The Next Moral Reckoning

One of the most common defenses I hear of Donald Trump from his evangelical supporters, and even some of his more casual Christian supporters (those who are not terribly religious in their daily lives, but staunchly defend Christianity and "moral values" even if they rarely set foot in a church) is that he will put a Supreme Court justice on the bench who will support a Christian agenda.  This includes striking down gay rights and overturning Roe v. Wade.  With the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the Religious Right began to salivate.  Now that Amy Coney Barrett has replaced her, she is ready to do battle against the movement that allowed her to rise to her current position in the first place. 

There was once a time in this country that abortion wasn't on the minds of Protestant evangelicals.  It wasn't part of their political agenda at all.  The pet issue of the Evangelical south was to maintain some forms of segregation, particularly in their private, Christian schools. At this point public schools were integrated nationally and Jim Crow laws were all overturned.  Southern segregation academies were the one place where whites and blacks could be separated.  Children could still be indoctrinated in the idea that races did not mix in society.  The US government rightfully made the decision that there should be no exceptions.  Christians had no special privilege.  It put an end to segregated private schools they best way it knew how.  Religious schools that refused to integrate were no longer tax exempt.

I like to think history evolves toward justice, which means I want to believe that in addition to the outrage over taxation, evangelicals also came to understand segregation is morally reprehensible.  Regardless of the reasons, the country had a large voting block that no longer had segregation as a unifying issue to maintain it's power over the government.  This group needed a new issue.

In the seventies many Republican politicians who sided with evangelicals supported Roe v. Wade (including Reagan and Bush Sr. early in their political careers).  What happened to change that?  It came about because abortion provided a political alliance.  Protestants didn't care, but Catholics did.  If evangelical Republicans centered their campaigns around abortion, they could potentially win over a voting block that often swung Democratic. 

This began a decades-long campaign of pushing voters' emotional buttons.  A fetus became an unborn child (it was almost always a child, rarely a baby, and never a fetus).  Misleading photos of miscarriages were plastered on posters at protests outside of women's health clinics.  Guilt-inducing language became part of political rallies and TV commercials.  Abortion went from being an unfortunate medical procedure to "murder".  

This inflammatory language didn't win over every voter, but it was enough to bring otherwise disinterested voters to the polls.  It has been bringing certain voters to the polls ever since.  It became part of the platform of the Republican party and now all Republican politicians are required to support it if they want to be elected.

What makes abortion such a convenient issue for politicians is that it never goes away.  Roe V. Wade is a popular law.  Seventy percent of Americans support it.  Even when Republicans have controlled all branches of government, no single politician ever introduces any sort of legislation to overturn it.  Every Republican politician says he will fight for outlawing abortion, but not one has ever succeeded.  Why would he?  If he gains notoriety for overturning a law with overwhelming support, he risks turning off the moderates and other swing voters.  

The point of making abortion a campaign issue is that it brings certain voters to the polls.  Those voters vote again and again with the hope that this time their candidate will succeed in ending abortion forever.  The anti-choice voting block votes consistently.  The same can't be said for moderates or even more liberal voters.  Pro-choice voters may not vote consistently because they focus on other issues as well.  Anti-choice voters vote because they have never been able to get their way.

The truth is most politicians may talk the talk about "Moral Values" to bring voters to the polls, but most of them don't care.  They only care about being re-elected.   Furthermore, the monied interests who contribute to Republican campaigns mostly don't care about abortion (or any other moral values either).  They only care if politicians are supporting laws assure them the biggest piece of the pie without having to contribute anything further to a functioning society (in other words pay the taxes that are needed to support the military, infrastructure, education, police, and fire departments).  The wealthiest campaign donors in the country spend millions of dollars making sure the people who vote care more about abortion than about how those campaign donors themselves are gaming the system in their favor.

The 2020 election now threatens the status quo and there is some real concern the new Supreme Court could decide the case that overturns Roe V. Wade.  There are enough religious big money interests right now who are genuinely concerned about abortion and other personal issues (such as the families behind Amway, WalMart, and Hobby Lobby).  Right-wing evangelical voters may finally be handed the gift they have been requesting for years.  There is a new judge on the bench who would love to take credit for being the one who overturns Roe V. Wade. 

Let's say it happens. Even though many politicians would be reluctant to outlaw abortion in this country, let's say a case comes before The Supreme Court that would cause Roe V. Wade to be overturned.  Abortion is no longer considered a right in this country.  

Now what?

There is an entire voting block out there that finally got what it wanted.  What do they do next?  What is the next big issue? What will they fight for?  What will bring them to the polls?  What will be the next big moral question?  Will Republicans lose a chunk of voters who feel they have less to fight for?

I suppose the next issue will be overturning Obergefell v. Hodges.  Gay rights are the natural runner-up for abortion rights in this country.   Marriage is a government institution, so it could be argued that the government has some say as to who is allowed to marry.  The government already has some common-sense rules about marriage in place such as rules against children marrying, rules against incestuous marriage, or rules that humans can only marry other humans.  I suppose it can be argued that the government can say marriage can only be between men and women (even if they are consenting adults). 

