Health care, abortion and the Law of Unintended Consequences. How becoming obsessed with a political fantasy sabotaged, maybe, the effort to ban abortion in Wyoming
A headline on Vox:
Thanks, Obama! The hilarious reason why a judge just blocked Wyoming’s abortion ban.
Republicans just got a painful reminder that political stunts can backfire.
The article concludes:
For the moment, however, the Obama-era amendments writing anti-Obamacare talking points into two state constitutions have proved to be a thorn in the side of Republicans who hope to ban abortions. Let that be a lesson that a state constitution is a foolish thing to change for the sake of a political stunt.
Vox is more or less correct in its thesis as to how we got here, even if it's absurdly optimistic about anyone "learning a lesson". Where it isn't fully correct is in the assumption it was a stunt. Fired up by conspiracy theories and propaganda, a fair number of those voting for the amendment and the bill that took it to the electorate believed that they were operating against almost certain Obamacare "Death Panels". One Natrona County former legislator has stated:
I’ll be very grieved if they actually use that as an instrument of death, That wasn’t our intent at all.
Of course that wasn't the intent, but did you read the constitutional amendment? There were concerns at the time.
The Equality State Policy Center, for one, was worried about the bill, with its lobbyist, Dan Neal, stating:
I’ll bet that even the original supporters of this amendment can’t tell you exactly what it will do, given the vague language and all the changes made to it during the Legislature’s deliberations in 2011.
Yup.
And as for grieved? Bereaved would be a better term. By yielding to paranoid propaganda, those who sponsored this, and then voted for it, have blood on their hands.
And there's a lesson in there.
In the rules that govern logical thinking, Chesterton's Fence, which should be the first rule of Conservatism, holds:
There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, “I don’t see the use of this; let us clear it away.” To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: “If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly won’t let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.”
A corollary to that might be called Yeoman's Gate, which holds:
Before you go through a gate to get to the other side of a fence, completely figure out. to the extent you can, where the path goes.
Which brings up the topic of the Gatekeeper:
If somebody is holding a fence open, urging you to go through, or keeping it close, trying to bar you from doing so, ask what interest he has in either action.
None of these principles were applied. If they had been, it should have been clear that a certain sector of the Obamacare fearmongers were people who were using it for their own political self-interest, not out of any real concern. Those people were among the gatekeepers. "Run through", they yelled, "the big scary blood Marxist bear of Obama is right behind you!. . .And by the way, vote for me next election, here's my flyer full of BS . . ."
And the pathway lead right to here.
A person should likely ask the same questions about the more radical bills that floated in the last legislature, and most particularly about the Crossover Voting bill that just passed.
Why did we allow crossover voting? Nobody really asked, did they?
Where does the path lead, now that we've crossed it?
And why was the gatekeeper so eager to for us to go through?
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