If there is one word that captures the Orwellian nature of contemporary feminism, it is "choice." It's not just the word's wide use as a euphemism for abortion. You can understand why people on that side of the abortion issue prefer to frame their position in abstract terms, as a defense of liberty, rather than concretely discussing the specific freedom they are defending. Some of them are no doubt sincere in saying that they favor "the right to choose" in general and have no brief for abortion in particular.
But not all. People who claim to favor "reproductive choice" are often quite judgmental about the reproductive choices of others. This column has occasionally noted anecdotal examples, such as the lady at a party last year, a self-described feminist, who angrily described Sarah Palin as a "moron" for having encouraged her pregnant daughter to carry the child to term and "to marry the sperm donor" (feministspeak for the biological father). Another was the man who encouraged pregnant and unmarried Katie Roiphie, a feminist author, to get an abortion and have a "regular baby" later.
Only a bit less harshly, Washington Post columnist Lisa Miller puts such sentiments into writing:
Between them, Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum have as many children--12--as the tribes of Israel. Ron Paul has five of his own, and in an early debate, perhaps unwilling to be outdone by Michele Bachmann's fostering of dozens, Paul boasted that when he worked as a physician he delivered "4,000 babies." There's nothing wrong with big families, of course. But the smug fecundity of the Republican field this primary season has me worried. Their family photos, with members of their respective broods spilling out to the margins, seem to convey a subliminal message that goes far beyond a father's pride in being able to field his own basketball team. What the Republican front-runners seem to be saying is this: We are like the biblical patriarchs. As conservative religious believers, we take seriously the biblical injunction to be fruitful and multiply.
"We've come a long way from the days of the Bible, baby, and I don't want to go back there," Miller declares. She goes on to celebrate birth control, which enabled women "to take charge of their fertility, and in so doing, to take charge of their education, their earnings potential, and eventually, the planning of their families, and the loving, nurturing raising of their children."
"Family planning is good for families," she insists, ignoring the sharp rise in divorce and illegitimacy since 1960, when the Food and Drug Administration approved the pill for contraceptive use. In fairness, maybe she means to make a more modest claim--that for the subset of the population who have been able to form and sustain marriages despite the social dislocations of the past half-century, birth control has on balance been beneficial.
But in any case, why does it so bother Miller that the Romneys, Santorums and Pauls (and also the Palins, whom she mentions in another paragraph) made the choice to have large families? If she cared about choice, she would recognize it's none of her business. But contemporary feminism does not actually value choice, except as a means to an ideological end, which is the obliteration of differences between the sexes. The biggest such difference consists in the distinct and disparate demands that reproduction makes on women. Thus in order to equalize the sexes, it is necessary to discourage fertility. Implicit in contemporary feminism is a normative judgment that having children is bad.
If this were made explicit, of course, the whole project would fall apart. Feminism is politically unviable without the support of at least a substantial minority of women, and women (or at least most women) do have a maternal instinct. So feminism has to wage its war against fertility covertly, rationalizing it in terms of other goals. A revealing example comes from a CNSNews.com report on testimony that Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services, gave to a House subcommittee the other day:
Sebelius told a House panel Thursday that a reduction in the number of human beings born in the United States will compensate employers and insurers for the cost of complying with the new HHS mandate that will require all health-care plans to cover sterilizations and all FDA-approved contraceptives, including those that cause abortions."The reduction in the number of pregnancies compensates for the cost of contraception," Sebelius said. She went on to say the estimated cost is "down not up."
We're skeptical that this prediction will pan out, because it assumes that the ObamaCare mandate will lead to a substantial increase in contraceptive use and thus a reduction in pregnancies and childbirths. But Sebelius's logic, as far as it goes, is unassailable: The pill is a hell of a lot cheaper than the medical costs (never mind the nonmedical ones) of prenatal care, childbirth, pediatric care and adult care until 26, the ObamaCare age of majority.
ObamaCare is just a start, argues Louise Trubek in today's New York Times. A retired law professor, she was a plaintiff in an unsuccessful 1950s lawsuit seeking the legal recognition of a right to contraception, a right the Supreme Court affirmed in Griswold v. Connecticut (1965):
We won the legal battle but not the war. Women are still not guaranteed control over their lives, because the necessary social supports were never secure. The initial goal of Griswold was to help women--and even though the precedent has helped with same-sex marriage laws, those initial needs, especially of poor women, have been left largely unmet. The universal coverage plan outlined in President Obama's Affordable Care Act is a good step forward, and we should do all we can to ensure it.
