January 22, 2005 2:21 PM
Blowing out 32 candles for Roe v. Wade
There's so much more nuance to the abortion debate than the MSM (mainstream media) wants you to believe. If you don't believe me, just google pro life and liberals and see what you come up with. I particularly like LeftOut - A Haven For Progressive ProLifers. Be sure to click on Beyond Stereotypes.
Do you know there were Democrats/liberals way back in 1973 who were and still are adamantly opposed to abortion? They argue that the Democratic party has always stood up for the helpless and vulnerable. Well, who is more helpless and vulnerable than a baby totally dependent on his mother?
I've been on both sides of the abortion debate. As a 60's Washington radical leftist/antiwar activist, I was actually one of the founding mothers of the second wave of feminism, and a spokesperson for abortion rights. In 1976 in San Francisco, I had an abortion myself and considered it only an inconvenience.
When I became a believer, that changed, as once I truly felt God's love for me as an individual, I began to understand that if my life is sacred, so is everyone else's. No one talked me into being pro-life -- it was one of those things that changed instantaneously when I first believed.
Still, so many things have happened to show the error of the early feminists, and it has become increasingly difficult to respect women who never modified their views as things spun out of control: a million and a half abortions per year, babies dismembered/aborted who were old enough to live on their own, babies aborted for Down syndrome and cleft palate and even gender selection.
You'll find more in an article I published last year, Slippery Slopes Revisited
But the times, they are a-changin.' Over the next generation I anticipate a radical turnaround -- and not because of Bush's judicial appointments, which the left respond to like a vampire writhing in the shadow of a crucifix.
- They will change because of new technology like Baby Insight that makes it clear a baby is a baby -- inside or out of the womb.
- They will change because the younger generation has realized a quarter of their generation is missing and that the survivors exist only at the behest of their mothers. Instinctively, they know this is an improper distribution of power, and they are turning pro-life regardless of their other political views. For more, see my article on kids' Second Thoughts on Reproductive Freedom
- They will change because many women who say, "I'd never get an abortion myself, but we can't impose our own morality on anyone else," will finally figure out that's an untenable position, as our society is based on laws which -- guess what? -- impose morality: no murder, no stealing, no underage drinking or smoking, no hate speech or bullying even.
- They will change because some who've simply been going along with the crowd will finally "get it" that the crowd labeled pro-choice was never really pro-choice at all. Just consider how clinics fight any requirements to provide clients with full disclosure of what they are about to do.
- And finally, they will change for One Very Simple reason: because the pro-life people are having a LOT more kids than the pro-death people. Do the math. And read James Taranto's Wall Street Journal piece Quantifying the Roe Effect
As for the stereotypes pro-death people push, "Pro-lifers only care about the babies in the womb. Once they're out, they're forgotten." Baloney! I have three adopted kids with Down syndrome -- one signed over to the state at birth, one whose mother was going to abort but compromised with the pro-life father and gave him to me, and one from a country where he would have suffered shame and scorn. I'm pro-life from womb to tomb.
But I'm not alone. Lots of pro-lifers are so busy with their natural and adopted kids they can't even show up for rallies. Not to worry, those kids are growing up to care about the next generation too.
Like I said, do the math.
Posted in Feminism, Mothering, Pro-Life Issues | Permalink
