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Janet Ybarra
Democrat
Former Washington Journalist
Contributor on The Bipartisan Press
Former Planned Parenthood director and current anti-abortion activist Abby Johnson got her chance to speak Tuesday night at the Republican National Convention.
And if Johnson simply spoke out against abortion, we could leave it there.
People of good conscience can, and do, hold differing opinions on the matter. Fair enough. Let the anti-abortion side have a say and move on.
Yet it’s the rest of her address where Johnson went off the rails. She may have spoken for a few short minutes, but who could have guessed that she could have done so much political damage in so short a time?
For a party already struggling with the support of women, particularly suburban women, Johnson decided to make matters worse by embracing the inherently sexist “head-of-household voting.”
This means that in heterosexually marriages, only the husband would vote.
This, according to Johnson: “Yes. So shocking! A husband and wife who are in agreement and a wife who honors her husband as the head of the home. Gasp!! What a weird, biblical concept!”
You gotta be kidding me….
What a way to celebrate the centennial of the 19th Amendment granting women the right to vote.
Someone tell her we don’t live in biblical times anymore, thankfully.
It’s ironic in a sense because Johnson did the pro-choice movement’s work for us.
For decades, we’ve been warning that the anti-abortion movement truly has a broader anti-woman agenda. We’d warn, “Once they get abortion, they’ll come for the next woman’s right,” to which the anti-abortionists would always push back.
No more. Johnson’s ripped that mask away.
This is the same woman of whom a video obtained by Vice, Johnson said it would be “smart” for police to “be more careful around my brown son than my white son” because of “statistics.”
Well, sisters, this is what supposedly constitutes “making America great again” for women.
Recall what happened to Republicans in 2018 when they lost the suburbs, particularly suburban women. Now imagine what happens to the party this year when women get an earful of this malarkey.
Vote with caution.
And vote accordingly.
Content from The Bipartisan Press. All Rights Reserved.
COMMENTS (1)
In discussing the issue of abortion (which is always difficult), I’ve long felt constrained by the belief that it’s fully within each individual’s rights to oppose abortion on moral, ethical, or religious grounds, just as it’s anyone else’s right to hold that abortion should remain a legal option for women who earnestly believe they need one (subject to considerations of the viability of the fetus).
The aspect of the abortion debate that has always troubled me is the issue raised in the present article: that many or most of the opponents of abortion effectively seek to forcibly impose their own beliefs on others. This is not the case for women who are “Pro-choice” but it is for those who wish to make abortion illegal.
The surprising statements made by Abby Johnson make it clear that abortion is only one issue of many where a fervent, fundamentalist religious denomination is attempting to make their own views “the law of the land”.
I’ve never fully understood why the “Pro-choice” movement has not (to the best of my knowledge) made abortion an issue of religious freedom rather than civil rights. The conservative side in this debate–as ever–has cast themselves as the true victims of Roe v. Wade. In their view, it is they who have had to suffer the moral outrage, not to mention the Wrath of God, for a (perceived) crime someone else has committed. Would it not be justified to flip this victimhood perspective around to portray women who would be forced to adhere to someone else’s values as victims of religious hegemony, in a society that is ostensibly opposed to such things?