Kansas Politics and Blog for Choice Day

What Blog for Choice Day is: On January 21st (I'm barely getting in on time) this website asked bloggers everywhere to answer the following question:

Given the anti-choice gains in the states and Congress, are you concerned about choice in 2011?

News on what the new leadership in Kansas is doing: link

With news like this, how can I not be concerned about the future of pro-choice legislation?

Now, this may not seem, on its face, to be the most all-inclusive answer, since I'm discussing local politics. But if you read the link, you'll see that Kansas is trying to play the same card that California tried to play with gay marriage, only they're trying to repeal Roe v. Wade. And, since Sebelius left office, Kansas has turned RED. Kansas City had usually maintained a blue outline, but the Tea Party movement, in conjunction with other factors I'm sure, have turned the state deeply conservative.

Now, what does this have to do with feminism and labor? Pro-choice is the only sensible stance as a political feminist, because anything that restricts choice creates a power differential between men and women, thereby reinforcing the patriarchy. The moral choice is only such a choice when it is a choice. The political stance, as a feminist, must be directed towards equalizing power relations between the genders.

As such I think it behooves the labor movement to vocally stand up for reproductive rights. This is a power issue which can help to build a left movement for an actual socialist state, as opposed to a Democratic bourgeois state -- the current standard for leftists in the states. If a labor-based left movement wants power, then the left is going to have to embrace other issues of importance to the left. Abortion rights go hand in hand with labor feminist politics.