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| The Pro-Life Movement’s Kavanaugh Dilemma | The Pro-Life Movement’s Kavanaugh Dilemma |
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| “While on the surface it is the embryo’s fate that seems to be at stake,” the sociologist Kristin Luker wrote in 1984, “the abortion debate is actually about the meaning of women’s lives.” | “While on the surface it is the embryo’s fate that seems to be at stake,” the sociologist Kristin Luker wrote in 1984, “the abortion debate is actually about the meaning of women’s lives.” |
| This line, from Luker’s book “Abortion and the Politics of Motherhood,” neatly encapsulates a longstanding pro-choice charge against the pro-life movement. As much as opponents of abortion claim to care about the killing of the unborn, the argument goes, in reality abortion restriction is a means to a different end: The restraint of women’s choices, the restriction of their sexual freedom, their subordination to the rule of fathers and husbands and patriarchy writ large. | This line, from Luker’s book “Abortion and the Politics of Motherhood,” neatly encapsulates a longstanding pro-choice charge against the pro-life movement. As much as opponents of abortion claim to care about the killing of the unborn, the argument goes, in reality abortion restriction is a means to a different end: The restraint of women’s choices, the restriction of their sexual freedom, their subordination to the rule of fathers and husbands and patriarchy writ large. |
| The reality has always been more complicated. From the beginning of the modern anti-abortion movement — whose origins lie in the 1960s, not just the aftermath of Roe v. Wade — it has included female leaders who identify as pro-life feminists and reject the idea that female liberty depends on a right to kill your unborn child. And while the pro-life grass roots tended to be strongly traditionalist on gender roles in the 1970s, with time pro-life and pro-choice citizens converged in their views on women’s roles; by the late 2000s, the Claremont McKenna professor Jon Shields wrote in a 2012 commentary on Luker’s book, a clear majority of pro-lifers voters held views that sociologists would describe as “gender egalitarian,” not traditionalist or Gileadean. | The reality has always been more complicated. From the beginning of the modern anti-abortion movement — whose origins lie in the 1960s, not just the aftermath of Roe v. Wade — it has included female leaders who identify as pro-life feminists and reject the idea that female liberty depends on a right to kill your unborn child. And while the pro-life grass roots tended to be strongly traditionalist on gender roles in the 1970s, with time pro-life and pro-choice citizens converged in their views on women’s roles; by the late 2000s, the Claremont McKenna professor Jon Shields wrote in a 2012 commentary on Luker’s book, a clear majority of pro-lifers voters held views that sociologists would describe as “gender egalitarian,” not traditionalist or Gileadean. |
| At the same time the abortion-rights movement was linked in its early days to a distinctive form of upper-class WASP paternalism — in which legal abortion was sold as a means of helping upper-class “good girls” out of trouble while keeping the undesirable fertility of other classes and races in check. And from Hugh Hefner’s early abortion-rights advocacy to a certain style of predatory male feminism today, support for legal abortion among men has often carried a strong whiff of self-interest, with feticide as a get-out-of-responsibility-free card for caddish men. | At the same time the abortion-rights movement was linked in its early days to a distinctive form of upper-class WASP paternalism — in which legal abortion was sold as a means of helping upper-class “good girls” out of trouble while keeping the undesirable fertility of other classes and races in check. And from Hugh Hefner’s early abortion-rights advocacy to a certain style of predatory male feminism today, support for legal abortion among men has often carried a strong whiff of self-interest, with feticide as a get-out-of-responsibility-free card for caddish men. |
| But with all this said, it’s also obvious that social conservatism can lapse into a version of Luker’s portrait, and it’s easy to think of examples — the Todd Akin fiasco of 2012, for instance — where a cruelly sexist form of anti-abortion politics reared an ugly head. | |
| Which is why the allegation of sexual assault against Brett Kavanaugh represents a uniquely dangerous moment for a pro-life movement that has spent decades working toward the goal of a fifth Supreme Court vote to amend or overturn Roe v. Wade. | Which is why the allegation of sexual assault against Brett Kavanaugh represents a uniquely dangerous moment for a pro-life movement that has spent decades working toward the goal of a fifth Supreme Court vote to amend or overturn Roe v. Wade. |
