By Dave Andrusko

To paraphrase best-selling author Tim Keller, if the media portrait of the abortion debate is likened to a lake, the understanding reporters carry around in their heads about who it is that makes up the pro-life movement would be one of the clearest spots where you can see all the way to the bottom. In other words, if you want to figure out why opposition to abortion is treated with almost universal scorn and hostility by most of the Establishment Media, there is probably no better starting point than by looking at the absurd caricature many reporters hold of us.

Is this so self-evident as to need no elaboration? I don't think so, and let me explain why by discussing a fascinating question-and- answer piece that appeared in the New Yorker last month which I read, vowed to write about, and then promptly forgot.

But that's something we've talked about many times in this space. Suffice it to say, among other reasons, that in addition to almost monolithic opposition from House Republicans there is a hard-core cadre of courageous pro-life Democrats who refused to buckle under.

The exchange is nothing short of fascinating, and not just because it made readers aware that Shields had recently written a book about what Zenilman describes as "the history of the organized opposition to abortion and its evolving relationship with American politics." It's extremely interesting to us because Shields demonstrates a very sophisticated understanding of why our Movement was not capsized by the swell of what Zenilman calls a "rapidly liberalizing society." (Indeed, as Shields points out, there is solid evidence that our society is growing more, not less, pro-life.)

"This development, however, is not as odd as it appears," says Shields, an assistant professor at Claremont McKenna College. "I think the pro-life cause continues to inspire activists and cannot be dismissed by secular, socially liberal Americans precisely because it appeals to common liberal values that we all share."

Why don't more people know this? "The liberalism at the heart of the pro-life campaign, however, is constantly distorted by a generation of scholars who have insisted the right-to-life movement is really about the preservation of traditional gender roles or male control over female sexuality," Shields says. "Such interpretations tend to ignore that the right to life movement regards itself as today's civil-rights movement. The failure to grasp this reality renders the passion and dedication of the pro-life movement almost impossible to comprehend."

Exactly. But why have "many scholars of abortion resisted this conclusion," according to Shields? "[B]ecause they find it difficult to entertain the possibility that these conservatives might be agents in progressive history. In their view, conservatives are by definition reactionaries to the civil-rights movement, not its heirs." (Single-issue pro-lifers, of course, would point out that our Movement is too diverse to fit into a box labeled "conservative.")

The interview can be read in its entirety at www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2009/11/abortion-politics-and-its-discontents.html. So let me just offer one more quote, which surprised me.

"I suspect many, if not most, pro-choice advocates would reject my interpretation of the right-to-life movement. But this has not been true of many pro-choice academics," he says. "On some level, I think most of them understand that pro-lifers are raising serious human rights concerns. And on a surprising number of occasions, I've had liberal academics confess that their pro-life sympathies run quite deep." (Shields runs in academic circles; I don't. So I will take his word for this.) And then the clincher: "Such moments always remind me that this issue won't be resolved anytime soon."

Indeed, it won't, both because pro-lifers are made of sterner stuff--it is impossible for them to give in--and because of the centrality of the principle for which they fight: "extending the frontiers of human freedom."

Please send your comments to daveandrusko@gmail.com.

Part One