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It's Not About Roe With today's surprise announcement of the retirement of Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor we are entering a period of what will probably be intense partisan wrangling over what sort of person should replace her. Unfortunately for the American left there is unlikely to be one clear voice of advocacy for what we want. Already the pro-choice groups have been ramping up for a battle focused entirely on the issue of protecting Roe v. Wade. I am concerned that this is playing into the hands of the Bush Administration. While I am sympathetic to the position, and a strong supporter of the government staying out of personal health decisions, I think that fighting this battle may do more harm than good. If the left cannot unify and present a coherent clear platform as to minimal standard of acceptability, look for Karl Rove and company to practice their rhetorical Kung Fu and use the strength of our many individual positions to defeat us on all counts. I don't think the GOP really wants to overturn Roe, but will use a push to preserve Roe to their advantage. The reversal of Roe would do significant harm to the Republican party. The Republicans have been stringing along the religious right for nearly thirty years promising them all sorts of things which they knew they couldn't deliver. They have used clever rhetoric and deceitful sanctimony to keep the conservative Christians fighting on their side. If they deliver on Roe several things happen, none of them good for the GOP. First off, a major incentive to support Republican candidates nationally vanishes. The religious right can turn their focus to other issues of quality of life, protection of the environment, etc., all of which conflict with the free-market philosophy pushed by much of the rest of the Republican base. Secondly, the reversal of Roe would galvanise the women's movement, and pull a bunch of soccer moms off of the sidelines and into the game. These people have been complacent because they haven't believed that Roe could vanish, but will fight tooth and nail to ensure that their daughters have the same rights they did. Thirdly, overturning Roe throws the abortion issue back to the states, and will probably push many religious conservatives to focus their energy on local politics, not national. If the battle for O'Connor's successor is not about Roe, though, what should it be about? This is where there is great peril in the emphasis on abortion. I believe that the administration will gladly sacrifice social conservatism and 'compromise' on appointing a political conservative. The left could 'win' on abortion, but lose on the environment, police powers, corporate protection, economic equality, harassment protection, worker's rights, etc. Imagine a pro-choice Scalia or Thomas as O'Connor's replacement. That strikes me as a far worse scenario than a political moderate who has qualms about abortion. I suggest as a bare minimum focusing on a single concept: we need judges who believe that the Constitution is a living document which needs to be continually reinterpreted. This belief is central to permitting evolution of our society's philosophical base. If we focus on philosophy we have a chance, if we fall into squabbling over which issue is the one on which we can't compromise, we are handing victory to the conservatives.