Rachel's guest Thursday peddled some wacko theory...

[Green_Lantern]

She's a Princeton African-American studies professor.

She said that politicians are anti-abortion because they want white women to have more children so we can make the country more white.

Being pro-choice is one thing but this argument is simply preying on minorities' fears about racist white people to make a political point.

Is this really any different than right-wingers gaining support by making white voters scared of black people?

I doubt Rachel would make such a silly argument.

[The Magistrate]

1. That, Sir, Is A Major Element Of Anti-Abortion Fanaticism

[Green_Lantern]

3. no...it really isn't...

But that's beside the point...it can't be proven.

I don't think being anti-abortion is anything but a knee jerk reaction to what they view as sexual promiscuity.

[Ricochet21]

4. I agree

I agree

[ibegurpard]

6. I agree with this

I believe that people who are anti-abortion are enraged that people are able to escape the "punishment" for their sin of sexual promsicuity.
They don't really give a shit about unborn children in anything other than theory.

[LostinVA]

7. +1

[RKP5637]

8. +1, n/t

[Quantess]

12. That is what it's all about.

Pregnancy as punishment. That's also why many of the anti-choicers oppose birth control. Birth control is seen as cheating, as trying to avoid the consequences.

[Ricochet21]

15. I agree

I agree

[The Magistrate]

10. Attitudes, Sir, Hang Together In Recognizable Constellations

Here, whites with a 'knee-jerk reaction to what they view as sexual promiscuity' tend also to be racist in greater than average degree. More racist whites tend to over-estimate the proportion of blacks, and to blame most social ills (including, for that matter, sexual promiscuity) on the increased proportion of blacks in society. If you pay attention, you will note rightist anti-abortion political figures lamenting the lack of births owing to abortion as having a variety of detrimental social consequences. Among those noted will be the lower birth rate among better educated and white persons, compared to poor people, and people with various shades of brown in their complexion. A number of extreme right Christian fanatics are quite explicit about the need to alter society's composition by seeing to it Christian women have as many babies as humanly possible, and these people are almost exclusively white.

[Green_Lantern]

14. I disagree...you're attributing way too much intelligence..

To a group of people driven by emotion and zeal.

They don't oppose abortion for just white Christians but every woman.

[The Magistrate]

19. Do Not Defend Your Enemies, Sir, and Never Under-rate Them

It is the lower birth rate among whites, and the degree to which abortion contributes to this, that gives anti-abortion fanaticism its edge as a political factor.

Do not forget that every sexual regulation in the bible, save a few late injunctions to celibacy, is framed with the explicit end of increasing the likelihood each permitted sexual act will produce impregnation.

[Vincardog]

20. I have to come down on the side of the Magistrate on this one. This is not to deny the punishment

aspect. I think that there are several excuses for being anti-abortion, no one wants them to happen. However who can definitively say what exactly motivates the rabid anti-abortionist? I believe it is a combination of racist puritanical desire to CONTROL women at its' heart.

[Green_Lantern]

29. Nah...I'm not THAT cynical....

I really doubt it's driven by racism and all this does is prey on minority fear of the spectre white people coming to get them...

[haele]

26. You've never had the unfortunate experience of hearing any White Supremacists members, have you?

There is a large element in the anti-abortion movement that do talk a lot about the large number of aborted white, middle class babies because of "choice"; it's a serious problem to many of them who consider themselves on the front lines of the more militant anti-abortion movements.

Haele

[Green_Lantern]

30. you have it backwards..

Most white supremacists are anti-abortion doesn't mean most anti-abortionists are white supremacists.

If all yellow labs are dogs do you think all dogs are yellow labs?

[Curmudgeoness]

2. With so many interracial babies born in my area, I wonder

if these same politicians she speaks about would be willing to allow abortions in these cases. Since the anti-abortion people I know are so involved in stopping all abortions, I don't see this holding water.

[Green_Lantern]

5. me either...I just don't think we need to use racial tension...

To score political points.

[Curmudgeoness]

11. Agreed. We have enough racial tensions as it is. This fire needs no more fuel.

[Ricochet21]

16. I agree

I agree

[phleshdef]

9. She is at least half right. There are definately some white conservatives...

...that fear the population growth of minorities so much that they feel its a duty to produce more offspring in an attempt to allow whites to keep our majority status. Its a kind of thinking that goes back for millenia, to be honest. Take the bible and the early Hebrew for instance. They heavily promoted as much reproducing as possible and it mostly had to do with maintaining larger armies.

[Ricochet21]

13. I agree

I agree

[katandmoon]

17. Seriously, as anti-immigration and racist as so many repugs OPENLY are, how is this a stretch?

[Green_Lantern]

18. because the theory makes no sense..

