By Dave Andrusko

Editor's note. Please send your comments on Part One or Part Two to daveandrusko@gmail.com.

"Congressman Tim Ryan (D-OH) is, in many ways, a typical pro-life American."
     From "The Breakup of the Pro-Life Movement," by Cristina Page that appeared on The Huffington Post, July 29.

"Mr. Saletan's statement that 'Ryan has stood up for unborn life, vote after vote after vote after vote,' regrettably does not comport with Mr. Ryan's actual voting record. Early in his congressional career, Ryan cast some pro-life votes and some pro-abortion votes. ... Since 2007, however, Mr. Ryan's record has not been mixed -- he did not cast a single pro-life vote in 2007, 2008, or 2009. Ryan's most recent abortion-related vote occurred in the House Appropriations Committee on July 7, 2009, when he voted against all the real pro-lifers and in favor of repealing the longstanding ban on funding elective abortions, with funds appropriated by Congress, in the District of Columbia. Ryan advocates letting D.C. (a federal jurisdiction) pay for abortion on demand, with funds appropriated by Congress, under a paper bookkeeping scheme. The result, if enacted, will be funding of 4,000 or 5,000 abortions annually with congressionally appropriated funds, including about 1,000 abortions a year that would not happen otherwise. "
     NRLC Federal Legislative Director Douglas Johnson, responding to a piece by Slate columnist Will Saletan, at slate.com.

Even though Ryan presents himself as a pro-lifer, he did not cast a single pro-life vote in the last Congress. He broke with pro-lifers on stem-cell funding, on cloning, on foreign aid, and, of course, on Planned Parenthood funding. Nowadays his allegedly 'pro-life' advocacy consists entirely of working with Congresswoman DeLauro to funnel more money to abortion providers.
     Ramesh Ponnuru, writing at Nationalreview.com.

"First, overall, all things considered, the policy agenda of the current Administration and congressional majority cannot plausibly be regarded as one that will reduce abortions. Dramatic increases in the subsidization of an activity, combined with calls for the removal of all restrictions on that activity, are not well designed for reducing that activity."
     From a July 29 post on the blog, "Mirror of Justice."

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Let me make the most important point first. You will want to closely read Part Two, which is the entirety of Mr. Johnson's response to Mr. Saletan's quirky, slippery, dare I say bewildering argument. Once you do, please pass it along to anyone who values truth.

It is devastating for the same reasons NRLC rebuttals always are. It's fact-based, refuses to allow patently false statements to go unchallenged, and places the entire debate in its larger [read understandable] context.

Speaking of larger contexts, Saletan's column is only one of many making the rounds, touting the same outlandish argument that has grown so wearisome in the Obama era. If you don't buy into their internally inconsistent proposals [flood the abortion industry with a gazillion dollars, dynamite every protection that slows down the lethal assault on unborn babies, but still claim that "abortion reduction" is your objective], then you are cranky, out-of-the-mainstream, and (my favorite) "militant."

Pro-lifers are used to attempts to marginalize us. The old gambit was to insist that the Pro-Life Movement was a fringe group whose attempts to rein in abortion were like wolves baying at the moon.

Now we're told that "traditional" pro-life groups, especially NRLC, are mincemeat, not because America is becoming more pro-abortion (the polls show just the opposite), but because we represent the out-of-touch "old guard" about to be replaced by young pups who are serious about "reducing the number of abortions."

Let me offer a couple of thoughts (and be sure to read Part Two).

* The idea of a coalition of lapsed pro-lifers and the advance guard of the Abortion Establishment deciding who is a "real" pro-lifer is so absurd that, as much as I know I shouldn't, I have to laugh. It reminds me of those totalitarian governments who set up state-affiliated/state-run "churches." Worship there, you dolts, if you must.

** Even more amusing is we are supposed to accept that "third way" groups are modern day Marco Polos in search not of the Orient but of an elusive "common ground." Truth is the leadership of those organizations--including one actually called "Third Way"--does share lots of common ground. They are almost all veteran pro-abortion operatives.

Take, as an example, Third Way's Rachel Laser, whose pro-abortion credentials need no burnishing, as anyone who bothers to read her curriculum vita could see.

Their task (if they can get away with it) is to pose as a disinterested third party even as they aggressively advance the fortunes of President Barack Obama, Planned Parenthood, and the pro-abortionists in Congress.

*** There is an direct relationship between our refusal to allow them to say up is down, black is white, and the volume of their hysteria. The more we reveal the real agenda tucked away under the rhetorical camouflage, the louder and more crossly they insist we just don't get it. There is also an inverse relationship between what they say and what the facts are. The more they talk, the less the public hears an honest presentation.

**** The phony baloney seekers after "common ground" attempt to seize the high moral ground by hotly insisting that they are eager to compromise–and if it weren't for old stodgies like NRLC, "progress" would have been made. "Compromise," of course, means what's theirs is theirs, and what's ours is theirs, too.

Thus, at the same time Obama and his allies push for health care legislation that would result in the greatest expansion of abortion since Roe v. Wade, they are preparing the way for an assault on (for example) the Hyde Amendment and on informed consent measures--anything that acts as a speed bump on a panicky woman's race to abort. Talk about insulting your intelligence.

Be sure to read TN&V everyday, especially over the next four and five weeks, as the Congress prepares for and then goes on its August recess. Forewarned is forearmed. [P.S. Read Part Two.]