It Smacks Of Desperation, It Does

Amanda Marcotte over at Pandagon argues that the wingnuts are so completely out of ammunition that they are resorting to (and I kid you not) going to the Planned Parenthood clinics in the Denver area and having protests proclaiming Democrats are genocidal racists for trying to convince women of color to have abortions, thus killing off all their race.

Mostly, it’s a distraction. One thread that’s interesting is how they’re picking their targets for abuse. The African-American Caucus was targeted for disruption, as was the interfaith prayer service. In other words, they’re targeting black delegates and religious delegates for abuse, though I have little doubt that they think they’re “educating” people by yelling at them. As if there’s a single person in America who is unaware of the parameters of this discussion. Which goes to show that the targets of anti-choice protests are assumed to be especially stupid by anti-choicers. Why black people and religious people especially? There’s a host of complex reasons, but it boils down to this---anti-choicers feel like they are entitled to dominate and control those two groups of people, as well as women. (Yes, I’m aware there’s significant overlap between these three groups, but that just makes it worse. If you’re a black Christian woman, they probably think they get to set your alarm clock for you and monitor your underwear purchases.)

Michelle Malkin especially thinks that you are stupid. Her entire career is built on exploiting racist anxieties in white people and she trucks with white supremacists, but all of a sudden she expects you to think she’s a great spokeswoman for racial harmony. She’s so against abortion she sucked up her nerve and spoke to actual non-white anti-choice protesters to bolster the bizarre claims of anti-choicers that reproductive rights especially hurt women of color. Considering that black and Hispanic women use abortion just like white women, I’m hard-pressed to understand why it would somehow be better for these women would be better off being sent to back alley butchers. The slim bit of evidence that anti-choicers cling to in these assertions is the fact that black women have a disproportionate number of abortions---so the conclusion is that Planned Parenthood is out to get black people.

Because as we all know, the modern GOP has a long history of helping people of color over the last 50 years.

This kind of thing really bothers me. I'm strongly against abortion personally, but it's my choice to be against it. Your choice may differ and I may not agree with it. But you still have the choice because the law says you do, and quite frankly we have enough bad laws on the books over the years that have told one group or another "you don't have a choice." Would the world be a better place without as many abortions? Sure. Would it be better to make them illegal in every single case? That's equally barbaric.

To use that as a weapon against the Democrats accusing them of mass genocide when the same wingnuts gleefully spread the gospel of purging the country of Hispanics and purging the world of Muslims? Not going to work.