Right-wing anti-abortion groups want to ban abortion for all women...not just white women.

The immigration issue and abortion issue cater to 2 separate groups.

Anti-immigration rallies angry white men and abortion to Christian evangelicals(including blacks and hispanics).

[Iterate]

21. Racial and ethnic birthrate politics have a long history.

Just because it isn't in a campaign ad doesn't mean it isn't a large and unspoken factor.

In the 2000 presidential election, all 19 states with the most white babies per 1,000 white adults voted for Bush. Eight of the nine states with the lowest white birth rates voted for Al Gore -and the ninth one was Florida. Moreover, there is a high correlation of white birthrate to winning margin.

There's a very close and well researched connection between racial politics, eugenics, and abortion policy that dates from the early 20th century and was openly discussed by the right until the 1940's. At that time that part of the right was neutral or pro-abortion -and not necessarily pro choice. You need to look no further than the accounts of dinner table conversations with none other than Prescott Bush (an ardent eugenicist). He lost his first bid for congress largely because of his eugenicist views and connections. He learned from it and became more discrete. The family has a history.

For the non-eugenicists, an anti-abortion policy was adopted in the 19th century, almost in direct proportion to the arrival of new immigrants. It was a means to the same end with the advantage, from their point of view, of giving men more control over women. In speeches and newspaper accounts, politicians of the time were very open about relating anti-abortion laws to their desire to out-pace immigrant birthrates and their fears of losing racial and ethnic domination.

I saw the Maddow/Harris-Lacewell interview and had the opposite reaction - that finally someone was talking intelligently about the unspoken.

[Green_Lantern]

31. nah she was race baiting and I thought it was unfortunate..

And something RWers do.

[eppur_se_muova]

22. Actually, she may be correct. Google "full quiver" ...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x759833

These RW fundie nuts are never far removed from the RW racist nuts.

ETA: I doubt you'd hear any politician explicitly endorsing this argument (well, maybe a few) but they are supported by -- and seek the support of -- exactly this type of extremists.

[Ramulux]

23. I remember hearing that

and I am sure there are those who think that way about abortion, but I doubt the majority of pro-life people hold that belief. Its also a little conspiratorial as you said.

[HipChick]

24. Actually she is not just some woman..she's Dr Melissa Harris-Lacewell..a MSNBC regular contributor

and this is what she actually said..


Often, when America is in a period of economic anxiety, it starts looking around for individuals to blame. And sometimes, the very best place to start asserting control is right in the middle of a woman, in her uterus.

The fact is there's been a lot of discourse about women's reproduction. On the one hand, there's this anxiety about the derogatory anchor babies, right? The idea that there's a population that is over-reproducing. And these women should be shunted out of the country. They should be, you know, criminalized and their children should not be given citizenship rights.

On the other hand, there is an anxiety about wanting, particularly middle-class white women, to produce more babies, because, see, what middle-class white women have done is go off and get careers and become equal in their marriages.

And so marriage equality is not just those scary same-sex people but also about these assertive women who are equal in their marriages and therefore not producing enough white children to counter back all of these bad anchor babies.

So there is a whole set of very deep racial and economic anxieties that always emerge whenever we start looking at politicians wanting to talk about controlling the fertility and particularly the reproductive choices of women.


http://maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2010/08/06/4831343-gops-new-stealth-issue-abortion

[Green_Lantern]

33. it sounds even worse when quoted...

She never isolated this theory to just the fringe. She makes it sound like there's some grand conspiracy to produce more white babies to increase our population.

I agree the focus on immigration is due to economic anxiety but the rest is too conspiratorial for me.

[MrScorpio]

25. Like most controversial things, motives may vary

I'm not disputing that some anti-abortionists may have that particular motive, nor will I dispute that others may not.

[Odin2005]

27. That's NOT a "wacko theory", it's a vital element in Christo-Fascist ideology.

They really think that abortion is all about keeping white "real Americans" from reproducing and let the "welfare-dependent minorities" take over because they "all vote Democrat because of their welfare checks". :eyes:

[Green_Lantern]

34. I doubt they put that much thought into it....

I have yet to see an anti-abortionist who believes that.

[red red red]

28. I heard the reverse...

of this at least 50 years ago. O.K., telling my age :blush: but, when I was in high school I heard it said numerous times that this was the reason black people were having so many kids - so that in 50 years the black population would overtake the white population. I never thought about it very much then, nor do I think very much of it now. I do not think that procreation was/is planned that far ahead. JMO

[Green_Lantern]

35. yeah I don't think most right-wingers have kids to beat black

Population numbers.

[leftstreet]

32. Anti-abortionists always target white working/middle class clinics

That's not a conspiracy