Politics is nasty enough when it’s about real issues, because it
always reduces to somebody holding a gun on somebody else. But
somehow I find it hardest to take when it’s about faux issues, all the
machinery of coercion enlisted to no purpose other than for fools to
posture at each other.
Here’s a perfect example. The state of Massachusetts, responding to
a lawsuit backed by abortion-rights groups, has ordered
Wal-Mart to sell emergency contraception, the so-called “morning
after” pill that prevents implantation of a fertilized egg in the
uterine wall.
Leading off the parade of morons in this little drama is the
Religious Right, for huffing and puffing that the action of this pill
is tantamount to killing a human being. Way to go, guys! Keep those
women barefoot, pregnant, and in the kitchen where they belong; perish
forbid they should be allowed any control over reproduction just
because pregnancy can easily kill them. Your new slogan, I guess, is
“Every child of rape is a child of God.”
No less idiotic are the three women who sued. Hello, girls? The
effect period on the pill is less than the amount of time to ship the
little suckers from Canada. Order on-line and save. Better yet, show
a little forethought: buy in advance from some local pharmacy that
wants the business Wal-Mart isn’t getting and keep ‘em handy.
Ahhh, but that sane and sensible course wouldn’t do anything
for the public visibility and fund-raising of the groups backing them.
The First Law of Victim-Group Politics is: You can never have too many
victims. If they don’t occur naturally, you must create them.
Bringing up the rear, and the worst of the lot, is whatever meddler
in the Massachusetts legislature thought it was a peachy idea to
mandate what Wal-Mart sells. Repeat after me: it isn’t any of your
damned business what Wal-Mart sells. There’s this concept called
“free enterprise”. Maybe you’ve heard of it?
And all this foofaraw is completely meaningless. Because the bluenoses
can’t actually prevent anyone from buying morning-after pills, there is
absolutely no point in political mandates intended to ensure that they can.
But Wal-Mart does its propitiatory dance to the right, and Massachusetts
politicians do their propitiatory dance to the left, and nobody anywhere
gains a damn thing.
Nobody, that is, except professional busybodies — people who want
to politicize all choices. A swift death to all such vermin would
leave the rest of us far better off.