On the other hand, the rare program that can devote a half hour (or 21 minutes or so after the ads) to a single subject is one that has a better shot at moving beyond sound bites and practiced talking points. “This is not television for people with ADD,” Jaco says. He often splits the time among multiple guests, but thought that in a significant Senate race like this one, it might be good to give Akin the whole program and hope for some valuable insights. He was right.
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Sort of reminds me of Emily Bazelon's softball interview with Ruth Bader Ginsburg when Ginsberg mused, quite “frankly”, on the eugenic rational of abortion because it would suppress “populations that we don't want to have too many of”. Like Jaco’s interview with Akin, there was no follow up but unlike Akin there was no march to the pillory for Ginsburg … let alone so much as a peep outside the conservative media.
I wonder what the difference is ………. hmmmmmmm
#1 Posted by Mike H, CJR on Thu 23 Aug 2012 at 02:34 PM
You don't get an 8 or 8.5 for phoning it in, regardless of what you've done in the past. None of Jaco's excuses justify letting a member of Congress say something so factually incorrect. Frankly, it's more likely to me that since it was an abortion question, Jaco wasn't really listening to the answer.
#2 Posted by SC Stickley, CJR on Thu 23 Aug 2012 at 04:16 PM
"I wonder what the difference is …"
Well, there was this:
http://m.jezebel.com/5311192/justice-ginsburg-eugenics--feminist-criticism-of-planned-parenthood
"I asked Emily Bazelon about it, and she said:
The main thing I'd say about this is that it was clear that when Justice Ginsburg said "we," when she was talking about populations that we don't want to have too many of (you can get the exact quote from the piece), she meant some people in the world, not herself or a group that she feels a part of. That's not how she sees the world, as you I'm sure know. Her point was about other people's conception of who they thought should be encouraged to have children and who shouldn't be, not her own.
In other words, Bazelon is saying the we should have been in quotes, like this:
Frankly I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that "we" don't want to have too many of."
Who comprises that "we"? Well, it's hard to tell, but I think I have a clue:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,195193,00.html
#3 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Thu 23 Aug 2012 at 05:40 PM
In other words, Bazelon is saying the we should have been in quotes, like this:
WHEW!! Thanks for clearing that up ... its nice to know Bazelon is a clairvoyant.
#4 Posted by Mike H, CJR on Thu 23 Aug 2012 at 05:59 PM
I'm glad to read part of this backstory. As a city editor for a daily newspaper, my first thought (after WHAT did he say?!) was: Where's the follow-up question? How was the reporter allowed to get away with just leaving the statement without an "Ahem, what's your definition of legitimate rape? Rape is a crime -- how can any part of it be 'legitimate'? "What doctors told you this?" And on and on.
#5 Posted by Rhonda, CJR on Thu 23 Aug 2012 at 06:00 PM
Akin is all for repealing the 17th Amendment? Oh my! If that were to happen, then all those New York banks and Virginia arms-manufacturers wouldn't be able to buy senators in Texas and Kansas! We can't have that! Power to "the people"!
#6 Posted by Dan A., CJR on Thu 23 Aug 2012 at 06:20 PM
" its nice to know Bazelon is a clairvoyant"
Well she did have the benefit of being in the room at the time. Also in the article mentioned, she defended not only the choice of poor women to abort, but career women to choose to have babies.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/12/magazine/12ginsburg-t.html?pagewanted=all
"Q: Let me ask you about the fight you waged for the courts to understand that pregnancy discrimination is a form of sex discrimination.
JUSTICE GINSBURG: I wrote about it a number of times. I litigated Captain Struck’s case about reproductive choice. [In 1972, Ginsburg represented Capt. Susan Struck, who became pregnant during her service in the Air Force. At the time, the Air Force automatically discharged any woman who became pregnant and told Captain Struck that she should have an abortion if she wanted to keep her job. The government changed the regulation before the Supreme Court could decide the case.] If the court could have seen Susan Struck’s case — this was the U.S. government, a U.S. Air Force post, offering abortions, in 1971, two years before Roe.
Q: And suggesting an abortion as the solution to Struck’s problem.