| Kavanaugh may be innocent. The allegation against him is plausible but not nearly as dispositive as the cascade of #MeToo claims that have felled other prominent men. If it is false, the work of a faulty or disoriented memory, then he is in a legitimately terrible position, with a lifetime’s reputation for probity at stake and no clear way to clear his name. Which is why the accuser cannot shirk testifying publicly, as her lawyer suggested last night, and expect her claims to keep him from the Supreme Court. | Kavanaugh may be innocent. The allegation against him is plausible but not nearly as dispositive as the cascade of #MeToo claims that have felled other prominent men. If it is false, the work of a faulty or disoriented memory, then he is in a legitimately terrible position, with a lifetime’s reputation for probity at stake and no clear way to clear his name. Which is why the accuser cannot shirk testifying publicly, as her lawyer suggested last night, and expect her claims to keep him from the Supreme Court. |
| But she may testify, and her story may be true. And it has landed at a moment of great cultural peril for a type of social conservatism that regards itself as idealistic and pro-woman and capable of marrying its convictions to support for female advancement and empowerment. | But she may testify, and her story may be true. And it has landed at a moment of great cultural peril for a type of social conservatism that regards itself as idealistic and pro-woman and capable of marrying its convictions to support for female advancement and empowerment. |
| In its targets the #MeToo movement has made no partisan distinctions; if anything, it has probably ended the careers of more prominent liberal pigs than right-wing men. But for reasons of political expedience, conservatives have been more likely to make excuses for their predators, and indeed have elevated one of the more prominent examples to the White House. That elevation, and the Trumpification of the right it has required, has accelerated the political polarization of the sexes, so that what was once a milder gender gap is now an extraordinary gulf. | In its targets the #MeToo movement has made no partisan distinctions; if anything, it has probably ended the careers of more prominent liberal pigs than right-wing men. But for reasons of political expedience, conservatives have been more likely to make excuses for their predators, and indeed have elevated one of the more prominent examples to the White House. That elevation, and the Trumpification of the right it has required, has accelerated the political polarization of the sexes, so that what was once a milder gender gap is now an extraordinary gulf. |
| Thanks to Trump and his enablers, then, liberals and the Democratic Party have been able to take the long list of Hollywood creeps and Acela-corridor bounders and say, look, we have a problem, but we’re dealing with it. While conservatives and the Republican Party are stuck as the vehicle for male defensiveness and anti-#MeToo backlash. | Thanks to Trump and his enablers, then, liberals and the Democratic Party have been able to take the long list of Hollywood creeps and Acela-corridor bounders and say, look, we have a problem, but we’re dealing with it. While conservatives and the Republican Party are stuck as the vehicle for male defensiveness and anti-#MeToo backlash. |
| Which, to be clear, sometimes has a point. False rape accusations against privileged-white-male targets (the Duke lacrosse team, the imaginary Haven Monahan at the University of Virginia) are real enough, and the style of anti-rape policies on college campuses really has gone too far in traducing the rights of accused men. | Which, to be clear, sometimes has a point. False rape accusations against privileged-white-male targets (the Duke lacrosse team, the imaginary Haven Monahan at the University of Virginia) are real enough, and the style of anti-rape policies on college campuses really has gone too far in traducing the rights of accused men. |
| But among men who are legitimately prominent, not just unfortunate collegians, there have been few cases of late where the accusations have seemed trumped-up or the punishment too severe. The “plight” of Louis C.K. or Charlie Rose inspires no sympathy, and the attempts at reflection and self-rehabilitation by various fallen men — John Hockenberry in Harper’s, Jian Ghomeshi in The New York Review of Books — have mostly been obtuse. And the fact that Ronan Farrow can claim a legitimate scalp every month suggests that the “has it gone too far?” plaints are still premature. | But among men who are legitimately prominent, not just unfortunate collegians, there have been few cases of late where the accusations have seemed trumped-up or the punishment too severe. The “plight” of Louis C.K. or Charlie Rose inspires no sympathy, and the attempts at reflection and self-rehabilitation by various fallen men — John Hockenberry in Harper’s, Jian Ghomeshi in The New York Review of Books — have mostly been obtuse. And the fact that Ronan Farrow can claim a legitimate scalp every month suggests that the “has it gone too far?” plaints are still premature. |
