With wall-to-wall coverage for days of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s oily attempts to sidestep one of the most sensitive issues in his confirmation fight – whether he would provide the fifth vote to limit or overturn Roe v. Wade – let’s look at some abortion numbers.
The U.S. abortion rate declined 14 percent between 2011 and 2014, reaching a record low – not because of new abortion restrictions, but because of contraception and fewer unintended pregnancies: The Guttmacher Institute tallied a well-over 60 percent decline in the number of abortions in states without – repeat, without – new restrictions.
That fact alone – never mind Kavanaugh’s avoidance of answering whether he believes Roe v. Wade is settled law (spoiler alert: an email he wrote in the Bush White House indicates he does not think it is settled law) – should cause women’s rights advocates to see flashing red lights in an answer Kavanaugh did make to a different question.
He referred to contraception as “abortion-inducing drugs.”
We know Kavanaugh is against abortion, and now we know he thinks birth control is abortion. (Inquiring minds want to know: Would he ban men from having vasectomies?) No wonder protesters are wearing Handmaid’s Tale attire – a take-off on Margaret Atwood’s novel of a totalitarian society that forces fertile women, handmaids, into child-bearing servitude.