Pro Abortion Advocates -- What are they scared of?

I read an article by Matt Kaufman that I think hits the issue on the nail. The Roberts confirmation, the fillabuster battle, the Dr. Dobson embryonic stem cell research spat yesterday, and all that other stuff is all just noise to try to prevent us from realizing that they are scared. Regardless if you follow a faith or not, you have to admit that ultimately, it is an issue of morality, social boundaries, and what proves to be true and what proves to be not true.

The most obvious reason is that, for all their bluster, they know they haven’t got the people on their side — certainly not firmly. Abortion-rights supporters are far from a rock-solid majority, and pro-lifers are far from a fringe minority.

Polls show lots of legal restraints on abortion are already popular, such as laws mandating parental notice or consent, waiting periods and counseling on alternatives to abortion. Americans are strongly opposed to using taxes for the procedure, and even support outright bans on later-term abortions. That’s a long way from the position of the National Organization for Women (NOW) and other groups of that sort: Abortion on demand for all nine months, for any reason, with no delays or hindrances, at taxpayer expense.

More important, though, support is shaky even for the notion that, after all is said and done, women (as distinct from teens) have the ultimate “right to choose” abortion. If pollsters ask the question in its most generic form, majorities still say they’re “pro-choice.” But when they get specific and take away a few hard cases that account for a tiny fraction of abortions (those involving rape, incest or a threat to the life of the mother), support for legalized abortion plummets dramatically, while larger numbers say abortion is morally wrong.

And young people — supposedly the most “pro-choice” segment of the public (because they’re the most sexually active) — are deserting the cause.

Read his argument. It makes sense. Again, regardless of your faith background, keep an open mind in regards to humanity deals with the larger questions of morality and right & wrong. The truth be told, we must all as a nation face our own hearts, and ask ourselves how much compassion have we each shown the women that have faced this choice? How willing have we each been to support a woman in making the right choice? How much compassion and grace have we shown a woman that has made the wrong choice and lives with it every day?

And that, I think, is what some people find most scary (and most galling) about the prospect that Roe v. Wade could be overturned. It’s not just the fear they might lose some political battles. It’s that they badly want to believe the Supreme Court settled the abortion issue once and for all — not just legally, but morally. The reversal of Roe would be a major blow not just to their politics, but to their conscience.

That may not make much sense on its face, since a court ruling in and of itself can’t make anything right or wrong. But it makes perfect sense if you understand the dynamics of abortion — and the spiritual warfare that’s at the heart of the issue.

We can’t avoid the fact that God has written His law on our hearts: We all know deep down that some things are right and others are wrong, no matter how much we try to pretend otherwise. And abortion is no small sin (if there were such a thing): It’s as wrong as anything can possibly be. We’re talking, after all, about a woman choosing to do lethal violence to her own child, when her whole God-given nature is to cherish and protect that child with her very life. Worse yet, in many cases, the child’s father — who should cherish and protect both her and the child with his very life — has pressured her to kill that child, whether through bullying or manipulation, neglect or abandonment. Sometimes even her own parents join in on the pressure, telling her it’s “for the best,” while somewhere inside her, her soul screams in protest. The violence may encompass every precious relationship God made her to have — with Him, her child, her man, her family.

How does someone live with this? Typically by living in denial — trying to bury the memory, to forget it ever happened. But denial can also include trying to justify the act. One way is to dehumanize the baby as a mere “potential life” or “blob of protoplasm;” the killing itself (and as a matter of biological fact, it is a killing) is shrouded in evasive technical language like “termination of pregnancy.” Indeed, no one talks like that unless they’re trying to justify something. (You’ll never hear a woman who suffers a miscarriage say “I lost my potential life,” or even “I lost my fetus,” but only “I lost my baby.” It would never occur to her to say anything else.)

There’s another common way to justify abortion, though — and it’s a way practiced not just by the people directly involved in the act, but by the larger society of people who tolerate it.