Are American abortion extremists really extreme?

Salon reporter and analyst Katie McDonough wrote a short and interesting article listing what she labeled the top five "extreme lawmakers behind some of the most draconian reproductive rights restrictions grabbing headlines in recent months."

In 2013, all the glory goes to legislators in states that have been in the vanguard of piecemeal assaults on abortion rights: Texas, Arkansas, North Dakota, Alabama, and Arizona.

If one is pro-life, the article naturally has little appeal or value. If one is pro-choice and/or an interested observer of the culture wars, then the article has a "can you believe these crazies?" kind of appeal.

I am not taking the article too seriously-- it is what it is. Still, Ms. McDonough raises an interesting question. Are what we consider "extremists" in the United States all that extreme? More to the point, how does one define extremeness, and on what scale?

One could measure the extremeness of legislators in two ways:

1. The content of their legislative proposals
2. Their stated or inferred thinking about abortion, women's rights, etc. 

One could further examine the content of their legislative proposals from three perspectives:

1. How much the legislative proposals vary from current American laws as permitted under Roe and Casey
2. How restrictive the legislative proposals are relative to other "peer" countries, Europe, for example
3. How sneaky and outrageous the legislation is in attempting to undermine Roe and Casey without directly attacking them (TRAP laws, vaginal ultrasounds, medically inaccurate lectures from doctors, etc.)

Taking a look at the content of the legislation supported by the 'top five,' they are actually not all that extreme when measured

1. against legal regimes in other countries, and 
2. against American public opinion.

Their endgame might be to have a legal regime like Ireland pre-2013 (no abortions permitted at all) or Texas circa 1972 (no abortions except when the pregnancy is physically life-threatening). What they are actually and currently proposing, however, would not look unusual in a range of European countries. 

Regarding American public opinion, their legislation-- Arkansas', for example, which I discussed in an earlier post-- or 20-week abortion bans, is not far off the mark. Where pro-life legislation does miss the mark is with proposals to give fetuses "personhood" from the moment of conception, and with laws that would restrict abortions generally before 12 weeks, so I agree with McDonough there. 

Really, these legislators are seen as "extreme" because, from a pro-choice perspective, they come off as somewhat batty and anti-feminist and anti-science and too religious-- and appearance certainly could mirror reality. Their underlying ideology, as represented by poorly formulated public statements, is largely out of step with American public opinion. Pro-life legislators do not get themselves in trouble because of their proposals, per se. Instead, it is their boneheaded and anti-feminist statements about rape, medically necessary abortions, and appropriate gender roles for men and women that get people worked up. 

Furthermore, the anti-abortion legislators listed by McDonough are brazen in their legislative attempts to undermine, bit by bit, the current legal regime in Roe and Casey. McDonough does not mention what I think are the worst forms of anti-abortion legislation (including a law sponsored by one of her 'top five'), which are the TRAP laws that aim to shut down abortion clinics that safely offer access to constitutionally protected abortion procedures and valuable family planning services. These make all abortions illegal in effect and are thus outside mainstream American opinion and the legal regimes of most peer countries. 

Links:

Article in Salon (July 29, 2013): 5 of the most extreme anti-abortion lawmakers in the U.S. 

A web site providing useful information about abortion laws in Western Europe and where and how one can access abortion services: Abortion Clinics in Europe