The headline read, "Women take lead in fight against abortion." We know that, as does the author of the piece that appeared in the Tribune Democrat, Maria Vitale. As education director of the Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation, she is both an example of the thesis she is arguing and in a position to know just how thoroughly true that statement is.

Women occupy the highest leadership rungs in NRLC's 50 state affiliates and in our national structure. To name just three, the NRLC President is Dr. Wanda Franz. Our chairwoman is the Honorable Geline Williams. And our Co-Executive Director is Darla St. Martin.

However the leadership role that women play in our Movement is not well known outside our ranks. Not hard to figure out why. It doesn't fit the portrait painted by most media outlets for going on 40 years of misogynists on a mission to make women miserable.

Besides it can't be true. Abortion is the be-all and end-all of equality for women, right? Well, actually, no. But that is another conversation.

Our opposite numbers are well aware that women play instrumental roles at all levels in our Movement. That is one reason they hate to debate pro-life women. Indeed, for years watching a former head of PPFA avoided debating articulate women representing NRLC was like watching a quarterback scrambling to avoid a sack.

Eleanor Bader is a veteran pro-abortion scribe who attending the 2007 NRLC convention unannounced. There was plenty in her talk that she delivered months later to the New York City chapter of NOW that oozed smug superiority and dismissiveness.

But, to be fair, Bader also understood that the bogeymen that her audience had constructed bore no resemblance to the convention attendees. They were not "crackpots," nor was this a "marginal group of crazies," she said. And she did not minimize the overwhelming number of women who spoke at and/or ran the convention.

Bader was clearly impressed by the intellectual firepower ("very articulate," "very charismatic" women) and poise of the speakers. Many of the speakers and conveyors were doctors and lawyers and Ph.D.s and they spoke well and with humor, Bader told her audience.

In one very telling moment, near the beginning, Bader said that the more than 500 people (actually, it was more than 1,000) who attended the NRL Convention in Kansas City, Missouri, looked pretty much like ... them!

I'll end where I began, with a quote from Maria Vitale's fine piece. After having listed just a sample of the high profile pro-life women, she talked about the enormous disservice abortion is to women.

"Thirty-six years after Roe, it's more obvious than ever that women deserve better than abortion, and that true equality means the right of a woman to be free from the pressure of coerced abortion and to have the support to help her bring her baby into the world.

"In the end, a truly compassionate society is one that recognizes the rights of all women, including those yet to be born."

Please send your thoughts to daveandrusko@gmail.com.