The Feminists for Life moment

Megan McArdle says she’s pro-choice, but she doesn’t understand the pro-choicer outrage over the Komen foundation’s decision to cut funding to Planned Parenthood. She writes: “Since I think this is a very tough issue on which reasonable people can disagree, I can see why the federal government, and private foundations, would decline to fund their operations.”

Here is an interesting political point McArdle raises:

I do wonder what this moment means in terms of the political landscape.  It’s possible that this new VP has single-handedly pushed this organization to discontinue their funding, but someone hired her knowing that she was pro-life, and ultimately it was the board that voted to do this, so presumably it must have some support beyond one former gubernatorial candidate.

This strikes me as significant.  Susan G. Komen is part of the broad constellation of “women’s groups” that tend to hand together on various issues, including (maybe especially) abortion.  Why would they cut ties to a group that in past decades would have been a natural ally?

She goes on to point out that the overall polling numbers on the abortion issue haven’t moved much in the years since Roe v. Wade, but the real movement has taken place within the pro-choice ranks. While most people still support legalized abortion in general, most Americans believe that there ought to be more legal restrictions on abortion than provided for in Roe v. Wade. (Last month’s CBS/NYT poll found that 60 percent of Americans believe abortion ought to be more restricted under law than it is now, though only 23 percent of that number believe it should be outlawed). And most people believe abortion is morally wrong, McArdle points out. This suggests that most Americans don’t want to outlaw it — 74 percent of Americans in the CBS/NYT poll oppose making it illegal — but they want its availability scaled back, and they don’t to be associated with it, either.

It seems to me that the real political significance of the Komen move could be formalizing a shift that’s been underway for years now: the separation of “women’s issues” from abortion rights. The consensus that to support feminist goals for equal pay, equal treatment, and so forth requires also supporting full abortion rights is breaking down. No wonder old-guard feminist elites are freaking out. Feminists for Life, you may be about to have your moment.