JUSTICE GINSBURG: Yes. Not only that, but it was available to her on the base."
She mentioned how current movements in law were restricting choice for poor people not 'women of means'
"JUSTICE GINSBURG: Reproductive choice has to be straightened out. There will never be a woman of means without choice anymore... So we have a policy that affects only poor women, and it can never be otherwise, and I don’t know why this hasn’t been said more often."
Then she got into the discussion of how policy might swerve in a way to make the choice not only available to poor people (through Medicare funding) but that there was the danger that the government might make the choice:
"JUSTICE GINSBURG: Yes, the ruling about that surprised me. [Harris v. McRae — in 1980 the court upheld the Hyde Amendment, which forbids the use of Medicaid for abortions.] Frankly I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don’t want to have too many of. So that Roe was going to be then set up for Medicaid funding for abortion. Which some people felt would risk coercing women into having abortions when they didn’t really want them. But when the court decided McRae, the case came out the other way. And then I realized that my perception of it had been altogether wrong."
And what's Ginsburg's position on that?
"Q: When you say that reproductive rights need to be straightened out, what do you mean?
JUSTICE GINSBURG: The basic thing is that the government has no business making that choice for a woman."
And she reaffirms that sentiment here.
http://www.ontheissues.org/Court/Ruth_Bader_Ginsburg_Abortion.htm
Her position on autonomy and the state sure doesn't seem to resonate with an "OMG Eugenics!" position.
#7 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Thu 23 Aug 2012 at 07:09 PM
More discussion on that topic yonder:
http://m.jezebel.com/5747880/debunking-the-myths-about-race-and-abortion
#8 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Thu 23 Aug 2012 at 07:12 PM
Well she did have the benefit of being in the room at the time.
Of course thats all there was to it.
Also in the article mentioned, she defended not only the choice of poor women to abort, but career women to choose to have babies.
Naturally ... after all, poor women are part of those "populations that we don't want to have too many of".
#9 Posted by Mike H, CJR on Fri 24 Aug 2012 at 09:38 AM
"JUSTICE GINSBURG: The basic thing is that the government has no business making that choice for a woman."
You aren't going to be a good eugenicist while your priority is to uphold the autonomy of all women over their reproductive choices. If you are a good eugenicist, you claim that some people need to have their choices made for them for the greater societal good. You don't want the wrong people making the wrong choices.
Which is basically the approach conservatives have taken to the franchise. If you want to see people using the language of good populations and bad populations, look to the voter integrity movement. 'We' don't want 'those' populations voting. Therefore 'we' are going to gerrymander, supress, and purge the voter rolls because those people are taking all the good welfare from real americans.
Perhaps it should be called a eu-ballots program, only the good ballots count.
Of course, the outrage over this issue is pretty muted, though it's been a serious election integrity problem since Bush v Gore. Oh if only 'we' could return to the days when poll taxes, literacy tests, and gender discrimination were an accepted part of the process.
#10 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Fri 24 Aug 2012 at 03:17 PM
And let's get back to the original issue, why do conservatives have so much problem with female autonomy over their own bodies that they consistently object to the most basic choices a woman should have over her reproductive mechanisms?
And the basic reason boils down to the old definition of women as property which men are 'husband' over.
http://coreyrobin.com/2012/02/20/once-probed-always-probed/
"Whether he’s serious or not, Cowen’s tweet suggests that when it comes to the specifics of women’s autonomy—not generic autonomy, but women’s autonomy—he doesn’t quite get it. And in not getting it, as I suggested in my post on Mises, he shows that his is not a project of universal liberty."
http://coreyrobin.com/2012/02/15/love-for-sale-birth-control-from-marx-to-mises/
"Mises was not in favor of women’s sexual autonomy; nor, for that matter, was he in favor of other kinds of autonomy that would free women from the dominion of their husbands...
Thus the relations between the sexes are no longer influenced by social and economic conditions….The family disappears and society is confronted with separate individuals only. Choice in love becomes completely free."
You see conservatism speaks a lot about economic freedom but requires other forms of control to enforce social order. Women's autnomy over their reproductive process threatens the control of masters/husbands over the family structure, just as labor/environmental/civil rights law threatens an owner's dominion of their business. Therefore, birth control/abortion cannot be justified.
