NRL News
Page 2
November/December 2009
Volume 36
Issue 11-12

Awash in Pro-Abortion Nostalgia

By Dave Andrusko

The headline in the New York Times was, “In Support of Abortion, It’s Personal vs. Political.” Although it reads like one of the many plaintive pro-abortion blogs you read online, it was ostensibly a “week-in-review” news story by the Times’s Sheryl Gay Stolberg.

In reality it’s a perfectly wonderful example of a particularly dreary brand of by-the-numbers abortion advocacy. The writer tells us all is lost (because younger women “never knew a time when abortion was illegal”) only to conclude in the end that all may not be lost after all. Whew!

The flashpoint is--surprise, surprise--the massive health care restructuring bill, the House version of which included the pro-life Stupak-Pitts Amendment. When the story was written a coalition calling itself “Stop Stupak” was massing for a rally in Washington, D.C., and, according to Stolberg, “will include abortion rights advocacy groups that have sprung up in recent years to reach out to younger voters.” (Only a few hundred people showed up.)

Naturally, the story follows the accepted mythology that has sprung up. In this once-upon-a-time tale, Prince Charming (a.k.a. pro-abortion President Barack Obama) assumes leadership of his kingdom vowing to “transcend the culture wars.”

And for a while all is good. “Most of his political energy around abortion has been spent trying to forge consensus on ways to reduce unintended pregnancies,” we are told (as if there were a grain of truth in this). And then....

“The quiet was shattered this month,” Stolberg writes, “when the House—with surprising support from 64 Democrats—amended its health care bill to include language by Representative Bart Stupak, Democrat of Michigan, barring the use of federal subsidies for insurance plans that cover abortion.”

All heck breaks loose and the next thing you know at least some of those heretofore quiet pro-abortion feminists began to stir. If all went well and the Senate did not include the equivalent of the Stupak Amendment (as proved to be the case), it could all end perfectly for the pro-abortion side with the final bill signed into law greasing the skids for the Abortion Establishment.

Let’s see if we can’t take Stolberg’s story, shake it thoroughly, and watch the nonsense fall off. For example, for the umpteenth time, Congressmen Stupak and Pitts did not suddenly spring their amendment on pro-abortion Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. Stupak offered in the amendment in committee in July, where it was narrowly defeated. NRLC and others worked very visibly for it to be offered on the floor between that time and the November 7 vote.

And I don’t deny for a second that it is quite true that growing up during the reign of Roe v. Wade changes the way everyone, not just women, looks at abortion. We read in the story, “‘The language and values, if you are older, is around the right to control your own body, reproductive freedom, sexual liberation as empowerment,’ said Ms. [Anna] Greenberg, the [Democratic] pollster. ‘That is a baby-boom generation way of thinking. If you look at people under 30, that is not their touchstone, it is not wrapped up around feminism and women’s rights.’”

But I would vigorously dispute that this is the primary reason why women in general are not obsessing about “abortion rights” the same way the Baby Boomer pro-abortion feminists continue to do so to this day. I would argue that this is not the result of a false sense of security—which is the wailing pro-abortion mantra—but a grown-up understanding of where we are as a culture.

To be brutally honest, the old language is just lame—embarrassingly so—and does not resonate with a generation reared on ultrasounds and storylines in popular culture that refuse to reduce unborn children to “fetuses,” let alone “blobs of tissue.”

And the reason the Times story can end on a “positive” note is that the three daughters of pro-abortion Congresswoman Louise Slaughter (whose personal journey is the narrative backbone of the story) are the “angriest” of what we are to understand is an army of angry women. And also because of assorted oddball characters such as “Serena Freewomyn (a name she adopted to reflect the idea that ‘I don’t belong to any man’).” Freewomyn has started a blog “Feminists for Choice,” proving that “not all younger women are indifferent.”

Well, okay, if that makes you feel better....

If you only read Stolberg’s article, you’d think that there had been no change in public opinion in a pro-life direction, which there clearly has been; that people really didn’t care if federal funds were used to pay for abortions, when, in truth, they are vigorously opposed to that; and that the Stupak-Pitts Amendment was out of step with the American people, rather than what it is—a perfect reflection of public opinion.

Be sure to read http://nrlactioncenter.com and find out what is really going on in the tumultuous fight over health care restructuring.