Pro-Lifers in Obamaland
If you believe Sarah Kliff, pro-lifers are, with the election of Barack Obama as President, finally, just maybe, turning their attention to reducing the number of abortions in the U.S. According to the article in Newsweek, this is something that is new. www.newsweek.com/id/181786
That may be startling news to the pro-lifers who are volunteering at pregnancy centers across the U.S., forming pro-life groups within their own churches, stumping for pro-life candidates, taking information to schools and churches, and offering alternatives to women arriving at abortion centers.
She misses the point that the pro-life movement has always been about reducing the number of abortions. Pro-lifers would like to see the number reduced to zero and they would like to see it happen tomorrow. Women are suffering the effects of abortion and, so far, the education level on the pro-life issues is not high enough to make the legislative action happen.
However, the pro-life movement doesn’t just abandon these women. Pro-life efforts won’t stop just because a reporter doesn’t fully register them.
Here is an article by Matthew Balan at the Media Research Center, giving the background of some of the people and statements in Sarah Kliff’s article that could have been made clearer. For instance she refers to a couple of “Catholic” groups without mentioning that Archbishop Charles Chaput has named them specifically as groups that “have done a disservice to the Church.” And she passes along without comment the explanation for why President Obama deliberately withheld his reversal of the Mexico City Policy for a day, until the March for Life had cleared town, that “he sent a clear signal that he’s not looking to start a fight with people who are pro-life.” It’s illogical to think that doing something that will specifically increase the number of abortions will not start a fight with pro-lifers, but Kliff doesn’t question the premise in the quote.
Balan has lots of other good comments and lots of links to the evidence he quotes. http://newsbusters.org/blogs/matthew-balan/2009/01/28/newsweek-com-omits-pro-life-groups-connections-democrats
Kliff cites “Third Way” as a non-profit think tank that could suggest methods of abortion reduction that would allow the pro-life and pro-abortion-on-demand sides to come together. Dave Andrusko, of the National Right to Life, explains a little about Third Way:
“The third way ‘Culture Program’ (responsible for the ‘abortion reduction’ strategy, among other projects) is directed by Rachel Laser, whose previous job was with the Health and Reproductive Rights group at the National Women’s Law Center, and who before that worked for Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan Washington, a major abortion provider.”
It would be hard to get much farther from the pro-life side than that.
Andrusko’s article starts with a caution that it would be well to carry away.
Such is the headline of a Newsweek “web exclusive,” written by Sarah Kliff. We are not blind: we all know that the political terrain is far rougher, more demanding, than it was before pro-abortion Barack Obama became President. But the questions raised (which are mostly either bogus and/or riddled with the fallacy of false alternatives) in such stories demand a steady hand and a calm explication of the facts.
Please understand that we are being given “helpful” advice whose only outcome would be to voluntarily embrace irrelevance and abandon the cause of unborn babies. It is their right to try. It is our responsibility not to be so foolish as to be taken in.
