Abortion foes drop in on each other
We really should be talking to each other as a culture ruptured by the abortion divide, but pro-abortion groups don’t seem to want to talk to pro-life groups, or even individuals.
A while back, my colleague at Women for Faith & Family, Sherry Tyree, attended a Planned Parenthood luncheon while on vacation and wound up writing about what she saw and heard, and the way abortion backers are trying to gain supporters.
Things can change quickly in the abortion/pro-life world, especially given the last election and the growing intensity over the next one. But there has still been no opportunity for the two opposing groups to debate directly. So it’s not surprising to see this report. First, a pro-abortion reporter attended a pro-life event to learn what they are up to. Then, a pro-life reporter did the same thing, in reverse. She attended a National Organization of Women event with Eleanor Bader reporting on what she saw and heard at the National Right to Life Committee Convention.
How could I pass up the opportunity to hear some of “the other side’s” observations about pro-lifers?
writes Samantha Singson, pro-life reporter for The Interim.
Three things really struck me about Bader’s presentation:
– They underestimate pro-lifers. Believing in the stereotype of a movement dominated by old white men and subscribed to by marginalized, zealous, religiously motivated, uneducated “church ladies,” Bader couldn’t quite keep the surprise out of her voice when she reported that those at the NRLC Convention were “smart, educated, beautiful and articulate.”
In Bader’s own words, “This just isn’t what you always heard the ‘anti-choicers’ were like.”
Bader also expressed amazement at the level of organization and professionalism exhibited by the NRLC convention hosts, its speakers and its participants. Passing around the 100-page convention program for the audience to look at, Bader pointed out the number of sponsors, as well as the quality and the variety of topics that were being addressed.
Comparing her 1992 NRLC convention experience to 2007, Bader was shocked by how savvy the pro-life side had become. She sternly warned her audience that the pro-life movement’s leaders were “covering all their bases” by not just filling people’s head with the rhetoric, but equipping them by providing information on lobbying, organization-building, political campaigning and youth outreach.
– They’re intimidated and feeling marginalized. Detailing the NRLC presidential forum, which was attended in person by three Republican presidential candidates, NOW New York staffers shook their heads and asked, “Why aren’t we getting presidential candidates to address our annual conference?”
– Discussing some of the movement’s current efforts, Bader was appalled by the “chipping away of Roe” through legislative action and media campaigns on mandatory sonograms, the partial-birth abortion ban, informed consent and fetal pain.
– They are struggling to articulate their argument. Bader stated that “even NARAL (National Abortion Rights Action League) doesn’t use the ‘A-word’ anymore. Part of what we need to do is talk up the social good that abortion is. Abortion is a moral good and a social good.”
That reminds me of the Vatican statement from the post below. Particularly this line:
“We must work to stop and reverse the culture of death embraced by some social and legal structures that try to make the suppression of life acceptable by disguising it as a medical or social service.