Organizers of last weekend’s “March for Women’s Lives” couldn’t get enough people to turn out to support abortion, so they issued a widespread invitation to anyone with an anti-Bush gripe.
Lest it be too peaceful, they focused on groups attracted to having pro-lifers as targets. Say what you will about pro-life organizations, they never offer their opponents as moving targets for the fetishes of so-called supporters.
After more than 30 years of legalized abortion, pro-choicers cannot gather the public support needed keep the issue alive. Their message is as confused, perhaps even more so, than 30 years ago. They can offer no convincing argument because women themselves, though willing to identify as pro-choice, believe most abortions should not be legal.
While homosexual activists are increasingly public, scarcely any woman proudly comes out to discuss her abortion. If the Alan Guttmacher Institute estimate is correct that about 40 percent of American women have had an abortion, a lot of women have kept quiet about their experience and “choice.”
The abortion agenda has only been able to offer women freedom from — freedom from a difficult situation, from an annoyance, from the responsibility of a child. Yet this type of freedom doesn’t seem a major issue for most women.
Last year, the pro-choice Center for the Advancement of Women issued a “groundbreaking survey of over 3,300 American women.” Those surveyed identified 12 priority issues. Keeping abortion legal ranked 11th, barely above “increasing the number of girls who participate in organized sports.”
A FOX News poll from July 2003 revealed 44 percent of registered voters considered themselves pro-choice and 44 percent pro-life. America appears equally divided. But if asked, almost 70 percent of Americans favor abortion restrictions, an October 2003 CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll found.
After the deaths of more than 40 million unborn children, with abortion one of the most common surgical procedures in the United States, a growing voice is emerging. It is the voice of the woman who had an abortion, who regrets it, and who feels she never was given enough information to make a real choice. Many of these women and their supporters countered yesterday’s march with a silent, peaceful protest.
The Silent No More campaign provides a way for post-abortive women to express themselves. Participants include Melba Moore, the first African-American woman to win a Tony, actress and model Jennifer O’Neill, and Dr. Alveda King, a niece of Martin Luther King Jr.
Their experiences, if we will listen, reveal an underlying civil rights debate. As Miss Moore says: “Experience drives a civil rights battle: ’This is what happened to me.’ ” Miss Moore notes the basis for legalizing abortion is the presumption an unborn child is a mere blob of tissue. That’s what she was told when she had her abortions. For Miss Moore, the parallel to the Dred Scott decision is inescapable: “They said that the baby was not human just like they said that blacks were not human.”
Dr. Alveda King concluded that a mother who aborts has treated her unborn child as a slave. That mother decides whether the baby will live or die. She decides whether that baby will see daylight. Dr. King recalls her uncle Martin’s comment, “The Negro could never succeed if he were willing to sacrifice the lives of his children.” For Alveda King, abortion is a civil rights issue since the unborn child, as recent technologies show, is undeniably human and, as such, has rights.
As more women come forward expressing regret over their abortions, radical feminists will be less and less able to hold onto their most important issue: abortion-on-demand. As the feminists continue advancing this agenda, they also will become more of a fringe, speaking for a diminishing minority.
PIA DE SOLENNI
Director of Life and Women’s Issues,
Family Research Council.
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