Reproductive Freedom Roundup
By - Like Shakes’ Sis and Lindsay, I think this Nancy Goldtsein article is excellent. I definitely agree that abortion politics need to be seen as a part of a broader project of reproductive autonomy, with particular attention made to the needs of women who often lack access to contraception (and good information about it.) Amanda emphasizes the important point Goldstein makes about the origins of the hearings, which represent the classic pro-life argument that women are not really rational moral agents–if they choose to get abortions they must somehow have been coerced or duped, maybe by greedy doctors, because if you want to get rich your surest route is to start up a Planned Parenthood clinic!
- See also Shakes on the hapless Dalton Conley. Between its ev-pysch wankery and woe-is-men posturing his apologia is so catastrophically bad it’s almost impossible to choose, but my favorite line is his argument that a fetus isn’t really part of a woman’s body: “This gets us back to the notion that a fetus is part of her body — an argument that was more sustainable, I would say, before the advent of ultrasound and other technologies that let us ‘see’ into the womb.” Indeed. Similarly, the argument that a woman’s bones were part of her body was more sustainable before X-Ray technology allowed us to “see” beneath the skin. And for that matter, you can see a woman’s nose and breasts without even an ultrasound, so they must really not be part of a woman’s body! I think men should be able to go to court and order women to get nose jobs and silicone implants, because while it would be nice if partners could work things out it’s tragically unfair that women alone are allowed to make choices about a woman’s body, which is really collective property.
- Rebecca Tushnet points out that her father’s contribution to Jack Balkin’s new book What Roe Should Have Said is an edited version of William Douglas’ excellent concurrence in the companion case Doe v. Bolton. Although I don’t think it would have made any difference to the public reception to the case, I’ve always wished that it had been the lead opinion in Roe. (Via FL.)
- In an extremely unsurprising development, alleged “moderate” Arlen Specter is making it clear that he will roll over and play dead for Alito. Good boy!
UPDATE: Jill dissects Conley’s illogic and null analogies with considerably more patience than I could manage.