Guns, Abortion, and Women's Rights

Blogging (as well as commenting on my favorite blogs) has been sparse lately. I'm trying to adhere to a Lenten technofast, and am also presently tending to my disabled mother. I read the following letter (excerpted) to the editor in her local weekly paper, written by a member of Democrats for Life of New York. Fallen Sparrow won't like it, but he's busy right now.

Kirsten Gillibrand, the new U.S. senator representing New York, appears to be an enigma. Because she supports abortion rights, she is thought to be a "liberal." Because she supports gun rights, she is a "conservative." However, a case can be made that both issues are connected.

Besides the obvious connection that both rights take life, both groups of supporters claim constitutionality. Gun ownders find theirs in the Bill of Rights. Abortion supporters find [sic] theirs more recently in 1973 among the "penumbra" of rights in the Constitution.

The marketers of abortion and guns use nearly identical "rights" language . . . [both industries play upon] the fears and insecurities of women. . . . one might [miss the fact] that this ad is sponsored by the National Rifle Association instead of the National Abortion Rights Action League [sic: that organization now calls itself NARAL Pro-Choice America]: "A gun is a choice women need to know more about and [feel] free to make. The NRA is working to ensure [that] the freedom of that choice always [exists]."

Both organizations fight any limitations or restrictions on those [respective] rights. Even measures like partial-birth abortion are defeated by the abortion industry. The NRA fights against [even] microstamping, which . . . simply [ensures] that a firearm's owner [can be] identified.

The Violence Policy Center . . . . charges that the NRA has forged a new "firearms feminism" by portraying handguns as the latest "choice" issue. Using the theme of self-defense, one gun ad reads: "One choice is a firearm, a deeply personal position. It's a choice guaranteed by our constitution, a right that can be as precious as life itself. Don't own a firearm if you choose not to. But never let anyone deny . . . your constitutional freedom to make that choice." This is taken almost verbatim out of an abortion-rights manual.

. . . . We women have fallen victim to these marketing campaigns, which have elevated violence to a new level in human history.

Senator Gillibrand is not inconsistent. She is wrong on both counts.

The cult of individual freedom taken to its extreme makes strange bedfellows. Certainly support for untrammeled abortion rights is, like that for unlimited gun rights, a libertarian rather than a progressive position.