Molly Ivins August 11AUSTIN, Texas — The GOP, we are told, will use its convention to address the gender gap — the 20-point difference between men and women in their preference for President Clinton over Bob Dole, for Democrats over Republicans. To this end, the convention in San Diego will feature many female speakers, including the keynote speaker, Rep. Susan Molinari. We will watch many videos of actual American women — working moms, small-business women and homemakers — telling us why they're voting Republican. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison will address us; we will see much of the attractive Elizabeth Dole and ranks of perfect Republican wives who always sit with their feet demurely crossed while listening to their husbands. (They teach cross-footed listening in Republican campaign school.) Meanwhile, I am sitting here looking at this plank — the abortion plank in the Republican Party platform. It calls quite clearly for a constitutional amendment to outlaw abortion in all circumstances, including to save the life of the mother. Any doctor who performed an abortion, even to save the life of the mother, would be liable to criminal prosecution. I think "not even to save the life of the mother" makes a stronger impression on me as to just what the Republican Party thinks of women, how much the party values women, than will the pretty videos to come. Oddly enough (I have no idea how one would go about quantifying this), I think that a majority of the mothers I know would in fact sacrifice their own lives to save one of their children. It seems to be an automatic response in an emergency. I have seen a woman start to throw herself in front of an oncoming car to get a child out of the way; I have read reports of their lunging into raging rivers, etc. I know that mothers of terminally ill children often entreat God to take them instead. And I know women who have placed themselves in danger to help a child not even their own. Still, it's not the same as a pregnancy gone disastrously wrong, is it? A child about to be hit by a car, a child trapped in a burning house, even a child being bitten by a dog or a wild animal — one responds without thinking.
When women have miscarriages, we mourn — sometimes bitterly and grievously. But it is not the same as losing a child, is it? "Not even to save the life of the mother." That seems to me so presumptuous — the Republican Party (actually, just a minority of the Republican Party) playing God. Playing God with supreme self-righteousness, on the grounds that they alone speak for God. The party that just finished laying plans to cut $55 billion out of programs to help poor children. The party that opposed a modest increase in the minimum wage so working parents can care for their children. What kind of Christians are these? There's an old blues song, "When the Hunter Gets Captured By the Game," that describes the Republican Party at present. The game that the party went out to seek was the Christian right — a mother lode of zealous anti-abortion, anti-gay, religiously inspired political activists. The Republicans have used these people through five election cycles, exploiting their fervor without doing much that they wanted. But now the game has captured them. Their platform brings back everything short of the flat-earth theory. Voodoo economics is back, social policies based on Darwinism are back (odd for a party that isn't quite sure about the theory of evolution), and strange references to the United Nations keep creeping in. I can't figure out whether this is the old John Birch Society U.N.-phobia or the new militia-inspired black-helicopter conspiracy theory. It's all over the Texas Republican platform. This platform is like King Midas in reverse. Everything it touches turns to sludge. I guess the good news is that no one pays much attention to party platforms. Never underestimate the perverse power of spinners. Last time I checked Bill Safire's column, he was planning to reinvent Dole as a populist. That's Bob Dole, lifelong servant of the corporate and financial elites, who flies around in the Archer-Daniels-Midland jet. My friends, our eyes will yet witness unimaginable wonders. Life on Mars. Bob Dole as the friend of the Little Man. *** Molly Ivins is a columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. COPYRIGHT 1996 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.
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