Someone Tell Ron Brownstein That Opposition to Roe Is Not the Same as Opposition to Legalized Abortion
The L.A. Times‘s Ron Brownstein this morning engages in a standard liberal media trick: equating opposition to Roe v. Wade to opposition to legalized abortion.
[Senator Arlen] Specter may be right. Or [law professor and former pro-abortion rights activist Dawn] Johnsen may be correct when she predicts that on the Supreme Court, Alito would follow the strategy he recommended in 1985: steadily retrenching legal abortion through incremental restrictions. Neither side can be sure, but the 1985 memos provide critics their strongest basis since Bork to predict the nominee’s likely direction.
If that’s still insufficient to generate substantial opposition from senators who support Roe, Bush and his GOP successors might understandably conclude that overt opposition to legalized abortion isn’t as dangerous for court nominees as they feared.
The loose language about 1985 “memos” is a reference to two documents: a 1985 job application, and a 1985 Justice Department memo. In these documents, Alito clearly indicates overt opposition to Roe v. Wade. But that is not the same thing as “overt opposition to legalized abortion” — the phrase Brownstein uses.
If Roe v. Wade were ever to be overruled, that decision would simply return the issue to the states, many of which would protect abortion rights, and some of which wouldn’t. One need not personally oppose abortion to oppose Roe v. Wade. Opposition to that case is simply reflective of a constitutional view that matters such as these should be decided by the states, not nine black-robed philosopher-kings. It should not be equated to opposition to legalized abortion.
They’re just not the same thing. And the L.A. Times and the rest of the liberal media need to get that through their skulls.
UPDATE: Commenter Dana R. Pico doesn’t consider this a significant distinction. But it’s critical. Blurring the distinction reinforces the utterly false notion that overruling Roe means the end of legalized abortion in this country. This misunderstanding causes an artificially inflated support for Roe and its abdication of authority to the judiciary.
If people really understood what Roe actually does, it wouldn’t enjoy anywhere near the same level of support it enjoys. Sloppy language like Brownstein’s helps to reinforce the public’s misunderstanding.
This is one of those situations where yes, you’re correct, but no, it doesn’t matter.
Sure, there are those who think that abortion ought to be legal but that Roe was woefully decided, but I think you are likely to find a much smaller subset of those who believe that Roe ought to be overturned because the decision was so poor, and still want to keep abortion legal.
This is one of those decisions where the outcome is much more important than the niceties of the law. As an attorney, that concept probably makes you cringe, but most people aren’t looking at it from the perspective of an attorney.
Dana R. Pico (3e4784) — 12/13/2005 @ 6:16 amNo, it’s a critical point. I’ll update the post to explain why.
Patterico (806687) — 12/13/2005 @ 6:28 amThe commenters on Alito vis-a-vis Roe et al also use another often used semantic trick. They are fond of acting as though they hold the moral high ground through the “progressive” forcing of abortion “rights”. In other words, what they accomplished is some kind of “progress” in something or other. What that something is, they never say. In opposition, anything that Alito or anyone else does is regressive, by definition. I maintain that what was done through Roe is regressive. I think all the unborn (or barely born) dead children would echo “Amen”.
John Lange (c90acc) — 12/13/2005 @ 7:22 amThe difference between “If Roe is overturned, abortion will be illegal” versus “If Roe is overturned, the regulation of abortion will return to the states” can’t be dismissed as a “legal nicety.”
eddie haskell (51058c) — 12/13/2005 @ 8:40 amOur esteemed host honored me by updating:
I’d say that all of that is true . . . and none of it makes any difference. If you tried to persuade people at NOW or NARAL or even just the average man on the street that your desire to overturn Roe was because you were opposed to the incredibly sloppy reasoning, and that you really had no hidden desire to outlaw abortion, you’d find exactly zero people at NOW and NARAL believing you, and damned few among the average people on the street.
You are arguing that common perception is very different from reality, and that is true, but the problem is that, in politics, perception is reality.
Dana R. Pico (3e4784) — 12/13/2005 @ 9:39 amDana, I think you;re still missing thepoint, but only because Patterico didn’t spell it out.
The immediate effect of overturning Roe with respect to the availability of abortion, would be nil.
It would take time after that before Congress or any state legislature acted to regain the power over abortion that the reversal would return to elected bodies, and the number of such bodies that would undertake to actually outlaw abortion, would be very small.
To the extent that the man on the street fails to see this, it is the result of dishonest rhetoric by NOW and NARAL, passed along without comment by the establishment media. Yes, it’s the reality on the ground — but you underestimate the willingness of the average man (or woman) on the street to be educated on such details.
After all, the average man (or woman) on the street, though still more likely to watch network news than to seek alternatives, is also far less credulous of network news than he (or she) used to be.
McGehee (5664e1) — 12/13/2005 @ 11:01 amMcGehee wrote:
Mr McGehee, after seeing the sad spectacle of plummeting support for the President due to a war we are winning, due to the public being swayed, at least in part, by the simplistic babble of the Nancy Pelosi Democrats and their willing accomplices in the mainstream media, I don’t know if it is even possible to underestimate the willingness of the average citizen to pay attention to detail and be educated.
Part of my answer would be: see above. But I also recall a cover, either from National Review or The Weekly Standard from a couple of years ago, with a story to the effect that so many middle-class suburbanites are more concerned about their lawns and the curb appeal of their homes than anything else, that I have to wonder if those who are less credulous of the evening news are even bothering to seek information elsewhere, or are just tuning everything out.
And we now have the spectacle of CBS News trying to lure Katie Couric to be their evening news anchorette; if that isn’t a declaration of the contempt with which CBS News, still unchastened by the Mapes Affair, holds the intelligence of the American people, I don’t know what is.
Dana R. Pico (a9eb8b) — 12/13/2005 @ 4:57 pmDana asked: is there anyone out there who supports abortion rights who believes that there is any significant opposition to Roe v Wade from people who support the outcome of the decision? Do you know of anybody who falls under such a description?
Do you regard one who thinks that abortion in some circumstances is justified as one who “supports abortion rights?” Or does a supporter have to justify unfettered abortion? I fall into the first class.
I think Roe should be overturned not because of an opposition to abortion, or due to its abbysmal text. It is bad law, based on judicial creationism.
bill lama (c51dba) — 12/15/2005 @ 7:27 pmBill