Tag Archives: Roe v. Wade

Matt Birk: Rape Victims Are “Playing the Rape Card?”

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Today, the Star Tribune is reporting that Minnesota Lieutenant Governor wannabe Matt Birk is an ignorant bigot, proving that there are some things even a $216,000 Harvard education cannot fix.

Speaking at the National Right to Life conference in Georgia last month, Birk said American culture “loudly but also stealthily promotes abortion” by “telling women they should look a certain way, they should have careers.” Birk said abortion rights activists who oppose bans that do not have exceptions for victims of rape or incest “always want to go to the rape card.”

An abortion, Birk said, is “not going to heal the wounds of that.”

“Two wrongs is not gonna … make it right,” said Birk, a former Minnesota Vikings center who’s the running mate of GOP-endorsed governor candidate Scott Jensen.

First, the “rape card” crack. When a woman is raped, impregnated, and defends her right to an abortion, she is not “playing the rape card.”  She is not playing any card.  She has been forcibly dealt a trauamatic card by violent criminal.  A very difficult decision has been forced on her by the worst kind of thug, and the subsequent decisions about how to deal with that trauma must be made by her and her alone, not Matt Birk or any other smug, judgmental politician.

By the way, this pooh-poohing of crime victims is coming from the candidate running on an anti-crime platform.  Isn’t that rich?

And then there is the career comment. Women don’t have careers because liberal society forced it on them. They have careers for the same reason men do. To support themselves. To support their families. To chase their dreams.  Whether we’re talking about this career choice or the choice of whether, when, and how to have a family, these kinds of choices should be made by the woman involved, and not judged by pompous politicians like Matt Birk.

This shocking chapter of the 2022 gubernatorial campaign is yet another reminder that Minnesotans know almost nothing about Matt Birk the politician. Birk is revealing himself to be an extremist, just like the person at the top of the ticket, Scott Jensen. As I noted earlier, reporters should probe to learn where he stands on a whole host of issues:

Public funding for free birth control, which is proven to dramatically reduce unplanned pregnancies and abortions?  Codifying marriage equality? Paid family and medical leave?  Giving Minnesotans the option to buy into MinnesotCare?  Prayer in public schools, and which religion’s prayer? Taxpayers subsidizing billionaire sports team owners’ stadiums?  Making the wealthiest 1% of Minnesotans, which includes Birk, pay higher taxes to fund education improvements?  Accepting Obamacare funding for Medicare expansion in Minnesota? “Don’t say gay” laws to punish teachers who mention gay people in school? Allowing parents to ban books from school libraries? 

Maybe Birk would accuse me of playing the “issue card” here, but Minnesotans need to know more about a guy who cavalierly characterizes rape victims as “playing the rape card.”


For the Gander

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Guest post by Noel Holston

As we know, thanks to the leak that hit front pages like a Russian missile, the U.S. Supreme Court’s carefully cultivated conservative majority almost certainly will strike down Roe v. Wade later this year, throwing decisions about the legality of abortion back to the 50 states.

Especially if you live in state where virtually all abortions will be banned, it’s time to start thinking about what can be done to equalize the personal liberty that is being taken away from women.

Given that men are responsible for upwards of 99% of unwanted pregnancies, it’s only fair that guys should be required to step up.

Call it what you will — turnabout is fair play or equal justice under the law – but one answer is penis licensing.

Abortion foes should insist that all males over the age of 15 should be required to register immediately as potential procreators. Boys can will tested for reproductive ability as they approach puberty. Once they’ve come of age, they’ll have to register as well.

The penile equivalent of concealed carry will be legal. But a guy removing his willy from his pants for sexual purposes will need to show his license to his prospective female partner, known in blue states and cities as a woman, in red zones as a vessel. He’ll also need to get his female partner’s written consent and have his sperm card stamped and notarized.

Neighbors, relatives and wingmen will be able to collect monetary rewards for reporting penile misuse that results in an unwanted pregnancy. Convicted violators will be subject to fines for first offenses, jail terms for subsequent offenses. There will be no procreative equivalent of capital punishment, however. We are an enlightened society. Exceptions will be granted to men who undergo certified voluntary vasectomy.

What’s oppressive for the goose may be just as oppressive for the gander, but at least we would avoid a hypocritical double standard.

Note: Noel Holston is a freelance writer who lives in Athens, Georgia. He regularly shares his insights and wit at Wry Wing Politics. He’s also a contributing essayist to Medium.com, TVWorthWatching.com, and other websites. He previously wrote about television and radio at Newsday (200-2005) and, as a crosstown counterpart to the Pioneer Press’s Brian Lambert, at the Star Tribune  (1986-2000).  He’s the author of “Life After Deaf: My Misadventures in Hearing Loss and Recovery,” by Skyhorse.

As Sordid an Example of “Legislating from the Bench” as We’ll Ever See.