| A Trumpified conservatism, though, will necessarily struggle to acknowledge any of this, because of what it would suggest about Trump’s own fitness for his office. And such a conservatism — much-more-heavily male than the Reagan or Bush G.O.P., organized around the fears and grievances of prominent men, and seemingly indifferent to the legitimacy of certain kinds of female anger — will end up defining all its constituent parts, all its causes and concerns, as subordinate to the defense of male impunity. | A Trumpified conservatism, though, will necessarily struggle to acknowledge any of this, because of what it would suggest about Trump’s own fitness for his office. And such a conservatism — much-more-heavily male than the Reagan or Bush G.O.P., organized around the fears and grievances of prominent men, and seemingly indifferent to the legitimacy of certain kinds of female anger — will end up defining all its constituent parts, all its causes and concerns, as subordinate to the defense of male impunity. |
| This includes the pro-life movement. Even if it wins its long-desired victory at the high court and more anti-abortion legislation becomes possible, a pro-life cause joined to a party that can’t win female votes and seems to have no time for women will never be able to achieve those legislative goals, or at least never outside a very few, very conservative states. And having that long-awaited victory accomplished by a male judicial appointee confirmed under a cloud of #MeToo suspicion seems like a good way to cement a perception that’s fatal to the pro-life movement’s larger purposes — the perception that you can’t be pro-woman and pro-life. | This includes the pro-life movement. Even if it wins its long-desired victory at the high court and more anti-abortion legislation becomes possible, a pro-life cause joined to a party that can’t win female votes and seems to have no time for women will never be able to achieve those legislative goals, or at least never outside a very few, very conservative states. And having that long-awaited victory accomplished by a male judicial appointee confirmed under a cloud of #MeToo suspicion seems like a good way to cement a perception that’s fatal to the pro-life movement’s larger purposes — the perception that you can’t be pro-woman and pro-life. |
| This points to a conclusion that’s certainly unfair to Kavanaugh if he’s innocent, but nobody ever said that politics would be fair. If his accuser testifies publicly and credibly, if her allegation isn’t undermined by a week of scrutiny and testimony, if it remains unprovable but squarely in the realm of plausibility, then all the abortion opponents who were supporting him should hope that his nomination is withdrawn — with, ideally, a woman nominated in his place. | This points to a conclusion that’s certainly unfair to Kavanaugh if he’s innocent, but nobody ever said that politics would be fair. If his accuser testifies publicly and credibly, if her allegation isn’t undermined by a week of scrutiny and testimony, if it remains unprovable but squarely in the realm of plausibility, then all the abortion opponents who were supporting him should hope that his nomination is withdrawn — with, ideally, a woman nominated in his place. |
| That would be a political gamble in its own right, of course, and one that the Trump White House will take only under duress. But if Kavanaugh is a qualified judge, no judicial nominee is indispensable. And for a movement that risked so much to make these nominations possible, there is no reason to compound that risk unless this nominee can find a way to decisively persuade the country, however unfair that burden may seem, that he did not treat Christine Blasey Ford with the cruelty alleged this week. | That would be a political gamble in its own right, of course, and one that the Trump White House will take only under duress. But if Kavanaugh is a qualified judge, no judicial nominee is indispensable. And for a movement that risked so much to make these nominations possible, there is no reason to compound that risk unless this nominee can find a way to decisively persuade the country, however unfair that burden may seem, that he did not treat Christine Blasey Ford with the cruelty alleged this week. |
| Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook and Twitter (@NYTopinion), join the Facebook political discussion group, Voting While Female, and sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter. | Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook and Twitter (@NYTopinion), join the Facebook political discussion group, Voting While Female, and sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter. |