What the hell happened? (feminists reflecting on the failure to stop Alito [View All]

[kskiska]

In 2004, a massive pro-choice rally shook Washington. Just two years later, feminists are reflecting on the failure to stop Alito and what a conservative Supreme Court will mean for women.

By Rebecca Traister

Jan. 31, 2006 | On Jan. 9, Feminist Majority leader Eleanor Smeal sat in on the first day of testimony in the Samuel Alito confirmation hearings and wrote in her Ms. magazine blog that "we are in better shape to stop Alito than we were at the time of the Roberts hearings."

Monday night at 6 p.m., after Democrats lost the cloture vote and progressives came one step closer to losing the battle to keep Alito off the court, Smeal released a statement that claimed: "Progressives were strengthened by today's battle." How's that? Smeal's statement continued, "Each battle over these reactionary Supreme Court nominees is making this massive progressive coalition stronger." This fight, she said, "lays the groundwork for a future filibuster of a right-wing Supreme Court nominee," and "shows that African-Americans, women's rights supporters, Latinos, people with disabilities, and workers are not going to quietly lose their rights."

How the hell did we get here?

What happened between the spring day almost two years ago when hundreds of thousands of men and women converged on Washington, bearing signs like "Keep Your Laws off My Body," and today, when the Senate confirmed a Supreme Court judge who 20 years ago wrote that in his legal opinion, the Constitution does not protect women's right to abortion? What happened between Jan. 9, when Smeal declared the left "in better shape to stop Alito," and yesterday, when visions of future filibusters and assertions that we're not going to lose our rights quietly were somehow supposed to qualify as good news? Why weren't we storming the Capitol? Why weren't there enormous marches? Why didn't someone buy some national television time or actually burn a bra or something -- anything -- to snap people out of their "Skating With the Stars" lassitude and make them face the fact that the wolf that has so long been cried about was finally on the Supreme Court steps?

(snip)

"The most important point is something we've said for a long time: Elections matter," said Planned Parenthood interim president Karen Pearl, speaking as the head of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America's election-focused Action Fund. "No amount of advocacy can change who is in the White House and who is in the Senate. So when the Congress has majority leadership that is antichoice ...," Pearl trailed off, almost as though she was tempted to say, "this is what you get." But she didn't. "We told our supporters the losses were going to be real," she continued steadily. "If we had a majority of senators who were pro-choice, Alito would not be confirmed right now."

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http://salon.com/mwt/feature/2006/01/31/alito_confirmation/