A case study in cognitive dissonance and gaslighting...

There is a puzzling story in The Atlantic by Charlie Sykes this week – "How 'pro-life' lost all meaning." It's quite a read if you are interested in exploring cognitive dissonance. 

Charlie Sykes is a right-wing pundit. He has worked for nearly a half century to overturn Roe. And apparently, he is shocked – SHOCKED – at what's going on in red states two years after the end of Roe. 

Here's Charlie's words about what happened in the Republican Party after the Dobbs ruling:

Suddenly, Republicans were faced with a host of questions they never had to wrestle with before. Should abortion pills be banned? IVF? How should states handle miscarriages? (Earlier this month, the Supreme Court unanimously rejected a challenge to the use of the abortion and miscarriage-management drug mifepristone. But efforts continue to restrict the use of the drug, including a proposal from Project 2025, organized by the Heritage Foundation, to use the 19th-century Comstock Act to ban the mailing of medication used in abortions.)

And I have to ask - how is that possible to be surprised by any of what has happened in red states since overturning Roe? Charlie Sykes has spent a lifetime advocating for the end of abortion. It's simply not true to claim that Republicans have never wrestled with questions like "should abortion pills be banned"? They are actively seeking to ban abortion pills. Right-wing anti-choice parties have been actively "shopping" these cases in front of right-wing, Federalist Society-approved lower court judges as a means to get these issues in front of SCOTUS.

And Sykes fails to note that SCOTUS only rejected STANDING to the party that brought the abortion pill case before it; the nation's highest court refused to rule on the merits of the case, which challenges the FDA's approval of a long-approved drug that has been safely used by millions of women for 20 years. This ruling leaves the door open to other cases from people who may be able to persuade the Federalist-Society-approved SCOTUS justices, selected specifically for their religious and ideological beliefs (the Federalist Society is really open about all of this!), to grant standing in a mifepristone case. 

Surely he's familiar with SCOTUS's 2014 (8 years before Dobbs) Hobby Lobby ruling - which gives for-profit companies the right to impose their religious beliefs on employees when it comes to the IUD. In that case, because of the company owners's religious belief that the IUD murders "children" in the womb, SCOTUS ruled that Hobby Lobby did not have to provide insurance coverage for such an invidious weapon. (Bump stocks are another thing all together, and SCOTUS was happy to overturn a federal ban on the kind of weapon that was used to slaughter 60 Americans and wound more than 400 others at a concert in Las Vegas. I guess when it comes to murder, they're okay with guns, just not IUDs, which is not at all "pro-life.") 

In the two years since the Dobbs ruling, I'm not seeing "chaos" or a Republican Party musing about next steps. I'm seeing red states taking steps to pass laws that support their long-time argument that "abortion is murder." In Texas, lawmakers almost immediately imposed a ban on abortion after Dobbs was passed. Now Texas lawmakers are considering passing out-of-state travel bans for pregnant women who might want to travel out of state for an abortion. Texas Republicans want to impose this as a "pro-life" measure. 

Also in Texas, infant mortality has risen significantly since the passage of the Texas abortion ban. 

In post-Dobbs Alabama, the state has ruled that an embryo is considered a "person." (Isn't this what Charlie Sykes has been advocating for nearly 50 years?!) This means that fertility clinics that accidentally destroy embryos can be charged with serious crimes. In Alabama and other red states like Texas, the murder of a child is a capital crime, subject to the death penalty.  What happens when a couple seeks IVF infertility treatments decides they don't want to continue to pay to refrigerate their embryos they no longer need? In many red states, that's the murder of a child (or children, depending on how many embryos) and that is a capital crime. 

And in fact, lawmakers in red states are seeking to impose the death penalty on anyone involved in abortions.  If Charlie is truly pro-life, hopefully he, like the Catholic Church, rejects the death penalty. 

None of these abortion bans and attempts to ban abortion drugs and rulings that make the IUD more dangerous than bump stocks should surprise Charlie Sykes, a long-time fan of the "abortion is murder" right-wing (religious) talking point. If truly Charlie Sykes believes that abortion is murder - and that has been THE long-time right-wing argument as to why abortion should be banned – then he has to be aware of the consequences of that argument: "abortion is murder" can only logically lead to the death penalty for anyone who gets an abortion in states where the murder of a child is a capital crime. 

