Jonah Goldberg's War on Women

Far be it from me to be yet another white guy with an opinion on women’s issues. But I can’t help it, and the pundit class isn’t covering anything of note. Which makes sense on some level. The right-wing pundit class has “spoken” on Chris Christie’s current problems, and if anything use those as a launching off point to cover all the Obama “scandals”. More importantly it’s yet another reason to trot out Benghazi…again.

One of the biggest women’s issues is, of course, their ability to control their own bodies. White old men have plenty to say about this and do as much as they can to control it…and by extension…women.

It would be reductive to say that women need to step it up and get more of themselves in positions of power, but that’s exactly what they need to do. And not just in Congress, but state and local places of power too. As it’s becoming clearer that the anti-abortion crowd is finding more success on the local level in their war against a woman’s constitutionally protected right to an abortion.

Roe v. Wade’s birthday was recently, and this article would’ve probably been more at home here, but then I would have missed Jonah Goldberg’s ridiculous hit piece against Wendy Davis, who’s making a run for Texas Governor.

If there’s one thing the GOP right-wing hates more than abortion, it’s powerful women democrats. Look no further than the ascension of Hilary Clinton’s phantom 2016 presidential bid. It may explain this continued insistence on Benghazi, just in case she does decide to run, it will be in the recent memory of “independent” voters. Wendy Davis is just a more recent, fresher example of persona non grata for the GOP right-wing pundit class, that she made a stand for Texas women and their reproductive rights, just doubles the rage against her.

Mr. Goldberg’s reducing of Wendy Davis to her pink sneakers and 11-hour filibuster is hugely misogynist on it’s own merits, but he doesn’t stop there. His article attempts to insult her intelligence on current abortion news, and wonders aloud why she has so many problems with common sense legislation on abortion clinics.

This is currently how the anti-abortion crowd is propelling their agenda: legislating abortion clinics in to oblivion. They act as though these are just common sense laws that are helping the clinics perform and conform better thereby providing safer baby killing abortions. Sadly it’s working all to well.

Gone are the days of scaring young people with programs that were largely unsuccessful: abstinence only "sex education", and shoving pictures of dead fetuses in the face of young people on campuses across the nation. Unfortunately, what they’re doing in the state legislatures is much more horrific than anything they could conceivably put in a picture.

What’s more, the amount of sheer ignorance to abortion is on display from the GOP right-wing, that you really do wonder why they have so much to say on the subject, but so little substance to back it up. Arguments always boil down to “well, I feel that…” and no one should give a shit about how you “feel” about another persons right to do what they wish to their own bodies.

Couched amongst the Wendy Davis hit-piece of an article is the Kermit Gosnell case. And while the entire ordeal is indeed eye-brow raising, it does show the horrors of both a society that turns a blind eye to a very real need amongst young minority women and immigrants that need proper medical care, and government bureaucracy that would let something like Gosnell’s clinic exist in it’s failed state in the first place. The lack of oversight can also be found in the like of the recent toxic leak in West Virginia. Where a tank hadn’t been inspected in over two decades!

Wendy Davis’ crime in all of this? As a vaunted pro-abortionist she didn’t know much about the Gonsell case! “For shame!" Cries Jonah Goldberg. To be fair, who else really knew about the Gosnell case from the lack of reporting from the corporate media? The GOP right-wing certainly didn’t say anything about it. I would’ve noticed and written about it at the time, it just wasn’t really covered. But to who’s determent is that? Doesn’t the GOP right-wing have an entire channel dedicated to their bullshit?!

Her further crimes are pointed out in that when asked about the fact that a majority of American women support a ban on late term abortions, she answered that she felt a lot of people (key word) don’t really understand the landscape of what’s happening in that arena today. To which Mr. Goldberg assumes Ms. Davis meant JUST WOMEN and that she was “casually dismissing the majority of American women”.  Saying nothing to the fuller extent the PEOPLE  mentioned, of those being the white old men who haven zero concept on not just abortion but of birth control and other women’s health issues, who are pushing all this regressive anti-women legislation.

Jonah Goldberg isn’t quite done with trying to convince us that Wendy Davis isn’t worth supporting, and the war on women is a made up construct. When asked “When does life start?” She treated it like the non-question it is, and stated the Supreme Court has answered that question. To which Mr. Goldberg adds “Blah Blah Blah.” So this answer, and Mr. Goldberg’s friend Tom Bevan (who would have guessed a conservative?) agrees, is cowardice? She should’ve answered the question in a straight forward manner because it’s assumed that she’s made pro-abortion a “signature issue of her political life”.

This is an odd statement, seeing as all she really did was stand up for the women’s rights in Texas. The question itself is ridiculous on it’s own, because who cares when life begins? Most assuredly the anti-abortion camp does, and they’re doing everything in their power to close the window of opportunity a woman has in getting an abortion. To say nothing of if she can find one within reasonable distance to her general location, needless ultrasounds to compound the guilt and add a dash of shame. The 24 hour waiting period if she does go through with the procedure, because hey if you got time for an abortion, I guess you have a few days to wait around and kill some time along with that precious fetus.

Mr. Goldberg surmises that the pro-abortion crowd is just afraid to talk about abortion. That they attack the anti-abortion crowd out of insecurity that they’re defending murder. Which again, goes back to my point that the GOP right-wing just loves painting pro-abortion advocates as soulless baby killers who don’t understand the profound depths of having an abortion. What’s more, this debate is convictions versus rights. As the debate unravels it always comes down to someone’s faith telling them that abortion is wrong, and therefore the person’s rights mean nothing in the eyes of an almighty deity. It’s an absurd base argument with which to build on and curtail a constitutionally guaranteed freedom. This same logic somehow doesn’t apply with common sense gun laws and the GOP right-wing 2nd amendment crowd.

Further from that in Mr. Goldberg’s misogynistic ramblings against women’s right to choose is the notion that Wendy Davis is ignorant and therefore an unworthy mainstream political candidate. Not unlike the left-wing conspiracy that makes Sarah Palin a perpetual joke. But the problem is…Sarah Palin IS ignorant on most topics (political or otherwise) that matter to people. For Pete’s sake she couldn’t be bothered to answer a question about what newspapers she reads in a straight forward manner. Which means she’s a coward for not knowing about reading newspapers?

On the subject of women’s issues the GOP right-wing is only doubling down and losing. If they continue to push the issues, especially in the case of Obamacare covering contraceptives for women, they will lose further. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that insurance covers men's health items such as boner pills, penile implants and a score of other things, that I’m pretty sure women, or young people in general, aren’t interested in having to “pay for” out of their hard earned money.

The GOP right-wing is hoping to gain a foothold on gender issues by pressing the horrors of late terms abortions and banning them in the states. It’s seems like their eventual hope is to waste more taxpayer time and money propelling another case to the Supreme Court in the hopes of squashing a woman’s right to choose no matter the cost. This cost is going to be women voters across the board, and with the old white men arm of their party base slowly dying off, the GOP right-wing may need to pick their battles more carefully.