The New York Times Sunday Review really outdid itself, starting on the front, with contributing opinion writer (and Slate columnist) Michelle Goldberg smearing the pro-life movement while fiercely defending Planned Parenthood from phantom foes: The headline and text box were grimly amusing in a hypocritical way: “A Playboy President and Women’s Health -- Trump has already made a grab for abortion rights. What next?” The text box, below a picture of Trump taking pictures of a Playboy centerfold hopeful in 1993: “Losing out to an erotically incontinent libertine.”
There must be some seriously short memories on the editorial staff, a la the Sarah Palin lawsuit. Because that sounds precisely like Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996 (if not worse). But the Times would never dream of writing those words about the abortion-supporting, Planned Parenthood hero, and Democratic president:
Donald Trump’s name adorned the first casino in America to have an in-house strip club. He is the first American president to have made a cameo appearance in a soft-core pornography film, and he has called his struggle to avoid sexually transmitted diseases while sleeping around his “personal Vietnam.” When Trump the candidate was asked last year whether any of his paramours had had an abortion, he refused to answer.
This is not a man who shares the longtime Republican goal of rolling back the sexual revolution. Nevertheless, after nearly six months in office, Mr. Trump has already surpassed George W. Bush as the American president most hostile to reproductive rights and measures to promote sexual health. There is a deeply insulting irony in this: American women are being stripped of their sexual and r0eproductive autonomy not by a moralizing puritan but by an erotically incontinent libertine.
This will be true whether or not the Republicans’ health care plan ever passes -- though that plan, with its multifaceted attack on obstetric and gynecological care, is a particularly bald expression of contempt for women. There are differences between the bill that passed in the House and the one that may or may not make its way through the Senate. But both could be said to accomplish legislatively what Mr. Trump boasted, in the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape, that he likes to do to women physically.
That assault includes blocking Planned Parenthood from collecting Medicaid reimbursements for a year....
It’s worth noting that even President Bush, a born-again evangelical Christian, never tried to defund Planned Parenthood in the United States (though he did cut off funding for the group’s foreign affiliates). This wasn’t because Mr. Bush was moderate but because 10 years ago, the idea of ending Medicaid reimbursements for Planned Parenthood was so far from the mainstream that even a very conservative, anti-abortion president would not champion the cause.
No one thinks that Mr. Trump personally disapproves of Planned Parenthood. During the presidential campaign, he defended the organization, even though he also promised to cut off its federal funding.
....
Poor women will bear the brunt of this administration’s policies on sexual and reproductive health, but millions more women will feel the pain as well. Under Republican plans, Americans with private insurance stand to lose coverage for birth control, abortion and maternity care. If Planned Parenthood were to lose the 40 percent of its budget that comes from federal funding, it would result in a rash of clinic closings nationwide, depriving women of access whether or not they’re on Medicaid.
Goldberg made unsubstantiated smears against the pro-life movement:
Already, Mr. Trump’s administration has ushered in a dangerous new zeal among the most radical anti-abortion groups. Usually, violence and threats of violence against abortion providers crescendo during Democratic administrations, when the anti-abortion movement feels shut out of policy making, and subside when Republicans are in control. (Every assassination of an abortion provider has occurred when a Democrat was in the White House.)
That dynamic has changed. The president of the National Abortion Federation, Vicki Saporta, told me that she has been surprised to see a “dramatic increase” in threats and death wishes directed at abortion providers since the election. She links it to the broader climate of rage in the country. “There seems to be a free-for-all in terms of hate speech against all different kinds of groups,” she said.
....
This cumulative attack on women’s ability to control their reproductive lives would be infuriating no matter who presided over it. But there’s an extra shudder of degradation in losing reproductive rights at the hands of a lubricious playboy like Mr. Trump....
Thankfully, Ben Shapiro absolutely ridiculed Goldberg’s paranoia at Daily Wire.
What, pray tell, has Trump done to roll back abortion, other than defunding Planned Parenthood abroad? But according to Goldberg, “American women are being stripped of their sexual and reproductive autonomy not by a moralizing puritan but by an erotically incontinent libertine.” Goldberg calls Trumpcare “a particularly bald expression of contempt for women,” since it would allow insurance companies to charge women more than men for insurance plans -- which makes sense, since they cost more -- and would allow men to purchase coverage without birth control pills and breast pumps.
But most of the article is just the updated version of the infamous joke about The New York Times headline: “WORLD TO END: WOMEN AND MINORITIES HIT HARDEST.” According to Goldberg, cuts to future growth of Medicaid would cut funding for births, hitting women the hardest. Tax penalties would attach to certain plans, hitting women the hardest. No-cost birth control regulations would disappear, allowing some insurance companies to offer differing plans, hitting women the hardest.
The greatest irony here is that feminists seem completely complacent about being dependent on the men who make policy. After all, it’s not Nancy Pelosi alone who created Obamacare. It was an overwhelmingly male Democratic Party infrastructure that promoted a scheme to “give” women benefits through the power of the government....
