Okie or Arkie? The Absurd Anti-Abortion Arkansas Law

This morning I told one of my sons, who began his day reading about this absurd law in Arkansas that comparing a girl’s or a woman’s right to choose, and the number of people having abortions, with the Holocaust is de rigueur for the right. The hysterical pitch is simply their preferred pitch, so tune it out. I did.

Growing up in Bakersfield, the closest I came to listening to “country” was having Merle Haggard’s sister drive me to junior high school. Along with his sister, my girlfriend explained the connection, and I couldn’t help but notice Merle wasn’t that nice to this sister, judging by the car she drove.

Well, that’s the way it is in Nashville West, as I was later told, since I was long since grown by the time Bakersfield got Buck Owens (of Hee Haw fame) Drive, and being from the Frick family meant we didn’t listen to country (and why was I going to rebel? It took years before k. d. lang appeared on the music scene, giving country a little cred).

This was about the same time that I learned, in one of my drive-by Valley visits to see my mom, about the battle between the Okies and the Arkies — and even then, I thought, “Who cares?” Who could possibly care about the division between Oklahoma Dust Bowl veterans beating Arkansas Depression veterans to Weed Patch and Lamont (or moving to “the city,” as my grandmother, Ruth Ann Frick, called Bakersfield)?

Well, now I guess we have to care. When the War on Women starts getting this nasty, when they pass “Have a Heart” legislation to undermine Roe v. Wade, now that I’m past my Pioneer Mom years and am interested in someday having grandchildren, I do care.

Do they really think we are so ignorant as to consider the Human Heartbeat Protection Act to be anything less than having no heart, or being neotribal in their repressive strategies when it comes to “protecting” women and girls with these restrictive bans on abortion? Before I could articulate it, I saw how little Merle treated his own sister, so why would anyone from Bakersfield expect all the lesser-known white country men from former Confederate states to treat their women and girl folk any better?

By Ruth O'Brien|2013-03-10T17:22:15+00:00March 7th, 2013|Obama's Election, 2012|Comments Off

About the Author: Ruth O'Brien

Professor Ruth O’Brien, who earned her Ph.D. in political science at UCLA, joined the Graduate Center’s doctoral faculty in 1997 and, in 2004, founded the “Writing Politics” specialization in political science. She also serves as an adjunct affiliated scholar with the Center for American Progress. In her research and books, she focuses on American politics, law, political theory without national borders, globalism, and American/global dichotomy. She edits the award-winning “Public Square” series for Princeton University Press, showcasing public intellectuals such as Jill Lepore, Jeff Madrick, Anne Norton, Martha Nussbaum, and Joan Scott. O’Brien is also launching “Heretical Thought,” an Oxford University Press political-theory series that is global in outlook. Her latest book, Out of Many One: Obama and the Third American Political Tradition (2013), with a foreword by journalist Thomas Byrnes Edsall, distinguished professor at Columbia’s School of Journalism, was honored with a 2013 “Author Meets Critic” American Political Science Association convention session. She also wrote Bodies in Revolt: Gender, Disability, and a Workplace Ethic of Care (2005), Crippled Justice: The History of Modern Disability Policy in the Workplace (2001), which received an honorable mention from Gustavus Meyers Center for the Study of Human Rights and Bigotry (“Meyers Center”), and Workers’ Paradox: The Republican Origins of the New Deal Labor Policy, 1886–1935 (1998). “Writing Politics” emanated from two books she contributed to and edited: Telling Stories out of Court: Narratives about Women and Workplace Discrimination (2008) and Voices from the Edge: Narratives about the Americans with Disabilities Act (2004), which earned another honorable mention from the Meyers Center. O’Brien’s controversial blog led Rush Limbaugh to dub her a “professorette.”

Okie or Arkie? The Absurd Anti-Abortion Arkansas Law