That is the mindset of conservatives. Reproductive freedom is an unjustified threat to the husband's family dominion, therefore cannot be legitimate. "So even in cases of rape, when a woman's self - her most sacred property - has been tresspassed upon, you can't allow her a choice in how that violation impacts her life?"
And the conservative's answer is no. Why? Because the conservative runs into the dissonance resulting from
a violation of an individual's property (her self) that ought to be rectified
in order to rectify that violation you legitimize a procedure which threatens family dominion
To resolve that dissonance, the conservative has to claim that the violation is illegitimate. If your rape results in pregnancy, it must not have been real rape.
Order must be maintained.
This is the same approach they use with economics, climate change, the origins of the earth and its spiecies, etc... the facts refuse to resolve smoothly within the worldview. Therefore, since the worldview cannot be challenged, the facts must be wrong.
Order must be maintained.
Fine and good, be that way... But do you see why it is so irresponsible to let people like this populate positions of power? They are all like this, they differ only a little in degree. Is it responsible for a democracy to trust people like this with power?
#11 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Fri 24 Aug 2012 at 06:39 PM
See here:
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2012/08/legitimate-rape-and-sodomized-virgin.html
"One of the most linked posts I ever wrote was called "The Sodomized Virgin Exception", about the comments by a South Dakota lawmaker as to what might constitute a legitimate reason for an abortion. Here's the gist:
FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Napoli says most abortions are performed for what he calls "convenience." He insists that exceptions can be made for rape or incest under the provision that protects the mother's life. I asked him for a scenario in which an exception may be invoked.
BILL NAPOLI: A real-life description to me would be a rape victim, brutally raped, savaged. The girl was a virgin. She was religious. She planned on saving her virginity until she was married. She was brutalized and raped, sodomized as bad as you can possibly make it, and is impregnated. I mean, that girl could be so messed up, physically and psychologically, that carrying that child could very well threaten her life.
I commented at the time:
Do you suppose all these elements have to be present for it to be sufficiently psychologically damaging for her to be forced to bear her rapists child, or just some of them? I wonder if it would be ok if the woman wasn't religious but she was a virgin who had been brutally, savagely raped and "sodomized as bad as you can make it?" Or if she were a virgin and religious but the brutal savage sodomy wasn't "as bad" as it could have been?"
And here:
http://www.cnn.com/2012/08/22/opinion/prewitt-rapist-visitation-rights/index.html
"You see, nine months after my rape, I gave birth to a beautiful little girl. You could say she was conceived in rape; she was. But she is also so much more than her beginnings. I blissfully believed that after I finally had decided to give birth to and to raise my daughter, life would be all roses and endless days at the playground. I was wrong again.
It would not be long before I would learn firsthand that in the vast majority of states -- 31 -- men who father through rape are able to assert the same custody and visitation rights to their children that other fathers enjoy. When no law prohibits a rapist from exercising these rights, a woman may feel forced to bargain away her legal rights to a criminal trial in exchange for the rapist dropping the bid to have access to her child."
In the conservative world, rape is a property issue and reproduction is a control issue. Were it otherwise, were the welfare of the life conceived the major priority, would the conservative not be upset at the fact that The US's infant mortality rate is still below Cuba? That child poverty and child education are multiples below the other advanced nations? The conservative wants to control other people's choices, but take none of the responsibility for their outcomes and consequences.
Thus the responsibility must always go on the victims, unless you're rich enough to purchase your freedom.
#12 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Fri 24 Aug 2012 at 07:17 PM
"This is the same approach they use with economics, climate change, the origins of the earth and its species, etc... the facts refuse to resolve smoothly within the worldview. Therefore, since the worldview cannot be challenged, the facts must be wrong.
Order must be maintained."
Krugenstein today:
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/24/gop-intellectual-decline-monetary-edition/
"In this sense fiat money is like, oh, Social Security. The problem it creates for conservatives is not that it doesn’t work, but that it does — which is a challenge to their philosophy. And so it must die."
#13 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Sat 25 Aug 2012 at 05:56 PM