Warren Commission

At the start of Anna Holmes' review of Peter Bagge's illustrated biography of Margaret Sanger, we get this speech from Senator Elizabeth Warren:

MADAM PRESIDENT, I come to the floor today in a state of disbelief. With millions of people out of work, with an economy recovery still far too fragile, with students and families being crushed by student loan debt, with millions of seniors denied their chance at one hot meal a day with Meals on Wheels and millions of little children pushed out of Head Start because of a sequester, with the country hours away from a government shutdown and days away from a potential default on the nation’s debt, the Republicans have decided that the single most important issue facing our nation is to change the law so that employers can deny women access to birth control coverage. In fact, letting employers decide whether women can get birth control covered on their insurance plans is so important that the Republicans are willing to shutter the government and potentially tank the economy. Over whether women can get access to birth control. In the year 2013. Not the year 1913. The year two thousand thirteen. I have a daughter and I have granddaughters and I will never vote to let a group of backward-looking ideologues cut women’s access to birth control. We have lived in that world and we are not going back. Not ever.

Foolish me.  I thought Holmes was quoting this to make Warren look bad--to show how a fight that was once serious in Margaret Sanger's day has become farce. But no, Holmes actually thinks the Senator has something to say.

So let's look at what Warren says. It starts with classic political blather.  Apparently there are problems going on in the nation. True.  There are always problems. But can we try to concentrate on the question at hand?  Which apparently is...

Republicans have decided that the single most important issue facing our nation is to change the law so that employers can deny women access to birth control coverage.

This is, of course, classic political hyperbole--or a lie, if you like, except it's so common why bother?  Republicans don't think this is the single most important issue facing our nation, but it's a timely issue so we're dealing with it now--we don't generally make a list of all the problems in the world and try to solve them from the top down.

Warren's rhetorical point is we've got bigger fish to fry, so why are we bothering with this issue.  So let me ask the good Senator, is this issue trivial, or is it significant?  If it's trivial, then give in and we can start to work on problems you care about. If it's significant, and you sure seem to think it is from the rest of your speech, then why complain that we're wasting time talking about it?

Then she does a rhetorical switch.  She goes from this...

...letting employers decide whether women can get birth control covered on their insurance plans...

to this....

...whether women can get access to birth control.

These are two very different things.  The issue today is whether or not employers, regardless of their personal morality, or even their financial situation, should be required to provide for free (or actually "free") birth control to their employees--even, in fact, if their employees don't want it.  This is not about access to birth control, which is cheap and widely available.

Then Warren descends to classic political emotionalism:

In the year 2013. Not the year 1913. The year two thousand thirteen. I have a daughter and I have granddaughters and I will never vote to let a group of backward-looking ideologues cut women’s access to birth control. We have lived in that world and we are not going back. Not ever.

Back in Margaret Sanger's day, birth control was illegal.  Today it is legally protected.  I would hope Senator Warren, not to mention Anna Holmes, could appreciate the difference.