We Quaint, Silly Colonials

Whoever puts together the London Times web site isn't pulling any punches. The story on South Dakota's abortion ban is titled:

Assault on right to have an abortion

Like BBC did last night, the Times plays the story as a quaint little outrage from the outback of America:

SOUTH DAKOTA is one of those deeply conservative, midwestern “fly-over” states, which the East and West Coast elites routinely ridicule and ignore.

But its new law to ban abortion, signed this week by Mike Rounds, the Governor, will propel South Dakota into the forefront of a totemic debate, with possibly profound political and social consequences for the rest of America.

The tone is not too subtle. Only America among the western nations, where Christianity curiously continues to hang on, is such an outrageous infringement of women's rights possible, they seem to say. Or, quoting the Times:

Although abortion is supported by a narrow majority of the American public, this issue has, over the past 30 years, galvanised the religious Right, and helped to forge the political coalition that ultimately secured George Bush’s successive presidential election wins.

Bush, the anti-abortion president? I don't think so. Bush the terrorist-whomping president? That's more like it. The Brits are letting their snobishness about we colonials show. We are much more complex than their analysis hints.

Related Tags: Abortion, South Dakota, Media, London Times, BBC