Do you know what’s a relief about Hillary Clinton running for president? There’ll be no rage-inducing section in the debates when two men discuss what reproductive rights they’ll attempt to grant or deny women should they be elected.
Oh wait. I forgot about the vice-presidential debate. Darn.
My first reaction to Mike Pence and Tim Kaine’s head-to-head was to try to remember how or why anyone watched presidential debates when they were just two white guys interrupting each other. And my second, when Pence introduced the topic of abortion, was a feeling of creeping dread. These two men were about to climb into the wombs of all American women and plant their flags – an operation every bit as uncomfortable as it sounds.
Elaine Quijano, the moderator, asked both outspokenly religious candidates if they could discuss a time when they struggled to balance their faith and a public policy position. Kaine described his personal struggle in implementing the death penalty. And Pence, in an immaculate segue, talked about how he struggled to balance his faith with a Clinton policy position. On abortion.
I knew what was coming. Because I am from Ireland: a country where male abortion oration has been exalted to an art form. To give examples from just the past week (otherwise the selection would be overwhelming), on Sunday Senator Ronan Mullen wrote a column for the Irish Independent vilifying women who travel to England to terminate pregnancies with fatal abnormalities. For Mullen, these women have denied a sick baby “the dignity of being allowed to reach a natural end. The same day, Archbishop Eamon Martin warned Irish politicians “not to leave their faith outside of the door” when forming abortion policy (which, trust me, they were never planning to do anyway).
I am from a country where, earlier this year, the group Family & Life held a pro-life event in which all three speakers were men. Men who, when questioned, saw nothing strange about the gendered composition of their learned gathering. I’m from a country where national radio shows routinely exclude Irish women from debates about their reproductive rights. I knew what was coming.
Kaine would play the coveted part of the liberal man distancing himself from the immorality of abortion (he would never have one himself), yet magnanimously conceding that he does not have the political right to extend his superior moral code to women. Pence would play the righteous conservative, possessed of the political courage to back up moral convictions that, really, both men share.
On cue, Pence began to speak in a concerned moral tone about the horrors of late- term abortions, even though 98.7% of abortions happen before 21 weeks and, after the murder of Dr George Tiller, there are only four third-trimester abortion providers left in the entire US.
Kaine exposed the wicked ruse of this focus on late term abortion: his opponent – gasp – actually wants to ban all abortions. “Why don’t you trust women?” our liberal ally proclaimed, simultaneously purporting to personally accept Catholic teaching on the issue, ie – that life begins at conception and abortion is evil. But it’s OK, ladies, because that’s just what he thinks in his private head! He would never actually act on it. Just think it. When he looks at you.
An all male discussion of abortion is ne’er complete without some holy verses sweet. It was time for the pair to exchange quotes from the Bible. “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,” Pence intoned in the actual voice of God, leaving me to wonder if he was talking to sperm because, technically, the almighty does appear to be referencing the period before womb inhabitation.
Pence defended Donald Trump’s publicly expressed opinion that women who have abortions should be punished by saying that Trump isn’t “polished”. But never fear, Kaine was ready with, “a great quote from Matthew.” St Matthew that is. “From the fullness of the heart, the mouth speaks.” Bam! Take that conservative male abortion orator, you just got hallowed-out by the liberal guy.
The next day, a New York Times editorial commended the abortion section of the debate as “a strong moment for both candidates”, which “offered a rare glimpse of politicians intelligently exploring a fraught question”. It noted that the abortion issue has been largely absent from this campaign.
It has been largely absent only if you ignore Clinton’s consistent attention to Trump’s anti-choice rhetoric; how she proudly touts the endorsement of Planned Parenthood (the first endorsement of a primary candidate in the organization’s 100 year history); that she is running on a ticket supporting repeal of the Hyde Amendment, which blocks federal funding for abortion. The abortion issue has been absent only if you ignore the fact that Clinton is about as provocatively pro-choice as any presidential candidate has dared to be.
But Clinton’s feminist politics are beside the point somehow. What’s really exceptional is when two men bare their souls on what abortion means to them. With those pesky women out of the way, they can intelligently explore this fraught question.
Spare us the sight of men discussing abortion – especially politicians | Emer O"Toole
