Henny-Penny and the Free Market

On Nov. 22nd, the 41st anniversary of the death of America’s first Catholic President, the National Organization for Women sent out a press release with the inevitably hyperbolic headline.

Somewhere, a NOW doyenne in a dun-colored dress composes these, curved wasp-like over her computer, her well-thumbed copy of 100 Marketing Tips for Unimaginative Ideologues open in her lap to Tip #24: Use snappy, attention-getting language in your press release’s headline for maximum impact!

The headline for the Nov. 22nd edition of the Daily Vapors: Republican Legislators Reward Radical Right with Dangerous Anti-Abortion Provision.

Now, you’ve got to admit: whatever shortcomings NOW has, you can’t accuse these ole gals of startling folks with any kind of fresh thinking. It’s been the same-old same-old, same-old for thirty-some years: the “Right” will be dubbed “radical,” any limitation on abortion whatsoever will be warning-labeled “dangerous” (if Congress wanted to make it illegal for chimpanzees to perform abortions NOW would oppose it, probably in a joint effort with PETA), and Republicans will be identified as the root of all evil, real or imagined, perpetrated against women.

I mean, good grief: two loaded words in a ten-word headline is a rhetorical effort as sad and desperate for attention as a drunken karaoke singer in a tube top. And the rest of the release isn’t any better. NOW’s hyperventilating style is excusable in an inscription in a junior high school yearbook, but embarrassing when used by adult women attempting to influence policy. Microsoft Word needs to add a tool to their software to alert the radfems when their prose lapses into undignified girlish hyperbole – perhaps a wavy pink underline.

O.K., so what’s that “dangerous” provision that has these ladies all a-twitter? Here’s how NOW’s press release describes it:

"The provision permits health care entities that refuse to provide abortion services, counseling or referrals (even in cases of rape, incest, or danger to the woman's life) to collect federal, state and local tax dollars. It overrules state and local regulations requiring full coverage for such services. Current federal law, previously aimed at protecting Roman Catholic doctors who do not want to undergo abortion training or perform abortions, now provides a farther-reaching 'conscience clause.' The new language expands the exemption to all health care providers, including hospitals, doctors, clinics, HMOs, and insurers that profess a corporate or individual objection to providing abortion or reproductive health services.

"’This will allow HMO bureaucrats to deny women their constitutional right to reproductive health care,’" said [NOW President Kim] Gandy. "The wrath of the anti-abortion movement is going to send women back farther than the back alleys — we're heading toward the black market."

What’s unusual about this press release—why I’m bringing it to your attention—is that for once, the Henny-Pennys of NOW are right: their sky is falling. Thanks to leaders like Howard Dean and John Kerry, the era of the radical left Democrat is drawing to a close, as that county-by-country red & blue map makes plain.

But it’s not the black market NOW fears. It’s the free market—choice, if you will. The more citizens—even Catholics, like the late JFK—are free to choose doctors, hospitals, and insurance companies whose philosophies are consistent with their deeply held religious beliefs, the more the market will shape health care to meet that demand—and the more transparently peripheral NOW will become.

How sad and silly the retrofeminists of NOW—all noise, no new ideas, like the hen in that old bluegrass song: “Cluck old hen, cluck & sing/ You ain’t laid an egg since late last spring./ Cluck old hen, cluck & squall/ Ain’t laid an egg since late last fall.”