arndt@lymph.DEC (02/20/85)
The 'dark forces' are in retreat. It is becoming more and more obvious to
all save a few obscurantist hold-outs on net.abortion.
"Whine on harvest moon!!"
A case in point, the recent debate on aborton at the National Press Club
in Washington, DC between NOW president Ms.Goldsmith and JERRY FALWELL!!!
Yea!!!
And it went like this: (per Suzanne Garment writing in the Wall Street Jour.)
"Mr. Falwell took hold of the momentum in the debate and kept it throughout.
To an observer remembering the beginnings of the current abortion dispute, the
reversal was startling.
The pro-choice activists of a decade ago made the large, flat assertion that
an abortion was a woman's prerogative, and her reasons were hers alone to
examine. Ms. Goldsmith did not talk like those early enthusiasts.
She naturally condemned at length the recent violence against abortion clinics-
a sign, she said, of the pro-lifers' failure to persuade their fellow citizens
by respectable means. She denounced as inflammatory the pro-life rhetoric
that spoke of fetuses as children. In other words, she made arguments about
the manner in which the abortion debate should be conducted.
She praised some of the alternatives to abortion offered by pro-lifers -
birth control, adoption, homes for pregnant women. But the NOW president
said these things would never eliminate a legitimate need for some abortions.
She reminded her audience that women have sought abortions for centuries, even
at the risk of death. Where was the pro-lifers' recognition of the terror
that drove these souls? Where was the compassion for their suffering, to be
placed on the scales against the suffering of a fetus?
Ms. Goldsmith was taking the liberal side, but her argument was of the most
traditional, conservative sort. It relied on weighing, balancing, finding
the point of least evil. Mr. Falwell, on the other hand, argued the
conservatives' case, but his language was vintage liberal moral ebullience.
First he rejected Ms. Goldsmith's effort to place him outside the bounds of
peaceful pluralistic debate: Right away he denounced the abortion-clinic
bombings. Moreover, he said pro-life leaders were increasingly ready to
compromise on permitting abortions in some cases.
Then he allied his position with modern science. The more that the new
techniques teach us about the wonder of a fetus's early development, he
said, the less we can justify treating the creature as an object to be
discarded at will.
Mr. Falwell also placed his cause in line with the large tendencies of
modern American politics. He connected it to the women's movement. "The
liberation of conservative religious women" (DON'T YOU JUST LOVE IT!!!),
he put it, "is the reason for our momentum." He addressed modern demands
for compassion: A ban on abortion wouldl not produce "unwanted" babies,
since childless couples are waiting in line to adopt. As for pregnant
women who cannot keep their babies, Mr. Falwell declared the religious
commuinity must provide free homes and care.
Most important of all, he gave this reason why the power of the pro-life
forces is advancing: "We are reframing the debate. This is no longer a
religious issue but a civil-rights issue." He elaborated: "The unborn
are the last disenfranchised minority with no civil rights." And he added,
"We only want equal rights for the unborn- their constitutional guarantees."
We know this language of rights and constitutionalism. We heard it in the
civil-rights movement, then in the calls for affirmative action, then
extended to cover ethnic minorities, then stretched over the whole female
half of the population, then spread out to govern our foreign policy, then
dug downward to give us the movement for animal rights.
This language of rights is the language of nonnegotiability. It refuses to
split the difference or shave the edges of issues, on the grounds that rights
are sacred and not to be abridged no matter what the cost. Even when this
language is refuted in specific cases, it keeps its mesmerizing hold on our
organs of public discourse. Mr. Falwell has figured out that it is far better
to join this particular rhetorical parade than to fight it.
Irony is life's way of getting even. It is man slipping on the very banana
peel he tossed away a minute ago. It is the plight of Ms. Goldsmith. The
movement she now leads was one of the forces in our society that worked so
successfully to elevate the language of rights and drive out the more modest
language of balance and prudence.
These days, by contrast, an advocate in her position is reduced to asking for
the old sort of balance, an apportioning of compassion, a slice of the moral
pie. What's more, she may now find it especially difficult to get even her
modest wishes, for the language of unabridgable rights has little use for the
old, discarded object of its affections once it has found a new valentine.
The architects of our brave new politics may be about to reap the whirlwind."
-----------------------
Quite a turning of the tables, eh? The 'shock troops' of the radical screamers
have served their purpose and now are passed by. The majority of women, who DO
owe them a debt for waking them up, are not dancing to the 'radical' tune but
are supporting 'traditional' (family) values. And they are indeed a mighty
army!!! All the talk of abortion being a wonan's issue has come home to roost
becaue it has been the WOMEN who have led the fight against it!! Women have
led the fight against ERA!!!! Remember, it's PHILLIS Shafley, not Phil Shafley.
What is now forming in this country is a consensus about the place of a woman
in society (the choice of family or work - with the responsibilities and plus
and minus of each choice) and a strong counter argument (counter to the talk
show format - shock the folks and sell the soap) for supporting the
'traditional' view of the family. All kinds of people are coming out of the
woodwork in support of 'traditional' values - not just 'religious' people, but
a true 'moral majority'. (By the way, the Moral Majority is NOT a religious
organization per se - one only has to agree to 'traditional' values which only
some nits on this net can't identify.)
For example, Burton White, director of Boston's Center for Parent Education,
cautions, "A child needs large doses of custom-made love. You can't expect
hired help to provide that. I see the trend toward increasing use of day
care as a disaster." Opps! There goes another 'women's movement' plank!
Of course he must be in cohoots with Jerry, right?
Keep chargin'
Ken Arndt