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How the Federalist Society came to dominate the Supreme Court – Harvard Gazette

Not that there was really any question, you understand. But with this “leak” of the Supreme Court’s imminent abortion ruling we can pretty well dismiss the notion that there is ever a “settled” argument in this great, grand democratic experiment of ours. Given sufficient connivery, bad faith and partisan fervor, nothing is ever truly decided and settled.

Court watchers and other sage heads — like Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick — are at the moment undecided about why and who leaked Sam Alito’s 98-page screed/draft of the court’s upcoming opinion. Was it someone trying to gin up enough public outrage to … do something about it? On a court where there’s a locked-in-stone five votes to decide in favor of anything the Federalist Society/evangelical right has on their to-do list?

Or was the leak from someone sympathetic to overturning Roe? An arch-partisan wet dream that has never polled higher than 30% with Americans since 1973? The thinking being that given Americans’ inability to focus on anything longer than two weeks would mean the howling and protesting — from the majority of citizens — will be exhausted by June when the formal decision is expected to be handed down?

Predictably, FoxNews world is already declaring that the “real scandal” here is … the leak … not Alito’s thinking.

Whatever, there’s little doubt that overturning a “settled law” that has maintained 70% support for 50 years will be the signature decision of John Roberts’ court. This vote will be his legacy. And as I’ve followed the news since last night, Roberts has neither said or signalled anything about how he will vote or whether he’s trying to work the team to modulate the greatest example of “legislating from the bench” in modern American history.

The Roberts angle of this is interesting because from everything I know about the guy he is the classic between-the-forty-yard-lines institutional conservative … getting trampled like so many others of his fading ilk by hyper-partisans with a truly hypocritical regard for constitutional integrity. Like so many old-school, country club Republicans, he’s watching the cumulative effect of so many of his status quo/progressive-resistant decisions coming back to wreak havoc on the dignity of the institutions they claim to so revere.

The abortion argument is so treadworn there’s nothing fresh to be said about it. My personal attitude — shared by many in polling over the decades — is that while I could never consent to it in my relationships, and certainly not as “casual” birth control, the idea that The Government has any standing to dictate to a woman what she can and cannot do — even in the case of rape or her health for chrissakes — is about as anti-democratic, anti-libertarian and anti-American experiment as it gets.

What makes the pro-life argument even worse — which is to say even more hypocritical — is that poll after poll and study after study shows that Godly-divined, Christ-sanctioned anti-abortion partisans are nearly as rabidly opposed to social welfare spending — for people like single-mothers — as they are to choice. For them, support for life stops at birth.

Here’s George Carlin’s classic “pro life” rant.

Amy Klobuchar popped up on Rachel Maddow’s show last night making brave sounds about how this means liberals and everyone else in favor of Roe as it stands has to, you know, band together and gird for the fight to change Congress before this authoritarian stampede gets any worse.

To which I say, “Well, good luck with that.” As someone pointed out on Twitter this morning, over two million people have signed a petition to cut Johnny Depp’s ex-wife out of the next “Aquaman” movie because she was so so crazy mean to Johnny.

By contrast, the outrageously sordid tale of Clarence Thomas’s wife cavorting with abject nutjobs and insurrectionists — with his full knowledge — trying to subvert the Constitution by overthrowing an election has faded from public interest with no apparent legal consequences.

Conservative Pressler Would Ban Abortions, While 68% of South Dakotans Support Keeping Them Legal

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In an increasingly interesting and competitive U.S. Senate campaign in South Dakota, former Republican U.S. Senator Larry Pressler, now running as an Independent, is consistently portrayed by the news reporters as a “moderate.”

It’s ludicrous to characterize Pressler as a “moderate.” After all, his most recent votes in the U.S. Senate were 100% against women, teachers, students, gays and workers, he has voted for cuts in Social Security and Medicare, and he stilll speaks out about wanting to cut those programs even more in the future.

Pressler_Would_Overturn_Roe_Vs_Wade_-_YouTubePressler has also said in no uncertain terms during this current campaign that he would make abortion illegal.
Not regulated, mind you.  Not scaled back.  Illegal.  He would overturn the Roe v. Wade decision that has kept abortion a legal option since 1972.

After Pressler banned abortions, he would allow states to make abortion legal again if they choose, but we all know that many states would keep abortion illegal, and make millions of women into criminals and victims of botched back alley abortions.

Even in a red state like South Dakota, banning abortion is not a mainstream position.  In the most recent polling I could find on this issue, a Sioux Falls Argus Leader survey, only 25% of South Dakotans say that abortion should be illegal.

Instead, an overwhelming 68% of South Dakotans want to keep abortion legal, either “legal and the decision to have an abortion should be made by the woman without government interference (34%),” or “legal but restricted to very specific circumstances, such as rape, incest or to save the life of the mother (34%).”

This idea that the news media mindlessly calls anyone who camouflages themselves with an “Independent” label a “moderate” shows just how shallow political reporting has gotten.  Politicians who make abortion illegal, cut Social Security and Medicare and vote 100% against women, teachers gays, students and workers are hardly “moderate.” They are, by any reasonable definition, on the far right.

– Loveland