Culture of DeathThe right-wing assault on abortion reduction.
Posted Monday, July 27, 2009, at 8:01 AM ETA new fault line has opened in the abortion debate. The fight is no longer between pro-lifers and pro-choicers. It's between militants and pragmatists.
While some extremists have been raising hell and shooting doctors, pragmatists have been hashing out common-ground legislation. Their latest bill, introduced Thursday, is the Preventing Unintended Pregnancies, Reducing the Need for Abortion, and Supporting Parents Act. If that sounds like a jumble of ideas from both sides, it's because lots of bargaining went into it. Among other things, pro-choicers got money for contraception and sex education. Pro-lifers got abstinence-friendly curriculum, a bigger adoption tax credit, and financial support for women who continue their pregnancies.
The two sides talked, listened, and compromised. Pro-lifers couldn't stand postcoital birth-control pills, fearing they might kill early embryos. The fear was unwarranted, but pro-choicers agreed to leave the pills out. Pro-choicers couldn't stand even the vaguest legislative description of what doctors should tell patients. That anxiety, too, was unnecessary, but pro-lifers agreed to drop the language. Pro-choicers hated abstinence-only education but agreed to fund "evidence-based programs that encourage teens to delay sexual activity." Pro-lifers wanted women to see prenatal ultrasound images but settled for money to make the machines more widely available.
Each side faced the other's truths. Joel Hunter, an evangelical minister and former president-elect of the Christian Coalition, endorsed the bill's provision of "better access to contraception." So did two other pro-life theologians. Frances Kissling, who served for 25 years as president of Catholics for Choice, embraced pregnancy-prevention efforts that "meet women's own goal of avoiding abortion where possible." Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., the bill's principal pro-choice sponsor, said at a Thursday press conference that "we all want to see fewer unintended pregnancies and abortions" and that "we must also foster an environment that encourages pregnancies to be carried to term." Such statements are forbidden among pro-choice groups: You're supposed to endorse reducing the "need" for abortion, not abortion itself, and you're never supposed to concede that financial support for childbearing should influence abortion decisions. But DeLauro blurted it out. That's what happens when you open your mind.
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StumbleUponFor pro-choice groups, embracing abortion reduction wasn't easy. Only two of them, NARAL Pro-Choice America and Catholics for Choice, supported the bill three years ago. This time, the rest came on board. Some of them resent or distrust parts of the bill, but they've accepted it. The National Abortion Federation, a "professional association of abortion providers," issued a supportive statement even though the legislation explicitly aims to shrink the abortion market. Try getting any other medical lobby to bless a bill targeted at its livelihood. That's real courage.
Hunter and other pro-life pragmatists signed on, too. But the militant old guard of the pro-life movement didn't. The militants, led by the National Right to Life Committee, call the bill a "scam." According to NRLC Legislative Director Doug Johnson, the bill's real goal is "financial gains for the abortion industry." How could abortion-reducing legislation help the "abortion industry"? By funding contraception. If you run an organization dedicated to avoiding unplanned pregnancy but in 3 percent of cases you provide abortions to women who ask for them, you're the "abortion industry." And any bill that funds your pregnancy prevention services, even with the legal understanding that you're forbidden to spend the money on anything else, is a "bailout for the abortion industry."
It's hard to take this argument seriously, since the militants don't live up to such scruples themselves. NRLC, for instance, spends lots of time and money fighting campaign finance reform and cost controls on prescription drugs, even as it tells potential donors that their money will "support the life-saving work" of "people dedicated entirely to protecting life." Either NRLC is lying to its donors, or it's holding birth-control providers to a standard of purity it doesn't respect enough to practice.
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Mr. Saletan,
I'm very glad to know you actually read, and occasionally respond to postings on the Fray.
I was surprised you didn't mention the possibility that the most dogmatic pro-life groups' withholding of support might have been motivated by something other than the actual abortions? Just as you mention the existence of an "abortion industry," there absolutely exists a "pro-life" industry. It collects money, conducts polls, lobbies politicians, etc. and hires people to carry-out all those functions. Some cynics would even suggest the pro-life industry exists to funnel the political support of so-called "single-issue" voters to other causes--namely, conservative republican elections.
If such is the case, no amount of sensible compromise--even approaching total capitulation--will bring these groups on-board because they exist solely to whip-up political fervor, translate that into votes and money--and re-direct those resources to other causes. I think the article actually contains an explicit example of this very practice.
I commend you for your own personal pragmatic philosophy regarding the abortion debate--and I think your article demonstrates that the "pro choicers" share much of your pragmatism and willingness to compromise. But I believe it's a fool's errand to even pretend these pro-life organizations could be persuaded to compromise under any circumstances---reducing abortions isn't their mission--directing political energy is.
-- Springfield123
(To reply, click here)
I appreciate your point, but don't assume it applies to pro-lifers across the board, any more than the errors of the worst left-wingers apply to pro-choicers across the board. These coalitions are quite diverse and complicated. It's worth reaching out because some people on the other side will turn out to be reasonable and persuadable, even if others aren't. And in my experience, no political camp has a monopoly on sincerity.
-- William Saletan
(To reply, click here)