USA Today Editorial, Opinion Piece Examine Debate Within Antiabortion Movement Over Future Strategy

Main Category: Abortion
Article Date: 24 Nov 2008 - 8:00 PST

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USA Today on Friday featured an editorial and an opposing opinion piece examining the debate among antiabortion groups over whether to work with abortion-rights groups to reduce the number of abortions through improved social programs.

~ "Abortion Foes Take New Tack": "Realism seems to have struck some ardent foes of abortion," the editorial says, adding, "After 35 years of trying to outlaw the procedure nationally while chipping away at abortion rights state by state, they have decided to add a new and sensible initiative. They'll work with the other side to reduce the number of abortions." The editorial continues, "Even before election day, a loose coalition of conservative academics, prominent antiabortion pastors, lay Catholics and other activists began working with old enemies in the pro-abortion rights camp to push a new agenda" aimed at reducing the number of abortions by improving social programs. These advocates "are on the right track," the editorial says, adding that their agenda includes "passage of measures to provide low-income, pregnant women with the kind of services and education that could discourage them from seeking abortions." According to the editorial, these antiabortion advocates have not "changed their minds" or become "any less committed to their cause," but "they have done the new math. And the numbers don't add up to more anti-abortion justices on the U.S. Supreme Court or a sea change on the issue among most Americans." Although the abortion rate has "fallen steadily for nearly three decades, ... in 2000, the abortion rate among poor women was still four times higher than women making $30,000 a year or more," according to the Guttmacher Institute, the editorial says. It adds, "This argues for giving more support to low-income women to help prevent unintended pregnancies and to help those who want to have a child. The new coalition is working on the latter goal." Nonetheless, the "new approach" has drawn critics from within the antiabortion movement "who see any compromise as selling out." Although "[f]inding common ground on such a personal and intractable issue has seemed impossible," a "diverse group of longtime abortion foes ... has done it in recent months," the editorial says. It concludes, "We hope they can do even more, particularly in finding ways to make contraceptives more widely obtainable and in improving sex education. Meanwhile, if the first sign of détente in the abortion wars helps make the procedure less common but still available, it will be a notable accomplishment" (USA Today, 11/21).

~ "Compromise Equals Betrayal," Joseph Scheidler: In a response to the USA Today editorial, Scheidler -- national director of the Pro-Life Action League -- writes that "[t]here is no evidence that increasing social programs -- such as low-cost health care and day care, college grants and maternity homes -- will impact a woman's abortion decision." He adds, "Those of us who have spent years outside abortion clinics, talking with abortion-bound women, are keenly aware of what leads women there. Often, the woman feels she has no choice because someone important in her life refuses to support a decision to keep the baby." He writes that traditional antiabortion groups "see the effort to combine pro-life and pro-choice forces as a betrayal on the part of pro-lifers. Besides, it has been tried, several times. And it always fails." Scheidler continues, "You can't compromise with evil. And abortion is an intrinsic evil." He concludes, "Women are not looking for government-operated social programs. They're looking for someone to care, someone to love them. Government programs cannot do that" (Scheidler, USA Today, 11/21).

Broadcast Coverage

In related news, KCRW's "To the Point" on Thursday included a discussion about the potential shift in strategy within the antiabortion-rights movement after the defeat of several antiabortion ballot measures and the victory of President-elect Barack Obama. Guests on the program included Cynthia Gorney -- a professor of journalism at University of California-Berkeley -- and Nicholas Cafardi -- former dean of the Duquesne University School of Law and a Catholic canon lawyer (Olney, "To the Point," KCRW, 11/20).

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