Long famous for her aggressive advocacy of abortion, Catholics for a Free Choice founder Frances Kissling surprised a few folks with her op/ed column for the Washington Post last weekend. The reason for the surprise is certainly hinted at by the title of her article: "Abortion Rights Are Under Attack -- Pro-Choice Advocates Are Caught in a Time Warp."However, Kissling's motives for writing the piece are pretty obvious for those that have followed her well-paying career as a heretic and abortion advocate: 1) She is a sincere and energetic zealot for abortion. And 2) She loves the spotlight. Both motives were served by the article.
True, there were a few of Kissling's colleagues who were ticked off by the article, people like Maryland's former head of NARAL Karyn Strickler, a hardcore enthusiast who has championed partial birth abortion as a good and necessary thing. She interpreted Kissling's criticism of the pro-choice movement as "a total sell-out" that must be rejected. "Under not [sic] circumstances should pro-choice advocates give into the kind of surrender that Kissling champions."
But Strickler represents those obscurantist pro-abortion leaders that have done so effective job in disgusting the American people. By ardently campaigning for such obvious atrocities as late-term abortions, such leaders have demonstrated to the general public a lack of compassion, a lack of balance and even a lack of reason.
Kissling only states then what is obvious to all but the most muddle-headed when she writes, "We can no longer pretend the fetus is invisible...Very few people would argue that there is no difference between the decision to abort at 6 weeks and the decision to do so when the fetus would be viable outside of the womb, which today is generally at 24 to 26 weeks. Still, it is rare for mainstream movement leaders to say that publicly. Abortion is not merely a medical matter, and there is an unintended coarseness to claiming that it is. We need to firmly and clearly reject post-viability abortions except in extreme cases."
There are other criticisms of the pro-abortion movement that Kissling makes that are of significant interest. But no one should mistake the intent of her article. Yes, she understands why her movement is beginning to fail. Technology has opened the womb to careful scrutiny and what the public saw inside was not a mass of cells, not a blob of tissue, not a mere lifestyle choice -- but rather the wonderful, delightful, miraculous child who has an inalienable right to life. As even Sandra Day-O'Connor predicted, Roe v Wade was on a "collision course" with scientific realities. Kissling is smart enough to see that once preborn children star in TV commercials airing during the Super Bowl, the game is up.
But, despite the rant of someone like Strickler, make no mistake -- Francis Kissling remains imperiously pro-abortion. She's just trying to help get her pro-abortion colleagues to recognize the inevitable and gear up for new strategies -- strategies which will keep Planned Parenthood coffers full and abortion mills busy. Kissling isn't selling out the movement; she is only trying to repackage the rhetoric and tactics needed to keep abortion selling in the marketplace.
Thus she encourages the defense of existing abortion laws including, one is led to believe, laws prohibiting informed consent and parental consent. "Pro-choice advocates have good reason to oppose legislation that restricts abortion in any way," she writes. Kissling also denies that the preborn child has anything like a "right" to life since "its value may not be equal to that of the pregnant woman." She even thinks late-term abortion can be defended by playing the exceptions game. "Exceptions include when the woman's life is at immediate risk; when the fetus suffers from conditions that are incompatible with a good quality of life; or when the woman's health is seriously threatened by a medical or psychological condition that continued pregnancy will exacerbate."
Note carefully Kissling's Orwellian line,"when the fetus suffers from conditions that are incompatible with a good quality of life." We know all too well how broad that "quality of life" stuff can be: Down's Syndrome, hemophilia, blindness, just about any disability you can name. Indeed, that line has even stretched to matters of gender, race, and guesses regarding the preborn's sociological future. And the "psychological condition" she mentions as an acceptable reason for post-viability abortion? Kissling well knows that's a convenient, all-purpose justification that abortionists have used for decades.
One other item. Kissling's article reveals a strategy already underway in the political debates about the de-funding of Planned Parenthood. It's a strategy that concedes a few pro-life points...but only to be used in the opening salvos of the public debate. When it comes to action, Kissling wants not only abortion protected from legal restriction, she also wants more government funding for birth control, for sex education of the progressive sort and for welfare policies that further erode family structure, moral traditions and personal responsibility.
No, it turns out that Kissling isn't surrendering a thing. Nevertheless, her article remains must reading for pro-life advocates for it does emphasize some of the points we must continue to press home to the American people. Tell the story of the marvelous advances in embryology. Talk it up about ultrasounds, about fetal surgery, about the increased survival rates of preemie babies. And make sure the agenda includes the trauma of abortion to the mother and the long-term health risks that abortion increases. And don't neglect the moral arena. The Bible couldn't be clearer in its opposition to the murder of the innocent. Speak from that noble height as well.
The abortion movement has been weakened; there's no doubt about it. But it is still far from weak. Our moral duty is to make it more so day by day.
