A little dust-up last week involving Republican Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee tells you everything you need to know about political rhetoric today, no matter the subject.
If your expressed opinion is the same as those on the left, you are to be praised, promoted and approved. If it isn't, you are dangerous. Period.
The incident began with Vice President Kamala Harris marking the 48th anniversary of the 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion by committing the Biden administration to continued access to what she referred to as reproductive health care.
Reproductive health care is the term selected by those who promote abortion so as not to mention the procedure in which a woman chooses to rid herself of her fetal child.
Harris, an outspoken abortion promoter, has every right to not only advance her personal thoughts on the issue but also to advocate for the route the new administration will take.
Lee, a staunch abortion opponent, has the same right as the vice president - to express his personal thoughts on the matter and to urge the passage of legislation putting restrictions on the procedure.
"Abortion isn't healthcare," the governor tweeted, responding to Harris, then added posts suggesting donations for Hope Clinic For Women, a faith-based women's clinic.
The condemnation from the left was swift.
"You're not a doctor," said state Rep. Gloria Johnson, D-Knoxville.
However, the reaction from Francie Hunt, executive director of Tennessee Advocates for Planned Parenthood was positively Orwellian.
Lee should, she suggested, "turn down the volume on his rhetoric."
"Political violence is a real danger in this country," Hunt said, "and when the governor implies that abortion is something other than life-saving health care, it puts us all in danger."
That statement begs to be unpacked.
Lee, in a tweet, not a speech, not an op-ed, used three words to express his opinion. We can't imagine a much lower volume, unless he said nothing, which the left would have preferred.
Hunt then implied the governor's brief statement was akin to political violence and that "all" of us should be afraid of its repercussions.
The other part of her statement, to those who favor abortion, raises no flags to her. Nothing to see here.
But to those who favor life, saying "abortion is ... life-saving" couldn't be more contradictory. Abortion ends a life. There's no other way to look at it. No matter what consideration should be given the mother, it still ends the life of the child she's carrying.
If we consider Hunt's "life-saving" term literally, experts say only a fraction of 1% of abortions are performed annually to save the life of the mother. In the state of Florida, which records a reason for every abortion, .27% of the 70,083 abortions performed in 2018 - the most recent year for which records are available - were done because the woman's life was endangered by the pregnancy.
"There are no conceivable clinical situations today where abortion is necessary to save the life of the mother," said Dr. Bernard Nathanson of the American Bioethics Advisory Commission, cited on the American Life League blog. "In fact, if her health is threatened and an abortion is performed, the abortion increases risks the mother will incur regarding her health."
Nearly 50 years ago, the former president of Planned Parenthood, the nation's leading abortion provider, agreed.
"Today it is possible for almost any patient to be brought through pregnancy alive," said Alan Guttmacher, whose name is now attached to a pro-choice research and policy organization, "unless she suffers from a fatal disease such as cancer or leukemia, and if so, abortion would be unlikely to prolong, much less save the life of the mother."
Abortion proponents may argue that "life-saving" only refers to the mother because she doesn't want a child, can't afford a child or the child may have health problems. But it still ends a life.
Lee, last July, signed a abortion restriction law that, among other things, forbid abortions after the point in which a fetal heartbeat can be detected and did not allow them if the doctor knew the woman was seeking an abortion because of the child's sex or race or because of a Down syndrome diagnosis. It also mandated doctors do such things as allow the woman to hear the fetal heartbeat, conduct an ultrasound and display the images for the mother
Almost as soon as the law was signed, though, it was blocked by a federal judge. The case is still winding its way through the courts.
Regardless, in a country in which violence on the left and right has left its stain in the past year, no one should conflate danger with an individual like Lee expressing his heartfelt opinion on a topic critically important to millions of people.