Kevin Drum, who's gets along with Amy Sullivan better than many in blogworld do, offers this defense of her reluctance to accept the "pro-choice" label in an interview with Salon. (I'll quote Sullivan first, then the criticism, then Drum's defense.)
Sullivan:
Well, I don't like the [pro-choice] label. I guess the reason I wrote about abortion the way I did in the book is because I have serious moral concerns about abortion, but I don't believe that it should be illegal. And that puts me in the vast majority of Americans. But unfortunately, there's no label for us.
Amanda Marcotte:
Yes, there is. If you think abortion and other forms of contraceptive birth control should be legal—i.e. that women should have the legal right to decide when they have children—you are pro-choice. Even if you still reserve the right to judge them for it. This entire interview with Amy Sullivan, like all her talk on getting the evangelical vote, makes me tired. She appears to have a definition problem, basically, characterizing evangelicals as if they are all Bible-believing Christians, when most self-identified evangelicals are patriarchy proponents with a thin veneer of Christianity over everything as a moral justification.
And finally, Kevin Drum:
Actually, I think Amy's point is precisely the opposite. In the rest of the interview, she basically suggests that about 60% of the evangelical community is politically conservative and won't ever vote for a Democrat. But the other 40% will, and those 40% are worth trying to appeal to. And one way to appeal to them is to acknowledge their moral qualms about abortion even if you don't happen to share them yourself. Like this guy:
"I think that the American people struggle with two principles: There's the principle that a fetus is not just an appendage, it's potential life. I think people recognize that there's a moral element to that. They also believe that women should have some control over their bodies and themselves and there is a privacy element to making those decisions.
"I don't think people take the issue lightly. A lot of people have arrived in the view that I've arrived at, which is that there is a moral implication to these issues, but that the women involved are in the best position to make that determination. And I don't think they make it lightly."
That's Barack Obama, likely the next Democratic candidate for the presidency. All he's doing is acknowledging the moral dimension of abortion, while remaining solidly in favor of abortion choice, reducing unwanted pregnancies, and encouraging responsible sexual behavior.
Now, I don't know why Amy rejects the "pro-choice" label, and it's pretty likely that I don't agree with her reasons — largely because I don't have any moral qualms about early and mid-term abortion in the first place. But then, I'm not an evangelical, am I?
Okay, I don't have a problem with people trying to label themselves as they like, within the limits of logic, but Sullivan does lose me here. I'm pro-choice because, whatever my moral qualms about abortion may be (I don't actually have any, but bear with me), I don't think they should be the basis of legal restrictions on women's control of their bodies. Sullivan expresses more or less the same idea, so, well, I guess she's pro-choice, whether she wants to call herself that or not.
This does point to something larger, though. Sullivan wants to convince secular Democrats that they should allow their politicians to reach out to evangelicals, and maybe that is an option worth exploring. Considering that our last two Democratic Presidents, and almost certainly our next one, will be evangelicals, while secular Democrats have had, I dunno, Pete Stark of California, I wonder just how much more outreach to evangelicals we frigging need, but let that pass. To get evangelicals and secular Dems talking, Sullivan has to overcome a good deal of mutual suspicion. Speaking from the secular side of things, I can say that most of us are aware that we're a minority in the Democratic party, just as we are everywhere else in the U.S. outside The Skeptics Society and the Center for Inquiry. We're not especially well organized. We've seen one political party overwhelmed by religious zealotry, and we worry that the other one will be too, leaving us nowhere. The seven years of George Bush that evangelicals helped inflict on us have rubbed us raw. We worry that, in order to get the evangelical voters Sullivan wants to attract, the Democrats will easily and gladly sacrifice our interests.
Hair splitting on being pro-choice won't help allay those fears or establish trust. Trust begins by calling things by their proper names. If Ms. Sullivan is by any sensible definition, pro-choice on abortion, where does she think the harm is in saying so?
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