Why the “chemical Love Canals” line says more about Marshall’s critics than it does about him

Ever since I declared my support for Bob Marshall’s Senate campaign, I have received a wide range of reaction, although much of it is evenly divided between outright agreement and concern that Gilmore is a better general election candidate (I deal with the errors in that analysis here, here, here, here, and here).  Occasionally, though, I get a reference to comments Marshall made a few years ago when he demanded that state-funded universities stop distributing “emergency contraception.”  I have found it’s just about all the rage on the lefty side of the blogosphere (you don’t need me to find the links, believe me).  So I did a little digging and found (not surprisingly) that those who would use it against Marshall are only revealing their ignorance of recent history, slef-righteous arrogance, and appalling moral turpitude.

Let’s start with the standard lefty myth about what Marshall wrote.  The myth (like most lefty myths) is best typified by the Nation (in this case, Katha Pollitt):

EC, he (Marshall) claims, turns young women into “chemical Love Canals for frat house playboys.” Instead of the natural love canals God meant them to be?

Now, first aside, before anyone gets confused, “emergency contraception” is a phrase that refers to methods used in case of conception, in order to prevent any pregnancy beyond that.  To “pro-choicers,” this is part of the birth control market (then again, to  “pro-choicers,” abortion itself is part of the birth control market).  Pro-lifers, however (such as yours truly), call these items abortifacents, because their purpose to ensure any pre-born children who happen to be conceived end up dead.  Therefore, pro-lifers do not consider “emergency contraception” to be any form of contraception at all.  Keep that in mind the next time some lefty insists Marshall was trying to “ban birth control.”

Now, back to the “Love Canal” quote.

Apparently, Ms. Pollitt attached no significance to the capitalization of Love Canal.  Neither have most of her echo chamber in my comments section; in fact, most of them are so ignorant they don’t even bother to capitalize Love Canal at all.

Allow me to enlighten (Riley over at Virginia Virtucon mentions the truth briefly, but hardly does it justice).  Love Canal was arguably the worst ecological disaster in American history.  It was a nightmarish scenario where in 1979 it was revealed that 100 homes and a public school were contaminated by chemicals that had been buried there over twenty-five years prior.  The homeowners had no idea how dangerous the site was due to horrific negligence by either a private chemical firm (Hooker Chemicals, this if you believe the EPA) or the Niagara Falls School Board (if you believe Reason).  Either way, it was abundantly clear to everyone that the families of Love Canal had unwittingly allowed themselves to be poisoned because they trusted someone who insisted everything was just fine.

Love Canal was (as one would expect), a huge event politically as well.  It led to the passage of the “Superfund” Law (Journal of Political Ecology), and assured environmentalism a permanent place on the American political scene.

What does this have to do with Bob Marshall’s campaign against abortifacents?  Take a look at Marshall’s comments again, this time with a little more context (Siecus):

Marshall filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the University of Virginia to determine whether officials have kept records of students who receive emergency contraception. He has accused the university of giving out the drug before it was approved by the FDA in 1998. Marshall said that the availability of emergency contraceptive pills at state colleges and universities would turn young women into “chemical Love Canals for frat house playboys.”

In other words, Marshall was using the historical Love Canal reference to point out that women who take these abortifacents may be unwittingly poisoning themselves, while the institution that offers it to them (the state college) insists it’s just fine.

Which leads me to my second aside - there is little to no coverage of the damage actually done to women who take abortifacents, in particular the much-hyped RU-486 (Life Issues Institute, emphasis added): 

Concerned Women for America, a pro-life women’s group under the Freedom of Information Act, receive public documents from the FDA. These list over 600 adverse effects by women taking this drug. These included 220 cases of hemorrhage that were either life threatening or extremely serious, 71 of which required blood transfusions. In addition, 392 reports indicated women requiring surgery to repair damage resulting from the abortion including many under emergency conditions.

As of last year, this particular abortifacent had led to over two dozen deaths among the women who took them.  This was the concern Delegate Marshall was raising.

Now, I know the “pro-choice” side has its own arguments regarding “emergency contraception.”  My purpose in this post, however, was to reveal what the “chemical Love Canals” quote is, and more importantly, what it is not.

So, as my third and final aside, I will examine what those on the left who have presented this faux outrage have revealed about themselves, namely:

1. By having no idea what Love Canal is, they are proving to be not only ignorant of recent history, but also shockingly ignorant of the history of their own political coalition.
2. By automatically assuming Marshall was making an anatomical reference, they actually show their own obsession with the vulgar, the cheap, and the animalistic at the expense of the spiritual, the sensitive, and humanity.
3. By not even considering that Marshall (who is a generation older than most of them and me) might have different sensibilities and has certainly lived through a lot more than they have, these folks have arrogantly assumed the only facts that exist are the ones they happen to have already known.

 In other words, Marshall’s detractors, in this instance, behave with appalling arrogance, ignorance, and a  gutter mentality.

Actually, they’re behaving a lot like frat house playboys.