By Dave Andrusko

The title catches the flavor of the essay by Katha Pollitt--"Anti-Choicers on the March"--and the last sentence of the first paragraph the morose conclusion-- "Supporters of reproductive rights are looking at the most hostile Congress since abortion was legalized in 1973."

Published Wednesday on the webpage of the Nation magazine, the essay is an interesting blend of getting some things right for all the wrong reasons.

For example, to anyone writing for the Nation, anyone to the right of Nancy Pelosi is a "conservative." Thus Pollitt can lump just about everyone into the vast conservative conspiracy.

It is her initial point (beyond the apocalyptic election returns) that many right-thinking (make that progressive-thinking) people thought "conservatives" weren't really serious about ending abortion and/or were being diverted onto other social issues. Pollitt tells us she never bought that.

Well, that's good because we never sold that. Whatever we think on a hundred other different issues, those of us who fight abortion (whether we are "conservatives" or "progressives" or neither) have coalesced around our opposition to this ghastly abridgement of human rights. And because we vote single-issue, we win, wherever we have the slightest chance, and, on occasion, in places where we have NO chance.

Pollitt offers a laundry list of "antichoice efforts we're likely to see in Congress in the coming months," after making an important point. "Most antiabortion activity is focused on smaller measures and takes place in the states, where some 600 antichoice bills were introduced last year, and where Republicans will now hold twenty-nine governorships and both houses of nineteen state legislatures. Add up enough small victories and eventually you've changed the reproductive rights landscape, both as a matter of law and on the ground…"

Pollitt doesn't preface her remarks with the two reasons we have gone this route. First, the Supreme Court has hedged us in. We are trimming those hedges via protective legislation at the state level.

Second, at the same time these laws provide the Supreme Court with opportunities to rethink its absolutism, legislation that makes it possible for women in crisis to make an informed decision saves lives.

Having had their heads handed to them at the polls, pro-abortionists console themselves with the few victories they did squeak out. There, we are told, pro-abortionists won because they made abortion a BIG issue.

Hey, any port in a storm.