Sebelius's defense of the contraception mandate dovetails nicely with Trubek's call for even greater expansions of the entitlement state. Think of the money the government saves by preventing childbirth as a down payment on the next big package of benefits.
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Close Taylor Dinerman
"One family, one child, four modernizations": a Red Chinese propaganda poster from 1987.
Perhaps you have spotted the flaw in the Sebelius logic. Yes, in the short term, contraception is cheaper than fertility. In the long term, however, a war on fertility is an act of cultural and economic suicide. Today's low fertility is tomorrow's shortage of productive citizens--of the taxpayers who would have to pay for the ever-expanding entitlement state.
The continuing collapse of European welfare statism is as much a crisis of demographics as of sclerotic government. Even communist China, which somewhat ironically lacks a Western-style welfare state, is having to reckon with the unintended long-term consequences of its one-child policy.
America has some hope for the future, though. Its fertility rate has not declined as sharply as in other Western nations, in part thanks to families like the Romneys, Santorums, Pauls and Palins. The polarization of American politics gives reason for hope about America's political future, too. As we posited years ago in "The Roe Effect," the left's war on fertility is likely to have its greatest success in reducing the fertility of left-leaning women, thereby ensuring that future generations are more conservative. Now you can see why Lisa Miller is in such a bad mood.
First, They Came for the Rich Why shouldn't middle-class Americans favor higher taxes on the rich? Without meaning to, Baroness Catherine Ashton look-alike Froma Harrop answers the question:
At some point, Americans will have to engage in a grown-up discussion about a value-added tax, which is a kind of national sales tax. . . .Expecting Obama to share stern truths before the November election may be unrealistic. And getting a useful conversation going among Republican candidates--all of whom say they'd refuse $10 of spending cuts for $1 of new taxes--is impossible.But one can hope that Obama will at least launch us on some baby steps toward understanding what must be done--considering a VAT, for example. And when talking about higher taxes, rather than saying "for the rich only," he should say, "The rich come first."
The rich don't have enough money to keep up with the massive growth of the government, especially as Harrop and her fellow baby boomers retire. But socking it to the rich would buy more time to keep promising more entitlements, which would have to be paid for down the road by massive new taxes on the nonrich.
Jim Pethokoukis writes that a new book by liberal journalist Noam Scheiber predicts Obama will do just that if elected to a second term:
Generating the tax revenue that Obama would need to finance all his spending would require sharply higher taxes on the wealthy--and everybody else. And according to Scheiber, Obama might well like to start the taxathon with a $3 trillion tax hike on all Americans [by allowing all the Bush tax cuts to expire at the end of this year]. Of course, that still wouldn't be enough, which is why the next step might be a value-added tax.
Obama's class warfare isn't really about defeating the rich. It's a divide-and-conquer strategy aimed at trapping the middle class in a much more powerful entitlement state.
The Enthusiasm Gap Good news for Republicans in a new Gallup poll:
By 53% to 45%, Republicans, including independents who lean Republican, are slightly more likely than Democrats and Democratic leaners to say they are "more enthusiastic than usual about voting" this year. Republicans have consistently led Democrats in voting enthusiasm since last fall, but to varying degrees.
More striking than the GOP's fairly modest enthusiasm advantage is the turnaround from February 2008, when the Democrats had a huge advantage, 79% to 44%. That's a nine-point rise in GOP enthusiasm and a 34-point fall-off for the donks.
One shouldn't overinterpret these figures. Democrats had a six-point enthusiasm advantage in February 2004 but lost that year's election clearly, while Republicans did 12 points better than Democrats in February 2000 and ended up barely winning. Changes in party identification may affect these numbers, too. Still, the GOP enthusiasm edge coupled with President Obama's continuing poor performance among true independents ought to be a tonic for depressed Republicans.
'Not Saddened' From a Los Angeles Times report on Andrew Breitbart's untimely demise:
His death produced polarizing responses online. Conservatives lamented the death of a visionary, and attacked the tweets of some liberals who were not saddened at Breitbart's death.
The problem isn't that the liberals "were not saddened" but that they gloated and vented their hatred for Breitbart. The way the Times turns that around to portray conservatives as aggressors is another point in favor of Breitbart's argument about the "Democrat-media complex."
