Hubris: Thy Name is Bob Marshall
The Ayatolla of Morality, Delegate Bob Marshall, announced earlier this month that he was seeking the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate in this fall's election.
I say "Huzah!" It is about time that this monkey be spanked and sent back to his home off of Prince William Parkway whelping.
But the nomination process is about vetting and so let the vetting begin.
Glad to see there are some bloggers organized to support Mr. Marshall (check out Bloggers 4 Marshall http://gobobgo.wordpress.com/)
While he and I do not see eye to eye, I am glad he announced that he is running for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate.
Scrunity of his statements, positions, work and personal history are long overdue and something he, on the latter two, has been loated to share.
He lists a P. O. Box as his in-district office like that is somewhere a citizen can go and meet him. He seems to like meeting in a local park for an interview which says something about his habits (how gay!!!).
But let the games begin. If bloggers can do what bloggers did for Jim Webb, I will definitely be impressed.
The final proof is winning the election. Is Mr. Marshall's background up to the kind of scrunity that will win voters over? We shall know November 4th.
Let the SPIN begin.
The number leaped out at me: 9 percent of respondents in a statewide poll last week believe abortion should not be allowed even to save the life of the mother. Nine percent also believe abortion should not be allowed in cases of rape or incest.
I called the American Life League, which broke off from the National Right to Life Committee over the issue of birth control: the league not only opposes abortions under any circumstance, it also opposes modern forms of birth control, including the Pill and intrauterine devices.
I spoke to Robert Marshall, the league's research director, and asked his stand on abortion to save the life of the mother - perhaps the "easiest" abortion scenario.
To him, it's apparently a simple issue, too. "The baby and mother are of equal value," he said. "I can't express a preference." But then, in the course of a lengthy telephone conversation, he proceeded to do just that.
"We're against the IUD and pills, too," Marshall said. "They don't prevent ovulation and conception, they prevent implantation, which is abortion." Then he railed against Norplant, a soon-to-be-marketed contraceptive that is implanted under the skin and provides protection for up to five years by slowly releasing progestin.
"It's a real tribute to women's intelligence," Marshall fumed. "They feel so irresponsible they can't do something once a day?"
Convenience - not responsibility - is the issue here. And while we're on the subject of responsibility, women have been the ones largely responsible for birth control, prenatal care, labor and delivery - and child care - since the Garden of Eden.
Marshall then turned to the population decline, which he attributes to abortion and birth control. "In Florida, retirees are working at McDonald's because there's not enough kids to do it," he said, obviously displeased.
OK, girls, let's do our patriotic duty and crank out another kid to keep those Big Macs coming. But wait, there's more than just cheeseburgers at stake here! "Military and economic security are severely jeopardized by the serious population drop in this country," he explained.
Why, he continued, if birth rates don't increase, we may have to reinstitute the draft, and our Social Security system may go bust. Quoting from a 1975 report of the advisers to the Social Security system, Marshall said the fertility rate will have to increase and remain high for three decades "in order to produce any meaningful reduction in the high taxes that will otherwise be payable." Women, it seems, will be responsible for the "long-term deficit" that may result if they don't fulfill their biological destiny and produce a brood for the cause.
The league's "fact sheet" notes, with some alarm, that "birth control, including abortion, keeps a woman in the labor market or keeps her there longer. . ." Why don't they just substitute the word "breeder" for "woman?"
But Marshall wasn't through. "Why do you think Gorbachev is reducing his troop strength?" he asked. Lost lives, plight of the Soviet economy, warmer Western relations? I naively wonder.
"He doesn't have the population base," Marshall answered. "They've been aborting themselves out of existence." (The Soviet Union, by the way, has 287 million inhabitants).
Next, I asked about abortion in cases of incest or rape. "What if incest is voluntary?" Marshall asked. "Sometimes it is." And rape? "Your origins should not be held against you," he said, referring to the offspring. "The woman becomes a sin-bearer of the crime."
Why should she? "Because the right of a child predominates over the embarrassment of the woman." I wonder how many pregnant rape victims consider their trauma a mere "embarrassment."
Incidentally, Marshall said, rape figures "have either doubled or tripled since the first abortion reform law." Meaning that abortion is responsible for more rapes? "Well, obviously women's bodies aren't as highly valued as they were before the laws."
Marshall, 45, is proud of his five children. "Gloria Steinem had an abortion, and now she doesn't have any children to pass things along to," he said. "We're informing and forming our children with our values, and we're living our values."
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