suggest the current GOP isn't anti-woman seems to be pretty laughable.
10
Do prolifers believe abortions will actually dissappear if Roe is overturened?
Find a Dr. or nurse from pre Roe, have them tell you what they saw and had to do. Bringing back coathanger abortions is not an alternative.
16
@Gerald Marantz Yes, wealthy women will fly to another town or country, poor women will choose an unhealthy way to abort and maybe die or be harmed for life, or she will be forced to bear the child with all the attendant burdens that she sought to avoid - for reasons that no one but the mother has any right to decide or control.
6
Since it was formed in 1982, the Federalist Society has had an outsize influence on the selection of judges in the United States. Clarence Thomas, the centerpiece of the 1991 Anita Hill testimony was an early triumph of the Federalist Society.
Today, all of the Supreme Court's conservative justices — Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, and Chief Justice John Roberts — have been members.
To see more of their influence, do a search using the phrase "Federalist Society" and Judicial. (The double quotes are important as they narrow the search to contain those two words together. Google counts about 511,000 results).
Judges should approach their job with a mind uncluttered by any ideology. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court is becoming a rubber-stamp arm of the Federalist Society.
12
I strongly question Douthat's assessment that the "pro-life" movement has any interest in lifting up women. Just look at what the Evangelicals are doing to their leading female figure, Beth Moore, as she speaks mildly against male abuse, garnering harsh criticism and dramatically losing audience.
It's the same old story: the Republican commentariat indulges itself in fantasies of a Party of principle and willingness to engage with modern life.
In reality, conservatives seek the level of control needed to achieve goals that are not popular or broadly just -- i.e., tax cuts for the rich, de-regulation of pollution controls for air and water, de-funding of healthcare, and restrictions on women's bodies and lives.
As Douthat acknowledges, the "pro-life" movement took political life BEFORE Roe v Wade. It was born with the spread of effective birth control because accessible contraception dramatically diminished the power of men to control the lives of women.
The privileging of "the unborn" will never be anything but an attempt to return to pre-contraception times and once again control women..
6