Washington Post Columnist Gerson Compares Progress Of Abortion Rights, Gay Rights

Main Category: Abortion
Also Included In: Health Insurance / Medical Insurance
Article Date: 16 Mar 2010 - 4:00 PDT

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Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson writes that 20 years ago, "opposition to abortion and opposition to homosexual rights seemed to overlap entirely" and "appeared to be expressions of the same traditionalist moral framework." However, "in the years since, the fortunes of these two social stands have dramatically diverged," according to the conservative columnist, who argues that abortion-rights opponents "have made far less legal progress than have advocates for gay rights, in part because the courts have played an active role in discouraging democracy on abortion." Nonetheless, "it is a remarkable achievement" on the part of abortion-rights opponents "that 37 year after Roe v. Wade attempted to settle the abortion question, it remains unsettled," Gerson says. As evidence, he cites public opposition, stigmatization of the procedure within the medical profession and a declining abortion rate.

He continues that abortion-rights opponents have managed to maintain the relevancy of their cause by shifting their "political strategy, moving away from judgmental moral arguments toward a language of civil rights aspiration." Gerson adds, "Pro-life activists and politicians, influenced by Catholic thinkers ... began talking of an expanding circle of legal inclusion and protection that includes the unborn -- a welcoming society that values the vulnerable."

Gerson writes that much of the progress for gay rights "has been parallel to the pro-life cause." He contends that the "strategy of 'coming out' has personalized" the gay-rights debate "as surely as the sonogram" for the antiabortion-rights cause. According to Gerson, "[S]o far the gay rights movement has succeeded for many of the same reasons that the pro-life movement (to a lesser extent) has succeeded." He writes, "Both have taken sometimes abstract, theoretical arguments and humanized them," adding, "Both have moved away from extreme-sounding moralism (or anti-moralism) and placed their cause in the context of civil rights progress." He concludes, "Whatever your view on the application of these arguments, this is the way social movements advance in America" (Gerson, Washington Post, 3/12).

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