Fraters Libertas

24 Hour Abortion Party People

I watched the CSPAN coverage of the abortion march on Sunday and I must say the strangest aspect was its festival atmosphere. Hour after hour of people hootin’ and hollerin’ and dancing about as if they were celebrating something good, something to be happy about. Nearly all of them succeeded in avoiding talking about the reason they were there in the first place (the “a” word). Instead, lots of smiles and talk of the universal goods of freedom and choice and womanhood. The movement’s success in its decades long use of Orwellian rhetoric is evident in the fact that many participants, particularly the younger ones, seemed not to understand why they were there in the first place. How else to explain a march in support of artificially terminating pregnancy featuring demonstrations such as these (from Monday’s New York Times):

Juleah Swanson, 21, was one of roughly 80 students who arrived on two buses from Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Me. Ms. Swanson and several young women from the Bowdoin delegation were carrying a giant uterus made of red clothing and stuffing, bearing the slogan "My Body, My Choice."

Then another NYT article, about the recruitment of third world immigrants into the abortion rights movement:

"Loco! Loco!" Ms. Orellana squealed. Staring back at her was a woman inside a three-foot-long felt and satin vagina. The Bushwick group gathered around and snapped photos. "These people have no shame!" Ms. Orellana said. "But it's O.K.," Ms. Flores replied, almost to herself.

Yes, that’s right senora, no shame there. Though it does seems like an exercise in childish provocation. Now, if those two groups could hook up with another crew toting a 6 foot long plastic cervix, we might have some real education going on here. At least in an anatomical chart sort of way.

Even with its organic gaps, I’m sure Jeanine Garafolo, Hillary Clinton, and Gloria Steinem still got a hearty laugh out of it. That was the spirit of the day. But to someone not caught up in the hysteria of their movement, it’s an incongruity to say the least. We are still talking about abortion here, right? Even for those who willfully seek them out and receive them, I would imagine it’s not a laughing matter. Or even something to be proud of, as evidenced by the lack of any demonstrators holding signs saying “Had an abortion and proud of it”.

Even some of the leading advocates of abortion on demand still hang on the antiquated notion that it’s the least worst option for a woman who doesn’t want to give birth to her baby. This from no less an authority than John Kerry:

”Abortion should be rare, but it should be safe and legal -- and the government should stay out of the bedrooms of America," he said to cheers and applause.

I’m not sure how many abortions are performed in the bedrooms of America, but that’s beside the point (except for Kerry, for whom misdirection on this issue IS the point). According to the great white presidential hope of the abortion movement, the procedure should be rare. Meaning, he doesn’t want it to happen, he finds it to be unfortunate, distasteful, abhorrent , maybe wrong? But transformed through a political/morally relative calculus, its somehow necessary. Even if you agree with him, does that sound like any reason to cheer and applaud? This horrible, destructive procedure is the government mandated right of all women to endure. (Wooo hooo!!!)

Their words were different, but that was the tone of the event. Happy, happy, joy, joy. The other speakers and the crowd, all squealing and going hog wild over the fact a procedure, which because of its destructive nature should be rare, is performed 1.3 million times per year in the US (YR 2000 data). More than 44 million times since 1973.

Yes, we know John Kerry thinks it should be safe and legal. But what are his plans to follow up on his other wish - making it rare? And how does he define rare? A million per year? Half a million? Ten thousand? To me "rare" is even fewer than that. How is he planning on getting us there? And why does he think it should be rare in the first place?

Serious questions, which I encourage our mainstream media outlets to pursue. But I won’t hold my breath since these kinds of questions don’t yield answers conducive to eliciting cheers and obfuscating rhetoric about freedom and choice.

They’re also questions which those in the abortion movement increasingly don’t care about. There was a time when they went through great pains to explain that an abortion had nothing to do with life, instead it was all about extracting inviable tissue masses and inert clumps of cells. But thirty years of government sanction for aborting any child at any time tends to break down moral impediments and help ease the stresses imposed by cognitive dissonance. This new free wheelin’ attitude is best articulated by one of our newest citizens and new recruit for the abortion movement:

"I think abortion is killing a life," said Ms. Flores, who left Ecuador 11 years ago. But, she added, "The person who is pregnant should decide whether to do it or not."

Sure, it’s killing a life, but the government says we have the right to do it. Now do you understand why they were dancing in the streets of Washington DC on Sunday afternoon?