The new face of the pro-choice movement
By AaronVB Posted in User Blogs — Comments (10) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
This week's cover story for Newsweek (yes, my family still subscribes to it) is about the growing problem of meth addiction in America. An interesting story to be sure, but far more interesting is the story, "Roe's Army Reloads." The context for the story is, of course, the Roberts nomination. From reporter Debra Rosenberg, you get the information on the expected knee-jerk rejection of Roberts from the nation's most prominent pro-choice groups:
Panicked by the departure of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor--the court's key swing vote on abortion--they pored over lists of potential replacements, sharing alarming facts about each one. "Most of us were against all of them," recalls NARAL president Nancy Keenan. The next night, as news about Roberts leaked out, NARAL issued a statement opposing him even before he appeared in the East Room.
However, the article then goes on to offer evidence that it is precisely this approach to the abortion issue that has cost Democrats votes. A poll by the liberal think tank Third Way divides the nation into "abortion polars," those who believe it should be "always legal" or "always illegal," and "abortion grays," those who believe it should be "mostly legal" or "mostly illegal." Setting aside arguments against the poll's validity, the numbers break down like this:
Always illegal: 16%
Mostly illegal: 27%
Mostly legal: 36%
Always legal: 21%
What Third Way discovered was that even though (according to their poll) the majority of "abortion gray" Americans are pro-choice, that George Bush actually defeated Kerry by 6.6 points among "abortion grays."
So what's going on?Third Way seems to discount that abortion grays are abortion grays precisely because abortion is not their top voting issue, which would explain a Bush margin. But as Third Way seems to be working itself and Democrats up into tizzy that the Democrat Party is losing its grip on the abortion issue, let's follow them down that path. The first thing they do is make the seemingly obligatory call to Berkeley linguist and newly christened chief Democrat political strategist George Lakoff:
The pro-choice groups themselves have also been heatedly debating what to do. This spring, activists, activists in New York and Seattle invited Berkeley linguist George Lakoff to speak about how to reframe the abortion issue. "They found that choice wasn't playing very well," says Lakoff, who's become an unofficial guru to beleaguered Democrats. He told the groups it was no wonder: "choice" came from a "consumerist" vocabulary, while "life" came from a moral one. In one of his more controversial suggestions, he advised the activists to reclaim the "life" issue by blaming Republicans for high U.S. infant-mortality rates and mercury pollution that can cause birth defects. "Basically what I'm saying is that conservatives are killing babies," he said.
As far as Lakoff's second suggestion goes, the Democrats could have just looked in Ted Kennedy's playbook for that one. The merits of Lakoff's "framing" idea have been discussed elsewhere on the site, but it is interesting to note that Lakoff's blames the waning support for such radical groups as NARAL on the fact that their vocabulary is to "consumerist," a code-word among the academic left for "capitalist." Imagine that.
But enough with Lakoff's lunacy. He is but one candidate competing for the title of the new face of the pro-choice movement. The pro-choice groups do seem to be getting another hint from the American people:
...in May, NARAL pollster Celinda Lake released a PowerPoint presentation that declared "the culture of freedom and responsibility frame soundly beats culture of life." In a national poll and focus groups, Lake tested a "prevention first" agenda that sought to reduce unwanted pregnancies through better birth control and access to the morning-after pill. The broader approach, she wrote, "will help combat the widespread view that pro-choice groups are extreme and militant."
It remains to be seen if a few mere touch-ups to the pro-choice message can change the perception of the American people tha groups like NARAL and Planned Parenthood are extreme. For one, it seems that the NARAL crowd only believes in responsibility in name and not deed:
Pro-choicers worry that even if Roberts doesn't overturn [i]Roe[/i] itself, he could uphold abortion restrictions in several upcoming cases. One to be heard in November deals with whether a New Hampshire parental notification law must offer an emergency health exception. A case on whether a federal late-term-abortion ban needs a health exception could also reach the court next term. "There's going to be an avalanche of new state statutes passed by states to see how far the new Supreme Court will go," says Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights.
It seems difficult to put forth an argument based on "responsibility" when one opposes parental notification laws and partial birth abortion bans, both of which restrict decidedly irresponsible, and in the latter case grisly, abortion practices. I suppose that does fit the "freedom" half of the new pro-choice paradigm, but only if one takes the laxest approach to freedom possible.
