OPINION: We can’t embrace freedom while restricting women’s rights

I always have liked women. I like the idea of women. It is difficult, horrifying even, to imagine a world without them. Life would have all the warmth, charm and grace of an Army barracks.

Many, if not most, of the really good things in my life involve women. Most of them are smarter than me — and tougher when the going gets nasty.

So, the heartless war on women in this country poses a puzzlement. If we are going to talk about abortion, know this: I am not a Republican; never have been. That party’s affinity for stomach-turning cruelty and butting into people’s lives uninvited is a continuing embarrassment. I am not a Democrat; even get palpitations at the thought. I am a conservative dinosaur, slightly right of Attila the Hun on most issues — with a question: Why are so many Americans so wrought up, so invested in making women second-class citizens by denying them control of their bodies, by denying them abortions if they need or want one?

It is no surprise an extremely conservative U.S. Supreme Court undid what some legal scholars say was a lousy high court opinion 50 years ago confirming a right they contend is not protected by the Constitution. That ruling years ago forced abortion on the nation — and the states be damned. The court at that time substituted its judicial edict for what was — and is — a political question. Now, decisions on abortion are in the hands of individual states.

That said, what is impossible to grasp, short of simple bile and hatred stirred by God-knows-what, is the visceral animus that decision has ignited against women in various states.

State laws triggered by the recent high court decision contain harsh Third World penalties for abortion-seeking women, their doctors and apparently anybody else foaming-at-the-mouth lawmakers can paint as targets in their antiabortion frenzy. There is even a clearly unconstitutional gambit to make women into criminals if they cross state lines seeking an abortion. Antiabortion forces also want to enlist high-tech platforms to snitch on abortion seekers. Some states even want to pay bounties to anybody who rats out girls and women seeking or assisting an abortion. Perhaps most horrific, some states would deny access to an abortion even if the mother’s life was in danger or the fetus was the result of a rape or incest. And birth control? Aw, we’ll get rid of that later, they say.

If women were any freer, we would have them in chains. Just imagine men facing such oppressively stupid laws. Imagine they are treated like women are treated now. In that world, the government makes every decision about a guy’s body, from vasectomies to Viagra to condoms to hair implants. No manscaping for you, bud. Generous bounties are offered those who dutifully spill their guts to the penis police about any errant behavior. There would be blood in the streets.

How did Americans tumble to this point? When did we opt for oppression over freedom? When did we decide some of us have godlike rights to deny women say about their bodies? Who anointed us to deny abortions to victims of rape, illness, incest and the like?

Perhaps the most hypocritical element of this monumental social miasma? We tell pregnant women and girls they must carry their babies to term, no matter what, but, hey, then they are on their own even if they cannot support a baby financially, emotionally or physically. Sorry you are a 14-year-old incest victim, but, by golly, have a good life. Abortion rights opponents want you to believe they will step up to help. How much; how long? Eighteen years? Really? Perhaps they first will explain why more than 120,000 kids are already looking for homes in this nation.

I am as unsettled as anybody about abortion. What I do know is this: It is not my call. Nor should it be, despite the nympholeptic exhortations of the Palins, the Tshibakas and the Trumps of this world. An abortion decision is between God, the woman or girl involved and her doctor and family.

With the ink barely dry on the high court’s ruling, some in Alaska, including Gov. Mike Dunleavy, are wondering whether we should take another look the state constitutional provision protecting the right to abortion. Those same voices are pushing for a constitutional convention as a nifty way to get that done. For too many reasons to count, Alaskans should say just say “no” to such a confab.

In the end, those forces would enslave women we like and love. There is a simple choice to be made: We all are free — or we are not. Pick one.

Paul Jenkins is a former Associated Press reporter, managing editor of the Anchorage Times, an editor of the Voice of the Times and former editor of the Anchorage Daily Planet.

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