Is this a slippery slope?  Will the government be able to legislate behavior outside of government institutions?  If we overturn Obergefell v. Hodges, will anti-sodomy laws be reinstated as well?  Can you fire someone for being gay?  Can you refuse service to someone for being gay?  Will the merely existing as LBGTQUIA be punishable by law and what will that punishment be?  Will gays be imprisoned or chemically castrated or heavily fined or forced into conversion therapy or put to death?  What level of discrimination will your average right-wing evangelical be comfortable with?  What level of punishment does a Christian think is fair for someone whose private sexual behaviors do not match their own?  Many Christians claim to espouse libertarianism.  If you are truly a libertarian, can you agree that the government is allowed to police the behavior of what you do in the bedroom at home and with whom?  

For years I have been hearing that right-wing evangelicals cast their votes for "moral values".   Those moral values have always been abortion and gay marriage (and varying other levels of gay rights).  If those two rights are taken away, what will the new morals be?  

I consider the slippery slope argument that says reproductive rights won't stop at abortion.  They will go after birth control as well.  They will also go after laws of equality in the workplace.  Gay rights won't stop at marriage.  They will make the mere act of being gay illegal regardless of that libertarian streak.  

But slippery slopes are a logical fallacy.  Maybe overturning Roe v. Wade and Obergefell v. Hodges will be enough.  Overturning them will be a symbolic victory.  I'm sure many evangelical voters out there will want a break from fighting the good fight and will be be happy to rest on their laurels. 

This is what the corporate interests pulling the strings of the Republican party fear.  Will this group stop voting if they get what they think they want?  This is a voting block that can make or break an election.  What if voters no longer have to vote about abortion and start questioning how much power corporate money has on the government?

Maybe these voters will continue to travel down the same roads.  I'm sure some of them will.  They will go down that slippery slope and fight to deny birth control and other forms of female empowerment.  They will fight to make any expression of homosexuality illegal.  Those are the things some people care about but do enough of them care to swing an election?  Will there be enough politicians out there who champion those rights?  Maybe most of them realize the majority of Americans don't support these extreme positions and their elections will be more endangered by supporting them.

I also wonder if LGBTQIA and other women’s issues are enough to fire up a minority base of strict values voters.  Plenty of Americans, even Republicans, are close to gay people, or are even gay themselves.  They might question denying gay rights.  Most Americans use birth control.  Denying women workplace rights would be tricky.  There are too many conservative women in powerful positions who aren't going to step down without a fight.  

Abortion was an easy target because most Americans are fools for babies.  Showing photos of mutilated fetuses pushes some buttons.  Telling feel-good stories about women who kept their babies and raised them against all odds pushes buttons.  Filling the media with stories of childless couples welcoming someone else's unwanted healthy white baby into their families pushes buttons.  Stories of women who miscarried babies who sob at the "waste" of abortions pushes buttons.  Abortion creates an emotional response among voters that might be hard to replicate with other issues.  

So here comes the moral reckoning.  What really matters to you?  What do voters care about other than abortion?  If abortion becomes illegal, what else makes you want to vote? Is it the same thing that makes your fellow pro-life neighbor vote?

There are many other issues that concern Americans that are difficult to put in black and white terms.  Americans say they want lower taxes, but which taxes should be lower and what services will they be willing to sacrifice for those lower taxes?  Americans say they want to end "handouts" and "free stuff" and "welfare" until they themselves find themselves disabled or chronically ill or out of work.  Americans say they want to end illegal immigration without understanding how our immigration system works and how dependent many industries are on the economic desperation of immigrants (and how they take advantage of it).  We can talk about wanting a strong military and a strong police force, but both of those require taxes to maintain, which brings us back to the lower tax issue.  

I have heard many voters talk the talk about these issues, but I never see the kind of unified, single-minded focus for any of them that compels them to vote in every election.  Is there a voting block out there willing to go to the polls every time on any of these issues?  

In the past fifty years, voter turnout has averaged less than 50% of the eligible voting population.  There are many reasons Americans don't vote.  Some of them feel their votes don't count.  Some of them feel all of the candidates are too far to the right or too far to the left.  Some of them are apathetic or contemptuous of the system ("All politicians are crooks so why bother?").  The one thing we can say about abortion is that it transcended so much of that.  There is a block of voters out there so focused on "saving babies" that it makes them votes every time with no question of what candidate to vote for.

If the Supreme Court finds a way to overturn Roe v. Wade in the next few years, what will be the new single, unifying issue that will bring out a single unified voting block?  Is it  possible to create one?  There are so many issues out there.  Americans are divided and fragmented and we all have different priorities.  Abortion is unique in the way it unites and focuses a large group of voters.

In a perfect world Roe v. Wade will remain intact.  If that's not going to happen, my great hope is that it will cause some voters to rethink their priorities.  Maybe they will wake up and understand all the ways the economy is working against them.  Maybe they will they will place the empathy and energy they put into other women's fetuses onto other needy and disenfranchised Americans.  Maybe they will look at the world around them and care about preserving it for future generations.  The evil part of me hopes they will just stay home.

My fear is what is coming.  There will be a new issue and it will be one none of us are expecting.  It will be one that destroys even more rights or disenfranchises an even larger group of people.  I fear for my friends in the LGBTQIA community.  I fear for my POC friends.  I fear for myself.  What kind of world are we about to create?