saying something is a fringe issue, in my mind, is not to say that it is not an important issue. but issues need to be relegated to different degrees of import, and the fact that abortion has become the single most important issue for majorities on both sides of the ballgame is a serious problem in my mind.

there are two things i consider when deciding that i would support an anti-abortion candidate, in spite of disagreeing strongly with that stance:

1) if abortion were truly made illegal, and if the situation were to return to how it was pre-RvW, it would be a great tragedy. back-alley abortions and the pain, trauma, and death that go with them are serious ills. but they simply cannot compare to the tragedies inflicted by bringing war to an innocent people, to killing hundreds of thousands of civilians - including both women and children. i firmly believe that as a superpower our first obligation must be to control ourselves on what we inflict on the rest of the world. therefore, if the choice is between a hawk who is pro-choice and a dove who is anti-choice, for me the moral imperative is firmly on the side of protecting the billions of people in the world who have no say in the matter - even if the voices of the millions in this country are also important. abortion is, to me, a fringe issue because in the face of foreign policy all issues are fringe issues. our ability to sow violence and suffering domestically is simply less than our ability to sow it abroad, and so to me the morality is clear.

2) the second issue for me is simply the premise that if we were to get a pro-life president (with an active agenda), the horrors would be as great as people make them out to be. i genuinely believe that our domestic morality as a nation marches steadily forward, and that reversing that morality is nigh impossible. let us assume that the next president were pro-life, and let us assume that he were to appoint pro-life justices, and let us assume that then the bench overturned RvW. we now are expected to go on to assume that suddenly we would return to 1973. that back-alley abortions would be the norm.

i think that undervalues the spirit of people in this country - particularly doctors and nurses. the consumption of medical marijuana is illegal by federal law, and yet i see countless doctors putting themselves in risk of arrest and closure by dispensing it in california. how can we expect that doctors and nurses wouldn’t take the same risks to defend the rights of women over their bodies? do we think nurses and doctors are so weak? do we think they take their hippocratic oath so poorly? we have already seen states try to pass draconian limitations on abortion, and we have seen organizations pledge to show up anyway and dispense them where needed. if RvW were overturned, i guarantee you a number of states would immediately pass their own laws legalizing it (as they have done with marijuana and euthanasia). and in those states that didn’t, i firmly and absolutely reject the idea that these myriad doctors and nurses who are so staunchly pro-choice that they refuse to vote for a candidate on any other basis would suddenly roll over. that they would shrug and stop doing abortions. that there would not be a thousand clinics springing up overnight to dispense abortions illegally to those in need, with sterile conditions and friendly faces.

this nation’s consumption of alcohol nearly doubled during the years of prohibition. i am resolute in my belief that we would stand up in the face of an even darker type of prohibition and show the same willingness to sidestep the law in the name of morality.

but even, and i emphasize this, even were that not the case, i still must hold that the millions of innocents who suffer in war and have no chance to affect our political decisions, must comprise a more important issue than our domestic troubles, no matter how distasteful they might be.

i am, of course, not judging anyone else’s decision. i am simply defending my own perspective. you tell me not to vote for an anti-choice candidate, no matter what my gender. i would similarly say, do not vote for a pro-war candidate, no matter what your gender. and while some of us may choose to meet both criteria, and throw our votes into a void that is leonard peltier or some other candidate we can truly believe in, for most this election cycle the choice may truly come down to just this one.

and letting one’s vote be dictated by a single domestic issue, in this global world where we are the dominant power, is simply not something i can condone.

to me an issue becomes more fringe the more susceptible it is to direct action, and becomes more crucial the less susceptible it is.

consider: the government is essentially a monolith, with unbeatable centralized power, but fairly poor domestic distribution. this means that while virtually impossible to directly stop the government from doing something it wants to do (we have to resort to trying to persuade members of government), it is much easier to do something the government doesn’t want us to do.

so, i consider, for example, drug legality a distant fringe issue. not because the decriminalization of drugs isn’t important (and certainly to more heavily-targetted demographics lifetime prison sentences are a huge issue), but because we have a fair amount of leeway in how we can directly react to it. we, as a people, can just start treating drugs as legal, and once a critical mass does so, it becomes difficult for the government to enforce its stance (observe marijuana).

on the other hand, an issue like war is something we have very few tools to directly oppose the government with on. we can stop paying our taxes. we can lock ourselves down to military bases, or bombs. we can join the army and monkeywrench. but in general that won’t stop the action, because it is centralized, and therefore the juggernaut of the government comes into play.

so i am not, in the above, saying that abortion is an unimportant issue. i am simply saying that it is an issue where we have a number of avenues for change outside of the electoral system, and to me that makes it more of a fringe elective issue than one where our only vehicle for change is electing the ‘right’ person.

i also want to clarify and say that i was not trying to discount the idea that conditions for abortions would suffer under the wrong president. i wasn’t trying to say our force of will as a nation would continue the abortion infrastructure in the state it is currently in. i am simply severely questioning the doomsday scenario implicit in most pro-choice voting arguments as highly suspect, and in fact very similar to the sort of rhetoric used by the anti-abortion crowd.

That said, we are already seeing a borderline return to pre-Roe vs. Wade conditions in some states. There are some so-called “flyover states” where women are traveling hundreds of miles to get access to birth control. Not abortions. Birth control. This is a serious problem which is going on right now, and you’re right, I don’t have a lot of faith in Americans, because I haven’t seen any meaningful efforts to address it. I have lost faith in the American people, and that means that I am going to fight, tooth and nail, where I can, because I see a lot of people lying down.

Doctors and nurses aren’t the only concern here; a doctor can prescribe birth control, but he or she doesn’t usually dispense it. This is an issue of the entire medical community, of pharmacists refusing to hand out birth control, and of chain stores which tolerate that kind of behaviour. I think that major anti-choice legislation in this country would have a profound impact on people living in the Midwest, although in more liberal states you would see a return of things like Jane to ensure that women had safe access to abortions, birth control, and other family planning services.

My desire to protect freedom of choice is rooted in a desire to protect all choices, and you set up an interesting conundrum above: would I vote for a pro-war, pro-choice candidate if it was a choice between anti-war, anti-choice?

I know it might ruffle some feathers, but I actually would vote for a pro-war, pro-choice candidate, not because I blindly support the right to choose or this stupid, senseless war, but because I support an end to war. And I think that an escalation of military activity would bring about the end of the war, because it would bring the issue home to people in a way that is not happening now. I know it sounds weird, but in a way a pro-war candidate could be the best thing that ever happened to this country.

That said, I also don’t think that voting for Leonard Peltier is a “throwaway” vote. It’s a vote for your conscience, and that’s one of the most important things you can vote for. Because when you compromise your conscience and personal beliefs, what do you have left?