Colleen Carroll Campbell is talented: she can turn black into white. Campbell, a once-a-week columnist at the Post-Dispatch, spent this week’s column transforming the latest right wing legislative assault on abortion into a pro-choice document and pretending that those who oppose it are actually  anti-choice.

Abortion-rights activists frequently accuse their pro-life adversaries of simplistic thinking and ideological rigidity. That charge made more sense 30 years ago, when proponents of legalized abortion brazenly claimed the mantle of defending women while opponents of abortion focused their rhetoric on the rights of the unborn. But that allegation has not aged well. And it is taking a particular beating right now in Missouri, as the state Legislature debates the merits of a proposed ban on coerced abortions.

In one corner of this legislative fight are the supposed anti-choice simpletons: legislators like Rep. Cynthia Davis and Rep. Bryan Pratt, the sponsors of House Bills 46 and 434, and Sen. Rob Mayer, sponsor of the corresponding Senate Bill 264.

Let’s see whether they’re simpletons or not.

In their legislation, “coercion” covers a broad range of possibilities, from threatening to kill the baby if it’s born, stalking the pregnant mother, threatening to fire the woman or revoke her scholarship, all the way to being manipulative.

[D]oes anyone want to defend the right of abusive or manipulative boyfriends, husbands, parents, employers and coaches to bully a woman into aborting her child because her pregnancy inconveniences them?

That sounds like a reasonable question. Am I in favor of men threatening to kill babies if they’re not aborted? Ooh, tough choice. Let’s see, let’s see. … Of course not!

Am I favor of jailing a man for saying to a pregnant woman: “Honey, I think you should have an abortion. I’ll pay for an abortion, but I don’t want to be a father.” Is that an implicit threat of abandonment? And should we send him to prison for being a manipulative bastard? Ooh, let’s see, let’s see … You have to be kidding.

The bill makes no distinctions. All the possible variants of coercion that it lists are treated as being equally evil. Seems a little, well, simplistic.  

So sell the legislation as “choice” if you want to, Ms. Campbell, on account of how “educating” women–with junk science that claims abortions lead to breast cancer–makes their choice more meaningful:

The legislation also strengthens informed consent for a pregnant woman by mandating that she be offered an opportunity view an ultrasound of her baby before an abortion and requiring that she receive more complete information about alternatives to abortion.

Maybe you are in favor of some choices for women. That’s “maybe” with a very small “m”. But one thing is certain: you’re no fan of the Constitution and in particular of the First Amendment. When “Honey, I think you should have an abortion” becomes a felony, we might as well move to Afghanistan.

Oh, and by the way, the guy who allegedly advised an abortion might not have said it anyway. Unless he expressed his opinion on tape or before witnesses, how can anyone know whether he really said it or whether he’s just the victim of a pregnant woman who’s nursing some grudge? But in any case, expressing an opinion in favor of abortion is his constitutionally protected right to free speech. Think of me as an advocate of men’s rights.

And this lovely gloss of concern for women’s rights with which Campbell has painted herself turns as green as cheap jewelry anyway when you remember that this good Catholic woman espouses a religion that is a bulwark of sexism. Women may not be priests. Men run the whole shebang.

Admittedly, it’s inconvenient that I should point that out. It sort of ruins Campell’s whole Houdini-style presto chango act about who favors choice.

Not to mention exposing her as one of the simpletons.

Photo courtesy of the Post-Dispatch

Uh-oh. Your organization’s got trouble when an anti-choice senator says this about you:

“I wouldn’t spit on Missouri Right to Life if they were on fire,” the usually affable Griesheimer said. “They are a bunch of liars who don’t care about anything but themselves.”

Hello. What’s going on? I mean, aside from the fact that abortion isn’t the obsession it used to be with some voters before the economy tanked.

What’s going on is that Missouri Right to Life overplayed its hand. E-v-e-r-y  y-e-a-r, Pam Fichter’s bunch tells the legislature what new restrictions to pass, and e-v-e-r-y  y-e-a-r, the Missouri Supreme Court throws out a good deal of it as unconstitutional. Even if you’re anti-abortion, it gets to be embarrassing to keep voting for this crap.

Sen. Jolie Justus, a Kansas City Democrat who led efforts to tone down the abortion restrictions proposed this year, said she detected an emerging attitude that lawmakers have restricted abortion about as much as they can.

“There is a feeling that now it’s becoming a political game,” Justus said. “Several pro-life senators told me, ‘What’s the next thing? Are they going to want us to restrict three-legged blue people from having abortions on Tuesdays?'”

The small rift between the Senate “Griesheimers” and Missouri Right to Life suffered a seismic shift about 7.0 on the Richter Scale last year. Fichter’s group opposed funding for new science buildings in KC and Columbia because–who knows?–somebody might someday do some stem cell research in one of them.

Some anti-choice senators voted for the funding anyway–and saw their ratings from the group tank. Meanwhile, some pro-choice senators voted against the funding because it was taking money from MOHELA.  Those senators got higher scores than the “Griesheimers.”

Color the anti-choice senators irate.

And then this year, the give-the-finger-to-the-constitution anti-choicers saddled their side with a proposal that banned “coerced abortions.” It would have made it illegal for a husband or boyfriend to try to persuade his significant other to have an abortion.

Umm, the first amendment lets people talk to each other, particularly about maybe doing something that’s … legal.

Another of the “Griesheimers”, Mike Gibbons, pointed out that the law would let a woman decide, years after the fact, that she regretted having an abortion and let her then allege that a crime had occurred. How could such an allegation be proven?

So legislation that passed resoundingly (113-33) in the House died in the Senate–where cooler heads sometimes manage to prevail in regards to rotten bills.

All that was left of this year’s debacle was for Sarah Steelman to try making some political hay by calling for a Special Session to pass the bill. Oh, and while they’re at it, she wanted the legislators to make sex-selective abortions illegal. That Steelman, she loves playing to the balconies. She took her 13 year old son to buy a gun and talked about how much she loves the second amendment. (Not the first amendment, mind you, only the second. I call that amendment-selective aborting of the Constitution.)

Update: While I’m on the subject of abortion, let’s just make sure everybody knows that McCain wants Roe v. Wade overturned.

SPARTANBURG, South Carolina (AP) – Republican presidential candidate John McCain, looking to improve his standing with the party’s conservative voters, said the law that legalized abortion should be overturned.

“I do not support Roe versus Wade. It should be overturned,” the Arizona senator on Sunday told about 800 people in South Carolina, one of the early voting states.

More than half of women voters think McCain is pro-choice. Wrong.