John Fetterman, aspiring to be junior U.S. senator of Pennsylvania, recently held a rally in the suburbs of Philadelphia.

It’s a shame that Fetterman didn’t ask for my opinion about what really matters. He seems to be taking his orders from the sort of political operatives who don’t understand that making “abortion up until the moment of birth” your campaign slogan is not a great approach for winning decent hearts and discerning minds.

According to the Fetterman campaign, access to abortion is the only thing that seems to motivate intelligent females these days.

Not the economy. Not toxic educational theories shoved down the throats of children. Not harassment at school board meetings. Not the debacle in Afghanistan. Not even COVID.

The rally was designed to gin up anger among his pink-shirted followers, women who still parrot the ’70s slogan of “my body, my choice” (except of course when we are talking about mandatory vaccines and masks).

And there did appear to be a large number of these ladies, squeezed into a rather restrictive space in suburban Montgomery County, all there to support a man who has literally supported abortion without restrictions.

As a woman who has spent more than five decades living, studying and working in suburbs like Montgomery County, I understand that there are many women who do not share my pro-life views. I’d venture to say that a majority of even my closest friends support some form of legalized abortion, and were disturbed when the Dobbs ruling overturned the eminently unconstitutional decision in Roe.

At recent social gatherings we’ve made sure to steer clear of that topic, to avoid food ending up anywhere except on plates and in mouths.

But I can also state with absolute certainty that no one appreciates the pandering of Fetterman and the people who follow him like some abortion messiah.

These women exist, and they are loud, and they have the ear of the mainstream media, but they are not representative of the majority of Pennsylvania females.

I recently posted on social media a photo in front of City Hall, wherein I stated: “We live in Philadelphia too, John Fetterman. We, the women who you cannot dazzle with your promises of sexual freedom, earned on the backs of future generations of children. We’re not stupid. We’re not oppressed.
We’re not misogynists (as if.) We see through you. And we vote. We do. #Life.”

Between Facebook and Twitter, that post has gotten over 400 “likes,” and 50 shares. While that might not match a Kardashian or AOC in its level of influence, it’s one of the biggest reactions I’ve ever gotten on a political post in the past decade.

That suggests how disconnected Fetterman, and Democrats in general are to the zeitgeist of Pennsylvania women.

We are not the sort of people who blindly fall in line behind a man who promises abortion on demand and without apology. We do not generally fall for the scare tactics of political operatives who warn that if Mehmet Oz, or for that matter any other GOP candidate is elected in the fall, we will be forced to scrounge around for birth control on the black market.

We are not so naïve as to believe that Democrats see abortion as anything other than a way to demonize the other side, and win an election.

I know some folks who were thrilled when the Dobbs decision came down this June, and not because they oppose abortion. They’ve told me in confidence that this was exactly what they needed to energize Democrats for the midterms. They know that Joe Biden is an albatross for his party, and if they can scare women into believing that the United States will be changing its name to the United States of Gilead come November, they’ll score atthe polls.

My response is that women are a lot smarter than that. Of course, you will get the outliers like those pink-shirted darlings at the Fetterman rally in Montco, tricked into believing that their Handmaid capes were ready for pick up in a warehouse owned by Dr. Oz and the GOP. You will get the women who think that their worth and value depends on being able to become unpregnant without restriction.

They exist.

But Pennsylvania women are far less gullible than what the Fetterman campaign perceives us to be.

And as I said, even in the suburbs, we vote.

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Copyright 2022 Christine Flowers, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Christine Flowers is an attorney and a columnist for the Delaware County Daily Times, and can be reached at [email protected].