I haven’t heard much recently about the horrors of cancel culture or efforts to teach critical race theory to 5 year olds, or about the latest trans panic or “don’t say gay” law, or about defund the police or abolish ICE. Maybe it’s just me. But there are reasons to suspect it’s real, and that abortion is pushing other culture war issues aside. There are several ways this could happen. Republican state legislators may be too busy restricting abortion rights to spend time on “don’t say gay” bills or banning critical race theory. A legislator can only accomplish so much! Another possibility is that the media is just reporting less on social issues other than abortion. What do you think outrages people more, and generates more clicks: a
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I haven’t heard much recently about the horrors of cancel culture or efforts to teach critical race theory to 5 year olds, or about the latest trans panic or “don’t say gay” law, or about defund the police or abolish ICE.
Maybe it’s just me. But there are reasons to suspect it’s real, and that abortion is pushing other culture war issues aside. There are several ways this could happen.
Republican state legislators may be too busy restricting abortion rights to spend time on “don’t say gay” bills or banning critical race theory. A legislator can only accomplish so much!
Another possibility is that the media is just reporting less on social issues other than abortion. What do you think outrages people more, and generates more clicks: a trans woman swimmer winning too many medals, or a 10 year old rape victim who is unable to get an abortion? Powerless activists demanding “defund the police”, or a woman whose life is put at risk because she can’t get prompt treatment for a miscarriage? Yes, this is a rhetorical question. Just ask people in Kansas.
More speculatively, it is possible that the blowback against Dobbs has changed the overall calculus on hot button culture war issues for Republicans. Republicans may worry that race baiting or gay bashing will cost them votes, because raising these culture war issues will just remind swing voters where Republicans stand on abortion rights.
If this is right, Republicans may try to use economic issues to distract attention from social issues in the upcoming election, rather than vice versa.
For their part Democrats are surely anxious to focus on abortion atrocities rather than sniping at each other over culture war issues that divide the party and likely drive away some cross-pressured voters.
It will be interesting to see what social issues dominate the mid-terms.
Just for the record, here are some recent abortion atrocities:
A Baton Rouge mother has a week to make an unthinkable decision – carry her baby to term even though she says doctors tell her it will not survive or find another state where she can have an abortion.
“It’s hard knowing that … you know I’m carrying it to bury it…you know what I’m saying,” asked Nancy Davis who is 13 weeks pregnant with her second child.
Davis got her first ultrasound at Woman’s Hospital when she was 10 weeks pregnant. She and her boyfriend were excited to welcome their new baby, but soon learned the pregnancy would not go the way they planned.
“It was an abnormal ultrasound, and they noticed the top of the baby’s head was missing and the skull was missing, the top of the skull was missing,” Davis explained.
And:
And (via Lawyers, Guns, and Money):
A South Carolina lawmaker on Tuesday had to fight back tears as he explained that an anti-abortion law he’d voted for led to a young woman nearly losing her uterus, and even put her life at risk. Republican State Rep. Neal Collins told the state’s House Judiciary Committee that he’d lost sleep after learning about the case of a 19-year-old woman whose water broke after just 15 weeks of pregnancy. He said that because the fetus had a heartbeat, lawyers advised doctors that they could not remove the fetus, despite that being the recommended medical course of action. The young woman was discharged from hospital. “First, she’s going to pass this fetus in the toilet,” Collins said. “She’s going to have to deal with that on her own.” He added that a doctor told him that there was a “greater than 50 percent chance that she’s going to lose her uterus” and “there’s a 10 percent chance that she will develop sepsis and herself die.” “That weighs on me,” Collins added. “I voted for that bill. These are affecting people.”
Indeed.