Other Than That, the Story Was Accurate "Correction: The original version of this story referred to the Cato Institute as libertarian. Through the editing process, Cato was mislabeled as conservative. This inaccuracy was corrected and properly identifies the Cato Institute as libertarian."--Washington Post website, March 1
Homer Nods Yesterday we speculated that Janet Robinson, former CEO of the New York Times Co., may be paying her own insurance premiums now that she's out of a job. A reader points out that a Times Co. filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission discloses the company is to pay her premiums for 12 months as part of her multimillion-dollar severance package. So you can stop worrying.
Charles Blow Learns a Lesson? "Head Lice Changes Lead to Head Scratching"--headline, CBC.ca, March 1
With DNC in MInd, City Bans Carrying Urine, Feces "Kirstie Alley Has New Role as Poise Light Bladder Leakage Fairy"--headline, AdAge.com, March 1
That Didn't Work for Larry Craig "Mayor Clarifies Reason for Stance"--headline, Windsor (Colo.) Beacon, March 1
Can We Have Your Liver Then? "Dutch Mobile Euthanasia Units to Make House Calls"--headline, Guardian website (London), March 1
Cause and Effect
- "Sarkozy Hides in Bar After Insults, Eggs Fly"--headline, Agence France-Presse, March 2
- "Something to Cluck About: Major Oeuf Shortage in France"--headline, Newscore, March 2
'Does Anyone Know zee combinaison?' "Sarkozy: French Journalists Trapped in Syria Safe"--headline, Associated Press, March 1
So Much for the War on Drugs "Illinois Town All Too Versed in Taking a Hit"--headline, New York Times, March 2
Mere Alcohol Doesn't Thrill Me at All "Michigan Drops Illinois in Champaign"--headline, BTN.com, March 1
Another Victory in the War on Obesity "AT&T Ends All-You-Can-Eat"--headline, The Wall Street Journal, March 2
At Least Dad Works Out "Muncie Teenager Accidentally Shot by His Father in Good Condition"--headline, Star Press (Muncie, Ind.), March 2
Math Is Hard "Charles Barkley's Criticisms Don't Add Up"--headline, NewsOK.com (Oklahoma City), March 2
Questions Nobody Is Asking
- "Buying Your House From Ikea? Swedish Furniture Maker Launches $86,000 Flat-Pack DIY Home"--headline, Daily Mail (London), March 2
- "Does Rush Limbaugh Owe America a Sex Tape?"--headline, New York magazine website, March 2
Answers to Questions Nobody Is Asking
- "Dating After Divorce: Why I'm Never Remarrying"--headline, Puffington Host, March 2
- "Olympia Snowe: Why I'm leaving the Senate"--headline, Washington Post, March 2
It's Always in the Last Place You Look "Radical Theory of first Americans Places Stone Age Europeans in Delmarva 20,000 Years Ago"--headline, Washington Post, March 1
Too Much Information "Wilt Chamberlain 'Could've Scored 100 Many a Night,' Former Referee Says"--headline, Patriot-News (Harrisburg, Pa.), March 2
Someone Set Up Us the Bomb "Man Shot in Face Is Angry Judge Lowered Alleged Shooter's Bond"--headline, AnnArbor.com, March 2
Breaking News From 1562 "Witchcraft Is Growing Threat to Children in Britain, Warn Police"--headline, Daily Telegraph (London), March 2
Bottom Stories of the Day
- "PRSA Announces the Final Definition of 'Public Relations' "--headline, Ragan.com, March 2
- "Unions to Push to Block 'Right to Work' in Michigan"--headline, Detroit News, March 1
Is That an Empty Promise or an Empty Threat? With Anthony Weiner having been shamed out of public life, The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg is the leading public example of Weiner's awkward type: the fervent supporter of Israel who is also a fervent supporter of Barack Obama. It's not surprising, then, that the president would choose an interview with Goldberg to deliver what is supposed to be a message of reassurance to the Jewish state:
In the most extensive interview he has given about the looming Iran crisis, Obama told me earlier this week that both Iran and Israel should take seriously the possibility of American action against Iran's nuclear facilities. "I think that the Israeli government recognizes that, as president of the United States, I don't bluff." He went on, "I also don't, as a matter of sound policy, go around advertising exactly what our intentions are. But I think both the Iranian and the Israeli governments recognize that when the United States says it is unacceptable for Iran to have a nuclear weapon, we mean what we say."
Two points: First, How credible is it for Obama to say, "I don't bluff," when last summer he told the House majority leader: "Eric [Cantor], don't call my bluff," when he turned out to be playing an exceptionally weak hand?
Second, just how gullible is Goldberg? Does it not occur to him that "I don't bluff" is exactly the kind of thing people say who do bluff?
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