No issue exposes the deep divisions in the American political landscape like that of abortion. Ever since the handing down of Roe vs. Wade by the US Supreme Court in 1973, enshrining a woman’s right to abortion, the defence or assault of this historic decision has been cast as a major goal of both sides of the political divide. Bush’s intermittent murmerings at key moments in the electoral process about limiting or even banning partial birth abortions, placing restrictions on stem cell research, and his choices for supreme court justices are all evidence of just how important this issue really is in rallying grass-roots support, and, like it or not, it won’t be long before Barack, Hillary, Rudy and John are being scoured on talk show TV for their profound articulations regarding the nature and status of life itself.

In fact, it’s hard to underestimate the importance of, and to a large extent reliance on Roe vs. Wade to the American Right, and in explaining middle-America’s dramatic shift from the moderate progressivism of the New Deal and Fair Deal, which has seen states such as Kansas -once seen even as a hotbed of progressive politics- become one of the most reliable red states in a matter of decades. Whilst middle-America used to gripe about being screwed over by the GOP: the Rich-Man’s Party, the Friends of Big Business, these days they enthusiastically rally against increased spending on healthcare, education, in favour of tax cuts for billionaires, blaming America’s ill’s on the so-called East and West Coast ‘Latte-drinking Liberal elites’, all whilst their jobs disappear off to China and their small-towns are laid to waste.

So the question which follows is, why has so much of America wedded itself to a party and an ideology which clearly does not represent them or their interests, and which has clearly failed to fatten their wallets, failed to secure their livelihoods, and failed to protect their way of life, resorting to the crudest of persuasive methods, the butt of a gun? The answer, is ‘values’.

The Democrats simply don’t stand for anything anymore. Their election strategy for the past 12 years has been to simply cherry-pick the issues which election agents and polls say matter to people. They present election promises almost as a menu, for all the various bases of support to pick something which appeals, and to vote for them accordingly. “Something for the Latino vote”, “Something to keep the Afro-American lobby happy”, “Something to keep the contributions coming in from business”- there is simply no coherence. The Democrats can talk in details about their policies until they go blue in their faces, and often what they have to say makes a lot of sense- but, thanks to the short-term electioneering of ‘flexible’, ‘middle of the road’ politicians such as the much-sanctified Clinton, any kind of ideological basis or narrative underpinning all that has gone out the window.

The Republicans, on the other hand, don’t need complex statistics about tax bands, median rates of income, national product, domestic growth rates or anything else to get their message across- it’s pure and simple. “We’re about values” they say, speaking in broad, all-encompassing terms such as “protecting life”, “upholding the American family”. While it’s often extremely unclear which policies these vague soundbites describe, the soundbites themselves are jarringly clear. The GOP knows what it believes, we are told. Unlike all these intellectual, head-in-the-clouds East coast elites who speak in statistics and with mountains of evidence to support their argument which nobody bothers to read, the GOP speaks the common man’s language; the word on the street. They are, it would seem, now the ordinary man’s party.

So let’s get back to Roe vs. Wade. If we are to see the rise of the popular American Right as part of some kind of ‘backlash’ against these so-called Liberal elites betraying ‘traditional American family values’, then there really can’t be any clearer symbol. You see, Roe vs. Wade didn’t legalize abortion; it was legal in many states already. What it did do, however, was take the decision out of the hands of individual states, and instead forced onto them a decision made, with no vote, no debate- a decision made by a bunch of presumably out-of-touch, arrogant, anti-democratic amoral liberal ‘activist’ judges up in Washington. Whether you agree with that verdict or not, that’s how it looks to the guy on the street, and when the traditional Democrat support rally behind the decision, making it a key part of their platform, that view is simply confirmed.

In terms of abortion rights, Roe vs. Wade has actually achieved very little. All the states which have always opposed abortion continue to do so, and whilst thanks to the Supreme Court no law can prevent you from having an abortion in the Mississippi Delta, in practice, obtaining one there would be little less problematic than 34 years ago. Violence against those who carry out and receive abortions remains, cultural attitudes towards the practice remain unchanged, while states such as Mississippi continue to pass all the legislation they can to make the process as difficult as possible. In effect, Roe vs. Wade, whilst a symbolic victory, has cost the pro-choice lobby considerably more than it has gained.

On the other hand, Roe vs Wade has become the talisman of the American right’s revival. “Forget your economic woes, your lost jobs, your dying towns and floundering small businesses, put your selfish concerns to one side”, the Right need only call, “This is about values!; America’s soul, things much larger than any of our day-to-day concerns”. By appealing to the moral and religious consciousness of Middle America, focusing them on broader issues such as homosexuality, the death penalty, and, at the very top, abortion, -matters which, while not having a direct bearing on your average voter, are nonetheless ‘matters of principle’- the much more personal, ‘bread and butter’ issues of financial security, education, healthcare – all of the Democrat’s traditional issues- become almost irrelevant.

It’s time to call their bluff. It’s time to shift attention back onto the real political issues; the issues which directly affect your average voter, questions like whether they have a secure job without having to look over your shoulder to China, whether they can send their kids to college, whether they have enough money to retire. The question of whether it is right for one man to marry another, or for stem cells to be used in medical research are not political issues which have a direct bearing on the lives of the vast majority of Americans, they are moral ones; matters for prayer and critical thought, resolved through calm, careful consideration and conscience, not the havoc of endless rhetoric, frenetic lobbying, disagreeable disagreement and shameless electioneering.

As long as American Politics is haunted by the ghost of that decision in 1973, it will be impossible for us to move beyond these questions onto the real ones affecting America’s future and that of much of the Western World. By allowing such pressing matters to be eclipsed by the ’smallness’ of the political discourse, Americans are, allowing the Right wing to get away with this, the greatest steal in decades. A steal in which, with the nation transfixed on abstract issues, matters of principle, rather than of politics, unresolvable by any law or politician, they are able to walk off with other people’s money, pollute our cities, ship your jobs abroad, and pawn off your futures to the highest bidder, all without a murmur of dissent.