I don’t normally compliment my political opponents, but Frances Kissling (former of “Catholics” for a Free Choice) and Kate Michelman (former president of NARAL) understand why the poor-choice movement has been in retreat during the last twenty years. They write:Advocates of choice have had a hard time dealing with the increased visibility of the fetus. The preferred strategy is still to ignore it and try to shift the conversation back to women. At times, this makes us appear insensitive, a bit too pragmatic in a world where the desire to live more communitarian and "life-
affirming" lives is palpable.
That’s what I have been saying all along:
Feminists do not want to confront the fetus.
It’s always about the woman. But the optics of abortion make it obvious it isn’t just about the woman.
Our vigorous defense of the right to choose needs to be accompanied by greater openness regarding the real conflict between life and choice, between rights and responsibility.
Oh please let’s have that discussion! Let’s nail the coffin on abortion.
When the conflict is between an equal human being who has the right to life, and another person taking that life, the obvious moral decision is clear: the unborn must have their right to life respected. It’s the cornerstone of Western morality.
This where the contradictions of the abortion ideology will lead to its implosion. It’s obvious that poor-choicers feel threated by the fact that the fetus and the act of abortion has been made visible. Now they realize that if they don’t counter this trend, they will lose. But they think they can engineer’s people minds into thinking that not all human beings are equal. Or worse—that killing human beings is okay.
This sentence really killed me:
Those who are pro-choice have not convinced America that we support a public discussion of the moral dimensions of abortion.
Ya think??? Think of all the phrases poor-choicers use to shut down debate:
“You’re a man. You’ll never face that decision, so you should have no opinion!”
“ Abortion is nobody’s business but the woman’s!”
“ Abortion is not a political issue.”
“ I have the right to control my body. You don’t get a say!”
“ The pro-life movement is a terrorist movement!”
“ Misogynist! Bigot! Fetus Fetishist! Fundamentalist Kristian Krazy!!!”
It’s all around us in Canada. Just think of the outrage Elizabeth May provoked when she suggested that women do not have a frivolous right to abortion.
She didn’t say abortion should be criminalized.
She said there is no right to a frivolous abortion.
Which is a pretty mainstream opinion among Canadians.
Judy Rebick said that by raising the moral issue of abortion, she was playing into the hands of pro-lifers. The gals at Bread n Roses—not to mention other left-wing boards—went on about it for weeks, if not months.
They didn’t try to defend their position.
They told Elizabeth May she had no right to raise the issue. With a fairly mainstream opinion. That at some level, the vast majority of Canadians would agree with—whether it’s pro-lifers who want to ban all abortions, or people who weakly favour legal abortion, or those who think abortion shouldn’t be a form of “birth control”.
Politically, in Canada, the pro-aborts have what they want, which is: complete legalization of all abortions. So of course they’re going to shut down any suggestion of any discussion about the morality of abortion.
They know where that would lead. It could only lead to more restrictions. They know that most Canadians do not agree with their position. That’s why they want everyone to shut up about it. That’s why there’s no discussion about it in the Canadian media. They use people’s natural reticence about the subject to silence the debate.
But-- Canadian fetal rights activists: we, too, can create the political momentum to get where the Americans are now. Americans did it, we can do it, too. But first it requires that every pro-lifer in Canada get involved and educate others about the issue.
It doesn’t mean chanting “Abortion is murder!” It doesn’t mean screaming down anyone who disagrees. It doesn’t have to be shrill. In fact, I think the debate has been a lot less shrill in the last 10 years.
All we have to do is this: simply present the facts. Expose the truth about the nature of abortion, and the fetus, and people’s experience of abortion. The evidence abounds. When people see the evidence, generally speaking, they move towards a pro-life position.
The abortion ideology cannot stand up to logic. That’s why it was sold on an emotional appeal to save all those women who’d be—let’s face it—irrational enough to go to a “back alley abortionists” (who were often doctors who just did abortions on the sly).
We didn’t want to see women dying. We looked at the loved ones around us and we imagined we’d feel bad if they went to get an abortion and died. Women were concrete realities. Ultrasound was in its embryonic stages (pun intended!) Fetuses were abstract concepts.
But when you de-construct everything: why women have abortions, what women experience during and after abortion, what happens to the unborn during the abortion, etc, the notion of saving women by legalizing abortion seems ridiculous. Abortion doesn’t become a solution, but a source of more problems, that do not go away whether abortion is legal or illegal.
We can bring this message to the Canadian public. Emotion is an easier sell, but it an emotional appeal is based on lies, it always succumbs to logic. A society cannot live with cognitive dissonance.
We can do it, too. All that needs to be done is for you to get involved.
One last thing. Did you notice that the two authors knew what they had to confront, but had nothing to offer as a rejoinder to pro-life arguments about the unborn?
H/T Newsbusters.
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