You Don't Have to be "Classically Pro-Life"

By Dave Andrusko

As we've discussed a lot recently, the electoral victories of pro-life women is upsetting the pro-abortion apple cart. Female senatorial candidates such as Caryl Fiorina in California and Sharron Angle in Nevada have already prevailed in Republican primaries while the chances for another--Kelly Ayotte--looks good in September 14 primary in New Hampshire.

But it's not just that pro-life women are winning that is so unnerving to pro-abortionists. It is that in refusing to concede the feminist label, pro-life women are moving into the bright light a discussion that that has largely been conducted in the shadows.

Put another way, what if support for abortion is no longer the sine qua non--the absolute bottom line requirement--to be a feminist? What if support for life and support for equal rights for women are not at odds with one another but more like two blades of a scissor (to borrow from C.S. Lewis)?

There are cracks in the orthodoxy, and they show up in the darndest places. NARAL conducted some focus groups a little while back to try to figure out why the are losing the hearts and minds of younger women. One of the things they found (actually which they ignored but we spotted in a Newsweek account) is that younger women today see the contradiction.

How can you celebrate intelligent, strong, inner-directed women but wring your hands about how helpless women are in they face an unplanned pregnancy--with abortion counseled as the best, if not only, "solution"?

This contra-orthodoxy sentiment popped up again today in a column I read by the veteran pro-abortion scribe Eleanor Clift at Politics Daily. "The headline was "Carly Fiorina vs. Barbara Boxer: The Sisterhood and Abortion Politics" and in it Clift openly worries that "The core women's issues that have been central to Boxer's career may not have the resonance this year that they once had." (By "core issues," she means, of course, abortion.)

She refers to the three young adult daughters of a friend of hers who are not "classically pro-life," but for whom abortion is "a non-issue." Clift fairly presents the reasons abortion is a "non-issue" for them, but in the end suggests they feel this way only because they don't remember the days before Roe.

But women, in or out of politics, have come to their pro-life positions not because of what they have forgotten, but because of what they have remembered. After candidly discussing the pregnancy of her unmarried daughter, Sarah Palin put it beautifully in a speech delivered a couple of weeks ago:

"The pro-woman sisterhood is telling these young women they are strong enough and smart enough. They are capable to handle an unintended pregnancy and still be able to, in less than ideal circumstances, no doubt, to handle that. Still be able to give that child life, in addition to pursuing a career and pursuing an education, pursuing avocations. Though society wants to tell these young women otherwise. Even these feminist groups want to try to tell women, send this message that, 'Nope, you're not capable of doing both. You can't give your child life and still pursue career and education. You're not strong enough. You're not capable.' So it's very hypocritical of those . . . pro-women's rights groups out there.

Let me reiterate what I wrote at the time. What if we looked at the decision to fight through the undeniable challenges posed by an unplanned pregnancy as a mark of character and courage and commitment? What if we looked at succumbing to these obstacles not as an exercise of "women's rights" but as an unfortunate decision made in very difficult circumstances--aided and abetted by a Feminist Establishment that sees women as weak and fragile.

Every day in lots of ways, we are rethinking abortion. And one reason is because pro-life women are winning elections.