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Wladyslaw Pleszczynski and William McGurn

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Where are TV's Sympathetic Pro-Life Characters?

By William McGurn
Posted Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2001, at 8:14 PM ET

Dear Wlad,

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I write this at my desk, watching Chuck Schumer on C-SPAN 2 explain that John Ashcroft is unfit for attorney general because ... well ... he doesn't agree with Sen. Schumer on abortion. In a particularly sleazy aside, he wondered aloud what the Senate would do if Bull Connor had been nominated. But he got to put out his smear and walk away from it, too, saying that Ashcroft is no Bull Connor. So why the allusion?

Leave aside that Bull Connor was a Democrat.

We've reached a curious point in American politics. This is abortion absolutism. Apart from dire fund-raising letters from NOW, PAW, or Planned Parenthood, there can't be any American who really dreams that abortion is in any danger of being prohibited. Even the partial-birth Nebraska legislation that was overturned by the Supreme Court last summer did not challenge Roe.

Why shouldn't an attorney general be allowed to oppose Roe v. Wade? Whatever one's feelings on abortion, Roe v. Wade was a horrid decision constitutionally, upending the laws of 48 states and transforming abortion into a national and highly divisive issue. I'm not sure, in the long run, it even helps those shouting loudest for it. Had there been no Roe v. Wade, today we'd probably have a dozen states where there was abortion on demand, another 30-35 where there was liberal abortion but with varying degrees of restrictions (parental consent for minors, third trimester, partial birth, etc.), and maybe four or five where it was prohibited.

The issue should be whether Ashcroft would respect the rule of law and follow procedure. I don't recall reading this concern about an AG's upholding law and rulings he or she didn't agree with when Miss Reno trampled all over the Fourth Amendment (which, unlike abortion, is in the Constitution) by busting down the door of the González family in the teeth of a court that declined to sanction that with an order.

Abortion has become the left's sacrament. Not an inch must be given. When was the last time you saw a sympathetic pro-life character on TV? Did you notice in Cider House Rules, in the beginning, when Michael Caine rescues Homer Wells (the orphan) from his prospective adoptive parents because he is being beaten, the filmmakers show an old print of the Little Flower (Thérèse of Lisieux) over the crib--the idea being, of course, that these are the kind of people who abuse children. A nice touch.

But I'd settle for honest reporting. We all know about Norma McCorvey of Roe v. Wade fame, not only because of the court case but because of the 1989 NBC made-for-TV movie about her. How many people know that Norma McCorvey never had an abortion, that she is now active in the pro-life movement, and that she was recently received in the Catholic church? Or that Sandra Cano, the Doe in Doe vs. Bolton, also never had an abortion and says what she was really after was help in a divorce case?

Think if the situation had been reversed--revered pro-life icon switching sides--would there be an NBC sequel, and would we all know about it?

Cheers,
Bill