Dog-Whistle Politics: Pro-Life or Anti-Contraception?

[Einhander Sn0m4n]

The Dog Whistlers: The One Question the "Pro-life" Presidential Candidates Don't Want You to Ask

98 percent of American women have done it.

37 million Americans are currently doing it.

Most of the GOP candidates oppose it.

What is it?

If you said "sex," you were close. The answer is "use contraception." In recent weeks, the GOP candidates have been asked a lot about their views on abortion but not one has been asked his position on contraception (or even prevention in general). Really big oversight. Maybe its because everyone just assumes they all support contraception. After all, who doesn't?

If their statements and actions are indicators, most of the GOP candidates oppose contraception. Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, Ron Paul, Tom Tancredo, Duncan Hunter, and Fred Thompson all define life as beginning at conception or fertilization, in other words when sperm meets egg. (It's worth noting that there's no medical way of knowing when sperm meets egg. According to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, a fertilized egg isn't even considered a pregnancy.) This "life at fertilization" assertion is what is called in the business "dog whistle" politics: a political message only a specific constituency can hear. The reason, of course, to keep the message on one frequency, is that in most cases the issue is deeply unpopular with most of the American people. The candidate's whistle, in this case, is a pledge to support the anti-abortion movement's campaigns to roll back access to contraception.

If a candidate pledges to define life as beginning at fertilization, then anything that prevents implantation will end a life. And pro-lifers insist the pill does that. Birth control then becomes abortion, and as we know, abortion gets banned. Why hasn't the media sunk its teeth into this little curiosity? At the very least, it would make for some really great TV. Someone needs to ask any of the GOP candidates (except Guiliani) whether he supports access to birth control. 91 percent of the American public (the majority of the pro-life public included) does so strongly.

Along with pledging to give a fertilized egg full constitutional rights candidates prove their anti-contraception credentials in other ways. McCain boasts that he has consistently voted against funding pregnancy prevention for poor women. Romney vetoed an emergency contraception bill, calling it an 'abortion' drug. Ron Paul opposes federal funding for any contraceptive service.

These guys may try to outdo each other on anti-abortion rhetoric and explain, unflinchingly, how doctors will be thrown in jail when Roe fails (an inevitability in their minds). But it's the contraception question that really scares them. Because once the presidential debate focuses on how the candidates plan to alter the average American's sex life (made possible thanks to family planning) it is lifted from the pink ghetto of "woman's issues" and becomes a concern of male voters too.

Study after study proves that contraceptive use is the only way to prevent abortion; the places on earth contraception is most available are also where abortion is most rare. According to Save the Children, the countries where infant and maternal mortality are the lowest is where contraception is used the most (because planned pregnancies are healthier pregnancies.) Using abortion rates, maternal and infant death rates, as measures, it's undeniable: the most pro-life thing a president can do is support the right to use contraception and make it widely available. The public knows this. And sometime before the primaries the candidates must be made to state openly whether they support contraception. Because the candidates know those professional pro-life dogs are still listening for the right whistle.

[Tanasinn]

I was under the impression Ron Paul has gone to lengths to stress that abortion is a "state issue," despite his personal feelings.

[Tanasinn]

Ghetto Edit: Abortion and contraception, that is to say.

[Einhander Sn0m4n]

There's a difference between someone saying FedGov has no business in contraceptives or abortion and their saying they want FedGov to hinder or ban contraceptives and abortion.

Ron Paul says it's a state issue, nothing more. He's never supported interfering in the access of contraception or abortion by FedGov like the other Repubs have.

Anyways, let's put this hijack to bed.

[SirNitram]

There's a difference between someone saying FedGov has no business in contraceptives or abortion and their saying they want FedGov to hinder or ban contraceptives and abortion.

Ron Paul says it's a state issue, nothing more. He's never supported interfering in the access of contraception or abortion by FedGov like the other Repubs have.

Anyways, let's put this hijack to bed.

Abortion on demand is the ultimate State tyranny; the State simply declares that certain classes of human beings are not persons, and therefore not entitled to the protection of the law. The State protects the "right" of some people to kill others, just as the courts protected the "property rights" of slave masters in their slaves. Moreover, by this method the State achieves a goal common to all totalitarian regimes: it sets us against each other, so that our energies are spent in the struggle between State-created classes, rather than in freeing all individuals from the State. Unlike Nazi Germany, which forcibly sent millions to the gas chambers (as well as forcing abortion and sterilization upon many more), the new regime has enlisted the assistance of millions of people to act as its agents in carrying out a program of mass murder.

Or shall we go with HR 1094, which decrees human life begins at conception, authored by.. RON PAUL!

Shall I go on?

[Einhander Sn0m4n]

Bah, conceded.

[RIPP_n_WIPE]

Well I'd hope that he'd at least support contraceptives use en masse (the morning after pill sorta so so on that). I mean if he's so seriously concerned about abortions, he's got to do everything that prevents them.

[SirNitram]

The idea that 'pro-life' social conservatives will do something that sensible misses the mark. After all, one might as well say if they were going to outlaw abortion, there'd be criminal penalties for the mother. It'd be logical. But it's almost always only about the doctor(Even in one of the debates, the GOP candidates opposed criminal penalties to the woman; only the doctor).

It's inherently about control. Those sluts shouldn't be having sex.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Well I'd hope that he'd at least support contraceptives use en masse (the morning after pill sorta so so on that). I mean if he's so seriously concerned about abortions, he's got to do everything that prevents them.

That is not the real issue. These fuckers do not give two shits about fetuses. They have negative thoughts about sex, and in many cases women. It was never about the fetus.

[The Yosemite Bear]

ahh the banana republicans trying to bring the usa back into the 12th century...