Well-Laid Plans

Adele Stands outlines the method to the madness: "Anatomy of the War on Women: How the Koch Brothers Are Funding the Anti-Choice Agenda."

Of the multi-state assault on reproductive rights this year—

To the untrained eye, it seemed that a sudden wildfire of anti-choice bills had engulfed the legislative agenda, but in truth the assault had been years, even decades, in the making. It wasn't until three years ago, however, that conditions became so hospitable for the arsonists who trained their flame-throwers on these fundamental freedoms.

In 2010, three key events created the incendiary political landscape that fueled this summer’s inferno: the Supreme Court's decision to strike down campaign finance restrictions in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, elections at the state and federal levels that rode the winds of backlash against the 2008 election of Barack Obama, and the subsequent census-year victories of right-wing Republicans whose gains in state legislatures and governors' mansions gave them control of the process for drawing legislative and congressional districts.

Stans lists anti-reproductive rights "social welfare" groups, funded from 2009 to 2011 by the "now apparently defunct" Center to Protect Patient Rights (CPPR): a Koch-backed "pass-through group... used by big, unnamed vendors to pass money to other organizations, apparently as a means of further obscuring the original source of the funding."

Multiple uses of "apparently" aside: just why would the Kochs care about pursuing the "social issues" war? They presumably don't, but there's the old MO—

"If you want to promote a pro-corporate agenda, you're only going to get so far," Sue Sturgis, the Durham, North Carolina-based editorial director of the progressive website Facing South, told RH Reality Check. “But when you start weaving in these social issues like abortion and other reproductive rights issues, then you're gonna appeal to a broader range of people, and a very motivated voting bloc. They will turn out. So it serves your larger cause."

And, of course—

It follows that attacks on reproductive rights came on the heels of the assault against labor unions, public-sector workers, and poor people that began, most famously, in Wisconsin, as soon as the Republican right racked up impressive state-level wins in 2010, or that renewed attacks on voting rights ensued at the same time.

While in other places—

... in the State of Ohio, we can re-elect [U.S.] Sen. Sherrod Brown (D), we can re-elect the president of the United States, but we have a different result on the state level," [said state senator] Nina Turner... "It's absolutely the result of gerrymandering."

In North Carolina, Sue Sturgis sees redistricting as a factor exacerbating the polarization of her state, where abortion was among a host of contentious issues, including voting rights, that fueled the historic weekly Moral Monday protests.

At the level of the courts, this attack on women's health options has reached the Roberts court, where it's sure to break new ground in corporate personhood.

Tbogg quotes this MSNBC coverage of the case—

"... corporations could be allowed to opt out not only of health coverage for religiously contested services – including vaccinations or blood transfusions – but labor regulations. Some organizations have already been testing this: Duquesne University has claimed that its Catholic affiliation means it cannot allow graduate students to unionize."

TBogg concludes—

Needless to say, a determination that corporations can be religious in nature (I was going to write "... have a soul", but I couldn't stop simultaneously laughing and weeping) means that somewhere down the line those same corporations will feel free to claim that they shouldn't be taxed at all because they are a religious organization and, OHMYGAWD, everyone at the American Enterprise Institute just now got an enormous 4-hour boner at the idea of that and now we're going to need those slut pills more than ever.