It occurs to me that the outpouring of grief and panic is exactly what many in the ultra-right wing want of us, in the wake of this SCOTUS leak. It’s no secret that overturning Roe was their goal; it’s just that the timing was thrown off, and they got a jolting sense of betrayal for good measure from the leak itself. But they’ve been planning for this day for decades. What that there are no parades.
So this reaction by the left might be the ultimate in liberal tears that some of them clearly have been anticipating. By such strong yet worried protestations, we may, I fear, be falling right into their hands.
In How Propaganda Works, Jason Stanley, in an ingenious meta-argument, explains how, when it comes to the unequal distribution of resources, it continuously falls to the excluded to plead for equal consideration, which then allows those in the dominant position merely to fail to acknowledge them. It is this dismissal that primarily preserves their power—they simply do not recognize the standing of those disadvantaged Others.
The same dynamic occurred just this past winter, with Kyrsten Sinema’s plastic acting and her demonstrative evocation of eschewing “the politics of division,” even as her politics in practice helped cleave division. By not acknowledging the broader, and frankly more important, issue of civil rights in the form of voting rights, she and her conservative cohorts were able to dismiss us, the opposition, by not even entertaining our petition.
This is how the powerful maintain their power. This is the game of exclusion. Not only are the others reduced to being on the outside looking in, the ones thus placed on the inside can indefinitely keep the entry closed and barricaded, can bar those Others from ever being offered a seat at the table. The powerful arrogate to themselves this power of discrimination, then they exercise it in a fashion that begets petition by the so excluded, which they subsequently ignore.
We’re in danger of that now, with abortion.
An excerpt from Battle for the Mind (pp. 264-65) (bear with me here).
In bull-fighting, the early efforts of the matador and his assistants are directed towards exciting, annoying and frustrating the bull in order to wear him out and thus make him more suggestible and responsive. The matador must “dominate” the bull into doing what is required of him in the final stage: namely, to follow the movements of the red muleta with trance-like obedience. A “good” bull who earns popular applause when finally dragged off dead from the ring is one that “co-operates” by getting as aggressive as possible when baited with capes, and stabbed in the shoulder muscles with the picador’s lance and the barbed darts of the banderillero. He is kept constantly on the move until emotionally and physically exhausted, and only when he can no longer hold up his head does the matador give the coup-de-grace with a lunge of his rapier between the relaxed shoulder blades.
A “bad” bull—unless some physical defect, such as partial blindness, prevents him from following the movements of the cape or the muleta—is one that refuses to get excited and so contrives to avoid both exhaustion and suggestibility. Until recently, the cure for [such] bulls was banderillas de fuego type of dart, with an explosive at the point, which made them buck and leap all over the ring—but these are now prohibited. The matador’s terror therefore is the bull that cannot be panicked by the traditional means, that seems to continue to think for himself and so is unpredictable in his responses.
It’s true that the Supreme Court has five high cards that threaten to trump us. But we need not assume the position of penitent, of someone begging for their essential rights. We need not hand them our power and ask for consideration. We need to treat them with contempt and ask them who do they think they are?
When Texas first implemented its bounty system for abortion, which stirred the current debate, I encountered someone on the comment boards over at Washington Post. At first, I engaged him with my tripartite argument of why abortion must stay legal (body integrity under the 4th Amendment, non-viability/lack of individuation, preservation of right to privacy per Griswold). He trotted out the standard anti-choice argument, stating that the fertilized egg is human.
Yes, but none of those rights involve terminating a second human life. As usual, Ms. Marcus ignores the very thing that makes the abortion issue uniquely challenging. No progress will be made until pro-choicers acknowledge the uniqueness of abortion and "own" that their position is actually "yes, abortion ends a second human life but it is acceptable in situations A, B, C because of reasons X, Y, Z..."
No, it ends a human life. If you presented a human embryo or fetus to a biologist and asked them "what species is this?" they would say "human." They wouldn't say "I just can't tell - could be a whale, could be an ant - I have no idea."
He spoke that as though that somehow refuted my three points. That is when I told him in no uncertain terms how unacceptable that was.
It's life and it's of human origin, but you are truly being offensive if you are equating a six-week zygote with a full-grown female human being. I mean, just straight out offensive.
He gave ground, though still tried to have it both ways:
I am not making a moral claim about equivalence. I am making a claim about biology. From a scientific standpoint, an embryo/fetus is a human life, albeit at an earlier stage of development. You might not think a human embryo is deserving of protection. I tend to agree with you. But not because I'm making some strained argument that it's not a human life when it is. I am being honest about what it means to be pro choice.
He tends to agree with me. I continued my refutation:
Again, please take the time to read the above essay, linked. [That’s a DailyKos essay: Anti-choice is semantic sleight-of-hand] It's my personal opinion. And it addresses what you're talking about.Once your point is conceded, just as I did, then what? The problem remains. There is a pregnant person and an unactualized human (not a person in any tradition or under any law). So . . . ?The question becomes: What is the legal relationship of the pregnant person to the State? That's the only question left.
Once I made it clear how demonstrably offensive his argument was, he backed down. In fact, he slunk away.
Get indignant.
Who do these people think they are? Personally speaking, these are my rights—I’ve already been invested with them. I’ll be damned if I’m reduced to crawling to the edge of the table, asking for consideration of some crumbs. That way lies insanity. That way lies defeat. I would have already surrendered! There ain’t no way in hell.
It’s posture. Posture determines positioning. I’m not a beggar. I already have these rights. I’m not going to give them away and then try to beg them back. That’s not how this works. That’s not how any of this works.