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The Liberal McCarthys on Abortion
www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,165469,00.html
Last week, Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) urged NARAL
Pro-Choice America to withdraw an attack ad against
Supreme Court nominee John Roberts, who is seen as
the penultimate threat to abortion rights. Specter
www.factcheck.org/UploadedFiles/Specter-letter-to-NARAL-8-11-05.pdf
called the ad "blatantly untrue and unfair." Given
that he is pro-choice, Specter's protest surprised
those who no longer expect truth to be valued above
ideology.
On the surface, this incident is remarkable
enough but its underlying message is even more
significant. I think it signals the defeat and
decline of the pro-choice movement in the
foreseeable future.
Senators will continue to debate; legislative
battles will be waged on the state level;
protesters will still scream at each other in the
streets. But the very fact that
http://www.naral.org/ NARAL -- America's leading
advocate for abortion rights -- thought blatant
dishonesty was the strongest card to play reveals a
shocking depth of intellectual bankruptcy that is
too common in the overall movement.
NARAL's pro-choice friends from both Left and
Right have both openly opposed the anti-Roberts ad
on the that it makes pro-choice advocates look like
liars.
Walter Dellinger, a Solicitor General under
Clinton, www.factcheck.org/UploadedFiles/Dellinger-Letter-to-Senators-Specter-and-Leahy-8-10-05.pdf
stated, "In order to prevent a downward spiral of
our [pro-choice] politics, it is incumbent
upon those who share a position to object when
unfair statements are made to advance that cause."
Dellinger echoed Specter who stated, " When NARAL
puts on such an advertisement, in my opinion it
undercuts its credibility and injures the
pro-choice cause."
Why did the ad stir such protest from
friends?
It opens with the image of the 1998 abortion
clinic bombing in Birmingham, Alabama. Emily Lyons,
an employee, speaks of being injured in the blast.
A narrator states, "Supreme Court nominee John
Roberts filed court briefs supporting violent
fringe groups and a convicted clinic bomber." An
excerpt from a court brief is imposed on the
screen.
Enter www.factcheck.org/article340.html
Factcheck.org
,
a self-declared "nonpartisan, nonprofit, 'consumer
advocate' for voters" which monitors "the factual
accuracy of what is said by major U.S. political
players."
Its monitoring revealed that the quoted Roberts'
brief was from a 1991 civil court case, caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=506&invol=263
Bray v. Alexandria Women's Health Clinic case. The
case was argued seven years before the bombing
occurred. Roberts did not defend violence; he
argued that a 1870s law designed to protect
ex-slaves from the Ku Klux Klan should not be
interpreted and expanded to ban pro-life protesters
from blocking abortion clinics.
Roberts' views on anti-abortion violence were
clearly spelled out in a www.factcheck.org/UploadedFiles/Abortion-Clinic-Bombers-Mazzoli-Letter.pdf
1986 memo to President Reagan under whom he served
as an Associate Counsel. Roberts stated that clinic
bombers should be "prosecuted to the full extent of
the law. No matter how lofty or sincerely held the
goal, those who resort to violence to achieve it
are criminals."
Nevertheless, NARAL's ad ended by admonishing
viewers, "Call your Senators….America can't
afford a Justice whose ideology leads him to excuse
violence…" In short, the ad portrays Roberts
as both morally and legally defending the bombing
of abortion clinics. And it is difficult to believe
that a highly-sculpted falsehood that had a
news.bostonherald.com/opinion/view.bg?articleid=97651&format=&page=1
$500,000 broadcast budget was just an error and not
deliberate. If so, it was outright lie meant to
destroy a man's reputation.
NARAL's response to 'friendly' critics also
reveals moral bankruptcy. The President Nancy
Keenan www.factcheck.org/UploadedFiles/NARAL-Response-to-Specter-8-11-05.pdf
responded to Specter by regretting that "many
people have misconstrued our recent
advertisement."
Without backing down one whit, Keenan informed
Specter that the ads would be pulled because "the
debate over the advertisement has become a
distraction from the serious discussion we hoped to
have with the American public." Lies do tend to
distract from the truth.
Even the subsequent www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/13/AR2005081300849.html
resignation of NARAL's communications director
David E. Seldin was accompanied by a defense of the
ad as "100 percent accurate."
As a pro-choice advocate, I am ashamed of NARAL.
I am ashamed of the anti-Roberts ad that typifies
much of pro-choice rhetoric: a scorched-earth
policy in which goodwill and truth are the 1st two
items incinerated.
(If the National Organization for Women is an
indication, good taste is the third. This year,
their recommended www.now.org/cgi-bin/store/JE-BKAL.html
Mother's Day gift was a silver bracelet with a
charm that read "Keep Abortion Legal.")
To regain credibility, the pro-choice movement
must debate fairly -- an admonition that bears with
equal force on pro-life advocates.
The first few steps should be easy ones:
Pro-choice advocates must deal with arguments
and avoid ad hominem or 'guilt by association'
attacks. For example, stop using the likes of Eric
Rudolph -- the Birmingham clinic bomber who killed
a police officer and critically injured Lyons -- to
deflect criticism by implying all pro-lifers are
pro-murder.
The pro-choice side must acknowledge the
positive ways in which pro-life advocates have
influenced the debate. For example, although I
argue for legalized abortion, I now have profound
moral doubts about abortion and strenuously
encourage alternate solutions, like adoption. That
shift comes from listening to pro-life
arguments.
Instead of viewing slander as a 'hard-edged
attack', pro-choice advocates must focus on the
hard-edged social questions that accompany pro-life
proposals. For example, how -- short of a
totalitarian state that monitors every pregnancy --
do pro-life advocates intend to eliminate abortion
and other 'fetus abuse'? Would they really let a
woman die in agony from a life-threatening
pregnancy, thus placing greater value upon a
potential life than an actual one?
But dialogue on abortion won't work if only one
side extends fairness. Pro-life advocates must come
out cleanly and clearly against all forms of
violence, especially the bombing of clinics. They
should be more insulted and outraged by Rudolph
than I am by NARAL. The murder of a police office
in the Birmingham bombing is a difference of kind
from the slander of Roberts. It is true violence,
not merely words. So far, however, there has been a
paucity of apology from the pro-life movement and
not much commentary condemning Rudolph.
Whatever the pro-life side does, a good first
step toward civil discussion would be for NARAL to
apologize for its reprehensible ad…not just to
Roberts and the pro-life movement but to the
pro-choice advocates who have been equally smeared
by its actions.
©2009, Wendy
McElroy
* * *
Wendy
McElroy is the editor of ifeminists.com
and a research fellow for The Independent Institute
in Oakland, Calif. She is the author and editor of
many books and articles, including her latest book,
Liberty for Women: Freedom and Feminism in the
21st Century. She lives with her husband in
Canada. E-Mail.
Also, see her daily blog at www.zetetics.com/mac
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