But the big news this year is that we’ve run the reel right past the 1973 Roe decision on abortion. Next up for debate is the 1965 decision of Griswold v. Connecticut. This ruling made contraception legal by overturning laws that could send you to prison for giving birth control to married couples.
Remember when the right edge of the Republican spectrum was Barry Goldwater, a Planned Parenthood supporter, even a fanboy? Now the GOP is a wholly owned subsidiary of the right-to-life movement with the last men standing for president outbidding each other in promises to smack down Roe. And they’re even getting a little squishy on birth control.
I used to think that reproductive rights leaders were either hyperbolic or hyperventilating when they claimed that pro-life politics were targeting contraception. It was only the frayed fringe of the movement who equated birth control - “The Pill Kills’’ - with abortion or with sex run amok. But an attack that was once, um, inconceivable, is now gestating in the public square.
In politics, Rick Santorum was the test tube candidate for this anxiety. Last summer the would-be president said, “Many of the Christian faith have said, well, that’s OK, contraception is OK. It’s not OK. It’s a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be.’’ For this, he won over folks like the Duggar family, stars of the TLC reality show “19 Kids and Counting.’’
In Iowa, nearly all the candidates pledged to support the Personhood Amendment, which undermines IUDs, emergency contraception, and the pill. Mitt Romney stopped one waffle short of agreeing. In New Hampshire, a GOP presidential debate featured candidates weaseling away from talking about the right to privacy that undergirds Griswold. And, by the way, Romney’s platform boasts that he’ll eliminate Title X family planning programs.
