Abortion, and Actuality

By Jeffrey Hart | Tuesday, April 24, 2007

“. . . the equal right to participate in the economic and social life of the nation.” —Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992)

Abortion is one of the most contentious issues of the day. In fact, everyone is against abortion, wishes it would never happen. But it’s not enough to be against abortion. It’s necessary to understand why a very large demand EXISTS today for its continued availability.

Diana Trilling once remarked that the women’s revolution has been the only successful revolution of the twentieth century.

The moment to focus on there is the tree-way presidential election of 1912. The incumbent, William Howard Taft, was re-nominated by the Republican party. The Democrats named Woodrow Wilson. Former President Theodore Roosevelt, denied the Republican nomination, broke away and formed the Progressive (“Bull Moose”) Party, which held its August convention in the Coliseum in Chicago. Roosevelt’s third party was the first major party to have women’s suffrage in its platform, the first to have women as delegates. These were led by Jane Addams, who nominated Roosevelt. As she concluded her speech she was handed a banner reading VOTES FOR WOMEN while delegates marched in the aisles.

Though Woodrow Wilson won the three-way 1912 race—he was watching Princeton football practice when someone brought him the news—by 1920 women’s suffrage was part of the Constitution with the 19th amendment. That was only the beginning.

Women’s suffrage implies eventual women’s equality. When you have the vote, politicians listen.

Agitation for women’s equality began much earlier than you might think.. Probably the earliest advocate for women’s suffrage was Fannny Wright, whose book Course of Public Lectures appeared in 1820. It advocated votes, more permissive divorce laws, free public education and, notice this, birth control. Women’s child-bearing capability should not determine the shape of their lives.

In 1866 women began to organize politically, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott leading the Women’s Rights Convention at Seneca Falls. Other early leaders included Susan B. Anthony and Julia Ward Howe, who wrote “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.”

Between 1893 and 1914 the following states granted women the vote: Colorado, Utah, Idaho, Washington, California, Arizona, Kansas, Arizona, Oregon, Illinois, Nevada and Montana. Oddly, amusingly, President Wilson supported women’s suffrage in 1918 as a “war measure.”

Great changes in society can be informed by ideas but to actually happen they require concrete social forces behind them. Remember that in 1820 Fanny Wright had urged free public education. The movement from rural life to the cities, industrialization, commerce and office work, altered the ways in which Americans lived, including women.

By 1972 when Roe v. Wade in effect made abortion a constitutional right, many states had relaxed their abortion laws. Using Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) which legalized the use of condoms, Roe used “privacy” as the basis for making abortion a right. Many considered that a stretch.

During the 1970s we were seeing great changes in higher education, as Dartmouth along with other Ivy League colleges adopted co-education, which was also spreading nationally. Today in most colleges and universities women constitute about half of the student body. Women are now all through the professions, go on to do graduate work in medicine, law, business, architecture, the sciences. Women are in the military and even astronauts. As a consequence of this women need the ability to shape their lives and decide when and whether to become pregnant.

In 1992 the Supreme Court in Planned Parenthood v. Casey added to Roe the recognition that the availability of abortion afforded women “the ability to participate in the economic and social life of the nation.”

General recognition of these facts exists. A June 2006 Gallup Poll for CNN/USA Today showed that 65% of the American people oppose repealing Roe v. Wade, with less than half that number favoring its repeal (29%). Repeal would have the effect of returning the issue to the states, with the result no doubt of much travel from restrictive to permissive states. Nevertheless, George W. Bush in his appointment of Supreme Court Justices has given every indication that he wants Roe repealed. If it is, buy Greyhound Bus stocks.

Revolutions happen because of the actual social forces that build up and make them happen. In 1790 (Reflections on the Revolution in France) Edmund Burke opposed the French Revolution and the abstractions that partly drove it (the “rights of man”). By 1791 (Thoughts on French Affairs) Burke realized that the Revolution had been inevitable because of implacable economic and social conditions: “If a great change is to be made in human affairs . . . those who persist in opposing this mighty current . . . will appear rather to resist the decrees of Providence itself than the mere designs of men.”

The women’s revolution, which took place only in the advanced nations of the West, may have been the profoundest of all revolutions. Someone please tell George Bush.

Abortion, and Actuality

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