Exploring The Political Zero-Sum Game
"If men could carry kids, abortion would be a sacrament." -paraphrase of various feminists.
A tiny bit of personal background is in order before I jump in with both feet. I was baptized, raised, and confirmed in the Roman Catholic Chruch, a 'cradle Catholic', if you'd like. While I do not go to chruch now, one can only disassociate from one's roots as much as one can disassociate one's self from one's head. I was raised on the opinon that abortion was in fact murder and one of the things you didn't negotate about as far as sins went. It's sorta become the Eighth Deadly Sin of the Catholic Chruch, and it is true that you can be excommunciated for having one, last I checked. (Which was almost 10 years ago in my youth group, so don't cite me as the be all and end all of knowledge of canon law or current chruch policy on this one, ok? Ok.)
When I finally got out of high school, I went through some growing spiritually, and one of the things I'm still defining is where the dogma I grew up with belongs in my life now. However, I have to say, frankly, down deep in the heart, I find the whole issue repugnant, although I could find some reasons that it could be used as a life or sanity saving procedure. So, yes, emotionally I'm opposed to abortion, but I've realized two things recently that moderates my dislike politically. The first is quite simply the fact that I'm male, and being male it's not really my decision to make. I have roughly about as much right telling women what they can do with what's in their bodies as I do telling Native Americans what they can do in or with their reservations. And since I don't have a single dollop of Native blood, that'd be none. If someone I was....ahem, personal with told me they were pregnant with my child and had plans to abort it, I'd probably beg and plead with them to either give the child to me or up for adoption, but I couldn't stop them without resorting to illegal means--and I shouldn't. After all, it was my own stupidity that got me there in the first place.
Secondly, if everyone who outlawed abortions won, would it truly stop? You hear these stories of preabortion era clinics involving unsurgical tools and coat hangers, and is that what we really want? It would almost serve the public better if we worked on converting pro-choice people a little at a time versus creating a public health hazard over it. I know that sounds horrid, give up your ideals just for public health and safety, but the thing is the number of things people do when they're thinking clearly is much lower than what they'll do when they are desperate, and some of these women looking for this...procedure are desperate. That's a reason why I'm a fan of education versus simple annhilation of the problem.
So, while picking at my personal views of the political map of abortion is fascinating, what exactly does this have to do with being a zero-sum game?
It's zero sum because no politican in their right mind (and only ones in their right mind get elected to things like president, and in SOME areas of the country, Congress) will do anything to change the poltical map on abortion. Why would they? Roughly half of the people who care are for, and half of the people who care are against. So, unless you're fond of committing political suicide and taking your party with you, it's a bad idea to even propose banning or expanding the big A.
So why is it a talking point or an issue?
Because it polarizes your base, and gets every religion that opposes behind you. Liberals do it too, they tell feminist groups if they don't vote for them, Roe v. Wade will be overturned overnight! However, this is a even more sly idea for the right side of the fence. It is known that the Pope, on the whole, opposes wars, and this one in Iraq in particular. But did the Roman Catholic archbishops in America blast President Bush on the war around election time? If they did, I must of missed it among the three or four articles where they blasted John Kerry's permissive stance on abortion. And there are a number of Catholics that probably read that and thought, 'well, if the bishops don't like Kerry, the church must not like him...' And then you have a candidate that wins on 'moral issues.'
What are moral issues? How the candidate looks as far as honesty and intergrity go, their views on family values, whether the candidate seems like a good church-goer or not...and things like abortion stance.
So, who looks better to your average religious person? A man who goes to church and the church hierarchy doesn't say a peep about him, or a man who's always getting blasted by his hiearchy? Who do you think voters who voted that kind of criteria voted for?
And it was a *brilliant* move! Catholics had been a left leaning voting bloc for Democrats for years, but they NEVER supported the stance on abortion because they find it to be morally wrong. Naturally, some Catholics will just vote Kerry anyway for either the reasons of they think the social issues are more important or they oppose the war, which might have a chance of having an impact with their vote versus abortion, which is not so good, for the reason I delinated above. But there are some who will agree with the bishops, see the good man going to church without any problems with his hierarchy of choice...and vote for him.
You've spilt the bloc in two. And even if there's only one million Catholics in this nation, in a 75/25 normal spilt, or a 70/30, or a even a 60/40 against your party, if you make that closer to 50/50, or even make it 45/55 for you, you've picked up anywhere from 100,000 to 250,000 votes. And considering there's more Catholics than that in the US....well, do the numbers on the other denominations, and you've won an election.
And you'll make the right noises for a while. Perhaps you do acutally oppose abortion. However, it's not time yet, you don't have support and you have to ensure there will be others to follow after you, continue the work you've done. In the end tho', you're just one more politican...playing the zero sum game. And you'll count your lucky stars that they didn't vote for the other guy because they didn't like you on the REAL issues. And the audience gasps as you pull yet another rabbit out of your political hat.
Wishing You All You All The Best As You Tilt At Windmills, The AWM/wolf dragon,
Sol