The SJR 127 Post-Mortem

After I got home from the Capitol this evening after the passage of SJR 127 in the House, I told my mother about how the debate had gone and what had been said.  I mentioned in particular Rep. Sherry Jones' comment attempting to appeal to the legislators as parents--"If your 11-year-old daughter is raped or is a victim of incest, this legislation will not allow for that child to have an abortion."  My mother was incredulous that these people would not even consider the fate of their own daughters.

But to me, it's pretty easy to figure out why not.  It simply won't affect the daughters of our legislators.  I don't know if Reps. Maggart or Dunn have daughters (although I know Mike Turner does, and fears "the gangsters" who may come after his daughters but not enough to protect their rights), but if they do, SJR 127 will not have any impact upon their families whatsoever.  If a Little Dunn, Little Maggart, or Little Turner gets knocked up, whether through rape or simply through a little "oops" moment, it will be absolutely NOTHING for her parents to take her up to Chicago or New York to "visit relatives for the weekend."  Even if abortion is outlawed in Tennessee, it won't be a problem for the wealthy and well-connected to make special arrangements for their little princesses.  They'll justify it by saying that their daughters had difficult circumstances, not like those other slutty girls who just use abortion as birth control, but only wait until the third trimester to do it when they realize their jeans don't fit anymore.

And bear in mind, I'm in the same privileged situation.  I'll always be able to afford to go somewhere else if God forbid I should ever need to.  Even in Missouri, they have enough of a libertarian streak to prevent them from ever outright banning abortion anytime soon.  So this certainly doesn't affect me.

So why care then?

Perhaps it's the knowing that only 22 Democrats are willing to stand up--not just for their own daughters, but for the women who don't have the luxury of going to a northern state to "take care of the problem."  And yeah, I hear you, "Some of them come from really really conservative districts so they had to vote that way."  But guess what?  The people who make their decisions based on the abortion ARE NOT GOING TO VOTE FOR YOU AS A DEMOCRAT, no matter how you vote.  Those people are firmly tied into the Republican Party, and you're not going to sway them.  So it's really a vote out of fear, that the Republicans will attack you if you don't vote a certain way.  But it's not like they're going to attack you any less because of this vote!

So, OK, we concede on this issue and hope we can come up with some way to stop it next year when it comes back around.  But then what's the next issue we concede on?  Anyone want to take a guess?

That's what scares me the most about this whole thing--no one can tell me when we as Democrats stop conceding and start fighting back.  It might be a good idea to figure that out sometime before November 2010 though.  Just saying.

As it stands now though, I'm finding it difficult to see a reason why I shouldn't just stay registered to vote in St. Louis next year and work my butt off to get Robin Carnahan elected to the U.S. Senate, rather than waste time with those who would gamble away my rights to politics as usual.