Equal Rights
In the past, Howard Dean, channeling the wisdom of George Lakoff, has suggested that the abortion rights issue be framed by Democrats as one of control. Democrats want women to be in control of their bodies, while right-wing Republicans want to control women's bodies. To me that sounds about right, but some of my friends think that's a bit of hyperbole. For them, anti-abortion nuts are really principled on a moral ground that's at least respectable, if ultimately misguided.

But this Alito dissent getting attention puts into clear relief just how wrong-headed that apology is. At issue there is a law, passed by the men of the Pennsylvania state legislature, requiring women to notify their husbands before choosing not to have a child if they don't want one. Even if the husband raped the wife. Even if the child is not the husband's. Even if she just damn well doesn't want to tell the bastard.

Alito thinks that sounds about right. So too religious conservatives that apparently control the judicial decisions of this White House.

Add to that what Garance Franke-Ruta points out (via Kevin Drum)--that the same legislature did not see fit to require husbands to tell their wives if they were carrying a deadly sexually transmittable disease:

(T)here is no state demand that a man inform his wife that she may be at risk of contracting a deadly disease from him. He is asked to do so as a matter of decency, and there is an option for physicians to intervene to inform the wife if it seems likely the man will not do so. But in situations where the husband (or other sexual partner) chooses to lie to the physician about his intentions, the state holds both the man and the physician blameless.

This is about control, plain and simple. I have ranted about this before, famously, so I won't bore you with that again, but it seems perfectly clear to me that if men could get pregnant, there would be an abortion clinic at every street corner, and drug companies would have perfected a suitable pill decades ago with all of the enthusiasm they took to erectile dysfunction. Republicans just don't want women to have independent thoughts, or make independent decisions.

Luckily, the American people know better. But our collective horror isn't enough on its own to keep this sexist off the bench.