The XX Factor: Slate women blog about politics, etc...

Hillary Holdouts: Don't Come Running Home on My Account

I do not agree, however, that "a vote for McCain is a vote to overturn Roe.'' Or assume, as you say you do, that the Hillary Holdouts "don't care'' if Roe is overturned. Of course they worry about that possibility—and in the end will probably be frightened into returning to the Democratic fold on that basis. But though an entire industry exists to argue otherwise, to keep us afraid and divided and donating, Roe is not going to be overturned. And putting all our energy into either warding off that constant threat or keeping alive that constant hope is not just fighting the last war; it's fighting a phony war, one that continues to distract and drain us but effectively became theater a long, long time ago.

Case in point: In Evansville, Ind., where my parents live, there have been banner headlines this week about the latest local abortion fight—in a county where (in theory, anyway) no abortions are performed. Under cover of darkness, i.e., without any public input, the Vanderburgh County Commissioners passed an ordinance that would force abortion providers, if there were any, to have hospital-admitting privileges in case something went wrong and to give patients info about where to get follow-up care in case of complications. Indiana Planned Parenthood strongly protested and put out this statement: "No abortions are performed in Vanderburgh County. There are no facilities and there are no providers ... it appears as if the commissioners took action to fix a problem that does not exist ... This type of regulation does nothing to improve health care in our state. It just further restricts a woman's ability to make decisions about her own future.'' An editorial in today's Evansville Courier & Press suggested that the real goal was purely political; one of the Republican commissioners, who is up for re-election, was trying to look like a hero to his peeps in his race against a pro-life Democrat.

On the national level, do you think John McCain meant it back in 1999 when he said he wouldn't bother trying to overturn Roe? ("In the short term, or even the long term,'' he said then, "I would not support repeal of Roe v. Wade, which would then force X number of women in America to [undergo] illegal and dangerous operations.") Or does he mean it when he says now that overturning Roe will be a priority in a McCain White House? The moment I wrote about last week, describing McCain in the fall of 2000 looking out the window in embarrassment as Lindsey Graham and I got into a whole big discussion about when life begins, convinced me that he would rather eat worms than hear the word abortion. Bush v. Gore made plain that the Supreme Court IS a political body, and politically, the Republican Party has no, I repeat, no interest in overturning Roe.

The perceived enemy of choice has changed, too, when a lot of you either weren't looking or didn't want to see: Even many self-described pro-lifers—and that term means different things to different people, believe me—have shifted the focus away from changing the law to changing the moral consensus and addressing material needs. When the conservative but pro-Obama jurist Doug Kmiec says that "merely reversing a single court decision such as Roe ... as best I can tell, would directly save no unborn life,'' he speaks for a lot of us who see the conversation we've been stuck having as an incredibly narrow way to look at "life issues.''

I think we can probably agree that criminalizing abortion would not stop it but would radically alter the political terrain to the benefit of the, to my mind, often anti-life GOP. And as a Colorado pro-life Democrat named Chris Rose told me for my book on women voters, the Republican Party can't end abortion: "Ending abortion isn't something they know how to do, because that would require an enormous change in our country and in our government,'' including programs to help women provide for their children and avoid unwanted pregnancies. "If you believe government can't do anything right, then you can't end abortion.''

So Hillary fans: It's your party, you can cry if you want to. But don't cry to me if, for thousands of reasons other than Roe, the result is not quite as satisfying as you'd hoped. For the lady in the attic, there is never a happy ending.