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Reading Between the Lines
of "Who Decides?" Part Four of Four By Dave Andrusko Each year NARAL produces what it calls Who Decides? The Status of Women's Reproductive Rights in the United States. Each year (this is the 20th annual) the cumulative grade NARAL gives the United States runs the gamut from D- to D. (It's D for 2010.) There are never enough "pro-choice" laws passed, always too many "anti-choice" laws ever to get even a gentleman's "C."
The annual "snapshot" for 2009 praised pro-abortion President Barack Obama profusely. With the backdrop of (from NARAL's perspective) the disastrous November 2 elections, the introduction by President Nancy Keenan for 2010 was far more somber. "It is clear that the results of the 2010 elections could pose serious threats to the progress we celebrated in previous years' reports," Keenan writes. "Some of our key pro-choice champions in Congress and in the states are not returning to their positions. Some of their successors hold the most extreme anti-choice views ever seen. And these changes mean women's access to safe, legal abortion and other reproductive-health care could be further jeopardized. There are two particularly interesting comments, from our perspective. Keenan complains, "Our opponents will attempt to equate their election with presumed public support for anti-choice policies. They are wrong." It's the economy, stupid, is her position. And while never minimizing the significance of tough economic times, we've repeatedly shown that NRL's PAC had a very successful year and how public polling showed strong support for exactly the kind of policies NRLC and its 50 state affiliates are promoting this legislative cycle. For instance, a post-election poll conducted by The Polling Company found that 24% of voters recalled hearing or seeing advertising from, or receiving information from, National Right to Life. The poll found that 22% said abortion affected their vote and that they voted for candidates who opposed abortion as opposed to only 8% who said abortion affected their vote and that they voted for candidates who favored abortion. This yields a 14% advantage for pro-life candidates over pro-abortion candidate. This advantage was especially helpful to Republicans since every closely contested congressional race between a pro-life candidate and a pro-abortion candidate involved a pro-life Republican who faced a pro-abortion Democrat. A full 84% of those who said abortion affected their vote and voted pro-life said they voted for a Republican for U.S. House. Keenan also tells us that "This year, in Who Decides?, we are featuring the voices of the Millennial Generation, the largest and most diverse generation in our country's history. …We also completed ground-breaking research examining this generation's attitudes toward abortion rights. We will build on what we have learned to ensure that even more of these young women and men grasp how the political process affects their ability to make private health decisions." Only those who really follow this closely know that Keenan is actually alluding to the research that NARAL leaked to Newsweek that formed the basis of an article last March in Newsweek, headlined, "Remember Roe! How can the next generation defend abortion rights when they don't think abortion rights need defending?" [http://www.newsweek.com/2010/04/15/remember-roe.html] I wrote about it, zeroing in with some quotes from Keenan, who was clearly upset by the results: "And what worries Keenan is that she just doesn't see a passion among the post-Roe generation--at least, not among those on her side. This past January, when Keenan's train pulled into Washington's Union Station, a few blocks from the Capitol, she was greeted by a swarm of anti-abortion-rights activists. It was the 37th annual March for Life, organized every year on Jan. 22, the anniversary of Roe. 'I just thought, my gosh, they are so young,' Keenan recalled. 'There are so many of them, and they are so young. March for Life estimates it drew 400,000 activists to the Capitol this year." By contrast a rally two months earlier in support of lacing ObamaCare with deadly abortion-promoting ingredients "had about 1,300 attendees." (See "Soothing Pro-Abortion Anxieties" at http://www.nrlc.org/NewsToday/Anxieties.html) If you were to letter grades to "Who Decides?," clearly it would be an "F." (For more about NARAL's report, see "Is NARAL's Annual 'Who Decides' Report Becoming Delusional?" at http://www.nrlc.org/NewsToday/NARALDelusional.html) |