It will be interesting to see if the pro-choice groups can be convincing in putting on a moderate face, especially considering the pro-life trend in America. Keep watching.
"But I don't think it needs to be completely abolished either, which is what all the conservative PACS are screaming for"
Can you provide any links to which PACs are pushing for entire illegalization?
I still think the best solution is to return it to the states and watch the amazing process of compromise take place in the legislatures. My guess is your viewpoint would prevail in most states (just 1st trimester). Until states and voters can control this issue, the debate is about the role of judiciary. On that, I am staunchly with the federalists and constructionists.
for one thing it is the message-NARAL, NOW and Planned Parenthood advocate from the "always legal" angle, and their numbers are shrinking.
I don't think it is so much the package that has turned people off from these groups as it is their extreme opposition to common sense things most people support-things like partial birth abortion bans and the UVVA has done more to kill their message than anything else.
While I am in the always illegal camp, I am also more than willing to work with the grays to get common sense restrictions passed-in this case I don't think it does my cause any good to insist on the whole package or no package. I sometimes think the pro life-always illegal people are far more willing to find areas of compromise than the always legal group.
So my suggestion is they don't need to repackage the name, they need to learn what parts of abortion are worth fighting for, and what parts are worthy areas of compromise.
I would also point out that ultrasound technology has probably done far more to harm the pro choice movement than pro life people taking on the name "pro life."
All I can do is second your motion. Even being mildly "gray" on the issue (which I don't consider very important to begin with), I'm all for the federalist approach to abortion. I'd be satisfied to live in a world where the people of Kansas tolerate abortion under no circumstances, and the people of New York have only common restrictions on it. But how far are we from such a world?
I'd say one Senate confirmation and Steven's retirement would do the trick (or at least limit Roe's reach to the point of nullification).
although not if one is replacing rehnquist, but one of the liberals (Stevens or Ginsberg more than likely).
I do think the confirmation of Roberts will see a rollback on Roe issues. I strongly suspect we are going to revisit the health exception from Doe, and probably end up with states being able to more strictly define health, so that it is in fact a health exception, and not a backdoor method to have abortion on demand at all stages of pregnancy.
I suspect parental notification laws are going to stand, and I bet the state partial birth abortion bans will be upheld-I am curious to see what happens with the federal one.
before any abortion cases come up. That way there are two unknowns at the same time. If Roe is 5-4, confirming a conservative judge becomes much harder. If it's 5-3 with an unknown, it's much harder to make it an all out showdown about Roe.
happen. I know the parental notification law is being heard in the upcoming term, I don't know if any other abortion cases are being heard though.
I know the federal partial birth abortion ban and another state ban are working their way up, but I don't know if SCOTUS has taken either one yet.
I agree with AaronVB that the methodology might be suspect but I'm not sure that ambiguous terms like "mostly legal" or "mostly legal" are a helpful barometer of what a person thinks about abortion. I've seen the issue debated intensely in political circles for years and IMO people in the "grey" area tend to make their distinctions based on the reason for seeking an abortion and the stage of the fetus' development whether than whether it should be "mostly" legal or illegal.
If you break the survey down in terms of development (either trimesters or using benchmarks like brainwaves) or protect the health of the mother, protect the life of the mother, mother was raped or victim of incest, convenience of the mother, etc. you'd probably get a more accurate picture of what people really think about the issues.
Which leads me to suspect that may be why it was not chosen.
I suspect that the two extremes-illegal and legal are accurate, but the gray areas are going to have a lot of variation and will depend a lot on circumstance.
I also suspect that the article is correct in the belief that the people in the gray areas probably don't one issue vote on abortion either.
Most of the country is gray on this. Even if they lean pro choice, there a million and one other issues to vote on. And since neither party really falls in line with a mjority of America, you see them pretty much split down the middle. I'd like to see abortion limited to the first trimester. That would be, I think, on the Republican end of the abortion grays.
But I don't think it needs to be completely abolished either, which is what all the conservative PACS are screaming for. I don't want it always legal either. Neither side really does anything for me on the issue. So I don't really even consider it when voting.