Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, January 29, 1992 TAG: 9201290314
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-13 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CAL THOMAS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
THEY'RE STILL FIRING BLANKS
NINETEEN years after Roe vs. Wade, the Supreme Court has decided to review the validity of the restrictive Pennsylvania abortion law, reopening the debate on one of the most contentious and divisive social issues in our history.On Sunday, Jan. 19, the American Civil Liberties Union virtually conceded defeat in its battle to preserve Roe vs. Wade. It ran a full-page ad in The New York Times, made to look like a death notice. "Roe vs. Wade, 1973-1992?" it read.
The ACLU is shifting its tactics to a new battlefield. It will lobby for the passage of the Freedom of Choice Act, now languishing in Congress, but expected to surface later this year should the Supreme Court overturn or significantly modify Roe vs. Wade.
The Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) is more dangerous than Roe because it would invalidate laws upheld under Roe, including parental notification and consent laws. As its prime sponsor, Rep. Don Edwards (D-Calif.), has said, the bill "provides for no exceptions - no exceptions whatsoever."
A just-released Wirthlin poll shows that half of those questioned about the FOCA oppose it, and that when respondents are told FOCA would prohibit any law requiring the notification of at least one parent prior to a minor child receiving an abortion, the opposition rises to 56 percent.
While abortion-rights advocates are abandoning the judicial arena in favor of federal and state legislatures, we can expect a renewed disinformation campaign by those who support abortion on demand to pave the way for their lobbying efforts among elected officials.
The first salvo in that campaign also came in Jan. 19's New York Times. Life Magazine editor-at-large Roger Rosenblatt wrote that he has a resolution to the conflict.
In a remarkable display of intellectual syncretism, Rosenblatt proposes that America continue to allow abortion on demand but simultaneously discourage the practice. This is called holding two mutually exclusive views. Impossible.
Rosenblatt first misstates the polling data by asserting that 73 percent of the American people favor abortion. This figure is arrived at by including those who would allow abortions only to save the mother's life or in cases of rape or incest. When these exceptions are not included, support for abortion drops dramatically to less than 50 percent in most polls.
Then, Rosenblatt leaps the philosophical chasm with this: "To create a society in which abortion is permitted and its gravity appreciated is to create but another of many useful frictions of a democratic society. Such a society does not devalue life by allowing abortion: it takes life with utmost seriousness and is, by the depth of its conflicts and by the richness of its difficulties, a reflection of life itself."
To appreciate the absurdity of such a claim, change the category from the unborn to race: To create a society in which racism is permitted and its gravity appreciated is to create but another of the many useful frictions of a democratic society. Such a society does not devalue African-Americans by allowing discrimination: it takes racial tolerance with the utmost seriousness and is, by the depth of its conflicts and by the richness of its difficulties, a reflection of life itself.
There is only one reason abortion is "difficult." It is not merely the expulsion of unconnected tissue but the termination of a human life. Now that cameras can peek inside the womb, the pro-choicers prefer intellectual mind games to sound biological evidence and real debate.
When Roe vs. Wade is overturned - this year, or next, or the year after that - the intensity of the war over abortion will not have diminished; it will have increased with even bigger and more dangerous weapons, like the Freedom of Choice Act. If we ever become comfortable and able to coexist with abortion, watch for other groups who fall out of favor with society to be placed in jeopardy. Any country that will not protect its weakest members will soon look for others to eliminate. Los Angeles Times Syndicate