A "nuanced” explanation pretty much lacking in nuance, or anything else

By Dave Andrusko

Over at "Today's News & Views,” I talked about a fine op-ed written by William McGurn for the Wall Street Journal ("Gallup's Pro-Life America: When Will Our Media Reflect American on Abortion?”). I mentioned in passing an op-ed written by Nancy Cohen that appeared in the Los Angeles Times (latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-cohen-abortion-20100529,0,5336153.story).

Cohen attempts to discredit the very same Gallup results McGurn uses to buttress his case. It would take much too long to go through her analysis point by point. And besides, the more interesting part is her notion that "pro-choice” need a good change of rhetorical clothes.

Why? Because, according to Cohen, the "anti-abortion movement seems to be winning the framing war with its 'pro-life' label.”

According to Cohen--since who "could be against life?”--pro-lifers should win by a landslide. That we don't is because "most Americans who are polled on the question understand that 'pro-life' is no more than code for the antiabortion movement.”

But isn't what's sauce for the goose sauce for the gander? Why wouldn't/shouldn't "most Americans” understand that "pro-choice” is "no more than code for more abortions now and forever more”? Well…because pro-choice means not the unrestricted right to bash the heads in of unborn babies and tear them limb from limb. Nothing so "simplistic” as that.

However, according to Cohen "as we enter our fifth decade of the culture wars,” no longer is "pro-choice” "shorthand for liberty, human dignity, individualism, pluralism, self-government and women's equality.” What to do?

After this elaborate windup, I was waiting for a 98 mile per hour fastball. Instead, the ball falls out of her hand. Cohen picks out the "mystery” passage from the 1992 Planned Parenthood vs. Casey decision and tells the reader that abortion is really about "freedom.”

She ends her op-ed with these question-begging 12 words: "Are you pro-freedom or pro-life? Now those are values worthy of debate.”

It is only to state the obvious to the author of "The Reconstruction of American Liberalism" that if "pro-life” is, in her opinion, loaded, how much more loaded, in anyone's opinion, is "pro-freedom”?

Our Movement is carrying the day, not because we are able to better "frame” the issue. We are winning because we've been increasingly able to tear away the veil that has hidden the truth about what abortion actually does to unborn children and their mothers.

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