Here's Charlie on what's happening in red states since Dobbs:

"Although there has been progress in some states to strengthen the safety net for women and children after Roe, those steps have been overshadowed by the rush to enact punitive criminal bans. In the past two years, 14 states have enacted near-total bans on abortion, while three states have imposed six-week bans. Oklahoma is among the states that have banned abortion, with the only exception being to save the life of the pregnant woman. Some legislators want to go even further: A freshman state senator in Oklahoma has proposed legislation that would charge women who terminate a pregnancy (with limited exceptions) with murder. After Ohio enacted a sweeping ban on most abortions, young girls who had been sexually assaulted—including a 10-year-old—reportedly had to cross state lines to terminate their pregnancy (the Ohio law is no longer in effect—the state has enshrined abortion rights in its constitution). In Texas, the strict new abortion laws have generated confusionover how doctors should treat miscarriages, and the state’s “fetal heartbeat” lawappears to have been associated with an increase in infant deaths, according to a new study. Last month, Texas’s supreme court ruled against women who said that the state’s abortion ban put their health at risk."

What on earth did Sykes hope would happen when HE was advocating for the end of Roe? Surely he had to have understood that any politician who wanted to end abortion would seek to enact laws that banned abortion after the end of abortion protections provided by Roe. Did he never consider the fact that raising children is costly, time-consuming and hard - and forcing women to give birth means there will be a lot more unwanted children brought into an often harsh and unwelcoming world? (It will be interesting to see what happens to foster care over the next few years in states that have banned abortion.) Did he not consider that banning all abortion could lead to life-threatening complications for women who are having problematic pregnancies and can no longer access appropriate healthcare because of radical abortion bans? 

Charlie wants Republicans to promote "pro-life" policies, but fails to note in his Atlantic article that 14 [red] states have rejected federal funding to pay for school lunches. Nothing screams "NOT PRO-LIFE" like states in one of the wealthiest nations in the world withholding free lunch from impoverished children who are facing hunger. 

I am old enough to remember the Reagan-Carter election – and  I've since seen Republicans endlessly seek to end the social safety net, never to expand it. From Reagan to the present, I've seen the GOP vilification of "welfare queens" and the party has worked hard – recently with much success – to defund public education. (Charlie notes in The Atlantic article that he's long been an advocate for "school choice" - another term for defunding public education in favor funneling public dollars to religious education.) 

As he notes in his The Atlantic article, Charlie has been a vociferous advocate for overturning Roe for nearly half a century. And now he's baffled by the chaos that the Dobbs ruling has unleashed. Shouldn't he be celebrating? Yes. Instead, he is bemoaning the "political backlash" Republicans have faced since Dobbs overturned Roe:

"The political backlash has been intense, badly damaging the GOP in the 2022 midterms. In state after state—including deep-red states such as Kansas, Kentucky, and Montana—voters turned out to pass initiatives to protect abortion rights or to defeat anti-abortion measures. This fall, referenda on abortion will be on the ballot in Colorado, Florida, Maryland, and South Dakota. Other states, including Arkansas, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, and Nevada, may join them.

Polls show that about 65 percent of Americans oppose overturning Roe. Among women ages 18 to 49, support for abortion rights is now overwhelming. Eighty-six percent say decisions about abortions should be made by a woman, in consultation with her doctor, and 76 percent support federal legislation guaranteeing the right to abortion.

In other words, the anti-abortion movement won the battle. But it may be in the process of losing the war, as well as the struggle for the hearts and minds of an entire generation, which is watching the indifference and cruelty toward women and wondering whether this movement really is 'pro-life.'”

And THAT is the issue he's concerned about - losing "the war" – i.e. seeing Republicans lose elections  – not the lives of women suffering from pregnancy complications that can only be treated if sepsis sets in; not the well-being of a young girl impregnated from rape by incest; not the future of a pregnant woman left alone with little income and dwindling social services to raise an unwanted child. Those impacts on women and children are just Dobbs after-effects that will negatively impact the ability of Republicans to win elections. 

It's the political backlash against the "pro-life" movement that he mourns. And that is gaslighting of the highest order. 

(I am not the only one to notice how adept Sykes is at gaslighting - here is a 2017 article from UrbanMilwaukee on "the many faces of Charlie Sykes." And he has a potent voice in advocating for things like anti-abortion and school choice – as this 2000 Milwaukee Magazine article notes, Sykes is a "force to be reckoned with.")