Two days after the Roe v. Wade decision was handed down on 22 January 1973, the editorial page of the New York Times – then pro-choice, now even more so – announced that the 7-2 decision “could end the emotional and divisive public argument” and “will end the argument if those who now rail against the decision as a threat to the survival of civilisation pause long enough to recognise the limits of what the Court has done.
This gross misrepresentation established the template that still prevails in many quarters: pretending that Justice Harry Blackmun’s decision hadn’t gutted the abortion laws of all 50 states, some very protective, others virtually allowing abortion on demand well into the second trimester. The abortion regime established almost 50 years ago was completely out of step with public opinion.
Now we are in the post-Roe era, thanks to the decision of a very differently constituted Supreme Court on 24 June 2022. Thanks to Dobbs, pro-lifers will have a much more level playing field than ever before.
The irony, by the way, is that even “pro-choice” scholars knew all along how sloppy Blackmun’s opinion was. Back in 2005, for example, Benjamin Wittes wrote: “In the years since the decision, a vast body of scholarly literature has attempted to place the right to abortion on firmer legal ground. But despite thousands of pages of scholarship, the right to abortion remains constitutionally shaky. … [Roe] is a lousy opinion that has disenfranchised millions of conservatives on an issue they care deeply about.
Irony number two: as recent scholarship has shown, the pro-life movement in its early years was filled with liberal Democrats. A commitment to protecting the weak and powerless was the reason I was once up to my elbows in Democratic Party politics. Unfortunately, when adherence to abortion on demand, for any reason or no reason, became a litmus test, virtually all liberal Democrats chose party over principle.
But the diversity of the pro-life movement is richer than ever – from non-denominational organisations like National Right to Life (NRLC) to Feminists for Life to secular pro-lifers. This is the genius of the pro-life cause. You can oppose the killing of unborn babies – including those capable of terrible pain as they are torn limb from limb – for any number of reasons. Pigeonholing the pro-life movement as ‘right-wing’ or ‘Christian-only’ will never end; it will only be more foolish.
Science and technology, and even TV commercials, have made the job of persuasion easier. When my wife was pregnant with our first child, I had to pretend to understand what I saw on the ultrasound.
Today, like hundreds of millions of grandparents, when we went to the obstetrician, we could see our grandchildren in four-colour “real time”, meaning you could see them running all over the place. Facial features were clear, not blurred, and no one had to help me (literally) tell heads from tails.
The debate in the 1990s over partial-birth abortion changed the course of the abortion debate, as Gallup once acknowledged. Pro-lifers are convinced that the debate over banning the dismemberment of living unborn babies and the abortion of children capable of feeling pain will help to awaken consciences.
NRLC believes this will help reveal a truth that has been buried for decades: A majority of Americans oppose – and always have opposed – the reasons for 90-95% of all abortions.
All this support when the mainstream media are so hostile to our cause that they didn’t even have to feign indifference to the trial of an abortionist convicted of three counts of first-degree murder for aborting late-term babies alive and then murdering them by cutting their spinal cords. Where would public opinion be if people understood that West Philadelphia abortionist Kermit Gosnell was no ‘aberration’? That he is the true face of the abortion industry, which fights any attempt to have its facilities inspected without prior notice? (I wonder why?)
The late Pulitzer Prize-winning editor Paul Greenberg once wrote: “The right to life must come first, or all the others can never take root, let alone flourish. As in the Declaration of Independence’s order of certain unalienable rights, including ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’. Notice which is mentioned first. And for good, logical reason.
The movement towards life and away from death is unstoppable. Remember this the next time someone pretends that it is the pro-lifers who are the outliers.
Daniel Miller is responsible for nearly all of National Right to Life News' political writing.
With the election of Donald Trump to the U.S. presidency, Daniel Miller developed a deep obsession with U.S. politics that has never let go of the political scientist. Whether it's the election of Joe Biden, the midterm elections in Congress, the abortion rights debate in the Supreme Court or the mudslinging in the primaries - Daniel Miller is happy to stay up late for you.
Daniel was born and raised in New York. After living in China, working for a news agency and another stint at a major news network, he now lives in Arizona with his two daughters.
