DNC abortion focus reflects broader public health, equality issues

There was a mini-flap this weekend when ABC and NPR political analyst Cokie Roberts said the Democratic National Convention was "over the top" on abortion because of how many of its speakers mentioned the topic. I like Roberts, but I disagree with her here for a few reasons.

• With the Republican standard bearer choosing the destruction--or, at least, weakening--of Planned Parenthood as one of the few things he takes a solid, specific position on, the substantive importance of supporting abortion rights increases accordingly.  That is especially because Planned Parenthood stands at a broad overlap of reproductive rights and overall women's health.  When you attack Planned Parenthood, you might be attacking abortion, but you are also attacking women's health. It's one thing for Romney to come out against Roe v. Wade, which he also did.  It's another to campaign on a plan to create a public health disaster--which would hurt men as well as women, BTW.
• "Over the top" is as "over the top" does. The latest polling shows Obama leading by 14 percent among women. Would that change for the better if the Dems tweaked their words on abortion. Maybe. But 14 percent is a pretty big number.
• This is the most subjective claim I'll make, but I think it's worth mentioning. Issues get mentioned beyond whatever their inherent merit is if they link to other topics that matter. Abortion links to a more generalized war on women. The GOP tries really hard to deny this war, and maybe they themselves don't see it as a war, but Romney refused to support Lilly Ledbetter and Todd Akin, well, most folks in the GOP actually agree with what he thinks (even if they don't agree with how he says it publicly). And the list goes on. One might argue that abortion is a proxy for the GOP's Big Government approach to many issues, especially to ones that have to do with our bodies and/or with things that they think the Bible tells them to do. (We'll save for a future column the issue of whether the GOP is really as pro-small government economically as it claims.)