It's About Sex
One of the many things I've been meaning to write about in recent weeks is the Prevention First Act, proposed last month by Democratic Senate minority leader Harry Reid and since co-sponsored by 22 of his colleagues. The legislation is intended to reduce unwanted pregnancies, and thus abortions, by expanding access to preventive health services and education.

Seems to me that this is an obvious and uncontroversial goal: whatever one's position on the legality of abortion, who could be against legislation that reduces the risk that any woman would have to face the choice of whether or not to carry her child to term?

As is often the case, however, I've been proven a naif. Not one Senate Republican has joined onto the legislation, and the usual suspects on the right have condemned the measure, as The Carpetbagger notes. Family Research Council president Tony Perkins (whose name always makes me think of the character his late namesake once portrayed: one Norman Bates) characterizes the proposal as "the same tired and failed solution it has offered in the past - increase money and access to condoms and the morning-after pill[.]"

What this says to me is that it's not really abortions these people are concerned with; it's sport-fucking. They'd rather see unwanted pregnancies, and terminated pregnancies, continue than appear to give support to Doing the Dirty Deed, outside of (holy) matrimony.

Their preferred way to end abortion, I conclude, is abstinence-only sex education. Never mind that it doesn't seem to work; today's right-wing extremists would rather be wrong and ideologically pure than compromise their "principles" while doing real-world good.

For what it's worth, I think abstinence education has a part to play in the solution here. Even without the question of pregnancy risk, sex is deep water for most high school-age kids, and participating in it irresponsibly or in ignorance can lead to emotional damage that might never be repaired. To the extent that there's utilitarian value in making the case for abstinence--and that it doesn't get snarled up in what often seems like the goal of the right wing to turn secondary schools into the equivalent of Christian madrassahs--it should be supported.

As I've noted here many times, I understand and to some extent share the discomfort many Americans have with abortion. I'm pretty confident, however, that many and perhaps most of those who consider themselves "pro-life" aren't really interested in regulating the sexual behavior of others who don't share their views--and would view with dismay and outrage the privileging of this position over steps to decrease the number of abortions.