Trojan Donkeys: Anti-Choice Groups and the Democratic Party

I hear that members of the Religion Industrial Complex are taking credit for the abortion plank in the platform, even as they are vowing to change it. (Apparently, they want more emphasis on the "Juno Option" and want to restore the pithy "safe, legal and rare" language and insert some sort of "conscience clause" which will no doubt imply that people who are pro-choice are without conscience.) But nonetheless, they are crowing that they are responsible for the language about reducing poverty for women and supporting maternal care (which is quite a stretch considering that those policies been a mainstay of Democratic politics for decades.)

If we were dealing with people who were operating in good faith (no pun intended) and a media that wasn't completely brain dead on these issues, I would consider it a victory. If religious leaders like Jim Wallis want to take credit for feminist initiatives, then that's probably something we should let them do if it means bringing more people over to the liberal agenda. Welcome to the big tent. But sadly, I don't believe for a minute that that's the intention and neither do I think it will bring over anyone who has previously rejected the Democratic party on religious grounds. Unless they've been in a cave for the last few decades, anyone who cares about alleviating poverty for women enough to vote on the issue is already a Democrat. It's clear that these political operatives are trying to leverage their alleged constituency (which they lied about delivering in 2004 and 2006) in order to give themselves a seat at the table from which to push anti-abortion policy.