A Bit of Good News
A story about reproductive rights that I think has far wider significance:
"Seven in 10 Americans believe Roe v. Wade should stand, according to new data from a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, as the landmark Supreme Court abortion-rights ruling turns 40 on Tuesday.
That is the highest level of support for the decision, which established a woman's right to an abortion, since polls began tracking it in 1989."
Though I am very happy about the substance of this poll, I want to comment on something else: There have been few issues in the last half century subject to such an endless, dickish campaign of hatred and lies from the right as the issue of abortion. It is tremendously reassuring to me to see that, at this point, the American people seem to no longer be buying into these well-financed delusions. A new era has possibly dawned, in which money and ruthlessness are no longer enough to lead Americans astray. I believe we saw this in the recent Presidential election, and here is another sign of it.
I'm not ready to declare victory yet, because we all know that no defeat, no proof of the idiocy or malice of their behavior, will convince right wingers to think twice about their behavior. There is a hope, however, that they simply aren't creating many crazy people any more; that the horrible prospects that right wing ideology has left young people have forced them to confront reality in a way that many baby boomers and the Reagan generation never did. Maybe there is some real hope that the United States is ready to move out of the self-constructed wilderness in which it has wandered the last forty years, and once again enter the land that our founders promised us.
"Seven in 10 Americans believe Roe v. Wade should stand, according to new data from a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, as the landmark Supreme Court abortion-rights ruling turns 40 on Tuesday.
That is the highest level of support for the decision, which established a woman's right to an abortion, since polls began tracking it in 1989."
Though I am very happy about the substance of this poll, I want to comment on something else: There have been few issues in the last half century subject to such an endless, dickish campaign of hatred and lies from the right as the issue of abortion. It is tremendously reassuring to me to see that, at this point, the American people seem to no longer be buying into these well-financed delusions. A new era has possibly dawned, in which money and ruthlessness are no longer enough to lead Americans astray. I believe we saw this in the recent Presidential election, and here is another sign of it.
I'm not ready to declare victory yet, because we all know that no defeat, no proof of the idiocy or malice of their behavior, will convince right wingers to think twice about their behavior. There is a hope, however, that they simply aren't creating many crazy people any more; that the horrible prospects that right wing ideology has left young people have forced them to confront reality in a way that many baby boomers and the Reagan generation never did. Maybe there is some real hope that the United States is ready to move out of the self-constructed wilderness in which it has wandered the last forty years, and once again enter the land that our founders promised us.
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