Thirty years after Roe v. Wade, the failures of the
pro-life movement are fairly conspicuous. After all, that decision
still stands and even some staunch pro-life conservatives —
notably Attorney General John Ashcroft — are willing to refer to
it as “settled law.” Abortion is broadly legal throughout the
duration of pregnancy and occurs in the United States at a rate of
approximately 1.3 million per year. All this appears likely to
remain true for the foreseeable future.
Its successes are far less obvious, but nonetheless real.
Abortion is still a hotly debated issue, remaining perhaps the most
divisive social issue in America. While the abortion debate occurs
mainly at the margins in many other Western democracies, it is at
the center of American judicial nominations, congressional
elections and presidential races. The number of abortions performed
annually has fallen from a peak of 1.6 million in 1990. Polls show
most Americans supporting the pro-choice position in the abstract
while favoring restrictions on most abortions in practice.
Supporters of legal abortion rarely enunciate the word — it has
become, as National Review’s Ramesh Ponnuru has observed,
the right that dare not speak its name.
The question of how those who oppose abortion as the unjust
taking of a human life can build on their successes and overcome
their failures is taken up in
Back to the Drawing Board: The Future of the Pro-Life
Movement (St. Augstine’s Press, 256 pages, $20), a remarkable
collection of essays edited by Teresa Wagner.
Wagner, a former lobbyist for the National Right to Life
Committee and the Family Research Council, has an impressive array
of contributors. Those pondering the question include such
religious right stalwarts as James Dobson and Phyllis Schlafly;
longtime activists including right-to-life founding father Jack
Willke and NARAL cofounder-turned-pro-lifer Bernard Nathanson;
journalists ranging from Nat Hentoff of the Village Voice
to Richard John Neuhaus of First Things and Terrence
Jeffrey of Human Events; and politicians ranging from
Republican Congressman Chris Smith to Democratic former Boston
mayor Ray Flynn. Christians, Jews and Muslims, men and women,
seasoned veteran and newcomers add their perspectives. Their
contributions address pro-life challenges in law, medicine and
science, politics, religion, culture and a future that will include
issues like stem-cell research and cloning.
But they do so without resorting to some kind of bland,
party-line unanimity. Contributors differ sharply on whether the
pro-life movement’s recent incremental approach is moral or
practical. Charles Rice criticizes pro-life compromises: “In any
civilized, free society, the relevant question is whether innocent
human beings may legally be executed.” He argues that the focus on
partial-birth abortion shows that the movement is “moribund” and
any acceptance of the “nonpersonhood holding of Roe” leads
from “one defeat… to another.”
Clark Forsythe by contrast argues that pro-lifers “can stay out
of the legislative process and do nothing, or work within the legal
and political constraints imposed by the Supreme Court.” He further
contends that an “‘all or nothing’ approach… is not morally
required and is almost always futile” in the context of democratic
process. Legally, contributors range from supporting whatever
restrictions are politically possible today on the way to shifting
abortion policy back to the states all the way to endorsing Herb
Titus’s view that a pro-life president should simply renounce
Roe as unconstitutional, affirm fetal personhood under the
Fourteenth Amendment and instruct U.S. attorneys to be prosecuting
abortionists.
This also accounts for differing political strategies.
Congressman Smith defends his party’s pro-life record as superior
to the Democrats while exhorting his fellow Republicans to do more;
Schlafly and Colleen Parro second this with a somewhat more
critical eye toward their party’s pro-life commitment; and Flynn
and Mark Stricherz mourn the decline of the pro-life Democrats.
Howard Phillips even shows up to say a word in favor of the
Constitution Party. Paul Weyrich offers a welcome clarification of
his 1999 letter on the proper place of politics. The common thread
is found in their honest admissions that however well intentioned
past pro-life political efforts have been, they have nevertheless
failed in the most important areas.
Unfortunately, too much of the focus is on political failures.
The uncomfortable reality is that many people who most need the
pro-life message have the most negative perceptions of the
messengers. Pro-lifers are seen as bereft of compassion, callous
toward the needs and suffering of women and, worst of all,
fanatical, doctor-killing hypocrites. Opposition to abortion is
thought by many to end at the adoption of new government policies
regulating women’s behavior. Pro-lifers have contributed to some of
these perceptions themselves.
The book could have profitably included a longer section on
crisis pregnancy centers and their growing focus on meeting the
needs of mother as well as child. Too often, if the public hears at
all about these centers it is in the context of reports that they
exist to mislead women. There should have been more examples of
individual and collective acts of pro-life compassion, showing the
promise of action through civil society as well as government.
Nevertheless, Back to the Drawing Board represents an
auspicious start down the above road. Of particular note is Barbara
Nicolosi’s essay on Hollywood’s pro-choice slant — it is an
excellent example of pro-lifers affirming the dignity of women and
taking seriously the issues that cause them to consider abortion.
Nor is it an isolated example — this is consistent with the book’s
overall tone.
Back to the Drawing Board may not change many minds
about the seemingly never-ending abortion controversy. That is not
its main purpose. Its purpose is to seek direction and provide
hope. In this, its contributors can claim some measure of
success.
