Former TAP editor Sarah Blustain powerfully reminds us of what should be obvious: John McCain is a strong opponent of reproductive freedom. He's certainly no moderate on the issue. Make sure to read the whole thing, but a taste:
Blustain also hasn't gotten the key script on this issue, which is that holding highly unpopular (Republican) views on abortion isn't a political problem; it's only holding the majority (Democratic) position that should be a political liability. And while I've said this before, it's also worth addressing this particular attempt to portray McCain as a moderate that Blustain cites:There is no "latitude" in McCain's position on abortion. Interviews with dozens of people who have dealt with him on the issue--pro-choice and pro-life activists, Hill staffers, McCain confidants, pollsters, and staffers--along with a two-and-a-half-decade-long perfectly anti-abortion voting record, make that clear. And his record on related issues, like contraception, is no better. "I think it is outrageous that people give him a pass, as they gave George W. Bush a pass," reflects Feldt. "John McCain will be that and worse."
He also told reporters that if his then-15-year-old daughter got pregnant, they would make "a private decision that we would share within our family and not with anyone else"--a response that to some ears sounded a lot like code for the right to privacy and abortion.
Of course, having no objection to your daughter getting a safe abortion in that context doesn't make you a pro-choicer; it makes you a Republican. John McCain's daughter will be able to obtain a safe abortion under any legal regime, including if Roe v. Wade was overturned tomorrow and her home state banned abortion. It's not women with the connections to obtain gray market abortions or the resources to travel who are affected by abortion bans, and the fact that McCain would exempt his daughter from rules he would apply to poor women in Mississippi makes his support for criminalizing abortion even worse.
--Scott Lemieux
