Critiquing the Pro-Life Stance
Several years ago in an 60 Minutes commentary Andy Rooney said something like, "I generally agree with the position of the pro-life advocates, but pro-choicers on the whole are nicer people." It isn't a direct quote, but that is the essence.
Of course, Mr. Rooney was referring by and large to t he most vocal opponents of abortion. I'm sure, even he knew many very nice people, loving and kind, that held a pro-life stance politically.
But this does raise a significant issue with the pro-life movement. When Roe V. Wade was decided approximately 60 percent of the American public believed a woman had a right to choose to have an abortion. After 30+ years of agitation by Pro-lifers ranging from prayer vigils to bombings to murder, those numbers have risen to 70-80 Percent depending on how the question is stated.
Pro-life presidents, congressional representatives, senators, governors and judges proclaim their pro-life credentials, yet few are effective in making any substantial changes in abortion law, because in a democratic society, the majority viewpoint wields a great deal of power. You notice, after the primaries, republican candidates for office usually avoid discussion of abortion like the plague. They know that while it plays well with the party faithful, it doesn't play with the country at large.
Now, does this mean that the majority is always right? Hardly. Witness the election of Richard Nixon. However, it does mean that politically the pro-life movement fights an uphill battle. Now, there are subissues such as parental notification and late term abortion where the public sentiment rests more with the pro-life stance than the pro-choice extremists, but the core issue of the legality of abortion in general, definitely lies in the pro-choice win column.
So, it is no wonder that some frustrated pro-life advocates focus on intimidation, insults, and overblown rhetoric to make their points.
Just as a sid note, it would be unfair to judge the pro-life movement as a whole with the violent extremists who bomb clinics and murder doctors. They do not represent most pro-life advocates. However, on balance, I wonder how much of the heated rhetoric calling abortion clinc workers "Murderers" and comparing them to the engineers of the Holocost contribute to some disturbed individuals taking the cause to a violent extreme. Still, as a personal advocate of free speech and expression, I defend the Pro-lifer's right to use inflammatory rhetoric, while at the same time exhorting them to consider the potential consequences of such rhetoric.
And this brings me to my main criticism of the Pro-Life movement. Certainly, one has the right, and indeed the responsibility, to advocate changes in a democratic society they feel strongly need to be made. However, few think beyond the rhetoric. I teach public speaking and argumentation. So, I hear the pro-life/pro-choice debate ad infinitum, ad nauseum. All I hear are the same old tired "arguments" which are not real arguments since they are not based on any actual evidence, that abortion is murder, we could be killing the next Einstein (they never think we could also be killing the next Jeffrey Dalmer. That argument cuts both ways and thus is a useless one for either side to us), that human life is sacred and begins with the fertilzation of the egg by the sperm, and that the Bible says it is wrong (which is not technically true, but can be inferred from some passages of scripture which they don't even seem to know.)
In other words, they simply spout off the party line without any actual critical thinking going on. And they never present a plan. For instance, what will be the penalties for a woman having an abortion? Will she be charged with premeditated murder and be sent to death row? Will she be charged with second degree murder and spend 25 years to life in prision? Will it be manslaughter with a 5 year sentance? Or will she be fined. If abortion is murder, then it would need to be treated as such by the law. Most are unwilling to send a young girl faced with a desperate situation to jail for a first trimester abortion. Even my mostvehement pro-lifers hesitate to assign any jail time to the woman.
Yet, there needs to be a plan that is workable. This was one of the problems in the pre-Roe era. Women often simply traveled to another state or another country to obtain a legal abortion frustrating individual state laws. And local police departments were hesitant to spend limited resources hunting down college girls who went to a medical student for a "back room" abortion.
If one is going to change the law, then one needs a workable plan for doing so. But in leiu of a workable plan, most of the activists substitute inflammatory rhetoric for actual problem solving proposals. They stand at abortion clinics with gory pictures or yell at the women telling them they are murderers.
Is it any wonder that even people sympathetic to the pro-life philosophy have problems with the movement as a whole. It is supposedly based in large part on Christian principles, but very un Christ-like actions belie that basis. There are exceptions, of course. Pro-life sponsored Crisis Pregnacy clinics (which are open and above board about their pro-life perspective) providing assistance and counseling to unwed mothers and poor families, Christian adoption services matching infants with families (assuming the infant is white and healthy, it has a good chance of adoption.)
Some savvy pro lifers are now proposing laws which can stem the tide of abortion without banning it altogether. Proposals for informed consent, bans on late term abortions, waiting periods, parental notification all well within the bounds of Roe and enjoying some support from a plurality or even in some cases a majority of the public.
The pro-life movement needs to pull back from the wild-eyed fanaticism which has come to symbolize the movement and refocus on compassion, concern for the mother (and not just the child), and legislation which is actually workable.
And in general, for all of us, regardless of our beliefs on this issue, we just need to be a little nicer to each other and those we want to persuade.
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