It's a good look, and the lone reason the agony of this week's interruption-happy vice presidential debate was even marginally tolerable: Someone finally brought up abortion rights in a debate this election season, and when asked about his stance on it, Tim Kaine gave the perfect answer. In case you'd already given up on the debate by the time it came up, here you go:
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My favorite part of Kaine's answer came when he asked his opponent, misogyny-as-policy peddler Mike Pence, why he doesn't think women should have this fundamental right. It was amazing to hear Kaine ask this question, because I was thinking it all the way through Pence's tremendously dull condemnation of reproductive rights. Behold:
Governor, why don't you trust women to make this choice for themselves? We can encourage people to support life. Of course we can. But why don't you trust women? Why doesn't Donald Trump trust women to make this choice for themselves?
Kaine's record on abortion isn't perfect. But when he describes coming to the conclusion that his duty to carry out the law trumps his Catholicism, I believe him. After all, it's hard to argue with a Catholic who implemented the death penalty when he was governor of a state where it was the law. Given how politics has been infected by extremist religion, particularly in the case of evangelical Christianity and abortion rights, it's tremendously refreshing to see a religious politician who understands the separation of church and state.
Kaine's debate opponent, Mike Pence, embodies exactly the opposite. He didn't have a good answer to Kaine's matter-of-fact question, and instead hewed closely to a line of classic abortion-as-tragedy messaging, calling it "the heartbreaking choice."
K.
So this is maybe an emotionally convincing argument for some, but it conveniently ignores how women actually experience abortion—studies have shown that women typically don't regret having them, and that women are more likely to feel regret about being denied an abortion than going through with one. It's sad that this is something that apparently needs be explained to sanctimonious old men in 2016.
Consider this your reminder that your choice in November—between Pence and his assclown ticket-mate and two sound-of-mind adults who believe grown-ups sometimes have abortions and don't deserve to be shamed for it—isn't really a choice at all if you're a woman, or someone who cares about them.
Oh, also. Confidential to Jill Stein: You are 100 percent not helping.