Archives » Thursday, January 29, 2009
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Kurt Soller
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Jan 29, 2009 04:22 PM
Earlier this week, Sarah Kliff wrote a story
about the new political climate and how it changes pro-life
strategy. "The election of a pro-choice administration and a Democratic
Congress has divided the pro-life movement," Sarah writes, "between
those who are preparing for the fight of their lives [against Roe v. Wade] and
those who see an opportunity to redefine what it means to be pro-life
[by focusing on reduction strategies]."
Of course, abortion stories are controversial. So, along with the 300
comments that populate the forum, National Right to Life has put a
hit out on Sarah Kliff, calling her such wonderful things as
"uneducated." (She's not.)
In their long essay,
they accuse our piece of, essentially, making up a pro-life strategy
that they say doesn't exist, squaring the blame on Sarah for saying
that groups of people are working together when they actually aren't.
Click above to read their essay, which ends with this line: "There will
be no end to stories [like Newsweek's].Their objective is to convince
us that people and organizations, whose entire reason for existence is
to multiply the number of abortions, have suddenly seen the
bipartisan/compromise/common ground light."
Because of this, I asked Sarah to go back through her reporting and respond to the criticism. Here's her take:
As I write in my story, even when you arrive at the “common
ground” of abortion politics, there are complex fault lines to
navigate. The pro-life movement is not giving up their fight to
overturn Roe v. Wade - nor does my story suggest that they should.
There are, however, some activists and legislators pursuing additional
strategies, including the abortion reduction legislation that I explore
in this story. One of the complexities to navigate here is language:
what defines an 'abortion reduction' strategy? Restricting access to
clinics that provide abortion has been one way the pro-life movement
has attempted to reduce abortion in the United States.
Now, some pro-life legislators and activists are considering a
different definition: reducing the need for abortion through
socioeconomic supports. The Support Pregnant Women Act is a good
example of this. The legislation aims to reduce abortion through, among
other provisions, better Medicaid assistance and more resources for
parenting students. It has received support from many legislators with
strong pro-life records, including Chris Smith (R-NJ) who spoke at the
March for Life I attended. The pro-life leaders I spoke with didn't see
these strategies as forcing activists to ‘give up the fight to pass
legislation,' but another way to pursue a pro-life agenda.
That clears up concerns about whether this is a legitimate trend in
abortion policy. That said, what do you all think of these new
strategies? Comment below.
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